Retirement Planning New York NY

By: Jonas Zamora
Jonas Zamora is a Certified Financial PlannerTM professional. You may contact him at jzamora@zacks.com

Closing in on retirement?

Are you closing in on retirement? If your goal is to retire in the next five years, you are in that critical stage in the retirement planning cycle. You have to take care of details like your 401(k) distributions or rollover, exercise of stock options, pension distributions, and when to take social security payments. Then there's figuring out what you need to draw out of your investments when that big day arrives. What you do in the first five years after retirement will also play a key role over the following 25-30 years.

First, let's discuss your first steps five years before going off into retirement bliss:

1. Put more money away. I read an article that says we are saving too much for retirement. That is bunk! Let's say your retirement target is 65 years of age. Most of you will be able to and should contribute extra to your 401(k) after reaching 50 years of age. That amount is $15,500 per year plus catch up amount of $5,000. Over a 15-year time frame for someone who is 50 years old today, assuming a 7% annual return, the savings by age 65 amounts to over $500,000. Without the extra $5000 in contributions, you would only have around $376,000.

2. Over the last year to two years before retirement, consider being more conservative in your 401(k). Don't leave a majority of these assets in employer stock! If the market takes a nosedive, you still have a great base to invest and live off of when you retire. Diversify.

3. Remember to exercise those in-the-money stock options. Many folks get so excited about their last day at the office, they forget about exercising the valuable stock options while still profitable.

4. Place money in an emergency fund with 1-2 years worth of living expenses in a cash or CD account....

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