You’ve spent your career saving and preparing for retirement, and when the time comes, it can feel like you’ve crossed a sort of finish line. While retirement might mark the end of your typical work life, it’s also the start of a brand new way of living.
In retirement, you’ll have to pick up new ways of spending, saving, budgeting and investing to support your new lifestyle.
Here are some of the best personal finance habits of a successful retiree:
How to be a Successful Retiree: Keep Your Lifestyle in Check
When you retire, you don’t have the consistent income you had from your job anymore. That can be difficult to adjust to. You might need to pare down expenses or shift priorities.
Healthy personal finance habits are especially important during retirement, so make sure you establish those systems now.
Know Your Values
Know what your true values are, and make sure your money goes toward them. For example, maybe you want to be closer to your grandchildren or you want to travel more. This could be a good time to downsize your home so you have more time and money to do so.
Or, maybe you want to get involved in causes that are close to your heart. Whatever your dream retirement looks like, set up your finances to reflect that.
Don’t Get Caught Up in Trends
Just because your neighbor sold his house to travel the country in an RV doesn’t mean you have to.
Downsize or don’t, travel or stay put, stop working entirely or pick up a side hustle. Whatever you do, you need to make sure it aligns with what you want most. Spend your money thoughtfully.
Make Important Portfolio Changes Beforehand
Generally, you don’t want to be making any huge changes to your portfolio right before you retire. The exception to that is if your portfolio is unbalanced or doesn’t reflect your current needs. In that case, you might need to work on rebalancing or consolidating your investments.
You do need some stocks and bonds to keep pace with inflation for the rest of your life, so that balance is important. You can read more about having a balanced portfolio here.
About Your Richest Life
At Your Richest Life, Katie Brewer, CFP®, believes everyone should have access to financial resources and coaching. For more information on the services offered, contact Katie today.