Keen On Retirement

As much as we caution investors against making knee-jerk reactions to the news, your investments and your long-term planning don’t exist in a vacuum either. That’s why when I attend conferences like the Barron’s Top Independent Advisors Summit or the Schwab Impact Conference, I like to come back with a report that I think will be beneficial to my clients and listeners. It’s just another way that we at Keen Wealth try to give the folks we work with a comprehensive financial-planning experience.

Over the years we have evolved a unique specialization working with Kansas City’s thriving engineering community. And that surprises many folks in our industry! Whenever I discuss that we work with many engineers at financial conferences, our colleagues from around the country think we’re crazy. We hear things like, "They are too detailed," or, "They are too smart," or, “Their standards are way too high.”

I suspect that a month or two from now, your inbox and social media feeds will be full of year-end tax-planning checklists and advice articles. But one of our mantras at Keen Wealth is, “get out ahead of issues as early as we can.” So on today’s show, we help our listeners get a jump on year-end tax planning. If you put off addressing these important items, you’re not just wasting time. You could be losing money.

Most of the clients that we work with at Keen Wealth are prudent, reasonable and disciplined with respect to their retirement resources. Every so often we will come across a soon-to-be retiree who thinks that when they gain access to their retirement nest egg, they can just stop working and crack open their accounts like they’ve just won the lottery. This occurs more often with folks who haven’t had to commit to a lifetime of saving, investing, and planning, but instead may have earned a lump sum on their pension, earned corporate profit sharing, or came into an inheritance. In s

Return on Life is the idea that money is simply a tool to help you live the life you want, instead of the goal itself. With ROL as a focus, you don’t give up the best of life or the best parts of yourself just to get more money. The money is there to serve you, not vice versa. Instead of focusing on someone else’s definition of success, you write your own.

I was recently able to spend some time with one of my flight instructors and mentors, General Hank Canterbury (above with me and my son, Devin). A retired Major General of the United States Air Force, Hank was a fighter pilot flying over 450 combat missions, a member of the Air Force Thunderbirds, and a graduate of the very first Air Force Academy graduating class in Colorado Springs. During his retirement from the military, General Canterbury has been training pilots and still does to this day. Needless to say, I am honored to have him as a mentor and instructor and look at the knowledge, wisdom and experience he shares with me as priceless.