10 Things I Would Do If I Were Retiring 5 Years from Now

(A Practical Guide to Securing Your Financial Future)

Retirement is an exciting milestone, but it requires careful planning to ensure financial security and peace of mind. If you’re planning to retire in the next five years, here are ten critical steps I would do to help me make informed decisions and avoid costly mistakes.

1. Develop a Down-Market Strategy
Market fluctuations are inevitable, and the last thing you want is to retire into a down market without a plan. Your strategy should:
• Be easy to understand and implement.
• Not rely on emotions or daily news cycles.
• Have historical data supporting its effectiveness.

You don’t want to retire into a bad market and have not thought through what, if anything, you should do about it.

2. Assess Your Investment Allocation
I would get out a blank piece of paper and draw a pie chart of where my investments are: Taxable, Tax-Deferred, Tax-Free (Roth).
Is one piece dominating everything else? That could mean either money left on the table or overpaying on taxes. If so, I probably need to change which bucket my next 5 year’s savings are going into.

3. Update Your Will & Estate Plan
I would update my will because the last one was probably created to name a guardian for my kids and now they probably have kids.
With new family dynamics, ensuring your will reflects your current wishes and legal requirements is key.

4. Review Beneficiaries on All Accounts
I would review every single thing that could possibly have a beneficiary on it and make sure they are up to date. I would also add contingent (backup) beneficiaries to everything while I was at it.

Yes, I’m sure your 401k or IRA probably has a beneficiary already on it but I’d bet your bank accounts don’t! Or what about that pension?

5. Reassess Life & Disability Insurance
I would check to make sure I had adequate life and disability insurance. You’re only one disaster away from throwing off your entire retirement.

6. Consolidate Your Investment Accounts
I would get all my investments I possibly could at the same company to make my retirement strategy easier.

7. Include Your Spouse in Financial Planning
I would bring my spouse to any meetings with our financial advisor, attorney, or accountant- even if they don’t do “the money thing”.
This ensures both of you are prepared, especially if one spouse manages most financial matters.

8. Estimate Retirement Spending
I would quick-math my retirement spending – if I take my account balances X 4.5% – 5.4% does that look like what my pay check looks like? Is it a lot lower? Higher?

Depending on what I discover, maybe my 5-year retirement goal can be moved up, or maybe it needs pushed back.

9. Analyze Your Tax Bracket
I would review my average tax bracket and my highest tax brackets on my last couple tax returns. Based on what I discovered in step 8, will I be retiring in a higher or lower tax bracket?

• If retiring into a higher tax bracket, consider shifting more savings into taxable and tax-free accounts.
• If retiring into a lower tax bracket, increasing pre-tax savings might be beneficial—unless you already have a significant amount in tax-deferred accounts, in which case additional after-tax savings could be a better option.

10. Develop a Social Security Claiming Strategy
I’d pull my most recent social security benefit statements for myself and my spouse from ssa.gov.

It’s time to start developing your Social Security claim strategy. Compare options and decide when you and your spouse should claim benefits to maximize lifetime income.

Or, I’d just hire someone to do all these things for me. If I haven’t done them yet, there is probably a good chance I’m not going to!

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Investment advisory services are offered through Fusion Capital Management, an SEC registered investment advisor. The firm only transacts business in states where it is properly registered or is excluded or exempted from registration requirements. SEC registration is not an endorsement of the firm by the commission and does not mean that the advisor has attained a specific level of skill or ability. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss.