74% of Americans with an advisor feel ready to retire — here’s the boring 3-step plan that starts there

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Much of the investing advice you see online or on social media is designed to grab attention. But if you’re serious about securing a comfortable retirement, buying Dogecoin or a risky bet on prediction markets probably isn’t what you need.

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You’d probably be better off with an investment strategy that was as boring and mundane as grocery shopping — just as legendary investor Warren Buffett once suggested, per CNBC (1). And just like your grocery list, your investment plan could prove most successful if you simply focus on what’s predictable, cheap and, most importantly, necessary.

With that in mind, here’s a relatively boring three-step strategy to improve your chances of having a stable financial position in retirement.

Step 1: Guarantee your needs

You can probably summarize most retirement planning with this simple statement: It’s an attempt to create passive and reliable cash flows that match your basic necessities. So, if you have stable income that covers the bare essentials, you’re probably on track for a comfortable retirement.

This means that the first step is probably doing arithmetic, not investing. It might be as simple as adding up your non-negotiable monthly expenses, subtracting what Social Security and any pension will pay, and working with the difference.

That number is your gap — and everything else in your plan exists to fill it.

But guaranteeing your needs also means guaranteeing them if you’re not around. For example, if someone else depends on your income, the cheapest way to make sure your death doesn’t blow up their retirement as well might be to get term life insurance.

Protecting your loved ones

If you want to ensure your family isn’t hit with unexpected costs after your death, consider signing up for term life insurance from Ethos.

Ethos is rated “Excellent” on Trustpilot and has an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau (BBB). The platform offers simple and affordable coverage for a set period of time — typically between 10 and 30 years.

As a licensed third-party insurance administrator, Ethos has joined forces with some of the industry’s top insurance carriers, such as Banner Life, TruStage Financial and Ameritas Life Insurance.

Ethos gives you the flexibility to select coverage amounts ranging from $2,000 to $100,000. Premiums start at just $9.80 a month and are guaranteed throughout the term.

You can get coverage in just 10 minutes online or by phone, with no medical exams or blood tests required.

Read More: Millionaires under 43 hold only 25% of their wealth in stocks. Here’s where their money is actually going

Step 2: Automate as much as you can

After you’ve covered the basics, including life term insurance, the next step might be to automate your decisions wherever you can. After all, every time you have to manually push a button or make a call to buy stocks, rebalance your portfolio or harvest tax losses, it is another opportunity for neglect or procrastination.

Instead, consider letting technology do all the heavy lifting for you, so that you try to stay consistent.

“Twenty years of research focused mainly on retirement savings demonstrates that automating components of the savings process can lead to higher participation in retirement plans, contribution rates, and balances,” says a study published by the Pension Research Council of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (2).

Starting small with automated investing

This is where apps like Acorns can help you out, by automating savings and investments for you.

It works like this: All you have to do is link your cards, and the platform does the rest, rounding up purchases and deploying the spare cash into a diversified portfolio of ETFs managed by experts at leading investment firms like Vanguard and BlackRock.

For instance, if you buy a donut for $3.25, Acorns will round up the purchase to $4 and invest the change in a smart investment portfolio. So a $3.25 purchase automatically becomes a 75-cent investment in your future.

Sign up today and get a $20 bonus investment.

Step 3: Work with a professional

The final step might be to hire a professional to manage everything you can’t automate or do yourself.

That way, instead of monitoring changes to the tax code, new tax deductions for retirees, Social Security timing, Roth conversions and required minimum distributions all by yourself, you can simply delegate the task to a qualified financial expert.

The confidence gap is stark. In fact, Northwestern Mutual (3) found that 74% of Americans with an advisor expect to be financially prepared for retirement, compared to just 43% of those without one. According to the same study, Americans with an advisor also expect to retire at age 63.7, or about two-and-a-half years earlier than those without one.

Getting some help

Even for those with modest retirement savings of just $250,000, a financial advisor could make a big difference. Managing withdrawals, minimizing tax exposure and ensuring long-term sustainability often requires greater coordination and strategic planning.

In these cases, working with a financial advisor can help reduce costly mistakes.

If you have a portfolio of $250,000 or more, platforms like WiserAdvisor can connect you with vetted professionals who specialize in this kind of planning.

Simply answer a few questions about your savings, retirement timeline and overall investment portfolio.

From there, WiserAdvisor reviews its network to match you — for free — with up to three vetted, reputable advisors aligned with your specific needs.

You can then schedule no-obligation consultations with your matches to determine who is the best fit for your long-term goals.

WiserAdvisor is a matching service and does not provide financial advice directly. All matched advisors are third parties, and specific financial results are not guaranteed.

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Article Sources

We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our ethics and guidelines.

CNBC (1); Pension Research Council (2); Northwestern Mutual (3)

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.