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A better starting point for couples approaching or living in retirement. Most retirement conversations start in the same place. Returns. Rates. Projections. Charts that look great on paper. That makes sense; You have to start somewhere when you’re planning decades in advance. But as retirement gets closer, or officially begins, reality shows up - usually without an appointment or a heads up. We don’t live on spreadsheets. We live in real life. And real life has a way of expos

For decades, many homeowners were taught one financial rule on repeat: Pay off the house. Never touch the equity. Save it for later. Then retirement shows up…and “later”... is now. Reverse mortgage loans didn’t start as a sophisticated planning tool; they were designed to act as a backstop. But over time, they’ve quietly become a way to add flexibility, create options, and reduce pressure when retirement doesn’t unfold exactly as planned - or when your plans change in retirem

I had coffee with a mentor, Mike, last week. During our conversation, Mike said something that immediately caught my attention: “How do you say yes to something new when you’ve spent the last 60 or 70 years practicing no?” He said this as he and I were reminiscing about a cool, red Mercedes convertible he used to own. We chuckled at the memory of his 6’5” frame barely ducking behind the windshield, and eventually, to how much he missed the experience of driving that car. His

Metallica has a way of telling the truth without sugar-coating it. In the song ‘No Leaf Clover’, lead singer James Hetfield hollers: “Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel Was just a freight train comin’ your way.” Most of us have lived that line. You think you’re finally catching a break, a calm week, a solved problem, a season of life that feels lighter, and then life hits you with something loud, unexpected, and fully committed to running yo

Most people think they need more time. More time to get organized. More time before they start taking their health seriously. More time before they make a decision they already know is sitting in front of them. Seneca, a philosopher and statesman in Ancient Rome, didn’t buy it. He wrote, “Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day… The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day