Retirement Planning Shouldn't Feel Like a Mystery
You should know exactly what happens at every step, why it happens, and what you walk out with.
Process Introduction
Most financial planning processes are vague by design. "We'll review your situation." "We'll put together some recommendations." It sounds good until you realize you have no idea what you're agreeing to.
We do it differently. From your very first conversation to the moment we hand you your JETBook, every step is defined, sequenced, and purpose-built to get you one outcome: a Wise Home plan you completely understand, completely trust, and can point to as the most confident thing in your financial life.
THE WISE HOME FRAMEWORK
We don't hope your retirement works out. We build it.
Every plan we write is organized around the Wise Home — a three-tier framework we developed at Plan Wise that gives every dollar you own one clear job. You'll know what each account is for, why it's there, and what would have to happen for us to change it.
If you never earned another dollar, this layer still pays you.
The base layer covers what you actually need to live on. Social Security, any pension you've earned, and — where it fits your situation — a Private Pension that pays a contractually defined income for as long as you live.
Not everyone needs one. When one belongs in a plan, we'll show you the cost, the surrender terms, the liquidity trade-off, and the reason it's there before you sign anything.
ITS ONE JOB
Cover your core expenses for life.
THE RISK IT ADDRESSES
Longevity - outliving your money.
Five years of income, standing between you and a bad market.
This is the part of the plan that makes the rest of it work, and it's what separates the Wise Home from a standard bucket strategy. Most plans tell you to hold two or three years of cash. The Wise Reserve is a calculated five-year buffer, sized to your specific income gap and the life you actually want to fund, invested conservatively and managed all the way through retirement.
Its job is behavioral. In the years the market falls, you draw from the Reserve and leave your growth accounts alone to recover. In the years the market rises, gains are harvested to refill it. You aren't put in the position of selling the wrong asset at the wrong time.
ITS ONE JOB
Absorb bad markets so the Roof isn't sold into them.
THE RISK IT ADDRESSES
Sequence of returns — a downturn early in retirement.
The layer the IRS is most interested in. So are we.
TProtected by the two layers under it, the Roof is where long-term growth happens — and where we do the tax work. Roth conversions during your low-bracket years move money out of accounts the IRS will eventually force you to drain, and into accounts your family can inherit tax-free.
Because the Foundation covers your needs and the Reserve absorbs the shocks, the Roof gets the one thing growth assets actually require: time.
ITS ONE JOB
Outpace inflation and build what you leave behind.
THE RISK IT ADDRESSES
Taxes — RMDs and bracket creep later in life.
HOW WE WORK TOGETHER
5 stages. No proposal in the first meeting.
01
Discovery
A conversation, not a pitch. What prompted the call, what you're hoping retirement looks like, what you own, and what's worrying you. We also figure out together whether we're the right fit — sometimes the honest answer is no.
You'll leave with: a clear sense of the gaps, and no obligation.
02
Strategy
We build your Wise Home. Income floor, Wise Reserve target, growth allocation, the Roth conversion window, Social Security timing, and what your tax picture looks like at 65, 70 and 75. Then we walk you through it and you tell us what's wrong
You'll see your plan on paper, and the reasoning behind every number.
03
Implementation
Accounts opened, transfers initiated, allocations set, beneficiaries corrected, estate work coordinated. You'll get an account-by-account map showing exactly what happens to each one and why. We track every item until it's finished.
Every account is doing its job
04
JETBook Celebration
We hand you the finished JETBook and walk both spouses through it. This one matters to us — it's the meeting where decades of saving turns into something you can hold, read, and explain to your kids.
You leave with: your JETBook, and a full understanding of your plan.
05
Ongoing Reviews
The plan is a living document. Every year we compare what we projected against what actually happened, execute that year's conversion, check your Reserve against target, review your IRMAA tier before open enrollment, and confirm your beneficiaries are still right. Life events don't wait for the annual review — call us when one happens.
You leave with: a plan that's still true a decade from now.
YOUR JETBook BINDER
Your retirement, in a binder you'll actually open.
A financial plan that lives in a PDF gets opened once. The JETBook is a physical binder that holds your whole strategy in plain language, organized so you can find the answer to a specific question in about thirty seconds.
It's the thing spouses tell us they finally understood the plan from. And it's the thing your family will be grateful exists if they ever need it without you.
