Aug 22, 2026 · 32 min
Retirement planning starts before the finish line
Crucial Steps for the “Pre-Go” Years Before Retirement
The decade before retirement can determine whether people withstand market shocks, manage taxes, spend confidently, and prepare for life after work.
- 1Gradually reducing portfolio risk before retirement can create flexibility when the timing of work’s end remains uncertain.
- 2The years before required minimum distributions may offer valuable opportunities to manage lifetime taxes through strategic withdrawals.
- 3Retirement planning must address emotional purpose and later-life decision-making, not just income, investments, and spending.
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Anspach recounts a client’s depression after leaving a business, showing how retirement can remove social connection and a sense of contribution.
The brief
Robert Brokamp and Dana Anspach frame the decade before retirement as a distinct planning phase, when uncertainty about timing makes flexibility more valuable than precision.
Anspach argues for gradually reducing investment risk roughly ten years before retirement, rather than leaving a portfolio exposed to a downturn just before work ends.
The period between retirement and required minimum distributions can become a tax-planning window, while the healthy go-go years may justify spending sooner.
A red-yellow-green framework helps sort decisions such as mortgages, Roth conversions, and Social Security timing by how clearly the analysis points.
The conversation’s emotional turn comes with the arrival fallacy: leaving work may remove purpose and social connection, making later-life planning as important as financial preparation.
Anspach closes by urging people to plan for slow-go and no-go years while they still have the health and clarity to decide what they want.
