Setting resolutions for financial freedom

I hate the word retirement. It's so loaded -- retirement is for old people, according to some younger than 40. If you're 40 to 55, the concept may seem a distant and remote aspiration. If you're older than 50, the word can conjure up fear and anxiety ("Will I outlive my money?" or "I have to keep working for the health insurance"). If you are fortunate enough to be in retirement, it may seem like you've had only 15 minutes to enjoy it before you start worrying about either your adult children or your own health issues.

My disdain of the r-word makes it ironic that I succeed one of my favorite retirement experts to write this column. I met Mark Miller last year after having him as a guest on a podcast I host for CBSMoneyWatch.com.

I hope to not so much succeed Mark as to complement him. While I intend to cover trends in retirement and aging, I also will draw heavily from my career in the trenches, first as an options trader and, later, serving as an investment adviser and certified financial planner providing financial advice to a broad range of clients. I now work for CBS, where I write and talk about the economy, investments and anything financial.

When I entered the business in the early '90s, talk of retirement at age 55 was common. Now, two decades later, the complaint "I'll never be able to retire" has taken hold.

The way I see it, retirement is really about financial freedom and the ability to create future options for you and your family. In other words, it's not so much an event as it is a long-term process.

I relish the opportunity to write this column because we all want to plan for that time in our lives when we choose not to work or we are no longer able to do so. Like estate planning, retirement is one of the few financial planning topics that is universal.

I'll use examples of great successes and abject failures. I will write about former clients, prospects who never became clients and current emailers and radio show callers (I host a nationally syndicated weekly radio call-in show "Jill on Money"). I also will weave in numbers and statistics because I love a juicy statistic to make a point. This column is not an academic exercise, so I will go easy on the jargon and tell you what you need to know to make your financial life a little easier to understand and navigate.

To that end, let's start the year and this column with one of my favorite pieces of financial advice: how to create an actionable financial resolution.

Write down three resolutions. People who explicitly make resolutions or goals are more likely to attain them than people who don't. (Three is a realistic number you can hope to accomplish over a year.)

Make the resolution concrete. Swap "save money" for something more specific, like "contribute 6 percent of my salary to my retirement plan" or "put $200 a month into my IRA."

Schedule time to check on your progress. The quarter-end is a perfect time to review your goals and investment statements. That means you can mark your calendar today, then the same day in April, July, October and January. Those are now your very own financial freedom days (give yourself a few days after quarter-end to gather the information you need).

According to author and Concordia University research chair Gad Saad, 60 percent of resolutions bite the dust after just six months. My guess is that of those who fail, most didn't adhere to the three steps just cited.

If you're not ready to take the plunge now, don't worry -- I'll be back in this space with more ways to think about and achieve your financial freedom.

Jill Schlesinger is the editor at large for CBSMoneyWatch.com and writes this column for Tribune Media Services.