Phase 3of 3 · Ongoing after retirement · Tax · Withdrawals · Healthcare
Most retirement plans cover the decision to retire. Almost none cover what you do the morning after, and for the next thirty years.
Early retirement isn’t set it and forget it. Every year you are making decisions about which accounts to draw from, how much income to recognize, and whether the numbers still line up the way you planned. Most of these decisions are not complicated. But they interact with each other in ways that are easy to miss, and small miscalculations on MAGI, ACA subsidies, or Roth conversions have a way of compounding quietly over a thirty-year retirement.
The annual rhythm is manageable once you understand it. A withdrawal sequence, income targets, rebalancing a handful of accounts, and a tax return. Done correctly, your job is to run those four things in coordination each year so the small stuff stays small.
This page covers what to do, when to do it, and how to handle the decisions that will emerge as conditions change.
BEFORE YOU READ ANYTHING ELSE
Understand the Annual Rhythm
Most of the important decisions in retirement happen in the last three months of the year. Roth conversions, ACA income projections, year-end rebalancing — if you know what to do and when to do it, the rest of the year mostly runs itself.
The Annual MAGI Review Checklist (Coming Soon)
Withdrawal Order of Operations (Coming Soon)
WHERE THE PLAN MEETS REALITY
Staying on Course
Markets drop, tax law changes, and life does not follow a spreadsheet. These posts cover how to respond without abandoning a plan that was sound to begin with.
What Happens When Markets Drop? (And What do I do?)
What is an Investment Policy Statement? (Coming Soon)
Tax Efficient Rebalancing (Coming Soon)
WHERE THE PLAN MEETS REALITY
Optimization vs. Sleeping Well at Night (SWAN)
Eventually the goal shifts from optimizing every dollar to making sure nothing goes badly wrong. These posts cover the risks that most retirement planning ignores — bad advice, fraud, and the slow drift that happens when a good plan stops getting attention.
SWAN Vs. Optimization: Choose Your Philosophy
No is a complete Sentence: Playing Financial Defense Against Financial Pros (Coming Soon)
The Risks Nobody Talks About: Fraud, Fees, and Financial Decisions as You Age (Coming Soon)
Still Building Towards Retirement?
Phase 1 covers the structural decisions that make the rest of this easier — tax diversification, asset location, and the account mix you need before you stop working.