Prepare clients for the retirement home stretch

To many clients, retirement may seem a distant dream. Yet as the date looms, they often feel anxious and edgy about these life changes. Are they financially prepared? What will they do with themselves? Here are a few key reminders to share with clients headed into the home stretch, say six to 24 months before retirement:

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• Prep work is key. HuffPost contributor Jeff Rose offers six key steps, to take if retirement is on the agenda for the upcoming year. Among them: identifying retirement goals and assessing income, dialling down spending (and perhaps living on that retirement budget for a few months before pulling the trigger), and planning for how to stay occupied.
• That daily latte counts. This Financial Post article by Beth Pinsker features a new app, called Preretirement, that helps people visualize how their spending habits will affect their retirement goals. The idea: if you knew your daily latte would make you work exactly four months, 17 days and 9 hours longer, would you be enticed to skip it?
• A move may be in the cards. Not all cities are equal when it comes to providing what retirees need or want. Clients considering a move should check out this Maclean’s ranking of top cities to retire in by Mark Brown. The interactive tool might help them narrow their choices according to what’s most important, whether that’s weather, access to doctors, property tax levels or housing affordability.
• Cognitive decline can impact an investment portfolio. Ben Carlson’s article in Bloomberg View points out that “getting older is a double-edged sword” when it comes to one’s investment abilities. On the plus side, clients will have the benefit of experience in the markets and asset growth. On the negative side, aging can eventually result in cognitive decline that could put assets in jeopardy. Carlson offers three tips to protect against that risk.