Most people don't need the annuity they're being sold. The simple kind that can help pays the seller least, and the complicated kind gets pushed hardest.

Josh Duncan, partner at F5 Financial Planning, sells no annuities and earns nothing on them, so nothing here rides on what you decide. He slows down on the numbers a sales presentation moves past: indexed and variable contracts can stack fees of 2, 3, even 4 percent a year, lock your money up for six to ten years, and pay the salesperson 5, 7, even 10 percent of what you put in the moment you sign. The better question is not whether annuities are good or bad. It is whether you have the one problem they solve, the fear of outliving your savings, and whether this is the best way to solve it.

This episode covers:

• Why buying an annuity for growth is the most common mistake
• How an insurer can change an indexed annuity's formula after you own it
• What four questions to get plain answers to before you sign
• Who an annuity fits and who would be insuring a risk they don't carry
• Whether delaying Social Security buys more guaranteed income than any annuity

Guaranteed income is a good goal. An annuity is one road to it, and rarely the first one to travel.

👉 Work with us at https://www.f5fp.com

About F5 Financial Planning:

At F5 Financial Planning, we help individuals and families align their finances with what matters most so they can live lives of Freedom and Significance. We are a fee-only, fiduciary financial planning and investment management firm, meaning we don’t earn commissions or sell products — our only commitment is to our clients’ best interests. We provide comprehensive financial planning, investment management, tax-efficient strategies, and retirement planning for families, corporate executives, and entrepreneurs. Our team serves clients nationwide through virtual meetings and from offices in Illinois, Georgia and Florida.

At F5, our goal is simple: to help you gain confidence, clarity, and control over your financial future so you can focus on the people and passions that matter most. 

Visit https://www.f5fp.com to learn more about our services and planning process.

*****

Advisory services are offered through F5 Financial Planning, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. This content is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered personalized financial, investment, tax, or legal advice.

Viewing these videos does not create an advisory relationship with F5 Financial. All investments involve risk, including possible loss of principal. For guidance specific to your situation, please consult a qualified professional.

🔗 Download the Social Security Claiming reference sheet:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s0jIZgcTOkXjTFnqNg18nyHXMFcXfOWs/view?usp=sharing

The Social Security break-even calculator points at age 80 and asks whether you'll live that long. The better question is which account funds the wait.

Josh Duncan, partner at F5 Financial Planning, walks the claiming window with 2026 numbers: a permanent 30% cut for starting at 62, 124% of your full benefit for waiting until 70, and a $720-a-month raise that costs roughly $108,000 of portfolio withdrawals to buy. He then follows those bridge years into territory the calculators skip, the lowest-income stretch of your retirement, where Roth conversion room opens up and closes for good once RMDs arrive.

This episode covers:

• Why the delayed-credit clock stops at 70
• How the 2026 earnings test withholds $1 of benefits for every $2 earned above $24,480
• Whether the new $6,000 senior deduction really ends taxes on Social Security
• What a surviving spouse keeps when the first check stops
• When waiting backfires

The government sets the percentages. Everything after that is yours to plan.

🎥 Roth conversions video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7suIjH8-Rk

🎥 Which account to spend first video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bz2mS1dYbtE

🎥 When the first spouse dies video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sALn8Wy3cgI

👉 Work with us at https://www.f5fp.com

About F5 Financial Planning:

At F5 Financial Planning, we help individuals and families align their finances with what matters most so they can live lives of Freedom and Significance. We are a fee-only, fiduciary financial planning and investment management firm, meaning we don’t earn commissions or sell products — our only commitment is to our clients’ best interests. We provide comprehensive financial planning, investment management, tax-efficient strategies, and retirement planning for families, corporate executives, and entrepreneurs. Our team serves clients nationwide through virtual meetings and from offices in Illinois, Georgia and Florida.

At F5, our goal is simple: to help you gain confidence, clarity, and control over your financial future so you can focus on the people and passions that matter most. 

Visit https://www.f5fp.com to learn more about our services and planning process.

*****

Advisory services are offered through F5 Financial Planning, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. This content is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered personalized financial, investment, tax, or legal advice.

Viewing these videos does not create an advisory relationship with F5 Financial. All investments involve risk, including possible loss of principal. For guidance specific to your situation, please consult a qualified professional.

🔗 Download the beneficiary payout reference sheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s1jxjM2eclB-_ueHo0P9qMIoTOYLQtQk/view?usp=sharing

The stretch IRA is gone. The 10-year rule forces heirs to empty an inherited IRA on a hard deadline, and many owe a distribution every single year.

Josh Duncan, partner at F5 Financial Planning, walks through the IRS final regulations of 2024, the penalty relief that expired with them, and the 25% excise tax now waiting for heirs who work from the old understanding. Getting it wrong costs twice: once on the tax rate, once on a penalty most beneficiaries have never heard of.

This episode covers:

• Who still qualifies for a lifetime payout instead of 10 years
• Why a grandchild never qualifies for the minor-child exception
• How two sisters inheriting $500,000 each end with different tax bills
• What a Roth conversion changes for the child who inherits it
• Whether naming beneficiaries account by account beats an even split

A retirement account that’s efficient for you and expensive for your children hasn’t finished doing its job.

🎥 Watch our video on Roth conversions next: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7suIjH8-Rk

👉 Work with us at https://www.f5fp.com

About F5 Financial Planning:

At F5 Financial Planning, we help individuals and families align their finances with what matters most so they can live lives of Freedom and Significance. We are a fee-only, fiduciary financial planning and investment management firm, meaning we don’t earn commissions or sell products — our only commitment is to our clients’ best interests. We provide comprehensive financial planning, investment management, tax-efficient strategies, and retirement planning for families, corporate executives, and entrepreneurs. Our team serves clients nationwide through virtual meetings and from offices in Illinois, Georgia and Florida.

At F5, our goal is simple: to help you gain confidence, clarity, and control over your financial future so you can focus on the people and passions that matter most. 

Visit https://www.f5fp.com to learn more about our services and planning process.

*****

Advisory services are offered through F5 Financial Planning, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. This content is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered personalized financial, investment, tax, or legal advice.

Viewing these videos does not create an advisory relationship with F5 Financial. All investments involve risk, including possible loss of principal. For guidance specific to your situation, please consult a qualified professional.

🔗 Download the IRMAA reference sheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JbeJlcFiITCE7_jowwL_h2kdLDLAO6tZ/view?usp=share_link

IRMAA is the income test that decides what you pay for Medicare Part B and prescription drug coverage, and it reads a tax return you filed two years ago.

A conversion that fits perfectly inside a tax bracket can still land above an IRMAA threshold, because the two sets of numbers sit at completely different income levels. People who did everything right still open a letter two years later asking what they did wrong. Usually the answer is nothing.

This episode covers:

• How the five surcharge tiers are calculated on top of the 2026 standard Part B premium of $202.90
• Which tax year Social Security actually reads, and why enrolling at 65 puts the income you earned at 63 on the bill
• What counts as modified adjusted gross income here, including the tax exempt interest that municipal bonds do not shield
• Why crossing a threshold by a single dollar moves the entire surcharge to the next tier with no phase in and no partial credit
• When Form SSA-44 lets you request a new determination after retirement, reduced hours, or another qualifying life changing event
• How qualified charitable distributions after 70½ satisfy a required minimum distribution without ever entering the calculation
• Where the correction and reconsideration process applies when Social Security used the wrong return

Every one of these figures is indexed and moves each year, so the thresholds worth planning against are this year’s rather than the ones you looked at last time.

🎥 More on required minimum distributions and QCDs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KPGAeO5sO4

📄 Fill out IRS Form SSA-44 today: https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-44.pdf

👉 Work with us at https://www.f5fp.com

About F5 Financial Planning:

At F5 Financial Planning, we help individuals and families align their finances with what matters most so they can live lives of Freedom and Significance. We are a fee-only, fiduciary financial planning and investment management firm, meaning we don’t earn commissions or sell products — our only commitment is to our clients’ best interests. We provide comprehensive financial planning, investment management, tax-efficient strategies, and retirement planning for families, corporate executives, and entrepreneurs. Our team serves clients nationwide through virtual meetings and from offices in Illinois, Georgia and Florida.

At F5, our goal is simple: to help you gain confidence, clarity, and control over your financial future so you can focus on the people and passions that matter most. 

Visit https://www.f5fp.com to learn more about our services and planning process.

*****

Advisory services are offered through F5 Financial Planning, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. This content is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered personalized financial, investment, tax, or legal advice.

Viewing these videos does not create an advisory relationship with F5 Financial. All investments involve risk, including possible loss of principal. For guidance specific to your situation, please consult a qualified professional.

Trump Accounts are not just for babies. Josh Duncan opened one for his fifteen-year-old, who will never see a dollar of the government’s seed money.

That seed money reaches only children born between 2025 and 2028. The account itself runs on a different rule entirely. Any U.S. citizen child under 18 with a Social Security number qualifies, nothing is means tested, and no income limit phases a family out. Which of those two rules a parent hears first usually decides whether they ever look into it.

This episode covers:

• What a Trump Account actually is
• How to open one
• How much can be contributed into one account per year
• What the money in a Trump Account can be invested into
• Why this differs from a UTMA or a 529 plan
• What happens to a Trump Account when you child turns 18

The government’s $1,000 was never the important number. The decision your child makes at eighteen is the one that matters most.

👉 Work with us at https://www.f5fp.com

About F5 Financial Planning:

At F5 Financial Planning, we help individuals and families align their finances with what matters most so they can live lives of Freedom and Significance. We are a fee-only, fiduciary financial planning and investment management firm, meaning we don’t earn commissions or sell products — our only commitment is to our clients’ best interests. We provide comprehensive financial planning, investment management, tax-efficient strategies, and retirement planning for families, corporate executives, and entrepreneurs. Our team serves clients nationwide through virtual meetings and from offices in Illinois, Georgia and Florida.

At F5, our goal is simple: to help you gain confidence, clarity, and control over your financial future so you can focus on the people and passions that matter most. 

Visit https://www.f5fp.com to learn more about our services and planning process.

*****

Advisory services are offered through F5 Financial Planning, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. This content is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered personalized financial, investment, tax, or legal advice.

Viewing these videos does not create an advisory relationship with F5 Financial. All investments involve risk, including possible loss of principal. For guidance specific to your situation, please consult a qualified professional.

Your required minimum distribution isn't one fixed age or one fixed amount. It depends on the year you were born, the accounts you hold, and the moves you make in the years before it ever begins. 

Handled late, an RMD can push you into a higher tax bracket and raise your Medicare premiums two years later. Handled early, it's a number you've already managed down. Josh Duncan, Partner at F5 Financial Planning, walks through the difference. 

This episode covers: 

• Why your birth year, not a single fixed number, sets the age your RMDs begin
• How the first-year option to delay until April 1 can stack two distributions onto one tax return
• What a missed or short RMD costs, and how Form 5329 can reduce or waive the penalty
• When a Roth conversion in a lower-income year permanently removes dollars from your future RMD
• Whether a qualified charitable distribution can satisfy your RMD without adding to your taxable income

Plan for RMDs a few years ahead and they become one more line item you've already accounted for, instead of a bill that shows up unannounced. 

🎥 More on Roth conversions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7suIjH8-Rk

👉 Work with us at https://www.f5fp.com

About F5 Financial Planning:

At F5 Financial Planning, we help individuals and families align their finances with what matters most so they can live lives of Freedom and Significance. We are a fee-only, fiduciary financial planning and investment management firm, meaning we don’t earn commissions or sell products — our only commitment is to our clients’ best interests. We provide comprehensive financial planning, investment management, tax-efficient strategies, and retirement planning for families, corporate executives, and entrepreneurs. Our team serves clients nationwide through virtual meetings and from offices in Illinois, Georgia and Florida.

At F5, our goal is simple: to help you gain confidence, clarity, and control over your financial future so you can focus on the people and passions that matter most. 

Visit https://www.f5fp.com to learn more about our services and planning process.

*****

Advisory services are offered through F5 Financial Planning, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. This content is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered personalized financial, investment, tax, or legal advice.

Viewing these videos does not create an advisory relationship with F5 Financial. All investments involve risk, including possible loss of principal. For guidance specific to your situation, please consult a qualified professional.

If you own a business, your retirement plan probably has one line in it: sell the company someday. But there's a whole set of owner-only plans that can shelter far more from taxes long before that sale, and most owners never set them up. 

This episode walks through the four that matter: the SEP-IRA, the SIMPLE IRA, the Solo 401k, and the defined benefit or cash balance plan, with a sense of how much each lets you save in 2026 and who each one fits.

This episode covers:

• Why owners have two doors into retirement savings when employees have only one
• How the SEP-IRA and SIMPLE IRA work as low-maintenance starter plans
• What the Solo 401k lets you set aside as both employee and employer in 2026
• When a defined benefit or cash balance plan is worth a six-figure contribution
• Whether your income is steady enough to move beyond a starter plan

The best plan isn't the fanciest one; it's the one that fits your business now and keeps growing as you grow.

👉 Work with us at https://www.f5fp.com

About F5 Financial Planning:

At F5 Financial Planning, we help individuals and families align their finances with what matters most so they can live lives of Freedom and Significance. We are a fee-only, fiduciary financial planning and investment management firm, meaning we don’t earn commissions or sell products — our only commitment is to our clients’ best interests. We provide comprehensive financial planning, investment management, tax-efficient strategies, and retirement planning for families, corporate executives, and entrepreneurs. Our team serves clients nationwide through virtual meetings and from offices in Illinois, Georgia and Florida.

At F5, our goal is simple: to help you gain confidence, clarity, and control over your financial future so you can focus on the people and passions that matter most. 

Visit https://www.f5fp.com to learn more about our services and planning process.

*****

Advisory services are offered through F5 Financial Planning, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. This content is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered personalized financial, investment, tax, or legal advice.

Viewing these videos does not create an advisory relationship with F5 Financial. All investments involve risk, including possible loss of principal. For guidance specific to your situation, please consult a qualified professional.

Turning sixty-five does not automatically mean a portfolio needs more bonds.

The danger most retirees watch for is a market drop, but the one that does the most damage is quieter. A portfolio that feels safe because it barely moves can still fall behind rising costs for groceries, insurance, and health care. That gap does not show up in one dramatic moment. It builds slowly over ten, fifteen, or twenty years until it becomes a real problem.

This episode covers:

• What actually separates two retirees who share a birthday but not a risk profile
• Why market volatility gets blamed for a danger it is not actually causing
• How a portfolio that feels safe can quietly fall behind the cost of living
• Whether two to three years of cash can protect a plan from an early market drop
• What should replace age as the real driver of portfolio decisions

This episode makes the case for building a portfolio around your actual financial life instead of your age.

👉 Work with us at https://www.f5fp.com

About F5 Financial Planning:

At F5 Financial Planning, we help individuals and families align their finances with what matters most so they can live lives of Freedom and Significance. We are a fee-only, fiduciary financial planning and investment management firm, meaning we don’t earn commissions or sell products — our only commitment is to our clients’ best interests. We provide comprehensive financial planning, investment management, tax-efficient strategies, and retirement planning for families, corporate executives, and entrepreneurs. Our team serves clients nationwide through virtual meetings and from offices in Illinois, Georgia and Florida.

At F5, our goal is simple: to help you gain confidence, clarity, and control over your financial future so you can focus on the people and passions that matter most. 

Visit https://www.f5fp.com to learn more about our services and planning process.

*****

Advisory services are offered through F5 Financial Planning, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. This content is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered personalized financial, investment, tax, or legal advice.

Viewing these videos does not create an advisory relationship with F5 Financial. All investments involve risk, including possible loss of principal. For guidance specific to your situation, please consult a qualified professional.

⬇️ Download The Retirement Tax Map: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_MfdH_PtdisSqLSWcXrUtw1jU3o5yd46/view?usp=share_link

Two retirees can save the same amount, spend the same amount, and earn the same returns, and still end up with very different tax bills based on the order they pull money from their accounts.

Take an extra $20,000 from a bank account and the tax impact is minimal. Take the same $20,000 from a traditional IRA instead, and the entire withdrawal counts as ordinary income. The dollar amount spent is identical; the tax result is not.

This episode covers:

• How the three retirement tax buckets, taxable, tax-deferred, and tax-free, determine what happens to every withdrawal
• Why the common “spend taxable first” rule can backfire into a larger RMD tax spike later
• What happens to Social Security taxation and Medicare IRMAA premiums when withdrawals push income too high
• When using Roth dollars makes more sense than preserving them for later
• Whether a fixed withdrawal order or a year-by-year retirement tax map better fits your household

The goal is not to minimize this year's tax bill; it's to coordinate withdrawals across your entire retirement.

For a closer look at how a spouse's death changes the tax picture, watch our video on the widow's tax trap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sALn8Wy3cgI

👉 Work with us at https://www.f5fp.com

About F5 Financial Planning:

At F5 Financial Planning, we help individuals and families align their finances with what matters most so they can live lives of Freedom and Significance. We are a fee-only, fiduciary financial planning and investment management firm, meaning we don’t earn commissions or sell products — our only commitment is to our clients’ best interests. We provide comprehensive financial planning, investment management, tax-efficient strategies, and retirement planning for families, corporate executives, and entrepreneurs. Our team serves clients nationwide through virtual meetings and from offices in Illinois, Georgia and Florida.

At F5, our goal is simple: to help you gain confidence, clarity, and control over your financial future so you can focus on the people and passions that matter most. 

Visit https://www.f5fp.com to learn more about our services and planning process.

*****

Advisory services are offered through F5 Financial Planning, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. This content is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered personalized financial, investment, tax, or legal advice.

Viewing these videos does not create an advisory relationship with F5 Financial. All investments involve risk, including possible loss of principal. For guidance specific to your situation, please consult a qualified professional.

Most retirement plans do not fail at year-end. They fall off track mid-year, when nobody stops to check.

Markets move. Spending shifts. A Roth conversion, a property sale, an IRA withdrawal—each decision touches your taxes, your Medicare premiums, and the shape of your long-term plan. Waiting until December to sort it out means losing months of options. This episode walks through five things every retiree and pre-retiree should review right now, while there is still time to act.

This episode covers:

• How your retirement income plan holds up when real spending diverges from the original projection
• What portfolio drift looks like and when rebalancing is the right response
• Why retirees with multiple income sources are especially exposed to underpayment penalties
• How to evaluate a Roth conversion if you are in a lower-income window before RMDs begin
• What IRMAA is, how the Medicare lookback period works, and why an income decision today can raise your premiums two years from now

Catch the small issues now. They are much easier to fix in July than in December.

👉 Work with us at https://www.f5fp.com.

About F5 Financial Planning:

At F5 Financial Planning, we help individuals and families align their finances with what matters most so they can live lives of Freedom and Significance. We are a fee-only, fiduciary financial planning and investment management firm, meaning we don’t earn commissions or sell products — our only commitment is to our clients’ best interests. We provide comprehensive financial planning, investment management, tax-efficient strategies, and retirement planning for families, corporate executives, and entrepreneurs. Our team serves clients nationwide through virtual meetings and from offices in Illinois, Georgia and Florida.

At F5, our goal is simple: to help you gain confidence, clarity, and control over your financial future so you can focus on the people and passions that matter most. 

Visit https://www.f5fp.com to learn more about our services and planning process.

*****

Advisory services are offered through F5 Financial Planning, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. This content is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered personalized financial, investment, tax, or legal advice.

Viewing these videos does not create an advisory relationship with F5 Financial. All investments involve risk, including possible loss of principal. For guidance specific to your situation, please consult a qualified professional.