People are stressed about retirement. The surveys say so, and 30 years of personal observation confirms it. Plus, people are pretty much stressed about money in general.
Let me start this article by saying that people are unnecessarily stressed about money because they don't know their retirement numbers. Said another way, financial stress is mainly caused by a lack of information. I have found that the stress level goes way down when you know your retirement numbers and have a plan.
For example, you might just assume you will never retire simply because it just feels that way. When someone tells me they will never retire, I respond by saying, "How do you know? Have you ever put together a simple plan?" They respond, "Well, no, I just know."
Another good example comes as a result of these articles in social media that inform you that you need at least $1,000,000 saved to retire like you want. One question for these writers - How do they know? They don't! Telling the masses they need millions of dollars for retirement does, however, attract readers.
The good news is that a simple plan is just that... a simple plan. It is generated by five pieces of information:
Date of Retirement
Your anticipated expenses each month.
How long or how many years you want to plan for
Total retirement dollars saved as of now, along with how much you are saving, plus employer match, each year
How much risk you are willing to take
Five pieces of information, once figured out, could drastically change your level of stress. You might discover you can retire after all - in fact, most people do figure out that all is not lost.
Now, this is one of those two-part articles. On Wednesday, I will go through the details so you know what action steps to take!
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