A Plan for Retirement allows us to take a 30,000-foot view of your finances over a lifetime.
Using conservative assumptions for factors such as inflation, investment earnings, your life expectancy, healthcare, and other expenses, along with tax rates, bad timing, and other variables, we can get an idea of what your financial future may look like.
By using “Side-by-Side” what-if scenarios, we can easily see how one change in assumptions can change your financial future.
For example, we can assume that all of your future 401(k) or future IRA contributions will be Roth contributions vs pre-tax contributions. We can see how impactful that is to your financial future.
Another example - we can assume you work longer or retire early to see how that impacts your plan.
Other variables we can compare – the timing of your Social Security benefits, the early death of a spouse, spending goals including travel and entertainment, gifting or purchasing your final home.
Since this is done “live” with you during our planning meetings, you gain a better understanding of how these variables - these decisions - affect your financial future.
One last thing. A plan for retirement is a blueprint for the rest of your life. Clients like us to show them years later what we projected their net worth might be to see if we are close to or even exceeded those projections.
Because life can throw curveballs your way and plans don’t always work the way we want them to work, we must update your plan for retirement from time-to-time. The key is to get it started so we have a solid foundation to work from.
Take a look at the Sample Plan of a fictitious couple. While looking through the plan, imagine your numbers rather than theirs - how does your plan look? What will your Probability of Success look like? And, what are your projected Withdrawal Rates over your lifetime?
