The Pot Holes Of Retirement
BOSTON (CBS) - The pot holes of life have a way of messing up the best laid plans for a comfortable retirement.
The Pot Holes Of Retirement
Can you plan for these? Some of them you can plan for and some you can avoid. And some you will have no control over.
- Inflation: You may be living on a fixed income in retirement and it becomes very hard to maintain your life style. Some retirees do have to choose between meds or groceries.
- Illness and Disability: We can do some planning by making sure we have enough dollars saved for retirement and we have good health care insurance. And we, of course, take good care of ourselves.
- Death of a Spouse: Average age of widowhood in the United States is 57. A death often may leave the surviving spouse ill equipped financially to maintain a comfortable retirement.
- Divorce: There may not be a lot of time to increase your retirement savings if you are now flying solo
- Credit Card Abuse: The greatest increase in personal bankruptcy is occurring among retirees
- Children & Grandchildren: Our children are like boomerangs, they come home and sometimes they come back with kids of their own. And sometimes they leave without taking the grandkids with them. According to AARP 12% of grandparents are raising their grandkids and another 25% are full-time care takers of the grandkids.
- Elderly Relatives: Our parents are living longer and may require our help
- Running Out of Money: Spend some time with a financial planner working on how you are going to withdraw the money from your retirement accounts. You want your money to last as long as you do.
- Alcohol and Drug Abuse: For some retirees it's 5:00 PM somewhere in world so they start drinking when they get out of bed in the morning. They become addicted to pain killers and alcohol and they have the money to support their addictions.
