Where will the money come from?

Presuming you have done some thinking and acting on your potential retirement over the years, you should have a variety of sources of income being generated for your retirement.  It comes from pension funds, social security, Medicare (if you are ill as a reimbursement for healthcare expenses), 401K or profit sharing funds, Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs), Savings and Investments.  Some people will get money from parents or grandparents from inheritance (and many will not).  Others will sell their businesses.  There may be a buy-out of an employment contract or possibly an early retirement incentive payout.  One might also have some continuing employment in a paid directorship or consulting fee.  Sometimes hobbies develop into new businesses.  As someone recently told me, they are still hiring greeters at Wal-Mart.

One of the more important issues in retirement planning that must be anticipated is a budget for spending after the paychecks stop.  When salaries during a career exceed spending, as they usually do, it is a little less urgent to have a conservative budget, because, to a point, over spending can be made up from current income.  After retirement, the same habit of overspending begins “eating into principal” which is tantamount to killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Both income and expenses should be considered in developing the plan.  If one is fortunate enough to have a large nest-egg, the retirement planning is easier and it eventually rolls into estate planning and defining what legacy one plans to leave to future generations on the planet.  One may even tie a post retirement activity with the building of estate and legacy planning.

It may surprise many to know that “retirement” was basically invented by the government in order to move older workers aside to make room for new, younger employees who needed what was thought to be a limited number of jobs.  If the government could make room for younger workers they would not have to worry about their support.  They made retirement more plausible for many by offering the supplement of Social Security (today often considered total support in retirement rather than a supplement).  If you think about it, if you love your job and have your health, why retire?  Certainly, if you do retire, you want to make some plans for what you will do, not just where the money is.  Hartline will be glad to enter a wide ranging discussion of your retirement years and what can be done to accomplish your objectives.