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Spring Cleaning Your Retirement

Whether you’re already retired or working towards it, your retirement plans deserve regular attention. Without a periodic maintenance and care plan, your retirement plans will become dusty and out of date. That’s why every year we recommend spring cleaning your retirement, which means reviewing and updating anything in your plans that needs it.

Don’t know where to start? Here’s some ideas:

Social Security

If you haven’t looked at your Social Security plans since last year, now’s the time. Changes are constantly happening to Social Security. Recently, recipients of Social Security received a 1.3% increase for cost-of-living and maximum taxable earnings increase of $5,100.1

Most of all, you need to know when you’ll start relying on Social Security and how much you can expect to receive each month. Your allotment will depend on many factors, including when you decide to take it. Even if you already know your plans for Social Security, you need to check over them each year to make sure they still apply.

Beneficiaries

When was the last time you reviewed and updated your beneficiaries? Could you say with 100% certainty right now that the beneficiaries on your retirement accounts are all correct? Many people can’t because updating our beneficiaries as life happens isn’t something on our to-do lists. It isn’t something we regularly think about.

A spring cleaning of your retirement should include reviewing your listed beneficiaries and making changes if needed. Even if all they need is a quick review, at least now you can have some peace of mind!

Annuities

If you’re relying on any annuities as income for your retirement, you need to review their terms and conditions. Additionally, maybe now is the time to start thinking about purchasing an annuity so you can have dependable income in retirement. You’ll only know that by sitting down and reviewing your current financial plan now and in the future.

Roth Conversions

You may have heard that if you’re ever going to convert your 401(k) or IRA to a Roth, today is the day to do it. Many believe tax rates will go up after 2025, but it could happen even sooner.2

Increased tax rates mean you could end up paying a lot more in taxes when you’re retired. Higher taxes at a time when you need it least could be detrimental to your retirement. The recommended approach is to convert your savings to a Roth so they’ll be tax-free during retirement.

This is not a comprehensive list of how to spring clean your retirement, but it is a good place to start! If you’d like more info or need help reviewing your retirement plans, sign up for one of our ARI courses today!

Source 1: https://www.investopedia.com/retirement/social-security-changes/

Source 2: https://www.kiplinger.com/retirement/retirement-plans/roth-iras/602082/when-roth-conversions-are-the-right-move-and-when-they

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