Are you ready for retirement? Have you considered a Self-Directed IRA?

It’s not a comfortable question for most people. They think they’re too late in the game to start preparing. Or they think they don’t have enough money now to be setting aside money in the future. Or they might not even know how to get started with a Self-Directed IRA plan, so they put it off and put it off and put it off until they believe it will be too late to get anything done towards retirement.

Let’s fix all of that.

It starts with taking an assessment of where you currently are in your retirement progress. Don’t worry: this doesn’t have to be a painful process. Instead, it can feel like a jolt of energy in the way of building up a new retirement strategy. If you ask us, that’s an exciting prospect, to finally take charge of your financial destiny. Let’s handle it all with a retirement self-appraisal.

First Things First: Self-Evaluation

The first step to appraising your ability to retire is to examine what you already own. Do you already have an IRA? A 401(k) at work? Take out a piece of paper and write down the values of those accounts so you know what kinds of assets you already have in hand.

You should also take other assets into consideration. For example, do you own real estate? Owning your own house is the kind of piece of information that will be critical to understanding where you stand in retirement—your house is an asset just like any other. Other real estate should also be tallied and tabulated, even if you don’t necessarily plan on this real estate being a part of your retirement “nest egg” for the time being.

Try to write this down on a piece of paper with a pen—it’s a good way of organizing your thoughts, and the limitation of having only one piece of paper to write on will help keep things simple and easy to read.

Appraise Your Retirement Goals

Now, start a new piece of paper, and try thinking not about the present, but with your future goals in mind. For example, what kind of lifestyle will you want when retired? How much money in investments will you have to have in place in order to guarantee yourself an income that will pay for property taxes, basic bills, medical expenses, and more?

It might seem like a hypothetical situation rather than an appraisal, but these numbers will be incredibly important as you build towards retirement.

Build a List of Potential Strategies

Now it’s time to connect the dots.

You might notice a difference between how much you currently saved in retirement and your goals. In that case, you’ll need to think about being more proactive about setting money aside. You’ll also have to think about your ROI. If you need a greater overall ROI than the traditional IRA investments typically provide, you might want to think about a Self-Directed IRA. Self-Directed IRAs give you more options for portfolio diversification, such as investing in real estate or intellectual property. And since Self-Directed IRAs are just that—self-directed—you can often save on money manager fees, which gives you more money to devote to your retirement goals.

If you’re happy with your appraisal but know you need to take proactive steps to making your retirement goals happen, now’s the time to get started with a Self-Directed IRA. Be sure to contact us here at AmericanIRA.com at 866-7500-IRA(472) to learn more about how this option can help connect the dots between your current situation and your goals.