Case Study: Creating a Reliable Retirement Income
Meet Jill (Example)
Age: 62
Retirement Goal: Consolidate investment accounts, dig into tax planning, and ensure a reliable income in retirement.
Her story:
Jill, a dentist, accumulated her wealth through the years as a small business owner. She is considering selling her practice and retiring. She’s divorced.
She owns multiple brokerage accounts, a few real estate rental properties, and has a 401(k). She has three children and two grandchildren. She wants to spend more time with family, travel in retirement, and possibly downsize to a retirement community one day.
- Jill feels she has enough assets to retire but wants to leave a legacy for her family.
- She isn’t exactly sure how her money is invested.
- She doesn’t know the tax implications of selling her stock options.
- Jill is tired of being a landlord and wants to sell her rental properties but isn’t sure she should sell them and if she did, what should she do with the money, not to mention what taxes she’d have to pay.
- She isn’t sure how to switch gears and go from working and saving money to living off of her investments.
What type of financial planner is a good fit for Jill?
She is looking for someone who will actually listen to her questions and concerns instead of feeling sold to. Jill wants to thoroughly understand what a ‘team’ can do for her.
Retirement Planning can’t be rushed despite the normal feelings of excitement and uncertainty when thinking of retiring.
In collaboration with her NorthStar retirement team, a plan for her could look like this:
- Recommendations for a tax-friendly strategy to liquidate her rental properties.
- Establish an asset selling timeline that included optimized tax conditions and future financial changes, including social security and Medicare.
- Organize her assets so the Jill understands exactly what she’s invested in, reduce risks and taxes on her investments.
- Create a portfolio strategy subject to very little market volitility so that she has enough income for a comfortable retirement for the rest of her life.
- Optimize her finances for a potential move to a C.C.R.C.
- Create an estate plan and trust that perserves and protects her wealth for her family.
How can the NorthStar Retirement Planning team help you?
Remember when you were a kid and you could fall off your bike, bump your knee, and hop right back on like nothing happened?
Then we age, and the same little knee bump seems to take forever to get better!
Our recovery time simply isn’t what it used to be, and the discomfort gets in the way of our daily life.
Wondering why we are bringing up a childhood knee bump?
Think about it in relation to your investment and retirement accounts.
Imagine that knee bump being a dip in the market, volatility, a downturn, or — worse yet — a market crash.
As we progress through life, it gets harder (speaking about investments now) and takes longer to recover from those bumps and bruises.
For those of us nearing retirement (or already in retirement), it’s time that we can’t afford because of the short time horizon before we’ll need the money we have invested.
The five years before and after retirement are the most critical (some call it “the fragile decade”) because markets can exert a profound effect on your ability to retire when you want and live the way you want.
This is especially important to focus on now. The market did great in the years following the 2008 financial crisis, but volatility is back. And we don’t know what comes next.
What we do know is that the retirement planning rules have changed — and that may impact your existing plan.
The good news: proactive planning can help you avoid worrying about markets so much!
Give us a call to set up your Strategic Retirement Planning Meeting, (864)297-0762 or fill out your information below.
