First Step Wealth Planning

08/06/2026

He called about his money. Balances, allocations, what's invested where.

The only language most of us have ever been given to talk about money with an advisor.

Then he was asked a different question. What came back wasn't a number at all.

New essay, "Performance Review," is up on Threshold. Link in the comments.

08/03/2026

Retirement gets treated like a finish line.

People clap, say they're jealous, and move on.

What they don't ask is how strange it feels the first time a day has no shape to it at all.

That part doesn't get talked about enough.

07/30/2026

Nobody wants to pay more in taxes than they have to.

That instinct is usually right, except in the few years right after retirement, when income drops and the cost of converting or harvesting gains drops with it.

Paying a little now can mean paying much less later. It just doesn't feel that way in the moment.

07/29/2026

Withdrawing money in retirement sounds simple. It's not.

Just take out what you need, right?

Not necessarily.

How you take it out, and in what order, can determine whether your money lasts thirty years or twenty-two.

The goal was never just the number.

It's the freedom to stop thinking about the number.

07/28/2026

Nobody regrets the ski trip they took at 55.

Plenty of people regret the one they kept postponing until 70, when the knees finally said no.

Money that just sits there waiting for "someday" isn't being protected.

It's being wasted on a version of you that may not exist.

07/27/2026

Inflation reminds me of a conversation between a bartender and a patron.

The patron complained the price of a pint had gone up.

The bartender said, "So has a loaf of bread."

The patron replied, "But I don't eat four or five loaves of bread a day."

We don't feel inflation. We feel the prices of the things we actually buy.

That's why two people can look at the same inflation number and disagree about whether it's real.

07/24/2026

Money isn’t the only thing that matters.

It’s the lubrication between the things that are.

Faith, fitness, family, friends, and finances. Money is the only one of the five you can delegate, which is exactly why it's tempting to let it eat the time that belongs to the others.

Pay attention to where you spend your time.

07/21/2026

He wasn't ready to be done.

She wanted her mornings back.

This is what unreadiness costs the person standing next to it.

She can go back to sleep

07/20/2026

What if doing more gets you less?

Work more, save more, have more.

More of what? The planet's wealthiest people all try to buy the one thing money can't get them.

Time

The rapidly depreciating resource we so wonderfully squander.

Three more years of work sounds safe. It also has a price.

Ask what those three years actually cost before you assume they're free.

07/17/2026

The most overworked cliché is "money won't make you happy."
It certainly can.

It buys separation from the scramble to survive. And once survival is secured, it buys something better: choice in how you actually live.

That's not the same for everyone. For some, it's time. For others, it's fewer decisions made out of fear. For others, it's the ability to say no.

Money can turn into a scoreboard if you let it. But that's a choice, not a requirement.

Used well, it buys you room for what matters.