Choosing a financial advisor in Jacksonville? Holland Capital starts with the decisions in front of you: when work can become optional, how much your savings and any pension or TSP can support once the paycheck stops, and what each choice does to your taxes. The portfolio is built after those answers.
Your savings grew one decision at a time. A 401(k) at work, your spouse’s plan somewhere else, an IRA from a job you left, a brokerage account opened after a good year, a 529 for each child. Maybe a pension you will not see for another decade.
Each of those made sense when you set it up. Together, they now have to answer questions none of them was built for.
When could work become optional? Which account should get the next dollar, and which should you draw from first later? Does paying off the mortgage early help or hurt? If something happened to you next month, would your family have what it needs, and would it reach them the way you intend?
Those questions are connected. Put more into a Roth account now and your tax bill in retirement changes. Take a pension as a lump sum and the portfolio has a different job. Leave a beneficiary form alone after the children arrive and an account may pass in a way you never meant.
Holland Capital starts with what you have, what you earn and spend, and what you want the money to do. The investment decisions come after that.
Still Working, and Already Making Retirement Decisions
Retirement may be ten or fifteen years away. The decisions that shape it are being made now, usually in a benefits portal, a few minutes at a time.
How much goes into the 401(k)? Pre-tax or Roth? Should extra savings go to the mortgage, the college accounts, or a taxable account you can reach before 59½?
Each answer affects the others. Pre-tax contributions lower your tax bill today and create taxable withdrawals later. Roth contributions do the reverse. A taxable account can be used at any age, so it can pay for the years between leaving work and reaching retirement accounts without a penalty.
A job change adds another decision. The old plan can stay where it is, move into your new employer’s plan, or roll to an IRA. The better choice depends on the investments, the costs, and what you expect that money to do later.
We look at those choices against a date. When could you stop working if you wanted to? What would you spend? What would a pension, Social Security, and your savings each need to cover?
Once that picture exists, the yearly decisions get easier, because each one is measured against something. Our retirement planning work starts from that date and works backward.
RETIREMENT ENGINEERING™
The Order Matters
Five retirement decisions and why timing matters.
When a Pension Comes with the Career
You may be finishing a Navy career. You may be a civilian at Naval Air Station Jacksonville or Naval Station Mayport, a federal employee counting the years to an immediate annuity, or on the railroad at CSX. In each of those careers, a large part of your retirement will arrive as a monthly check you did not have to invest yourself.
The Census Bureau counts about 77,000 veterans living in the city (QuickFacts) and nearly 16,000 residents working in federal civilian jobs (American Community Survey).
The pension settles some questions and opens others. What happens to your spouse’s income if you die first? What do you do with the TSP? When should Social Security or Railroad Retirement begin? Some of those answers are elections that are hard to change later.
If you are retiring under FERS, the survivor election decides what your spouse receives, and choosing the full survivor benefit reduces your own annuity by 10 percent. Whether federal health coverage continues into retirement generally depends on being enrolled for the five years before you retire. The TSP can stay put, pay you in installments, or move to an IRA, and each choice changes how you reach the money and what it costs in tax. We go further into those elections in planning a FERS retirement.
If you are leaving the Navy, the Survivor Benefit Plan election is made at retirement and is difficult to reverse. Under the Blended Retirement System, a smaller pension and the TSP share the load. If a second career starts right away, a new employer’s plan and a higher tax bracket arrive in the same year. That is the ground covered in military retirement planning.
If you are still on active duty, your legal residence may be a state you left years ago. Retirement is often when you decide whether Florida becomes home for tax purposes, and when the records have to start agreeing with that decision.
If you are retiring from CSX, Railroad Retirement generally takes the place of Social Security, so the timing of benefits, for you and your spouse, follows its own rules. We cover them in CSX retirement planning.
In every version, the first question is the same. What does the pension already cover, and what do your savings still need to do?
If Your Children Are Still at Home
The will, if you have one, may have been signed around the time your first child was born. The life insurance may be whatever your employer offers. The beneficiary form on your 401(k) may still say what you wrote on your first day.
About 23 percent of the city’s residents are under 18, against about 19 percent statewide, according to Census Bureau estimates.
With children at home, the first estate questions are who would raise them and who would manage money left to them.
A policy or account that names a child directly can end up under court supervision once it passes Florida’s $15,000 limit (section 744.301, Florida Statutes). Naming a trust or a custodian lets you decide who manages the money and when the child receives it.
Retirement is not the only problem the plan has to solve while the children are at home. How much life insurance you need depends on what your savings could already cover. Beneficiary forms and account titles have to agree with the will. We handle the financial side and work with your attorney, who drafts the documents, as part of our estate and wealth transfer work.
What the Investments Have to Pay For
Some of your money has a date on it. Tuition may start in a few years. You may want to leave work before 60. Other money may not be touched for twenty-five years.
Investing all of it the same way ignores those dates. The plan shows how much has to be available and when, and how much can stay invested for the long run.
A pension or military retired pay changes the math too. When part of your spending is already covered by reliable income, the portfolio has a different job to do.
A fund held in a Roth IRA and the same fund held in a taxable account can leave you with different amounts after tax. Deciding which investments belong in which account is part of asset location.
We also start with what you already own. Company stock, a fund you have held for fifteen years, a position with a large gain. None of it is assumed to be wrong. The question is whether it fits what the money now has to do.
Investment management carries out the plan, and it changes when the plan does.
Working with Holland Capital
Holland Capital Management is an independent registered investment adviser and a fiduciary. M. Chad Holland, CFA, CFP® works directly with clients and is responsible for the planning and advice.
A first meeting is a conversation about where things stand: what you have, what is coming, and which decisions have a deadline. A recent statement or two and a benefits summary are enough to start.
Our planning process, Retirement Engineering™, puts those decisions in order. Some need an answer this year, such as a pension election, a TSP choice, or a beneficiary form. Others can wait until the numbers are clearer.
Your CPA and attorney stay involved. We share the plan with them so the next tax return and the next document they draft start from the same decisions.
The first conversation is free. If there is work worth doing after that, we will define the scope and cost before you decide whether to move forward.
Our Florida office is in Winter Park. We work with clients throughout Florida, including Jacksonville. Most meetings are by video or phone. When it makes sense to sit down together, we can meet by appointment at the Regus business center at 10752 Deerwood Park Boulevard on the Southside. Holland Capital does not maintain a branch office in Jacksonville.
We work with clients throughout Florida. You can see the other Florida communities we serve here.
For the structure of an engagement, see what we do.
RETIREMENT ENGINEERING™
The Order Matters
Five retirement decisions and why timing matters.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Does It Mean to Work with a Fiduciary Financial Advisor?
It means the advisor has to act in your best interest when giving you advice.
Holland Capital Management is a registered investment adviser and acts as a fiduciary when providing advisory services. The recommendations we make in that advisory relationship are held to that duty.
Can a Financial Advisor Help with Estate Planning?
Yes, on the financial side. An advisor can check that beneficiary designations, account titles, and insurance match what your will or trust says, and can show what your estate would look like if something happened this year or twenty years from now.
An attorney drafts the will, trust, powers of attorney, and health care documents. If your children are minors, those documents should name a guardian and say who manages any money left to them.
Should I Roll My TSP into an IRA When I Retire?
Not automatically. The TSP has low costs and more withdrawal options than it once did. An IRA offers a wider choice of investments and more control over which holdings are sold.
Look at your age before moving anything. If you leave federal service in or after the year you turn 55, or 50 for certain public safety positions, TSP withdrawals are not subject to the 10 percent early withdrawal penalty. Money rolled into an IRA generally loses that exception.
I Am Stationed in Jacksonville but Still a Resident of Another State. Should That Change When I Retire?
It may. Federal law generally lets service members keep their legal residence in another state while stationed here, and spouses can often elect the same state. Once you retire, where you live and intend to stay decides your residence.
If you plan to stay, making Florida your domicile can mean no state income tax on your retired pay, a homestead exemption on your home, and estate documents written under Florida law. It takes more than a new driver’s license. Your voter registration, vehicle registration, a declaration of domicile, and your tax filings should all tell the same story.
How Do I Know When I Can Afford to Retire?
Start with spending, not the account balance. Add up what you expect to spend each year. Then subtract what will arrive without selling investments: Social Security, a pension, military retired pay, rental income. What is left is what your savings have to produce, every year, for as long as you and your spouse live.
Then look at timing. Retiring before 65 means paying for health coverage yourself unless a former employer or a federal program provides it. Claiming Social Security before full retirement age generally results in a lower monthly retirement benefit. A workable answer is a date and a spending level that still hold up if markets are poor in the first few years.
Are You a Fee-Only Financial Advisor in Jacksonville?
We offer financial planning on a fixed-fee basis, subject to the scope of the engagement. Investment management is offered on a fee basis, generally calculated as a percentage of the assets we manage. When providing financial planning and investment advisory services, we act as a fiduciary.
Photo: Jonathan Zander (Digon3) / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.
