How to Plan for Retirement in 2017: 3 Common Mistakes Couples Can Avoid

How to plan for retirement in 2017Relationships require communication -- and so does retirement planning. Yet a 2015 Fidelity Investments Couples Retirement Study found that 43% of couples don't even know their spouse's salary...

Unfortunately, that's just a minor blind spot compared to the three common mistakes couples make when planning their happily ever after.

Here's how to plan for retirement in 2017 with your partner...

How to Plan for Retirement in 2017: Discuss the Big Picture

Couples not talking about the bigger picture is a lot more common than one might think. An August 2016 NerdWallet survey found that 21% of participants hadn't discussed with their partners how much they had saved for retirement; in kind, an additional 21% didn't know how much their partners had saved.  

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But the most alarming statistic was that 43% of couples don't consult with their partner before making trading decisions.

That's troubling for two reasons...

First, not communicating that type of information, according to Bryan Hover, a financial planner of Fargasso Financial Advisor in Pittsburgh, can be "a ticking time bomb. It's tremendously problematic when there is lack of disclosure when something is causing a big problem."

And second, if retirement goals have not been communicated properly, the trades being made may not significantly reflect those goals.

For example, if a spouse is making trades behind the other's back with the goal to retire early, then the trader could be making high-reward, high-risk investments. But if the other spouse planned to retire later in life, such aggressive investments put his or her financial future at risk.

And not discussing the big picture is just scratching the surface when it comes to these two mistakes couples can make...

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How to Plan for Retirement in 2017: Discuss the Details

Couples aren't talking about the smaller retirement picture. According to 2015 survey done by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, less than half of couples have attempted to figure out their micro retirement needs -- meaning while they may know they want to live in Florida, they don't know cost of living there, state taxes on retirement income, how much to budget for healthcare, etc.

Couples can improve on this by setting a budget for retirement and doing research. Get started right here with our list of the seven best U.S. cities to retire in and the five obstacles retirees will face.

Even with a head start and a game plan, this third communication pitfall will ruin even the best-laid couple retirement plan...

How to Plan for Retirement in 2017: Save, Save, Save

Retirees are living longer. In 1995, the average male could expect to live until he was 72.5 years old; a woman's average life expectancy was 78.9 years. But in 2017, the average man and woman can expect to tack on an additional 11.5 and 8.1 years, respectively.

This trend of living longer has prompted many American workers to begin saving for at least 25 years of expenses post-retirement. In order to do so, resources like Fidelity suggest workers aim to have saved at least eight times their ending salaries by the time they retire.

In 2016, the median household income in the United States was $56,516. That means retirees should have $452,128 saved by retirement. But according to a BlackRock survey, the average baby boomer has only $136,200 saved.

And communication plays a huge role in this...

According to the NerdWallet survey, the majority (67%) of couples only have one partner saving for retirement. This means that instead of just saving the estimated $452,128 for themselves, they would also need to save for their partner, putting their total required savings at $904,256.

And even scarier, 33% of the couples surveyed by NerdWallet said "neither partner is saving for retirement."

So in order to get both you and your partner all geared up and ready to thrive in retirement, Money Morning reached out to Capital Wave Strategist Shah Gilani for his three-step retirement plan...

More on Retirement

401(k)s will be driving the markets in the near term, but there's another retirement investment Keith Fitz-Gerald wants our Members to know about. It's one of his favorites, a kind of "desert island fund" he'd buy if he had to park his money in one place, "retire" from civilization for 20 years, and come back to a pile of money. Click here to learn more...

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