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Effective retirement planning reaches beyond investments and the numbers related to various accounts a person owns. First, it's about understanding the scope of one's future financial needs and goals. And from that framework, it's about putting all areas of the plan together so that they complement one another and function as an integrated whole.
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Sometimes the financial world can seem segmented to clients, with professionals designated as experts in just one area of the plan — investments, insurance, taxes, estate planning, etc. But holistic financial planning includes and ties together every aspect pertinent to the retirement strategy. It analyzes and seeks to optimize each part of a person's plan by making those pieces work together congruently.
One way to think about holistic planning is that most people have several pieces that comprise their retirement puzzle, and they all need to fit together to form a complete picture. But I find when talking about holistic planning in seminars, it's eye-opening for people because they really haven't thought about it in that context. Here are the fundamental elements in most people's retirement situations:
Social SecurityTax planning
Medicare
Investments (401(k) plans, Roth IRAs, nonqualified accounts, etc.)
Income plan (mapping out a strategy for how to use your money)
Estate plan
All those pieces need to function together. You can't maximize your situation if you're looking at each of those aspects in a vacuum.
Putting the pieces together: Starting with Social Security
You have to view Social Security in the context of three of the bullet points mentioned above: investments, income plan and tax planning. You also have to figure out how
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