Comprehensive Financial Planning

If you’ve dreamt about early retirement, then you may have heard of a Roth IRA conversion ladder as one way to provide income. But what does this entail and how do you know whether it’s right for you? If your retirement plans include retiring early, and you want to access some of your hard-earned savings without paying taxes on withdrawals or paying early withdrawal penalties, then you’ll want to understand the Roth IRA conversion ladder. Roth IRA: The Basics As you probably know, there are multiple types of IRAs (investment retirement accounts). A Roth IRA is one type that Read More

Will you outlive your retirement savings? That’s the big question posed by longevity risk. Here’s what you need to know about this risk and how it could affect you financially. For retirees, there is a real risk that you will live longer than expected and deplete the funds you’ve saved. Not only is it impossible to project how long you’ll live (more than half of Americans in a Society of Actuaries study underestimated this), it’s also difficult to gauge just how long your savings will last. Part of this has to do with increasing life expectancy in the United Read More

Unlike your commute or those conference calls, income taxes don’t go away once you hit retirement. In fact, income taxes can be your single largest expense in your retirement years, which means it’s important to have a sense of what’s coming, so you can plan for it. However, many retirees don’t have a good grasp on what exactly qualifies as taxable income during retirement and how large a tax bill they can expect. In addition, many find they’re not actually in a lower tax bracket than when they were working. This can feel counterintuitive, but in retirement, you may Read More

Calculating how much you can safely spend in retirement means knowing your retirement withdrawal rate. Here we address some common questions about how you can avoid running out of money in retirement. What is the withdrawal rate? This is simply the rate you withdraw each year for living or other expenses throughout retirement, and it is typically expressed as a percentage of your initial balance. It’s often called a sustainable withdrawal rate (SWR) or the 4% Rule. This rule of thumb was based on historical stock and bond returns from 1926 to 1976, and is indicative of how long Read More

If you have (or anticipate having) significant family wealth and would like to ensure that you’re able to create a family legacy and ensure family members receive the wealth, you may want to set up a trust. What is a family trust?  A family trust is a legal, documented way to ensure that your wealth is managed according to your wishes on behalf of your beneficiaries. You can use a family trust to specify what share of assets your family members can access and when (for example, a child can access their share on their 30th birthday). There are Read More

Have you worked hard and find yourself in a solid financial situation? Feeling pretty good about your net worth? Guess what: Wealthy people need the scoop on secrets to financial success, too. You likely didn’t get to this point of not worrying whether there’s money in your bank account without some smart money management, but that doesn’t mean you can’t benefit from learning a new financial lesson or two. Here are seven financial “secrets” you should know. Invest early and often It can’t be said enough: There’s enormous power in beginning to invest early, thanks to compound interest. There’s Read More

The early years in retirement are among the most important when it comes to how long the money in your retirement accounts will last. Make the most of your hard-earned savings with these top five money moves to make in retirement.  Keep the right risk-return balance in your investmentsGoing too conservative with your investments can be as hazardous as being overly aggressive. That’s because an asset allocation strategy that errs too much on the conservative side may expose you to the negative effects of inflation, erode your savings, and limit the potential that diversification can bring. Your retirement may last upwards of Read More

If you are earning in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, and you already have a 401(k), IRAs, and other retirement accounts, there’s one more way to boost your retirement coffers: It’s called a deferred compensation plan. Here’s how this works and why you should consider it. What is a deferred compensation plan? These plans are structured to hold a portion of an employee’s pay until later in life, often retirement. There are two types of plans: qualified deferred compensation plans, and non-qualified. Here are the fundamental differences between the two: For a deferred compensation plan to be Read More

Have you heard the term “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations”? It refers to the trouble of building generational wealth: The first generation builds wealth, the second generation spends it, and the third generation gets nothing. If you’ve spent years saving and investing wisely to prepare not just for your retirement, but to build a legacy of wealth that you can share with your children and other descendants, then this is probably not what you have in mind. But statistics bear out the old saying. In fact, it’s reported that 70% of wealthy families lose their wealth by the Read More