Goal Based Retirement Planning

How do you plan your retirement? Goals based or settling? During the retirement classes I teach I often find most participants have not given any thought to their income goal in retirement. Instead, they are focused on calculating what their FERS or CSRS annuity will provide, Social Security benefit and the amount they need to withdrawal from TSP to pay their fixed expenses. I usually hear that their expenses will go down in retirement! What are you going to do with the time now that you are not working? Watch Netflix? Haven’t we been doing a lot of that during this pandemic?

I recommend quite the opposite. Start with not only determining your fixed expenses, but what are your wants and goals and what is the income you will need. Shoot for the moon to start! Whether it is traveling, volunteering, playing, golf, joining a gym or fitness studio, eating out, fishing, hunting, hobbies, and interests, getting together with friends, spending more time with your grandchildren, or your personal goals it that you would like to do during this next phase of your life. This does not necessarily mean that all your dreams will come true. This is when you decide what is most important to you and adjust, as necessary. For many of you, retirement will be 20 or 30 years. Do you want your income dictated your retirement or do you want to set goals and dreams and plan for your personal retirement?

The clients that I work with put their dreams and goals first. Once we do a retirement analysis based on personal goals, concerns and objectives we learn the likeliness of achieving them. The earlier this planning begins the more likely they can get to their goals. If you are one of those has not yet begun planning, it is never too early or too late.