Hello, this is Matt Porter with Cornerstone Advisory Group. I wanted to talk today about one of the most common questions that we get about retirement, which is how much am I going to spend in retirement?
One of the things that I do with my clients is to talk with them about their current budget and see what expenses are going to fall off during retirement to try to get to a somewhat level set of spending when you're in retirement versus where you're at today. Sometimes expenses can fall off like mortgages or car payments. Sometimes you're not saving in 401ks or other savings vehicles that you may need to account for. We try to do our best, but it's not a perfect science. And oftentimes when you get into retirement, there's a transition period where you have to look at what we've been spending, what it's taking to live, and how do we bridge the gap if we need to.
One of the jokes that I have with my clients is that there's three phases to retirement. There's the go-go years, the slow-go years, and the no-go years. And oftentimes your spending will track that. When you're in the go-go years, you may spend more on travel and other things, active living, but as you age and your health doesn't permit, sometimes those expenses tend to slow down. And sometimes we will adjust spending accordingly as clients age and as their lifestyle changes.
The biggest thing is to do the best you can. There's no perfect science with what you're going to spend in retirement. You do the best you can and you monitor and you adjust accordingly. If this is something you'd like to talk about, we'd love to visit with you. Give us a call, go to our website, and check out some of the information we have on this very topic. Thank you.