Troy B. Daum - Your Insiders Guide to Retirement: the Practical Guide to Transitioning from Working to Retirement

The Practical Guide to Transitioning
from Working to Retirement

By the Financial Planners at Wealth Analytics:

Troy B. Daum, CFP
RJ Gordon Tudor, CFP
Jeff Poole, Advisor

NEW YORK

LONDONNASHVILLEMELBOURNEVANCOUVER

Your Insiders Guide to Retirement

The Practical Guide to Transitioning from Working to Retirement

2019 Troy B. Daum, CFP, R.J. Gordon Tudor, CFP, Jeff Poole

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in New York, New York, by Morgan James Publishing. Morgan James is a trademark of Morgan James, LLC. www.MorganJamesPublishing.com

ISBN 9781642792720 paperback

ISBN 9781642792744 case laminate

ISBN 9781642792737 eBook

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018911105

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To the most special people in our lives, our wives, Patricia, Lisa, and Ruth.

A s business owners/founders weve experienced extraordinary journeys with countless mentors, parents, teachers, and friends, who made huge impacts on our lives. You are all special! Thank you!

We honor the larger community of fellow fiduciaries - the small entrepreneurs doing great work as Certified Financial Planners, registered investment advisors and fee-only planners. Look how far we have come over a few, short decades! We entered the financial services world as neophytes, most with one straightforward goal, to help people. Surprisingly, we found an industry that had at its core a different motive, an intense focus on profit. We did not fit with the traditional mold and decided to brave a new trial. We knew not where we were going or our method of transportation; we went anyway. Without a paycheck or benefits, we started businesses, with only a prayer and a belief. We banded together against the longest of odds to take on financial titans. In the early days, we were just a few. Now we are many! Trillions of dollars left the old institutions and found a new home, with all of us. Today, we are in every state, in all but the smallest cities; we created a new profession! We not only survived, but thrived.

The single principle of putting clients first created a paradigm shift in the financial ecosphere. Two words fee only became synonymous with our work. The authors salute you, our fellow fiduciaries. Your dedication and sacrifice have truly made a difference.

We would like to recognize industry thought leader, Bob Veres. We often wonder where the profession would be without Bob leading the way.

Two people helped our vision for this book become a reality. A weekly conference call with Scott Peppard from Princeton Business Coaching was critical to move the project forward. Scott kept us on track, reviewed our writing and offered invaluable critiques. Bill Johnson edited our book. He is a tremendously talented writer, industry contributor, and professor. We feel fortunate to have found Bill, who took our collection of ideas and polished them brilliantly.

All businesses have vendor relationships, but the team at Shareholders Service Group, who hold client assets as custodians, has been so much more than just a company we do business with. We look to SSG as confidants, mentors, and supporters. It has been fun to grow our businesses together.

We also want to acknowledge Belkis Belle Morales and Megan Sperry, our friends and associates at Wealth Analytics. They are smart, kind, committed, caring and the best of teammates.

We owe a special thanks to the team at Morgan James, including David Hancock, Jim Howard, Aubrey Kinkaid, and Bonnie Rauch. They took a chance on first-time authors and believed in our message. We are grateful for their guidance down an unfamiliar path.

Finally, we say thank you to our amazing clients. It has been an honor and privilege to work with you. You inspired us with your lifes work and visions for the future. It has been immensely satisfying to see your goals and dreams become reality! We feel blessed to have earned your confidence and will always treasure our partnership.

I ts the goal of everyone saving for retirement. Whether you call it financial freedom, financial independence, or no money worries, financial planners focus on calculations how much money you need, how much you can spend, and how long it will last. Theyre important answers, as retirement may be a long time to survive without a steady paycheck from a job.

However, having the right answers to the wrong problems wont lead to financial freedom.

We believe financial freedom in retirement means more than just meeting monthly bills for the rest of your life. Its is the time to reinvent yourself, to take risks you couldnt previously afford, to see new places, hear new languages, push your boundaries, and experience life with spontaneity and freedom.

Its the time to collect your rewards from your working years. That means your financial plans must account for more than just paying off the mortgage and stashing away a small pile of money to float through life. There are, however, valuable things most people including many financial planners never consider. During retirement, there are no days off. Every day acts like a weekend, so there are more hours to play golf, take art lessons, dine out, see movies, or just jet over to an exotic little island to walk the beach. Theyre all the things you wanted to do while working but never could because you didnt have the time. During retirement you will. You just need the money.

Weve found that people who dread the sound of retirement feel that way because they havent properly planned for it. Our goal is to change that. We dont want you to just wonder how much money youll have to spend in retirement. We want you to plan for how youll spend your time. Its all possible if you make those dreams part of your plan.

Planning, however, is only half the battle, as the best-laid plans without dedication and persistence are nothing but dreams. To reach financial freedom, you must put good plans into action and follow them all the way through.

Experienced financial planners ensure that those planning for retirement will do so successfully by outlining a plan based on sound financial principles, but just as important, theyll act as a coach to ensure you stay with the plan.

We wrote this book to shed light on some of the hidden challenges youll face when developing long-term financial plans. Our hope is that youll realize the process means more than just putting money away each month. Instead, you must outline the life you want to live during retirement and create plans to meet those goals.

You dont get a second chance at retirement, so its not enough to develop a trusted plan. You must work with planners you trust. You create the dreams. Well create the financial freedom.