Looking at retirement from a time horizon perspective may be the simplest way to plan for it. The time horizons are built around the phases set by you and your client. Typically, the older one gets the less money needed to fund lifestyle needs (assuming proper health insurance is in place). That being said, what’s the correlation between investment allocation and the different retirement phases?

Assuming there are 4 retirement phases, Initial, Seasoned, Matured and Survivorship years, assets could be allocated today in a fashion for it to be distributed at exactly the right time (beginning of each phase). That being said, the allocation of the assets depends on the time when the money is needed. It’s no surprise that money required sooner should be in more liquid/safer accounts, and money needed far out could/should be allocated to less liquid/riskier accounts. A perfect mix of these types of different assets to make up the portfolio required to fund the different phase is exactly what Retirement Road Map can show.