Planning for retirement
KEILA SZPALLER Montana 55 Here’s one planning tip for your financial portfolio: Check your family health history. That bit of advice comes from Bob Seidenschwarz, a financial adviser with SG Long Financial. “What is your current state of health? What is your family’s health history? Is there longevity in your family of origin ?” Seidenschwarz said. “This becomes an important consideration.” Current events can also create stresses as people plan for their futures. How do they consider the effects of the coronavirus, for instance, or global warming? If you own stocks such as Amazon, Google or Starbucks, which has operations in China, how do you assess the effects of the coronavirus on the markets? 10 Spring 2020
Seidenschwarz, in the business some 30 years and based in Missoula, said people have access to a lot of educational materials, but sometimes, it helps to sit down with an expert. “I think having a conversation with a professional is helpful to put things in its proper perspective,” Seidenschwarz said. Remember, he said, there are and will be events that can be unsettling, but over the long term, wealth is still being created. Earlier this year, Seidenschwarz answered some questions from the Missoulian about planning for retirement. Here’s a Q&A adapted from that interview. Q. If you’re coming up on 55 and looking at another decade or so of work, how you should be looking at your financial portfolio? A. Now, you are given an end game to what then becomes that magical word,
retirement. So that’s where we have to start thinking about, what actually does retirement look like and mean to you? It’s a question I pose to people so they can start having that conversation with their spouses, significant others or themselves. And we attach a lot of nice sounding terminology to retirement. These are your golden years, your freedom to do what you wish, to travel. While that’s appealing, what we tend to forget is that our characteristics and habits are pretty well-established by the time we are 55 years old. In terms of what that looks like, I would do a check of, ‘Who am I? What is my personality? What do I enjoy doing?’ And measure that against the resources you’re going to have available 10 years hence. Q. What are the top mistakes to avoid at this time?
