- Dirk Cotton retired from a job as an engineer and executive at AOL in 2005 at 52 and lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
- Since retiring, he's spent his time researching and writing about retirement finance.
- His best advice for anyone retiring in 10 years is to meet with a financial planner to review your goals and strategy and to reduce the risk in your retirement investments.
- SmartAsset's free tool can help find a financial planner near you »
While the key to making retirement saving easy is to start early, sometimes retirement just creeps up on you. Before you know it, you're only 10 years out.
Dirk Cotton retired from a job as an engineer and executive at AOL in 2005 at 52 and lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Since retiring, he's spent his time researching and writing about retirement finance and blogging about it on his site, The Retirement Cafe.
His own experience and research have led him to suggest two things that anyone looking to retire in 10 years should do today: find a retirement planner, and adjust your asset allocation.
Find a financial planner
"You should find a good retirement planner, because retirement planning is incredibly complex," Cotton said.
Getting advice from a financial planner who specializes in retirement can make all the difference when it comes to your unique situation. Once retirement gets close, having an expert on hand is "extremely helpful and worth the investment," Cotton said, based on personal experience and research.
"There's a limited number of really good retirement planners out there," Cotton said. "It's worth it to start talking to them in years before you retire."
Reduce your equity allocation
Ten years before he retired, Cotton reduced the percentage of his assets that were tied up in the stock market. "It was a lifesaver," he said.
"When you're saving for retirement — in other words, before that 10-year period begins — you should probably be somewhere in the 70% to 80% range," he said, referring to the percentage of assets that should be invested in stocks, rather than bonds or liquid savings.
But he suggests starting to reduce that number 10 years before you retire.
"You probably want to end up, when you retire, with somewhere in the neighborhood of 40% to 50% equity allocation," Cotton said.
He said that by reducing his exposure in the stock market in the 10 years before he retired, he was less affected by major events approaching and during his retirement, like the popping of the dot-com bubble and the Great Recession.
"A lot of people had 100% equities when they were saving for retirement and lost over 50% in a very short period of time," he said.
"I knew a lot of people who had millions in options that ended up losing it all," he added. "Fortunately, I was positioned to deal with it."
SmartAsset's free tool can help you find a financial planner who specializes in retirement »
Are you retired, or planning to retire soon? Business Insider is looking for stories to include in our Real Retirement series. Email yourmoney@businessinsider.com.
- Read more:
- How much money you need to retire at 65 and live on investment income alone till 90
- Wealthy Americans of all ages agree on the most important thing to do with their money right now
- A team of financial experts analyzed hundreds of retirement strategies to find the best one for middle-class Americans, and the winner hinges on 2 crucial decisions
- Americans might say they're worried about retirement, but too many aren't doing anything about it
SEE ALSO: Americans might say they're worried about retirement, but too many aren't doing anything about it
Join the conversation about this story »
Visit dearJulius.com to get free premium content for all of your lifestyle needs.
COMMENTS