At Townsend Retirement Specialists, we provide you with a customized, comprehensive analysis of your retirement outlook. Your retirement plan is completely objective, clear and easy to understand. Based on your assets, retirement savings plan and current financial investment plan, Townsend Retirement Specialists helps you analyze your wealth management goals in terms you can understand.
A secure retirement may not be your only financial goal, but it’s probably one of the most important. Retirement planning holds several advantages including control, retirement investment flexibility and guidance, having a sound investment plan or philosophy, and a broad investment selection.
Townsend Retirement Specialists will help you consider all of your retirement resources from 401(k) funds, asset allocation, IRA funds, real estate planning, and savings investment, to your direct income sources such as pensions and Social Security. Our financial team will design a comprehensive retirement plan to help you pursue your dream retirement.
As a service to our clients, we have put together a series of educational articles and videos to help you acquire a better understanding of your total financial situation and how Townsend Retirement Specialists can help you plan your future. Below you can read the summaries and follow the link to articles and videos on retirement planning.
Financial Planning – Helping You See the Big Picture
Do you picture yourself owning a new home, starting a business, or retiring comfortably? These are a few of the financial goals that may be important to you, and each comes with a price tag attached. That’s where financial planning comes in. Financial planning is a process that can help you reach your goals by evaluating your whole financial picture, then outlining strategies that are tailored to your individual needs and available resources.
403(b) Plans
A 403(b) plan is an employer-sponsored retirement plan for certain employees of public schools, tax-exempt (501(c) (3)) organizations, and churches. The employer can purchase annuity contracts for eligible employees, or establish custodial accounts to be invested in mutual funds or other investments. In the case of annuity contracts, a 403(b) plan is sometimes referred to as a tax-sheltered annuity (TSA) plan. (Church plans are subject to several special rules not covered here.)
Changing Jobs? Take Your 401(k) and… Roll It!
If you’ve lost your job, or are changing jobs, you may be wondering what to do with your 401(k) plan account. It’s important to understand your options. This article will address what you will be entitled to, if you should rollover to your new employer’s 401(k) plan or to an IRA and more!
Common Annuity Riders
An annuity is a contract between you (the purchaser or owner) and the issuer (an insurance company). In its simplest form, you pay money to the annuity issuer, the issuer invests the money for you, and then the issuer pays out the principal and earnings back to you or to a named beneficiary.
An immediate annuity is a contract between you and an insurance company in which you pay a single sum of money to the company in exchange for its promise to make payments to you for a fixed period of time or for the rest of your life.
Annuity riders are optional features that provide added benefits to a basic annuity contract. For example, some riders focus on offering greater access to the annuity’s principal, or providing long-term income.
Annuity riders usually come with an annual cost, generally ranging from .1% to 1.0% of the annuity’s value. Review the annuity sales materials and prospectus for a description of applicable fees and charges. The availability of a specific annuity rider usually depends on the annuity issuer and the type of annuity you are considering. Read this article to learn more about the following riders:
- Cost of living adjustment rider
- Cash/installment refund rider
- Impaired risk (medically underwritten) rider
- Commuted Payout rider
- Guaranteed minimum accumulation benefit rider (GMAB)
- Guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefit rider (GMWB)
- Guaranteed minimum income benefit rider (GMIB)
- Guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefit rider (GLWB)
- Long–Term care rider
- Disability/unemployment rider
- Terminal illness rider
Deciding When to Retire: When Timing Becomes Critical
Deciding when to retire may not be one decision but a series of decisions and calculations. For example, you’ll need to estimate not only your anticipated expenses, but also what sources of retirement income you’ll have and how long you’ll need your retirement savings to last. You’ll need to take into account your life expectancy and health as well as when you want to start receiving Social Security or pension benefits, and when you’ll start to tap your retirement savings. Each of these factors may affect the others as part of an overall retirement income plan.
Eleven Ways to Help Yourself Stay Sane in a Crazy Market
Keeping your cool can be hard to do when the market goes on one of its periodic roller-coaster rides. It’s useful to have strategies in place that prepare you both financially and psychologically to handle market volatility. Here are 11 ways to help keep yourself from making hasty decisions that could have a long-term impact on your ability to achieve your financial goals.
Guaranteed Lifetime Withdrawal Benefit Annuity Rider
Fixed-index annuities (also referred to as equity-indexed annuities) and variable annuities can be useful options for retirement savings because interest earnings are tax-deferred until withdrawn. These annuities can also be converted to a stream of income payments that can last for the rest of your life (annuitization). However, annuitization generally requires that you exchange your annuity account balance for income payments. Due to growing demand for additional income options, some issuers are offering a rider, called a guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefit (GLWB), to variable annuities and fixed-index annuities that allows you to get lifetime income payments while continuing to have access to the annuity’s remaining cash value.
Nonqualified Deferred Compensation (NQDC) Plans
A nonqualified deferred compensation (NQDC) plan is an arrangement between an employer and one or more employees to defer the receipt of currently earned compensation. You might want to establish a NQDC plan to provide your employees with benefits in addition to those provided under your qualified retirement plan, or to provide benefits to particular employees without the expense of a qualified plan.
Reaching Retirement – Now What?
You’ve worked hard your whole life anticipating the day you could finally retire. Well, that day has arrived! But with it comes the realization that you’ll need to carefully manage your assets so that your retirement savings will last. This article will provide insight on how to review your portfolio regularly, how to spend wisely, how to understand your retirement plan distribution options, how to prepare for required distributions, knowing your Social Security options, and how to face a shortfall.
The Split Annuity: Current Income Plus Future Savings
Financial planning in retirement usually has two primary goals: 1) create a steady, dependable stream of income and 2) preserve retirement savings. One idea which may assist in achieving these retirement objectives is the split annuity concept. Read this article for split annuity benefits in regards to fixed income, tax-advantaged payments, tax-deferred accumulations, flexibility and your return of principal.
Top Year-End Investment Tips
Just what you need, right? One more time-consuming task to be taken care of between now and the end of the year. But taking a little time out from the holiday chores to make some strategic saving and investing decisions before December 31 can affect not only your long-term ability to meet your financial goals but also the amount of taxes you’ll owe next April. This article is filled with lots of tips and real life examples to take into consideration.
Women and Retirement Planning
Women face special challenges when planning for retirement. Because their careers are often interrupted to care for children or elderly parents, women may spend less time in the workforce and earn less money than men in the same age group. As a result, their retirement plan balances, Social Security benefits, and pension benefits are often lower. In addition to earning less, women generally live longer than men, and they face having to stretch limited retirement savings and benefits over many years. To meet these financial challenges, you’ll need to make retirement planning a priority.
Should You Pay Off Your Mortgage or Invest?
Owning a home outright is a dream that many Americans share. Having a mortgage can be a huge burden, and paying it off may be the first item on your financial to-do list. But competing with the desire to own your home free and clear is your need to invest for retirement, your child’s college education, or some other goal. Putting extra cash toward one of these goals may mean sacrificing another. So how do you choose? Read this article to help evaluate some of these opportunity costs.
All about IRAs
An individual retirement arrangement (IRA) is a personal retirement savings plan that offers specific tax benefits. In fact, IRAs are one of the most powerful retirement savings tools available to you. Even if you’re contributing to a 401(k) or other plan at work, you should also consider investing in an IRA.