Client Case Study: Making Early Retirement Dreams Come True

The story of one client’s journey to financial independence thanks to advisement and planning from Illumination Wealth.

From time to time on the Illumination Wealth Blog, we want to highlight some of our clients’ success stories as they strive for financial independence. To protect their privacy, we will not use any names.

Being that February is FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) month here at Illumination Wealth, we would like to feature a client story where we helped someone achieve his FIRE goals. He is a gentleman in his early 50s who was working full-time in a business that he owned. His business required him to take on a lot of different projects and travel quite a bit. However, he had a dream of early retirement and knew he needed to make some changes to achieve this objective.

Where He Was

Over the years he gained ownership of seven different investment properties in South Carolina (not geographically diversified). He was investing in private loans that were not very tax efficient. A financial advisor was managing his investment portfolio, placing him in non-traded investments and charging high commissions, yet the client had very little visibility into his own finances. He didn’t have a sense of his own personal lifestyle spending and any returns on the investments he was making. In a way, he was flying blind.

Why He Turned to Us

Knowing his old financial plan wasn’t working the way he expected, he turned to Illumination Wealth for help. He realized there may be some challenges on his journey toward financial independence, but he had a specific goal to retire within four years and live solely off the income from his investments. He wanted to spend his retirement years in Florida, Hawaii and South Dakota, where he could spend more time boating and fishing.

His Illumination Wealth Strategy

With this client’s dreams in mind, Illumination Wealth put together an early retirement investment plan to get him where he wanted to be. His multi-point plan included the following facets:

• Sell underperforming investment properties that were risky or cash flow neutral/negative
• Establish better criteria for returns needed on new investment properties
• Create investment plan to reinvest investment earnings more tax efficiently
• Invest in stable cash flow producing investments
• Identify retirement plan savings opportunities to increase pre-tax savings from $55,000 to $130,000
• Restructure investment portfolio to include optimal accounts that minimize taxes
• Reduce risk of illiquid investments

The Results

The client is now on track to achieve his early retirement goals thanks to these sound investment strategies implemented by Illumination Wealth. He has been able to dramatically slow down his hectic work schedule by being more selective with the projects he takes on. He is actually in a position to fully retire at any time he chooses because his investments are generating more cash flow while he is also saving tens of thousands of dollars in taxes. In general, there is much less risk associated with his current investments, so he can feel more secure about his money moving forward into his early retirement years.

Thanks to the financial advisement and investment guidance orchestrated by Illumination Wealth, this client has been able to achieve his dreams of financial independence and an early retirement. To learn more about what we can do for you and your financial future, contact us today to schedule a no-obligation consultation.