Enduring Market Volatility With a Financial Plan

If you hope to retire soon and are concerned about what the future may hold for your investments, you are not alone. Inflation has many retirees and soon-to-be retirees worried about outliving their savings and investments.1  What might you do to survive and even thrive during volatile markets? A financial plan may help you feel more confident and help you …

Appropriate Checklists for Year-End Tax Planning

What are appropriate checklists for year-end tax planning? Tax planners often develop checklists to guide taxpayers toward year-end strategies that might help reduce taxes. Typically, suggestions are grouped into several different categories, such as “Filing Status” or “Employee Matters,” for ease of reading. When year-end approaches, it might be wise to review each suggestion under the categories that may apply …

The Financial Planning Process: Why and How

Planning personal finances used to be the worry of the wealthy and their worry—usually preservation of wealth—was attended to by teams of trust officers and lawyers. Many of today’s middle class families have different concerns: funding retirement; educating children; protecting assets; and coping with unexpected changes in health, employment, and marital situations. But, whether your goal is to build or …

Common Factors Affecting Retirement Income

When it comes to planning for your retirement income, it’s easy to overlook some of the common factors that can affect how much you’ll have available to spend. If you don’t consider how your retirement income can be impacted by investment risk, inflation risk, catastrophic illness or long-term care, and taxes, you may not be able to enjoy the retirement …

How 1% Can Make a Big Difference When Retired

Be very careful when making even small changes to your assumptions. Cut a pie into 100 slices and what do you have? Barely a nibble. Seemingly an inconsequential share of anything, 1% can actually make a tremendous difference to your financial security. Even fractions of a percent added to investment returns over time can redefine your life in retirement or …