Financial Planner’s Analysis has good news for Happy Retiring Newlyweds.

The Short Story of a Newlywed Couple in their Sixties.

After getting married this summer as 60-something year olds, my husband and I decided it was a good time to review our finances jointly to see what we needed to do as a committed couple in order to retire together without financial stress. With an eye to ensuring a successful retirement, it was like taking a breath to review each of our accomplishments and goals.

He is 8 years my senior but has no employer pension. We have a comfortable, small and affordable home with a mortgage, and we are both still working, sometimes more than we would like. We would like to do more fun things while our health is good and we have the energy and interest in traveling and trying new things.

Why We Choose to Hire a Financial Adviser.

So like many people we turned to a financial planner. We chose to pay someone for advice rather than turn all our savings and investments over to them to manage. What we got was a homework assignment to gather detailed current information!

Our situation was like a jigsaw puzzle. We had to gather all the pieces before we could understand the whole picture and have a comprehensive understanding of our financial situation.

We put together:

• Investments and accounts
• RRSPs, TFSAs
• Savings
• Life Insurance
• Property assets including homes, trains, planes and automobiles
• Expenses
• income from employment, investments, rental properties, pensions etc.

We weren’t asked to compile our “Wish List” of things that we think we’d like to buy between now and forever such as new vehicles, replacement appliances, home renovations etc which can add up to thousands of dollars per year! This became one of our first questions after we saw the analysis of our financial state. How do we make our Retirement Dreams fit in with our financial plan?

The various scenarios in the plan showed that based on hubby living to 100, we’d be fine, only having to cut back on expenses by our mid-80s. We were happy to hear that news!

Adjusting Monthly Expenses.

Our monthly expenses are pretty high so we know, post-employment, we should expect to trim some of the extravagant spending that we currently do — again totally possible! A few less meals out, and fewer bottles of wine with friends.

It looks like we’ll be able to continue our lifestyle for the most part and even factor in some irregular purchases, which we’re happy about. That and planning to live to 100 are inspiring us to retire.

Our Choice for Future Advice.

We’re going to ask our financial planner for advice on how to monitor our investments so we can make good choices about when and where to take money out for big ticket items.

The Big Hurdle: Shifting Mindset Required.

However, getting comfortable with no employment income and starting to DE-cumulate what we have been AC-cumulating for decades, will require a significant mind shift. It’s not just about getting older, it’s about recognizing that time will eventually run out and that we’ve been saving exactly so that we can spend it on ourselves in the future and that the time is now. Adjusting to this new mindset together is going to be challenging for us.

Now that we’re a couple, we can look at those individual and couple Dreams and we can talk about the order we’d like them to come true. As with any good plan, we’ll start scheduling them in our long term calendar, and commit the money to making them come true.

We’ll still need help monitoring our investments and choosing which ones to cash in at the right time to minimize tax and maximize their value.

Making the money last.

With a little cushion in the bank and some good planning, we’ll be able to decide what is going to work for us. We will not be able to do everything all the time, but we can learn to take turns, do some things less expensively, and have fun with our choices.

Knowing what we want to do and prioritizing it comes from non-financial planning with a Retirement Coach. We’ve both completed the Retirement Dreams online Coaching assessments and we know what matters to us , where we want to live, what we want to do, who we want to see, and when we want to travel.

Hey Big Spender: It’s Your Time and Energy that Really Matter.

But when it comes to retirement planning, knowing how you want to spend your money, isn’t enough. You must also decide how you want to spend your time and energy. For instance, you may want to focus on spending more time with family and friends, or traveling, or pursuing your passions. It’s a balance that only you can determine is right. Ultimately, it’s up to you to strike the right balance between work and leisure.

Retirement Coaching and Financial Planning, A Magic Combination!

So it’s great to have a financial plan, but it’s also important to have a plan for how you’ll spend that money and how you’ll spend your time. Retirement Coaching helped us in taking this step to get financial advice and understanding our financial future and take our retirement planning forward.

With Certified Retirement Coaching, we feel confident that we’re on the right path to fulfilling our Retirement Dreams.