1
Bucket one
the next few years
Holds the paychecks you need soon, in cash and cash-like holdings, so a scary headline is not your problem this year.
Steady and boring on purpose. You spend from here.
About $118,800 in this illustration
Interactive explainer
Will I run out of money in retirement?
The worry usually comes from one thing. For your whole working life money showed up every couple of weeks. Now you have to turn a pile of savings into a paycheck you cannot outlive. This shows the shape of how that can work.
Use this as
A way to see the shape, not a plan.
Retirement income is connected. Social Security timing, taxes, spending that changes over time, and how you are wired all matter. This can help you see where the buckets fit, but the real sizing needs personalized planning.
Your retirement paycheck
Give every dollar a job, then sort it by when you need it.
Move the two sliders to set a monthly need and a guaranteed base. The gap between them is what the portfolio has to produce. Then choose how many years of that gap you want sitting in the calm bucket.
$3k$16k
$0k$16k
Where the paycheck comes from
Guaranteed base
$3,200 /mo
Portfolio gap
$3,300 /mo
Calm bucket set-aside
$118,800
2 years5 years
In this illustration the portfolio needs to produce about $3,300 a month, or $39,600 a year. Holding 3 years of that gap in the calm bucket is roughly $118,800 set aside so an early downturn does not force a sale.
2
Bucket two
roughly the middle years
A blend of growth and stability. Its job over time is to refill bucket one during the good stretches.
Room to recover, but not so much time we can ignore the ride.
3
Bucket three
fifteen years and beyond
The long money and anything you plan to leave behind. Here you can afford to be an owner, not a loaner, and let it grow.
The natural home for work like Roth conversions in the right years.
The point of building it this way
When the front of the plan is calm money, an early downturn is something you wait out, not something you are forced to sell into. You do not flip a switch to all cash the day you retire. You turn the dial toward the mix that fits your timeline. And when the headlines get loud, the useful instruction is to zoom out.
This is an educational illustration of a planning approach. It is not investment, tax, or legal advice, it does not size your actual portfolio, and it ignores taxes, inflation, the timing of Social Security, spending that changes over time, and how you are wired. The right size for each bucket depends on your full situation and should be reviewed with a qualified professional.
How to read it
Sort your money by when you will need it.
The base carries the floor.
Social Security and any pension form a guaranteed base. The portfolio only has to produce the gap above that base, and the gap can change shape as those sources turn on.
Bucket one buys time.
Holding a few years of the gap in calm money means an early downturn is something you wait out, not something you are forced to sell into.
The middle bucket refills the front.
Over time, the balanced bucket tops the calm bucket back up during good stretches, so the front of the plan stays full.
The long money can grow.
Money you will not touch for fifteen years has time to be an owner, not a loaner. It is also often the natural home for Roth conversion work in the right years.
Go deeper
Your version of this is a conversation, not a slider.
The right size for each bucket depends on your spending, your other income, your taxes, and how you sleep at night. A no-pressure Explore Call is a short conversation to see what your version could look like, and if it is not a fit I will tell you so directly.