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Financial Symmetry: Balancing Today with Retirement

When considering retirement, do you wonder what financial opportunities you may be missing? Busy lives take over and years pass without taking advantage. In this retirement podcast, the Financial Symmetry advisors unveil financial opportunities, to help you balance enjoying today so you are ready to retire later. By day, they are fiduciary fee-only financial advisors who answer questions about tax savings, investment decisions, and how to save more. If you’ve been putting off your financial to-do list or are just not sure what you’ve been missing, subscribe to the show and learn more at www.financialsymmetry.com. Financial Symmetry is a Raleigh Financial Advisor. Proudly serving clients in the Triangle of North Carolina for over 20 years.
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Financial Symmetry: Balancing Today with Retirement
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Now displaying: Category: general
Nov 26, 2024

Early retirement has unique financial planning challenges, particularly regarding health insurance and tax strategies. For people who retire before age 65, the challenge of finding affordable and adequate health insurance adds another layer of complexity to their financial plans. 

Outline of This Episode

  • [04:32] Considering Roth conversion for potential tax benefits
  • [09:07] Rules around qualifying for ACA in 2025
  • [12:36] Early retirement may offer a low-tax window for Roth conversions, potentially reducing the lifetime tax burden
  • [15:49] Consider long-term planning, not just immediate tax impacts, for decisions like Roth conversions
  • [18:44] Roth conversions are typically completed at year's end to account for unexpected income changes affecting ACA MAGI estimates.
Nov 15, 2024

An inherited IRA is essentially an IRA received by a beneficiary after the original owner passes away. Whether it's a spouse, child, or another loved one, the key characteristic of an inherited IRA is that it transitions ownership upon death. 

As Grayson Blaszek explains, the funds are transferred intact, but the way you handle and withdraw these funds comes with specific rules and timelines. Grayson and Matthew dig into the new rules in this episode. 

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📬 Download your Free Retire On Purpose Guide here

📰 See the full show notes here

🌐 Sign up here to receive Retirement Weekly to get one email every week on all things retirement

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Outline of This Episode

  • [4:50] Differences between eligible and non-eligible designated beneficiaries
  • [6:16] Why it’s important to list IRA beneficiaries to avoid tax inefficiency
  • [8:19] The year that you inherit an IRA impacts that distribution requirement
  • [10:18] Discussing inheritance can lead to meaningful conversations that make financial planning easier
  • [14:17] You need to continue taking the required minimum distribution (RMD) if the decedent began them already
  • [16:00] How to handle a 10-year account withdrawal strategy
  • [22:07] Key takeaways about your withdrawal options with the new rules as a non-eligible designated beneficiary 
Oct 8, 2024

Reaching your financial goals builds confidence and peace of mind, which are essential for making informed decisions that benefit your entire family.

In this episode, we’re following a fictional pop culture couple from newlywed to pre-retirement, to demonstrate how their thought process around an emergency fund could evolve with their changing circumstances.

Join us as we lay out a case study of planning that helps them balance their accessible wealth with a healthy emergency fund.

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📬 Download your Free Retire On Purpose Guide here

📰 See the full show notes here

🌐 Sign up here to receive Retirement Weekly to get one email every week on all things retirement

 

 

Sep 24, 2024

Retirement, a phase many of us anticipate for a long time, comes with its own set of financial intricacies. Specifically, how do you effectively withdraw funds from your savings to ensure a comfortable, sustainable, and tax-efficient lifestyle? 

A well-crafted retirement blueprint is essential. This plan should outline your long-term goals and the steps needed to achieve them. More importantly, your financial plan should be flexible enough to accommodate life's unexpected expenses, such as healthcare costs or home repairs. Revisiting and updating your blueprint annually—or when significant life changes occur—can help ensure you stay on track.

In this episode, we’re sharing the essential steps to develop a retirement withdrawal plan that caters to your needs. We dig into which accounts to draw from, how to minimize taxes, and how to manage unexpected expenses. You'll also learn about advanced strategies like Roth conversions, tax-loss harvesting, and the benefits of Qualified Charitable Distributions and Donor-Advised Funds.

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📬 Download your Free Retire On Purpose Guide here

📰 See the full show notes here

🌐 Sign up here to receive Retirement Weekly to get one email every week on all things retirement

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Outline of This Episode

  • [5:06] Your options for retirement tax strategies
  • [8:32] Utilize early years to make strategic financial moves
  • [11:30] Plan your retirement for peace of mind
  • [17:12] Lower RMDs with Roth conversions and reduce the tax impact
  • [19:42] Consider tax loss harvesting, capital gains, heirs' basis
  • [21:30] Use a QCD to reduce taxable income
  • [26:12] Exploring blind spots in retirement withdrawal strategies 

 

Sep 10, 2024

Retirement planning is a delicate process, and you need to carefully consider your various income streams, including Social Security benefits. For those of us who plan to continue working while claiming Social Security, it’s important to understand how this decision can impact the monthly benefits you receive. 

In this episode, we’re sharing how to avoid financial shocks in retirement. We discuss the essentials of earned income, the reduction in benefits due to excess earnings, and specific scenarios such as spousal and ex-spouse benefits. 

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📬 Download your Free Retire On Purpose Guide here

📰 See the full show notes here

🌐 Sign up here to receive Retirement Weekly to get one email every week on all things retirement

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:08] Social Security benefits may be impacted if you work while claiming
  • [04:27] How retirement financial planning strategies vary by individual circumstances
  • [07:17] Earnings affect Social Security benefits before retirement
  • [11:51] Your spouse's income doesn't affect your Social Security
  • [15:18] SSA withholds payments until excess income is accounted for
  • [18:44] Social Security timing advice
  • [20:04] Seek financial advisor help to make an educated decision about retirement 

 

Aug 27, 2024

We all have visions of our ideal retirement. However, our financial plans can quickly veer off course if we haven't appropriately managed our risks. 

On this episode of Financial Symmetry, Greg Suggs from Greg Suggs Insurance joins me to discuss how to manage common risks that could negatively affect your wealth. You won’t want to miss out on these easy-to-implement pieces to your insurance puzzle that could save your assets.

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📬 Download your Free Retire On Purpose Guide here

📰 See the full show notes here

🌐 Sign up here to receive Retirement Weekly to get one email every week on all things retirement

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:23] A bit about Greg
  • [2:09] Biggest changes in insurance over the past 30 years
  • [5:12] The biggest risks for homeowners
  • [11:11] Common mistakes homeowners make
  • [14:33] What to think about if you are considering a second home
  • [17:21] What to consider if you own a rental property
  • [19:00] Automobile insurance for young drivers
  • [23:22] What about insurance for gig work?
  • [25:37] How to lower your insurance needs
Aug 14, 2024

How do you begin to save for your children to go to college? With the rising costs of college education, is it worth the monetary commitment? 

Including tuition & fees, room & board, books & supplies, etc. the average cost of college is anywhere from $27,000 for an in-state public school up to $80,000–$90,000 a year for an Ivy League School.

How you pay for your student’s college is one of the most important financial decisions you’ll ever make. In this episode, we cover the three phases of saving for college and what you need to pay attention to in each phase. 

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📬 Download your Free Retire On Purpose Guide here

📰 See the full show notes here

🌐 Sign up here to receive Retirement Weekly to get one email every week on all things retirement

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:53] Why college? Is it necessary? 
  • [2:41] Average cost of college
  • [4:42] Phase #1: The Saving Phase 
  • [10:02] Phase #2: Preparing for college
  • [20:44] Phase #3: In-college strategies 
  • [22:57] Summarizing the big points 
Jul 30, 2024

Some problems are easily solved with a bit of reasoning, logic, or by using a bit of math. Other problems go beyond quantitative thinking. 

The most thought-provoking issues aren’t numbers-based. Many decisions surrounding retirement require much deeper consideration and often cause you to reevaluate your thinking of what you had originally imagined retirement to be.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to identify “wild problems” people face when retiring and develop a framework for working through them. 

Resources & People Mentioned

Jul 1, 2024

What if you had a magic app that told you how much of your net worth you never got to spend at the end of your retirement?

The trouble with planning for retirement is all the uncertainty, however, proper planning can help. In this episode, Cameron Hendricks joins me to discuss how you can learn to spend more in retirement. 

Outline of This Episode

  • [0:50] We need to talk about your retirement spending
  • [1:55] What if you had an app that told you how much of your net worth you never got to spend?
  • [10:25] Why it’s important to have a retirement withdrawal strategy
  • [18:55] Our takeaways

Resources & People Mentioned

 

 

Jun 17, 2024

Have you considered how your instincts influence your decision-making around retirement planning?

Our natural instincts and biases create frameworks that lead our perspectives on how we think the world works. 

These frameworks influence our decisions surrounding our financial decisions. 

On this episode of Financial Symmetry, we discuss how to build prosperity by analyzinging and identifying your perspective. Listen in to learn 10 instincts identified by the book Factfulness and what you can do to combat the biases they lead to. 

Outline of This Episode

  • [0:50] Our article of the week
  • [1:58] Your instincts influence your decision making
  • [5:41] Why are we worried about the current situation?
  • [7:13] Combatting the gap instinct
  • [10:36] The negativity instinct
  • [16:10] The fear instinct
  • [10:18] Size matters
  • [23:56] The generalizing instinct
  • [26:10] Destiny instinct
  • [29:23] Who’s to blame?
  • [31:05] The urgency instinct

Resources & People Mentioned

 

Jun 3, 2024

Today we’re diving in to a specific path that many retirees consider as they move away from the “corporate” world and enter their second act – which is starting a business.

With increased life expectancy, cost of living increases and a desire for continued fulfillment, many retirees are excited to begin a new experiment in an area they are passionate about.

Some surveys show the proportion of people starting businesses at ages 55 to 65 has increased in recent years and, at one point, even surpassed the typical entrepreneur age group of 25- to 35-year-olds.

So today we’re speaking to those currently operating sole proprietorships and single-member LLCs OR those considering starting their own business. We’re going to shine the light on the S Corp business type and provide some details on why this could be an opportunity to explore.

Outline of This Episode

  • [0:55] How to know when you have enough
  • [2:09] Starting a business in retirement
  • [6:02] Why it's important to understand what an S-corp is 
  • [10:10] An example 
  • [14:54] The downside of the S-corp

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📬 Get our Retire On Purpose Guide here

📰 See the full show notes here

🌐 Explore the Retirement Podcast Network here

May 20, 2024

Now that you have made it through the retirement danger zone, you have made it to the Arrivement phase of retirement. You may be wondering, what are my next steps?

This season can be full of opportunities and connection with those you care about. At this point in your life journey, you may face some difficult decisions around relocating or how best to spend or give the wealth you've worked hard to accumulate.

Listen in to hear about the financial and tax moves that we see most commonly used during the middle years of your retirement.

📬 Sign up for the Advisor Corner Newsletter here and receive our Retire On Purpose Guide

📰 See the full show notes here

🌐 Explore the Retirement Podcast Network here

May 6, 2024

Have you thought about retiring abroad?

Oftentimes when we think of retirement, we think about sunny beaches with crystalline water shimmering in the sunshine. Could this or some other idyllic vision be your future? 

The realities of retiring abroad can be exciting, but at the same time overwhelming. Complex financial strategies need to be considered before grabbing your passport and setting off for the unknown. 

In this episode, we discuss seven crucial financial considerations that you’ll need to keep in mind if you are interested in retiring abroad.

Outline of This Episode

  • [0:36] Overcoming frugality in retirement
  • [2:15] More people are retiring abroad
  • [3:44] Put together a blueprint of what life will look like for you
  • [5:00] Dealing with finances
  • [6:53] Dealing with taxes
  • [8:40] Dealing with investments
  • [10:32] Dealing with real estate
  • [12:24] Dealing with healthcare
  • [13:41] Dealing with estate issues

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📬 Get our Retire On Purpose Guide here

📰 See the full show notes here

🌐 Explore the Retirement Podcast Network here

Apr 23, 2024

If you are retiring soon, you've most likely wondered if your asset allocation is too risky.

Some have called the period just before and after retirement the Retirement danger zone as it's a time where understanding how you should be invested matters for your long-term financial success.

After years of great returns in tech and large cap US stocks, many retirees could have bigger risks present in their allocations than they realize.

In today's episode, you'll learn why sequence of return risk has been called the retirement danger zone and how to prepare for it within the context of your retirement plan rather than by planning by generalized rules of thumb.

Resources & People Mentioned

Mar 26, 2024

Retirement can hit us with numerous curveballs. One of those could happen right out of the gate–being forced with an early retirement. 

We all know that layoffs are part of the corporate landscape. While they are commonplace, when you are faced with one later in your career it can cause you to reevaluate your financial situation. 

In this episode, we discuss your options if you are laid off and how they fit in with your financial plan, your tax plan, and your 401K.

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📬 Get our Retire On Purpose Guide here

📰 See the full show notes here

🌐 Explore the Retirement Podcast Network here

 

 

Mar 12, 2024

While most of our listeners are in or on the cusp of retirement, many have loved ones who are earlier in their careers. Often we get questions on how our listeners and clients can help their younger family members make better financial decisions. 

As we celebrate International Women's Day with this episode, you’ll meet our newest CFP, Niamh Douglas. Niamh and Allison discuss some tools and strategies to help young people who are just starting out get off on the right financial foot.

Resources & People Mentioned

 

Feb 12, 2024

Many investors have been tempted to invest more, if not all, of their portfolios in the S&P 500 given the incredible run it’s had over the last decade.

But today we are talking through five reasons why you should consider not making a concentrated investment only in the S&P 500. 

Don't let recency bias rule your decision-making on the road to your ideal retirement.

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📬 Sign up for the Advisor Corner Newsletter here and receive our Pre-Retirement Checklist. 

🎯 Article - A Few Thoughts on Spending Money

📰 See the full show notes here

🌐 Explore the Retirement Podcast Network here

Jan 29, 2024

One of the biggest financial disasters that people can experience in retirement is divorce. On this episode of Financial Symmetry, Grace Kvantas chats with licensed marriage and family therapist, Lesli Doares.

Lesli shares warning signs to look out for, misconceptions about keeping finances separate, and why couples should seek marriage counseling in retirement. Your marriage affects every aspect of your life. Listen in to learn how you can improve it. 

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📬 Sign up for the Advisor Corner Newsletter here and receive our Pre-Retirement Checklist. 

🎯 Article - Many Happy Returns by David Booth

📰 See the full show notes here

🌐 Explore the Retirement Podcast Network here

 

Dec 26, 2023

In our usual episodes, we aim to arm you with a particular insight or strategy that can help you inch closer to your ideal retirement.  But, with todays show, we want to close the year by providing a list of 15 surprising financial facts about the year that you could share in a conversation with a friend or family member.

We also pay tribute to the great investor Charlie Munger, by providing a few of our favorite Mungerisms.

As you begin your 2024, we thank you all for listening and sharing our show. We look forward to continuing to provide you with helpful steps on your journey to reach an ideal retirement  

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📬 Tips each month to help you Enhance Your Today and Enrich Your Tomorrow. Download our Pre-Retirement Checklist Ebook today

🎯 Subscribe to not miss future episodes here

📰 See the full show notes here

 

 

Dec 11, 2023

If you are planning on retiring before age 65, there is no doubt that you have had this question.

What do you do about health insurance? 

In the United States, the health insurance landscape is ever-changing and takes quite a bit of planning. 

Many people even feel anchored to their jobs because of the prohibitive costs of health insurance. However, there are options for healthcare before age 65.

Listen in to discover what your options are and what you should be doing to plan for this complicated aspect of early retirement. 

Outline of This Episode

  • [2:44] COBRA
  • [8:04] Using your spouse’s plan
  • [10:58] The healthcare exchange
  • [17:57] On choosing more than one option

Resources & People Mentioned

Nov 13, 2023

On the journey to reach your ideal retirement, stock options can be a valuable tool to have in your arsenal.

However, it’s easy to make mistakes given most people don’t have a class in high school that provides pointers on how to handle when they vest.

There are many things to consider with stock options: the different types, timing deadlines, tax consequences, and the leverage involved.

Since it is such a complex topic, they’re often put on the back burner and can easily be forgotten about causing you to miss out on a valuable opportunity to increase your wealth.

If you have been offered stock options with your company, you’ll want to hear these 8 common mistakes to avoid when managing your stock options.

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📬 Tips each month to help you Enhance Your Today and Enrich Your Tomorrow. Download our Pre-Retirement Checklist Ebook today

🎯 Subscribe to not miss future episodes here

📰 See the full show notes here

 

Oct 30, 2023

There’s so much we can overlook with retirement plans. Here at Financial Symmetry, we are constantly finding ways to help you be aware of retirement opportunities and rules and improve your wealth. 

On this special Halloween-themed episode of Financial Symmetry, Allison has come up with some retirement plan horror stories to spook you. Listen in to ensure that these horrors don’t ruin your retirement plans. 

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📬 Tips each month to help you Enhance Your Today and Enrich Your Tomorrow. Download our Pre-Retirement Checklist Ebook today

🎯 Subscribe to not miss future episodes here

📰 See the full show notes here

Oct 16, 2023

If you are a long-time listener you know that we like to go through the nuances of financial planning that may be valuable to you. 

In this episode, Allison and I take a look at net unrealized appreciation (NUA). Listen in to learn what it is, who could benefit from it, and the benefits and pitfalls of using NUA. You won’t want to miss out on hearing one of our classic fictional case studies involving Freddie Krueger. Press play to hear if you could benefit from using NUA.

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:20] What is net unrealized appreciation?
  • [3:45] A case study
  • [8:40] The four triggering events
  • [11:15] Benefits of NUA
  • [15:44] The drawbacks

*****

📬 Tips each month to help you Enhance Your Today and Enrich Your Tomorrow. Download our Pre-Retirement Checklist Ebook today

🎯 Subscribe to not miss future episodes here

📰 See the full show notes here

Oct 2, 2023

When it comes to the question of rolling over a 401K or 403B to an IRA, many people fear making mistakes. It’s true, that retirement account mistakes can be costly. On this episode, we’ll explore the options you have, the factors to consider, and the reasons you should and the reasons you shouldn’t roll over your employer-sponsored retirement account.

Outline of This Episode

  • [3:15] The 6 options you have when you separate service 
  • [8:01] Factors to consider
  • [13:54] Reasons to roll over
  • [20:45] Reasons not to roll over

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📬 Tips each month to help you Enhance Your Today and Enrich Your Tomorrow. Download our Pre-Retirement Checklist Ebook today

🎯 Subscribe to not miss future episodes here

📰 See the full show notes here

Sep 18, 2023

Investing is simple but not easy. To that end, what are the impacts if you do a poor job managing your investments?

Several studies from Vanguard and Morningstar have attempted to quantify how behavioral coaching can impact your savings. The numbers settle around 1.5-2%/yr. That may not sound like much, but could equate to millions of difference over 30+ years of savings. 

On this episode, we continue to explore the benefits of the wealth management relationship. If you haven’t listened to the first part you can find it here

Resources & People Mentioned

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🎥 See video recaps here

📬 Tips each month to help you Enhance Your Today and Enrich Your Tomorrow. Download the Benefits of Wealth Management here

🎯 Subscribe to not miss future episodes here

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