Think of a financial compass, or roadmap, as part of a comprehensive plan that guides you through various stages of life. This roadmap should identify your current financial circumstances and your long-term financial goals.
Having a roadmap is especially important as you near retirement. Why? It should serve as a guide to help you make more informed decisions while also helping you stay on track and realize the type of retirement you’ve worked so hard to pursue. No one wants to be at risk of running out of money late in life.
A comprehensive financial compass should take into account these five primary components:
- Income planning
- Investment strategies
- Tax planning
- Healthcare needs
- Legacy/estate planning
As financial advisors in Roseville who have a fiduciary duty, we created a proprietary retirement planning process we call Financial Compass. It breaks down complex concepts into easily digestible retirement planning steps. In other words, we do the heavy lifting regarding financial issues that impact the quality of your retirement years.
Retirement Income Planning
Once you retire, you will likely have various sources of income, such as retirement accounts, Social Security, and passive income from real estate and types of investments. Managing the investments that produce the flow of income will be particularly important once you depend on them for retirement income.
Why?
- You’ll have variable and fixed expenses once you retire, so you must ensure sufficient income to support your desired lifestyle. Without a retirement budget, you risk overspending, which could impact your quality of life.
- Market volatility and inflation are significant factors that can impact your retirement income. Market volatility refers to the fluctuations in the value of stocks and bonds over longer periods. During these periods of excess volatility, the value of your retirement savings can decrease rapidly, which may reduce the amount of money available for distributions to cover your cost of living. This lack of predictability can make it difficult to determine current and future amounts of income.
At the same time, inflation can erode the purchasing power of money over time. Everything is more expensive, and as the cost of goods and services rises, the same retirement income distributions will buy less and less. This means that even if the nominal value of retirement savings remains stable or grows, the real value (what those savings can purchase) may decline.
- Taxes can significantly impact your retirement income. Each source of income is subject to some form of taxation and regulations. That’s why having a tax plan as a part of your overall retirement plan can be very important. No one wants to pay more taxes than they have to.
Retirement Investment Strategies in Roseville
While there are many ways to invest your assets for retirement, the following are five of the more commonly used retirement investment strategies:
- Spread your investments across various asset classes to reduce risk. This typically involves a mixture of stocks, bonds, and alternative investments to pursue a diversified portfolio.
- Retirement may last 30 or more years. Don’t let your day-to-day emotions drive financial decisions that have long-term consequences.
- Consider investing in assets that produce income, such as dividend-paying stocks, bonds, and real estate investment trusts (REITs). This strategy may be your primary source of income during retirement.
- Develop an asset location plan to minimize your tax liabilities. This involves the strategic placement of investments based on the impact of taxes. Your goal is to optimize your after-tax returns.
- As you near retirement or if you are already retired, your risk tolerance will more than likely decline. Along with this comes an evaluation of your portfolio to ensure your investments are aligned with your current tolerance for financial risk.
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Retirement Tax Planning Strategies
Following are three of the more commonly used tax planning strategies that people rely on to produce retirement income in Roseville:
- Roth IRA conversions allow you to move assets from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. While the conversion triggers taxes in the year it occurs, the Roth IRA allows for tax-free growth and tax-free withdrawals in retirement.
- Tax-loss harvesting involves selling underperforming investments at a loss to offset gains on the sale or investments that produce profits.
- A strategic withdrawal plan allows you to plan which accounts to withdraw from when you start taking distributions for retirement. This may significantly impact your tax liability if it needs to be done correctly. Typically, you’d withdraw from taxable accounts first, then tax-deferred accounts (like traditional IRAs and 401(k)s), and then Roth IRAs.
Healthcare Planning Needs in Retirement
As much as we’d like to avoid this topic, incorporating healthcare costs into your retirement plan is crucial for several reasons. By planning for these costs, you can ensure a more stable financial situation in retirement for both spouses, avoiding unexpected burdens that could otherwise compromise your financial security and lifestyle.
First, as you age, there is an increased likelihood your medical care expenses will increase for one or both spouses. Planning for these unexpected costs may make your savings sufficient to cover healthcare and other living expenses. For example, one spouse is in Assisted Living, Skilled Nursing, or Memory Care while the other is still at home.
Second, healthcare costs are going up yearly, consistently outpacing the inflation rate, which can erode the future purchasing power of your retirement savings if they are not planned for.
Additionally, Medicare, while providing a foundation for healthcare expenses in retirement, does not cover all of your costs – for example, long-term care, dental, vision, and hearing services, which can be significant.
Why Estate Planning is Important for Your Retirement Plans
Think of how hard you’ve worked to get to where you are today. Now, we are discussing the future and a retirement life span that can last 30 or more years (one or both spouses). At some future date, the remaining assets will be distributed to heirs and causes you care about. You will need an estate plan to ensure your assets are appropriately distributed.
Without clear directives, state laws might dictate the distribution of your assets, possibly leading to outcomes that are contrary to your interests.
An estate plan aims to help minimize potential legal hurdles and financial burdens for your heirs. By documenting your intentions with wills, trusts, and other estate planning considerations, you can streamline the transfer of assets, reduce estate taxes, and avoid probate, which can benefit surviving spouses and heirs.
It also allows you to make thoughtful decisions about your legacy, including charitable donations or setting up educational funds for grandchildren, thus extending your influence and values beyond your lifetime.
Get to Know Bulman Wealth Group
With offices in Roseville and Temecula, we focus on helping successful individuals and families create comprehensive wealth management, retirement, and estate plans. To learn more about our services, we invite you to connect with us for an introductory call.
