Millions work hard for decades to earn retirement freedom but then it turns into a big bore.
That’s one of the themes of the recently re-issued book, “Victory Lap Retirement. Work While You Play. Play While You Work.”
Some of your clients approaching retirement could be heading toward a life of frustrating nothings. They could be headed for disaster even though they have plenty of money, according to the book. Others might not have quite enough for financial independence and would be better off to work a little longer to add to their retirement stash. They could also take more time to think about their golden years and how best to enjoy them, according to the book.
The typical advisor needs to change his or her approach to retirement planning, the book says. The advisor should consider much more than the numbers. Retirements often fail because a retiree, with plenty of assets, becomes bored because he or she has little to do other than play golf, cards or watch television. And that can often lead to premature death.
Rob Morrison, a CFP with his own firm in Lincolnshire, Illinois and one of the authors of the book, says advisors should be concerned with the traditional problem of people running out of money in retirement. But he adds that they should also talk to retirement clients about many non-monetary issues that financial professionals often didn’t consider two or three decades ago.
“To me, this should be the natural progression of our financial planning profession,” Morrison says in an interview. “We’re beyond just doing the numbers now. We have to have more nuance because there are today more varied ways that people think about retirement.”
He says the advisor now needs to counsel “people on a myriad of things that include whether to take a full-retirement or a sort of gradual retirement and what that would look like.”
The retirement advisor who isn’t ready to explore lifestyle as well as rates of return and how to pull assets out of qualified accounts sometimes is not giving the client all the needed services, he adds.
And that could lead to retirement woes, says one business leader. Retirees can become jaded and die prematurely, he said.
“Retirement,” said Malcolm Forbes, “kills more people than hard work ever did.” Morrison quotes a retiree saying that of course he would play cards because “what else would I have to do?”