As many of you know, Laura and I are avid sporting clay shooters. We love the sport and anytime we can get out and shoot is always a good day. I equate a lot of what we do, retirement planning with shooting sporting clay's, as both require hitting a moving target. What we have found over the years and doing hundreds of plans is that your retirement plan is not a stationary target. Many people and lots of other financial professionals think there is just one target that you should focus on, whether it is the amount of money you should have saved up, the returns you should have, the house that needs to be paid off, ect. You get the idea. The picture on the left illustrates that perfectly. You have focused your cross hairs on just one thing and that is going to be your retirement target. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but your monocular retirement picture is going to let you down.
There are very few things in life that are constant except for death and taxes as the old saying goes. Your retirement isn't going to remain stationary so you can align the cross hairs and score the bullseye. Your retirement target is constantly moving. You need to be able to keep your sight picture open and your strategy's must move with the target, just like the shotgun barrel. The 2 pictures on the right illustrate that also. Your retirement target includes inflation, medical expenses, taxes, market cycles, and being able to adjust your portfolio to take all of that into account so you enough money to do the things that will make the last half of your life fulfilling.
The weather is warming up, more of you are getting vaccinated which is a good thing. If you are interested in learning more, call me and we can go shooting up at Limestone Hunting Preserve and Sporting Clay's and you can see for yourself how to hit a moving target.
Mike
Mike Mickels is President of CochranMickels Retirement Specialists and an avid sporting clay competitor. CochranMickels Retirement Specialists provides personalized planning and investment services to individuals approaching and in retirement. They also provide retirement and benefits training to Federal employees. Securities offered through Registered Representatives of Cambridge Investment Research, Inc., a broker-dealer, member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc, a Registered Investment Advisor. CochranMickels and Cambridge are not affiliated.