Retirement Planning Services

Are You Looking for Ongoing Retirement, Tax Planning Advice and Investment Management?
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What We Can Help You With

Sharing in your journey is what drives us to provide the highest quality service. We want the best for you, and are passionate about providing fee-only retirement planning results that help set you on course for a life of financial confidence.

We make working with us as accessible as possible through our transparent fee-based services. We also hold fiduciary status, meaning we’re legally bound to put your best interests first, always. We hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards, so you can feel confident that your money is being used to serve YOU, not us.

Retirement Planning

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Social Security Timing

Tax Planning

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Medicare Options

Retirement Income

Investment Management

Fee-Only Retirement Planning provided by CFP Brian Bickett

Retirement Planning 

We help you understand your lifestyle today, and how that might translate into retirement given your current saving, spending and income. We also examine how you spend time, and how that will change in retirement. Each situation is unique, and we help you craft a meaningful life during retirement that you can feel proud of.

Our retirement planning services help you reach your goals while managing the risk of running out of money.

We want to give you confidence and clarity so you can spend time doing the things that are most important to you.

We use an advanced financial planning software to build your plan, track its success rate, adjust for life’s unknowns, and communicate the results with you in plain English.

Fee-Only Retirement Tax Planning provided by CFP Brian Bickett

Tax Planning & Preparation

This involves reviewing your tax returns and analyzing how to minimize your taxes in retirement and throughout your lifetime. We do this in coordination with our financial planning and investment management processes. We review your previous year’s tax return in the spring and look for tax planning opportunities as well as projecting your current year tax return to help prevent over or under withholding. Late in the fall, we update the current year tax projection and discuss if any year-end strategies would be of benefit for your situation.  Roth conversions, RMD’s, QCD’s, bunching charitable donations, and Roth or Traditional IRA contributions are common tax planning topics.
 
Without careful planning, it’s very possible to have a higher tax bill in retirement than when you were working.
 
In addition to our Tax Planning, we can coordinate the preparation and filing of your tax returns through Iron Mountain Tax Services, a separate company that’s under common ownership with Iron Mountain Financial Planning, LLC.  We also partner with local CPA’s and attorneys to coordinate outside expert tax and legal services for our clients.
Fee-Only Retirement Tax Planning provided by CFP Brian Bickett
Fee-Only Retirement Income Planning provided by CFP Brian Bickett

Retirement Income

This is where we coordinate the various sources of income available to you to support YOUR version of retirement.  Crafting a plan of when to start pensions, identifying when an annuity makes sense (and when it doesn’t), how to turn retirement accounts into monthly income while maintaining flexibility, and which retirement accounts to turn on and when to turn them off. 

All of this is done while maintaining the perspective of how best to support your retirement plan while maintaining flexibility and minimizing your lifetime taxes.

We structure your retirement income plan so that the right amount of funds arrive in your checking account at the right time to support you in your retirement plan.

Fee-Only Social Security Planning provided by CFP Brian Bickett

Social Security Timing

As you approach retirement, the subject of when to start Social Security retirement benefits becomes a more frequent topic and more than one of your friends and family will gladly tell you what is best for you.

As retirement income and tax planning specialists, we help you determine the best time to collect Social Security based on your individual situation and YOUR version of retirement.  Relevant factors to consider include your Full Retirement Age (FRA), family health conditions, spousal benefits, survivor benefits, the Retirement Earnings Test (RET), how Social Security retirement benefits are taxed, personal preferences and philosophy as well as the utility of your hard-earned benefits.  For many, an extra  $2,500 a month at age 67 is of much more use than an additional $600 a month at age 84.

This is a good place to note that Brian is the instructor of the “Making Social Security Benefits Work for You” class put on in the Spring and Fall in coordination with the Community Education of the Black Hills.

By analyzing your entire financial picture, we are able to choose a Social Security timing strategy that reduces your tax bill in retirement and optimizes your income stream.

Fee-Only Social Security Planning provided by CFP Brian Bickett
Fee-Only Retirement Medicare Options Planning provided by CFP Brian Bickett

Medicare Options

This is one decision that you need to get right the first time – how are you going to manage healthcare costs during retirement? 

Medicare is the obvious answer for most everyone, but the truth is you don’t just sign up for Medicare and be done.  You still need to decide whether to stick with Original Medicare only, or if a Medicare Advantage or Medigap Plan makes sense for you – and which one.  Then you need to decide how you are going to cover prescription drug costs – does a separate drug plan (Part D) make sense for you and, if so, which one?  

While we do not sell any Medicare policies, we do help with the selection of the Medicare options that best fits your health and financial situation.

Investment Management

Investments don’t have to be complicated. We’re committed to helping you understand what you own and how building wealth and financial security works. As such, we developed a simple but sophisticated and disciplined approach to investing, and purposely guide your through it so you can easily understand what’s happening.

Our investment portfolios are carefully designed to help retirement investors reduce risk, improve returns, and create a reliable income stream. 

As a fiduciary, our job is to make investment decisions that are in your best interest. This means ignoring the daily headlines and sticking with evidence-based solutions.

Want to learn more about creating income in retirement?

If you are ready to reach your retirement planning goals without the risk of running out of money, we're ready to help!
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