Jacobs Financial Services

09/02/2026

Fun on the Eight West Show

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — If you’re nearing retirement age, are you ready for that next step? Is your financial plan ready? Tom Jacobs of Jacobs Financial Services, has been helping people…

09/02/2026

Retirement: the only time turning off your alarm clock is actually encouraged 😂

Unfortunately, your mortgage didn’t get the memo.

Neither did groceries.
Or insurance.
Or utilities.
Or that trip you’ve been talking about for the last 10 years.

The paycheck may stop when you retire. Life doesn’t.

That’s why figuring out where your monthly income is going to come from matters just as much as figuring out how much you’ve saved.

Enjoy sleeping in. Just make sure your money is still getting up for work.

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This content is for educational purposes only and should not be considered financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Please consult a qualified professional regarding your specific situation.

08/29/2026

A million dollars in a retirement account sounds great. But you’re not going to walk into Costco and pay for groceries with your account balance.

You need money showing up every month.

Money for the mortgage, groceries, insurance, trips, grandkids, and all the normal stuff you still want to do.

That’s where the conversation changes in retirement. For decades, you’re focused on one number: How big can I get this account?

Then you retire and the question becomes: How do I turn what I saved into income I can actually live on?

That’s a completely different job for your money.

So yes, your balance matters. But when retirement gets close, start looking at what that balance can actually do for you every month.

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This content is for educational purposes only and should not be considered financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Please consult a qualified professional regarding your specific situation.

08/26/2026

A lot of people just keep pushing retirement planning off because there’s always something else going on.

You’re working, the kids need something, life gets busy, and retirement still feels far enough away that you figure you’ll deal with it later.

Then later shows up pretty fast.

And now you’re a year or two away from retiring and realizing there are a bunch of things you’ve never really thought through.

When should I take Social Security? What am I actually going to live on every month? What happens if the market has a terrible year right after I retire? What am I doing with my pension?

You’d much rather be figuring this stuff out while you still have some time to make changes than when you’re already halfway out the door at work.

So if you’ve been saying “I’ll get to it eventually,” maybe eventually is now.

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This content is for educational purposes only and should not be considered financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Please consult a qualified professional regarding your specific situation.

08/25/2026

A pension decision is really a decision about what you want that money to do for the rest of your life.

For some people, the security of a monthly pension check may be incredibly valuable. For others, taking a lump sum and having more control over those assets may be worth considering.

But the decision gets more complicated when you start asking the questions that actually matter.

How healthy are you? How long could you reasonably need the income? Does your spouse depend on it? What happens to the money when you die? Do you have other reliable income sources? Is leaving money to your children important to you?

That’s why we don’t think the pension decision should simply come down to “Which option gives me the biggest number?”

The right choice is the one that fits into everything else you’re trying to accomplish with your retirement.

And because some pension elections can’t simply be undone later, this is one of those decisions worth slowing down for.

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This content is for educational purposes only and should not be considered financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Pension options and rules vary by plan. Please consult a qualified professional regarding your specific situation.

08/22/2026

One bad decision at 35 can hurt.

One bad decision at 65 can be a lot harder to recover from.

That’s one of the biggest changes that happens when you enter retirement. You don’t necessarily have another 20 or 30 working years to make the money back.

A major market loss at the wrong time.
Taking income from the wrong place.
Making a pension decision you can’t undo.
Spending too much too early.

Some decisions can do permanent damage to a retirement plan.

That’s what we mean when we say a mistake in retirement can be “fatal.” Not fatal to you — fatal to the plan.

You spent decades getting to retirement. The decisions you make once you’re there deserve just as much attention.

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This content is for educational purposes only and should not be considered financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Please consult a qualified professional regarding your specific situation.

08/18/2026

After years of focusing on how much you can save, taxes can suddenly change the question to how much you actually get to keep.

That’s why taxes deserve a seat at the table before retirement—not as a surprise a few years into it.

The goal isn’t simply to build a big pile of money.

It’s to understand how that money gets from your accounts to your life.

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This content is for educational purposes only and should not be considered financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Please consult a qualified professional regarding your specific situation.

08/17/2026

For most of your working life, you know exactly where the next paycheck is coming from.

Then retirement hits.

The job stops. The paycheck stops. But the mortgage, groceries, utilities, insurance, travel, and everything else you want to do in retirement keep going.

That’s why having a big retirement balance is only part of the equation.

You also need to know:

• Where your monthly income will come from
• How much you can comfortably spend
• What Social Security and pensions will cover
• How much your investments need to provide
• What happens to that income if the market has a bad year

You spent decades building the money.

Before the paychecks stop, make sure you have a plan for how that money is going to start paying you.

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This content is for educational purposes only and should not be considered financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Please consult a qualified professional regarding your specific situation.

08/15/2026

We’ve sat down with people who came in thinking they still had another 3–5 years of work ahead of them, only to realize they were in a better position than they thought.

Because being ready to retire involves more than looking at the balance in your 401(k).

You need to understand things like:

• How much income you’ll actually need each month
• Where that income will come from
• When to take Social Security
• How taxes could affect your withdrawals
• What happens if the market drops early in retirement
• Whether your money can reasonably support you for the rest of your life

Once you start putting those pieces together, you can get a much clearer picture of where you actually stand.

Maybe you really do need another five years.

Maybe you need two.

Or maybe the thing standing between you and retirement is simply knowing that you can afford to do it.

Before you automatically give yourself another few years at work, find out what your retirement actually looks like on paper.

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This content is for educational purposes only and should not be considered financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Individual circumstances vary. Please consult a qualified professional regarding your specific situation.