Maryland Financial Advocates

09/14/2026

Check out our latest Podcast! "Our Top 9 Questions We Ask In Planning Meetings".

Available on Apple Podcasts now.

Podcast link is in the comments.

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We're low key, no pressure, but high impact financial planning advocates to help you and your family through difficult and complex situations – special needs planning, eldercare planning, and retirement income planning.

If you’re looking for a financial planning relationship, please go to TalkWithColin.com to schedule an intro phone call.

09/13/2026

Leaving your job at 55? Don't touch that 401(k) rollover just yet.

Under the Rule of 55, leaving or losing your job in or after the calendar year you turn 55 allows you to take penalty-free distributions directly from your current employer's plan.

Before making a move, watch out for two critical traps:

• It only applies to your current plan: It does not cover old 401(k)s or IRAs from previous employers.

• The rollover trap: Move those funds into an IRA too soon, and you wipe out the exception—locking your money behind the 10% penalty until age 59½.

Before rolling over funds on autopilot, check if your plan supports the Rule of 55.

Leaving the money right where it is might just be your smartest move.

Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, a registered investment advisor. Member FINRA/SIPC.

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We're low key, no pressure, but high impact financial planning advocates to help you and your family through difficult and complex situations – special needs planning, eldercare planning, and retirement income planning.

If you’re looking for a financial planning relationship, please go to TalkWithColin.com to schedule an intro phone call.

09/12/2026

The parts of planning that a robo-advisor and Claude can't do……….

Automated investing platforms have gotten genuinely good at what they're built for: low-cost, diversified portfolio management based on a questionnaire.

For some people, especially those earlier in their investing years with fairly simple situations, this automation might make sense.

Where it tends to fall short is everything beyond portfolio management.

• Coordinating Social Security timing with a pension.

• Managing tax brackets across a multi-year retirement transition.

• Talking through a business sale, an inheritance, or a blended family's estate plan.

• Being a sounding board during a market downturn when the instinct is to panic.

A robo-advisor can rebalance a portfolio. Claude can tell you the Social Security basics.

But it can't talk you through what keeps you up at night.

Or catch the kind of personalized nuance that a template-based questionnaire was never built to capture.

The right comparison isn't "cheap automation vs. expensive human."

It's "what does my specific situation need?". And if you’re approaching retirement, the answer includes more than just investments and portfolio management.

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We're low key, no pressure, but high impact financial planning advocates to help you and your family through difficult and complex situations – special needs planning, eldercare planning, and retirement income planning.

If you’re looking for a financial planning relationship, please go to TalkWithColin.com to schedule an intro phone call.

set a phone, zoom, or in person meeting with Colin

09/11/2026

There’s no stock answer on “When should I start Social Security?”

Social Security gives you an 8% raise, guaranteed, for every year you wait to claim your benefits past your full retirement age (up to age 70). These raises are what's known as a "delayed retirement credit."

It works for some folks and makes no sense for others.

But there may not be another income source that rewards patience with a contractually promised raise of that size. Even more so, it's a raise that is then adjusted for inflation and lasts for the rest of your life.

So, before you claim, make sure you run the numbers to make the best decision possible for you, your spouse, and your income plan……. It only takes a few minutes.

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We're low key, no pressure, but high impact financial planning advocates to help you and your family through difficult and complex situations – special needs planning, eldercare planning, and retirement income planning.

If you’re looking for a financial planning relationship, please go to TalkWithColin.com to schedule an intro phone call.

set a phone, zoom, or in person meeting with Colin

09/10/2026

The surviving spouse rules around inherited IRAs are powerful — and often misunderstood.

Unlike most beneficiaries, a spouse has more flexibility, and knowing the rules can make all the difference.

They can treat the IRA as their own, meaning normal RMD rules apply based on their age.

Or they can keep it as an inherited account, which may allow them to delay RMDs until the deceased spouse would have reached their required beginning date (if they hadn’t already started).

If the deceased had already begun RMDs, distributions generally must continue.

When kept as an inherited IRA, distributions are typically based on the surviving spouse’s life expectancy.

Each path leads to a very different tax outcome.

And the difference can be tens of thousands of dollars over time, so choose wisely.

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We're low key, no pressure, but high impact financial planning advocates to help you and your family through difficult and complex situations – special needs planning, eldercare planning, and retirement income planning.

If you’re looking for a financial planning relationship, please go to TalkWithColin.com to schedule an intro phone call.

set a phone, zoom, or in person meeting with Colin

09/09/2026

There are two ways to lose money:

1) A visible decline in your portfolio
2) A gradual decline in purchasing power

We tend to focus almost exclusively on the first.

But the second often does far more damage over time.

Make sure you're paying attention to the right risk.

Link is in comments.

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We're low key, no pressure, but high impact financial planning advocates to help you and your family through difficult and complex situations – special needs planning, eldercare planning, and retirement income planning.

If you’re looking for a financial planning relationship, please go to TalkWithColin.com to schedule an intro phone call.

09/07/2026

You only retire once, so choose wisely…….

If you’re married and choose the monthly annuity from your pension instead of a lump sum, there’s a second, equally important decision to make: the survivor election.

Choosing a single-life option means higher monthly payments, but those payments stop when you pass away—even if that happens just a few years into retirement.

A joint-and-survivor option pays less each month but continues to provide income to your surviving spouse for their lifetime—usually between 50% and 100% of the original amount, depending on the choice you make.

Federal law typically requires married participants in defined benefit plans to select the joint-and-survivor option unless your spouse gives written consent to choose otherwise.

This rule is in place because the financial security of a surviving spouse is critical.

For healthy couples retiring at 65, there’s about a 50% chance that one spouse will live to age 92, making this decision one that can affect decades of retirement.

Some people consider pairing the single-life option with life insurance—known as "pension maximization." While this can work in certain cases, it comes with risks that need careful review before committing. (i.e., don’t listen to the guy just trying to sell you a big life insurance policy, make sure the numbers work for you)

The bottom line: whatever you choose, make it together. This decision impacts both of you for many years to come.

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We're low key, no pressure, but high impact financial planning advocates to help you and your family through difficult and complex situations – special needs planning, eldercare planning, and retirement income planning.

If you’re looking for a financial planning relationship, please go to TalkWithColin.com to schedule an intro phone call.

set a phone, zoom, or in person meeting with Colin

09/06/2026

Don't buy the hype. Buy the contractual guarantee.

When evaluating an annuity or life insurance policy, it’s easy to get distracted by fancy charts and hypothetical growth curves. Those projections look great on paper, but they only reflect what might happen in a perfect world.

The single most critical buying rule: Base your decision strictly on the contractual floor.

When we integrate insurance and annuities into a comprehensive financial plan, we anchor the strategy solely to guaranteed numbers. Any upside beyond that is just icing on the cake.

Know what is guaranteed. Ignore the hype.

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We're low key, no pressure, but high impact financial planning advocates to help you and your family through difficult and complex situations – special needs planning, eldercare planning, and retirement income planning.

If you’re looking for a financial planning relationship, please go to TalkWithColin.com to schedule an intro phone call.

09/05/2026

Check out our latest Podcast! "Care Planning Without Chaos - Navigating Elder Care Logistics Without Going Broke or Crazy".

Available on Apple Podcasts now.

Podcast link is in the comments.

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We're low key, no pressure, but high impact financial planning advocates to help you and your family through difficult and complex situations – special needs planning, eldercare planning, and retirement income planning.

If you’re looking for a financial planning relationship, please go to TalkWithColin.com to schedule an intro phone call.

09/04/2026

Feeling generous?

A common question surrounding annual gifting is whether a gift tax return needs to be filed.

It depends on how the gift is structured.

If you give within the annual exclusion amount ($19,000 per recipient in 2026), no gift tax return is generally required. For gift tax purposes, the transfer doesn’t need to be reported.

If you exceed the annual exclusion amount for any one recipient, Form 709 is required — even though no gift tax is typically owed. The form simply tracks how much of your lifetime estate and gift tax exemption has been used.

And if spouses elect to split gifts (treating a gift from one spouse as though it came half from each spouse, effectively doubling the annual exclusion to $38,000 per recipient), Form 709 is generally required even if the combined gift remains within the doubled exclusion amount.

One important nuance: There is no joint Form 709, and so each spouse must file a separate return, and both spouses must consent to the gift-splitting election.

In most cases, the filing is procedural rather than punitive. But it does matter, and it needs to be handled properly – so be sure to use a CPA.

*Form 709 is generally due April 15 of the year following the gift, though extensions are available.

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We're low key, no pressure, but high impact financial planning advocates to help you and your family through difficult and complex situations – special needs planning, eldercare planning, and retirement income planning.

If you’re looking for a financial planning relationship, please go to TalkWithColin.com to schedule an intro phone call.

set a phone, zoom, or in person meeting with Colin