THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO RETIREMENT PLANNING IN RANCHO CUCAMONGA
Planning out your retirement can be a confusing, frustrating process. You are tasked with decisions that will affect you for the rest of your life. Questions like “When do I start Social Security?” and “How much should I pull out of my 401(k) each month?” have real-life impacts.
Working with a financial advisor can help give you peace of mind that you are making the right retirement planning decisions. They’ll draw on their education and expertise to create your retirement blueprint, addressing your concerns and alerting you to possibilities you may not have even known existed.
But as a Rancho Cucamonga resident, how do you find this retirement planning guidance? Read on for two key steps to finding the right financial advisor for you.
STEP 1: DO YOUR RESEARCH
You can start by asking your family members, friends, and colleagues for referrals to the financial advisors they use. In addition, professionals you already work with, like your estate planning attorney or Certified Public Accountant, may have recommendations.
You can also enter terms like “retirement planning Rancho Cucamonga” or “financial planning Rancho Cucamonga” into Google or another search engine. In addition, professional organizations often offer the ability to search for advisors in their network. Three such websites are:
The CFP Board’s Let’s Make a Plan: Here, you will find area financial planners with the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ (CFP®) certification. The CFP® mark is one of the most highly regarded certifications in the financial services industry for its emphasis on comprehensive education, experience, and ethics, including the requirement to serve as a fiduciary to clients.
NAPFA’s Find an Advisor: You can find financial advisors who are members of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors. NAPFA members are held to strict fee-only, fiduciary requirements, which means they must act in clients’ best interests and never accept commissions.
Fee-Only Network: Like Find an Advisor above, you can use this site to find fee-only, fiduciary, and independent financial planning firms as defined by NAPFA.
After you have a handful of potential firms, look up their websites. You want to make sure the clients they serve and the services they offer fit your needs. For example, our independent advisory firm helps pre-retirees and retirees cut through the confusion of retirement planning by working with a concept they’re already familiar with—the paycheck. We help them turn their retirement income into a monthly paycheck without using annuities.
Search the advisor websites for terms that match your needs. For example, if you want to work with an advisor who will put your interests first, you may want to search for the word “fiduciary.” You can also look to see whether the firm is a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA). RIAs like our firm must serve as fiduciaries.
You can also look for “fee-only” to avoid the conflict of interest that arises when financial professionals take commissions and other third-party compensation. Finally, the CFP® certification will indicate a fiduciary financial advisor who can provide comprehensive financial advice tailored to your goals.
2. SCHEDULE A CALL
Financial advisors generally offer brief, free calls so you can discuss your financial goals and needs, as well as any concerns or questions you have. For example, if you’re still unsure about their fiduciary status, you can use this initial contact to ask.
The financial advisor will explain whether and how they can help you. They may even briefly explain the process they’d walk you through to develop your retirement plan. Of course, every advisor approaches this differently. To understand how our retirement planning firm does things, check out our podcasts on the initial call and the process that follows if we mutually decide to move forward.
FINAL THOUGHTS
When you commit to retirement planning, you are entrusting your savings and future to a professional. Because it is generally a long-term relationship, you want to feel entirely comfortable with the Rancho Cucamonga advisor you select. Doing your research and scheduling an initial call can go a long way to building that confidence.
If you have any questions about the advisory services or process we follow, please reach out! And if you’d like to schedule a call with a fiduciary, fee-only financial advisor, we welcome the opportunity to talk with you. In addition to our Rancho Cucamonga headquarters, we meet with clients virtually and in Los Angeles, Irvine, Pasadena, and Redlands.
This material was prepared by Kaleido Inc. from information derived from sources believed to be accurate. This information should not be construed as investment, tax or legal advice.