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Readers were surprised to learn that an outdated form on a single account can undo years of estate planning.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

When people think about risk, they usually think about losing what they already have.

Markets go down.

Your portfolio drops.

You can see it right there on your statement.

That kind of risk is visible.

It’s real, and it’s worth paying attention to.

But there’s another kind of risk that’s much harder to spot.

It’s the risk of not living the life you could have lived because you played it too safe.

I see it more often than you might think.

It’s the woman sitting on several hundred thousand dollars in cash because the market feels scary, while inflation quietly chips away at her purchasing power year after year.

It’s the woman who could comfortably spend $20,000 a month in retirement but limits herself to $7,000 or $8,000 because she’s afraid of what might happen down the road.

It’s the woman who keeps working another year, and then another, long past the point where she needs to.

It’s the woman taking more investment risk than she needs to, chasing returns she doesn’t even need, when she could dial it back and sleep better at night.

Or conversely, it’s being so conservative with her investments that her money can’t keep pace with the life she wants to live.

It’s the woman who wants nothing more than to provide for her children and not become a burden, but she’s so anxious about her own estate planning that she avoids the conversation entirely, which works directly against the very thing she wants most.

You’ve probably seen this in your own life.

We all know someone, or know of someone, who saved and sacrificed for decades only to face a major health issue just a few years into retirement.

Or worse, they never made it to retirement at all.

And the research backs this up.

Bill Perkins, author of “Die With Zero,” found that retirees with $500,000 or more in savings spent down only about 12% of their money before they passed away.

That means 88% went unspent.

One-third of retirees actually increased their wealth during retirement.

There’s been much written about this:

• The strange psychology of retirement income: Why spending money feels riskier after years of saving

• Are You Being Too Frugal in Retirement?

• Half of Retirees Afraid to Use Savings

• Underspending in Retirement: A Sign of Fulfillment or Fear?

• The Psychology of Retirement Income: From Saving to Spending

The bottom line: After spending an entire career learning how to save, many people simply can’t make the switch to spending.

The saving mindset that served them so well for 30 or 40 or more years becomes the very thing that holds them back from enjoying the life they worked so hard to build.

Here’s what I want you to hear.

You can absolutely be too risky with your money.

But you can also be too conservative.

And the cost of being too conservative doesn’t show up on a statement.

It shows up years later as regret. As a life that felt smaller than it needed to be.

We each get one shot at life.

While we can’t live only for today with no thought for tomorrow, we also shouldn’t be so focused on preparing for the next 20 or 30 years that we sacrifice the life we could be living right now.

Good financial planning is about striking a healthy balance.

It’s about living a wonderful life today, and each day along your journey, while still having comfort and confidence you’ll be OK whatever the future may bring.

Think of it like a weather forecast.

You’re never going to have perfect, clairvoyant information about what’s ahead. But you can look at the best information available, make a thoughtful decision, pack a jacket (or an umbrella), and still go on the trip.

That’s what a personalized financial plan gives you.

Not certainty, but clarity.

A framework for making confident, comfortable decisions even when the future is uncertain.

What to do next

If you don’t already have a personal financial or retirement plan in place, that’s the single most important step.

A good plan accounts for the full picture of your financial life:

• What you own and what you owe

• Your income sources, both now and in the future

• Your desired lifestyle, with enough flexibility to accommodate life’s changes along the way

From this foundation, you can start to review and evaluate everything else with better context:

• Your banking and cash on hand

• Any loans, whether that’s a mortgage, car loan, or something else

• Your investments and whether they’re aligned with your actual needs

• Your future income plan, including Social Security, a pension, or other sources

This is where your personal retirement paycheck comes in.

When you know what’s coming in and what’s going out, within your own retirement guardrails, you have a decision-making tool that adapts as the market, the economy, and your life change.

I’ve written before about this tension between living rich and dying rich, and about how retirement guardrails keep you in your comfort zone, free from the fear of running out but also free from the regret of never spending what you saved.

And I’ve shared why I believe financial planning is ultimately about regret minimization, making sure you don’t look back and wish you had lived more fully when you had the chance.

Bottom line: your money is meant to fuel a life well lived.

Not to sit untouched while life passes by.

If you’re not sure whether you’re being too conservative or maybe even too risky, please reply to this email and let’s start a conversation.

Links & things

As we rush headlong into another tax filing season, thought this might be timely:

• What Documents Do I Need To Collect For Filing My 2025 Tax Return?

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

A woman I spoke with recently told me she’s worried about her traditional IRA.

Not because of the market.

Because she’d read that her retirement savings were “infested with taxes” and she’d made a terrible mistake by not converting everything to a Roth IRA years ago.

She’s not alone.

If you have a significant balance in a traditional IRA or 401(k), you’ve probably heard some version of this message.

The financial media loves the phrase “tax bomb.”

Other advisors love to tell you that Roth conversions are the only sensible strategy.

Your friends may have told you what they did and made you wonder if you missed the boat.

Here’s the idea: the taxes on your traditional IRA in retirement are almost certainly not as bad as you’ve been told.

And the fear is probably worse than the reality.

Let me show you what I mean.

A quick example with round numbers

Meet Carol and David.

They’re both 75 and happily retired. Here’s what their financial picture looks like:

• $2.5 million in a traditional IRA

• $150,000 in savings

• $80,000 per year in combined Social Security

• A paid-off home

That $2.5 million IRA is something to be proud of.

They saved consistently over decades. They made good decisions. And now the IRS says they have to start taking money out each year through required minimum distributions.

In 2026, their IRA RMD is roughly $105,000.

Combined with Social Security and a little interest income, their total gross income for the year is around $178,000.

Now here’s where the fear usually kicks in.

Most people hear “$178,000 in income” and assume the worst.

But let’s look at what actually happens on their tax return.

How the tax math actually works

First, not all of their Social Security is taxable.

About $68,000 of their $80,000 in Social Security shows up on their tax return. This is the 85% maximum of Social Security income that can be taxed.

Which means $12,000 of their Social Security benefits are tax-free.

After their standard deduction and the additional deduction they get as seniors, their taxable income drops to roughly $134,000.

Their federal income tax?

Approximately $19,000.

That’s an effective tax rate of about 14% on their taxable income.

Let me say that again.

A married couple with a $2.5 million traditional IRA, taking a six-figure required minimum distribution, pays about 14% in federal income tax (relative to their total taxable income).

Put another way, out of their $178,000 gross income Carol and David, only about 11 cents goes to the IRS.

Is that zero?

Absolutely not.

But is it the tax bomb you’ve been warned about?

Not even close.

Where does the RMD actually land?

Here’s the part that surprises most people.

That $105,000 required minimum distribution doesn’t all get taxed at the same rate. It gets stacked on top of their other income and flows through the brackets like water filling buckets.

Some of it lands in the 10% bracket. A good portion lands in the 12% bracket. And only a slice reaches the 22% bracket. None of it touches 24% or higher.

Here’s a quick refresher on how our income tax brackets work:

Wealthcare for Women

Income tax buckets

Good morning…

Read more

2 years ago · 1 like

If Carol and David deducted their 401(k) contributions years ago at 22%, 24%, or even higher rates while they were working, they’re coming out ahead.

They saved at a higher rate.

They’re now paying at a lower rate.

That’s exactly how this was supposed to work.

What about IRMAA?

If you’re on Medicare, you may have heard of IRMAA — the income-related surcharge that increases your Medicare premiums. It’s a real concern at higher income levels.

But Carol and David?

Their modified adjusted gross income falls below the threshold. No IRMAA surcharge. Even with a $2.5 million IRA.

This doesn’t mean IRMAA will never apply to you.

If your income is higher, or if you have a large capital gain in a given year, it could.

But it’s another example of something that sounds scary until you look at your actual numbers.

With your most recent tax return and some simple projections, we can reference data like this to make smarter decisions:

A note about qualified charitable distributions

If Carol and David are charitably inclined — and many of my clients are — they could use a qualified charitable distribution to send some or all of their RMD directly to charity.

And avoid taxation on these dollars.

A QCD satisfies the RMD requirement, supports the causes they care about, and reduces their adjusted gross income.

It’s one of the most tax-efficient ways to give, and it’s available to anyone over 70 1/2 with a traditional IRA.

The important caveat

I’m not here to tell you that Roth conversions are a bad idea.

They can be a powerful strategy when the timing and circumstances are right.

And at higher IRA balances the tax math does change.

The RMDs get larger, the tax brackets get higher, and strategies like Roth conversions earlier in retirement can make a real difference.

But the mistake I see most often isn’t failing to convert.

It’s assuming a one-size-fits-all solution based on a headline, a rule of thumb, or what a friend did.

Just because Roth conversions made sense for someone you know doesn’t mean they’re the right move for you.

As with most things in personal finance, the honest answer is: it depends.

What to do next

• Put your lifestyle first. Never let the tax tail wag the dog. Your retirement savings exist to support the life you want to live, not to win a tax optimization contest.

• Take a holistic view. Make sure you or your advisor reviews your tax return each year and builds proactive tax planning into your decisions. Taxes are one piece of a larger puzzle that includes income, spending, investments, and estate planning.

• Don’t over-optimize for taxes. Over-optimize for living your best possible life with the money you have. A slightly higher tax bill in service of a life well-lived is not a failure. It’s the whole point.

Bottom line

Your traditional IRA isn’t a ticking tax bomb.

It’s a retirement paycheck you built over a career of smart saving. And with the right guardrails in place you can spend your energy on living instead of worrying.

If any of this raised a question, please reply or reach out if you’d like to discuss it further.

Links & things

I was happy to have received - for the 2nd year in a row - the 2026 Wealthtender Voice of the Client Highly Rated Advisor award.

Thanks to my clients for their trust and generous reviews which you can see here.

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

“Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.”

— Roger Caras

This is Zilly.

She’s our foster dog.

We found her — or maybe she found us — through a shelter here in Atlanta.

She was found wandering alone in a church parking lot. No collar. No chip. No history.

She has hair missing from both ears. And there are nicks and small cuts around her eyes and muzzle.

Now look at the back of her neck. There’s a palm-sized patch where the hair never grew back.

We can see the scars. But we’ll never know the stories behind them.

What happened to her? How did she end up alone in that parking lot? Was she lost? Abandoned? Did she escape something worse?

I find myself wondering.

And then I stop, because the wondering doesn’t change anything. She’s here now. She’s safe. She’s loved.

But here’s the thing.

Each of us carries scars too. Most of them can’t be seen.

Some come from lessons we learned early — watching how our parents talked (or didn’t talk) about money.

Some come from mistakes we made along the way. A bad investment. A marriage that ended. A business that failed. A moment when we felt foolish or ashamed.

These invisible scars shape the stories we tell ourselves.

Stories about who we are.

What we deserve.

What we’re capable of.

What money means — and what role it should play in our lives.

Maybe you grew up in a home where money was scarce. Now you spend freely, afraid the money won’t be there tomorrow.

Or maybe money was never discussed at all. So now it feels awkward — even taboo — to talk about it openly.

Or maybe you watched your parents argue about money. And now you avoid those conversations with your own partner...

These patterns run deep.

Researchers call them “money scripts” — unconscious beliefs about money that we learn early and carry into adulthood.

Dr. Brad Klontz has studied this for years. His research shows that these scripts quietly drive our financial behavior, often without us even realizing it.

I’ve written about this before:

Wealthcare for Women

Your money beliefs: the real story

I read Frankenstein a few weeks ago, right before the Netflix version came out…

Read more

5 months ago · 2 likes

The good news? Simple awareness is the first, most important step.

You don’t need to fix everything. You don’t need to untangle every thread.

But there’s real value in pausing to notice the stories you’ve been telling yourself — and asking whether they’re still true.

A few questions to sit with:

• What was money like in your family growing up?

• Was it discussed openly? Avoided? Argued about?

• Did your family have enough, more than enough, or never enough?

• Can you trace any threads from those early lessons to your decisions today?

• Are there patterns you’d like to change — or simply understand better?

This isn’t about blame or shame. It’s about awareness.

And sometimes, awareness alone is enough to loosen the grip of an old story that no longer serves you.

Zilly doesn’t dwell on her scars. She’s too busy enjoying her new life.

Maybe there’s something in that for the rest of us too.

Bottom line: The stories we carry about money — many of them invisible — shape more of our decisions than we realize.

A little reflection can go a long way.

If this sparked something for you, I’d love to hear about it.

Reply to this email or reach out if you’d like help thinking through your own money stories.

Sometimes it helps to have a guide.

Links & things

Here are a couple of free webinars this month from my friends at Move Health that you might want to register for and check out:

• February 17th at 1pm EST: Early Retirement: Healthcare Coverage 101 for Pre-65 Retirees (click here for details and to register)

• February 19th at 1pm EST: Turning 65: What To Know About Medicare (click here for details and to register)

Thank you for reading!

If you’re not yet 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

I recently rewatched Moneyball, the 2011 film about Billy Beane and the Oakland A’s.

If you haven’t seen it, here’s the setup.

It’s the 2002 baseball season.

Beane was the general manager of a smaller-market baseball team with one of the lowest payrolls in the league.

He couldn’t afford the big-name players.

So he had to find another way to win.

He found it in a young Yale economics grad named Peter Brand.

Brand showed Beane something the baseball establishment had overlooked for decades.

The most important stat wasn’t batting average or home runs or stolen bases.

It was on-base percentage or how often a player gets on base, by any means.

Not flashy. Not exciting. But it worked.

The A’s won 20 games in a row that season, tying an American League record.

They did it by ignoring what everyone else was chasing and focusing on the one thing that actually mattered.

A quick aside: Peter Brand was a fictional character created for the film. In Michael Lewis’s book on which the movie was based, the real person was Paul DePodesta.

I’ve thought about this approach a lot over my 30+ year career as a financial advisor.

For the last 25 years, I’ve used this same basic philosophy with my clients.

• Focus on what matters.

• Ignore the noise.

• Trust the process, even when it feels boring.

In baseball, that one thing is on-base percentage.

As you prepare for retirement, it’s your retirement paycheck… the reliable cash flow that lets you live the life you want.

Not the hot stock tip.

Not the complicated strategy your brother-in-law swears by.

Not whatever the financial news is screaming about today.

Your retirement paycheck. That’s your on-base percentage.

Here’s what’s strange.

This idea isn’t complicated. It’s almost obvious.

Everyone knows the tortoise beats the hare.

And yet, when it comes to money, most people still chase the hare.

They get bored with what’s working and look for something more exciting.

They listen to friends and coworkers who have completely different goals and circumstances. They panic when the market drops and try to play catch-up when they feel behind.

The gap between knowing and doing is where most financial mistakes live.

So what’s the solution?

Build a plan that reflects who you are.

Your values, your goals, your priorities… not someone else’s.

A personalized strategy is the foundation everything else sits on.

Review and update it regularly.

Life changes. Your plan should change with it. I recommend at least once a year, ideally twice.

Stick to your plan. This is harder than it sounds. But it’s where the magic happens.

Ignore the news. The financial media needs your attention to survive. You don’t need theirs to thrive.

Check your portfolio less often. Seriously. Less.

Talk to your advisor before making big decisions. A quick conversation can save you from an expensive mistake. Or an unwanted tax bill.

Get on with living. Your plan exists to serve your life, not the other way around.

Do the things you love with the people you care about.

Billy Beane trusted the boring approach when everyone told him he was crazy. It worked.

You can trust it too.

If you’d like to discuss building your own personal financial plan, or making sure your current plan is focused on the right things, get in touch.

Let’s have a conversation.

Links & things

Can’t believe we’re already a few days into February. But it’s not too late to review:

• What Issues Should I Consider At The Start Of The Year?

Related to the essay above, here’s a good article on why you should steer clear of the latest & greatest investment products Wall Street has to offer. It’s just more noise for you to tune out:

• Inventing Problems

Tax season is right around the corner. Here’s a good summary of what tax documents you can expect to receive as your start organizing your tax filing information. From my friends at Beacon Wealthcare:

• What Tax Forms Should You Expect To Receive?

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

I’ve written before about regret minimization:

• Live now, avoid regrets later (Feb, 2025)

• A financial fork in the road (June, 2024)

• Can you save too much? (July, 2019)

But I’ve come to realize not all regret is the same...

My client Lisa shared something with me the other day.

“I wish I’d spent more time with my kids when they were little.”

She said it with real pain in her voice. I could see it in her eyes.

Like she had failed somehow.

But then I asked her a question.

“What were you doing instead?”

She thought about it and said,

“Working. Building my career. Saving for their college. Trying to give them a good life.”

“And did you?” I asked.

“Yes. They both graduated debt-free. They’re doing great.”

Here’s what I told Lisa: Not all regret is the same.

There’s big “R” Regret

These are the things we truly wish we had done differently.

The times we acted out of fear. The words we didn’t say. The dreams we gave up for no good reason.

Big “R” Regret means something. It points to a real mistake. It deserves our attention.

Then there’s little “r” regret

These are the things we missed because we chose something else. Not mistakes.

Just trade-offs.

Lisa didn’t neglect her kids.

She made a choice.

She traded some time together for their future security.

That’s not a failure. That’s life.

Every choice has a cost. When you say yes to one thing, you say no to something else.

I’ll forever regret giving up on piano lessons when I was in middle school. But at the time, I’d rather have been doing anything instead of practicing my arpeggios.

An idea this brings to mind is “you can do anything, but you can’t do everything.”

That’s not regret. That’s math.

The problem is, we often mix these up.

We treat every missed opportunity like a mistake. We carry guilt for trade-offs that were actually good decisions at the time.

So how do you tell the difference?

Ask yourself: If I could go back, would I truly choose differently?

Or was I doing the best I could with what I had?

Big “R” Regret says: “I was wrong. I need to learn from this.”

Little “r” regret says: “I chose something else. And that was okay.”

Here’s why this matters for your retirement:

You have choices ahead of you. Some will feel big. Some will feel scary.

If you try to avoid all regret, you’ll never choose anything. You’ll stay stuck.

But if you know the difference between Big “R” regret and little “r” regret, you can move forward.

Focus on avoiding Big “R” Regrets.

The stuff that really matters.

The trips you’ll wish you had taken. The people you’ll wish you had called. The life you’ll wish you had lived.

This is exactly the regret minimization I help my clients with.

Let go of little “r” regret. You can’t do everything. No one can.

The goal isn’t a perfect life with no regrets.

The goal is a life where you chose what matters most to you.

On purpose.

That’s enough.

Links & things

Some things I’ve been reading that I encourage you to check out:

• Take Retirement in Little Batches by David Baker

  • Some gems in this article even though he frames it from the perspective of building and running a business

• Somewhere Down There by Jeffrey Ptak

  • Another example of why to be wary of “alternative” investments. The one he highlights costs over 7% a year in fees

• Oh, Go On by Rubin Miller

  • Good investing isn’t simply about being right; it’s about building systems that protect you from yourself

• Five Pearls of Wisdom From a Legend of Financial Writing by Ron Lieber

  • Mr. Lieber honors Jonathan Clements by sharing some of his best ideas

• I recently stumbled across this and love it:

  “Protecting your family wealth from predators, creditors, and senators.”

  Maybe I should adopt as my business tagline?

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

Celia was stuck.

She’d accumulated over $4 million.

Her financial plan showed she could retire comfortably at 62, maybe even earlier.

But there was this voice in her head asking (and sometimes yelling): What if you screw this up?

So she wanted to run the numbers.

Again.

She wanted to know what if healthcare costs went up more than expected?

What if the market dropped right after she retired?

Should she work one more year just to be safe?

Or maybe two more years… Can’t be too careful, right?

So she was stuck.

Not because she didn’t have enough money. She was stuck because she was waiting for her perfect plan.

I’ve touched on this idea before. See #5 in this essay I wrote a few weeks ago:

A lesson from the Marine Corps

The Marines have a concept called the “80 percent solution.”

Here’s the idea: In combat, you rarely have perfect information. You’ll never have all the facts. If you wait for certainty, you lose.

So Marines are trained to act when they have about 80% of the information they need. They make a good decision quickly and adjust as they go.

Why?

Because a good plan executed now beats a perfect plan that never happens.

I’m not saying retirement planning is combat. But I absolutely believe a good decision made with confidence beats a perfect decision that you never make.

The vital 20% that actually matters

You’ve probably heard of the 80/20 rule.

The idea is simple: 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts.

In retirement planning, a handful of decisions drive almost all of your financial security. Everything else is just noise.

The vital 20%:

• Having enough saved

• A sustainable withdrawal rate

• When to claim Social Security

• Basic tax planning

• Powers of attorney and a will

The 80% that doesn’t matter nearly as much:

• Finding the “perfect” mutual fund

• Timing the market exactly right

• Claiming Social Security at age 67 versus 67.4

• Optimizing every single expense

• Complex strategies you’re not sure you understand

If you’re approaching retirement, don’t spend time “majoring in the minors.”

You’ve likely already won the savings game. The question now isn’t just whether you have enough.

You also need to ask yourself: When are you going to start living?

The real cost of waiting for perfect

Here’s what I see happen:

Someone spends 30 or 40+ years saving diligently. They do everything right. They live below their means. They max out their 401(k). They’re responsible.

Then they hit their 60s with literal millions in the bank. But they can’t pull the trigger on retirement.

Why? They’re overwhelmed. Paralysis by analysis.

Meanwhile, their health is good right now. Their energy is high right now. Their parents are still alive right now. The trip they want to take works better right now.

But they wait. One more year. Just to be safe.

Then another year after that.

I’m not saying to be reckless. I’m saying that past a certain point, more optimization doesn’t buy you more security. It just costs you time you can’t get back.

“Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.” ~ Jim Rohn

For more on this concept:

Wealthcare for Women

Living rich vs dying rich

Good morning…

Read more

5 years ago · Russ Thornton

What happened with Celia

We sat down and I asked her: “What would have to be true for you to feel comfortable retiring?”

She rattled off five different scenarios she wanted to model. Five more years of data she wanted to review.

So I said: “Let’s try something different. Let’s figure out the 20% of decisions that actually matter.”

We identified six things:

• She had $4 million saved

• She wanted to spend about $120,000 a year

• This 3% withdrawal rate gave her plenty of cushion

• Social Security at 65 added another $24,000

• Her estate plan was current

• She had long-term care insurance

Everything else was details.

Then I walked her through her personal retirement income plan.

I showed her the monthly retirement paycheck we planned for. And I showed her how we’d adjust when the market moves up or down.

She was optimizing for perfect when she already had a plan that worked.

Celia retired a few months later.

Last time we talked, she told me the best decision she ever made was stopping the optimization and starting her life.

How to know if you’re stuck

Ask yourself:

Are you waiting for perfect information that will never come? The market will always be uncertain. Healthcare costs will always be unpredictable. There will never be a perfect time.

Are you saying “just one more year” for the third year in a row? If your plan showed you could retire two years ago and nothing has changed except you’re older, what’s it going to take?

Are you optimizing money while neglecting life? Your portfolio is up 8% but you haven’t taken a real vacation in three years. You’ve deferred the kitchen remodel again. You’re not spending time with your grandkids because you’re working. What are you optimizing for?

What I do for clients

My job isn’t to give you a perfect plan. Perfect doesn’t exist.

My job is to help you identify the 20% of financial decisions that drive 80% of your security. Then give you confidence to move forward.

We create a good plan - an 80% solution - and we adjust it as your life unfolds.

It’s like the Marines: We make a good decision with the information we have, and we adapt as we go.

Here’s what makes this different from guessing: Your financial life is mostly measurable. We can run the numbers. We can model scenarios. We can show you that you have enough. With math to back it up.

We’re not hoping it works out. We’re calculating that it works out. And we’re building in cushion for uncertainty.

But once the math says you’re good? The only thing between you and the life you want is giving yourself permission to move forward.

To take that first step.

Progress, not perfection

The Marine Corps knows that hesitation costs lives.

In retirement, hesitation costs years. Not lives, thankfully. But years of health, energy, relationships, and experiences you can’t get back.

You’ve been responsible your whole life. You’ve saved. You’ve planned. You’ve been careful.

Now the question is: When is good enough actually good enough?

Because if your plan works and you’re still waiting, more money isn’t the answer. More planning isn’t the answer.

The answer is recognizing that you’ve already solved the problem you’re trying to solve.

That’s not a perfect retirement plan. It’s a good plan along with the confidence to start living it.

Not sure if your plan is good enough? Let’s figure out your vital 20%.

That’s what I do.

Looking back

2025 was another great year at Wealthcare for Women.

• I welcomed a small handful of wonderful new clients who are a great fit for my focus and expertise

• I received Wealthtender’s Voice of the Client award based on my client reviews

Looking ahead

• As always, my #1 priority is taking great care of my existing clients

• I’ll only be accepting 4 new client relationships in 2026

  • If you'd like to explore working together, or know someone who might, please let me know

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 share my thoughts with you…

Until next Wednesday,

Russ

Retirement Planning for Women

Disclosures

“Russ, when should I take Social Security?”

I get this question regularly.

And almost every time, she already knows what she’s “supposed” to do.

Wait until 70.

Maximize the lifetime benefit.

Because that’s what her brother-in-law did. That’s what she read in the Wall Street Journal. That’s what the online calculator told her.

But there are some assumptions baked into this one-size-fits-all approach…

So she pauses and asks the real questions:

• What if I wait until 70 but die at age 73? Or at 68? Or 81?

• What if the market drops and I have to sell investments while the market is down?

• What if I’m uncomfortable spending down my savings while I wait?

Those questions matter more than any formula.

Why the “wait until 70” rule misses the point

Most Social Security advice treats your benefits claiming decision like a math problem with one correct answer.

The typical analysis goes like this: if you delay from 62 to 70, your monthly benefit grows by about 76%.

More money is always good, right?

Even if you have to wait another 8 years to get it?

Run the numbers through a break-even calculator, and you’ll see that if you live past your early 80s, waiting pays off in more total lifetime benefits.

Case closed, right?

Nope.

That analysis assumes you care only about the total dollars you’ll receive over your lifetime.

But your life isn’t a spreadsheet.

You have preferences, concerns, and goals that don’t show up in a break-even table.

Let me show you what I mean.

Factors the calculators ignore

When I sit down with clients to talk through Social Security, we look at more than just cumulative benefits.

We talk about:

Spending comfort

• Research shows retirees spend about 80% of their guaranteed income (think Social Security or pensions) but only 50% of what they could safely withdraw from their portfolio.

• If you’re someone who feels nervous spending down savings, claiming Social Security earlier gives you more guaranteed income.

• That might actually help you enjoy retirement more, even if the total lifetime dollars are lower.

Market timing risk

• If you delay Social Security, you’ll likely have to pull more from your investments in your early retirement years.

• Those first five to ten years are when sequence of returns risk matters most.

• I’ve run scenarios where claiming at 62 instead of 70 during a market downturn left a portfolio $400,000 higher by age 80, simply because the client wasn’t forced to sell stocks at depressed prices.

Legacy goals

• If leaving money to family or charity matters to you, dying before your break-even age isn’t just “bad luck.” It’s a missed opportunity.

• One analysis showed that if someone claimed at 62, invested those benefit checks, and passed away at 70, they could leave behind nearly $400,000 that wouldn’t exist if they’d waited.

Policy uncertainty

• You might worry about Social Security’s long-term funding or potential changes to how benefits are taxed.

• Only 36% of Americans feel confident in Social Security’s future.

• That concern is real, even if the trust fund isn’t likely to run dry in your lifetime.

Your health and family history

• If longevity runs in your family and you’re in great health, delaying makes more sense.

• If you have health concerns or a family history of shorter lifespans, claiming earlier deserves serious consideration.

The thing about the future

When it comes to Social Security, or any decision about the future, you can’t know exactly what will happen.

Or when.

You don’t know if you’ll live to 94 or pass away at 67.

You don’t know if the market will soar or crash in your first few years of retirement.

You certainly can’t predict future tax law changes.

But you can look at the range of possibilities, decide what you’re most concerned about, and make the choices that feel right to you.

“There are no solutions, only trade offs.” - Thomas Sowell

Your Social Security decision works the same way.

What to do next

If you’re trying to figure out your claiming strategy, here’s how to think it through:

Start with your priorities

• What matters most to you?

  • Maximizing lifetime income?

  • Protecting your portfolio early in retirement?

  • Leaving a legacy?

  • Having guaranteed income you can count on?

Look at your actual numbers

• How much would you need to withdraw from your investments if you delay Social Security?

• Can your portfolio handle that, especially when (not if) markets drop?

• What would your monthly budget look like at different claiming ages?

Consider your comfort level

• Are you someone who’s comfortable spending down savings and investments, or does that make you anxious?

• Do you worry more about living too long or dying too soon?

• There’s no right answer… just your answer.

Factor in your health and family history

• If longevity runs in your family and you’re healthy, delaying might make more sense.

• If you have reasons to think otherwise, that deserves your attention.

Get help if you need it

• An experienced advisor with the right planning tools can model your specific situation and show you how different claiming ages affect your entire financial plan, not just your Social Security benefits.

• This isn’t about delegating the decision. It’s about making sure you’re seeing the full picture.

Bottom line

The best Social Security claiming strategy isn’t the one that maximizes your lifetime benefits.

It’s the one that fits your life, matches your priorities, and lets you retire with confidence instead of second-guessing.

Your brother-in-law’s decision doesn’t matter.

The generic advice in the financial press doesn’t matter either.

What matters is what works for you.

Links & things

For more on the topic of Social Security retirement benefits, check out:

• What Issues Should I Consider With My Social Security Retirement Benefits?

Completely unrelated to Social Security, Elizabeth and I recently watched a movie that we really enjoyed:

• The Art of Racing in the Rain

But don’t take my word for it… as the Rotten Tomatoes link above will show you, the critics didn’t like it but regular movie goers loved it.

Which is always a good sign in my experience.

Thank you for reading!

If you ever have any feedback or suggestions for me, simply hit reply or leave a comment and share what’s on your mind…

Until next Wednesday,

Russ

Retirement Planning for Women

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Disclosures