How much money do you need to retire? It's one of those very difficult questions that most people

flounder with when they look at their financial situation, but it's a hugely important question,

as so many of our financial lives are consumed with understanding what we need to do with our money

to be okay for the rest of our lives. Today, I'm going to give you a very simple way of

understanding how much you need to retire. This is another episode

of Ready for Retirement. I'm your host, James Knoll, and I'm here to teach you how to get the

most of the life with your money. And now, on to the episode. So as you're listening right now,

whether you are in your car driving to work, whether you're on a walk, whether you're cleaning

the house, whatever you

are doing right now, I want you to think about this question. How much do you need to retire?

Do you have an immediate answer? Most people don't. And now it's a simple enough question. How much

do you need to retire? We feel like there should be some number that gives us a sense that the finish line

has been crossed, that we've arrived to that promised land called financial independence

and can make the decision to retire if we want to. Now, we think that way, but there's so many

variables that impact this. As simple as that question is, it has to take into factors like,

what are your expenses going to be? How are they going

to change? What's inflation going to do? What's the stock market going to do? What about Social

Security? What about the cost of insurance? What about taxes? Long-term care needs? Lifestyle

goals and so much more. So it seems like a very simple question on the front end, when you start

to play it out and you start to unpack it,

you start to realize there's all these different variables that could impact that. So as you're

listening to this, you could go and you could work with your financial advisor and hopefully they're

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