For years, I have been encouraging clients and readers to spend more money on experiences. More specifically, I often make the “take your family on a vacation, you won’t regret it” pitch. That single piece of advice has resonated, and many clients tell me they have been sponsoring more family vacations than ever before.
But, when I tell clients they can afford to spend more money, other than on family vacations, I usually hear some variation of “I already have everything I need. I don’t want to throw away money or spend recklessly.” I couldn’t agree more.
Furthermore, my idea of spending more money on health—including the possibility of getting a concierge medicine doctor, having regular massages, and having a personal chef who cooks delicious meals with your specific health needs in mind—has gained some traction, but not a lot. So…let’s look at another possible way to spend money and enjoy life more.
Get out of the cold.
You don’t have to become a snowbird, although personally I think it is a great lifestyle. You can start small. I have evolved from “escape the cold for a month” to “a working snowbird lifestyle.”
Consider your favorite warm weather location. Maybe you have gone somewhere for a week or two and enjoyed it. Why not extend your trip for a month to start?
You could go to vrbo.com (vacation rental by owner) or airbnb.com and put in your favorite warm weather destination and the dates that you might consider going. You will be presented with a lot of options with different price points and different houses with a variety of reviews.
Book it. Don’t overthink it.
Even at this late date, a lot of places are still available for the month of February 2024―popular locations like Naples or Fort Myers, FL or even Hawaii. If you already have plans for this winter, book a place for January or February 2025. You can likely afford it.
I tried different spots in Florida including Sanibel Island, Fort Myers, and Cape Coral, working during the day, then cycling or walking the beach at sunset. I loved walking on the beaches, but the cycling wasn’t great.
Then I googled “best place to bicycle in the winter in the U.S.” Tucson, AZ came up as #1. I started by renting a place in Tucson that I found through VRBO for a season. I loved it and for five years, I rented houses in different areas in or near Tucson during the winter to see which area I liked the best while always keeping my eyes open for the right house to buy. Fortunately, I was able to keep working and have meetings over Zoom. The pandemic was great for my business. We switched from in-person workshops to webinars. I now conduct all my winter meetings over Zoom.
Anyway, we kept coming back to the Tucson area, always renting until last year when Cindy and I bought a house. I am glad we didn’t buy early on because we would not have ended up in the area that we now like the most. We bought a house 2.2 miles from the entrance of the magnificent Saguaro National Park East. It has great cycling and hiking. Tucson has over 100 miles of paved bicycle trails.
It also has fabulous sunsets and sunrises. I literally plan my days around where I will be at sunset. We have a great house for sunsets including a hot tub with a fabulous unobstructed view of the mountains. It is very quiet at night, and I love the transition from sunset to watching the stars. (Photo above: Javelina Rocks, Saguaro National Park)
I really appreciate how my readers are so tolerant of my “spend more money rants,” but really, consider starting small and going somewhere warm and sunny for a month. You’ll love being out of the cold.
Traveling Tips for Frugal Travelers
Okay, if I still haven’t convinced you to spend more money on travel, here is one more idea. Have you considered a home exchange? Cindy and I swapped houses, cars, and bicycles with a French couple who had a house, a car, and three bicycles in Bordeaux, France.
Pittsburgh is a great location for home exchanges, particularly if you live near the University of Pittsburgh or Carnegie Mellon University. Many professors from all over the world come here for extended periods and naturally want to bring their families with them.
Our home exchange was done privately as we had a friend who knew both us and the French professor. But there are organizations that find potential homes for swapping. It was wonderful to have an extended time in one place from which to take side trips.
James Lange
CPA/Attorney
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The New Year is the Perfect Time to Get Your Financial Affairs in Order
Retire Secure for Professors and TIAA Participants
Getting the Most from your TIAA, IRAs, and Other Retirement Plans
Tuesday, January 30, 2024
Register to attend one, two or all three of Jim Lange’s Free Webinars at the following website.
Spouses are encouraged to attend.
Webinar #1: 10:00 AM – Noon (Eastern)
Roth IRA, Roth 403(b), and Roth 401(a) Contributions and Conversions for Professors
With new tools and opportunities at your disposal, we encourage you to attend this webinar to learn how to defend yourself against the dreaded SECURE Act and take advantage of SECURE Act 2.0.
In this session, we will cover both foundational as well as little known advanced Roth conversion techniques…
- The peer-reviewed math and optimal timing for Roth IRA conversions.
- The back-door Roth IRA.
- How professors born between 1951 and 1959 can profit from SECURE Act 2.0.
- How to move a portion of your taxable investments (TIAA, IRAs, and other retirement plans) to the tax-free investing environment (529 plans, your children’s Roth IRAs, Roth 403(b)s, and more). This shift could potentially be more valuable to your children than making Roth IRA conversions in your own accounts.
- Capitalizing on Roth IRA conversions through 2025 while favorable income tax rates remain and before the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act’s Sunset Provisions take effect in 2026 and tax rates go up substantially.
- How you could benefit from the new rules allowing employers to contribute to an employee’s Roth retirement plan. (Previously, employers were only allowed to contribute to tax-exempt Traditional plans.)
- We will also examine the timing synergy between when you begin taking Social Security and making Roth conversions.
And we’ll also cover advanced concepts for Roth IRA conversions including…
- How to transition after-tax dollars in retirement plans to a Roth IRA at no cost—potentially saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes down the road.
- How to convert an Inherited retirement plan to a Roth at your beneficiary’s tax rate, not your own, after you die. (This is a little-known strategy with big tax savings for those who qualify.)
Webinar #2: 12:30 PM – 2:30 PM (Eastern)
Optimal Distribution and Estate Planning for Your TIAA and Other Retirement Accounts
Accumulation planning sets the stage, but it’s a breeze compared to distribution and estate planning.
We offer our best recommendations for resolving one of the greatest mysteries of life…what is the optimal withdrawal plan when you have Traditional TIAA? (Our recommendations are somewhat unique and off the radar for most advisors.)
The SECURE Act is no friend to many professors with $1M+ in TIAA, IRAs, and other retirement plans. Unless you take aggressive action, it is likely that your loved ones will take a massive income tax hit upon inheriting any money from those plans. We will provide strategies to avoid massive taxation. We will also delve into a disclaimer-based estate planning system that we consider to be the best estate plan for most married TIAA and IRA owners.
This webinar combines our newest thinking with some of our classic strategies for protecting you and your family.
In this session, you’ll discover…
- How Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) of Inherited IRAs, TIAA, and other retirement plans were so advantageous under the old law in sharp contrast to the onerous rules in the SECURE Act.
- How SECURE Act and SECURE Act 2.0 changes could impact your family and your legacy.
- How to ensure financial security for the surviving spouse, and potentially save hundreds of thousands to pass on to your heirs after the SECURE Act.
- The details of the best (and most flexible) estate plan for married professors known as Lange’s Cascading Beneficiary Plan™.
- We’ll solve one of the great mysteries of academic life: What is the most advantageous way to get your money out of TIAA when you retire?
- You’ll learn about the distribution rules and options at retirement for Traditional TIAA, IRAs, and other retirement plans and what, if anything, you should do about it now.
We’ll also dive into trust planning strategies, including…
- The pros and cons of having your heirs inherit your TIAA, IRA, and other retirement assets directly versus through a trust.
- Why, under certain circumstances, naming a charitable trust as the beneficiary of IRAs and retirement assets might be an excellent strategy for altruistic professors.
- The growing popularity of the “I don’t want my no-good son-in-law to inherit one red cent of my money” trust.
- A rarely discussed strategy―Who Gets What? evaluates the tax consequences of leaving different asset types to children who are in differing tax brackets. We will cover a similar strategy for charitable giving. By optimizing your strategies using who gets what analysis, you could save hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes.
Webinar #3: 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM (Eastern)
A Live Q&A with Jim Lange and his Number-Crunching CPAs: Your Questions Answered on Roth IRAs, Tax Minimization, and Estate Planning
This is your opportunity to meet Jim’s number-crunching CPAs* who work directly with clients to develop personal Financial Masterplans. Jim and his team of CPAs will answer attendees’ questions submitted in advance of these webinars as well as those submitted during the webinar. Take advantage of this opportunity to meet our CPAs and have your financial questions answered.
*Steven T. Kohman, CPA, CSEP, CSRP
*Jennifer A. Hall, CMA, CPA, CFP, CRPC
*Dominic J. Bonaccorsi, CPA, CRPC
The New Year is the Perfect Time to Get Your Financial Affairs in Order
Retire Secure for Professors and TIAA Participants
Getting the Most from your TIAA, IRAs, and Other Retirement Plans
Tuesday, January 30, 2024
Register to attend one, two or all three of Jim Lange’s Free Webinars at the following website.
Spouses are encouraged to attend.
6 Valuable Bonus Gifts:
Yours FREE When You Attend Any Webinar!
Bonus 1: Register today and we will mail you a free hardcover copy of Jim’s magnum opus, Retire Secure for Professors and TIAA Participants, the best book Jim and his team have ever written.
Bonus 2: Your next gift is a digital copy of Jim’s best-selling book, Retirement Plan Owner’s Guide to Beating the New Death Tax, detailing how to respond to the SECURE Act.
Bonus 3: You will receive a digital copy of Jim’s 276-page best-seller, The Roth Revolution: Pay Taxes Once and Never Again. Jim shows how to use a series of Roth IRA conversions to grow income from your IRAs tax-free.
Bonus 4: You will receive a digital copy of Jim’s book on Social Security, The $214,000 Mistake: How to Double Your Social Security & Maximize Your IRAs.
Bonus 5: Attendees also receive a digital copy of Jim’s brand-new book, Retire Secure for Parents of a Child with a Disability.
Bonus 6: Qualified attendees are eligible for a FREE Retire Secure Initial Consultation with Jim Lange and one of his number-crunching CPAs.
Disclaimer: Please note that if you engage Lange Accounting Group, LLC for our Financial Masterplan service or receive Financial Masterplan services as part of our assets under management arrangement, there is no attorney/client relationship in this advisory context. Lange Accounting Group, LLC offers guidance on retirement plan distribution strategies, tax reduction, Roth IRA conversions, saving and spending strategies, optimized Social Security strategies, and gifting plans. There is no solicitation being made for legal services by James Lange nor by Lange Legal Group, LLC. Although we will bring our knowledge and expertise in estate planning to meetings with clients, all recommendations are offered in our capacity as a financial planning professional and not as an attorney. We will, however, potentially make recommendations that clients could have a licensed estate attorney implement.
Lange Financial Group, LLC is a registered investment advisory firm registered with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Banking, Harrisburg, PA. In addition, the firm is registered as a registered investment advisory firm in the states of AZ, FL, NY, OH, TX, and VA. Lange Financial Group may not provide investment advisory services to any residents of states in which the firm does not maintain an investment advisory registration. This does not in any way imply that Lange Financial Group is failing to preserve its rights under the respective states’ de minimis rule. The presence of Jim’s book shall not in any direct or indirect fashion, be construed, or interpreted to suggest that the firm is offering to sell or soliciting to provide investment advisory services to residents of any state or states in which the firm is not maintaining an investment advisory registration. Again, Lange Financial Group preserves all rights under each state’s de minimis rule but wishes to emphasize that it is not directly or indirectly soliciting investment advisory clients in states where it has no legal right to do so. All investing involves risk, including the potential for loss of principal. There is never any guarantee extended that any investment plan or strategy will be successful. Asset location, asset allocation, and low-cost enhanced index funds are provided by the Lange Financial Group, LLC’s affiliated investment firms. This referral is offered in our role as an investment advisor representative and not as an attorney.