Retirement & Personal Financial Planning
Retirement planning for people quietly asking, “Am I going to be okay?”
There's a moment nobody prepares you for. Not the retirement party. Later. The first month you realize no paycheck is coming, and everything you live on now has to come from decisions instead of a salary.
Our job is making sure that moment feels like a plan working, and not like a leap of faith.
The problems that actually bring people in
Nobody flips the income switch for you
You spent 40 years saving. Turning that pile into a monthly paycheck, from the right accounts, in the right order, is a different skill. The order alone can change your tax bill for a decade.
Tax decisions with ten-year consequences
Roth conversions, RMD timing, Medicare IRMAA surcharges. Decisions you make at 62 quietly set what you pay at 72. Most people find out in reverse.
Rules of thumb built for someone else
The 4% rule was built in the early 1990s around a 30-year retirement and a specific portfolio. Your retirement will not match those assumptions. Your plan shouldn't either.
The noise never stops
Every market drop, election, and shiny new investment idea arrives with a reason to blow up your plan. Half our value is being the steady voice that says: stay the course, here's why.
Traditional IRA account owners have considerations to make before performing a Roth IRA conversion. These primarily include income tax consequences on the converted amount in the year of conversion, withdrawal limitations from a Roth IRA, and income limitations for future contributions to a Roth IRA. In addition, if you are required to take a required minimum distribution (RMD) in the year you convert, you must do so before converting to a Roth IRA.
What retirement planning covers at MFA
Retirement planning here turns savings into a durable income plan: which accounts to draw from and in what order, when to claim Social Security, how to manage tax brackets year by year, what insurance still earns its keep, and how to stay invested sensibly enough to outpace inflation.
Boring works. We can prove it.
After 30-plus years of doing this, the honest report is that the strategies that actually move the needle are rarely the loud ones. Spending less than you make. Automating savings. Diversifying at low cost and refusing to chase whatever's hot. Nobody wants the sermon, and we don't give one. We just build the plan around what works and keep you pointed at it.
Every engagement runs through our Complete Planning and Review process: a complimentary intro call, then a $500 planning engagement that produces a written plan, a personalized tax analysis, and an exact cost breakdown for anything beyond it. If you can execute the plan yourself, we'll say so and hand you the checklist.
The pieces we manage and coordinate
- Retirement income planning: the withdrawal order, the paycheck replacement, the sequence-of-returns reality.
- Social Security timing: when claiming early costs six figures and when it's actually right.
- Tax planning: Roth conversions, bracket management, IRMAA awareness, and the annual tax report we build into every plan.
- Investment management: diversified, low-cost, documented in writing, and priced on a published fee schedule.
- Insurance planning: what to keep, what to drop, and what it's actually for. Commissions disclosed in dollars before you decide.
Go deeper on the pieces
Retirement Income
For forty years, money flowed in and you didn't have to think about where income came from. In retirement, that responsibility transfers to you. Income comes from decisions now, and the order of those decisions matters more than most people realize.
Read the guide→
Social Security
You get one real decision with Social Security: when to turn it on. Most people decide it in the parking lot of a Social Security office, or because a neighbor said take it early. It deserves an afternoon of actual math.
Read the guide→
Tax Planning
Your 1040 is a map of missed opportunities or captured ones. Every planning engagement here includes a personalized tax analysis, because in retirement, taxes are the largest expense you can actually do something about.
Read the guide→
Investment Management
We're not into guessing. Not on elections, not on interest rates, not on whatever's being called the future of investing this quarter. Thirty-plus years of watching flavors of the month has made us comfortable being the boring ones.
Read the guide→
Insurance Planning
At its core, life insurance does one simple thing: it replaces income when someone dies. Somewhere along the way it got dressed up as an investment, a retirement plan, and a tax-free miracle. Our job is telling you which pitch is a tool and which is a trap.
Read the guide→
Questions people actually ask
Earlier than feels necessary. The strategies with the biggest payoff, Roth conversions, Social Security timing, and tax bracket management, need years of runway. Starting the conversation at 55 instead of 63 can lead to a meaningfully different outcome.
Already 63, or 68? Start anyway. The right time was earlier; the second-best time is while options are still open.
Start with a 15-minute call. It's complimentary.
Tell us what's on your plate. We'll tell you honestly whether we can help, and you'll know exactly what working together costs before you commit to anything.
Prefer the phone? Call 410-663-0700 and ask for Colin.