The best retirement plans start with a plan for a fulfilling life first, then match up the plan with money decisions. That's why good planners ask, what's the money for? For most, it's not to support boredom, stagnation and decline. If you define what an ideal retirement means first for you, then your retirement plan and your retirement life have far better chances of success.
The best retirement plans start with a plan for a fulfilling life first, then match up the plan with money decisions. That's why good planners ask, what's the money for? For most, it's not to support boredom, stagnation and decline. If you define what an ideal retirement means first for you, then your retirement plan and your retirement life have far better chances of success.
What is retired husband syndrome (RHS)? I first heard of Retired Husband Syndrome at a book signing in 2013. From across the book section in the exhibit hall, I saw a young man with jet black hair staring at the back of my newly-published book, The Mindful Money Mentality: How to Find Balance in Your Financial Future. He turned it over, opened to the table of contents, flipped a few pages, and turned it over again. Until that point, he acted like other book-browsers: look at the back, flip to the front, open to the table of contents, flip to the back, flip it again. Some would then take the book to the register. Others set it back on the shelf. The whole decision took less than 2 minutes. But this young man took so long reading, I wondered if he might consume the whole book right there. Then I got distracted by conversation with another attendee. When I turned back to look for him, he was gone. Figuring he had decided against it, I was surprised a couple of hours later to see he was the first in line at the book signing. Retired Husband Syndrome – in South Korea Approaching with an enthusiastic smile, he said “Hello” in a heavy Asian accent. He was from Seoul, South Korea, (which, considering English was his second language, might explain why he took longer examining the book). He said that he thought the book would be helpful to his male clients. Unsure why he was excluding the female ones, I readied my pen to sign, but asked him to tell me more. “In Asia, we have Retired Husband Syndrome (RHS),” he said. “I’ve never heard of that. What is it?” I asked, putting the pen down. “Some husbands spend their whole lives working for a company, and when they retire, they are at home, and it is not good for the marriage. The husband loses his identity because he is not in his job anymore, and he wants to be home with his wife. The wife has been at home her whole life, but she doesn’t like the husband being there, doing nothing.” “So sometimes the retired husbands do…nothing? They don’t have hobbies or hang out with their friends?” “Yes, that’s right.” “Wow. So you must see a lot of marriage problems in your practice?” “Yes! And it is too bad. They have a pension, but the couples never spend time planning what they will do.” He explained more about the strain on the marriage; the sadness he sees at a time when there could be great joy and celebration; and the effect on their children and the families. "This makes me sad. Sometimes I am going to be the only person outside of the family who might see it. All of the financial advisors in Seoul could help people with this. This is preventable.” Retirement Planning Is About More Than Money I once heard a financial planner say, “We spend…
The Retirement Answer? A Blank Stare I had just asked a 59-year-old, "You said you can retire in 3 years. How will you spend your time after that?" Expressionless, all he gave was a blank stare. "I never thought about it," he replied. Unfortunately, he wasn't the first 59-year-old with that answer. "I don't know" is a more common answer than most think. More To Retirement Life Than Money According to a study by United Capital, when asked about their financial life stories, most people talked about working and spending, not saving and investing. Over the decades of our working lives, we tend to follow a formula: Work. Spend. (Save). Repeat. We do this knowing one day those (savings we try not to think about or touch) should equal a nice sum, hopefully enough to reach the nirvana of "financial independence." Along the way, we can get trapped into planning meals and vacations, but not a potential 25-year chapter of our life. If nothing trips up the formula (divorce, premature death, disability), then a milestone birthday, the loss of a parent, or the arrival of a new boss may cause one to dial up a financial planner and ask, "Am I there yet?" Are You "There" Yet? To which the answer is usually, "That depends." That depends...on where "there" is. "There" = how, with whom, and where you will find purpose, meaning, and happiness in life after your Work-Spend-(Save)-Repeat chapter. Once that's known, "there" can be translated into real financial goals. If you don't know what "there" looks like, then attempts to answer the question are merely rough guesses. More importantly, if you don't know, you're not likely to enjoy that supposed nirvana time nearly as much. There are many thought leaders contributing to discoveries about the time of life past "Working" and before "Old." That time of life, which will be 25 or 30 years for a lucky few, goes by many names: Your Third Age. The Third Stage. The Encore Years. Your Life's Next Chapter. Examples of such leaders include Dori Mintzer and Mitch Anthony. According to experts like these, retirement planned well has the potential to be a time of peak fulfillment and meaning. Not planned well, potential paths lead to boredom and, in the worst cases, clinical depression. Real Retirement Planning Many people think "retirement planning" means "IRA investments" or "401K rollovers" or "pension options." Those are certainly part of it. But the best, yet sometimes the most difficult, kind of retirement planning is not found on your retirement account statements. It's found inside of you. Begin with a blank stare, and build your "There." That's real retirement planning. Not sure where to begin? Check out this free download: https://www.hollydonaldsonfinancialplanner.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Beyond-the-Numbers-Whats-Retirement-Money-For.pdf for a questionnaire about what kind of retirement lifestyle choices are ideal for you. Or subscribe to the award-winning monthly letter, "The View From the Porch," at https://bit.ly/3t2uwfn.
Using a retirement income buckets approach: One of the most common questions financial planners receive from soon-to-be-retirees is, "What's the safest way to give myself a paycheck once I quit working?" The question often stems from the knowledge that needing to withdraw funds in a down market can be both ill-advised and scary. Those who have been around long enough probably know someone who retired close to a particularly bad market year, like 2001, 2007, 2008, or now 2022. Because that someone had to, or chose to, sell some investments at that terrible time, they ended up living off of much less than they originally thought. This can be a scary thing to watch. It makes one wonder, "How do I make sure that doesn't happen to me?" A Buckets Approach Enter a buckets approach to retirement income. Below is a link to a video excerpt from the online course, "Retirement Readiness," outlining the approach in more detail. (A link to the course can be found at the bottom of this article and here.) A description for each of the buckets follows below. https://youtu.be/mkeqzgJfeFc Bucket 1 - Cash and Money Market Accounts The first bucket will provide your paycheck. Here is how it works. Calculate any retirement income you will have (pension, Social Security, dividends, interest, rental property, for examples); Figure your annual recurring expenses (do not include one-time expenses such as replacing a car, roof, or paying for a special trip or wedding); Subtract 2 from 1 to come up with the difference; and Keep 1 to 2 years of that difference in Bucket 1. For example, Justine retires at 65. She expects to live past age 82 so she is waiting until 70 to claim Social Security. She has a pension of $800/month ($9600/year). Her recurring expenses are $70,000 annually. The annual difference is $70,000 - $9,600 = $60,400. To start retirement, she decides to keep 1.5 years of the difference in Bucket 1 so $60,400 x 1.5 = $90,600. She puts that in a high-yield money market account and sets up an automatic transfer of $5833.33 monthly to her checking account. Voila - she has a new paycheck. When she turns 70, she will collect $45,000 in Social Security. At that time the annual difference will fall to $70,000 - ($9,600 + $45,000) = $15,400. She decides to keep 2 years of the new difference in Bucket 1, so $15,400 x 2 = $30,800. She reduces the monthly transfer from the money market to $1283.33 per month. Bucket 2 - Bonds, CDs, and Bond Funds The second bucket replenishes Bucket 1. As the paychecks come out, the principal in the money market account will naturally decrease. Eventually it will decrease to a level that makes you say, "Yikes! I only have xx in my checking and money market." Everyone has a different level of "Yikes." When the balance approaches your unique Yikes level, a transfer is made from Bucket 2 into Bucket 1. Bucket 2 is comprised…
The best retirement plans start with a plan for a fulfilling life first, then match up the plan with money decisions. That's why good planners ask, what's the money for? For most, it's not to support boredom, stagnation and decline. If you define what an ideal retirement means first for you, then your retirement plan and your retirement life have far better chances of success.
What is retired husband syndrome? I first heard of Retired Husband Syndrome (RHS) at a book signing in 2013. From across the book section in the exhibit hall, I saw a young man with jet black hair staring at the back of my newly-published book, The Mindful Money Mentality: How to Find Balance in Your Financial Future. He turned it over, opened to the table of contents, flipped a few pages, and turned it over again. Until that point, he acted like other book-browsers – look at back, flip to front, open to table of contents, flip to back, flip again. Some would then take the book to the register. Others set it back on the shelf. The whole decision took less than 2 minutes. But this young man took so long reading, I wondered if he might consume the whole book right there. Then I quit watching, distracted by conversation with another attendee. When I turned back to look for him, he was gone. Figuring he had decided against it, I was surprised a couple of hours later to see he was the first in line at the book signing. Retired Husband Syndrome – in South Korea Approaching with an enthusiastic smile, he said “Hello” in a heavy Asian accent. He was from Seoul, South Korea, and said that he thought my book would be helpful to his male clients. Unsure why he was excluding the female ones, I readied my pen to sign, but asked him to tell me more. “In Asia, we have Retired Husband Syndrome (RHS),” he said. “I’ve never heard of that. What is it?” I asked, putting the pen down. “Some husbands spend their whole lives working for a company, and when they retire, they are at home, and it is not good for the marriage. The husband loses his identity because he is not in his job anymore, and he wants to be home with his wife. The wife has been at home her whole life, but she doesn’t like the husband being there, doing nothing.” “So sometimes the retired husbands do…nothing? They don’t have hobbies or hang out with their friends?” “Yes, that’s right.” “Wow. So you must see a lot of marriage problems in your practice?” “Yes! And it is too bad. They have a pension, but the couples never spend time planning what they will do.” He explained more about the strain on the marriage; the sadness he sees at a time when there could be great joy and celebration; and the effect on their children and the families. "This makes me sad. Sometimes I am going to be the only person outside of the family who might see it. All of the financial advisors in Seoul could help people with this. This is preventable.” Retirement Planning Is About More Than Money I once heard a conference speaker say, “We spend more time planning what we’re going to eat for lunch than how we will spend a 30-year period of…
The Retirement Answer? A Blank Stare I had just asked a 59-year-old, "You said you can retire in 3 years. How will you spend your time after that?" Expressionless, all he gave was a blank stare. "I never thought about it," he replied. Unfortunately, he wasn't the first 59-year-old with that answer. "I don't know" is a more common answer than most think. More To Retirement Life Than Money According to a study by United Capital, when asked about their financial life stories, most people talked about working and spending, not saving and investing. Over the decades of our working lives, we tend to follow a formula: Work. Spend. (Save). Repeat. We do this knowing one day those (savings we try not to think about or touch) should equal a nice sum, hopefully enough to reach the nirvana of "financial independence." Along the way, we can get trapped into planning meals and vacations, but not a potential 25-year chapter of our life. If nothing trips up the formula (divorce, premature death, disability), then a milestone birthday, the loss of a parent, or the arrival of a new boss may cause one to someday dial up a financial planner and ask, "Am I there yet?" Are You "There" Yet? To which the answer is usually, "That depends." That depends...on where "there" is. "There" = how, with whom, and where you will find purpose, meaning, and happiness in life after Work-Spend-(Save)-Repeat. Once that's known, "there" can be translated into real financial goals. If you don't know what "there" looks like, then attempts to answer the question are merely rough guesses. More importantly, if you don't know, you're not likely to enjoy that supposed nirvana time nearly as much. There are many thought leaders contributing to discoveries about the time of life past "Working" and before "Old." That time of life, which will be 25 or 30 years for a lucky few, goes by many names: Your Third Age. The Third Stage. The Encore Years. Your Life's Next Chapter. Examples of such leaders include Dori Mintzer and Mitch Anthony. According to experts like these, retirement planned well has the potential to be a time of peak fulfillment and meaning. Not planned well or planned at all, potential paths lead to boredom and, in the worst cases, clinical depression. Real Retirement Planning Many people think "retirement planning" means "IRA investments" or "401K rollovers" or "pension options." Those are certainly part of it. But the best, yet sometimes the most difficult, kind of retirement planning is not found on your retirement account statements. It's found inside of you. Begin with a blank stare, and build your "There." Not sure where to begin? Check out this free download: https://www.hollydonaldsonfinancialplanner.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Beyond-the-Numbers-Whats-Retirement-Money-For.pdf for a questionnaire about what kind of retirement lifestyle choices are ideal for you.
A buckets approach to retirement income: One of the most common questions financial planners receive from pre-retirees is, "What's the safest way to give myself a paycheck once I quit working?" Those who have been around long enough probably know someone who retired close to a particularly bad market year, like 2001, 2007 or 2008. Because that someone had to, or chose to, sell some investments at that terrible time, they ended up living off of much less than they originally thought. This can be a scary thing to watch. It makes some wonder, "How do I make sure that doesn't happen to me?" The Buckets Approach Enter the buckets approach to retirement income. Below is a link to a video excerpt from the online course, "Retirement Readiness," outlining a buckets approach in more detail. (A link to the course can be found at the bottom of this article and here.) A description for each of the buckets follows below. https://youtu.be/mkeqzgJfeFc Bucket 1 - Cash and Money Market Accounts The first bucket will provide your paycheck. The rule of thumb is to1) calculate any retirement income you will have (pension, Social Security, dividends, interest, rental property, for examples);2) figure your annual recurring expenses (do not include one-time expenses such as replacing a car, roof, or paying for a special trip or wedding);3) subtract 2) from 1); and4) keep 1 to 2 years of that difference in Bucket 1. For example, Justine retires at 65. She expects to live past age 82 so she is waiting until 70 to claim Social Security. She has a pension of $800/month. Her recurring expenses are $70,000 annually. The annual difference is $70,000 - $9,600 = $60,400. To start retirement, she decides to keep 1.5 years of the difference in Bucket 1 so $60,400 x 1.5 = $90,600. She puts that in a high-yield money market account and sets up an automatic transfer of $5833.33 monthly to her checking account. Voila - she has a new paycheck. When she turns 70, she will collect $45,000 in Social Security. At that time the annual difference will fall to $70,000 - ($9,600 + $45,000) = $15,400. She decides to keep 2 years of the new difference in Bucket 1, so $15,400 x 2 = $30,800. She reduces the monthly transfer from the money market to $1283.33 per month. Bucket 2 - Bonds, CDs, and Bond Funds The second bucket replenishes Bucket 1. As the paychecks come out, the principal in the money market account will naturally decrease. When the balance reaches a level you have predetermined, a transfer is made from Bucket 2. Bucket 2 is comprised of a combination of CDs, bonds, and or bond funds. CDs and bonds have maturity dates, so they are structured in a ladder (staggered maturity dates usually 6 to 12 months apart into the future). As each one in the ladder matures, the principal is either transferred to Bucket 1, or redeployed into a new CD or bond with a…
I knew a man who couldn’t wait to retire from his government job. Because of decades of hard work and wise money decisions, he was able to call it quits at 55. Thrilled with his newfound freedom, he immediately took to cooking, golf, dating (he had divorced at 49), traveling, fishing, and having fun. For the first few years, every time I saw him, I could see the lack of work responsibilities had lightened his step and his heart. After about ten years, he moved to a Florida retirement community where the roofs and mailboxes are almost identical and one of the few ways to stand out is by the cover on your golf cart. It seemed to outsiders that everyone looked the same, dressed the same, exercised the same, but seemed happy with their life in the sunshine. Yet one day on the phone he said, “Y’know, I really like talking with you. I don’t have anybody to talk to here.” I was shocked. “What? Surely there are some retired CEOs, executives, people that think like you, that play golf, and that you have a lot in common with.” “Nah,” he said, “I don’t have that much in common with anybody here.” I thought that was crazy. He looked like all the rest of them, dressed like them, played golf and pickleball like them. He probably was just as well off, financially, as any of them. How could he not have someone to relate to? Unfortunately at that time, I was unfamiliar with the signs of depression. Five years later, it took his life. Myths About The "Ideal" Retirement According to writer Mitch Anthony, there are three myths about the “ideal” retirement: “This part of my life is going to be about ME.” Anthony says, “This is a formula for emptiness.” “I am going to surround myself with people like ME.” Anthony’s reply: “This is a formula for stagnation.” “I am going to do nothing but relax.” Anthony: “This is a formula for boredom.” Emptiness, stagnation, and boredom. Doesn’t sound much like the ideal retirement. A Mayo Clinic gerontologist told Anthony, “A life of total ease is two steps removed from a life of total disease.The first step is that they get bored, the second step is that they grow pessimistic, and then they get ill.” The "Dark Side" of retirement This is what writer Robert Laura termed the “dark side” of retirement. For some who don’t think about how to bring meaning and purpose to their life after work, serious mental health maladies, like depression and addiction, await. Florida retirement communities have some of the highest suicide rates in the country, particularly among white males over 65 years old. Women seem to fare better. Anecdotally, several women I know have vibrant lives in retirement communities, filled with volunteering, teaching others, and various circles of friends. South Dakota financial planner Rick Kahler responded to Laura’s article with several wise suggestions: Ask yourself how much of your identity is tied up in what you do, rather…