| So what do you think about the stock market, the mortgage meltdown, skyrocketing gas prices, escalating food prices, political rhetoric, retirement preparation, and your family budget? How’s that for moving blood through your arteries? The common denominator for the opening sentence is a feeling of helplessness for the common person.
In my biased and unobtrusive observation, it seems retirement preparation is next to calling an attorney to prepare my trust and my will. Since 90 percent of Americans haven’t called an attorney for their estate planning, my numbers appear to be accurate.
The average American worker will not make it during their years of retirement without financial assistance. Frontline, in a recent documentary, put the average 401k balances for working Americans at around $29,000. With pensions drying up and insufficient funds going into 401k retirement accounts, Baby Boomers and Echo Boomers are going to struggle maintaining a lifestyle similar to their current one.
So why don’t people get their estate planning done? That’s easy; it’s no fun calling an attorney. We don’t wake up in the morning, slap our hand to our forehead, remember we need to get our estate planning done and call an attorney. A root canal is cheaper and less painful.
And what is the difference between estate planning and retirement preparation? Not much at all. The system is confusing and there is no clarity for tomorrow. When retirement or financial planning is mentioned, most people think of investing. In other words: “How much money do you have? Where is it? Oh, I can do better than that!” It’s all about a commodity that is somehow connected with the stock market.
Some time ago, while on a business trip out of state, I was in a hurry and needed some food. I’m not much of a fast food connoisseur but I could see two options, McDonalds and a local burger barn. Although the burger barn had intrigue, I chose McDonalds because I knew what to expect, their system works almost every time — and teenagers run it!
Retirement preparation is a major inconvenience because most people don’t treat it as a system. Retirement isn’t just about money, it’s about creating a system today that will carry into your tomorrow.
Too many baby boomers have lost thousands over the past few months because their retirement is a commodity and not a system.
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