How we help
At A Acadian, Cody Biggs offers personalized financial planning and investment management solutions tailored to your unique goals and needs
Retiring in Baton Rouge and the Quad Cities can ultimately come with a lot of questions attached to it. You’re not just asking how much money you’ll need based on your expenses today, you’re asking how much you’ll need for a future that’s (to some extent) unpredictable. When inflation can double the prices of even the most standard commodities, there’s clearly a lot on the line.
A financial advisor does more than just give you a few tips on how to shuffle your assets around. They can build your secure income, so it’s stable enough to face a slew of storms in the future. Social Security, retirement accounts, annuities: every bit of revenue counts when you’re estimating what you’ll need.
How to Secure Your Income
Securing your income starts with the basics of financial planning. Just as you wouldn’t put all of your eggs in one basket in the stock market, so too, would you not rely on a single source of income during retirement? If all you have is a savings account or a single pension, a financial advisor will help you understand what it means to branch out.
At A Acadian Assurance, a boutique retirement firm, Cody Biggs helps his clients understand more about the landscape they’re likely to retire in. From everyday expenses to the economic climate, your sessions and services are all designed around the ultimate goal of a comfortable retirement. There is no preventing all negative events, but there are ways to set you up so you have enough of a financial cushion for anything ahead.
Plus, if you ever start getting confused about the endless options out there, you can keep it all straight with just a few simple rules. Your retirement can be broken down into a few basic steps:
1. Decide what type of retirement income you want and how much you need it to be.
2. Allow your financial advisor to manage a portion of your wealth for additional growth.
3. Start planning a retirement that will help you live your life to the fullest.
HEALTH CARE
Health care is undoubtedly a frustrating beast to navigate these days. Not only do you have different philosophies related to health, some of which directly contradict each other, but you also have to figure out how much it all costs. No matter what kind of health insurance you have today, it’s likely that you’re used to the headache of having to make heads or tails of your bills or ask endless questions about what’s covered and what isn’t based on your plan.
A solution to this may not seem very obvious at first, particularly if even the so–called experts rarely have the answers you need. However, you might be surprised to learn just how far a financial advisor’s tips can go to help. While they may not have written the plans, they’ll know enough about the carriers and policies to help you pay for your health care even as you inch up into your retirement years.
Health Care in Baton Rouge and the Quad Cities
If you live in or around Baton Rouge or the Quad Cities, you already know just how many providers are fighting to get your business. From nutritionists to surgeons to acupuncturists, there are endless game plans if you’re hoping to either maintain your good health or take it to the next level. Some insurance carriers are generous when it comes to how they define (and cover) care, while others will look for every excuse in the book to exclude an array of services.
At A Acadian Assurance, you can talk to a professional who knows how your retirement goals fit into the larger healthcare landscape. What your plan covers has everything to do with how much you’ll have to fund your retirement dreams, whether that’s jet–setting the globe or living off the land. Regardless of your family history or current health conditions, the reality is that anyone can face a severe illness or injury during the course of their lifetime. Having an expert on your side — one who knows your portfolio inside and out — can be all you need to protect everything you’ve worked for.
TAX-FREE RETIREMENT
The requirement to pay taxes is such a way of life in America that most people don’t even think very much about it. Every year they have their accountant map out their finances, or they take the onus on themselves to fill out all the forms. If people have heard of a tax–free retirement, they may assume that the privilege is only reserved for a small subsection of the population.
How to Have a Tax–Free Retirement
While every individual will have their own assets to contend with, you might be surprised at just how many options are available to you. From time-limited neighborhood incentives to long- standing federal regulations, what you pay from year to year has everything to do with how well you understand the systems at play. It’s these rules that determine the overall strength of your portfolio, because it ultimately determines how much you have to invest in everything, from trusts to the market.
A financial advisor at a boutique retirement firm like A Acadian Assurance can tell you more about what a tax-free retirement would look like for you. Cody Biggs is an expert at not only anticipating his clients’ needs down the road, but also seeing a set of action items to clear any hurdles that stand in the way. No matter your financial background, it’s common for people to end up having additional expenses that they might not have even considered.
Far from common financial emergencies, like a health crisis or a financial downturn, a financial advisor is there to account for practically any scenario. Plus, he’s there to find out what you want your money to go toward. Charitable donations, trusts, real estate: each client has their own preferences on how to allocate their assets. A financial advisor isn’t there to steer you into one particular silo, but to give you the details of the most lucrative decisions you can make. After paying taxes for so many years, you owe it to yourself and your loved ones to see what’s on the table.
RETIREMENT INCOME PLANNING
In a nutshell, retirement income planning is a way to give yourself a paycheck every month, much like your employer does now. Replacing your current income with your retirement income takes some work, but you’ll be thankful you took the extra precautions.
If you want to maximize how much you take home, talking to a financial advisor can be exactly what you need to answer all the questions about how you’ll pay for your retirement lifestyle. Whether that includes first–class travel or more bare–bones necessities, there’s a financial path for everyone when they find the right financial professional to partner with.
How Much Do I Need to Retire in Baton Rouge and the Quad Cities?
At A Acadian Assurance, Cody Biggs can tell you more about how to plan your retirement income. What you need depends on you, not on stock advice like saving $1 million or banking away a certain percentage of your overall earnings. By the time you reach retirement age, you need a portfolio that can withstand the turbulent crashes of the economy. Whether the market is up or down, you can count on your retirement income to keep rolling in.
When you think about your retirement, it’s important to answer basic questions about what you want to do. This way, a financial advisor can eliminate certain income options based on what you want. For instance, if you’ve always wanted to play guitar at your local restaurants when you retire, your strategy might include gig income, Social Security, your pension, and any stable stock dividends you have. If you want to branch out your real estate portfolio, you can reasonably factor in more monthly income from rental checks.
Biggs works with clients from all backgrounds, which is how he’s become so adept at understanding this financial concept. There are plenty of clients who don’t want to be a landlord under any circumstances — regardless of how much they might make. The right financial advisor won’t pressure you. They are there to help you decide the best (and most lucrative) strategy.
LIFE INSURANCE
Life insurance is unlike a lot of other types of insurance categories. When it comes to your car or your home, it’s usually an automatic decision because you need it to stay legal. (You might choose the wrong plan, but at least you know you have some degree of coverage for certain events.) With life insurance, though, the rules begin to change. Some people avoid it altogether, while others will choose a policy based solely on the charisma of the salesperson. If you want to be more strategic about protecting your loved ones, a financial advisor can help.
Picking a Life Insurance Policy
At its core, people usually separate life insurance by its expiration date (or lack thereof). There is no perfect policy for everyone, as it will depend on the individual in question. Term life insurance will only last for as long as you want it to. For instance, if you have two children you’re putting through college and want them to provide for themselves, you might take out a policy ending on the youngest child’s graduation day. Term policies are typically simple, which makes them largely affordable.
With permanent life insurance, there is no expiration date on the policy. So if you had loved ones you wanted to provide for no matter what, this would be a much more viable option for you. However, there’s more to permanent policies than just the lack of an end date. There are certain
carriers who might offer a savings component with these policies, meaning you can rely on them if you stumble into a financial emergency during your retirement.
At a boutique retirement firm, you can work with an advisor in the Quad Cities who knows, not only the state of your assets but also your retirement goals. A Acadian Assurance is a company that takes the time to learn more about what’s most important to you, so you end up making a decision with both eyes open. Talking to a professional doesn’t just give you the chance to voice your concerns, it gives you the chance to learn about pitfalls so you can avoid making a mistake.
MAXIMIZING SOCIAL SECURITY
The idea of maximizing Social Security may seem like an outdated concept, one that harkens back to when the program was far more generous. Most people are aware that the rules have changed so much over time that it’s no longer a viable solution for your retirement expenses. This is a simplified version of the story, though, one that can be unraveled when you find the right financial professional to work with.
How to Maximize Social Security in Baton Rouge and Quad Cities
An advisor in Baton Rouge and the Quad Cities who knows the program has a different perspective about what Social Security can mean for your retirement. Maximizing Social Security doesn’t mean going onto a standard website and filling out a few facts to get an estimate of your monthly benefit check. While it’s more complicated to run through the paperwork line item by line item, the rewards can mean the difference between covering your monthly expenses or losing part of your expenses to everyday necessities.
The most important part of the system is that what you receive is based on your work history. This means that if you have a relative or a friend who receives next to nothing, it doesn’t indicate that you can expect the same. A good financial advisor will tell you that this revenue source is meant to be one of several that will keep you afloat during your retirement. At A Acadian Assurance, you can work with Cody Biggs to understand more about how the money fits into your larger retirement goals.
It should be noted that there are plenty of people who pay into this safety net every single paycheck, and then unknowingly settle for far less than they should by the time they reach their golden years. And while the government does give you the option to refile should a mistake be caught by the individual, the bureaucracy entailed does not make for an easy correction. If you really want to make the most of what you’re owed, it’s best to talk to a professional before submitting anything.
EFFICIENT TAX PLANNING
Efficient tax planning can take a number of different forms, depending on your income, industry, and portfolio. There’s a lot to know about when it comes to each line item, particularly if you have ambitious retirement goals for the future. If you want to be smarter about how you file, a financial advisor can tell you more about whether you’re tipping the government (and, if so, by how much).
Efficient Tax Planning
If you have an accountant that you turn to every April (or even every quarter), you may wonder what else you need. After all, your accountant will understand how local, state, and federal taxes ultimately affect your bottom line, and they’ll work hard to ensure that you’re compliant with the
government without overspending.
The problem with this approach is that your accountant will only know so much about the state of your assets. They can assess what you have, but they can’t tell you what to do with it all as you inch toward retirement. If they spot an opportunity, they may mention it as nothing more than an afterthought. A financial advisor will look at your wealth through a much broader lens before giving you options about how to make the most of it.
At A Acadian Assurance, financial advisor Cody Biggs takes the time to understand the journey that his clients hope to take. For instance, you might choose to forego paying taxes on capital gains for certain properties in an effort to maximize your profits. This doesn’t mean that you will never pay the taxes, only that you have the chance to capitalize on a more lucrative investment before you eventually pay the government.
How you do this (and why) will vary based on the individual in question, but the much bigger idea is that most people have options that they never even realize are available to them. If you want to think smarter about your taxes, the right financial pro can make all the difference.