My mission is to help you feel smarter about your money and retirement, with clarity and confidence. My work helps busy professionals and retirees avoid costly mistakes and grow lasting wealth to and through retirement. I write *The Best Interest* blog, produce *Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors* podcast, and write this free weekly newsletter. Please - subscribe and learn!
(Over) Optimizing Your Retirement Plan? 🔮🧮
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Hello! Jesse Cramer here. Thank you for reading The Best Interest blog, And listening to my podcast, Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors. From the blog...Today’s question is the kind that might make you think, “That’s too complicated,” or “Surely that doesn’t apply to me.” That’s ok. If you prefer to keep things simple, knowing that you’re leaving tax dollars lying on the floor, I get it. However, I assure you that today’s topic is something every well-optimized retirement plan takes into account. If you’re not thinking about it, you might want to reconsider. Podcast listener Larry wrote in and said:
Jesse, I hear you mention two interesting strategies a lot: the first is low-tax Roth conversions, and the second is paying 0% on capital gains. Correct me if I’m wrong, but doing one of these strategies reduces your ability to do the other. Right? So – which one is better? If I have limited space in my financial plan, am I better off paying 0% capital gains or doing low-tax Roth conversions? Which is better? The answer is more nuanced than you might think. 🔗 0% Capital Gains vs. Roth Conversions 🔗 On the podcast...Speaking of optimization... In contrast to the nuanced article on the blog, this week's podcast episode focuses on the opposite question: Can we over-optimize our financial plan? Can we focus too much on specific technical aspects and miss the forest for the trees? Tune in below! 🎧 - When Smart Financial Planning Backfires
PS...the podcast episode above is a "companion episode" to ChooseFI Episode 555. Brad Barrett was kind enough to invite me onto ChooseFI this past week. Tune into that episode below!
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P.S. - if you find something great that you think deserves to be shared with our community, let us know! What Are *Your* Questions?I've been creating "ask me anything" episodes on the podcast, where I answer your questions about investing, financial planning, and retirement. They are quickly becoming my most popular episodes. I'm collecting questions for AMAs 9 and 10. Work with Jesse?By night, I run The Best Interest and Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors. By day, I work for a fiduciary wealth management firm in Rochester, NY. I’d be honored to offer guidance to you, your friends, family, or colleagues. Please - let me know how I can help. You can learn more here. In ClosingThank you, as always, for reading, listening, and getting in touch. The project continues because the audience (that's you!) is amazing. People like you send me questions every single day. I’d love to hear from you. Go ahead! Send an email or ask me question: jesse@bestinterest.blog Until next week, Jesse |
Jesse Cramer
My mission is to help you feel smarter about your money and retirement, with clarity and confidence. My work helps busy professionals and retirees avoid costly mistakes and grow lasting wealth to and through retirement. I write *The Best Interest* blog, produce *Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors* podcast, and write this free weekly newsletter. Please - subscribe and learn!
Hello! Jesse Cramer here. Thank you for reading The Best Interest blog, And listening to my podcast, Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors. From the blog... What’s possibly the best benefit of writing and podcasting to all of you? The best benefit of working with real-life clients? The stories. The emails that readers and listeners send to me. The nitty-gritty details we uncover when developing a client’s financial plan. You guys sharing what’s going on in your life, and then asking: "what...
Hello! Jesse Cramer here. Thank you for reading The Best Interest blog, And listening to my podcast, Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors. From the blog... What happens when a forced withdrawal, like Required Minimum Distributions, occurs during a down market? Isn't that an unavoidable and frustrating exposure to the "sequence of returns" risk? It could happen. But you have more control than you might think. From timing strategies to Roth conversions, this article outlines the playbook...
Hello! Jesse Cramer here. Thank you for reading The Best Interest blog, And listening to my podcast, Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors. From the blog... The basic investor might say: Stocks return 10% per year. Bonds return 5% per year. Cash returns 3% per year. This framework is flawed for so many reasons. Stocks are too volatile to make 1-year predictions or averages. Such a short-term view overlooks the concept of compounding. When we think in real, inflation-adjusted, after-tax...