What we handle
Most people do not arrive with a financial question. They arrive with a situation.
Something has changed, or is about to. A retirement date is coming into view, a company plan needs a decision, a spouse is worried, or a set of accounts has never been looked at together. Below are the situations I hear most often from households approaching and entering retirement, and the planning lens I bring to each one.
Before the final paycheck
The years right before retirement carry more decisions than any other stretch of a working life. Most of them are reversible only for a while.
I am a few years from retirement and I do not know if I am actually ready.
Underneath this is usually not a number. It is the question of whether the life you have in mind is supportable by the resources you have built, and what would have to be true for it to work.
The planning lens is to translate savings into a monthly picture, then test it against the things that tend to move: timing, taxes, health costs, and how long the money needs to last. That is the work of Retirement Paycheck Planning.
My paycheck is about to stop. Where does my retirement paycheck come from?
After decades of a deposit arriving on a schedule, the absence of one is unsettling even for households with plenty saved. The real question is sequencing: which account is drawn on first, how much, and what that does to the tax bill.
We look at income sources together rather than one at a time, so that withdrawals, Social Security, and any pension or annuity income are coordinated rather than competing.
I have several accounts, but I am not sure how they should work together.
A 401(k) from one employer, a rollover from another, a Roth, a brokerage account, and a spouse's accounts alongside them. Each was opened for a reason. None of them were opened as a set.
The lens here is coordination: what each account is for, how they are invested relative to one another, and which ones are best suited to be spent first. The Blind Spot Finder is a quick way to see where the gaps tend to be.
Coordinating the moving pieces
Retirement decisions are connected. A choice made for a good reason in one place can create an unexpected result somewhere else.
I am trying to decide when to claim Social Security.
This is rarely a standalone decision. Claiming age interacts with taxes, with Medicare premiums, with how much comes out of retirement accounts in the meantime, and with what a surviving spouse receives later.
The planning lens is to look at the claiming choice inside the whole income picture rather than on its own, and to understand the tradeoffs before a filing date is set.
I am worried taxes could change what retirement actually costs me.
Most of what people save is in accounts that have not been taxed yet. The year money comes out matters, and so does the order. Required distributions, Roth conversion windows, and capital gains all land on the same return.
We map which years have room and which do not, and coordinate with your tax professional rather than working around them.
I am approaching Medicare and do not want to miss something important.
Medicare has enrollment windows, and some of them carry lasting consequences if they pass. Premiums are also income sensitive, which links a health decision back to the income and tax decisions made two years earlier.
The 36-Month Retirement Decision Calendar lays out when these items typically come into view so nothing arrives as a surprise.
Family, confidence and legacy
Some of the most important parts of a retirement plan are not about money mechanics at all. They are about people.
My spouse and I are not equally involved in the finances.
In most households one person has handled this for years. That works until it does not, and the person who has been less involved is often the one who will need to carry it later.
I plan for both of you. That means meetings where both voices are welcome, plain language rather than jargon, and a picture the less involved spouse can genuinely follow and act on.
I want to help my children or grandchildren without creating problems for myself.
Helping with a house, a wedding, tuition, or a hard season is one of the reasons people save. The question is how much can be given without quietly shifting your own footing.
The lens is to size the help inside the plan, look at how and from where it is funded, and consider the tax and estate side before the gift is made rather than after.
For many families this is also the moment to put a will, trust, and powers of attorney in place. I coordinate estate planning documents that you create through Wealth.com, connected to your beneficiaries, account titles, and financial plan.
I have done a good job saving, but I still feel anxious about spending.
This is more common than almost anything else on this page. Forty years of discipline does not reverse on a retirement date, and many careful savers underspend the life they worked for.
Confidence usually comes from structure: a defined monthly amount, a plan for the accounts it comes from, and a set schedule for reviewing it. Money should create choices, not take them away.
One more situation that comes up
A major life event or settlement changed my financial picture.
A divorce, the loss of a spouse, an inheritance, or a settlement can reset a financial picture quickly, often during a season when decisions are hard to make well.
The first step is usually not a strategy. It is a clear inventory, a pause on anything that does not have to be decided now, and a sequence for what genuinely does.
The situations on this page are general and educational. They are not individualized investment, tax, or legal advice, and no outcome is implied or promised. Please discuss your own circumstances with qualified professionals. Answers to process questions are on the Common Questions page.
If one of these sounds like you, start where it is easiest.
The Blind Spot Finder takes a few minutes and points to three planning areas worth a closer look. If you would rather just talk it through, an introductory conversation is twenty minutes, by phone or video, with no cost and no obligation. You would be working directly with me, Melissa Moss, CFP® professional, as your primary advisor and planner.
20 minutes. No cost, no obligation.