Top 12 Recommendations if You're 60 Years Old With Nothing Saved for Retirement

What should you do if you are over 55 and have little or nothing saved for retirement? In this video, I will give you my top 12 recommendations. Welcome to another episode of the Financial Fast Lane. My name is Lane Martinson. Today, we are talking about what you can do if you are getting a late start. If you are over 50, or maybe over 55, maybe you're already in your 60s and you have little or nothing saved for retirement. I am going to give you 12 specific things you can do or you should at least consider. First, know that you are not alone and that it is never too late. Many people approaching retirement age find themselves in this situation, wondering where the time went. Don't be too hard on yourself. In the beginning of your career, you were young, just trying to get by and make ends meet. Maybe you started a family, bought your first house, you raised kids and maybe even helped them with college. Now you find yourself 50-something or 60-something, wondering where the time went. You find yourself with little or nothing saved for retirement. Of course, starting early is better than starting late, but you can make up for lost ground. I recognize everyone's situation is unique and what works for one person may not work for another for a host of reasons. But the purpose of this video is to give you some practical ideas and strategies to consider. Ideas that can make a very big difference to you in your golden retirement years. Number two, take inventory of your situation. Identify your timeline. Evaluate all the possibilities. For example, if you are 55 in good health, you have 10 years before you are 65 and 15 years before you're 70. You can accomplish a lot in 15 years or 10 years or even five years. But you've got to be focused and you've got to have a real plan of action. Your greatest asset is your ability to earn an income. If you have an income or the ability to earn an income, that is your golden goose. It's not about how much you earn. It's what you keep that matters. You would be surprised with how many people with high incomes, even super high incomes, that have very little or nothing saved. On the flip side, you'd be surprised with how many people with very modest or lower incomes have a surprisingly sizable amount of money set aside for retirement. As a financial planner, I see both ends of the spectrum and everything in between. When we earn more, the natural tendency is to spend more. A great quote from George Clayson, that which each of us calls our necessary expenses will always grow to equal our incomes, unless we protest to the contrary. You cannot effectively protest without a plan and without a clear goal. Recommendation number three is to know your numbers. You need to know where your money is going. You need to know your cash inflow and your outflow, the income and the expenses. It's called the budget. The word budget is not a very popular word. Many people feel like following a budget is difficult. If that is you, I would suggest that you change the way you think of a budget. Even give it a different name if that helps. Keep it simple. In its simplest form, it is A, knowing where your money is going, and B, controlling where your money is going. You cannot manage that what you do not measure. A budget does not hold you back. It sets you free. Recommendation number four is complete a 30-day spending audit. Make a commitment to track all of your spending for 30 days or for the next full month. I mean track every penny. You can simply do it with a piece of paper. Don't over-complicate it. Or if you'd like, you can download a spending audit spreadsheet that we created. It's a very simple, powerful tool, an Excel spreadsheet that we designed just for this purpose. It's a free download and there is a link in the description below on how to get that. Recommendation number five is to keep more of your own money. When you have clarity on how much income is coming in and where it is going every month, you will be empowered to make some changes. Imagine with me for a minute what it would be like if you were able to keep all of your income or in other words if you had no expenses at all every month. I know that that's not at all realistic but just do the math. If you could save and wisely invest all of your income every month for the next 5, 10, or 15 years, how much of a nest egg could you accumulate? It would be a significant amount of money even with a modest income, right? Recommendation number six is to get creative and think outside the box. Let me share with you a personal story. My wife Tara and I met in college. We were poor college students but the lack of money did not prevent us from getting married and we did not want to wait long before we started our family. We didn't know how we were going to make ends meet and we knew it would be challenging but we wanted and were determined to face life's challenges, whatever they may be, together. A few years later, I was still trying to finish up my schooling and I was working full-time. We were renting an apartment and we very much wanted to save to buy our first house. We took an inventory of our income and expenses. Saving any money seemed almost impossible. This is where we started to get creative. Our biggest expense was the rent payment every month. We started to think of ways we could possibly live for at least one year without a rent payment. Moving in with parents with a wife and two small children at this point was not a viable option for us at the time but we were determined to find a way to drastically lower our expenses. So we started brainstorming. My wife had previously volunteered at a care center. She is very nurturing and she loved to visit and care for elderly people. I had the thought, I wonder how many elderly people there are in our city that are living in their home alone but have reached a point where they need assisted living and would love to have a live-in assisted care provider. Then I wondered if we could find someone that would be okay if the care provider came with a husband and two small children. We had never heard of anyone doing anything like that before but we decided to test the waters and to see if there were any takers. Of course this was back before the internet and so we ran an ad in the classified section of the local newspaper. We were surprised to receive about a half a dozen calls of people looking for live-in care providers for their aging parents. We had more than one solid offer. We met with the first interested family. We fell in love with them and they fell in love with us. It was an elderly man in his 90s. He had recovered from a stroke but had some paralysis and some limitations. He was a very kind sweet man that absolutely loved children. He lived in a two-story home. His adult children offered us room and board. We had the full basement to ourselves including all utilities paid. My wife was able to do the shopping and prepare his meals and provide the needed care. They also paid her $600 per month additional. The commitment was for a minimum of one year and a little before the year was complete Grandpa Joe, as we lovingly called him, passed away in my wife's arms when I was away at work. This experience was a miracle to us on many levels. We were able to drastically reduce our expenses and even increase our income. After one year we had saved enough for a down payment and we bought our first house. Let me tell you another creative out-of-the-box story of a couple age 61. They had very little save for retirement but the husband's job was going well and his income was really at highest level of his entire career. They got creative and created an aggressive plan that would allow them to reduce their expenses by nearly 70% for three years. They sold their large home with the plan to downsize to something less expensive to maintain. They actually moved in with their adult daughter who was working part-time and struggling to go to school and taking care of her two-year-old son. They offered to rent a bedroom from her, share utility expenses and provide care for their grandson for this three-year period until their daughter graduated college. Their plan helped their daughter immensely. It saved her from paying for child care and they were able to save 70% of their income over a three-year period. This was a big win for both parties. After three years, they bought a comfortable one-level condo with very low maintenance costs. Recommendation seven is to work longer. For decades, the age of 65 has been the arbitrary assumed age of retirement. Why is that? In the past, this was what social security designated as the full retirement age and 65 is the age when you can become eligible for Medicare, but I believe it's outdated. We live significantly longer nowadays and 70 is the new 65. We really do live longer and the odds that you or your spouse will live into your 90s and beyond is statistically high, higher than many people think. You should plan to live to 100 because many of you will. I know many people in their 70s still working, some because they need the income, others because they simply enjoy working. It's also not uncommon for a person to retire only to get bored and to go back to work, even if only part-time. If you're really tired of your job, then maybe you could retire from that one and find a completely different type of job, something that you would enjoy better. Maybe you could start a side household, a small business of some sort. There are many opportunities out there and in future episodes of the Financial Fast Lane, I plan to explore many of the possibilities that you could consider, which is another reason why you may want to consider subscribing to this channel if you have not. Recommendation number eight, delay starting Social Security benefits. If you work longer, you are able to delay Social Security benefits longer. This can increase the size of your future Social Security benefits in a couple of ways. One is you'll have a longer and better earnings history. They use your best 35 years and so every year that you work can make a big difference. Also, when you delay Social Security benefits beyond full retirement age, you also can earn DRCs or Delayed Retirement Credits. The size of your Social Security benefits can be much larger when you do this, but you really need to have a good Social Security strategy. To better understand how Social Security Delayed Retirement Credits work and for a customized Social Security strategy personalized for you, you can go to socialsecuritylane.com for more information. Recommendation number nine is to improve your physical and mental health. A sedentary lifestyle leads to disease and disease brings with it huge financial costs. Getting physically and mentally fit may be the most important thing you can do for your retirement, truly. When you are fit, you will have more energy, you will enhance your ability to work longer and to earn longer. The benefits of exercise and eating healthy are huge. Recommendation number 10 is to have faith. Faith in yourself, faith in your future, and most importantly, faith in God. Great and amazing things can be accomplished. Although it may feel overwhelming and even impossible, nothing is impossible. You are more capable than you think, you are stronger than you think, you are more creative than you think, and you can do hard things. You can overcome any challenge when you put your mind to it. I love this quote from Ella Wheeler Wilcox, there is no chance, no destiny, no fate that can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul. I would encourage you to memorize that quote and recite it every day. Maybe put it on your refrigerator door or on your bathroom mirror so you can see it every day. There is no chance, no destiny, no fate that can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul. Recommendation 11 is to never stop learning. You got to be informed. Read good books. If you have never read The Richest Man in Babylon by George Clayson, I would start there. You may want to read Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. These are motivational and inspiring books. But also you need to learn about the best ways to save and invest your money. There are important tax strategies when it comes to actually saving. Should you fund IRAs, Roth IRAs, 401ks? What about catch up contributions? And I have other videos that go into that. But when you save, you want to save in the most tax efficient way possible. And you, of course, want to be wise in all of your investments. Now, I have put links to some of the books that I recommend in the description below. And finally, Recommendation 12 is don't overlook a HECM strategy. A HECM is a home equity conversion mortgage. It is a type of reverse mortgage. You need to know that the laws have changed and there are new types of reverse mortgages that have more options and more flexibility. If you have about 50% equity in your home and you are at least age 62, you could put an end to your mortgage payments. Just think about how that would feel. No more mortgage payments. You may also be able to establish a tax-free stream of income to supplement your retirement income. I can't take the time in this video to go into all the details, but you could learn more from my book. In chapter nine, specifically, I outlined the advantages of the HECM. But this one strategy could be a complete game changer for you in your retirement. If you're interested in my book, it's available on Amazon. The book is The Holistic Retirement Planning Revolution. You can also just go to Amazon and search on my name, Lane Martinson, and you will find the book. There's also a direct link in the description below. So there you have it. My top 12 recommendations if you are over 55 and have nothing saved for retirement. If you found any part of this video beneficial, I would love to know. Please add a comment down below. Let me know what stood out to you, and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode of The Financial Fast Lane.