How To Start Over With Your Retirement Planning

by Sally Jones
(Freemantle WA)

You know the saying about the best laid plans for how to retire in comfort .... We often find ourselves at a point where things went wrong and we have to start over. Starting over with retirement planning doesn't have to be as difficult as you may have thought.

If I could give anyone just one piece of advice when faced with starting over with retirement plans, it would be this: be an active participant in the process.

I have recently found myself in a similar situation and the first thing I decided to do was gain some knowledge.

You see, earlier in my life we had a pretty high six figure income and a fairly large investment portfolio.

My husband basically handed over everything to an "expert" financial planner.

This expert did ok, but nothing spectacular and I decided I wanted to learn more about how it all works so I didn't have to rely on someone else.

Now, I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I do know the basics of investing and I have learned that much of what we are told about investing is actually not the best advice.

Now I can sit down with my financial advisers and decide whether or not the information they are providing me makes sense or not.

I have a friend who has lost a sizable portion of her investment portfolio over the last few years.

Her "expert" recommended what many "experts" recommend when the market starts to tumble; just wait it out.

They tell you that you can regain everything when the market rebounds.

While that may be true, what they don't tell you is that when the market starts to get too overheated you can actually sell off many of your stocks and move that money to a safer investment.

Doing that means that not only will you not have to wait years until the market rebounds and you can recoup what you've lost, you can also continue to make money during the down market!

Doesn't that make more sense? To me it did. I sure never understood the idea of just keeping my money in a market that was crashing and plan on recouping my losses some day.

I am extremely conservative in my investment strategy. I would rather sell off early, and possibly lose some profit, than get greedy and keep my money in too long and lose some.

Again, I'm not an expert, but it's your money and one of the best things you can do for yourself and your future is to get a little bit of financial education so you can work with your planner.

And before you hire a financial planner keep this in mind; if your financial planner is really so good at what they do, why don't they make their living with their own investments?

Why work for someone else? In most cases these financial planners are commissioned sales people.

That isn't necessarily bad, but it is important that you understand that before you turn your money over the them.

Starting over with retirement plans can be done, but do yourself a favor and remember that no one will ever care about your money as much as you do.

Learn more here about how to retire in comfort