Insights
The answers, written out.
Most of what people need to know is not proprietary. These are the questions we get asked most, answered as we would answer them in a meeting, including the parts that argue against acting.
Federal retirement
FERS, the TSP, survivor elections, and the decisions that stop being reversible on your retirement date.
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What to do with your TSP when you retire
There is no universal answer. The TSP offers among the lowest expense ratios available and strong creditor protection, while an IRA offers far more investment choice and withdrawal flexibility. Some federal retirees split the difference: keep a portion in the TSP for its cost advantage and move a portion to an IRA for flexibility.
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The FERS survivor benefit election, decided properly
The election reduces your own annuity in exchange for continuing payments to your spouse after your death. It is generally irrevocable. Critically, electing at least a partial survivor annuity is what preserves your spouse's eligibility to continue FEHB health coverage. That health coverage link is often the deciding factor.
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Roth conversions for federal retirees
Often yes, and often earlier than expected. A FERS annuity is fully taxable income that arrives whether or not you want it, and it stacks with Social Security and eventual required distributions. The gap between retiring and starting Social Security is frequently the lowest-bracket window a federal retiree will ever have.
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The FERS special retirement supplement, explained
It is a benefit that approximates the Social Security you earned during federal service, paid to eligible FERS retirees between retirement and age 62. It bridges the gap for people who retire before Social Security eligibility. An annual earnings test can reduce or eliminate it if you work after retiring.
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How to calculate your FERS pension
The FERS basic annuity is calculated as High-3 average salary times years of creditable service times a pension multiplier: 1% per year, or 1.1% per year at 62 or older with 20 or more years of service. This guide explains the formula, but an individual benefit calculation depends on your service record and retirement elections. [Book a 30-minute federal benefits review](/contact?path=federal) for a personalized review of your pension, TSP, and Social Security.
Retirement income
Turning a balance into a paycheck: withdrawal order, Social Security timing, and the risks specific to drawing down.
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Sequence-of-returns risk, and why it only matters once
It is the risk that poor investment returns arrive early in retirement, while you are withdrawing. Selling into a decline permanently removes shares that cannot participate in the recovery. Two retirees with identical average returns over thirty years can end up in very different places depending on which years were the bad ones.
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Which account should you draw from first?
The conventional sequence is taxable accounts first, then tax-deferred, then Roth. It is a reasonable default, but it frequently leaves money on the table. Often, a better approach fills lower tax brackets deliberately each year, often drawing from several account types at once, rather than emptying one before touching the next.
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When to claim Social Security
For most people in reasonable health, delaying increases lifetime benefits. Each year of delay past full retirement age raises the benefit by roughly eight percent until 70. But the right answer depends on marital status, health, and what else funds the gap. For married couples, the higher earner's timing matters most because it sets the survivor benefit.
Investing approach
Risk management, allocation, and what the words firms use to describe their process actually mean.
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What 'active risk management' actually means
It means adjusting a portfolio's market exposure in response to defined conditions, rather than holding a fixed allocation through every environment. Done systematically, exposure reduces as conditions deteriorate and increases as they improve, following rules set in advance. It is distinct from both market timing and periodic rebalancing.
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Diversifying a concentrated stock position
Most approaches spread sales across multiple tax years to manage the capital gains rate, paired with techniques that reduce the bill: donating appreciated shares, harvesting losses elsewhere, and timing sales into lower-income years. The harder problem is usually psychological, because the position is often the reason for the wealth.
Physicians
Pension elections, compressed savings runways, and high marginal rates.
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Pension lump sum or annuity: how to decide
The annuity provides guaranteed lifetime income and removes investment and longevity risk. The lump sum offers control, flexibility, and something to leave heirs. The decision turns on the interest rates used to calculate the lump sum, your health and your spouse's, and how much guaranteed income you already have.
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Retirement planning when you started saving at 32
Two constraints shape it: a shorter accumulation window because training delays earning, and a high marginal tax rate that makes every inefficiency expensive. That combination puts unusual weight on account sequencing, on using the low-income years after clinical work stops, and on protecting earning capacity while it lasts.
The readiness assessment · free · 3 minutes
Reading is useful. Scoring yourself is faster.
This is the same calibration we walk through with prospective clients. Nine questions, one to ten, across every part of a retirement plan. Nobody scores green on all nine — the useful part is finding out which of the reds you did not know about.
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Your score, free
All 9 accelerators scored and color-coded the moment you finish. No email needed to see it.
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The written breakdown
What each score actually implies and the order to work through them, in exchange for a name and an email.
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Then a conversation, if you want one
Bring the scorecard. An advisor will have seen it before you sit down.
None of this replaces someone looking at your situation.
General guidance gets you to the right question. The answer depends on numbers only you have.