What is Retirement Planning?
In its simplest form, retirement planning determines how much money you will need to live your ideal retirement. Determining that dollar amount is specific to each person and is best arrived at by developing a comprehensive financial plan. Here is how Fortress Financial Group addresses retirement planning:
We start the planning process by determining your priorities and goals. If traveling the world is most important to you, we want to work together to make that happen. Maybe leaving a legacy is top of mind—then we will help you plan for that. Or maybe it is paying for your children’s or grandchildren’s education and/or weddings. Whatever your goals, the point of planning is to maximize your potential to achieve them.
After identifying your goals and priorities, we will aggregate your financial life into our planning software. Account balances and current investments, projected social security income, and pensions are just a few of the big-ticket items that we need. Data that is inaccurate or out of date can lead to misrepresentations in your plan. So, we focus on detailed and accurate inputs to produce accurate outputs with your plan. Knowing this, we spend hours behind the scenes collecting information from statements, investment reports, and research to mitigate errors and ensure we paint the most accurate picture.
Once aggregated, we will work together to determine investment assumptions, life expectancy, and implications of inflation on your retirement plan. Determining your living expenses is one of the most important parts of this process. It is best to have a solid understanding of how much money you spend monthly. If you haven’t taken inventory of your expenses in a while, now is the time to do it! Everything from Netflix to fuel to annual property taxes should be accounted for.
Once all the priorities, goals, information, and assumptions are ironed out– now what?
Now, we can leverage technology to arrive at a probability of success. We generally measure success as you don’t run out of money in retirement and all your goals are achieved. One of the tests we leverage to determine the probability of success is a Monte Carlo simulation. This mathematical test runs 1000 different scenarios of your retirement plan through 1000 different market conditions with 1000 different outcomes. We can use these outcomes to determine what is most likely to occur, whether you are on track or if your plan needs adjustments.
The Monte Carlo simulation is just one tool available. Fortress Financial Group leverages the market's most robust planning software to provide value and confidence to our clients who are saving for, nearing, or in retirement. We can help determine projected cash flow shortages, future taxation, Roth conversion opportunities, and more.
Once a plan is in place, the work is not over. We meet regularly to make necessary updates, monitor progress, and make sure we are on track to meet your goals. If planning for retirement has been on your mind, feel free to reach out for a complimentary consultation.
Disclosures:
Fortress Financial Group LLC (“FFG") is a registered investment advisor. Advisory services are only offered to clients or prospective clients where FFG and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure. For additional information, please visit our website at https://fortressfg.net/. For current FFG information, please visit the Investment Adviser Public Disclosure website at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov by searching with FFG’s CRD# 315329.
The projections or other information generated by Monte Carlo analysis tools regarding the likelihood of various investment outcomes are hypothetical in nature, do not reflect actual investment results, and are not guarantees of future results. Results may vary with each use and over time.
