Want to live your best life in retirement?

What do you dream of doing in retirement? Leisure, travel, activism, visiting family? After a lifetime of working, you’ll finally be able to spend your time exactly the way you want to.

But if you’ve done your own retirement investing to this point, here’s something to consider: it’s no longer just about growth. It’s about management. And management takes a lot of time. You not only need to be sure your assets are allocated properly, but also be sure they are working within a holistic plan that takes into account constantly changing tax regulations, potential health care needs for you and your family, evolving financial goals and the disposition of your other assets (such as real estate holdings or alternative investments).

It’s at this stage that you have the most to lose if you make a bad decision. You may enjoy investing your assets. You may even be pretty good at it. Teaming with a wealth advisor doesn’t mean you need to give that up. It does give you the opportunity to outsource critical, complex financial management tasks to an expert so you can spend your time in ways that are more meaningful to you.

Those who use an advisor are often more “plugged in”

Many who invest their own money enjoy staying current on market happenings and may think they’ll be less so if they use an advisor. However, the latest OnDemand Research from DALBAR’s Business Technology Division reveals that “mutual fund investors employing the use of financial advisors are enjoying supreme value from their firms’ digital offerings compared to their counterparts that do not use advisors.”

The paper goes on to say that, “The knowledge discrepancy between investors that use advisors and investors that do not is particularly evident when studying each group’s attitude toward their rate of return. 85% of investors using advisors view their rate of return as either important or critically important. Only 42% of investors without advisors feel the same and half of them do not even know what rate of return represents.”

Bringing in an advisor doesn’t mean you’ll be less connected to how your assets are invested. It may mean you’ll be more aware of how well they’re performing.

Optimize what you’ve built

Sophisticated portfolio management involves a lot more than choosing solid investments. It factors in tax loss harvesting, economic forecasting, backtesting, portfolio modeling and more. A savvy investor may be able to achieve a decent level of return on their own. But how much time are you willing to spend to pursue it, and how can you be sure that your trades complement the rest of your financial plan?

Financial advisors typically have a wealth of resources and back-office personnel to help them invest your assets in the most advantageous ways possible. They also have the technology to handle tax and reporting requirements, which for some is reason enough alone to work with an advisor.

It’s all about what you want

It’s unlikely a lot of people reflect on their life and think, “I wish I would have spent more time researching investments.”

That’s why working with a financial advisor has the potential to set you free in retirement. Their sole purpose is to help make sure all your assets work together efficiently in pursuit of your most important goals. Let your advisor, in partnership with your tax professional, be the ones who stay current on changing tax regulations, manage the gain/loss balance in your portfolio and do the research necessary to adjust your asset mix in response to changes in your life. They can do that while you’re playing golf, visiting family, working in your community or doing whatever else you love doing most.

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