Support the Retirement You Want
Family Wealth Management Services
Wake Up In Retirement Without Worrying About Money
We know what it’s like to stand at the kitchen sink with the weight of your family’s well-being on your shoulders. To look at your accounts at 11:30 p.m. and still feel uneasy because the decisions matter more now than ever. As retirement gets closer, you’re surprised by how much stress and anxiety it brings.
Sometimes it’s triggered by a life event. Your mom passes away, and suddenly there’s an inheritance to manage. Your husband lost his job earlier than expected. Grandchildren arrive, and you want to help with education.
All you see is money coming in and going out. And it’s more difficult to tell whether everything will work once retirement starts.
It doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, it shouldn’t be.
Good financial planning helps retirement look the way it was meant to: time spent with family and adventures of a lifetime…worry-free, of course.
Every Relationship Begins With A Thistle Plan
You’ve spent decades saving, building investments, and being smart with money. But as retirement gets closer, you start to wonder:
Are we actually ready? Will our savings support the life we want? Are we missing something important?
So every client relationship begins with The Thistle Plan. It allows us to step back and look carefully at how your savings, taxes, spending, and future income will all work together once retirement starts.
This plan becomes the foundation for any future work together.
Comprehensive financial planning includes:
Tax Planning
Once retirement begins, the way your money is taxed can change dramatically. Your plan is built carefully around withdrawals and tax strategies so more of your money stays with you.
Investment Planning
After years of saving, it’s natural to wonder if your investments are ready for retirement. We review all accounts and build an investment plan that supports the retirement you’ve saved for—including a climate-focused ESG option for clients who want their investments to reflect their environmental values. So you can feel confident your money will be there when you need it.
Cash Flow & Financial Structure
As retirement gets closer, you’re likely wondering, “What will our life actually cost?” We look closely at spending, savings, and debt so you know what your life requires and whether your income will comfortably support it. The best part? You won’t need to sit down and calculate every expense yourself. We use the Monarch App to do it for you.
Insurance and Risk Protection
A good plan protects what you’ve built. We look at life insurance, disability coverage, and liability protection to make sure an unexpected event wouldn’t put your family or your financial plan at risk.
Family & Education Planning
Many families want to help children or grandchildren with education, but not at the expense of their own retirement. We discuss what those contributions mean for your retirement savings and the security you’ve worked hard to build.
Inheritance
An inheritance can change everything overnight. A parent suddenly passes away, and you find yourself managing a large sum of money with no idea what to do. We help you handle the tax decisions and use it in a way that supports your retirement for the long-term.
Estate Planning
Your plan should make things easier for the people you care about. With retirement and estate planning, we partner with estate planning attorneys who create your estate plans. Then, we review everything with you so you understand what you have in place. We regularly check your beneficiaries to keep them up to date. We also ensure your accounts are set up to fund any trusts you’ve created.
Planning Is Just The Beginning
Family Wealth Management Services
You’ve built a successful life. You’ve saved, invested, and now have a financial plan. But as retirement gets closer, you still have questions…How should withdrawals work? Are we paying more tax than we need to? Does the investment strategy still make sense now that retirement is closer?
You deserve to understand how your money supports you. You should never feel like it’s something you need to monitor.
That’s what wealth management in retirement is for: reviewing taxes, monitoring investments, adjusting income strategies, and helping you make smart decisions as life changes.
Family wealth management includes:
Annual Tax Planning
Most people don’t realize how much taxes eat into retirement income until it’s too late. We dig into your tax return every year and look for opportunities you might overlook. We also adjust your withdrawals, Roth conversions, and giving strategy.
Investment Oversight
Your portfolio will weather uncertainty because we’re in it year-round. We’re checking, adjusting, and rebalancing throughout the year, so you retire on your terms.
Retirement Income Strategy
Saving was the easy part (okay, not easy — but you did it). We’ll manage your withdrawals, taxes, and investments. And we make sure that how you spend in retirement is just as smart as how you saved for it.
Insurance and Protection Reviews
Every year, we revisit health coverage, Medicare, and other insurance policies to make sure you’re protected without paying for more than you need. We also help you navigate one of the bigger unknowns in retirement planning: what happens to your health insurance if you retire before 65? We model out your options and costs so you can make that decision with confidence.
Guidance Through Seasons of Change
Nobody warns you about all the decisions retirement brings. Things like selling a home, when to claim Social Security, helping family financially, or adjusting plans after a catastrophe happens. We talk through the options together so you have a clear plan that reflects your values and the way retirement actually works.
Before We Get Started
What’s It Cost?
Before we start any retirement planning and wealth management relationship, it’s important to understand how we work and how we’re compensated. We chose a fee-only model because we never want you to wonder if a recommendation is in your best interest. That’s why we explain exactly how the planning relationship works and how we structure our fees.
Do I Need The Management?
The financial plan (e.g., The Thistle Plan) is the first step in becoming a Thistle Wealth® client, not a standalone service. Once your plan is complete, we move into ongoing wealth management together. If you’re looking for a one-time plan to execute on your own, we’re not the right fit. Our clients are looking for a long-term partner, and everything we build is designed with that relationship in mind.
FAQs
Is wealth management worth it?
The better question is: how much are you losing without it? Most retirees never find out. The losses are virtually invisible. There’s no bill itemizing what bad timing, missed opportunities, or a poor strategy cost you. Your money just disappears.
Wealth management is worth it when someone is watching the whole picture. Like how your withdrawals, taxes, investments, and estate plan work together. In retirement, a decision in one area affects everything else. And the mistakes are harder to recover from than they were at 35.
What is wealth management, and how is it different from investment management?
Investment management means someone is managing your investments…that’s it. Wealth management includes that, but it also means having an ongoing relationship where we continue planning with you year after year: adjusting your plan, answering new questions, and making sure everything still makes sense as you move through retirement. It’s a broader service, so when you’re comparing advisors, make sure you’re comparing the same thing.
How do advisors help families transfer wealth to children?
Wealth transfer to children is not a one-time event; it’s a process done over many years. This can look like tracking annual gifting each year or looking at the most tax-efficient way to gift. Such as appreciated shares vs. cash, so more cash is transferred, and less tax is paid. Or making sure beneficiaries match your estate plan. This way, unintended consequences don’t lead to more taxes later when the money finally gets to the person you actually want it to get to.
Do adult children need to attend financial planning meetings?
Not at all. Most meetings are just with you. Some families choose to include adult children in important discussions. This often happens when discussing estate plans, caregiving choices, or future arrangements. At your request, we can bring them into the conversation so everyone understands the plan and expectations.
Are there more tax-efficient ways to give to my favorite charities?
Absolutely, there is! Depending on your circumstances, there are tremendous benefits to different charitable giving strategies, resulting in more money going to your charities and staying in your bank account, and less being paid in taxes.
How do families protect wealth from taxes and market risk?
The best thing you can do is have a conversation about money and your goals. This would be part of the family wealth management strategies we offer. Start by defining your goal, then develop a strategy, and then share the plan with your family on how to put it into action. You can save a lot of money by improving communication. But first, we need to clarify your end goal. Then, we’ll provide the tools to share that with your family.
Do you offer ESG investment options?
Yes, we offer one ESG portfolio option through Dimensional Fund Advisors for clients who want their investments to reflect their environmental values. It’s focused on climate and targets emissions that lead to climate change. It also uses actual environmental data to identify risks that might affect future generations.
The portfolio is designed to meaningfully cut carbon footprint exposure, so its impact is easy to see. This is a single, carefully designed model and is not a customizable tool. If you like a climate-focused approach, this method helps you apply your values. And it keeps the benefits of our core strategy, like diversification and cost-efficiency.