Retirement Planning Education, with Andy Panko

Andy and Dan VanDusen from Objective Wealth share their thoughts on a handful of current events and "hot topics" relating to retirement planning. Specifically, they talk about:

• How to decide between investing money for a child or grandchild in a 529 vs Trump account vs UTMA brokerage account ( 9:19 )
• What errors and missed items they commonly see in reviewing tax returns ( 18:28 )
• Their thoughts on the current state of affairs of the bond market ( 25:10 )
• What to do with appreciated mutual funds held in a normal brokerage account where the funds throw off variable and potentially large taxable capital gain distributions each year ( 33:36 ) 
• How to address concentrated appreciated stock positions in brokerage accounts, where selling the shares would lead to sizable tax impacts ( 42:00 )
• The areas of retirement planning that people unnecessarily give too much attention too ( 46:19 )
• Estate planning considerations, particularly at the state level (for states that have estate and/or inheritance taxes) ( 54:26 )
• How to help people give themselves "permission to spend" their retirement savings ( 1:03:50 )
• How to factor a potential inheritance to be received into a financial plan ( 1:11:03 )

Links in this episode:

• Objective Wealth's website - https://www.objectivewealthfp.com/

• Andy's company newsletter - Retirement Planning Insights
• YouTube channel - Retirement Planning Education (formerly Retirement Planning Demystified)
• Retirement Planning Education website - www.RetirementPlanningEducation.com

To send Andy questions to be addressed on future Q&A episodes, email [email protected]

To follow Andy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypanko/

Andy discusses the basics of bonds, including:

• Basic features and functions of bonds
• The risks in bonds
• Bond issuers and maturities
• How bonds can be used
• How and why bond prices changes, and how interest rates impact prices
• Bonds vs bond funds

Links in this episode:

• Tenon Financial's October 1 newseltter - The basics of bonds: what they are, how they work, and how to use them in retirement planning
• Andy's YouTube video - Bonds, bond prices, and bond yields

• Tenon Financial monthly e-newsletter - Retirement Planning Insights
• YouTube channel - Retirement Planning Education (formerly Retirement Planning Demystified)
• Retirement Planning Education website - www.RetirementPlanningEducation.com

To send Andy questions to be addressed on future Q&A episodes, email [email protected]

To follow Andy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypanko/

Listener Q&A where Andy talks about: 

• Follow up thoughts on a previous question about whether it's better to use $27k of cash to make a mega backdoor Roth contribution, or to do a $100k in-plan Roth conversion and use the $27k to pay the taxes on it ( 4:01 )
• Why the 4% rule isn't called the 3% rule, when working with an advisor who charges 1% of assets under management ( 13:52 )
• His thoughts on how Artificial Intelligence might impact the advisory world with regards to service offerings and fee structures ( 17:25 )
• Similarities and differences between Required Minimum Distributions ("RMDs") and annuity income ( 22:56 )
• A few questions about Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, or TIPS: how they might fit into a retiree's portfolio, how to choose the length of maturity, if there is a minimum yield one should target to justify it, and thoughts on deciding what allocation to use between TIPS and equities ( 26:24 )
• Social Security claiming thoughts for a married couple where one spouse doesn't have any earnings history or Social Security benefit of their own; should the other spouse not delay starting their benefit so the other spouse can start spousal benefits sooner? ( 39:56 )
• If investing money for your child, how to decide between funding a Trump account or a Roth IRA ( 45:38 )
• Whether Roth conversions would still make sense if you have to pay tax via distribution and withholding out of the conversion, instead of paying the tax out of "outside" funds such as cash from bank or brokerage accounts ( 50:15 )

To send Andy questions to be addressed on future Q&A episodes, email [email protected]

Andy's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypanko/

Links in this episode:

• Tenon Financial's August 2026 newsletter - Trump accounts; what they are, how they work, and use cases
• Tenon Financial monthly newsletter/blog - Retirement Planning Insights
• YouTube channel - Retirement Planning Education (formerly Retirement Planning Demystified)
• Retirement Planning Education website - www.RetirementPlanningEducation.com

In this replay of Andy's recent guest appearance on the Catching up to FI podcast, Andy and hosts Bill Yount, MD, and Jackie Cummings Koski, CFP®, AFC®, talk all about traditional defined benefit pensions. What they are, how they work, how to decide between taking payments vs a lump sum and much more!

Links in this episode:

• The original audio version of the Catching up to FI podcast episode - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/are-pensions-really-dead-the-surprising-value-of/id1664430924?i=1000785277603
• The original YouTube version of the Catching up to FI podcast episode - https://youtu.be/vU_popXD2_A?si=QC3p1_gGvIRNjxFx
• Catching up to FI website - https://catchinguptofi.com/

• Tenon Financial monthly e-newsletter - Retirement Planning Insights
• YouTube channel - Retirement Planning Education (formerly Retirement Planning Demystified)
• Retirement Planning Education website - www.RetirementPlanningEducation.com

To send Andy questions to be addressed on future Q&A episodes, email [email protected]

To follow Andy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypanko/

Andy chats with fellow retirement planner Ryan Langan, CFP®, from Your Path Fi. In this episode they talk about a wide array of retirement planning topics such as tax planning, distribution strategies, investing, annuities, long-term care insurance, what consumers often overlook in retirement planning and much more!

Links in this episode:

• Ryan's advisory company website - https://www.yourpathfi.com/

• Tenon Financial monthly e-newsletter - Retirement Planning Insights
• YouTube channel - Retirement Planning Education (formerly Retirement Planning Demystified)
• Retirement Planning Education website - www.RetirementPlanningEducation.com

To send Andy questions to be addressed on future Q&A episodes, email [email protected]

To follow Andy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypanko/

Andy discusses what all is involved in moving to a new state, from a tax perspective...properly changing your "domicile" and "residence" to the new state. Spoiler alert: It's not necessarily as simple as buying a house and spending at least six months and a day in the new state!

Links in this episode:

• My in-depth write-up of changing state domicile and residence, examples and court cases of people who did and didn't properly change their domicile and residence, and more! - How to move to a new state...tax compliantly

• Tenon Financial monthly e-newsletter - Retirement Planning Insights
• YouTube channel - Retirement Planning Education (formerly Retirement Planning Demystified)
• Retirement Planning Education website - www.RetirementPlanningEducation.com

To send Andy questions to be addressed on future Q&A episodes, email [email protected]

To follow Andy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypanko/

Listener Q&A where Andy talks about: 

• Whether to use money in a 457b to pay down a mortgage or to pay taxes on Roth conversions ( 7:56 )
• How Social Security survivor benefits work, and the optimal ages for spouses to each claim their own Social Security ( 18:54 )
• His thoughts on why the Social Security trust fund hasn't been allowed to invest in equities ( 25:36 )
• Creating spreadsheets to replace financial planning software, and using it to help your ongoing retirement planning and projections ( 30:40 )
• His thoughts on whether someone should try to convert ALL of their pre-tax money to Roth ( 36:56 )
• Transferring/rolling money from an IRA to an HSA (Health Savings Account) ( 46:05 )
• Whether you have to start Medicare Part A if you start Social Security but are still covered by a spouse's employer's health insurance ( 49:18 )
• Updating beneficiaries on investment accounts after one of the beneficiaries passes ( 53:17 )
• His thoughts on whether comparing a portfolio's investment returns to those of the S&P 500 is appropriate, and whether it's okay to hold bonds as investments ( 58:22 )

To send Andy questions to be addressed on future Q&A episodes, email [email protected]

Andy's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypanko/

Links in this episode:

• Tenon Financial's March 2026 newsletter - Gifting, annual gift exclusions, gift taxes and gift tax returns (IRS Form 709)
• Tenon Financial's March 2024 newsletter - Don't compare your portfolio's returns to those of the S&P 500
• Tenon Financial monthly newsletter/blog - Retirement Planning Insights
• YouTube channel - Retirement Planning Education (formerly Retirement Planning Demystified)
• Retirement Planning Education website - www.RetirementPlanningEducation.com

Andy chats with a real person (not an advisor) doing their own retirement planning. In this episode, Andy talks with Mark. They talk about a wide array of retirement planning topics such as when he started getting serious about planning for retirement, how he got comfortable going from accumulation to decumulation mode, how he and his wife are navigating health insurance prior to Medicare eligibility, why he randomly showed up in Andy's office one day, and more!

 
 Links in this episode:

• Tenon Financial monthly e-newsletter - Retirement Planning Insights
• YouTube channel - Retirement Planning Education (formerly Retirement Planning Demystified)
• Retirement Planning Education website - www.RetirementPlanningEducation.com

To send Andy questions to be addressed on future Q&A episodes, email [email protected]

Andy's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypanko/

Listener Q&A where Andy talks about: 

• How to sell and rebalance positions in a brokerage account when they have unrealized gains and you're trying to be tax-efficient about it ( 7:06 )
• His thoughts on a few different variable portfolio withdrawal strategies, namely Amortization Based Withdrawals ("ABW"), Total Portfolio Allocation Withdrawals ("TPAW") and Big ERN's CAPE-based approach ( 14:10 )
• Converting to a Roth IRA money you plan on spending in the near-term, instead of outright distributing it to your bank or brokerage account to be spent from there ( 23:18 )
• Whether doing Roth conversions or backdoor Roth contributions are ultimately the same thing from a tax planning perspective ( 28:02 )
• His thoughts on deciding which type of advisor and/or advisory fee model might make the most sense for you when considering the potential fees to be paid to an advisor over a lifetime ( 33:41 )
• At what point should you just take out unused 529 funds and pay tax and penalty on the gains, assuming you have no expectation they'll eventually get to be used for qualified education expenses ( 40:15 )
• Potential ideas for small or solo advisory firms to establish a succession plan in the event of the death or incapacitation of the advisor ( 45:26 )
• What to look for in an advisory relationship to help minimize the risk of the advisory committing fraud with your money ( 50:50 )
• Whether to live off cash for multiple years - assuming you have saved that much cash - or instead pull from your investment accounts ( 56:53 )
• His thoughts on Securities Backed Lines of Credit, or SBLOCs, from brokerage firms ( 1:00:35 )

To send Andy questions to be addressed on future Q&A episodes, email [email protected]

Andy's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypanko/

Links in this episode:

• Tenon Financial monthly newsletter/blog - Retirement Planning Insights
• YouTube channel - Retirement Planning Education (formerly Retirement Planning Demystified)
• Retirement Planning Education website - www.RetirementPlanningEducation.com

Andy discusses the ins and outs of Trump accounts:

• Legislative background
• How to open them
• How to fund them
• Investing inside them
• How to distribute from them
• Reporting around them
• Taxation of them
• The two potential worthwhile use cases I see for them

Links in this episode:

• My in-depth write-up of Trump accounts, including all of the links I referenced in the show - Trump accounts: what they are, how they work, and use cases

• Tenon Financial monthly e-newsletter - Retirement Planning Insights
• YouTube channel - Retirement Planning Education (formerly Retirement Planning Demystified)
• Retirement Planning Education website - www.RetirementPlanningEducation.com

To send Andy questions to be addressed on future Q&A episodes, email [email protected]

To follow Andy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypanko/