I’m 50 and I want to retire at 60. What should I be doing 2, 5 and 10 years out? When is the right time to hire an adviser?

Question: “I just turned 50 and am planning to retire when I’m 60. I need advice on my finances so I can maximize my retirement. What should I be doing 10 years out? Five years out? And two years out to prepare for retirement? At what point does it make sense to hire an adviser?”

Answer: Retiring in just 10 years at 60 means you need to be laser focused on saving enough to make it happen. And pros say that hiring a financial adviser is a wise idea to ensure you’ll be in a good financial spot at retirement. You can find advisers at CFP Board, NAPFA or use this free tool to get matched with fiduciary advisers from our ad partner SmartAsset.

What should you do to retire in 10 years?

You might want to start with an online retirement calculator to get a realistic idea of how much savings you’ll need for your planned retirement, says personal finance expert Austin Kilgore, analyst at the Achieve Center for Consumer Insights. And you’ll need a fully-formed plan on how to achieve the necessary level of savings.

“You don’t have time for mistakes,” says Randy Jaramillo, president of Reliant Wealth Management. “With an intentional road map heading toward 60, you should fully understand your annual required spending needed in retirement, adding in the cost of inflation. Consider your annual required spending needed without Social Security to get a portfolio target and adjust for Social Security later.”

Right now, you’re still in income-generating mode. “Use compression to your advantage. Lock in savings rates of 20% or better [by automatically saving raises and bonuses before lifestyle spending increases]. Pump your excess cash flow into the highest-efficient savings vehicles you can find. Think Roth IRAs and after-tax brokerage accounts with tax-managed strategies. Harvest losses and get your stock exposure in order immediately. This is not the time for additional risk, it’s time to hone your compounding skills,” says certified financial planner Eric Croak at Croak Capital.

Furthermore, “make sure your savings are fully funded and then some. Be sure you maintain an emergency fund, too, that would cover nine to 12 months of base living expenses,” says Kilgore. And Jaramillo adds that you should: “Maximize tax advantaged savings like employer-sponsored plans and contribute at least up to the employer match, ideally 15% to 25% of your income. Utilizing catch-up contributions and investing intelligently for growth is going to be vital. Avoid the idea of chasing returns with high-risk strategies,” says Jaramillo.

You’ll also need to decide if you’re going to stop working or work part-time as this can affect your equations, as well as evaluate the purchase of long-term care insurance coverage. “This insurance can sometimes cover expenses that Medicare or private health insurance do not,” says Kilgore.

In terms of your long-term budget, Croak says this is the time to ditch the extras. “That second home you thought you might want one day? Probably not happening. Put pencil to paper on your actual expenses, not your wish list. Understand how the mechanics of your drawdown will work. What’s the timing and source of your expected retirement income? Which account do you plan to tap first? If you’re going to do Roth conversions to pay off debt, this is the time to do it,” says Croak.

You will need to evaluate your progress each year, and when you’ve got just five years remaining until you want to retire, you’ll need to do even deeper diving into your progress. “If your planning indicates you won’t have enough money to retire when you plan to or the way you want to, take steps to figure out how to bring in additional income. Be proactive,” says Kilgore.

Age 55 is the inflection point where you’ll transition from the accumulation to the drawdown phase, says Croak. And when you get to the pivotal point of five years until target retirement age, Jaramillo says that’s the time for a shift in your planning. “It should go from how much you can make to how much you need. Lowering expenses and paying off debt needs to be a priority. Reducing sequence of returns risk should be at the forefront of your planning, which is where many retirees fail,” says Jaramillo.

When you hit 58, “you want to get everything in writing, locked down and tax coordinated,” says Croak. Furthermore, Jaramillo says, “finalize withdrawal strategies in a tax efficient drawdown order. Make sure you bridge the gap of portfolio withdrawals and when you start taking Social Security. Living within your retirement budget six to 12 months before retirement is highly suggested to experience what it will be like when you actually retire.”

Note too that the exact time a person retires can have an enormous impact on the quality of their retirement if their assets are focused in the equity markets. “If someone who retired at the end of 2008 were invested in the S&P 500, they would have seen their assets fall by 37% in one year. The five years prior to retirement can be considered the retirement red zone. Just as a football team can’t afford to turn the ball over and fail to score points when inside the opponent’s 20-yard line, the retirement investor can’t afford a big downturn in the retirement red zone. This is what’s referred to as sequence of returns risk. A bad sequence of returns immediately preceding retirement can be devastating,” says Robert Johnson, chartered financial analyst and professor of finance at the Heider College of Business at Creighton University.

When should you get a financial adviser?

The good news is that 10 years out is a great time to bring in outside help. “Two years out it’s not so great. You’re better off getting help when you can still do something about it instead of crossing your fingers at 59,” says Croak. 

Hiring an adviser now could help you down the line. “While a 30-year-old can often get by with a simple index fund strategy, a 50-year-old facing a hard deadline has complex tax and withdrawal decisions to make. Hire an adviser five to 10 years out, which provides enough runway to course-correct if your savings rate isn’t high enough. An adviser is essential for the de-cumulation strategy. A fiduciary financial adviser can help you catch blind spots in your retirement plan and optimize your retirement income strategy,” says chartered financial analyst Stoyan Panayotov at Babylon Wealth Management.

Many people believe they should be able to navigate the increasingly complex financial world without the help of a financial professional. Some certainly can, but for others, it’s better to get help. “One needs help in the capital accumulation stage and the decumulation stage on appropriate ways to draw down savings,” says Johnson. You can find advisers at CFP Board, NAPFA or use this free tool to get matched with fiduciary advisers from our partner SmartAsset.

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