Retire Confidently, Part 2: The Final 5 Tips to Secure Your Future

If you’re in your 50s and wondering how to retire within the next decade, this episode is for you. Tony and Derek pick up where last week’s discussion left off, revealing the final five tips to strengthen your financial plan and protect your retirement dreams.

They dive deep into practical strategies—protecting against inflation, managing healthcare costs, optimizing insurance, stress-testing your plan, and building a retirement lifestyle that’s both realistic and rewarding.

You’ll learn how to:
 ✅ Hedge your nest egg against inflation’s hidden impact
 ✅ Maximize HSA and health-care planning strategies
 ✅ Reevaluate insurance coverage and eliminate unnecessary costs
 ✅ Stress-test your plan for market downturns and tax changes
 ✅ Build a bucket-list lifestyle without breaking your budget

It’s not just about retiring—it’s about retiring right.

📧 Questions or want a personalized plan? Contact the team at info@swpconnect.com
.

Transcript

0:01

If you tuned in. Last week, we started a discussion of ten ways that if you're in your mid 50s, you can retire within the next ten years. We got ten tips, ten strategies that can help change the way that you retire without changing your lifestyle. Heard. Go. Hey, Tony, what's going on? Not much, man. New week, new show. But it's just a continuation of last week. Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, last week, we, we hit the, kind of the first five tips. You know, if you're in your mid 50s, what you can do to retire on time, you know, without sacrificing your current lifestyle. Yeah. So just to hit on the first five is, you know, get a budget, get your numbers right, eliminate bad debt, credit cards, car loans, home equity lines, things like that. Focus on paying down your debt before you retire, maxed out your retirement account so you got money to retire. Rethink your investment mix, right? Are you too aggressive or are you too conservative? You got to figure this out. We talked about that last week. And then also like, hey, is there a opportunity for create a second income stream, some type of side hustle, something you enjoy doing to help that extra income so that it is helping either eliminate that or a new stream to invest. Right. So those were the first five. Let's get into the next five. All right. So so yeah number six protect against inflation. So you know, we've been talking about this for years. You know, even a 3% inflation, you know, that's going to cut your purchasing power in half in 24 years. So, you know, I wanted to take a little left turn here, because something I, you know, I've been seeing lately. Tony, I don't know if you have seen it, but, the, on our Monte Carlo, presentations, the the one page summary, we talk about something called the, the median ending estate value. Yeah. And, you know, basically through the financial plan, that's where, you know, I start kind of our best calculation of kind of how much money you'll have left at the end of the plan. But what is in there now is a present value calculation. So, and it's pretty eye opening. Good. Right. Good. Because, every time I would show that to somebody would be like, hey, you're ending estate values$3 million. We're like, Tony, I don't even have $3 million today. And I'm like, good point. But I don't know what $3 million looks like in 30 years. Yeah. So yeah, the the last couple plans I've done and I did one yesterday, you know that number has been on there. So awesome. You know it was it was a big number at the end. You know say something like you know 8 million. Right. But and that's more than, than we were starting with. But this is, you know, well in advance, 35 year plan, right. And you know, that $8 million was only going to feel like about 1.5 million in today's dollars. So. And you know what? That's a good way. I know you're bringing that up. Like, in my mind, that's a good way. Be like, hey, am I preserving capital right. And also what does it look like on the legacy side. Yeah. Right. So good. That's awesome. So yeah. So you know that that's a good you know. And I feel like the same type of conversations I have with people who are investing in CDs. And again you know that could be, you know, the 70 year old retiree or that could be, you know, a 50 year old, you know, just wanting to be safe. You know, long story short, the there's nothing wrong with it. But if you're investing in CDs, more than likely you are losing out to inflation. Right? So, you know, we we want to have a safe bucket. Right. For sure. No, no no question about that. But you know, understand that in your overall investment mix, you know, we need to make sure we're protecting against inflation. And we've been able to kind of see the power of inflation more so over the last, you know, four years. Yep. I mean, think about this like you get a 4.5% CD and everyone's going to maybe do backflips down Rockside Road. Who knows? But then you subtract out 3% inflation, you're left with one and a half, then you got to pay taxes on that. So yep. You're you're earning 1% on a net basis. Right. And I can go on and on. But like when you really strip out what you got, like against some of the Invisibles and inflation is invisible headwind. Yeah. Taxes. You know, that's visible. I see that every year on April 15th. Right. So but think about that. You know that's a quick math on what a 4.5% could really net pay you on the net basis. Next one nail down health care coverage. You know, the thing with health care is, it it changes. So much almost annually. Like it feels that way. I'm I take care of the benefits here at our company. I get to see all this stuff, and, I get educated once a year, and I'm like, oh, my God. It's like, just constant, you know, confusion. But the thing is, it's like, I think the best thing here, if you have access to a high deductible plan. Right? So that then opens up the the health savings account, the HSA account. Good way to save for money, for future retiree or for future health care when you do retire. Because just because you put the money in, you get a tax advantage. It grows like a Roth IRA for health care. But all these things. But you, as you're making money in every day and every day situation, while you're still working, maybe preserve the HSA, don't put money in just to spend it. All right? Maybe you just you spend your cash flow. Yeah. This might have conflicting things like we talked about last time, like saving more money, things like that. But it is a different form of savings. It's it's it's a Roth IRA for health care costs when you need it in the future when you retire. So just a quick idea on that. Any thoughts on that there? Yeah. Just one more thing I'll add. You know, just just make sure we're we're planning for the costs, you know, because they are going to be significant. And, you know, little things, right. Like some employers that I have seen, especially the larger ones around town, might actually kick in for your insurance costs after you retire. If something like that is in your situation, it is an absolutely huge benefit to have. So, you know, make sure that the, you know, you know, about that, make sure you know, your benefits, so you can properly plan for the cost, especially if you're trying to, you know, retire before or 65, because if you're retiring before 65, you know, you you need to make sure those health care costs are planned for in your budget. Right. Next one don't don't neglect insurance. I it's it's one of those things like you when you're paying for and you don't use it like it's irritating, but when something happens it's going to help. Right. And, my mind goes immediately to, like, life insurance. But we could be talking about disability, long term care coverage. I can hit on all of those for a while, actually, but, like, but, like, think about, like, life insurance, like in when you're in your 30s and 40s, you have a mortgage. You are still planning to work for maybe the next 20, 30 years, whatever that number might be. And if you if something tragic were to happen and I would like just for me exam, I would do disappear. Never. I passed away. There's 30 years of income that's missed, right. Like I have an int. I have a life insurance policy that will take care of that money. If something were to happen to me tomorrow. Now, I do reevaluated every five years because I'm five years closer to retirement. Right. So like there's things like it needs to move in here, even change. So just keep that in mind because maybe you had insurance just to protect your home. Make sure, hey, if something happens, at least the house is paid off. Yep. Well, maybe your house is nearly paid off. Or maybe it's maybe it's half paid off. Like, maybe you can save money by cutting the the death benefit in half the like. These are just different ideas. But like, don't get rid of it altogether. You know, I just had a case example, like a client asked me, they, they have they are spending like $20,000 a year on insurance because that's always what they've done. Yeah. If if, you know, if Joel can't go to work, I'm screwed. Right. And what the wife was telling me and essentially. And I just said we did an analysis and said, hey, I built a morbid financial plan. I Joel died today. Yeah, it clipped them. Yeah. And I told my wife, I'm like, hey, you're still going to be fine. You can actually eliminate this insurance and save $20,000 a year and not and still make it. And and not have to sweat it. We had to prove it through numbers. And then she just turned the light switch off. Now she, like, she's trimming it over the next couple of years so that she can feel comfortable with it. But we proved it on a, on a very conservative level. That she, they didn't need all this insurance and spend all this money, so, but they are trimming it. But that's an example, right. So anything to add. Yeah. You know, real quick. Are you als you know, they're they're boring. Not fun to talk about. But, you know, there's a lot of benefits to them. So, you know, you have to identify your goals. You have to understand what you want to do. But just because some insurance is expensive doesn't mean that it might not be right for you. You know, I always think of the, the life insurance policies that offer, basically 2% of the death benefit per month if you need long term care. So, you know, if you can, you know, kill multiple birds with one stone. And those are goals of yours, you know, that that could be a good way to, to protect against those those risks. Yep. The next one. Number nine. I love this one the most. I talk about it. It's it's a it's a planning thing, but it's a stress test. What if what if this happens? So, like, what if the what if you retire in the market goes down 20%? We build that as a senior. Our planning software is sophisticated enough so that we can build these scenarios. Like the worst thing that can possibly happen. You retire, you're done earning, you're done saving. You're now spending in the market drops 20%. Well, you make. It all right. Like that's going to be a very scary moment right. So we simulate that. What if inflation spikes. We can stimulate that. What if taxes increase in the future. Good possibility. We're going broke as a nation. Yeah. It's possible. What if we increase taxes by 20%? Will you make it then? What if you want to retire early, right. Would you. Would you rather retire early or retire later? Right. Everyone's like, get me out of here. So, unexpected expenses, you know, like building in again. This could be. I've done this on some plans based on conversations, you know, with people that maybe have older homes that they're already getting into renovations. Like, I'm just going to build in a $7,000 a year house maintenance budget. If you spend it. But it was accounted for. If you don't, it was accounted foreign and for a future year. Right? Right. So just different ideas for the stress test, the what ifs. Yep. Absolutely. You know, it's you don't want a financial plan that just ekes you across the finish line at optimal conditions. Right? Right. But that is not going to be, something that is, that is going to to tell you too much and, you know, it can break easily. Right? We don't want to get you retired. And seven years down the road there's a recession. The market pulls back 20% and now all of a sudden you can, you know, spend what you want to per month. Yeah. You you have to make sure that is not just the base case that works. That is also the downside scenarios that you're worried about are worried about. Yeah. And to top this off, going in a number ten it segways perfectly again into this is like your plan isn't just like pass fail. Like let's ask the planning. Let's ask the plan questions. What does your retirement look like? What do you want to do? What are you going to do when you not working 40 to 50 hours a week? What do you what do you how are you going to fill that gap? And this is the bucket list. This is the fun stuff Tanya, man I've been wanting to go to, you know, Europe for a month. Cool. All right. Well, that sounds like 25 grand. Let's go about it. Right. Well, just hypothetically. Right. I want to go on a cruise every year now. Okay, let's build in a vacation budget now. Right? Like, let's actually account for it so that, you know, you can spend ten grand a year, on a vacation and feel good when that number could be 25. Whatever the number you like, it looks like for you. I want to. I've always wanted a sports car. Okay, let's let's see what? That. Let's simulate it. Right. Gifting. I want to start seeing my kids see some of this money. What about, like, Roth conversions, right? Like, we we can build that into the plan, but that could either be a legacy tool to pass on to the next generation a tax free account, and also eliminate RMDs on your end. So, yeah, I really like this. It's not just a plan. Pass fail. Can I like, hey, let's build in what you really want to do and see what we can get away with. Yep. Absolutely. That, you know, you hit it perfectly, I wrote down anticipate the issues. Thank you. You know, the you hit everything perfectly. It's like, the quick start line. You talk first, I stop stealing your thunder, man. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You know, I'm throwing a joke here. It's like, like the Cleveland Browns, you know, signing. Stop. There it. You can stop there. The 100. And $60 million contract and then being like, oh, hey, we stink. Maybe we should trade them. Yeah, I was just talking. I was just talking to you and Chris, the engineer. Like, I saw this, this, this, I don't know, this diagram where it's like in the middle of the diagram, the x y axis, the middle is like an average team. They're good at offense and defense. Like the Browns are completely polar opposite. Our defense is off the chart aiming no one and all. Their defense is near what we have, what our offense is the worst. Yeah it's terrible. Something that was easy to anticipate. Yeah. And nothing nothing happened. And that that's what you got. So that's a good parallel to your retirement plan. Let's this anticipate the things that we know are out there and you know, plan around it so we can be successful. Yep. So, but yeah, this was an awesome list over the last two weeks. So, you know, if you guys have any questions, if you have questions on planning, maybe you're in your mid 50s and you're looking to talk to someone about these tips, you know, hit us up at info at us connect.com and we'll talk to you next week. The opinions expressed in the podcast. Are for general informational purposes only, and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any investment, legal, financial or tax strategy. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. Please consult a qualified professional about your individual needs.