Dual-career couples: Who retires when?.
From a financial viewpoint, a staggered retirement works best, experts say.
from the September 10, 2007 edition
Page 4 of 4
She asks couples who are considering retirement, "If money were not an issue, what would your preference be?"
Morgillo also finds that financial advisers who counsel prospective retirees "need to be very sensitive to the fact that it isn't just about the numbers."
Yet numbers do matter. "If you can stagger your retirements two years to potentially three years apart, that's providing downside insurance on your combined portfolio for the husband and wife," says P.J. DiNuzzo, president of DiNuzzo Investment Advisors in Beaver, Pa. "A lot of times, at least one spouse does have flexibility and can stay on a year or two."
Natalie Michalek, a certified financial planner in Dallas, finds that although most of her clients come in with the idea of staggering their retirements, they often retire about the same time.
"They may not initially think they're going to do that," she says. "But one person tends to get jealous of the free time and new endeavors of the retired partner. They'll say, 'I've always wanted to volunteer, garden, visit family, start new hobbies.' As we work through the financial plan and the retirement cash flow, sometimes we can justify to them that they have sufficient resources to do so."
Discuss how you want to live
When couples do stagger their departures, Ms. Michalek says, "Usually the person who has better benefits and a better lifestyle is more likely to stay longer. If one is a teacher and the other a doctor, the teacher would leave first."
As couples consider their options, Dennis offers a reminder: "It's a new opportunity when both partners are fulfilled in their life," she says. "The challenge is, what makes this time of life the most gratifying, most fulfilling?"
In seeking answers to questions about the timing of retirement and satisfying activities during this new chapter, many people need to plan better, Moen says. "They do more planning for next year's vacation than for the next 10 or 20 years. They talk about the date, sometime in the future, or the financial stuff. But they don't talk about how they're going to live as a couple in retirement."
For couples like the DelMutos who have planned carefully and discussed these issues, the future looks promising.
"Our idea was to maintain our lifestyle and travel and do the things we want to do," he says. "It looks like we'll be able to do that." Anticipating the day when his wife retires and they can take to the road in their 36-foot RV, he says, "We'll go full blast in a few more years."
That attitude squares with Moen's philosophy. "No one size fits all anymore in retirement," she says. "That creates anxiety, but it also creates opportunity. I can create my own pathway."
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