Resources

October is Financial Planning Month! Questions about charitable giving are asked quite often, especially around this time of year, and can easily be addressed in a personal financial plan.

If you are over 70 ½ and have a traditional IRA or a qualified plan account like a 401(k), the tax rules require you to take withdrawals from your account annually. In most cases you pay income taxes on the RMD amount. But what you do with the distribution – the money itself – is your choice. Here are a few thoughts on what to do with your RMD.

While there are many fiduciary roles, the key concept to grasp is the difference between a discretionary trustee and a directed trustee. If you can understand this distinction, you should be able to help turn fiduciary confusion into fiduciary clarity. There are five things you need to know....

As a fiduciary, we at Unified Trust Company take pride in our goal-based planning approach. This is the game plan that helps clients achieve their goals by managing the downside risk and staying the course.

A recent survey asked foundations and endowments about how much risk they're willing to take to get their target return. Can you guess what the results found?

If you think about your current expenses, most of them are monthly. You receive a monthly mortgage/rent bill, a monthly phone bill, a monthly car bill and so on. You likely budget other variable expenses like gas, groceries and spending money by the month. So why is it when it comes to retirement, everything is a lump sum?

Like a complex recipe, planning for retirement can have a lot of ingredients with a lot of instructions. To enjoy a successful retirement, you need all the ingredients, in the right amounts and in the correct order.

On this date 75 years ago (June 6, 1944), the Allied Forces took on a task that some thought impossible – gaining a foothold in German occupied territory during WWII. In some ways, it feels as though investors and advisors alike are fearfully awaiting their own “D Day”. A day that we all know is eventually coming whether we like it or not - economic recession and bear market.

The classic Abbott and Costello comedy skit, Who’s On First?, used a play on words to teach the names of the players of the baseball team. The peculiar names of the players—Who, What, I don’t know—result in a back-and-forth conversation full of confusion, perplexity, and, by the end of the skit, notable irritation. Sound somewhat familiar?

I can’t tell you how many times I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. I can’t tell you all the ways people my age planned to spend their fortune when they became a superstar. I can tell you, however, that not one of those people ever mentioned saving for retirement. That was the last thing on any millennial child’s mind. But, we’re adults now.

As the retirement plan industry continues to evolve, many financial advisors find themselves struggling with their retirement business. I have spent the last 10 years of my career dedicated to assisting plan advisors in all aspects of their qualified plan business. Here is what I’ve learned.

What’s the difference between a market storm watch and a market storm warning? What factors are we looking at? On any given day you can look at the radar and see some storms brewing somewhere in the country.

I’ve resisted overanalyzing my spending patterns for years, primarily because I was afraid of what I might find. But I recently embarked on the quest to discover what it costs to be me. And if I can survive the journey then you can, too.

How did you feel during the fourth quarter of 2018 as the global stock markets swooned? The experience should still be fresh in your mind. Did you resist the urge to bail out when you saw the markets dropping like the Roadrunner’s anvil?

A car accident may only cost you about $775 out of pocket while a hurricane or tornado may be 10 times that amount. Your earnings may be more volatile and unpredictable. To safeguard against shortfall, you may need to stash well over six months worth of your income into savings for greater peace of mind.

Having not listened to or learned from the experience and wise counsel of others, sadly it takes many American workers most of their careers before they realize that they are not in position to retire in a way in which they had hoped.

How are your resolutions holding up? Still making time for the gym? Any luck losing weight? A study shows merely 8% of people actually achieve their New Year's goals. It’s your life and you have more than a chance to succeed at achieving your goals, whether it be financial or otherwise.

From a weather stand point, people flock to their local grocery store buying all the bread and milk they possibly can (which I’ve never understood). From an investment perspective, you may be tempted to “get out of the cold” and sell when a market “polar vortex” comes.

Rather than slog away in stressful, high pressure careers well into their 60s, many younger employees are checking out early once they have amassed a comfortable nest egg, then living frugally – extremely frugally in some cases – off annual investment earnings.

Social Security will be there for us, perhaps in a different form or amount, but there. The real question for the retirement plan community is how to use it with pre-retirees in the accumulation and planning phases of their life.