Who we serve
Without a pension, Social Security is usually your only lifetime income, and it rarely covers what people actually want to spend. Everything above it has to come from a portfolio that is also exposed to markets. That makes the order of returns in your first decade one of the largest risks you face.
What this complicates
Drawing 4% from a blended portfolio means selling whatever is there in whatever year it happens to be, including the bad ones. Without a pension cushioning the shortfall, that is where many retirement plans run into trouble.
Poor returns early, combined with withdrawals, do damage that later good years cannot undo. With no pension beside Social Security, there is less to absorb the shock.
The near-term segments do the job a pension would have done: they hold income that is not exposed to the market, so a downturn does not become a forced sale. Without a pension, it is not optional.
Why us
Plenty of our clients came from employers that froze or never offered a pension. Building the floor themselves is the most common version of this work we do.
If you are nearby, you can come in and sit down with us. If you are not, we meet by phone or video call. Either way, when something changes, you reach someone who knows you.
Questions
By separating the money by when you will spend it. Near-term income sits in stable assets and pays you monthly; later segments stay invested because they have years before they are needed. As each is spent, the next has been growing to replace it.
Sometimes a portion, rarely the whole thing. An annuity can fill a genuine gap between your fixed costs and your Social Security. Committing everything to one usually removes flexibility at the moment you need it most. We will tell you plainly which case you are in.
It depends on the gap, not on a multiple of income. Work out what you want to spend, subtract Social Security and any other income, and the remainder is what the portfolio has to produce. That figure is the honest answer, and it is usually more useful than a rule of thumb.
Waiting is often more valuable precisely because it is your only inflation-adjusted income for life. But waiting means funding those years yourself, which puts more weight on the early segments. Both effects have to be modeled together.
Related
This is the window where the decisions are still reversible and the numbers are finally real.
Pension income for life is rare now, and it changes what your portfolio has to do. It also comes with elections you make only once.
Your Social Security starts at a different time. So does your Medicare. And one of you will very likely be on your own for a while.
Thirty minutes to see where your income will come from. If we are not the right fit, we will tell you.
