Should I include retirement planning in my estate plan?
The sooner you start planning for retirement, the less you’ll need to save over the long term. You might be surprised to learn how much of a difference it makes if you start saving early in your career. To ensure your retirement plan is as effective as you want it to be, however, your plan should be created along with your estate plan. The Indianapolis attorneys at Frank & Kraft explain why retirement planning should be part of your comprehensive estate plan.
Retirement Planning Tips
While saving money is certainly a crucial part of planning for your later years, retirement planning is more complicated than that. You should also protect your money, invest it to increase its value, and coordinate the retirement plan with your estate planning. You should consult both your estate planning lawyer and your financial advisor before making any changes to your retirement plans. Also, consider the following tips. If you are not a financial advisor you may not know a lot about financial planning and investing. Before you create your retirement plan, spend some time learning about basic investment concepts.
- Take full advantage of options sponsored by your employer. Most employers, large and small, offer retirement plans, such as the 401(k), even though fully funded pensions have long been a thing of the past. If yours does, take advantage and match your employer’s contributions.
- Consider an IRA. Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA) are like your own pension fund. If you choose the correct type of IRA, it can offer significant tax benefits.
- Setup automatic deductions. You may have heard of the phrase “pay yourself first” when it comes to retirement planning. You will be less likely not to get the money if you have deductions taken out of your pay before you see it. After a while, you will likely forget anything is being deducted.
- Make money difficult to reach. The more you have to do to withdraw money that was meant for retirement, you are less likely to disturb it. With that in mind, put your money in investments or in accounts that are not easy to get to so that you are required to think about it before taking the money out.
- Diversify your assets. You’ve probably heard that saying, “don’t put your eggs all in one basket.” It applies to retirement planning. You should have some cash in your account and not put all of your investments into a single fund or account. No matter how safe a fund/account may appear, nothing is completely recession proof nor is there ever a guarantee of quality management.
- Make sure you understand fees. New investors are often hit with high fees because they don’t know what the industry norms are. Over time, these fees can add up. Pay down debts
- . As you near retirement, you should pay down large debts such as your mortgage. Delay Social Security benefits. The different in the amount of your monthly Social Security retirement benefit can be significant if you are able to delay your retirement just a couple of years.
- Incorporate your retirement plan into your estate plan. Join us for a FREE seminar to learn more about how we can help you incorporate retirement planning into your estate plan. Contact the Indianapolis estate planning attorneys of
- Frank & Kraft for more information or to schedule an appointment. Read More!
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