What Do You Want Retirement Planning to Help You Decide?
You may already know that retirement is financially possible. The harder question may be whether retiring next year would support the life you want, or whether working longer would meaningfully change your choices.
A retirement date can affect when income begins and which health coverage you need. It also changes how you spend your time. Planning brings those parts of the decision together.
Dovetail provides ongoing retirement planning and investment management within one fee-only fiduciary advisory relationship. We make recommendations, help carry them out, and keep advising you as life changes.
We primarily serve people planning to retire within the next five years or already living in retirement. Our Wilmington headquarters serves Southeastern North Carolina. You can also meet with us at our office in Duluth, Georgia, or work with us virtually from anywhere in the country.
Start With What You Want Help Understanding.
You may have a decision in mind, a concern you cannot quite explain, or several possibilities you want to explore. You do not need to settle your goals before talking with us.
Your advisor listens to what matters to you and checks that they have understood. What you value about work, time with family, your home, or financial security helps determine what the analysis needs to answer.
The financial findings can also change how you see a choice. They may reveal room for something you want, show what you would need to give up, or support keeping an arrangement that already works.
What Does the Financial Planning Include?
The analysis addresses the decisions in front of you and the other choices they could affect. It may include retirement income, investments, taxes, healthcare costs, family support, or estate planning considerations.
For a retirement-date decision, that could mean comparing when pay ends, how withdrawals would begin, and how health coverage and taxes would change. Your advisor connects those findings to what each date would mean for your life.
We explain the important assumptions and what remains uncertain. A projection helps compare possibilities; it cannot tell you exactly what the future will bring.
Your advisor explains what we recommend and why, then checks what you understand about the choice and its consequences. If something is unclear, we explain it differently. You can rely on your advisor for the technical work and ask for more detail when it would help.
What If the Recommendation Differs From What You Want?
Your advisor is responsible for giving candid advice. If a choice you prefer puts another priority at risk, we explain the concern and the alternatives worth considering.
You can question the advice or tell us that we have misunderstood something important. Your perspective and the financial findings both belong in the discussion. Better understanding may change the recommendation or make its reasons clearer.
A decision can make sense and still bring mixed feelings. Those feelings deserve room in the conversation.
How Do Decisions Become Part of Your Plan?
Once you decide how to proceed, Dovetail helps carry out and coordinate the related financial steps. Implementation, monitoring, and review are part of the ongoing relationship.
Some choices will continue to fit. Others may need adjustment as spending, health, family responsibilities, or financial circumstances change. New situations will also bring decisions the earlier plan could not settle.
Our planning approach helps organize that work:
Crossroads
helps identify which decisions have deadlines, what information is still needed, and what can wait.
Connected Planning
examines what else a choice may change so the recommendation accounts for the consequences that matter.
Adaptive Planning
reviews what has changed, what still fits, and what needs another look.
Which Retirement Situation Is Closest to Yours?
The questions can overlap or return as circumstances change. Start with the situation that most closely matches your life now.
Approaching Retirement
Compare possible retirement dates, how income could begin, and how health coverage would continue after work ends.
Recently Retired
Compare actual spending and withdrawals with the assumptions made before retirement. Review tax withholding and any decisions that may need to change.
Relocating to Wilmington in Retirement
Consider how a move could change housing costs and access to healthcare. Decide what you want nearby and how the move fits the rest of retirement.
How Would You Like to Participate?
Some clients make decisions with a spouse or partner. Others make decisions on their own. You may want to work through details yourself or have help with the financial tasks.
You choose how much personal context to share and who you want involved. When a decision is shared, each person's priorities and responsibilities deserve attention.
Explore Retirement Planning for Couples and Retirement Planning for Single Women.
What Experience Does Dovetail Bring to Retirement Planning?
Dovetail’s approach reflects more than 30 years of Ross Marino’s work with people approaching and living in retirement. He taught Retirement Planning and Employee Benefits in the CFP® curriculum at UNC Wilmington. He also co-authored Shaping Change: How to Respond When Life Disrupts Your Retirement Plan.
Which Retirement Decision Brought You Here?
Tell us what has changed or what you are considering. You do not need to organize every retirement question before the first call.
The introductory call will help you and Dovetail decide whether it makes sense to continue.
