Income Over Wealth

Nine withdrawal methods scored on six measures, and no method won all six. Stanford ran a separate comparison across 292 retirement income strategies and named a winner. Dan walks through what the higher starting rates cost you when the market falls, and what the winning approach handles before it sets any rate at all.

• Why the tested methods start you anywhere from 39,000 to 57,000 a year on the same million dollars
• The guardrails rule that would have cut a 2007 retiree's real spending 28%, and a 1965 retiree's 54%
• What a 10% portfolio cut does when 36,000 of an 88,000 income already arrives without selling anything

Take the free Retirement Income Roadmap (7 questions, about 30 seconds): incomeoverwealth.com/map

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmQqJFNYNQU

This episode is educational and focused on strategy and math. Always consult a qualified tax or financial professional before making personal financial decisions.

After 60, where your money sits matters as much as how much of it you have. This episode walks through seven common spots where being careful is exactly what created the problem, from an app that says FDIC insured to a rollover that lands in cash and stays there for years. Dan covers what the FDIC actually insures, why a 5-year CD can pay less than a 1-year, and what happens to the 401(k) you left behind.

• Why FDIC coverage runs per ownership category, and how a married couple reaches $1,000,000 of insurance at a single bank without moving a dollar
• The one-minute check that tells an app apart from an actual bank account
• Why the 60-month CD national average is currently below the 12-month, and the two words to look for on any CD term sheet

Take the free Retirement Income Roadmap (7 questions, about 30 seconds): incomeoverwealth.com/map

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GjVQRBG22g

This episode is educational and focused on strategy and math. Always consult a qualified tax or financial professional before making personal financial decisions.

A will does not move your house. It gets filed with the probate court, usually within 10 to 30 days of a death, and the title stays in your name until a judge signs it over. In seven states the fee is calculated on what the house appraises for with the mortgage ignored, which runs about $11,700 on a $434,000 home even with $150,000 still owed. This episode covers the three documents that transfer a house without a judge, plus the shortcut that skips probate and hands your kids a much bigger tax bill.

• What probate actually costs on a median-priced home, and why the mortgage does not lower the bill in 7 states
• The transfer-on-death deed and the Lady Bird deed: which states allow each one, and what they cost to record
• Why a trust you paid for can stop working after a refinance, and the 10-minute check on your county's website that tells you whether yours still owns the house

Take the free Retirement Income Roadmap (7 questions, about 30 seconds): incomeoverwealth.com/map

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV-jA05D_1o

This episode is educational and focused on strategy and math. Always consult a qualified tax or financial professional before making personal financial decisions.

The average Social Security check is $2,071. The average household over 65 spends $5,119. This episode puts a real number on filling that gap, first under the 4% rule, then with a bond ladder held to maturity, then with private mortgage notes. It closes on what the same savings can do once income dollars and growth dollars stop competing for the same job.

• What $3,000 a month costs under the 4% rule, and the two things $900,000 is actually buying you that a cheaper option doesn't
• What the same income costs from a bond ladder at today's Treasury yields, why bond funds can't do that job, and what it means that the coupon never gets a raise
• How the same savings gets split so the whole gap is covered by payments that arrive on a schedule while the rest keeps growing, with the honest catch stated plainly

Take the free Retirement Income Roadmap (7 questions, about 30 seconds): incomeoverwealth.com/map

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fadi3VgJbVE

This episode is educational and focused on strategy and math. Always consult a qualified tax or financial professional before making personal financial decisions.

A crash in your first year of retirement costs more than the drop itself, and this episode puts a number on it. Dan walks through what a 30% year-one drop does to a $1,000,000 portfolio even after the market fully recovers, then the harder version where the recovery never arrives. The last stretch covers where your spending comes from while you wait.

• Why the damage from a first-year crash is easier to see in shares than in dollars
• Why the worst year to retire in American history had no crash in it at all
• How much cash to hold against a $40,000 withdrawal, and what a temporary 10% spending cut buys you

Take the free Retirement Income Roadmap (7 questions, about 30 seconds): incomeoverwealth.com/map

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygZafRwzaZU

This episode is educational and focused on strategy and math. Always consult a qualified tax or financial professional before making personal financial decisions.

The example in this episode moves the portfolio about $115,000 for one more year of work, which comes out to roughly $380 a month for life. Dan shows where each input comes from so you can run the same math on your own situation. All numbers are 2026.

• Why another year of work raises your Social Security check by only about $10 or $20 a month once you have 35 years of earnings, and the situation where it's worth several times that
• The 17-year low-income window that opens the day your paycheck stops, and why working until 62 deletes four years of it
• The 30-hour line that keeps employer health coverage in place, so you can drop the hours without giving up the benefit

Take the free Retirement Income Roadmap (7 questions, about 30 seconds): incomeoverwealth.com/map

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db-D35f2EkU

This episode is educational and focused on strategy and math. Always consult a qualified tax or financial professional before making personal financial decisions.

Every one of these seven taxes goes to zero, and every one runs on a window that opens on an age or a condition and closes on another. Dan walks through all seven with 2026 numbers, including two that aren't technically taxes, which he says on camera. The order the tax code stacks your income drives most of what follows.

• Why a Roth conversion you think costs 12 cents on the dollar can really cost about 27, and the ordinary move in the same year that causes it
• The 2026 income line where long-term capital gains are taxed at zero, and why the wash-sale rule lets you buy the identical fund back that same afternoon
• The health insurance cliff that came back for 2026, where one dollar of income takes the whole subsidy to zero

Take the free Retirement Income Roadmap (7 questions, about 30 seconds): incomeoverwealth.com/map

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL3XDeQYsP8

This episode is educational and focused on strategy and math. Always consult a qualified tax or financial professional before making personal financial decisions.

Most benchmark numbers stop at net worth, which hides the part that matters. The typical household aged 55 to 64 holds about $364,000 in net worth but only about $64,000 in financial assets. This episode walks the Federal Reserve's own survey figures for 55, 60, and 65, then splits the number into the part that can pay you and the part that cannot.

• Why the average is over $1.4 million when about 8 out of 10 households that age sit below it
• Where the top 25% and top 10% lines fall, and why the climb flattens out in the early 60s
• Why single and married households are two different benchmarks

Take the free Retirement Income Roadmap (7 questions, about 30 seconds): incomeoverwealth.com/map

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im6D97dMuqg

This episode is educational and focused on strategy and math. Always consult a qualified tax or financial professional before making personal financial decisions.

Living off dividends sounds simple until you work out the savings it takes to pull off. This episode runs both numbers at today's yields, the bigger one for the years before Social Security starts and the smaller one after, then looks at what dividend investing has actually delivered. That includes what the major dividend funds returned over the last ten years, what the 8% and 12% funds are doing under the hood, and the tax break that comes with a catch.

• Why a couple can need $400,000 less than a single person with identical bills
• What every major dividend ETF returned over the last decade against a plain index fund
• How to test any high-yield fund in two minutes, and what one filing showed about where 36% of a fund's payout came from

Take the free Retirement Income Roadmap (7 questions, about 30 seconds): incomeoverwealth.com/map

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP2OM0SDFU8

This episode is educational and focused on strategy and math. Always consult a qualified tax or financial professional before making personal financial decisions.

Your 401(k) balance isn't income. Pulling money out of it means selling an asset, and that hurts most when the market is down. This episode sorts through what actually pays your bills after the paycheck stops, from Social Security and dividends to bonds, rentals, and private notes, then asks you to count how many real streams you have right now.

• Why a withdrawal from a 401(k) or IRA is a sale, not income, and when that timing hurts
• How a married couple can collect around $99,000 in dividends and long-term gains at 0% federal tax in 2026
• The eight streams sorted by whether they pay you without selling or working, and which one to build next

Take the free Retirement Income Roadmap (7 questions, about 30 seconds): incomeoverwealth.com/map

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1GV_LiyK80

This episode is educational and focused on strategy and math. Always consult a qualified tax or financial professional before making personal financial decisions.