In this era of economic volatility, finding a safe place to store one’s assets and finances can be confusing. Just recently, the S&P 500 was down 21.43% and the bond market, largely considered by many to be a “safer” option, was down YTD 15.79%. Equities market and bond markets have been down in quarters and months together but it’s more rare for them both to be down in annual returns. For many seniors in retirement or those already gearing up for it, this news is enough to send someone into a panic. My Plan Keeper is a company that helps people, especially seniors, protect their finances, as well as their life plans, from an economy that’s become too complex to understand.
My Plan Keeper was founded and is owned by Carla Garcia. As a financial advisor and relationship manager, Carla has spent the last 20 years serving a wide range of clients, including business owners, professional athletes, healthcare workers, government employees, and hardworking individuals. She spent a major part of her career working for Merrill Lynch and Citi Personal Wealth Management in the Miami and Fort Lauderdale markets, which allowed her to gain extensive experience with domestic and international clients.
“I built this company so that my clients no longer be confined to a small group of solutions and also to help clients build confidence and bring awareness to the importance of building a solid foundation to protect their existing plans by adding safe money strategies that a bank typically won’t offer them,” she said. “Being independent is truly a game-changer for me because I can now represent my clients 100%. I hope many advisors realize what a disservice they are doing to their clients by strictly offering what their institution has in inventory. Now I have hired experts in the field who give me access to not only a huge warehouse of solutions but to truly unbiased research, making sure I am offering our clients only the best that fit their needs.”
After mulling it over for some time, Carla decided to take a leap of faith and leave her six-figure job because she was fully dedicated to her new mission of giving clients the genuine security they needed. Today, My Plan Keeper Company offers honest advice and strategies backed by solid research so that clients can safeguard their financial and life plans and live the best possible life. Carla’s passion for helping her retirees drove her to learn the ropes and become certified to offer Medicare plans. She knew she needed to do so for clients to understand better and for them to avoid sales agents who focus more on getting money.
What makes My Plan Keeper stand out is its genuine mission to positively impact the retirement community. Unlike other organizations, they are not money managers. Instead, a Financial Keeper acts as an objective outsider so that clients can have the power to implement solutions and build a solid foundation for their plans. “I do not want to sit here and position myself as a financial advisor. I am a Financial Keeper, a retirement expert and a safe money strategist who has witnessed so many clients succeed and many fail. I am taking that wisdom and sprinkling it. My Plan Keeper will provide a positive impact socially for generations to come,” Carla shared.
“The retirement planning community is very large, and there is a lot of competition and misinformation. Unfortunately, we are all built to believe in what we believe, so we get a lot of mixed opinions,” she said. Adding to her point, Carla emphasizes that sentiment and emotions drive market results, so financial planners and advisors often offer clients market-risk products to generate pay and revenue. “One thing we can not predict is when markets will stabilize, but when it comes to retirement, income is the pillar, and retirement income should not depend on portfolio returns,” Carla added.
Other organizations that aim to help retirees often neglect to protect their plans against market volatility, inflation, long-term care cost, sequence of return risk, taxes, and even Medicare.
Carla Garcia holds many licenses, including FINRA Series 7 and 66, as well as a CRPC® designation. Moving forward, she aims to develop her brand further and help thousands of new retirees with tools that will revolutionize how people plan and protect.
