I always like the end the month on a happy note and I like that little ditty.

So today we're talking about how do you protect your retirement and the key is really you can't fully and still have the kind of life that you want to live

Most likely you're not going to be able to do that but we can go a long way in mitigating a lot of the risks that we have,

balancing that with the fact that you want to live a great life.

I think one thing we have to realize is, hey, retirement is not symmetric.

It is asymmetrical, meaning that the normal withdrawal rate, the safe withdrawal

method, the 4% rule is not really a practical strategy.

I mean it's a great rule of thumb, but your life is going to be very different.

You're going to have go-go years and slow-go years and no-go years and as best you can we want to factor those

into the planning so you have some balance to mitigating risks and still having a great life. And you know retirement has

lots of lumps beyond those go-go years and that asymm and that asymmetric version of it.

We have unexpected expenses.

They can be both good and bad.

They can be opportunities to buy that lake house for a period of time.

They could be the inflow of selling a dream house

and downsizing later on.

It could be the bad.

It could be a major medical expense that you have it could be an

ongoing higher than average medical expense that you have life is lumpy it's not

symmetrical and it's not going to be in retirement either. So I think

acknowledging that and trying to factor those things into your planning will take you a long way in helping you protect your retirement

and still having the kind of life that you're trying to create for yourself.

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