In the final stretch to potential financial independence, you want to both accelerate saving and, importantly, think about portfolio preservation. You also should have an accurate projection of both when you want to retire, and how much you need to have saved by retirement to maintain your intended lifestyle.

Special Opportunities For Retirement Savings

If you haven’t been able to save enough for retirement, now is the time to play catch-up by maximizing your retirement plan contributions and funding additional retirement vehicles, such as AXA Equitable annuities.

Those age 50 and over are also allowed to make additional, annual “catch-up” contributions to many types of qualified retirement plans. Your employer or financial professional can tell you which catch-up contributions you qualify for.

Portfolio Management

Reallocating your portfolio to become more conservative is especially critical at this time. Otherwise, should a serious market downturn occur, you may not have enough time for your investments to recover, significantly affecting the size of your nest-egg at retirement, and therefore your retirement lifestyle.

Be careful when making any rollovers from previous employers’ retirement plans to a new employer’s plan or your own rollover IRA. Not following the proper procedure could cost you up to 20% in withholding and possibly a 10% IRS tax penalty.

Consider Long-Term Care Insurance

While technically not part of retirement saving, obtaining long-term care insurance is indirectly an important part of protecting your nest-egg – and your children’s possible inheritances – from the high cost of any nursing care you may eventually need. Now is the time to shop for long-term care insurance, while you are younger and healthy, so you can lock in more favorable rates.