Episode 206 - Controlling Your Retirement Destiny with CEO of Sensible Money, LLC and Author Dana Anspach

Dana Anspach is the founder and CEO of Sensible Money, LLC, and an active financial advisor and author in the Phoenix area. She and Jim share a common mission to provide objective, nuanced, and personalized retirement planning advice for their clients. And like Jim, she is committed to educating her clients. When she began working as a financial planner, she realized that there was something wrong with the way most people over the age of 50 planned for retirement—many simply didn’t understand the risks and the rules, best practices, or the difference between a fee-only advisor and a commission-based advisor. She believed that people were being improperly influenced by politics, financial products, and advertising. So, she formed her own firm to help clients make informed decisions about retirement planning and retirement spending. On this episode of The Lange Money Hour, Dana and Jim will take an in-depth look at the four biggest risks that Dana believes people face as they plan for their retirement years: • The Longevity Risk: Being too preoccupied with the rate of return on your investments and/or how much risk is involved in those choices might be blinding you. An equally important piece of the puzzle: how many years should you be planning for? How will your investment choices play out if you live to 75? What about 85? Or 95? • Sequence Risk: You need to have a realistic perspective on how returns on investments can affect your long-term spending. The “sequence” of annual returns, from high-to-low or low-to-high, during your retirement years is something we can’t predict, but there are strategies to combat sequence risk. • Inflation Risk: There are ways to protect against inflation risks. You need to know what they are, and why inflation disproportionately affects lower-income retirees. • Overspending Risk: Many people under estimate the amount of money they are going to need in retirement, and they over estimate the amount of money they can withdraw each year. What steps should you take to estimate your spending? How can you factor in some protection for unexpected expenses?