Author and certified financial planner Mary Sterk told Newsmax TV that your ultimate retirement plan will come together if you align the money you have with the choice of lifestyle you want to pursue in your golden years.
“The one thing is that money buys you choices,” she told Sunday’s “The Income Generation Show.”
“That's what money does and aligning the money that you have with the choices you want to make during your retirement is the crux of what a good retirement plan is all about,” said the owner of Sterk Financial Services.
“Retirement really comes down to being a three-legged stool,” explained the author of "Ready to Pull the Retirement Trigger? Your Strategic Guide to Retire With Confidence."
“The first leg is the financial factors, but the other two legs really are health-related factors as well as emotional readiness,” Sterk said.
“Emotional readiness can take a lot of different forms, but that is a huge component of a retirement plan. Health-related matters can be health insurance, healthcare, long-term care-type of issues,” she told host David Scranton.
“Focusing on one leg of the stool without make sure all three are solid can really create a problem,” she said.
“I have had several people that have not focused on the healthcare side of things before they retired,” she said.
“A long-term care or chronic illness has hit and all of a sudden, tens of thousands of dollars a year of their budget are going to a nursing home and it's leaving the spouse in a pinch because they don't have the same amount of income coming in to live on that they normally did,” she explained.
“That's why it's so important to take all of those factors into consideration before you pull that retirement trigger to make sure you have things set up well,” she said.
"The Income Generation" airs on Newsmax TV every Sunday at 10 am ET.