Don’t Fall Victim To Fuzzy Math In Retirement Planning

Learn how to save for retirement with a thorough and thoughtful financial plan.

Main Questions Asked:

What are some of the fallacies of fuzzy math in retirement planning?

What do I need to know about this fiduciary rule?

What is a good financial planning process for retirement?

Key Lessons Learned:

• You can’t evaluate your investment strategy based on the last five years returns because there was no downturn in that period.
• When you take money out of a portfolio, the return is not linear because the down years are amplified when you are making withdrawals.
• Your sequence of returns can make a huge difference in your balance.
• A portfolio that’s designed for growth requires a completely different mentality than a portfolio designed for preservation and producing income.
• The problem with waiting until the age of 70 before drawing Social Security is that it assumes you don’t have any other assets. For many people, it is better because the checks are bigger, but it depends on your life expectancy and other money.
• You may need more income in retirement than you do now. It is also still a good idea to still save and give yourself a 3% raise every year.
• There is a high probability that you won’t run out of money if you take 4% out, but it’s not guaranteed. You don’t want to gamble with your savings and rates of withdrawal.

Fiduciary Rules

• Some financial advisors have not had to act like fiduciaries, as they were held to a lesser suitability standard. All they had to do was not hurt you, but they weren’t required to act in your best interest.
• Now all financial advisors that make recommendations on retirement accounts are held to a higher fiduciary standard.
• It’s a good thing. All advisors should be held to a higher standard and act in your best interests.

Financial Planning Process

• You want an advisor that is focused on long term planning and the products they recommend are tools in the process.
• If your financial advisor makes product recommendations very early in the conversation or is pushing certain products, they may be biased for those products.
• If your advisor doesn’t gather a lot of information about you and your goals and what has gone wrong and right and what is your biggest concern, they may be just pushing product.
• If they only point out the bad things in your portfolio and all the good things they do, this could be a product pushing clue.

Joel’s Financial Planning Process

• The planning process begins with a call for an appointment. Then a call back and the time for a visit is set. The staff also gathers general information.
• Then the advisor spends about an hour trying to get to know you and see if we are a good fit for you.
• After the first visit, a one page plan is put together. There is also backup and risk analysis and estate planning.
• Then the plan is shared with you, and we take a lot of time making sure that this is the plan for you and this is what you want.

Thank you for listening!