10/13/2026
I think this is the biggest mistake people make:
Failing to plan on using their home equity as a backup during retirement.
If the market tanks, you don’t want to be forced to withdraw. You want to be able to maintain your retirement lifestyle until it recovers.
Setup a home equity line now. Inbox me to get started with yours, before you retire.
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I'm a HUGE believer in long-term investing, but if you're 69 years old and one bad market crash could force you to sell your house, we need to have a serious conversation about your retirement plan.
And this is exactly the kind of situation I spent nearly 20 years helping people navigate as a financial advisor.
This person has $400,000 invested, approximately $800,000 in home equity, and a decent Social Security benefit.
On paper, that's $1.2 MILLION in assets.
And yet they're genuinely worried that another financial crisis could cost them their home.
I think there's something important here that a lot of people overlook.
Having a million-dollar net worth doesn't necessarily mean you have a million dollars available to fund your retirement.
You can't exactly walk into the grocery store and pay for your food with $800,000 in home equity.
And when you're 69 years old, a 30% market decline hits a little differently than when you're 35.
At 35, you've potentially got decades of paychecks and retirement contributions ahead of you. At 69, you might be withdrawing money from those same investments to pay your monthly bills.
That's where something called sequence-of-returns risk becomes a BIG deal.
If the market drops significantly early in retirement and you're forced to sell investments to cover expenses, you could do permanent damage to your portfolio even if the market eventually recovers.
Now, I'm not suggesting this person should panic, sell everything, or start stuffing cash under their mattress.
They're already invested in a diversified retirement fund, which is a reasonable starting point.
But I'd want to know a few things before making any recommendations.
How much are their monthly expenses? How much does Social Security cover? What's the mortgage payment? How much cash do they have available without selling investments?
Because depending on those answers, their situation might be a lot more secure than they think.
Or they might need to make some adjustments.
After nearly 20 years in financial planning, I can tell you that one of the biggest mistakes retirees make is confusing their net worth with their ability to generate retirement income.
And I certainly wouldn't recommend making major investment decisions based on somebody's prediction that the next financial crisis is right around the corner.
Nobody knows when the next market crash is coming.
But you SHOULD have a retirement plan that doesn't completely fall apart when one eventually happens.
