Your financial plan was built for someone else.

Your priorities have shifted.

Maybe your marriage has.

Maybe your health has changed in ways you didn’t see coming.

The plan you made 3 years ago is for the person you were 3 years ago. Not the person you are today.

Psychologists call this the end-of-history illusion.

Dan Gilbert put it plainly:

“Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.”

Watch Gilbert’s 2014 Ted talk about this idea:

We’re good at seeing how much we’ve changed in the past decade.

We’re terrible at imagining we’ll keep changing just as much in the next one.

Your financial plan has the same blind spot you do.

I’ve watched women navigate real disruptions — a diagnosis out of nowhere, a divorce at 67, health changes in their 70s that rewrote everything the next decade was supposed to look like — with a financial plan built for a life that no longer existed.

Not because the plan was wrong when it was made.

Because no one had touched it since.

There's a difference between a one-time financial plan and ongoing financial planning.

A plan built once is a snapshot.

It was accurate the moment it was made.

It gets less accurate with every passing day.

After a year or two — maybe less, if life moved fast — it may be a plan for someone you no longer recognize.

This is why I no longer offer one-time financial plans.

Not because going through the process once has no value, but because the true value isn’t in the plan.

It’s in the ongoing work: the updates, the adjustments, the ability to respond when your life changes.

And it will.

What to do right now:

• Assess: Pull your plan out and read it like you're meeting it for the first time. Ask whether any of these have shifted since it was made: your health, or a spouse's; how close retirement feels and what you picture it looking like; your family situation; how you think about spending and what "enough" actually means to you. If you couldn't tell someone what your plan assumes about your spending or your timeline — or if any of those things have changed — that's your answer. It needs to catch up with you.

• Act: Put a review date on your calendar — at least once a year, ideally twice. Treat it as a real conversation, not a number check. And don't wait for the scheduled date if something significant happens. A health change, a family shift, a major decision you're wrestling with — those are exactly the moments when an outdated plan is most costly. That's what I'm here for.

The plan you have is only as useful as it is current.

— Russ

Retirement Planning for Women

P.S. ~ When was the last time you actually reviewed your financial plan? Hit reply and tell me — I’m curious how many of you are working from something more than a year or two out of date.

Disclosures

Most people spend their working years accumulating money.

Saving, investing, growing.

But somewhere along the way, accumulation becomes the goal itself.

The money stops being a means to an end and starts being the end.

And most financial advisors, if we’re being honest, make this worse.

We talk about portfolio returns.

Allocation percentages.

Withdrawal rates.

Tax efficiency.

But none of it is the point.

Money is fuel. And fuel only matters if you’re going somewhere.

Think about your car.

You don’t fill the tank just to watch the gauge stay full.

You fill it because you have somewhere to be — somewhere worth going.

Your money works the same way.

It’s in service of something.

The question worth asking — the question most financial planning conversations never get to — is:

What is YOUR something?

I’ve had this conversation with clients more times than I can count.

Often not by design.

Usually because something happened — a health scare, a loss, a fractured relationship — that cracked things open.

And suddenly the conversation shifted from “what should I do with my portfolio” to “what am I actually doing with my life?”

Those are the most important conversations I have.

Not because I have the answers.

I don’t.

But because having a financial advisor who’s willing to ask the question — and sit with you while you think about it — is rarer than it should be.

Most of us spend far more energy optimizing money than we do thinking about time: how much we have, how we’re spending it, and whether we’re spending it on what matters most.

But time is the actual resource. Money is just what makes certain choices possible.

The financial industry is built around a simple story: accumulate as much as possible, then figure out what to do with it.

But that story has it backwards.

The better question is: what kind of life do you want to live, and what will it take to support that life?

It means knowing what you want your days to look like.

Who you want to spend them with.

What you’d regret not doing.

What “enough” actually feels like — not as an abstract number, but as something real you can point to.

What are you actually here for?

That’s not a question with a right answer. But it’s the right question to be asking.

When you get clear on even a little of this, the financial decisions get easier.

Once you know what you’re planning for.

Because you know when enough is enough.

What to ask yourself:

• If money weren’t a concern at all, how would you spend your time? What would you stop doing? What would you start?

• When did you last feel like you were truly living — not just managing life, but actually present in it?

• Is your financial plan organized around a number you’re trying to reach, or a life you’re trying to live?

• When something hard has happened — a loss, a scare, a moment of real perspective — what did it clarify for you?

• What are you waiting for?

A plan built around a life you can describe is a completely different thing than a plan built around a number you’re trying to hit.

One is a tool. The other is a map.

I’m here to help you use your money to live a great life.

Your great life.

Not use your life to pile up a bunch of money.

If that’s the conversation you want to have, I’m ready to have it.

That’s the work I find most meaningful.

Until next time,

Russ

Retirement Planning for Women

P.S. ~ I was happy to share my thoughts in this recent article about the fear of running out of money. And no, I haven’t changed my name to “Ross” despite the article indicating otherwise. 😉

Disclosures

You sit down with your advisor.

The market is doing whatever the market is doing. Up, down, sideways.

But you’re not really thinking about the market.

You’re thinking about your mother’s diagnosis last month.

Or the call from your daughter that you’ve been turning over in your head all week.

Or the conversation with your husband last weekend that ended without a decision about when he’ll retire.

You scheduled a meeting to “talk about the portfolio.”

But that’s not really what you want to talk about.

A new report says you’re not alone

Earlier this year, a company called Jump — they make AI tools for financial advisors — analyzed roughly 12,000 advisor-client conversations across the country.

They were looking for patterns.

What clients actually bring up. What shifts their mood during a meeting. What makes them feel better — or worse — by the time they leave.

One finding stood out:

Life events shape how clients feel walking into a meeting. Far more than markets do.

• Bereavement.

• A serious medical diagnosis.

• Caring for an aging parent.

• An inheritance — yep, even that one.

These show up most often in planning conversations.

And almost all of them correlate with clients arriving in a noticeably lower emotional state — before a single word about the market is spoken.

The report1 put it bluntly:

“It is disruption and responsibility — not milestone moments alone — that most affect how clients feel entering advisory conversations.”

In other words: it’s not the wedding. It’s not the new grandchild.

It’s the things you didn’t see coming.

And those life events don’t arrive empty

They bring something with them.

The same report found that nearly half of all meetings — 48% — included at least one stated client fear.

Some of the most common ones:

• Outliving your savings

• Medical costs

• Supporting family members

• Covering the bills

Look at that list again. Notice how closely each one tracks with the life events that came before it.

A diagnosis brings medical cost fears.

An aging parent brings questions about elder care — and another question underneath: is this going to be me someday?

An inheritance brings complexity, maybe some guilt, and the loss it came with.

A spouse’s retirement timing brings the oldest fear of all: once the paychecks stop, will the money last?

These aren’t financial questions in the technical sense.

They’re financial questions wrapped around something else.

What most planning misses

Most planning conversations don’t start here.

They start with the portfolio. The asset allocation.

Your money and how you want to spend it.

Which is fine.

Until it isn’t.

Because if what was weighing on you when you joined the meeting never gets named, no amount of planning makes it lighter.

I’ve written before about why a real plan goes beyond the portfolio.

This is what I mean.

A real plan accounts for the fact that you’re not a balance sheet.

You are not your money.

You’re someone in a particular season of life. Carrying particular weight. Worried about particular things.

The portfolio is the easy part.

The rest of your life is where the real work happens.

Try this

Next time you meet with your advisor, don’t lead with the portfolio.

Lead with what’s actually on your mind.

The diagnosis. The conversation you’ve been having with your sister. The question you keep almost asking.

You don’t have to have it figured out. That’s not your job.

That’s what the conversation is for.

The point

You are not the same person you were five years ago.

And whatever is making this season different is, by definition, part of your plan now.

A good advisor will want to know what you brought in with you — before they say a word about the market.

If you’re carrying something heavy into your next planning meeting, don’t let it be a distraction.

Make it the conversation.

Russ

Retirement Planning for Women

P.S. ~ What’s on your mind right now? If you’d like to talk about it, I’m happy to listen.

Disclosures

You know the number.

It’s the dollar amount that would feel like too much to spend on yourself this year.

The trip.

The renovation.

The gift to your daughter that’s bigger than your husband would approve of, if you still had to ask.

You know exactly what it is.

And you’ve never said it out loud.

I’ve sat across from women with $4 million, $6 million, $10 million, and more in savings and investments who can tell me their grocery budget down to the dollar but can’t bring themselves to say what they’d actually love to spend on what they actually want.

Oh, they know.

The problem is that saying it makes it real, and real feels reckless.

Here’s what most advisors will tell you: the math works.

You can afford it. Your plan supports it.

They’re not wrong.

They’re also not helping.

The math has never been the problem.

The problem is that nobody ever taught you how to spend money you’ve learned to accumulate and protect over the last 40+ years.

You were rewarded for saving and praised for not being the kind of woman who is irresponsible when it comes to money.

Now you’re sixty-seven, sitting on a portfolio that does its job whether you watch it or not, and the muscle you spent a lifetime building, the one that says not yet, not now, is the same muscle keeping you from the life your money was always for.

This pattern is what’s reckless.

Living small to protect money you’ll never spend is a slow surrender of the years that were supposed to be the whole point.

So here’s the assignment, and I mean it:

Pick the thing.

Say the number out loud.

To yourself, to your partner, to me if you want.

The trip, the gift, the renovation, the 2nd home — whatever’s been sitting in the corner of your mind for two (or twenty) years.

Saying it doesn’t commit you to anything.

Just say it.

The spell breaks on its own.

— Russ

Retirement Planning for Women

P.S. Hit reply and tell me your number. I read every message. No advice back unless you ask — sometimes you just need to put it somewhere that isn’t your own head.

Disclosures

Most retirement plans answer the wrong question.

They tell you how many years you can afford.

But they don’t tell you how many of them you’ll actually remember.

It’s the difference between a long retirement and a retirement that feels long.

Mitch Thrower’s recent LinkedIn essay “Your Brain Is Quietly Deleting Your Life” captures the neuroscience: your brain files routine lightly and novelty deeply.

Weeks that all look the same compress in memory.

A single new experience can stretch for years.

His essay is worth a read.

But the lesson lands differently for a woman in her 60s than it does for a triathlete in his 40s.

The average American gets about 27,375 days from birth to death.

A typical 25-to-30 year retirement is roughly 9,000 to 11,000 of them.

That’s nearly a third of your life, and it arrives at the moment you finally have full control of your calendar.

So let me say it plainly.

You don’t have one portfolio in retirement. You have two.

The first is your financial portfolio. You’ve worked on that for thirty or forty years. You probably know its numbers inside and out.

The second is your experience portfolio.

Most people never consider it.

Which is exactly why it never gets managed.

The deferred-life problem

There’s a line often credited to Confucius:

We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one.

In 30+ years of doing this work, I’ve watched what usually triggers that second life.

Almost always, it’s something hard.

• A death.

• A diagnosis.

• A friend who got the news first.

Suddenly the trip that was always “next year” gets booked.

The conversation that was always “someday” happens.

The money that has been sitting still starts moving toward something that matters.

I am asking you to skip the catalyst.

Please.

I am asking you to stop waiting for a wake-up call.

Because in retirement, the costliest risk is a deferred life. The slow accumulation of “I’ll do it next year” until the next years run out.

What feels like prudence is often a withdrawal from the one account you cannot replenish.

Why routine is more expensive than it looks

Years that all look the same compress in your memory.

The same Saturday morning routine, the same drive to the same restaurant, the same weeklong trip to the same place every August.

None of it is bad, and some of it is truly wonderful.

But your brain files repetition and routine much more lightly than it files first-time experiences.

Think back five years and ask honestly: where is the novelty, the surprise, the breaking of your own routine?

Most of what is still vivid is the trip to a new destination, the milestone, the unexpected day, the new face.

The rest, however pleasant, has gotten fuzzy. Less memorable.

This quote captures the idea:

“The most common way to not see something is to see it too many times.”

Two portfolios, one life

Both of your portfolios deserve a plan.

Your financial portfolio funds the days.

Your experience portfolio decides whether the days register at all.

Whether or not they create memory dividends.

The mistake I see is over-optimizing the first while leaving the second on autopilot.

Smart, careful women are especially prone to it — because the financial portfolio rewards caution and the experience portfolio punishes it.

This is not a rehearsal.

You don’t get a do-over.

You don’t get to come back next time and try the version of your life where you took the trip, made the call, told the person.

You get this one.

Starting right now!

What to do next

If any of this resonates, here are six places to start. None of them require you to abandon your plan. All of them require you to actually use it.

1. Look at your calendar 90 days out. If nothing on it would be worth remembering, you have your answer.

2. Book one trip, class, or event this month that you have been putting off. Put real money behind it so it sticks.

3. Make a list of three people you have been meaning to see in person. Pick a date for one of them this quarter.

4. Audit one weekly routine (the same restaurant, the same Saturday, the same drive) and break it once.

5. Ask yourself whether your spending plan reflects the life you dream of — or just the life you’ve settled for.

6. Tell someone what they mean to you. Don’t wait.

One life, two portfolios

Planning for tomorrow still matters. Nothing I’ve said here changes that.

But planning for tomorrow at the cost of today is a trade most people make without meaning to, and then regret without saying so.

Fear is not a financial plan.

You have two portfolios. Both deserve to be managed on purpose.

A life deferred is the most expensive thing you’ll ever own.

Until next Wednesday,

Russ

Retirement Planning for Women

Disclosures

A client called me recently about her grandson.

He’s graduating college, headed to medical school, and she’d love to help — probably by gifting him some appreciated stock.

My clients are wonderful people and family is important to each of them.

But it got me thinking about my clients’ younger grandchildren — the ones still in car seats.

Because there’s a brand-new option that could do something for them her grandson is already too old to enjoy.

Here’s the truth about helping the youngsters in your life: with a small child, time matters even more than money.

Money is only the seed.

Time is the ingredient compounding can’t work without. And a newborn has more of it than anyone else.

Starting July 4, 2026, there’s a new account built almost perfectly for that idea.

They’re called “Trump accounts.” Here’s the official website.

Yes, that’s the official name, and I’m using it the way the IRS does.

Let me explain what they are, and then give you an honest look at whether one makes sense for the children, grandchildren, nieces, or nephews in your life.

What they are

A new kind of long-term savings account for children.

Think of it as a retirement account that starts in childhood.

The money is invested in a low-cost index fund that tracks the U.S. stock market, and it grows without being taxed along the way.

The part that’s basically free money

If a child is born between 2025 and 2028, is a U.S. citizen, and has a Social Security number, the government will deposit $1,000 to get the account started. No contribution required from you.

Those deposits begin July 4, 2026. Someone just has to open the account first.

If you have a grandchild (or child or anyone else) who qualifies, that $1,000 is the closest thing to found money you’ll see this year.

Who can have one, and who can add to it

Any U.S. citizen child with a Social Security number who hasn’t turned 18 can have a Trump account, not just babies. Only children born 2025–2028 get the free $1,000, but any eligible child can receive contributions.

And here’s the part that matters for you: family can chip in.

Up to $5,000 a year, from parents, grandparents, anyone.

So this can absolutely be a vehicle for the kind of help you might want to give.

How the taxes work

• You contribute with after-tax dollars. This means no income tax deduction.

• The money grows tax-deferred year to year.

• The child can’t touch it until 18. At 18, it becomes a regular Traditional IRA.

• When money comes out later, any growth (and that $1,000 seed) is taxed as ordinary income, like a retirement account. The dollars you personally put in come back out tax-free.

One important caveat: these rules are brand-new and still being finalized, so some details may shift.

Please treat anything specific as “check with your tax advisor,” not gospel.

Now the fun part: what time can do

What if you never add another dollar beyond the free $1,000?

Left alone in the market, at a relatively conservative, hypothetical 6% a year return, here’s roughly what that single $1,000 could become:

• About $2,850 by age 18

• About $5,700 by age 30

• About $13,800 by age 45

• About $33,000 by age 60

From one $1,000 deposit that was never touched. Time did all the work.

Now add a modest commitment.

Say you add $2,000 a year, well under the $5,000 limit, until the child turns 18.

At that same hypothetical 6%, about $36,000 of contributions could grow to roughly $65,000 by college age. A real head start on school, a first home, or simply launching into adult life.

Note: 6% is below the broadly diversified stock market’s long-run average, and nothing is guaranteed. Some years will be down. And money decades from now buys far less than it does today.

The lesson here is simple: time, more than the size of the gift, does most of the heavy lifting.

Is it the best place to save for a child?

Not always.

• If the goal is education, a 529 plan is likely more tax-efficient: it grows tax-free and comes out tax-free for school.

• If the child has earned income from a job, a custodial Roth IRA is often the strongest long-term deal. (A newborn can’t use one, since you need earned income, which is exactly the gap the new Trump account fills.)

• A custodial investment account offers the most flexibility, with its own tax quirks.

So my honest take: the free $1,000 is a clear win.

If you have a child or grandchild who qualifies, why not claim it?

Beyond that, whether to keep funding a Trump account or steer those dollars to a 529 or a Roth depends on what you’re trying to accomplish.

If you’d like to explore it

• Mention it to your children. For a child or grandchild born 2025–2028, someone needs to open the account to claim the $1,000. You can start the process here.

• Mark the date: accounts and contributions begin July 4, 2026.

• Get clear on the goal first, whether that’s education, a general head start, or long-term security, because that points to the right account, which may or may not be this one.

• Loop in your tax advisor before contributing, since the rules are still settling.

• Or bring it to our next conversation, and we’ll see if it fits your family and your own plan.

Most of the women I work with have more than enough for their own lifetimes.

What they want is to do something meaningful for the people coming up behind them.

This is one simple, powerful way to do exactly that.

You can’t give a grandchild more time on this earth.

But you can give their money more time to grow. Started early enough, that may be the most generous gift of all.

If you have a question, just reply — I read every one.

Until next Wednesday,

Russ

Retirement Planning for Women

Disclosures

A client emailed me recently with a question.

“We’d like to hear your knowledge about overseas travel health insurance.”

Smart question.

And one I’d guess a lot of you have wondered about too — especially if there’s an trip outside the U.S. on your calendar (or one you’ve been dreaming about for years).

With summer travel season upon us, let’s talk about it.

The trip you’ve been waiting for

Maybe it’s Italy. Maybe Portugal. A safari. The Greek islands.

Or somewhere else around the globe.

You’ve planned the flights, the hotels, the rental car. You’ve made room in the budget. You’ve earned this.

And then — somewhere over the Atlantic — most retirement plans stop working.

I’ve written before about keeping healthcare costs down when you travel within the U.S.

Consider this the international version of that conversation.

Your Medicare card doesn’t have a passport

Here’s the part most people don’t realize until they need to.

• Original Medicare: Covers next to nothing outside the U.S.

• Medicare Supplement (most plans): Include a foreign travel emergency benefit — but it’s capped at a $50,000 lifetime maximum, and only covers 80% after a deductible. A serious hospital stay can chew through that in a few days.

• Medicare Part D: Doesn’t cover prescriptions you buy abroad.

• Medical evacuation: A flight home with medical staff onboard can run from $25,000 to well over $250,000. Out of pocket.

That’s the hole.

Why this matters

There’s an old folk song some of you will remember.

There’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza...

Your bucket list might have a hole too.

Not because you didn’t plan. You did.

You saved, you invested, you got the portfolio right.

But planning isn’t only about portfolios.

I’ve written before about why a real plan goes beyond the portfolio — this is why.

It’s about all the parts of the life you’re actually trying to live.

The trip is part of your plan. Which means the healthcare on the trip is part of your plan too.

And here’s the asymmetry that matters: a quality travel medical policy for a typical international trip might cost a few hundred dollars.

The bill if something goes wrong can run into six figures.

That’s a trade most people would make without thinking — if they realized it was a trade at all.

Next steps

Four steps that handle most of it:

1. Ask the question. Before your next international trip, ask your advisor (or me): “Does my plan account for healthcare outside the U.S.?” If the answer is fuzzy, that’s your first clue.

2. Check what you already have. Pull up your Medicare Supplement and look for the foreign travel emergency benefit. Know the cap. Know what it covers and what it doesn’t.

3. Make sure any travel policy you consider includes medical evacuation. This is the line item that turns a bad day into a six-figure problem. It’s also the one most people overlook.

4. Get a quote. I work with Move Health on health insurance for many of my clients. They recently added travel insurance options through Blue Cross Blue Shield Global Solutions (formerly GeoBlue). If you’d like an introduction to Move Health, let me know.

A note on scope: this piece is about medical coverage on international trips.

Trip cancellation insurance — for the flight you can’t take, the deposit you can’t get back — is a separate conversation worth having on its own.

There are other considerations depending on the trip, your health, and how often you travel.

That’s a conversation, not a checklist.

But these four cover most of the ground for most people.

However, another client pointed out that some tour groups like Tauck offer Travel Protection which includes:

Medical Expenses – reimburses covered medical expenses incurred in the event you become injured or sick during your trip.

The point

You don’t buy travel insurance because you expect something to go wrong.

You buy it so a small problem stays a small problem — and so a big one doesn’t follow you home in the form of a bill.

Patch the hole. Then go enjoy the trip.

That’s what the plan is for.

If you’ve got a trip on the horizon and want to talk it through, hit reply.

Happy to help.

Thank you for reading!

Have a question? Reply to this email — I read every one and I’ll respond personally.

Until next Wednesday,

Russ

Retirement Planning for Women

Disclosures

I recently wrote about beneficiary designations and how they override your will without asking permission.

Readers were surprised to learn that an outdated form on a single account can undo years of estate planning.

But there’s another quiet override sitting right next to those forms.

It’s how your accounts and property are titled.

When the title and the will disagree, the title wins.

Every time.

The titling options worth knowing

There are more options than people realize, and the differences matter.

Individual (sole name). You own it alone. At your death, it passes through your will — and through probate.

Joint with rights of survivorship (JTWROS). Two owners. When one dies, the survivor automatically owns the whole thing. No probate. No will involvement. This is the most common form between spouses.

Tenants in common (TIC). Two or more owners, but each owner’s share passes through their own estate when they die. The surviving co-owner does not automatically inherit. People assume “joint” always means survivor takes all. It doesn’t.

Tenants by the entirety. A spouses-only version of joint ownership available in some states. Offers extra protection from creditors. Rules vary widely by state.

Community property. Only nine states. If you ever lived in Texas, California, Arizona, or another community property state, the rules around what you own — and what gets a step-up in basis — can follow you.

Trust-titled. The account is owned by your trust. The trust controls who gets it and when, often without probate.

Transfer-on-death (TOD) or payable-on-death (POD). Technically a beneficiary designation rather than a title, but they live on the same form and operate the same way. They bypass the will.

A quick note before we go further: the goal here isn’t to avoid probate at all costs.

Probate is usually manageable, especially in Georgia. Florida, not so much.

The goal is alignment — making sure the title matches your intent.

“And” vs. “or” — what really controls your account

This one trips people up.

The traditional rule sounds simple: a joint account titled “Mary and John” requires both signatures. “Mary or John” lets either owner act alone.

That’s still the principle. But it’s not always how modern accounts work.

The determining factor is the signature card and account agreement you signed when the account was opened.

Most retail banks today default joint accounts to “either signer can act alone” — regardless of how the names appear on statements. True two-signature accounts have largely become a commercial product, not a personal one.

The older distinction still matters in some places:

• Accounts opened decades ago under different rules

• Some credit unions and smaller community banks

• Some brokerage and investment accounts

• Many trust and fiduciary accounts

Why this matters:

A true “both signatures required” account can quietly become a trap. If one spouse has a stroke, develops dementia, or otherwise can’t sign, the account effectively freezes for the other one too. Right when access is most needed.

An “either signer” account is more flexible. Bills get paid. Money moves. Life continues without a trip to the bank or to court.

That flexibility cuts both ways. The convenience depends on trust — and on the other person acting in good faith.

For most married couples, “either signer” is the right setup, paired with mutual trust and regular conversations about what’s happening in the accounts.

So don’t rely on what the statement shows. Pull out your signature card or account agreement — or call your bank — and confirm what your account actually allows.

Then ask yourself if it still matches what you’d want today.

The mistake I see most often

A widow tells me her adult son is “on the account” so he can help pay her bills.

She means well. He means well.

But adding an adult child as a joint owner — instead of using a power of attorney — quietly does a few things she didn’t sign up for:

• It exposes her account to her son’s creditors and any future divorce.

• It can disinherit her other children, because the account passes to him alone at her death — regardless of what her will says.

• It can be treated as a gift for tax purposes.

• And if Medicaid is ever needed down the road, it complicates the look-back.

The fix is almost always a durable power of attorney. Same goal — someone who can help if she can’t. Without the unintended ownership transfer.

If your goal is help managing the account, a POA is the right tool.

If your goal is to give the account away at your death, a beneficiary designation is the right tool.

Joint ownership is rarely the right answer for either one.

The trust funding gap

If you have a trust — and many of you do — the title on each account decides whether the trust actually controls it.

I’ve seen plenty of beautifully drafted trusts that own almost nothing.

The attorney drafted the document. The accounts and your house were never re-titled.

When the owner died, the trust did exactly nothing for those accounts. They went through probate.

Worth checking. The fix is usually straightforward.

A note on cost basis at the first death

For non-retirement accounts, sole-name vs. joint titling makes a real difference at the first spouse’s death — particularly in non-community-property states like Georgia.

In a sole-name account, the entire account gets a step-up in cost basis when the owner dies.

In a joint account, only half does.

That difference can be meaningful for couples with significant taxable investment accounts.

It’s worth a conversation with your advisor and tax professional before you assume joint titling is automatically the right move.

What to do next

1. Pull a list of every account and how it’s titled. Investment, retirement, bank, real estate. Write down the exact ownership as it appears on the most recent statement or deed.

2. Check joint accounts carefully. Are they JTWROS or tenants in common? Are they “and” or “or”? Ask the custodian if the paperwork doesn’t make it obvious.

3. Confirm trust-funded accounts are actually titled to the trust. Open the most recent statement and read the registration line.

4. Reconsider “convenience” joint accounts. If you’ve added an adult child to an account so they can help, ask whether a durable POA would do the job better.

5. Don’t forget the home. Your deed has its own titling, and the same principles apply.

6. Loop in your advisor and your estate attorney with specific questions. Don’t just send a list — ask them to walk through each account and confirm the title still reflects your wishes. Most clients haven’t done this in five years or more.

Like beneficiary designations, account titling isn’t a topic that comes up unless someone raises it.

But the day it matters, it matters a lot.

If you’d like a second set of eyes on your account registrations and how they line up with your wishes, just reply to this email.

I’m happy to help.

Links and things

I just happened to stumble across this Linkedin post from St. Louis estate planning attorney Jennifer Belmont Jennings a couple of days ago.

She seems to agree that’s it’s rarely, if ever, a good idea for a non-spouse to be a joint account owner.

Thank you for reading!

Have a question? Reply to this email — I read every one and I’ll respond personally.

Until next Wednesday,

Russ

Retirement Planning for Women

Disclosures

In 1975, a first-class stamp cost 10 cents.

In July, it’ll cost 82.

The U.S. Postal Service announced the latest increase last month — 78 cents to 82, effective July 12.

Most of us see a headline like that, shrug, and move on.

But a stamp is a receipt. And the receipt tells a longer story — more than 4% a year, every year, for half a century.

A quick look back

By 2008, the same 10-cent stamp was up to 42 cents.

Today, it’s 78. In July, it’ll be 82.

That’s more than an eightfold jump in 50 years — on one small, simple thing most of us use without much thought.

Why it matters

They’re raising prices because their costs went up.

Fuel, labor, trucks, facilities — all more expensive than last year, and the year before that.

The same forces are showing up in your grocery bill.

Your power bill.

Your property tax.

Your dog food.

Your dinner out.

The stamp isn’t special. It’s just visible. Familiar.

Most price increases don’t come with a news headline — they show up quietly, month after month, in what you spend.

What this means for your retirement

If you’re planning a 30-year retirement, the question isn’t whether prices will rise.

They will.

The question is whether your plan can keep up.

I made the same argument back in 2008, when a stamp cost 42 cents. I used it as a reason to stay invested in stocks over the long term (see Why stocks are safer than bonds).

Since then, the stamp has nearly doubled.

A diversified global stock portfolio has done several times better.

What to do next:

• Know your spending. Not last year’s — today’s. What does your average month look like?

• Stress-test your plan against higher inflation. A good plan doesn’t assume 2%; it shows how 4% or 5% would impact your plan. And your life.

• Keep a meaningful portion of your money in investments that tend to grow faster than your cost of living — usually that means diversified, global stocks, held for the long term.

• Revisit your plan regularly. The stamp went up again. So did everything else. Your plan needs to adjust as things change.

Bottom line

A stamp is a small thing.

But it’s one of the clearest reminders that the cost of living doesn’t stand still — and your plan shouldn’t either.

Inflation is the receipt that keeps arriving, whether you realize it or not.

Thank you for reading!

Have a question? Reply to this email — I read every one and I’ll respond personally.

Until next Wednesday,

Russ

Retirement Planning for Women

P.S. ~ What’s one money question that’s been on your mind lately? Reply and let me know.

Disclosures

You did the hard part.

You hired an attorney. You signed the documents. You have a will, maybe a trust.

You feel organized and prepared.

And you probably are — mostly.

But here’s what a lot of people don’t realize: having an estate plan isn’t the same as having a complete one.

Life keeps moving after you sign those documents.

And the gaps that open up over time can create exactly the kind of chaos you were trying to prevent.

Think about the scenarios you’ve probably heard of.

• A child who struggles with money receives an inheritance all at once — outright, with no protection — and it’s gone within a year.

• A son or daughter’s marriage falls apart, and suddenly assets you intended for your grandchildren are at risk in a divorce settlement.

• A car accident that exceeds your liability coverage wipes out a portion of the estate.

• An ex-spouse who’s still listed as a beneficiary — because no one updated the paperwork — inherits assets you never intended them to have.

These aren’t rare.

They happen to families who thought they had everything in order.

The problem isn’t that people don’t plan. The problem is that plans go stale.

Think of your estate plan like a smoke detector.

Having one installed gives you a sense of security — and it really is better than nothing.

But if the battery is dead, or it’s the wrong type for the fire that starts, it won’t do what you need it to do when you need it most.

Your estate plan works the same way.

It needs to keep up with your life.

Children and grandchildren are born.

Marriages happen — and sometimes end.

People move, start businesses, inherit assets, change their minds about who they trust.

Each of those changes can affect whether your plan does what you intended.

Even well-drafted documents from just a few years ago may not reflect your current wishes — or the current reality of your family and relationships.

Your estate plan isn’t a “set it and forget it” document.

Neither is your financial plan.

And ideally, the two are working together.

What to do next:

• Review your documents. Read your will, trust, powers of attorney, and healthcare directives. Confirm they still say (and do) what you want.

• Ask about potential gaps. Talk to your estate planning attorney — or a financial advisor familiar with estate planning — about vulnerabilities you may not have considered. Spendthrift provisions for heirs who struggle with money. Divorce protection for assets you leave to children. Creditor exposure. Whether your trust has actually been funded (a trust that hasn’t been funded is essentially worthless).

• Make sure your financial plan and estate plan are coordinated. Beneficiary designations, account titling, insurance coverage, and trust funding all need to be aligned. A mismatch in any one of these can override even the most carefully written will or trust.

• Set a review reminder. Every 3 years at minimum — sooner if something significant changes in your life or your family’s.

• Ask “what if.” What if my child gets divorced? What if I become incapacitated? What if a beneficiary dies before I do? The answers will tell you a lot about where your plan may need work.

If you don’t have an estate plan yet, let this be the nudge: get one.

It doesn’t need to be complicated, but it needs to be there.

If you have one, take it off the shelf.

Not just to confirm where your money and property goes — but to think honestly about the scenarios that could derail it.

And if you’d like help thinking through how prepared your estate plan really is, or whether your financial plan and estate plan are working together the way they should, I’m happy to talk.

That’s exactly the kind of conversation worth having before life makes the decision for you.

Links and things

Here are a couple of free webinars from my health insurance planning partner this month:

• Turning 65: What To Know About Medicare on May 12th

  • By the end of the webinar, you’ll have an understanding of:

    - Initial Medicare Enrollment timelines

    - The difference between Original Medicare and Medicare Advantage

    - How Medicare drug plans work

    - How personal preference, risk tolerance, and other factors impact available plans and the cost of coverage

  • Register here

• Early Retirement: Healthcare Coverage 101 for Pre-65 Retirees on May 21st

  • By the end of this webinar, you will:

    - Understand the basics of ACA health plans and other health insurance options available to pre-65 retirees.

    - Know important action items, such as specific enrollment timeframes.

    - Understand how personal preference, risk tolerance, and other factors impact available plans and the cost of coverage.

    - Learn the advantages and disadvantages of Health Savings Accounts.

    - Learn how working with Move Health makes it easy for you and your financial advisor to determine your optimal healthcare coverage.

  • Register here

Another approach to retirement planning:

Thank you for reading!

If you have a question or would like my advice, simply reply to this email with your questions and I’ll be happy to respond with my thoughts…

Until next Wednesday,

Russ

Retirement Planning for Women

Disclosures

A few weeks ago, a client emailed me.

She was worried.

Iran was in the news.

So was the federal debt, rising interest rates, and uncertainty about what’s coming next.

She wanted to know if her portfolio — and her retirement — was okay.

She wasn’t alone. I’ve had a handful of similar conversations lately.

And I completely understand why.

The world feels unsettled right now. And when you’ve spent decades building toward retirement, watching your account balance drop — even a little — can feel alarming.

Here’s the thing: what’s happening right now is almost certainly normal.

Let me show you what I mean.

So far in 2026 (through late March), the S&P 500 has dropped more than 1% in a single day 10 times out of 59 trading days. That’s about 17% of the time.

Over the past 10 years, that number was closer to 11%. So yes — a bit more volatility lately.

But here’s the longer view: since the S&P 500 launched in 1957, days like these have happened about 16.5% of the time on average.

What we’re experiencing right now is essentially the long-run historical average.

Not exceptional.

Not a crisis.

Just markets doing what markets do.

There’s something else worth knowing.

No one I work with holds 100% of their money in the S&P 500.

A well-diversified portfolio spreads risk across different types of investments — and that diversification dampens the swings.

The volatility you see in the headlines isn’t the volatility in your account.

Related: Research also shows that investors who check their portfolios daily are unhappy nearly half the time.

Those who check annually? Happy about 80% of the time.

Here’s a useful way to think about all of this.

Before a hike, you check the weather forecast.

If there’s a chance of rain, you pack a jacket. And then you go.

You don’t cancel the whole trip because the sky looks gray.

You’ve prepared. You trust the plan. You walk out the door and enjoy the day.

That’s what a good retirement plan does.

It’s designed for uncertainty.

What to do next

I have one recommendation.

Close the app. Put down your phone. Turn off the news and get off social media.

Then go outside.

Take a walk.

Cook dinner with your spouse.

Call a friend.

Do something that reminds you why you’ve been saving all these years.

Your money exists to support your life — not to create a constant source of anxiety and distraction.

Bottom line:

Markets are doing roughly what they’ve always done. Your portfolio is diversified. Your plan was built for moments like this.

If you’re feeling unsettled, or you’d just like to talk through where things stand, I’m here.

Reply to this email or get in touch — I’d be glad to help.

Links and things

I encourage you to read both of these:

• Why time speeds up as you age (and what to do about it) by George Mack

• Why You’re Wasting Your Time Worrying About Running Out of Money by Dan Haylett

Thank you for reading!

If you have a question or would like my advice, simply reply to this email with your questions and I’ll be happy to respond with my thoughts…

Until next Wednesday,

Russ

Retirement Planning for Women

Disclosures

You spent time and money on your will. Maybe a trust.

An attorney explained everything carefully, and you left feeling like it was handled.

But there’s a part of your estate plan that your will doesn’t control — and most people never think about it again after the day they set it up.

Beneficiary designations.

These are the forms you filled out when you opened your IRA or signed up for life insurance. You can designate beneficiaries on bank and brokerage accounts too.

They’re quiet. They sit in a file somewhere.

Yet they override everything else.

It doesn’t matter what your will says. The name on that form is who gets the money.

I learned this firsthand through a family experience I wrote about a few years ago.

My father-in-law John had a life insurance policy with his ex-wife listed as the primary beneficiary.

He wanted her to receive those proceeds — but he never confirmed that wish with the insurance company after their divorce.

In Florida, a 2012 law automatically voids an ex-spouse as a beneficiary after divorce.

So even though John’s intentions were clear to his entire family, the insurance company didn’t know.

What followed was a detour through probate court that nobody wanted.

You can read that full story here.

The lesson wasn’t that John did something wrong.

It’s that beneficiary designations require active attention.

Life changes. Laws change.

Beneficiary designations don’t update themselves.

The most common mistake I see

You named your spouse as beneficiary on your 401(k) in 2003. You’ve since divorced and remarried.

But the form still says what it said 20+ years ago.

This is almost never malicious.

It’s just out of sight and out of mind.

Nobody sends you a reminder. Nobody flags it at tax time.

It quietly sits there until the worst possible moment — and then it becomes someone else’s problem to untangle.

Four places to check right now

Beneficiary designations live across your entire financial life, not just in one place. Here’s where to look:

• Retirement accounts — IRAs, 401(k)s, Roth IRAs. These are the highest-stakes designations because of the tax implications and the rules around inherited accounts. Who you name here matters enormously.

• Life insurance policies — Both employer-provided and individually owned. If you’ve had the same policy for a long time, there’s a good chance the beneficiary hasn’t been reviewed since you bought it.

• Non-retirement accounts — Brokerage accounts, bank accounts, and savings accounts can have transfer-on-death or payable-on-death designations — worth checking whether you set them up.

• Real estate — Your home often passes through mechanisms that sit outside your will — joint ownership, a trust, or a transfer-on-death deed in states that allow them. Worth confirming the setup still reflects your wishes.

One concept worth understanding: per stirpes vs. per capita

When you name multiple beneficiaries, you’ll sometimes be asked to choose how assets are distributed if one of them dies before you do.

Per capita means the surviving beneficiaries split the share equally among themselves. Per stirpes means the deceased beneficiary’s share passes to their children instead.

I’ve written a full explanation with examples here — it’s worth five minutes of your time, especially if you have children or grandchildren you want to include.

What to do next

1. Review your beneficiary designations now. Pull up each account type listed above and confirm who is named — primary and contingent.

2. Compare them to your current wishes. Does the name on the form still match what you’d want today? Does it align with your will or trust?

3. Set a reminder to review again. I recommend every three years as a baseline, or sooner if something significant changes — a marriage, divorce, death, new grandchild, or updated estate plan.

4. Ask your advisor to do a sweep with you. This is exactly the kind of thing that’s easy to overlook on your own and easy to catch with a second set of eyes.

The good news: this is easy to update.

Most custodians let you update a beneficiary designation with a simple form. Or you can log in and do it online.

It doesn’t require an attorney. It doesn’t take long. It just requires knowing to do it.

The form you filled out years ago doesn’t have to be the final word. But you have to be the one to update it.

If you have questions about your beneficiary designations, or if you’d like to talk through what a review might look like for your situation, just reply to this email.

I’m happy to help.

Links & things

Wanted to share recent articles from a couple of my favorite UK-based advisors this week…

First, check this out from Dan Haylett. It’s a MUST READ if you ask me…

• Your 12 Good Years

And here’s another from Nick Lincoln:

• Of Strimmers And Strife

I’m curious to hear what you think about these 2 articles, so hit reply or leave a comment and let me know.

Thank you for reading!

If you have a question or would like my advice, simply reply to this email with your questions and I’ll be happy to respond with my thoughts…

Until next Wednesday,

Russ

Retirement Planning for Women

Disclosures

A few people have asked me recently about SpaceX.

Elon Musk’s rocket company is preparing to offer its shares to the public via an IPO, and the excitement is real.

People want in.

They want to catch the next big thing before it takes off.

I understand the impulse. I really do.

But here’s what I’ve learned after more than 30 years in this business: the desire to find the right stock at the right time — to find the needle in the haystack — is one of the most costly instincts in investing.

And the research backs this up in a striking way.

A finance professor named Hendrik Bessembinder has spent years studying the long-term performance of individual U.S. stocks.

He published a well-known paper in 2018, and just this month he released an updated study covering a full century of data — from 1926 through 2025.

What he found is worth sitting with for a moment.

The U.S. stock market created $91 trillion in wealth over that 100-year period.

That’s a remarkable number.

And yet just 46 companies account for half of it.

Apple and Nvidia alone were responsible for more than 10% of all that wealth creation.

But here’s the other side of that coin.

The median stock — the one right in the middle of all stocks ever traded — actually lost ground compared to simple Treasury bills.

More than half of all companies that have ever traded on U.S. markets destroyed wealth rather than created it.

The average return across all stocks over this century? 30,621%.

The median return? Negative.

That gap — between the average and the median — is the whole story.

Simple statistics refresher: Here’s a quick way to think about the difference between an average and a median: if you line up all the stocks by their lifetime returns from worst to best, the median is simply the one in the middle. The average, on the other hand, gets pulled way up by a small number of extraordinary performers at the top of that line.

And that distinction matters a lot here.

A very small number of companies did something extraordinary.

Most did not.

And nobody, not even the sharpest investors in the world, reliably knows in advance which companies will be which.

So what does this mean practically?

It means the goal isn’t to find the needle.

It’s to own the entire haystack.

When you hold a broadly diversified, low-cost portfolio — one that reflects the entire market — you don’t have to pick the winners.

You own them all.

If SpaceX goes public and becomes the next Apple or Nvidia, you’ll already have exposure.

You don’t need to chase the IPO.

You don’t need to get in on the ground floor.

Patient, diversified ownership puts you in the game for whatever comes next.

This isn’t a passive or defeatist strategy.

It’s a deliberate one, grounded in a century of evidence.

A few things worth thinking about:

• Does your current portfolio reflect a broadly diversified approach, or is it concentrated in a handful of companies or sectors?

• Are you — or someone advising you — making active bets on individual stocks? If so, what’s the evidence that approach will work over time?

• When you feel the temptation to chase a hot stock or a buzzy IPO, ask yourself: what exactly am I betting on?

• Low cost matters as much as broad diversification. High fees quietly erode the very returns you’re trying to capture.

• You don’t need a perfect portfolio. You need a sound one — and the patience to let it work over time.

The temptation to chase the next big thing never fully goes away.

SpaceX today, something else tomorrow.

What keeps you grounded is a clear investment philosophy, one built on evidence rather than excitement.

Take a few minutes to revisit yours.

Ask yourself whether the approach you’re following — or the one being followed on your behalf — is one you’d still choose if you removed all the noise.

If you have questions or want to talk through your situation, I’m always glad to hear from you.

Just reach out through my website or reply to this email.

Links and things

A few weeks back, I wrote about “planning” with inspiration from a Jason Fried podcast.

To kick off that piece, I mentioned my friend and colleague Brian, and I’d like to once again ask you to read another of Brian’s articles that was inspired by that same podcast episode:

• Your only competition

I was planning to write about this very concept, but Brian beat me to it and did a wonderful job framing the idea for your consideration.

Thank you for reading!

If you have a question or would like my advice, simply reply to this email with your questions and I’ll be happy to respond with my thoughts…

Until next Wednesday,

Russ

Retirement Planning for Women

Disclosures

If you’re new — or if you’ve been here a while and want a map — this is where to begin.

I’ve been writing this newsletter since 2008. There are almost 500 articles in the archive. That’s a lot of ground to cover, and I don’t expect you to read all of it.

So here’s a shortcut: the articles I’d point you to first, organized by the topics that matter most to women in or near retirement.

Social Security

This is one of the biggest decisions you’ll make — and one of the most misunderstood.

• When should I take Social Security? — Why claiming age depends on your full picture, not a break-even calculator.

• Social Security planning for women — A foundational overview of how the system works, including spousal and survivor benefits.

• What widows need to know about Social Security — Survivor benefits, timing, and the mistakes I see most often.

• Can you collect spousal benefits if you remarry? — The rules around ex-spouse benefits are more flexible than most people realize.

If you want to go deeper on Social Security, I’ve written a full guide on my website: Social Security planning for women.

Tax planning

Retirement planning is tax planning. The two are inseparable.

• Retirement planning is tax planning — How Social Security taxation, IRMAA, and RMDs make taxes the center of your plan.

• Out of order — How tax-deferred, taxable, and tax-free accounts work together.

• The 2025 sunset — Tax law changes and what they mean for your planning decisions.

• How to turn healthcare expenses into tax savings — HSA strategies and medical expense deductions.

Healthcare and Medicare

One of the largest — and most unpredictable — expenses in retirement.

• A guide to help you sign up for Medicare — Step-by-step walkthrough of Parts A, B, C, and D.

• Health insurance between retirement and Medicare — What to do if you retire before 65.

• No more donut hole: how Medicare Part D works — Prescription drug coverage explained in plain English.

For a broader look at how I help clients with healthcare planning, see Health insurance planning in retirement on my website.

Retirement income and spending

The shift from saving to spending is harder than most people expect.

• Creating a paycheck in retirement — How to build a reliable income stream when there’s no longer a paycheck.

• A retirement income planning case study — A real-world example of how income sources, tax brackets, and withdrawals work together.

• How much can I spend if I retire early? — Sustainable spending when retiring before 65.

• When an annuity makes sense — The narrow circumstances where annuities can be useful — and the far more common cases where they aren’t.

Women and retirement

Women face a different set of challenges. These articles address them directly.

• 5 things every woman needs in a financial advisor — What to look for in an advisor relationship.

• Beyond the portfolio — Why investment management alone isn’t financial planning.

• Financial planning for single women — Longevity, long-term care, beneficiary planning, and building a support team.

• Retirement planning for women over 50 — Age-specific guidance from your 50s through your 70s and beyond.

My website has a comprehensive guide that ties all of this together: Retirement planning for women.

Widows and divorce

Two of the most difficult financial transitions a woman can face.

• Financial planning tips for widows — What to do immediately, what can wait, and how to avoid costly mistakes.

• How women can protect their retirement after divorce — Asset division, retirement account splits, and rebuilding your plan.

• Money mistakes during divorce — Common financial errors and how to avoid them.

• Advice for the suddenly single — Practical guidance for navigating finances alone for the first time.

Estate planning

It’s not just about what happens after you’re gone. It’s about protecting your plan now.

• 3 biggest estate planning myths — Common misconceptions about wills, trusts, and beneficiaries.

• Per stirpes vs. per capita beneficiaries — A small choice on a form that can make a big difference.

Investing

I keep this simple. On purpose.

• Sit still and build wealth — Why patience is usually the best investment strategy.

• Alternative investments: read this before investing — Why “exclusive” investments are usually just expensive.

• My advice, distilled — 30+ years of financial planning principles, stripped to their essentials.

Philosophy and perspective

These are the pieces that get the most replies. They’re less about money and more about what money is for.

• What I believe — My core beliefs about money, planning, and what matters most.

• The good enough financial plan — Why a plan that’s 80% right and actually followed beats a perfect plan in a drawer.

• FOMU: fear of messing up — How fear of the wrong decision leads to no decision — which is usually the worst one.

• Am I going to be OK? — The question behind every retirement conversation.

About me and my practice

I’m Russ Thornton — a fee-only, fiduciary financial advisor with more than 30 years of experience. I work exclusively with women in or near retirement, typically with $2 million or more in investment assets.

My practice is small by design. I current work with 65 clients, and I like it that way. It means I know you, I reach out regularly, and I’m available when something comes up.

If you’d like to learn more:

• About me

• How we work together

• Who I work with

• Client reviews

And if you’re curious whether we’d be a good fit, the first conversation is free and there’s no obligation: Let’s see if we’re a fit.

I publish every Wednesday. Thanks for reading.

Disclosures

I was on a webinar last week when the presenter said something I haven’t stopped thinking about.

He was talking about pilots.

Specifically, the difference between a pilot who goes silent from takeoff to landing… and one who talks to you.

The communicative pilot welcomes you aboard.

Tells you the route.

Gives you a heads-up when turbulence is ahead.

Explains why the seat belt sign just came on.

You might not love flying, but you feel taken care of. You feel informed. You feel calm.

The silent pilot leaves you to imagine everything.

I’ve thought about this kind of thing for over 30 years as a financial advisor.

And I think it’s the clearest explanation I’ve seen of what good communication actually looks like — and what it isn’t.

Here’s the idea: communication isn’t about volume. It’s about intention.

The goal is to make sure you’re never left guessing.

I send a weekly email to about 900 readers — clients and others — because I’d rather you hear how I’m thinking about things directly from me than piece it together from headlines.

I’ve been writing on Substack for a while now, and there are 450-plus posts in the archive.

Not because I had 450 things to sell you.

Because I think staying in regular contact with the people I serve matters.

Beyond the newsletter, I’m in touch with every client directly — by email, phone, text, or Zoom.

At a minimum, I reach out to every client twice a year to invite a meeting to discuss things.

I’ve been doing this long enough to know that consistent contact is one of the most underrated parts of this work.

But here’s where it gets a little complicated.

When markets get choppy — when there’s a scary headline or a geopolitical event that everyone seems to be talking about — I often don’t send a special “here’s what’s happening” email.

That might seem strange.

Shouldn’t a communicative advisor be on the phone when things get volatile?

My honest answer: not always.

Here’s how I think about it.

If you’re living your life — having dinner with your family, going for a walk, doing whatever you do on a Tuesday — and you haven’t even seen that news story, why would I want to be the one to put it on your radar?

Many news cycles last 24-48 hours. What feels alarming on Monday is often forgotten by Thursday.

My hope is that through consistent, ongoing communication I can help you build enough confidence in your long-term plan that a short-term scare doesn’t send you into a tailspin.

If I’m doing my job right, you already know how I think about these things.

You don’t need a special bulletin every time the market sneezes.

That said, I don’t want to be the ostrich with my head in the sand either.

If something is truly significant — if there’s a real change in your situation, or something in the broader environment that genuinely warrants a conversation — I’ll reach out.

Back to the pilot.

A good pilot doesn’t come on the intercom every five minutes to say, “Still flying. Still fine.”

That would drive you crazy.

But they do tell you the plan upfront.

They give you context.

And when something matters, they let you know.

That’s what I’m trying to do.

What to do next:

• If you’re a client and have a question, a concern, or just something you want to think through, reply to any of my weekly emails or call, email, or text me anytime. I’m always happy to hear from you.

• If you work with a different advisor, take a moment to think about how they communicate with you. How often do they reach out? What do they focus on — what’s in your control, or what isn’t? Do you feel informed, or are you mostly left to sort things out on your own?

• Think about how you consume financial news in general. Is it helping you make better decisions? Or is it mostly adding noise?

Bottom line: the best advisors — like the best pilots — don’t leave you to imagine the worst.

They tell you the plan, stay in touch, and use good judgment about when to speak up and when to let the flight speak for itself.

If you ever wonder where I stand, just ask.

Links and things

A big part of good communication is planning ahead and being prepared for things on the horizon. Or at least the ones we can see coming.

With this in mind, check out this tool I recently built with the help of Claude Code (an AI tool):

• Your Retirement Milestone Timeline

Thank you for reading!

If you have a question or would like my advice, simply reply to this email with your questions and I’ll be happy to respond with my thoughts…

Until next Wednesday,

Russ

Retirement Planning for Women

Disclosures

Losing a spouse changes everything.

The grief is real.

The paperwork doesn’t stop.

And somewhere in the middle of it all, someone is going to mention Social Security survivor benefits.

Here’s what I want you to know: you don’t have to figure this out in the first week.

And when you do get to it, it’s more manageable than it sounds.

I’ve worked with many women who’ve gone through this process.

Almost all of them came to me expecting it to be overwhelming. Almost none of them found it to be, once they understood the basics.

This article is meant to help you get there.

What survivor benefits are

When your husband passes away, you don’t automatically lose access to his Social Security income.

As his surviving spouse, you’re entitled to a survivor benefit — up to 100% of what he was receiving — depending on your age when you claim.

This is separate from your own Social Security retirement benefit.

You have two potential benefits available to you. You’ll receive the higher of the two, but not both at the same time.

Here’s a simple example:

• Your husband was receiving $2,500 per month

• You were receiving $1,200 per month

• Together, your household was bringing in $3,700 per month

After his passing, you’re eligible to receive his $2,500 as a survivor benefit — which is higher than your own $1,200.

Yes, household income drops.

One Social Security benefit is gone.

But your monthly benefit may be higher than what you were personally receiving before. That distinction surprises many people, and it’s an important one.

When you can claim — and what age means

You can begin claiming survivor benefits as early as age 60.

Claiming early comes with a reduction — as low as 71.5% of the full benefit at age 60.

If you wait until your Full Retirement Age (FRA) — typically 66 or 67 depending on when you were born — you’re entitled to the full 100%.

Unlike your own retirement benefit, survivor benefits don’t grow past your FRA. There’s no advantage to waiting beyond that point.

So the window is: age 60 (reduced) to FRA (full). After FRA, there’s no reason to delay.

The strategic opportunity most people don’t know about

Here’s where good guidance really pays off.

You don’t have to claim both benefits at the same time. You can claim one while letting the other grow.

For example:

• Claim the survivor benefit at 60 (reduced, but something coming in)

• Let your own retirement benefit grow until 70, when it reaches its maximum

• Then switch to your own benefit at 70 if it’s now larger

Or do the reverse — claim your own benefit first, then switch to the survivor benefit at FRA if it’s higher.

The right path depends on your specific numbers, your age, your health, and your other income sources.

This is worth a planning conversation before you decide — the difference over a lifetime can be meaningful.

A few important rules to know

The earnings test. If you’re under your FRA and still working, your survivor benefit may be temporarily reduced if if your earnings exceed the annual limit (which adjusts each year — check ssa.gov for the current threshold). Once you reach FRA, this rule no longer applies.

Remarriage. If you remarry before age 60, you generally lose eligibility for survivor benefits on your late husband’s record. If you remarry at 60 or older, you keep them. This is worth understanding clearly before making any decisions.

Divorced spouses. If you were married for at least 10 years and haven’t remarried before age 60, you may be eligible for survivor benefits on your ex-husband’s record after his passing — even if he had remarried.

How to apply. Survivor benefits cannot be applied for online. You’ll need to call Social Security (1-800-772-1213) or visit a local office. Call sooner rather than later — benefits generally aren’t paid retroactively beyond a month or two.

A few things that might catch you off guard

The month-of-death payment must be returned. Social Security pays a month behind — so the payment that arrives in April covers March. If your husband passes in March, that April payment must be returned to Social Security, even if it’s already deposited.

Some banks return it automatically. Others don’t.

Either way, expect it — and plan for the short-term cash flow gap it creates.

If he claimed early, your benefit may be lower than you expect. If your husband took Social Security before his Full Retirement Age at a reduced rate, your survivor benefit may be capped as a result.

You won’t necessarily receive his full benefit — your survivor benefit will be the higher of what he was actually receiving or 82.5% of what his full benefit would have been — which may still be less than you’d assumed.

If this might apply to your situation, it’s worth running the numbers with your advisor before you make any assumptions.

Don’t wait past FRA thinking it will keep growing. Your own retirement benefit grows until age 70 if you delay. Survivor benefits don’t work the same way — they stop growing at your FRA.

Waiting beyond that point leaves money on the table.

A barrier that no longer exists. Until recently, certain women who received government pensions — some teachers, public employees, and others — had their survivor benefits reduced or eliminated entirely under a rule called the Government Pension Offset (GPO).

That rule was eliminated by the Social Security Fairness Act, signed into law in January 2025.

If you were previously told you wouldn’t qualify for survivor benefits because of a government pension, that information is now outdated. It’s worth revisiting.

What to do — and when

• Give yourself permission to grieve first. You don’t have to call Social Security the week your husband passes. These decisions are important, but not so time-sensitive that they can’t wait a few weeks while you find your footing.

• When you’re ready, start with a phone call. Social Security’s number is 1-800-772-1213. The process is more straightforward than most people expect. It takes patience, but it’s straightforward.

• Get advice before making timing decisions. When to claim — and whether to take survivor benefits first or your own benefit — can have real financial implications over your lifetime. Talk to your advisor before you decide.

• Know that resources exist. The Social Security Administration (ssa.gov) has clear information on survivor benefits. Your advisor can help you model the options. You don’t have to figure this out alone.

One more thing worth mentioning

Losing a spouse also changes your tax situation — including how your Social Security income is taxed and what filing status you’ll use going forward.

That’s a separate but important conversation, and one I’ll come back to in a future piece.

Bottom line: survivor benefits exist to help you.

The process of claiming them is more manageable than it sounds, and the financial picture — while different — may be better than you expect.

You’ve been through something incredibly hard.

The paperwork can wait a little.

And when you’re ready, you won’t have to navigate it alone.

If you’d like help thinking through your specific situation, I’m happy to talk.

Just reply or reach out…

Links and things

For more on this topic, check out this flowchart:

• Social Security Benefit Rules For Surviving Spouses

Also, check out the Social Security page on my website.

Thank you for reading!

If you have a question or would like my advice, simply reply to this email with your questions and I’ll be happy to respond with my thoughts…

Until next Wednesday,

Russ

Retirement Planning for Women

Disclosures

When you board a cruise ship, one of the first things you do is attend a lifeboat drill.

Nobody thinks the ship is going to sink.

The drill isn’t about pessimism.

It’s about something much simpler: you practice the steps when you’re calm, so you don’t have to figure them out when you’re not.

Your finances need the same kind of drill. Along with the rest of your life.

One spouse usually runs the show

In most couples, one person handles the family finances.

Pays the bills. Tracks the investments. Knows where the accounts are. Keeps the passwords.

That’s fine. Division of labor makes sense.

But here’s the risk: if that person is suddenly gone — or can no longer manage things — the other person is left standing on a deck they’ve never navigated, in the middle of a storm, trying to read a map they’ve never seen.

I’ve worked with women who, after losing their husbands, were able to move forward with clarity — not because they weren’t grieving, but because they’d done the drill.

They knew who to call.

They knew where the accounts were.

They knew what income was coming in and what needed to be addressed first.

They were still devastated, of course.

But they weren’t also lost.

There’s a real difference between knowing and doing.

Even if you think you know where things are, actually executing those steps in the fog of grief is another thing entirely.

That’s exactly why the drill matters — you work through it when your mind is clear, so you have something solid to reach for when it isn’t.

If you’ve ever said “I don’t want to be a burden on my family” here’s something worth sitting with: the absence of a plan is a burden.

It just lands on the people you love at the worst possible moment.

What the first 30 days actually look like

In the first couple of weeks, a surviving spouse might need to:

• obtain 10 to 15 certified death certificates (each financial institution, insurance company, government agency, and property transfer requires its own copy),

• notify the Social Security Administration,

• contact life insurance companies to begin claims, and

• notify banks to restore access to accounts — which can be temporarily frozen for up to 10 business days pending documentation.

From there, the first 30 days involve updating investment accounts, initiating transfers of accounts with named beneficiaries, locating the Will and filing it with probate court if needed, contacting pension administrators, and beginning to sort through the full inventory of assets and any obligations.

A simple estate — few accounts, named beneficiaries in place, no real estate complications — can be settled in 3 to 9 months.

A more typical estate takes 6 to 12 months.

A complex one can take years.

This isn’t meant to overwhelm you.

It’s meant to make the case that going through this mentally now, while your thinking is clear and life is calm, is time well spent.

For more on navigating the first year after a loss, see my earlier pieces:

• Financial advice for your first year as a widow

• Financial Planning Tips for Widows

This isn’t just for couples

If you’re single, this matters just as much. Maybe more.

Your adult children, your siblings, your closest friends — do they know what to do if something happens to you?

Where your will is?

Who your financial advisor is?

And if both you and your spouse were to pass away, do your children or heirs know who to contact?

Whether one of them is named as your executor or trustee?

Where your passwords are?

The list of things people assume someone else knows is long. Many times, nobody actually knows.

The part that’s harder to talk about

The financial side of the drill is important. But it’s only part of the picture.

Two conversations — ones most families never get around to having — matter just as much.

If you ever need care

Long-term care planning is usually framed as a financial question: how do you pay for it?

But there’s a more personal question underneath that one.

What kind of care would you want? And where?

It’s worth thinking through — and writing down — before you ever need it:

• Would you want to stay in your home with in-home support, or would you prefer a dedicated care setting?

• If you needed memory care, what would matter most to you about that environment?

• Would you want to be near family, even if that meant relocating?

• Who would you want making decisions on your behalf if you couldn’t make them yourself?

These don’t need to be final answers.

But having the conversation now — when you can participate in it — is a gift to the people who love you.

It spares them from guessing.

And it means the care you receive actually reflects who you are.

Final wishes

When we lose someone, the grief is hard enough.

Making dozens of decisions in the middle of it — about arrangements, services, and how to honor a life — adds a different kind of weight.

If you haven’t talked through your final wishes with the people closest to you, please consider:

• Burial or cremation?

• A traditional memorial service, or a celebration of life?

• What music would you want?

• Who would you want to speak on your behalf?

• What would you want your obituary to say — what you’d want remembered, what you’d want included?

This isn’t morbid.

It’s a kindness. A gift.

When someone has shared their wishes clearly, the people who loved them can focus on honoring them — instead of worrying about whether they got it right.

Your lifeboat drill: where to start

Set aside an uninterrupted hour. Think through the following. Then write it down.

On the financial side:

• What are your accounts, and where are they held? Include bank accounts, investment accounts, retirement accounts, and insurance policies.

• Who are the key people in your financial life — your advisor, your CPA, your estate planning attorney, your insurance agent? Does your spouse or a trusted family member have their contact information?

• Where are your important documents — your Will, your trust if you have one, your insurance policies, your account statements? Are they easy to find?

• Where are your passwords and usernames for online accounts? How would someone you trust access them if needed?

• Who would need to do what, and in what order, if you became seriously ill or passed away?

On the personal side:

• Have you documented your care preferences — the type of care you’d want, where you’d want to receive it, and who should make decisions if you can’t?

• Have you shared your final wishes with the people closest to you? Do they know what you’d want for a service, music, speakers, and how you’d want to be remembered?

Once you’ve worked through it, put it into a format (document, recording, etc.) that can be shared.

And stored safely.

Then actually share it — with your spouse, your adult children, your advisor, or whoever would need it most.

This isn’t a one-time exercise.

Life changes.

Revisit it every year or two.

Two related pieces worth reading alongside this one:

• Why the beneficiary designation is so important for your estate plan

• Trusted contact

The drill is an act of love

Nobody boards a cruise ship hoping to use a lifeboat.

But the passengers who’ve done the drill are the ones who know what to do if they ever need to.

Your lifeboat drill works the same way.

It’s not about expecting the worst. It’s about loving the people in your life enough to make things a little easier for them — at the moment when everything else is already so hard.

The financial clarity matters.

And so does knowing that the care you’d want, the farewell you’d want, and the life you’d want remembered — all of that has been thought through, talked through, and recorded.

When you’ve done this work, you can stop carrying the quiet anxiety of “what would happen if...”

And your family can focus on grief, not logistics.

That’s the gift.

If you’d like help thinking through your own version of this, I’m happy to do that with you.

Simply reply to this email or get in touch…

And consider passing this along to your family and friends.

Links & things

If you’d like a tool to help document and organize your lifeboat drill information, you might check out:

• The Nokbox

• Everplans

• MyLifeLedger

And for storing and protecting passwords and other sensitive data, I always recommend a secure password manager like:

• 1Password (this is what I use)

• Bitwarden

Thank you for reading!

If you have a question or would like my advice, simply reply to this email with your questions and I’ll be happy to respond with my thoughts…

Until next Wednesday,

Russ

Retirement Planning for Women

Disclosures

My friend and Chicago-area colleague Brian Plain sent his most recent email newsletter with a link to a podcast I’d been meaning to listen to.

It’s a lengthy conversation with Jason Fried, cofounder of 37signals, on the Founders podcast with David Senra.

I replied to Brian and told him I had the same episode already saved to listen to later.

He wrote back that he thought I’d enjoy it, and mentioned — with a hint of pride — that he’d listened at 1x speed instead of 1.5x or 2x like most of us do these days. That’s high praise!

And he was absolutely right.

It was worth slowing down for.

I’d encourage you to check it out.

Jason talks about life and business, but the ideas he shares — about simplicity, about “enough,” about living in the present rather than mapping out every step — got me thinking about something much closer to home.

Planning.

Why we plan

If you’ve followed my writing for any length of time, you know I believe in planning.

It’s a core part of what I do. Who I am.

And what I work on with my clients every day.

Planning encompasses your income, your taxes, investments, your estate, your goals, and more. All while doing what we can to make sure the future you’re building toward is actually within reach.

But here’s something I’ve been thinking on lately.

A client mentioned to me just last week that a longtime work colleague had passed away.

He was 50 years old.

He’d had a serious health scare, made what looked like a strong recovery, and then, unexpectedly, he was gone.

He left behind a wife and children.

By all accounts, they were well prepared financially. The foundation they’d built would take care of them.

But think about everything else.

The plans they had together.

The trips, the milestones, the ordinary Tuesdays and the big vacations they’d talked about.

The future they’d been building toward — into their 50s, 60s, 70s, and beyond.

They never got there.

And it made an impact on my client who was his friend and coworker.

The cost of only looking ahead

I don’t share that story to be dark.

I share it because it’s real, and because most of us can think of someone like him.

We’ve all heard about people who worked hard, saved diligently, and deferred everything, including Social Security to maximize their benefit at age 70, only to face a health crisis at 66 or 68 or 69 that changed everything.

The benefit they spent years waiting for never fully arrived.

The retirement they’d imagined never looked the way they’d pictured it.

This isn’t an argument against planning.

Please don’t hear it that way.

It’s a reminder that the present is more certain than the future.

What’s in front of you today is real.

The trip you keep postponing, the people you keep meaning to spend more time with, the thing you’ve been waiting to do “once everything settles down” — those all matter now.

The closer we stay to the present, the more certain the ground beneath us.

The further we project, the more we’re guessing.

A client shared this poem with me in an email (thanks again, John). It’s something that Lou Holtz asked all his players to memorize:

I love the ending:

”…because the future is just a whole string of nows.”

Length, depth, and breadth

When I think about what I want for the people I work with, it’s not just a long retirement.

It’s a full one.

Not just the length of your years, but the depth and breadth of them too.

That means having a real plan — one we revisit regularly and build around and into your actual life.

And it also means giving yourself permission to live now.

To spend on what brings you joy.

To say yes to the trip.

To make the call.

To show up for the people and causes that matter to you.

A plan is simply a tool.

It’s meant to give you confidence so you can live more freely — not something you spend your whole life trying to reach.

Planning for the future is smart.

But please don’t do it at the cost of today.

A few questions worth sitting with

• Is there something you’ve been waiting to do until the “right time”?

• Are there people in your life you’ve been meaning to spend more time with?

• What would you do differently if you knew your finances were truly secure?

That last one might tell you more than any spreadsheet.

Bottom line: planning matters.

But so does today.

If our work together only helps you feel prepared for tomorrow, I haven’t done enough.

I want you to feel free to live now — with confidence, not just caution.

I’m curious how this lands for you.

Hit reply and share your thoughts...

Thank you for reading!

If you’re not a client and would like my advice, simply reply to this email with your questions and I’ll be happy to respond with my thoughts…

Until next Wednesday,

Russ

Retirement Planning for Women

Disclosures

One of my clients lost her husband late last year.

She told me how grateful she was for all the time they shared.

Then she paused and said she just wished they’d had more.

Not more money.

More time.

I’ve experienced many different versions of that moment throughout my career…

With clients who received a difficult diagnosis, lost someone they loved, or watched a friendship quietly disappear.

In almost every case, the thing they were left wanting wasn’t money.

Here’s the reality: you can almost always make more money.

You might need to work longer, adjust your lifestyle, or change your plan. But there’s a way.

But time spent is gone forever.

Think of your life as an hourglass.

Each grain of sand that passes through represents a moment, a day, a week.

Once it falls, it’s gone.

Oliver Burkeman makes this concrete in his book 4,000 Weeks.

The average human life spans about 4,000 weeks.

When you consider your life in weeks rather than years, it feels both smaller and more precious at the same time.

I believe it’s a useful context.

How many weeks do you have left?

It’s worth sitting with. And thinking about.

Here’s the idea: most of us spend decades planning our financial futures and retirement with remarkable care and discipline.

But we spend very little time — and almost no structured thought — on how we actually want to spend our time.

We plan our money meticulously. We plan our time almost not at all.

That’s backward.

Money is a tool.

It’s fuel for a life you’ve chosen.

And the life you choose — the people in it, the moments you create, the meaning you find — that’s all about how you spend your time.

A well-funded portfolio sitting alongside a life that hasn’t been thought about carefully is an opportunity waiting to be wasted.

I’ve written before about money being fuel for living, and about the big rocks in your life that deserve to come first before the smaller stuff crowds them out.

This is the same idea at its core.

Think about your time first. Then build your financial plan around that life — not the other way around.

Three questions worth sitting with

George Kinder, a pioneer in life-centered financial planning, developed three questions to help people strip away the noise and connect with what they actually want.

These aren’t casual questions. Take your time with them.

1. If all of your financial needs were already taken care of (imagine you have $100 million in the bank), how would you spend your time? Who would you be? What would you start doing — and, perhaps more importantly, what would you stop doing?

2. Your doctor tells you that you have five to ten years left to live. You’ll be healthy and capable until the very end, but you won’t know exactly when it will come. How do you spend those years? Where? With whom? What changes?

3. You go back for a second opinion and the news is worse. You have 24 hours left. What do you regret not having done? Not having said? Not having been?

Each question tightens the lens.

They move you from hypothetical to honest.

I’ve written before about Bronnie Ware — the nurse who spent years with people in the final weeks of their lives and recorded their most common regrets.

Not one person regretted not making more money.

They regretted not having lived more fully, loved more openly, and been more present with the people they loved.

Your hourglass is running.

And that’s not a warning — it’s an invitation.

I’m not asking you to abandon financial planning or to spend recklessly.

I’ve written recently about the cost of playing it safe, and the value of being prepared and thoughtful so that you can enjoy your life — today, not just someday.

Today and tomorrow both matter.

The point isn’t to ignore money. It’s to make sure the money serves your unique and precious life, not the other way around.

The best financial plan isn’t the one with the biggest number at the end.

It’s the one that gives you the freedom to spend your time the way you actually want to spend it.

Bottom line: Money matters.

You’ve worked hard for it, and it opens real doors. But it’s worthless without time to spend and enjoy it — and without intention about how to spend it.

Take some time to sit with those three questions.

Think about your relationship with time, not just your relationship with money.

And if you’d like to have that conversation together, I’d welcome it.

That’s what this work is really for.

Reach out anytime.

Links & things

Want some help with spending your time?

Here are a couple of free worksheets to help you think this through:

• Your ideal day worksheet

• The ideal week in retirement worksheet

There are lots more of these types of worksheets to be found online for free if these don’t strike a chord with you.

And whether you’re in the midst of your career or already retired, this is an important and valuable exercise to go through. Give it a try!

A few weeks ago, I wrote about our foster pup, Zilly.

Well she’s no longer our foster as we adopted her and officially welcomed her to our family on Valentine’s Day:

Elizabeth stumbled across this on Instagram and shared it with me:

In case you know any burned-out Gen Z folks (ages 14-29) that need to relax and get away from it all, there’s apparently a “youth retirement home” built just for them in Malaysia.

According to the Instagram post, the facility is already fully booked.

Thank you for reading!

If you’re not a client and would like my advice, simply reply to this email with your questions and I’ll be happy to respond with my thoughts…

Until next Wednesday,

Russ

Retirement Planning for Women

Disclosures

In a recent client feedback survey, someone asked a great question.

They wanted a better explanation of why their portfolio balance changes look so different from what they see in the news.

It’s one of the best questions I’ve gotten in a while. And I’d bet many of you have wondered the same thing.

So let’s take a look.

A tale of different numbers

In 2025, the diversified 60% stock & 40% bond portfolio model my team and I manage for clients returned 14.42%. That’s a gross return, before my fees.

That’s a solid year by almost any measure.

For reference, here are how some of the stock market indices fared in 2025:

• S&P 500: +17.88%

• Dow Jones Industrial Average: +14.92%

• NASDAQ Composite: +20.36%

Naturally, you might wonder, “Why didn’t my portfolio do that?”

Here’s the short answer: your portfolio isn’t trying to be the S&P 500.

It’s built to do something more important.

What “the market” actually means

When most people say “the market,” they’re usually talking about the Dow Jones Industrial Average or the S&P 500.

The Dow? That’s just 30 large U.S. companies. Thirty.

The S&P 500 is broader — 500 large U.S. companies — but it still only represents one slice of the investment world. It doesn’t include smaller U.S. companies. It doesn’t include international companies. It doesn’t include bonds. It doesn’t include cash.

Your portfolio includes all of those things.

So comparing your returns to the S&P 500 is literally comparing apples and oranges.

Let’s break it down…

Layer one: stocks and bonds

Think of your portfolio as having two main sections.

In this example, 60% is invested in stocks. This is the long-term growth engine — the part designed to build wealth over time.

The other 40% is split between bonds and cash. This is the shock absorber — the part that smooths the ride and provides a cushion when stocks inevitably get bumpy.

In 2025, stocks had a strong year.

Bonds and cash did their job too, returning 7.93% and 4.05% respectively.

Bonds and cash likely won’t keep up with stocks in a good year, and they’re not supposed to.

Their job is to be there when you need them most — during the years when stocks struggle.

Layer two: inside the stock portion

Now let’s go one level deeper into that 60% stock allocation.

About 88% of the stock portion — or 53% of the total portfolio — is invested in U.S. stocks through the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund ETF (Symbol: VTI).

As of December 31, 2025, this fund holds 3,512 U.S. companies of all sizes, not just the 30 in the Dow. Or the 500 in the S&P 500.

The remaining 12% of the stock allocation — about 7% of the total portfolio — is invested in international stocks through the Vanguard FTSE All World ex US ETF (Symbol: VEU).

As of December 31, 2025, this fund gives you exposure to 3,872 companies across Europe, Asia, and other developed and emerging markets around the world.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

In 2025, international stocks (VEU) returned 25.54%.

U.S. stocks (VTI) returned 13.59%.

That might surprise you.

Most years over the past decade, U.S. stocks have been the leader.

But not every year.

And that’s exactly the point.

Diversification means owning different things that behave differently at different times.

Some years, one piece of the portfolio carries more weight.

Other years, a different piece steps up.

You don’t know in advance which one it will be.

Layer three: inside the bond and cash portion

The 40% that isn’t in stocks breaks down into two pieces.

Bonds make up 37% of the total portfolio, invested through the iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond ETF (Symbol: IEF) that currently holds 20 different 7-to-10-year U.S. Treasury bonds.

“7-to-10-year” means each of the bonds in the fund matures 7 to 10 years from now.

This fund returned 7.93% in 2025.

Cash makes up the remaining 3%, held in a money market fund.

That returned approximately 4.05%.

Neither of these will make headlines.

But they serve a critical purpose — they’re the steadier part of the portfolio that helps fund your retirement paycheck when stocks have an inevitable rough patch.

For the non-stock portion of this portfolio, bonds are 92.5% and cash is 7.5%.

How it all fits together

When you combine all of these pieces — U.S. stocks, international stocks, bonds, and cash — each contributing at different levels, you got an overall portfolio return of 14.42% in 2025.

Not 17.88% like the S&P 500.

Not the 14.92% that the Dow Jones Industrial Average returned.

14.42% — which reflects a portfolio that was designed with a purpose.

Your purpose.

The benchmark that actually matter

Here’s what I want you to take away from all of this.

The S&P 500 is not your benchmark.

The Dow is not your measuring stick.

Nor is the number you hear on the evening news.

Your benchmark is your life.

• Can you maintain your retirement paycheck?

• Can you continue to live the life you want to live?

• Are you on track with your personal financial plan?

Those are the questions that matter.

And the answer comes from a portfolio that’s built for consistency over decades — not one that chases whatever index did best last year.

Or last month.

As I’ve written before, over 90% of investment returns are determined by how you allocate your investments across broad asset classes — not by picking individual stocks or trying to time the market.

Your asset class mix is what matters.

A broadly diversified portfolio with low costs and low taxes might not match the S&P 500 in a given year.

But it’s a portfolio you can stick with through all types of markets.

And the best portfolio is always the one you can stick with.

No matter what.

A note on what this means for you

While I used the 60/40 portfolio model as an example here, many of my clients have a different mix based on their personal financial plan. Your allocation might be 80/20 or 45/55 or something else.

The specific percentages matter less than the principle: every piece of your portfolio has a job, and understanding what you own and why you own it is one of the most valuable things you can do for your financial confidence.

Think of it like your ongoing financial health.

Just as you wouldn’t judge your overall health by one number from one checkup, you shouldn’t judge your portfolio by one index on one day.

Regular check-ins — looking at the whole picture, not just the headlines — are what keep your portfolio and your life on track.

What to do next

The single best step you can take is to have a conversation with your advisor about your portfolio.

Ask two simple questions:

• What do I own?

• Why do I own it?

If you have an advisor, ask them to walk you through the components of your portfolio and how each piece connects to your financial plan.

If you don’t have an advisor, many online resources — including free tools from Vanguard, Fidelity, Morningstar, and others — can help you better understand what’s in your portfolio and how it’s allocated.

Understanding the “what” and the “why” behind your investments is one of the most empowering things you can do for yourself.

Bottom line

Your portfolio is designed to look different from the headlines.

That’s not a flaw — it’s your plan.

And your plan is built around your life, not the S&P 500.

If you have any specific questions about your current portfolio, please feel welcome to reach out to start a conversation.

This is general education, not personal advice. Returns shown are gross of advisory fees. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Talk with your advisor before acting on anything here.

Links & things

Here’s a worthwhile article for today’s always-connected world:

• The Analog Life: 50 Ways to Unplug and Feel Human Again

And here’s a look at how our spending changes as we get older:

• The Mid Life (Spending) Crisis

Thank you for reading!

If you’re not a client and would like my advice, simply reply to this email with your questions and I’ll be happy to respond with my thoughts…

Until next Wednesday,

Russ

Retirement Planning for Women

Disclosures