Happy Friday Reader ☀️
There’s a 10-year window that can make or break your retirement plan.
And most people don’t even know it exists.
I refer to it as the “critical window”—the 5 years leading into retirement, and the first 5 years of retirement.
This is the period where your plan is most vulnerable to poor market returns… and where a few bad years can have a lasting impact on your income, flexibility, and long-term results.
If you experience poor market returns during this window, it can impact your plan in very real ways.
You may need to:
• Delay retirement
• Reduce your spending
• Or take on more risk than you’re comfortable with
This is often referred to as sequence risk.
And it’s something most portfolios aren’t designed to handle very well once you enter the income phase of retirement.
Target date funds try to address this by becoming more conservative as you approach retirement.
But in reality, even “conservative” allocations—especially those heavily reliant on bonds—can still experience meaningful volatility.
Which means your lifestyle can still be exposed at the exact time it matters most.
One of the key principles I focus on is simple:
👉 Protect this critical window.
Not by going all-in on conservative investments…
But by creating a portion of your plan that is designed to be stable and reliable, regardless of what the market does.
For many people, this involves:
🔹 Reducing exposure to short-term market volatility
🔹 Creating a more predictable income foundation
🔹 Allowing the rest of the portfolio to stay invested for long-term growth
This doesn’t mean becoming overly conservative.
It means being strategic about where you take risk.
Because when this window is protected:
🔹 You’re less likely to be forced into bad decisions
🔹 Your lifestyle becomes more stable
🔹 And your long-term results can actually improve
In many cases, this type of structure also allows you to gradually increase your exposure to equities over time.
As income becomes more secure and your timeline extends, you gain:
🔹 The ability to participate in market growth
🔹 More flexibility in your spending
🔹 Greater legacy potential later in retirement
If you’re within a few years of retirement (or recently retired), this is one of the most important things to get right.
Most of the work I do with clients starts with a simple question:
👉 How much can you confidently spend in retirement?
From there, we identify where your plan is strong—and where this type of protection may make a meaningful difference.
If this is something you’ve been thinking about, here’s how I typically help people work through it:
🔹 We start with a Retirement Income Review (no cost) to understand how much you can confidently spend
🔹 From there, we can take a deeper look at things like portfolio structure, Social Security timing, tax-efficient income strategies, and ways to create more predictable income
🔹 And for those who want it, I provide ongoing guidance to adjust the plan, manage taxes, and make decisions over time
If you’d ever like to walk through your own plan, I’m always happy to take a look.
Matt