Posts by Travis

This post goes over what happens during a typical first meeting with a financial advisor, red and green flags to watch out for, and important questions to ask during the interview process.

If you ask 100 people this question, you’ll get 100 different answers. There is no one right number that fits everyone, but in this post, Travis shares a framework on how to determine the answer to this question for your circumstances.

Small details on your tax return can have a big impact in retirement. In Part 2 of this series, Travis explores how investment income and capital gains influence taxes, and what retirees can do to improve tax efficiency.

Your tax return is a powerful planning tool. In this article, Travis explores three key numbers on your tax return and explains how they can affect tax brackets, Social Security taxation, and Medicare premiums. Understanding these numbers can help retirees make more intentional decisions and uncover opportunities to reduce taxes now and in the future.

The window of opportunity to make use of the Enhanced Senior Deduction is open right now. For those who qualify, it can be a key tool in their tax plan for 2026.

Baseball wisdom has much in common with investing wisdom. Baseball is an analytical sport filled with numbers and data but is deeply impacted by human behavior. The same is true for investing, where a seemingly foolproof investment plan must be followed to be successful. In today’s post, we’ll look at three quotes from baseball history that also apply to investing.

Many retirees assume their highest tax years are behind them. For some, their biggest tax surprise is still ahead.

It’s difficult to overstate how important Social Security benefits are to retirees in the United States. Consider the following: Social Security benefits typically replace about 40% of pre-retirement income for average earners. The system provides inflation-adjusted benefits to over 70 million Americans. 50% of the senior population rely on Social Security for at least half of their income.

When you’re planning your retirement or already retired, your advisor can add a lot of value in your quest to turn retirement assets into income.

I’ve heard retirement planning described as a web. There are many decisions to make, each one affecting the outcome of others. For example, your withdrawal strategy affects your tax situation. Your decision to keep your home or downsize affects your long-term care planning and taxes. The decisions you make in retirement are harder to reverse because your time horizon is shorter, and thus more impactful.

With Christmas only a week away, it’s starting to come down to the wire on your holiday gift shopping. Ordering items online comes with unreliable shipping delivery dates and the malls are packed right now. If you still have a long list of people to buy Christmas presents for, it’s time to get creative.

The investing world has become more accessible than ever in the past decade. The examples are many: the rise of new trading apps built for mobile use (Robinhood and others). Slices of stock available to purchase with as little as a few dollars. Transaction-free stock trades. Private investments available to purchase that previously were reserved for the ultra-wealthy.

Recently I had a conversation with someone who was planning to retire this year. I asked them what they were looking forward to in retirement. Their response highlighted a shift in how retirees are approaching the next stage of their life: “Babysitting the grandkids. Surfing. Oh and I’m going to do consulting work for a handful of select clients.”

As the year draws to a close, we’re finalizing Roth conversions for many of our clients, taking their income and tax situation into account. We sent out a value-add piece in October to assist with the decision of whether to do a conversion and how much to convert.

Over the past few weeks, the media has attributed November’s financial markets volatility to an “overvalued stock market”. In other words, the current price of company stocks exceeds their intrinsic value when measured using metrics such as Price-to-Earnings ratio and investor sentiment. Layered on top of this discussion is the forewarning of an “AI bubble” given that so much of the market cap-weighted S&P 500 is concentrated in seven companies.

It was late into the evening on December 31, 2019. Fireworks lit up the sky in Honolulu as revelers partied into the new year. I had celebrated with my family earlier in the evening, but now I sat in my apartment with an Excel spreadsheet open on my laptop. I know it sounds very nerdy. But this was something important.

Roth IRAs can be a tax-efficient way to save for retirement, but they also come with one major drawback for many high-income earners: the ability to contribute to a Roth IRA is phased out once you exceed a certain level of income.

Much of the work we do as financial advisors deals with numbers, charts, and projections about the future. Diving into data is necessary to help our clients make good financial decisions. In my view, however, the numbers are secondary to our greater purpose as advisors, which is to understand our client’s wishes and instill in them confidence that our recommendations and guidance will get them where they want to go.

After a lifetime of working, a person approaching retirement will start feeling anxious about the next phase of their life. This is natural – retirement can bring big changes in lifestyle, financial circumstances, and perspective. As financial planners, we often hear from people less than one year from retirement. Their questions vary in topic, but the root of their concern is “getting it right” in retirement.

As the end of the year approaches, your tax situation becomes clearer. Most people are quick to remember that IRA distributions you’ve taken this year and any work earnings are taxable as ordinary income. What’s often missed is the impact of capital gains and losses on your tax bill, which can result in much higher taxes due or missed opportunities to save.