A Realistic Look at the Future

How are you feeling about your retirement these days? According to Chuck Jaffe’s article in MarketWatch most people’s answer to that question is not so good. According to Jaffe, Americans are losing confidence in the market’s ability to support their retirement (with good reason), and the most common reaction to this lack of confidence is to reassess their future and plan to put off retirement a few years. But what if your retirement date isn’t a matter of choice?

The tagline of Jaffe’s article is “Raise Retirement Satisfaction By Lowering Your Standards,” but what Jaffe really seems to be saying is not so much “lower your standards” as be educated about the market and realistic about your standards. “Getting a better handle on your future — so that you can either say today you’ll be able to live comfortably in retirement or make plans that raise your comfort level in time — requires sound knowledge of where you actually stand today. That requires taking inventory of your assets, expenses and plans.”

This is sound advice not just in retirement planning, but in any kind of planning—including estate planning. There is a lot of conflicting information out there, and a lot of assumptions; our office can help you navigate the terrain and make an informed choice about planning your future.