Choosing the right financial professional to help guide and manage your financial future is essential when planning retirement. A fiduciary investment advisor is uniquely positioned to guide you through this complex process. As fiduciaries, these professionals are legally obligated to always act in your best interests, offering unbiased advice and prioritizing your financial needs and goals above all other considerations.

A fee-only retirement planner in Greenville, SC, who is also a fiduciary, can help you create a robust retirement plan that incorporates your unique circumstances, interests, and goals. This professional can help you develop retirement income strategies, tax plans, and investment strategies. 

Working with a fee-only financial advisor in Greenville, SC, eliminates many conflicts of interest associated with commission-based advisors, promoting increased transparency and trust. When you pay a fee for the advisor’s knowledge, advice, and services, you can be sure their recommendations will always be in your best interests. 

Preparing for retirement doesn’t have to be a stressful process. With the help of a Greenville CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ (CFP®), you can develop strategies to maximize your retirement income and pursue a comfortable retirement. 

Global View Insights: Optimizing your retirement income can be a game-changer in maintaining your lifestyle during your retirement, which can last 30 years or more. 

First, you need to understand your fully loaded expenses during your initial retirement years. The list includes all of the basics (if applicable): including mortgage/rent, food, utilities, transportation,  healthcare, travel, and leisure activities. With a clear picture of your expected spending, you can develop an accurate income strategy to cover those expenses. 

Having diverse income streams in retirement can help you pursue a comfortable retirement.  Examples of income streams include:

• Social Security
• 401k
• IRAs (Traditional, Roth)
• Annuities
• Personal Savings Accounts
• Other Types of Pension Plans
• Alternative Investments (e.g., real estate)
• Part-time-Gig Work
  

Once you have calculated all of your source(s) of income during retirement, you should focus on developing tax-efficient withdrawal strategies. 

Estate planning, an often overlooked process, is another critical component of retirement planning. An experienced Greenville retirement planner can help you develop a comprehensive retirement plan with an estate planning component. 

Global View Insights: Your estate plan can be turned over to a local attorney to develop legal documents. 

Planning your estate in conjunction with retirement will safeguard your assets and ensure a smooth transition to your heirs.

Retirement tax planning is another essential process contributing to a comfortable, secure retirement lifestyle. As you get closer to retirement, several strategies can help you reduce your overall tax burden and increase your after-tax income. One core strategy is withdrawing assets from taxable, tax-deferred, and tax-exempt accounts. 

This can involve withdrawing money from your taxable accounts, tax-deferred accounts like 401(k)s or traditional IRAs, and tax-exempt accounts such as Roth IRAs. This allows the money in your tax-advantaged accounts to grow tax-free for longer periods.

Roth conversions are another effective strategy. Here, you convert a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA, paying applicable taxes when you make the conversion. The upside is that withdrawals from the Roth IRA during retirement years are tax-free. You should also consider maximizing your HSA (Health Savings Account) contributions. Your contributions are tax-deductible, and the withdrawals for qualified medical expenses are tax-free.

Many states don’t tax Social Security income, some offer generous deductions for pension income, and a few have no state income tax, which may become a factor for your retirement plan income and tax strategies.

Determining when to take Social Security benefits is an important decision in your retirement planning process. The right time depends on several factors, such as your health, financial status, and income requirements. Generally, you can start receiving benefits as early as age 62, but delaying until full retirement age (66 to 67, depending on your birth year) or even up to age 70 can significantly increase your monthly benefits.

Each year you delay, your benefits grow by a certain percentage (approximately 8% per year from full retirement age until age 70), which is a risk-free rate of return for you. Social Security may not be a big part of your retirement income, but it can reduce the need to distribute other assets from IRAs so they can continue to grow.

Global View Insights: Utilizing Social Security wisely can alleviate the pressure on your retirement accounts, allowing for more strategic, smaller withdrawals. This reduces the risk of depleting these resources too quickly, particularly during your earlier retirement years. 

By coordinating your Social Security benefits with your other retirement account distributions, you can optimize your retirement income stream while extending the duration of your savings.  

With a comprehensive income and tax strategy and the right fiduciary investment advisor in Greenville, SC, you can strategically plan your social security benefits in ways that benefit you. Don’t leave money on the table; contact a fee-only financial advisor in Greenville, SC, today.

In the wake of impressive performances in the stock market for most of the past 15 years, you might be questioning how you can continue to produce continued growth in stocks while investing more of your assets in the bond market to reduce risk.  In particular, as bonds become more volatile due to rising interest rates. Additionally, there are increasing concerns about government tax policies that may adversely impact the financial fortunes of retirees. There is a lot of uncertainty in the world as we write this guide.

Your concerns about the economy (inflation, recession, rising interest rates, trade wars) are valid, and no immediate solution is available. This makes your planning process even more important to develop investment strategies that work in various market conditions.

Global View Insights: Your investment horizon projects how long you need your assets to produce income and other considerations. Based on rising longevity, this could be 30 years or more. A lot can change in 30 years, impacting your retirement income and tax plan. 

Retirement planning is essential for everyone with significant assets. And the more assets you have, the more complex the plan.  This is particularly true for people who have accumulated substantial assets during their working years. They should assume their retirement planning processes will be complex (many decisions) and will change over time, influenced by several controllables and non-controllables.

That’s why regular retirement plan reviews are critical for your long-term success. A retirement plan is not a set-it-and-forget-it process; it requires vigilant monitoring and adjustments based on several variables that may cause you to take less risk, invest more in bonds, or make significant changes to your lifestyle. 

Government policies may change in ways that impact your tax payments and net income. Life events such as a major health scare can radically alter your financial outlook. And a static plan may not account for these changes, potentially leading to a significant financial shortfall later in life.

As your retirement date approaches, your financial goals may require major changes. Regular reviews can help ensure your plan is structured to produce a quality short-run lifestyle while ensuring you have financial security later in life.

Once you have acquired substantial wealth, managing risk exposure becomes a critical service. You simply cannot afford to lose what you have worked so hard and long to achieve.

At Global View, our approach is fundamentally rooted in this philosophy. Our team has over a century’s worth of combined experience in planning, problem-solving, and managing client assets. We have been a staunch advocate for our client’s financial interests since 2004. 

To learn more about our specialized retirement planning services, we invite you to connect with us.