Your retirement is a hope if you know your net worth but not your net income, your Social Security plan is to claim whenever they let you, your beneficiary forms are years old, nobody has modeled a market drop in the year you retire, or the plan lives in your advisor’s head instead of on paper.
What is the difference between net worth and net income in retirement?
Most people can name their account balance to within a few thousand dollars. Ask for the monthly income they will have in their first year of retirement, after taxes, health care and Medicare premiums, and most go quiet. Net worth tells you what you built, and net income tells you whether it works. The second number is also the one people fear: 67% of Americans now worry more about running out of money than about death, according to Allianz Life’s 2026 retirement study.
How does your Social Security claiming age affect your spouse?
Claim early and the smaller check lasts for the rest of your life, and it can shrink what your spouse receives through the survivor benefit. Wait, and each year past full retirement age adds about 8% to the benefit, up to 70. Robert calls the claiming window one of the few real deadlines in this business, and the deadline comes from the benefit formula. He calls “whenever they let me” a coin flip with your retirement income. The answer on when each spouse should claim works through the options for a couple.
Do beneficiary forms override a will?
For the accounts they cover, yes. The beneficiary designation on an IRA, a 401(k) or a life insurance policy is a legal instruction, and it takes precedence over your will. An outdated form can send an account to a former spouse or a parent, whatever the will says. Robert asks about this in almost every meeting, and he says close to half the couples he talks to have not looked at their forms in more than ten years. Estate coordination belongs inside the retirement plan; The Retirement Plan You Built Deserves a Finish Line explains how the pieces fit.
What happens if the market drops the year you retire?
Two retirees can earn the same average return and end up in different places, depending on whether the bad years land at the start of retirement or at the end. That is sequence of returns risk, and Robert counts it among the least discussed risks in planning. If nobody has shown you that math for your own numbers, he says, you are retiring on hope.
How can you tell if your plan lives in your advisor’s head?
Try explaining your retirement income plan to your adult children in five minutes, using one sheet of paper. If you can’t, Robert says you have an intention, and intentions do not survive a health crisis, a market crash or the day you stop making the decisions. He describes a composite couple, Mike and Susan, 61 and 59, with $3 million saved and a strong portfolio. Robert asked Susan what her income would be if Mike died first. She did not know, because nobody had ever run that number for her.
What should you do this month?
Answer one question tonight, for yourself: if something happened to you tomorrow, could your spouse open your files and know which accounts to draw from, in which order, and which advisor and attorney to call? The fix Robert describes is one binder or shared folder that sets out your income order, your Social Security strategy, your beneficiaries, your estate coordination and who to call. The first step takes 30 minutes, the length of his retirement clarity call, which looks at where you stand against these five signs.
Common questions
- What is a retirement clarity call?
- A 30-minute conversation with Robert Boeck, with both spouses on the call, that looks at where you stand against these five signs. Robert describes it as no products, no pitch and no pressure.
- How often should you review your beneficiary forms?
- After any marriage, divorce, death or birth in the family, and each time you open or roll over an account. A designation on an old 401(k) can name a former spouse or a parent years later if nobody updated it.
- Can you have a large portfolio and no retirement plan?
- Yes. A portfolio shows how your money is invested. A plan sets out the income it produces each year, the order you draw your accounts in, and what happens to your spouse if you die first. Robert’s composite couple had $3 million saved and no answer to that last question.
If the decisions on this page are ahead of you, the two of you can work through them with Robert Boeck before any of them becomes permanent.
Schedule Your Consultation