Keen On Retirement

Reviewing your estate plan is an important part of the year-end review sessions that we hold at Keen Wealth. At least annually, folks should make sure that their plan is still in sync with how they want to be cared for, how they want their assets distributed, and who they trust to settle their estate and preserve their legacy. But an estate plan check-up is also a good opportunity to review your feelings around what your money means to you, both while you're still around to enjoy it and after the next generation takes over. On today's show, we discuss lessons from two different approaches to estate planning that all seniors should think about as they prepare their financial plans for a new year.

Social Security can be one of the most flexible tools in your retirement toolkit. Some seniors will depend on it. Some will use it to achieve or even upgrade bucket list goals. Some might treat it as an additional investable asset. And others might make their survivor's benefits a central part of their estate planning. But I think all seniors will agree that no one wants their Social Security benefits to trigger unwelcome surprises at tax time. As you're weighing when to take Social Security and how to use your benefits, discuss these four topics with your financial advisor. You may have several options to lower your tax liability and maximize the value of your benefits to your comprehensive financial plan.

Warren Buffett's historic business success and preternatural understanding of the markets earned him the nickname "The Oracle of Omaha." But, as we discussed in a blog post earlier this year, Buffett's life and career can teach folks about more than just market movements and investing principles. That includes estate planning. Since losing his longtime business partner, Charlie Munger, Buffett has been a little more forthcoming about succession at Berkshire Hathaway and his future plans for his large stake in the company. Affluent investors should think about four key public details in Buffett's estate plan as they plan to preserve their own legacies and provide for the next generation.

Like any other part of a comprehensive financial plan, there's no one-size-fits-all blueprint for an estate plan. Every person is different. Every family is different. And, as illustrated in a recent Wall Street Journal article, if you don't work with professionals to preserve your legacy, your way, you could be putting your estate, your loved ones, and your well-being at risk. On today's show, we discuss a listener question about how to tailor an estate plan to specific family dynamics, the essential parts of an estate plan, and some of the legal options folks should discuss with their attorney and financial advisor.

The pain of losing a loved one can be even harder to work through when you're tasked with settling their estate. As you're sorting through complex legal and family issues, you also have to worry about fulfilling your loved one's last wishes and ensuring that their legacy will live on. I hope this overview of settling an estate can help folks who are grieving work through the essentials as quickly and efficiently as possible. I also hope anyone in our audience who doesn't have an estate plan in place will understand how important it is to get your affairs in order and how a financial advisor can help at every stage of the process.

On today's show, we discuss a topic that many of us will deal with from multiple angles: caring for elderly family members. Many baby boomers who are transitioning into retirement have also become caregivers for their parents or older relatives. At the same time, these retirees may be beginning to talk to their children or grandchildren about some estate planning basics and how they want to be cared for if they start to experience a decline later in life. These are some of the most challenging decisions to make and some of the hardest conversations to have. But making a plan while you and the people you're caring for are still healthy and opening up about your wishes with loved ones can make the tough times we all experience in life a little bit easier down the road.

On our last episode, we ran through the changes to Medicare and Social Security that will affect seniors' benefits next year. Today, we're going to complete our 2023 planning picture by discussing tax brackets and contribution limits for retirement accounts. We also examine whether or not gold and real estate should factor into your financial planning given the current levels of inflation.

On today's show, we discuss the differences between estate planning and the comprehensive legacy planning that's part of our checklist-driven process at Keen Wealth.

Here's a brief agenda that will help you cover the basics and prepare you and your loved ones for one of life's most challenging transitions.

Getting older isn't easy. Aches and pains can start to pile up and linger longer than they used to. Making necessary choices about estate planning can cause people to confront their own mortality. And transitioning into retirement can pose some significant financial as well as psychological challenges.

On today's show, we discuss how to prevent your own estate from getting tangled in red tape and bad blood.

Making sure that you and your assets are protected at the end of your life is a standard part of our planning process at Keen Wealth. Over the past several years, we’ve welcomed many new clients who have been putting off estate planning decisions for far too long. Living through the pandemic gave these folks the sense of urgency they needed to sit down with my team and start thinking about the legacy they want to leave to their heirs.

In recent months, my two daughters have given me a personal perspective on just how hot and how competitive the real estate market is right now. Both decided to buy homes in the Kansas City area, and both had to make unsuccessful bids on multiple houses before they were able to close on their new homes. The thought that millions of families all over the country are trying to navigate these same issues is quite a turnaround from just a decade ago, when folks were hesitant to buy houses in the shadow of the Great Recession.

In today’s show, I’m joined by estate planning attorney Jason Salinardi and we discuss how to make sure your assets and life wishes are handled exactly as you desire in the event of your incapacitation or death.

On today’s show, we discuss the essential steps everyone needs to take to create an estate plan, and how your estate fits in with your big picture financial planning as well.

On today’s show, we talk about how to introduce your young children to saving and investing, some important planning tips for young adults just entering the workforce, and how to involve your grown children in your estate planning.

My Keen Wealth team can help you make well-informed decisions for your retirement. We can help you figure out how much to save and invest. We can help you figure out an annual withdrawal rate that will keep you happy and active without breaking the bank. We can put you in touch with the right tax and health care pros. We can help get your estate in order. Heck, we’ll even sit down with your children and explain to them the importance of starting their own financial plans as early as possible.

There are few things in life more trying than the death of someone close to you. But if you are a spouse, executor, or chief beneficiary, settling that loved one’s estate adds a whole extra layer of complication and stress to what is already a very difficult time.

“If something happened to me, what would happen to my family?” I know this question is on the minds of many of the clients at Keen Wealth. It’s also the question that inspired my guest on today’s podcast, Polly Bartle Blomquist, to transition from family law to elder law and estate planning.

Clients and friends of Keen Wealth have questions surrounding the Setting Every Community Up For Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act that was passed at the end of 2019. And with good reason! In many ways, the SECURE Act represents a significant rethink of retirement and estate planning. The government has recognized that as folks begin working longer at a wider variety of jobs, individuals need to start taking more personal responsibility for their retirement planning.

At the beginning of the new year, Keen Wealth makes it a priority to run through our financial planning checklists with clients. This helps us put a bow on the year we just finished and make sure that folks have everything in order to try to make the year ahead as productive and prosperous as possible.

There’s more to crafting a sensible estate plan than just deciding what assets you want to leave to your loved ones. That’s a big part of the process, of course. But your estate plan might also include establishing a trust that safeguards your assets for beneficiaries. You might set up a charitable fund that benefits a favorite cause. You’ll need to file all your important documents in one easy-to-find spot. You’ll need to make decisions about how you want to be cared for at the end of your life. And you’ll need to coordinate with attorneys and tax experts.