Question 1

Retirement Planning

Accepted Answer

Retirement Planning Services for Confidence and Clarity

Our retirement planning services help you reach your goals without the risk of running out of money.

We want to give you confidence and clarity so you can spend time doing the things that are most important to you.

Our retirement planning process includes:
 • Improving and tracking the success rate of your plan
 • Turning your retirement savings into a reliable paycheck
 • Developing a cohesive investment strategy to reduce risk and improve returns
 • Ongoing tax planning to reduce your tax bill
 • Aligning all the moving parts of your financial life to create a successful retirement

A retirement plan is a living and breathing document. We use an advanced financial planning software to build your plan, track its success rate, adjust for life's unknowns, and communicate the results with you in plain English.

Question 2

Retirement Income Planning

Accepted Answer

Maximize Your Retirement Income

We help turn your nest egg into a reliable income stream.

Our approach is backed by decades of academic research and helps:
 • Keep your taxes low
 • Reduce costs
 • Maximize your investment return
 • Lower portfolio risk
 • Preserve your savings

Our approach also takes into consideration your other income sources. Things like Social Security, Pensions, Rental Income, Required Minimum Distributions, and more.

We carefully coordinate all of your income streams to help make sure you don't pay more than your fair share of taxes.

Why?
Because it's very possible to be in a higher tax bracket in retirement than as a working professional. Keeping taxes low throughout retirement is one of the key ingredients to a successful plan.

Question 3

Social Security Timing

Accepted Answer

When is the Best Time to Collect Social Security? We Can Help

As retirement planning specialists, we help you determine the best time to collect Social Security.

To do that, we take into consideration how your Social Security benefits will interact with other income sources such as:
 • Rental Income
 • Pensions
 • Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)
 • Dividends and interest
 • Capital gains

We also factor in family health conditions, spousal benefits, personal preferences, and more.

By analyzing your entire financial picture, we are able to choose a Social Security timing strategy that reduces your tax bill in retirement and optimizes your income stream.

Question 4

Investment Management

Accepted Answer

Our investment portfolios are carefully designed to help retirement investors reduce risk, improve returns, and create a reliable income stream.

3 Investment Principles to Protect Your Nest Egg
There are three key principles we follow to help protect your nest egg:

1.) Keep Investment Costs Low

According to Morningstar,(https://sg.morningstar.com/sg/news/154499/how-fund-fees-are-the-best-predictor-of-returns.aspx) the cost of your underlying investments is one of the best predictors of future returns.

In other words, low-cost investments, historically, have outperformed high-cost investments.

For that reason, we build our retirement portfolios using low-cost index funds. This helps to improve the success rate of our client's retirement plans and reduce unnecessary risk.

2.) Own Tax-Efficient Investments

Warren Buffet says his favorite holding period is forever.  We agree.

While buying and holding forever isn't practical for most retirement investors, we create portfolios with "low turnover."

Every time an investment is bought or sold (i.e., "turned over"), costs are incurred. Not just obvious costs like transaction fees and taxes, but hidden costs like bid-ask spreads.

These costs eat away at your investment returns. So, to optimize investment returns and mitigate taxes, we intentionally own investments with low turnover.

3.) Own the Right Asset Classes

Not all investments are created equal.

Just because you can invest your money into something (e.g., gold), does not mean you should!

We only invest in asset classes that:
1. Are positively supported by peer-reviewed, academic research
2. Work well when invested together in a diversified portfolio (e.g., low and/or negative correlation to each other)

For example, corporate bonds can behave like stocks during catastrophic events. That does not provide proper diversification for an investor who is in retirement.

As a fiduciary, our job is to make investment decisions that are in your best interest. This means ignoring the daily headlines and sticking with evidence-based solutions.

Part of our service includes investment account management, transfers, and monthly systematic rebalancing.

We'll also consult and guide you on employer based plans that we don't manage for you, but play a large role in your overall retirement plan.

Question 5

Tax Planning & Filing

Accepted Answer

Retirement Tax Planning Services That Keep Taxes Low

Without careful planning, it's very possible to have a higher tax bill in retirement than as a working professional.

Our tax planning services aim to help keep taxes low today and in retirement. We accomplish this through:
 • Annual Tax Return Analysis 
 • Annual Roth Conversions
 • Coordination & Timing of Income Streams (e.g. Pension, Social Security, Required Minimum Distributions, etc.)
 • Asset Location
 • Charitable Giving Strategies
 • Navigating the Medicare IRMAA Tax Brackets
 • Implementing Strategies to Help Avoid IRMAA

We also stay up-to-date with the ever-changing tax laws to ensure you are taking advantage of every opportunity.

Additionally, for planning clients federal and state personal tax return preparation and electronic filing is included.

Question 6

Insurance Planning

Accepted Answer

Insurance Planning to Minimize Risk

Our insurance planning helps you maximize your protection and lower your annual costs.

And, as a commission-free financial planning firm, we get paid exactly $0 when we help you buy an insurance policy.

By not accepting commissions, you don't have to worry about us recommending something you don't need.

After we perform a comprehensive insurance analysis, we help you shop the entire market to find the best policy at the best price. We also help you safely unwind insurance policies that were wrongfully sold to you.

We conduct regular in-depth reviews for our clients on the following types of insurance:
 • Health Insurance (including Medicare enrollment)
 • Life Insurance
 • Auto & Home Insurance
 • Disability Insurance
 • Umbrella Insurance
 • Long Term Care Insurance

Question 7

Estate Planning

Accepted Answer

Estate Planning to Help Those You Leave Behind

Estate planning is all about having a plan for a smooth effective and efficient transfer of estate.

First and foremost, we'll want to ensure your spouse will be okay.

After that its about ensure what you want to happen, happens (effective) and doing so in the lowest costs, taxes, and timeframe as possible (efficient)

We conduct regular in-depth reviews for our clients to include:
 • Last Will and Testament
 • Living Wills
 • Durable Powers of Attorneys
 • Medical Power of Attorney
 • HIPPA Releases
 • Proper Beneficiaries list on accounts
 • Proper Titling of Property
 • Trusts (if applicable)

Question 8

And More...

Accepted Answer

And We Don't Stop There...

We'll also help you with some more foundational elements of personal finances as required:

• Ensuring An Adequate Amount of Savings
 • Elimination of Debt
 • Buy or Selling Real Estate
 • General Money Management and Cash-flow Planning
 • Etc.

And As Life Adjusts, so Will We...

We'll be with you every step of the way, to help you, as transitions and decisions materialize.

Not only are you gaining an CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER®, but also a partner to walk life with you.

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