You may have spent decades thinking about how much to save for retirement. Once you retire, however, another question becomes just as important: How much of your money should remain easily accessible? It’s not uncommon for liquidity to be treated as an afterthought. You may have substantial assets, but much of that wealth could be tied up in retirement accounts, real estate, annuities, business interests, or investments that fluctuate in value.  At SGL Financial, our Chicagoland financial professionals help retirees […]

An annual retirement plan review can help keep your strategy aligned with your lifetime goals and changing circumstances. You may also want to revisit your plan after a major financial or lifestyle change, or when inflation, tax laws, markets, health needs, or retirement goals shift. Regular reviews can help ensure your assumptions, investments, income strategy, and spending expectations continue to reflect your current needs. A solid retirement plan starts with core assumptions: your expected spending in retirement, lifespan, investment performance […]

What Is Phased Retirement? Phased retirement is a gradual transition from full-time work into retirement. Instead of stopping work on one specific date, you reduce your hours, consult, work part-time, or pursue flexible employment while beginning to use retirement income and savings. For many years, retirement was viewed as a single milestone. You worked until a certain age, celebrated your last day on the job, and never looked back. Today, retirement often looks very different. Many people want more flexibility […]

The short answer is yes. Large financial decisions can reduce future flexibility by increasing fixed expenses and limiting the money available for investing, retirement planning, business opportunities, travel, or unexpected life events. Evaluating spending within the context of your long-term financial goals may help you preserve more choices over time. Have you ever made a purchase that felt exciting in the moment, only to wonder later whether it limited your ability to do something else? For many people, this doesn’t […]

When you think about financial independence, what comes to mind? For many people, the answer is retirement. After all, traditional retirement planning has long focused on one primary goal: save enough money so you can stop working someday. But what if that isn’t actually what you want? One of the most common conversations we have with clients is about the difference between financial independence and retirement. While the two are often connected, they aren’t necessarily the same thing. In fact, […]

You’ve spent years saving and investing for retirement. But once retirement begins, the focus often shifts from building wealth to generating income from it. One of the biggest challenges you may face as a retiree is that markets rarely move in a straight line. Some years bring strong returns. Others bring periods of uncertainty, volatility, and declining account values. The question becomes: Can your retirement income strategy adapt to changing markets? If your retirement income plan relies on withdrawing the […]

Over the past several years, one reality has impacted the majority of us: inflation. We’ve seen inflation impact groceries, electricity, gas, healthcare, and everyday expenses. But here’s the part most people miss: It’s not just inflation that matters. It’s how accurately you estimate it over time. If you’re retired and living on more of a fixed income, a 1–2% difference in your inflation projections might sound small. In reality, it can quietly reshape your entire retirement outlook. In today’s post, […]

Inflation impacts everything, especially if you’re nearing retirement or have already retired. Prices don’t stand still, and when your portfolio is expected to support you for 20–30 years post-retirement, even modest inflation can quietly erode purchasing power. That’s where fixed income strategies come into focus. For our Chicagoland financial advisors at SGL Financial, this is a conversation that comes up often in the retirement planning process. You may have always thought of bonds as the “safe” part of your portfolio. […]

If you’re relying more heavily on Social Security in retirement, the annual Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) probably feels like a built-in safeguard. On paper, it’s meant to help your income keep up with inflation so your purchasing power doesn’t erode over the long-term. But in practice, that’s not always how it plays out. In our experience working with hundreds of clients in the greater Chicago area, our financial professionals find that many retirees are surprised to find that even when COLA […]