I have to admit I was kinda dreading the visit to the financial planner who I shall refer to as FP from here on. Larry asked around at work and this guy's name came up several times. Larry called and made the appt. and found out the visit was free. I was worried about the "free" part. Is anything really free? We had some prep to do for the appt. like declaring all our debt, income, home value, etc. This was all sent a few weeks ahead of the visit. When we met the FP at our appt. he reminded me of a geeky looking Jim Carey. First thing he said when we sat down was "you're in great shape for retirement!" Whew! Those were good words to hear. He asked us about our "retirement plan", luckily we had one, and we went from there. We told him we had recently put our home on the market as our plan was to relocate to Reno once Larry retires. One sticky point for our visit was what do we do about the spousal annuity. If Larry were to die I would be entitled to a decent percentage of his retirement by having the spousal annuity in place. Also my health insurance is tied into the SA. But it's spendy, about $500.00 a month. One thought we had, and others have done this, would be to take the least ammount of SA so that I can still retain my health insurance and then get a large term life insurance policy. Well the FP said in no uncertain terms to NOT do that, but instead take the full SA. He said he has seen too many spouses left in financial ruin and dependent on their children.
One of two other things he wanted us to have are a will or living trust. We "proudly" told him we have had a living trust in place for about 6 years now. This is such good advice for EVERYONE and something that we spent a lot of time on at the retirement seminar. When the instructor asked who all had a will or living trust only a very few raised their hands out of a roomful of people!! Six years ago my father was killed suddenly in a single car crash. He was a single man and it fell on me to take care of everything from dealing with the police to getting his mail. He died without a will and I can tell you I was not even able to legally get his mail!!! Finally this tiny post office decided to break the rules and allow me access to his mail but they would not forward it to me. I had to drive an hour and a half to get it. So get a will at the very least or spend the extra couple hundred dollars and get the trust which is what I recommend if you are married.
The second thing the FP said we should have is long term health care. He really stressed that it's a must as again he has seen couples put into financial ruin if one needs long term, nursing home care. We have yet to get it but are in the information gathering process. It looks like it's going to be a couple hundred a month though. So between the SA and the long term health care we are looking at $700.00 a month before anything else. So now I'm getting scared all over again. I know these are good, sensible things for us to have but that's a real chunk of change. The FP still thinks we will be okay even with these expences.
