Making Your Retirement Dream a Reality

Watch the interview with Kevin Bard, Investment Advisor, Charter Federal Employee Benefit Consultant and author of “The Retirement Umbrella.” http://rightonthemoneyshow.com/making-your-retirement-dream-a-reality-kevin-bard/

One of the most important pieces to the retirement puzzle is your standard of living. You can’t bet your future standard of living or your retirement dreams on the stock market. It could be a big financial faux pas to count on the stock market to provide the income you need to sustain your standard of living for the rest of our life. That's way too risky. Investing in the stock markets with monies that have nothing to do with your future standard of living is one thing. For lack of a better term, it's money to play with. But the market’s not a playground for the inexperienced. A seasoned financial advisor who knows the marketplace and has your best interests in mind can escort you through the good and bad times of stocks, bonds, mutual funds and ETFs.

No one likes losing money, but if your market-invested funds are not correlated to your standard of living, the losses may not have financial impact because you’re not counting on those funds to pay the bills. You can be in the market as much as you want, but don't let it affect your future standard of living. Don't count on it to be the sole support for your future income. Don't count on it to be the source you're going to be pulling income from. Why? Because the market will break your heart more than it will ever help you. Remember the question and answer it carefully: Is it more important for your money to grow, or for it not to shrink?

Another important piece of the retirement puzzle is medical and elder care costs in retirement. Taxes may be the number-one annual expense in your retirement budget, but health and wellness are generally the biggest overall expense loads in retirement. So managing your money to fund your health beyond Medicare coverage and assisted home living is a financial requirement for any long-term retirement plan. Social Security income can fund some of these puzzle pieces, but purchasing guaranteed lifetime income can supplement the shortfall to cover domestic expense and medical care in retirement.

(This press release contains segments from chapter one of “The Retirement Umbrella.”)