When's the best time to start financial planning for your retirement? Simple, says Gene Dongieux, chief investment officer at Santa Barbara-based Mercer Advisors. Twenty years ago.

But 1986 is long gone. So here are nine tips you can use right now to start making the dreams of your golden years a reality. See what financial advisors recommend:

1. Get saving and spending in check.
Start by learning to save money. Then learn to maximize the money you save. "The first step should always be asking yourself if you're saving enough," Dongieux advises. "The next step is maximizing the value of each dollar."

2. Draw your big picture.
When you work a jigsaw puzzle, the main instructional element available to you is the picture on the box cover. In financial planning, that's the one element an advisor can't provide for you. So show your advisor your personal box cover-what you want in retirement-and then let the professional take over.

"Very rarely does a client come up with a new and different investment idea," Dongieux says. "That's our job. The most important input from you is the information we need to align our efforts on your behalf with your life goals."

3. Learn the difference between bulls and bears.
"When the markets are strong, your investments may go up," says Rohe Levy, of San Diego's Rohe Levy Financial and Insurance Services Inc. "As a doctor, you do not need to follow the stock market. But it's wise to have a good understanding of how it works. It's really a personal preference whether you want to watch CNBC in the morning or just let your advisors take care of it."

Timing the market is extremely difficult, Levy adds, and statistics show that a well-diversified portfolio covering many markets can be more efficient and less risky. Levy is registered with and offers securities through Linsco/Private Ledger.

4. Stop stopping.
Don't think that once you have a financial plan, you're done. Financial planning never ends, explains Graham Guess, charter advisor at Greenbook Financial Services in Santa Barbara. "Your risk tolerance and lifestyle needs change over your economic lifecycle," he emphasizes. "It's a fluid process that should be managed in annual updates to keep pace with inevitable changes."

5. Enjoy spending-when you can afford to.
Why work so hard if your money is going to be all tied up in dusty stocks, bonds and deeds, right? Half the fun of having a few bucks is spending it the way you like, right? Right. And wrong.

"The condo in Big Bear that you and four colleagues want to invest in is basically a gamble from an investment perspective," Dongieux says. "Whether a gamble is appropriate depends on your financial situation. If you have, say, $10 million saved and you want to spend $20,000 for your share of that condo, great! Have fun! But if you're just out of school and you've got $150,000 in debt and you're just building a practice, the same thing would be completely inappropriate."
 
6. Get with the new program.
"Investment strategies for retirement are changing in many ways," Levy says. "There are more products and designs. And the government is making it much more advantageous for people to receive tax benefits for their retirement plans."

Popular products today are defined benefit plans and plans that can provide protection for doctors' assets, such as accounts receivable financing. "It's a hot topic for physicians," he says, "because it's a strategy that can protect their receivables from malpractice lawsuits and creditors while producing supplemental retirement income."

7. Pursue tax-advantaged investments.
Keep your tax status in mind during financial planning. It can guide your choices. "For nonpension assets, we strongly recommend that high-income clients consider cash-value life insurance as an investment," says Chris Jarvis, co-founder of Jarvis & Mandell, an El Segundo financial planning firm. "Don't listen to Suze Orman's advice to buy term insurance and invest the difference because it's for the average American family earning $40,000 a year and paying 12 percent income taxes. You pay significantly higher taxes and should seriously consider the positive impact of more tax-efficient investing."

8. Seek objective advice.
"Most financial advisors work with a bias, whether it's banking, insurance, investments or accounting. But most doctors don't understand those biases," Guess says. "Planning should flow through an independent advisor who is supported by in-house, industry-leading professionals without an allegiance to an insurance company, brokerage firm or bank."

9. Know the numbers.
Why is planning so important? Because you won't have the money you want unless you think ahead. Chances are you may need in excess of $10 million in the bank to live the way you do now in your retirement. Your future finances are a function of the quality of life you enjoy now, inflation between now and when you retire, and your life expectancy, Jarvis says.

"You can expect the purchasing power of a dollar to be cut in half every 20 years or so," he says. "If you expect to retire in 30 years and die in 60, you can almost expect that you will need three to four times your annual income now when you retire. If you spend $20,000 a month to support your quality of life now, you will need to amass in excess of $10 million by the time you retire to support a similar inflation-adjusted quality of life."