When you plan a weekend getaway or a summer holiday, what’s one of the first things you do?

You create a checklist. On this checklist, you mark all of the necessary things you need to bring with you so that you don’t miss a beat while you’re away from home: clothes, food, medication, electronics, etc. Many Type-A personalities will fret and worry when they don’t have every item marked off the checklist and duly packed into the appropriate luggage.

If so many of us are organized and responsible enough to make a checklist to predict out future one week in advance, why don’t we also make a similar checklist when it comes to something as important to our retirement?

You’d be surprised how few people actually take even a few moments of their time to create a retirement or Self-Directed IRA checklist. Luckily, we’ve gone ahead and done some of the work for you by creating this IRA checklist. If you want to make sure you’re ready for your long-term retirement vacation, it will be worth it to examine this checklist thoroughly to see if you’re up to speed.

Item #1: Your Self-Directed IRA Goal

The first thing to do is to create a retirement goal, calculating an idea of the kind of money you should be expected to put aside each month. You should do this by starting with the end in mind: ask yourself how long you want to be retired, and what kind of monthly or annual income you’ll need in those retirement days.

Don’t worry; it’s not as difficult a process as it seems. The AARP even makes a retirement calculator available on its website. The most important thing here is that you get a ballpark figure that will allow you to create short-term plans in terms of money set aside each month.

Item #2: Your Self-Directed IRA Strategy

Once you have a goal, the next item on the checklist is to ensure that you have a strategy for achieving that goal. What kind of return on investment will you need from your money every year in order to eventually generate the nest egg that you’ll need?

Most people simply put money aside in an IRA that’s devoted to stocks and mutual funds and hope that the market works out. But there are alternate strategies to consider as well, such as Self-Directed IRAs that can include real estate and precious metal investments to generate the ROI you need.

Item #3: Opening a Self-Directed IRA

Opening a Self-Directed IRA account is essential. Do you have an IRA now, or are you simply waiting until “the timing is right?” Well, don’t cross this item off your checklist until you’ve actually done it. And remember that there are many different types of IRA accounts, from Roth IRAs to Self-Directed IRAs. You should look into each of them if you want to get the most out of your retirement and truly take the reins of your financial future.

Item #4: Diversify Your Portfolio

Protecting your investments is just as important as making them—if they’re not protected, you won’t feel the security you deserve. Diversification is the most important way to protect your investments. We don’t mean invest in mutual funds; we mean make investments in all sorts of different types of investments, including stocks, mutual funds, index funds, precious metals, real estate, etc. The more diverse your portfolio is, the more resilient it will be to typical market forces. While other people fret over stock market drops, you smile knowing that Item #4 has already been checked off your list.

To find out more about creating a retirement checklist and using a Self-Directed IRA to achieve your retirement goals, be sure to contact us at 866-7500-472(IRA) and continue reading up on Self-Directed IRAs here at AmericanIRA.com.