Resources
The concepts, terms, and mental models behind every Income Standard Review. Understand the structure before you schedule the conversation.
Core Concepts
The guaranteed monthly income that covers your non-negotiable expenses for life — regardless of market performance, sequence of returns, or how long you live. Social Security alone rarely closes it. The gap between your floor and your expenses is the central measurement of retirement income architecture.
Hear Episode 2The mathematical reality that the order of investment returns matters more than the average. Two portfolios with identical 25-year average returns can produce dramatically different outcomes — driven entirely by whether the early years were positive or negative. A closed income floor is the structural solution.
Hear Episode 3Not a probability problem — a design problem. For a married couple both 65, there is a 50% chance one spouse lives past 90. Plans stress-tested only to age 82 or 85 have a structural expiration point built into them. Every Income Standard Review models to age 95 minimum.
Hear Episode 5Required minimum distributions at 73 force withdrawals from pre-tax accounts whether you need the income or not. A large IRA balance can push you into a higher bracket, trigger IRMAA Medicare surcharges, and increase Social Security taxation — simultaneously. The pre-RMD window is the opportunity. Most people never use it.
Hear Episode 7The compounding drag of advisory fees, fund expense ratios, and platform costs — rarely visible as a single number on any statement. Total drag of 1.5–2.5% annually compounds silently against your balance for decades. The Income Standard Review calculates your true total cost across all instruments and evaluates whether each fee is aligned with an income outcome.
Hear Episode 6Two fundamentally different financial disciplines. Accumulation is about growing a portfolio. Distribution is about generating guaranteed income from it — without depleting it faster than your longevity demands. The tools, the risks, the math, and the mindset are different. Most people arrive at retirement with an accumulation specialist when they need an income engineer.
Hear Episode 1Key Terms
An insurance contract that credits interest based on the performance of a market index — with a floor of 0%, meaning you cannot lose principal due to market decline. With a lifetime income rider, a FIA provides guaranteed income that cannot be outlived, making it the primary tool for closing an income floor gap.
An insurance contract that pays a guaranteed, contractually fixed interest rate for a set period. Predictable and precise. Used when certainty of return matters more than growth potential — particularly effective for closing specific income gaps with exact dollar amounts.
A permanent life insurance policy with a cash value component linked to a market index — with downside protection. When structured correctly, IUL can provide tax-free retirement income in addition to a death benefit, making it relevant for clients navigating RMD exposure and legacy planning simultaneously.
An optional feature added to a FIA that guarantees a minimum income amount for life — regardless of account value performance or how long the annuitant lives. The rider converts an accumulation vehicle into a guaranteed income source. The income does not stop when the account value reaches zero.
A Medicare premium surcharge applied to higher-income beneficiaries. When RMDs push modified adjusted gross income above certain thresholds, Medicare Part B and D premiums increase significantly — a cost that compounds annually and is rarely modeled in standard retirement projections.
A probability-based modeling tool that runs thousands of simulated market scenarios to estimate the likelihood a portfolio survives a given withdrawal rate. Common in traditional financial planning. Useful for accumulation analysis — but insufficient for retirement income design because it produces probabilities, not guarantees.
The process of moving money from a traditional pre-tax IRA into a Roth IRA, paying income tax now in exchange for tax-free growth and withdrawals later. The pre-RMD window — between retirement and age 73 — is the optimal period to execute Roth conversions, filling lower tax brackets before RMDs force higher taxable income.
The IRS-mandated annual withdrawal from traditional IRAs and 401(k)s beginning at age 73. The amount is calculated by dividing the prior year-end account balance by an IRS life expectancy factor. RMDs are fully taxable as ordinary income — and cannot be stopped, reduced, or timed by the account holder.
The Standard — Defined
A retirement income plan meets The Income Standard when its guaranteed income floor fully covers all non-negotiable monthly expenses — for life — without depending on portfolio performance, withdrawal timing, or market conditions.
Not "likely to cover." Not "projected to cover." Covered — by contractual guarantee — regardless of sequence, longevity, or what the market does the year you retire. That is the standard. Every Income Standard Review measures against it.
Measure My Plan Against the StandardComing Soon
The Income Standard Blueprint
A self-guided framework for building your own retirement income architecture — floor-first, tax-sequenced, stress-tested to 95. For the pre-retiree who wants to understand the structure before the conversation.
The Income Standard Score™
A single number — your Income Standard Score — that measures how fully your guaranteed income floor covers your non-negotiable expenses. Built on the same six-component framework as the Review. Benchmarked nationally.
The Income Standard Report™
Annual data on what retirement income architecture actually looks like across the pre-retiree population — average floor coverage, RMD exposure, fee drag, and longevity planning horizons. Researched. Specific. Useful.
Interactive Tools
These aren't hypotheticals. Enter your actual situation and see exactly where the gaps are — before you ever get on the phone.
Enter your monthly income sources and expenses. The calculator measures the gap between what's guaranteed and what you actually need — in dollars, every month, for life.
Enter your numbers and calculate to see your income gap.
Same portfolio. Same average return. Different sequence. See exactly how much the order of returns costs you — and what a guaranteed income floor would have saved.
Enter your numbers to see the sequence impact on your portfolio.
At 73, the IRS forces withdrawals from your pre-tax accounts — taxable income whether you need it or not. See your projected RMD, the bracket impact, and the IRMAA exposure before it arrives.
Enter your numbers to see your projected RMD and tax impact at age 73.
Fee drag doesn't show up as a line item. It shows up as a smaller balance at 85 with no explanation. Enter your fees and see the true 20-year cost — in dollars, compounded against you.
Enter your fees to see the true 20-year drag on your portfolio.
Ready to Measure?
The Income Standard Review takes 45–60 minutes and applies every concept on this page to your specific situation. No cost. No pitch. Just measurement.
Schedule My Income Review — No CostThis review is for people ready to act on what they find. If you're still building your understanding, keep reading and listening. Come back when you're ready to apply it.