Retirement Planning Services

A. A comprehensive financial plan will help you answer this. You will want to include all current and future income, expenses, and assets. Stress test your plan based on various ‘What If’ scenarios to anticipate future surprises. A skilled financial advisor will assist with this process.

A. Properly structuring withdrawals from various types of accounts to coincide with your tax situation, both present and future, is critical to helping you maximize your finances. Trying to anticipate your future Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) and Social Security and Pension payments is needed to best answer this question.

A. Create a ‘synthetic paycheck’ from your assets, with scheduled monthly withdrawals to be deposited into your checking account to facilitate your cash flow needs. This withdrawal amount should be stress tested through your financial plan and continuously reviewed. For more information see ‘Income Planning’.

A. Medicare begins at age 65 and is a relatively cost effective health insurance. Prior to age 65, there are an array of options, including Cobra Insurance and individual health insurance purchased through the Healthcare Exchange/Marketplace. Identify if you can qualify for tax credits for your health insurance and understand the many ways to structure an individual health insurance policy. This is a relatively complex issue with unlimited choices to consider.

A. The age of your spouse impacts Social Security claiming strategies, pension elections, insurance decisions (life, disability, LTC, health), required minimum distributions, investment allocations, withdrawal strategies, tax planning and more. Your advisor should incorporate your age differential into your financial plan and stress tests various planning strategies and scenarios.

A. Additional earnings makes every financial plan last longer, even if you make a modest income. When it comes to earnings, more is almost always better. Running a ‘What If’ scenario to your financial plan will show the impact of the extra earnings on your plan.

A. Retirement planning is a process that lasts throughout the entirety of your life. You should be constantly reviewing your budget, income plan, tax plan, RMDS, charitable contributions, estate planning, insurance planning, gifting, and more. Surprises in retirement plan are best identified early, to minimize the impact to future years.

A. The answer to this question is hidden in your financial plan. Understanding your current and future income, assets and expenses will guide you to the best answer. If your employer offers a 401k matching contribution, you should always try to earn this ‘free’ money before considering other options. After that, the answer is truly dependent on your situation.

A. If you have to choose between the two, we recommend saving for retirement first, and paying tuition next. The old adage is you can borrow money to pay for college, but you can’t borrow money to retire. If you aren’t able to pay as much as your children’s tuition as you wanted, keep in mind you can help them pay back student loans in the future if your employment and finances allow for it.

A. The simple answer: If you think you’ll be in a similar to higher tax bracket in the future, relatively to today then you should convert. In addition, if you hope to leave assets to children, the Roth IRA is the ultimate asset to leave them because of its tax free status. For the most accurate answer, a comprehensive financial plan is required, along with consultation between your financial and tax advisors.

A. A beneficiary form trumps a Will or Trust, and should be coordinated with your overall estate plan. Making sure the beneficiary form is properly worded is imperative to fulfilling your intentions.

A. Retirement accounts do have asset projection features and are generally exempt from bankruptcy and other judgements, but still subjected to seizure in cases of Fraud. If you are experiencing financial distress and bankruptcy, consult an advisor before making withdrawals.

A. Most people spend 80-100% of their typical budgets in the first few years of retirement, then settle into a pattern of spending that is closer to 80% of their last years expenses. Everyone’s situation is different. The key is quantifying your expenses, making sure you account for all spending, including some unexpected expenses.

A. Both! We recommend the beach from October – February with a move to the mountains March – September, but we’ll leave that up to you.