If you think you're ready for retirement, think again

Everyone hopes that their reward for decades of hard work will be decades more to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

But if you ask financial guru Suze Orman, the average American is nowhere near ready. Their savings won’t last decades — they’ll last about three years.

Northwestern Mutual’s latest study shows that while many people took advantage of the pandemic to save more, the average retirement savings dropped in 2022 from $73,000 to $62,000. And the reality is that seniors 65 and older spend an average of $46,000 a year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says.

If you want more than three good years, Orman’s book The Ultimate Retirement Guide for 50+ offers five key moves you can make today to set yourself up for a happy retirement. Here’s how to get started.

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Take a hard look at your finances

If you haven’t already, Orman says it’s time to buckle down and take a deep look through your budget.

Compare what you’re spending to what you’re saving. Trim the fat where you can and cut back on any unnecessary spending so you can allocate more to your retirement savings column.

Do you own a home and are you planning to stay in it through retirement? Then Orman says you need to come up with a plan now to ensure you’ll have your mortgage fully paid off before you retire.

Downsize your home

You may have plenty of sentimental reasons to want to stay in your current home, but if it’s more space than you need and you can make money off of it, you may want to consider selling now.

Not waiting until you have to sell the house makes sense, Orman says, because if you invest the profits now, you’ll accrue much more interest than if you waited another 10 or 15 years.

“I don’t want you to wait till you’re 60 or 70 to sell this home,” she says. “I want you to downsize right now, so that you can start saving more money right now.”

Beef up your emergency fund

Financial experts typically recommend you have an emergency fund of at least three to six months’ worth of living expenses, but Orman recommends you make that two or three years.

Yes, three years’ worth of expenses in an emergency fund. Her reasoning is that if the market ever takes a downturn, you’re not going to want to be withdrawing from your retirement accounts until it bounces back.

With a substantial emergency fund, you’ll be able to get by until it’s once again safe to take out funds from your retirement account. If you need a little help setting up an account, you can turn to a fiduciary financial adviser.

Invest in a Roth IRA

To avoid paying tax when make a withdrawal from your retirement account, Orman recommends you go for a Roth IRA account.

“Later on in life, you want to be able to take that money out tax-free,” she explains.

Because your contributions to a Roth account are made after tax, you won’t have to deal with deductions when you withdraw. Traditional IRAs, on the other hand, aren’t taxed when you make contributions, so you end up paying later.

However, the IRS does set limits on how much you can contribute and who can contribute. You’ll need to have an adjusted gross income under $139,000 or $206,000 for married or joint filers.

Most banks and brokerage firms offer these accounts. And if you’re not keen on making the big investment decisions yourself, you can always open an IRA through a robo adviser that will manage your retirement account for you.

Update your investment portfolio

Taking a “set it and forget it” approach to your investment portfolio rarely pays off. You have to regularly revisit your portfolio and make sure it’s still in line with your financial goals and timelines.

Check in with your financial adviser to ensure the balance you’ve got of cash, stocks and bonds is the right amount for your retirement goals. . Orman recommends either stocks or exchange-traded funds ETFs that pay dividends. So even if the market sees a downturn, your investments will still provide you some income.

“If you happen to hit a patch where the market starts to go down, you want these stocks to still provide income for you,” she says.

The moral of the story

When it comes down to it, the greatest threat to your comfort in retirement is not the stock market, how much you have saved or exorbitant spending — it’s you.

Orman says it’s normal to make a few missteps along the way, but if you want to retire comfortably one day, it’s time to get learning. Whether you do the research yourself or work with a professional financial adviser, the more financial education you seek out, the less likely you are to mess up.

“The biggest mistake you will ever make in your financial life are the mistakes you don’t even know that you are making,” Orman says.

If you think you’re ready for retirement, think again