#121 - 7 Essential Strategies for Successful Investing for Retirement

Eric Blake: Welcome to another episode of the Simply Retirement Podcast, where we want to educate and empower women to live your retirement on your terms. I'm your host, Eric Blake, and I would not be the man I am today without the women in my life. Recently, I had the opportunity to present to the New York Public Library on seven essential strategies for successful investing for retirement, and I wanted to share that presentation with you here on the podcast.

I was originally connected to the library through my relationship with Savvy Ladies, a nonprofit organization that provides free financial coaching for women. I am a volunteer coach for them, but last year they actually invited me to present in a joint education effort. And we're going to share the Savvy Ladies website in our show notes for those that are interested. This year, the library invited me back. I have a special thank you to James Dye and the New York Public Library for the invitation and the opportunity to be part of their Investing A to Z program. Now, let's get to that episode.

James Dye (NYPL): So today's webinar is titled Seven Essential Strategies for Successful Investing for Retirement. Our speaker is Eric Blake. Eric is a certified financial planner and the founder of Blake Wealth Management, specializing in helping women navigate retirement confidence. With 25 years plus of experience, he provides clear, practical strategies that help women optimize their investments, create reliable income streams, and minimize taxes. His personal passion for helping women stems from being raised by a single mother and grandmother being widowed at 62, providing a deep understanding of the financial challenges many women face later in life. As the host of the Simply Retirement Podcast, Eric educates and empowers women to take control of their financial future. So everyone, please welcome Eric Blake.

Eric Blake: Thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you all for being here. Thank you to James for the invitation. And I'm going to start by asking you to think about a couple of questions. Have you ever looked at your retirement investments during a market downturn and wondered, "Should I be doing something?" Or maybe you've asked yourself, "Am I taking too much risk, or maybe even not enough?" If you've had those thoughts, you are not alone.

Investing can feel overwhelming. Retirement can feel overwhelming. Put those two together and it is easy to understand why so many people worry about market downturns or whether they're going to have enough money to last. The good news is that a successful retirement investment strategy isn't about predicting the market or finding the perfect investment. It's about following a handful of timeless principles that can help you make better decisions over time, and that's exactly what I'm going to cover today. My goal is to keep this presentation simple, practical, and easy to understand, so you leave with seven strategies you can use to make more informed investment decisions for retirement.

Now, unfortunately, we always have these fun disclosures I've got to share. So before we dive in, just a couple of housekeeping items. Everything we talk about today is meant to be general education. It's not personalized advice. This isn't specific investment advice. You want to make sure you talk with your financial professional who understands your specific situation before making any big decisions. Talk with your tax advisor if you have specific questions about the tax implications of some of the strategies we'll discuss. And lastly, I think James had mentioned this, we'll have time to answer questions, but we will hold those to the end. I always encourage you to share those now, put those in the Q&A as we go so you don't forget them, and then we'll get to as many of those questions as we can before we wrap up.

So let's go ahead and get started. James has already shared some of this, but I just want to touch on it very quickly. Again, my name is Eric Blake. My firm, Blake Wealth Management, focuses on helping women over 55 who are divorced or widowed or navigating retirement on their own. I would say that's our specialty, but please don't worry. This presentation is going to be for everyone. If there are many men in the audience or couples tuning in together, I promise you're going to walk away with some practical, valuable strategies.

And that focus on women comes from my own story. I was raised by a single mother. I spent a great deal of time with my grandmother, who was widowed at 62. She's now 91. She spent almost 30 years of her life as a widow. I actually have five generations of women in my family still alive. My granddaughter just turned two and a half. But it was watching my mother and my grandmother navigate life and money on their own that really shaped how I approach retirement planning, and it's why I'm so passionate about helping people feel more confident about their financial future, no matter what the background is.

And because this is my presentation, I get to show you the five generations. So this is a picture of my grandmother, who is 91, and my granddaughter, who's now two and a half. This picture's a couple years old. But again, this is what drives me. This is my mother, my wife, my daughter, my granddaughter, my grandmother. Those are my why. That's why I do what I do. And obviously everyone's situation is different, but most retirees are going to face a lot of the same big questions. That's what today is about. We're going to cover seven strategies that give you a strong foundation for retirement, and also be sharing strategies and resources for navigating the more difficult periods of retirement, which are also starting to happen.

Now, over the past few decades, retirement has changed a lot. When you think about back in the '80s and '90s, things looked, or at least felt, easier when it came to retirement. People had pensions, the stock and bond markets were strong, health insurance was solid, and Social Security had just been fixed with some new rules. And even government bonds paid, you know, eight to 9%, which meant you could take 4% out to live on and maybe have another 4% left for later years.

But today's picture looks different. Most pensions are gone. Interest rates have been swinging up and down in ways we haven't really seen in several years. The stock market has had several big downturns since 2000, even though we've seen the positive results over the last few years. It doesn't mean we haven't seen our ups and downs in the past, including some of the worst downturns in history. And we've also dealt with significant inflation challenges, rising healthcare costs, and these ongoing worries again about Medicare and Social Security. But here is what I would call the key point. A successful retirement is still possible, and that's what the rest of this presentation is going to be all about.

So strategy one is very simple, but it is critically important, and that is you must have a plan. I would say the problem with the 24/7 news coverage that we all experience is that it incorrectly encourages you to focus exclusively on your portfolio or your investments rather than what really makes a difference in your life, and that is your financial plan. So the first thing I want you to think about is starting with defining your purpose. What matters most to you in retirement? I would even encourage you to ask what is most important in life when you're making financial decisions.

The next thing is the plan itself. This is what I would call your roadmap. I want you to think of it like a flight plan. It helps you move from where you're at today to where you want to go in the future in your retirement years. Then comes the portfolio. Your investments are not the plan. They're just the tools that help you carry out your plan. And I want you to think about it like this. Your retirement income plan, or your financial plan, is the flight path, and your portfolio is the plane that helps you get safely from point A to point B. You don't just hop on a plane and take off. If you don't know where you are or you don't know where you want to go, it makes it pretty tough to get anywhere. You also won't know when you need to make adjustments when you hit turbulence. Difficult markets, uncertainty, healthcare events. Every pilot starts with the perfect flight plan, but ultimately makes thousands of adjustments before arriving at that final destination.

So to build a strong financial plan, you first need to answer some really important questions to define your purpose. Obviously, when would you like to retire? What do you picture yourself doing with your time? I will say, as someone who's helped a lot of people retire, this one may be just as important as anything else we talk about today about the financial side of retirement. It's how am I going to spend my days? You also want to think about what are the goals you have beyond just covering the basics of retirement. Why are these things important to you? And of course, finally, how much are these things going to cost? And your answers to these questions become the foundation of your financial plan.

Now, strategy two, and this is really important, it's understanding the true objective of a retirement portfolio. And just a hint, it's probably not what you think. So what is the objective of my retirement portfolio, or more importantly, what should it be? Whenever I ask a soon-to-be retiree what their number one fear in retirement is, of course, the most common answer is, "I don't want to run out of money." Now that sounds relatively straightforward, but there is a problem. When I ask many of those same individuals what the primary objective of their retirement portfolio is, this is the typical response: preserving my principal. And many retirees don't realize this, but these two statements are out of alignment, and I'll explain why.

So what's the problem with principal preservation? The problem is that people are living longer, and that changes how we should plan for retirement. For a non-smoking couple retiring at the age of 62, the average life expectancy is about 92. That means there's a 50% chance at least one of those spouses will live 30 or more years in retirement. With a 3% inflation rate, which is about the historical average, that likely means prices could rise about two and a half times over that 30 years. So for some perspective, if you think about a box of Cheerios, that box of Cheerios you buy every morning for breakfast, if it costs you $5 a day, that means it could cost you $12 or more by the end of retirement. And of course, we've seen the impact inflation's had over these last several years as well.

So let's talk about what inflation actually is. I call it the silent budget killer. More recently, maybe not so silent. But let's talk about what's happening here. Inflation reduces purchasing power, meaning that every dollar you spend buys less stuff every single year, and then it continues to compound over time. Even a two to 3% average inflation rate can devastate your savings over multiple decades in retirement. And there's also an uneven impact on retirees, because many of the expenses of retirees, like healthcare, increase at a faster rate than just regular inflation. And if you want to see maybe the perfect example of inflation and how it can sneak up on you, postage is the perfect example. The cost of a stamp just 20 years ago was 39 cents. In 2026, it's 78 cents. That's the doubling of the cost of a stamp. That is inflation at work.

So what's the real risk in retirement? It isn't losing money in the market. It is running out of purchasing power over time. A portfolio that merely preserves its nominal value while inflation rises is quietly shrinking in real terms. As an example, if I put my retirement savings in CDs at 3% because I think it's safe, but if inflation is 3%, I could still run out of money, and that doesn't even account for taxes, which we're going to get to shortly as well. But think of it like a slow leak in a tire that I didn't even know about until it was too late. Now I'm 300 miles away, I'm in the middle of nowhere, and there's not a gas station in sight. That's inflation.

So what should the main objective of a retirement portfolio be? Many people think it's about protecting their money, but that's usually not enough. For many, the real goal of a successful retirement portfolio is growth of income, making sure your income increases over time so you can keep up with rising costs.

So now let's talk about risk, because there is no doubt that investment risk can be scary, again, because this is also what we see in the news. But in many cases, this fear is exacerbated by thinking about your retirement portfolio all wrong. So how can we reframe investment risk? Many of us are used to what we would call the traditional view. In the traditional approach, portfolios are described by percentages, like 70% stocks and 30% fixed income, or 100% stocks, or 50% stocks, whatever the case may be. But the focus is often on how much that portfolio might go down in a day, a month, or how much it might go down in a particular year. Just for example, a 70/30 portfolio, 70% stocks, 30% bonds, would have dropped about 24% in 2008. So if I started with a million dollars, that means I now have $760,000, and that can be scary. And it often leads people to make decisions out of fear. But there is a better way to look at risk, and that is by focusing on years of income.

So let's talk about how that works. Let's say you withdraw 4% of your portfolio each year, and you have 30% of your portfolio in bonds or fixed income. With 30% in fixed income, divide that by our 4% withdrawal rate, that's about seven and a half years of income set aside out of the stock market. And that buffer gives the stock portion of your portfolio time to recover during market downturns before you have to sell. So let's talk about why that's so important.

Let's look at one of the toughest periods in recent history, and that is the great financial crisis. For many of you who are on here today, it's likely you're still what you would consider the worst case scenario in your investing history. So October 2007, the market reached its peak before the crisis began. By March 2009, the S&P 500 had fallen more than 50% from the peak. But then by March 2013, the market fully recovered to its previous levels. So just to refresh, market peak, market bottoms in 2009, full price recovery about five and a half years later. Five and a half years after the peak, full market price recovery. During the second worst bear market in US history, the time from peak to full recovery was about five and a half years, not including dividends. Five and a half years.

So let's come back to our slide on reframing risk. If the worst market downturn since the Great Depression took five and a half years to recover, and again, for many that are on this presentation, that was worst case scenario and still may be, but in our example of having seven and a half years of income, that was enough to get us through it. Through what for many living today was the worst market of our lifetime. But if you had a big enough war chest, and that's what I call it for our clients, with a big enough war chest, we got through that. It was scary as hell, and there were times even I was worried in the middle of all this, but eventually we saw the light at the end of the tunnel and we were able to make it through to the other side.

So there's a very simple question that guides how we set up our plan. How long would a market downturn have to last before you need to sell stocks to maintain your lifestyle? Our job is to balance your comfort level with what you need each month. That's where ultimately the rubber meets the road. And the answer to this question shapes your entire portfolio structure. So will I choose a five-year war chest? Maybe I'm a bit more aggressive, I only choose three years. Maybe I'm more conservative and I choose 10 years. But as an example, 10 years was almost twice what we actually needed during the financial crisis. So if you choose a 10-year war chest, you might need to sacrifice or take a little bit less income from your portfolio as a trade-off for more certainty during a difficult market, whereas someone that chooses only a three-year war chest may have more income each month, but a higher possibility of needing to dip into that war chest during an extended market downturn. Neither's right or wrong. It's about what helps you sleep better at night.

So now that we've reframed how we think about risk, it's also a time to reframe how most investors look at stocks, and that gets us to strategy four, which is understanding the role of stocks in a retirement portfolio. Now, quite honestly, many people see stocks just like gambling. That's why you see the picture of the slot machine, because that's how stocks can feel, especially if you're looking at it just on a single day basis, or if you're watching CNBC or some of these other news channels where it's always about finding that next best thing, the next Apple or the next Nvidia, the next whatever, just hoping you hit it big by landing on red or getting triple sevens, or whatever gambling you might like to do. And I honestly don't do any of it. But the history of the market actually tells a very different story. Over long periods, stocks have helped to grow both income and principal, so they aren't just like gambling when you look at the decades of results. And on the next slide, we'll walk through a simple 30-year story to show you what this looks like.

So again, let's look at a simple 30-year story. If we go from 1996 to 2025, we can see why stocks are so important. So if I started with a million dollar investment and I put 75%, or $750,000, in the S&P 500 index and 25% in bonds. And just for a quick explanation, in case there's some younger investors or you're just really getting started, the S&P 500 would be a typical representation of the stock market. These are basically the largest 500 companies in our country, and you can't actually buy directly into the index, but you can buy a mutual fund or you can buy an exchange traded fund that invests in that index.

So back to our example. We put 75%, or $750,000, into the S&P 500 index, and then we put the rest in bonds or more conservative investments. On just that $750,000, the dividends, the cash paid by the stocks, grew at about 5.7 times, roughly $17,000 a year to about $96,000 a year. And we'll talk more about the importance of dividends here shortly, but the stock portion grew to about $8.4 million over that time. Now, keeping in mind, this means you're not actually taking money out, but this period also included four bear markets, including two of the worst in US history.

So it's clear that as scary as bear markets can be, or that each one has been in the past, patience has been of much greater value. This is a clear case of doing nothing often being the right thing to do as compared to doing something when markets become volatile. So if you recall back from strategy two, if the primary goal of a retirement portfolio is to provide a growing income that meets or exceeds inflation, and to actually grow your principal if possible, a portfolio consisting of dividend paying stocks with our buffer, or what I call the war chest, of lower risk assets for our years of income is one way we may be able to accomplish this. Now, knowing this, does this change how you might think about investing your portfolio or how you might think about investing for retirement?

So now that we've talked about the role of stocks, let's move to strategy five, which is the value of dividend growth investing. So first, I just want to share a simple definition of what a dividend is. If you buy a stock or you buy a stock fund in your 401(k) or your IRA, you become an owner of that company. If that company earns profits, it may share some of those profits with the owners as a dividend. So just say, for example, even if you own a single share of Apple stock, you own a small piece of Apple. When Apple makes money, it may pay you a dividend. If profits grow over time, that dividend may increase as well.

So let's talk about what dividend growth investing is. So first thing, dividend growth is not trying to beat the market. It's not chasing the highest yield, and it's also not a guaranteed fix for emotional investing mistakes. So if that's what it's not, let's talk about what it is. Dividend growth investing is a way to seek steady income that has historically outpaced inflation. It is a way to potentially leave your principal intact, and it's also going to be a simple system that reduces the stress of deciding what to sell and when, because of that consistent income. So if we seek a reliable income that has comfortably outpaced inflation throughout history, dividend growth investing might be that solution.

So this chart shows how dividends and inflation have changed over time. And again, dividends are the cash the companies pay their owners. Since 1960, prices, or inflation, have risen about 3%, but the cash dividend from the S&P 500 grew much faster than that. So dividend growth of the S&P 500 has grown about 42 times going back to 1960, while inflation has increased at about 11 times. So if we think about what that means for you, if your income can grow faster than prices, you have a better chance to keep your buying power in retirement. That is why we focus on dividend growth, steady companies that can raise payouts over time, not just looking for the highest yield today.

Now, of course, when it comes to investing, the idea is always about how do we achieve the highest return with the least amount of risk, right? So as we look at this chart, let's make sure we know what we're looking at. So the first thing is we have returns, and that's pretty obvious. It's the average annual return of companies with these different dividend strategies. The next column I want you to focus on is column three, and that is standard deviation. Standard deviation is basically just a measure of volatility, or a measure of risk. So for this period of time, from 1973 to 2025, companies that grew their dividends had the highest rate of return. They also experienced the lowest standard deviation or risk as compared to the other overall market. Now, companies that cut or eliminated dividends had lower returns and much bigger swings of volatility. So again, while dividends don't guarantee future results, they can be a sign of financially strong businesses. And that's one of the reasons why dividend growth investing can play a major role in our long-term investing strategy.

Last thing on dividends before we move to our next strategy, and that is compounding. When you reinvest your dividends, you buy more shares. Next time you earn dividends on more shares, then it repeats. That's your money making more money over time. As you can see, just looking at the price of stocks is only part of the picture. Ignoring the dividends can make a huge difference, as you see here, just simply by comparing the price only of the S&P 500 and the total return, including reinvested dividends, going back to 1960. Again, a huge impact on your end results.

All right, so now we're on to strategy six, and that is managing your taxes. In retirement, there's obviously more to consider than just investing. One particular area of importance is managing your tax burden, and there are a few taxes, and what I would call phantom taxes, that deserve our attention so that we can keep more of what we have and what we earn. There's something, depending on your age, that you may or may not be familiar with, but it's something called IRMAA surcharges. And this is basically saying that if your income gets too high, your Medicare premiums can jump. Things like required distributions can push income up, so we plan ahead to try to avoid some of these surprises.

Taxable accounts may also play a role in your tax strategy. If you want to keep taxes lower, you might be able to use ETFs, or exchange traded funds, or low turnover index funds, or municipal bonds in your taxable account to keep your tax liability lower. We also have potentially Roth conversions. So in your lower tax years, you may think about moving some money from your traditional IRA account, from your pre-tax accounts, to a Roth or tax-free account to possibly reduce future required distributions, and it might also help you avoid those higher Medicare premiums or being pushed into a higher tax bracket in the future.

And there are other tax strategies you might consider as well, and here are a few examples. Something I call filling up the tax brackets. So again, in your lower income years, you might choose to take a bit more from your IRAs, or as we talked about on the last slide, you might think about doing Roth conversions if you don't need that money yet, and this can give you more flexibility later on. There's also something called tax loss harvesting. So when we do see these market declines or market drops, you might consider selling some of your investments with losses to offset gains, or even offset future gains, and that can also lower your tax bill.

And then, of course, there's charitable giving optimization, using what we call qualified charitable distributions, or QCDs, from your IRAs. If you are subject to required distributions, you can send money directly to a charitable organization from your IRA and avoid paying taxes on those dollars. You might also think about gifting appreciated shares or appreciated investments, gifting those dollars to charities as a way of managing your tax burden as well. Again, managing your tax burden requires constant attention, but it can offer significant return on that time invested.

Then, of course, we have the new tax law to discuss, and I've outlined some of the key provisions, some of the consideration strategy that might impact those of you who are joining us today. Something very important to keep in mind is that while some of these provisions are permanent, to whatever extent anything can be permanent when we're talking about politics, right, many of these provisions that impact retirees and retirement planning are temporary. So just to go over a few of the key provisions, the tax brackets, the lower 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act brackets, are staying in place permanently for now, however long that might be.

We also have the new age 65 plus deduction. This is a new $6,000 deduction. Again, it's only from 2025 to 2028. If you're over 65 by the end of the calendar year, you may be eligible for this, but there's also phase outs. I talked about some of the income limitations or income tax strategies related to income earlier on filling up the bracket. There are phase outs on this age 65 plus deduction, where at $75,000 in adjusted gross income for single filers, it starts to phase out, and $150,000 for married filers, that deduction starts to phase out.

Now, I also want to touch on Social Security. As many of you probably have figured out by now, benefits are not tax-free. Social Security benefits are not tax-free. However, with this new 65-plus deduction, the statistics are that up to 90% of recipients may not owe tax on their Social Security benefits, but it's because of that deduction, not because the Social Security tax rule is changing. There's also something important called the SALT cap, the state and local tax deduction, where the cap on that was significantly increased, again, temporarily. In 2026, that cap was $40,400, but then it's going to drop back to $10,000 in 2030. So for higher tax states, where you've got like New York, where you've got a state income tax or you've got higher property taxes, that can play a significant role in your tax situation as well, where you can deduct up to $40,400 in 2026 on those different taxes.

So again, let's talk about some of the opportunities that come with this new tax law. As I said, it extended these lower brackets, which may help reduce taxes on your IRA and 401(k) withdrawals. It also potentially creates a window for larger Roth conversions at these historically low rates. Also, the opportunity to optimize income before your required distributions start, either at age 73, if you're born in 1960 or later, or 75 if you're born in 1960 or later, 73 if you're born before 1960. That is your RMD age. And again, QCDs, or qualified charitable distributions, remain a very viable strategy. And there's also a new deduction if you're not itemizing your taxes. There's a new deduction for charitable donations of up to $2,000 for married couples and up to $1,000 for individuals starting in this year, 2026. So if you're making charitable donations and you're not itemizing, you may be able to deduct up to 2,000 for married, 1,000 for single.

Which brings us to our final strategy, strategy seven, and this is more what I would call a question, and that is, should you work with an advisor? Obviously, my bias on this topic is probably obvious, but also, as you've probably figured out by now, retirement income planning is much more complex than accumulation planning. Beyond the investing and tax related decisions noted throughout the presentation, there are many more important decisions that need to be made regarding Social Security or Medicare, estate planning, long-term care. All these require your attention. And an advisor can help you put those pieces together to make a clear plan, help you stay calm when markets get bumpy, but also continue to provide continuity for your spouse or your family if you're the main decision maker.

And on our next slide, I want to share what professional guidance can look like and the kind of help many families find most useful. So here's what professional guidance can add. Number one is experience. A seasoned team looks across investments, taxes, Social Security, Medicare, estate planning, and long-term care, so all those pieces fit together. You also have objectivity. When those markets get noisy, you should get calm, evidence-based advice to avoid making emotional decisions during those periods of time. And again, continuity. If you're the main decision maker today, a trusted partner can support your spouse or family if they ever need help later. And of course, the big idea here is that steady guidance helps you stick with the plan when it matters most, which again, in retirement, in those years where it's really critical, where that risk of running out of money becomes so top of mind, that's where it can really make a difference.

Now that said, deciding who to partner with for your retirement journey is an important decision, so I'd like to offer just a few questions worth asking any potential candidates that you might think about hiring. Question one is, are you a fiduciary? Meaning, do you act in the client's best interest at all times? Number two, what services do you provide? In other words, what else do you do beyond just managing my investments? Number three, what would a typical year of client service look like and feel like? How often would we meet? When are you available? What is your communication strategy? Then of course, number four, what are your philosophies around creating an effective retirement income strategy? Now, candidly, you might rightly believe that you can manage your own financial affairs in retirement. The question becomes, do you want to commit the time and the energy to design strategies for a successful retirement, or would you prefer to partner with an advisor who can walk with you every step of the way? Of course, that is your choice.

So where do we go from here? Just to quickly recap our seven strategies that we've covered today. Number one is have a plan, because your plan guides everything. The portfolio is the tool, not the plan. Number two, we talked about understanding the true objective of a retirement portfolio. You should aim for growth of income, not simply preserving principal. Number three is reframing risk. Think in years of income instead of percentages. How many years do you need in your war chest? Number four, understand the role of stocks. Use stocks for long-term growth and rising income, even with the ups and downs that come along with that. Number five was the value of dividend growth, seeking steady income that can outpace inflation. Six, managing taxes. You simply want to use tax smart moves to lower your lifetime tax liability. The less you pay in taxes, the more you get to keep and the more you get to spend, or the more you get to pass on to the people you care about. And then number seven is consider an advisor. Get experienced guidance to tie all the pieces together. These seven strategies are timeless, but what makes them powerful is how you apply them in your own situation, and that's where your next step comes in.

So now that we've walked through the seven essential strategies for successful investing for retirement, let's talk about how you can move forward from today. Here are four simple steps that you can take. Number one, again, potentially seek professional guidance. Talk with a trusted financial planner or retirement coach. I know that James mentioned some resources they offer as well. Number two, develop your plan. Write down your goals, what your income needs are, and how your savings is going to support those. Number three, and this is really critical, implement your strategy. Put the plan to work. Set up your accounts, automate your savings, and organize your investments and taxes. And then number four, review and adjust. Check in regularly. We know life is going to change. Your plan should adjust with that.

I mentioned earlier that a pilot will make thousands of adjustments before reaching the destination. You start with a plan, but it's only as good as your ability to adjust over time. And I don't know about you, but I don't rate my pilots on their ability to write a flight plan. I rate them on did they adjust throughout the flight and did they get me to my destination? And this is your reminder to take action. The best time to start for many of you may have been many years ago. That may even be a source of worry or concern, but the second best time to start is today. You don't need a perfect plan to begin. Take one small step. Check your spending plan, set aside a few months of cash needs, or schedule time to review your investments or your taxes. These small steps will add up very quickly. Starting now gives your plan more time to work for you.

If you have questions or you need any type of help, resources to help with your plan, I'm always happy to be a resource for that. We've got a podcast, we've got a YouTube channel. Anything I can do to be a resource, free. We've got tons of free tools and resources at our website, whether it's blakewealthmanagers, excuse me, blakewealthmanagement.com, or the simplyretirementpodcast.com, where we've got a ton of free resources, and of course the podcast is free as well. So these are all just some resources that might help you. Feel free to reach out, shoot me an email if I can address any of your questions or steer you in the right direction as well.

But thank you for your time and attention today. I know we covered a lot about investing for a successful retirement. The most important step is simply to start. Think about your money, your lifestyle goals, your healthcare needs as you're planning. These ideas give you a starting point, but everyone is different. So work with your financial, tax, and legal professionals to build a plan that fits you. And I'm wishing you confidence, freedom, and fulfillment in the next chapter of life.

Once again, I want to thank James Dye and the New York Public Library for the invitation and the opportunity to be part of their Investing A to Z program. If you'd like to see the recording of the actual webinar, we will share a link in the show notes and at thesimplyretirementpodcast.com. As always, thank you for tuning in to the Simply Retirement Podcast. Be sure to follow the podcast so you are notified when new episodes are released. And until next time, please remember, retirement is not the end of the road. It's the start of a new journey.