Our Services

Retirement Planning

Giving You A Clear Roadmap To Your Future

 

Retirement is a major milestone in the life of most people. But it’s also one of the single biggest stressors many people face. Why? Because retirement, today, is quite possibly more uncertain than it’s ever been in the history of this country. At Strait & Sound, we believe retirement planning is an essential service for achieving complete financial independence. We believe that a thoughtful and disciplined long-term strategy can help most people retire comfortably, where they never have to worry about money again, given a reasonable lifestyle.

Yet, many people are concerned that they’ll have enough money to do everything they want to do in retirement, without depleting all of their financial resources. This concern is well-founded. Most people know it can be very difficult to predict all of the expenses they will encounter over the next five years, let alone 25 years or more in retirement. Add escalating long-term care expenses into the picture and it’s no wonder people worry.

Many corporations have sought to alleviate this concern by offering retirement planning services and programs, such as a 401k. While these programs are important, and we encourage people to participate in them, they are not, by themselves, a complete retirement solution. Retirement planning is a close cousin to Financial Planning. Both of these disciplines are designed to ensure that the ideal future a person wants to live actually comes true.

At Strait & Sound, we believe retirement planning is about creating a roadmap to your future, a roadmap that you can be confident in. No two clients receive exactly the same roadmap from us because each client is unique. We put time and energy into understanding what your ideal future looks like. We also analyze the likelihood of achieving that ideal future, given the resources and goals you are trying to achieve. Then we recommend a custom plan, tailored to your specific needs.

 

What Our Clients Want From Retirement

At Strait & Sound, our professional advisors have been guiding clients in retirement planning for more than two decades. This has given us a seasoned perspective on what most people seem to want from their retirement years. See if what we are about to describe sounds familiar to you.

  • Freedom. This is the overarching feeling that people seem to want to experience in retirement. They want to be free to make their own schedules, do what they want to do with their time and to be free from the worries and conflicts that come with being a working professional.
  • Travel. Many of our clients want to get “out of the box” they’ve been in for most of their adult life – their office or place of work. They want to experience other cultures, lands, sights and sounds, culinary delights and the wonders that come with seeing just how big and beautiful this world can be.
  • Lifestyle. Our clients want to continue to live the comfortable lifestyle that they’ve grown accustomed to through their working years. They don’t want to be forced to enact austerity measures to prevent the depletion of their wealth. They also don’t want to be forced to sell their real estate, particularly for those living on the US West Coast, to move to a less expensive region of the country.
  • Family. Many clients want to be more involved with their family than they were allowed to be during their working years. They want to help children and grandchildren get established in life. They want to be fully present for the big moments, like graduations, birthday parties, buying a first-home, weddings and births.
  • Health. Our clients want to be as healthy as they can be for as long as possible. This not only improves their quality of life, it also prevents them from spending long periods away from home and family and prevents wealth erosion from big health bills.
  • Wealth. They want their wealth to remain strong throughout their living years and to outlive them. Some of our clients actually want their wealth to increase during retirement years by investing in strategies where the growth outpaces their spending needs.
  • Heirs. Not all of our clients have heirs. But for those who do, taking care of heirs is a major goal. Many of our clients want to help their adult children get established in life, particularly by helping with a down-payment on a home. Passing wealth to heirs in the most tax-efficient manner possible is also important.
  • Charities. Many of our clients are charitably inclined. But they want to be smart about how they help the charities they support. This means they are looking for ways to maximize their gifts and to avoid taxes on the gifts wherever possible.

If these sound like your goals, then you’ve come to the right place. We are experts at helping clients realize these dreams and have been doing so for many years.

Key Take Away

At Strait & Sound, we believe retirement planning is about creating a roadmap to your future, a roadmap that you can be confident in.”

Our Approach To Retirement Planning

At Strait & Sound, we customize each client’s retirement plan according to their specific goals. Our approach often includes these steps:

  • We conduct deep-dive discovery to understand what an ideal future looks like for each client.
  • We come to understand when they want to retire and how many working years remain.
  • We project how much income someone will need in retirement based on a few factors including a 25-year year retirement period, desired lifestyle and inheritance passed on to heirs.
  • We analyze current income sources, discretionary income that can be saved and invested and spending habits.
  • We come to understand a client’s risk tolerances on investments, which can be a major contributor to income needed in retirement years.
  • We factor in any inheritances that may be on the horizon. For many of our clients, an inheritance can be one of the single biggest contributors to living their desired lifestyle in retirement.
  • We develop a plan that shows each client how much they need to save and how their money should be invested to most likely produce the amount of money they need to achieve their goals.

We find that a solid retirement plan often gives clients peace of mind. They can see what they need to do now to live their desired lifestyle in retirement while also leaving a legacy to heirs and charities.

 

Who Is Your Retirement Partner?

The most dangerous part about retirement is that once you’re in it, it’s very difficult to do anything about it. All of the choices you make between now and the day you retire are likely going to influence what you experience in retirement. This is why we encourage people to start retirement planning today.

You likely have many moves that you can make and that could really help you on your retirement journey. But if you don’t have a long-term partner helping guide you, you might miss those opportunities. If you don’t have an expert retirement partner who deeply understands you and will put the time and energy into building a trusted relationship with you, maybe it’s time for us to talk?

We Provide Comprehensive Wealth Management Services For People Seeking Complete Financial Independence

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