Is there something I should be doing today to prepare for paying on Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) in retirement?
Tax efficiency is a popular topic in retirement planning. While I embrace the idea of paying as little in taxes as possible, these “tips” are often rooted in the assumption that you’re going to be in a lower tax bracket in your retirement.
September is Life Insurance Month. It also happens to be one month after all of us here at Family Financial Partners celebrated our 20th year in business. And speaking of 20 years, yours truly recently got a letter in the mail from FFP letting me know that one of my 20-year term policies is expiring. Getting a letter from my own office is a funny thing; at first, I smiled because it meant our processes are working. Then that smile faded when I realized that I had bought that policy right after the birth of my first child — he turns 21 this spring!
Family Financial Partners is celebrating its 20-year anniversary this month, and we know what you’re thinking — 2005 was twenty years ago??? We feel the same way.
It was 20 years ago when two fellas had the crazy dream of building a financial services firm from the ground up. That might not sound so crazy to you — there are all kinds of financial advisors out there — but we were a little different.
In today’s world, we have more information at our fingertips than ever before. When I meet with a new client family, I know they are often well-informed and capable of “doing their own research” when it comes to financial planning. But just because we have access to all the data in the world, it doesn’t mean that we know how to build and execute a plan designed specifically for us. I’ve been told that artificial intelligence may one day eventually replace me as a financial advisor. But I also know from my interactions with ChatGPT that we’re nowhere near that point. For the majority of our client families, their retirement planning can’t be put on hold while they wait for AI to catch up.
I’ve been talking to a lot of my snowbird clients who have recently returned from the great South, and I’ve enjoyed hearing the ways in which they are surviving the higher cost of Florida housing. Even for those with generational ownership of a property, they are dealing with higher taxes, HOA fees, insurance, etc., and have had to get creative with how they manage their funds.
When I first got married and was working multiple jobs, I remember thinking, that if I could just have a household income of $100,000, I’d be set for life. I’d never have to worry about money again. That guy — the one who’s doing your financial planning — didn’t understand inflation, or the price of children, or HOA fees, or anything else at the time. These are things that I had to learn, not by being told, but by experiencing it.
No matter your level of investment or where you are in your retirement journey, the first quarter of 2025 has probably felt chaotic. We’ve been drinking from a fire hose with many headlines and announcements flying around. If you had looked at your statement from January, you likely would have felt pretty good. Mid-March, you probably started thinking, what’s going on here? Do I need to make some adjustments?
We discuss many finance topics around here, but they all revolve around the overarching question: How do you retire comfortably? Saving money and investing are both about retirement. Even home ownership, insurance, and legacy planning are ultimately about building and maintaining a healthy nest egg for a comfortable retirement.
Listen, we said it would be challenging as the entire world tried to interpret what a Trump presidency and a Musk Department of Government Efficiency would mean. It still will be. Add in that we’ve yet to see the impact of hurricanes, floods, and fires on the cost of goods. Think inflationary. It’s reasonable to think that there will be historic supply chain pressure as tens of thousands of families around the country rebuild their homes and replace lost possessions.
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