When you’re thinking about your retirement, people often think about winning the battle, not about winning the war. We all want to make certain that we have the most money possible, but we don’t think about the individual battles along the way that could stop us from getting to our goal, stop us from capturing that hill, capturing that target. There are a lot of things besides just plain, old money that get us from Point A to Point B; it’s the individual battles along the way.
We will sometimes hear someone say, “Well, he won some battles, but he didn’t win the war.” To win the war, you have to win the battles along the way. Some of the individual battles that your financial advisors should be looking at are:
- Automobile Insurance: Is it set up so that no matter what happens in an accident you have the maximum possible protection?
- Homeowner’s insurance: Is your home really insured to its full value? Do you have your treasured possessions documented so that if your house burned to the ground tonight, it would be a seamless process of replacing them?
- Lawsuit protection: Are you protected against lawsuits so that you don’t have to worry about your retirement funds being taken away and given to someone else?
- What about the Goose that lays those golden eggs? If you were to become disabled, either prior to retirement or after retirement, would you be able to live your life as fully as possible?
- Medical Insurance: There are so many different medical choices. One of the battles that we all go through is choosing the appropriate medical coverage both while we’re working and also in retirement.
- Social Security: Are you getting or will you receive the full benefits from Social Security? Are you strategizing so you will have the maximum amount of income when you truly need it?
- Estate Planning: Are things being deployed so that everything is going to be taken care of when you’re not here? If you are incapacitated, do you have financial powers of attorney and health care powers of attorney? Is there a will? Is there a trust? What’s the difference between the two? How do you find a qualified attorney?
- Ownership: The ownership arrangements in your life refer to things held individually, jointly, jointly with rights of survivorship, or ownership that is transferred on death. How does it all come into play?
- Life Insurance: Are you preserving your estate through short-term, term insurance, or do you have permanent whole life insurance that will allow you to spend more money in retirement?
- What about your short-term money? Do you have a place that is actually safe to store your safe money? What are the rules, regulations, and the limitations that affect your bank accounts?
- What about your tax-free, tax-deferred, or tax-deductible money, your brokerage accounts, or your mutual fund accounts? How are they deployed to help you win the retirement battle?
I have a bunch of toy soldiers in front of me, and I want you to think of your life as more than just the end game of total dollars or AUM, which is Assets Under Management. A lot of what we talk about as clients get older is actually IUM: Income Under Management. It's not necessarily about how much money you have, but how much money you are able to spend.
Are you looking at your retirement goals as just one battle, or are you looking at your life as a deployment of soldiers to many, smaller battles needed to win your financial war? If you have interest in a “battle plan”, let’s get together.
