Until I received a brochure in the mail, I had no idea Retirement Planner was a profession, but it’s exactly the resource I was wishing for.
For years Pat has been asking “When can I retire?” We work hard but work does not define us. We work to live rather than live to work. It’s exhilarating to dream about no longer having to put in 8 hours every day, with my productivity largely benefiting other people. It’s also worrisome since I’m unsure if we’ve saved enough or even how to go about “retiring.”
Enter Brenda Dozier of MoneyWise Retirement (see link on Resources tab). First I attended a two evening course on retirement focused on ensuring all the important bases are covered including investments, insurance and estate planning. This gave me a holistic view of our situation and turns out I’ve done a really good job as CEO of Family Frizelle. Brenda offered a no obligation one-on-one consultation to review our specific goals and needs. I boxed up a bunch of documents and headed to her office where we both asked questions and agreed to keep working together.
Are you aware that your retirement savings (401k; IRA) really aren’t yours until you reach age 59-1/2? If retiring early to ensure you have an active, fulfilling retirement is in your plans, you also need to have a bucket of non-retirement investments to live off until those retirement savings become available to you. This is the gap Brenda helped us identify which I am now working to fill by tightening the purse strings a bit. Short term pain for long term gain!
The other big issue that hit home for Pat is the extremely high cost of health care and long-term care insurance in the US. Living abroad permanently came back on the table. Yet another exhilarating but worrisome dream, and subject matter for another post.
Well stated and explained. I await the next posting with interest.