Helping families in Arlington, Massachusetts
Fee-only financial advisors for Arlington families
About 20 minutes from our Concord office along Route 2.
Monument Group provides fee-only fiduciary financial planning to Arlington, MA households from our Concord office, about twenty minutes away. Common work includes Massachusetts public pension elections, income from two-family and rental property, retirement income sequencing, and estate tax planning for homes held over a long period.
Arlington is a long-tenure town. People buy here, stay, and often own the house for thirty or forty years — which produces a balance sheet where the largest single asset is the place they live.
It also has a high proportion of households with at least one public-sector career, and that changes the retirement conversation in ways a generic plan tends to miss.
A pension, a house, and a decision that cannot be revisited
Teachers, municipal staff and other public employees participate in a Massachusetts state retirement system rather than Social Security for that service. At retirement they choose a survivor option, and that choice is generally irrevocable.
It is one of the highest-stakes financial decisions a household will make, and it is frequently made from a form rather than from a plan. The right answer depends on the age gap between spouses, on other retirement assets, on health, and on what the surviving spouse would actually need — which is a modeling question with a specific answer.
The property side is the other half. Arlington homes bought decades ago have appreciated substantially, and two-family properties are common enough that rental income and eventual disposition are live planning questions rather than hypotheticals.
What comes up most in Arlington
- Public pension survivor election
- A choice made once, generally without the option to change it later. It deserves to be modeled against the rest of the plan rather than decided on a form.
- Coordinating a pension with a spouse’s benefits
- Where one spouse has a public pension and the other has Social Security, the two claiming decisions interact and are best modeled jointly.
- Two-family and rental property
- Rental income affects bracket capacity, Medicare premium thresholds and the timing of any sale. Depreciation recapture makes disposition its own planning exercise.
- Appreciated primary residence
- A house held since the 1980s or 90s can exceed the capital gains exclusion on sale, which makes downsizing a tax question as well as a lifestyle one.
- Massachusetts estate tax
- Massachusetts applies its own estate tax above $2 million — far below the federal exemption — and around Boston a long-held house plus retirement accounts clears that line more often than people expect.
Services Arlington families use most
Retirement Income Planning
Using sophisticated tools, we help you determine sustainable withdrawal strategies designed to support decades of spending, and to hold up through market volatility.
Learn moreFinancial Planning
Life planning that coordinates retirement income strategies, estate planning, tax planning, risk management, and charitable giving into one cohesive blueprint.
Learn moreEstate & Legacy Planning
Your financial plan, coordinated with the legal work of our affiliated law firm, so that wills, trusts and beneficiary designations all point the same way.
Learn moreArlington, MA
Questions from Arlington families
I have a Massachusetts public pension. Which survivor option should I take?
It depends on the age difference between you and your spouse, what other retirement assets you hold, your health, and what your spouse would need if you died first. Because the election is generally irrevocable, it is worth modeling properly before it is filed. We work through it as part of the retirement income plan rather than treating it as paperwork.How does a pension change how much I can spend in retirement?
Considerably, and usually in your favor. Guaranteed income covers a portion of your spending that the portfolio then does not have to, which often means the portfolio can be invested for the longer term rather than for next year. It also changes withdrawal sequencing and the value of a Roth conversion.We own a two-family in Arlington. How does that affect the plan?
It adds income that affects your bracket and your Medicare premiums, and it adds a future decision about when and whether to sell. Depreciation recapture means the tax on a sale is rarely what owners expect, so the timing is worth planning rather than discovering.
Arlington, Massachusetts
Fifteen minutes of conversation beats an hour of reading.
Schedule a time to discuss whether our approach is the right fit for you.