The Spending Years

Planning For Retirement- The Spending Years

We think of the spending years as starting when you are fully retired.  Typically that is when you begin to spend some of your hard earned investment funds to fill in the gap between household spending and your core retirement income (Social Security, Pensions, IRA distributions, etc).  Many of our clients are fortunate enough not to need to draw into their investments and their focus is usually on leaving an inheritance to their children.

No matter what your situation is financially, a well thought out financial plan is almost always needed during your spending years.  This plan takes your spending gap (or surplus, if so fortunate) and projects forward, usually to 100 years of age.  Then the plan determines how much investment income you will need to fill in the gap (or how much surplus you will have to re-invest).  Oftentimes, spending plans will need to be adjusted to fit the investment returns or the investment returns will have to change to fit the spending plans.  This is the area where the dynamics of the plan and the assumptions in the plan become critically important.

Our process for developing a comprehensive financial plan is pretty straightforward.  We meet with you to fully understand your situation: your life, your children, your health, your hobbies, etc.  Then we work off of a list that you provide of your assets, debts and household budget to develop the plan.  We charge a fee of $750 to develop a comprehensive financial retirment plan.  And our fee is $250 to update it each year going forward. 

One of the strengths in working with us on your financial retirement plan during your spending years is that we also manage portfolios.  The knowledge we have with respect to investment returns, investment limitations and tax minimization becomes very important during the development of the financial spending plan and during the times when changes need to be made to the financial spending plan.  For more information on our investment management program, go to Our Products.