July 2023

I still subscribe to a magazine. I know they are becoming a thing of the past as everything becomes progressively more digital, but I still like receiving my physical copy in the mail. As you probably know, when you subscribe to a magazine, you usually receive your copy in the mail a week or two before the month of the magazine. This last month, when I got my magazine in the mail, it dawned on me that that meant it was almost July. Now, as you are reading this, it IS July.

Time flies and don’t you think that the older you get, the faster time goes? I read an article not too long ago (and no, I don’t remember my source) that indicated that the reason time goes so much faster as we are older rather than younger is that we have very few new experiences. When we are young, everything is new and so a day might feel like a week (especially during the holidays). As we get older, we no longer have so many new experiences and so we know how long things will last or at least what to expect when someone says that is next week.

When I talk to younger clients about beginning to plan for retirement, so often their thoughts are that it seems so far away. It may even be hard to fathom for them, especially as they are just beginning their working careers. As we get closer to retirement, it feels like we got here awfully quickly. Of course, once you announce your retirement date, a day may begin to feel like a week again….I guess it depends on how much you enjoy your job.

Regardless of the time between now and your retirement date, it is still important to start the planning phase. We want to make sure that the path you are on is the right one. The worst thing on a trip is to find out you’ve been going down the wrong road for half the trip. Your retirement plan is the same thing. You don’t want to work half of your career just to realize you should have been saving more, or differently or something else entirely. Your retirement plan is the roadmap or GPS to the retirement you want.

Already being in retirement doesn’t mean you no longer need a retirement plan. While you may have reached your destination, we still want to make sure you aren’t driving into the desert by spending too much or taking on too much of one type of risk. Revisiting your retirement plan helps to make sure things are still running smoothly.

Have we completed your retirement plan? Are you still on track? If we haven’t lately, let’s chat about it. While we cannot control the stock or bond market, we can try to plan for your future. No one wants to drive down the bumpy road unexpectedly, a life well planned allows you to live your life. *

*https://www.raymondjames.com/wealth-management/life-well-planned