Retirement Planning
How We Can Help
Retirement planning shouldn’t start at retirement; it should start well before.. All of my clients say “I wish I would have started sooner”, but its never too late. Whether you’re in your 30’s or 70’s - planning for a retirement you enjoy is on the top of every American’s mind. We take a long-term view of your financial wellbeing to help create a life after work that is as well-planned as your life while working.
Understand your goals and income needs: Planning for retirement is all about cash flow. What cash flow is needed to travel, start a new hobby, spend on basic living expenses, health care, leave to the next generation, etc.
- Analyze your current position: To plan a meaningful retirement, you need to know where you currently stand. We’ll help you build an in-depth financial inventory to use as part of our retirement planning process.
- Develop your plan: What “number” do you need to reach before you’re able to retire? What other income streams do you have from social security, pension, mineral interest, rental property, part time work, to help achieve your income needs. When we’re done, you’ll not only have a better understanding of your investments, and what you need to fund your retirement lifestyle, you’ll also be better equipped to handle any shortfalls.
- Transition your plan and investments from accumulation to preservation: Investing when you are newly retired is very different than investing 15 years before retirement. It is much more about income generation and preservation compared to growth.
- Support you in pension and benefit decisions: We’ll be here if you need advice on Government or Employer pension and benefits: when to apply, how to apply, what to do with your funds, and much more.
Ready to take the first step in creating your plan for life after work?
Investment Planning
Our Investment Process
In today’s day and age anyone can open an account and buy stocks/bonds/mutual funds. So why partner with us to assist in your investing journey? Its all about knowing what you own and having the appropriate risk/return profile. Our investment philosophy is built on these two fundamentals:
We want you to invest as aggressively as you can stomach
History shows us that the more stock market exposure you have, the higher potential return you may see. BUT of course the market goes down from time to time, so if you cannot stomach these drawdowns, you were invested too aggressively.
Your time horizon to spend this money should dictate how aggressive to invest
Are you in your 40’s and have decades before needing to spend this money? – be aggressive. You’re in your 60’s and need to spend this money in 2 years, preserving your investment balance is more important.
We are an independent firm and are not obligated to use specific funds that pay the advisor more. This allows us to be unbiased and further our fiduciary duty. We also use a “Core + Satellite” investment approach. There are segments of the market that you want to reduce your cost and use an index approach to have overall exposure. But there are also segments of the market where paying more for active management has the potential for long-term benefits of higher returns or lower risk.
Book a meeting with one of our professionals to learn more about our investment planning strategies.
Asset allocation and diversification do not ensure a profit or protect against loss in declining markets.
Tax Planning
At Steadfast we believe in reducing your lifetime of tax. Your lifetime of income tax, capital gains, state income tax, and estate/gift taxes. Sometimes that means paying more this year to pay much less in future years or vice versa, everyone’s unique situation is different. Also, tax law changes constantly. Having a partner with a long-term view of your tax situation is invaluable to helping you keep your hard earned money.
We are not tax preparers, we do not prepare your tax return. We coordinate with your tax professional to make sure everyone is on the same page, a long term view is established, and no documents are going unfiled.
Most folks are familiar with the ways to reduce your taxes today:
- Contribute to your pre-tax retirement plan
- Charitable/church giving
- Maximize your HSA, FSA plan at work
But few are familiar with the benefits of increasing your taxes today to save MUCH more in the future:
- Contributing to your Roth 401k or IRA
- Converting a portion of your pre-tax 401k/IRA to Roth
- Taking the standard deduction this year in order to stack next years deductions for a higher itemized deduction write off
- File as an S-Corp to reduce self-employment taxes
- Be aware of cliffs and limits to reduce your medicare premiums, taxability of your social security benefits, reduce RMDs in retirement, reducing your taxable income to stay in the 0% capital gains tax bracket
- Gifting to others appropriate assets to reduce overall capital gains
- Having a strategy to avoid estate tax at death