Retirement Planning

You Have Spent Decades Saving. Now You Need a Plan for Using It.

Austin helps individuals and couples approaching retirement organize their accounts, evaluate income options, coordinate Social Security and healthcare, plan for taxes, and make informed decisions about the transition from working to retirement.

Who This Is For

Retirement planning fits several situations

Questions Addressed

The questions retirement planning is built to answer

  • Can I afford to retire?
  • How much can I spend?
  • When should I claim Social Security?
  • What should I do with my 401(k)?
  • Which accounts should I use first?
  • How should I invest before and during retirement?
  • How will I pay for healthcare?
  • Should I make Roth conversions?
  • How can I manage retirement taxes?
  • What happens if one spouse dies first?
Planning Process

How the planning actually gets done

  1. 1

    Organize accounts and financial information

    Bring everything into one place — 401(k)s, IRAs, pensions, taxable accounts, cash, insurance, real estate, debts.

  2. 2

    Define retirement goals and timing

    What retirement looks like, when it starts, whether it’s the same date for both spouses.

  3. 3

    Estimate retirement expenses

    Fixed costs, discretionary spending, healthcare, one-time expenses. Not a fantasy number — a working number.

  4. 4

    Identify income sources

    Social Security, pensions, part-time income, portfolio withdrawals, rental income, annuities where applicable.

  5. 5

    Build a withdrawal strategy

    Which accounts to draw from first, how to sequence pretax, Roth, and taxable withdrawals.

  6. 6

    Coordinate Social Security and healthcare

    Claiming strategy for the household. Medicare timing, IRMAA planning, healthcare before Medicare.

  7. 7

    Evaluate taxes

    Multi-year tax projections. Roth conversion windows. RMD planning. Coordination with your CPA.

  8. 8

    Review investments

    Allocation appropriate for the withdrawal timeline, not just the age.

  9. 9

    Stress-test the plan

    Bad-market retirement dates, longevity, one spouse living substantially longer, unplanned health costs.

  10. 10

    Update the plan over time

    The plan isn’t a document — it’s the running conversation. Life changes, and the plan changes with it.

Get Started

Schedule a retirement readiness conversation

Thirty minutes. We look at where you are, what you’re trying to accomplish, and whether formal planning would help. An introductory conversation does not create an advisory relationship.