Financial planning for the senior depends upon individual circumstances. Some couples approach retirement with the same partner they originally married. Married, with adult children and grandchildren, they seek to spend earnings, generated through a lifetime of effort, and leave the balance to the kids. It turns out this is a much easier scenario to plan, then the couple who has lost a spouse through divorce or widowhood, has remarried, and each spouse has their own children and grandchildren. In the latter case, financial planning is more complicated.

Some couples enter their “golden years” fully prepared to reap rewards of years of hard work. Throughout life, they planned, generated revenue streams to care for them, and, with social security benefits, find they have enough money to live for the duration of life. Others aren’t so fortunate, as they avoided considering their retirement, or faced an unexpected hardship, and then suddenly realized, social security, would not generate enough money to support them.

There are so many possible scenarios that could have occurred throughout life, that planning tips for older couples is impossible, without an understanding of the resources available. Therefore, the first step to planning for your financial future is to carefully analyze what resources you have available.

Analyze monthly income: What is your monthly income? Do you have social security benefits adequate to meet monthly living expenses? Do you have savings accounts? Stocks? Bonds paying dividends? Pensions? Insurance benefits? The very first step you must take to evaluate how much money you have to live on, is to carefully evaluate what you have in income each month.

Determine monthly costs: How much money does it cost you to live each month? What are the expenditures? Do you have a home, or are you renting a home? Even if you own a home, you still need to pay yearly taxes, and insurance on this home. Not having a mortgage is a great benefit, but you must consider other expenses of homeownership.
Just as with financial planning at any age, you will need to consider the amount of money it costs you to live each month. Consider taxes, insurance, medical, food, entertainment, gasoline for the car, utility bills, cable, phone.

Consider assets: Consider stock and bond funds, pension funds, social security income, primary or secondary homes, annuities, jewelery, cars. All of these are considered in financial planning.

Evaluate debt: How much do you need to pay off debts to creditors? Do you have credit card debt? Mortgage debt?
Do your best to eliminate all debt.

Subtract liabilities from assets, and this is your net worth.
After considering net worth, and cash flow each month determine if you have enough to live out your life. Remember there is a big unknown factor, as none of us have a crystal ball and know exactly how long we will live. You will want to consider in the event your spouse dies, will you be able to meet your monthly expenses?: If not, develop a plan.

Assuming you have planned well, and have reached the golden years with enough financial resources, you will want to consider how to invest the money you have. Consider stocks and bonds. When you were young, you wanted to have more money invested in stocks for growth. Now that you are older, you will want to place more of your funds in bonds that generate dividends, that you can use to live on. When young, place 60% of investment money into stocks, and 40% into bonds. Now that you are older, you will want to reverse this, placing more money in bonds, then in stock funds.

Think about leaving money to children and grandchildren. If you are of the original marriage, and have the same children you will have a simpler plan then if you have different children, from previous marriages.

Whatever, wherever, or whoever you decide to leave resources to, write it down. Create a plan for the inheritance and the distribution. You might want to speak with an attorney about creating a “living trust” In the event you should fall ill, you don’t want to be wiped out from medical expenses not covered by insurance or Medicare.

While leaving money to the kids is nice, but I am a firm believer in taking care of you first. You earned the money. You should reap the rewards. Take time to enjoy some of the income you may have available to you. You cannot take it with you.

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