Retirement planning / $4,800 to $9,600 a year
Retire on a date, not a guess.
You have a number in your head and a date you have not said out loud. We put both on a page, test them against the bad years, and tell you what has to change.
What you get
A plan with a date on it.
The retirement plan answers five questions in order. When can I stop. How much can I spend each year without running out. Which account do I draw from first, and in what order after that. When do I claim Social Security. What happens to the spouse who lives longer.
The answers land on one page you can hold, with the assumptions written along the bottom. Behind it sits the full projection, which we re-run every spring and fall with real balances, and a tax projection every October while there is still time to act on it.
Included in the fee: the four meetings, two reviews a year, the October tax projection, a beneficiary audit and estate coordination, and unlimited questions by email. Investment management is separate and optional.
The four meetings
Eight weeks, four conversations.
- Week 1Discover
Ninety minutes. Every account, the last two tax returns, the pension or stock plan documents, and the date you are hoping for. We leave with a net worth page and a list of questions.
- Week 3Model
The projection, built with your numbers. Then we break it: a 2008 style decade at the start of retirement, a long term care bill at 82, a child who needs help. You see the gap in dollars and what closes it.
- Week 5Decide
The one page plan. Retirement date, annual spend, drawdown order, Social Security claiming ages, the Roth conversion window if there is one, and the first twelve months of actions with owners.
- Week 8, then twice a yearMaintain
Did the rollover land. Did the beneficiary forms get signed. Then a spring review for the plan and a fall review for taxes, every year, with the page reprinted when life changes it.
Try it
The retirement gap calculator.
The same first pass we run in the Model meeting, with six sliders instead of six hundred cells. Move one and the bars move.
- Projected at retirement
- $2.69M
- What the target needs
- $3.00M
- Gap
- $310K
Estimates only. Compounds monthly at the return you picked, ignores inflation, taxes and fees, and treats the target as 25 times your yearly income. A real plan replaces every one of those shortcuts.
Closing a gap
Most gaps close with three decisions.
The calculator above will probably show you a gap. Most people's does. It rarely means working for another decade. In the plans we have written, the gap usually closes with some mix of these:
- Moving the date by one to three years, which adds contributions and removes withdrawals at the same time.
- Delaying one spouse's Social Security to 70, which raises the survivor benefit for the rest of the longer life.
- Cutting portfolio cost from 1% to a flat fee and index funds, which on a $1.5M portfolio is worth more than most people's annual savings.
- Converting to Roth in the low income years between retirement and 73, so required distributions later do not push you into a higher bracket.
- Spending a little less in the first five years and a little more after, which is how most retirees spend anyway.
What rarely closes it: a better fund. See tax planning for the conversion work and pricing for exactly where the fee lands for your household.
- Fee
- $4,800 to $9,600 a year, flat, billed quarterly. Set in the intro by the complexity of the household, written in the agreement, never a percentage of assets.
- Typical client
- One or two earners, 48 to 64, $600K to $4M saved, a date in mind.
- First plan
- Eight weeks from the Discover meeting to the signed page.
- Also included
- Estate coordination, October tax projection, two reviews a year, email questions.
- Not included
- Investment management (0.60% to 0.85%), legal documents (your attorney), tax preparation (your CPA, or Daniel can refer one).