Enjoy the current installment of "Weekend Reading For Financial Planners" – this week's edition kicks off with the news that Vanguard is planning to acquire RIA custodian Altruist and how it is likely to send ripples across the wealth management and asset management spectrum. While it immediately provides Altruist with the backing of an enormous asset management firm and Vanguard inroads into the RIA custodial space with a tech-forward offering, it could also put pressure on the largest RIA custodians Charles Schwab and Fidelity to up their level of service in the competition for RIA business and provide a boost to certain ETF providers looking to distribute their products to RIAs while avoiding fees charged by the major incumbent custodians.

Also in industry news this week:

• Consumers are prioritizing trust when it comes to selecting a wealth management provider, according to a recent survey, with service and fee transparency, as well as identity and account security, being key contributors to demonstrating this attribute
• Member satisfaction with Medicare Advantage plans dipped for the second straight year, according to a recent survey, highlighting the value of financial advisors in helping clients select the best Medicare option for their needs (and in making a change when necessary)

From there, we have several articles on investment planning:

• Evaluating the types of clients who could benefit the most from investments in Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) at a time when long TIPS offer real yields greater than 3%
• Why it's important to keep a client's investment time horizon in mind to avoid surprises when choosing individual TIPS or investing in a TIPS fund
• How advisors can incorporate inflation trends into portfolio management conversations with clients

We also have a number of articles on advisor marketing:

• How Facebook advertising campaigns can provide flexibility and data to inform a firm's broader marketing approach (but might not produce instant leads)
• How firms can use geographic market data to determine whether to emphasize a local SEO strategy or one focused on an ideal client type
• Four ways advisors can appear more often (and authoritatively) in AI answer engine search results

We wrap up with three final articles, all about next-generation wealth:

• Why some wealthy parents are sending their young adult children to retreats where they can learn about wealth stewardship and compare experiences with peers
• The growing popularity of (sometimes high-cost) 'gap years' and how they fit alongside college plans
• While many parents are worried that financial transfers to adult children might reduce their motivation, creating an income 'floor' could help them pursue a meaningful life path

Enjoy the 'light' reading!

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One of the most challenging realities of retirement planning is the risk that long-term care needs in the final few years of life can consume a disproportionate amount of a household's entire retirement savings. At best, this culminates in a fear that someone might not be able to afford their desired level of care in the later years. At worst, it is paired with the rapid depletion of existing assets, which can impair the subsequent standard of living of a surviving spouse, or 'unexpectedly' deplete assets that might have otherwise gone as an inheritance to family members. Yet the so-called "Medicaid planning" tools in the financial planner's toolbox to navigate this situation can quickly pit competing interests against one another, as strategies that preserve assets for heirs can outright limit the availability of assets to provide for a desired level of care while the individual is still alive. Putting financial planners into the awkward position of crafting recommendations in ethically complex situations.

In this guest post, David Haughton, VP of Estate Planning at Carson Group, explores the ethical dynamics that financial planners must navigate when crafting Medicaid planning recommendations to clients.

The starting point is to recognize that to the extent Medicaid was designed as a needs-based government benefit (i.e., to provide for the care of lower-income individuals who could not provide for themselves), proactive "Medicaid planning" involves finding ways to reduce the assets of the individual who may otherwise need long-term care support, before those assets are otherwise spent outright on care itself. The tools are varied, including transferring assets into Medicaid trusts, or gifting outright to family members, or the use of Medicaid annuities to convert the institutionalized spouse's assets into the non-institutionalized spouse's income. But the common thread is that assets no longer held in the individual's name are no longer required to be spent on care… for which the caveat is that often they literally cannot be spent on care.

The end result of this planning is that strategies to preserve assets for a non-institutionalized spouse, or future heirs, come at the 'cost' of reducing the assets available to spend on care if desired. In many cases, this may mean restricting the range of facilities available (to only those that accept Medicaid), or the tiers of additional care services that may be chosen (that aren't available in a primarily-Medicaid facility). Which is especially concerning when often the planning process begins with an adult child, thrust into a decision-making situation after a parent's health event, who must now make decisions for their parent's care with a direct impact on their own future inheritance.

The added complication is that for many financial advisors, our own compensation systems can present an additional conflict of interest in the process. Some tools – such as Medicaid annuities or asset-based long-term care policies – compensate insurance-licensed advisors who can receive commissions, but not fee-only advisors. Other tools – such as Medicaid trusts – do the opposite, preserving assets that can be managed by advisors who are paid on assets under management. Which means at the least, advisors must be mindful of their own compensation conflicts of interest in navigating recommendations.

So what should advisors do? Ultimately, the key is to engage in proactive conversations with all stakeholders – ideally including parents and children (while still recognizing which, in particular, has hired the advisor as the client, to whom the advisor owes their primary fiduciary duty) – to ensure that all trade-offs and potential priorities are considered. And then ensuring that not only are recommendations documented, but all the strategies that were considered, and the trade-offs that were discussed.

Ultimately, the key is to recognize that Medicaid planning is, perhaps even more so than other types of financial planning, rife with trade-offs for which there are no clear answers. And because multiple family members are involved, the trade-offs aren't even a matter of just one person evaluating a trade-off (e.g., "should I spend less now to be able to save more for a higher standard of living in retirement?"), instead the decisions have impact across multiple people (an individual in need of care, his/her spouse, and their children or other heirs), each of whom have their own competing interests. Which raises the bar for how thoroughly advisors must explore – and document – the range of strategies that were considered, and how the trade-off decisions were made when there is no single right answer.

And if you want to go deeper on this topic, hear directly from the author on the Financial Advisor Technician podcast .

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My guest on today's podcast is Sheri Fitts. Sheri is the founder of Sheri Fitts and Co., a marketing, event, and consulting business that works alongside financial advisors and firms.

What's unique about Sheri, though, is how she helps financial advisors develop their personal brands to both stand out in the eyes of good-fit clients and to ensure their work is in sync with their values.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Sheri finds that intentionally cultivating a personal brand is important because an advisor will already have a brand (whether they like it or not), why Sheri suggests that a first step to establishing a personal brand for a financial advisor is to go where the ‘yeses’ are and investigate what made the last few new clients the advisor onboarded want to work with them, and how Sheri has found that these reasons can be illuminating to advisors because they show what clients truly value (and the attributes the advisor might want to lean into further in their marketing).

We also talk about how Sheri sees the next step in brand-building as identifying the client segment that both meshes with the advisor’s strengths and brings them joy to serve, why Sheri recommends that advisors then determine whether this particular client segment represents a viable market (perhaps aided by AI tools that can help find data on how many individuals might fit into this group and where they congregate), and how Sheri finds that experimentation can be a valuable (and low-cost) tool when building a brand (for example, by meeting individuals in the chosen client segment to find out whether the financial issues they face are a good match for the advisor’s strengths).

And be certain to listen to the end, where Sheri shares the value of being bold when it comes to building a personal or business brand, how Sheri has found that identifying one’s sense of purpose is key not only for making career decisions but also in constructing an advisor’s brand, and how Sheri’s own business-building journey has demonstrated the benefits of taking risks as long as they align with one’s values.

So, whether you’re interested in learning about building a personal brand, leveraging that brand to attract more good-fit clients, or how to overcome doubts about narrowing the field of potential clients you could serve, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Sheri Fitts.

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When selling a business, it's only natural to want to negotiate for the highest price you can. In the context of the advisory business, this has led to a growing focus on the "going rate" valuation multiples of revenue or earnings (EBITDA), with advisors asking what they can do to maximize the overall sale price for their firm. Yet the caveat is that when it comes to the sale of advisory businesses, deals are almost never structured with the total purchase price paid at closing. Instead, deals are commonly structured with a significant component of the purchase price to be paid out years after the closing, and only if the seller meets certain milestones, which can be challenging to achieve. Sellers who gloss over or misunderstand these nuanced deal terms can receive less than they originally envisioned when negotiating the deal, such that what sellers "expect" to receive as a valuation multiple when the deal is struck may be substantively different than what they actually receive in the end.

In this guest post, Rich Chen, founder of Brightstar Law Group, explores how today's serial acquirers of advisory firms commonly include retention, earnout, and other post-closing contingencies that can materially shape what sellers will actually receive for the sale of their firm.

The first key to recognize in evaluating the offer letter for an advisory firm acquisition is that in today's environment, deals are rarely ever paid out fully in cash at closing. At best, only 80% of the deal may be paid when the transaction closes, and in many cases as little as 50% or even just 25% of the deal occur in cash. Which at the very least, means advisors must adjust for the time value of money, at a reasonable discount rate (that reflects the risk of being an implicit creditor of the acquirer!), for the fact that much of the proceeds may take as many as three to five years to be paid out.

However, scrutinizing deferred payments is not just about the fact that they are delayed, it's that depending on the terms, they may never be paid, as they are commonly subject to contingencies of how the deal itself proceeds after closing.

For instance, acquirers often defer payments based on retention requirements, that a certain number of clients (or more commonly, a certain percentage of revenue) must be retained after closing, for at least 1 year and sometimes as long as 2-3 years after closing. Which not only creates an outright hurdle for sellers to navigate – in staying onboard and engaged enough to ensure clients stick with the transition – but an additional challenge in that sellers don't necessarily control the environment that they operate in after the deal closes! Clients may have outflows due to taxes, or a divorce, or terminate due to dissatisfaction with the new acquirer, and the seller is at risk. A market decline could cause clients to leave, or simply depress revenue (calculated on assets under management), and while some firms do offer a "market-neutral" revenue retention clause (where changes in market returns are backed out), that adjustment can turn out to sting if the markets went up and might have otherwise preserved the retention payment against other client outflows!

An even greater challenge in many acquisition situations are earnouts, which require not just retention but a certain "threshold" rate of growth (typically calculated as a Compound Annual Growth Rate, or CAGR) for several years after the closing. Which is difficult both because of the challenges of compounding – a 20% CAGR amounts to a requirement that the seller must 2.5X the business in 'just' five years to meet the earnout (and if they could 2.5X the business that quickly, should they have even sold it!?) – and also because the seller must achieve growth goals in a firm that they no longer control (which could change its investment strategy, or its pricing, or its staff support… and the advisor simply has to do their best with the situation). And many acquirers also retain the right to terminate the advisor, with or without cause… potentially curtailing their ability to achieve the earnout targets at all.

The good news is that at least some retention, earnout, and post-deal employment terms (with restrictions on terminations without cause) can be negotiated with buyers. And awareness of the importance of the terms, and how they work, makes it easier to compare and contrast different Offer letters that may have different structures. Still, though, the key point is that it's not enough to 'just' focus on the valuation multiple the business is receiving in the first place, because what matters is not what the deal is worth "on paper" when it closes, but what the seller actually receives in their pocket in the end!

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Enjoy the current installment of "Weekend Reading For Financial Planners" – this week's edition kicks off with the news that the recent termination of an editor at Forbes over a payment received from the founder of a company it worked with to produce "best advisor" rankings brings to light that such lists are quite subjective and could be big business for those that create them (and potentially influence who is selected for them, given that awardees are given the option to pay to publicize the recognition in various ways). Nonetheless, given that such rankings can be a way for advisors to differentiate themselves in a competitive marketplace for advice, making prospective clients aware of this recognition (in compliance with the SEC's marketing rule) could be a way to stand out (though if they are paying to do so, the potential return on such outlays could be compared against other marketing tactics?).

Also in industry news this week:

• A recently acquired document indicates that SEC examiners are looking for evidence of 'AI-washing' and sufficient training of those using AI tools during recent examinations of RIAs
• CFP Board this week published a guide outlining how CFP professionals can engage in retirement plan rollover conversations (that can involve significant conflicts of interest for the advisor) while fulfilling their fiduciary responsibilities

From there, we have several articles on tax planning:

• How financial advisors can help clients avoid a tax surprise when it comes to receiving employer Roth 401(k) contributions
• Why receiving a "contemporaneous written acknowledgement" from the recipient is crucial in order to receive a charitable deduction for gifts valued at $250 or more
• Why clients and their advisors might consider potential IRMAA surcharges when evaluating the timing of the sale of a home that will result in a taxable capital gain

We also have a number of articles on estate planning:

• How conducting an annual account beneficiary check-up with clients can be a highly valued advisor service
• Why ethical wills can be a key part of communicating an individual's legacy to loved ones
• The benefits available to clients of identifying a trusted contact (and how they differ from a power of attorney)

We wrap up with three final articles, all about spending:

• While a body of research indicates the benefits of 'trading' money for more time, this decision can come with psychological weight
• Why a certain level of 'lifestyle creep' could be worthwhile to better enjoy life in middle age and to flex the spending 'muscle' before retirement
• How an individual's spending rate is a key input to analyzing their ability to save and meet future financial goals but can be hard to compare to others'

Enjoy the 'light' reading!

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The value of financial planning often stems from helping clients realize their goals… both in the literal financial sense of managing cashflow and in the figurative sense of determining what those goals actually are. The former is often 'just' a question of good planning, but the latter takes continual time and investigation. Aspirations like owning a vacation home can be accepted at face value, or they may signal a chance for the advisor to dig deeper into their clients' deeper motivation.

In this 197th episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and client communication expert Carl Richards discuss how to dive into what clients 'really' want – even (and especially) when clients struggle to articulate it themselves. This is important as many of these life decisions are 'expensive' as they represent a deposit of not just cash, but also time and attention – all resources that can be spent elsewhere. Thus, it is essential for advisors to understand what the underlying desire is, such as connection, community, independence, or purpose. Once that underlying desire is revealed, through questions like, "what would having that allow you to do?", the advisor and client can reflect together on the options to fulfill that desire.

One of the most effective ways to evaluate these deeper priorities is through small, intentional experiments. Rather than making large, irreversible commitments, clients can test ideas in lower risk ways, such as renting a similar property in the area where they want a vacation home. Similarly, a client who desires more community might become a one-time volunteer before making a long-term commitment. These experiments can be informative about what the clients truly enjoy, what sacrifices they're willing to make, and whether the experience actually delivered the expected value.

Another thought experiment is to have the client imagine that it's three years in the future, and they've succeeded at whatever they aspire towards. What is their life like? How do they feel? This is especially valuable if the client is stuck between several different paths – often, in describing that imagined moment, more implicit excitement will show for one path or another, informing the direction in which a client can experiment.

Ultimately, these experiments are a practice in the art of paying attention to life's construction. The allocation of capital – be it money, time, or attention – is often what makes up a person's life. So if the advisor can continually hold conversations that nudge clients to look more deeply not only at what they want, but why they want it, clients may find themselves surprised at what 'actually' makes a difference to them in their lives. Over time, these large and small allocations accumulate into a deep value in financial planning!

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When advisors work with couples, the goal is to make both parties feel seen and heard. Yet while many advisors aim to include both clients, this is often easier said than done. One client may be very engaged in the financial planning relationship, and the other may be less enthused by the prospect of meeting with an advisor. While not all clients need to be equally interested in the financial planning engagement, potential issues can compound over time to the point where only one partner is present in the financial planning relationship, and the other is absent – or they attend meetings but give no input.

Conceiving of this client as the "disengaged spouse" may be doing a disservice to the client. After all, several elements may be at play, including role specialization (where one partner handles the majority of financial decisions, while the other focuses elsewhere) as well as a difference in communication styles. In their 2018 Journal of Financial Planning article, "Planning for Conflict in Client Relationships," authors Sarah Asbedos and Emily Purdon presented a framework of conflict styles within couples, asserting that all individuals had some combination of high/low accommodation and high/low assertiveness. A client who has a high assertiveness/low accommodation style, for example, may be less willing to compromise – whereas a client with the opposite traits may be too willing to compromise, rather than speak their mind. These elements can make it more difficult for both partners to be heard and understood when the couple is in a meeting together.

As such, it may be more helpful to label these dynamics as a sort of "misengagement" between the client couple – gaps in a couple's priorities and communication styles that can make understanding what motivates both people challenging. An advisor who can quickly identify and adapt to these differences in early meetings stands a higher chance of keeping both parties engaged. 

What each couple needs will vary. For example, if one partner is more assertive, but not very cooperative, they may be prone to quickly sharing their judgement – and the advisor may need to use reflection language to 'neutralize' some of their assertiveness. On the other hand, if one partner is less assertive, they may need to be invited to share their thoughts first – or may benefit from opportunities to share their thoughts outside of the immediate pressure of a meeting.

Ultimately, the key point is that client "disengagement" is a multi-faceted issue, and advisors can use a variety of tools to increase their odds of connecting with both partners.  While some clients may willingly step back and opt to let their partners steer the relationship, the advisor can still encourage their presence within goal-setting or other decision-making meetings that may feel less 'technical' in nature. If advisors can thread the needle between providing options without being overbearing, they may be able to iterate with the client couple to find a rhythm inside (and outside of) meetings that works for everyone!

And if you want to go deeper on this topic, hear directly from the author on the Financial Advisor Technician podcast .

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My guest on today's podcast is David Brooks. David is the founder of Retire SMART, an RIA based in Omaha, Nebraska, that oversees approximately $800 million in assets under management for 1,000 client households.

What's unique about David, though, is how he has achieved rapid growth in part by investing in multiple marketing tactics, including in-person educational events and an extensive network of radio, television, YouTube, and podcast content.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how David committed to spending 25% of his revenue on marketing during his first two years in business (and still spends approximately 12% of revenue on marketing today), why David is willing to continue to invest in legacy marketing tactics that have a lower return on investment than newer ones he implements, and how David invests 20% of his marketing budget in pure branding activities, both to expand name recognition of his firm and because of the synergies these activities have with his marketing funnels that have a more direct ROI.

We also talk about how David has found success by holding in-person educational events (including traditional lunch and dinner seminars as well as classroom-based discussions in his firm’s offices), how David built a large audience through radio and television shows (which have now expanded to include a podcast, YouTube channel, and social media content), and how David analyzes key metrics to assess the return he gets from each of the marketing investments he makes.

And be certain to listen to the end, where David shares how taking a tax-centric planning approach allows him to demonstrate hard-dollar value for his pre-retiree, retiree, and business owner clients, how David decided to launch his own ETFs both to allow smaller-dollar clients to access his active investments strategies and as a potential profit center from external investors, and how David has navigated the bottlenecks that can come with rapid firm growth.

So, whether you’re interested in learning about marketing through educational content, measuring the ROI of marketing investments, or how to manage a rapidly growing firm, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with David Brooks.

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When deciding on what technology to adopt for their practices, financial advisors have always had the choice between building their own tools or buying 'off-the-shelf' third-party solutions. But in practice, for the vast majority of firms, it's historically almost always been better to "buy" than to "build": Because the upfront cost of building a piece of software is so high (which third-party providers are able to spread across many different users), it might take many years for a firm that builds its own software to realize enough savings to recoup the initial investment – at which point it might be time to replace or overhaul the software and start the process over again.

But in the past several years, the cost of building and developing new software has decreased thanks to the emergence of AI-powered 'vibe coding' tools, which can convert plain-English instructions from users into the code needed to make the software work – greatly reducing the need to hire a human developer to manually code the whole project (and in many cases allowing developers to work faster and more cheaply). Which in turn has changed the math about when it makes sense to build versus buy technology: Where it once might have only made sense for firms with 20+ advisors to build custom technology, many smaller firms and even solo advisors now can (and do) create their own tools. The lowering of barriers to self-built technology has led to many predictions that advisors will overwhelmingly drop their third-party software licenses and turn to 'homegrown' tools, causing mass disruption and consolidation of existing AdvisorTech providers.

While some advisors are embracing the possibilities of vibe coding and building their own tools, the evidence so far shows that third-party software providers as a whole are under no threat from vibe coded alternatives. Because even among advisors who are diving into tools like Claude to build their own technology, the vast majority are creating software that supplements, rather than replaces, their existing third-party solutions. For example, advisors in vibe coding communities like Builder FP have primarily focused on either tools that can help integrate reporting outputs from their existing software platforms into a single streamlined deliverable, or that are specific to the needs of their own niche clientele. Which makes sense given that most advisors are already fairly happy with the software that they use, and there's little reason to go through the effort of building custom software from scratch (even with the help of AI) to replace something that's already working well!

And in fact, the proliferation of AI coding tools will more likely lead to an increase, not a decrease, in the number of third-party technology solutions available. Entrepreneurs can use those same vibe coding tools to develop technology at a quicker pace and in areas that might not have been economically viable in the past (including niche areas like real estate and long-term care planning as well as categories like CRM and tax planning where there is well-established competition). Advisors may soon be able to find more tools to fill in the gaps between their existing technology – making the already crowded technology landscape even more so, and forcing advisors to spend even more time evaluating and managing their technology.

The key point is that although AI vibe coding might lower the bar for advisors to build their own tools, the reality is that few advisors consider themselves technologists and most are instead satisfied with letting a specialized third-party provider do the work of building, developing, and distributing the software that they use (not to mention handling the finer points of things like data security that are harder to master with self-built software). And while advisors can choose to build their own tools in the specific areas that their existing software doesn't cover, the proliferation of new technology suggests that those who aren't inclined to do it themselves may be able to simply wait a little while for the right solution to appear from a third party!

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Enjoy the current installment of "Weekend Reading For Financial Planners" – this week's edition kicks off with the news that the Treasury Department released proposed regulations that would clarify several aspects of Section 530A "Trump Accounts". The proposed rules would make the allowed $2,500 employer contribution excluded from income to apply on a per employee basis and across all employers (so that an employee could only exclude a total of $2,500 from income no matter how many children or jobs they have), though the proposal does offer some additional flexibility by giving employers the option of allowing employees to make pre-tax salary reduction contributions (up to $2,500 per year) through a section 125 cafeteria plan to a dependent's Trump Account. In addition, the proposal says that sole proprietors, partners, and 2%+ S-corp shareholders would not be able to make income-excludable employer contributions to their own or their dependents' Trump Accounts (which is likely to disappoint business owners who hoped to gain the tax benefits of doing so).

Also in industry news this week:

• The Treasury Department said this week that it is issuing a final rule that permanently removes the requirement for U.S. companies and U.S. persons to report beneficial ownership information to FinCEN under the Corporate Transparency Act
• Advisors and their clients alike appear to be more optimistic than they were earlier in the year, according to a recent survey, with a strong majority of advisors also reporting growth in the size of their client bases

From there, we have several articles on investment planning:

• While increased correlations between stocks and bonds in recent years might have some investors questioning the value of bonds within a portfolio, this statistic alone might not tell the full story of the potential benefits of a bond allocation
• How advisors are working with clients who want to maintain larger cash holdings amidst market uncertainty
• Why diversification might be better thought of as an ingredient in successful asset allocation rather than the goal itself

We also have a number of articles on retirement planning:

• Why the relative flexibility and simplicity of the SEP IRA could make it a useful tool for certain business owners and freelancers
• How cash balance plans have experienced growing popularity in recent years as a tool for high earners to defer taxes and build their retirement savings
• The nuts and bolts of establishing Solo 401(k) plans for self-employed clients

We wrap up with three final articles, all about the role of financial advisors:

• The history of musical conductors and how it mirrors the role of the financial advisor in supporting clients
• How financial advisors might 'conduct' clients' financial lives in a world of advancing Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered tools
• How financial advisors can once again move to 'higher ground' amidst a potential technological 'threat'

Enjoy the 'light' reading!

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Planning for an enjoyable retirement is a primary goal of many financial planning clients. For many, this means working full-time well into their 60s before leaving the workforce entirely. However, this 'traditional' view of retirement might not be a fit for every individual, as some might not want to wait until they reach their mid-60s to take significant time away from the workplace – while others might prefer to preserve the financial, psychological, and social benefits that can come from working past 'traditional' retirement age.

With this in mind, financial advisors have the opportunity to create a potential 'aha' moment for their clients by introducing them to alternative retirement paths that could better match their preferences. Further, because these strategies come with their own respective risks and planning opportunities, advisors are also well-positioned to support clients pursuing one of these paths on an ongoing basis.

To start, clients who have amassed significant savings might be able to achieve financial independence, where paid work is no longer required to support their lifestyle expenses. While leaving the workforce before 'traditional' retirement age comes with direct costs (e.g., purchasing health insurance) and risks (e.g., portfolio sustainability over an extended retirement period), it can also present tax planning opportunities (such as Roth conversion and/or capital gains harvesting during lower-income years).

Rather than leave the workforce completely, some individuals might prefer to take extended breaks during the course of their career (e.g., for caretaking, or to travel while they're in good health) while planning to return to their existing job or a similar position at a different company. These "sabbaticals" offer flexibility (in terms of their length and frequency) and require fewer assets than financial independence, but could necessitate working past 'traditional' retirement age (given the inability to save during the sabbatical period, and the risk that the individual won't be able to find a commensurate job when they return to the workforce).   

For those who haven't saved enough to achieve 'full' financial independence but who might want to work in a more meaningful and/or less stressful (but lower paying job), "Coast FIRE" could be an attractive alternative path. An individual can take advantage of this path when their retirement savings are projected to grow – without further contributions – into a portfolio large enough to support their anticipated future retirement spending needs. At that point, they 'only' need to earn enough to cover their ongoing expenses while continuing to work.

Finally, under the semi-retirement path, an individual can 'test' retirement by reducing their work hours. In this way, they can see what it's like to have more free hours during the week while still tapping into the financial, social, and psychological benefits that can come from work. A willingness to work at least part-time past 'traditional' retirement age can also be supportive of a client's long-term plan, as it could allow them to delay Social Security benefits and mitigate sequence of return risk.

Ultimately, the key point is that financial advisors are well-positioned to introduce alternative retirement paths to clients who express interest, and to support them on an ongoing basis in navigating the resulting financial planning challenges and opportunities.

And if you want to go deeper on this topic, hear directly from the author on the Financial Advisor Technician podcast .

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