Our Planning Philosophy
The What, The Why, and the How of Planning for a Happier, More Satisfying Retirement
"Let's retire better"
Aligning the financial and the non-financial aspects of your life for a richer retirement experience
What we Do
Our primary focus is to deliver the results that matter most to our clients.
These are family-focused individuals and couples who are motivated by the opportunity to experience a retirement that's both financially secure and personally fulfilling.
Over the last two decades, we've consulted with and created plans for thousands of aspiring retirees, and through that experience, have identified three core financial outcomes that are most commonly shared by our best fit clients.
The following three financial objectectives guide our planning focus and process:
(1) Don't Run Out of Money
The biggest worry that soon-to-be retirees experience is the fear of running out of money.
An equally significant issue, is underestimating the possibility of running out of money due to factors outside of your control....
Factors like being forced to retire earlier than expected, living longer than expected, losing a spouse suddenly, having to care for an aging parent or an adult child, or watching your portfolio get cut in half due to a market crash....just to name a few...
As a result, the cornerstone of our planning process is to establish an income plan that prioritizes the permanent preservation of your lifestyle.
This process includes creating a detailed spending plan that accounts for the unique dynamics of retirement, such as the impact of rising healthcare costs and inflation, aligning your work plans to optimize your Social Security claiming strategy, and creating a dynamic withdrawal strategy to cover shortfalls with as much efficiency as possible.
(2) Don't Overpay on Taxes
For many retirees, your #1 expense will be your tax bill throughout retirement.
As a result, many are concerned with identifying opportunities to reduce their tax liability and maximize their retirement savings.
We incorporate strategies to optimize the tax-location of your assets, and help you navigate the complexities of managing taxes in retirement so you can keep more of your hard-earned money where it belongs...in your pocket.
(3) Maintain Independence and Leave My Loved Ones a Gift, Not a Burden
The next biggest fear shared by aspiring retirees is losing their health and independence as they age.
The only bigger concern for most, is the thought of having to rely on their kids to take care of them as a result.
Addressing this worry, we work to implement strategies focused on helping you age with as much dignity and independence as possible.
The first step at this stage is to quantify the potential financial cost of covering your healthcare throughout retirement, followed by creating a personalized healthcare strategy to account for these planning challenges.
And to round out your wealth management strategy , we'll work with you to create a legacy-optimization strategy based on your personal goals and preferences.
This means that whether you're looking to maximize every dollar of impact that you can leave for your loved ones, you want your last check to bounce, or perhaps somewhere in between...that you have a personalized strategy that's aligned with your wishes.
Why We Do It
Here's what we believe.
Today's retirement generation could offer the single biggest opportunity to impact our country over the next 20 years...but no one's talking about it.
Consider for a moment that Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers over age 55 control nearly three quarters of America's wealth.
Also consider that as you transition from work to this next chapter, you'll be in peak possession of the most valuable of all resources...
Time, experience, and if you're lucky, your health.
How will you use these precious resources?
To make the most of this unique opportunity, you want to invest into the things that are most meaningful to you with the people you care most about.
This is the inspiration behind our Total Wealth Management Process, our overarching wealth management philosophy, designed to help you you optimize your money, your health, your relationships, your purpose, and your impact.
Our goal is to help our clients extend their wealth beyond their balance sheet by designing a financial strategy that aligns directly with their ideal life plan.
A financial plan that prioritizes the preservation of your lifestyle and builds protective strategies around the risks most likely to harm you throughout retirement.
And a life plan that prioritizes investment in your health, your most important relationships, and your opportunity for contribution and impact, so your experience can be as full and rewarding as possible.
How We Do It
To help our clients achieve the results that matter most to them, we follow a detailed planning process, which we call The SMART Retirement Blueprint™. "SMART" is an acronym for our 5-part financial planning process which we'll outline in just a moment.
We've evolved this process, alongside our clients over the last 20 years, in an effort to help them expand their Total Wealth.
Here are the steps we walk through with you to help you lay out your personal blueprint.
SMART Vision
"If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there"
-Lewis Carroll-
Before we get into the financial planning components of your SMART Retirement Blueprint,™, you have to first gain clarity around what you want retirement to look like for you.
That's why the first step in our Blueprinting process is to create a clear vision for your ideal retirement. Our goal here is to help you paint a picture of the retirement experience that makes you excited to get out of bed every day so you can make this the most personally fulfilling experience, possible.
A few of the questions that help to guide this thought exercise:
What does a successful retirement look like for you?
What are the bucket list items you want to cross off?
What does a "perfect average day" look like for you in retirement?
How will you spend you time?
How will you redefine your identity?
How do you wish to be remembered when it's all said and done?
How much will it cost to support your desired lifestyle?
How much money do you need to support those spending goals?
Your answers to these questions, and others, will help determine the direction of your plan as well as offer clarity around the specific strategies necessary to help you realize that vision with more predictability.
Secure Your Foundation
Once you've gained clarity around what you want retirement to look like, the first financial planning step in the SMART Retirement Blueprint™ process is to secure the financial foundation of your plan.
This involves 3 important planning steps:
Income Security: Once you cash your last paycheck from work, the last thing you want is to wonder where the next one is coming from. This is why our first step is to help you create a written plan to thoughtfully coordinates work, Social Security, and portfolio income to deliver reliable paychecks that cover your desired lifestyle for as long as you and your spouse live
Cash Management: Identify how much money you want in liquid cash to cover short term spending goals, plus any additional cash you want to help you sleep well at night
Family Protection Plan: Assess the financial vulnerabilities of those who depend on you and create a protective strategy to shield them from potential risks in the event of unforeseen circumstances resulting in sudden loss
If all your financial strategy does for you, is provide a reliable income stream to cover your lifestyle for as long as you live, provides enough cash to cover life's inevitable curve-balls, and protects your family against potential loss, you're well on your way to a more comfortable and confident retirement.
Medical and Healthcare Plan
The next pillar of the SMART Retirement Blueprint™ is to create a health-focused strategy that aligns with your financial plan.
There are two sides to the healthcare coin that must be planned for.
The first prioritizes prevention.
Consider, how you'll invest in your health and wellness to extend the quality of your healthspan for as long as possible.
The second addresses the risk and costs associated with deteriorating health.
This must account for the impact of rising healthcare costs on cash flow as you age, as well as potentially risk associated with a major healthcare event that could lead to impairment or long term care.
We'll work with you to develop a comprehensive strategy to address both so you can age with as much dignity and independence as possible.
Asset Management
Pillar 3 of the SMART Retirement Blueprint™ involves your investment strategy, and how you'll construct your portfolio to deliver the results that matter most to you.
There are two important aspects of SMART Asset Management that we concentrate on.
The first is asset allocation, which involves the selection of individual assets that you choose to invest in, and how you coordinate those investments to achieve specific outcomes that are important to you.
The second is asset location, which involves recognizing the tax-impact of your allocation strategy, and carefully aligning your investments in a way that optimizes the tax-efficiency of your overall strategy.
The goal of your asset management strategy is to align these two important elements to help you achieve financial outcomes that matter most to you, with as much reliability as possible.
Risk Management
The fourth pillar of the SMART Retirement Blueprint™, Risk Management, addresses the unique set of risks, specific to retirement.
During this stage of our planning process, we isolate a series of risks under the following categories:
Outliving Your Resources: Includes longevity risk, inflation risk, and excess withdrawal risk
Investing: Includes the impact of market volatility, interest rate risk, liquidity risk, and sequence of returns risk
Aging: Addresses the risks associated with declining health, frailty, and even the vulnerabilities associated with elder abuse
Work: The risk of forced early retirement and potential challenges associated with finding replacement work
Family: The risk of having to carry the unexpected burden of caring for a family member, such as an elderly parent, or an adult child
Public Policy: Includes the risk of public policy change, such as changes to Social Security and Medicare, as well as tax reform
Timing: The risk of retiring during a bad economic cycle, such as during a significant market drawdown, or even an extended recessionary environment
These are the external risks that you have little control over, that could negatively impact the long-term sustainability of your plan.
To help isolate your biggest threats we perform a comprehensive "stress-test" on your strategy to pinpoint the specific areas that pose the biggest financial threats to your plan, and introduce solutions to help you reduce or even remove those risks wherever possible.
Tax-Conscious Planning
The final step in the SMART Retirement Blueprint™ process is "Tax-Conscious Planning”.
The largest expense for many retirees, particularly affluent retirees, will be their tax bill.
This is largely due to the fact that so much of America's wealth is stored in tax-deferred retirement accounts, such as 401k's, 403b's and IRA's, and the dynamics of tax-planning shifts dramatically as your financial priority transitions from the accumulation of wealth, to distribution of wealth.
Tax-conscious planning focuses on carefully considering the impact of every decision you make that influences your tax situation and incorporates proactive strategies to help minimize your tax liability throughout retirement.
Some of the strategies we incorporate include tax-diversified asset allocation, tax-optimized withdrawal strategies, tax loss harvesting, Roth conversion planning, RMD planning, and charitable giving strategies.
By keeping a close eye on the decisions that impact your tax picture and incorporating proactive strategies to help minimize their consequence, you can get more out of your wealth, helping to ensure your comfort in retirement, and potentially leave a larger legacy for the people and causes that you care most about.
The SMART Retirement Blueprint™ is detailed, step-by-step framework that helps you connect the dots between your financial goals and personal aspirations.
It's designed to provide a dynamic and adaptable process that will evolve with you, helping you embrace the opportunities that retirement presents, while preparing for the challenges of retirement with confidence.
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SMART Retirement Blueprint™?
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