5 Habits Of Happy, Highly Successful Retirees

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Retirement can feel like a permanent vacation – as long as you make the right choices and avoid costly mistakes. To make your journey to and through retirement happier and more successful I have demystified and distilled the top 5 habits of happy and highly successful retirees so that you don’t just have an OK retirement...or a mediocre retirement…the goal is so you can have the best retirement.

HABIT 1: Retiring On-Time

You may be at the point in your working life that you’re just one bad Monday away from saying - enough is enough…I don’t need this anymore…I’m retiring! I totally get it…we’ve all had jobs like that…but here’s the thing, the people that have the best retirement aren’t making a knee-jerk reaction to retirement. And it’s a whole lot more than knowing that you have saved X amount of dollars in your retirement account.

You don’t want to make the mistake of retiring too soon. Unfortunately, most people spend more time planning for a vacation than they do planning their retirement. The last thing you want is to look back with regret and think, “man…I retired a little too early,” especially when it comes to making absolutely sure you have adequate health care coverage. Highly successful retirees have a fool-proof game plan for retirement. They have proper guidance before making one of the largest financial decisions of their lives.

The key is to work with a retirement dream team that truly specializes in helping people actually retire. Not the run-of-the-mill advisors who help people of all of ages, rather a team that focuses fully on helping people transition into retirement and cover all their bases because retirement is a whole different level of planning…it is its own specialty.

HABIT 2: Fending Off The Tax Man

Taxes in retirement is whole new ballgame when you factor in that taxes can become a lot more complex in retirement with Social Security income, IRA withdrawals, RMDs, etc., so it pays to have pro-active advice. It’s not about how much you make or how much you have…it’s about how much you keep after taxes that counts. One habit of highly successful retirees is they have a plan to address taxes and keep them under control.

There are only two tax that really matter: current taxes and future taxes. And highly successful retirees have a plan that addresses both. They have an investment plan that is tax-efficient too…meaning that it includes tax-free, tax-deferred, tax-sheltered, and tax-advantaged strategies. We have found that the only way that you could have the best tax-efficient plan is if the person you trust for investing advice is constantly monitoring your tax situation and planning accordingly.

When was the last time your financial advisor asked to see a copy of your tax return?

If your answer is never or it’s been awhile you may have a problem on your hands…or at least…it’s likely you’re losing more in taxes than necessary. If you want the best possible retirement, then you need to raise your standards by working with a team that monitors your tax situation every single year and then adjusts your investment plan accordingly.

HABIT 3: Optimizing Social Security Benefits

Optimizing your Social Security benefits isn’t as simple as a one-size-fits-all answer of taking SS early or delaying it. The 3rd habit of highly successful retirees is they factor in health history, other sources of income, the effect on their investment portfolio, etc. In other words, they do their homework because the SSA – the Social Security Administration - is responsible for only administering the programs benefits, not guiding you to extract every ounce of benefit owed.

Here's some additional info to help point you in the right direction on how delaying Social Security works and the timing of when to claim.

HABIT 4: Diversifying For Everlasting Income

Successful retirees don’t let the market dictate their happiness because they’re truly diversified among different types of investments. True diversification of a portfolio must include much more than just the usual mix of stock and bond funds. That’s because if you’re heavily invested in mutual funds you are effectively betting that the market will go up forever, but that’s obviously not wise or prudent. In fact, a recent survey showed that 69% of investors no longer believe a conventional stock and bond portfolio is enough to generate adequate returns and preserve capital.

The Buy, Hope, and Pray approach to investing is not nearly as successful as Buy, Hold, and PLAN. It’s perfectly reasonable to invest for the mid to long-term, but that doesn’t mean you should just ignore your portfolio – the highly successful retirees create a habit of reviewing, tweaking, and modifying their approach on a timely basis and they ask for outside guidance to help keep their plan on the right track.

Highly successful, and happy, retries also know with certainty that they have more than enough income coming in each month to support their lifestyle. And that’s why they’re happy! Having durable, predictable, additional income coming in every month from your portfolio can provide you the freedom of choice in retirement. You can choose to do what you want instead of having to pinch pennies. You want to travel, go on a cruise, see the grandkids, and play golf? That’s the responsibility of a well-crafted income plan.

The job of a wealth advisor who specializes in retirement planning will create a diversified income plan that provides you with sustainable, ever-lasting income in retirement. A diversified income plan that transcends well beyond just stocks and bonds because you can’t afford to have your hopes and dreams pinned to the uncertainty of the markets because you don’t want market performance to dictate if and when you can take your next vacation.


HABIT 5: Maintaining A Modern Estate Plan

Highly successful retirees maintain a modern estate plan and review it every 3 to 5 years. It’s not enough to have spent time and money drafting a Trust or Will. The highly successful have their estate planning documents reviewed every few years because laws are constantly changing and of course life changes as well.

For instance, estate tax laws have changed greatly over the last few years and will likely change again in the near future. Like investing, estate planning, is not a set it and forget it type of planning. It must be maintained and modernized every 3-5 years otherwise it becomes more and more obsolete making your plan more susceptible to excessive taxes and unnecessary hassle and probate.

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