This week, I’m talking about how Covid will change how you plan for retirement. 

Today, I’m talking about how Covid will accelerate early retirements. At the beginning of August one of my clients unexpectedly retired. He was planning to work another 2-3 years, but Covid changed all that. 

I spoke to another client the other day who thinks he may be on the chopping block at his company and wants to know if he could retire or if he would have to start looking for another job in his early 60s if he got laid off. 

The fact is that during a recession, many workers who are close to retirement end up facing an early retirement. Those of you who are the closest to retirement are also often the highest-paid, so layoffs of older workers allow companies, especially larger ones who are more likely to see employees as more of a number or a line item expense, to cut costs during difficult economic times. 

In January, a survey from Allianz Life Insurance Company found that half of Americans retired earlier than they expected. A majority of respondents said that they did so for reasons outside of their control, with 34% citing job loss and 25% health-care issues. Now keep in mind that was in January - before Coronavirus. Those numbers are likely to go higher during this pandemic.

The bottom line here is that Covid will most likely change the retirement timeline for many Americans, so it’s important that you look at your options and determine if you could retire early, and if not, what you’ll do to ensure that the Coronavirus recession doesn’t wildly change your plans for retirement. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip. 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, finances, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance, wealth management, money tips, fee only financial advisor, financial planner, financial podcast, retirement podcast, financial independence podcast

Welcome to a new week and a new theme here on the One Minute Retirement Tip! 

This week I’m talking about how Covid will change how you plan for retirement. 

Can you remember a time when there has been this much mass disruption to daily life, as we have all experienced in the last 6 months? 

There’s a funny YouTube video that I stumbled upon recently where this lady is sitting at a table with her future self, and the future self is explaining to her pre-pandemic past self the craziness of Covid. Future self advises past self to put a little money in Zoom, that the Australian wildfires are definitely NOT the big news story of 2020, and just do a Costco run real quick to save her past self a lot of hassle. 

It’s amazing how we are so adaptable, and despite the frustration, anger, and anxiety that many of you are feeling right now, the reality is that Covid is not going away any time soon, and it’s likely to usher in a number of changes to daily life, including how you plan for your retirement. 

So this week, I’ll be pontificating on all the ways I think Covid will change the way you plan for retirement - everything from unplanned early retirement to leaving the city to permanent changes to your travel budget. 

That’s it for today. But before you go...you probably know someone who is close to retirement and could benefit from listening to this podcast. If so, please share this podcast with them and encourage them to check it out by adding it to their flash briefing in Alexa or subscribing wherever they listen to podcasts!

Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip.

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, finances, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance, wealth management, money tips, fee only financial advisor, financial planner, financial podcast, retirement podcast, financial independence podcast

It’s Sunday, which means...It’s recap time! This week, I shared with you 5 tax-savvy strategies to help you lower your tax bill in retirement. 

Here’s what we covered in each episode this week. How to lower your tax bill in retirement using a variety of strategies including: 

• Matching investment types with the right account types
• Smarter withdrawal and donation strategies in retirement
• And how to convert assets to a Roth to help lower your taxes on distributions in retirement 

Hopefully after listening to the One Minute Retirement Tip this week, you better understand how these various tax-saving strategies can benefit you, help you keep more of your hard-earned nest egg intact in retirement, and as a result, give you a better chance of making your money last in retirement.

Tomorrow, we are starting a brand new theme: How Covid Could Change How You Plan For Retirement. Covid is impacting everything from layoffs forcing early retirement, to people leaving the city and reduced travel. All of these trends could have a lasting impact on how you plan for retirement, and how your spending habits may shift in retirement.

With so many drastic changes because of Covid potentially impact you it’s a relevent time for us to look at this topic next week. 

Also, be sure to check out my YouTube channel - True North Retirement, where I cover a wide variety of retirement planning topics - everything from should you pay off your mortgage before retirement to the hidden danger of index funds. Just search for True North Retirement on YouTube. 

That’s it for this week! Thanks for listening and I hope you have a blessed Sunday! 

My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the “One Minute Retirement Tip”.

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, finances, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance, wealth management, money tips, fee only financial advisor, financial planner, financial podcast, retirement podcast, financial independence podcast

This week I’m talking about how to lower your tax bill in retirement. 

Today, I’m sharing with you how a Roth conversion can lower your tax bill in retirement. The more money you can save inside of a Roth IRA or 401k, the lower the taxes will be on your IRA distributions in retirement. That’s because every penny you withdraw from your Roth IRA in retirement won’t be taxed. 

If you’ve been listening to the One Minute Retirement Tip for any length of time, you know I’m a big fan of the Roth IRA. Too many of us have too few of our retirement dollars in Roth IRAs, so making an effort to get more of those dollars into a Roth before retirement can go a long way toward keeping your taxes lower in retirement. 

If you have a 401k that allows for Roth contributions, or if your income is below the threshold to contribute to a Roth IRA, that’s usually the best place to start. 

A Roth conversion should be considered next, especially if you have a short window of time - say just a few years to convert money from Traditional IRA or 401k assets to a Roth. First, you’ll need to determine how much to convert to a Roth, what the taxes owed will be, and how you’ll pay the taxes. Then you can better determine if a conversion strategy makes sense for you. 

If you’d like some help determining if a Roth conversion makes sense for you, I can help you answer that question with a free Roth conversion analysis. Just send me an email to [email protected] with your age, the dollar amount you want to convert, and your expected income for 2020, and I’ll send you your free personalized results. That’s [email protected]. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip. 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, finances, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance, wealth management, money tips, fee only financial advisor, financial planner, financial podcast, retirement podcast, financial independence podcast

This week I’m talking about how to lower your tax bill in retirement. 

Today, I’m talking about how you can be smarter with your charitable giving in retirement to reduce your tax bill. 

One of the simplest tax-saving strategies involves taking your required minimum distributions from your IRA and giving those to charity instead. When you turn 72, you are mandated to start withdrawing funds from your IRA and 401k accounts and pay taxes on those withdrawals. However, every dollar of those distributions that you donate instead, lowers your income and your tax bill. 

So when you start taking distributions from your IRA, it’s a good idea to send those directly to your charities rather than writing checks, since it will likely lower your taxes. 

Another strategy that I like for lowering your tax bill in retirement is to make contributions to a donor-advised fund, especially in years where you have a large windfall taxable event. Perhaps you sell a business or have a large capital gain from selling a property. In those years where your taxes spike, a donation to a donor-advised fund will allow you to take a substantial tax-deduction. Of course, you could just make a large donation to your favorite charity, but a donor-advised fund has a number of other benefits that allow the money to grow and de-couple the tax deduction you receive with the timing of the donation to the charity. 

That’s it for today, but before you go...If you haven’t already left a review for the One Minute Retirement Tip, please consider leaving an honest review in Amazon or iTunes. I read them all, so feel free to leave any feedback or topic suggestions there too. 

Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip.

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----------

Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, finances, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance, wealth management, money tips, fee only financial advisor, financial planner, financial podcast, retirement podcast, financial independence podcast

This week I’m talking about how to lower your tax bill in retirement. 

Today, I’m talking about how to lower your tax bill in retirement with smarter withdrawal strategies from your investment portfolio. 

The conventional wisdom says that once you start withdrawals in retirement, you should withdraw funds from your taxable accounts first, then your tax-deferred accounts (like IRAs and 401ks next), then last, once those accounts are depleted, you would withdraw from your Roth assets last. 

This strategy makes sense because you let your tax-deferred and tax-free accounts grow for longer in retirement until you start withdrawing from them. However, depending on your tax situation, you may want to consider taking proportional withdrawals from each of your accounts instead. 

So if your 401k & IRA accounts make up 60% of your assets, your taxable accounts make up 30% of your assets, and your Roth IRA makes up 10% of your assets, you would withdraw 60% of your annual withdrawals from your 401k & IRAs, 30% of your withdrawals would come from your taxable accounts, and 10% each year would come from your Roth. 

The idea here is that you are spreading out the taxes more evenly in retirement, and potentially also reducing your taxes on social security income and medicare premiums, as well as making your money last longer in retirement, because you’re preserving more of your assets. 

But as with most other financial and tax-planning strategies, there is no easy answer to what is the best strategy for you. So you’ll want to run the numbers for yourself or ask your financial or tax advisor to run a side-by-side comparison so you can determine which strategy makes the most sense for your individual tax situation. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip. 

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----------

Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, finances, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance, wealth management, money tips, fee only financial advisor, financial planner, financial podcast, retirement podcast, financial independence podcast

This week I’m talking about how to lower your tax bill in retirement. Even though your income is likely to be lower in retirement, taking advantage of opportunities to keep your tax bill lower in retirement is just as important as when you’re working, in order to preserve more of those assets and income streams that you’ve worked so hard to build up for yourself in retirement.

Today, I’m talking about how to lower your tax bill in retirement with better asset location. Most people are unfamiliar with asset location, so let me explain…

Asset location is simply being conscious of how different investments like bonds and stocks are taxed, and then making sure when you own those assets, they are in the right accounts. 

For example, you would never want to own tax-free municipal bonds in your IRA account, because the income you receive from those bonds is tax-free. But if you own those bonds inside of an IRA account, you negate the tax-free income benefits, since you’ll still be taxed on every dollar that you withdraw from your IRA. 

Tax-efficient asset location then is simply matching the types of investments you own with the most tax-efficient account type. 

Other examples of this include putting investments with higher turnover in IRA or Roth accounts, and placing dividend stocks in taxable accounts, since the income on dividends is taxed in a preferential way compared to your earned income. 

So make sure as you near retirement and every time you look to rebalance your portfolio or make changes, you are also paying attention to asset location and how that will impact your taxes now and in the future. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip. 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, finances, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance, wealth management, money tips, fee only financial advisor, financial planner, financial podcast, retirement podcast, financial independence podcast

This week I’m talking about how to lower your tax bill in retirement. 

Today, I’m talking about how to use a HSA to lower your tax bill in retirement. A health savings account, or a HSA is an account that you can use to pay for medical expenses - both while you’re working and when you’re retired. 

If you plan ahead with your HSA, you can use this account to pay for healthcare costs in a VERY tax efficient way in retirement. Let me explain. 

Most people use a HSA account to pay for healthcare costs in the current year. But if you set aside funds from your HSA to grow, so you can pay for healthcare costs later in retirement, those assets in your HSA will grow tax-free and when you take the money out to pay for healthcare expenses in retirement, those withdrawals are tax-free.

It’s hands-down the most tax efficient retirement account you can fund for your retirement, so don’t waste the tax-free growth opportunities of your HSA by using all of the funds inside of your HSA every year. 

Thinking about retirement can be both exhilarating and terrifying. With all the excitement of thinking about the future comes the underlying worry--am I ready? That’s where my Retirement Success Forecaster comes in. Using data from this simple form, I’ll be able to tell you if you’re on track for retirement, and if not, what adjustments you can make today to live the retirement you envisioned.  

Getting a customized retirement forecast is easy. Just send me an email - [email protected]. I’ll send you the forecaster to complete, and once you send it back to me, you’ll receive your personalized results. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip. 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, finances, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance, wealth management, money tips, fee only financial advisor, financial planner, financial podcast, retirement podcast, financial independence podcast

Welcome to a new week and a new theme here on the One Minute Retirement Tip! 

This week I’m talking about how to lower your tax bill in retirement. 

If you are like 101% of Americans, you would like to pay less in taxes. So this week, I’ll be sharing with you 5 tax-smart strategies to help you lower your tax bill in retirement. 

We’ll talk about how you can effectively utilize HSA and Roth accounts, as well as be smart about asset location and withdrawal strategies in retirement to keep that tax bill low. I’ll also share with you how you can be smarter about your donations by utilizing donor-advised funds, and how making donations directly from your IRA accounts in retirement could save you thousands in taxes. 

And if you have no idea what I mean by donor advised funds or asset location - that’s ok. Just be sure to listen in each day this week, where I’ll break down the what and the how of each tax-saving strategy to explain how it all works and help you decide if each of these strategies makes sense for you. 

That’s it for today. If you know someone who is close to retirement and needs to hear this week’s message, please share this podcast with them and encourage them to check it out by adding it to their flash briefing in Alexa or subscribing wherever they listen to podcasts!

Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip.

----------

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----------

Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, finances, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance, wealth management, money tips, fee only financial advisor, financial planner, financial podcast, retirement podcast, financial independence podcast

It’s Sunday, which means...It’s recap time! 

This week, Kathleen Burns Kingsbury was here for a guest takeover of the One Minute Retirement Tip. Through her podcast “Breaking Money Silence” and several books on financial and wealth psychology, Kathleen’s mission is to empower women, couples, and families to shatter money taboos and communicate more effectively about financial matters.  

In case you didn’t catch every episode this week, here’s what Kathleen covered: 

• What Is Money Silence & Why it hurts couples
• How to Identify Your Money Talk Mindset
• Why Curiosity is essential to talking about money
• How to celebrate Better
• And lastly, Dare To Join The Breaking Money Silence® Revolution

Hopefully after listening to the One Minute Retirement Tip this week, you are better equipped with the tools to break money silence in your own relationships, so you can talk more openly about money with your spouse and loved ones. 

If you liked her tips this week and you want to hear more from Kathleen, be sure to check out her podcast called “Breaking Money Silence” wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Tomorrow, we are starting a brand new theme: how to lower your tax bill in retirement. Who doesn’t want lower taxes, right? Next week, I’ll talk about several ways that you can lower your taxes in retirement and keep more of that hard-earned nest egg from funneling straight to Uncle Sam every year!

That’s it for this week! Thanks for listening and I hope you have a blessed Sunday! 

My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the “One Minute Retirement Tip”.

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, finances, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance, wealth management, money tips, fee only financial advisor, financial planner, financial podcast, retirement podcast, financial independence podcast