5 Steps To A Simple Retirement Plan

0:05Welcome to the Wealthy After 40 podcast, the show for Gen X women and couples who are ready to ditch financial stress and feel confident about retirement. I'm your host, Dailene Higgins, money coach and retirement strategist to help you gain clarity and confidence with your money by creating a spending plan that aligns with your financial goals and dreams so you can spend intentionally, save consistently, and feel at peace about your future. Join me every week to understand your money, simplify your decisions, and take intentional steps toward the life you want.

0:49A real retirement plan isn't a spreadsheet or a formula you memorize. It's five elements working together. So by the end of this episode, you will know how to create a simple retirement plan using these five elements and which one to start with this week. So if you're looking to go deeper into these elements, I hope you will join me inside the Vision to Action Sprint, which is happening later this month. So most individuals feel behind or not certain that they're going to retire. And it's honestly because you just don't have a plan yet. Creating in some certain pieces to help you start seeing and creating a plan.

1:37But then most people are like, how do I make a plan? What is a retirement plan? What are the steps? And all of those things. And like I said last episode, they immediately go to how much do I need to save? Because it's all about money. And this not only skips the element that drives motivation, but it's also the element that shapes all other elements. If you don't have that element done, it's harder to create the plan. and I'm going to share with you why that is. So the five pieces or the five elements of a simple retirement plan, we start with your vision. So I know we talked about this a little bit last week, but before any numbers that you can get for retirement, we need to understand what retirement is going to look like.

2:41Specifics, not a generic image. Where do you live? What does a Tuesday look like? Are you working part-time or have you fully stepped away? Do you have a second home? Are you traveling? It's this vision, the more granular you get, meaning the more specific you are, this vision becomes your annual expense number. And so it's not just a feel-good exercise, it's the foundation of everything else it sits on. So I know clients come to me and they're like, how do I maintain lifestyle in retirement? It's understanding what retirement lifestyle is, if you're carrying it forward or what it is, and then it pieces together that number.

3:35So if you took action from the last episode and you are already started sketching your vision, this is where that pays off. And inside the sprint, I'm going to show you how that quote rough vision turns into an actual retirement number. We'll talk about it a little bit here, But in the sprint, we're going to really make sure you understand how all of these element pieces come together. So element number two is your number. You heard me, your number and your gap. There isn't just a flat, you got to have this much saved before retirement. That's not how it works. Okay, so the next element is your calculations.

4:23And you input either your vision-based annual expenses. And there takes a little bit of work to get there. And if you're like, I'm not sure what that means. Your current expenses on an annual stance will work as well. This is going to give you how much am I spending? And then it's also going to determine where your current savings, retirement savings trajectory has you landing? What's it going to grow to? So I've built a free calculator that takes these two numbers and shows you your target, your estimated target number, your estimated retirement savings, and then it gives you your quote gap. Now this gap is not a verdict.

5:07It's not, it's not diagnostic. Having this information is helpful to know how to start closing the gap. So their link to the calculator is in the show notes or head over to LinkedIn or Facebook or Instagram and just DM me calculator and I'll send you the link and you can easily bookmark that and use that over time. But hopefully it will give you that element number two of your number and your gap. So the element three is your budget. And yes, I heard all of the size, all of the haul, but the budget is the system that helps you know what decisions to make. And we talked about that in the last episode, knowing what decisions to make, where am I going to get momentum?

6:06So for the last element where we had our gap, and it also drops a piece of my retirement acceleration framework, which is the next element, you have to have a budget to know how to start working that framework into pieces. And we're going to cover that in a minute. But just know that budgeting is a plan to get you to retirement. A budget is your control piece that's going to guide you there. It's not restricting you. It's not preventing you from doing anything. It's your drawing on the board to see if I move this piece here and this piece here and do this and do that, retirement will happen in five years.

6:54Honestly, it comes from your budget. Calculator is helpful, but the budget is even more powerful. So element number four, as I mentioned, is a piece of the framework from my retirement acceleration framework, which has three levers. We look at either pulling savings, debt, or expenses. There's several strategies in each of these. When you do that calculator, it's going to give you one. It's going to give you a very simple action step. I had to generalize somewhere. But I think doing that calculator will help you see that's the area of focus with my money that I need to work on right now. And it shares a little bit of specifics of how to do that.

7:43But most people try to do all three at once or think the more they do, the quicker they do, they'll get there. But honestly, that just creates burnout. That's where we get restriction from. That's where we get too much control. So a simple retirement plan has one piece of this acceleration framework that you're working on for the moment. And like I said, most people try to either don't take action because it feels overwhelming by thinking they have to do all of it. But honestly, you just need to find one, one that you will do, one that's going to close that gap, and all three of them should. One is going to close it more quickly than another.

8:30And that's a big part of what we will be working through in the live portion of the vision to action sprint. All right. So the final piece, the final element of your retirement plan is your rhythm. So let me cap what we've come to so far, because this piece is the action steps on the way you got to go back to the reference of the others. So we have our vision. Vision can change, hopefully not extremely, but the closer you get and as life happens. Number two was your retirement number and your gap. And that is something that's going to be very heavy in this rhythm. So I'm going to talk about that in a minute.

9:16Number three is your budget as that changes, as your elements in your expenses change. So every quarter, you're going to want to review and adjust. Recalculate your number. because I just said, if you've paid down debt, the market has changed in 90 days, you've added more to savings, see if your gap is closing. It might be slow in the very beginning, and that's okay. But if the lever that you're doing is closing, it's working. Instead of just assuming and hoping, it gives you one quick check-in, readjust if you need, and keep going forward for another 90 days. It's a simple check-in that keeps your plan in action instead of something that you build once and forget.

10:10So if you've heard me talk about before, plans are great, but we have to have action steps. And that's where my retirement acceleration formula or framework, excuse me, comes into play. Instead of just going, okay, I hope I get there someday, you can actually take some purposeful action. And understanding these elements, you for yourself know exactly what you need to do. And it can be different from everybody for many different reasons. So your action step from this week is to go use the calculator. So there's the link in the show notes, or DM me calculator on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram, If we're connected, great.

10:54And I'll send it to you. And then as you work through your vision, as you get your expenses figured in a different way, that calculator will again help support you. So if you want help doing all five of these elements, creating a very simple plan, I invite you to join my Vision to Action Sprint. Okay, you can go find the information at elevatefinances.us backslash webinar. Get registered. There is a replay that will go out for seven days if you're not able to attend it live. It is a five-day sprint, four days of that on email, one day for 60 minutes live. And it will help you create that simple retirement plan, give you something to follow, help you know how to take action.

11:51All right, so I hope you will join me next week on the podcast as we dive into how to budget for retirement. Just another clarity piece along this stretch of creating a retirement plan. We'll see you next week. And if you've stuck around to the very end, I am celebrating episode 200 with this episode. It's been three and a half, almost three and a half years in the making. I love doing these episodes. I love supporting you. I would love to give a free strategy session to those of you who are willing to leave me a review. I'm not going And as for specifics, I know sometimes people ask for a five star.

12:39Please just give an honest review with your thoughts. If you can screenshot that and send it to me, maybe you're in my Facebook group, you can DM me on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, or through my email if you're on my email list. And for everyone who submits a review, I will put you into an entry for a free strategy session. So yes, send me it where I can get a hold of you. that strategy session you can learn more about on my website again elevatefinances.us backslash session and you can see what you'll be winning thank you for all your support

13:20thank you for spending this time with me if you're not already following the show be sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next and i'd love to stay connected with you between episodes. So come join me inside my Facebook community, Retirement Ready Hub for GenXers. It's where we're having real conversations about money, sharing wins, working through challenges, and building a clear path toward retirement. And remember, retirement isn't just a dream, it's a plan, and you get to make it possible.