comes with many costs, including lost financial opportunities. Creating a financial plan and sticking to it is so important when planning for retirement. Chapter 3 helps you make your own plan.
Consider, for example, something that nearly everyone wants to do: save and invest for future financial goals such as retirement. Take the case of the Fuller family, who came to Eric for financial counseling years ago. The Fullers enjoyed a healthy and relatively stable income yet they saved little, if any, money annually. They knew how to spend money!
In terms of savings, they had about $100,000, which sounds like a lot but given their annual income ($150,000) and ages (late-40s), they still hadn’t accumulated savings equal to a year’s worth of income. The money they had wasn’t well invested – nearly all of it was in low-interest bank accounts and a pricey life insurance policy that provided just $500,000 of coverage (not near enough given their incomes and the fact that they had dependent children). Of course, they could have done worse (at least the money was growing slowly). However, they weren’t going to reach their retirement goals unless their money started working harder for them.
Over a number of months, the Fullers worked with Eric and were able to implement the following changes, which they stuck with for the years that followed:
✓ They increased their savings rate. They were able to consistently save about 15 percent of their annual incomes (about $22,500 per year), which was up from just 4 percent ($6,000). They accomplished this through a combination of reduced spending and reduced taxes by directing their savings into tax-advantaged retirement accounts including a 401(k) and SEP-IRA.
“Cutting our expenses was easier than I thought. We were wasting money on things we didn’t really need or even use in some cases,” said Mrs. Fuller. Her husband added, “We felt much more relaxed and less stressed by cutting our expenses and boosting our savings.”
✓ They improved their investment returns. Rather than earning a meager return having their money in low-interest bank accounts, the Fuller’s enjoyed 8 percent annual returns by investing in a diverse mix of stocks around the world along with some high-quality bonds.
✓ They purchased better insurance coverage. The Fullers needed about $1.5 million of life insurance coverage – triple the amount they had been carrying. They were able to buy that increased level of coverage along with some additional needed disability insurance by raising their deductibles on some other insurance policies and by switching to lower-cost (but still high-quality) providers.
So what were these changes worth to the Fullers? As they themselves said, they had much more peace of mind and comfort with their new financial situation. In the remaining part of this section, we briefly examine the true financial value to them over the decades following the changes.
If the Fullers had continued saving as they had been (saving just 4 percent of their incomes yearly and keeping that money in a bank account), in 10 years (when they reached their late-50s), they would have accumulated $188,000. This would have put them in a relatively poor situation for their future retirements given their annual income of $150,000.
On the other hand, the changes (saving 15 percent annually and instead earning an average investment return of 8 percent yearly) would lead the Fullers to have more than $541,000 in 10 years – nearly triple what they would have had if they hadn’t made changes. The differences are even more dramatic looking 20 years out. Check out Table 1-1 to see the calculations.
Table 1-1 The Long-Term Value of Saving and Earning More
By making sensible changes, the Fullers are well positioned to retire with a hefty nest egg. (In fact, they could consider retirement sooner.) In the absence of those changes, however, they would have a small amount and be unable to even come close to maintaining their lifestyle during retirement.
Although you may like to consider other factors – such as your health, relationships with friends and family, and interests and activities – as more important than money, the bottom line is that money and personal financial health are extra-important factors to your retirement lifestyle.
Saving drives wealth
You may think a high income is key to having a prosperous retirement, but research shows that the best way to retirement bliss is to save. Research demonstrates that wealth accumulation is driven more by the choice to save (rather than spend) than it is by a person’s income.
For example, professors Steven Venti and David Wise examined nearly 4,000 households across an array of income levels that challenges the notion that many households lacking high incomes don’t earn enough money to both pay their bills and save at the same time.
Venti and Wise examined these households’ current financial statuses and histories to explain the differences in their accumulations of assets. Their findings showed that the bulk of the differences among households, “ … must be attributed to differences in the amount that households choose to save. The differences in saving choices among households with similar lifetime earnings lead to vastly different levels of asset accumulation by the time retirement age approaches.”
Keeping your balance
Most people we know have more than one goal when it comes to their money and personal situations. For example, suppose Ray, age 50, wants to scale back work to a part-time basis and spend more time traveling. He reasons, “I don’t want to wait until my 60s or 70s, because what if my health isn’t great or I don’t make it!” But Ray also wants to help his adult children with some of the costs of graduate school and possibly with buying their first homes.
Ray’s situation – of having multiple goals competing for limited dollars – is often the norm. Thus, a theme we discuss throughout this book is how to trade off competing goals, which requires personal considerations and balance in one’s life.
Understanding that planning is a process
The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association has a slogan: “A good pilot is always learning.” Likewise, to have a good retirement you almost always need to be planning. Financial planning is a process. Too many people develop financial plans and then think they’re finished. Taking this route is a good way to run into unpleasant surprises in the future.
A plan is based on assumptions and forecasts. However, no plan – no matter how carefully it’s developed
