There's a question we think every person deserves to ask their advisor: Are you recommending this because it's the best option for me... or because it's on an approved list?
It's not a rude question. It's a necessary one.
At Schmerling Financial Group, we work as independent advisors. That distinction shapes everything about how we plan with our clients —especially when it comes to retirement projections.
The Platform Problem Most People Don't See
Many financial advisors, even well-intentioned ones, operate within a constrained ecosystem. Recommendations may be influenced—directly or indirectly—by specific platforms, product lineups, or pre-built solutions. None of that is inherently malicious, but it does mean the menu of options is limited before the client conversation even begins.
Retirement projections built on those limitations aren't necessarily wrong. But they may be incomplete. And in planning, being incomplete can be costly.
When your advisor has full access to the marketplace (no restrictions, no preferred vendors, and no production quotas), the math changes, and so does the conversation.
What Truly Independent Retirement Planning Looks Like
The Starting Point Is Always You — Not a Product
An unbiased projection begins with your life: your income, your timeline, your goals, your family situation, your risk tolerance, and your tax picture. The product conversation comes later, and only after we understand what you actually need.
When advisors start with a product, they work backward to justify it. When they start with your goals, they work forward to build a strategy. That difference shows up in your retirement income for decades.
Assumptions Matter More Than Most Clients Realize
Every retirement projection is built on assumptions: rate of return, inflation, withdrawal rate, tax treatment, and longevity. Advisors who are tied to specific platforms often use assumptions baked into those platforms—assumptions that may not reflect current market conditions, your actual tax bracket, or a realistic picture of how long you'll need your money to last.
Independent advisors can stress-test across multiple scenarios, using tools and data that aren't tied to a single provider's preferred outcomes. That kind of honest modeling (including the uncomfortable scenarios) is how we help clients build real resilience.
Tax-Smart Planning Requires the Full Picture
One of the most significant advantages of independent planning is the ability to coordinate across your entire financial picture. A Roth conversion strategy, for example, needs to account for your current income, anticipated future tax rates, Social Security timing, RMD projections, and your estate goals, all at once.
Advisors constrained to a specific platform may not have visibility into all those variables, or may not have access to strategies that exist outside their firm's offerings. Fortunately, we do.
Legacy Planning Doesn't Live in a Single Product
Our family has built this practice around what we call purposeful planning, and a significant part of that is thinking beyond your own retirement into the legacy you want to leave. Retirement projections built only with your income in mind miss a critical dimension: how your assets will transfer, what tax burdens your heirs might face, and how your values can outlast your lifetime.
True retirement planning and estate planning aren't separate conversations. They inform each other. And that integration requires objectivity; an advisor who can recommend the structure that serves your goals, not the product that serves their firm.
The Question Behind Every Projection
Every time we build a retirement projection with a client, we ask: What does this plan need to survive? A down market, an unexpected health event, a longer-than-expected retirement, or a change in tax law—any of these can reshape the picture. Independent planning means we're not defending a particular product when those scenarios arise. We're defending your plan.
Our clients aren't numbers on a spreadsheet. They're families — professionals, business owners, and others who have worked hard and want to know their futures are built on something solid and honest.
What to Ask Your Advisor
If you're working with a financial advisor on retirement planning, consider asking:
- Are there any products or platforms you can't recommend, and why?
- How do you get compensated, and does that change what you recommend?
- Can you show me multiple projections, including ones that don't rely on your firm's preferred tools?
- How does this retirement projection connect to my estate and legacy goals?
These aren't “gotcha” questions. They're the questions an advisor who has nothing to hide will welcome.
Planning With Nothing to Sell You Except a Better Future
We built our firm on a simple principle: planning works best when it starts with what's right for the client. That means access to the full market, honest projections, and advice that stays honest even when the market doesn't cooperate.
If you're wondering whether your retirement projections are telling you the whole truth, we'd welcome the conversation.