Join Deanne and wealth advisor Brian Rosso from Elevate Wealth Advisory as they discuss retirement planning hacks. In this episode, they tackle the question of what to do if you didn't start saving early or often. Brian emphasizes that it's never too late to start saving, even if it's a small amount on a regular basis. They also highlight higher contribution limits for those over 50 and the importance of making savings systematic and non-touchable. Tune in for practical advice on getting your retirement savings on track, regardless of when you start.

Hey! This is Deanne with Elevate Wealth, and I'm here with wealth adviser Brian Rosso. Hey, Brian! Hey, Deanne! And we're here to talk about some retirement planning hacks or ways to make retirement planning simple. Last episode we talked about save early and often, which means as soon as you can you should start saving on a regular automatic schedule and make sure that it's a non-negotiable in your life and in your budget. But my question for you today, Brian, is what if you feel like you missed the boat and you didn't start early or perhaps save early and often? Well, we always like to say, there's not a bad time to make a good investment, and while it may have been the best time 10 or 20 years ago, the next best time is today. And you won't get there if you just don't start somewhere, and so really the best thing to do is just even if it's $25 a week paycheck a month, just start somewhere. And you have got to make it on a systematic basis, and most importantly, you have to make those dollars just non- touchable. Don't touch them until you retire. That's absolutely right. So again, it's basically the same concept as save early and often, it's just you get getting started a little bit later, but that's okay. Start somewhere. So aren't there also higher contribution limits to certain types of accounts? There are. In IRAs, Roth IRAs, 401ks and even some other types of accounts you can add extra dollars to boost your savings after the age of 50. Oh, that's awesome. So sometimes when the people are in their higher earning years then there's more potential to save later. The real retirement planning hack there is just to get started. You have to start somewhere and you maybe sometimes you can combine it with a pay raise or on a calendar year and the good thing about combining those with pay raises is a lot of times you don't even miss those dollars and a lot of times you don't even have to give up your standard of living to save more as well. That's right. And that's important too, don't try to overextend yourself and save more and more and more, that puts you in an uncomfortable position, you're more likely to quit at that point. That's right. So don't wait to start. For whatever reason you were delayed just draw a line, leave that behind, and get a new realistic plan today. Right just start somewhere and consider working with an adviser like the ones at Elevate to help you develop a plan that works for you, right? That's right. That's right. So great advice as always, Brian. Thank you for joining me and thanks to all of you for listening or watching. For more information or if you'd like to connect with us, visit elevate-wealth.com and click "Let's talk!" Thanks, and we'll see you next time!

Join Deanne and Brian from Elevate Wealth Advisory as they drill down into essential retirement planning tips in this episode. Discover the power of the "Save Early & Often" strategy, and learn why starting small and making saving a non-negotiable part of your budget can set you up for a comfortable retirement. Understand the common obstacles people face and how to overcome them to prioritize your future. Tune in to get expert insights and practical advice to live your best life confidently.

Hey, Everybody! This is Deanne with Elevate Wealth, and on today's episode I'm joined by Brian Rosso, a wealth adviser at Elevate. Hey, Brian! Hey, Deanne! And we're talking about retirement planning hacks, like life planning hacks, but things that make retirement planning easy or easier. So Brian, what is the easiest thing that people can do to prepare for retirement? I'm glad you asked, because we get this question a lot in our office. We do. And we have a phrase we like to use and it's "save early and often." Because really the easiest way to get and stay on track for retirement is just start a regular savings plan. And you have got to make it non-negotiable because it'll really help in your life and budget. Yep. This, Brian, this seems so overly simple, but it's actually really hard to do, isn't it? So, why don't people save early and often? Because life happens, right? When we're young we're just getting our first real job, we're thinking more about the freedom and the resources to do what we want today, and not necessarily what we want to do maybe 30 years down the road. And by the time we realize savings should be a priority, maybe we have higher expenses, maybe we're trying to raise a family, buy a home, or pay off debt. You know, if we haven't already established that automatic savings habit, it gets really hard the longer we wait, right? It really does. It does. Also it's pretty amazing to see what happens when we just start small, isn't it? Yeah, that's our biggest recommendation, just start small. Especially if you're in your 20s. And the important thing is just to get started, because even though the dollars are small initially, the compound interest that those dollars can create can make a big difference when it comes time to retire. Absolutely. Well, you know, our mission at Elevate is to give people access to the tools and resources to help them confidently live their best lives, and saving early and often is one of the easiest things that can help with that, so Brian, thank you for joining me today, for your great advice, and for more retirement planning resources head on over to elevate-wealth.com and click "Let's Talk!" Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next time!

This week, Deedee Bloom explains when to sign up for Social Security and Medicare.

Deedee Bloom, Advanced Planning Coordinator at Elevate Wealth Advisory, addresses a common question: Should long-term care insurance be considered, and if so, when?

Hi, I'm Deedee Bloom, and I'm your host this week for Elevate Wealth. Often, people don't think about long-term care until they need it, so today I thought I'd answer this common question: should I consider long-term care insurance? If so, when? We generally recommend that when you are between the ages of 50 and 60 you start to consider your options for the potential need for long-term care. Approximately half of the people turning age 65 will require some type of paid long-term care in their lifetimes. Most long-term care is not medical care, but rather assistance with the basic personal tasks of everyday life, sometimes called activities of daily living, such as shopping for groceries, housework, caring for pets, things like that. Planning is critical, but many people are not sure what is covered by Insurance. What we try to do at Elevate Wealth Advisory is we try to help you gauge the likelihood of needing care and the potential costs, and explore the funding options that you would have. Medicare does not pay for non-skilled assistant with activities of daily living, which make up most of the long-term care expenses. Some people use their own assets to pay for care, but there are other options, such as long-term care insurance or a reverse mortgage, and we can help you explore all of those options. As a fiduciary firm, we at Elevate Wealth Advisory don't promote one specific product. We're not licensed to sell any long-term care insurance or anything like that, so we can give you an unbiased viewpoint of what your best option would be. If your financial adviser isn't talking to you about long-term care, we can help. Visit elevate-wealth.com and click "let's talk." Thanks, and we will see you soon.

This week, Elevate Wealth Advisory's Advanced Planning Coordinator focuses on the importance of estate planning, especially for younger individuals who may not be looking far ahead past retirement.

Hi! I'm Deedee Bloom, and I'm your host this week for Elevate Wealth. Younger people often come into our office who aren't thinking long-term past retirement. They often want to know, Why is estate planning so important? Well, the main reason estate planning is so important is because you will work your whole life to attain assets, and you want to make sure that they're transferred correctly to the appropriate people when you pass. Titling assets and making sure everything is registered properly are very important in order to make sure this process happens smoothly. People push talking about estate planning because they want to avoid the thoughts of death, but legacy planning is so much more than documents and estates. It is a people-focused holistic approach to controlling the mark you leave on the world. It is also relaying your values and your culture to your family and loved ones. At Elevate Wealth Advisory, we're not estate attorneys, but we can help you determine what you may need to ensure proper estate planning. We have an estate planning assessment that is pretty simple and quick. Once we determine what you need, we can help you make a plan for checking off the items that you need to get done, whether it's organizing records or meeting with an estate planning attorney. If your financial adviser is not talking to you about estate planning, we can help. Visit elevate-wealth.com and click "let's talk." Thanks, and we'll see you soon!

Deedee Bloom, Advanced Planning Coordinator at Elevate Wealth, explains how advanced planning goes beyond investment strategies to encompass all elements that form a complete financial picture, including:

Hi, I'm Deedee Bloom, and I'm your host this week for Elevate Wealth. In my role as the Advanced Planning Coordinator at Elevate Wealth, I often get the question: What exactly is Advanced Planning? Advanced Planning, to me, encompasses all of the pieces of the puzzle outside of your investment planning that complete your full financial picture. For example, your tax planning, Social Security, Medicare, College Planning, long-term care. There are a lot of financial decisions that need to be made outside of your portfolio allocation and your budgeting. Some financial advisers focus only on investments. At Elevate, we like to look at the whole picture, the holistic plan. We aren't estate planners, but we will set you up with colleagues that we work with on a regular basis, attend the meetings, and talk you through what what questions to ask and make sure that you're asking the right questions to get the proper information. We can sit down with you and discuss your options for long-term care, figure out if you need insurance, or if you want to go a different route, maybe a reverse mortgage. We look at those options with you and walk you through the process of meeting with someone who can help you with those decisions. We also can help you organize your documents, if you just need someone to talk through what you need to keep, what you need to file, and what you need to shred. And this is the same with estate planning documents...the important stuff. We can help you organize it and we have ways you can securely store it virtually, but we can also help you with a system at home if you'd like. If your financial adviser isn't talking to you about anything other than investments and isn't looking at the whole picture, we can help! Visit elevate-wealth.com and click "Let's Talk!" Thanks, and we'll see you soon.

Join Deanne Rosso, CEO of Elevate Wealth Advisory, as she dives into the crucial topic of Legacy Planning in retirement. This episode features wealth adviser Clarke Holt, who shares invaluable insights on the most critical action to take in estate planning: ensuring your accounts and assets are correctly titled with up-to-date beneficiary designations. Learn why aligning your will with your policy beneficiaries is vital for a smooth transfer to your heirs and how it can significantly speed up the process. Clarke emphasizes the importance of updating your plans after life changes like marriage, divorce, or the passing of a beneficiary.

Hey, There! I'm Deanne Rosso, and I'm your host this week for Elevate Wealth. So this month we have covered all the various phases of retirement, so if you missed those, be sure to go back and watch our last four episodes, which highlighted those four phases of retirement. Today I'm joined by my co-worker, Clarke Holt, an adviser at our firm Elevate Wealth Advisory, and I wanted to ask you, Clarke, what is your number one basic tenet for financial success? Good question, Deanne! So I would say, 'Focus on what you can control, and control it." First of all, though, we have to talk about what we cannot control. Right. We cannot control interest rates, stock market performance, the economy, Washington DC, politics, how politicians behave, catastrophic events, things like that. But the four areas that we can control are: cost, risk, taxes, and behavior. So first of all, cost. In today's world, there are so many advantages to using low-cost investments and so we want to look at low-cost diversified portfolios with low turnover, trying to manage taxes and be tax efficient, and as they say, there's no free lunch, but in today's world we can certainly build out these very lowc-ost portfolios to add value. Yeah, and you know, we talk about these things in our office a lot, so cost, risk, tax, and behavior. You touched on cost. Risk: make sure that you're in the right portfolio for your risk level. Make sure that your portfolio is aligned not only with what risk you're comfortable with but what risk you need to take in order to meet your long-term goals. Taxes is something that, contrary to popular belief, we actually do have some control over, and so making sure that we're in a tax-efficient portfolio, making sure that our withdrawal sources are lined up, stacked up properly, to control our taxes is incredibly important, especially during your building wealth and your transition phase. I agree, exactly. What about behavior? So behavior is my favorite because we can control our behavior. We can have discipline and the right temperament and it's all about staying the course, and so it's it's it's easy to get anxious about the markets or the economy, but our behavior has so much to do with our long-term outcomes, and having that long-term discipline, that positive outlook and staying the course, the end result is more money in retirement. Exactly. So staying disciplined. You know, so the four things that we can do: focus on what we can control is the number one tenet, but focus on cost, risk, taxes, and behavior, and I think if you do that overall that you'll succeed financially, and that's what we're here to do at Elevate Wealth, so if we can help in any way, feel free to navigate to our website wlevate-wealth.com and check out the rest of this this series Building Wealth, or the four phases of retirement. Of course, if you need help reach out to us: elevate-wealth.com and click let's talk. Thanks and we hope to see you again soon!

Join Deanne Rosso, CEO of Elevate Wealth Advisory, as she dives into the crucial topic of Legacy Planning in retirement. This episode features wealth adviser Clarke Holt, who shares invaluable insights on the most critical action to take in estate planning: ensuring your accounts and assets are correctly titled with up-to-date beneficiary designations. Learn why aligning your will with your policy beneficiaries is vital for a smooth transfer to your heirs and how it can significantly speed up the process. Clarke emphasizes the importance of updating your plans after life changes like marriage, divorce, or the passing of a beneficiary.

Hey, there. I'm Deanne Rosso, and I'm your host this week for Elevate Wealth. So, this month we've been focusing a lot on the various phases of retirement, and this week I want to cover the last phase: Legacy Planning. And to do that I'm joined by my teammate, Clarke Holt, an adviser at our firm Elevate Wealth Advisory, so Clarke, if you could only do one thing for legacy planning, what would it be? Thanks, Deanne. To summarize I would say when you're planning your legacy, often called estate planning, be sure and check your accounts and your assets for the right titling and the right beneficiary designations. You want to make sure your accounts are set up the right way, and the right people are receiving the right asset. So reviewing your IRA beneficiaries, your transfer on death accounts, your life insurance beneficiaries. All very important. One of the nice things about making sure that everything's titled the right way and that beneficiaries are correct is that it speeds up the process, as far as when those beneficiaries or those heirs receive those assets, and it and it actually is direct transfer, versus going through the will. Absolutely. Remember, your life insurance policies have beneficiaries named, so say for example if your will says that a policy will go to your children and your spouse is the beneficiary on the policy, the spouse will receive those assets. Make sure everything is aligned so the right people get the right asset. You'll want to update all of your documents if you go through any life changes, like a divorce or if someone passes away. Doing so makes things so much easier on your heirs, again, or your beneficiaries and it speeds up that process. Absolutely. Such an important tip to have those beneficiary designations in place. We can't overstate the importance of that in Legacy Planning, and something that's pretty easy to do, also, just usually just a couple of forms and signatures that you submit. So anything else you wanted to add? I'd say if you want someone to look over your wealth plan and ensure you're including a legacy plan, we can help, so visit elevate-wealth.com and click "Let's Talk." Yeah, thanks for joining me, Clarke, and if you're approaching retirement we have lots helpful tips in our videos, so hit subscribe to our Channel. I think you'd really enjoy the next video, which is the number one tip for financial success. So thanks for joining, and we'll see you next time."

Join Clarke Holt, this week's host at Elevate Wealth, as he explores the distribution phase of retirement with Deanne Rosso, President and CEO of Elevate Wealth Advisory. In this episode, they discuss the critical "spend-down" period—when retirees start their required minimum distributions at age 73 or 75 and transition through different stages of activity in retirement. Deanne shares essential advice on maintaining a sustainable withdrawal rate, understanding the impact of portfolio management, and the importance of tax strategies during these years. Learn how to manage your retirement savings effectively to ensure your assets last throughout your retirement years.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Hey! I'm Clarke Holt, and I'm your host this week for Elevate Wealth. Recently, I've been chatting with clients about the different stages of retirement, and this week we want to focus on the distribution phase, or the spend-down phase. I'm very pleased to have our president and CEO Deanne Rosso with me Hey, Clarke! Welcome, Deanne! Thank you. So, Deanne, what would be your number-one piece of advice to give clients during this phase? Yeah, so thanks for having me, Clarke. You know, for this phase, we're talking about from the time that you start your required minimum distributions, which is age 73 or 75, until you pass away. So it's the evolution from your go-go years to your slow-go years and then finally your no-go years, where you may be homebound or need care. And financially, what that looks like, is a dome shape or the top of an egg, where at first your assets are are gaining while you're taking withdrawals, but then you'll crest and kind of towards that spend-down phase you'll start to spend down those assets naturally, because due to inflation, price increases, what you need in income, your assets will start to decline in value. So, you know, the most important thing to do during this phase is to make sure that you maintain a sustainable withdrawal rate. And a sustainable withdrawal rate and basically what I mean by that is, don't take too much money out of your accounts. A sustainable withdrawal rate is going to vary based on your personal situation, based on how your portfolio is invested, a number of factors. But a rule of thumb is generally 4 to 6 percent of your portfolio that would be a sustainable withdrawal rate. That's really great advice, Deanne. Is there anything else you might add? You know I think the most important thing obviously other than just a sustainable withdrawal rate is making sure you have a plan for that, and remember that you don't have to go It alone. That's something that the pros at Elevate Wealth are here to do, so navigate over to elevate-wealth.com and click "Let's Talk" if it's something that we can help with. Well, thanks for joining me. I appreciate it. And if you're watching and listening click subscribe and we'll see you next time!

Join Deanne Rosso, CEO of Elevate Wealth Advisory, and Wealth Adviser Clarke Holt as they discuss the crucial transition phase of retirement. In this episode, they delve into what the transition stage means for new retirees and how it offers unprecedented flexibility in managing taxes and income streams. Deanne explains the significance of planning your income sources strategically, from personal savings to pensions, and the potential benefits of early Roth conversions. Whether you're approaching retirement or are curious about efficient retirement income strategies, this discussion provides valuable insights.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Hey! This is Clarke Holt, and I'm your host this week for Elevate Wealth. So this week I've been speaking with clients about the different phases of retirement, and this week we want to talk about the transition stage. And I'm very pleased to have our President and CEO Deanne Rosso with me. So, Deanne, what should the main focus be for clients right after retiring? That's such a great question, Clarke. So first let's note what the transition phase is. The transition phase is the time from when you receive your last paycheck to when you begin receiving required minimum distribution. So that's age 73 or 75. Early retirement. Not only are you literally transitioning into retirement, but for most people this is the time when you'll have the most flexibility of your entire life when it comes to taxes. So right before retirement, many people are in the highest earning years of their career. Then when you retire and you get your last paycheck, what happens? You get your last paycheck, which can be really nerve-wracking. But you've got to decide how you've built those retirement savings and where that income comes from, and you also get to decide how much income you're going to take, at least initially. Especially if you retire before 65, before you're forced to take Social Security, or required minimum distributions, or pensions. You get to decide which type of accounts you tap first to deliver that retirement income, and that comes with a lot of potential lifetime tax-saving power if done correctly. So what do you mean, "correctly?" Well, during transition, the flexibility of your income is the most important focus, so you want to evaluate your available income sources, like your personal savings, your retirement accounts, your pensions, your Social Security and look at the type of taxes that are involved with each source, and then you stack those up in the right order to even out your tax liability over time. You might even want to do something like Roth conversions, which is essentially volunteering to pay tax earlier in order to lower a potentially heavier tax burden down the road. So thanks for joining me, Deanne, and if you're watching or listening and you want to learn more about that next phase, subscribe and check out our next video. We'll see you next time!