Financial Advisor for Retirees

For informational purposes only — not tax, legal, or investment advice. Your situation may differ.

You spent 30 years accumulating wealth. The job now is different: spending it down efficiently, managing taxes across multiple income streams, sequencing withdrawals to minimize lifetime tax, timing Social Security, and making sure your assets outlast your life expectancy. These are financial planning problems — not investment management problems. And the fee model that made sense during accumulation often works directly against you in retirement.

If you are retired or within five years of retirement with $750,000 or more in financial assets, the question worth asking is: what am I actually paying my advisor for, and does their compensation structure align with giving me good distribution advice?

Why the Distribution Phase Is Fundamentally Different

During accumulation, the core question is simple: invest consistently, diversify appropriately, don't panic, and let time work. The decisions are relatively few and the math is forgiving — starting five years earlier matters more than most tactical choices.

In retirement, the decisions multiply and the sequencing matters enormously:

• Which accounts do you spend from first? The traditional rule is taxable → tax-deferred → Roth, but this default is wrong for many retirees. If you have large pre-tax balances, spending from taxable first means your IRA compounds until RMDs force large distributions at 73 or 75 — potentially pushing you into higher brackets for the rest of your life. A planned sequence that draws down pre-tax accounts through Roth conversions in the early years can save tens of thousands in lifetime taxes.
• When do you claim Social Security? Every year you delay claiming past 62 increases your benefit by 5–8%. For married couples, the higher earner delaying to 70 produces the largest possible survivor benefit. Getting this wrong — or making the decision in isolation from your other income — is a permanent, irreversible mistake worth $100,000+ over a 20-year retirement.
• How do you avoid Medicare premium surcharges? IRMAA brackets determine your Medicare Part B premiums based on income from two years prior. A married couple with MAGI above $218,000 pays $284.10/month per person — $1,950/year more than the $202.90 base.¹ Roth conversions, RMDs, and Social Security benefits all feed into MAGI. Without coordinated planning, a single large distribution can trigger surcharges for two years running.
• When do RMDs hit, and what do you do with them? Required minimum distributions begin at age 73 for those born 1951–1959, and at age 75 for those born in 1960 or later.² For retirees with large pre-tax balances, RMDs can add $50,000–$150,000+ per year in forced taxable income — income they don't need and didn't plan for. Managing this requires either Roth conversion work in the decade before RMDs begin, or QCD strategies once RMDs arrive.

What Retirement Income Planning Actually Covers

A flat-fee advisor working on retirement income planning delivers a specific set of outputs that most AUM advisors either don't produce or produce once and never update:

Withdrawal Sequencing Plan

A year-by-year model of which accounts to draw from, in what order, and how much — designed to minimize lifetime taxes across a 20–30 year retirement. This is not a static document; it gets updated annually as investment returns, tax law, and your spending needs evolve. More on withdrawal sequencing here.

Roth Conversion Roadmap

For retirees between 63 and 72 with large pre-tax balances, the window before RMDs begin is typically the most valuable planning period available. A conversion roadmap identifies how much to convert each year to fill the 22% bracket without triggering IRMAA — and models the long-run tax savings against paying conversion taxes now. Roth conversion strategy in detail here.

Social Security Optimization

Break-even analysis at 62, 67, and 70 for each spouse. Survivor benefit modeling — for married couples, the higher earner delaying to 70 typically produces the largest lifetime household benefit. Integration with provisional income thresholds ($32,000–$44,000 for MFJ) to understand how much of your Social Security becomes taxable depending on your other income sources.³ For government employees, the Social Security Fairness Act (January 2025) repealed WEP and GPO — prior benefit reductions for government pension recipients are now eliminated.⁴ Full Social Security strategy here.

IRMAA and Medicare Premium Planning

Coordinating Roth conversions, RMD amounts, and other income to stay below IRMAA tier boundaries — and managing the two-year lookback that determines which year's income affects which year's premiums. An uncoordinated conversion or distribution can cost a couple an extra $3,900–$11,688/year in Medicare premiums. Medicare and IRMAA planning details here.

RMD and QCD Strategy

Once RMDs begin, the options shift. Qualified Charitable Distributions allow retirees 70½ or older to transfer up to $111,000/year directly from an IRA to a qualified charity — the distribution counts toward the RMD but is excluded from AGI, which is better than taking the RMD and then claiming a charitable deduction for itemizers, and is available to non-itemizers entirely.⁵ Sizing QCDs to offset RMD-driven IRMAA exposure is a strategy that requires coordination across the full picture. Retirement tax planning overview here.

Estate and Legacy Planning Integration

Beneficiary designations, portability elections (9-month deadline after a spouse's death), inherited IRA 10-year distribution rules for non-spouse beneficiaries, and Roth conversion decisions that optimize the after-tax inheritance for heirs. These decisions interact with the income planning decisions in ways that a siloed estate attorney or investment manager doesn't see. Inheritance planning detail here.

The Real Cost of AUM Advisory in Retirement

AUM fees at retirement-size portfolios are expensive — and largely disconnected from the planning work that actually creates value:

For a retiree with a $2.5M portfolio, switching from a 1% AUM advisor to a $10,000 flat-fee retainer saves $15,000/year. Over a 20-year retirement at a modest 5% investment return on those fee savings, that difference compounds to approximately $500,000 — half a million dollars that either funds your spending or passes to heirs.

What you typically receive from an AUM advisor at these portfolio sizes: quarterly portfolio reviews, annual rebalancing, and a planning meeting once a year. What you typically do not receive: proactive Roth conversion modeling, IRMAA coordination, multi-year tax projection, or RMD-sequenced withdrawal plans — because that work doesn't scale economically at the AUM price point and doesn't increase the fee base.

Who This Engagement Is Right For

Good candidates for a flat-fee retirement income advisor:

• Age 60–80, retired or retiring within 5 years
• $750,000 or more in financial assets (IRAs, 401(k)s, taxable brokerage, or a mix)
• Currently paying an AUM advisor and uncertain what planning work you're receiving for the fee
• Large pre-tax IRA or 401(k) balance ($500K+) and not yet in the Roth conversion window
• Approaching first RMD and haven't modeled how RMD income interacts with your Social Security and Medicare
• Social Security not yet claimed — and you have a spouse whose survivor benefit you want to protect
• DIY investor managing your own portfolio who wants annual planning work from a fee-only planner

If you're unsure whether you need an ongoing advisor or a one-time engagement, the decision framework here covers how to evaluate the tradeoffs by engagement type.

What This Costs

• Annual retainer ($5,000–$12,000/year): Ongoing retirement income planning — withdrawal sequencing updated annually, Roth conversion roadmap, IRMAA tracking, Social Security timing, RMD planning, and integration with estate planning as your situation evolves. Most appropriate for households with $1M+ in assets where annual updates materially change the plan.
• Project-based engagement ($2,500–$6,000): A comprehensive retirement income plan — withdrawal sequence, Roth conversion roadmap, Social Security timing recommendation, and IRMAA/RMD analysis — delivered as a written document. You implement and return for a new project when circumstances change. How project-based engagements work here.
• Hourly engagement ($300–$500/hour): 4–8 hours for targeted advice on a specific decision — when to claim Social Security, whether a Roth conversion makes sense this year, or how to sequence a large distribution. How hourly advisory works here.