What a financial advisor should actually do

In retirement planning, a priority must be placed on secure income. Once you hang up the J-O-B, you'll need I-N-C-O-M-E. We know from experience that the happiest retirees are the ones with reliable and systematic monthly income.

We help by identifying which investments should be income producing assets and in what products or strategies to place these assets. The successful result of this planning yields monthly income that is sufficient to meet your needs even when the market is not performing well. We know that in the future, you'll need income even when stocks are under water.

Once you've built a secure retirement income floor, we build on that with your growth portfolio. Remember, however, that you still need to place emphasis on preservation. One thing is true: you're not going to start your career over and re-earn all of this money. So let's invest with downside protection.

Our Stop Loss Portfolios feature a trailing stop loss that follows your investments up, helping you hold onto the gains you've made during a bull market. Fewer losses means fewer years of your retirement trying to recover. This can add to your peace of mind and also have tangible benefits, like more money to upgrade your car or take the European river cruise.

Are you wondering if Roth conversions are right for you? Have you thought about selling an investment property, but capital gains taxes are keeping you from it? Maybe you have an ongoing or future RMD that's creating tax bills you'd like to get rid of?

All of these topics and many more are addressed in our comprehensive retirement income tax analysis. In fact, we don't look at taxes as a separate topic: we analyze every source of your retirement income simultaneously to determine the most tax-efficient strategy and show you exactly what you'll be paying in retirement. You have to pay your taxes, but nobody said you have to leave a tip.

Through thoughtful analysis, we can determine if you should think about buying coverage or if your assets should be enough to cover these potential costs. Our goal isn't just to have our clients paying premiums unless it is in their best interest to mitigate the long-term care risk with some level of coverage.

If we determine that you should get coverage, we have options that allow you to pay for long-term care from a tax-free life insurance policy. If you go out in a blaze of glory and don't use the benefits, the policy pays your heirs: no more use-it-or-lose-it coverage. Quotes are free and it would be our privilege to help you dial this in.

Every week we visit with prospective clients that are not sure what they're paying for their investments. Admittedly, wealth managers are reluctant to disclose these numbers, or perhaps you've been hesitant to ask.

Our analysis of your portfolio will peel that onion for you so that we can speak knowledgeably about the fees you are paying within your 401(k), IRA, variable annuity or brokerage account. If you're paying fees, let's make sure it's for the right reasons, and that you're getting what you're paying for. In most cases, we can lower the fees that you're currently paying, which means more money for you to spend, grow and give.

We utilize a software called Riskalyze that enables us to stress test your current portfolio. Would you like to know how your wealth might fare in another market crash, or see what changes you could make to protect your income producing assets from experiencing large losses?

These scenarios are worth considering as you enter or continue a phase of life where you may not have any more earned income. To make sure you don't run out of money, it is critical that you preserve as well as grow your nest egg. Let us show you how you can do both.

A quarterly statement tells you where you stood on a date that has already passed. Between those dates most people have no single view of what they own, and nobody to ask at ten at night. That gap is where worry lives, and it is the gap myra was built to close.

Every client works with myra, the AI platform we built alongside this practice. You link your accounts once, read-only and directly with your own institution, and your whole financial picture is live from that day: what you own, what you owe, what you are spending, and where your retirement income is projected to land. You can ask her anything, at any hour, and she already knows your numbers.

She is not a replacement for your advisor. She watches the things that do not need a meeting and raises the ones that do, so work on your plan starts before you have to ask for it. And where the data is thin she says so rather than guessing: an account without enough history shows no trend line at all.