About You:

You’ve done all the right things.

You’ve lived below your means, saved diligently, and made smart decisions.

You’ve followed the rules, paid your taxes, and been a great citizen. You’ve raised kids as well as you know how, sacrificing your time and money for them.

And now you’re so ready to move onto the next phase, it ain’t even funny. Because now it’s your turn. This is your time.

Time to travel. Time to be with the grandkids. Time to enjoy your money.

And in order to do all of that, you need predictability. You’d like to relax a bit, so you’d prefer not to have any surprises with your retirement income.

Above all, you want to make sure you (and your spouse) will be ok over the long-term — it’s really that simple.

So you want to make smart investment decisions. You want to manage your risks and avoid costly mistakes.

You want to coordinate your income streams to maximize your income and minimize taxes.

You want legal ways to lower your tax bill. Because you’re okay with paying what you owe — but no more, no less.

And even with all of the uncertainty in the world right now, you want a sense of control over your financial future. You want to feel confident that you’re making the right moves.

Because you didn’t come this far just to let your life’s work go to waste.

I hear you. I know what you’re looking for and I’m here to help you get it.

So, I want to make this as simple as possible. If you’re like many (pre)retirees, you’re wandering because you have no cohesive strategy. You have no framework.

It’s not your fault — we’re not taught this stuff from an early age. And there’s so much noise out there.

You hear all kinds of opinions that sound reasonable when it comes to your money— on TV, online, and through your network of friends and family.

So you’re drifting along, wondering if you’re doing everything you need to do to optimize your situation. You’re hoping you’ve maximized your wealth preservation strategy.

But hope is not a strategy.

The good news is, you don’t have to keep going down the same road anymore. You don’t have to spend hours upon hours wandering, hoping, and endlessly researching investments, withdrawal strategies, and tax planning tips.

The reason is, if you’re a (pre)retiree trying to make critical decisions about your retirement income plan, I’ve already done the heavy lifting for you.

I’ve done the research. I’ve put in the time to be in a position to help you get what you want.

You just need to decide you’re ready to work with an expert. You need to decide you’re ready to have a retirement consultant who can help guide you on a comprehensive strategy.

You need a financial advocate…a financial quarterback who can put it all together with and for you.

But to tell you the truth, we’re not the right financial advocate for everyone. We do things a little bit differently than the average advisor.

We flip the script on what ‘wealth preservation’ really means for your retirement income plan. While most advisors are talking about principal protection as you near retirement, we’re going far beyond that framing.

Because over a 30-year retirement, fluctuations in the stock market aren’t your enemy - inflation is your real enemy.

If you were to listen to the talking heads on TV, you might start thinking you should be a day trader 🤦‍♂️. They’ll convince you that you should know when the next Fed meeting is or tune into the next earnings call for [insert any stock].

The clickbait online is worse — articles like the “5 hottest picks of the year” and “Why the stock market is poised to crash” are prolific.

It’s no wonder people are more anxious and confused than ever. They get plenty of advice, but they don’t actually get a prescription to fix the real problem.

And it’s going to get much worse with tools like AI writing very convincing copy.

It’s going to become harder to avoid FOMO…to not get caught up in the next shiny object…to not make a big mistake.

You need to have a playbook to rely on when things get complicated. Something to ground you. A starting point to help you make retirement income planning decisions.

Because your entire financial life will essentially boil down to whether YOU outlive your money or your money outlives YOU. And the moves you make today will determine which way that goes.

We’ve got the framework to help you make sure it’s the latter.

You can start with our wealth preservation guide:

One alternative to the framework I lay out in the guide above is to help people set up a “worst case” floor. Because a lot of folks come to me a say “I’d be happy with 5% — can we set up a dividend strategy or something like that?”

These folks are somewhat conservative and they want “pension-like” income. But they almost always want to avoid a traditional annuity, too. If that sounds like you, please go to my page about getting “pension-like” income by clicking the button below.

But there’s a ton of work to do if you’re looking to make big retirement decisions. And before we get into any detailed prescriptions for your unique situation, we’ll need to first get to a diagnosis. We can’t do that without learning a bit about each other.

If we were to work together long-term, we’d need to have a conversation. But let me introduce us for those that want to know a bit more.

Hi — we’re Ben and Brenda Earls. Nice to “meet” you virtually 👋.

I (Ben) am a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® PROFESSIONAL. Brenda is the Operations Manager of Earls Financial and she keeps things running smoothly and efficiently at our firm.

We’ve made it our life’s work to help (pre)retirees enjoy and preserve the payoff from their life’s work.

One of the reasons I became a CFP® professional is to help people like my Grandma. After Grandpa died in 2015 I had no idea how to help her with the life insurance death benefit she received.

It’s something that still haunts me to this day.

Now, I’ve made it my mission to help my clients enjoy and preserve their wealth. I want them to have peace of mind and avoid mistakes.

Because if I had known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have any regrets. I would’ve been able to deliver the right advice at the right time to the right person.

But I wasn’t a financial planner then. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. And I absolutely don’t regret where it led me.

It drove me to learn more about investing, make a career change, and it continues to remind me that I NEVER want to let that happen again.

Now (pre)retirees look to me and Brenda when they need help focusing on the most critical question(s) affecting their retirement:

• Are we going to be ok?

• How can we protect our wealth?

• What risks should we be worried about?

• How do we turn our assets into retirement income?

• What do we do if we inherit money?

• How can we legally lower the tax bill?

• What if something happens to my spouse?

• How can we make sure our assets go where we want when we pass?

• When should we take Social Security?

• What’s the deal with Medicare and IRMAA?

These are the questions I help my clients with day in and day out.

Oh and don’t worry — Grandma is ok. She still misses Grandpa dearly, but she’s just fine financially.

But that’s enough about me and my family. I want to focus on whether or not you could possibly benefit from working together.

I want to help you transform the way you think about your retirement - if you’re ready. Because the way our firm approaches your real retirement income problem could drastically simplify things for you and your family.

You’ll come to understand why the stock market isn’t your enemy, why inflation IS, and what you can do to fix the “silent killer” for your retirement income plan.

You’ll find out why I believe “It’s a Wonderful Life” contains one of the most important lessons there is for your retirement income plan.

You’ll also come to realize why your general understanding of real estate will help you become a better investor. Using one simple mindset shift may help you improve your lifetime investment returns.

You’ll see why you can’t afford to find out why your current advisor (and the financial industry at large) is telling you to hide and be fearful as you approach retirement — without any context as to why that is.

In my view, advisors giving (pre)retirees this advice either aren’t focused on THE critical retirement income question, don’t know what it is, or maybe they don’t think you can handle the truth.

Your family simply can’t afford to find out which one it is.

Because if you’re not relentless about focusing on THE most critical question and HOW TO FIX IT:

…you’re like the guy who’s talking about saving money by skipping his daily latte as he drives to work in his (recently financed) Porsche…

…you’re like the gal who just can’t decide WHICH new pair of scissors she should buy for cutting the lawn…

…you’re like the coach drawing up trick plays but your team doesn’t know the basics of blocking and tackling…

In other words, you may be focusing on all the wrong things. But you don’t have to keep doing that. You can break the cycle. You can reframe your approach.

We know we can help the right (pre)retirees that are ready to have relentless focus on true wealth preservation. All you have to do is book an in-person or virtual Coffee Meeting to get started.

We’ll see where you are now, where you want to go, and if we might be able to help.

If we decide to move forward, you’ll get a free financial vitals assessment and we’ll decide next steps together.

There’s no risk or obligation to work with us. You don’t have to change the way you think about retirement after our call. You can keep doing exactly what you’re doing now if you choose to.

We’ll only work together long-term if we both feel like it’s a good fit. No pressure. No pitch. No hassle.

If you still have some questions in your mind about who we are, what we do, and how we do it, you might feel better after talking with us. You can schedule an in-person or virtual Coffee Meeting by clicking the button below. We’ll be here when you’re ready.