318 | Is It Too Late To Catch Up On Retirement Savings

[00:00:44] Hilary Hendershott: One of the most common conversations I have with people in their 50s starts like this, “Hilary, I honestly have no idea whether I’m on track for retirement.” What’s interesting is that they’re usually not people who failed to save. In fact, many of them have been saving consistently for decades and have accumulated substantial wealth.

[00:01:05] The uncertainty actually comes from somewhere else. See, they’ve spent years working hard and saving consistently. Then one day they realize they’ve never actually measured whether all that effort is going to produce the retirement they want. And that’s when the questions start, “Uh, have I saved enough? Am I behind? Is it too late to catch up?”

[00:01:26] The good news is that most people asking those questions don’t actually know yet whether they’re behind. They simply haven’t measured yet. So, today, I want to show you how we help people answer that question. I want to talk to you about whether it’s ever really too late to catch up on retirement savings.

[00:01:43] So, the biggest mistake I see people make is assuming retirement planning starts by asking, “How much have I saved?” But I don’t think that’s the right question. At Hendershott Wealth Management, we start somewhere else. We start by asking, “How much will your retirement actually cost?” Because until you know the answer to that question, you don’t know whether you’re ahead, behind, or exactly where you need to be.

[00:02:07] I’ve worked with people who were convinced they had fallen years behind, only to discover they were much closer than they realized. I’ve also met people with several million dollars saved who weren’t as prepared as they thought because they had never really estimated what their retirement lifestyle would require.

[00:02:24] That’s why one of the first exercises we take clients through is calculating what we call their annual spending number, or ASN. Your ASN is just the amount of money you’ll need your portfolio to produce each year to support the retirement lifestyle you actually want, not someone else’s version of retirement. Yours.

[00:02:44] For one person, that might mean traveling extensively. For someone else, it might mean spending more time with family, helping children or grandchildren, giving generously, or just enjoying a slower pace of life. Every retirement is different, so of course, every ASN is different. Once you know your ASN, retirement planning becomes dramatically easier because you can finally answer the questions that actually matter.

[00:03:13] How much do I really need? How close am I today? And if there’s a gap, what is the smartest way for me to close it? And that’s where people usually begin to feel hopeful again because retirement is not a pass or fail exam. It’s just a planning problem, and planning problems usually have multiple solutions.

[00:03:33] Often, we can improve your expected investment return by building a better portfolio. Sometimes the answer is saving more. Sometimes it’s working another year or two. Sometimes it’s making thoughtful adjustments to spending. Sometimes it’s improving your tax strategy or maybe delaying Social Security, and sometimes it’s simply realizing you’ve been comparing yourself to generic retirement advice instead of your own financial plan.

[00:04:02] Especially among successful professionals, I’ve found that uncertainty is much scarier than reality. Once people understand their numbers, the uncertainty starts to disappear. They stop comparing themselves to rules of thumb and online articles. They stop wondering whether they’re behind, and they start making decisions based on a plan that’s designed specifically for the life they want to live.

[00:04:27] That’s exactly why we created our retirement guide. It walks you through calculating your annual spending number, estimating what size nest egg is likely to support it, and using our retirement calculator to evaluate whether you’re on track. It also covers many of the retirement planning risks people often overlook, including inflation, taxes, healthcare costs, sequence of returns risk.

[00:04:54] It also includes checklists for people who are roughly 25, 15, or five years from retirement. My goal isn’t to convince you that you’re ahead or behind. It’s to replace uncertainty with clarity because feeling behind and actually being behind are two very different things. Until you’ve done the planning, you simply don’t know.

[00:05:15] So, if you’ve reached the point where you’re wondering whether you’ve saved enough or whether there are still opportunities to strengthen your retirement plan, I encourage you to download our free retirement guide today. It will help you understand where you stand today, identify your highest priorities for improvement, and see new possibilities for the future that you may never have imagined on your own.

[00:05:39] Because retirement isn’t about reaching someone else’s number, it’s about building enough financial resources to support the life you want to live. Download our retirement guide today by clicking on the link in the show notes below this video.