Retirement Planning and Retirement Management

Retirement Planning is a continuation of comprehensive wealth management that specifically addresses the needs of the pre-retiree and/or retiree. If individuals have successfully maintained an ongoing financial planning perspective, then they have continuously been incorporating retirement planning in their overall financial plan.

Retirement as Part of the Whole Picture

We do not wish to minimize retirement planning as an objective. It is merely, or should be, a continuation of the long-term planning process. One may have started long ago with a budget, and then saved to buy a house and/or start a business and a 401k plan. We included college planning for our children and later, even grandchildren. Now as we approach our fifties or sixties, the news articles call it retirement planning. The wealth management process is dynamic and ever changing, and retirement planning is simply a part of the whole picture.

What is misunderstood by many is that, in our opinion based on years of experience, the most important financial function in retirement is retirement management.

A Three Phase Process

We see, based on hundreds of retirees, retirement as a three phase process. Those phases are: first, the joy in retirement years; second, the slowdown in retirement years, third, the apprehensive and final phase. Each of these stages is an entirely different retirement management concept.

The First Phase

In the first phase we find a refocus on wills and trusts, or a reconfirmation of what has already been done. Travel and other business opportunities expand, second home use increases, and change of residence for tax purposes becomes a question. Asset allocation now takes a different strategy as the actualization of “using our capital” to provide for living expenses sinks in with the retiree. In this phase, with their greatest nest egg still intact, the retiree weighs the pros and cons of doing more for their children and/or grandchildren versus keeping the funds available for future needs for themselves.

The Second Phase

Phase two is a slowdown, and most often occurs in the age bracket of the late seventies or early eighties. Travel is pared down significantly, and often health issues are the primary concern. For our clients we have already addressed the issues of a living will, as well as medical and financial limited powers of attorney. At this phase, we find clients re-examining the success, or lack thereof, of their children and ponder the question as to whether all of them should be treated equally in the estate.

The Third Phase

The final stage of life may last a decade or more, and has the option of being one of the more comfortable phases, if financially prepared. We want our clients and their families to have the serenity we believe they deserve.

We have faced all of these issues numerous times and are adept at guiding our clients through these situations.