Retirement Rebootcast Episode Two: Let's make a plan
Retirement Rebootcast Episode Two: Let's make a plan
Far too many don't take the time to plan for retirement - and that's a real misstep.
Appears in this episode
Welcome to the second edition of the Retirement Rebootcast! This is a special limited-edition podcast series focused on my new book - Retirement Reboot: Commonsense Financial Strategies for Getting Back on Track. On this podcast series, I invited some of my favorite experts on retirement to join me on the program to talk about some of its key ideas.
The book’s official publication date is today - January 10th!
I wrote Retirement Reboot with a very particular group of readers in mind: people getting close to retirement who are not financially prepared. In other words, people who have not been able to save much -or anything - for retirement. They’re headed toward a retirement living only on Social Security, which typically replaces about 40% of their working income. Meanwhile, the rule of thumb is that most of us will need to replace at least 70% of our wage income when we retire.
The book offers a series of strategies for improving on that math. The key chapters discuss the importance of making a plan, timing your retirement and how to get the most from Social Security and Medicare. I also discuss strategies for building savings, even late in the game, and tapping home equity. From there, I go on to discuss managing your career late in the game, the value of professional advice, how to manage long-term care risk and how to approach the idea of aging in place.
On this second episode, let’s talk about the importance of making a plan for retirement. It’s something far too many people don’t take the time to do - and that’s a real misstep. If you don’t have a plan, it’s impossible to know whether you are on track to meet your goals. A plan is not a crystal ball, but it provides a context, and a set of tools for decision-making. And it’s very important to approach the plan holistically - it’s about much more than saving and investing.
For this episode, I invited two experts to join me to help illustrate two important points from Retirement Reboot that I want to get across about planning. Steve Chen is the founder of New Retirement, an innovative low-cost online service that has developed a terrific set of planning tools. Steve’s company illustrates how planning isn’t just for the wealthy anymore. I also invited Steve Vernon to join me. Steve is an actuary, and a retirement educator and author. He’s a leader in developing holistic approaches to planning - he’s joining us here to explain why too many people confuse investing and planning, and why a holistic focus is essential.
Click the player icon the hear the podcast - or listen to it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
The Retirement Rebootcast will have six episodes. Next week we’ll take a deep dive into getting the most out of Social Security. My guests will be two of the most knowledgeable Social Security experts in the United States - Mary Beth Franklin of Investment News, and Bill Reichenstein, cofounder of Social Security Solutions and an emeritus professor of finance at Baylor University.
Retirement Reboot in the news
The New York Times ran an excerpt from Retirement Reboot last weekend. It was adapted from the chapter on the value of financial planning advice . . . I joined Christine Benz and Jeff Ptak for a conversation about the book on the Morningstar podcast The Long View . . . And, I chatted with Marc Miller, host of the Career Pivot podcast, about broad themes of Retirement Reboot.
Join me for an interactive workshop on retirement planning
I’ll be discussing Retirement during an interactive, online workshop on January 24th. I hope you’ll join me!
The 90-minute workshop, hosted by Bookends University, will offer practical strategies for improving your retirement prospects, even if your savings are meager and retirement is looming! It will draw from material in Retirement Reboot: Commonsense Financial Strategies for Getting Back on Track.
We’ll walk through core decisions to make now to improve retirement outcomes, including
Timing Your Retirement
Optimizing Social Security
Navigating Medicare
Tapping Home Equity
Building Savings
Financing long-term care needs
Tuition for the event is $45, which includes a copy of Retirement Reboot. Bookends University is sponsored by Bookends & Beginnings, my favorite independent bookstore. You can pick up your copy at the store if you’re local, or have it mailed to you.
Retirement Rebootcast Episode Two: Let's make a plan
Hey Mark,
Just finished Episode 2. I was working out on the Peloton, not so much to make my live longer (that might make it more expensive) but to have whatever life there is more healthy, hoping that at the end I can go off a cliff and NOT experience that large expenditure those last 18 months (I really laughed when you and Steve were talking about that big expenditure spike and you wondered what you had done wrong - ALL of US seem to stumble through that!!).
I’ve been reading Steve Vernon for years. And I’m a paying user of NewRetirement.
I may go ahead and get your book if you really dive into reverse mortgages and the like. Even though my financial planner includes my house as an asset (about 1/4 of total, with housing values back down) I kind of ignore it. My general thinking is it would be the source of long-term care funds.
We have not yet considered down-sizing as we get to much satisfaction from our large yard (and though the house is 2-story it is not huge for 2 people @ 2400 sq ft.
The discussion with Steve Vernon and social security claiming was interesting and I’m looking forward to your next episode. I concluded my IRAs had gone down enough in value that as I was withdrawing from them it was at a huge discount. I’m a year-and-a-half past FRA, so the relative additional gain from waiting is dropping quite a bit. I guess that decision is not final since I submitted to SS in early Dec for a Jan start and there is no word from them yet.
Anyway - GREAT discussion!!
Steve