Retirement Strategies
Retirement requires unique strategies to help you live the lifestyle you want when you retire. Since every firm is set up differently, it’s crucial to understand the differences between retirement strategies and how these firms work to secure your retirement.
In this post, we’re going to shed some light on how we’re set up as a firm and how many others are, too.
However, we’re not here to sell you on one strategy or firm style versus another. Instead, we’re going to explain the options you have available to find a solution that works best for you.
How Most People Enter the World of Retirement Planning
Many people start really thinking about retiring and delve into the world of investing once their career picks up. For most people, they’ll follow a few steps:
- Set up an investment account, put money into the account and watch the stock rise or fall
- Start putting money into a 401(k) at work
As you start thinking more about your financial future, you’re likely going to want some help from a financial advisor. These are professionals that will help you invest your money in a way that best meets your retirement goals.
With that said, the firm’s approach and retirement strategies may be different from what you would expect.
Ideally, you’ll talk to 2, 3 or even 5 financial planners, and you’ll quickly start to notice that each recommends a different approach to meet your financial goals.
What are the approaches you’re likely going to come across?
Investment Advisor
An investment advisor is who you seek out when you’ve invested some money on your own, but you want some professional help managing your portfolio. These professionals will help you invest and grow your portfolio.
Unfortunately, these advisors won’t assist with:
- Tax planning
- Estate planning
- Etc.
If your sole goal is to grow your money in the markets, an investment advisor offers exceptional services to help you achieve this goal.
Hands-off Financial Advisor / Plan Creator
If you have the mentality that you want to execute a plan on your own but need someone to help you develop the plan, there is an advisor that can help with that, too. These professionals will:
- Create a financial plan
- Allow you to execute the plan
These hands-off professionals offer you a one-time fee plan that will take all of your goals into account and devise a plan to meet these goals. Unfortunately, if your goals change in the future or something doesn’t go as expected, there’s no additional help provided due to the one-time fee.
One-stop Shop
A one-stop shop is what we’ve tried to transition into with our business, and it’s a more robust solution for our clients. When working with a one-stop-shop, you receive help with:
- Investments
- Plan building
- Plan adjustments
- Medicare
- Estate planning
- Tax planning
Using a holistic approach, these advisors will work with you to meet your retirement goals and your lifestyle goals.
When you’re working on your retirement strategy, you may want to:
- Hire a professional who does everything for you
- Work with someone on just investments
- Execute a plan from a professional
Thankfully, the financial industry has professional advisors who can help you through each of these categories. Some clients want to be very hands-on with their retirement planning, while others want to understand the plan yet want someone to handle all the logistics.
Why a One-stop Shop or Comprehensive Service is What We Offer
Throughout the years, we’ve learned a lot about our clients. While everyone has their own preference on how to handle retirement, many people want someone who can help in the various areas of retirement, such as estate planning, tax planning and everything else.
In fact, we have built out our services to the current state, which looks something like this:
- Build a retirement-focused financial plan
- Create an income plan
- Build out an estate plan
We’ll even work with your CPA or other advisors to help ensure that we’re all on the same page and working to create the retirement you envision.
Truly, the financial plan we create is the foundation of our client’s success. Once we have this plan in place, we can begin looking at investments, taxes, estate plans and more.
When we create a retirement financial plan, we look at multiple parts:
- Where you’re at today with your retirement
- What your goals are for retirement
- How many years out you are from retirement
- How much have you accumulated?
- How much will you continue to accumulate until retirement
- Your lifestyle wants in retirement
Once we go through all these points, we have a much clearer picture of what your retirement can look like and how to reach this phase in life. We’ll then look at lifespan and delve into estate planning.
If you think there will be money left after retirement, you can then start deciding who to leave your money to when you’re gone.
However, we also answer questions on:
- When it’s best to retire
- If you retired today, what your finances would look like
- Survivorship questions and so much more
Building out the foundation of your retirement plan allows us to see what happens if you need long-term care or a spouse dies. Or, if you purchase another house, how would it impact retirement?
Multiple Financial Professionals Under One Roof
When you work with a one-stop-shop or comprehensive financial planner, you’re opting to work with someone who can bring in other professionals to help you. We’re not accountants, but we have accountants that we work with who help our clients deal with:
- Tax strategies
- Tax planning
- Retirement account conversions
- Etc.
Since we put this system together, there are no additional charges for speaking to one of these professionals.
When choosing someone to help you with your retirement plan and strategy, it’s crucial to ensure that these professionals evolve and change over time. Economies and markets are changing, and if the person you trust with your retirement planning doesn’t evolve, your retirement will suffer.
If you need help trying to find peace of mind in your retirement, we can help.
Click here to read our newest book, called Secure Your Retirement.