Retirement planning is hard enough, trying to understand someone else’s retirement plan is even harder. Now try understanding someone else’s retirement plan for you. You would think that more people would not trust their retirement in the hands of anyone else, even if they loved them, but plenty of people do whenever they don’t become an active participant in planning with their spouse or partner. Planning for retirement is important but ensuring that more than one person is aware of it is just as important.
Retirement plan redundancy refers to the idea that you should education everyone in your family on the retirement plan of the family. This idea extends first to the spouse or partner and then to the children, when they are ready to tackle the idea of retirement. At the most basic level it means documenting all of your accounts, all the linkages, and the intent of each of those accounts; consider putting together a Personal Finance Users Guide (even if it’s just a Retirement Edition).
There will come a time when your retirement plan will have to be executed and at that time, it helps to have more than one expert. There also might be a time when you’re incapacitated or busy or otherwise unable to respond, you’ll want someone there in your place that has as much knowledge about the plan as you do.
Retirement plan redundancy… implement it.
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One response to “Introducing Retirement Plan Redundancy”
My third book, “Retirement Planning for the Utterly Confused” McGraw-Hill, was just published and covers many of those thoughts.
More importantly, it looks at the impact your family can have on your retirement plan. Most folks overlook that very important topic. In the book. I break down the process of how to identify the problems that you may soon face, the ones that you currently have, and offer suggestions on how to right the mistakes you have already made.
Good luck getting your family involved! It is important.