FI 407 - Retirement Planning

In this course, you will learn how to plan for retirement, organize finances and develop a personalized plan that empowers you to reach your long-term goals. Topics include how to best calculate savings needed to retire, employer retirement plans and how to maximize their potential, understanding taxes and how to utilize them to save money, managing investment risks and more.

Course Learning Outcomes:

Describe how to plan for retirement
Identify retirement needs and expenses
Identify retirement planning challenges
Describe retirement income sources
Describe types of investments
Describe how to assess risk and preserve assets
Describe how to estate plan

Outline:

Life Planning for Retirement
- Traditional vs New Retirement
- New retirement opportunities
- Values and objectives in nine areas of life
- The retirement planning process
Retirement needs and expenses
- Early retirement trends
- How long must your money last
- Inflation, prices and purchasing power
- Retirement expectations
- How much will you need to retire
- Can you retire today
Retirement Roadblocks & Mistakes 
- Ten retirement planning mistakes
- Financial and cash-flow statements
- Credit and debt
- Taxes and marginal tax rates
- Eleven strategies to save money on taxes
- Taxable investments
- Capital gains income tax exclusion
- Investments with tax advantages
Retirement Income Sources
- Traditional IRAs
- Roth IRAs
- IRA to Roth IRA conversions
- Other retirement income sources
- Social security eligibility and benefits
- Employment income and Social Security
- Employer-sponsored defined benefit plans
- Employer-sponsored defined contributions plans
Retirement Plan Distributions
- Retiring or changing jobs
- Defined benefit and contribution plans
- Three important considerations
- Lump sum vs IRA transfer vs annuity payments
- Rollovers, direct rollovers and transfers
- Annuity income and choices
- Early retirement considerations
- Minimum required distributions
Investments
- Considerations before you invest
- Cash accounts
- Stocks and bonds
- Mutual funds
- Exchange traded funds
- Unit investment trusts
- Individually managed accounts
- Tax-deferred annuities
- Investment risk management strategies
Risk Management & Asset Preservation 
- Disability income insurance
- Health insurance and Medicare
- Long-term care and insurance
- Comparing life insurance
Estate Planning
- Planning for incapacity
- Taxes
- Shortfalls of will-only estate plans
- Probate
- Gifting assets
- Joint ownership of property
- Direct transfer assets
- Types and benefits of trusts