{"id":288083,"date":"2025-11-17T03:52:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T03:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/288083\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T03:52:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T03:52:14","slug":"5-things-that-make-a-middle-class-retirement-10x-cheaper-according-to-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/288083\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Things That Make a Middle Class Retirement 10x Cheaper, According to Experts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Retirement is supposed to be a time of relaxation, enjoyment and getting to all the things you put off or didn\u2019t have time for during your working years. Unfortunately, more often than not, those things demand money.<\/a> And often, a lot more than you expected.<\/p>\n

Read More: I\u2019m a Retired Boomer: 3 Things I Wish I Had Done Differently To Better Prepare For Retirement Longevity<\/a><\/p>\n

Find Out: 5 Clever Ways Retirees Are Earning Up To $1K Per Month From Home<\/a><\/p>\n

So while it\u2019s important to make sound investments, contribute to 401(k)s<\/a> and IRAs, and enjoy a favorable return on investments, lowering the cost of retirement is just as important.<\/p>\n

Here are five ways experts say you can lower the gold needed for your golden years.<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard enough to keep up with debt when you\u2019re earning a good salary. But when you\u2019re retired, debt can become catastrophic, said Trevor Houston, CEO at ClearPath Wealth Strategies, LLC<\/a>. He strongly advises his clients to eliminate their debt before retirement.<\/p>\n

\u201cDebt can erode your savings faster than you think,\u201d he said. \u201cA paid-off home, no car loans, no credit cards. That\u2019s freedom. Your entire income goes directly into supporting your lifestyle instead of servicing debt.\u201d<\/p>\n

He advised a slow and steady approach. Pay off debts<\/a> that have the highest interest rate first \u2014 typically credit cards \u2014 then roll that freed-up money into paying off other debts.<\/p>\n

The bottom line? \u201cA debt-free retirement provides more than just financial savings. It\u2019s lighter,\u201d said Houston.<\/p>\n

Discover Next: 6 Cash-Flow Mistakes Boomers Are Making With Their Retirement Savings<\/a><\/p>\n

It might not be pleasant to think about, but the fact is, it\u2019s highly likely you\u2019ll have more doctor visits, prescriptions, and procedures in retirement than when you\u2019re young. And, perhaps because they\u2019re slightly confusing, most people overlook their health savings account (HSA)<\/a> when they\u2019re working, said Nick St. George of St. George Wealth Management<\/a>. They shouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Not only can you use these in retirement, he said, but they are triple tax-free. \u201cThey offer tax-deductible contributions, tax-free growth and tax-free withdrawals for qualified expenses,\u201d St. George said.<\/p>\n

Long-term care costs can be truly eye-popping, as well as more common than many might think. According to Charles Schwab, nearly 70% of today\u2019s 65-year-olds will require long-term care. At $75,504 for an in-home health aide and $116,800 for a private room in a skilled nursing facility, that\u2019s $226,512 to $350,400 for three years\u2019 worth of care, the average needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cLong-term care ends up as one of the biggest retirement expenses, and people don\u2019t always know that Medicare doesn\u2019t cover it,\u201d said Christen Bergeron, founder of Navigating Senior Living<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She said that locking in long-term care insurance<\/a> while you are in your 40s or 50s costs significantly less than waiting to do so until you are in your 60s or 70s.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can protect your assets from being depleted later, and protects the spouse at home if one of you ends up needing long-term care and the other does not,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Most people assume that their tax bracket will drop during their retirement. Not always the case, said St. George. Pensions, IRA distributions, capital gains and other forms of income can put you in a tax bracket you didn\u2019t expect, especially without the benefit of 401(k) contributions to lower it.<\/p>\n

The key, said St. George, is planning, diversification and timing. \u201cJust because you are retired doesn\u2019t mean you need to turn on income from every source at once. Having as many different buckets as possible to pull from and coordinating when to pull from those buckets can save thousands in taxes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Life has a way of not going as planned. So why would retirement<\/a>? \u201cAll of the software and talking heads make it seem like retirement is a perfect linear sequence of returns and life cycle,\u201d said St. George. Not true. \u201cThings will go sideways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just like during your work life, the HVAC system will conk out, or your adult child might need a boost, or your car might decide to retire too. The list of unexpected expenses never really ends.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave some extra savings and give yourself some margin of error on income. Do not assume everything will go smoothly,\u201d he said. Because it won\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Retirement isn\u2019t work life \u2014 but it\u2019s still life. And life is unpredictable.<\/p>\n

More From GOBankingRates<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com<\/a>: 5 Things That Make a Middle Class Retirement 10x Cheaper, According to Experts<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Retirement is supposed to be a time of relaxation, enjoyment and getting to all the things you put…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[45,49,48,133,22957,131,132,1705,12985,70499],"class_list":{"0":"post-288083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-financial-savings","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance","15":"tag-retirement","16":"tag-retirement-savings","17":"tag-st-george"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}