Teachers, Have You Created Your Retirement Syllabus?

It’s back to school night. The favorite night of every teacher! It’s a chance for you to tell a room full of hopeful parents how you are going to transform their precious child into a genius... But instead of telling them about your systematic way of taking care of the basics for each subject and the plan on how you will update them on their child’s progress etc... you told the group of parents that in your class you have no academic plan and you won’t be updating them or the students on how the student is doing until the end of the semester, and by then it will be too late to do anything to increase the grade.

The parents would go crazy! Most parents want progress reports. They want to be updated if something is not going according to plan so when the end of the year comes and it’s time to graduate there are no surprises.

Unfortunately, many school employees plan their retirement the same way.

They wait until the “May or June” of their working careers and decide that they’ve had enough and it’s time to retire. By then, of course, the numbers are not in their favor.

We could all share a good laugh if we could dig up that old elementary school drill asking us to say what we wanted to be when we grew up. It wouldn’t be much different asking a new teacher on their first day on the job what they would like their retirement to look like. The future will always be uncertain - because it has yet to happen.

You do know certain things, however. You will be making a career of teaching, you will retire from teaching some distant day, you will have many years left to enjoy your post-career life and there are financial products available to teachers that can help make those years as financially secure as possible.

To begin retirement planning without a goal in mind is one of the most common mistakes we see. The important point here is our goals change, just like what we wanted to be when we grew up. You’re not becoming a teacher to get rich, but it doesn’t have to result in a vow of poverty either. Set goals for yourself. Think about how you want your post- teaching years to look. Talk to your adviser and let him know what you’re thinking. Talk about everything from the safe ideas to your biggest whim. Your adviser can help steer you. Every possibility requires different planning. Invest with your future goals in mind.