Money Minute with Steve Sexton: Do you have a clearly defined income plan?

Steve Sexton, the President of Sexton Advisory Group and host of his very own radio show called “Winning in Life,” is also featured in San Diego Living with Kirsten Moesteller on Channel 6 for his Money Minute segment. Steve has been providing expert advice to San Diego Living viewers for over three years and on this episode, he introduces the first part of a five part report called the 5 most costly mistakes retirees make.

Steve starts his segment by revealing that most people who walk into his office do not have a clearly defined income plan. He then tells us that a clearly defined plan has certain requirements such as:

1. The plan needs to guarantee your income for as long as you and your spouse live.
2. It needs to be able to fight the impact of inflation each and every year.
3. It must have flexibility for life’s “ifs” such as health care expenses, dream vacations, buying a new car, helping your kids and etc.
4. It must be bullet proof so that when there’s a market downturn, your income is not negatively affected.

Does your retirement plan fit those requirements? Most likely not.

On the other hand, you may also have a portfolio that is half stocks and half bonds in which you take out a percentage of income every year. If that is the case, Steve wants you to ask yourself this: Are you offsetting your shortfalls in income planning by selling off your stocks? According to Steve, this method may work well when the market is cooperating, but it doesn’t work at all when the market isn’t.

Although a short segment, Steve does a terrific job in covering the important points of having a defined income plan. For those who don’t have a defined plan, Steve advises you to get help today by getting educated first. You can contact Sexton Advisory Group today to get a white paper on how to build a defined income plan!

Also for those interested, Steve invites you to attend his free workshop at the Courtyard Marriott in Mission Valley on Tuesday, September 18th or Thursday, September 20th. If you can’t attend either workshop, simply tune into his radio show, Winning In Life Radio at 9:00 AM every Sunday on KBCQ 1170 AM to get more of Steve’s financial expertise. Both are great resources for getting you one step closer to financial stability.