Retirement planning · Dream Wealth Co.

Can I actually stop at 60? And what would it take?

That's the question I build the answer to. Not a projection with a green line on it. A plan for the next ten years that says what comes in, what goes out, what each thing you want costs, and how long the money lasts.

The decade when everything happens at once

Most retirement planning is built for people who already won. They're 62, the house is paid off, and the question is how to land. That's not you yet. You're 47 with a ninth grader, options vesting next spring, parents who are starting to need help, and a 401(k) you've been filling for fifteen years that you can't touch. Everything you want is real and it all lands in the same ten years.

I've worked with families at exactly this stage for over a decade, first at Vanguard and now on my own. The problem is never that you haven't saved. It's that the money is in the wrong places for the life you want, and the questions pile up: when could I actually stop, which accounts do I fill now, which do I draw from first, how do we pay for college without pushing this back. Those are tax questions. That's the part I do best.

What the plan covers

• The date. When work could become optional on your current path, and what changes it. We plan toward a date; I can't promise one.
• The door. How much of what you've built you could reach before 59½, and the moves that open it.
• The competing goals. College, the second home, the sabbatical, helping your parents. What each costs, and what it does to the date.
• The accounts. Which to fill, which to draw from, in what order, and what that does to taxes over ten years.
• The one page. All of it on a single sheet you can hand your spouse.

How we work together: the DREAM process

Common questions

• Do I have to move my accounts? Not to get the plan. If you'd like me to manage the investments as well, we'll talk through what that looks like.
• I already have an advisor. Bring last year's return and your statements and I'll give you a straight second opinion. Sometimes the answer is that they're doing fine, and I'll tell you that.
• What does it cost? I'll walk you through it on the first call, in writing.
• Do we have to be in Arizona? No. I'm in Scottsdale and I work with families across the country.

Not ready for a call? The free tax strategy review is a good place to start.