The Setup:
It’s another mailbag edition of the show and we’re covering five different topics that you’ve been asking about. From company stock to old life insurance policies to hitting seven figures in your portfolio, it’s a wide range of retirement conversations but we’re hitting them all today.
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Click the timestamps below to skip to a specific topic in the episode.
The Combination and Key Points:
Every month we like to open up the mailbag and see what’s on your mind. It’s always one of our favorite shows because we get to see what you’re curious about but it’s also great to cover a wide variety of topics.
This episode Unlocking Your Financial Future will take five different listener questions that all cover an important conversation that everyone can benefit from. Remember that you can always shoot us an email here on the website or connect with us on Facebook and message us there.
Retiring Early by Downsizing
When clients are thinking about downsizing, one of the routes they often consider is selling their home and downsizing. That achieves a couple things. First, you move to a more manageable size home. But maybe more importantly, you free up extra money to put towards your retirement. This first questions asks about that idea and whether it is a good way to retire early, and Ben shares a few things to consider.
2:18 – Question #1: I can sell my house for $500,000 and I only owe about $100,000. I’m only 57 but I’m thinking about selling it now, buying a smaller place, and using the cash to retire now. Is that a bad idea?
2:43 – Each state has different tax laws so that’s important to consider.
3:15 – How are you planning to invest that money?
Too Much Company Stock?
Hopefully you love your job and have faith in your company. That doesn’t mean, however, that you need to load up on company stock. So how much is too much? Let’s answer this question and talk about what we traditionally tell clients.
5:11 – Question #2: Unless my entire board of directors gets in trouble, I feel really confident about our future potential and growth. How much is too much company stock to own in my 401k?
7:02 – Even great companies can take a steep drop as we’ve seen in the past.
Handling Finances On Your Own
Our third question comes from a spouse whose husband wants to handle the financial planning without any help. This is certainly an option and we have meetings with couples that are in the same situation. We’ll tell you what we think about this question and what we talk about with people in our office that aren’t on the same page about how to handle their finances.
7:22 – Question #3: I’d really like to meet with a financial advisor but my husband wants to handle investments ourselves. Is that okay to do without help?
8:24 – Do you see many couples that come with completely different opinions on using an advisor?
Old Life Insurance Policies
Ben dusts off the old life insurance hat that he used to wear for a question about cashing in an old policy. If you have one sitting around, is it best to sell it and invest that money elsewhere? Or are their other options that might work as well or better without having to lose the insurance?
9:41 – Question #4: I have about $50,000 in an old life insurance policy. I don’t need it anymore so should I cash out and invest it elsewhere?
Seven Figures in the Portfolio
Who wouldn’t love to see their retirement portfolio hit seven figures? But does that need to be your goal? This listener made it his goal to move to cash once his portfolio hit $1 million but now he’s considering pushing it to $1.2 million with the way the market has been going. There’s are some questions we would ask back to help determine the best course of action.
11:41 – Question #5: I always told myself that once I hit one million dollars in my portfolio I’d move it all to cash. Now that I’m there, I think I can get to $1.2 million. What do you think?
13:29 – Where does that million dollar number come from? Is that more than enough for your retirement?
Thanks for listening to another episode of Unlocking Your Financial Future. We’ll talk to you again next week!
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