Retirement Planning Services

In Colorado Springs

Retirement planning helps answer two vital questions: What will you do after you retire, and how will you finance it? This means evaluating the financial impact of what you want to do after you complete your career: the finances look very different if you want to take off on a round-the-world trip for multiple years than if you would like to continue working part-time because you love the work. 

Retirement planning also includes the decisions you are making now in order to have the assets you will need and want when you reach retirement age. This means understanding the types of retirement accounts available to you, the benefits and drawbacks of each, and the contributions you should be making at different stages of your life. For this reason, anyone can benefit from a retirement planning strategy session, no matter how young.

Your retirement plan should include the following:

A Strategy for Investing in Retirement Savings Accounts.

Our financial planners will help you prioritize where your retirement savings should spend the years between now and retirement. Many retirement planning professionals will recommend starting with employer-sponsored 401(k) or 403(b) accounts; not only are these accounts tax-advantaged, your employer often also offers a match of some percentage of the money you put in, which can significantly boost your savings with essentially free, extra money. After you have maximized the offered match, you may explore Traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, and other specialized savings instruments, like Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). Since you may not be able to contribute up to the legal limit in all of these accounts every year, your financial planner can aid you in allocating your contributions in a savvy way.

A General Understanding of Your Post-Retirement Budget.

While you do not have to schedule your daily itineraries for retirement, it is wise to consider what you will want to live on during retirement. If you plan to travel extensively, you may need 120% to 150% of your current income in order to accomplish this, while you may be fine with 70% of your current income if you already save extensively and plan to continue working in some capacity in retirement. Our financial planners will help you evaluate all potential sources of retirement income, including social security, and decide the amount of assets you need in order to sustainably live off your investments for the rest of your life without depleting them.

Investing and Asset Allocation.

After you develop a retirement plan, you may want advice about changing your investment strategy. For instance, you may begin with a particularly aggressive retirement plan that invests your money in higher-yield, riskier investments early in your career to maximize your compound interest. As you near retirement, however, you and your financial planner will want to discuss how to make your investments more stable with at least a base level of growth over time, to avoid the risk of losing a large chunk of your savings close to retirement.

Financial planners offer services that include a wealth of expertise on the value of various retirement plans and investments. When making a choice to start own business or grow that business to include multiple employees, you will want to evaluate who will provide the retirement savings plans for you and your employees. A financial planner can help to compare options and choose a provider. Altus Wealth Group can help you select from the available funds within your employer-sponsored accounts in order to maximize returns and minimize fees. Our financial planners can also help to chart a big-picture strategy. If, for instance, your current rate of savings does not land you at your ideal number by your anticipated retirement age, your discussion with an Altus Wealth Group advisor can help to determine how much more you need to make or how much less you need to spend in order to make those goals a reality.

Retirement planning can help you realize now, rather than down the road, what steps will bring you the reality you want in your retirement. Too often, people make vague plans and discover themselves not yet ready to retire at their desired age. Planning ahead with an expert in the field can help to maximize your return on investment so that you have the best possible nest egg to fund your retirement.