What does comprehensive financial planning include?

At Godsey & Gibb, financial planning includes retirement income projection, Social Security optimization, withdrawal sequencing across account types, tax-efficient distribution planning, healthcare cost modeling including Medicare, and integration with estate and legacy goals.

How much money do I need to retire?

There is no single right retirement number — what you need depends on your desired lifestyle, retirement age, expected expenses, tax situation, legacy goals, and other income sources such as Social Security and pensions. Godsey & Gibb helps clients build a personalized retirement income plan rather than relying on generic rules of thumb.

Financial Planning

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Expert Financial Planning Services

Build confidence in your financial future with synchronized financial planning and investment management that work together toward your goals.

At Godsey & Gibb Wealth Management, you work with both a dedicated wealth advisor and a financial planning advisor who collaborate on every aspect of your financial life. This dual-advisor approach ensures your financial plan and investment strategy are always aligned—helping you follow a structured plan designed to minimize the likelihood of outliving your wealth.

Our comprehensive planning services bring financial planning, investment management, and tax planning and preparation under one roof. This integrated model means your advisors fully understand your complete financial picture, from cash flow management to estate planning, creating seamless coordination that standalone services simply cannot match.

Why Professional Financial Planning is Essential for Your Future

A detailed plan created by our qualified financial professionals transforms uncertainty into clarity. Financial planning plays a crucial role in helping pre-retirees gain clarity and confidence as they approach retirement. Without a written financial strategy, many individuals face uncertainty and lack a clear roadmap to guide their decisions during this critical life stage.

Peace Of Mind

Know when you may retire with the greatest chance of achieving your financial and lifestyle goals. A CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional helps you identify the optimal retirement date based on your specific situation, income sources, and long-term goals.

Spending Clarity

Understand your safe spending capacity. Knowing how much you can confidently spend without risking depletion of your savings is crucial for maintaining your lifestyle and financial security throughout retirement. Your CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® helps you determine a sustainable spending level that balances your income, expenses, and long-term goals, providing clarity and peace of mind as you manage your resources.

Goal Achievement

Plan for major purchases like vacation homes, luxury items, or supporting adult children and grandchildren. Our financial planning expertise can help you budget for these priorities while protecting your core retirement security.

Legacy Planning

With the federal lifetime estate tax exemption now permanent under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act at $15 million per individual ($30 million for married couples) in 2026 (adjusted annually for inflation), proper estate planning allows many clients to transfer wealth during your lifetime and from your estate efficiently to family and charitable causes. Your financial planning advisor can help integrate your goals for lifetime gifting and estate bequests, including contributions to important causes with your other spending and saving goals.

Risk Mitigation

Fight against the fear of outliving your wealth through proper planning. A comprehensive financial strategy addresses healthcare costs, inflation, market volatility, and possible unexpected expenses to help protect your financial security throughout retirement while weathering life’s twists and turns.

Synchronized Strategy

Ensure your financial plan and investment plan work together seamlessly. When these two plans communicate, your asset allocation, account structure, and withdrawal schedule all support your life goals.

Life is dynamic and everchanging, and so is your ideal financial plan. Periodic adjustments to your financial plan and investment plan insure both remain coordinated as life happens.

Create a plan, so you can relax.

It is difficult to plan for the future, but a financial plan can provide you with a deeper understanding of your situation and provide you with peace of mind surrounding your financial security.

MEET WITH AN ADVISOR

Top Financial Planning Goals We Can Help You Pursue

Determining your ideal retirement date

Analyzing your assets, income sources, Social Security timing, lifestyle goals, and healthcare needs to identify when you can retire confidently

Projecting lifetime income and spending capacity

Using current market research and Monte Carlo simulations to project retirement income and sustainble retirement expenses to increase your probability of success (i.e., live your life without running out of money)

Planning for major purchases (second homes, luxury items)

Integrating significant expenses into your retirement budget with proper funding strategies and tax considerations

Supporting adult children and grandchildren financially

Balancing generational giving with wealth preservation through annual exclusion gifts, education funding via 529 plans, and trust structures

Maximizing charitable giving impact

Implementing charitable giving strategies (donor-advised funds, appreciated asset donations, and qualified charitable distributions) to increase tax efficiency while supporting causes you care about

Creating efficient wealth transfer strategies

Collaborating with your attorneys on wills, revocable and irrevocable trusts, and beneficiary designations that minimize taxes and avoid probate complications

Planning for unexpected healthcare expenses

Building dedicated reserves for long-term care, Medicare gaps, and catastrophic medical events while evaluating appropriate insurance coverage

(Note: We are not insurance agents and do not sell or endorse insurance products. We only can work closely with your insurance agents to evaluate appropriate insurance coverage)

Optimizing Social Security and pension benefits

Deciding when to claim benefits understanding the pros and cons of claiming benefits earlier or later, understanding spousal and survivor benefits, and coordinating with portfolio withdrawals

Managing inheritance and windfall planning

Integrating unexpected wealth into your existing plan without disrupting diversification or triggering unnecessary tax consequences, minimizing diversification disruption and unexpected tax consequences

Coordinating insurance and risk management needs

Evaluating life insurance, liability coverage, long-term care insurance, and property protection to guard against financial shocks

Our Financial Planning Process

Step 1: Discovery and Goal Setting

Your journey begins with joint meetings where both your wealth advisor and financial planner participate together. These discovery sessions assess your current net worth, income and expenses, existing investments, tax position, insurance coverage, and estate documents.

We identify your personal priorities and help you articulate what matters most—whether that’s determining when you want to retire, leaving a legacy for family, supporting charitable causes, or simply knowing you won’t run out of money. Understanding your risk tolerance and defining what “outliving your wealth” means to you personally allows us to create guidance tailored to your unique circumstances.

Step 2: Plan Development and Coordination

We develop two integrated plans that work in concert: your Financial Plan and your Investment Plan.

Your financial plan projects income sources, Social Security and pension benefits, healthcare costs, budgeted spending, and estate goals. Your investment plan addresses asset allocation, diversification, securities selection, risk measurement, and tax-efficient account placement.

The critical difference: your financial plan establishes where you want to go; your investment plan determines how we strive to get you there. When a financial advisor and wealth manager coordinate both plans in-house, every decision—from which accounts hold which assets to when you realize capital gains—supports your overall objectives.

Step 3: Implementation and Execution

Once plans are approved, our team executes our recommendations. This includes any necessary investment allocation adjustments, establishing accounts, setting beneficiary designations, among many other tasks.

We coordinate with our in-house tax experts to optimize for tax efficiency. This collaborative approach means your tax strategies align with your investment management and financial planning rather than operating in separate silos.

Step 4: Ongoing Monitoring and Adjustments

Financial planning isn’t a one-time event. We conduct periodic reviews comparing your financial plan projections against actual spending to determine progress towards your goals.

Life changes require plan adjustments. Retirement and/or job changes, divorce, death of a spouse, inheritance, health changes, or shifts in tax laws all warrant revisiting your strategy. Market conditions may call for dynamic withdrawal adjustments—reducing spending in difficult market years or increasing it when your portfolio outperforms expectations.

Ongoing monitoring and adjustments maximize the likelihood of goal achievement. When goals change or circumstances shift, your advisors may update both your financial plan and investment strategy together to keep everything aligned.

Questions?

Please let us know if you have any questions about our firm or our services. One of our Wealth Management Advisors would be happy to assist you.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the difference between a financial plan and an investment plan?

Your financial plan ties directly to your life goals—retirement lifestyle, legacy wishes, healthcare planning, and supporting family. It answers questions about when you may consider retiring, how much you can spend, and how your wealth transfers to the next generation.

Your investment plan is the means to achieve those goals. It addresses how your money is invested—asset allocation, securities selection, risk management, and tax-efficient placement across accounts.

Having both advisory services in-house creates crucial alignment. When these plans are developed separately by different firms, mismatches occur: you might invest in ways misaligned with your liquidity needs, or you may invest too conservatively to support your spending needs. Our integrated model helps your investments directly serve your financial plan.

How often do you update my financial plan?

We conduct comprehensive plan reviews every two years or when material life events occur—such as job changes, health concerns, or receiving an inheritance. Investment performance reviews happen periodically as well to monitor drift from target allocations and assess whether rebalancing is needed.

Periodic updates evaluate how your actual spending and investment returns compare to projections. When variances emerge, we consider adjustments rather than waiting for problems to compound.

What’s the minimum asset level for your services?

We work with clients who have at least $500,000 in investable assets so we can provide the highest quality service. This minimum allows our team to deliver rigorous investment selection, personalized tax strategies, and comprehensive financial planning while taking the time to get to know you and your family.

Do you offer tax services separately?

Our tax planning and preparation services are available only to investment management clients. This intentional structure ensures that tax decisions—from timing capital gains realizations to choosing which accounts fund your retirement spending—coordinate with your broader investment and financial planning strategies.

Tax laws constantly evolve, and tax strategies should integrate with your complete financial picture. Standalone tax preparation lacks the context needed to optimize your overall outcome.