18 Cheat Codes to Beat Every Level of Retirement

0:00Video games have cheat codes. You push the right buttons and suddenly you've got extra lives and you get to skip the hard part and you win. Well, after nearly 30 years of helping people retire, I can tell you that retirement has cheat codes, too. The only problem is nobody ever really hands you a list, so I made one. I've helped over a thousand people retire. Some of them would had five million dollars and were scared to death. Others had three hundred thousand and were doing completely fine. And if you've been doing this for as long as I have, you start to see the same moves that show up

0:35over and over again for people who retire well. 18 of them to be exact. And I broke them down into three different levels. The money, the taxes, and the all too important timing. If you get these right, retirement stops being the thing you worry about at two in the morning and starts being part of the life you actually get to enjoy. Let's get into it. And real quick, if you're watching this and thinking, "I'd love to have somebody look at my actual

1:04situation and tell me where I stand." That's exactly what we do here at Riverbend Wealth Management. There's a link in the description to book a call or you can use this QR code right here on the screen. Level number one, cheat code number one, the spin down lie. Most of the industry calls retirement the decumulation phase. That's the years you slowly drain the bucket you spent your whole life filling. And that word can terrify so many people. Let me give you an example. I had a client of mine named Earl who retired at 66 years old with 1.1 million dollars. For six years he pulled money out every single month. The

1:39bucket list trips, the gifts to the grandkids, living the good life. And then he comes in and looks at his statement and goes, "Hey Jeremy, how in the world do I have 1.3 million dollars now?" Well, here's how. By the time you retire, your money's been compounding for decades and it could be throwing off a lot more growth each year than you're pulling out. Research backs us up. The Employee Benefit Research Institute tracked retirees for about 20 years. And the ones who started with $500,000 or more have spent only about 12% of their

2:16money. And about one in three retirees actually had more money than when they started. So, the thing many retirees are scared of is running out of money. But, it's often the opposite of what happens. The real risk is dying with a pile of money and a lot of life left unlived. Cheat code number two, the 4% rule isn't safe, it's expensive. You've probably heard of 4% rule, pull out 4% and you won't run out of money. And everybody treats that

2:47like the gospel, or so many people do. And it seems like the safe choice, but let me tell you what the 4% rule really is. It's really just a strategy for dying with a giant pile of money you never spent. It's so conservative that most people who follow it end up at 85 years old with way more money than they started with. And they got there by making excuses, saying no to trips they really wanted to take, the time with their grandkids, the experiences they

3:16were actually healthy enough to enjoy. You see, the rule doesn't account for how life actually works. Your spending and your health aren't a flat line. They can be a little lumpy, and they tend to follow the retirement spending smile. You tend to spend more in the early years of retirement. Then the spending levels off as you age, and then there's a spike toward the end for health care expenses. So, if you can be flexible and plan ahead, you can front-load your spending, and you can enjoy your wealth while you still have the time, the energy, and the health to actually use it. You see, the safe rule isn't

3:59protecting you. It's actually costing you a lot of time, and it can be robbing you of the best years of your retirement just to pad your estate. Cheat code number three, in retirement your emergency fund changes its job and its size. Most of the advice out there says have three to six months of total expenses in your emergency fund, but that was written for somebody with a paycheck to replace. And even then, that really depends on the type of work that you do. But in retirement, the number that affects the size of your emergency

4:30fund isn't your total spending. It's the gap your guaranteed income doesn't already cover. That cash cushion protects you from a bad market stretch, so it doesn't force you to sell investments at the worst possible time. But there's another thing you need to consider, too. And many retirees make this mistake. Let me give you an example. I had a woman sitting on $280,000 in cash at the bank because it made her feel safe. But after inflation, that

5:00cash was losing money every single year. So we reduced that risk by laddering short-term bonds and making sure she was in the right money market accounts. This increased her returns while still keeping her money safe. You see, the right-size emergency fund can give you real protection. Think of it like an airbag for your portfolio. Cheat code number four, your house is an asset you're pretending you don't have. For most people over 60, can be 30 to 40% of

5:32everything they own. And they tend to completely wall this off from their retirement plan. And I hear it all the time, I never want to sell my house. And I get it, my mom had the same problem. But that house isn't just sitting there. It's costing you $15,000 a year in taxes, insurance, and upkeep while you may be stressing about whether

5:53your portfolio is big enough. Meanwhile, you may have $400,000 equity in that home, and it's not doing all that much. Now, I'm not telling you to sell it, but what I am telling you to do is to consider counting it. The people who end up house rich and cash poor in their 80s are the ones who refuse to even look at this as an option. And, the ones who do this really well treat the

6:18equity in their home as a backup plan. Now, they may never use it, but it's there. Code number five, liquidity matters more than net worth. Net worth is one of the most misleading numbers there is. It doesn't tell you what you can actually get your hands on when you need it. I work with people with a couple million dollars who were completely stressed all because their money was locked up in a house or a business that they couldn't sell. And, the real estate they had wasn't throwing off any income. They were rich on paper,

6:49but squeezed in real life. You see, when an emergency hits, what really matters is what you can get your hands on without penalty or a lot of taxes. Someone with $800,000 of accessible money is often in better shape than someone worth $2 million or more who can't touch most of it. Code number six,

7:08your portfolio only has to fill the gap. You don't need your savings to cover everything. Maybe you got social security or a pension or rental income. That guaranteed money that shows up no matter what the market does is your floor. Your portfolio's only job is fill the gap between the floor and what you need to spend. So, if you need $5,000 a month and social security covers $3,000 of that, your portfolio only has to produce $2,000 a month. And, the bigger you build that floor, the

7:38less work your investments have to do. And, the less risk you can take. Therefore, the less a bad market can actually hurt you. So, the question really was never how big is my account, it's how much of what I need is guaranteed and covered. So, that's level number one. But, here's where most of your money leaks out, and it's not the stock market. We're talking about level two, taxes. Cheat code number seven, planning for the lowest tax bill this year is how you pay the most taxes over your lifetime. Every year you may hear the same advice, save money on taxes. Pay as little as possible right now, but in retirement

8:17following that advice can be one of the most expensive things you can do. Because when you retire, your paycheck is gone. Social Security may not have started yet, and nobody is forcing you to take money out of your IRA yet. So, your tax brackets are wide open. Most people pay nothing and let those pre-tax accounts keep growing. Then their Social Security starts. And the government forces into withdrawal from those accounts in their 70s. And there's no

8:45more room left in those lower brackets. You could end up paying 22% or more on that money that you could have pulled out and paid only 10% a decade earlier. You may have saved a few thousand dollars in your 60s, but it could cost you tens of thousands of dollars later. Cheat code number eight, there's a tax valley in early retirement and most people waste it. There's a stretch between when you stop working and when your Social Security starts and there's RMDs start to kick in. Your income can be lower than it's been in decades, and I like to call this the retirement tax valley. And it's the most valuable tax

9:23window in your entire life. It can be the cheapest time you'll ever have to move money from your pre-tax IRA into a Roth or sell a stock that has grown and pay zero capital gains tax on it. A lot of people go through these years paying almost nothing in taxes and they think they're doing great. But paying zero tax in those years isn't a win. It means you missed the best tax window you're ever going to have. Cheat code number nine, it's not what you own, it's which

9:53account you keep it in. Everybody obsesses over what to invest in, but almost no one thinks about which account to hold it in. And that can cost you a lot of money over your lifetime. If you've got different types of accounts, let's say an IRA, a Roth IRA, and a brokerage, each one gets taxed differently. So, the smart thing to do is put the right investments in the right accounts. Now, you may want to put the highest growth investments in a Roth IRA because every dollar that grows comes out tax-free for the rest of your life. The stuff that kicks off taxable income, like corporate bonds, may belong

10:28in a traditional IRA where it's sheltered. And your tax-efficient investments, perhaps index funds, go in your brokerage account. You see, you have the same overall portfolio and the same risk, but you are strategically keeping more of it. Code number 10. There's a 0% capital gains bracket and you might be standing right in it. This isn't a tax loophole or some trick. It's written right in the tax code. If your taxable income stays below a certain level, you can sell appreciated investments and pay zero federal tax on it. I'm not talking about low, I'm talking about zero. And in those low-income value years, a lot of retirees can fall right into that

11:12bracket and they have no idea they are. I had a client of mine who had a $100,000 worth of appreciated stock and he was only taking social security and there wasn't a lot of other income. Now, I knew he might be in this bracket. So, what we did was we set up a three-way call with his CPA because I wanted to

11:32verify where he was in that tax bracket. And the CPA agreed. He could sell $100,000 worth of that stock and have a $60,000 capital gain and pay zero capital gains tax on it. So, you need to be mindful where you sit every single year and know when and how to take advantage of it. Code number 11. If you give to charity, give straight from your IRA. If you're over 70 and 1/2 years old and you give to charity, writing a check is usually the most expensive way to do it. You see, there's something called qualified charitable distributions and you send money straight from your IRA to the

12:12charity. And because you never touched it, it does not count as your income, and you pay zero taxes on it. In 2026, you can give up to $111,000 this way. And if you're already taking your required minimum income distributions, it even counts towards that. So, you can satisfy that requirement and help the causes you care

12:35about while paying nothing in taxes. Most people have never heard of this, and they end up handing the IRS way more money than they need to. All right, code number 12. One big withdrawal can set off a chain reaction. Most people think taxes are about their tax bracket only, but in retirement, your income also decides how much of your social security gets taxed, and what your Medicare premiums are going to be 2 years down the road. Let me give you an example. I was talking to this guy one time, and he pulled out $500,000

13:05from his 401k to buy a rental property. He told me, "All I got to do is worry about my 35% tax, then I'll buy this property, take some deductions, and that'll all set a lot of it." And I said, "Buddy, you're missing a lot of things." He had no idea how much it was going to affect his social security taxation. It also raised his Medicare premiums. And at that level, his other income got hit with an extra 3.8% net investment income tax. Not to mention, he wasn't even considering the taxes, insurance, and maintenance on that rental property, or the work he had to do to put into it, because he was

13:46doing all this himself. I call this the tax torpedo, because one decision can hit you in so many places at once. It's like Whac-A-Mole. One thing can set off a chain reaction in so many other spots. That's why in retirement, you never want to make a big tax move without seeing the whole picture. So, that's how you keep more money in your pocket from the IRS. Now, there's a lot of moving pieces. You've got social security, your accounts, your taxes, But, the hard part isn't just knowing the pieces, it's getting all of them to work together. And before we get into it, I know taxes and retirement can

14:25feel like a big maze. And if you're thinking, "I need someone to look at my particular situation and tell me where I stand." That's exactly what we do here River Bend Wealth Management. My team and I look at your particular situation and find the moves that leave more money in your pocket rather than to go to the government. If you want to talk with us, there's a link in the description to book a call, or you can use this QR code. Now, let's talk about the decision you only get to make once. Level three, timing. Code number 13, Social Security isn't a solo decision, it's a marriage

14:59decision. A lot of people take Social Security at age 62 because they're thinking about their own life. And if you're single and in poor health, that can make sense. But, if you're married and you're the higher wage earner, you need to think about the person who outlives you. You see, when one spouse passes away, the survivor keeps the larger of the two checks, not both. So, if you're the higher wage earner and you claim early, you don't just shrink your own check, you permanently shrink the income your spouse has if they outlive you for the rest of their life. Delaying could mean hundreds of thousands of

15:35dollars over the course of their lifetime. So, please, please, please, don't make this decision alone because it's not only about you. Code number 14, the decade from age 60 to 70 decides everything and it doesn't feel dangerous. Think about what are the other risk moments that you've had in your life. Let's say a job loss, a market crash, or a medical bill. They feel dangerous and you have to pay attention to it. But, the decade from your age 60 to 70 doesn't come with a bunch of alarm bells. You feel healthy and the kids are grown. Your mortgage is probably paid off or close to it and

16:15everything feels stable. But, that calm is the problem. Because people can make huge decisions almost casually. They pick a social security date because their neighbor says it's the right thing to do. Or they stay invested the same way they were at age 45. But once you stop working, you can't out-earn those mistakes anymore. The same bad move that was survivable at age 45 becomes a permanent problem at age 63. Because there's no paycheck coming in to offset it. Cheat code number 15, some doors

16:51only open once. Know the one-way doors. A lot of retirement decisions are reversible. But a few of them are one-way doors. You walk through them once and there's no coming back. When you choose a pension as lifetime income or lump sum, that's it. You have to live with that decision forever. Once you convert money to a Roth IRA and pay the tax, it's done. So learn the difference between a decision you can change later and the one that you have to live with for 30 years. Take your time on one-way doors. Move faster on the ones that you can undo or the ones that really don't

17:29move the needle. People get this backwards all the time. They agonize over which car to buy and then they make a permanent decision like social security like I just mentioned almost casually. Code 16, plan to retire earlier than you might want to because you might not get a vote. People plan to work till 65 or 67, but a huge number of people don't actually get to choose when they retire. They may get laid off at 61. They may have a health scare and it forces them to retire at age 60. A spouse or a parent suddenly gets ill and you need to be a full-time caregiver. In

18:08fact, close to half of retirees end up retiring earlier than they planned to, not because they wanted to, but because they had to. So the smart thing isn't to build a plan that only works if everything goes perfectly is to build a plan that still holds up if you're forced out earlier than you expect. If that day never comes, great. You got a cushion. But if it does, you're not

18:33scrambling at the worst possible time. Cheat code number 17, before 65 the price of your health insurance is something you can control. Everybody knows health insurance before 65 can be expensive and the fear keeps so many people working a lot longer than they need to. But that price you pay isn't fixed. Your health insurance subsidies on the marketplace are based on your income and in early retirement your income is something you can actually control. If you pull more money from your Roth IRA or from your cash, that doesn't show up as income. So on paper you can look like a low wage earner even though millions of dollars are sitting

19:13in your bank account. And that low income can mean thousands of dollars in subsidies that your health care premiums way down. So the gap before Medicare isn't a wall, it's a number that you can actually manage. Cheat code number 18, the most dangerous years are your first five, not your last. So many people think retirement works like this. You get more conservative every year as you get older. But that's actually

19:38backwards. The most dangerous stretch of your retirement is the first five years, not in your 80s. You see the moment you stop working and you start pulling money out, a bad market can hit you the hardest because you'll be forced to sell your investments while they're down to pay your bills. A 30% drop in year one can do permanent damage, but a 30% drop at age 85, when you're spending is slowed down a whole

20:06lot, may barely affect you. So protecting the first five years with a cash cushion so a bad market won't force you to sell at a at the bottom is a really smart move. And once you get through that window, you can afford to let the growth side run a little bit instead of getting more timid for no reason. So, that's all 18 cheat codes at every level of retirement. But knowing the codes is one thing. Actually watching them play out in people's lives is where it really, really sinks in. That's exactly why I made this video right here. Where I share 25 brutal lessons I learned over

20:47helping over a thousand Americans retire. I go through the patterns, the mistakes, the moments where one single decision can change everything. That's the one to watch next. I hope all's well with you and your family, and I'll see you in the next video.