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Hardworking people want to ensure that they invest enough money to live comfortably throughout retirement. JM Wealth Management can help them keep their money working as hard as they do. Jim Merklinghaus and Ryan Merklinghaus run this full-service broker in Florida and New Jersey. However, they are licensed and serve clients throughout the US.
The Merklinghaus father and son team has nearly four decades of experience. Jim and Ryan have tips to help with your retirement strategy. Their first piece of advice: make your money do double duty. Make every dollar work now as well as later.
Jim Merklinghaus explains how to fund your multiple needs in a cash-efficient way. He suggests that you make unconventional but safe money moves.
“One big issue is being able to take the same dollar and answer many solutions,” Jim says. “That way, you’re not spending the same dollar twice or three times on different issues. For instance, most families need life insurance. If you can make the same dollar you’re paying for life insurance be the same dollar that can help you retire someday tax-free, why not?”
Another related concept Jim recommends is for any family who just started a 30-year mortgage to set up a policy that not only covers the breadwinners now but also does so much more for no extra cost.
“We say to them, ‘Okay, what we’re going to do is set up a life insurance policy,’” Jim says. “‘We can fund it so that in 20 years you’re going to have enough money in the universal life to do a withdrawal to pay off the balance of the mortgage, but the policy will still be in place.’ So later on, when they retire, they can draw a monthly income.”
The second suggestion, from Ryan Merklinghaus, is to figure out the total costs involved in life issues to avoid nasty surprises later. He says many people aren’t aware of the best ways to utilize life insurance to make it work most efficiently.
“We explain to clients that no matter how much insurance you have, if the beneficiary died tomorrow, and you had a million dollars in coverage, It’s not about that dollar figure. It’s about how much interest that million dollars will produce and sustain yearly because you have to replace the income of the person who’s gone. Otherwise, you would spend that million dollars down 10 or 15 years.”
Ryan says this kind of insurance purchase is an investment geared toward younger workers between 18 and 40 looking ahead to families and retirement.
“This provides an immediate death benefit to cover their family or loved ones, and at the same time, it’s filling up value inside so as the years go by, when they get ready to retire, it will eventually build itself to a point where it can pay an indefinite lifetime income and still provide a death benefit.”
A third important piece of advice JM Wealth Management offers is how you can save on taxes as you work toward retirement. One of the biggest problems Jim points out is that everyone in the United States goes to work, pays taxes on their gross income, brings home a net paycheck, and uses that net to invest.
“But eventually, when you reinvest it, you have another tax to pay when you go to live off the interest of the investment,” Jim says. “We try to use Roth IRAs, or Roth 401 K plans, and the inside cash value build-up of a life insurance policy to eliminate that secondary taxation.”
A final recommendation is to shop around for a professional to work with on investing and growing their retirement money. Jim warns not to waste your hard-earned money on fees. Always research brokers and firms to see if they charge fees, and if so, what’s the total cost?
“People never pay us directly,” Jim Merklinghaus says. “We’re paid directly by the carrier, so our clients never pay us a fee for what we do. And in some cases, we work where there is zero fee.”
And finally, along those same lines, are there any guarantees? Many investments do not include guarantees, and in those cases, it’s possible to lose growth and sometimes even principle on your investment. Always do your research and ask questions.
As Jim and Ryan Merklinghaus say to clients, “We listen, We educate, You succeed. Your principal is guaranteed.”
