Wealth Management Solutions For Those Already In Retirement.

So You’ve Retired With Plenty of Money…..Now What? Okay, either you are one of the lucky ones who has done well in real estate and the stock market, or you have scrimped and saved so some day you hope to have a big enough nest egg to retire. Congratulations! You’ve done it. Now what?

Financial planning has historically focused on helping people achieve major financial goals such as saving and investing in order to retire comfortably, sending kids to college or buying that private island in the south pacific.

But what about retirees, who, for the most part, have already achieved their goals and simply want to preserve their way of life?  Life changes when you are living your goals rather than aspiring toward them. Suddenly, you have more to lose than to gain and you want to know how to keep what you have. Building and generating wealth is no longer the most important thing in this stage of life, but preservation of wealth is vital. With more Americans approaching this phase of life, the issue of how to manage money within retirement is increasingly becoming a priority.

Consider these statistics:

Ø      The largest growing population segment in our country is people 100 years or older.

Ø      Within the next decade, most of the boomers will reach traditional retirement age.  About 25% of the U.S. population--one in four people--will be retired.

Ø      Many of us will spend more years in retirement than we did working.

Yet when you search on the internet for retirement help, you’ll find page after page almost exclusively focused on making money and building wealth for retirement rather than managing wealth in retirement.  No one seems to be educating retirees about managing their income and developing the right distribution strategies.  Estate planning is well covered—probably because it’s a “goal” to provide money to heirs.  But helping retirees to manage the money they have today, while they are still in retirement, is conspicuously absent in most financial education efforts.

From our experience in educating our clients for retirement, there are seven key areas where retirees need both financial education and financial planning in order to protect and preserve wealth:

ü      Money management.  Managing your monthly expenses to ensure they are not forced to take large distributions from their retirement nest eggs to meet current obligations.

ü      Cleaning up the nest. Out of site, out of mind is far too often the mantra for retirees. However, a failure to organize can be disastrous later on. Pull together all those retirement accounts: IRA’s (yes, some folks do forget about older IRA’s they have), old 401k’s from previous employers, annuities etc. review and consolidate them. Be sure to roll-over that 401k to your IRA. It’s always in your best interest to do so. Make sure the right information, such as beneficiaries are on the accounts and they are set up directly. Once you or your spouse dies, it’s too late.

ü      Distribution planning.   Planning distributions to ensure that you are not taking too much or too little from their retirement accounts, minimizing tax liability, and meeting Required Minimum Distribution amounts.

ü      Managing your money and continuing to accumulate assets.  Now that retirees are living longer, their nest eggs must last longer.  The old paradigm of becoming more conservative in retirement can sometimes backfire if retirees become too conservative and stop growing their assets. It is important to make sure that they are continuing to grow their nest egg to at least keep pace with their distribution needs and to outpace inflation and taxes.

ü      Protecting wealth.  This is the area where retirees get the most attention—in the form of estate and insurance planning.  However, they typically get their information from different sources and there is much inaccurate or misleading information as to how to set up wills, trusts, and charitable giving programs and what type of insurance policies are appropriate based on their personal circumstances. Also, insurance and estate planning tend to be viewed separately, when in reality both are tools to protect wealth and often to minimize taxes. 

ü      Establishing your legacy. For high net worth folks, certain other challenges exist to ensure that your estate survives you: Pre-managing your estate tax liability so the kids won’t have to sell off your assets such as the business or the farm to pay the bill; setting up Charitable Remainder Trusts (CRT); establishing a family limited partnership or LLC; As well as other vehicles that are not even invested yet!

ü      Managing the Ultimate Distribution. This is the most dangerous area and, not surprising the most confusing and overlooked. Careful consideration must be paid to not only saving and investing your money, but on the proper mechanics on how the assets need to be held in order to maximize your income distribution through your retirement, and then passed on to your heirs correctly. The tax laws are changing all the time, sometimes drastically as with the Pension Protection Act of 2006, so educate yourself early and often

Your financial security can not be left to chance, especially in your golden years. Just because you’ve achieved financial security, does not mean your financial planning is over. You can spend a lifetime updating yourself on the subject, so you have two choices: be the expert or hire one. It does no good to spend your life saving and investing wisely only to give it all back to Uncle Sam! After all, it’s what you and your loved ones keep, that counts.

Keith W. Springer is Registered Investment Advisor and President of Capital Financial Advisory Services, providing Wealth Management and Mortgage Consulting Services.  For more information on how to build and maintain a solid retirement plan, please contact Keith Springer at 916-925-8900 or keith@capfas.com