To fans of the television show Shark Tank, Kevin O'Leary is familiar, as he's a panelist on the program that showcases business ideas. He's a Canadian entrepreneur, who started the Softkey Software Products company. It saw great success and later bought the Learning Company, before being bought itself by the toy company Mattel.

O'Leary has ideas not only about entrepreneurship, but also retirement -- so check out some of his thoughts on that and see whether they might help you in your own retirement planning. They're chiefly drawn from his 2012 book, Cold Hard Truth on Men, Women and Money: 50 Common Money Mistakes and How to Fix Them.

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Image source: Getty Images.

Debt and retirement

If you're carrying any debt, especially high-interest-rate debt (such as debt from credit cards), it's a good idea to pay it off or shrink it considerably before retiring. O'Leary notes: "If you're heading toward retirement with debt, now's the time to budget like you've never budgeted before. I mean it."

Paying down debts will free up more income that you can live off in retirement -- and it can give you more peace of mind and help you sleep better, too, if you don't have big mortgage payments or hefty credit card bills hanging over you in your golden years.

Your post-retirement income

O'Leary questions one common rule of thumb -- that retirees should plan to need 65% of their pre-retirement income in retirement -- saying:

This assumes that you will want to maintain roughly the same standard of living that you enjoyed when you worked a stressful life, working 40 hours a week away from home... Of course, you ate out a lot, bought hardcover books to read on the subway, and got a brand-new coat every winter... But in retirement, you won't need to finance your lifestyle in the same way. There will be no commuting, fewer lunches out, and lower dry-cleaning bills.

Still, he notes that each of us should be trying to come up with the most realistic estimate of how much we'll need in retirement instead of relying on any one rule of thumb: "If you don't think you can go days without spending money on useless crap like magazines, gum, or coffee, then you're going to be in trouble a few years into retirement..."

For context, know that as of March, the average monthly Social Security retirement benefit was $1,997 -- about $24,000 for the year. Of course, if you earned more than average, you'll collect more than average. (To get a good estimate of how much you can expect from Social Security, set up a my Social Security account at the Social Security Administration (SSA) website.)

So if you end up estimating that you'll need $80,000 annually in income in retirement, figure out how you'll get that. Here's what such a retirement income plan might look like:

• Social Security: $30,000
• Dividend income: $25,000
• Pension income: $15,000
• Selling off part of your stock portfolio: $10,000

It's good to have multiple income streams for your retirement, and yours could look different from the example above. You might, for example, have rental income or annuity income, or income from a part-time job.

Save more, spend less

If we want to be able to afford the retirement we hope for, O'Leary offers some good advice: "...[S]pend those last few working years socking away as much money as you can, but also use those years to practice living on a lot less, lowering your expectations, and cultivating disciplined spending habits..."

He also says: "Get a part-time job, too, while you're at it and while you're still spry enough to handle it." It's smart to save aggressively, and you might be able to do so now by shrinking your spending -- and perhaps by getting a side gig for a few or many years.

Also consider coming up with a household spending budget. Using a budget in retirement is a smart move, too, as it can help you not spend more than you should. You may even keep a part-time job for your first few years of retirement. Here's how your savings might grow over time:

Data source: Calculations by author.

When to retire -- and when not to retire

So -- when should you retire? O'Leary has a perfect answer: "Don't retire until you can afford it. Throw out your plan for freedom at 55 or even 65... If you have debt, you need your job, so you have to do everything in your power to keep it."

Only retire when you can afford it. Make sure you've set up a portfolio that you can draw on or collect dividends and/or interest payments from. Make sure you've set up sufficient income streams to support you in retirement. Keep inflation in mind and prepare for it. Don't forget healthcare costs, either, as they can be substantial. Finally, know that there are ways to increase your Social Security benefits.

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Selena Maranjian has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Was it only Monday that the U.S. stock market was falling apart, the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 1,000 or more points, and economic nightmare just around the bend? Indeed it was, and yet, two straight days of strongly rebounding markets seem to have erased that nightmare from investors' minds, at the same time as it erased losses from their portfolios, and sent stock market averages charging deeply into "the green."

In late morning trading Wednesday, 10:55 a.m., the Dow is solidly higher with a 2.6% gain, while the broader S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq are doing even better, up 3% and 4%, respectively. Notable among the stocks enjoying the euphoria today are three consumer goods companies in particular: toymakers Hasbro (NASDAQ: HAS) and Mattel (NASDAQ: MAT), up 5.1% and 6.6%, respectively, and Walmart (NYSE: WMT) with a 0.9% gain (although Walmart, too, was doing even better, earlier).

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Why consumer goods stocks love President Trump's new tariffs policy

What's behind the optimism? Mr. Donald J. Trump.

Earlier in the week, as you may recall, President Trump spooked stock markets with calls for the dismissal of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, and threats that failure on the Fed's part to lower interest rates would hurt the economy, raising the specter of recession in many investors' minds. The President's tariffs war, too, was in full swing, with little evidence (yet) of other countries bowing to his demands for economic concessions to avoid imposition of "reciprocal" tariffs.

But my, what a difference a day (or two) makes!

As Wednesday dawned, the President had changed his tune on Powell entirely, reassuring investors he actually has "no intention" of firing the Fed Chair. On tariffs, too, the news is now good, or at least substantially less bad than it seemed on Monday. The President is now promising to "substantially" reduce tariffs on Chinese imports from their current, prohibitive, level of 145%. Once all is said and done with his negotiations, promises the President, tariffs "won't be anywhere near that high."

This, in a nutshell, is why shares of Hasbro, Mattel, and Walmart are all benefiting today. While exact percentages are hard to nail down, and vary year to year, Hasbro and Mattel are both widely recognized to depend heavily on imports of toys, cheaply manufactured in China, to sell to American consumers. Estimates range as high as 70% for the amount of their toys that both companies source from China.

Likewise Walmart is not just a big retailer for both companies' products, but a big retailer of lots of other consumer goods sourced from China. 145% tariffs on Chinese imports could have blown (and to be honest, probably still can) blow a big hole in the business models of all three companies.

But that risk has now come down -- how did the President put it? -- "substantially."

Which of these stocks would you buy?

All this being said, when stock markets score back to back 1,000-plus point gains on headline news, and particularly headline news coming from a source as erratic as Mr. Trump, there's a risk of investors getting irrationally exuberant.

While I'm as happy as any other investor today, to learn that the threat of a global trade war and U.S. recession may not be quite as dire as it looked a couple days ago, valuation still matters. If you're looking to play today's rally in consumer goods stocks, that means you're probably safer sticking to low price-to-earnings ratio stocks like Hasbro, which costs a modest 19 times earnings, or even Mattel -- twice as cheap with a P/E of barely 9x earnings -- than with a relatively expensive retailer like Walmart, which costs nearly 40 times earnings.

Remember: What President Trump giveth today, he could just as easily taketh away tomorrow with another U-turn on tariffs policy. Caveat investor -- and stick to value stocks if you want to stay safe.

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Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Walmart. The Motley Fool recommends Hasbro. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.