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Retirement Income

How do I turn a lifetime of saving into a paycheck?

Retirement income planning is the switch from accumulating to spending — and it is the hardest transition in personal finance. We build the withdrawal order, manage the tax consequences year by year, and stress-test it against a long life and a bad first decade.

Saving for retirement has one job: build the pile. Spending it has several competing ones — fund the life you want, keep the tax bill down, avoid running out, and leave what you intend to leave.

The order you draw from accounts changes your lifetime tax bill, not just this year’s. So does when you claim Social Security, and whether you fill low brackets deliberately in the years before required distributions begin.

What we work through

  1. The income floor

    What must be covered regardless of markets — and which guaranteed sources cover it.

  2. Withdrawal sequencing

    Taxable, tax-deferred, and Roth in the order that minimizes lifetime tax rather than this year’s.

  3. Social Security timing

    Claiming age is one of the few irreversible decisions in retirement, and one of the highest-value ones to model properly.

  4. Sequence-of-returns risk

    A poor first decade does far more damage than the same returns later. We test the plan against that specifically.

What this covers

  • Retirement income modeling
  • Withdrawal sequencing
  • Social Security claiming analysis
  • Required minimum distribution planning
  • Medicare and IRMAA considerations

Retirement Income

Questions we get asked

  • Withdrawal order affects lifetime tax, not just this year’s. A common approach draws from taxable accounts first, then tax-deferred, then Roth — but the better sequence depends on your bracket each year and on whether drawing deliberately now reduces required distributions later.

Who this usually matters most for

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