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The question everyone asks first
What is my number? Here is why hitting it does not create security by itself, and what actually does.
Free guide
The Retirement Paycheck Guide
You spent decades getting a paycheck. Then it stops, and everything you saved is supposed to take over. Nobody teaches that part. This guide does, in plain English.
Where the paycheck actually comes from
The income floor, the monthly gap your portfolio has to fill, and why the four years before Social Security are a completely different assignment than the thirty that follow.
The frameworks that steady it
Silos and guardrails, in plain English. Pre-made decisions so a rough market changes your portfolio, not your plans, and you can say in one sentence what you will do when stocks fall 20 percent.
The tax window most people waste
The low-bracket years between your last paycheck and required distributions, why small Roth conversions often fail to move the needle, and the two very different ways a retirement can fail.
What's inside
Eight sections. One job: turn the pile into a paycheck.
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Silos and guardrails
Two frameworks for turning savings into income without white-knuckling one withdrawal rate for thirty years.
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The two ways a retirement can fail
Running out of money is one. Passing away with too much, having missed the beach week with the grandkids, is the other.
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The tax window and the Roth question
Why checking the box with a small conversion each year often changes nothing, and what doing it meaningfully looks like.
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The Monday problem
Numbers are the easy part. Monday is the hard part. What the spreadsheet never shows about a retirement that goes well.
A number is not a plan. The plan is what turns the number into a paycheck.
David Talley, CFP® · Talley Wealth · Johnson City, TN
Want the rough math first?
The retirement calculator gives you the number. The guide is about everything the number leaves out: income order, taxes, timing, and what you will actually do in a bad market.