How We Can Help
Keystone Advanced Retirement SolutionsOur Services
Retirement Income Planning
Life Insurance
Maximizing Social Security
Efficient Tax Planning
Wealth Management
Long-Term Care
Wealth Management or Wealth Planning. We’re Here to Help.
Retirement Income Planning
When most people think about their retirement, they might think about how much they have saved or how much is in their IRA. If they’re lucky, they may be able to estimate the monthly amounts of a generous pension plan.
If you work with a financial advisor, they look at the situation a little differently. They’ll look at every dollar coming next to those going out. Retirement income is a way to replace your current income. It’s quickly become the gold standard in retirement solutions, and for good reason.
Retirement Income Planning
When most people think about their retirement, they might think about how much they have saved or how much is in their IRA. If they’re lucky, they may be able to estimate the monthly amounts of a generous pension plan.
If you work with a financial advisor, they look at the situation a little differently. They’ll look at every dollar coming next to those going out. Retirement income is a way to replace your current income. It’s quickly become the gold standard in retirement solutions, and for good reason.
What Is Secure Retirement Income?
If someone asked you “How much do I need to retire?”, chances are you would freeze in your tracks. You certainly could give them a round number, like a million dollars or a hefty percentage of their current income, but this wouldn’t be very helpful to the person who asked. If you feel the same way about your own retirement, you’re not alone.
Secure retirement income refers to guaranteed revenue streams that you collect during your retirement. Just like your current income likely comes from investments, your employer, and any other profit-sharing ventures you may have, retirement income relies on anything from Social Security checks to part-time job income to replace what you lose after you retire.
So what’s the best retirement income for you? This depends on both your circumstances and your lifestyle. Some people can supplement the majority of their retirement income with a pension plan, but most will need to explore other avenues. Some will purchase rental properties to generate cashflow, others may look for ways to express their passions and still make a little money, like pouring wine or giving music lessons.
If you’re wondering how to plan your retirement income, the staff at Keystone Advanced Retirement Solutions is here to help. Before you reach your retirement age, you can start putting the pieces of the puzzle together — so you have every dollar accounted for by the time you reach your last day on the job.
Life Insurance
For some people, life insurance is little more than a practical decision. Maybe they have children and take out a policy to cover their descendants until the youngest reaches the age of 18. After that, they consider their obligations met and they don’t think about it again. For most people, though, life insurance is a bigger question about how to help their families navigate a difficult time. With the right financial advisor, you can learn more about how life insurance complements the rest of your assets, giving you a better idea of what type of policy you need.
How to Choose a Life Insurance Policy in the Tri-State Area
The right life insurance policy isn’t necessarily based on your current level of wealth, though that is always a consideration. A term life insurance policy is as practical as it is affordable, offering an expiration date that the policyholder dictates. It doesn’t offer you a savings component, meaning you can’t tap into it if you run into an emergency, nor does it offer flexible terms to the policyholder.
The issue is that some people will take out a term policy only to find that their priorities change as the years pass. For example, you might decide that you want to cover your spouse with a permanent policy — particularly if your spouse runs into any health concerns down the line. By the time your term insurance passes you by, the rates will likely have gone way up. In addition, many people end up using their policy in a way that they didn’t anticipate. The right insurance policy can be an asset during your retirement as opposed to just another expense.
If you have questions about the right carrier and plan for you, the staff at Keystone Advanced Retirement Solutions can help you find the best path. Serving the tri-state area, we’re a boutique retirement firm that can help you get your golden years in order — no matter who you want to cover and how you plan to spend your wealth.
Maximizing Social Security
Social Security has morphed from its original 32-page iteration in the 1930s. Today’s federal law is unrecognizable to yesterday’s promises. Considering that there are so many amendments to the act (and that it can theoretically undergo radical adjustments in any given year), it shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that the standard online estimators aren’t always accurate. If you’re looking for a smarter way to approach this complex program, a financial advisor may be able to help.
Should You Maximize Social Security?
Whether to maximize Social Security is not always an obvious one for everyone. If you don’t have a very good opinion of the program, it may seem like a waste of time to go through every line item in order to make a few extra pennies every month. You may think that your time is better off spent diversifying your investments rather than trusting an untrustworthy system.
However, while it would be a mistake to count on Social Security as your sole source of income, it wouldn’t be a mistake to try to maximize your benefits. Most people don’t realize what’s available to them, both before and after they file, simply because it’s impossible to understand the program without putting in the time and effort. If you work with a financial advisor, you not only get the benefit of their expertise, but you can see how Social Security works in context with the rest of your portfolio — and the rest of your secure retirement income.
Remember that your benefits depend on your individual career path, so you can’t make assumptions based on anecdotes from neighbors and friends. At Keystone Advanced Retirement Solutions, you’ll learn how to maximize Social Security, so you can pay for more standard monthly expenses without having to rely on your savings. You can also combine that income with other income sources, like rental checks from rental properties or a pension plan, so you’ll have new income coming in — as opposed to dipping into your emergency funds.
What Is Secure Retirement Income?
If someone asked you “How much do I need to retire?”, chances are you would freeze in your tracks. You certainly could give them a round number, like a million dollars or a hefty percentage of their current income, but this wouldn’t be very helpful to the person who asked. If you feel the same way about your own retirement, you’re not alone.
Secure retirement income refers to guaranteed revenue streams that you collect during your retirement. Just like your current income likely comes from investments, your employer, and any other profit-sharing ventures you may have, retirement income relies on anything from Social Security checks to part-time job income to replace what you lose after you retire.
So what’s the best retirement income for you? This depends on both your circumstances and your lifestyle. Some people can supplement the majority of their retirement income with a pension plan, but most will need to explore other avenues. Some will purchase rental properties to generate cashflow, others may look for ways to express their passions and still make a little money, like pouring wine or giving music lessons.
If you’re wondering how to plan your retirement income, the staff at Keystone Advanced Retirement Solutions is here to help. Before you reach your retirement age, you can start putting the pieces of the puzzle together — so you have every dollar accounted for by the time you reach your last day on the job.
Efficient Tax Planning
When as many as 20 million Americans overpay their taxes for one reason or another, efficient tax planning may be a more lucrative financial principle than most people realize. Unfortunately, outside of financial circles, these tips and tricks aren’t really well-known, which is why most people never capitalize on the tenets. Luckily, if you have questions, especially if your retirement is drawing ever closer, a financial advisor can help you pull everything together.
How Efficient Tax Planning Works
It can be somewhat painful to painstakingly calculate what you give to state, federal, and local governments year after year. This is just part of the reason why millions of Americans end up overpaying, even as they struggle to name every deduction and itemize every receipt. A CPA can go a long way to help you avoid unnecessary tips, but because they only know a small sliver of your retirement plans, they can’t map out your financial future the same way that an advisor can.
Efficient tax planning refers to safe money management strategies based on your long-term goals. So, if you sell an asset that has spiked in value and you plan to continue investing after the sale, you can potentially avoid capital gains by filing for a 1031 exchange. Or you might set up a foundation to give more money to the causes you care about. A financial advisor can not only make personalized suggestions during tax season, they can give you the advice you need to make smarter decisions year-round.
If you’re looking for a partner you can trust, you can find qualified experts at Keystone Advanced Retirement Solutions. At the right boutique retirement firm, you can get a better sense of not just where your money goes, but how it impacts your present and future financial goals. Whether you plan on living a lavish or more modest retirement, the reality is that better tax planning can set you up for the life you want to lead tomorrow.
Wealth Management
When you’re first starting out in your career, wealth management may not seem like much of a chore at all. It ends up looking like standard financial advice — coming down to saving your pennies and investing in the most lucrative opportunities when you have the chance. Of course, by the time you amass all your assets, wealth management looks very different. You not only have to keep track of every commodity and account, you have to try to predict what’s coming around the bend.
Why Consult a Financial Advisor for Wealth Management
The reason why wealthy people work with a financial advisor to manage their wealth isn’t necessarily because they can’t do it themselves. After all, if you built your portfolio on your own, you likely have enough talent to manage it on your own. The reason why you might contact an advisor at a boutique retirement firm like Keystone Advanced Retirement Solutions is because you don’t have the time or the wherewithal to keep up with it all.
If you’re happy with the amount of personal wealth you have and you want to both protect your holdings and grow them when you can, the best thing that you can do is work with an advisor who can see the bigger story behind your portfolio. So, if you need to diversify your investments, rein them in, drop the least profitable accounts, or simply stay ahead of the changing markets, you don’t have to worry about whether you missed something that could end up drastically impacting your bottom line.
While a financial advisor can’t predict the future, they have more than a baseline understanding of the economy. They also know what you’re planning for the future, whether that’s financing your grandchild’s med school or taking a first-class trip around the world. When you apply wealth management principles to other retirement tenets, like maximizing Social Security and engineering a tax-free retirement, you might be surprised at just how far wealth management can go to protect you.
Long-Term Care
If you’ve ever heard stories about medical debt, chances are they stuck with you. As the rate of chronic conditions continue to rise, younger and younger people struggle with life-threatening illnesses. It’s nearly impossible not to consider how you would pay for your expenses if you had a long road to recovery ahead of you. If you’re interested in safeguarding your estate, long-term care may be a viable option to protect you and your loved one. Of course, before you take the plunge, you might want to talk to a financial advisor first.
The Benefits of Long-Term Care Insurance
Long-term care (LTC) refers to a special type of insurance policy, one that you can use if you’re seriously ill or injured. It would be easy to label LTC as a type of healthcare insurance, but the truth is that it doesn’t cover standard healthcare expenses. Instead of paying for your doctor’s visits, prescriptions, and surgeries, it pays for the assistance you’ll need during your recovery.
So, if you need a professional to clean your house, help you get dressed, sort out your medication, or run a few errands, you’ll have the support you need. With long-term care, you can spend up to six times less than a person without this insurance policy. At Keystone Advanced Retirement Solutions, you’ll work with knowledgeable advisors who can help you understand where and how an LTC policy integrates with the rest of your retirement goals.
LTC can be a very helpful solution for some people, but for others, it’s nothing more than a financial drain. Carriers have increased the costs of these policies alongside the rising costs of aides. You can end up spending far more on the policy than you imagine without reaping any of the benefits. The right financial advisor can not only recommend the best carriers, they walk you through some of the more complicated scenarios — including what happens if you never need to tap into this expensive policy — so you don’t end up with a money pit.