Retirement Planning Education, with Andy Panko

Listener Q&A where Andy talks about: 
How to sell and rebalance positions in a brokerage account when they have unrealized gains and you're trying to be tax-efficient about it ( 7:06 )
His thoughts on a few different variable portfolio withdrawal strategies, namely Amortization Based Withdrawals ("ABW"), Total Portfolio Allocation Withdrawals ("TPAW") and Big ERN's CAPE-based approach ( 14:10 )
Converting to a Roth IRA money you plan on spending in the near-term, instead of outright distributing it to your bank or brokerage account to be spent from there ( 23:18 )
Whether doing Roth conversions or backdoor Roth contributions are ultimately the same thing from a tax planning perspective ( 28:02 )
His thoughts on deciding which type of advisor and/or advisory fee model might make the most sense for you when considering the potential fees to be paid to an advisor over a lifetime ( 33:41 )
At what point should you just take out unused 529 funds and pay tax and penalty on the gains, assuming you have no expectation they'll eventually get to be used for qualified education expenses ( 40:15 )
Potential ideas for small or solo advisory firms to establish a succession plan in the event of the death or incapacitation of the advisor ( 45:26 )
What to look for in an advisory relationship to help minimize the risk of the advisory committing fraud with your money ( 50:50 )
Whether to live off cash for multiple years - assuming you have saved that much cash - or instead pull from your investment accounts ( 56:53 )
His thoughts on Securities Backed Lines of Credit, or SBLOCs, from brokerage firms ( 1:00:35 )

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 monthly newsletter/blog - Retirement Planning Insights
YouTube channel - Retirement Planning Education (formerly Retirement Planning Demystified)
Retirement Planning Education website - www.RetirementPlanningEducation.com

Andy discusses the ins and outs of Trump accounts:
Legislative background
How to open them
How to fund them
Investing inside them
How to distribute from them
Reporting around them
Taxation of them
The two potential worthwhile use cases I see for them

Links in this episode:
My in-depth write-up of Trump accounts, including all of the links I referenced in the show - Trump accounts: what they are, how they work, and use cases

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 summarizes the recent 2026 annual Social Security trustees report, including what it would actually mean if the system's trust fund were to deplete, and what changes can be made to ensure that doesn't happen

Links in this episode:
The full 2026 Social Security trustees report - here
Summary of the recently proposed PROMISE Act - here
The recent episode of Inspired Money with me, Wade Pfau and Mary Beth Franklin discussing all things Social Security - here

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

Andy's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypanko/

Listener Q&A where Andy talks about: 
Should Roth conversion analysis look at marginal or effective tax rates ( 4:21 )
His thoughts on why qualified Roth account distributions might eventually be included in certain measures of Modified Adjusted Gross Income ("MAGI") ( 8:28 )
What other MAGIs are potentially impacted and should be watched out for with doing Roth conversions ( 12:38 )
The difference between "directionality" and "precision" in retirement planning ( 20:40 )
Is it reasonable for an advisor to charge you extra for outsourcing some of their investment management to a separately managed or sub-managed account ( 25:38 )
His thoughts of reinvesting a deferred compensation plan to all cash when the plan will soon begin paying out its deferred payments ( 29:34 )
His thoughts on using multiple dividend and fixed income funds to create a "high income sleeve" for near-term distribution needs ( 35:25 )
Whether it's accurate that you can indirectly file a tax return extension simply by making an online tax payment and select "extension" as the reason for the payment ( 39:05 )
Can a minor with less than $400 of self-employment income not file a tax return yet still be eligible to contribute to a Roth IRA ( 44:56 )
How he helps clients balance Fear of Missing Out ("FOMO") and Fear of Running Out ("FORU") ( 52:04 )
How much of his planning work with clients is computational vs psychological ( 54:42 )
His thoughts on the gamification of investing, and the prediction markets ( 58:11 )
Why there are so many different funds like buffered ETFs and option trading ETFs, at higher expense ratios, when many can just invest in a few basic low-cost ETFs ( 1:00:36 )

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:

Episode 207 of the podcast - Roth conversion analysis; more than meets the eye

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

Andy chats with a real person (not an advisor) doing their own retirement planning. In this episode, Andy talks with Tom. They talk about a wide array of retirement planning topics such as when he started getting serious about planning for retirement, why he went back to work as a consultant a year after retiring, why their plans of relocating to a different state have since changed, what his Roth conversion plan is, and more!

 
 Links in this episode:

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

Andy's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypanko/