Why Retirement Income Planning is Vital

Dave and Sandi Martin discuss why retirement income planning is one area where professional advice can make a meaningful difference.

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Retirement income planning is something you have to do because without changing your risk levels at all, you can keep a lot more money in your pocket if you do it well. If you know how to execute and whether to use a meltdown strategy, when to take your CPP. And my big argument, and I’m not pro-planner at all times, is but this is one time you need a planner in many instances.

There is some good do it yourself software. It’s getting better. There’s more of it out there, but I still think a planner who has seen the mistakes and knows kind of what questions to ask can add a lot of value. Now, you’re biased, but do you agree that this is one case where a planner can really make a big difference, the retirement income planning?

Yeah. And sometimes the big difference is for the people who are very quick and good with some of this better software that exists, the difference we make is to go in and give them like a, a look over the shoulder, a second opinion and say like, “No, you’ve, you’re thinking about the right things.” Um, but for other people, there is, there are so many complex moving parts, and the onus is on the individual to do it right and to do it once.

And it is very difficult to… If you are an expert on your own life, if you know how to teach a classroom full of 34 kids or whatever the other thing might be, uh, it is understandable that all of the technical requirements to kind of avoid shipwreck in retirement aren’t things that you spent a lot of time thinking about.

So it is totally fair, right?

That’s well said.

Yeah. Um, the, the other thing, sorry, I do, I wanna add one more thing, which is there’s also, you know, the software is good, and I’m sure it’s going to get better, but there are real-life pieces of knowledge just about how institutions work. Even something small as it’s unlikely you’ll be able to take a monthly withdrawal out of your RRSP.

You’ll have to convert it or pay administrative fees. Like those kinds of things

That’s exactly my point. No, but that’s a great example. That’s exactly my point is that you’re seeing that on the front lines all the time. You know the nuances, and cumulatively, the nuances can make a fairly big difference to what should be the strategy selected. And I’ve just seen so much value add from the better planners on the retirement income front, and I like the people to get the advice relatively early.

I’d rather they go five to seven years before retirement, certainly not waiting until that day or anything along that line.