You've built meaningful wealth. Now the questions change: whether you have enough to retire the way you want, how to draw it down tax-efficiently, and what to set up for the next generation. We help you answer them.
Wealth planning for affluent families coordinates the pieces that usually get managed in isolation (retirement income, investment strategy, tax decisions, estate and legacy planning, and protection) into one plan, reviewed as life and markets change.
Each one has real money riding on the timing and the sequence. Together they make up the plan.
The first question is whether the portfolio can fund your spending through a retirement that can last 30 years or longer. It comes down to spending, time horizon, and the risk of a poor market early on. One widely cited guideline puts an initial withdrawal rate near 4%, adjusted for inflation, as a starting point we pressure-test against your actual numbers.
Drawing from taxable, tax-deferred, and Roth accounts in the right order can change how much of your money reaches your spending and how much goes to taxes. The sequence depends on your brackets now versus later, Social Security timing, and what you want to leave behind.
Required minimum distributions begin at 73 under current law, rising to 75 in 2033. The years between retirement and that first RMD are often the lowest-bracket years of your life. That's a window to consider Roth conversions and reduce the size of future taxable distributions.
The portfolio follows the plan. Risk is set by your goals and timeline. That means watching concentration, placing assets in the account types where they are most tax-efficient, and keeping the allocation matched to what the plan actually needs.
Wills, trusts, beneficiary designations, and gifting decisions determine what reaches your family and what reaches the IRS. The federal estate and gift tax exemption is large but set by Congress and subject to change, so estate planning is worth revisiting on a regular cadence. We coordinate with your attorney on the documents.
Even a well-built plan meets things it didn't expect: a health change, a market drop early in retirement, a need for long-term care. Life, disability, long-term care, and liability coverage are the pieces that can help keep one event from resetting everything else.
Coordinated wealth planning for Kansas City business owners, ESOP participants, and families. The plan comes first. Investments follow it.
Four steps. The plan is documented, written in plain language, and revisited as things change.
We learn what you have, what you want the next decades to look like, and what's worrying you. No pitch, just listening.
A documented plan covering income, drawdown and tax sequencing, the portfolio, estate coordination, and protection, written in plain language.
We implement the portfolio and the planning moves, coordinated with your CPA and attorney where the work touches their lanes.
Markets move, tax law changes, life changes. We meet on a regular cadence to restate the plan and adjust.
Plain-language answers to the questions families ask most. These are general explanations, not personalized advice. Your situation determines the actual answer.
It depends on three things: what you spend, how long the money has to last, and how your portfolio behaves in the early years of retirement. A bad market in the first few years of withdrawals does more damage than the same market later. That risk has a name: sequence-of-returns risk.
The work is modeling your actual spending against your actual assets, then stress-testing it. One widely cited guideline puts an initial withdrawal rate near 4% adjusted for inflation, but it is a starting point that gets pressure-tested against your specific situation.
There is no single order that works for everyone. The general idea is to manage your taxable income bracket by bracket, pulling from taxable, tax-deferred, and Roth accounts in a sequence that smooths your lifetime tax bill rather than just this year's.
Social Security timing, Roth conversion opportunities, and required minimum distributions all factor in. It is a multi-year decision that is worth mapping out in advance.
Possibly. A Roth conversion moves money from a tax-deferred account to a Roth account. You pay income tax on the amount converted now, and qualified withdrawals later are tax-free.
It tends to make sense when you are in a lower tax bracket than you expect to be later, often in the years between retirement and the start of required minimum distributions. The math depends on your current and future brackets, the cash available to pay the tax, and your estate goals.
Under current law (SECURE 2.0), required minimum distributions from tax-deferred accounts begin at age 73 for most people, rising to age 75 starting in 2033.
RMDs are taxed as ordinary income and can push you into a higher bracket, raise Medicare premiums, and affect how Social Security is taxed. Planning in the years before RMDs begin is how you manage that.
Most families are under the federal estate tax exemption, which is large, but the exemption amount is set by Congress and changes over time, so it is worth checking against your situation rather than assuming.
Even families well under the threshold benefit from coordinated estate planning: beneficiary designations, titling, trusts where they fit, and the step-up in cost basis that assets generally receive at death. We coordinate with your estate attorney and do not draft the documents ourselves.
A will directs who receives your assets and goes through probate, a court-supervised process that is public and can take months. A trust can hold assets outside probate, stay private, and spell out how and when beneficiaries receive what is in it. Many families use both.
Which structure fits depends on your assets, your family situation, and your goals. Your estate attorney makes that call, and we make sure the financial plan and the documents agree.
The shift is usually from growing the number to making the number last. That often means paying closer attention to how much of the portfolio is exposed to a downturn in the years right around retirement, and building a cushion for near-term spending.
It also means being deliberate about which assets sit in which account types for tax purposes. The allocation should follow the plan and the actual spending timeline.
It depends on the gaps in the plan more than your age. Life insurance can matter if someone depends on your income or if it solves a specific estate or liquidity need. Long-term care coverage addresses a cost that can be significant and is not covered by Medicare in the way many people assume.
The question is always whether the plan can absorb the event on its own. If it can, coverage may not be needed. If it cannot, that is the gap to close.
A first conversation is about your goals and your numbers. No cost, no pressure, no obligation.
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