Retirement Planning For Dummies

Chapter 13

Keeping Your Retirement on Track

IN THIS CHAPTER

Measuring your retirement plan performance

Making adjustments

Tracking your progress toward your goals

Seeing whether your retirement plan is meeting milestones

You’ve set up — and perhaps even customized — a retirement plan. You’re contributing to the plan regularly. You’re done, right? Isn't it time to dream about retiring happily ever after? Not exactly.

Life doesn’t always go the way we think. Our goals change. For example, maybe retiring young was your vision when you were 30, but now that you’re 40 and like your job, you have no intention of hanging it up. Or maybe you now want a second child or to buy a vacation home. Changing what you want is natural and expected. You just need to update your plan.

Likewise, portfolios don’t always do what we expect. Asset classes can behave abnormally in the short term. Stocks can put up exponential gains during powerful bull markets. Markets can crash during nasty bear markets.

This chapter is your financial checkup: Making sure your financial plan is still appropriate for you ...