Get your numbers from ssa.gov/myaccount — takes 10 minutes to create an account.

Check these figures. Your age-70 benefit is lower than your age-62 benefit, which is the reverse of how claiming works. The two may have been entered in the wrong boxes.

In retirement, your lifestyle is not dependent on your portfolio balance. It is dependent on the income arriving in your bank account, on the dates you need it, in the amounts you need.

"Assets create potential. Income creates permission."

Three layers. Diversified. Delegated by role. The structural answer to the Income Hydra.

For participant-directed plans such as many 401(k)s, request the plan and investment fee disclosures required under ERISA §404a-5. Look up fund expense ratios at morningstar.com.

Note: Fee comparison alone doesn't capture the full value of advisory services. Comprehensive planning, tax coordination, and behavioral guidance may justify higher fees for some retirees. Use this calculator to surface the fee question — not to answer it.

Some of these can be revisited. Others are costly, time-sensitive, or effectively final. Get them right and the rest of the journey is smoother. Get them wrong and you may spend years paying for it. Four doors stand open at the rollover moment, not one: leave the assets in the former employer’s plan, move them to a new employer’s plan, roll them to an IRA, or distribute them. The rollover is often right — but it should be chosen against the alternatives rather than assumed, and the comparison is worth writing down.

Which crossings are still ahead of you?

List every account with institution, type, balance, and beneficiary.

Use combined income/provisional income: adjusted gross income before taxable Social Security, plus tax-exempt interest, plus one-half of annual Social Security benefits. Verify with your tax transcript and IRS Publication 915.

Illustration only. Uses the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table, assumes each year’s RMD is taken near the beginning of the year, and then applies 5% growth to the remaining balance. A different IRS table may apply when the sole beneficiary is a spouse more than ten years younger. RMDs generally must be calculated separately for each account; IRA aggregation and employer-plan rules differ. A still-working participant may generally delay distributions from a current employer’s plan only if the plan permits it and the participant is not a 5% owner.

This estimates what could be a clean pre-RMD Roth-conversion runway. Conversions can still occur after RMD age, but annual RMDs generally must be taken first and cannot be converted. Use the Tax Kraken calculator to see where your own exposure sits: retireregal.com/tax-kraken

Brackets apply to taxable income after deductions, not gross income or AGI. State tax, capital gains, NIIT, credits, phaseouts, and Medicare IRMAA are not reflected here.

2026 standard deduction: MFJ $32,200; Single/MFS $16,100; Head of Household $24,150. Additional temporary senior deduction for 2025–2028: up to $6,000 per qualifying individual age 65+, subject to MAGI phaseouts. Verify at irs.gov.

IRMAA uses modified adjusted gross income from two years prior. A 2026 Medicare premium is generally based on 2024 MAGI unless a qualifying life-changing event applies.

2026 Part B standard premium: $202.90/month. Part B annual deductible: $283. These are federal Medicare figures and do not include state-specific, Part D, or supplemental coverage costs.

Special rule: married individuals who file separately and lived with their spouse at any time during the tax year use separate IRMAA thresholds. Verify directly with Medicare/CMS before planning around a threshold.

The Kraken reaches five ways — pushing you into higher brackets, taxing your Social Security through provisional income, adding IRMAA surcharges, forcing distributions whether you need them or not, and handing your heirs the deferred bill. The Tax Kraken Threat Assessment™ runs your numbers (IRA balance, age, birth year, filing status, state, Social Security, other income, heirs) against current 2026 federal tax brackets, Medicare surcharge thresholds, and IRS life-expectancy tables, then projects your lifetime tax exposure.

The Roth conversion lever is fully interactive — experiment with conversion amounts and conversion windows to see how your projected exposure moves. Charitable routes — qualified charitable distributions and donor-advised funds — are modeled in your Retire REGAL® Review, but only where charitable intent already exists. Giving a dollar away to avoid tax on part of it does not leave you ahead.

Two retirees with identical portfolios, identical withdrawals, and identical average returns can end with dramatically different outcomes if one experiences the bad years first. The Market Dragon Timing Test™ takes three inputs (starting balance, year-1 withdrawal, inflation toggle) and shows you the difference between two real historical retirement decades — plus a controlled sequence-of-returns experiment using the same returns reordered.

Beneficiary designations generally control how these contract assets pass, subject to plan terms, spousal rights, QDROs, court orders, and applicable law. An outdated form may direct assets differently from the intent expressed in a will or trust. Log in to every account individually — do not rely on memory.

Many non-spouse beneficiaries must fully distribute an inherited IRA by the end of the 10th year after death under the SECURE Act rules. Equal annual withdrawals are not always required; annual inherited-IRA RMDs may apply if the original owner died on or after the required beginning date. This calculator uses a simple even-distribution illustration for planning conversation only.

Beneficiary designations on IRAs, employer plans, life insurance, annuities, and TOD accounts generally control how those assets pass, subject to plan terms, spousal rights, QDROs, court orders, and applicable law. Many legacy disputes arise from forgotten or misaligned beneficiary forms.

The 2026 federal basic exclusion amount is $15 million per individual. Married couples may preserve up to $30 million of estate-and-gift-tax exclusion with proper planning and a timely portability election; prior taxable gifts and GST planning require separate analysis. For most families, coordination—not federal estate tax—is the more immediate concern.

The numbers most often misquoted in living-room estate conversations. Federal figures shown; state estate and inheritance tax laws vary widely.

Figures reflect law as of May 2026 and may change. Consult a qualified tax professional before acting on any specific figure.

REGAL Quest™, an educational experience built using the same Retire REGAL® Five Realms vocabulary. Pass-the-device, multi-generational. Designed to be played with your spouse, your adult children, or your grandchildren over Sunday dinner.

Legacy is more than documents. It is vocabulary — the language a family uses to talk about money. REGAL Quest™ builds shared family vocabulary in an environment where it sticks: the dinner table. Money itself is never a game. The wisdom to handle it well, however, is worth playing for.

The legacy you build is the one the family understands.

The Five Foemen of Retirement do not take turns — they arrive together. Check which are most active in your plan; your selections sharpen the priorities below.

Pulled from your inputs across all five realms. These are educational review topics—not recommendations—and should be evaluated in the context of your complete financial, tax, legal, insurance, and family situation.