Keen On Retirement™

Giving back is one of our core values at Keen Wealth. Every year, my wife Carissa, who leads our Keen Community Impact Committee and the Keen Wealth Foundation, works with the committee to bring philanthropic opportunities to our broader team. Together, we identify key initiatives to support through fundraising, volunteer work, and our financial expertise. If you visit our offices during the week and see a couple of empty desks, it's a good bet that our team members are pitching in at one of these causes and trying to make our community a little brighter. I'm especially grateful for our relationship with the Veterans Community Project (VCP), which is working to end homelessness among veterans by building "tiny homes" and offering outreach to our heroes. Keen Wealth has contributed over $500,000 to the VCP's mission, provided hundreds of hours of community service, and helped found and continues to volunteer at its "Operation Clay Storm" skeet and trap shooting fundraiser. I was honored to be a part of the ribbon-cutting ceremony when the VCP broke ground on their new Veterans Navigation Campus, which will expand the support services they're able to offer veterans in our community. On today's episode, we follow up on a recent webinar I co-hosted with VCP Co-Founder & Chief Project Officer Brandonn Mixon and Keen Wealth Senior Financial Planner Jeb Flynn and discuss giving strategies that can help folks do the most good for the causes that matter most.

Dolly Parton's songs and movies will live on forever. But when the 80-year-old entertainment icon passed away last month, she also left behind an impressive financial legacy that we all can learn from. In a 2020 interview, Parton made it clear that she had no intention of becoming another celebrity cautionary tale about poor estate planning, saying, “You don’t want to leave that mess to your family for people to have to fight over. You need to take care of that yourself." Parton's $450 million estate is protected by a trust with executors and successor trustees, as well as a team of legal and financial professionals. And while one of the benefits of establishing these kinds of protections around your estate is that many details may remain private, I’m guessing a good portion of Parton’s fortune will continue her extraordinary philanthropic mission. Most of us won't write hit songs and build our own theme parks. But we can follow Parton's example by being proactive about protecting our legacies and giving back what we can to make the world around us a little bit brighter. Another important part of shoring up your own financial plan is making the most of your Social Security benefits. On today’s show, we follow up Matt Wilson’s recent webinar, Maximizing Social Security Benefits, by answering some questions from our audience.

In my previous post, I explained why a 30-year retirement plan cannot be treated as a "one and done" checklist. From unexpected health events to shifting personal priorities, your life should determine how and when your financial plan needs to adjust, not the other way around. But not every change requires a new financial strategy. And that's where the true tension in retirement planning lies. On the one hand, underestimating the effects of a meaningful change could put your long-term security at risk. On the other hand, overreacting to every market dip, unsettling headline, or argument with your spouse about money can cause lasting damage to your wealth. The goal for retirees should be thoughtful adaptation, not constant reaction. Before you overhaul your portfolio, ask yourself these six questions to determine if your plan truly needs an adjustment.

Housing is one of the biggest line items on just about any retirement budget. Whether you're still paying a mortgage, looking to escalate your payment schedule so you can retire debt-free, or thinking about relocating or buying a vacation home, where you live plays a significant role in how you spend your time, who you spend it with, and what your financial plan looks like. On today's show, we group together some common questions about managing mortgages that we've received from seniors in our Keen on Retirement audience.

Your life and career haven't progressed in a straight line. Retirement won't either. But that's a misconception, or maybe a hope, that so many folks build into their retirement plans: that, after decades of ups and downs, happy surprises and serious challenges, retirement is going to coast along on autopilot. Hopefully, you have decades of retirement ahead of you. And those years are going to be just as unpredictable as any other period of your life, with one major new variable guaranteed. You won't have a paycheck from employment to rely on. Without the reassurance that more money is coming at the end of the month, too many seniors start making emotional money moves in the moment, whether they're facing a market dip or an unplanned home repair. That's not the kind of adaptability I was describing in part one of this blog series. I'm suggesting that if you view retirement planning as an ongoing process, you should be able to reroute when necessary. And, just as importantly, you'll have a decision-making framework that will help you distinguish between genuine warning sirens and noise you can ignore.

"Ute" (SUV), "chips" (French fries), "sunnies" (sunglasses), and "mates" (friends) are just a few of the slang terms I picked up earlier this year when the Keens visited our family in Brisbane, Australia. Another was "super," which is short for "superannuation." This mandatory savings program is central to Australia's retirement planning. And recently, President Trump floated the idea of implementing a similar program here in the U.S. On today's show, we discuss if taking some inspiration from our friends Down Under could provide a "super" solution to Social Security's looming insolvency and help more Americans build their nest eggs for retirement.