In this episode of the One of a Kind Financial Show, host Mike Milligan (CFP, investment advisor representative) and co‑host Gary Nolan use a Vince Lombardi football metaphor—"blocking and tackling"—to walk listeners through a comprehensive, five‑leg retirement‑planning framework. They begin with proactive tax planning, emphasizing early‑year tactics, Roth conversions, 401(k) contributions, and 529 plans to reduce future tax burdens. Next, they critique the historical origins of the 401(k)/TSP, framing retirement income as a function of tax strategy, bucket‑based withdrawal, safe withdrawal rates, annuities, and continued work in retirement. The third leg covers investment management, focusing on fee awareness, performance comparison, and asset allocation tailored to the client’s story. They then discuss long‑term care, introducing the Health Analysis Longevity Optimizer (HALO) tool that estimates health‑span, life‑span, and present‑value costs of future care. Finally, they outline legacy planning basics—wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and healthcare directives—highlighting the importance of an organized estate to preserve family legacy. The episode closes with a compliance disclaimer and a call‑to‑action for listeners to schedule a consultation with Mike’s firm. Throughout, the tone is conversational yet instructional, using football analogies to make complex financial concepts accessible.
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Welcome back to the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily. I'm your host, Mike Milligan, where I believe you are one of a kind and that you deserve a one-of-a-kind financial plan. It's Wednesday, September 17th. In 1920, in Canton, Ohio, the American The American Professional Football Association was organized. We now call that the NFL. You know, we celebrate so much around what the NFL is. We craft our Sundays around it. In February every year, we have a Super Bowl, right? Where for some people, it's about the game. For some, it's about who's singing the national anthem or who the halftime performance is. For others, it's about the snacks that we eat. See, the NFL has become part of our culture, and we celebrate the beginning of that today because today, dating back to 1920, the NFL traces its history back to 105 years ago. Recently on the One of a Kind Financial Show, I spoke with Gary about football and specifically how the X's and O's from Vince Lombardi relate to you and your finances. Enjoy that next.
And here we are, and we're back again. I told you we'd be back. This is the One of a Kind Financial Show. I'm your consumer advocate, Gary Nolan. Back with us to help you take charge of your money is Mike Milligan. Mike has helped hundreds of clients achieve their financial retirement goals, over 25 years' experience in retirement planning business. Mike is also a fiduciary, a very important distinction when you're looking for a financial advisor. So here we go. It is football time. Vince Lombardi famously said, football is 2 things, it's blocking and tackling. I don't care about formations or new offenses or tricks on defense. You block and tackle better than the team you're playing, you win. Let's talk about some blocking and tackling strategies around the one-of-a-kind financial plan to help our listeners win more in retirement. Here's the first one, tax planning. Tell us about that, Mike.
Well, here we are on football season, right? And we're going to talk about some, some, you know, between the trenches, right? Offense and defense. Because like Vince Lombardi said, you win here, right? A lot of people think that football's about quarterback and wide receivers and running back and defense backs, linebackers, but you win in the trenches, right? So tax planning, right, is one of the things that is most often neglected when it comes to financial planning, right? Everybody takes a passive approach. So let's think about your CPA for a second. Your CPA is really a historian when it comes to tax planning, or most of them, right? They start their season in January and it goes to April 15th. And then with extensions, it goes to October 15th. That's their season. But it's all reactionary because you're giving them documents from the previous year that then they're then putting on another document to then file to the IRS. It's a historical document by that time.
Right.
And so if we want to get in and be more tactical and win more, and get in the trenches, well, we need to do tax planning in the year before you file your taxes. And so that tax planning can look like, you know, this year with the advent of the new big beautiful bill that came out, people over 65 under a certain amount of income now has to have higher standard deductions. And because of those higher standard deductions, it means that we could possibly do a little more Roth conversions as a result of that. We, in 2025, we still have a lot more time to do planning, like for people that maybe are in their 30s or 40s to maybe Maybe save a little bit more into their 401 plan to reduce taxes now. If you have a kid in college, maybe now as we're starting to make tuition payments for the year, instead of paying that money directly to the college, maybe we direct it through a 529 plan so that we get a state income tax benefit before we actually pay that. So the X's and O's of tax planning are real. And if we can marginally save, right, the large sum of the largest expense we ever have in our life, we're going to win more.
Right. It's all about the blocking and the tackling in retirement income, Mike.
So, all right, we, we have been kind of told a lie when it comes to what a 401 and a TSP is, Gary. We, we've been given these benefits over the years of lower taxes, right? Lower current year taxes with this whole idea of creating large sums in 401s and IRAs that now we have to pay taxes on. See, the 401 was created under the Revenue Act of 1977. Think about it. It was created literally under under a Revenue Act. Congress back in those times knew that people were going to take the benefit. They were going to take the bait, the small bait now, and all that growth over the next 50 years was then going to be there for Congress to tax. And so retirement income now is, it really is about the income we need in retirement and the income we want, but we have to go back to the first point of the plan, tax planning.
Yes.
We talked about bucket strategies earlier, but we have to look at getting the income we want and the income we And sometimes that comes from bucket strategies. Sometimes that comes from safe withdrawal rates. A lot of times it comes from guaranteed retirement income through annuities. Sometimes it comes by continuing to work in retirement, either part-time or full-time. But one of the things we have to do is we have to define the strategy, and then we have to execute it again so we can win more in retirement.
Right. Absolutely. The show is the One of a Kind Financial Show with Mike Milligan. Mike is with Ideas. But Mike, let's get you on the calendar. 800-748-1838. 800-748-1838. 1-800-738-1838 or text IDEAS to 600-700. Do it right now. Slots do fill up quickly during the show. You deserve a more confident plan to retire. Want to be stress-free? Peace of mind starts by picking up the phone. Investment management, Mike.
Okay. So, the 3rd leg of the one-of-a-kind financial plan is how do you actually manage your investments? For really about the last 30 years, the one-size-fits-all world has told us to pay a fee. It's called assets under management. But what a lot of wise investors are starting to realize is that they need to control the fees. Because it ultimately helps them have more longer. And so when we meet with somebody to do X and O strategy sessions, right, to build the one-of-a-kind financial plan, we're going to dissect what your fees are and we're going to decide, dissect the performance. And then we're going to compare your past performance and your past fees to what we propose you go forward with. And ideally what we look to do is save fees. We look to enhance performance because we put you in the right allocation of where you are. But like with anything, right, investments are not guaranteed, right? The only guarantee that happens in investments is that they're going to go up and down in value, right? Depending on where you are. But a solid investment plan, a solid next no plan that's going to help you win more involves in hearing your story and finding out how you need to use your money.
A couple of minutes left, Mike. Let's talk about long-term care.
Yeah, long-term care is the only person— and I've said this so many times on the show— the only person you can count on to take care of your older self is your younger self. And if most of us don't even know what that looks like, we don't know what our healthspan is or our lifespan. We guess based off like our parents maybe, but there's some things that go into planning for long-term care, like your lifestyle, how much you exercise, what you eat. But we have a report called a Health Analysis Longevity Optimizer, HALO for short, that actually can show you life expectancy, health expectancy, how to optimize it, and ultimately the present value costs you now on what it costs you to take care of the future version of you. And we offer that as a free service to all of our people.
All right, a couple of minutes left. Legacy planning. Let's talk about that for a few minutes or so. Yeah.
Legacy planning, right? The X's and O's of legacy planning are blocking— are the blocking and tackling of those are about will, trust, power of attorney, healthcare directive. Everybody needs them. I don't care if you've got $100,000 and you're 27 with 2 kids, because you need to direct where your kids go if something were to happen to you. Or if you've got $20 million, that probably requires a little more planning. But that's the basics. That's the blocking and tackling. And then we want to get onto the real part of legacy. That is, how do you make sure your family understands your life, how you've lived, and how you get connection, right, to the future? Because remember, there's, there's, there's 2 deaths on this earth, the time you die, and then the time your name is spoken last. If you leave a clean, organized estate plan that avoids probate and makes it easy on your family, then they'll, they'll, they'll remember you. you better, and they'll want to tell your story for much longer.
All right, about a minute left, Mike. Final thoughts, what do you do for listeners when you meet with them?
Well, you know, Vince Lombardi is often considered the winningest coach in terms of dominance and percentage throughout his career, from like 1959 until coaches with longer tenures surpassed that, uh, his total win count. Well, I like to think I'm more like Vince Lombardi. We're going to look at the X's and O's when we build a one-of-a-kind financial plan. See, the one-of-a-kind financial plan is going to focus on taxes, retirement income, Investments, long-term care, and your legacy. And when we get in the trenches, like Vince Lombardi says, and we execute on the X's and O's, we're going to win more. We're going to be the better team. And when we do that, the one-of-a-kind financial plan is going to help you live a one-of-a-kind life. One last message from our compliance team. As a reminder, Mike Milligan, Certified Financial Planner, is an investment advisor representative of Advisory Alpha, LLC, an SEC-registered investment advisor. All opinions expressed by me, Mike, or any podcast guests are solely our opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Advisory Alpha. This recording is for informational purposes only, should not be relied on solely for investment, tax, or legal decisions, and it's in no way intended to communicate or guarantee specific performance or suitability of any security instrument or product as we may have discussed. Investment advisory and financial planning services are Offered through Advisory Alpha LLC, a registered investment advisor. Insurance products are provided by Ideas by Mike, a licensed agency located in Norfolk, Virginia, and licensed to do business in all 50 states. While tax and legal issues may be discussed in the general course of financial and investment planning, Advisory Alpha does not provide tax or legal services. Please consult with your tax or legal professional prior to making decisions related to these issues. If you want us— an appointment with Ideas by Mike or One Oak Financial, please reach out via our website. This podcast is produced in conjunction with Mike Milligan LLC.
