If you already give to your church or other charities, have you looked at which accounts you’re using to make those gifts? Or whether giving several years together could help?

The 2026 charitable giving tax changes give us a reason to work through those questions. Depending on your circumstances, changing how you give could leave more available for your family or allow you to give more with the same budget.

I would start with three steps: look at what you could give, consider when to give it, and then bring those decisions into your retirement planning.*

Step 1: Before writing a check, look at which investments you could give

Suppose you own stock worth $10,000 that you purchased for $4,000. You have a $6,000 gain.

If you sell the stock, you generally recognize the $6,000 gain for tax purposes. But if you transfer the shares directly to an eligible public charity, you generally avoid recognizing that gain.

How long have you owned the stock? That changes the amount you can use to calculate your charitable deduction.

For appreciated publicly traded stock donated directly from a taxable account:

That short-term limitation comes from IRC §170(e)(1)(A). It generally requires subtracting appreciation that would not have been long-term capital gain. In our example, $10,000 minus the $6,000 short-term gain leaves $4,000.

This gives us a reason to examine long-term appreciated stock first. You can generally avoid recognizing the gain and include the appreciation in the contribution amount used to calculate your deduction.

And remember, the charitable deduction isn’t limited to your capital gains tax rate. An available itemized deduction can reduce ordinary taxable income.

These examples assume a direct contribution to an eligible public charity. The amount you can actually deduct depends on the recipient organization, your adjusted gross income, applicable charitable deduction limits, and other tax rules. For example, deductions for gifts of long-term appreciated capital-gain property to public charities are generally subject to a 30% AGI limitation, while different limits may apply to other contributions or recipients.

Step 2: Could combining several years of giving increase your deduction?

Suppose you give $15,000 a year and your adjusted gross income, or AGI, is $300,000.

Beginning in 2026, taxpayers who itemize can generally deduct charitable contributions only to the extent they exceed 0.5% of AGI. In this example, the first $1,500 of giving each year falls below the deductible threshold.

What if you combined three years of giving into one contribution?

A donor-advised fund, or DAF, lets you make an irrevocable charitable contribution now, then recommend gifts to charities over time. The sponsoring charity legally controls the assets and approves the grants. Once contributed, those assets cannot be returned to you, and the fund is subject to the sponsoring organization’s fees, investment options, and grantmaking policies.

You could contribute $45,000 this year, then recommend $15,000 in grants each year for three years. Your deduction belongs to the contribution year; those later grants don’t produce another deduction.

Here is how the deductions compare:

For this comparison, both strategies assume cash contributions to eligible public charities, $300,000 in AGI each year, itemizing deductions in all three years, and sufficient taxable income and applicable deduction capacity to use the amounts shown. The example also assumes the DAF sponsor qualifies for the applicable cash-contribution deduction treatment.

Under these assumptions, combining the contributions produces $3,000 more in potential deductions because the 0.5% floor applies in just one year rather than three.

If that additional deduction saves you 30 cents per dollar in tax, that is $900 in tax savings before fund fees. Repeat that result every three years for 30 years, and it would total $9,000, assuming the same income, tax benefit and rules.

What happens to contributions below the floor? Beginning in 2026, the 0.5% AGI floor applies to taxpayers who itemize. Amounts below that threshold generally cannot be deducted in the current year. Limited carryforward treatment may be available when contributions exceed applicable percentage-of-income limits, but amounts disallowed solely by the floor generally cannot be carried forward independently. This makes it important to review the full contribution and deduction picture before assuming an unused amount will provide a future tax benefit.

How much must you distribute? There is currently no federal requirement that a DAF distribute a fixed percentage every year. Sponsors can have their own minimum-grant requirements, account-activity policies, administrative fees, and restrictions on eligible grant recipients. Check those terms before choosing a fund, particularly because contributions are irrevocable.

Now bring the first two steps together: you can also consider funding a larger contribution with qualifying long-term appreciated stock. You’re considering both which asset to give and which year to make the contribution. Keep in mind that appreciated-stock contributions generally have different deduction limits than the cash contributions used in the comparison above.

Step 3: Bring your retirement income into the decision

Are you considering a Roth conversion? Or are you taking required minimum distributions? Or already paying more for Medicare because of your income?

These questions belong alongside your charitable giving.

Roth conversions? Converting traditional IRA money to a Roth generally creates taxable income. A usable charitable itemized deduction in the same year may reduce your taxable income and the resulting tax bill.

But the deduction does not reduce AGI. That distinction becomes especially important when Medicare premiums enter the calculation.

Medicare premiums? The income-related surcharge on Medicare Part B and Part D is called IRMAA. It generally uses your AGI plus tax-exempt interest from two years earlier.

An itemized charitable deduction doesn’t reduce that income measure. Giving appreciated stock directly can prevent a gain from being added compared with selling the stock first, but it doesn’t remove income from a Roth conversion or an IRA withdrawal.

So we need to ask two questions: How much income tax could this save? And what happens to the income Medicare uses?

IRA gifts? Once you reach age 70½, a qualified charitable distribution, or QCD, may offer another approach. Eligible money moves directly from your IRA to an eligible charity and is excluded from income. It can also count toward your required minimum distribution once RMDs are required.

Suppose your otherwise taxable IRA distribution requirement is $50,000 and you want to give $15,000:

You don’t receive both an income exclusion and a deduction for the same QCD. The benefit is keeping the eligible distribution out of income in the first place, which may also help with IRMAA. A DAF cannot receive a QCD.

The 2026 QCD exclusion limit is $111,000 per eligible person.

This also gives us something to consider before converting an entire IRA to a Roth. If some of that money is intended for future charitable gifts, leaving those dollars in a traditional IRA for later QCDs may make sense.

For money intended for your family, we would compare today’s conversion taxes and any additional Medicare premiums with expected future taxes for you and your heirs. Those dollars may call for a different decision.

And when the rules change?

The new charitable deduction floor came from the 2025 law commonly called the One Big Beautiful Bill. Appreciated-stock gifts, donor-advised funds and QCDs already existed. The law changed how we evaluate them.

State tax treatment can also differ. California, for example, does not conform to the new federal 0.5% AGI charitable deduction floor. That means a contribution may produce different federal and California income tax results, even when the same gift is being evaluated.

That is why having someone help you follow the changes matters. Your giving, retirement withdrawals, Roth conversions and Medicare premiums need to be considered together.

A plan that works today may need to change when the next Congress changes the rules.

Educational information only. Examples assume eligible contributions and organizations. Deductions depend on itemization, annual floors, AGI ceilings, contribution types, recipient eligibility, and other applicable limits. The DAF comparison assumes cash contributions, $300,000 of AGI each year, itemizing in all three years, and sufficient ability to use the deductions shown. It excludes fund fees and investment changes. DAF contributions are irrevocable and subject to sponsor policies. Carryforward treatment is limited, and tax savings and state treatment vary. Review your circumstances with a qualified tax professional.

The post 3 Steps to Lower Your Taxes Through Charitable Giving in 2026 appeared first on Lynch Financial Advisors.

In the first article, we asked how you know whether you have enough to retire. In the second, we asked what you would actually do with that retirement.

Now let’s put the two together. Could looking at how your income and expenses change over time allow you to do more with the money you have?

Suppose you and your spouse want to retire at 60. For simplicity, let’s assume you are both the same age. You have $2.5 million invested and expect to spend $100,000 a year.

Using 4% as a starting withdrawal calculation:

$2.5 million × 4% = $100,000 a year.

You might conclude that $100,000 is your retirement budget. But before we settle on that, does your portfolio need to provide the same amount every year? What happens when health insurance costs change, Social Security begins, or your mortgage ends?

Let’s work through those changes and see what they could allow you to do.

For this example, we will leave out income taxes and inflation and assume investments earn a steady 4% a year after fees. Before making a spending recommendation, we would need to include taxes, rising prices, and years when investments do poorly.

Could you add $40,000 of travel to your retirement budget?

Start with healthcare

Suppose you are paying $3,000 a month for health insurance for the two of you. At 65, you both move to Medicare, and we estimate your combined insurance costs will fall to $1,000 a month.

Those are assumptions for this example, not quoted rates. We are holding other medical expenses unchanged. Actual premiums and out-of-pocket costs depend on your coverage and the care you use.

That is $2,000 less each month, or $24,000 less each year.

The lifestyle that cost $100,000 before 65 would now cost $76,000. You have not cut back on anything. Your insurance simply costs less.

Using the same 4% calculation:

$76,000 ÷ 4% = $1.9 million.

Under that calculation, a $1.9 million portfolio would support an initial $76,000 withdrawal at a 4% rate. That is $600,000 less than your starting balance, but it does not automatically mean you have $600,000 available to spend.

It gives us a reason to ask: Could you use some of that difference before you reach 65?

Let’s add $20,000 a year for travel

Instead of spending $100,000 a year beginning at 60, suppose you spend $120,000. The additional $20,000 goes toward trips you and your spouse have wanted to take.

Assuming your investments earn 4% each year, withdrawing $120,000 annually for five years would leave you with approximately $2.39 million at 65.

You have spent an additional $100,000 on travel over those five years. Your portfolio has declined a little, but now the insurance savings begin.

What does it take to continue the same spending, including the additional travel?

$120,000 − $24,000 = $96,000 a year.

That $96,000 is almost exactly 4% of your remaining portfolio.

In this example, you took the trips before 65, spent down some of your savings, and arrived at 65 needing about 4% of the remaining balance for that year’s spending.

We looked ahead at the lower insurance cost and worked backward to see what you could do at 60.

But wait—what happens at 67?

Suppose you and your spouse each qualify for $3,500 a month in Social Security at 67, based on your own work records. Together, that is $84,000 a year before taxes and deductions.

Your annual spending, including the additional travel, is $96,000. How much would you now need from investments, before accounting for income taxes?

$96,000 − $84,000 = $12,000 a year.

That changes the picture again. Your portfolio had to provide all your spending in the early years. Once Social Security begins, it has much less to cover.

Knowing those checks are coming, could we plan for another $20,000 of travel from the beginning?

Now let’s try $40,000 more for travel

We go back to age 60 and revise the plan. Instead of adding $20,000 to the original budget, we add a total of $40,000.

Your starting budget becomes $140,000 a year. At 65, lower insurance costs bring it down to $116,000, with all the additional travel still included. At 67, Social Security begins paying for most of that spending.

Here is the revised plan. All amounts are annual, and income taxes have not yet been included.

Using the same 4% annual investment return, you would reach 67 with approximately $2.23 million invested.

Over those seven years, you have spent an additional $280,000 on travel. Yet the amount you need from investments has now fallen to $32,000 a year, before income taxes.

We started with a $100,000 budget. Looking at healthcare gave us a reason to test another $20,000 for travel. Looking at Social Security gave us a reason to test another $20,000.

We did not assume better investment returns; all we did was take into account when our financial picture would change.

And what happens when the mortgage ends?

Suppose your mortgage is scheduled to be paid off at 70. Its $1,500 monthly loan payment is already included in the budget.

That is another $18,000 a year you would no longer need to spend. Annual spending could fall from $116,000 to $98,000, while keeping the extra travel. With $84,000 coming from Social Security, investments would need to provide $14,000, before income taxes.

You would still have property taxes, insurance, and upkeep. But the loan payment is gone. You could leave that former payment invested or use some of it for something else.

Again, knowing what happens later may change what you decide to do earlier.

The same thinking can work in reverse

So far, expenses have gone down and income has gone up. Later, care needs could push spending in the other direction.

You might first need a few hours of help at home. Later, you might need daily assistance or care in a facility. The amount of help, its cost, and how long you need it can change. There is no single timetable everyone follows.

We should look at those possible stages, too. What might each one cost? What would insurance cover? What would need to come from your savings?

At the same time, you might be traveling less. Some money previously spent on trips could become available for care. We should account for both changes, rather than automatically adding every new care expense to the old budget. Those travel savings may cover only part of the care bill, and we still need to leave enough for the spouse who may be living independently.

When might it make sense to wait until 70 to collect Social Security?

For someone whose full retirement age is 67, waiting until 70 increases their own monthly Social Security retirement benefit by 24%, before cost-of-living adjustments. But in our example, the portfolio would have to cover three more years without those checks.

For a household without long-term care insurance, or enough savings to comfortably pay for care, I would examine whether that larger monthly benefit could help later. Medicare generally does not pay for long-term custodial care, such as ongoing help with bathing and dressing.

A larger Social Security check would not replace care insurance. But it could pay part of a future care bill and reduce what needs to come from savings. We would compare that benefit with the cost of waiting, your health, and whether you can comfortably fund those earlier years.

That is why we need the whole picture before deciding how much to spend. Some future changes may allow more travel now. Others may give us a reason to keep more in reserve.

Other ways to save and costs we need to watch

So far, we have looked at when income begins and when expenses change. Now we need to look at what happens on the tax return.

Our example has not yet included income taxes. The amount you withdraw is not necessarily the amount you have left to spend. Traditional IRA withdrawals are generally taxable to the extent the money has not already been taxed, and part of your Social Security benefits may also be taxable. Which accounts provide the money, and what other income you have, can change the result.

Medicare: Could a withdrawal increase your premiums?

Medicare Part B and prescription drug premiums can move higher when your income exceeds certain limits. This extra charge is called IRMAA. It generally looks at income from two years earlier. That means a large taxable withdrawal in the year you turn 63 could affect what you pay for Medicare in the year you turn 65.

Before taking additional money from a retirement account, we should check both the income tax and the possible increase in premiums.

Medicare generally uses your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI), which, for this purpose, is your adjusted gross income plus tax-exempt interest. Your standard deduction and itemized deductions do not reduce that figure. So staying within a particular income-tax bracket does not necessarily keep you below a Medicare income limit.

Sometimes paying higher premiums for a year may be worthwhile because another planning decision saves more over time. Sometimes spreading withdrawals over several years may be better. We will want to compare those choices before making the withdrawal.

Charity: Could you give the same amount at a lower after-tax cost?

Suppose charitable giving is already part of your budget. Instead of automatically writing a check, we should look at what you own.

You may have stock in a regular investment account that has increased in value and that you have held for more than a year. Giving those shares directly to a qualifying public charity generally avoids realizing the gain from selling them. If you itemize, the gift may also provide a deduction based on the shares’ current value, subject to the deduction rules and limits for that year.

We could also consider putting several years of planned giving into a donor-advised fund—an account held by a charitable organization. You make the gift now and recommend payments to charities over time. Grouping gifts this way may make the deduction more useful in the year you contribute. The money is permanently committed to charity, not available for your future spending.

But a charitable itemized deduction generally does not reduce the income Medicare uses for IRMAA. A gift that reduces your income tax may not reduce your Medicare premiums.

There is another option once you are 70½ or older. A qualifying gift sent directly from your IRA to an eligible charity can be excluded from your income and can count toward your required IRA withdrawals. This is called a qualified charitable distribution. Subject to its limits and rules, it can help control the income Medicare counts because the qualifying withdrawal stays out of your income in the first place.

That IRA gift cannot go to a donor-advised fund, and you cannot also claim a charitable deduction for the amount excluded from income.

We are looking at giving you already intend to do and asking whether a different way of funding it would leave more money available for your own needs.

Required withdrawals and Roth conversions: When should you pay the tax?

Return to the couple in our example. Once Social Security begins, they need much less from investments.

But suppose most of their savings are in traditional IRAs. Later, the government will require annual withdrawals from those accounts, even when they do not need the money for spending. These are called required minimum distributions, or RMDs.

Could paying some tax earlier reduce what they pay later?

One option is a Roth conversion: moving money from a traditional IRA into a Roth IRA. You pay tax on the previously untaxed amount you move. Later withdrawals can be tax-free when the Roth withdrawal rules are met, and the original owner does not have to take annual required withdrawals from a Roth IRA.

Before recommending a conversion, I want to compare the tax cost now with what we expect later. Would smaller conversions over several years help? Where would the money to pay the tax come from? Would the conversion increase Medicare premiums?

Once required withdrawals begin, we also need to satisfy those requirements. The required withdrawal itself cannot be converted to a Roth.

Before 65, additional taxable income can also reduce income-based help with the cost of Marketplace health insurance. That belongs in the calculation, too.

The goal is not necessarily the lowest tax bill this year. It is to keep the overall tax cost of funding your retirement as low as reasonably possible.

Or, put another way, we want to consider your tax burden over your lifetime; not simply try to stay in the lowest bracket this year.

What does this change for you?

Are you starting to see why taxes and financial planning need to work so closely together?

In our example, we did not stop at “You have $2.5 million, so you can spend $100,000.” We looked at what the household would need at 60, 65, 67, and beyond. That gave us a reason to test spending more in the early years.

Then we looked at what could change the answer: future care, taxes, Medicare premiums, and how we use the retirement accounts.

The result might be more travel. It might be an earlier retirement, help for your children, or a larger reserve. It might also show that you need to spend less than you hoped.

Before telling you to work another year or give up something you have been looking forward to, I want to work through those choices.

Your first year of retirement is one year. Let’s not use it as the budget for all the years that follow.

—Mike

Notes on the example

These are hypothetical calculations, not a recommended spending plan. They assume both spouses retire at 60 with $2.5 million, investments earn a constant 4% annually after investment fees, and withdrawals occur at each year-end. Income taxes, inflation, Social Security cost-of-living increases, and unexpected expenses are excluded. The $20,000 and $40,000 travel increases are two alternative plans, each beginning at 60.

The insurance figures are assumed combined household premiums, not quoted Medicare rates or a family Medicare policy. Other medical expenses are held unchanged. Actual premiums and out-of-pocket costs vary.

Social Security amounts are assumed benefits before taxes and premium deductions. Because insurance premiums are already included in household spending, they are not also subtracted from the benefits in the example. Actual benefit estimates should reflect stopping work at 60, rather than assuming earnings continue until 67.

The mortgage ends through scheduled payments; paying it off early from savings would require a separate calculation.

Dividing spending by 4% does not establish that a portfolio will last. A constant 4% investment return is not the same as a sustainable withdrawal strategy. Before using a plan like this, we would test rising prices, taxes, uneven investment returns, a long retirement, and care expenses.

We would also plan for the loss of one spouse’s Social Security income: the survivor generally receives the higher applicable benefit, not both full payments.

The post How to Make Your Retirement Number Go Further appeared first on Lynch Financial Advisors.

I was remodeling a little condo my wife and I had just bought. The CEO looked at me and said, “I don’t know how to swing a hammer. I can’t do what you’re doing.” He had bought 500 acres in upstate New York and wanted to learn how to swing a hammer.

He already had the 500 acres. What he was talking about now was what he wanted to do there. He wanted to learn to swing a hammer and build something himself.

Here was a man running a large brokerage company, interested in becoming a beginner at something I was already doing in my little condo. The money had bought the land. It couldn’t do the learning for him.

And that is where the retirement conversation needs to go next: beyond what you can afford to have, to what you actually want to get up and do.

In the last article, we worked through what goes into figuring out whether you have enough money to retire. The travel, the house, helping family, the everyday spending, and the conversations that need to happen when your spouse has a different picture of retirement than you do.

Now let’s say we have done that work. Your financial plan supports retiring, based on the spending, income, and assumptions we have worked through. There is still another question to answer.

What are you going to do Monday?

Not the Monday when you board the plane for the trip you have been putting off. The one after you get home. There is no office to go into. No co-workers to talk with about the weekend. The problems that used to land on your desk are landing on someone else’s.

What does that day look like?

What Are You Actually Leaving?

In the first article, we spent time figuring out what it would take to replace your income. But the paycheck isn’t the only thing you have been getting from work. There are people you know, problems you have learned to solve, and responsibilities that give some shape to your week. You may complain about parts of it and still care quite a bit about others.

We can have a plan to replace the income without having a plan for any of that.

Some of the comments I hear from clients approaching retirement are, “My friends and colleagues are at work,” or, “I like the challenge of work. The idea of sitting at home doesn’t appeal to me.” Others like the routine. Those aren’t financial objections. They are telling me something about the life they don’t want to lose.

Think about the person who is tired of the pressure but still enjoys solving a difficult problem. Or someone who is done with the commute but looks forward to seeing the people at the other end of it. They can be ready to leave the job and not be ready to give up those parts of their day. That isn’t a contradiction. The problem is that, up until now, those things have all come together.

This is where the word “work” can get in our way. We use it to describe earning a living, but also teaching someone, building something, helping solve a problem, or taking responsibility for something we care about. When we say we are done with work, are we talking about all of that? Or are we talking about the particular job we have been doing, with its particular demands?

I’ve watched several women I know, including my wife, return to the workplace, not because they needed to, but because they wanted to. They went back to do something different than before. What they found was a new challenge, a sense of purpose and belonging, and structure.

Going back to work by choice is quite different from having to go back because you need the income. Being able to stop earning a paycheck doesn’t mean you have stopped wanting what else a job might give you.

And maybe you are reading this thinking you won’t miss your job at all. You already have friends outside of work, interests you want more time for, and people you want to spend that time with. Or you are worn out and need some room to breathe before deciding what comes next.

I am not suggesting you immediately fill every empty hour with another obligation. We are trying to understand what you want your life to contain, not recreate your work schedule without the pay.

So I would ask two questions together:

What am I ready to leave, and what would I be sorry to lose?

Put those answers next to each other. You might be ready to leave the deadlines but still want a challenge. Ready to stop managing a department but still enjoy helping someone learn. Ready to leave the office but not the friendships.

Now we have something more useful than “I want to retire, but I’m not sure I’m ready.” We can start looking for ways to leave what you are finished with while finding other places for what you still want.

Getting Those Things Outside of Work

I have a longtime family friend who retired from being a fireman. For years, he has volunteered with a couple of different programs related to dogs. That is where he found community, but he also found a challenge, new learning, structure, purpose, and friends outside of work.

You could describe what he did as “volunteering.” But that one word doesn’t really explain all that he found there. Look back at the things people tell me they will miss about work. Quite a few of them are on his list.

I come back to three things: health, community, and purpose.

The trick is to find things that bring more than one of them into your life. You don’t necessarily need a separate activity for every box.

I also have a client who, while still working, was already hiking all over the place with her hiking group. There is an activity she enjoys, people to enjoy it with, and something that gets her moving. She didn’t have to wait for retirement to start finding that part of her life.

This is also why I don’t think “go volunteer somewhere” is a complete answer. I have known people who volunteered only to find that the particular commitment created stress and anxiety. The organization and the role need to fit you. A good cause doesn’t automatically mean every job within it is the right job for you.

What Have You Wanted to Learn?

When my grandma retired, she became a regular at the local junior college. She took everything from poetry to painting. I think she ended up with about 70 units in art and writing classes.

What have you wanted to learn that has nothing to do with what you have done for a living? Is it something as simple as learning to swing a hammer? Or perhaps there is a part of your profession that you always enjoyed but rarely had enough time to explore.

There is another direction to consider, too. What do you already know that might be useful to someone else? Could you teach it?

You may be ready to stop doing your particular job without wanting to leave behind everything you have learned along the way.

Start With Something Small

When I coach, whether it is kids on the soccer field, young people starting out, or people preparing for retirement, I like to find the “easy wins.” Those are the ones that build confidence.

With retirement, we can start identifying what connects you to work and gradually find other places for those things in your life.

That is the idea behind the work-satisfaction exercise in my retirement material. We look at what work provides: identity, contribution, learning, structure, purpose, community, challenge, routine, and friends. Then we identify which of those things matter most to you.

Here is a place to begin:

1. Write down what you would miss about work. Be specific. “The people” is a start, but is it the friendships, having someone to solve a problem with, or simply being around others during the day?
2. Put a possibility next to each one. An actual class, group, organization, or person, not just “I’ll get involved in something.”
3. Try one before you retire, where practical. Go to the class. Meet the group. Find out what the volunteer role involves. See whether you enjoy the activity and the people.

You can start this exercise after retiring, too. You are not committing the next 20 years of your life to the first thing you try. You are learning something about what you want your days to contain.

And if you are married, compare notes with your spouse. Just like the spending exercise in the first article, you may discover you have been imagining different things. What will you enjoy doing together? What will each of you do independently?

Your spouse may already have a routine they like. Your retirement needs to make room for that, too.

Back to Monday

I often describe money as banked time. Part of what we are doing when we save for retirement is trying to reach a point where our savings and other income can support our lives without our having to keep earning a paycheck.

But that still leaves the question of what we want to do with the time that is now available to us.

Travel belongs in that picture. So does rest. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the things you worked and saved for. But alongside those plans, think about the people you want to spend time with, the things you want to learn, and the responsibilities you would actually like to have.

One of the questions in my retirement material is, “You are more than what you do at work. Who else looks up to you, relies on you, and wants your connection? Why?”

Spend a little time with that one.

Then look back at the parts of work you would miss and the things you have been saying you will get around to someday. You don’t need every day figured out before you leave. But you should be starting to see a life outside of work that you would like to move toward.

So, what would you like to do Monday?

Once that picture starts taking shape, we can come back to the money with a better understanding of what we are asking it to support. And if the life you have in mind costs more than you expected, the conversation doesn’t have to end at “save more” or “spend less.”

There is another question to work through:

Are we making the best use of what you already have?

In Part 3, How to Make Your Retirement Number Go Further, we’ll look at the planning around taxes, income, and how you draw from your savings. Not to pretend that every item on the wish list can fit, but to explore whether different choices could make more of it possible.

We have talked about having enough and what you want to do with it. Now let’s look at how planning can help what you have support more of that life.

This article is for general educational purposes and is not a recommendation that any individual retire or change an investment strategy. Retirement decisions depend on personal circumstances and planning assumptions, which may change over time.

The post You Can Afford to Retire. But What Will You Do Monday? appeared first on Lynch Financial Advisors.

My client base is filled with a large range of people, PhDs to teachers, firemen to nurses, business execs to business owners… and everything in between. Smart people—these people have come to me at different stages of building their retirement bucket… why would these smart people talk with me? I mean, they can get “that number”—right?

Multiple Numbers In The One Number

The issue for almost everyone, whether they see it or admit it, is there isn’t one number. My wife and I moved to New Jersey one year out of college. We loaded up 3 boxes 3×3 in size… that and the suitcases we took on the plane was all we moved back east with.

After four years back east, 9/11 happened and something changed in us, pushing us back to California to “move to the family” stage of life. This time we had a bit more than 3 boxes and a few suitcases. We loaded up our Durango to the hilt. Had a roof rack filled and a tow-behind uhaul trailer—you know, the one that looks a bit like a horse trailer—that one.

When we left New Jersey, I said, “Babe, this is how our life should be. We should be able to fit it all in a van and a trailer.” Today—well, it’s different. I will say I don’t pay rent at a storage facility (that isn’t to shame you if you do).

What is different about all of these is what it costs to live. When Erin and I moved to New Jersey, I was still looking for a job. I think her starting salary at the new gig was around $60k. The $900 a month apartment was $50 over the amount I had budgeted for us—but it had a view of the World Trade Center, so my wife was able to sell me on splurging to rent that place.

Fast forward 4 years—we both were employed, and what we could afford had drastically changed. We went from 4 meals of macaroni and cheese a night to eating out 4 nights a week.

Our number (the pot of money we needed to retire us) when we moved to New Jersey was close to $1 million… 4 years later, that number was more than triple that. And that was just in four years!

Retirement is not necessarily this in reverse. I recently had a couple come to me close to retirement. We ran their “number” and found out they were there. But then, as the time got closer, they talked with friends they would be traveling with. And you know what happened? The number moved. What they thought was a good “travel” budget was half what they needed to travel with their friends.

There lies the reason people are not so ready to retire based upon the number ChatGPT gave them. They see that the number is going to have to serve a lot of different masters—travel, charity, general living expenses, upkeep or upgrade on the house. Add in a spouse, and that number can become even more complex. What I want to do in retirement may be different than what my wife wants to do in retirement.

And this right here, this junction point of not really knowing what goes into making up what the number has to account for, is at the center of what keeps many people from retiring.

Getting The Ideas Out In the Open

Suggestion? Years before you retire, do a few things:

1. Try on the travel you have in mind. Take a few trips and find out what the hotels, restaurants, and travel style you actually enjoy will cost.
2. Figure out what your house needs. Price out necessary repairs and nice-to-have updates, then decide what you want to tackle before retiring.
3. Compare your retirement with your spouse’s. Each of you should put numbers next to what you want to do, then see whether you have been budgeting for the same retirement.
4. Put a number on helping family and giving to charity. College, weddings, gifts, and donations need amounts and timing—not just good intentions.
5. Price an ordinary week at home. Eating out, golf, clubs, and hobbies can look different financially when you have more time to enjoy them.
6. Plan for the things you will eventually replace. Put cars, appliances, and other large purchases on a rough calendar with estimated costs.
7. Price a move before assuming it will save you money. Look at actual homes, moving costs, taxes, insurance, and association fees—not just the difference in purchase prices.
8. Give your retirement budget a trial run. Try living on the planned amount for several months, including setting money aside for expenses that don’t show up every month.

Now, if you look at this and think—shoot, that is a lot to do—you’re right. Worse, what happens when you know that you likely don’t have enough to do everything on both of your lists and the negotiations start to happen?

Now you’re starting to see why people come see me. Many of my clients call me their marriage therapist. Look, I am not going to help your husband pick up his socks off the floor (my wife hasn’t gotten me to do that yet. I have gotten to the point of throwing them in the direction of the hamper. It’s one step at a time! 🙂 )

But Wait, Is There a Number?

I can hear half my clients right now, “Wait, so you’re saying there isn’t a number?” No, there is a number. But as a first step we need to figure out what will be needing to be spent during retirement (there are other steps to finding out the number – what other money you will have coming in (pension, social etc), but for the purpose of this article, we are talking about the elements of the number that are often unknown and not talked about.

So the point of the exercise of “getting the ideas out in the open” is to through it all out there, then start peeling back what is possible based on what you have saved up… and how much more you can save before you reach retirement. I have had plenty of clients go from the “dream house in Hawaii” to increasing their travel budget and staying in their current residence. It gave them more flexibility with travel while not adding years of additional savings for their “dream house.”

Professional Help and Purpose

So my last suggestion—well, it should be my first suggestion: tackle these items above with a professional. Someone who can help dig into the questions, hear what each of you is trying to say, and put numbers around the choices. Sometimes that means being the person who has to say, “We can do this, but doing all of it would require something else to change.” Often I will have a client say, “Mike, I say the same thing, but they hear it different from you”—isn’t that the case with much in life? You hear something from one friend and you dismiss it because of the way they explained it, then another comes by and it makes sense and you buy in.

The calculator can give you an answer. The work is figuring out whether that answer accounts for the retirement you and your spouse actually want—and what you would change if it doesn’t. Once we understand those costs and what income you will have coming in, we can get a much better idea of what your savings need to provide.

There is another part of being ready to retire. You may know what the vacations, the house, and the everyday expenses will cost and still not know what you want your days to look like. Or the “Monday morning question”: What happens that Monday after you retire? There is no office to go into. No co-workers to chat about the weekend. No one needing the particular skill you have to solve a problem. This leads us to that big word “PURPOSE”—what is my life—outside of the traveling, etc.—about when I retire? We will dig into this in the next blog.

The post How Do You Know When You Actually Have Enough to Retire? appeared first on Lynch Financial Advisors.

Figuring out how to choose the “right” advisor is not as simple as selecting a CPA, whose stringent requirements are relatively straight forward. This is partly because for many years a 4 year degree was not required to become a Certified Financial Planner (CFP). Today, one must first obtain a higher education degree to become eligible for CFP certification. Interestingly, the subject matter does not matter at all – it could be a degree in History, Mathematics, or even Art. This vague set of requirements sheds some light on how disparate the education and experience can be of those in financial planning. To the CFP’s credit, they’ve started to following in the footsteps of NAPFA, and are pushing their certification to be a much higher standard than it once was. Additionally, they’ve put together a good program that gives those interested in the field of financial planning a baseline to work from.  We get our interns from the CFP program and so our current Para-Planner, Ricky, has passed the CFP test.

Incidentally, Mike’s degree is in Finance with a minor in Economics. Going into college, he knew exactly what he wanted to do with his career.

Confusion in the marketplace goes beyond designations like CFP because new terms have cropped up over in recent years such as Family Office, Wealth Manager, Financial Advisor, Financial Planner, and Investment Advisor, among others. Furthering the confusion, there are numerous places to find these professionals.

• Captive Agents:  People typically working in the insurance industry.
• Hybrid Advisors:  Advisors that can charge you for their time and collect commissions.
  The easiest way to spot them is looking at the bottom of their website.  It will say something like “securities offered through” on there somewhere.  This means that they can take commissions on the products/assets they manage.
• Fee-Only:  The only true no-commission advisors.
  Those legally using the term Fee-Only proudly belong to NAPFA.
• Fee-Based:  An unregulated term that can be used by advisors who “switch hats” between providing advice and selling products or receiving commissions.

Ok, this is all great- but this really doesn’t help me find the Best Advisor for ME.  How do I do that?  If you agree with the below concepts/ ideology, let me see if I can help:

1. The advisor should understand there are two parts to every individual.
   There are things we can control and things we can’t.  In the space of financial planning there are items which are behavioral in nature such as wanting to sell when markets decline, or justifying increased spending because you’re working extra hours. Then there are tangible choices such as how much you can save. If you feel that you can be honest with yourself about the things you can control and the things you can’t, then we’re off to a great start in terms of compatibility.
2. The advisor should know you well enough to see when you are making a behavioral choice that could adversely affect your long term plans.
   A detailed advisor can see ALL aspects related to your tangible choices. They prepare your taxes so they know how to save tax dollars today and far into the future. They don’t need to know every dollar spent, but they can easily estimate what it’s taking my to run a current household. They can build a portfolio that will protect from significant market corrections. They can work with insurance agents to adequately insure (and not over insure). Lastly, they can work with or even recommend an estate attorney so that assets are disbursed correctly when you die. If you find yourself nodding along here about an advisor working form the big picture, we’re even more likely to be a match for each other.
3. It’s important that the advisor understands that life is more than just accumulating as much money as possible.
   While money enables the time that we desire with friends, family etc., Advisors see life as more than just the dollars one accumulates. They understand that each one of us has something unique driving them forward and a reason behind trying to amass wealth. This could be so they can stop working at an undesirable job, or to be prepared to help out an aging parent. If you like the idea of an advisor seeing your unique situation and build helping you build wealth as a means to your goals, then we’re ever more likely to hit it off great.

If the above resonates with you, we would love to meet you.  We are passionate about working with people that fit these 3 concepts.

Thought Leadership

• 3 Steps to Lower Your Taxes Through Charitable Giving in 2026
• How to Make Your Retirement Number Go Further
• You Can Afford to Retire. But What Will You Do Monday?
• How Do You Know When You Actually Have Enough to Retire?
• Finding the right Financial Advisor for you

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