Dear Friends and Family,
I must be the only person in all of America who looks forward to reviewing my retirement accounts. On the last trading day of every month I update a file I have been maintaining since January of 2010 with all of the information on how our retirement accounts are performing. And then the file spits out how much money we would have per month for retirement if we retired right now.
Before I had this file we would meet quarterly with our investment adviser and we would look at our portfolio together. Once a year we'd get an update on our overall retirement plan scenarios. It was useful, but I never really understood the math in the different scenarios. I wanted different assumptions and the cookie cutter plans couldn't really accommodate my wants so my adviser would jury rig it to make it work, but it never felt right.
With my own sheet, I can type in whatever assumptions I want about social security, college, lifespan, cost of living adjustments, etc. to get to an outcome I feel comfortable with. It might mean we're saving more than we need to, but I'd rather have money left over than be short because expenses went up faster than people thought they would.
Well, tomorrow is our retirement review. So, I've got my fingers crossed that nothing bounces the market around too much between now and tomorrow afternoon. I know it's only a snapshot in time, but it's still nice to record a happy snapshot.
Cheers!
mouse
I must be the only person in all of America who looks forward to reviewing my retirement accounts. On the last trading day of every month I update a file I have been maintaining since January of 2010 with all of the information on how our retirement accounts are performing. And then the file spits out how much money we would have per month for retirement if we retired right now.
Before I had this file we would meet quarterly with our investment adviser and we would look at our portfolio together. Once a year we'd get an update on our overall retirement plan scenarios. It was useful, but I never really understood the math in the different scenarios. I wanted different assumptions and the cookie cutter plans couldn't really accommodate my wants so my adviser would jury rig it to make it work, but it never felt right.
With my own sheet, I can type in whatever assumptions I want about social security, college, lifespan, cost of living adjustments, etc. to get to an outcome I feel comfortable with. It might mean we're saving more than we need to, but I'd rather have money left over than be short because expenses went up faster than people thought they would.
Well, tomorrow is our retirement review. So, I've got my fingers crossed that nothing bounces the market around too much between now and tomorrow afternoon. I know it's only a snapshot in time, but it's still nice to record a happy snapshot.
Cheers!
mouse
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