Tips for Retirement Distribution Planning

We love planning for retiree distribution strategies and the reason for this is we find that the major focus in the financial planning industry is around accumulation and right now the average age of the financial advisor is in their 60s. So we find that there’s a big gap between clients that are retiring and the advisors advising those clients that are retiring and that the advisors will be retiring at the same time their clients do.

So we’re really passionate about retirement distribution planning and based upon our group’s age and feel like we’ll be a great resource moving forward. With accumulation planning I use analogy it’s very similar to climbing Mount Everest. You really have to earn a paycheck, you’ve got to put enough money aside, you’ve got to get to the top, you’ve got to secure yourself.

When you’re at the top getting down to the whole different skill set and the reason for this is the paycheck has stopped and you need to replicate your paycheck and do it in a way that gives you peace of mind. First you’ve broken a habit of saving. Just breaking the habit of saving for most is very uncomfortable.

Second you have to develop a habit of actually using your hard earned resources and pulling the money out to replicate what your life needs by design. Doing this in the most tax efficient manner, doing this with hidden tax code, if God forbid one spouse passes first and your tax runway gets cut in half.

When to claim Social Security, when does a Roth conversion make sense to give you more control and autonomy of your money with a Roth IRA you don’t have required distributions like you would in a traditional 401k or IRA at 72. There’s Medicare rate surcharges, there’s long term healthcare planning.

There’s different tools that you will need as you get down the mountain and having a team that’s going to be there throughout those most important years of your life, we feel very passionate and we’ve built a firm set up to accommodate your needs. Part of our philosophy when developing a retirement distribution strategy is making sure that your portfolio never takes a loss.

The gain is only a gain if you realize the gain. When the portfolio goes live, when you’re going down the mountain, meaning you’re actually taking withdrawals of interest, of dividends, of capital gains, making sure you’re doing so in a manner that is only a gain and not a loss is key to your success.

We also want to make sure that you have control and autonomy and you’re ultimately as tax efficient as possible. So things like Roth conversions, when to take Social Security to maximize it and get that hard end benefit that you deserve. How to avoid Medicare surcharges, how to protect assets from long term care.

The biggest thing that our clients struggle with is what is the money here for? Do we want to leave a legacy? Do we want to spend the money? I find the clients that are the best savers are the worst spenders and sometimes the best savers have saved so much because they want to use the money for themselves, not necessarily a inheritance for kids.

So this alone is an important conversation, designing a plan that powers you to spend your hard earned resources that you work your whole life to accumulate is something that we’re happy to help with. If legacy planning is important, making sure that you’re withdrawing in a manner that you’re maintaining principle and the principle that you do have is protected from taxes, from long term care events, etc.

It’s also something that we’re very passionate about helping with.