Questions for a Retirement Income Advisor: The Tolleson Wealth Management Checklist

Step 1: Pull six pieces of paperwork before the first call

Many retirees assume balances are enough for an interview. They aren't. Gather your 403(b) statement from the plan website or HR benefits portal, your IRA statement from the custodian login, your state pension benefit letter, your Social Security benefit amount, your last Form 1040, and 12 months of bank and card statements.

The SSA-1099 arrives in January; your my Social Security account is another place to find the benefit amount. The bank and card statements do the harder job: they show what actually leaves your household each month, including insurance, property tax, groceries, gifts, and the occasional repair.

Choose one number to test every advisor with: the monthly take-home you want, plus a separate amount for travel. Arriving with account balances but no spending total leaves an advisor free to pitch investments without showing how the paycheck would work.

Step 2: Ask the 403(b) plan and IRA custodian three things first

A 403(b) does not automatically pay out like an IRA. The plan terms control whether you can take partial or monthly installment withdrawals, what each distribution costs, and whether part of the balance sits in an annuity contract with a surrender charge.

Ask HR or the plan directly, then ask the IRA custodian whether it can send a monthly payment and accept withholding instructions you choose. The IRS default withholding on many nonperiodic IRA withdrawals is 10 percent, though an owner can elect a different amount. “Full distributions only,” a charge for every payment, or a surrender charge deserve a pause. A 5 percent surrender charge on $300K takes $15K before an advisor has done any work.

This is also the moment to ask for the actual paperwork, not a verbal description. A 401(k) rollover to an IRA can be useful in some cases, but a rollover should not be assumed before you know what the current account permits.

Step 3: Ask for the spending rule in one sentence

Retirees often assume every advisor uses 4 percent. A usable answer names the starting dollar amount, the event that earns a raise, the event that calls for a trim, the size of each change, such as 10 percent, and when those figures are checked at the annual meeting.

Ask the advisor to say it plainly: “Your first-year base pay is $X; if the account reaches Y, we raise it by Z; if it falls to Q, we trim it by Z.” “We’ll adjust as needed” is not a rule. Neither is “we target 8 percent returns so you can take 6 percent.” End the meeting if the advisor cannot attach a dollar amount to a possible trim.

Tolleson Wealth Management writes the raise and trim points into each client’s playbook before the first withdrawal goes out. That does not remove market risk. It gives you a pre-agreed response when a bad year makes a fixed paycheck unsafe.

Accepting a return projection as though it were a spending method can cost nothing today and leave you guessing later. A projection is an assumption; a withdrawal rule tells you what happens when the assumption misses.

Step 4: Test the answer on a $650K budget at 68

A travel budget is often treated as a small extra line item. It changes the base paycheck. Ask the advisor to carve out the temporary spending first, then rerun the base draw on what remains. That test shows the cost of five active travel years in the later years when travel may slow and health costs may rise.

For illustration, hypothetical Astrid, 68, is a widowed former university librarian with a small state pension, a paid-off condo, and $650K split between a 403(b) and an IRA. A 4 percent draw on $650K gives her $26K annually before tax. She wants $15K extra each year for travel from 68 through 72, so the travel pot is $15K × five years = $75K.

Set the travel money aside first: $650K − $75K = $575K. Then calculate the revised base draw: $575K × 4 percent = $23K annually. Her travel years reduce the later base draw by $26K − $23K = $3K annually, or $250 monthly, from age 73 on, assuming the remaining money keeps pace with inflation. That is an illustration, not a forecast.

At 73, the IRS requires RMDs for many retirees, and Astrid’s RMD is about $21.7K on $575K. It sits below her $23K base draw, so the RMD does not force her to spend beyond the amount already in her playbook. Ask every advisor to confirm that comparison using your balances, age, and account types.

The $575K can fall below what Astrid started with in a weak market, which is exactly when the advisor’s trim rule must apply. A good advisor reaches numbers like these in the meeting, not in a follow-up email.

Step 5: Turn the fee into dollars on $650K

A percentage fee can sound too small to matter because it does not arrive as a single bill. Ask for Form CRS and Form ADV Part 2A, then use the SEC’s Investment Adviser Public Disclosure site and FINRA BrokerCheck. Both searches are free, and they give you reported background information to discuss in a second meeting.

Agreeing to a 1 percent fee without converting it to dollars costs nothing you can see this year. On $650K, 1 percent is $6,500 annually. Over 15 years, that is $97,500 before counting growth that money might have earned. Tolleson Wealth Management sets out how it is paid in a written fee schedule before transfers are made.

The trade-off is real. An advisor can reset the paycheck, handle withholding and RMD timing, and stop a panicked sale during a slump; you pay an annual fee and hand over some control. Someone whose pension and Social Security already cover every must-pay bill may reasonably keep withdrawals in-house.

Quick test: If an advisor cannot state the spending rule in one sentence, including the starting amount, raise trigger, trim trigger, and size of the change, end the meeting. If you cannot state your own rule, that is a sign an advisor is worth interviewing. Good interview answers still do not prove an advisor will carry them out, and free regulatory searches only show what has been reported.

Step 6: Would my questions change if I were married or had $2M?

Yes. A married couple should ask what the paycheck becomes after the first death, when the survivor may file as single; a $2M saver should ask about Roth conversions and Medicare IRMAA tiers before RMDs; and someone 10 to 15 years from retirement should ask when the savings target gives way to a spending rule.

For the person still earning a paycheck, compounding and catch-up years matter. The IRS allows an $11,250 catch-up in 2026 for eligible 401(k), 403(b), governmental 457, and TSP participants ages 60 through 63. Ask when an advisor would shift the conversation from adding money to testing monthly withdrawals. Social Security claiming and Roth conversion strategy belong in that later discussion, because both can change the tax picture of the paycheck.

Step 7: Bring your questions to Tolleson Wealth Management

Bring these questions to Tolleson Wealth Management once you have a 12-month spending total, ideally a few years before RMDs begin at 73. Bring the six pieces of paperwork from Step 1 and the travel or gift amount you want tested; we will run the same carve-out math on your numbers.

Tolleson Wealth Management serves people nationwide, largely by screen-share and phone, with a $500K investable-asset minimum. The office is in Columbus, Ohio.