Have you ever thought about what retirement looks like and realize you have no clue where to start? If so, you're not alone on today's episode, we're going to help you with setting goals for retirement. And you're gonna wanna stick around to the end where we answer one of our listener questions. And the answer to that question can actually help save you taxes and retirement, all that more on today's episode of the retire.

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Hello, and welcome to the retire. Want show, show designed to help you get to retirement, but most importantly, stay retired. I'm your host, Jonathan Rankin. I'm the founder and CEO of theorem wealth management. And I am joined by my lovely cohost. Hi, I'm Melissa Rankin. Thanks for joining us. We are so excited to be here today.

We've got a really great show for. Over the past couple of weeks. Now we've spent a lot of time talking about markets, recessions, interest rates, and how all those different types of things can impact your retirement. Um, but then we think it was important to just take a step back and let's go back to step one and that's what we're going to do today.

So what's step one. You know, I think it's important that we start talking about how do you actually set goals retirement? And I know that might sound basic, but I think it's an exercise it's often overlooked, especially for those planning or thinking about. I feel like goal setting in general is usually overlooked.

I mean, think about losing weight. You're like, ah, yeah, I want to lose 10 pounds, but I'm not going to change anything I'm doing. I think it's even more than that. I think how many people just say I need to get in better shape or yeah, a lot more or I need to, yeah, I need to lose weight, but they don't actually say I need to lose this much.

Or, you know, we hear this a lot. I want to start, I want to travel. Yeah. Well, what does that really mean? Where do you want to go? Do you just, I mean, is it traveling if you just went to the grocery store while you traveled in your car? So I guess so today we're going to talk about how to set goals for retirement and really just an exercise you could do at home.

Especially if you're retired already. Maybe it's something that you haven't actually gone through, and you're definitely gonna wanna stick around to the end where we answer one of our listener questions that might help save you taxes and return. But before we jump right into that, what do we want people to do?

Oh, definitely. Subscribe hit that button. That nice big red button. If you're watching this on YouTube, or if you're listening to us on any podcast platform, make sure you hit the subscribe button. So that way you're notified. Every time we come out with an episode and, uh, you can really join this community that we're.

And like us and the five stars, all that's important, all those things. That's right. See, I I'm spacing. I'm spacing on it, but still equally important, very important. That's actually most important, but, uh, you know, we hear clients talking about retiring and usually I think what we hear often is that it's about, they just don't want to work anymore.

Right there, ready to retire. So they're done working. So it's kind of like I'm ready to retire. But what does that, and that's, I think the bigger question is, okay, what does that really mean? Is that really the, you know, is it all about just not working anymore? I mean, what are you going to do with your days and it's going to be, what does it look like?

What does retirement actually mean to you? Zia, we're going to take a look at answering the question of what do you actually want to do in retirement. And then next week we're going to spend some time going over. How can you actually afford those things? And if you can't afford them, how do you actually pay.

So where, where do we start? Where does, uh, where does someone start? I think when you're starting out with any type of goals, you've got to start pen to paper. I think that's going to be, and you know, one of the first questions that I ask, every single person that I've ever talked to is asked about retirement planning.

I always ask him, what does retirement actually look like? And what do you think the most common answer is? Um, It's it's usually I don't want to work and I've no clue what it looks like. And I think a lot of people who are currently retired or those that are even thinking about retiring every time they think about retirement goals, it always comes down to income replacement.

It's, you know, the retirement goal is an income replacement, but I don't think that's really. What retirement's about. It should be more fulfilling than that. It should be. What's your purpose? I mean, most people go through their days before retirement and it's, you're going to work. You're working live. I mean, vice versa.

Well, now you have five extra Saturdays to fill. I mean, what are you going to do? Great. It does sound great, but no, you know, I don't think many people have really thought of what do those days actually look like? What are you actually going to be doing during the day? Uh, what are you going to be doing?

You know, for fun because hopefully every day is fun, but what does that actually look like? And for most people, this is the first time in their life where nobody's telling them what to do. I mean, you think about, you know, when you're a kid, you got your parents telling you what to do. You've got to college instructors telling you what to do, work boss telling you what to do.

Yes. That's. I have a spouse telling me what's this. So lovingly very lovingly. Um, but now it's that first time where stepping into that, you know, that space of life, where nobody's here to tell you what to do, you get to choose what life looks like. And I think it's important to think about what you actually do every day, as opposed to thinking what is my income replacement going to be?

Because that's not what retirement's about. That's, what's going to fund your retirement, but taking a moment to think. What does everyday look like is going to be important and obviously allow for change because, uh, I don't know who can map out every single day of their life, you know? Well, why would you want to, yeah, that doesn't sound like fun at all.

So where do we think people should start? I mean, I think that you should start with writing. Like we talked about writing everything down and you were talking earlier that you think it should be in how many categories. So I think writing things down first is just, you know, write down a list. Everything that you would like to do that you want to do, that you need to do that you dream of.

You just write down everything that you can imagine doing in retirement that would really fulfill you and make you a very generalist, just a very long list without dollar values, don't put any, any financial value on anything. And then after. Then you're going to start lumping that entire list into three different categories and that's, you know, then, okay, so you've got your needs category.

That's everything that you need. Housing insurance, you know, food, all of those things, but then hairstylists, you know what I mean? Her car wash, if you listened to a previous episode, which I did today also, and then the next category is the wants, you know, what do you want to do? So maybe, maybe you get to travel or maybe, maybe you want to take an occasional trip.

You know, maybe every couple of years you'd like to get a new car. Uh, maybe you love a certain hobby. You're a golfer and you want a new, you know, a new set of clubs. Yeah, you love photography. So you want a new camera, you know, what are those things that you would, that you really would want? And then I think the third category is what are the luxuries that you would love to do if, if you could afford it and it's this like a dream vacation type thing, a dream vacation, maybe, you know, you can throw yacht on there.

But I know, I know a number of clients who said they would love to take their entire family on a cruise, or I hear that a lot actually, you know, they would love to pay for their grandkids college or there's a certain charity that they, you know, are very passionate about. And they'd love to get more involved and donate more there.

Once you have that list put together of everything that you want to do again with no dollar amounts, no dollar amounts, just what you do next. Then you could start putting a price tag on. Then you start estimate. Now, obviously, if you want to go on a cruise with your entire face. You might not know, and you don't have to do the research figure out.

Okay. Well, if you know, if I've got 20 people in the family and we're all going, it's $400. You don't have to. We're paying for everybody. Oh, okay. Entire family. Well, that's the thing is that cousin X and X.

Oh, that's good. Uh, I think that's a good one. The X. And if you have an X, a and she's so close, I don't know. Start by putting that list together and then start putting dollar values after you put the list together. And so that's going to take a little while that's not an exercise that can be done in 20 minutes.

Really take some time to think about it. And that's really the exercise that we want people to do over the next week, because you're going to want to make sure to tune in next week, because that's what we're gonna help answer the question of. Okay. How do you know if you can afford. Yeah, you've got this list of all these things that you would like to do that you need to do, that you want to do, and that you dream of doing, how do you know if you can actually afford it?

And then we're going to walk you through, okay, well, how do you actually pay for it? So those that's what we're going to walk through next episode. But I think it's important to start and give ample time to really come up with that list, because I think it's harder than most people think. And that's why a lot of people don't do it.

And one thing to keep in mind, Make sure that your spouse is part of this exercise as well. So we highly recommend that the amount of times that we've sat down with a couple and one person is a primary, you know, person who handles the finances and the relationship and the other one is very hands-off and you ask them about what they actually want to do in retirement.

And there are completely different answers. We get a lot of the men want to golf or do things like that. And the wife's like, well, I was hoping we were going to spend more time together. So we highly recommend. Talking it over with your spouse. So here's a question I have for you. What, and I've never asked you this question before, what do you want to do in retirement?

I'll spend more time with you. Of course. I know. But yeah, aside for spending time with me, what does, what would you like to do retire? What does retirement look like for you? Oh gosh, I've been semiretired now for, uh, our kids are three and five. No, I'm not retired, but in retirement I'd like to travel. We try traveled a ton, um, prior to having children.

And I'd like to get back to that. So travel. And what else? Anything else that you'd want to do? It's on that list? I'd want to pay for our kids to go to college. Oh, you did. Well, I mean, fingers crossed that they're smart enough and get a scholarship. However, let's play on here. C whereas for me, I look at retirement as I would love to travel.

I think traveling, enjoying the food right there. We have one of the same, but I don't know if I want to send, I don't know if I want to pay for Harvey and I'm ready to go to school. Maybe they, I think they got to work for it a little bit. You know, we worked for it. Yeah. But kids these days, am I right?

That's something where they're we have differing opinions. We haven't even started to really dig deep into, on the spot with that. So, so these are things that I think it is important to take some time and go through. And I can tell you that once we stop recording this episode, I get to hear all about all the things of why we should be paying for our kids' college.

So, uh, again, there are three and five. Yes, we've got some time. You know, one thing to keep in mind, if you are having trouble with this step, and you really don't know where to start, you can check out our retirement toolkit, which we are linked to in the show notes, you can download that. It's got an interactive goals worksheet that can help you through this conversation.

Um, so with that in mind, let's switch gears a little bit to the question that we got from a listener last week, we got a question from Linda and she wanted to know what do you believe most retirees often overlook. So when I first read this. I thought about it for a little while, because I think there are so many things that, you know, that we can think about that are constantly overlooked.

I think the most, the most overlooked aspect of retirement planning that I found is the importance and the power of an HSA account or a health savings. I think it's extremely underutilized and a lot of people don't understand the difference between an HSA or an FSA, or, I mean, can you go into that a little bit?

Yeah. So on a high level, you know, uh, an FSA or a flex spending account, that's one of those accounts that your employer puts together for you. And if you don't use those funds in the calendar year, then you. Oh, use it or lose it. I don't want that. And whereas, a, an HSA, you contribute your money and it's the only account there is that is triple tax advantage.

So what is a triple tax advantage? So triple tax advantage is you have tax-free contributions. You have tax-free growth and you have tax-free withdrawals. If you use those funds for qualified medical exams. Now the reason why I feel like this is so important is because what is one of the biggest concerns that we hear retirees talk about medical costs, rising cost of health insurance and medical care, because it's the unexpected stuff.

I mean, you're getting older in age, you start thinking about stuff like. So you think about now you have this account that you can, you know, let grow tax-free and you have tax free withdrawals to use for that number one concern. And that's why I'm always, you know, kind of baffled with how few people actually utilize this.

Now, there is a big difference. A lot of people confuse, you know, an HSA with a Roth IRA. Um, they are different, you know, a Roth IRA is meant for, you know, it is a retirement account, whereas an H. Traditionally is meant for, you know, health savings. So you can use it at any time. You don't have to wait until you're 59 and a half to tap into it.

Um, but unlike a Roth where, you know, Roth does not offer that triple tax benefit because the money you contribute to a Roth, you had to pay taxes on and then you put it in. And so, uh, you get that triple tax advantage with an HSA. And the other thing is that you don't have, there's no income limits on NHS.

That's very important. So if you're a high-income earner, you might have, you might be phased out of a Roth. We know a lot of clients have gotten phased out of Roths and they've always thought, well, I'd love to save into a Roth IRA. I just, I have no way of doing that. Uh, so this gives you the ability to save into an HSA.

Now there are limits every single year, uh, as to how much you can contribute to how much you can. So for 2022, an individual can contribute, uh, $3,650. Uh, for a family, you can attribute $7,300. And then there is the catch-up contribution. If you're over 55, that is a thousand dollars. So you still quite a bit, quite a bit of money and you can allow that to grow over time.

If you're not tapping into it to use it for medical expenses. Now, one of the downsides. Is that the money does have to be used for qualified medical expenses. So, so do you mean like prescriptions copays, things like that, all of those things are covered, but let's just say you need, you want the funds to use for a car.

Well, at that point, you're going to pay, you know, that the withdrawal will be taxable and you're going to pay a 20% penalty. Oh, so, so really use it for health. Use it for health, another potential downside to an HSA. Is it to qualify for it? You actually have to be a part of a high deductible health plan.

So you can't be part of a PPO. No. So you have to be in a high deductible plan and the IRS does have Le uh, have qualifications of what a high deductible plan is. A high deductible plan based on the IRS is a deductible of at least $1,400 for an individual and $2,800 for a family. And it does have yearly out of pocket limits of $7,050 for an individual and 14,000 for a, for a family.

So now determining whether or not you choose a high deductible plan or a low deductible is. That is going to be based on your individual needs. I mean, if like your family's needs. Yeah. So if you have, you know, chronic health issues or you are utilizing, you know, medical expenses, quite small clumsy children, and you never know what to expect, then you might want to consider a low deductible plan.

But if you're generally in pretty good health and you don't anticipate any major medical expenses, you might want to look at a high deductible plan so that you can qualify for NHS. And save as much as you can there and just, you know, get all those tax benefits. Look at the tax management, let it grow. So that way, you know, growth compounds over time.

So if you look at this as, you know, another account, this might be able to fully fund the majority of your health expenses in retirement and have saved you taxes along the way. So I think to answer Linda's question to me, this is the most overlooked, uh, thing that retirees or, uh, So to answer Linda's question to me, this is what most retirees often overlooked is just utilizing an HSA in a way that they think about it from a retirement perspective, not just I'm going to save this money and then use it for my prescriptions this year, but really I'm going to contribute to this over the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years.

And this is going to fund my medical when I'm working. So it's really a long-term tool, if it makes sense for you and your family, if it makes sense to be on a high deductible plan. Absolutely. So thank you, Linda, for that great question. Absolutely. And if you do have any questions that you'd like answered on the.

What were you just have questions in general. Uh, we're going to link to the email in the show notes, and there's also a link there where you can schedule a call with us. If you have more detailed questions that you don't necessarily want to answer on the show, we're always happy to talk over the next week.

Make sure you take a little time, write out that list of everything that you do it with your spouse, do it with your spouse, but write out that list of everything you want. Everything you need, you dream of in retirement and make that list and then start throwing some dollar values at it and make sure to tune in next week where we talk.

You know how you can determine whether or not you can afford those goals. And if you can't afford it, how do you actually pay for it? And if you still need help, make sure to download that retirement toolkit, which will link to below or in the show notes. And lastly, before we get out of here, what we want people to do, we want you to subscribe like us five stars, all that stuff.

Absolutely. Thank you so much. I'm Jonathan Rankin and I'm Melissa Rankin. Thanks for.

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