looking toward our future

While we met with our Project Money coach Melanie for this month, we also spent 30 minutes talking with Jody.  Jody is a Financial Advisor for Summit Credit union.  We were looking to gain a bit more knowledge about our current retirement situation and get a second opinion on what and how we are doing.  We were very happy to hear that Jody believes that we are on the right path.

Her advice: “Try to have enough money in savings to cover three to six months of your regular monthly bills.”  It makes sense to make sure that you have easy access to cash if the sudden NEED arises. She also told us to “prioritize what you need and when you need it.” Things like a car, or a remodel, or an expense greater than a regular bill, need to be put in an order of importance.  As far as the actual retirement part, we also need to prioritize there.  We have to decide on our timeline, and our risk tolerance.  Our timeline is when we want to retire.  Our risk tolerance is how muck risk we are willing to take with our retirement savings and how they are invested.

Jody also suggested that we try to put about 15% of our salaries into our retirement.  That seems like a lot and we will have to try to work our way up to that number. “It’s all about how much you can put in and still feel comfortable,” Jody told us.  She does not recommend just jumping right to the 15%.  We don’t want to have to go backwards by trying to go too far forward before we are ready to do so.

Jody’s advice was for us to try to contribute more to Angie’s 401k as our comfort level and confidence allows.  Cris has an employer funded retirement plan and a supplemental plan.  This means that he does not and cannot contribute to these plans.  As we find more funds available, we will invest them into Angie’s plan.

Retirement is something we never thought seriously about until the last couple of years.  After our meeting with Melanie and Jody, we are feeling fairly confident that we can actually make it work.  We are learning how, how much, and when to make the moves necessary to allow us to be comfortable with retirement.  Go see a Summit Financial Advisor.  It might just give you the confidence boost that we got.  We are starting to get more excited about the plan for our future!

Angie & Cris