What We Do

Retirement and Financial Planning

It makes sense that the first step in achieving goals is to define them. In our financial planning process, we help you to identify what you want to achieve and then create a clear financial roadmap with short and long-term goals that reflect your values, interests and passions. Offering objective, clear advice grounded in a desire to help you thrive financially, we uncover solutions that fit your vision.

We integrate essential guidance regarding taxes, insurance, social security and investments in relation to your retirement goals. Financial planning can help you to feel more confident about your future and motivated to work towards your goals.

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” - Antoine De Saint Exupery

If you are ready to turn your goals into a real plan, the next step is a conversation about your priorities, timeline, and retirement vision.

Retirement Income Planning

Retirement income planning is a relatively new field. Our older clients, your retired parents, did not need to do much income planning. They had social security and company pensions to provide most of their income needs with extra savings marked for traveling, gifts or spoiling their grandchildren. The climate has changed dramatically for people retiring now, and especially for those 5 or more years away from retirement.

Companies no longer provide pensions, and social security will be facing shortages in a not-so-distant future. There are three primary approaches to income planning: the systematic withdrawal approach, the income flooring approach and the bucketing approach. During the financial planning process, we determine which approach meets your specific financial and psychological needs.

We will optimize your portfolio for income to cover your current living expenses and establish strategies to help it grow. We strive to make up for inflation by incorporating all income sources such as social security, pension and rental income, required minimum distributions, annuity withdrawals and more.

Corporate Retirement Plans

We design and implement systems that can enhance corporate revenue. Most businesses rely on their employees to sell the company’s products or provide its services. They are an absolutely critical element in the revenue chain in any type of business.

Offering high quality retirement plans can help you to attract and retain quality employees. It can provide employees the peace of mind they seek, allowing them to focus more on productivity. By helping to alleviate employees’ financial worries, businesses can improve revenue by offering better service, increasing sales, and decreasing employee turnover.

Our systems provide a path to create retirement plans that fit your business and your vision. We work with you to ensure you have an efficient plan that fulfills your objectives, helps you meet your fiduciary duties, and delivers effective investment results for you and your employees.

Investment Management

What do you hope to achieve with your investment dollars? Whether you’re looking to improve your lifestyle, achieve capital growth or fund a specific goal, we will integrate appropriate solutions that match your goals. We take into account your risk tolerance, assessing your comfort level with market fluctuations, inflation and interest risk.

Since different asset classes have varying cycles of performance, our strategies are designed to strike an appropriate balance through asset allocation. Our goal is to maintain stable investment returns that are less susceptible to adverse movements in any one class.

All investments involve some sort of risk, whether it’s market risk, interest risk, inflation risk, liquidity risk or tax risk. An individualized asset allocation strategy seeks to mitigate the risks of any one asset class through diversification and balance.

Tax Planning

Due to our specialized training in complex tax laws, we can help you to identify tax advantages that may apply to you, and we can help you to avoid unnecessary pitfalls. Taking a comprehensive look at your finances, we identify how taxes are affecting your income.

We analyze your financial situation to ensure tax efficiency and increase after-tax returns. Since many people receive income not only from wages, but from investments such as stocks, bonds or real estate, it is very important to optimize which investments are selected, in what type of accounts those investments are placed, and when to buy or sell them.

We can help you in planning your charitable donations, bunching deductions when appropriate, and identifying opportunities such as health savings account strategies. Through careful planning, and by reviewing your tax returns every year, we can reduce the surprises on April 15th.

Social Security Optimization

Did you know that 40.2% of Americans age 60 and up rely solely on social security benefits for retirement income? Knowing how and when to claim benefits could affect your financial security.

There are many factors to consider when deciding when to claim social security to maximize benefits. The answer depends on the ages and earning history of both spouses, other retirement savings, expected longevity, and survivor considerations. Social security claiming strategies should always be a household decision rather than two individual decisions.

It often pays to delay social security at least until your full retirement age or even until age 70. By seeking help from a professional, such as a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™, you can maximize social security benefits based on your entire financial picture and individual circumstances.

Medicare Guidance

For those soon to reach age 65, it is time to start thinking about enrolling in Medicare, our federal health insurance for people who are 65 or older. It is crucial to enroll for Medicare on time, or you might be paying higher Medicare Part B premiums for the rest of your life.

Original Medicare is a fee-for-service health plan with two parts: Part A and Part B. There is also Medicare Advantage, an “all in one” alternative to Original Medicare, which bundles Part A, Part B, and often Part D. These plans might have lower out-of-pocket costs than Original Medicare, depending on your needs.

As your income increases, your Medicare Part B and Part D premiums may increase if you go over certain thresholds. We help clients pay attention to these income rules and plan before selling appreciated investments or drawing additional income.