The 10 Questions You Must Ask Before You Retire

Most people picture retirement as endless Saturdays, but the real question is what those Saturdays look like and how you’ll pay for them. We take you through the ten questions that shape a confident future: how to define your daily purpose, where to live without inflating costs, how much income you truly need, and how to build an income floor that stands up to market swings. Along the way, we dig into Social Security timing strategies, the sequence of returns risk, and why annuities with lifetime income riders can secure essentials while freeing your investments to grow.

We also tackle the hidden budget breakers: health care and taxes. Medicare leaves gaps, so we walk through Medigap vs. Medicare Advantage, drug coverage, and long-term care options that keep your choices open. Then we shine a light on the “stealth debt” in tax-deferred accounts. Required minimum distributions, IRMAA surcharges, and Social Security taxation can erode cash flow unless you plan ahead. Thoughtful Roth conversions can cut lifetime taxes and protect surviving spouses and heirs.

Rounding it out, we cover the must-do estate checklist—wills, powers of attorney, health directives, and those often-missed beneficiary forms on bank and retirement accounts—and the emotional side of retiring. If work has been your identity and rhythm, a phased transition or purpose-driven plan helps you avoid the post-retirement slump. Ready to turn uncertainty into a plan you trust? Subscribe, share this with someone who’s five to ten years from retirement, and leave a review with the question you’re wrestling with most. Need help now? Visit Ozarksretirement.com and click Contact Us for a free financial consultation.

To learn more about Brad Pistole and the Ozark Retirement Group, please visit www.ozarksretirement.com 

Transcript

Welcome And Show Resources

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Welcome to State Money Radio with your host, Brad Pistol. Brad is a retirement income and tax planning certified professional, primarily serving clients in the Midwest, but he's sought after nationally for his expertise in helping people secure their retirement. Mr. Pistol is a licensed life insurance professional in approximately 20 different states, and he specializes in working with people who are near retirement and those who have already retired with wealth management, income planning, and asset protection strategies using life, health, long-term care, and annuity insurance products. And now, here to talk with you about securing your retirement, it's your host, Brad Pistol.

Why Retirement Requires A Plan

Lifestyle And Purpose Questions

Where You’ll Live In Retirement

Free Consultation And Credentials

Financial Readiness: Income Needs

Will Your Savings Last

Timing Social Security Wisely

Health Care And Long-Term Care

Emergency Funds That Actually Work

Debt Strategy And Roth Conversions

Estate Plan Must-Haves

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Well, hello everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today for Safe Money Radio. We hope you're having a fantastic day and we appreciate you joining us each and every week. Hey, we've been on the air for more than 16 years now. We've had more than 800 episodes air. And so if you're listening for the first time, just know you can always go to Ozarksretirement.com or you can also go to YouTube and type in Brad Pistol and Safe Money Radio. You can subscribe, and then that way you'll never miss any of our informative shows. We have podcasts, we have video shorts that get released every Monday, and you'll be notified. And we we talk about every topic under the sun regarding financial planning. And today's going to be a special day. We're going to be talking about the top 10 questions that you need to ask yourself before you retire. You see, making the decision to retire isn't something that you should just do on the spur of the moment. Working in today's environment can be very frustrating and it can be mentally taxing. Trust me, I know. But it's also something that allows you to one day retire and live the way that you want to live for the rest of your life. It's not a decision that needs to be based on emotions because you don't like your boss or some coworker. This is a decision that will affect the rest of your life and the quality of the life that you get to live. So today we're going to be talking about the top 10 questions that you need to ask yourself before you retire and why. My name is Brad Pistol. If you didn't hear before, if you've never joined us, I'm the CEO of the Ozarks Retirement Group, and I've been the weekly host of Safe Money Radio for more than 15 years. Listen, friends, we have clients in more than 20 states, and I've helped more than 2,000 people retire. If you'd like to find out what we can do to help you develop a safe and secure retirement income plan, all you have to do is reach out to us. Our website is Ozarksretirement.com. Just click on the contact us button in the upper right hand corner, and then you can ask for a free financial consultation. I'll even give you a signed copy of my best-selling book, Bulletproof: The Safe and Secure Retirement Income Plan. So let's get started. Let's talk about the top 10 questions that you need to ask yourself before you retire. Now, these questions come from my experience of working with retirees for the past two decades. And my answers and the formation of these questions is going to come from the expertise of my colleagues, people like Dr. Wade Powell, Dr. Michael Finca, Dr. David Blanchett, world-renowned economist Tom Hegna, and my good friend America's IRA expert Ed Slott. I didn't just pull this stuff out of the air. This comes from years and years of experience of working with people. And I've broken down these questions into five different categories. These questions are going to fall into lifestyle and purpose, financial readiness, your health and wellness, any debt that you may have, and your legacy planning. So let's get started with the first couple of questions that you need to ask yourself before you retire. Let's start with the topic of lifestyle and purpose. Here's question number one. You see, my good friend, world-renowned economist Tom Hegness says, when you retire, every single day is Saturday. Before you retire, you need to ask yourself if you're truly prepared to live every single day like it's Saturday, because you're going to be doing this for the next 20 to 30 years. Friends, retirement isn't a one size fits all. You need to decide ahead of time if you want to travel extensively, maybe you're going to go overseas, take a lot of cruises, go on those vacations that you've never taken before. Maybe you're going to start a side business so you're not bored. You want to make sure that you keep some income coming in. Or maybe you're going to focus completely on volunteer work, working with your church, or helping out at some volunteer charity organization. But you need to think about this ahead of time. You see, a lot of people love to play golf. And golf is a lot of fun on the weekend when you're worn out by working five days a week. But here's a question. Will it still be just as fun after you've played 30 days in a row? How about 60 days in a row? What about 90 days in a row? Because you see, when you're working, you think, man, I would play golf every day if I could. And when you retire, guess what? If you have a membership somewhere and it's not costing you any more, whether you play 10 times or 50 times, you actually can play every single day. Will you be tired of golf after 30, 60, or 90 days? What if you've done it for three or four years in a row? This brings up the question. What will the main purpose of your life be once you're able to do whatever you want to do every single day? Clarifying these goals helps structure your budget and your daily schedule. And this isn't something you can just figure out once you're retired. That's where people run into problems. It's something you need to be thinking about right now. Remember, failing to plan is planning to fail. I've personally watched a lot of clients experience extreme boredom and depression just six to eight weeks into their retirement because they didn't think about how they were going to be spending their time ahead of time. It's better to think through these things now and have a plan for the way you want to spend your time. And this doesn't mean you have to wake up with some chart, dot every I and cross every T and say, this is what I had scheduled for Monday, and this is what I had scheduled for Tuesday. But it's a whole lot better than getting to the end of your working years, deciding to retire on a Friday or at the end of the year, almost everyone retires on December the 31st, and then waking up on January the 1st and realizing, I have no idea what I'm going to do today. You see, this will feel good for about a week. And then week two, week three, and week four of not having any plan and nothing in place and nothing in mind that you've thought of, it will start to become something that is really boring and depressive. There has to be purpose in life. Here's question number two, and this is an important one. Where do you want to live once you retire? You need to think about your long-term plans for where you want to live long before you ever get to your retirement date. A lot of people have to consider this. Do you plan to stay in your current home where you're living right now? You see, now that your children are probably grown and on their own, at least keep your fingers crossed, we hope so. Do you plan to downsize to free up capital to invest that money into more of your retirement income plan? Or do you plan to move to a new area? Maybe you want to move out onto some land or live at the lake or move to somewhere warmer like Florida. We have a lot of clients that move to Florida and they snowbird back and forth. Since the cost of living is always the number one or number two most expensive part of retirement planning, you need to make firm estimates about the cost of your future living expenses right now. There are other factors that can affect these decisions, and that'll be things like climate. What kind of climate do you want to live in and your proximity to health care, your doctor, and any emergency facilities? And also, where does your family live? Is it going to be where you're hoping to move to, where it's warmer, or is that going to move you several states away and involve a lot of expensive travel back and forth? You might want to move closer to your children and your grandchildren, or maybe you're helping care for an aging parent. And these things are all important and they come into play when you think through where you want to live once you retire. Depending on your situation, you might stay in your current home, or you might even move down to somewhere, like I said before, like the villages in Florida. A lot of people do. It's its own community with over 300,000 people. Are you headed to Florida? These are decisions that are very important and they can be extremely expensive. So it's something that you need to think about long before you retire. Friends, we want you to stay with us on the show today. We've just covered two of the top 10 questions that you need to consider before you retire, but we're going to take a quick break. So if you want our help, remember we are retirement income certified professionals through the American College. I'm also a tax planning certified professional. So these things are in our wheelhouse. It's what we do every single day. We don't have to do research on it and think about it. We know this stuff inside and out. We do it all the time. And we've done it for clients all across the country. If you would like a free financial consultation because you're getting close to retirement and your current financial professional has never talked with you about questions like this, just call us. Our number's 866-780 SAFE. That's 866-780-7233. You can also go to our website, Ozarksretirement.com. Just click on the contact us button in the upper right hand corner and request a free financial consultation. 866-780-7233 or Ozarksretirement.com. And remember, there's always someone standing by to take your call. Friends on the show today, we're talking about the top ten questions that you need to ask yourself before you decide to retire. Question number one for quick review was what will my ideal retirement actually look like? In other words, how do you plan to spend your time? Question number two is where do you want to live once you retire? Now let's jump into financial readiness because if you're not financially ready to retire, you can't do it. So let's jump into the questions about this. Question number three, how much annual income will you need to provide for your expected standard of living in retirement? Here's a common rule of thumb. It's to aim for 70 to 80% of your pre-retirement income. Now you're probably going to need to work with a CPA and your financial professional to develop a detailed budget that includes fixed cost, you know, things like your housing and your utilities, along with discretionary income. How often are you going to go to movies and eat out? What about your hobbies like golf we talked about before? And leisure and travel. These things are really important and they make up your budget. And this is especially important in your early years of retirement. Now, I talk about Tom Hegna, good friend of mine on the show all the time, world-renowned economist. He is the author of Don't Worry, Retire Happy. He's also the author of Paychecks and Playchecks, making sure you have a playcheck come in every single week during retirement. He loves annuities. He owns 13 of them. I own eight of them. Why do we own so many annuities? We want a playcheck coming in every single day during retirement. We've spent our entire lives working for a paycheck. Now we want a playcheck to go do the things we've always wanted to do. Are you ready for this? Because in phase one of retirement, Tom Hegna calls this the go-go years. This is when you're going to be the most active. It's when you're going to take the majority of your long-awaited adventures and vacations. You're going to travel, and you simply must have a budget planned for this phase of retirement because you're going to spend more than you will later in life. Here's question number four. It's a big one. Will my retirement savings last no matter how long I live? With people living longer, your nest egg must be able to withstand inflation and market volatility. That's where my good friends Dr. Wade Powell, Dr. Michael Finca, and Dr. David Blanchett come in. They've done tons of research on this. They talk a lot about building an income floor that will last the rest of your life. Now, this might include a bucket strategy that involves your Social Security, any pensions you might have, annuities that you've put into place, and also your market-based accounts. But the key here is to actually determine how much money you're going to need on a monthly basis to pay for your ongoing every day, every month, every year living expenses. This will determine the percentage of your assets that need to be placed into guaranteed income streams. And guaranteed means things like this annuities with lifetime income benefit writers attached. It's like receiving a pension. Once you've solved the monthly income need and it's guaranteed, then you can swing for the fences without having to worry about any market volatility or concerns. Here's question number five of the 10 questions that you need to ask yourself before you retire. What is the best time for me to claim my Social Security benefit? You see, Social Security is one leg of a three-legged stool that needs to be solved for a solid retirement income plan to be in place. If you decide to claim at age 62, this will result in a permanently reduced monthly benefit. And who wants a permanently reduced benefit? But if you wait until age 70, you can actually increase your payments by approximately 8% for every single year that you delay beyond your full retirement age. This decision is extremely important. It's estimated that as high as 70% of all retirees rely solely on their social security as the main source of income in retirement. So you need to consult an expert qualified financial planner who does this every day. Someone who can help you make the best decision for when and how you need to claim this benefit. Friends, we work with national Social Security expert Heather Schreiber. You've probably already heard her on the show this year. She's going to be on six to eight times throughout 2026. She's held on retainer by our organization. We can contact her anytime. She's a great friend of mine. I call her sis. And there is no one on planet Earth who knows Social Security better than Heather Schreiber. If you would like a review of your Social Security claiming options to know whether or not you're making the right decision, contact us anytime. Our number is 866-780 SAFE. You can also go to Ozarksretirement.com and simply click on the contact us button. When you go to our website, you'll also see a lot of our client reviews, things that people are saying about us. You'll see the people that I'm connected to, nationwide experts in all kinds of financial industries. You'll also be able to find our Safe Money Radio podcast that's on YouTube and Apple and Spotify, and you can subscribe from right there on the website. So just go to Ozarksretirement.com, click on contact us for a free financial consultation, and I will personally reach out to you. Friends on the show today, we've been talking about the top ten questions that you need to ask yourself before you retire. So let's do a quick review. Number one, what will my ideal retirement actually look like? How will you spend your time? Number two, where do you want to live once you retire? Very, very important. Number three, how much annual income will you need to provide your expected standard of living in retirement? Number four, will my retirement savings last no matter how long I live? Number five, what is the best time for me to claim Social Security? Now let's talk about another really important part, your health and wellness. So here's question number six. How do you plan to pay for your future health care and potential long-term care needs? You see, contrary to what most people believe inaccurately, Medicare does not cover 100% of your health-related costs in retirement. In fact, it's far from it. A 65-year-old couple retiring in 2026 might expect to spend several hundred thousand dollars during their retirement years on medical expenses. That's why you need to be working with a qualified financial professional who can help you do the research on things like Medigap or Medicare Advantage plans and adding these things into your standard Medicare plan. This could save you literally hundreds of thousands of dollars during your retirement years, depending on your health and wellness in the future. Here's question number seven. Do I have adequate emergency funds saved outside of my retirement accounts? Now, this is what I've learned in almost two decades. This is almost the number one or number two shortfall when it comes to people who retire too soon without a plan in place. Most people underestimate the need for liquid cash and emergency reserves. They think, well, since they have it in their brokerage account or their retirement account, it's fine. And if they need it, they'll just sell those off and get the money they need. But unexpected costs like major homeowner repairs or medical bills don't stop just because your income stops. In fact, they often increase the older you get. In my opinion, based on what I've witnessed over all the years with clients in more than 20 states, you need to keep at least six months of living expenses in a totally liquid account to keep you from tapping into the funds that you need for your day-to-day retirement income. And this doesn't mean keeping in a brokerage account, like I said. That can be affected by the ups and downs of the stock market, and you don't want to be forced to sell when things are at a low. This should be money that's in a money market or a fixed account or maybe a short-term CD or a short-term annuity that protects the principal, giving you a decent rate of return, but allowing you to have access for emergencies. In my opinion, a single person needs at least$35,000 in liquid funds, and a married couple needs at least$50,000 to$60,000 in liquid funds at all times. Period. End of discussion. Friends, if you're listening right now, we're walking through the 10 most important questions that you need to ask yourself long before you ever decide to retire. And maybe you haven't ever thought through these things. Maybe you've heard these first seven questions and thought, hmm, yeah, those are things I've never talked about, and my current financial professional has never talked to me about them. All they tell me is to buy and hold, right? If that's the case, then there really is no retirement income. Plan. They're just happy to have your money in an account that's paying them for the rest of their life. You are their annuity. They're going to get paid every month no matter what, and there's really no plan in place. This will not work when you retire. You need to be working with retirement income certified professionals. My son and I have extensive training in 30 different key core areas of retirement income planning. So call us anytime, 866-780 SAFE. That's 866-780-7233. Or just go to our website, Ozarksretirement.com, and click on the contact us button. Request a free financial consultation, and when we get together, I'll give you a copy of my number one best-selling book, Bulletproof: The Safe and Secure Retirement Income Plan. That's 866-780-7233 or Ozarksretirement.com. Friends, we're continuing our show today. The top 10 questions that you need to ask yourself before you retire. And here in the last episode, last couple of episodes, I'm going to review all the questions, but I want to spend some concentrated time on question number eight. It's really important. Here's question number eight. How much debt do you currently have? Trust me on this one. You can't blindly slide right on into retirement and ignore the debt that you have in your life. It is very important, and it's a very important goal to have as much, if not all, of the debt paid off before you ever retire. You need to think about eliminating high interest debt, such as credit cards. This is critical to protecting your fixed income for the future. If you still have a mortgage, you're going to need to decide if paying off your mortgage is part of the strategy to lower your monthly obligations once your income stops. If you own rental properties that still have mortgages, you need to decide how to deal with these debts. This can often involve a fairly complicated decision that will be based on all the various rates of the different kinds of debt that you have. So you need to work with a qualified financial professional who can help you determine which debts are acceptable and which ones need to be completely eliminated before you enter your retirement years. Now, when we talk about debt entering into retirement, I want to get your attention right now. So many financial professionals are completely blind to what I'm about to tell you. Don't forget about Uncle Sam when it comes to your tax-deferred accounts like 401ks, IRAs, TSPs, 403Bs, and Simple and SEP IRAs. Believe it or not, if you own these types of accounts, you are in debt to Uncle Sam, and he will come calling for payments on your loan from him during your retirement years when you need that money the most. You heard me correctly. This wasn't a typo, I didn't misspeak. If you own tax-deferred retirement accounts, you are in debt to Uncle Sam in those accounts. Remember, when you contributed to these accounts, you took an upfront tax deduction. And when you start taking distributions from these accounts, this will trigger federal and in most cases state taxes. These distributions will be fully taxable and can and will affect the taxation of your Social Security distributions and the amount of premiums that you pay for Medicare. Your debt to Uncle Sam can put you into IRMA, income-related monthly adjustment amount surcharges, costing you what I call stealth taxes on your Medicare premiums, and you will never get this money back. Friends, this is why you need to consider Roth conversions before you ever retire. Your debt to Uncle Sam is one of the most important debts you have. I know most people think about their car loans and their home loans, their bridge loans, their second mortgages, and things like this. And those things are important, but you're forgetting about your debt to Uncle Sam on any tax-deferred account that you own. It will affect you. It's going to affect what your spouse inherits from you. And it's certainly going to affect what your heirs and other non-spouse beneficiaries will inherit from you. That's why you need to seriously consider wiping out your debt to Uncle Sam long before you retire and before something known as RMD's required minimum distributions kick in. Friends, this is why my good friend Ed Slot says the number one thing that will separate you from the retirement of your dreams is taxes. Taxes will eat you up left and right every direction you turn, especially once you're in your retirement years, because you will have triggered Social Security, a pension, distributions from tax-deferred accounts. And even if you don't need the money, that's right, even if you don't need the distribution, he's going to force taxable distributions out of your tax-deferred accounts once you reach RMD age. Friends, question number eight is so important. How much debt do you have before you retire? And where is that debt? Work with a qualified financial professional, someone who is a tax planning certified professional, such as myself. There are only a couple of hundred of us in the United States who have graduated through this program through the American College. I was the first one in the United States. We focus on not just where your accounts are held, not just how much rate of return you're making, not just how much income will you have coming out of it, but how much of it you get to keep after paying off your silent partner, Uncle Sam. Friends, if you need our help, call us anytime. Our number is 866-780 SAFE. That's 866-780-7233. Or just go to Ozarksretirement.com and click on the contact us button in the upper right hand corner. If you're tuning in on the radio and you're just now joining us today, you need to go to YouTube and type in Brad Pistol, type in Safe Money Radio, and you can actually type in the top 10 questions that you need to ask yourself before you retire. We're on question number nine, and we're going to be dealing with question number nine and number 10 right now. And in our last episode, we'll come back and we'll follow up and circle back through all of these questions. But here's question number nine of the 10 questions you need to ask yourself before you retire. Is your estate plan complete and up to date? You don't want to retire if you haven't dealt with this. So many people contact me long after they've retired, many years into their retirement plan, when it's often too late. A medical emergency has taken place, something's happened, and they realize, oops, we don't have any of these things taken care of, and we need to develop a plan. You need to do it before then. This is often overlooked, and it can cause your estate to be susceptible to probate and ongoing legal fees. So before you retire, you need to make sure you have the proper will, the proper powers of attorney, health care directives, and other proper policies in place. This is a great time to get together with your financial professional to review the beneficiary designations on all of your retirement accounts to make sure that they align with your wishes for your heirs. And if you've worked with an attorney to develop a trust, you need to make sure that your beneficiary forms and the trust paperwork align with one another. And don't forget about your bank accounts. I'm going to stress this over and over and over again. You see, most people assume the bank has up-to-date beneficiary forms on their accounts. You would be wrong ninety percent of the time. How often do you see your bank employees change? Pretty regularly, isn't it? Do you think they pass on the information on your accounts to the next person and the next person and the next person? If you want to find out whether or not your bank has a beneficiary form on your accounts, just waltz in there sometime and say, hey, I'd like to see the beneficiary form for my bank accounts. Don't be surprised when they look at you like a deer in the headlights. The beneficiary form is the most important document on every single retirement account and bank account that you own. You need to check them for accuracy long before you retire, and you need to do this at least once per year to make sure things are set up the way they need to be. Here's question number 10. Am I emotionally ready to stop working? Dr. Wade Fowl talks a lot about the non-financial aspect of retirement planning in his book, The Retirement Planning Guidebook: Navigating the Important Decisions for Retirement Success. Friends, I call this the Bible when it comes to retirement planning. You need to take the time to think through several aspects of your life long before you ever decide to retire. You need to consider just how much you might miss the community that's involved at your job, your identity, and the daily structure that is provided by your work. You see, many people fail to consider just how difficult the transition is from a 40 to 50 hour a week job to every single day being just like Saturday. This can be a very emotional process. You need to find out whether or not you're fully ready to retire. Maybe you want to consider what a lot of people do, which is something called a phased retirement, where you slow down your working hours and continue to work part-time, and this can help you transition into full-time retirement. But if you just rip the band-aid off and go from 40 to 50 hours a week to zero, it might be emotionally taxing and you might not be ready for it. Friends, there are so many decisions that need to be made before jumping headfirst into retirement. See, this was only 10 of the 50 questions that we walk through with our clients to make sure they're truly ready to retire. If you need help deciding whether or not you're ready for full-time retirement, please contact us. We are retirement income certified professionals, and I'm also a tax planning certified professional, and I have helped thousands of clients with these decisions. Just go to Ozarksretirement.com and click on the contact us button for a free financial consultation. We will take a look at your own personal situation and custom tailor the right financial plan for you and your family. You can also call us anytime at 866-780SAFE. That's 866-780-7233. Now we'll come back one more time to put this all together and put a great big red Christmas bow on all this, even though it's after the holidays. Ozarksretirement.com 866 780 7233. And remember, there's always someone standing by to take your call. Well, guess what? Practice is what makes something perfect, right? Practice makes perfect. Why did your coach have you shoot free throws over and over and over again? And when teams don't shoot well and they have a bad game and they lose the game because they shot eight for 21 from the free throw line, often the coach will say, Hey, this one's on me. I normally make them shoot 50 free throws after practice, but we didn't do that this week. You see, when you fail to plan for the future, you're going to make mistakes and fail in the future. We want this to be repetitive. We want you to be thinking through these things right now. You might be 20, 30, 40 years old, but your retirement plan is going to last for 25 to 35 years. And that won't happen accidentally. You won't just have a great plan because you decided to start working on it a couple of weeks before you retire. So, to repeat and review, these are the 10 questions that you need to be asking yourself long before you ever decide to retire to make sure you have the appropriate plan in place. When it comes to your lifestyle and purpose, we want you to be asking yourself this. What will my ideal retirement actually look like? In other words, how will you spend your time? Remember, once you retire, every single day will be just like Saturday. And you can easily and quickly find yourself bored, not knowing what to do. And this can be frustrating, it can lead to depression and other issues. You need to be thinking about how you're going to spend your time. Question number two, where do you want to live once you retire? Hey, you might have a vacation home now, a lake home now, a home down in Florida. You need to decide, are you going to continue maintaining two or three properties, two sets of taxes and insurance and mortgages? You're going to need to decide where are we going to live long term? What can we afford? And these are very, very important questions to work through with your financial professional. Then we talked about whether or not you're financially ready to retire. And this is questions number three, four, and five. Here's question number three. How much annual income will you need to provide for your expected standard of living in retirement? You see, you need to be shooting for 70 to 80% of your pre-retirement income to continue once you retire. How's that going to happen when your paycheck stops? Well, it's going to come number one, mainly for most people, from Social Security. So when and how you trigger is very important. For some very lucky individuals listening right now, it will come from a pension. But like 80% of people don't have that leg of the three-legged stool. They have Social Security, and then they have the retirement assets, which can create the third stool, which is annuities with guaranteed lifetime income riders. But it comes from you. You have to be working on that plan, selecting the right annuity with lifetime income, whether you choose single or joint payout, based on whether or not it's just your assets or you and your spouse's assets. And this is a very complex plan. How much annual income will you need and where will it come from? That's question number three. Then there's question number four. Will my retirement savings last no matter how long I live? If your current plan is to just have this big brokerage account or a bank account and you're just going to dip in and take out of it whenever you want to, however you want to, with no plan in place, good luck. There's something called the sequence of returns risk. And if you retire with no protection in place, and at the beginning of the first two to three years you go through a major market downturn, you're going to be in a mess and your financial plan will fail. There's been tons of research about the sequence of returns risk, and it is the real deal. You have to pay attention to it and protect yourself from it. So, do you have guarantees in place? Guaranteed income like Social Security, pensions, and annuities. And you need to be working on this right now. Question number five, what is the best time for me to claim Social Security? There's a lot of water cooler talk about when to do it. Talk on the golf course, talk after church at lunch with friends from your life group. And everyone has an opinion. Oh, you should start at 62 because you won't live long enough. And plus, I hear Social Security is going broke and they won't even be paying us here in another five or six years. And that may or may not be good advice. I had a client call me today whose father is 97 years old. If they triggered their Social Security when they were 62, they elected a permanently reduced benefit. And guess what? They should have waited till age 70 because they're currently 97 years old. And what does that mean? That means that had they waited from 62 all the way to 70, they would have received an approximate 8% increase every single year for eight more years that would have paid them tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars more during their retirement years because they're still alive at age 97. You see, it's a very easy question. When should you claim your Social Security benefit? Well, all I have to know is the day and the time you're going to die, and I can tell you. But you see, none of us know that. That's why we have to do very educated guessing regarding your social security timing and when you trigger for you and your benefit. Now, let's do a quick review of the health and wellness questions. Number six, how will you pay for your future health care and potential long-term care needs? Are you going to self-insure? Are you going to have a long-term care plan? Are you going to have an annuity with a long-term care writer? There's all kinds of options, and you need to work with a financial expert who's very trained in regard to these types of accounts. Question number seven, do I have adequate emergency funds saved outside of my retirement accounts? How much do you have in the bank or under the mattress? Or right there where you can get your hands on them? In my estimate, this is always overlooked. If you're single, you need at least$35,000 liquid at all times. If you're married filing jointly, you need about$60,000 liquid at all times. Here's question number eight. How much debt do you currently have? This isn't just your home or your rental home or just your auto loan or your interest that you're paying on your credit cards. It also involves your debt to Uncle Sam. All of your 401ks, your IRAs, your TSPs, your 403Bs. That tax-deferred account is a joint account with Uncle Sam. He's going to force out distributions. He's going to tell you when and how much you have to take out. He's going to tell you how much you're going to pay in taxes. Friends, this is a debt that you can get rid of well ahead of time long before you retire so that you have that monkey off your back in retirement. And here are the last two questions of the 10 questions that you need to ask yourself long before you retire. Question number nine: Is your estate plan complete and up to date? See, this is often overlooked. You want to keep yourself away from any unnecessary legal fees and probate. This is public. It can be embarrassing. It's not fun for your family. You need to make sure you have the proper will in place, powers of attorney, and health care directives. So is your estate plan complete and up to date? And then number 10, are you emotionally ready to stop working? Research says there are non-financial aspects of retirement planning that are just as important, if not more important, than the financial planning side of financial planning. Are you emotionally ready to stop working? How are you going to spend your time? What are you going to do on a daily basis? Are you going to volunteer? Are you going to coach for grandchildren's teams? What are you going to do that's going to make you feel fulfilled in your retirement planning years? And Have you thought about what it's going to be like once you lose your sense of purpose that was being provided by your job and what you did for 40 to 50 hours a week? Friends, these 10 questions are a lot to think about. And again, it's only 10 of the 50 questions that we walk through with our clients to make sure they're emotionally and financially prepared for retirement. This is what we do every single day with our clients all across this country. Call us anytime and ask for a free financial consultation. We will sit down with you and see whether or not you're ready to retire. And we can sit down with you and say, hey, this aspect of your retirement planning is in great shape. But this part, it's been neglected, and we need to walk through some questions and make sure you're prepared. Start doing it today. Don't wait till the week before you retire. Our number is 866-780 SAFE. That's 866-780-7233. Or just go to Ozarksretirement.com, click on the contact us button and ask for a free financial consultation. Hey, thanks for listening. We look forward to seeing you at the same time next week. Always go look us up anytime, Ozarksretirement.com, subscribe to the show. We will help you move in the direction of a safe and secure retirement income plan for you and your family. Well, I'm about out of time, and I would like to thank you for listening to Safe Money Radio. If you're serious about your financial future, give me a call, and together we'll get your retirement savings on the fast track to accumulation while reducing exposure to market losses. Thanks for listening, and until next time at the same time, I'm Brad Pistol, reminding you to stay safe so you can step into a secure future.

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You've been listening to Safe Money Radio with your host, Brad Pistol. Find out how to contractually guarantee that your hard-earned money is safe while avoiding market loss so you can have the retirement that you deserve. Call Brad Pistol now for your complimentary safe money book and safe money information kit at 866-780 SAFE. That's 866-780-7233.

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SafeMoney Radio!

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The preceding information does not represent tax, legal, or investment advice. Surrender charges apply to base contracts. Optional lifetime income benefit writers are used to calculate lifetime payments only and are not available for cash surrender or in a death benefit unless specified in the annuity contract. Fees may apply. Guarantees are based on the financial strength and claims paying ability of the insurance company. No information presented today should be acted upon without meeting with a qualified and licensed professional. Obviously, by calling us now, you are just taking the first step towards protecting your retirement. It's important that you read all insurance contract disclosures carefully before making a purchase decision. Rates and returns mentioned on this program are subject to change without notice.