Estate Planning, Family Law, Trust Administration, and Probate in Santa Barbara County

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Posts tagged IRAs
Should You (Or Your Parents) Be In the Stock Market Now?

If you or your parents have a retirement account (or any investment accounts for that matter), now is the time to get connected to how those accounts are invested. While you may have outsourced all of this to a broker in the past, you can no longer afford to allow your investments to be made without your clear understanding of exactly what you are investing in, how, and whether your investments align with your plans for the future.

A colleague shared a story that hit home with us, and it may for you as well.

After our colleague’s grandmother died, her grandmother’s retirement and investment accounts went directly to her mom, due to the estate planning they had set up. No court process. No intervention. No conflict. Great!

But our colleague’s mom then never looked at the investments in those accounts. She just let them stay as they were for four years, until finally, her daughters convinced her to look.

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Key Milestones for Planning Your Retirement

Retirement is not just the time in life when you will be doing nothing. It is not even a period that you can choose to skip because you plan to keep working. Many individuals work full-time during their retirement years, but they still take advantage of tax and financial opportunities because of their age. Indeed, the wise and prudent adult views retirement as the last 3-4 decades of their life. It is a period where the statistical probability of injury, health problems, and illness is high, even for healthy and physically active adults. It is a period where the statistical probability of your wanting to access savings in order to provide for and help those whom you love most is practically certain.

Even if you continue working, it is also a period where those who you love will likely have days, weeks, or months where they will need you to take time off work to be there for them. Planning for retirement, even while you are in your college years, is the practice of a good and responsible family member and friend. But the road to retirement is a long one, and as with any journey, it helps to have a few key milestones along the way to help gauge your progress. While your individual retirement plan and goals will be unique to your income, family situation, and desired lifestyle, most Americans share a number of common retirement milestones.

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