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A Boot Camp to Prepare for Retirement
By TARA SIEGEL BERNARD

Marcia Tillotson and Joy Kenefick aren’t your typical drill sergeants.

They run what they call a retirement boot camp, aimed at making sure their investment clients who are contemplating retirement know exactly what they’re getting into. The exercise focuses primarily on finances — after all, the two women are partners in a financial advisory practice that is part of Wells Fargo Advisors in Charlotte, N.C.

But the women also make sure their clients understand what retirement feels like. They point out that retirees suddenly have no place to be each day, which may not be as blissful as it seemed beforehand. The paychecks stop coming. And after years of dutifully putting money into savings, retirees have to get used to watching their accounts dwindle.

The boot camp — an extended version of its military namesake — is generally aimed at people a year or two from retirement. While the exercises may be especially rigorous, they offer broad lessons for those who think they may be ready to stop working.

“It’s really a way to simulate retirement,” said Ms. Kenefick, who, with Ms. Tillotson, has been using the boot camp for about a decade. “It’s a way for people to really wrap their arms around something that is so abstract, and scary and permanent.”

The two advisers require pre-retirees to complete a checklist of exercises, including taking a hard look at where their money is going and making sure they’re on track, for instance, to pay off the mortgage. (That’s a nonnegotiable must-do before retirement, the two women say.)

Naturally, participants can’t quit their day jobs. But they’re required to save a disproportionate amount of money in tax-deferred accounts like 401(k)’s. That helps mimic what retirement will feel like: the increased savings lowers the amount of money the pre-retirees have to live on, while also reducing the taxes they pay (retirees generally tend to fall into lower tax brackets). Since they’re saving so much, the participants need to

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finance economics