Managing Your Financial Future with Lucia Capital Group

The Bucket Strategy® is usually explained with three core buckets: money you need soon, money you’ll need later, and money that has time to grow. But for some retirees, that basic structure may need extra support. This is where the flexibility of The Bucket Strategy® allows for another bucket or two. Protected income and alternative investments are not for everyone, but for the right individuals, these "sub-buckets" may be very useful. Would a stronger floor of guaranteed income help co...

Losing a spouse is something no one likes to think about, but for virtually every married couple, it’s a reality that will eventually have to be faced. And beyond the emotional toll, there are financial changes that happen automatically, whether you’re prepared for them or not. For example: What really happens to Social Security benefits when one spouse passes away? How does losing married filing jointly status affect your taxes? Why can Medicare premiums actually increase, even if household ...

When you leave a job, what you do with your 401(k) often feels like a formality. But the reality is that most people have no idea what to do with their retirement plan, and they don’t know what their options are. And making the wrong move can cost you flexibility, trigger unnecessary taxes, or limit your options later on. In this episode, podcast host Johnny Dean and Rick “The Professor” Plum, CFP®, break down the seven key factors everyone should consider before rolling over a retireme...

It's true that most investing success happens over long periods of time. So it would stand to reason that you should stay focused on the long term. But when you think about it, the "long term" is really just a bunch of short-term periods bunched together. And those short-term stretches can sometimes be brutal. With that in mind, what if the real key to long-term success isn’t patience at all, but short-term management? What if protecting the near-term (your cash flow, your flexibi...

There’s nothing wrong with wanting a strong rate of return. The problem starts when “the best return” becomes the plan, especially once you’re close to retirement and your portfolio has a job to do beyond just growing. The reality is that chasing returns and chasing yield can turn normal market volatility into real, permanent risk for you. Retirement planning is less about treating your entire portfolio as one big performance engine and more about matching different dollars to different...

There’s no shortage of “rules of thumb” in personal finance. They sound simple, they sound authoritative, and you can find them almost everywhere. But the truth is that many of these long-standing bits of advice can lead you in the wrong direction if you follow them without thinking. What’s a good amount to withdraw from your savings? Which accounts should you tap first? What will your spending look like in retirement? These are questions that require more nuance than generic guidance c...

Many people with high incomes assume they make too much money to contribute to a Roth IRA. And they’re right – sort of. The IRS does put income limits on Roth contributions, but there are a few lesser-known workarounds that high earners can use to get money into a Roth anyway. The potential tax-free growth inside a Roth IRA can be especially enticing to people who both earn a lot and save a lot, as they may find themselves in a fairly high tax bracket at retirement. Any opportunity the...