snedgar wrote: ↑Tue Jul 19, 2022 9:43 am
As my wife and I are closing in on retirement, I went to see a fee-only financial planner for a sanity check. I told him I was confident in our situation and plan but I wanted him to give it a sanity check and poke holes in it where he could.
We met virtually a couple times so he could understand our situation, goals and temperaments. Then he went through our investments and the rest of our financial life carefully.
For about a thousand dollars, he confirmed our plan was reasonable and gave us three or four actionable suggestions. One of those was related to longevity planning for the case where I died early and wife lived long. I had not considered this case adequately and he showed me how taking a different option in my upcoming pension would cover that risk while costing almost nothing to my early retired income. This suggestion, alone, was worth the cost of admission!
This is what my wife and I need to do. Haven't done much in the way of actual searching yet, but it's on my to-do list.
snedgar, did your fee-only financial planner seem to really understand taxes, SS, account withdrawal sequence, Roth conversions, health insurance (including Medicare) etc.? Or maybe much of that doesn't apply in your situation. A big reason that I want to meet periodically with someone along with my wife, is that she likes to spend on frivolous items and I don't. I'm the one who makes all of our investing decisions and am trying to get said wife to understand (and be slightly interested in) a withdrawal strategy that doesn't cut it too close later.
snedgar wrote: ↑Tue Jul 19, 2022 9:43 am
As my wife and I are closing in on retirement, I went to see a fee-only financial planner for a sanity check. I told him I was confident in our situation and plan but I wanted him to give it a sanity check and poke holes in it where he could.
We met virtually a couple times so he could understand our situation, goals and temperaments. Then he went through our investments and the rest of our financial life carefully.
For about a thousand dollars, he confirmed our plan was reasonable and gave us three or four actionable suggestions. One of those was related to longevity planning for the case where I died early and wife lived long. I had not considered this case adequately and he showed me how taking a different option in my upcoming pension would cover that risk while costing almost nothing to my early retired income. This suggestion, alone, was worth the cost of admission!
This is what my wife and I need to do. Haven't done much in the way of actual searching yet, but it's on my to-do list.
snedgar, did your fee-only financial planner seem to really understand taxes, SS, account withdrawal sequence, Roth conversions, health insurance (including Medicare) etc.? Or maybe much of that doesn't apply in your situation. A big reason that I want to meet periodically with someone along with my wife, is that she likes to spend on frivolous items and I don't. I'm the one who makes all of our investing decisions and am trying to get said wife to understand (and be slightly interested in) a withdrawal strategy that doesn't cut it too close later.
Good thread so far.
Hey Barrett,
Yes, the financial planner that we went to had a deep understanding of all of the items you mentioned and more. He gave our plan a much more rounded review than I expected. Another example of his input that addressed a hole in my thinking was that I was planning to do Roth conversions to the maximum possible from age 59.5 through 65. He pointed out that the window actually starts to close at age 63 because of the medicare two year income look-back provisions. I'm a pretty detail oriented guy and it takes a lot to impress me. He was on it.
There are a couple organizations representing fee-only advisors. I found him by searching those and cross-referencing for geographic location, reviews, and "email interviews". I'm sure there are more good ones to be found using that method. OTOH, he's a one-man show, so doesn't have tons of extra capacity, but if you want to drop me a PM I would be happy to share his name.
