If you know what mistakes tend to drain retirement savings, you can take caution, make more informed decisions, and stay on track to fund your dream retirement.
5 Smart Steps to a Confident Retirement
Discovery
The Discovery Step allows for mutual discovery. We get to know you, and you get to know us. We learn where you are today and where you want to go. You learn our process, priorities, and philosophy. We gather financial statements and information as required to serve you as a fiduciary.
Analysis
In the Analysis Step, we seek to understand your budgeting, debt management, retirement savings, taxation perspective, and personalized risk tolerance. We ask questions to understand you better and offer meaningful recommendations during future visits.
Action Plan
The Action Plan Step includes recommendations to mitigate market, longevity, and taxation risks. We clearly explain each idea and collaborate with you to finalize the Plan. Our Retirement Income Plans are flexible, keep pace with inflation, and allow you to make memories with those you love most.
Implementation
During the Implementation Step, our team assists in submitting necessary account forms and facilitates the required administrative steps for each solution. We help coordinate funds transfers directly from one custodian to the other. No check or payment is ever transmitted to Smarter Retirement Solutions or our team members.
Review
Our Review Step is an ongoing part of our process. Our team partners with you during each season of life, and we connect often to review and adjust your Retirement Income and Legacy Plans. Your ongoing digital access to your Client Portal allows for regular check-ups and course corrections.
The Smarter Retirement Solutions Difference
Smarter Retirement Solutions provides comprehensive retirement income planning and tax mitigation strategies.
We value every client relationship, no matter the size of the portfolio.
We help our clients “Make Memories and Not Just Money” as a foundational part of our fiduciary duty.
Life is uncertain, and taking advantage of the time you have with those you love is critical to achieving a life well-lived.
Our comprehensive lifetime income and wealth protection offerings ensure that each person receives customized planning to meet their specific objectives.
Each season of life brings particular blessings as well as often unexpected challenges. Our multi-disciplined and geographically diverse team delivers our customized solutions to people from all walks of life and nearly every time zone across the globe.
How We Serve You
Retirement Income Planning
Our view of retirement planning dictates that our primary focus must be to secure a foundation of lifetime income for you and your family. We partner with you to identify various assets that have the power to create predictable, reliable, and sustainable income that will keep pace with inflation.
Wealth Management
Once your retirement plan has a firm foundation of secure income, we begin to develop your portfolio to achieve optimized long-term growth. Our team crafts individual portfolios determined by your income level and risk tolerance. We emphasize maximized growth potential without unnecessarily jeopardizing long-term security.
Tax-Favored Retirement
Creating or improving tax efficiency in your Retirement Income Plan is the most critical step toward your long-term success. Many Americans fail to realize that vast portions of their wealth are trapped inside forever-taxed accounts like 401(k)s or IRAs. As long-time Ed Slott’s Elite Advisor Group members, we are uniquely qualified to help you dramatically reduce your lifetime tax burden.
Our Services & Expertise
Secure Retirement Income
In retirement, success is determined by the predictability of your income, not the size of your portfolio. Money can be fleeting, but when properly designed for lifetime durability and inflation protection, income can be a source of great emotional and physical well-being.
Portfolio Performance
We believe the “purpose of money should dictate the placement of money.” Each dollar should have a specific job description for a particular season of life. Asset optimization allows you to use a variety of financial instruments across various risk classes to achieve the right results for each phase of your retirement journey.
Tax Efficiency
Most people we encounter have worked a lifetime and deferred taxes inside their retirement accounts like 401(k), IRA, SEP IRA, 403(b), etc. The idea that “you will be in a lower tax bracket when you retire” has permeated the American worker’s psyche. Is that statement true? In many cases, it is profoundly untrue, and developing a solid plan to reduce the burden of taxes in retirement is essential.
Long-Term Care Planning
Escalating Long-Term Care expenses are the ticking time bomb in nearly every American’s retirement plan. We see Long-Term Care Planning as a proactive defense against the greater than 72% chance that those expenses will ravage retirement portfolios. With specific certifications and expertise, we integrate Long-Term Care Planning with Making Memories and Not Just Money (correct spelling and add registered tradesman “r”) so that clients can maximize time with loved ones now while protecting their future dignity.
Risk Management
We use the Nitrogen testing platform (a link to the Riskalyze Test is at the top of the website so people can take a free test). This cutting-edge risk assessment technology extrapolates your inner feelings about acceptable levels of risk and reward. With your Risk Score in hand, our conversations naturally lead to finding a balanced approach to your overall exposure to the joys and challenges of investing.
Social Security Timing
Social Security Timing should be more about getting the best value from your lifetime of hard work rather than seeming to try and get every penny possible. We consider your health, longevity, income needs, marital status, and survivor obligations to determine the statistically most ideal start date that provides the greatest likelihood of success and maximized benefits from Social Security.
Blogs
While you might have been planning your retirement for many years, there may come a time when you need to retire earlier than expected.
You’re probably aware that there are many options for retirement planning including 401(k)s, IRAs, Roth IRAs, and more. Some of the more common plans are employer-sponsored ones like 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and 457(b)s. These arrangements have higher contribution limits and let employees save for retirement on a post-tax or a tax-deferred basis, which is more typical. However, as individuals move from job to job or employer to employer, they are faced with decisions about what to...
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Receive Your No-Obligation Social Security Analysis
Your Social Security Analysis
- Maps out the best time to file Social Security for you and your spouse.
- Calculates value of your projected benefits during retirement.
- Identifies gaps between your projected Social Security benefits and the income you will need in retirement.
- Easy-to-understand filing strategies, comparison charts & much more.
