Households served
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Pre-retirees and retirees, by design
Linden & Pace is a two-partner planning firm built for one stretch of life, the five years before retirement and the thirty years that follow. We help pre-retirees and retirees navigate Social Security timing, Roth conversions, the Medicare bridge, and the order in which you draw from which account. That is the entire practice. We do it for one kind of household, and we do not pretend otherwise.
Most clients find us five years out from retiring. The runway and the years on the other side have a shape, and we know it. Here is what each phase actually contains, and the decisions that quietly determine whether the money lasts.
The five years before retirement are the most valuable years in a financial plan, and the least dramatic looking. There is rarely a moment of decision. There is a quiet sequence of Roth conversions, beneficiary audits, asset-location cleanup, and a cash-flow model that turns the question “can we retire” into a number you can stop checking.
Most households arrive having run a retirement calculator four times and gotten four different answers. We give you one number and show you the math.
The hardest seven years in the plan. The paycheck stops. Medicare begins, or does not yet. The Social Security decision arrives. The withdrawal sequence for these years quietly decides whether the portfolio outlasts the household.
We coordinate the four moving pieces, the healthcare bridge, the claiming decision, the conversion finish, and the drawdown sequence, as a single coherent plan rather than four conversations with four people.
The first RMD lands. The plan has to adapt to the fact that the IRS now decides part of your income for you. We run the bracket-management calculus annually. We coordinate qualified charitable distributions if you give. We manage the legacy conversation when you want to have it, and not before.
We also have the conversation almost no advisor brings up, the long-term care plan that does not insult your intelligence, and the question of what the portfolio is for, now that you are not earning from it.
We had run the numbers ourselves four different ways and gotten four different answers. Anya gave us one number, showed us the math behind it, and told us which two decisions actually moved it.Dana & Mike, both 61 & 64 · Engineering manager and hospital RN · Retired three months after engaging
We have heard a thousand versions of these five questions. The answers depend on your numbers, but the framing rarely does. Here is how we approach them, and roughly when in life they come up.
| The question | How we approach it | When it shows up |
|---|---|---|
| Can we retire when we want to? | A Monte Carlo against thirty-year longevity, two healthcare scenarios, two market scenarios. We give you a number, not a feeling. We rerun it every year. | Age 58 to 60 |
| When should we file for Social Security? | We optimize as a household, not as two individuals. The higher earner usually waits to 70. The lower earner often does not. Survivor benefits get heavier weight than the calculators suggest. | Age 62 to 70 |
| How much should we convert to Roth? | Up to the top of the 24% bracket, every year, until RMDs start. Then we stop. The window is shorter than most households realize. | Age 60 to 73 |
| What do we do for healthcare before Medicare? | ACA subsidy math against a portfolio that can throttle taxable income. Sometimes the answer is COBRA. Usually it is not. | Age 60 to 65 |
| Which account do we spend from first? | Almost never the answer in the books. The right sequence depends on RMDs, brackets, and what your heirs will inherit. We re-derive it every year. | Age 65 and beyond |
If your story does not look like this, we are probably not the right firm, and we will say so on the first call. We would rather refer you than be wrong for you.
The person you talk to on the intro call is the person who runs your plan. There is no associate, no client service team, no rotation. Anya and Pace each carry seventeen households, on purpose.
Flat annual fee, billed quarterly. Tiered by complexity, not by AUM. Median household pays $14,500 a year. No AUM percentages, no commissions, no insurance product fees. You can see the entire schedule on the second page of our intro email.
Both, if you want. We manage portfolios at Schwab and Fidelity using low-cost index funds and the tax-aware withdrawal sequence the plan was built around. We will also work with you on a planning-only basis if you prefer to keep the assets at Vanguard or with your existing advisor.
Then we are probably not the right firm, and we will tell you on the first call. We can usually refer you to someone who is. We would rather lose a fit than fake one. We turn down about a third of intro calls for this reason, and our referrals come back.
Six weeks from signed engagement to delivered plan, with three meetings in between. After that, we meet twice a year for as long as you want us to. Most households stay with us through both spouses, by design.
Yes. We are a Registered Investment Adviser. We have no broker-dealer affiliation, no insurance license, no proprietary products. The standing fiduciary duty applies to every conversation, not only to the ones about investments.
If you are inside the five-year runway, the cost of the wrong move, a mistimed Roth conversion, the wrong Social Security age, the wrong account drawn from first, is much higher than the cost of a call. We will not sell you on it, and you will not sell us either. If we are a fit, you will know on this call. If we are not, we will name the firm that is.
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