Are annuities a smart addition to your retirement portfolio? 

Join Michelle as she breaks down different types of annuities—fixed, fixed index, and variable annuities—explaining how they can fit into a comprehensive financial plan. Understand the tax advantages and risks associated with each type, and learn why annuities might not be as bad as you think, if used in moderation and understood. 

Featuring practical examples, this episode aims to educate and empower you to make informed decisions about your financial future.

Key episode discussion points include:

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• The difference between fixed annuities and fixed index annuities
  
• How annuities can offer financial security without market risk
  
• Variable Annuities: Market-based investments with potential for growth but accompanied by higher fees
  
• Deferred and Immediate Income Annuities: Lump-sum vehicles  that convert your money  into an income stream that you cannot outlive 
  

Resources:

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• “Will Annuities Make You Happier?” by John Davis
  

Connect with Michelle Gessner: 

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• Gessner Wealth Strategies 
  
• 713-589-6448
  
• LinkedIn: Michelle Gessner
  
• Facebook: Gessner Wealth Strategies
  
• Twitter: Gessner Wealth Strategies
  
• YouTube: Gessner Wealth Strategies 
  

About Michelle Gessner: 

As a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER professional, Michelle is passionate about building a life plan for her clients and helping them see that they have choices, which often comes to them as a pleasant surprise. She is an independent thinker and a huge advocate of her clients’ interests. Her greatest joy is working to do what is right for them and be their voice.

Michelle has a B.S. in Finance from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and an M.S. in Management from Boston University, Brussels. Growing up in Montana and moving to Colorado for college, she took out student loans and worked her way through all four years. After graduating in 1987 with honors, she accepted a job at Shell Oil in Houston, and worked her way up the corporate ladder to a management position before leaving in 1992 for Brussels, Belgium, where she lived for 4 years. In Brussels, she learned about different cultures and basic conversational French as well as pursuing and earning a graduate degree in management. 

As a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER professional,  she is held to the highest standards set forth in the industry. She surrounds herself with a back office of experts in tax and investment research so that her clients have the best of both worlds – the resources of a large firm with the caring, dedication, and personal service of a small firm.