Your Golden Years:

You made it!

After years of hard work and saving, you are finally here. This is the stage you planned for.

For many, at least under the traditional retirement model, the golden years follow the transition phase that starts in the mid 60s.

Of course, if your circumstances are different and you started enjoying your golden years in your early 60s or in your 70s, or some other time, that's perfectly fine!

As far as I'm concerned, you should stop working and enjoy the fruits of your labor as soon as possible, just as long as it's on your own terms.

At this point, I will assume you have a solid financial plan in place.

(If this is not the case, then we should really talk!)

Preserving what you have and making sure that your golden years remain comfortable are the priorities here.

Things like taxes, gifting, charitable giving and estate planning also move closer to the top of the list.

So let's dive in and see how you can maximize your golden years and protect what you've worked a lifetime to achieve.

Efficiently manage RMDs and "excess" income

Once you reach age 73, Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) from your Traditional IRAs and employer plans become mandatory.

At the very least, you need to understand the amount you must withdraw from your accounts once you turn 73.

Just to give you an example, if you accumulated $1M in your retirement accounts, your first RMD will be around 4% of that or close to $40,000.

(For those of you who prefer more precise figures, the first RMD multiplier is actually 3.77%)

Each year, the multiplier will increase according to the IRS tables which means you will likely need to draw more from your retirement accounts over time.

If you have no plan in place, these distributions can push you into a higher tax bracket and/or increase Medicare premiums (I will spare the technical details of how this happens for this newsletter).

On a more positive note, if your RMDs provide more income than you need for your lifestyle, don't let the "excess" sit uninvested in your bank account.

Consider reinvesting those funds into a brokerage account or using them to fund a more robust gifting strategy.

QCD planning and coordinating charitable giving with tax strategy

If you are charitably inclined and have an IRA, making a Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) is perhaps the most tax efficient thing you can do.

If you are over the age of 70 1/2, you can direct up to $111,000 per year directly from your IRA to a qualified charity.

In practice, most of our clients take the QCD approach once they turn 73 and have the RMD requirement.

The beauty of the QCD is that the money is never counted as taxable income and it satisfies your RMD requirements.

Here is a simple example. If your RMD is $50,000 and you donate $15,000 to charities via the QCD approach, only $35,000 will be taxable to you.

I find QCD planning to be an incredible tool for tax bracket and Medicare premium minimization purposes.

You get to support the causes you love, satisfy the IRS and keep your taxable income lower.

It's a triple win, right?

Evaluate wealth transfer and gifting efficiency to heirs or charities

There is something special about giving while you can still see the impact.

You can gift up to $19,000 per person in 2026 without needing to file a gift tax return (i.e., annual gift tax exclusion).

If you are married, you and your spouse can take advantage of gift splitting and increase your combined annual gift limit to $38,000 in 2026.

Also, if you want to pay for someone's college tuition or medical bill, it won't count towards the limit.

You just need to pay for it directly to the institution.

Review estate plans and beneficiary designations

Just like with your financial plan, I would like to assume your estate planning is also in order at this stage.

If not, please make this your priority!

At this stage in your life, an estate plan that you first prepared when your children were born (or even before) is likely outdated, to put it gently, and could create real problems if anything ever happens to you…

So please use this newsletter as your push to finally get your estate plans organized if you haven't done so yet.

You will need to decide if you want to have a will or trust based estate plan as it will have a significant impact on the rest of your planning.

You also want to make sure your Medical and Financial Power of Attorney (POA) are in place.

Make sure your primary and contingent beneficiaries on IRAs, retirement accounts and life insurance policies are current.

Also, I find it particularly important to start talking to the people who will be handling your estate now.

Let them know where everything is and answer any questions they may have.

This simplifies your life now and makes things significantly easier for your loved ones later.

Adjust your investment strategy for Long Term Care needs

Our health and mobility needs change as we age and your financial plan should reflect that reality.

At this stage, you need to have a clear understanding of how your potential long term care (LTC) expenses will be covered.

Are you going to self-insure or rely on an LTC policy? Perhaps a combination of the two?

Here is a somewhat counterintuitive point to consider.

If you truly accumulated enough funds to self-insure, this might be a good time to evaluate if you even need to continue with your existing LTC coverage.

It usually takes a while for our clients to process this but think about it.

Assume you originally purchased an LTC policy in your 40s or 50s when your resources were limited and you needed this protection.

What if by now, over decades of successful investing, you truly accumulated enough in assets to cover this important risk?

At the very least, you want to know exactly how LTC expenses would affect your finances and your family before you actually need care.

Now for some final thoughts

As you likely know very well by now, retirement planning is a process.

It is something that needs to be revisited and adjusted over time to be successful.

I truly hope that this Ultimate Retirement Checklist has been helpful to you.

If you want a copy of the full checklist, sign up for our newsletter below!

You can save the PDF, print it out and put it somewhere that will remind you to chip away at these important steps every so often.

Special thanks to our Financial Planning Associate, Alyssa Neece, for suggesting that we create this checklist and a series of newsletters that cover the details of each of the retirement planning stages.

We have been receiving great feedback on the checklist and it means a lot to know it has been useful to so many of you!