A successful retirement involves having a plan to save: starting early and using the best investment vehicles available to you. It also involves having a plan to spend: adjusting your budget, designing a spend-down strategy and deciding how to spend your time during this new phase of life. A  lot goes into a retirement plan, and the following resources offer topics to consider and questions to ask as you're designing and refining yours. 
Saving for retirement can be overwhelming. It is difficult to know where to start or to have confidence you are on tract. Advisor, Stuart Vick Smith joined KVUE to discuss five easy tips to help you build your portfolio.

KVUE: Ways to Properly Prepare for Retirement
KVUE: Ways to Properly Prepare for Retirement

TUNE IN AS MONEYZEN TALKS RETIREMENT

In her MoneyZen podcast, Manisha Thakor of the BAM ALLIANCE has conversations with industry leaders that focus on issues about and around money, from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective. The following MoneyZen episodes examine various retirement-related issues: 

Life Re-Imagined: How Do You Want to Give and Grow?  It's better to retire into something than it is to retire from something. Colorado State University's Rich Feller looks at the transition that some find challenging in retirement and discusses ways to experience a full and energetic post-career life.

Retirement Readiness: Catherine Collinson of the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies examines how prepared Americans are for retirement, as well as data on risks and trends facing workers.
 
Getting Your Fair Share in Social Security:  Steve Weiss , a wealth advisor and a Certified Financial PlannerTM, takes a look at the ins and outs of Social Security, including strategies for claiming benefits and optimizing them to fit your life and financial situation. 
WHAT'S YOUR SPEND-DOWN PLAN? 

The financial skills and planning you need as you approach and enter your retirement years are different and often more complicated than when you are building your wealth. We can help you develop a spend-down strategy to decrease your tax costs and increase your odds of having enough money in retirement. We can help you answer the following questions as you evaluate your own strategy:
  • What can I do to ensure I don't run out of money?
  • How can I maintain my lifestyle in retirement? 
  • How do I avoid getting locked into a high tax bracket for the rest of my life? 
  • How can I maximize the wealth I share with future generations and the causes I support? 
  • Do I have the most effective and efficient retirement plan in place?
DESIGN A RETIREMENT THAT EXCITES YOU

Harvard Business Review states that some baby boomers are allergic to the "R-word," because with retirement can come a feeling of identity loss and a sense of anxiety/boredom about what's next. "The reasons are understandable. Retirement, for many, implies a binary off-switch toward mortality, golf, and bingo."

Instead of planning for retirement, HBR says to view this significant transition as "designing your next phase." Click here for tips for how you can change your viewpoint and make the "R-word" a smoother and more fulfilling experience.
WHY MILLENNIALS AND ROTH IRAs ARE A GOOD FIT

Tim Maurer  of the BAM ALLIANCE says Roth IRAs usually get the nod as a superior retirement vehicle when compared with Traditional IRAs, especially when it comes to a certain age group. He writes, "The Roth wins in almost every situation because of its massive behavioral advantage: a dollar in a Roth IRA is (almost) always worth more ... This is true regardless of one's age, but the Roth IRA is even more advantageous for millennials." 

Read Maurer's top three reasons  millennials should consider putting their next dollar of savings in a Roth IRA.


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