Jake Murphy, FSCP - Financial Planner

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Jake Murphy, FSCP - Financial Planner

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Jake Murphy is a registered representative of and offers securities and investment advisory services through MML Investors Services, LLC. Member SIPC.

Helping healthcare professionals, business owners, and families make smarter decisions around cash flow, taxes, retirement, protection, and building more flexibility for the future. Supervisory Office: 201 King of Prussia Rd, Suite 501, Radnor, PA 19087. Tel:610-766-3000.

10/27/2026

More than $25,000 a year for their kids’ education.
$60,000 to $70,000 a year from weekend telehealth work that might not last.

A nurse practitioner and her husband were trying to plan around both.

She was working weekdays and doing 1099 telehealth on weekends. They wanted to fully fund their two kids’ education, which meant saving more than $25,000 a year for the next decade.

The first retirement projection looked great. Based on the assumptions we entered, it showed more than $3 million by retirement.

It also assumed she kept working weekends forever and he worked until 65.

So we modeled what they actually wanted: she stops the 1099 work at 55, he retires earlier, and they keep saving for the kids’ education.

Even with those changes, the projection still showed them on track.

For the first time, her weekend shifts had an end date in the plan.

10/22/2026

You’re 63 with $1 million in your IRA. Leave it alone?

You’ve just retired. You’re covering expenses with cash savings and a brokerage account.

Your paycheck is gone. You haven’t started Social Security. Required minimum distributions are still years away.

For the first time in a long time, your taxable income is relatively low.

The natural reaction: “Great. No reason to touch the IRA.”

But look at the math.

Say you convert $40,000 from an entirely pre-tax IRA into a Roth IRA, with the full conversion taxed at 12% federally.

That’s a $4,800 tax bill.

If you instead withdrew those same $40,000 later at a 22% federal tax rate, the bill would be $8,800.

Same amount withdrawn. A $4,000 difference in federal taxes under those assumptions.

Yes, voluntarily creating a tax bill. Always a fun suggestion.

The reason to consider it: those years give you room to recognize income before Social Security and required withdrawals become part of the picture.

Your other income and health insurance costs help determine how much room you actually have.

But “we don’t need the money yet” shouldn’t end the conversation.

Before you leave that IRA untouched for another year, compare the tax bill now with the one you may be building for later.

10/21/2026

$475,000 saved. She wants to work less. They assume she can’t.

Say a couple is in their early 50s with a mortgage that’s almost paid off.

He’s happy to keep working full time.

She’d love to go from five days a week to three.

But they look at their savings and say, “We’re nowhere near ready to retire.”

So she keeps working five.

Here’s how that conversation could look with some numbers.

They bring home $9,000 a month:
$5,500 from him and $3,500 from her.

They spend $7,000, including a $2,000 mortgage payment, and save the remaining $2,000.

Once the mortgage is paid off, spending drops to $5,000. Property taxes, insurance and upkeep stay in the budget.

If three days a week brings her take-home pay to $2,100, they’d have $7,600 coming in.

That covers their $5,000 spending and leaves $2,600 to keep saving.

She’s working two fewer days. They’re still adding to retirement.

They’d need to confirm she can keep health insurance at three days a week or price coverage through his employer. And their savings still need to support them when he eventually stops working.

But now they have an actual option to evaluate, instead of assuming both schedules have to stay the same.

A shared retirement date can leave one spouse waiting years for a lighter schedule they could already afford.

10/20/2026

A paid-off $500,000 house doesn’t automatically put you $500,000 closer to retirement.

That equity is real. You spent years building it. And going into retirement without a mortgage payment can make a huge difference.

But say a couple has a paid-off $500,000 house and plans to stay there.

After Social Security, they still need $2,000 a month to cover their spending.

That’s $24,000 a year that has to come from somewhere.

Their house could double in value, and they’d still have that monthly gap.

They could sell, downsize, or borrow against it. Those are options, but each comes with costs and decisions. Downsizing means finding another place to live. Borrowing means adding debt.

And staying put still means paying property taxes, insurance, and repairs.

I understand wanting to count something you spent 30 years paying for. It absolutely belongs on your net worth statement.

But if you’re counting that equity toward retirement, there needs to be a plan for how you’ll use it.

“I could sell someday” is a pretty loose plan for covering bills that show up every month.

10/15/2026

They’d saved nearly $500,000 for retirement.

Now spending it scared them.

The couple was in their early 60s, with about $100,000 a year in guaranteed retirement income. But one spouse still felt uneasy about using their savings for travel.

After taxes, that was roughly $6,600 a month.

Their current spending was closer to $7,900, so there was a gap. But their mortgage was expected to be paid off, removing about $1,600 from their monthly expenses.

That would bring spending down to roughly $6,300.

Their retirement income could then cover their everyday expenses, with a little room left over. And they had nearly $500,000 invested to help fund travel and additional spending.

One spouse was still uneasy about using it.

I can understand that.

That balance represented years of putting money away. Watching it grow felt reassuring. Taking money out meant watching it move in the other direction.

And the mortgage payoff wouldn’t automatically erase that feeling.

The next step is putting an actual cost beside the travel they want to do. Then looking at how that withdrawal fits alongside future expenses, taxes and the cushion they want to preserve.

A $500,000 balance alone doesn’t answer those questions.

But a plan that shows what they can spend, what stays invested and when they need to adjust gives them something concrete to come back to.

After years of practicing how to save, spending can take some practice too.

10/14/2026

$40,000 in savings. $35,000 toward the house. $5,000 left.

You finally get the keys, and your bank account looks like you’re starting over.

I met with a couple preparing to buy their first home. Their down payment was using most of their emergency savings, and rebuilding it was already high on their list.

Take a household bringing home $8,000 a month.

The new mortgage, taxes, and insurance run $3,000. Other spending takes another $3,500. They put $500 toward retirement.

That leaves $1,000 a month to rebuild savings.

Going from $5,000 back to $20,000 would take 15 months, assuming that entire $1,000 makes it into savings every month.

Before furniture, a vacation or before something breaks.

Your cash cushion can shrink right as you become responsible for everything that needs fixing.

The first time something leaks, you’re the landlord.

And I get it. You finally have a place of your own. You’d like to put something in it. Six trips to Home Depot somehow feel like part of the closing process.

But “we’ll build our savings back up” needs a monthly dollar amount and a realistic timeline behind it.

Otherwise, a house payment that fits can still leave you stretched for the next year.

When I look at a home purchase, I want to know what cash will be left after closing and how much room the new payment leaves to rebuild it.

You want to enjoy the house without wondering whether the next repair is going on a credit card.

10/13/2026

“Oh, so YOU sell life insurance?”

She’d just asked the guy next to me that same question.

I was out last week when the dreaded “What do you do for work?” started making its rounds.

He said insurance. She guessed life insurance. He explained that he worked in commercial insurance.

Then she turned to me.

“I run a financial planning practice.”

“Oh, so YOU sell life insurance?” as she laughed.

I smiled and shrugged. “Yeah, sure. That’s definitely a part of it.”

And I’m proud to help people with that, too.

For a CRNA making $270,000, with a $520,000 mortgage and two kids in grade school. That paycheck is doing a lot of work.

What would your family need financially if they weren’t here to earn it anymore?

I understand the skepticism. People have been sold policies that didn’t fit their needs.

But insurance can be a small part of the work and still carry enormous consequences for a family.

So, yeah. That’s definitely a part of it.

I’m comfortable with that.

10/08/2026

“Wait… you guys have a shared calendar?”

I looked at Val like I had just discovered some secret relationship feature everyone else knew about.

Brendan Keane had mentioned the shared calendar he and his girlfriend use at their Summerween party last week.

Val immediately goes:
“Yeah, well, it’s because you have a Samsung.”

Yet again, somehow I’m the problem.

For the record, Samsung still clears Apple all day long.

Anyway, we downloaded TimeTree last night.

Within about 10 minutes my phone started getting hammered with notifications for weddings, dinners, school stuff, appointments, trips and everything else happening over the next few months.

Apparently I’m way busier than I realized.

I thought we were doing just fine with the occasional “Wait… when did you tell me about that?”

So I need to know:
Are Val and I actually the last engaged couple on earth to get a shared calendar?

10/07/2026

A couple in their early 50s has about $460,000 saved for retirement and one of them still doesn’t know if she can afford to go part time.

They’ve spent decades doing a lot of the right things.

They’ve consistently saved for retirement, avoided taking on much unnecessary debt and built a meaningful amount of equity in their home.

But one of the biggest questions they have has never really been answered:

“Can I work less?”

That decision has a lot less to do with hitting some arbitrary retirement number and a lot more to do with what happens when her paycheck gets smaller.

Once the mortgage disappears, how much does the household actually need each month?

How much will eventually come from Social Security, pensions and other retirement income?

Whatever is left is the amount their investments and continued work need to cover.

That’s the part they’ve never had mapped out.

They’ve spent years building the assets.

Now they need to know what those assets have already made possible.

A retirement plan tells you how much of your paycheck you can afford to give up.

10/06/2026

$500,000 doesn’t sound like an enormous retirement portfolio.

For one couple I work with, it may be more than enough for the job it actually needs to do.

Because once their mortgage is gone, they may barely need to touch it for regular monthly expenses.

Their retirement income picture looks roughly like this:

About $100,000/year coming in from Social Security, pensions and an annuity.

After estimated taxes, that’s around $6,500–$6,700/month.

Their current spending is roughly $7,800–$8,000/month.

But their mortgage is about $1,600/month and should be gone around the time they retire.

That brings regular spending closer to $6,200–$6,400/month.

Suddenly, the $500,000 portfolio has a very different job.

It doesn’t need to create their entire retirement paycheck.

It can help fund travel, larger purchases, unexpected expenses and give them flexibility when markets are down.

Now compare that with someone who has $1,000,000 invested but needs the portfolio to produce $70,000 or $80,000 every year just to live.

The bigger account doesn’t automatically mean the stronger retirement plan.

The amount your portfolio actually has to produce matters just as much as the amount sitting in it.

Address

30 S 17th Street, Suite 204
Philadelphia, PA
19103

Telephone

+14846634112

Website

http://financialprofessionals.massmutual.com/jake-murphy, https://financialprofessionals.massmutual.com/jake-murphy

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