125: Ready to Retire: The Ultimate Pre-Retirement Checklist with The Retirement Manifesto

May 18, 2020

Fritz Gilbert, founder of The Retirement Manifesto and author who planned his own transition, walks through a five-year pre-retirement checklist. He covers financial positioning, the one-more-year trap, cash-flow and withdrawal testing, healthcare and insurance timing, soft-retirement trials, personal data migration, and spousal communication. Practical, timeline-driven steps for a smoother retirement transition.

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ADVICE

Validate Your Numbers Early

Run multiple retirement calculators and track net worth to know if you’re on pace.
Start rebalancing strategically and understand spending needs to size your portfolio properly.

ANECDOTE

One More Year Paid Off

Fritz delayed retirement one extra year to build emotional and financial padding.
The extra year reduced anxiety and made his withdrawal rate comfortably low.

ADVICE

Model Cash Flow, Not Just Assumptions

Build a detailed cash-flow model out to age 95 using real spending by category.
Track actual spending to create accurate withdrawal needs and plan your safe withdrawal rate.

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In today’s episode, we speak with Fritz Gilbert from The Retirement Manifesto and go through his checklist to ensure a smooth transition into your new life.

Fritz speaks from experience and wrote the checklist during his own transition, starting five years out.

Oh yes, FIVE YEARS. If you want a smooth transition, you’ll need to plan ahead.

Scott and Mindy go through the checklist with Fritz, starting at five years before your retirement date. (They even touch on what to do BEFORE five years out.) Fritz’s list is extremely thorough and includes things you’ve most likely NOT even thought about.

From paying down debt to checking in with a financial planner to transferring all that personal stuff you currently have on your work computer or in your work email, we cover the obvious. But more importantly, we also touch on the “Oh man, I totally forgot to do that” stuff, which can be the difference between a seamless transition and one filled with “I wish I had done things differently.”

Fritz is such an expert in retirement planning that he wrote a new book about it: Keys to a Successful Retirement: Staying Happy, Active and Productive in Your Retired Years.

In this book, Fritz shares 24 keys to a great retirement—once you’ve made sure the transition goes well.

If you are on the path to retirement, this episode is NOT to be missed!

In This Episode We Cover:

What his pre-retirement checklist is all about
What his financial position looks like five years prior to retirement
His advice to people who are pursuing financial independence before starting
The "one more year" syndrome
5-year, 3-year, 2-year, 1-year, and 6-month checklists before retiring
Quitting your job
And SO much more!

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