Retirement Income Planning — Plan Your Transition

Yes, Fidelity offers retirement planning services. However, Sentinel Asset Management provides a more personalized, comprehensive approach with dedicated advisors who build customized retirement income strategies. Our team has guided over 2,000 clients into retirement with average plan horizons of 20+ years, coordinating tax-efficient withdrawals across all account types while stress-testing strategies against historical market conditions to ensure your plan can endure volatility and support your lifestyle for the long term.

Fidelity's planning fees vary based on account size and service level. At Sentinel, our fee structure is transparent and tailored to the complexity of your financial situation and assets under management. We believe in aligning our success with yours—our comprehensive retirement income planning integrates investment management, tax coordination, estate planning review, and ongoing risk monitoring into one cohesive strategy designed to maximize your lifetime income while minimizing taxes and preserving your legacy.

We implement structured withdrawal 'buckets' that insulate your near-term cash flow from market volatility while maintaining growth-oriented allocations for longer time horizons. Every plan is stress-tested against historical bear markets, recessions, and inflationary periods. This bucket strategy ensures you have reliable income sources during downturns without being forced to sell investments at depressed prices, protecting against sequence-of-returns risk—one of the greatest threats to retirement security.

Our approach is rooted in Nobel Prize-winning modern portfolio theory, refined through 100+ years of combined advisory experience. We coordinate every aspect of your financial life—investment allocation, tax-efficient withdrawals, estate planning, and risk management—into one cohesive strategy. Each client receives an Investment Policy Statement, and every plan is monitored continuously and stress-tested under different market conditions to ensure it can support your lifestyle for 20+ years of retirement.

We analyze your taxable, tax-deferred, and tax-free account 'buckets' as one integrated plan, ensuring income is drawn from the most tax-efficient source each year. Our strategies include strategic Roth conversions, tax-loss harvesting, multi-account withdrawal sequencing, Qualified Charitable Distributions, and tax-efficient gifting—all aligned with current IRS rules. The goal is to minimize your lifetime tax liability so your wealth works smarter, lasts longer, and supports more of what you value.

Sequence-of-returns risk refers to the danger of experiencing poor market returns early in retirement when you're taking withdrawals. Even with good long-term average returns, poor performance in the first few years can significantly deplete your portfolio. We protect against this through strategic bucket planning, adaptive withdrawal rates, and diversified income sources that flex with market conditions—ensuring you don't run out of money regardless of when market downturns occur during your retirement.

We conduct comprehensive reviews at least annually, or more frequently when significant life events occur or market conditions change substantially. During reviews, we assess portfolio performance, rebalance allocations, evaluate tax strategies, monitor withdrawal rates against plan projections, and make adjustments to ensure your income stream remains on track. This ongoing monitoring and adaptation is essential to maintaining plan integrity through changing markets, tax laws, and personal circumstances over a 20+ year retirement horizon.

Absolutely. We work alongside estate attorneys to ensure your retirement income strategy aligns with your legacy goals. This includes reviewing beneficiary designations, titling of accounts, wills, and trusts for consistency, and developing strategies to minimize estate taxes while ensuring efficient wealth transfer. Our estate planning coordination covers the 98% of planning that doesn't require a lawyer—working with your accounts, insurance policies, and ownership structures to ensure your assets reach the right people at the right time, on your terms.