What If Everything You’ve Been Taught About Retirement Planning Is Outdated?
Some of the most common retirement strategies were built for a different time. We question them, test them, and renovate the ones that no longer make sense.
Start with four assumptions.
ASSUMPTION #1
Taxes Will Be Lower in Retirement
What Do You Actually Believe About Future Tax Rates?
“Do you believe income-tax rates will be higher or lower in the future?”
“Do you expect your retirement income to be higher or lower than your income today?”
If you expect both to be higher, why are you deliberately postponing taxes until then?
RENOVATION #1 — RETHINK
WHEN YOU PAY TAXES
Maybe the goal isn't simply to get a tax deduction today. Maybe it's to decide which dollars you want taxed now, which dollars you want taxed later, and which dollars you never want taxed again.
ASSUMPTION #2
Saving More Means You'll Have More
What Are You Actually Buying Every Month?
When you put money into your retirement plan each month, are you buying a future paycheck—
or simply buying the possibility that your account will be worth more someday?
If the purpose of retirement savings is eventually to replace your paycheck, wouldn't it make sense to start buying some of those future paychecks now?
RENOVATION #2 — STOP BUYING ONLY POTENTIAL.
START BUYING PAYCHECKS.
Your retirement money can have different jobs. Before taking unnecessary risk with money you may need for income, decide how much of your future paycheck you want to make dependable.
ASSUMPTION #3
Good Average Returns Will Reliably Fund My Retirement
What Happens When the Paychecks Need to Start?
For decades, retirement planning has often relied on a simple idea: invest your money, retire, and withdraw about 4% a year.
But what happens if the market falls during the first few years you're taking withdrawals? Does the order in which your returns arrive matter?
RENOVATION #3 — RETHINK
HOW YOU CREATE RETIREMENT INCOME.
Instead of asking your entire portfolio to provide both growth and your paycheck, give some of your money one specific job: pay the bills reliably—regardless of what the market does or the order in which market returns arrive.
ASSUMPTION #4
I Can Get More Without Giving Anything Up
What Are You Willing to Trade to Get What You Want?
Retirement decisions aren't free. Every shortcut has a toll. Every advantage asks you to give up something.
Would you give up some liquidity for more reliable income? Pay some taxes today to avoid potentially higher taxes later? Trade some upside potential for greater certainty?
RENOVATION #4 — STOP PRETENDING
THERE ARE NO TRADEOFFS.
There may be faster roads to the retirement you want. But faster roads often have tolls. The question isn't whether a strategy has a cost. The question is whether what you get is worth what you give up.
If That Sounds Like You, This Is What We Do.
Renovating Retirement isn't about giving you another pile of financial advice.
It's about questioning the parts of traditional retirement planning that may no longer fit what you actually believe or what you actually want.
We rethink when you pay taxes.
We rethink what you're buying while you save.
We rethink how your retirement paycheck gets created.
And when there's a tradeoff, we put the shortcut and the toll right in front of you so you can decide whether it's worth it.
You don't have to agree with me.
You just need to know what you believe.
Would You Like My Help?
If you want to know whether your retirement plan actually reflects what you believe, let's put it on the table and look at it together.
No predetermined solution.
No obligation to change anything.
We'll look at your taxes, your savings, your future income and the tradeoffs available to you.
Then you decide what makes sense.
Clarity is better than advice.