I want to share something you can do right now to make retirement so much easier I'll share the traditional way that people take retirement income and the downsides to it and then I'm going to share a a better way where you can test out your retirement plan before you even retire and that helps you get to this level 10 out of 10 in confidence with your plan and if I haven't met you yet I'm Dave Zer I own streamlined Financial it's a retirement planning firm we've been helping people for uh over 16 years but let's
talk about how most people transition in into this retirement income phase of life so for 40 years you receive a regular paycheck then suddenly that paycheck stops and now you need to start withdrawing money from your retirement accounts instead it sounds simple enough it sounds pretty normal and that's what everybody does right but here's what actually happens after Decades of conditioning ourselves to be a saver you're suddenly supposed to just flip a switch and start spending that money and I think you and I would agree that a 30-year habit is a little bit hard to
break for some people and for many people this creates surprising amount of worry and what we've seen happen is that uh worry tends to increase the closer you get to that retirement date and the good news is there's a period where it it ends up coming back to normal and it's just uh everything is fine but there's a way to reduce that worry and actually lower the stress levels or or lower the worry levels in an pretty easy way I remember remember working with John and Mary and they had enough they could easily withdraw what
they needed for each month for all of their expenses and do some of the fun things too and and they'd be perfectly fine for the rest of their lives but 3 months into retirement they were only using about half of what they could because they couldn't shake that feeling that they were depleting their nest egg and the problem this causes is their retirement experience becomes less enjoyable than it really should be right they when they traveled they would go out to eat but they always were wondering if they should really be spending money and they
were it kind of felt like they kept uh penny pinching even though they could afford it there was something that was stopping them from fully enjoying this and they wanted to UTI utilize these go- go years the years where they're young and they have got the energy and they can go do these things but they felt like they they had to unnecessarily restrict themselves and restrict their lifestyle so let's look at a better way it might not be for everybody but this is a tactic that is at least worth knowing about I learned it from
a friend Cody Garrett of measure twice financial and uh we tend to call it when we talk to clients about this sort of thinking we call it retirement dress rehearsal but here's how it works about 6 to 12 months before your planned retirement date you make two simple changes to your finances first think about directing your paycheck to deposit directly into your brokerage account instead of going to your checking account second the second step is you set up a monthly transfer from your brokerage account to your checking account for the exact amount you expect to
need in retirement and what you've essentially done is create a simulation of retirement cash flow but your employment income is still providing that safety net hence kind of like the the the dress rehearsal before before going live you're practicing this and you're actually tangibly doing this and seeing the results and here's some of the benefits number one real world testing of your retirement budget you're going to quickly discover if your planned monthly income is a too little or is it too much or is it just right so you'll you'll still have uh that safety net
to adjust and and uh figure out what the right amount is for you the second thing is psychological adjustment time so you get to begin that mental transition from saver to spender while you're still employed and that reduces that emotional shock when retirement actually begins so it's much easier to to continue uh taking withdrawals than all of a sudden a quick end employment and then start income uh number three is confidence building as you successfully live on your planned retirement income for several months that confidence starts to grow that your financial plan is going to
work and it is is working and then number four is just a smoother emotional transition that retirement anxiety that we talked about it gets less and less so you don't feel that Spike of worry and you can just feel like you've already adapted to your new income pattern and the other big thing is it's it gives you error correction opportunity so if you discover your budget assumptions are wrong then you still got time to adjust your retirement date or your savings rate or your withdrawal rate so to simplify the benefits it's find out ahead of
time before you stop working that your retirement plan is strong and if you find this helpful so far be sure to hit the like button and subscribe for more practical retirement strategies and then remember retirement isn't just a financial transition it's a psychological one too and giving yourself time to adjust to spending money that you've worked so hard to save over the years can really make a big big difference between stress ful transition and a smooth and confident one so check out these videos to help you even more with retirement planning and then I'll see
you in the next video take care
