financial planning Archive

The HSA Triple Play: Your Secret Weapon for Tax-Free Retirement Healthcare Funding

Of all the accounts available to pre-retirees, the Health Savings Account is the one I find most consistently underused, not because clients do not know it exists, but because most people think of it as a way to pay this year’s doctor bill rather…
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Open Enrollment Strategy: Optimizing Healthcare Choices for Retirees and Pre-Retirees

Every fall, I have some version of the same conversation with clients: “I got an open enrollment packet from work, and I also keep hearing about Medicare enrollment. Which one applies to me?” The honest answer is that it depends on where you sit…
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Fall Financial Planning Checklist for Pasadena Pre-Retirees

Autumn in Pasadena means the same thing every year: clients start asking whether they have missed anything before December 31 arrives. If you are within a few years of retirement, or already retired, fall is the season to move from “I should look into…
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Multi-Generational Trusts: Protecting Wealth While Preserving Your Family’s Independence

I’ve had a version of this conversation more times than I can count. A couple sits across from me, and one of them says something like, “We built this. We want our kids to have it. But we don’t want it to ruin them.”…
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Healthcare Costs in Retirement: Planning for the Potentially Expensive Reality

When clients ask me what surprises retirees most in their first few years out of the workforce, healthcare costs are almost always near the top of the list. Not because the costs are hidden exactly, but because most working professionals never had to think…
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Donor-Advised Fund or Private Foundation? Choosing the Right Giving Vehicle for Your Family

There’s a moment I see happen with a lot of the families I work with, usually a few years after a business sale or once retirement is well underway. The financial plan is solid, the portfolio is diversified, and the conversation starts to shift….
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Summer Financial Checkup: Mid-Year Retirement Planning Moves to Make Now

By the time summer arrives, most of us have filed our taxes, exhaled, and moved on to warmer thoughts: vacations, longer days, maybe a little less attention paid to the financial plan than it got back in March. I understand the instinct. But mid-year…
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How Much Cash Should Retirees Keep on Hand? Building a Retirement Liquidity Strategy

Ask ten recently retired people how much cash they keep on hand, and you will get ten different answers, usually based on instinct rather than strategy. Some retirees keep barely anything liquid, worried that cash is “losing to inflation.” Others hold years of expenses…
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Trump Accounts: What Grandparents Should Know About the New Retirement Savings Option for Kids

If you have been hearing about “Trump Accounts” lately and wondering whether they might be a good tool for your grandchildren, you are not alone. Clients have been asking me about these since the legislation passed, and it is a fair question. There is…
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Your 60s Financial Checklist: How to Retire Early, Confidently, and on Your Own Terms

Your 60s are not a countdown to retirement. They are the decade when everything you have built starts to come into focus, and the decisions you make now will shape what the next 20 or 30 years actually look like. In more than 35…
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