Are you Retirement Ready?

In today's episode, we finish our 3-part series with Jen Jones, Senior Wealth Advisor with First United's Wealth Management department. The topic today is retirement! Are you retirement ready? How do you go about determining if you're ready? Jen walks us thru the process.

Transcript

Man 1: Welcome to the "What Matters Most" Podcast, presented by First United Bank & Trust. That's my bank. Visit us today at my bank.com.

Eric: Hello and welcome to "What Matters Most," a podcast all about finances, community, savings and security for you, your family and your business. This podcast is brought to you by the helpful folks at My Bank First United Bank & Trust. I'm your host, Eric Nutter, and in today's episode, "What Matters Most," is the final of our third installment of our series with Jen Jones. We're talking today about our top six priorities for being retirement ready. So as I mentioned, for this discussion, I'm joined today again with Jen Jones, senior wealth advisor and First United's Wealth Management department. How's it going, Jen?

Jen: Hi, Eric. Good, how are you doing?

Eric: I'm doing well. Thanks again for joining me in our third and final episode for February. So today, we're talking about being retirement ready.

Jen:That's right.

Eric: There are moments where I'm just a part way into my career, but I'm feeling...I need to be retirement ready. I wanna retire. Jen, am I ready to retire yet?

Jen: Well, I'm gonna give you six priorities today to make sure that you are retirement ready. How about that?

Eric:All right. And if I pass all those, I can just kind of check it off and sail of into the sunset right now?

Jen:You might want to check with Carissa first, but sure.

Eric: All right. Well, hit me with it. What's item number one on our list today?

Jen:So the first one is to have a retirement age in mind. You know, what's realistic, how much money you need to save and how much income you want to have in retirement, versus maybe how much income you have now, what you wanna do in retirement, really take that into consideration. Are you just gonna be a homebody and stay around your house or do you wanna travel all over the world? That really puts kind of a thought process into, you know, how much budget you need. So it's really good to come up with, you know, a budget and how you can, what age you can be to get to that budget. That's number one.

Eric: I'm already out of the running, by the way. It can't be tomorrow.

Jen: You're not. So you have that retirement and I already kinda alluded to it, you have that retirement age in mind. You have to come up with a budget. Or even if you don't know number one, what the retirement age is, then let's start the budget to figure it out. Most people have a kind of idea of a budget for what they're doing today, but you have to look at it from a future budgeting planning purposes, so what will that kinda look like when you're not working. What will that look like when you don't have that income coming in, or what other supplements, are you gonna kind of fill that income gap? If you're not working anymore, where's the money going to come from? Is there pensions, is there a 401k, are you gonna hope that you win the lottery? I don't recommend the third one very much.

Eric: The likelihood is low.

Jen:Right. And then, kind of, you know, anything else, Social Security and, you know, even that's kind of, for you and I and our generation, that's a little questionable about if that's gonna be there or not. You just wanna make sure that you are thinking about what that future budget might look like, so one and two. Your retirement age and your budget, right? I know you, Eric here, you're already saying you're knocked out, right? You get to number three...

Eric: I just can't retire this year. It can't be this year.

Jen:Okay, okay. So you still maybe are having trouble with the budget or coming up with that, kind of retirement age goal. You can always sit down with somebody and, of course, here at First United, they're skilled and have lots of applications and different things that we can do to come up with some pretty realistic and descriptive numbers, and sometimes it just helps if you see everything on paper. I have a lot of folks that I go through that we do retirement plans for say, "I didn't know what I had until I could see it on a piece of paper." So sitting down with somebody and doing that is great, because we have some simulations and models that we can run so we can kinda show you different scenarios. Here, if you wanna go to, take a cruise around the world every year, how that's gonna look versus the scenario where you don't and kind of what that budget looks like, and all that kinda stuff.

Eric: I love that you can run a scenario on me taking a cruise every year for the rest of my life. That's fantastic. So yeah, working with someone. I think the other thought I had was just working with someone like yourself to kind of come up with those budgets and goals, helps you remember things that maybe you're not even thinking of, like right now, your budget might be X, but when you get to the retirement age you're kind of mentally setting, you may need to think about different expenses that you're not thinking about now.

Jen:That's right, yeah. Like insurance would be one of those two. You know, a lot of times if you're working full-time, you're kind of covered with insurance, but obviously there's Medicare and different things like that, but maybe you retire early and again, you're in a gap situation where you've gotta go out and find some of your own insurance, or even this folks that do cover under Medicare, they need a supplemental policy a lot of times. And that's something we can totally walk you through and help you with. Even the supplemental policies, there's like, 4,592 of them out there and they all do something different, so we kinda help be able to help you walk through those and make sure that you're getting what you need for what you wanna do. Happy to help with that. And I would, you know, if you're just not sure, I would really recommend that you kind of start with that maybe. Maybe you start with number three and then that kinda helps you create that budget and gets you retirement age in mind.

Then number four from there is, you know, you need to lengthen that long term plan that you have. So if you figured out when you're going to retire and you created that budget and you talked to somebody and you feel like you have everything kind of all wrapped together, you know, obviously as time goes on, you're getting closer and closer to retirement. So it kinda goes with what you said earlier, Eric, of looking at some of that outsourcing stuff too, whether it be legal documents or health insurance or whatnot, that you're kind of making sure that you have all those things wrapped up, talking with your employer. Some employers, if you're gonna retire like, you know, a longer timeframe, to have something else fill your shoes, or figure out their steps of what they're going to be doing to replace you. Or just talking to them about, you know, exit strategy for you or your 401k plan that you have. All of that kinda stuff. Once you are getting there and getting to the end of that retirement, you still have life to live after that, right? So you gotta make sure that you planned for that too as well.

Eric: Right. Absolutely. Okay. What's next on our list?

Jen: Well, next on our list is again, really...it kind of is reiterating a little bit on what we already said, but it's to make sure that you have that supplemental insurance or whatever. Insurance is the biggest thing that I see people kind of really have a hard time with.

Eric: It's a big expense if you don't have a job.

Jen:It's a big expensive, mm-hmm, and you really wanna make sure that you have that in place. Obviously when you get to the at retirement stage, you obviously need to make sure you have it in place before that. But again, when you get there, you wanna make sure that it's the best for you. Every year, you wanna go in and make sure that again, you wanna kinda continue that that coverage is the same, has it changed, do you need to change plans. So it's kinda thing, you know, just staying up on that insurance and making sure that that is the best for you is important as well too.

Eric: Absolutely. All right.

Jen:And then, the final one...

Eric: Down to the end.

Jen:Planning can never start too early. You're never, ever, ever can you start planning for retirement too early at all. You know, at First United whenever we first have an associate come onboard, they're kind of automatically 401k plan is one of the first things that we talk about. And they're able to contribute to that right away. And I would encourage you, it's never too late to start planning and it's never too early. So I would encourage everyone to make sure that you're making the notes of the retirement benefits that you have wherever you're working, make sure that you understand with them, talk to HR or if you ever receive those plans, to make sure that you're getting the most out of it. And what else is there along with that? Maybe there's a pension, maybe there's other things that you're too busy working or whatever to kinda go through some of those details sometimes. So just make sure you fully know what you're able to do so you can take advantage of those benefits.

Eric: Absolutely. And oftentimes, the earlier you start on things, especially with saving for retirement, just the compound effect over time is staggering, like the numbers just play out to be, if I had only started, you know, 5 years earlier, 10 years earlier, I would be way better off than I am today. So keeping that in mind. But there's always, like you said, there's always ways to catch up. So an advisor can help you walk through what's the best opportunity to get you where you need to be.

Jen:Exactly.

Eric: Awesome. Jen, do you have any final thoughts on being retirement ready to give to our listeners?

Jen:I think this kinda sums it up for us, but again, if you have any kind of questions or you're not sure, just bring in what you have and give us a call and we're happy to said won with you and help you figure everything out on a plan that's gonna work for what you wanna do.

Eric: Yeah. And how can our listeners get in touch, get the support they need? Who do they reach out to?

Jen:They can contact me directly at jjones@mybank.com, or you can always check out our website at mybank.com and click on the Wealth tab and there's a bunch of information regarding retirement, even some calculators in there that you can kinda go through yourself, and all of our advisors around the regions with their contact information and are able to help you.

Eric: Excellent. I'll be reaching out because I wanna know what it looks like, what I need to plan for to do a cruise every year of my life. That's on the list, Jen.

Jen:On it. Sounds good.

Eric: Excellent. Thanks again for joining me. I really appreciate it. That brings us to the end of our show. You can always find more episodes by visiting mybank.com/podcast, or find us on your favorite podcast app. You can also leave feedback, ask questions, or request a topic for us to discuss by sending an email to podcast@mybank.com. Thanks again for listening. We'll be back next week with more helpful content. But until then, we wish you the best in focusing on what matters most to you.

Woman 1: Do I have enough money to retire?

Man 2: Is my family protected if something happens to me?

Woman 2: Is my plan getting me where I'm going?

Kid: Are you ready if I wanna be a doctor?

Man 3: When it comes to money, we all have questions. That's why First United Wealth Management has a team of experts ready to listen and provide solutions. First United Wealth Management.

Man: First United, My Bank for life.

Woman 3: This document is a general communication being provided for informational purposes only. It is educational in nature and not designed to be taken as advice or recommendation for any specific investment product, strategy, plan, feature or other purpose in any jurisdiction, nor is it a commitment from First United Bank & Trust or any of its subsidiaries to participate in any of the transactions mentioned herein. Any examples are generic, hypothetical and for illustration purposes only. This material does not contain sufficient information to support an investment decision and should not be relied upon in evaluating the merits of investing in any securities or products. In addition, users should make independent assessment of the legal regulatory credit and accounting implications and determine together with their own professional advisors if any investment mentioned herein is believed to be suitable to their personal goals. Investors should ensure that they obtain all available relevant information before making any investment. Any forecast figures, opinions or investment techniques and strategies set out are for information purposes only, based on certain assumptions and certain market conditions and are subject to change without prior notice. All information presented herein is considered to be accurate at the time of production but no warranty of accuracy is given and no liability in respect of any error or omission is accepted. It should be noted that investment involves risk, the value of investments and the income from them may fluctuate in accordance with market conditions, and taxation agreements, and investors may not get back the full amount invested. Both past performance and yields are not reliable indicators of current and future results.