Rachel Lutzker: Welcome to today’s CT Buzz, I’m Rachel Lutzker. Well, goal setting has proven to be extremely effective for businesses as they tackle profits and for individuals as they plan to lose weight—but why don’t we do it for retirement? Well, the short answer is: we should. Ben Fuchs, founder of Fuchs Financial, is here to talk about how they can help you set concrete goals for when you can actually retire, and they’ll work with you to determine the steps it will actually take to get there. In addition to being a Certified Financial Planner, Ben is also a Certified Private Wealth Advisor professional. So Ben, Fuchs Financial’s objective is really quite simple—it’s to put you in the best position for your retirement. So let’s take a look at some of the questions that you help folks with to get them started. Ben Fuchs: Yeah, I think the most important thing is: what do you want in your retirement? Ultimately, we want to figure out—are we trying to travel, are we trying to see our kids, or do we just want to stay home and be excited to be grandparents? But what does that take, and what does it cost? Let’s start putting all the numbers together so that we can do some actual, real financial goal planning. Rachel Lutzker: Alright, now timing is kind of almost everything. Ben Fuchs: Yeah, I mean absolutely. Ultimately, what are you doing with your investments? Are you 10 years away from retirement? Are you one year away from retirement? Should you be doing that now? I think a lot of people think timing is everything, and they want to try to gamify the stock market. They’ll try and buy low, sell high—which is great—but historically has proven to be a loser’s game. So what we want to do is find the right time to do the right thing for your retirement. We’re not trying to get in and out at the right point, but we want to make sure—if you’re at a point where you can’t take that much risk, let’s not take that much risk. There’s no crystal ball—it would be way too easy if we could see what was going to happen in the future. Rachel Lutzker: But the third on that list is “show and tell”—what will today’s decision look like in the future? Ben Fuchs: Yeah, look, ultimately I think one of the complaints we’ve received from people we meet with for the first time—or people who have come from other advisors—is that they were told what to do, but it wasn’t explained to them. For us, it’s: let me explain the logic. Let’s go through why we’re making this recommendation. And if you disagree, that’s okay. If we tell you to wait until 68 to take Social Security but you want to take it at 64—and you understand why we made that recommendation—it’s your money, you do what you want. But at least you understand the reasoning behind it, and I think that’s really important. Rachel Lutzker: Alright, now the last is how to build that paycheck. Ben Fuchs: Yeah, listen—there’s nothing more important when you’re facing retirement than understanding where your paycheck is going to come from. You need to have a resilient paycheck. You can’t just hope the market continues to go up. We need to have things in place for market crashes. Some people like to use annuities for that—there are lots of other ways as well—but there are many different ways to create a paycheck. We need to find the one that works for you and fits your lifestyle. Rachel Lutzker: So we’re at the start of the year—why is this a good time to start looking at things now rather than in December? Ben Fuchs: Ultimately, we want to make a plan. We want to set a goal. What are we trying to save? Are we trying to get out of debt? What are we trying to accomplish? If we know what we’re trying to hit, we can figure out the markers we need to get there. If I need to save an extra $300 a month to hit my goal, I want to know that in January or February—not in December. Rachel Lutzker: And the great thing is you offer a complimentary consultation, so folks can come in, sit down with you—and this is a great time of year to do that. You can reach out to Fuchs Financial for a complimentary, no-obligation consultation or get a second opinion on your existing retirement financial plan from a top-notch team of experts. Ben can help set your financial goals and keep you on track. Tell us where we can find you—you have offices all across the state. Ben Fuchs: We have offices in Middlebury, Mystic, West Hartford, and Middletown. You can find us at taxesandincome.com—go online, reach out, schedule a phone call, and let’s see what we can do to help. Rachel Lutzker: And the phone number: (860) 461-1709. Thanks for joining us on CT Buzz—I’m Rachel Lutzker, and we’ll see you next time.
