Making the decision whether to stay or go in retirement can be a tough one. As CFP Board Consumer Advocate Eleanor Blayney, CFP® discussed in a recent blog post on this website, “aging in place” – or remaining in one’s home during retirement – is one option that requires a careful evaluation of the financial costs involved.

In the 1990s, I was the only female partner in a four-partner financial planning firm. On Friday afternoons in the summer, I would watch my male colleagues leave the office early for “important business” on the golf course. It wasn’t long before I decided I needed to be doing this business too, and decided to take up golf. On my first round out, I tried to act confident as I teed up my ball in exactly the same place as one of my partners had just done...

We like to think that what we have is our own: we earned it, we saved it, we invested it; we’ll spend it. But there comes a point in many people’s lives when conspicuous consumption comes to an end, and the altruistic impulse begins to take over: we begin thinking of others instead of ourselves.

How would you feel if the IRA you contributed to over your working lifetime was 70 percent consumed by taxes once you have passed away? Estate planning focuses on passing assets efficiently to beneficiaries, and much of this planning deals with mitigating income and estate tax.

“Location, location, location” isn’t just a realtor’s mantra. The phrase is just as important to retirees. The decision as to where to live – whether to “age in place” or to do aging in a community or residence designed for other retirees – may well be the single most important financial decision older individuals must make.