For retirees and pre-retirees
On our first call, by phone or Zoom, we’ll look at your savings, your income sources and your timeline, and name the three things worth doing first. They’re yours whether or not we work together.
Already have an advisor? Get a second look
Is your income ready for a bad first five years?
Why Oakwater Advisors
Once you start living on your savings, it’s not just how your investments perform that matters. It’s when. A market drop in the first few years, while you’re withdrawing to live on, can do damage that later good years may not make up for. It’s called sequence of returns risk.
My promise: As a fiduciary, if you pay me to manage your money, I should keep earning it. I look for opportunities all year, not just at your annual review, and bring them to you first. When something falls outside my licenses, I’ll bring in the right CPA, attorney or specialist and work alongside them.
The late-’90s bull market arrives, and the gap widens.
What we do about it
Don’t sell in a down year.
We keep three to five years of your income gap in a Conservative bucket, kept apart from your growth investments. When markets fall, your paycheck can come from there, so your growth investments may not need to be sold low and can have time to recover. We refill it on a rule we set together.
Already working with an advisor?
A second look doesn’t mean switching. On one call, I’ll look at how your income plan would hold up to a bad first few years, the order you’re drawing from your accounts and your Social Security timing, and tell you what I’d change, if anything.
Other risks we plan for:
Coverage before 65, Medicare choices and long-term care can drain savings fast.
Pre-tax accounts are taxed as you withdraw, and the wrong order can cost you for decades.
Claiming early by default can mean a permanently smaller check.
Your money may need to last 30 years or more.
The fix isn’t more products. It’s one plan, in the right order, with someone keeping every piece pointed the same direction.
Who we help
The decisions you make in the last decade before retirement shape the next thirty years.
You have the savings. Now the job is turning them into a paycheck you can count on, without selling low or overpaying in taxes.
The Oakwater approach
We use a 4 Bucket Strategy: Bucket 1 protects against health care costs, Bucket 2 harnesses reliable income, and Buckets 3 and 4 deploy the rest, part kept secure and part invested for growth.
Start here
Bucket 1, Protection: a bridge to Medicare, a long-term care plan, right-sized insurance and a current estate plan, to help keep one health event from draining the other buckets.
Then
Bucket 2, Income: Social Security, pensions and a personal pension cover your core spending, so the essentials get paid whatever the markets do.
Finally
Bucket 3, Conservative: three to five years of the income gap, kept out of market swings, so a down market is less likely to force you to sell at a loss to pay bills. Bucket 4, Growth: long-term money invested to outpace inflation and refill the Conservative bucket after good years, with withdrawals and Roth conversions planned for lower lifetime taxes.
Your advisor
I’m the advisor behind Oakwater Advisors. The two things I love most are the outdoors and financial planning, so I built something that represents both.
An oak grows slowly and is built for storms it hasn’t seen yet. Water does the opposite: it keeps moving and finds a way through. A good plan needs both: foundations that barely change, and money inside them that keeps working.
Resources
A retirement guide, a cash-flow guide and a calculator, built around the same three moves we use in every plan.
The 4 Bucket Strategy, organized into Protect, Harness and Deploy, with a countdown from 10 years out and a checklist and scorecard at the end.
Why your savings rate matters more than your returns, and how to set up a Reservoir in five steps.
Enter your income, what you save and your time frame. Compare your current path with a Reservoir in under a minute.
No. Social Security, withdrawal order, taxes and how your buckets are set up can all still be improved, and small changes add up over a long retirement.
Yes. A second look doesn’t mean switching. I’ll review how your income plan holds up to a bad first few years, your withdrawal order and your Social Security timing, and tell you what I’d change, if anything. What you do with it is up to you.
It’s our name for an income annuity: part of your savings turned into lifetime income you can’t outlive, much like a pension from an employer. Guarantees depend on the issuing insurance company’s ability to pay, and the money is less flexible once committed.
It depends on your health, your other income and your spouse. You can claim between 62 and 70, and each year you wait past full retirement age raises your benefit 8%. We’ll compare the options with you.
No. We also specialize in physician assistants and owners of closely held businesses. Planning for PAs · Planning for business owners.
Your CPA mostly looks back at the year that just happened. Planning looks ahead: protection, cash flow, investments and retirement, in order. We work alongside your CPA and attorney so everyone’s advice points the same direction.
Financial planning is fee-based, and the fee is quoted up front, in writing, before any work begins. If we also manage investments or help with insurance, we’ll explain exactly how we’re paid for each. OneAmerica Securities’ Form ADV Part 2 and Form CRS have the details.
It’s a conversation by phone or Zoom. We talk about where you are and what’s on your mind, and you leave knowing whether working together makes sense. No prep needed.
Get started
Pick a time for a call. We’ll talk about where you are and what you’re working toward.
Pick a time that works for you. By phone or Zoom, no prep needed.
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