Retirement Planning Education, with Andy Panko

Andy and Adam Grossman from Mayport Wealth Management share their thoughts on a handful of current events and "hot topics" relating to retirement planning. Specifically, they talk about:

• How to analyze an existing annuity and whether to keep it, exchange it to another annuity or surrender it ( 11:44 )
• The different things to factor in when considering retiring to a different state ( 23:18 )
• What to do with your investments regardi...

Andy discusses the various areas of consideration and analysis that go into deciding whether Roth conversions might potentially be of value. Furthermore, he explains why it's impossible to actually quantify how much tax savings, if any, Roth conversions might potentially create. And what to consider when figuring out how much to convert in any given year

Links in this episode:

• Vanguard's "Break Even Tax Rate" Roth conversion anal...

Listener Q&A where Andy talks about: 

• Claiming your own Social Security benefit at 62 and then later switching to collecting a spousal benefit after your spouse starts their benefit ( 5:45 )
• It's said by comedians that there are just a small number of basic jokes and everything else is just a variation. The same could be said about financial planning, where there are just a few core topics, and everything else is a varia...

Andy chats with a real person (not an advisor) doing their own retirement planning. In this episode, Andy talks with Daryl. They talk about a wide array of retirement planning topics such as when he started getting serious about planning for retirement, how he's gotten comfortable spending from his nest egg, what he's doing for health insurance since he's not yet on Medicare and what his claim to fame was with being on television.....

Andy and Brad Flood from Tenon Financial share their thoughts on a handful of current events and "hot topics" relating to retirement planning. Specifically, they talk about:

• Portfolio withdrawal strategies for addressing sequence of returns risk ( 10:44 )
• Using financial planning software and dealing with its limitations ( 26:25 )
• Thoughts on Medicare surcharges known as IRMAA, and how much they should be factored into tax plannin...

Andy discusses the different options for holding cash and cash equivalents (i.e. things that are principal protected, offer some amount of interest and are highly liquid and readily accessible)

The options are:

• Physical bills and coins
• Checking accounts
• Savings accounts
• Certificates of Deposit, or CD's
• Money Market Mutual Funds or Exchanged Traded Funds that invest like Money Market Mutual Funds
• Multi-Year Guaranteed Annuities, or MYG...

Guest host Mark Rosinski, CFP®, CPA, RICP®, from Dunes Financial does a "hot topics" episode where he talks about:

• US Government obligation interest and what to look for on your consolidated 1099 to make sure you properly reflect the state income tax treatment on your tax return ( 9:06 )
• Understanding and tracking after-tax "basis" in inherited IRAs ( 20:14 )
• Required Minimum Distribution ("RMD") aggregation rules ( 25:03 )
• Potenti...

Listener Q&A where Andy talks about: 

• Correction to a previous Q&A episode regarding taxation of lump sum Social Security benefits paid in one year for benefits attributable to the prior year ( 9:54 )
• His thoughts on artificial intelligence and how it can impact the financial planning industry ( 13:00 )
• The "withhold and replace" method of paying taxes when doing IRA distributions or conversions and using the indirect...

Special edition 200th episode where Andy shares some of his observations about the financial services industry from his time working in it:

• Creating good and consistent content is hard to do and do well ( 9:32 )
• A lot of content is just clickbait to get your views and/or advertise something to you, and not actually good content ( 13:15 )
• Personal finance is a lot more personal than it is finance ( 17:40 )
• The vast majority (all?) o...

Andy and Jonathan Vance from Vance Financial Planning share their thoughts on a handful of current events and "hot topics" relating to retirement planning. Specifically, they talk about: 

• Given current world affairs and their impacts on the markets, should you do anything different with your investments, or are there any other planning opportunities to consider ( 14:20 )
• Tax updates for 2026, and some recap of tax takeaways ...

Andy discusses the pros and cons of taking a lump sum vs taking monthly payments for your pension, questions to ask yourself to help figure out if it might be better for you to take one vs the other, and other considerations to keep in mind in making the decision

Links in this episode:

• www.ImmediateAnnuities.com
• www.PBGC.gov
• Tenon Financial's April 2026 newsletter - Whether to take a pension as a lump sum or monthly payments

Listener Q&A where Andy talks about: 

• How often to check your accounts for rebalancing, and how often to check on your bigger picture finances and plan ( 2:32 )
• What to do with old positions you no longer want in a brokerage account but they all have large unrealized gains ( 16:03 )
• How Medi-Cal benefits interact with a high deductible health plan and an HSA (spoiler alert...I don't know!) ( 22:20 )
• Are there any good reas...

Andy chats with a real person (not an advisor) doing their own retirement planning. In this episode, Andy talks with Jim Kellerman. They talk about a wide array of retirement planning topics such as when he started getting serious about planning for retirement, how he now spends his days in retirement, what he's doing for health insurance since he's not yet on Medicare and why he's at the local prison each week...
 
&nbs...

Andy chats with fellow retirement planner Bradley Hilton, CFP®, TPCP®, MBA from Sonas Financial Planning. 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:

• Bradley's advisory company website - https://www.sonasfp.c...

Andy discusses the ins and outs of gifting, the annual gift exclusion, gift splitting, gift taxes, gift tax returns (IRS Form 709) and more!

Links in this episode:

• Tenon Financial's March newsletter/blog about gifting - here
• IRS Form 709 - here

• Tenon Financial monthly e-newsletter - Retirement Planning Insights
• Facebook group - Retirement Planning Education (formerly Taxes in Retirement)
• YouTube channel -Retirement Planning ...

Listener Q&A where Andy talks about: 

• Income tax treatment of buying bonds in a normal non-qualified brokerage account when you buy or sell bonds in between coupon periods ( 8:37 )
• When still working, are 50 or older, are maxing out your 401(k) contributions, and are high income and therefore would need to have your catch-up contribution go into your Roth (instead of pre-tax) 401(k), would it be better to skip the catch-...

Andy chats with a real person (not an advisor) doing their own retirement planning. This week Andy is joined by Kevin Sebesta from the Rock Retirement Club

Kevin retired at 43 as part of the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) concept. He shares his planning and retirement journey, and discusses more about FIRE including the FIRE community and thoughts everyone (not just FIRE folks) should consider when planning for retireme...

Andy and Jason Cutitta from ToBa Financial share their thoughts on a handful of current events and "hot topics" relating to retirement planning. Specifically, they talk about: 

• How to incorporate a potential inheritance into your retirement planning ( 12:30 )
• Limitations of the "Die With Zero" concept ( 18:55 )
• The upcoming ability to do in-plan Roth conversions in the federal Thrift Savings Plan ( 29:06 )
• Whose retirement acc...

Andy does a deep dive into everything about "backdoor" Roth contributions, which is where you make an after-tax contribution to a traditional/pre-tax account, and then convert it to a Roth account. Looks simple on the surface, but there are a lot of angles and gotchas to watch out for

Links in this episode:

• IRS Form 8606 - here
• Congressional meeting summary from December 2017 meeting on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act - here

• Ten...