Many fee-only financial planners focus on creating comprehensive financial plans for their clients. They focus on developing savings and investment goals, and help people figure out when they can retire if they meet certain milestones along the way. But what happens when clients fall short and don't save enough? What happens when, against the best advice of the planner, people make bad decisions with their investments and end up with a smaller nest egg than expected?

Global markets are providing investors a rough ride at the moment, as the focus turns to China’s economic outlook. But while falling markets can be worrisome, maintaining a longer term perspective makes the volatility easier to handle.

As clients enter retirement, their entire financial planning picture shifts. People go from needing to accumulate assets to needing to understand how to best spend the money they spent decades carefully saving. They need to understand how to make investments last through this phase of life and ensure all their assets are well protected.