Landing in the “earning” phase and moving into retirement can feel like a long, winding road. The Putney Financial Group steps in as a guide to help you transition smoothly from building income to preserving wealth to enjoying retirement. In this article you’ll explore how they work, the phases they emphasize, and how you can replicate their framework for your own financial life.
The Three Phases: Earning, Preserving, Enjoying
Putney Financial explains their model as integrating three critical phases of capital development: creation, conservation, and distribution.
- Creation (Earning & Accumulating): This is where you build income, invest, grow assets.
- Conservation (Preparing & Protecting): As you move closer to retirement you protect what you’ve built.
- Distribution (Retirement & Legacy): This is when you use your assets for income, lifestyle, and leave a legacy.
By seeing your financial journey this way, Putney helps you move smoothly from earning to retiring.
What to Do While You’re Earning
In the accumulation phase Putney focuses on strategies that support growth but aligned with your life. Their website states: “We take the time to truly understand your story your family, your dreams, and your core values.”
Here are key actions:
Set Clear Financial Goals
Define when you want to retire, how you want to live, how much you need. Once you have those, you can build a plan around them. Putney covers this under financial planning.
Build a Customized Investment Plan
They emphasise personalised portfolios rather than off‑the‐shelf models: “We manage separate customized portfolios for each of our clients.” Because you’re earning, this phase is about maximizing growth with discipline.
Protect & Plan for Risks
While you’re in the earnings phase you also prepare for the unexpected: consider insurance, debt reduction, emergency fund. Putney’s services include life planning, long term health care planning.
Lay the Groundwork for Retirement
Even while you’re accumulating, you want to structure contributions, maximize tax advantaged vehicles, consider asset allocation aligned with future goals. Putney’s holistic approach means you don’t wait until right before retirement; you begin planning early.
Preparing for Retirement
As you transition from earning toward retiring, the focus shifts. You’re still accumulating but you’re also making the shift toward preservation and planning for income.
Refine Your Retirement Timeline and Income Needs
You must ask: At what age will I stop working? What lifestyle do I want then? How much annual income will I need? Putney’s model starts with your personal story.
Protect Capital and Reduce Risk
In this phase you shift toward safeguarding your assets. Portfolio risk management, shifting allocations away from purely aggressive growth to a balance that protects. Putney offers portfolio management and life planning to address this.
Integrate All Life & Legacy Components
Preparing for retirement isn’t only about your investment account. It’s also about estate planning, charitable giving, health care planning, tax strategies. Putney’s services explicitly include estate planning and charitable giving.
Run “What If” Scenarios
What if you retire earlier? What if health care costs surge? What about market downturns? You build a plan that anticipates these. While Putney’s website highlights tailored planning, you would expect scenario analysis from this phase.
Living in Retirement
This is where distribution happens: your assets become your income and your lifestyle. The aim is to make your money work for you.
Convert Assets into Sustainable Income
You need a strategy for turning investments into retirement income. This could mean systematic withdrawals, annuities, other vehicles. While Putney doesn’t publish every detail publically, their framework covers “distribution” phase.
Monitor and Adjust
Retirement isn’t static. You may live 20‑30 years post‑career. Markets, tax laws, health conditions change. You need ongoing monitoring. Putney’s holistic and long‑term approach implies that support continues.
Legacy & Giving
In this phase you may think beyond just living comfortably: how you pass assets on, charitable legacies, multi‑generational wealth. Putney’s services include estate planning and charitable giving explicitly.
Simplify Life, Not Just Finances
Retirement should free you up to do what matters. A comprehensive plan helps you focus on living, rather than worrying about numbers. Putney frames their mission around aligning with client values and stories.
Why Putney Financial Stands Out
Here are key points where The Putney Financial Group distinguishes itself:
- Personalized approach: They emphasize listening to your story, family, values.
- Holistic wealth management: They integrate investments, life planning, retirement, health care, estate, and giving not just number‑crunching.
- Independent RIA model: They manage customized portfolios rather than templated models.
- Long‐term relationships: They have served multi‑generational clients and build for the long haul.
- Sophisticated yet human: The emphasis on tech, strategy, but with a human connection: they show you the roadmap, not just the returns. (From their blog reference).
By viewing your financial life as moving from earning to preserving to retiring, and by working with an advisor that sees the full story your values, lifestyle, ambitions, and legacy you position yourself for a smoother transition into and through retirement. The Putney Financial Group offers a framework you can use: set your goals, invest with purpose, protect your assets, plan your legacy, adjust as needed. Your financial journey becomes clearer, not harder.