Financial Planning
Things to Consider
In your best guess?will your money outlive you or are you likely to outlive your money?
What is your strategy if you have to confront a long-term care issue for a family member?
Do you feel your investments are allocated to serve you over what may be three decades of retirement?
Do you feel your heirs will be empowered or enabled by your wealth?
Do you feel your 401(k) plan is properly positioned to be a meaningful part of your overall financial strategy?
Each client will have different financial needs and concerns. There is no specific person we are looking to serve. As a group, our financial knowledge and awareness is quite broad and we feel we also know our limitations. Three types of planning techniques we use to cover the broad range of concerns we commonly see include our “What Three Things?” Financial Plan, Retirement Income Planning, and Estate and Trust Planning. Most likely each plan will touch a portion of all three. It is not uncommon for them to overlap.
For local clients, the planning process will usually require two face-to-face meetings at a fee of $750. Other clients are served more by email and conference calls, but we strive to have the same impact.
Do we have to have three concerns? We have one big one.
We will gladly count your “big one” as three. Actually, our whole purpose of the “What Three Things?” Financial Plan is to concentrate on areas that are causing you financial concern. We do not care whether we’re dealing with one concern or four concerns, but we do want to have a focus on the worries that are most important to you.
What Three Things?” Financial Plan
We will ask each new planning client to list What Three Things he/she would like answered by his/her financial plan. We require they put the three concerns in writing, and we focus specifically on those topics, eliminating additional fluff or areas that do not currently interest them. We do not create a checklist for people regarding their concerns. We believe it is important to look inside themselves and write down their financial concerns and we will address those issues.
What type of Questions might be part of your “What Three Things?”
Am I on the right course for retirement?
My business is paying a lot of income taxes and I would like your suggestions about any alternatives.
Should we pay off our home or keep the mortgage for the income tax benefit?
We want to help pay for the education of our grandchildren, but are reluctant to merely give them money. What are your suggestions?
My wife’s aunt died and she is about to inherit a large sum of money. What is the best way to handle this?
How should my 401(k) be invested?
My brother-in-law just died. Can I bring my sister in for your guidance?
Case Studies
Retirement Income Planning
The purpose of retirement income planning is to create a secure growing income stream throughout retirement. Not running out of money in retirement is probably the most important financial goal. A key factor to achieving this goal is suitable withdrawal strategies.
Some common retirement concerns
Areas we concentrate on
- Pre-retirement Counseling
- Social Security and Medicare Questions
- IRA/401(k) Rollover Strategies
- Withdrawal Strategies
- Beneficiary Designations
How much will I need in retirement?
How much can I withdraw from my account?
What if I’m getting close to retirement and don’t have enough?
How do I invest in retirement?
Do I need to be worried about inflation?
How will I pay for health-care expenses?
What’s the best way to take money out of my retirement accounts?
I don’t want to take stock market risk with my retirement, what are my options?
Case Studies
Estate and Trust Planning
Those concerned with privacy issues are more likely to use trusts to avoid probate.
Estate planning is generally perceived much differently from all it actually encompasses. Many think estate planning only involves writing a Will and choosing beneficiaries, when in fact there are many other issues that need to be addressed. Each individual or family will have different issues that need to be dealt with. We focus on broad planning and education dealing with the many issues involved in estate and trust planning.
If one has accumulated a vast amount of wealth, estate taxes may be a major concern. Others may have children who are very successful, but have difficulty managing money. If leaving the child a large lump sum would be more harmful than helpful, what other options do the parents have? While organizing assets to pass on to heirs is an important matter, planning for incapacity is just as important. What if one becomes incapacitated for years? Is the wealth they’ve accumulated positioned to handle this? Is all of the proper paperwork completed regarding directives and powers of attorneys?
Some common estate and trust planning concerns:
I am about to turn 65, and am ready to start taking Social Security. When and how do I apply?
We have accumulated a vast amount of wealth over the years and we are concerned about estate taxes.
We don’t really want to leave our children a million dollars. How much can we spend and not worry about running out of money?
I have read about trusts and some of the benefits they offer, but I need to speak with someone about how they work in the real world.
Our youngest daughter has absolutely no ability to handle money. We need your suggestions on how to structure our will to take this into account.
Estate and Trust Planning Case Study
We do planning in these areas, but all of the technical work of creating legal documents will be done by an attorney.