“Darren, with the market dropping, what should I do?”
It is the question I hear more than any other. But it is not the only one. After all this time, I can tell you the questions barely change — and that is actually a comfort. The dollar figures change. The names of the accounts change. The questions do not.
So here are the ten I hear most often, with honest, short answers. The kind I would give you across the table over a cup of coffee, before we did any of the real financial planning work.
1. How much do I really need to retire?
Let’s say you need about $100,000 a year to live the way you want to live in retirement. A common rule of thumb is to save 25 times that — about $2.5 million. This is the “4 percent rule” working in reverse: save 25x, withdraw 4 percent in the first year, then adjust for inflation each year after.
That number is a starting point, not an answer. The real number depends on when you retire, what Social Security and pensions cover, what you want to leave behind for your family, and how comfortable you are with watching the markets move. The 25x rule gets you close. A real retirement plan gets you precise — and the difference between those two is often the difference between retiring at 62 and waiting until 67.
Trust me on this: knowing your real number is one of the most freeing exercises in personal finance.
2. Am I saving enough each year?
A reasonable target for someone earning a steady income is 15 percent of gross pay, employer match included. Started later? Aim for 20 to 25 percent for as long as you can stretch it.
But percentages are blunt instruments. What actually matters is the gap between what you will spend in retirement and what your Social Security, pensions, and current savings will cover. Once you have run the math even once, you will know whether 10 percent is plenty or 30 percent is barely keeping up.
Most people I meet have never run that math. The ones who have, usually sleep better.
3. Roth or Traditional — which retirement account should I use?
Here is the short version. If you think your tax rate will be higher in retirement than it is today, lean Roth. If you think it will be lower, lean Traditional. And for most mid-career professionals, the right answer is some of both.
Roth contributions give you tax-free growth and tax-free withdrawals later, plus no required minimum distributions during your lifetime — which makes a Roth one of the most powerful legacy tools available to you. Traditional contributions give you the deduction now and the tax bill later. Owning a mix, on purpose, gives you the flexibility to manage your tax bracket year by year in retirement.
That flexibility is where a lot of the quiet value of good financial planning actually lives.
4. Should I pay off my mortgage early or invest the difference?
If your mortgage rate is meaningfully lower than what you can reasonably expect to earn investing, the math says invest. But there is a second math problem most people forget: a paid-off house in retirement removes one of the biggest fixed expenses from your budget. That meaningfully reduces what we call sequence-of-returns risk — the danger of a bad early-retirement market hitting your portfolio when withdrawals are also coming out.
For a client with a sub-4 percent mortgage and a decade or more to invest, we usually lean toward investing. For someone within five years of retirement, or with a higher rate, or who knows they will sleep better mortgage-free, paying it down can be the right call.
5. How should my investment mix change as I get older?
The old rule of thumb — “100 minus your age in stocks” — is probably too conservative now that retirements often run 30 years or longer. A more useful framework is to think in buckets.
Money you will need in the next one to three years belongs in stable, low-volatility holdings. Money you will need in three to ten years can be in a balanced mix. Money you will not touch for a decade or more can stay in stocks and ride the cycles. As you age, the proportions tilt — but you do not have to flip the whole portfolio overnight. And you probably should not.
Good investment advice in retirement is rarely about a dramatic move. It is about quiet, scheduled adjustments that keep the buckets refilled.
6. When should I start taking Social Security?
You can claim as early as age 62, at your full retirement age (66 or 67 for most people reading this), or wait until age 70. For every year you delay between your full retirement age and 70, your monthly benefit grows by roughly 8 percent. That is one of the only “guaranteed” returns in financial planning.
For singles in good health, delaying often wins. For married couples, the higher earner’s claim drives the surviving spouse’s benefit — so delaying the higher earner is frequently the right move even if the lower earner claims earlier.
The wrong question to ask is, “What did my neighbor do?” The right question is, “What does my actual longevity, marital status, and tax picture tell me?”
7. How do I plan for healthcare costs in retirement?
Before age 65, you need a coverage strategy — COBRA, the ACA marketplace, or a spouse’s plan. After 65, you are on Medicare, plus a Medigap or Medicare Advantage policy to cover what Medicare does not.
A reasonable planning estimate for a couple’s lifetime healthcare costs in retirement is in the $300,000 to $500,000 range. That number scares people, and it should. But it is also exactly why we plan for it years ahead instead of running into it cold.
The single most under-used tool here is the Health Savings Account. If you have access to one during your working years, max it, invest it, and try hard not to spend it. Be nice to your future self.
8. Do I need a trust, or is a will enough?
If your situation is simple — a modest estate, all assets pass cleanly to a spouse and then to adult children — a well-drafted will, paired with carefully updated beneficiary designations, may be enough. If you own real estate in multiple states, have a blended family, have a child with special needs, want privacy around your estate, or want to control how and when heirs receive their inheritance, a revocable living trust is usually worth the cost.
Estate planning is one area of financial planning where one-size answers do the most damage. Get this one right for your situation.
9. What’s the difference between a financial advisor and a fiduciary?
“Financial advisor” is a job title. “Fiduciary” is a legal standard.
A fiduciary is required by law to act in your best interest — every recommendation, every time — even when it conflicts with their own compensation. A non-fiduciary advisor only has to recommend products that are “suitable,” which leaves a great deal of room.
So here is the question to ask any advisor before you hire them. Are you a fiduciary, on 100 percent of my accounts, 100 percent of the time? And then ask for the answer in writing.
If the answer is anything other than a clean “yes,” that is worth understanding before you hand someone your retirement.
10. What should I do when the market drops?
Almost always: less than you think.
A diversified long-term portfolio is built precisely to absorb drawdowns. That is the work it is doing for you. The investors who finish ahead over a decade are rarely the ones who timed the bottom. They are, overwhelmingly, the ones who did not sell at it.
If a sharp drop has revealed that your allocation is genuinely more aggressive than you can live with, that is a real conversation to have — and worth having. But the answer is to adjust deliberately, with an eye on taxes and your full plan. Not to overhaul your strategy in a single emotional afternoon.
What this means for you
If a couple of these questions hit close to home, that is normal — and it is the whole reason I wrote this piece. Most clients do not come to me because their finances are a mess. They come because they want a second set of eyes on a plan they have already started building, and a real human to walk through these ten questions with.
If you would like that conversation — for yourself, for an adult child, or for a friend you have been quietly worried about — we offer a no-cost initial conversation. Click the link below to schedule a time with our team, and we will work through your specific version of these questions together.
This article is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute investment, tax, or legal advice. Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Please consult Wurz Financial Services or a qualified professional before making decisions about your specific situation.