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Retirement could be the biggest transition you make in life, not to mention the most expensive. At Howard Bailey, we don’t take this lightly, which is why we developed a process, known as the Retire With Purpose Framework, to help you combat top financial pitfalls, and feel confident in your financial future.

Much like building a house, your plan should begin with a blueprint, followed by analyzing the cost of your project (retirement), and determining how you will pay for it. In the end, you want your assets to last your lifetime, and here you’ll find a few ways to help ensure just that. They include:

📌Develop an income plan – This should detail how much income you will need each year to fund your retirement lifestyle, and it should consider changes to your tax situation, too.

📌Identify income sources – Not only that, but determine how much income will be generated from each source to satisfy your annual income needs

📌Map your assets out and separate them by their purpose – You saved that money for a reason. Why?

📌Have an income replacement plan in place for your spouse – In other words, if you were to predecease your partner, how would Social Security benefits or pension income be affected?

📌Have (updated) legal documents in place – This includes designating financial power of attorney, medical directives, and establishing wills and trusts.

📌Have a contingency plan for health care costs and long-term nursing care – You might cross your fingers you won’t need long-term care, but it isn’t something to ignore.

Bottom line, be intentional: You could do a million and one things when it comes to building a retirement strategy, but there are only a handful that should happen by default.