MAKING CENTS: Planning your rewarding retirement

Perhaps this is your year – the year you finally get to spend your time exactly how you want, and maybe slow down or call it quits from work. Whether now or later, these are some of the

matters that you may want consider now.

Not working will free up a lot of time, and you need to think about exactly what you will do with it. This sounds trivial, but many become bored pretty quickly if they haven’t developed a good vision about what their ideal day, week and month look like.

When you started work many moons ago, the vision for the retirement years were referred to as golden; sitting on the front porch with lemonade while waiting for the grand kids to visit. Today, many envision an active lifestyle, full of travel and activity.

After envisioning the lifestyle you want, you need to understand the cost of that lifestyle.

A financial forecast will help you see the economic consequences of how you want to spend your time, and guide your actions.

Start by taking a close look at the benefits that you’ll no longer have. Most get concerned with the costly health insurance premiums, but that isn’t the only benefit that you may need to replace. There may be group life insurance or group long term care insurance, Find out if any of these benefits are portable, allowing you to continue coverage on your own dime.

If retirement involves deferred compensation or some lump sum cash receipt such as from the sale of a business or accumulated bonuses, vacation or sick time, plan the most tax efficient way possible to collect. You may have options on the timing and stretch payment over more than one tax year.

Design your income stream. Start with social security and build from there.

Not getting a paycheck often causes stress for even the wealthiest of retirees. Do not rely on any rules of thumb regarding how much income that you think you’ll need. Make it your rule based on your vision for your future.