Financial Rules Of Thumb: Retirement Savings

November 11, 2015

Continuing my financial rules of thumb series, this week let’s talk about a question that pretty much every person has asked me on our Financial Helpline: How much should I be saving for retirement and how much do I need total? While the answer varies depending on each person’s circumstances, goals and ultimately their values, there are some rules of thumb for those who either don’t feel like running a retirement estimator calculation or who just aren’t quite sure yet what their goals are. Continue reading “Financial Rules Of Thumb: Retirement Savings”

5 Retirement Questions You Need To Ask

September 21, 2015

When do you plan on retiring? When I ask this question during financial wellness workshops and webinars, I find that most people have at least a ballpark idea of when they would like to have the freedom to quit work. In fact, some people completely light up with a lightning fast response of “yesterday, today, or tomorrow” when I ask about that desired retirement date. For most of us, retirement is a top financial priority and there can be a difference between “desired” retirement dates and the actual realistic target date for retirement. Regardless of what your vision of the ideal retirement may look like, here are five basic questions that should be at the heart of all retirement planning activities: Continue reading “5 Retirement Questions You Need To Ask”

What’s Your Magic Number?

May 16, 2014

By “magic number,” I mean how much money will you need in order to retire comfortably?  Without giving away too much, let me answer briefly.  A WHOLE LOT!!!! Of course, it’s going to be a different number for each of us and there are countless ways to arrive at a number that makes sense for your life  so my goal here is to try to help you figure out a reasonable estimate of what you might need without having to run numbers on a spreadsheet or a website that may or may not be worth the time it takes to prepare the estimate.  I’m not saying it’s going to be super-easy but at least it won’t require much math! Continue reading “What’s Your Magic Number?”