Planning & Risk
The plan in one page
Everything on this site reduced to a single document you could hand to a spouse, an executor or an adviser without explanation.
Gerald Vance
25 articles by Vance
Planning & Risk
Talking to family about money
Conversations that are avoided for decades and then have to happen in a hospital corridor.
Social Security
What to do about a shortfall
Where the projection does not work, the options are limited, real, and better taken early.
Planning & Risk
When plans need to change
Retirement plans are revised rather than executed, and the signals that a revision is due are identifiable.
Planning & Risk
Choosing an adviser, and what to ask
The most useful questions are about how the person is paid and what standard they are held to.
Social Security
Benefits for veterans and their families
A set of entitlements that are substantial, under-claimed, and separate from the Social Security system.
Accounts & Vehicles
Insurance you still need and insurance you do not
Retirement changes which risks need transferring, and several policies bought during working life stop being necessary.
Healthcare Costs
Cognitive decline and protecting finances
Financial capability declines before it becomes obvious, and the protections have to be set up while capacity is intact.
Taxes in Retirement
Tax planning across a full retirement
Retirement has distinct tax phases, and treating each year in isolation forfeits most of the available benefit.
Withdrawal Strategy
Bonds in a retirement portfolio
The role bonds play changed considerably in the past few years, and the reasons for holding them are worth restating.
Accounts & Vehicles
Saving when you are self-employed
The available accounts allow much larger contributions than an IRA, and most self-employed people use none of them.
Healthcare Costs
Choosing between Medicare Advantage and original Medicare
A decision made once at sixty-five that is harder to reverse than most people are told.
Social Security
Common Social Security mistakes
A short list of errors that are expensive, generally permanent once made, and entirely avoidable with a few minutes of checking.
Withdrawal Strategy
Spending flexibility as a planning tool
The willingness to adjust spending is worth more to a plan than almost any change to the portfolio.
Planning & Risk
Stress-testing a retirement plan
A plan that works under expected conditions is not a plan. The useful exercise is finding what breaks it.
Taxes in Retirement
Where you live and what it costs in tax
State tax treatment of retirement income varies enormously, and it is one factor among several rather than a decision on its own.
Social Security
The taxation of Social Security benefits
A formula that catches more people every year, and produces effective marginal rates higher than the published brackets.
Accounts & Vehicles
Taxable accounts and why they matter more than people think
The account with no special tax status has several features that make it valuable in a retirement plan.
Healthcare Costs
Prescription costs and how to reduce them
Drug spending is one of the more controllable healthcare costs in retirement, and most of the mechanisms require asking.
Taxes in Retirement
Roth conversions, done deliberately
Moving money from tax-deferred to tax-free accounts is straightforward mechanically and requires care about which year and how much.
Withdrawal Strategy
Annuities, and when they are worth considering
A product category with a poor reputation, some of it deserved, containing one type that solves a genuine problem.
Accounts & Vehicles
IRAs, and the rules people get wrong
Individual retirement accounts have a set of eligibility and deduction rules that trip people up in predictable ways.
Taxes in Retirement
How retirement income is actually taxed
Different income sources are treated differently, and the interactions between them produce effective rates that surprise people.
Social Security
When to claim Social Security
The most consequential single decision many retirees make, and the analysis is more straightforward than the volume of commentary suggests.
Accounts & Vehicles
Employer plans and what to check in yours
Most people accept the defaults in a workplace plan without examining them, and several of the defaults are worth changing.