Financing Retirement

“The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now.”

According to financial experts, 80 percent of America’s Baby Boomers lack sufficient assets to maintain their current standard of living through retirement.  Generally speaking, financial planners say that a Boomer making $50,000 per year may need at least $1 million dollars on which to retire.  But with the simultaneous increase of life expectancy and the decrease of Social Security, older Americans may need a more sizeable nest egg than originally thought.

While Baby Boomers should have started saving long ago, experts say older Americans can make up for lost dollars by meeting with an experienced financial advisor to develop a roadmap to financial security—focusing on the performance of investments rather than slow-growing savings accounts.  New products like reverse mortgages and income annuities, while not for everyone, can also give Boomers a financial boost.

Delaying retirement is also one of the easiest ways to secure financial comfort during retirement, experts say.  Staying in the workforce increases earnings, financial assets and Social Security benefits and reduces the amount of time Boomers will have to support themselves during retirement.  Fortunately, many Boomers are not planning to retire at 65—surveys by Association for the Advancement of Retired Persons (AARP) found that more than two-thirds of 50 to 70-year Americans say they plan on working past retirement age.

Experts also agree that slowing the rate of retirement spending is a relatively simple way to conserve financial resources.