Retirement Income Planning in Crystal Lake, IL.

At Crystal Lake Tax and Financial, we believe that it is essential for those who are retired or nearing retirement to understand the best ways to navigate the complexities of planning and saving for retirement. When you work with a financial advisor from Crystal Lake Tax and Financial, you are working with a Retirement Income Specialist who understands the best ways to help preserve your savings, so you can use it as a renewable source of income for retirement.

Retirement Financial Planning

As retirement advisors, we work closely with our clients to provide them with retirement planning advice that gives them the best chance of achieving their long-term financial goals. Our retirement planning services include strategies that can help you:

• Generate steady income in retirement
• Minimize your exposure to market risk
• Maximize your tax savings

Although the growth-based financial strategies you used during your working years might have been effective in helping you grow your retirement savings, those same strategies could jeopardize your financial security in retirement.

That’s why some of the best retirement investment plans recommend that you should reduce your exposure to financial strategies that rely on stock market growth once you near retirement. Instead, it makes sense to work with a retirement consultant who can help you focus on income-based strategies designed to help you preserve your savings, so you can use it as a source of ongoing income. This is known as Investing for Income.

This does not mean that you cannot remain invested in the stock market once you near retirement. Certified retirement financial advisors and retirement specialists can help those with the ability to endure some level of market risk invest in high dividend-paying stocks as a way to enjoy steady income in retirement.

Retirement Income Process, Strategies, and Solutions

• Create an effective retirement income plan to help maintain a client’s desired lifestyle over the course of retirement.
• Identify retirement income needs and objectives and evaluate the client’s current situation relative to those goals.
• Choose appropriate strategies to address income gaps.
• Evaluate taxation, estate issues, and other risks to the retirement plan.
• Prepare alternative solutions to mitigate plan risks.
• Choose appropriate strategies for monetizing assets over the retirement period.
• Integrate approaches, risks, products, and strategies to help create an effective retirement income plan.

Sources of Retirement Income

• Recommend the optimal Social Security claiming age appropriate for each client’s situation.
• Choose the optimal retirement age.
• Choose appropriate uses of annuities.
• Evaluate sources of retirement income including executive benefits, life insurance, benefits provided for federal employees and planning for business owners.
• Understand the issues in building a retirement portfolio.

Managing the Retirement Income Plan

• Choose a tax-compliant and tax-efficient strategy for planned withdrawals from tax-advantaged plans.
• Recommend the best health insurance options for clients.
• Select a method for funding long-term care needs.
• Help a client with retirement housing decisions.
• Consider the ethical issues in retirement income planning.
• Create and manage retirement income portfolios appropriate for each client’s situation.