Workers are not new to the idea of saving as much money as possible for retirement. However, there is less conversation about spending the money they’ve worked hard to save, and that shift can cause stress in any retiree's life.
Major worries among retirees include not being able to spend as much as before retirement, not being able to leave money to beneficiaries, facing unknown healthcare expenses, and outliving their money. If you don’t have a strategy in place to help pay for these expenses, you could end up making a mistake that will cost you more in the long run.
For instance, we talked to a client who wanted to add an addition to her home. Her original plan was to take the money from her IRA to pay for it, which would have been close to $150,000 before tax.
If she proceeded with that, she would have increased her tax bracket, increased taxes on her social security, and increased her Medicare premiums. For example, her Medicare premiums alone would have increased by over $5,000/year.
However, because we were able to coordinate her strategy with our in-house tax team, we were able to suggest a better alternative strategy and engineer a solution that fit her specific needs. We took about one-third of the money from her IRA, which kept her tax bracket and premiums the same. Then, we worked with her to get a home equity line of credit or HELOC. Finally, we were able to use dividends from her portfolio– which will be taxed at a much lower capital gains rate – in order to pay the home equity line over time.
While this is a specific client scenario, it’s not an uncommon issue to run into. You want to be able to maximize your retirement and to do that, you need a strategy that works. That’s why having a team of financial professionals like the ones at Lineweaver Financial Group to help coordinate your strategy can help alleviate some of that stress when it comes to spending in retirement. If you have questions, give us a call today. We’re here to help!