Retirement is often sold as a time when most of your cares ebb away now that you have time to enjoy leisure, relaxation and put down the burdens of working as hard as you did for many years.
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However, for many boomers, new worries crop up, such as how to stretch a more limited income, health concerns and more. It’s also easy to be anxious about things going on in the world that might affect the economy, Social Security or Medicare.
Christopher Stroup, CFP and owner of Silicon Beach Financial, offered retired boomers some insight on things they should not worry about in retirement and several they should.
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If you’re losing sleep about ups and downs in the stock market, Stroup suggested you redirect your anxiety.
“How the stock market behaves on any given day, month or year is totally out of our control,” he pointed out.
What is fairly predictable, however, is that the stock market regularly experiences a bear market once out of every five years, he said. This means that over a 20- to 30-year retirement, you can expect to navigate at least four to six bear markets, he explained.
While most retirees will most likely need to participate in the stock market to some degree in order to ensure that they don’t outlive their assets, it shouldn’t be a cause of you losing sleep.
“Even though market volatility can be scary, especially when living on a fixed income, it’s an integral aspect to securing the growth that the stock market has delivered to long-term investors.”
So long as your investments are well diversified, and you have planned for your stage of life, you shouldn’t see any major negative effects of stock market changes (barring a true economic crash).
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In the build up to an election year, the issue of Social Security always comes up in the political conversation, which can naturally cause anxiety.
“There’s been a lot of press about Social Security running out of funds in the next decade or so such that Social Security benefits may be nonexistent for future generations,” Stroup said.
However, rather than worry about cuts, Stroup assured that boomers should “fully expect to receive their full Social Security benefits.”
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