"Will I Run Out of Money?"
THE RETIREMENT QUESTION KEEPING YOU UP AT NIGHT
If you're approaching retirement and that question has crossed your mind, you're not alone.
It's one of the most common fears I hear from clients. You've spent decades building your savings, and now you're supposed to start drawing it down. But how much can you safely take out? What if the market crashes? What if you live longer than expected? What if healthcare costs eat up everything you've saved?
These are real concerns. And without a plan, they're legitimate reasons to lose sleep.
But here's the good news: with the right strategy, you can retire with confidence. You can know - not guess, but know - that you'll have enough to maintain your lifestyle, support your family, and enjoy the retirement you've earned.
That's what we help you build.
WHAT RETIREMENT PLANNING ACTUALLY MEANS
It's Not Just About Saving - It's About Spending Strategically
Most people think retirement planning is all about accumulation. Save as much as you can, invest it, and hope it grows enough.
But that's only half the story.
The real challenge isn't building wealth, it's distributing it in a way that lasts. It's about coming down the mountain safely, not just climbing to the top.
That's where most people get stuck. They've done a good job saving, but they have no idea how to turn that pile of money into reliable income. They don't know how to optimize Social Security. They don't know how to minimize taxes on withdrawals. They don't know how to protect against healthcare costs or market volatility.
That's where we come in.
Project Your Assets and Income Needed for Retirement
First, we figure out how much money you'll actually need to retire comfortably. Not some generic rule of thumb - your real expenses, your real lifestyle, your real goals.
We look at your fixed expenses (housing, utilities, insurance), your discretionary spending (travel, hobbies, dining out), and any major goals you have for retirement (helping your kids, leaving a legacy, funding grandchildren's education).
Then we project your income sources: Social Security, pensions, annuities, and any other guaranteed income. From there, we calculate how much you'll need to draw from your savings to cover the gap.
Analyze If Your Current Path Is Sufficient
Once we know how much you need, we run the numbers to see if what you're doing now will get you there.
If you keep saving at your current rate, if your investments grow at reasonable rates, and if you retire at your target age - will you have enough? Or will you fall short?
This is the "current state" analysis. It's where we figure out if you're on track or if we need to make adjustments. No sugarcoating, no false promises - just the truth about where you stand.
Optimize Your Social Security Strategy
Social Security is one of the most important, and most misunderstood, pieces of retirement income.
Most people think it's simple: claim as early as possible or wait until 70 to maximize benefits. But it's not that straightforward.
The right strategy depends on your situation. Do you need the income now, or can you afford to wait? Are you married? What's your life expectancy? What are your other income sources?
We'll find the sweet spot that balances maximizing your lifetime benefits with giving you peace of mind. For some clients, that means delaying to get a bigger monthly check. For others, it means claiming earlier so they're not forced to draw from investments during a market downturn.
It's not just about getting the most money, it's about creating the most stability and confidence in your plan.
Plan for Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)
Here's a trap many retirees fall into: they save diligently in pre-tax retirement accounts like 401(k)s and IRAs, thinking they'll just let that money grow until they need it.
Then they hit age 73 (currently), and the government forces them to start taking withdrawals, whether they need the money or not.
Suddenly, they're taking huge distributions that push them into higher tax brackets, increase their Medicare premiums, and trigger taxes on their Social Security benefits. It's a mess.
We plan for this before it happens. We look at strategies like Roth conversions to move money from pre-tax to after-tax accounts during your lower-income years so when RMDs kick in, they're smaller and less painful.
For many clients, this strategy alone saves six figures in taxes over their lifetime.
Minimize Taxes in Retirement
You've spent your whole life paying taxes. Why give away more than you have to in retirement?
We build proactive tax strategies that help you keep more of your hard-earned money. That includes:
Strategic Roth conversions to reduce future RMDs
Timing withdrawals from different account types to stay in lower tax brackets
Coordinating Social Security claiming with other income to minimize taxes on benefits
Planning charitable giving in tax-efficient ways
The goal is simple: pay the least amount of tax legally possible, so you have more money to spend on the things you actually care about.
Protect Against Healthcare Costs
Healthcare is one of the biggest expenses in retirement, and one of the most overlooked.
The average person spends over $300,000 in healthcare costs during retirement. That includes Medicare premiums, supplemental insurance, out-of-pocket expenses, and long-term care.
If you don't plan for it, those costs can derail your entire retirement strategy.
We help you understand your options - Medicare enrollment, supplement plans, long-term care insurance - and build a plan to protect against the financial risk of a major health event. Because the last thing you want is to sell your house or drain your savings to pay for care you didn't see coming.
I worked with a couple - both 64 and 63 - who were planning to retire at the beginning of the following year. They'd saved diligently, but they were terrified they hadn't saved enough.
They wanted to know:
Could they retire without running out of money?
Would they be able to maintain their lifestyle?
How should they claim Social Security?
Were they going to give away too much to the IRS?
Here's what we found:
Their pension and Social Security were going to cover most of their fixed expenses. That was the good news.
The challenge was timing Social Security to maximize benefits while giving them peace of mind. They didn't need to wait until 70 to max out their benefit, they needed income now to avoid drawing from investments during market volatility.
So we built a strategy where they delayed Social Security by just one year (to age 65 and 66), got a slight benefit boost, and started receiving guaranteed income that covered their expenses without exposing them to market risk.
Then we tackled the tax issue.
They had a large balance in pre-tax retirement accounts and planned to just let it sit there, untouched, while they lived off cash and Social Security. Sounds smart, right?
Wrong.
By the time RMDs kicked in at age 73, their account balance would have doubled. They'd be forced to take huge withdrawals, locking them into the 24% tax bracket - and if one of them passed away, the survivor would be filing as a single taxpayer with even higher taxes.
Instead, we built a plan to convert money from their traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs over the next several years, during their lower-income years before RMDs started.
The result? Over $150,000 in projected tax savings over their lifetime, plus an extra $600,000 they could leave to their kids (tax-free, since it's in Roth accounts).
When I showed them the plan, the wife looked at her husband and said, "I can literally see the stress leaving your face right now."
That's what retirement planning is really about. Not just crunching numbers, but giving people confidence, clarity, and peace of mind.
There is no guarantee that the results of these individuals will be obtained in the future.
