You’ve worked hard to achieve a comfortable retirement. Now it is time to make sure you don’t lose what has taken you maybe forty to fifty years to accumulate. The key is to manage your affairs so your retirement runs your money; not vice versa.

The danger many busy executives face is thinking that all of their affairs are in order. Let’s say you’ve had the same CPA and attorney for twenty years. What are the chances they still read the fine print every time they look at your documents? Circumstances change. Mistakes happen. A second opinion costs very little compared to what you can lose. And if that second opinion says you’re doing everything right, imagine the peace of mind you’ll have going forward!

Review the Important Documents
As soon as you retire, take advantage of that energy brought on by the change to get your financial house in order. Do it all while you’re thinking about it so you can relax and enjoy the years ahead. There are a number of documents that should be reviewed with a CPA and attorney who specialize in estate and tax planning.

Power of attorney. You might be surprised by the number of durable powers of attorney that are not prepared properly. About one-third of those may not have a clause to protect the person if they go into a long-term care facility.

Medical quality of life. This is a directive that tells exactly how you want to be treated if you enter the hospital. You can file it electronically, and carry an information card in your wallet.

Retirement plans. Retirement is not the time to seek growth in your financial assets, because an aggressive approach is inherently dangerous. You don’t want to get into a situation where the market is down, and you feel your financial security is threatened. I’ve seen people who have a guaranteed pension with a monthly payout of $6,000, instead, choose to walk away with a lump sum payout of three-quarters of a million dollars and a mindset that they can beat the market. They put the assets in technology stocks and end up with pennies on the dollar.

You’re now in the stage of capital preservation. Preservation doesn’t necessarily mean that you keep what you have right now. Rather, it means keeping the spending power of what you have right now. Things change as we get older. We don’t drive the same cars we did when we were younger. We need glasses. But we tend to keep our portfolios the same. Retirees should allocate at least half to three-quarters of their portfolios toward anything that’s guaranteed, such as fixed annuities, treasury bonds, savings bonds and certificates of deposit.

Life insurance and annuities. Make sure all of your beneficiaries are who you want them to be. You’d be surprised by the number of people in second marriages who still list their former spouses as their beneficiaries!

Survivor’s guide. This document tells your loved ones such important details as where your will is located, and whether or not you have a safe deposit box. Use it to list all of the death benefits with contact names to be sure they don’t go unclaimed. Most senior financial executives leave their careers with considerably more benefits than the average person. If you don’t write them down, many things will get missed.

Who else should your survivors notify if you die? Provide phone numbers and addresses for your friends around the country. List what personal items — valuable and/or sentimental — should go to whom. Don’t assume everything will be handled amicably under the stress of your death! Tell your survivors how you want to be buried. And write your own obituary. You are the best expert on what you think is important about your life!

And finally, make sure you are protected from identity theft! I hate paying the fees, but I’m a big proponent of credit card identity theft protection. This is a service that checks your credit every single day. It looks for things like unusual account activity and new accounts being opened. The sooner you catch a problem, the easier it is to fix. Even if a problem goes undetected for just a month, you would then have a full time job trying to fix your credit. And who wants that? You’re retired!

About the Author
Michael Kaselnak is a Certified Senior Advisor with Piece of Pie Strategic Coaching located in Rochester, Minn. His organization helps people put their financial affairs in order to ensure a financially comfortable retirement. His work is focused exclusively on assisting seniors with their financial needs. An author of two books, Get Their Hands Off Your Piece of Pie and Senior Planning for the Millennium and Beyond, Mike can be reached at info@pieceofpie.net.