Putting a Plan in Place

daisy and maisey on the couch
Originally uploaded by SunFlowery.

This is as close as our cats will get to one another...persnickity pair.

So today was another day of CE. It was a good day, though somewhat long. I did do better with the keeping of my eyes open. But I have a heck of a weight on my shoulders.

Things I learned: The biggest obsticle in retirement planning is the 2 person, 30 year retirement. By not planning, that's no plan. And planning for poverty in retirement is no planning at all. Not only that, but you have to take so many things into consideration when planning for retirement; expenses, debt, insurance, health care costs, long term care, estate/will/trust, taxes, etc. You also want to make sure that you not only have an income stream but also growth from the money that's not being spent. Plus, Bob and I have some special considerations regarding his health and disability.

During one of our breaks I started chatting with one of the other students. Over the course of our discussion it came out that she is the personal banker to the woman who runs the non-profit that is helping us raise the funds we need to buy Bob's van. Is that clear enough? Small world! It also came up that her husband is the man whose motorcycle accident stopped traffic on a North metro highway for hours last fall. He's alive and back to work but not back to 100%.

Another thing that keeps coming back to me every time I take CE is that I still don't know much about my parents' retirements plan. Do they have a financial advisor or attorney? Where are their important documents? Do they have life insurance? Long term care insurance? Are their assets protected? Arg! Who likes to talk about that stuff? No one, but it has to be done. Too many times we have clients that call in 5, 8, 10 years after a family member died with an old policy wanting to know if it's still good.

Anyway, make a plan. It's a start.