We all experience three distinct phases during our financial lifetimes.

Whether you are nearing retirement and just starting a budget, or you began retirement planning early in life, these timelines provide a reference point for you to work from.

-Foundation for Financial Wellness

Video Transcript:

Probably the question we hear most often in Counseling Sessions is “How much will I need to retire?” Of course that’s different for every person.  But it’s a great starting point to talk about the phases of life that lead to retirement. There are three phases of a financial lifetime.

Accumulation is first where we start, save, grow, and protect our wealth, keeping as much of that wealth as we possibly can. For most of us, we spend about 50 years of our life in this phase.

Then we enter the spend down phase. This is where we enter retirement, and we spend down all that money that we saved in our accumulation phase. Of course, we still are out to preserve as much as we can for the next phase which is when we give money away. Assets - to leave a legacy for others. We might give away our assets to organizations or important people in our lives.

While these stages roughly align with our age, many of us put our financial house in order at various times in our lives. Each phase on this timeline lasts for a period of years and builds on the previous one.

Whether you are nearing retirement and just starting a budget, or you began retirement planning early in life, these timelines provide a reference point for you to work from. 

OK, now a quick review for you to decide if you have any decisions to make or actions to take.

Looking through this new lens of the Three Phases of a Financial Lifetime, what phase are you in, and how well are doing at retaining alignment between your values, your vision and your financial plan?

As always, don’t forget to take advantage of your private counseling session. It’s included. It’s private and confidential, and it’s always with one of our Certified Financial Wellness Counselors. To schedule your counseling session, simply click on the “Request Counseling” button.