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Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. You’ve heard that one before and hopefully it’s a mantra you’ve adopted when talking with your clients. In a recent survey, we reached out to boomer clients to get an idea of how they are ensuring they have a diversified retirement. Highlights of their responses are posted below. If you have insight on how you work with your clients to diversify their assets, please add them to the comments section.
How do you ensure your retirement accounts are diversified?
Once a year, we get together with our financial planner. We review everything: beneficiaries, holdings, taxes. Then, after we’ve got a big picture of where we are, our planner gives us his recommendations of whether to increase our bond holdings or what have you. Usually, it’s just a couple of percents, but he says it’s important to do it, so we do it.
Ronald, 68
Sunnyvale, Calif.
We thought we were well diversified. We’d been going off of a recommendation we had received a decade ago. But then last year we moved and got a new financial person who told us we needed to change some things. I guess the previous plan was based on a certain life expectancy—85, I think—that was out of date. Now, thanks to modern medicine, I have to plan to live to a 100-and-something (yippee!). I don’t know how I’m supposed to pay for that.
Micah, 58
Great Neck, N.Y.
We have a system. We bought into a plan that automatically adjusts from stocks to bonds. So, at the beginning of every year, some of the more risky funds are sold and the money goes into bonds, so it’s safer. It’s nice not to have to think about it. We just worry about staying healthy and enjoying our retirement, and the money takes care of itself.
Hannah, 62
Glenview, Ill.
When we set up our estate, our CFP recommended we put some of our assets into annuities that would pay us a certain amount in retirement. We have both kinds: the adjustable kind and the fixed kind. That way some of the money is exposed to market fluctuations and we can hopefully get some growth. We have a good chunk of our net worth tied up in real estate and a couple of businesses, so that’s not diversified at all. But there’s nothing we can do about that.
Hector, 56
Coral Gables, Fla.
