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the best way to plan in grand junction
planning for retirement
The age-old problem of retirement is met with endless answers. Some people will tell you to save and invest wisely. Some will tell you to slowly downsize so you don’t have to deal with the same expenses as you age. With a financial advisor, you’ll discuss not just what you have, but also what you want out of your retirement. There is no right or wrong answer: there’s only what you’re looking for.
From there, you’ll discuss how retirement income planning, Social Security, insurance, investments, and taxes either contribute or detract from your dreams. If you live in Colorado’s Western Slope, you can count on Murray to give you his full attention as you inch your way toward your golden years. Whether you’re concerned about medical costs, inflation, or the cost of your grandchild’s Ph.D, he can give you personalized advice you won’t be able to find anywhere else.
retirement income planning
Despite non-stop advice about retirement planning, millions of Americans remain woefully unprepared for their golden years. Part of this can be traced to uncontrollable events, like rampant inflation or sharp economic downturns. However, for some people, it comes down to the decisions they make as they approach their retirement age (and their last day on the job).
While there are plenty of well-trod solutions, like IRAs and 401(k)s, the reality is that these options aren’t always enough to keep people afloat when the inevitable expenses come up in life. Whether you picture yourself helping your descendants or just stockpiling a very thick financial cushion, retirement income planning may be a better way to go.
What Is Retirement Income Planning?
Retirement income planning is the art of securing enough reliable income to cover your expenses. So, much like your job covers your expenses now, you might pull together your Social Security, stock dividends, and short-term rental profits to cover everything from your doctor’s bills to your groceries.
If you want to expand the number of reliable income sources before you retire, a financial advisor can help you get the strategic advice you need if you’re asking how to plan your retirement income. At Strategic Planning, Jeff Murray answers the question “How much do I need to retire?” What’s more, he answers it for people in Grand Junction based on their individual expectations.
When you choose a boutique retirement firm, you won’t have to explain again and again that you don’t want the hassles of being someone’s landlord. You won’t be asked to wildly step outside your comfort zone after you’ve already classified yourself as risk averse. No matter what you’re looking for, you can work with Murray to learn more about what’s available and how to tailor the solutions in a way that makes sense for you.
When some people in Colorado’s Western Slope take a small part-time job in an industry they love and others fall back on their annuities, you can trust the staff at Strategic Planning to recommend the best path for you.
wealth management
Managing wealth eats up a lot of time for everyone, and this is true regardless of how much an individual or family has. When you hit a certain echelon, though, the sheer weight of your assets can quickly crush your portfolio. Wealth management is a financial term that has people widen their lens, considering everything from their taxes to their retirement strategies to their holdings. Anything that could impact their bottom line is factored in, so they can optimize their returns and drastically minimize their risks.
How Does Wealth Management Work in Colorado’s Western Slope?
When the world is always changing, your financial strategies need to keep pace. If they don’t, you could end up squandering the empire you worked so hard to build. This is often how the more spectacular stories make the headlines: wealthy people lose everything because they weren’t paying attention to the details. Maybe the economy changed, and they failed to make contingency plans. Maybe regulations changed, and they failed to even notice. Or maybe they just thought they had far more than they did and spent it all accordingly.
If you want to avoid the same fate, a financial advisor in Grand Junction can spare the time that you can’t. So, if you don’t want to spend your nights reading up on the latest tax laws or poring over tech sector changes, you can trust an expert to at least keep you in the loop. If you’re looking for someone with enough experience to boil it all down, Jeff Murray at Strategic Planning has the credentials and background to help you make smarter decisions.
Whether you picture your retirement in first-class or you just want enough left over for the people you care about, wealth management goes several steps beyond standard financial advice. Even the most involved CPA in the world won’t have the same context as a wealth management expert, even if they can give you a few general tips along the way. At a boutique retirement firm, you’ll see the big picture, so you don’t have to make the big mistakes.
long-term care
Long-term illness or injury can affect anyone at any time, though as your body ages, you become less resilient to these major events. Long-term care insurance is a specific type of policy that steps beyond standard health insurance.
Instead of covering the direct costs, like surgery or physical therapy, the policy covers the indirect costs of daily life as you recover. At a boutique retirement firm, the right financial advisor can tell you more about how this insurance policy will help (or, in some cases, hurt) your overall portfolio.
Long Term Care in Colorado’s Western Slope
You don’t have to look very far for medical horror stories in the US. It seems like people are more vulnerable than ever before to hidden costs that mount over time. If you need 24/7 care after an illness, whether it’s to administer medication, clean your home, or help you with your daily routine, you can see how the expenses could quickly deplete your savings.
In theory, long-term care is a way to protect yourself against this. And in some cases, the results are extraordinary. One study pegged the final totals at 6 times less, meaning people with long-term care insurance drastically slashed their costs compared to those in similar situations without the same protection.
However, these insurance policies have also drastically changed as the cost of at-home health care has skyrocketed. In some cases, the expense of a long-term care policy may not make sense compared to the benefits. For others, it may be the only solution to keeping yourself from financial ruin.
At Strategic Planning in Grand Junction, Jeff Murray can give you the advice you need to weigh the pros and cons. He can tell you how carriers structure their policies, and which ones have a history of giving clients the run-around. Whether you have a history of health problems or you just want to be as prepared as possible, exploring a long-term care policy may make a bigger difference to your bottom line than you realize.
assets under management
Even if you know your asset classes backwards and forwards, you probably don’t have the time to keep your real estate, equities, derivatives, bonds, and commodities (among others) straight. If you engage a financial professional for assets under management services, you’re hiring a professional to keep track of your holdings based on fickle market conditions. You’ll ultimately get the advice you need as you navigate everything from taxes to retirement income planning.
Why Are Assets Under Management Strategies Important?
Your portfolio is a reflection of all the choices you’ve made, both good and bad. When your current wealth is always subject to change, you should have a partner in your corner to keep everything in line. Whether you’re choosing, refining, or maintaining your assets, a financial advisor like Jeff Murray evaluates your options based on everything from economic headwinds to your personal relationship with risk.
So, if you tend to clam up at the idea of big risks and bigger rewards, you won’t have to worry about being pushed to leap outside your comfort zone. However, you may get the encouragement to introduce a little more risk into your portfolio for the sake of better gains down the line. The right advisor will balance their clients, so they find a middle ground that gives them everything they need to reach their goals.
At Strategic Planning, a boutique retirement firm, you’ll work with a small staff as you edge closer to your golden years. Here, every recommendation is tailor-made for you. So, if you decide to allocate part of your wealth to a trust for your grandchildren and then put the rest into commercial property, it will be easier to land on the final dollar values. Should those commercial properties begin to tumble in value, you’ll have fair warning to make a move before it threatens the rest of your portfolio. If you’re in Grand Junction and looking for asset expertise, you can work with Murray until you’re satisfied with your margins and ready for whatever lies ahead.
maximizing social security
The original Social Security was designed to be a safety net for the most vulnerable people in our nation. It may not have afforded people luxurious lifestyles, but it could cover enough essentials to keep people out of dire straits.
Today, most people don’t consider Social Security to be very secure, especially when you consider how many amendments were made to the initial documents. But this doesn’t mean that the program is worthless. In fact, you might be very pleasantly surprised to learn how far it can go to helping you land a more comfortable retirement.
How to Maximize Social Security
At Strategic Planning, financial advisor Jeff Murray helps business owners in the Grand Junction area maximize this famous government program. Instead of relying on basic estimators, he delves into the details of your career, figuring out how much you’ve paid into the system and how much you’re entitled to.
While no financial professional would make Social Security your sole source of retirement income, the trust is that it can be an important contributor to your financial future. For example, maybe you use your Social Security income to cover your standard expenses, your savings to cover your yearly travel plans, and your rental property profits to cover emergencies.
Social Security is based on your industry, lifetime wages, and retirement age. If you don’t know the system very well, it’s easy to make a mistake. If you end up needing to correct an error at some point in the future, you’ll have to fight with the bureaucracies to get the changes (and the backpay benefits) approved. Instead of taking a chance, a financial advisor can help you get it right the first time.
If you’re in Colorado’s Western Slope, having a retirement expert in your corner can make all the difference to your lifestyle. If you have questions about anything from taxes to trust funds, you can build a stronger portfolio no matter where you’re starting from. And you can leverage Social Security to help you retain and protect it all.
life insurance
Life insurance is an investment for everyone in your life, including yourself. When these policies have such a wide range of terms and conditions attached, though, it’s easy to choose the wrong coverage. A financial advisor doesn’t approach the situation the same way a life insurance agency would.
Instead of asking you a few questions about your health and history, they’ll look at your entire portfolio before making a recommendation that works for you and your family. Plus, they’ll factor in your personal retirement goals, so you’re able to live the lifestyle you’ve always imagined.
What’s the Best Type of Life Insurance in Grand Junction?
Life insurance is a tricky business for even the most practical people in Colorado’s Western Slope. You likely don’t have a lot of time to do the research on all the available carriers, nor would you want to even if you did. That’s how many people end up choosing term life insurance. From the outside, it looks like plenty of coverage for very affordable premiums.
With term life insurance, your policy has an expiration date. Most people choose the date based on major life events, such as when their youngest child turns 25 or when their spouse graduates from med school. This way, they’re taking care of the most vulnerable people until they can fend for themselves.
However, in some cases, it makes more sense to explore permanent life insurance, especially if the policyholder wants to build as many safety nets as possible. Too many people find that once the term date of their life insurance policy passes, they end up wanting to extend their coverage, which can end up costing you more than you realize. With permanent life insurance, you can both provide for beneficiaries and potentially use the policy in case of an unexpected financial emergency.
If you have questions about how life insurance fits into your bottom line and how it can be used to supplement your savings, Jeff Murray at Strategic Planning can help you make better choices for you and your loved ones.
