Getting organized comes first. Setting goals before the more pressing facts are in would be premature. Not everything needs organizing at once. Because their question is about retirement, the first things to gather are the ones that answer it: family, assets, debts, income, savings, and expenses.

For Mark and Lisa, the gap comes in two stages. At 65 and 66, before Social Security, it’s about $84,000 to $87,000 a year. That stretch is often called the bridge. From 67, the gap drops to about $31,000 a year, then grows, because Lisa’s pension is fixed and medical costs rise 4% a year.

The cash flow map shows what the plan needs. Now, three measures show how sturdy the plan is: the withdrawal rate, the Monte Carlo simulation, and the set of guardrails. Together, they turn a budget into a spending plan.

Guardrails are a way to plan adjustments ahead of time, so a change is a rule rather than a reaction. Mark and Lisa use risk-based guardrails. Each January, their plan is rerun through the Monte Carlo simulation above. If the odds of success fall below a floor they set in advance, they trim goal spending enough to bring the odds back up.

Mark and Lisa’s simulation came back high, high enough to raise the underspending question. In plain terms, their savings may support more than their current map: bigger goals, an earlier date, or both.

A plan is only as good as what gets done next, so Mark and Lisa’s list becomes actionable: get real quotes for health coverage, confirm both Social Security estimates, finish the one-page spending plan, decide whether to get help, and choose between 63 and 65 once the quotes are in.

From here, the plan stays current as the numbers move, with their CPA and attorney in the loop. Once there’s a working plan, the next question is how to invest the savings to support it, including a bucketing and asset location strategy. That’s where our next article picks up.