At the Coastal Financial Planning Group, our clients love that we have a proven process. It’s called The Retirement Income Planning Roadmap©.
Whether you were born a Gen X or a Baby Boomer, it's never too early (or too late) to start planning for the income you'll need to retire comfortably.
Many of our clients have successfully accumulated wealth in their working years.
When they became retirement-minded, though, a lot realized they didn't have the expertise to make critical retirement planning decisions that would impact the rest of their lives.
Not knowing the proper income and tax strategies can cost a lot of money.
The Coastal Financial Planning Group created the Retirement Income Planning Roadmap™ to guide our clients' journey into and through their retirement years.
It is designed to maximize retirement income and minimize taxes.
Our six-step process starts with discovering what you consider a "fantastic" retirement lifestyle. Then it's on to determining any risks, issues, and opportunities for improvement with your current financial portfolio that would impact your goals.
The next critical step is to create a written retirement income plan. Did you know that fewer than 10% of married couples have one? That's scary.
A detailed plan should go beyond strategies for Social Security and Medicare. For example, it must include tax-forward planning, proper savings withdrawal rates, and adjusting investment strategies for retirement vs. non-retirement years, to name a few.
There are many more details to The Retirement Income Planning Roadmap™, which we invite you to learn more about by downloading the roadmap and reading through our process.
At the Coastal Financial Planning Group, we stand for all our clients enjoying a fantastic retirement lifestyle! It all starts with the first step.
Retirement Income Planning Roadmap
The 6 Steps to a Fantastic Retirement!
STEP 1:
Discover
At the Coastal Financial Planning Group, the first step to enjoying a fantastic retirement lifestyle involves discovering more about you and the type of retirement you envision living. It also consists of the gathering of essential information.
Our well-organized client experience manager Niki Derderian works with prospective clients to gather their statements and documents. They may include 401k’s, bank accounts, IRAs, life insurance, social security, and tax returns.
Niki will then schedule a discovery meeting with one of our retirement income planning specialists. She will also send out a confidential questionnaire that allows us to discover more about your goals, concerns, and dreams for the future.
Once at the meeting, we begin by getting to know one another, as relationships are the foundation for our success. Then together, we will review your gathered documents.
Our team is looking to discover any risks, issues, and opportunities for improvement regarding your future sources of retirement income. We call these “RIOs.”
We identify any risks or issues related to market volatility, longevity, withdrawal rates, and Sequence of Returns Risk.
We look for opportunities to maximize your income while minimizing your tax liabilities, including possibly using a “tax-loss harvesting” strategy (which could work best for you in a volatile market).
Throughout the discovery meeting, our team pays close attention to your top goals and concerns so that we can provide you with the best service possible.
By the end of our appointment, we will have mutually decided if it makes sense to continue exploring working together. If so, we move on to step two, where we present recommendations on how you can best enjoy the retirement lifestyle you deserve.
STEP 2:
Recommend
At our second meeting, we will present you with two documents - the first outlines our recommendations for you to implement. The next document is your written retirement income plan!
Our clients love having a visual representation of what it takes for them to enjoy the retirement lifestyle they worked so hard to achieve.
We will recap your goals and concerns, review your current financial assets and associated risks, and outline the plans we recommend you adopt.
For us, it’s all about the RIOs… Risks, Issues, and Opportunities for improvement!
-
Risks: Are there strategies we can implement to combat inflation, market volatility, rising healthcare costs, longevity, and future tax increases?
-
Issues: Were any of your past financial decisions based on incomplete or inaccurate information? If so, what needs to be corrected moving forward?
-
Opportunities: Could we improve your financial outlook through such tools as a “Roth Conversion” or a legacy transfer technique? Can we create additional income streams that you might not have considered?
Included in our recommendations will be a detailed and transparent explanation of any fees or commissions we would earn by implementing our recommendations. We will also compare this against the fees you are paying in your current portfolio.
Once we have thoroughly discussed the recommendations and written retirement income plan, we have reached a pivotal juncture on the roadmap - whether you are ready to move onto step three and transfer your assets to our firm’s custodial partners.
Most of our clients tell us this transfer decision boiled down to two things for them: confidence and trust.
Many expressed that they finally felt a sense of relief that they didn’t have to worry anymore about retirement income planning. Our clients knew the Coastal Financial Planning Group had their back.
When we get together for this third meeting, we aim to start methodically transferring your current financial assets to our firm’s custodial partners.
Transferring involves the precision maneuvering of those assets between financial institutions. Our firm has invested in a “secret weapon” for every process and procedure to minimize potential issues. It’s called ISO-9001 certification.
What’s ISO-9001? It’s a globally-recognized quality management standard. It focuses on several distinct principles, including having an outlined process-based approach and a spirit of continuous improvement.
The Coastal Financial Planning Group is one of fewer than 5% of U.S. financial advisory firms holding this certification.
Essentially, it builds “procedural trust” with our clients. They can trust that we have the proper procedures in place to transfer their assets efficiently and confidently.
At this meeting, we will dedicate a large portion of our time to completing the necessary paperwork in the form of applications and transfer documents. However, we promise to make it as seamless as possible for you!
Once we have everything signed off, we can move on to step four, implementing our recommendations and the initial actions from your written retirement income plan.
STEP 3:
Transfer
STEP 4:
Implement
When our custodial partners have received your transferred assets, we then commence implementation. We begin by tackling our top recommendations and focusing on either wealth accumulation or income distribution based on your goals.
Typically, the fourth step in the roadmap occurs over the first year of working together. Some clients require a few meetings with us. Yet, others with more complex financial challenges need (and want) additional time together to implement their priorities.
Of course, at the Coastal Financial Planning Group, we always return to the RIOs at every step! So what are the Risks, Issues, and Opportunities for improvement during the implementation period?
Is continued inflation a threat to your retirement income plan? Are there any new concerns that could negatively impact your financial outlook?
If you have traditional IRAs, is it a good opportunity to convert them into Roth IRAs? What is the best way to pay the taxes due on a conversion? Are there creative ways to fund this strategy?
We'll always ask the right questions at every milestone of implementing your plan. It's important to us that we bring a spirit of continuous and never-ending improvement to everything we do.
During this step, many clients tell us they feel excited watching their plans unfold right in front of their eyes!
Depending on our client’s goals and timelines, we move on to step five, the monitoring phase.
This step is where we monitor any changes to your written retirement income plan and review the performance of your investments. We also explore any new opportunities for you in current markets.
Typically, clients have these review meetings with us once or twice a year. When we get together, here are some of the questions we could discuss:
-
Do you have any new income streams? (i.e., investment properties; inheritances)
-
Have you added any significant expenses?
-
Has anything changed to your timelines?
-
Do we need to tweak any of your investments?
-
Are your legacy plans in order?
Once we have reviewed your answers, we can make adjustments as needed. The Coastal Financial Planning Group will always filter our actions through the lens of any existing or anticipated RIOs (Risks, Issues, Opportunities.)
Before we end every review meeting, we’ll inform you to “save the date” to join us at our next fabulous client appreciation event!
Whether it’s a cruise around Charleston Harbor spotting dolphins, a traditional Lowcountry oyster roast and barbecue, or an exploration of a unique cultural or historic locale, our clients love the experiences they share with us each year.
STEP 5:
Monitor
STEP 6:
Enjoy!
This last step involves the most fun and the least effort. You've worked hard to reach this milestone, and now it's time to enjoy it!
Here's what some of our clients said have been some of the most fun and fulfilling experiences so far as part of their fantastic retirement lifestyle:
-
Dining out more often at their favorite restaurants.
-
Taking the grandchildren on a memorable trip.
-
Hiring a golf pro to help lower a handicap.
-
Making improvements to their home.
-
Becoming a master gardener.
-
Cruising around the world.
-
Joining a yacht club.
What enabled our clients to have these amazing experiences? They followed the six steps in our Retirement Income Planning Roadmap.
They had enough money. They were protected. They had a legacy inheritance plan.
Most importantly, they had peace of mind that they didn't have to worry about their retirement income.
Are you ready to explore what it takes to have a fantastic retirement lifestyle? It all starts with the first step.
Ready to take the first step?
Download your copy of Retirement Income Planning Roadmap™.
We’ll only ask for your name and email to send you the roadmap. We will not spam you or try to sell you anything.
Instead, our hope is that you will learn about our process and start to build trust with our firm.