Check out Jeremy’s latest podcast on retirement planning by listening on “Apple Podcasts” or “Google Podcasts” or read below – It’s All About The Income.

112 – Retirement planning can seem intimidating for many people. We’re here to simplify it for you today with Michael Lynch, the author of It’s All About The Income: The Simple System For A Big Retirement.

In this episode, Jeremy Keil speaks with Michael Lynch, CFP®, ChFP®, CLU®, CASL, about what struck his passion for financial services. Michael shares how his past experiences working as a journalist led him to become a financial advisor and talks about the simple system he created to help people plan for retirement in his book; It’s All About The Income: The Simple System For A Big Retirement.

Michael discusses:

America is known for its freedoms, but financial independence allows Americans to truly be free. 

Michael Lynch was formerly a journalist and switched careers into financial services when he realized he needed to help Americans become financially free.

As a CFP, Michael authored It’s All About The Income: The Simple System For A Big Retirement to help educate and guide people on how to grow their income for their retirement. 

Let’s dive into some of the advice from Michael’s book he has shared with us today.

When it comes to retirement planning, people often define their wealth by how much principal value they have in assets. They usually don’t consider their income as important. But have you considered what would happen if you lost your income versus your assets?

We’d have a problem if we lost our income but have all of our value in assets. But if we lose our assets and keep our income, we’ll be alright.

We live off of our income, not our assets, so we shouldn’t be focused on the principal value of our assets like stocks but on our sources of income like the interest we earn and what we want our money to do for us.

You’re probably thinking, “Well, I know I live off of my income and not my assets, now what?”

Once you stop thinking about the value of your money, you should start thinking about what your values are and how you can generate the income to support them.

Now that you have an idea of what your values are and what you want your income to support, the first step to planning how you can achieve them is figuring out how much money you’ll need a month.

We need to figure out what our target is. Many people think they’re going to spend less in retirement than they currently spend, but it’s very unlikely.

We aren’t only paying our bills. We spend more on our lifestyle during retirement because we have so much more time available to do so.

Once we know our goal, we need a reliable income, such as a monthly income. An income helps keep our retirement plan healthy because it protects it from inflation. As things cost more, the less principal we have.

While you’re working, income drives your life. When you’re retired, expenses do. 

We want to ensure we can support our expenditures throughout retirement with a reliable income that fights against the inflated costs of living.

Lastly, we need a corporate pension. You might be thinking, “A pension? Who has a pension nowadays?” but despite what the news might lead you to believe, they still exist.

Maybe only 15% of current American employees today have a pension, but far more have worked for a company previously that provided them with a pension at some point in their lives. A corporate pension is one of the most common sources of a reliable fixed income in retirement.

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To learn more about Michael’s simple system for a big retirement, check out the resources below!

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us or our guest, Michael Lynch, using the contact information provided below!

Michael Lynch is a Certified Financial Planning Professional with nearly twenty years of experience working with American families to craft plans that fund their dreams, educate their children, and finance their retirement. He is the author of It’s All About The Income: The Simple System For A Big Retirement. Michael has contributed to the Wall Street Journal and Investor’s Business Daily and hosted Smart Money Radio for a decade.

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