knowledge is power
Learning Center
Educated clients make better decisions. Our Learning Center is designed to introduce you to the concepts we find central to a well-informed retirement plan. Let these resources guide your exploration and provide food for thought. By no means is this page meant to answer all your questions – that’s what our team is for. But we hope it inspires you to think about your retirement in a new way.
Visual Tools
Income Stability Pyramid
The Income Stability Pyramid will help shape your personal Retirement Income Plan. The base represents guaranteed income sources to create a stable income stream, and its importance cannot be overstated. It is the foundation of your retirement Income Plan. Reinforcing the foundation is all about increasing your guaranteed, base-level income. Once you’ve exhausted your guaranteed income options, it’s critical to employ a high level of expertise to mitigate the risk inherent with traditional investments. This is known as Active Risk Mitigation (ARM). ARM strategies are much more effective at managing volatility than traditional, Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) based strategies.
Bucket Planning
What is it?
A strategic, structured approach to bucketing assets for today’s financial challenges.
One old way of investing for retirement was to keep a little pile of money at the bank and a bigger pile of money in investments and hope it lasts a lifetime. Today’s market risk, interest rate risk, and sequence of returns risk are the three biggest dangers facing investors at or near retirement.
A more sophisticated planning philosophy is essential to stretch retirement dollars to cover their many needs throughout the duration of retirement. For this purpose, we utilize the Bucket Plan philosophy to segment money into three buckets, based on your investment time horizon, volatility tolerance, and income needs.
Taxes in Retirement
No truly holistic retirement plan would be complete without thoroughly addressing long-term tax planning. After all, the difference between $10,000 a month of taxable income and $10,000 a month of tax-free income is dramatic.
Tax Deferred assets are not taxed as they grow, but they are taxed when they are withdrawn for use. After Tax assets may or may not be taxed as they grow, but they are never taxed just because you withdraw them for use. Lastly, Tax-Free assets are never taxed on their growth, nor when they are withdrawn for use. (spoiler alert – these are the best assets to have in retirement!)
Video Library
Teaching and Learning
John VanWeelden, Founder & Principal of VanWeelden Retirement Advisors, will teach you how to achieve the two most critical aspects of retirement security – Lifetime Income Stability and Asset Preservation. Using proprietary strategies, he will walk you through the steps you need to preserve your assets and provide a lifetime of income.
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What Can We Help You With?
Planning for a long, healthy life is just the beginning. Helping our clients prepare for life’s other eventualities is equally important. Take a look at our Retirement Planning Checklist, and see what might be missing from your current plan. Comprehensive preparation is key to experiencing true peace of mind.
Retirement Blogs
Tax Planning
Read More: Tax PlanningThere’s a tremendous difference between tax planning and tax preparation. Effective tax planning can save you thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars over your lifetime. Think about it – when…
Sequence of Returns Risks
Read More: Sequence of Returns RisksSequence of Returns Risk comes into play as you transition from your accumulation years, to your preservation and distribution years. It simply refers to the order in which good and bad market returns occur. Think…
The Money Cycle
Read More: The Money CycleHave you ever heard of The Money Cycle? The Money Cycle is something that we all go through during our lifetime. There are three phases: accumulation, preservation, and distribution. The accumulation phase starts early in…
