Fiduciary Financial Advisor in Lakeland, FL

You have saved steadily for a long time. Through a workplace plan, maybe an IRA, maybe stock you bought through your employer. You paid down the house. You did what you were supposed to do.

Now the question is not whether you saved. It is what the savings can do.

Can you stop working at 62, or should you plan on 65 or later? What will you have to live on each month? If the market drops the year you retire, does the plan still hold? Which accounts should pay the bills before Social Security begins?

Those questions are connected. We answer them together, and then we decide how your money should be invested.

When Can You Stop Working?

Stopping work at 62, 65 or 67 does not just change the date. It changes how many years your savings have to cover and when Social Security and Medicare enter the picture.

Stop at 62 and you give your savings more years to cover, often before Social Security starts and before Medicare begins at 65. Work until 65 and health coverage gets simpler, you add a few more years of savings, and your savings have fewer years to support. Wait until 67 or later and Social Security pays more each month for the rest of your life.

We compare those dates using your numbers. If you stop at 62, what has to come from savings before Social Security and Medicare begin? If you work to 65 or 67, how much more can you save, and how much less does the portfolio have to support? Then we can see what each additional year of work actually changes.

Then we test the plan against bad years. A market decline in the first years of retirement does more damage than the same decline twenty years later, because you are selling investments to live on while prices are down. A plan that only works if markets cooperate is not much of a plan.

Taxes run through all of it. Money from a 401(k) or traditional IRA is taxed as income. Roth money generally is not. Selling from a taxable account is taxed only on the gain. Choosing which account pays for each year can change how much you keep. Our pages on retirement planning and Social Security timing go further.

If You Work at Publix, or Retired from There

Publix is headquartered in Lakeland, and it is owned largely by its current and former associates.

If you have been with the company for years, much of what you have saved may be Publix stock. Some came through the PROFIT plan, where Publix contributed stock on your behalf. Some may be in your 401(k) SMART plan, and some you may have bought directly.

The stock has no ticker symbol. It is not traded on an exchange, and only current associates and directors can buy it. When you want cash, you generally sell shares back through the company at the price it sets.

That creates questions that do not come up with a public stock. How much of your retirement should depend on one company, even one you know well? When you leave, what happens to the shares in each plan? Should you take shares out of the plan, roll the value into an IRA, or keep holding them? Taking the shares out of a plan in a certain way can lower the tax on their growth, which our guide to net unrealized appreciation explains.

We do not assume the stock should be sold. We look at what it would take to turn part of it into income, how quickly, and what the rest of your savings needs to do because so much is in one place. Our guide to Publix employee retirement planning covers the plans in more detail.

Investing with the Retirement Date in Mind

Once the plan has a date and a monthly number, the investments have a clear job.

The plan is written down as an investment policy statement. It spells out what the money must pay for and when, the level of risk the plan can accept, and the tax treatment of each account. The portfolio is built and managed to that document, with after-tax, risk-adjusted return as the measure.

If a large part of what you own is in one stock, the rest of the portfolio is built around it rather than adding more of the same risk. When that position is reduced, we plan the pace and the tax cost ahead of time instead of deciding in a hurry.

We start with what you already have. A fund in your 401(k) that is low in cost and suits the plan stays where it is. That is the job of investment management at Holland Capital: carrying out the plan, one decision at a time.

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 recent statement from each account and your Social Security estimate give us enough to begin. If you worked at Publix, your Publix plan statements help us see how the company stock and the rest of your retirement savings fit together.

We want to know when you hope to stop working and what you want retirement to look like. Then we tell you what we see and what should be decided first.

Your tax preparer and attorney stay in the picture. We share the plan with them so the tax return and your documents agree with it.

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 offices are in Charlotte, North Carolina and Winter Park, Florida. We work with clients in Lakeland primarily by video or phone. When an in-person meeting makes sense, we meet by appointment at the Alliance meeting center at 2420 North Crystal Lake Drive in Lakeland.

For clients whose investments we manage, accounts are held directly at Charles Schwab in the client’s own name. Holland Capital manages the investments but does not take custody of client assets. If a client ever needs in-person assistance from Schwab, the closest branch is in Tampa at 4304 West Boy Scout Boulevard.

We work with clients throughout Florida. You can see the other Florida communities we serve here.

Our what we do page explains how a planning engagement works.

Frequently Asked Questions

Photo: Kiran891 / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.