Retirement Planning Education, with Andy Panko

Andy and Dan VanDusen from Objective Wealth share their thoughts on a handful of current events and "hot topics" relating to retirement planning. Specifically, they talk about:
How to decide between investing money for a child or grandchild in a 529 vs Trump account vs UTMA brokerage account ( 9:19 )
What errors and missed items they commonly see in reviewing tax returns ( 18:28 )
Their thoughts on the current state of affairs of the bond market ( 25:10 )
What to do with appreciated mutual funds held in a normal brokerage account where the funds throw off variable and potentially large taxable capital gain distributions each year ( 33:36 ) 
How to address concentrated appreciated stock positions in brokerage accounts, where selling the shares would lead to sizable tax impacts ( 42:00 )
The areas of retirement planning that people unnecessarily give too much attention too ( 46:19 )
Estate planning considerations, particularly at the state level (for states that have estate and/or inheritance taxes) ( 54:26 )
How to help people give themselves "permission to spend" their retirement savings ( 1:03:50 )
How to factor a potential inheritance to be received into a financial plan ( 1:11:03 )

Links in this episode:
Objective Wealth's website - https://www.objectivewealthfp.com/

Andy's company newsletter - Retirement Planning Insights
YouTube channel - Retirement Planning Education (formerly Retirement Planning Demystified)
Retirement Planning Education website - www.RetirementPlanningEducation.com

To send Andy questions to be addressed on future Q&A episodes, email andy@andypanko.com
To follow Andy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypanko/

Andy discusses the basics of bonds, including:
Basic features and functions of bonds
The risks in bonds
Bond issuers and maturities
How bonds can be used
How and why bond prices changes, and how interest rates impact prices
Bonds vs bond funds

Links in this episode:
Tenon Financial's October 1 newseltter - The basics of bonds: what they are, how they work, and how to use them in retirement planning
Andy's YouTube video - Bonds, bond prices, and bond yields

Tenon Financial monthly e-newsletter - Retirement Planning Insights
YouTube channel - Retirement Planning Education (formerly Retirement Planning Demystified)
Retirement Planning Education website - www.RetirementPlanningEducation.com

To send Andy questions to be addressed on future Q&A episodes, email andy@andypanko.com
To follow Andy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypanko/

Listener Q&A where Andy talks about: 
Follow up thoughts on a previous question about whether it's better to use $27k of cash to make a mega backdoor Roth contribution, or to do a $100k in-plan Roth conversion and use the $27k to pay the taxes on it ( 4:01 )
Why the 4% rule isn't called the 3% rule, when working with an advisor who charges 1% of assets under management ( 13:52 )
His thoughts on how Artificial Intelligence might impact the advisory world with regards to service offerings and fee structures ( 17:25 )
Similarities and differences between Required Minimum Distributions ("RMDs") and annuity income ( 22:56 )
A few questions about Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, or TIPS: how they might fit into a retiree's portfolio, how to choose the length of maturity, if there is a minimum yield one should target to justify it, and thoughts on deciding what allocation to use between TIPS and equities ( 26:24 )
Social Security claiming thoughts for a married couple where one spouse doesn't have any earnings history or Social Security benefit of their own; should the other spouse not delay starting their benefit so the other spouse can start spousal benefits sooner? ( 39:56 )
If investing money for your child, how to decide between funding a Trump account or a Roth IRA ( 45:38 )
Whether Roth conversions would still make sense if you have to pay tax via distribution and withholding out of the conversion, instead of paying the tax out of "outside" funds such as cash from bank or brokerage accounts ( 50:15 )

To send Andy questions to be addressed on future Q&A episodes, email andy@andypanko.com
Andy's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypanko/

Links in this episode:
Tenon Financial's August 2026 newsletter - Trump accounts; what they are, how they work, and use cases
Tenon Financial monthly newsletter/blog - Retirement Planning Insights
YouTube channel - Retirement Planning Education (formerly Retirement Planning Demystified)
Retirement Planning Education website - www.RetirementPlanningEducation.com

In this replay of Andy's recent guest appearance on the Catching up to FI podcast, Andy and hosts Bill Yount, MD, and Jackie Cummings Koski, CFP®, AFC®, talk all about traditional defined benefit pensions. What they are, how they work, how to decide between taking payments vs a lump sum and much more!

Links in this episode:
The original audio version of the Catching up to FI podcast episode - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/are-pensions-really-dead-the-surprising-value-of/id1664430924?i=1000785277603
The original YouTube version of the Catching up to FI podcast episode - https://youtu.be/vU_popXD2_A?si=QC3p1_gGvIRNjxFx
Catching up to FI website - https://catchinguptofi.com/

Tenon Financial monthly e-newsletter - Retirement Planning Insights
YouTube channel - Retirement Planning Education (formerly Retirement Planning Demystified)
Retirement Planning Education website - www.RetirementPlanningEducation.com

To send Andy questions to be addressed on future Q&A episodes, email andy@andypanko.com
To follow Andy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypanko/

Andy chats with fellow retirement planner Ryan Langan, CFP®, from Your Path Fi. In this episode they talk about a wide array of retirement planning topics such as tax planning, distribution strategies, investing, annuities, long-term care insurance, what consumers often overlook in retirement planning and much more!

Links in this episode:
Ryan's advisory company website - https://www.yourpathfi.com/

Tenon Financial monthly e-newsletter - Retirement Planning Insights
YouTube channel - Retirement Planning Education (formerly Retirement Planning Demystified)
Retirement Planning Education website - www.RetirementPlanningEducation.com

To send Andy questions to be addressed on future Q&A episodes, email andy@andypanko.com

To follow Andy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypanko/