A client, a 59-year-old health care executive with $2.1 million in her 401(k), called Robert in tears to say she had set her retirement date. She had kept working because she was unsure the math worked. Two sessions that put her income, taxes, Social Security, health care and market risk in one place gave her the answer.
What happened on that call?
About two years into building his practice, Robert got a call on a Tuesday morning. The client was crying, and his first thought was that something had gone wrong. Nothing had. She was a senior executive at a health care company, 59, with $2.1 million in her 401(k), and on paper everything looked fine. She had been telling herself, and everyone around her, that she needed three or four more years. She was not sure the math worked, and she did not want to retire and then have to go back, so she kept working.
Six months earlier the two of them had spent two sessions building her complete retirement picture with her own numbers: income, taxes, Social Security, health care and market risk. The math told a different story from her anxiety. That Tuesday she called to say she had phoned HR that morning and set her retirement date. “I just needed to hear you say that the numbers work,” she told him. “Nobody had actually ever shown me.”
What did the two sessions answer?
The questions she had been carrying: her monthly income in year one, year five and year fifteen; her tax picture once required minimum distributions begin at 73 under current law, or 75 for anyone born in 1960 or later; and her Social Security strategy, and how it would work with the draws from her portfolio. She had an excellent financial advisor, and her investments were well managed. Nobody had done this part of the work. Robert describes the sessions as simple to follow: “It wasn’t complicated. It was complete.” The work put every piece in one place for the first time.
Why do accomplished people feel unsure about retirement?
Robert sees her story in a pattern. People spend 30 years being excellent at their careers, then feel uncertain in the one area where they are not the expert in the room. Financial planning is one of the few fields where smart, accomplished people do not know what they do not know. The industry adds to the confusion, because much of what gets called retirement planning is investment management with a longer time horizon. The difference between the two jobs is the reason his practice exists.
What should you do if nobody has shown you the complete picture?
If you are within five to fifteen years of retirement and nobody has put the whole picture in front of you, that conversation is worth having. A Retirement Income Roadmap is the written version of those two sessions. The Retirement Readiness Assessment is a quick first check, and Robert’s 30-minute retirement clarity call is where your own numbers come in.
Common questions
- What is in a complete retirement picture?
- Your monthly income for each year of retirement, the taxes you will owe once required distributions begin, your Social Security strategy and how it works with your portfolio withdrawals, your health care costs before and after Medicare, and how the plan holds up in a bad market.
- How long does it take to build a retirement income plan?
- For the client in this story, two working sessions built the complete picture with her own numbers. The time depends on how many accounts, pensions and equity plans a household has, and on how fast the documents come together.
- Does good investment management mean you have a retirement plan?
- It can leave the plan unbuilt. This client’s investments were well managed, and nobody had shown her what her income would be in year one, year five or year fifteen, or what her taxes would look like once required distributions began.
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.
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