💼 On Track for Retirement? Suze Orman’s Honest Breakdown | Suze Orman How Am I Doing?

Hi, Suze. I'm 49 and single. I've been working as a government employee in several capacities for over 27 years, and I'm now a probation officer. I feel that it's been a long haul, but I know I still have a long way to go. My goal is to retire at the age of 65, so I can travel a little bit, as well as continue my passion of working with animal rescue groups Suze, How am I doing? Leslie, are you out there? Yes. Hi, Suze. How are you, girlfriend? I'm good sweetheart. Welcome to the show tonight. So Leslie you have already been working almost 30 years and you're only 40... You're 49 years of age. What? How old were you when you started? You were a baby 20 years old, right? 22. Yes. Unbelievable i know. Unbelievable So, Leslie, I've looked at all your numbers and we'll show everybody watching tonight what you've got going. But if you were going to give yourself a grade from an A all the way down to an F, which doesn't mean you're doing very good at all in terms of can you actually retire in 16 years at the age of 65, what grade would you give yourself? Oh my gosh, I think I would give myself a D+ Let's show everybody what you have going on for yourself. Leslie is 49. She is single. She has a quarter million dollars, $250,000 in retirement. She has $10,000 in an emergency fund. Her current home is worth $150,000, although she does owe $24,000 on it. She has $21,000 of consumer debt, so her total assets, minus her debt, she has a net worth of $365,000. Leslie is currently taking home after taxes and everything $3,500 a month. Her expenses are $3,277 a month, so she has about $223 a month in excess. Let me tell you the grade that I would give you in terms of do I think you can retire at the age of 65? And for that question alone I would be giving you a B girlfriend. Wowww. A B. Want me to tell you why? Very simply, if you keep doing everything like you're doing it, your house is going to be paid off in four years. You would have after tax income from your pension and the income from your Roth IRA of $4,354. Now, that seems like a lot of money, given that your current expenses are only like in the $3,000 area. But when you get older, you're going to have to pay for your own health insurance. You're single, so you're going to have to possibly bring in people to help you. You're going to have to get a long term care insurance policy as well to make sure that you're okay. So I've given you a goal to strive for a $4,300 a month after taxes. Given that's your goal that I want you to have 16 years from now It’s too close. So here is your way to an A. Are you ready to take notes my dear Leslie? I sure am, Suze I don't want you to change that much. I just want you to work till you are 67 years of age. Because if you can age now, you're going to get more of a pension There's more time for the money in your Roth to accumulate. I do want you to get an additional $14,000 to put into your emergency fund. So you have an eight month emergency fund. I want you to get a living revocable trust because you're by yourself Forget about who you're going to leave the money to You need a trust in place that has an incapacity clause. So something happens to you can decide who's going to take care of your money for you. If you can't take care of it for yourself, I want you to, in a few years, look into getting long term care insurance. I don't want you to take Social Security until you are 70. If you do that at 67, you will have $4,700 a month of after tax income. But at the age of 70, you will have $7,000 a month of after tax income. And your life expectancy at that time could be another 15 to 20 years. So at $7000 a month after taxes, don't you think that's great? Wow.