How Long Will Your Retirement Be?
Many married couples believe that when they retire at age 65, they will be in retirement for another 10-15 years (that is because the average age of an American is 79 years old).
However, this is likely not the case, because if you are alive at 65, you are not average. In fact, if you are 65, you can expect to live to be 84-86. The odds of one person in the couple is alive at 90 is 48%. If you have had access to health care & have taken good care of yourself (exercise regularly, eat well, don’t smoke) the odds are even higher.
Plan for 30 Years
Therefore, many people should now be planning to spend 30 years in retirement, which takes considerably more resources than 10-15 years. This means your investment portfolio still must be invested to generate reasonably high investment returns during retirement. Otherwise, there is a meaningful risk that you will run out of money, which is not something anyone wants to deal with when they are 90 years old.
