Advice on Building Wealth & Retirement Planning - A/B Conversations: CFP® Your Way Out Of It

It's been almost 3 years since our last podcast episode on the 4% withdrawal rule: "Is The 4% Withdrawal Rule Dead?".  

What is the 4% withdrawal rule? It's the general idea that when you get to retirement, whatever the pool of money is that you have, you can theoretically safely withdrawal 4% of that balance every year until you pass without running out of money.  There are many variables that go into that such as inflation, how long you will live, how much income you will need in retirement, investment returns, and your own definition of success.  We believe that it's important to engage in financial planning to help review trade offs and your specific situation.  

To hear our updated thoughts on the 4% withdrawal rule and if it requires a major change in strategy, check out this podcast episode!

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Contact Us:
Email us at [email protected]

Investment advice offered through Great Valley Advisor Group, a Registered Investment Advisor. Great Valley Advisor Group and Haas Financial Group are separate entities. This is not intended to be used as tax or legal advice. Please consult a tax or legal professional for specific information and advice.

Most people are familiar with trusts through conversations or experiences with their parents or friends.  But just because the circumstances may have made sense for them to establish a trust, it doesn't mean that it is right for your situation today.  In this podcast episode, we discuss what a trust is and what it does.  We discuss circumstances where it may apply and where it may not.  And, we also clarify what type of accounts you should put in a trust.

What is the purpose of a trust and how may it apply to you?  

• If you want to maintain control or protect somebody else from this money.  With a trust you can dictate a lot of the what-ifs in the future.  Decisions are made while you're living, so you can list very specific instructions and restrict when people have access to money.  You can also restrict what they use it for.  
• In blended family situations, the trust may dictate which assets go into the trust. 
• If you are concerned about privacy, a trust will keep assets from flowing through your Will and the probate process, which is public record.  
• Ease of management.  This may not be common today, but in the past revocable trusts were created so instead of updating beneficiaries on all accounts, you only needed to make one update to the trust document.
• In certain cases, depending on the intent, a trust may make sense for real estate assets. 

Does a trust help with taxes?

• The estate exemption is $13 million for individuals or $26 million for a couple. (Increased Gift and Estate Tax Exemption Amounts For 2023)
• Many people are building their wealth through retirement accounts.  If you put a retirement asset into a trust, you are changing ownership of it.  Not to mention. money must be taken out of the retirement account, probably resulting in paying income taxes on it, to now put it into a trust or have it titled as trust assets just to avoid the estate taxation.

We are not estate planning attorneys, but when you're making big estate decisions like this, it's important to think about how they match up financially with your own life and your own needs. Try to find the efficiencies and teamwork with an estate attorney and financial planner.

If you want the nitty gritty on how we think and feel about trusts, check out Episode 21 on: "If's, And's, and But's - Probably Constitutes A Trust."

And if you still have questions about trusts and your specific situation, please reach out: https://www.haasfinancialgroup.com/

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If you want to be notified when the next episode will be released, you can:

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For more insights on everyday financial planning questions,  go to www.haasfinancialgroup.com

Contact Us:
Email us at [email protected]

Investment advice offered through Great Valley Advisor Group, a Registered Investment Advisor. Great Valley Advisor Group and Haas Financial Group are separate entities. This is not intended to be used as tax or legal advice. Please consult a tax or legal professional for specific information and advice.

Money is said to be one of the top causes of marital distress.  We sometimes joke that meeting with your financial planner can often feel like a combination of math class and marriage counseling. A big part of advising is listening, understanding, and communicating.  When couples don't agree, we try to help them focus on the points of agreement, which usually includes what matters most to both of them. Our goal is to influence the way they talk to their spouse about money through partnership and a shared vision.   In this podcast, Adam and Ben talk through how we can be the middle man - so to speak - in this type of situation.

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If you want to be notified when the next episode will be released, you can:

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For more insights on everyday financial planning questions,  go to www.haasfinancialgroup.com

Contact Us:
Email us at [email protected]

Investment advice offered through Great Valley Advisor Group, a Registered Investment Advisor. Great Valley Advisor Group and Haas Financial Group are separate entities. This is not intended to be used as tax or legal advice. Please consult a tax or legal professional for specific information and advice.

Our experiences in life will shape the way that we think and feel about money. It's statistically impossible to run into somebody who hasn't lost a loved one and hopefully that's not a really painful story to tell.  That's one reason why we talk about the role of life insurance in planning so hopefully emotional travesties don't become a financial one. 

In this podcast episode, we talk about the importance of life insurance and planning. 

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If you want to be notified when the next episode will be released, you can:

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For more insights on everyday financial planning questions,  go to www.haasfinancialgroup.com

Contact Us:
Email us at [email protected]

Investment advice offered through Great Valley Advisor Group, a Registered Investment Advisor. Great Valley Advisor Group and Haas Financial Group are separate entities. This is not intended to be used as tax or legal advice. Please consult a tax or legal professional for specific information and advice.

At Haas Financial Group we love statistics!  We often play a fun game where someone has a statistic and the other person has to guess what they think it is.  Oftentimes the actual answer is wildly different than what we were thinking.  That proves the point that conventional wisdom is often not in line with the statistic and it leaves us trying to figure out why there is a disconnect between what somebody should be doing and what they're actually doing.  

In this podcast episode, we highlight some surprising facts in financial planning and investing.  Will you go "huh" after listening?

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If you want to be notified when the next episode will be released, you can:

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For more insights on everyday financial planning questions,  go to www.haasfinancialgroup.com

Contact Us:
Email us at [email protected]

Investment advice offered through Great Valley Advisor Group, a Registered Investment Advisor. Great Valley Advisor Group and Haas Financial Group are separate entities. This is not intended to be used as tax or legal advice. Please consult a tax or legal professional for specific information and advice.

In this podcast episode, we provide a checklist to help prepare for your final career year.  This is partially a financial conversation, but what we've come to recognize is that during this time of change, many experience fears of getting it wrong, failure, and anticipating loneliness. There's a big psychological hurdle to approaching financial independence too. When we talk about preparing, it's really to help with those emotions and provide a sense of financial security. 

If you are thinking this may be your last year of work, there are also financial considerations for your bridge years.  What happens when your paycheck stops?  Do you know what your monthly expenses are?  Have you thought about a budget?  Have you thought about healthcare?

We've walked many people through this process and if you're not really sure about the next steps to take with this checklist, then reach out to us!

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If you want to be notified when the next episode will be released, you can:

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For more insights on everyday financial planning questions,  go to www.haasfinancialgroup.com

Contact Us:
Email us at [email protected]

Investment advice offered through Great Valley Advisor Group, a Registered Investment Advisor. Great Valley Advisor Group and Haas Financial Group are separate entities. This is not intended to be used as tax or legal advice. Please consult a tax or legal professional for specific information and advice.

Nobody wants to relive the results of last year from a market perspective.  But, we can use this historical context as a guide to shape our outlook for 2023. The odds of us having a positive year this year are in our favor, even though we are still facing many of the same issues. 

Ben and Adam hope that giving some historical context will help investors understand what to expect from investments this year. 

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JPMorgan Blog Post

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If you want to be notified when the next episode will be released, you can:

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For more insights on everyday financial planning questions,  go to www.haasfinancialgroup.com

Contact Us:
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Investment advice offered through Great Valley Advisor Group, a Registered Investment Advisor. Great Valley Advisor Group and Haas Financial Group are separate entities. This is not intended to be used as tax or legal advice. Please consult a tax or legal professional for specific information and advice.

The New Year naturally presents a time for people to hit the reset button and think about what matters most to them, especially through the lens of financial planning.  When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.
 
 We use your Statement of Financial Purpose as a powerful tool to help align what you're doing in your life from a financial perspective. We are big proponents of aligning your values, vision, and wealth.  When we understand the context of what matters most to you, it helps us walk through the pros and cons of financial decisions in a different way that isn’t just about the numbers.

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If you want to be notified when the next episode will be released, you can:

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For more insights on everyday financial planning questions,  go to www.haasfinancialgroup.com

Contact Us:
Email us at [email protected]

Investment advice offered through Great Valley Advisor Group, a Registered Investment Advisor. Great Valley Advisor Group and Haas Financial Group are separate entities. This is not intended to be used as tax or legal advice. Please consult a tax or legal professional for specific information and advice.

We are quickly approaching the end of 2022.  In case you missed some of our podcast episodes this year, Adam and Ben recap their favorites from the year.  If you have some downtime during the holiday season, it may be the perfect time to take a listen!

(1:59) Episode # 63: How to plan when you don't have a well-defined goal.
https://www.haasfinancialgroup.com/podcast/ep-63-how-plan-when-you-dont-have-well-defined-goal

(4:08) Episode # 82: How would your life change if you won the lottery?
https://www.haasfinancialgroup.com/podcast/ep-82-how-would-your-life-change-if-you-won-lottery

(6:40) Episode # 69: Managing investments by myself. Should I or shouldn't I?
https://www.haasfinancialgroup.com/podcast/ep-69-managing-investments-myself-should-i-or-shouldnt-i

(9:33) Episode # 74: investment losses hurt. Avoid these 5 mistakes.
https://www.haasfinancialgroup.com/podcast/ep-74-investment-losses-hurt-avoid-these-5-mistakes

(11:45) Episode # 85: Emotions: The Silent financial planning killer.
https://www.haasfinancialgroup.com/podcast/ep-85-emotions-silent-financial-planning-killer

(15:48) Episode # 77: How to digest sensationalized financial media headlines.
https://www.haasfinancialgroup.com/podcast/ep-77-how-digest-sensationalized-financial-media-headlines

(18:00) Episode # 78: Shifting focus from control to influence when planning.
https://www.haasfinancialgroup.com/podcast/ep-78-shifting-focus-control-influence-when-planning

Honorable Mentions
(20:44) Episode # 72: Giving while living: helping family beyond just writing a check
https://www.haasfinancialgroup.com/podcast/ep-72-giving-while-living-helping-family-beyond-just-writing-check

(21:29) Episode # 73: Tips When Financially and Emotionally Sandwiched Between Supporting Kids and Parents
https://www.haasfinancialgroup.com/podcast/ep-73-tips-when-financially-and-emotionally-sandwiched-between-supporting-kids-and-parents

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Thanks for listening!

If you want to be notified when the next episode will be released, you can:

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For more insights on everyday financial planning questions,  go to www.haasfinancialgroup.com

Contact Us:
Email us at [email protected]

Investment advice offered through Great Valley Advisor Group, a Registered Investment Advisor. Great Valley Advisor Group and Haas Financial Group are separate entities. This is not intended to be used as tax or legal advice. Please consult a tax or legal professional for specific information and advice.

In this episode, we run through some financial housekeeping items to cross off before the end of the year.

• Retirement account deadlines - employer plans, IRA, Roth IRA contribution limits and timing
• Roth conversions - what it is and why you may want to consider it
• What are Flexible Spending Accounts and Health Savings Accounts
• What is tax loss harvesting and how does it work
• Education funding
• Holiday spending tips

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Thanks for listening!

If you want to be notified when the next episode will be released, you can:

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For more insights on everyday financial planning questions,  go to www.haasfinancialgroup.com

Contact Us:
Email us at [email protected]

Investment advice offered through Great Valley Advisor Group, a Registered Investment Advisor. Great Valley Advisor Group and Haas Financial Group are separate entities. This is not intended to be used as tax or legal advice. Please consult a tax or legal professional for specific information and advice.