Ep 108 | Get Retirement Ready With These Smart Moves

Feeling overwhelmed with retirement planning? This episode helps simplify the process by highlighting two key starting points. By focusing on these foundational pieces, you’ll gain clarity on where to begin and uncover the next steps to move forward with confidence.

This episode breaks down retirement planning by focusing on key areas like budgeting, spending, and saving while helping you define your financial independence number. It also highlights the importance of envisioning your ideal retirement lifestyle by incorporating your goals, hobbies, and daily activities. 

What You’ll Learn:

✅ The best place to start with retirement planning

✅ How your current financial situation shapes your retirement path

✅ How to assess and plan for your retirement expenses

✅ The impact of your lifestyle and goals on your retirement budget

Ready to Get Clear on Your Retirement Path?

Book your free Confidence Kickstart Call and in just 30 minutes, you’ll know what’s standing between you and retirement, and how to overcome it.

👉 Click here to book your free call now

Or, grab one of my free resources to help you take the first step:

5 Must-Do Steps for Retirement Planning — A simple guide to help you prepare with purpose

Retirement Ready Checklist — Make sure you’re not missing a single step on the road to retirement

Transcript

Today's episode is talking about what you need to know to get ready for retirement.  This is just foundational. So this should be simple for you. I'm not going to overload you with overwhelm. Hopefully you have downloaded that retirement readiness checklist, which covers all of the topics,  it is a summary.

It gives you the look at it. And I've also done the retirement one on one series. Thank you So that you can kind of get direction on that checklist. Be sure to check out both of those. As addition to this episode.  Retirement planning can be overwhelming.  By looking at that checklist, there's seven areas.

And then within those areas, there's topics. There's things you need to learn. You need to focus on. Social security, Medicare, estate planning, all of those things.  Wow.  Okay.  I have simplified in this episode. The two foundational pieces that you need to be focusing on. If you're just starting out, maybe it's a quick review.

If you're somebody down the road, or if you're like 10 years away.  This is a great place. These are foundationally going to number one, set you up for success. But number two, it's also going to help you see. Steps you need to take,  things you need to do,  what you're going to consider the next road 

 it kind of gives you the overview, and then you can kind of detail that.  The first foundational piece  is understanding your current financial situation.  And you're like, oh yeah, I know it. But do you? Do you know your spending? Are you budgeting? Do you know how much you're saving for retirement plus saving outside of retirement?

Savings is crucial, so make sure you do that. And then are you clear on your FI number?  Even if it's rough,   fI number means financial independence. This is the number that you can easily walk away from your job and. Be independent, not have to rely on anybody or anything.  I'm going to help you kind of break this down.

Cause I've just said spending, budgeting, retirement savings. What are you supposed to do? All right.  First thing I want you to do,  think about where is your money going.  This is an overview, just to think about it. 

 Where is your money going?  This can be bills, this can be just spending, this can be savings. Think about it in that sense. Just where are you directing your money to go?  Then the next thing is, how much do things cost you? How much do they truly cost you? Not somebody else, not a family. 

Mother, sister, friend, co worker, you, you and your household. How much are things truly costing you and are you okay with that?   At the time I'm recording this, egg prices have gone up.  There was such a scarcity within the talk about it that people were. You know, not buying eggs or overbuying eggs. I don't even really know, but this talk  got up in my head. 

Because of certain issues and certain choices, I spend on either the free range organic or both. And so I do pay a lot.  I let this social marketing talk get in my head. My dozen eggs cost me 10.  I know you might be freaking out, but there's reasons I, quote, have to have that egg and why I choose to buy those eggs. 

But, as I was letting it get in my head, I'm like, okay, what am I, what does my breakfast cost? I have three eggs every morning, it serves me well, there's, you know, my sourdough to go with it, and I also have yogurt.   I quickly do the calculations. Those three things are coming in just under 5. for breakfast. 

I'm like, that is not that bad.   My eggs cost 10. My breakfast is less than 5.  Overall, for me, I'm happy with that. That's what I want you to think about as you think about how much do things cost you,  not just the price of things.  How much are you spending? I've heard people say it's cheaper to eat out than it is to make food at home.

I'm like, Well,  is this true? That's all I'm going to ask you. Do the calculations to support what you decide to do.   That is a very,  crucial to having clarity with your money  and, understanding how to support yourself. All right. I'm off my soapbox and into the next area. What expenses of yours will go away  as you think about where your money is going?

That's why this is important.  What if those expenses will go away or reduce?  I'll tell you what, I don't spend quite the money on clothing.  Number one, I don't have to dress for work. Number two, I get to dress on the cheaper stuff,  really getting that understanding  is good. It's like, okay, all right, this is making sense.

My fuel dropped, all of those things. So think about those things. Maybe, I knew of a coworker, her and her, her Spouse worked at the same place and they went to lunch every day as they were getting ready to retire. They said we won't do that anymore.  Just thinking through all of those things can support you in getting clarity  on what expenses will go away. 

The next area. What is your income right now?  How much do you gross  and how much do you take home?  Why do you need to know that? Well,  how much are you living on? What you take home  As a first step of what you're living on.  Maybe not all of it  because of that. Some of it might be going to savings   so, but that's a good place to start.

 Of my gross and my take home. What percentage is that?  Financial planners, a lot of times because they don't do this work that I do.  And supporting you and getting these specifics of numbers will say you need 70 or 80 percent of your annual income.  , that is not true  as a blank statement. I know why they use it.

 Understanding what your take home is, looking at that blank statement. You know, from there, then from that, where is it going?  And in that, are you saving?  there's two areas of saving.  How much are you investing? Because when you retire, you won't be investing anymore.  And number two, how much are you saving for those unexpected expenses?

Those emergency funds? Those travels?  That is not going to go away.  it is very crucial that you learn how to save. Learn the skill. Create the habit. It will just support you now and in retirement.  I recently worked with some clients who, they did well. They did not have debt. Their home was paid off.

They were getting ready to go into retirement. And as I was helping them, working with them, they realized the importance of these sinking funds. And within the three months of working together, they saved 10, 000. That was going to support them not only in the sinking funds, but also in some remodel around the home, especially since they were going to be there a lot more.

So very crucial to know how to save  another number to really shoot for with savings. It's a savings rate.  Okay, I hear a lot of people say, Man, I dip into my savings all the time. Yes, you have to.  You've got to pay those financial obligations for those commitments that are coming up not regularly,

quarterly, annually, all of those things.  If you set it aside, yes, you're going to dip into it.  So looking at your savings balance is not a good measurement. Calculating your savings rate is what you want to be doing. If you are saving 10 percent of your income, good. Can you make it 11, 12, 13? That is where you see the progress. 

And that is crucial to, like I said, know how to save.  So I think I've talked about that enough. I did several episodes the beginning of 2024. January of 2024, I think there's three or four of them that I talked about financial clarity. That will also help you kind of in this, you know, topic, in this area of understanding a little bit more about how to gain your own clarity with money. 

 Second foundational piece to get ready for retirement is your vision, your dream.  What does that look like?  I know there are a lot of people that are just waiting for retirement. They're not necessarily planning this piece,  but honestly, I believe having retired and been in retirement for almost three years now,  This is the more crucial piece. 

This is crucial for your purpose,  your success, your happiness,  and your readiness. This is going to drive your readiness. so what do I mean by vision?  I want you to think about what are your biggest desires. If you think about, okay, I am going to be done working. I'm not going to do the 9 to 5 or whatever it was,

maybe you did nights.  What is your biggest desire? What is your biggest thing you're looking forward to? I don't care what it is. This is you. This is your vision. This is your thoughts.  What is it that you desire? One, two, or three.  Start thinking about that.  Another area to help kind of create this vision  is what are your hobbies?

What have you done?  What have you wanted to do?  We work. It takes a lot of our time planning for work, prepping for work, going to work, working.  We might've been exposed to a hobby and thought, man, I wish I had time for this. If you did that, consider that. That's something that will give you purpose, that will help fill the time,  

 It's crucial.   Think about what are you excited most about?  What excites you to think that you have the entire day to yourself?  Explore those, write those down, make a list of them. I don't care if there's 20 on that list. What are you excited about? It gets you to start, you know, envisioning this and really getting real with what you can do. 

On the flip side,  what are you unsure of?  What concerns, fears, questions, do you have? do you have? Again, make a list of these. Write them down.  Hopefully you can get answers to these, resolve these,  or just be prepared for these situations. Right. Being aware of them helps us be able to be ready for them.   as you have created or thought about   your vision, your desires, your activities, those things that you want to do in retirement,  you now need to think of the impact financially  on your retirement budget. 

That's where this marries with a foundational piece one.  We now know if we've got a budget right now, what expenses are going away. what expenses are coming new,  we know how much money we need in retirement.  Tying those two pieces together  can help us create that FI number I was talking about.  This gets it specific, personalized, customized to who you are and what you want to be in retirement. 

And if you're thinking, Oh my gosh, that's a lot. Go back to the beginning of this episode.  Go through all of those questions, those statements, do some journaling, do some processing, make sure you include your spouse if that's important,  if you have one, and they're going to be there with you, it's very important to get clear on those things.

And if after listening to this again,  and you're like, I just don't know.  This is exactly what I do in my two hour retirement ready VIP session. We walk through all of this. We look at the numbers. We help you explore all angles of retirement,  there's some more questions I have. We dial into those. We start putting those pieces together having that.

Second set of eyes that is not emotionally connected to it can be a very crucial piece as well.  I'll help you define your FI number. We'll see if you're on track for savings. We'll help you figure out if you are retirement ready.  At the end of the session, you'll walk away with full clarity of your current finances, a plan that provides you a solid budget, and the action steps.

You're going to get a scorecard that has five different areas for retirement readiness. Acknowledging what you've done, what you've accomplished, what you're working on, and just continue on with that, and what may be critical and what action steps you need to take.  It's a very simple two hours, but very, very impactful. 

You will have your roadmap to retirement. You will know exactly what you need to do.  You can choose to do that on your own,  or you can choose to do that with the accountability of a coach. And we can talk about that at the end of the session, but I'd love to support you if after this episode and doing these exercises, if you're still feeling lost and you want it quote spelled out for you, book the book.

a retirement ready VIP session. You can do that down in the show notes. No phone call is required, but if you still have questions, please, please jump on that free Q& A call. Let's talk about it. If you're like, I just don't think this is going to work for me. Let's explore that. Let's spend 20 minutes to dive into what you're questioning and what you need. 

 Thank you for listening. I hope this has helped you understand the first two steps that you need. to do to get ready for retirement. I really,  I am enjoying retirement. Even working as an entrepreneur is so important to find that thrive, that purpose, that success, and like I said, that is a more crucial to me than the money, just like life, life can be worked out monetarily.

Retirement can as well. But if you don't know your purpose, you don't know what you're going to do, that is where it can fall short and leave you kind of wondering why you even wanted to retire. So, don't want you to do that. Listen to this episode again. Book your free call or book your VIP session. I'm so excited to support you and until next week.