Case Studies: RETIRED

John and Suzanne have been retired for three years. They’ve done some fun things in that time, but are now realizing that retirement is going to be a long time, and their investments have not grown as much as they expected.  The news headlines and financial market volatility has also made them anxious.

As part of their plan, we:

• Examined their current spending to understand what lifestyle their assets would support.

• Made a “bucket-list” of things they wanted to achieve in retirement and understood if they could afford all those things.

• Reviewed their current retirement assets and prepared retirement illustrations based upon expected income, projected investment returns, expenditures and longevity

• Established a targeted rate of investment return that would not allow them to outlive their retirement assets

• “Coached” them to separate short term investment assets from longer term, more volatile assets that would eventually provide for future income needs

• Explored fixed income alternatives that could provide principal preservation while exceeding returns of current bond holdings

• Purchased discounted closed-end funds that would provide a higher income stream while also providing opportunity for capital appreciation

• Introduced them to structured products that could still provide double digit returns even in the events of a significant stock market decline

• Re-aligned portfolio allocation them to the new realization that they can have more than enough money to live comfortably.

• Discussed the approaches they could take with their investments given the fact they may not need all of the money, and how they may want to manage these funds.

• Explained how they could reduce their tax obligations by managing withdrawals from Roth, Traditional IRA and taxable accounts

• Harvested losses in their non-retirement accounts to offset future investment gains

• Reviewed distribution including lump sum options for John’s Pension Rollover

• Determined at what age it makes sense to start taking Social Security to maximize benefits

• Discussed potential changes to their estate plan and account titling, as they wanted to gift some of their money to charity and grandchildren.

• Planned how her inheritance may change her financial picture and how that should be incorporated into her current financial plan.

• Lowered their advisory fees from what they were paying with their wirehouse advisor.