Читать книгу Personal Finance After 50 For Dummies - Eric Tyson - Страница 58

The Society of Actuaries conducted some interesting focus groups with folks early in their retirement years. They honed in on people who had investment portfolios of at least $100,000 and who needed that money along with their Social Security and pension benefits to meet their retirement expenses.

Most of these people didn’t consult advisors and plan all that much for their retirement. Instead, they were more concerned with quitting work by a particular age. A number of focus group participants commented that their retirement decision came down to a “feeling” that they could swing it. Consider these comments from three different retirees:

 “I thought you were supposed to retire when you are about 65, and thought I would try it.”

 “I never sat down and thought, ‘I am 59, and in 30 years I’ll be 89. Have I allocated enough for 30 years?’ I never did that. Theoretically, I should have.”

 “We take it day by day. I can’t worry about what is going to happen tomorrow.”

The focus groups also found that retirees were spending more than they expected on entertainment and travel, prescription drugs, and gas. It also wasn’t unusual for retirees to overlook inflation. And finally, although retirees were concerned about the potential for high medical and long-term care expenses, they did little planning around those expected expenses.

The lesson to be learned from all this is that you must have realistic expectations and proper assumptions when planning for your retirement. For more about managing your expenses in retirement, see Chapter 6.