How to Maximize Your Savings and Boost Your Retirement Income | Tim Streid & Dr. Mart McClellan

How to Maximize Your Savings and Boost Your Retirement Income

Are you set for retirement? Does your current retirement plan make the most of the money you’re saving and guarantee a steady retirement income? We help our dentist clients do just that and prepare for retirement using our unique approach to financial planning. Here are some of the main principles, and how they can help you maximize your retirement, too.

Ignore Bad Advice

Much of our advice is unconventional, and we’re proud of that. Because a lot of the advice you’ve been hearing for years, like automatically maxing out retirement plan contributions and paying off debt early, aren’t always the best strategies for optimal wealth accumulation and maximum retirement income. Forget the old advice that doesn’t work, and open your mind to new ways of building wealth and retiring rich.

Disciplined Savings Habit

In order to maximize what you save, you need to establish a savings habit. We recommend saving a minimum of 15% of your income every year. Any less than this, and you’ll actually be going backwards due to wealth-eroding factors like inflation. Saving at a higher rate is even better, but at a minimum, commit to saving 15% of your gross annual income.

Be a Rainmaker

The “rainmakers,” including corporations and banks, are excellent at making money. And they make money by doing the opposite of what they tell you to do! Traditional advice says to lock your dollar away in an investment that will grow over time, but rainmakers do the opposite, getting multiple uses out of every single dollar that comes their way – and making money on it every time they do. With the right plan, you can do the exact same thing, and not just accumulate wealth, but accelerate it.

Increase Income Streams

Most of our clients plan to rely on an average of three income streams in retirement, typically their 401K, Social Security, and proceeds from the sale of their practice (if applicable). But the IRS reports that multimillionaires have an average of seven! Increasing the number of income streams is a big boon to your retirement income and isn’t as difficult as it might sound.

Go for Guarantees

We believe a retirement plan is only worthwhile if it can withstand all of life’s unknowns. A single natural disaster, stock market crash, unexpected lawsuit, serious illness or disability, or other emergency could substantially reduce your savings and put your retirement in jeopardy. That’s why we like guarantees, including maxed-out insurance and income streams that are guaranteed in retirement, like annuities. Guarantees give peace of mind, which is priceless.

Holistic Financial Planning

These are just some of the main principles we employ when creating Financial Treatment Plans for our dentist clients. Our goal is to help them plan for a retirement income that’s 100% of their pre-retirement income – i.e., take no pay cut in retirement.

If it sounds too good to be true, it’s not. It just takes deliberate, holistic planning. Check out our website and our book, Your Retirement Smile to learn more.

What's the most effective way to transition from career to retirement? | Tim Streid & Mart McClellan

What’s the most effective way to transition from career to retirement?

Many people dream of retirement, fantasizing about the day they can finally stop working and start doing exactly what they want. It sounds amazing! But transitioning from work to retirement can be unexpectedly difficult. This is especially true if you’ve worked your entire adult life in a field you’re passionate about, which is the case for most of our dentist clients.

We’ve found that having the right approach to savings during your working years and the right plan for your financial future can help ease this transition.

Why Retiring Can Be Challenging

If you’re a dentist who loves your work, you might find it challenging to step back from a career (and perhaps a practice) you’ve built over decades. People often miss the structure of a schedule, the camaraderie, and the sense of purpose work brings.

Another big change is a sudden drop in income. After years of money steadily flowing in, retirement often brings this steady flow to a drip.

The unfortunate truth is that, according to a 2010 report from the American Dental Association, most dentists take a pay cut that equals 50% of their pre-retirement income. Only 5% of dentists are positioned to retire “comfortably,” according to the report. A pay cut of this magnitude could mean substantially changing your day-to-day lifestyle or even giving up some dreams you had for retirement, like taking that round-the-world trip.

The good news is that you don’t have to accept average. You can be one of the 5%.

How to Ease the Transition from Career to Retirement

We’ve found that planning for a financial future where retirement income is 100% of pre-retirement income is an excellent way to help our clients make the life-changing transition from career to retirement. While it may sound too good to be true, with the right savings and the right planning, it’s entirely possible.

We help many of our clients achieve this goal by creating a holistic Financial Treatment Plan. Some of the foundational principles of our approach include:

  • Emphasizing a savings of a minimum of 15% of gross income annually during working years
  • Focusing on wealth distribution as much as wealth accumulation to avoid needlessly losing money to fees and taxes
  • Using each dollar multiple times to make money at lower returns, which accelerates wealth building and reduces risk
  • Leveraging financial products that provide guaranteed income, such as annuities
  • Protecting everything with a “wrapper” that includes maximum insurance

Much of our approach is unconventional – we purposely avoid conventional wisdom that doesn’t create an exceptional financial future. But when conventional wisdom means taking a 50% pay cut in retirement, it’s time for a new approach.

Plan Your Financial Future Today

Learn more about our approach to helping our dentist clients retire with 100% of their pre-retirement income by going to our website and checking out our book, Your Retirement Smile. No matter how far away retirement is, you can take steps now to secure your financial future and ease your transition from career to retirement.

Spring into Savings | Tim Streid & Dr. Mart McClellan

Spring into Savings

No matter how much income you earn, you’ll never build wealth without saving. This seems painfully obvious, yet we see many people who don’t save enough, and more still who miss opportunities to save.

That’s because most people think about saving only in terms of setting aside money during their working years. They completely ignore the opportunities to save during their post-working years. This is when a holistic view of your financial plan and smart tax prep strategies come into play.

Let’s look at savings opportunities during both phases.

Saving in the wealth accumulation phase

During your working years, we recommend saving a minimum of 15% of your gross yearly income (more is better!) to combat wealth eroders like taxes and inflation.

Where should this money go? Well, for most of our dentist clients, their 401(k) is the cornerstone of their retirement plan. However, we recommend putting no more than half of the money you’re saving into your 401(k). With a 401(k) as your main retirement vehicle, there’s too much pressure on it to perform well, and too much to lose if the market goes down right as you’re approaching retirement (as we saw recently during the Great Recession).

Instead, diversify. In addition to contributing to a 401(k), a diversified retirement plan can include things like after-tax investments, municipal bonds, income-producing real estate, and more.

Saving in the wealth distribution phase

It’s during the wealth distribution phase of your retirement years you’ll find “hidden” opportunities for saving. That’s because every dollar you don’t have to pay out in taxes and fees is a dollar saved. Plan ahead and you can avoid a lot of these expenses that eat away at retirement income.

It starts with taking a longer-term view of tax prep rather than simply looking to maximize deductions year by year. When you do this, you may realize that some elements of your retirement plan aren’t as robust as they first appear.

For instance, going back to the 401(k): When our dentist clients first come to see us, they invariable list the value of their 401(k) under their assets, but rarely (never) list the corresponding taxes they’ll pay upon distribution under liabilities. This leads to a false sense of security. But it also illuminates other opportunities; maybe there’s a better place to put your savings to maximize wealth and reduce taxes instead of automatically investing the maximum in your 401(k). It just takes the right approach to your financial plan.

Think holistically

Smart wealth-building saving is more than setting aside some money every month and relying on a 401(k). For the best results, you need a holistic view of your financial plan to understand how each and every decision you make affects your retirement savings and your financial future.

Learn more about our approach to creating a holistic Financial Treatment Plan and our goal to help our dentist clients retire with 100% of their pre-income retirement by visiting our website and checking out our book, Your Retirement Smile.

The Pros of a Wealth Professional | Tim Streid & Dr. Mart McClellan

The Pros of a Wealth Professional

Michael Jordan did it all on his own. Same with Rocky Balboa. Serena Williams, too. Right?

Wrong. If you know anything about sports (or movies), you know these athletes only achieved what they did because they had a coach by their side helping them improve their game.

We believe experts like coaches are helpful in areas of life beyond sports. Actors, musicians, CEOs, and other high achievers often use professional services like coaches to help them reach their full potential.

As a dentist looking to grow your wealth and plan for retirement, you can benefit from a pro, too. Here’s why we believe it’s smart to work with a wealth professional.

Why DIY Doesn’t Work

Our clients are dentists so they’re smart people who’ve all earned an advanced degree in a difficult field. Many are also successful business owners, running their own practice. Because they’re so smart in certain areas, many feel certain they can figure this “money thing” out on their own without the help of a financial planner.

The fact is that between day-to-day work, running a business, continuing education, and enjoying some free time, most dentists don’t have the bandwidth to keep up on the latest in the financial world and tax law. Even fewer have the interest. So when they decide to manage their financial future all on their own, they’re making decisions and taking action based on incomplete or outdated information.

This is not the way to become wealthy and stay wealthy through retirement.

Advantages of Working with a Wealth Professional

We’re big fans of DIY when it comes to woodworking and painting; not so much when it comes to planning for your retirement. For that, we recommend having not just one pro in your corner, but several.

Depending on your situation, you may want an accountant, estate planning attorney, investment advisor, and other professional services provider on your team, all sharing valuable insights and ideas. Each of these experts knows more than any dentist could hope to learn in their free time as a DIYer, and they bring valuable experience to the table, too.

Bringing it all together is a macroadvisor. This is the pro who sees the big and connects all the dots. As macroadvisors, we help our clients sift through all the information and advice to develop a financial plan that’s right for them.

We All Need Help to Succeed

Would you tell a patient of yours to drill their own cavity? Or straighten their own teeth? Of course not! You’d advise them to find a skilled and experienced dentist.

The same is true for you when it comes to professional services like financial planning. Part of being successful is being able to recognize areas you could use some help in and getting that help, and for most people, that includes finances and retirement planning.

To learn more about macroadvisors and how to retire on 100% of your pre-retirement income, check out our book, Your Retirement Smile, or visit our website.

Reducing Expenses for Retirement Without Sacrificing Your Lifestyle | Dr. Mart McClellan & Tim Streid

Reducing Expenses for Retirement Without Sacrificing Your Lifestyle

In the world of traditional financial planning, clients are often put on a budget in order to reduce spending and increase savings for retirement accounts. By cutting out that daily latte you love or eliminating your monthly cable bill and investing that money instead, they say, you’ll end up a millionaire by 65.

We don’t agree with this approach. Part of our philosophy is that you can enjoy life now while at the same time setting yourself up for a very secure – and very comfortable – retirement.

So while we believe in the idea of maximizing your retirement, we don’t believe in cutting out the little pleasures of life to do it. Instead, when you take a holistic approach to planning with the aim of retiring with 100% of your pre-retirement income (yes, it’s possible!), then you’ll find places to cut costs. Here are two that you may not have considered before.

Term life insurance

We don’t recommend term life insurance (except as a short-term solution in select situations) even though it’s less expensive than whole. The problem is that term life costs you in three different ways: the premiums, the associated opportunity costs, and, going by the statistics, the loss of the payout itself (approximately 99% of people outlive their term life policies).

Whole life insurance is a cornerstone of our clients’ Financial Treatment Plan. But for most people, term life isn’t fundamental to their financial plan; it’s an expense in their budget. If you’re paying premiums for term life insurance because you were told to get it but don’t know how it fits in with your retirement plan, then this could be an expense to cut.

Unnecessary fees and commissions

We see far too many dentists paying outrageous fees for financial planning that falls short and/or commissions on products that aren’t a good fit. Many go to a planner, get a fancy plan in a three-ring binder (which then sits on the shelf), and every so often meet with their financial planner to hear about the latest financial product that they absolutely need to get in on now (for a hefty fee, of course).

This is no way to approach retirement planning! Why is it that the financial products suggested two years ago are no longer good products? If the plan had been sound from the beginning and truly created with a long-term view, then the planner wouldn’t call like clockwork every year or two to fundamentally change it. Paying fees and commissions for this type of piecemeal, incohesive retirement planning is not a good use of money and should be cut from your budget.

Enjoy life now

You’re working hard to become the best dentist you can be and build a thriving practice – do you really have to wait decades to enjoy the fruits of your labors? We say no. You can live your life now without sacrificing your lifestyle and build strong retirement accounts. To learn how, check out our book, Your Retirement Smile, or visit our website.

The Spirit of Giving | Tim Streid & Dr. Mart McClellan

The Spirit of Giving

Most of us have an urge to give. We want to share the wealth and do good in the world. More than half of Americans donate to charity every year, and these donations add up to over $1 billion – every single day.

But some people hesitate to engage in charitable financial giving over concerns that if they give too much away, they won’t have enough for retirement.

If you’re a would-be giver, we have some strategies that not only allow for (generous) charitable giving but actually help strengthen your financial position, too. Impossible? Not at all.

More Than One Way to Give

Write a check, deduct the amount on your taxes (if it’s large enough), and that’s the end of it – or so most people think. While this is the most common way to give to charity, it’s not the only way.

In our financial planning philosophy, we believe in getting more than one use out of every dollar you touch. This is how you see financial gains more quickly and with less risk. And it’s not just applicable to building wealth but to charitable giving, too.

So when considering donating to a worthy cause, first rid yourself of the idea that there’s only one way to do it, because that mindset is likely holding you back from giving generously.

Strategies to Strengthen Your Financial Position Through Giving

When we create a Financial Treatment Plan with one of our dentist clients, we have a number of smart financial giving strategies to choose from. Let’s look at a few briefly.

One strategy is to “turbo tithe” where, instead of giving cash, you give in the form of stocks or some other asset while eliminating capital gains taxes. Then you repurchase that same stock or asset, now at a new cost basis that will save you on capital gains taxes in the future when you go to sell. Not only have you given to a worthy cause, but you’ve also saved on capital gains – twice.

For large donations, other options include setting up a charitable remainder annuity trust (CRAT) or a charitable remainder unitrust (CRUT). Trusts are great tools to protect your assets, ensure money goes where you want it to go, potentially save on taxes, and even bring your family or chosen cause a steady income stream. If you decide on a trust, work with a financial professional and an estate planning attorney to make sure it’s set up correctly.

Enjoying Your Money Now

Many people choose to leave money to charity in their last will rather than donate during their lifetime. But wouldn’t you like to see the impact your donation could have in the world now? We believe in enjoying your money now, and that includes enjoying the satisfaction of being a generous donor.

For more about smart financial giving strategies, retiring with 100% of your income, and more, check out our book that helps dentists plan for a rich retirement, Your Retirement Smile, and visit our website.

 

Source for $1 billion statistic in the first paragraph:

https://givingusa.org/giving-usa-2020-charitable-giving-showed-solid-growth-climbing-to-449-64-billion-in-2019-one-of-the-highest-years-for-giving-on-record/

Beyond Social Security and 401Ks - The Real Need for Savings | Tim Streid & Mart McClellan

Beyond Social Security and 401Ks – The Real Need for Savings

Simply put, the most important factor when it comes to building wealth is your ability to save as much money as you can. Even a very high rate of return can’t build significant wealth if the initial investment is too low.

If your goal is to retire very comfortably (and for us, that means planning so our clients replace their current income 100% in retirement), then you need to make savings a priority. Here’s how and why.

The trouble with relying too heavily on 401Ks and Social Security

One of the most common savings vehicles is the 401K retirement account. That, along with Social Security income and proceeds from selling their practice, is what most dentists rely on when it comes time to retire.

However, the problem with 401Ks and Social Security is that the income is not guaranteed. As we saw just 10 years ago with the Great Recession, a recession could unexpectedly wipe out a substantial portion of the savings you were counting on to see you through your golden years. And unless Congress overhauls Social Security soon, the program will run out of excess funds by 2035, meaning there won’t be enough to pay beneficiaries the full amount of the benefits they’re expecting.

While we do believe that 401Ks have a place in retirement planning, we also believe it shouldn’t be the centerpiece.

Savings to combat wealth erosion

When we create a Financial Treatment Plan for one of our clients, one of the first pieces of the puzzle is to establish three foundational elements. One of those three is a disciplined savings rate of no less than 15% of one year’s gross household income. For example, if your gross income is $300,000, we’d like to see you putting aside $45,000 to invest in your Financial Treatment Plan.

Why 15%? Because this is the minimum reliable rate to combat wealth-eroding factors such as taxes and inflation. Wealth-eroding factors eat into your wealth twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year, and will turn your dollars into pennies if you’re not proactive with your retirement planning.

Making the most of your 15%

Now that you’ve saved 15% of your gross annual income, you need to make it work for you. It certainly won’t fight wealth-eroding factors sitting under your mattress.

Instead, we help our clients build wealth by keeping their money in motion. We show them how to get more than one use out of every dollar and how to collect smaller rates of return with lower levels of risk multiple times to build the wealth they want over time.

Plan now to retire well later

Are you ready to reassess your retirement account planning and try something new? Our goal is to help dentists replace 100% of their pre-retirement income so they don’t have to sacrifice during their golden years.

To learn more how you can do the same, visit our website and check out our book on retirement planning written for dentists, Your Retirement Smile

Optimizing Your Financial Life | Dr. Mart McClellan & Tim Streid

Optimizing Your Financial Life

What does optimizing finances look like to you? Maybe you think of putting as much as possible into your retirement accounts, or moving money around to take advantage of certain tax breaks.

We see it differently. To effectively optimize finances, you need a holistic approach that considers all three phases of wealth – accumulation, distribution, and preservation – and creates a plan that builds wealth while giving you the peace of mind that’s absent from traditional financial planning.

Here’s how:

Mindset Shift

The majority of dentists retire with just 50% of their income. Does this sound good to you? While it may be acceptable, we don’t believe acceptable is good enough. We want our clients to retire with 100% of their income. It sounds challenging, yet it’s doable.

Your first step to optimizing your finances is to shift your mindset and believe that yes, it’s possible to retire without a pay cut, and yes, you can retire without a pay cut, too, with the right planning.

Out with the Old

Next, it’s time to let go of the “conventional wisdom” you’ve heard for years from financial gurus and traditional financial planners, such as paying down all debt fast and buying term life insurance. Because if your goal is to build exceptional wealth and retire with a high-income stream, this advice doesn’t work.

We take a different approach to building wealth and some of our recommendations may seem counterintuitive at first, but they work as part of the whole Financial Treatment Plan. For instance: Some debt can be good. Whole life insurance and annuities provide guaranteed income. Distribution is just as important as accumulation.

You will be surprised at what your financial future looks like when you throw off the age-old advice and open your mind to something new.

Gather Your Team

We mostly work with dentists, smart, educated people who work hard for their success. But we see the vast majority of them make the same mistake, and that’s not putting the right team in place to help them with their finances. They may rely on a single financial advisor, or – worse – they try to do it all themselves.

This is a mistake. We recommend you have a team giving you the financial support you need, including an accountant, an attorney, an investment advisor, and so forth, each one an expert in their particular area, plus one macro advisor to advise you on the big picture. We also recommend that any financial advisor you work with is a fiduciary, who is duty-bound to act in your best interest.

Start Now

Too many people let their financial life happen to them, and they end up taking a pay cut of 50% in retirement. However, this doesn’t have to be your financial future. The sooner you start, the better the position you’ll be in to retire with 100% of your income and the peace of mind you want.

Interested in learning more? Check out our book, Your Retirement Smile, or visit our website.

How Much Do I Need to Retire? | Tim Streid & Dr. Mart McClellan | Your Retirement Smile

How Much Do I Need to Retire?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions by people thinking about retirement planning. In order to answer the question “How much money do I need to retire?”, you need to answer these other questions first:

  • What will inflation be like between now and the time you retire?
  • How will tax and retirement plan laws change and how will that affect your financial future?
  • How will your family, lifestyle, and needs change in that time?
  • Will you face any unexpected catastrophes between now and your death?
  • When will you die?

Clearly these questions are impossible to answer. Our point is that the question of how much you need to retire is not as straightforward as it seems. In fact, we think it’s the wrong question to ask in the first place.

The real question is, “How do I best position and utilize my assets so that I can maximize income in retirement?”

Retirement Planning Is More Than Accumulation

One big issue with the question “How much do I need to retire?” is that it’s focused on accumulation. What it’s really asking is, “How big should my nest egg be?”

While you will never get where you want to be without good saving habits, accumulation is only part of the puzzle. There’s another equally important part that’s typically overlooked in most retirement planning, and that’s distribution. Distribution is about planning in advance how you’ll get your money out for steady cash flow in retirement. A retirement plan that overlooks distribution planning can cost you significant amounts of money.

Plus, the typical accumulation-focused retirement planning advice tells you to lock your money away for decades at a time and let it grow without touching it. But when you do this, you get only one use out of each dollar. Instead, with smart planning you can get more than one use out of each dollar in a way that can maximize your wealth.

Is There a 50% Pay Cut in Your Financial Future?

Retirement automatically means having less income. At least, that’s what we’ve been taught to believe.

Most dentists take a 50% pay cut when they retire. A dentist who may be used to taking home $300,000 annually will have to live their golden years on $150,000 – a drastic pay cut, wouldn’t you say? And in the vast majority of cases, that $150,000 isn’t even guaranteed!

Because a decrease in income like this this is “normal,” it’s accepted. But it doesn’t have to be this way. When we create a Financial Treatment Plan for one of our clients, our goal is for them to retire with 100% of their pre-retirement income.

Does this sound impossible? It’s not. It can be done. And it can happen for you, too.

Find out more about how we help our dentist clients retire with more than the standard 50% at retirement and how you can, too, by visiting our website or checking out our book, Your Retirement Smile, today.

Investments: Doubling Your Dollars or Risking Your Resources? | Tim Streid & Mart McClellan

Investments: Doubling Your Dollars or Risking Your Resources?

For many people, investments make up a significant part of their financial portfolio. But with everything going on in the world today, is it still a smart move to commit your financial resources to stocks, bonds, funds, and other investments? Or is it asking for trouble?

The Trouble with Investments

Many people have become wealthy from their investments, there’s no doubt about that. Yet there are some issues to keep in mind.

For one, past rates of return are no guarantee of future returns. We trust and believe that putting money into investments now will grow our wealth in the future, but we don’t know for sure. No one can predict how the market will behave or what interest rates will be in two years, or twenty – no financial advisor, no billionaire investor, no sophisticated algorithm. Pinning future plans on past numbers is risky.

Next, changing interest rates can effectively kill gains from your bonds, and the market’s volatility means you can’t predict how your stocks and funds will behave. Recessions and crashes can wipe out a significant amount of your wealth in a matter of days, if not hours, and potentially delay your retirement date by years.

Taken together, it means that investments can be extremely risky – that is, when they represent too large a percentage of your overall financial plan.

Our Approach to Investments

Like many others in the world of finance, we believe in diversification. Relying too heavily on any one type of financial product puts you at risk. So, investments do have their place in a financial plan, as long as they are balanced with other products and have the right strategy behind them.

We also believe in peace of mind. Our clients are better able to weather the ups and downs of the market and interest rates when they know they will have enough guaranteed income in retirement to cover their basic expenses. Guaranteed income from well-positioned annuities means they don’t have to rely on a never-ending bull market to enjoy their golden years.

Another important part of our approach is keeping money in motion. Getting more than one use out of every dollar you earn helps you build substantial wealth while freeing yourself of the need to chase a higher (read: riskier) rate of return on each individual investment. By keeping your money in motion, you can use your financial resources to get an overall higher rate of return while keeping risk low.

An Important Piece of Your Financial Treatment Plan

Despite market volatility, fluctuating rates, and future uncertainty, we believe investments are still a good idea for most people as they plan for retirement. The key to building a solid financial future and having peace of mind is to know where and how they fit in your overall plan.

To learn how we develop Financial Treatment Plans for our clients, and how you can replace 100% of your income in retirement, check out our book, Your Retirement Smile, or visit our business website today.