On this episode of Saving the American Dream, we’re sharing some of the ways you may be out of tune with your financial plan and how you can make adjustments along the way.

Future tax considerations

Many times we see people out of balance as it relates to future tax considerations. They can get out of balance when they are too heavily weighted toward tax-deferred vehicles, such as a traditional 401k or traditional IRA.

They’ll have the majority of their nest egg building up in those particular vehicles. They might have that complimented by a pension or Social Security or both, and we have to consider what taxes are going to be in the future.

It’s very possible that taxes are going to be higher in the future than they are right now. And it’s going to be important when you’re pulling money from your net worth to create income for you to live off of that.

So while a lot of people overweigh toward deferred, it’s also very important to consider what options you have in the tax-free world and in the taxable world. Those are the three buckets you can put money into.

Having the right amount of life insurance

About 80% of the time when we get together with people, they have significantly less life insurance than what they could have.

The amount of life insurance you can have is based on multiplying your income by the number of working years that you likely have left. So when you’re in your 30s and 40s, you can have 30 times your income. In your 50s, you’re going to have 20. In your 60s, you can have one times your net worth or 10 times your income, whichever is greater.

Listen to the full podcast or use the timestamps below to jump to a specific section.

Navigating the Show

[1:24] – Headlines

[10:29] – Taxes

[13:10] – Life insurance

[15:36 ]– Cash

[18:13] – Risk

“Look at how much life insurance you have and get with your advisor on it and just understand how much you qualify for.”

– Michael Schulte