Lifepath Investing: Age Matters
Despite our individualities, we all experience a time in our investment lives when we are especially sensitive to investment losses. We all must pass through the “Risk Zone” as we transition from working life to retirement. The Risk Zone spans the 5-10 years before and after retirement and is critical because our savings are at their peak. At this stage in all of our lives we figure out what lifestyle we can afford in retirement.
Whatever we’ve saved, it’s “enough” because it has to be. We figure out how to make it last. Losses sustained in the Risk Zone can destroy our plans, crimping our planned lifestyle. It can be shocking and demoralizing.
This transition that we all must undergo necessitates a Lifetime Investment Master Plan (LIMP). The key to a comfortable retirement is to (1) save enough, and (2) invest it wisely. A wise investor will protect his/her lifetime of savings in the Risk Zone.
Serial entrepeneur specializing in target date funds and baby boomer investment education.
Ronald J. Surz is co-host of the Baby Boomer Investing Show and president of Target Date Solutions and Age Sage, Target Date Solutions serves institutional investors, namely 401(k) plans. Age Sage serves do-it-yourself individual investors. His passion is helping his fellow baby boomers at this critical time in their lives when they are relying on their lifetime savings to support a retirement with dignity, so he wrote a book: Baby Boomer Investing in the Perilous 2020s .
