if you're starting to do some planning for your retirement whether retirement's maybe coming up in the

next year or two. or even if retirement's still a few years off in the future, you probably realize already
that there's a lot of different aspects of your retirement And that's what we're going to be talking about
here, So let's take a look at these seven core elements. So, number one on the list is we need to
understand is:

how much your retirement can cost:

this is what we call identify your gap, start thinking about what it is that you think your retirement is
going to look like. For example, what will your housing situation be? Do you plan to stay in your current
house? Do you plan to downsize homes? Do you plan to spend winters someplace warm? You also want
to think about the things that you want to do in retirement, so you're going to have a lot of free time.
You're not going to have to go to work anymore, so think about the hobbies that you plan to do. Do you
plan to play golf every day? Or do you like to travel? And start thinking about how much some of those
expenses are going to be. so basically, what is your current situation? How much are you saving for your
retirement? How much money do you already have saved for retirement? And what we want to look
here, I think this is very important that a lot of people may tend to overlook essentially, is that we have a
trade off. Basically, we have our lifestyle that we have today, versus that lifestyle that we want to have
in retirement. And if we think about this for a second, if we spend all of our money today, we don't save
anything for retirement, we're going to have a great lifestyle here today. But that retirement's not going
to look very good. Contrary to that, we could be saving a whole bunch of money for retirement, putting
away all kinds of money. But that may be sacrificing that lifestyle that we have here today.

So, I want you to think about that a little bit, in terms of what are you trading off? And I think there's a
lot of people because they haven’t done some of these calculations, they could be in a position where
they're saving almost too much money for the retirement. They're really sacrificing and giving up a lot.
And there's a couple of different categories of this. we have our money that we're saving, so if we save
more money today, that’s less money that we can have for the future, for that retirement, we also have
time as well. what I mean by that is, we may be working ourselves, putting all kinds of stress on our
health, and on our situation by working a whole bunch. where are saving a lot of money for retirement,
but we’re really sacrificing that quality of life here today. be thinking about all of these different
aspects, not just the financial aspect of how much you're saving. But think about that, think about your
health, are you taking care of yourself from a health standpoint as well? Because, by the time we get to
this retirement, we want to have healthy bodies. We want to be able to go out and do those things. Be
able to play golf and live that retirement lifestyle.

cash flow

cash-flow is something that we refer to a lot here on some of the articles that we do. But really, it is the
lifeblood of not only your retirement situation, but also your current financial situation. Its basically
money coming in versus money going out. And almost everything on this step here is going to in some
way or another affect cash-flow.

Taxes

the taxes are certainly very important, and it's a big part of what we do here in terms of some of our
planning. But what we're going to talk about as we start looking at these seven steps is, we're going to
look at how taxes are going to influence a lot of these different categories.

Okay, so let's start and let's talk about where to save money, obviously we have lots of choices. We have
Roth accounts, like Roth ira's, you even have Roth 401k plans now and you have traditional accounts.
And for retirement savings, those are probably two of the most primary areas. basically, that's a big
decision for a lot of us, and what we really need to uncover is what is our tax situation likely going to be
in the future versus what is that tax situation going to be today.

it goes right back here to this cash-flow and understanding what those gaps are, and what is our current
situation today versus what is that situation going to be in the future.

Let’s windup

In the simplest sense, retirement planning is the planning one does to be prepared for life after paid
work ends, not just financially but in all aspects of life. The non-financial aspects include lifestyle choices
such as how to spend time in retirement, where to live, when to completely quit working, etc. A holistic
approach to retirement planning considers all these areas.

The emphasis one puts on retirement planning changes throughout different life stages. Early in a
person's working life, retirement planning is about setting aside enough money for retirement. During
the middle of your career, it might also include setting specific income or asset targets and taking the
steps to achieve them. Once you reach retirement age, you go from accumulating assets to what
planners call the distribution phase. You’re no longer paying in; instead, your decades of saving are
paying out.

Have a great day dear leader