[virtue51]

Seek a certified financial planner -- if not, Vanguard does have financial planners who can assist.

[Stu from NYC]

Originally Posted by ProfZ

Always keep the big picture of assets, taxes, longevity etc etc in mind, but good advice posted above to see at least 3 financial planners, if you don't want to go on this journey alone but appreciate professional advice - you also would do yourself a favor to include Parady Financial (no fee for consultation or management afterwards) among the three.

Parody is known for pushing annuities very hard.

[rsmurano]

Good recommendation on Vanguard for investments.
If you have handled your investments during your savings phase, why wouldn’t you be comfortable handling your $$$ during your spending years?
What a lot of people don’t realize is that you need to keep making money during your retirement years but you have to be a little more cautious on what you invest in. Buy and hold good index funds in good and bad times, since you can’t time the market. If you look at history, recessions only last a couple of years at most and usually the market comes back to be higher than before the recession.
I don’t understand why people look at annuities. You have high fees, and when you start receiving your annuity payout, you are also receiving social security payments and starting to make your RMD’s. You add all of this up, you will be in a high tax bracket and probably have much more disposable income than what you need.
I use a modified bucket system: a cash bucket that I can live on for a couple of years that gets replenished by dividends, and another bucket of investments (diversified index funds). If the market goes down like last year, you don’t need to sell anything to live on. Without selling, you don’t need to try to time the market for when it’s a good time to get back in.
I use Schwab to make my trades, I don’t pay Schwab for any brokerage services, I do my own trades. I have been using Schwab for over 25 years and get access to a lot of free services that you normally pay for. I have had questions in the past about tax harvesting, social security, annuities, and others and Schwab gave me access to their specialists.

[DAVES]

Originally Posted by MandoMan

Well said! There are so many articles about changing the portfolio as we age to less risk and more bonds and all. Instead, I keep my retirement funds in a mid-cap growth fund that gets five stars from Morningstar for both growth and safety. Thanks to that, since fall of 2016 my investments have nearly doubled. Riding the 30% market crash last year was scary, but it came back up. If I had followed the standard advice I was given, I wouldn’t be here in The Villages because I wouldn’t be able to afford it. Now I’m worry free, and my retirement funds are up 15% for the year.

Far as investments, there is no shortage of advice, plans etc. For most people, including me, it is tough to pick a plan and stick to it in up and down years. So many great quotes are out there. One that I remember is no one is right all the time. To make money you just need to be right more often than you are wrong.

Five star mid cap growth funds? I am not qualified to give investment advice but I am regularly discovering things that I don't know. A five star midcap growth fund earns five stars compared to other mid cap growth funds. It does not show how it compares to other funds.

Retirement funds up 15%. This has been a good year for stocks. I am up more than that.
Neither of us are up as much as the S&P 500. The rude wake up for all-if you have 10,000 and make 10% one year and loose 10% the next year you are not even 10,000+10%=11000
11000-10%=9900.

[Joe C.]

Call Blackston Financial on Rt.466 and ask for an appointment with Travis. He is a fiduciary, and I have done extremely well with him. He listens well and gives great information. No pressure whatsoever. It's worth your time, and you won't regret it.

[biscuitgirl]

Thank you all for these great suggestions! It feels a bit less daunting now.

[biscuitgirl]

Originally Posted by Petersweeney

Just spend it - that’s what they made vacations for…

[RUOK2?]

Originally Posted by biscuitgirl

Hi all. We’re looking for a professional to advise on taking withdrawals from our savings to fund retirement.
We’ve always made our own investment decisions and feel pretty comfortable with that. But we have a few big-ticket items coming up with the house, as well as day-to-day expenses, and I’m struggling to figure out when and from which accounts to take money to minimize tax impacts. Thanks.

If your income comfortably exceeds your expenses, a Line-Of-Credit might work for you.
The interest rate might be high, but the actual cash outflow is (relatively) minimal
Pledge your assets as collateral.
'Borrow' 75-80% with an LoC.
Pay Monthly Interest Only on any cash/advances you take on the LoC. from your excess income.
Pay off the principal over time with your excess income or the sale of any non-producing assets.
Over time, you owe nothing and have retained your assets and your income.
=====================

[OhioBuckeye]

Originally Posted by biscuitgirl

Hi all. My husband and I are recent arrivals in TV. We’re looking for a professional to advise on taking withdrawals from our savings to fund retirement. We’ve always made our own investment decisions and feel pretty comfortable with that. But we have a few big-ticket items coming up with the house, as well as day-to-day expenses, and I’m struggling to figure out when and from which accounts to take money to minimize tax impacts. There seem to be plenty of people around that will sell you an annuity or manage money for an ongoing fee, but surely there must be people that specifically advise on the withdrawal side of things. Can anyone recommend a good fee-based advisor who can help guide us through this, or even identify the type of professional I'm looking for to better target my google search? Thanks.

Like your comment! You’re exactly right about theirs always someone wanting to manage our money but they only want to manage your money because that’s what they do to get their pay checks. Not that you shouldn’t invest but I worked & retired after 38 yrs. now it’s my turn to enjoy the money I worked so hard for. Investments aren’t like they use to be where you get the biggest share of our royalties, not the investor. But I understand everybody wants to make money so if you have lots to invest, invest but I want to enjoy my yrs. of work I did to enjoy what I made!

[rjm1cc]

Do a search on something like this - bucket retirement plan.
Basically split your money into buckets. First basically cash to cover say 2 year of living expenses. Second assets to cover say 8 to 10 years of expenses and the third long term. Then an emergency/big exp bucket. This would pick up your home repairs, new car etc. Do some reading and you will get the idea and should be able to do it yourself. For withdrawal consider using the IRS RMD (required minimum distribution table) if you do not come up with something better. It considers life expectancy and the value of your portfolio. Also search for safe withdrawal rates. This will get you educated on the subject. Remember that interest rates are lower than what they were for most of the studies, and that bonds will lose value as interest rates increase.
You might try a CPA. Ask if they have experience in the area you need help.

[Michael G.]

I'm finding out in my retirement to stay healthy, enjoy this time in our lives, and do all this while keeping our
retirement funds pretty much intact.
Why? Because we are/were the generation of savers and my financial adviser keeps telling my wife and I to start
spending down our retirement next egg.
I receive our SS every month and a RMD payout every year and it's more then enough to live on.
I'm always asking myself what would happen to our savings in a medical emergency.
Maybe I shouldn't worry about that as much as I do.

We have one adopted son that makes more money today per month then my wife and I made together.
He lives 5 mins. away and says he don't expects a dime from our estate, also has his $450,000 house pay for.

[valuemkt]

Originally Posted by biscuitgirl

Hi all. My husband and I are recent arrivals in TV. We’re looking for a professional to advise on taking withdrawals from our savings to fund retirement. We’ve always made our own investment decisions and feel pretty comfortable with that. But we have a few big-ticket items coming up with the house, as well as day-to-day expenses, and I’m struggling to figure out when and from which accounts to take money to minimize tax impacts. There seem to be plenty of people around that will sell you an annuity or manage money for an ongoing fee, but surely there must be people that specifically advise on the withdrawal side of things. Can anyone recommend a good fee-based advisor who can help guide us through this, or even identify the type of professional I'm looking for to better target my google search? Thanks.

The type of professional you need is a FEE ONLY FINANCIAL PLANNER. However, be prepared to do A LOT OF WORK to aid them in doing their job. Do you have a good handle of your fixed and variable monthly expenses ? Do you have an agreement on how much more you are willing to spend year ? Have you thought about segmenting your new spending goals into the three stages of retirement ? GOGO, SLOWGO, and NOGO ? Is your end goal to spend your last dime at the moment of your last breath, or are you planning to leave a lot of money to kids, grand kids, charitable causes.. etc. All of that comes before you get into asset allocation, risk tolerance, expected returns .. A previous poster mentioned a bucket strategy, which I am a proponent of. Do a search on retirement bucket strategy. Christine Benz from Morningstar writes regularly on that, as does Kiplinger. Most describe a three bucket strategy to buffer yourself from market downturns. All that comes AFTER you do all the hard work above

[ggdawg]

Add this contact to your research... excellent free advice from one who is well informed from years of financial experience. Dan is on the radio at 720 AM... not FM every morning.

Contact Us - Financial Issues

From this website, you can choose to listen to any of his radio programs:
Radio Program - Financial Issues

Best of luck to you in whatever you do!

[Smalley]

Originally Posted by stevecmo

If you've been comfortable managing your own investments, I'm pretty sure you can do this on your own too. You can find everything you need to know at Bogleheads Investing Advice and Info

Read the wiki to start. It will explain exactly what you are asking. Then post any questions you have. It's a wonderful resource. John Bogle was the founder of Vanguard.

Hope that helps.

Agree with the Bogle approach. The key is to educate yourself. And this subject is quite interesting!

[rdwalls]

Camarda Wealth Advisory Group <j@camarda.com:

Fee only group (1-1.5% of monthly portfolio. Have used them for years and trust them implicitly.