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Are you nervous about retirement?
You're not alone. 

In fact, you may be suffering a condition we see coming into our office more and more frequently.  We call it the retirement conundrum. If you are within a few years of retirement, you may feel both excitement and anxiety. We can help you navigate through your personal retirement conundrum so you can retire confidently.

Many of the people we work with come in with similar concerns.

  • Are you concerned whether you have enough to retire?
  • Do you have information overload? 
  • Do you feel prepared to make the important decisions about Social Security, pension options, planning for health care in retirement, and positioning your investments in case of another downturn?

We will help you gain clarity, discover your comfort zone,  stress test your portfolio, and create a blueprint for life.

Our Process

Through our unique process, we will guide you
through preparing to retire confidently. 

The first step is to help you gain clarity about what you want to accomplish. Most people have vague goals. Many are anxious about retirement because they lack clarity. We discuss your dreams and goals, explore the possibilities, and acknowledge the limits and boundaries.

With a clear picture of the future we can begin planning. We map out a path together. We consider the “what if’s” and create contingency plans. We stress test your portfolio to help protect your dreams from being compromised by downturns in the market. We evaluate your current portfolio so that it makes sense for you emotionally, mathematically, and intellectually. There are only five things you can control when planning for retirement:

  • How much you spend
  • How much you save
  • How much risk you take
  • When you decide to retire
  • How much you want to leave
In drawing up the blueprint we help you make the decisions to find the right balance of these five possibilities for you.

Now that we have a plan, it’s time to get excited. Too many people simply retire from something – we want to help you retire to something. What’s your bucket list? Let’s figure out what’s keeping you from those dreams, carve out some time for yourself, and set up a timetable to accomplish them.

As we move toward retirement we will monitor your progress and help keep you on track through the what-ifs of life.

When you are comfortable that you will be okay and your family will be okay it helps make your world be okay. You can achieve a sense of calm knowing that your bases are covered. We will do “lifeboat drills” to walk through the distribution of your state, make sure everything goes where you wanted to go, and reaffirm your decisions. We will make the bridge to plan into the next generation, develop gifting and philanthropic strategies, and plan your legacy.


Contact us to see how our process can help you. 

Services 

We start by listening to your dreams, vision, and values. Then we seek to understand your entire financial picture - your primary financial objective, your family information, the components of your net worth, the details of your assets, how you plan to distribute your estate, and your expected cash flow - both income and expenses.  

We take our time to get to know you before developing a plan because all financial goals stem from the most important thing of all–what really matters to you. For some clients, it may be providing a college education for their grandchildren. For others, it is simply having an income, for the rest of their lives.

Your personal, strategic financial plan is custom designed for you and your situation. We always carefully document it, and present it to you. After all, your plan is the financial roadmap to help you meet your life goals!

The following summarizes the Charleton Financial approach to investment very succinctly:  

  1. Look to the long term. Your portfolio was designed in anticipation of volatility, not in response to it. We are constantly studying market conditions and their effect on your capital.
  2. You need to be properly diversified in your portfolio.
  3. Focus on good-quality investments and competent portfolio managers. Our review of your portfolio managers' past performance, in relationship to their peers, substantiates a history of quality investment decisions that we believe will continue in the future. 

We build your portfolio with market conditions in mind. It's designed to do well in the good times, and cushion some of the rough times. That's why we work with the professional portfolio managers offered through our Broker Dealer, Cambridge Investment Research, to help manage your wealth.

Your retirement nest egg will help provide income for the rest of your life and so your retirement accounts are some of the most important. We will help you make the most of these accounts, keeping as much as possible protected against taxes and managing your distributions to balance your income needs with your tax strategy. We will advise you on managing your IRAs, how much is the right amount in a traditional versus a Roth IRA, how to move money from your former employer into your IRA, and how to manage required minimum distributions. 


A key element of your plan is managing risks. That includes risks of disability if you are still in your working years, the risk of the premature death of an income earner, and the risk of catastrophic healthcare costs in retirement. We have skills and strategic partners to help us measure and minimize the effect of these risks on your retirement well-being. 


Retirement planning is the core of our expertise. We help you clarify your retirement goals and what will be necessary for you to afford it. We will help you be confident in the plans you are making. 

We address all the areas important to developing an effective retirement strategy: Social Security planning, pension planning, and a tax efficient strategy for distributing money from taxable and tax-deferred accounts.

Despite having more information more easily available, many people are still concerned about whether they will have enough money for retirement and how to put all the pieces together – what we call their retirement conundrum. We can help you develop an effective retirement plan so you can move forward confidently!


Michael Charleton, Jr. Photo

Michael Charleton, Jr.

President, CEO, Financial Strategist
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michael.charleton@charletonfinancial.com


Michael started his career in 1985 with IDS/American Express. He is a Certified Financial PlannerTM professional, Certified Fund Specialist, and Certified Long Term Care Specialist with a bachelor's degree from the University of Rochester. Michael specializes in Retirement Income Distribution and has spoken at a variety of seminars, radio shows and industry conferences with key emphasis on planning, understanding client needs and behaviors, market trends, tax changes, long term care and investment strategy. 

Michael lives in Fairport, NY with his son Max. Mike is an avid reader and is an advocate to the special needs community. In his spare time you will find him working out, enjoying the beauty of western New York or traveling the world.

Michael services all clients as a team, with the support of the Charleton Financial staff. They strive to provide an unmatched client service experience, and ultimately provide clients with the tools they need to achieve the life they dream of - while working, during retirement, and as a legacy for generations to follow. 

Christina Giglio Photo

Christina Giglio

Operations Manager
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christina.giglio@charletonfinancial.coM


Christina started with Charleton Financial in November 2012. She is a native of Rochester and lives in West Henrietta with her husband, Matt. Christina attended SUNY at New Paltz as a visual arts major and loved the area so much that she lived there for about 10 years. Her background in the financial services industry has a strong compliance component, but what she truly loves about her work is the variety. Compliance, which means making sure we are in line with all industry rules and regulations, and day to day supervision of the other administrative staff, are the significant aspects of her position, but she also helps out with special projects, some client service needs, and in general she keeps the office going.

She and her husband have made a hobby out of loving to eat! They experiment with different foods and cooking styles at home and love to try new restaurants. In recent years they've dabbled a bit in gardening to fuel the food hobby; most of their success has been with herbs. Their home is on a pond alive with wildlife. They've identified a number of different bird species, but their favorite by far is the elegant blue heron. They enjoy sitting on the patio and watching him gracefully stroll along the shore looking for fish.

You will find Christina immensely knowledgeable in all aspects of Charleton Financial's operations, and can use her as a resource for anything ranging from simply scheduling an appointment to any level of problem resolution.  

Tiffany Burke Photo

Tiffany Burke

Client Services and Marketing
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tiffany.burke@charletonfinancial.com


Tiffany joined the Charleton Financial team in July 2013. She is responsible for marketing and relationship management at Charleton Financial. She received her MBA with a focus in Marketing and Management from Rochester Institute of Technology and began her career in advertising. She then went on to continue marketing in the financial services industry and has been in this field for over 10 years.

Tiffany enjoys spending time outside in the summer months with her husband Justin and sons Jaedyn and River. She's had a love for dance since she was 3 years old and danced for the St. Bonaventure dance team and semi-professionally for the Rochester Rhinos. Her guilty pleasures are watching General Hospital and reality shows.

You will likely hear from Tiffany often, as she coordinates all of our client events and is an integral part of all aspects of client service.  


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