Episode 006 – A Less Stressful, More Fulfilling Life

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This episode of The Bank of You University Podcast series takes a look at our unique and proprietary approach to financial planning.  It answers the questions:

-          How do you do what we do?

-          What makes us different than other financial planning firms?

-          Is there REALLY a better, smarter and safer way to plan for your retirement?

All are valid questions and all real concerns for anyone who is serious about planning for their retirement.  By the way, if you are in your 20’s or if you are in your 90’s, EVERYONE should be concerned about their retirement.  Why?  Because now more than ever the phrase “If it’s to be it’s up to me” needs to be forefront in our minds.

The Traditional Retirement

In recent decades retirement looked something like this:

-          Work for the same employer for 30-40 years.

-          Retire with a pension that guarantees income for the life of both you and your spouse.

-          Collect Social Security benefits with similar lifetime income guarantees.

-          Supplement those incomes with a small amount of personal savings.

-          Die 5-10 years into retirement. (Sorry guys, but that is generally how it worked.)

-          Then, mom would continue to receive the guaranteed income benefits from both the pension and from Social Security.

-          Maybe dad had some life insurance to add to mom’s savings.

-          Their home was generally owned free and clear of all mortgages, therefore…

-          Mom could have a pretty nice life, and….

-          When mom passed away, she would likely leave some inheritance to her children and grandchildren.

Thus was the retirement of Mr. & Mrs. Cleaver.  That is likely not going to be our retirement.  The retirements of the baby boomer generation and their children will be much, much different.  As a result, we need a much, much different way to approach planning for retirement altogether.  That way, our unique and proprietary way, is called The Bank of You Paradigm^®.

Your Retirement?

-          You may not have a pension with income guaranteed for life.

-          You may be concerned the Social Security is under stress and it also may not be there for you.

-          Your savings may have been crushed by the bursting of the stock market bubble in 2000 and again in 2008.

-          You may live 20, 30 years or more into your retirement years.

-          You may have a mortgage on your home and you home may not be worth as much as it once was.

-          Your parents may outlive their retirement savings and rather than pass down an inheritance, they will need all the money they have and maybe some of yours too.

-          Your adult children moved back in with you!

If you are a baby boomer, you at a time in your life when your expenses should be minimal and you income should be the strongest so that you can save and invest significant amounts of money to fund your retirement nest-egg.  Unfortunately, this is not the situation most baby boomers find themselves in today.

If you a Gen-X, Y or younger, you may not give retirement much consideration whatsoever.  Yet, this is THE time to start planning for your retirement.

No matter what your age, your retirement will look very different than those who retired before us.  We will likely live longer, more active lives.  We may have to help support our parents and our children.  That said, your life does not have to be stressful.

If your retirement plans are broken, we may be able to fix them.  There are ways to make up for lost time and insufficient savings.  If your retirement plans are not broken, we can make the even better.  Either way, broken or not, we can help.

We can help by showing you to start to making better, smarter safer choices and financial decisions about your retirement today so that, tomorrow, you CAN begin to live the life you dream of, a less stressful and a more fulfilling life.

I hope that you will enjoy listening to this podcast.  Be sure to pass it along to your friends, relatives and co-workers.  Also, remember that you can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes and be automatically notified as future podcast are made available.

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