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income planning

Retirement Income Planning in Scottsdale

Professional financial, investment, and estate planning with a Fiduciary duty

Steve

Meet Steve

Have a no-cost, no obligation conversation with an experienced adviser and fiduciary.

Steve only accepts 6 to 12 new clients per month in order to serve each with optimal attention and personal service.

Free Retirement Readiness Review

To arrange your free review, please contact(480)902-3333, or email: [email protected]

Happy Family

Studies reveal that retirees are more concerned with running out of money than any other financial issue.

How long will your money last?  Do you know?  You should. Research by a leading USA accounting firm (Ernst & Young) indicates that  today’s retirees now face up to a 56 percent chance of income failure in their lifetimes¹, due to withdrawing against low interest rates and volatile markets. When banks paid 6 percent and retirements lasted 15 years, planning was easier.

Lady with a Child

Today, interest rates have been cut in half and retirements have doubled in length.

Once work ceases, a financial plan should provide sustained income through the death of the second spouse in our view. Markets may rise and fall, but income that is reliable, durable, and constant requires planning. The objective: no more income worries, no matter what.

 

In days past, retirement planning was simple.

Work for 30 years, accumulate a nest egg, then sit back and collect 6 percent interest. Clearly, we live in a “new normal,” with interest rates at unheard of lows, and the stock market volatile. The advisor that gets you to retirement may not be the right one to get through it.

Is income planning important?

A quick example illustrates the hidden problem with most income plans in retirement that are based strictly on stocks, bonds and mutual funds. Let’s think back to 1999 when the stock market had careened to an all-time high. The next year, 2000, saw the end of the bull, followed by a mild 10 percent loss. In the accumulation phase it might be time to “buy on the dip.” But to those who retired in that year, and expected to start an income withdrawal plan to last their lifetime, they were in for a shock.

See the table below. Dave, 61, is an engineer that retires with $800,000 dedicated for income at the end of 1999. His paychecks stop. He speaks with his advisor about withdrawing 5 percent of his account value annually for life from his account. They calculate that his income will actually increase steadily over time, based on market projections. But Dave learns about a phenomenon known as sequence of returns risk.

Let’s follow a simplified chart, not including fees, transactions costs or taxes. We’ll assume Dave wants at least $40,000 in income, regardless of market result. He has been working for 36 years, and he feels justified in taking that amount:

Year Account Value Market Result Income @ 5% of original value Ending ETF account value
2000 $800,000 (-10%) $40,000 $680,000
2001 $680,000 (-13%) $40,000 $551,600
2002 $551,600 (-25%) $40,000 $373,700

Yes, I know that your first inclination is to tell Dave to stop withdrawing.

But he just retired. Dave had been planning to withdraw $40,000 annually for as long as he could remember.  He is in the prime active years of his retirement life. Stop withdrawing? Let’s have you be the one to tell his wife, Ellen.

Would an annuity strategy have given Dave the steady, sustainable and predictable lifetime income he craved — even with the market declines?

The simple answer is yes. An annuity ladder could have guaranteed Dave’s income at $40,000 a year or better, with no impact from the poor market. The right ladder could even have been adjusted for inflation. For the answers to the 25 Most Asked Annuity Questions, click here.

More income per dollar, more wealth over time.

The IQ Wealth Strategy™ can create more income using fewer dollars, freeing up more capital for growth. The disappearance of pensions has shifted responsibility for funding retirement to the individual. The future will be expensive. How will you fund it? Will your current plan deliver the income you need? Bear markets will happen, steady withdrawals can only make them worse. You can plan to spend your last dollar in 30 years, but what if you live  for 31?

Investing  With A Purpose.

What do you want your money to do?  In other words, what is the purpose of your money? Precisely how much income will you and your spouse have at age 75? 85? 95?  Do you know?  You can.   An effective plan addresses the issue head on — with contractual guarantees rather than  pie-in-the-sky.

Hope is not a strategy

Research by the Wharton School of Business, published in the Wall Street Journal, reveals that the use of income annuities can reduce the cost of providing income in retirement by 25 to 40 percent.²  A proper annuity strategy provides more income using less capital.

Pie Diagram

Insuring Important Outcomes

The IQ Wealth Strategy™ is simple and straightforward:  Plan, Invest, Insure, Retire and Stay Retired.  As an investment advisory firm with a fiduciary responsibility, our commitment is to you. We believe a proper blend of investments with annuities and, in some cases,  life insurance, can be an effective way to achieve goals. By insuring important outcomes first, the future becomes more certain. Our mutual goal is your financial peace of mind.

We believe a combination of dividend reinvestment and carefully selected insurance products can result in a balance of reliable income and sustainable growth over time.

To learn more about annuities, click here

©Copyright 2013-2017 by IQ Wealth Management. All rights reserved, all content protected. Reproduction in any format without written consent of the author is subject to federal copyright law and legal action.

Stock market performance source: Standard & Poors. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. The index information is used to help simplify an illustration and to demonstrate the effects of account losses combined with withdrawals. Not all investors experience would be similar.

Annuity income is based on calculations by the insurance carrier. The calculation utilizes life expectancy plus interest rates. Each company has different calculations and guarantees rely on the claims paying ability of the issuing insurer. Life insurance companies are the only issuers of retail annuities. They are regulated in each state. Neither property and casualty companies nor health insurance companies offer annuities. Insurance company reserves are invested conservatively per regulations of each state and reserve levels are audited.

Annuities and life insurance are provided by our life insurance division, not our securities division. Thank you.

Note:
We maintain two divisions: securities and insurance.

Fee-based investment advisory services are provided by IQ Wealth Advisory, LLC, a Registered Investment Adviser. Insurance and annuities are provided by IQ Wealth Management–Insurance Division.

Annuities are insurance-based financial vehicles designed not for growth but for income preservation and sustainability. Annuities are not FDIC insured and may have surrender charges for a period of time. Generally, a partial withdrawal of 5 to 10 percent is allowed annually, penalty free. The annuities we recommend waive all surrender charges upon death. All guarantees rely on the financial strength and claims paying ability of the issuing insurer. At IQ Wealth, our policy is to require at least 100 years of successful track records and strong ratings for any insurance company we recommend.

Income riders are a means to enhance the income benefits provided by the underlying annuity contract. A discussion regarding whether an annuity would meet your needs and objectives should take place, before deciding if an income rider is appropriate.