Retirement Income Planning Defined:

Our principal James Gallagher is helping to redefine a Retirement Income Planning industry that is being hit by the perfect storm: a retiring baby boomer population, life expectancies dramatically increasing, near zero interest rates expected for years to come, an almost certain increase in potential inflation, and a volatile market being driven by the bond bubble. As the Retirement Engineer and developer of the SIPS Retirement Planning System, James believes that a retirement is far too important to be left to just guesses and chance, it needs to be well designed and then tested to make sure you are protected.

There are five steps to engineering a retirement plan. As we complete each step together, your goals and objectives will become clearer, potential obstacles will be easier to understand, and the plan will continue to improve.

We can always skip a step and come back to it later. No matter where we are in the planning process, and even if you are already retired, the ultimate objective is to refine and enhance the the way your assets are working for you, giving you greater confidence in the future.

STEP 1

THE FISCAL CLIFF OF RETIREMENT – In Step 1 we define your retirement lifestyle and then do the basic calculations. Do you have enough saved to last “the 25 years of unemployment” we call retirement? How long will you live? What rate of return should you assume? Don’t forget inflation, it will happen. Are you heading towards a fiscal cliff where money and lifestyle collide? Will you be able to stay retired?

STEP 2

SOCIAL SECURITY OPTIMIZATION – Here we will do the hard research on your known and secure incomes such as Social Security, pensions and annuities. Do you feel secure enough? Are you getting the best performance, or is there a way to optimize and get more? If it’s best to wait and optimize social security, how do you fill the income gap now? Will RMD’s become an issue, especially later in life? What happens to the income streams if your spouse dies?

STEP 3

TAX PREPARATION AND PLANNING – Federal and State Income Taxes can be a non-event for some, but a total shock for others. Are you paying the IRS too much in taxes? Will it change when you stop working? Can you invest differently and take advantage of tax free and tax deferred investments? Are taxes likely to increase in the future? Did you factor in taxes on your retirement income plan?

STEP 4

ESTATE AND ASSET PROTECTION – Now what could go wrong? Estate planning is the process of figuring out what could go wrong and then putting strategies in place to prepare for it. Could you or your spouse have a catastrophic health issue or need long term care. What if one of you pass away early will there be enough money then? Death benefit issues can arise – will all that hard earned savings go to where you think it will? Spoiler alert – it often doesn’t! Are your assets protected against lawsuits? What about cyber security, now the number one crime in America. This is an area underserved by advisors, yet bankruptcies amongst retirees is the fastest growing demographic in people suffering from financial collapse, almost 1 in 10 retirees. Estate planning is not just for your children, it’s for your spouse, and it’s for you. Don’t lose all you stuff!

STEP 5

INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT – The tricky part – allocating your savings into the right investments to make all of this happen. Investment Philosophy and Advice: Should you add some income security? Is there too much risk in your portfolio to reliably fund a regular income? Could the number one risk for retirees – the Sequencing of Returns – impact you? Can you afford the cost to protect the assets against the unforeseen events of the future like Health care events and survivorship? Have you added back enough portfolio risk to fight the inevitable increases in cost of living – inflation?

Asset Management and financial advice is very different when you are still working and in the accumulation phase, i.e. saving money. There are lots of advisors that can do great allocation plans and give you awesome investment advice while the money is still growing.

But once you start taking distributions, once you are unemployed and not able to make it back, the advice you need is quite different. Make sure you pick an advisor that knows how to engineer a plan that is designed, tested and built to work – for your whole retirement.

Retirement Income Planning

Retirement Income Planning Defined:

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