Skip to content

This site uses cookies to store information on your computer. Some are essential to make our site work; others help us improve the user experience. By using the site, you consent to the placement of these cookies. Read our privacy policy to learn more.

Close
AICPA-CIMA
  • AICPA & CIMA:
  • Home
  • CPE & Learning
  • My Account
Journal of Accountancy
  • TECH & AI
    • All articles
    • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
    • Microsoft Excel
    • Information Security & Privacy

    Latest Stories

    • Incorporating prompt engineering into the accounting curriculum
    • Create a dynamic to-do list with Excel’s checkboxes
    • Another way to manage authentication texts
  • TAX
    • All articles
    • Corporations
    • Employee benefits
    • Individuals
    • IRS procedure

    Latest Stories

    • Treasury posts preliminary list of jobs eligible for no tax on tips
    • Taxpayer’s circumstances do not warrant equitable tolling
    • When does debt become worthless?
  • PRACTICE MANAGEMENT
    • All articles
    • Diversity, equity & inclusion
    • Human capital
    • Firm operations
    • Practice growth & client service

    Latest Stories

    • Treasury posts preliminary list of jobs eligible for no tax on tips
    • California issues draft guidance for climate risk disclosure
    • Business outlook brightens somewhat despite trade, inflation concerns
  • FINANCIAL REPORTING
    • All articles
    • FASB reporting
    • IFRS
    • Private company reporting
    • SEC compliance and reporting

    Latest Stories

    • SEC accepting Professional Accounting Fellow applications
    • SEC names new chief accountant
    • SEC ends legal defense of its climate rules
  • AUDIT
    • All articles
    • Attestation
    • Audit
    • Compilation and review
    • Peer review
    • Quality Management

    Latest Stories

    • AICPA unveils new QM resources to help firms meet Dec. 15 deadline
    • 8 steps to build your firm’s quality management system on time
    • Auditing Standards Board proposes a new fraud standard
  • MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING
    • All articles
    • Business planning
    • Human resources
    • Risk management
    • Strategy

    Latest Stories

    • Business outlook brightens somewhat despite trade, inflation concerns
    • AICPA & CIMA Business Resilience Toolkit — levers for action
    • Economic pessimism grows, but CFOs have strategic responses
  • Home
  • News
  • Magazine
  • Podcast
  • Topics
Advertisement
  1. newsletter
  2. Cpa Insider
CPA INSIDER

Why you should discuss the nonfinancial aspects of retirement with your clients

Goals and lifestyle factors are as important to retirement as money.

By Allan Kunigis
September 18, 2017

Please note: This item is from our archives and was published in 2017. It is provided for historical reference. The content may be out of date and links may no longer function.

Related

August 28, 2017

How to talk to your clients about travel in retirement

August 7, 2017

Number of workers raiding retirement funds rises

July 10, 2017

Help clients afford health care in retirement

TOPICS

  • Personal Financial Planning
    • Retirement Planning
    • Practice Management
  • Firm Practice Management
    • Practice Growth & Client Service

While there’s no denying the importance of being financially prepared for life after one stops receiving a paycheck, planning for retirement needs to involve much more.

Keith Lawrence, founding partner of coaching firm LifeScape Solutions and co-author of the book Your Retirement Quest, discovered the importance of planning for the nonfinancial side to retirement while working as a human resources executive as Procter & Gamble. He saw recently retired employees returning to the company after six months. “They were bored or their spouse practically kicked them out of the house,” he recalled.

Advisers are missing an important component of retirement planning if they ignore the nonfinancial aspects of life after their clients’ careers. Broadening their focus can help expand relationships with clients and help clients gain clarity and purpose on what they’ll do in retirement. That, in turn, could help create a more accurate and relevant financial plan that reflects individual lifestyle, goals, and financial needs.

People often fail to plan for the nonfinancial side of retirement, Lawrence said, because they’ve subscribed to some myths about retirement. Among the most common, he said, are:

  • I’ll just sit and watch television and play golf all day.
  • I’ll figure it out later.
  • I’ve saved enough money. What else matters?

“When I give workshops, I ask: ‘How many of you have a life plan?’ I’m lucky if 10% of the audience raises their hands,” he said.

“People don’t spend a lot of time thinking about and planning for the nonfinancial aspects of their retirement,” he said. “They don’t realize it’s the biggest transition they’ll ever go through.”

The consequences of not planning can include sitting around with growing boredom. Retirees watch TV an average of 43.5 hours a week, according to Age Wave 2012, and Lawrence associates lack of stimulation with higher risk of alcoholism or depression.

Advertisement

Learning what clients plan to do after they retire can also help you shape their financial plan.

“If a client tells me they’re thinking of retiring soon, I’ll ask them what they’ll do then,” said Jan Towne, CPA/PFS. “‘How will you fill your days? Will you travel extensively? Do you plan to buy a second home?'”

It’s also key to know whether clients plan to work in retirement. “If someone is planning to work part time, that tells me two things: how they’ll spend part of their days and how they’ll manage their money,” Towne said. “It’s a steppingstone to the financial plan, because if we don’t know how they’ll fill their days, we don’t know what their cash flow needs will be.”

Asking about the nonfinancial side of retirement can also help you build a stronger relationship with your clients. That, in turn, can differentiate you from other advisers and inspire client loyalty.

“You want them to say: ‘You care about me as a person. It’s not just my money. And you know me better than any other financial planners know me,'” Lawrence said.

The keys to a great retirement, Lawrence said, include clarity of purpose, well-being, connectedness, giving back, and pursuing one’s passions.

Creating a meaningful retirement

Retirement and career coach Barbara Czestochowa has a new term for retirement: Refirement.

Advertisement

“People who can find real purpose in that period of time are much happier,” she said. “They might contribute to family, to the community, volunteer, be involved in a spiritual community. They might pull back and think about their spiritual roots, meditate, pray, read enlightening books that give them a purpose. And they might keep learning, stimulating their brain, and staying connected, as well as taking better care of their physical health once they have more time to do so.”

As a trusted adviser, you can talk with your clients about the many possibilities for them to pursue their purpose, and explore what interests them most.

One idea to share with retiring clients is the bucket list. Czestochowa advocates putting together a bucket list, but not just one. “Create a bucket list for this year and another for next year,” she advised. “An old friend introduced me to bucket lists years ago. She was on her fourth or fifth bucket list.”

How CPAs can help

CPAs can help by asking clients what they’re most passionate about and how they might follow those passions once they have more time.

Questions––derived from Your Retirement Quest––that can help clients explore these topics and plan effectively for retirement include:

  •  Is there something missing from your life that you can pursue with more available time?
  •  Are there activities that you’re deliberately doing now and planning to do in retirement that can help you gain and sustain energy across four dimensions: physical (active, healthy); emotional (positive, appreciative); mental (new, stimulating); and purposeful (caring, doing meaningful things)?
  • Do you feel connected to family, friends, acquaintances, and groups? What can you do to feel more connected?

You can also look for opportunities that lead into deeper conversations. For example, when working with a couple, ask probing questions and listen closely to what each person has to say about goals and priorities and how that might affect their lifestyle and finances.

As a trusted adviser, you have unique ongoing access to your clients’ personal lives, and a natural focus on their lifelong financial well-being. By expanding your role and your focus, you can potentially help your clients get more out of their remaining years just as you seek to help them remain financially healthy.

Advertisement

For further reading

In addition to Lawrence’s book, Your Retirement Quest: 10 Secrets for Creating and Living a Fulfilling Retirement, Czestochowa also recommends Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr, and The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully by Joan Chittister.

Allan Kunigis is a Vermont-based freelance writer. To comment on this article, email senior editor Courtney Vien.

Advertisement

latest news

September 4, 2025

Treasury posts preliminary list of jobs eligible for no tax on tips

September 4, 2025

California issues draft guidance for climate risk disclosure

September 4, 2025

Business outlook brightens somewhat despite trade, inflation concerns

September 3, 2025

New: Digital assets practice aid addresses auditing of lending, borrowing

August 29, 2025

Guidance on research or experimental expenditures under H.R. 1 issued

Advertisement

Most Read

The No. 1 risk to retirement – and one way to guard against it
Tax provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act
Billy Long out as IRS commissioner after less than two months
Calculating AI’s impact on CPAs: New study quantifies time savings
AICPA unveils new QM resources to help firms meet Dec. 15 deadline
Advertisement

Podcast

September 4, 2025

Summing up economic sentiment and concerns about inflation and tariffs

August 29, 2025

Take a bold leap instead of a tentative step

August 28, 2025

Mark Koziel Q&A: Talent, sense of community, profession opportunities

Features

Calming nervous clients nearing retirement
Calming nervous clients nearing retirement

Calming nervous clients nearing retirement

7 retirement tips for small firm CPAs
7 retirement tips for small firm CPAs

7 retirement tips for small firm CPAs

Building a better CPA firm: Stepping up service offerings
Multi-colored plus signs

Building a better CPA firm: Stepping up service offerings

2025 tax software survey
Smiley, frowney, and neutral faces for Tax Software Survey.

2025 tax software survey

SPONSORED REPORT

Smart Strategies in Data Security and Risk Management

In an increasingly digital profession, data security has become one of the most critical challenges facing finance and accounting professionals today. Stay up to date with practical guidance to help you mitigate these risks and strengthen your security posture.

From The Tax Adviser

August 30, 2025

2025 tax software survey

August 30, 2025

Are you doing all you can to keep the cash method for your clients?

July 31, 2025

Current developments in S corporations

July 31, 2025

Paid student-athletes: Tax implications for universities and donors

MAGAZINE

September 2025

September 2025

September 2025
August 2025

August 2025

August 2025
July 2025

July 2025

July 2025
June 2025

June 2025

June 2025
May 2025

May 2025

May 2025
April 2025

April 2025

April 2025
March 2025

March 2025

March 2025
February 2025

February 2025

February 2025
January 2025

January 2025

January 2025
December 2024

December 2024

December 2024
November 2024

November 2024

November 2024
October 2024

October 2024

October 2024
view all

View All

http://JofA_Default_Mag_cover_small_official_blue

PUSH NOTIFICATIONS

Coming soon: Learn about important news

CPA LETTER DAILY EMAIL

CPA Letter Logo

Subscribe to the daily CPA Letter

Stay on top of the biggest news affecting the profession every business day. Follow this link to your marketing preferences on aicpa-cima.com to subscribe. If you don't already have an aicpa-cima.com account, create one for free and then navigate to your marketing preferences.

Connect

  • X Logo JofA on X
  • facebook JofA on Facebook

HOME

  • News
  • Monthly issues
  • Podcast
  • A&A Focus
  • PFP Digest
  • Academic Update
  • Topics
  • RSS feed rss feed
  • Site map

ABOUT

  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Submit an article
  • Editorial calendar
  • Privacy policy
  • Terms & conditions

SUBSCRIBE

  • Academic Update
  • CPE Express

AICPA & CIMA SITES

  • AICPA-CIMA.com
  • Global Engagement Center
  • Financial Management (FM)
  • The Tax Adviser
  • AICPA Insights
  • Global Career Hub
AICPA & CIMA

© 2025 Association of International Certified Professional Accountants. All rights reserved.

Reliable. Resourceful. Respected.