Boomers & Retirement Savings: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Part 2

Lessons Learned?

A famous BusinessWeek magazine headline from 1979 heralded "The Death of Equities," and was shortly followed by nearly 20 years of continuous stock market growth. The point is, predictions of that nature rarely come true, especially when they need to address a long time period. The same is true for retirement planning; just because something is a certain way today, doesn't meant it will be that way 30 years from now.

One thing that never changes is the impact of good financial habits. If your boomer clients are experiencing problems with their retirement plan because they never developed a true strategy for building and protecting their savings, there is no time like the present to get started. Starting with a few basic steps can help them build something for the future, but it can also assist in showing their heirs that some level of financial security in retirement is not out of reach.

So what can the boomers of today do to help the workers of tomorrow develop better habits?

A 2006whitepaper on financial literacy by the National Bureau of Economic Research indicates that a strong positive correlation exists between planning and wealth accumulation. Even something as simple as setting a household budget can make a big difference. Here are some actions that could contribute toward improving opportunities to accumulate retirement savings:

• Pay yourself first and establish a budget. All people that receive a paycheck need to make savings a routine activity, which means setting aside a specific amount from every paycheck for retirement savings and include that as part of an overall budget. If you don't know how much money you have to spend every month, you won't know how much is available to save.
• Maximize your 401(k) contributions. Obviously, it's important for people that have access to an employer-sponsored 401(k) plan to enroll, but even more crucial is a directive to contribute as much as possible there and maximize any employer match that is available. If not, you are leaving money on the table. Similarly, it's a good idea to escalate contributions with any salary increases to take full advantage of the match.
• Pay down debt. It's likely that those without ample retirement savings have significant debt as well, including car loans, housing or credit card debt. It's critical that people are active in managing that debt by developing a strategy for paying off debt, generally starting with highest interest rates first.
• Understand the role of guaranteed income. How we save for retirement in America has changed drastically in the past 30 years, especially when it comes to guaranteed retirement income. Boomers need to incorporate financial products, like annuities, that can help them address the new reality they face, particularly risks like longevity, inflation and funding retiree health care. Individual responsibility for retirement will only continue to grow, so the next generation will also need to become familiar with the whole retirement savings picture and the different ways they can build a portfolio. They need to get focused on the best way to add guaranteed income into their retirement plan.

If the boomers taught us anything, let it serve as a cautionary tale rather than an example, proving that above all, saving for retirement is a constant activity that begins with your first job. Other lessons can certainly be gleaned from their experiencea home is not a retirement asset, credit card debt is expensive and needs to be managed, aggressive investing is not for the short term. But the key factor to recognize is a simple mantra: A failure to plan is essentially planning to fail.

By helping your boomer client with developing a sound saving strategy, you're also helping to build a new generation of savers that will have a better understanding of the challenges they'll face during their retirement years.

For more on boomers in retirement, see:

• Boomers and the New American Dream
• Pressed for Cash, Older Boomers Turn to Reverse Mortgages
• Bankers Life: Remind Boomers About Part B Costs