Expert on how to play catch up if you don’t feel financially prepared for retirement.
Transcript:
CONWAY GITTENS: So tell me, what’s the most common financial regret you see among retirees right now?
RIC EDELMAN: That they didn’t start saving sooner. Everybody wishes they’d started saving in their 20s and nobody did. And that’s clearly the biggest regret.
CONWAY GITTENS: And so what advice do you have for those people who are nearing retirement but they feel like they’re not ready?
RIC EDELMAN: Yeah, it’s a real dilemma because we can’t rewind the clock, can we? So if you are among those who regret that you didn’t start sooner and that you haven’t accumulated as much in savings as you now wish you’d had, you’re going to have to do two things, and you’re not going to like either one of these. Number one, you’re going to have to keep working longer. And number two, you’re going to have to throw more money into savings than you may feel you can afford to. But there’s really not much of a choice. The only third choice is to reduce your expenses. Not too many people want to do that. Even getting radical, selling your house and downsizing that major expense. Not too many people want to do that. The fourth option is the one nobody ever does. Shorten your life expectancy. Nobody likes to talk about that. So we really don’t have a choice but to save more, work longer and make sure you’re investing for higher returns. Because if you’re going to take all that extra work, all those extra savings and put it in a bank account at 3% you’re never going to accomplish the goal. So you’ve got to stay invested in the financial markets to have any hope at all of accumulating the money you’re really going to need.
CONWAY GITTENS: So you had four pieces of advice. Now, when you throw in the cost of living adjustments that happen. How does that impact how people prepare for retirement?
RIC EDELMAN: Well, we have to recognize that inflation is a fact of life. You know, we’ve gone through 4 or 5 years of horrible inflation, and those high prices are going to linger for many, many years to come. So we have to acknowledge that the cost of living continues to rise and that means our money has to be earning a return higher than the cost of living. So when we look at the returns in the various asset classes, stocks, bonds, real estate, gold, oil, crypto, as well as bank accounts, money market funds, treasuries. We’ve got to choose those that have the greatest opportunity for beating the rate of inflation, especially adding in the impact of taxes, because taxes are a big factor and they’re likely to rise to over the next several years. So we have to overcome the combination of inflation and taxation to be able to generate a real rate of return. It makes it more difficult, there’s no question about it.
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