In a wobbly economy, income planning can be precarious at best. If it’s difficult to predict the price of eggs, it’s especially difficult to predict the markets. With retirement income planning, the goal is to diversify not just your investment, but also your revenue sources. The more secure income you have coming in every month, the less you’ll need to rely on your more finite assets.

How Much Do I Need to Retire?

Retirement income planning in Maricopa County refers to a financial strategy that mimics your current financial strategy. So, much like you have your salary and investments to pay for everyday expenses, retirement income refers to new revenue generated every month. This way, you don’t have to lean on your savings.

So, this may mean building your income from Social Security, stock dividends, rental property checks, or even a part-time job. Whether you’re pouring wine by the ocean or tapping into the social safety net, there are plenty of ways to grow your revenue.

But if you already have a busy schedule, a financial advisor can help you map out how much you’ll need by the time you reach your retirement age. The right financial strategy depends on both your relationship with risk and your ideal retirement lifestyle. For example, maybe you don’t want the responsibilities of being a landlord or the stress of having a boss again. At Safeguarding Your Wealth, Ed Keyser helps clients understand how retirement income helps you protect your current assets so you’re protected from economic downturns.

If you’re wondering how to plan your retirement income, it’s more than just idly checking a Social Security estimator or buying a short-term rental property. When your portfolio is likely built via multiple asset classes, it’s important to look at how each one impacts your future spending. When you likely have a lot on your plate, the right expert will collect all the information, and recommend financial paths that make sense for you, your loved ones, and an unpredictable economy.

When the US tax code is just under 7,000 pages, it’s easy to see how you can end up making a mistake when you file. These mistakes can be straightforward, such as failing to fill in a line item or miscalculating a total, but they can also be more nuanced errors. For example, you may be on the cusp of an income bracket, and a simple maneuver could help you save thousands of dollars in taxes.

With efficient tax planning, you drastically reduce the odds of both types of errors, so you can invest your money today and retire in comfort tomorrow. The right financial advisor can tell you not only how taxes apply to your portfolio, but what you can do on your end to prevent yourself from leaving the government a tip.

Efficient Tax Planning in Maricopa County: What You Need to Know

Your income, assets, and industry all affect how much you pay in taxes. Of course, it’s more than just memorizing a few numbers and rules. While it often takes years to rewrite federal tax codes, rules and regulations are still constantly shifting from year to year. Whether it’s an obscure state exemption or a well-publicized penalty, most people don’t have the time or the wherewithal to keep up with the changes.

A financial advisor like Ed Keyser at Safeguarding Your Wealth can tell you more about how your taxes impact your retirement goals. Unlike a CPA, who typically examines the numbers in a vacuum, a financial advisor understands both your investment strategy and your ideal lifestyle during your golden years. So, if you want to provide for your grandchildren, start your own charity, or fund first-class travel, you can rely on a financial advisor to give you comprehensive advice before you file.

Whether you pay quarterly or annually, taxes can be an unwieldy and messy process. At a boutique retirement firm, you can work with an expert who can help you detangle it all, so you can start planning ahead.

When it comes to retirement planning, it’s vital to factor in the cost of your health care. When the average direct cost of a chronic illness can run well over $6,000 per year, you can imagine that the total costs can rise far above the standard figure.

Long-Term Care Insurance is a special type of policy that can help people successfully cope with an illness or injury, without having to sacrifice their quality of life or their retirement savings. It can be a valuable addition to your portfolio, though it’s important to talk to an expert about everything from carrier reputation to policy terms.

How Does Long-Term Care Insurance Work in Maricopa County?

Long-term care essentially covers the incidental costs of recovering from a serious illness or injury, as opposed to the direct costs of doctor visits and surgical procedures. So, if you were in a car accident and couldn’t cook or clean for several weeks, you could hire a home aide to help you keep up the house and potentially provide ancillary care, such as managing prescriptions.

Long-term care policies have the potential to save you tens of thousands of dollars in the long run. However, they’re also one of the more expensive assets you can add to your portfolio. As health care costs continue to rise, so too do the costs of these policies. In fact, some carriers have dropped the option altogether, because it’s common for the totals to spin out of control.

When you work with a financial advisor, you can ask questions about the terms and conditions of each option, particularly if you’re looking for an insurance policy with a savings component. At Safeguarding Your Wealth, Ed Keyser can answer your questions, putting this insurance plan in context with your current health care plan. This way, you can start answering whether insurance will help your portfolio or simply tack on another expense. From your health history to your retirement goals, Keyser factors everything in, so you can feel confident in your decision.

Wealth management is a lifelong process, no matter who you are and where you come from. Every asset, whether it’s investments, savings, or rare stamps, is an integral part of an individual’s portfolio.

But in financial circles, the term wealth management is usually reserved for people with the highest net worth, AKA those with the trickiest portfolios and estates. The more assets you amass, the harder it is to organize, monitor, manage, and (ultimately) profit from them.

What Is Wealth Management?

Wealth management is both an industry and a pedestrian term. To some people, wealth management means tracking sales and hoarding every penny. In the industry, wealth management is a comprehensive strategy that optimizes your taxes, investments, estate planning, and legal responsibilities.

A financial advisor can help clients understand how each asset affects their larger portfolio. This way, if one holding starts to fall in value, it’s less likely to dent the portfolio. At Safeguarding Your Wealth, a boutique retirement firm in Maricopa County, you can learn more about how these concepts apply to your finances, so it’s easier to predict how wealth management will affect your retirement goals.

For most retirees, there are practical dreams and there are long-shot dreams. So, you may reasonably picture yourself traveling abroad every two to three times a year. In an ideal scenario, you may picture yourself taking the same trips and paying for your grandchildren’s college education. Whatever it is you’re looking for, you can work with a financial advisor to help you understand which dreams are within reach and how you can make them happen.

Whether that means opening trusts, taking out more insurance, switching up your asset classes, or securing additional retirement income, there are probably more opportunities and options out there than you realize. If you don’t have the time or the energy to research it all, Ed Keyser can take control of the situation. He’s available to both oversee your portfolio and give you personalized advice to maximize every penny.

If it’s difficult to estimate taxes when you’re working, it can be especially difficult to estimate taxes when you retire. From property assets to Social Security to part-time jobs, you may not know very much about how federal, state, and local governments tax retirees.

What Is a Tax-Free Retirement?

A tax-free retirement essentially refers to smarter tax planning based on your preferences. For example, some people may choose to open their own charitable trust as a way to give to the causes they care about most, rather than pad the government’s coffers.

It’s important to understand how taxes, trusts, deferments, and capital gains impact the portfolio it took a lifetime to build. If you want to optimize your estate planning, a financial advisor can help you work through the details. So, if you happen to sell an asset for a considerable profit, and you want to use those funds to invest in a new venture, you can discuss your options with your financial advisor and how they would help you protect your holdings.

Tax codes of every variety can be complicated. Even tax officials may argue over what they mean and how they should be enforced. If you don’t have time and energy to run through every last regulation, Ed Keyser at Safeguarding Your Wealth helps people in Maricopa County understand how to approach a tax-free retirement.

When Americans are so used to having taxes infused into nearly every purchase and earning, it can be strange to consider what a tax-free life would look like. Keyser can give you more details about what you can expect, both in terms of paperwork, effort, and bottom lines. It may take some strategy to figure out how to combine trusts, charitable donations, rollovers, reverse mortgages, life insurance, bonds, etc. They can all be used to your advantage, but you might be surprised at just how many avenues are available to you. When you work with the right expert, the possibilities can be unlimited.

Social Security has been around for close to 100 years, but its reputation and perception is nearly unrecognizable today. While it may still have the same name, retirees are no longer encouraged to use the system as their primary source of retirement income. However, despite the sometimes disparaging remarks you may hear about the program, you might be surprised at just how much you’re entitled to. If you’re wondering how to maximize Social Security, it may just be a matter of consulting with the right person.

Maximizing Social Security in Maricopa County

Your retirement age, income, and career path determine how much you’ll collect in Social Security every month. When you fill out the forms, you’ll be asked plenty of straightforward questions, but you’ll also be asked for more nuanced figures that may be harder to calculate. If you don’t understand the repercussions of each line item, it’s easy to miss out.

If you’ve been working for an employer for decades, you’ve also been paying into a system that’s covered countless retirees. If you want to receive the same benefits, though, you may want to talk to an expert who understands how the game is played. At Safeguarding Your Wealth, Ed Keyser can tell you more about how to complete your paperwork so you don’t leave anything on the table.

It’s worth noting that the federal government does allow retirees to correct initial mistakes when filling out their forms. Not only can you correct the mistakes, but you can also receive back pay for the months or potentially even years of missing funds. But this process is often not only clunky, it’s time-consuming. If you don’t want to fight with bureaucrats at every turn, a financial advisor can tell you how to structure and categorize the information that determines the final total of your monthly benefit.

While Social Security shouldn’t be your sole source of revenue, it can become an integral part of your retirement income. The right financial advisor can help you see how it all fits together.

For some people, retirement is funded by a single windfall, such as an exploding stock or property sale. For the vast majority of people, though, their fortunes are built brick by brick.

When your portfolio is a tangle of multiple financial decisions, it’s easy to miss an opportunity. Without careful oversight, it’s equally easy to make incorrect assumptions or take certain facts for granted. That may explain why millions of Americans are woefully unprepared for retirement.

Why Visit a Financial Advisor in Maricopa County?

If you find it confusing to sift through all the retirement advice out there, you’re not alone. In a digital world, the rules are less clear than ever before. A financial advisor essentially helps you cut through the noise that you’ll inevitably hear — both online and off. From IRA rollovers to annuities to secured income, there are plenty of ways to get your retirement on track.

At Safeguarding Your Wealth, Ed Keyser takes the time to learn who his clients are, how they react to risk, and what their retirement goals look like on a granular level. When you choose a boutique retirement firm, you work with one financial advisor who has the time and expertise to shape a new financial strategy, one that can net your portfolio more than you ever thought possible.

Smart financial planning is more than just reading a financial blog or listening to a podcast. The right financial advisor tailors services like efficient tax planning, assets under management, and wealth management to your portfolio, lifestyle, and estate. For example, you may be able to offset your pension with secure income tactics to help protect you from emergencies and inflation alike.

Plus, if it ever gets to be too much or too overwhelming, you really only have to remember a few key things:
1. Run through your expenses and income to pinpoint how much you can save.
2. Allow your financial advisor to invest a portion of your wealth.
3. Enjoy a well-earned retirement!