Tag Archives: Retirement Planning Services

Retirement Planning Services

Retirement Planning ServicesHave you ever taken advantage of retirement planning service offered by a financial adviser? My adviser wants to sit down with me and go through all of my finances and assess whether I am ready for retirement or not and what steps I need to take if any to ensure that there is less risk and a higher probability that we will be comfortable in retirement. His offer certainly intrigues me and I like most people would like to know the answer to this question, “ am I ready for retirement?”.

But at the same time I am reluctant to share all of this personal information with someone who I trust but he is not family. In fact I do not even share this kind of information with my family other than in broad terms. We discuss details between my spouse and I when I can get her to listen, but we do not share with our kids even these kinds of details. It is just too personal and I am not sure that I want someone who is trying to sell me more and more products to know all of my personal financial details.

Retirement Planning Services – Too Personal

Having mentioned all of this we do have a detailed spreadsheet which I have discussed with my wife which plots all of our investments, the income they will generate and the growth they should average over the next 10 years. It also takes into account all of our income as well from pensions and investments from our savings.

We are focusing on living off of our income and not touching our principal which is a pretty good strategy. We wonder about when we should begin using our principle and enjoying it, but as long as we are comfortable I would prefer to wait and not touch our principle just yet.

Develop Your Own Strategic Investment Plan

Speaking of strategy, I have developed an investment strategy and I have reviewed this with my investment adviser to get his thoughts and even guidance. We kept it to one half page to keep it manageable and we keep it at the strategic level vs. discussing specific stocks unless there is some action we want to take on this stock.

We discuss this strategy twice a year and update it accordingly to ensure that it is current and reflects current conditions. The job if implementing this strategy is up to me with the help of my adviser and I do not feel that I need to go beyond that in terms of sharing financial information.

We are wondering if other readers have this same approach to investments and retirement planning services. A review is a good thing; however we just do not feel that it is appropriate to share everything with your adviser. This is a personal thing and we wonder how other people feel about this approach. If nothing else, make sure that you have an investment strategy and plan of your own. If you are not the type to do your own plan, then having someone else do it for you with all of your input might actually be a good thing.

Let us know what you think about retirement planning services. For more about retirement costs and planning, click here.

Retirement Planning Websites

Retirement Planning WebsitesThere are lots of retirement websites available online. The vast majority of them are trying to sell you something. All of the banks and financial institutions have sites that discuss retirement plan options. They have calculators and much more. All investment advisers also have web sites that discuss the various options they offer. They extoll the virtues of saving and investing. We want to say at the outset we are not trying to sell anything to you at all.

In fact, we would like to hear from people about what they think about some of the posts on this website. We are retired and we read a lot about various issues associated with retirement and try to apply them to ourselves. When we learn about these issues, we write about them and put our own thoughts on the issue. These posts reflect our opinions and we hope it spurs readers to give them some thought about planning for retirement. It is not an easy subject. It can be complex especially when bankers and financial advisers are trying to sell their products. These include bonds,  mutual funds, or their stock plans to you inside a tax-deferred retirement plan.

Wealth Management and Large Companies

They have very large divisions of people who are totally focused on helping you with your retirement planning. In return, they want your investments so they can collect fees for their services. They are making a lot of money off of their clients. We sometimes wonder about how much they are helping the customer. While helping themselves to your money through fees and commissions on trades and management fees.

We like to use web sites that have tools for tracking investments. Also for projecting these investments into the future for planning purposes. We look for the lowest fee structure for trades. We want to avoid paying someone to manage our money and get paid even if there is a loss. They should be risking something as well as us.

Retirement Planning Websites – Be Careful with Personal Information

There are literally thousands of retirement planning websites available and they want you to enter information into them. Be careful about what you provide. They may be able to track your investments and they may be sending you sales-related information often. Some sites do provide useful information. While others send information that is really veiled sales advertising. They want some of your business that you have been planning.

We use a spreadsheet that tracks our investments, estimates income, and estimate the value of our investments out 10 years or more. We know exactly where we stand at any time relative to our investments and our planned retirement. There is no need to update a website and we do not need to set up a meeting either to estimate our income. For us this is the best way to manage our retirement planning. It is our way of making sure that we have more than enough money when it comes time to retire.