Women face a variety of unique challenges in retirement planning. Compared with men, they tend to live longer, they contribute less to tax-qualified accounts due to time out for motherhood, and therefore often have much smaller Social Security checks.
When their spouse dies, household income is less. They also face higher healthcare and long-term care costs BECAUSE of longevity. And with their longevity comes a longer period of time during which inflation, disability, market crashes, and tax hikes can reduce their savings.
Here’s a grim statistic: eighty percent of men die married. Eighty percent of WOMEN, die single or widowed. And because many women are younger than their husbands, women may live ten to fifteen years on their own. As they age, their investment decision making may suffer.
Women are much more likely to become care givers for a parent and potentially their husbands at some point. Consider this statistic: In her 60s a woman’s estimated lifetime risk of developing breast cancer is one in eleven, but for developing Alzheimer’s it is one in six. Therefore, not only might a woman live for a long time in her elder years, her odds of doing it with dementia are high.
Statistically, about thirteen million women are either living with Alzheimer’s right now, or caring for someone who has it.
What can you do now to plan for the future? Usually, a simple shift in your investment strategy—from pure accumulation-thinking to fixed income thinking, is all that’s needed. Our planning system at IQ Wealth® focuses on spousal planning. While growing a nest egg with market investments is a good thing, we’ve found that women see the wisdom of also locking in guaranteed lifetime income—like a pension.
Putting a carefully selected, high quality annuity into place (the kind that does not keep your money when you die) can be life-changing. Imagine a pension-like income that covers both spouses, for life, from the same IRA rollover account, while also protecting heirs.
Spousal planning is smart. At IQ Wealth, planning for women is a major focus. We can tailor a financial plan for you and/or your spouse to provide all the income you ever need, along with high quality dividend investments for prudent growth in a separate bucket. There’s never been a better time than right now to get started.
