Benjamin Arney

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Helping high earners and retirees keep more of what they’ve built | Financial Planning Consultant | Follow for posts on taxes, retirement income, and wealth strategies.

06/19/2026

Your 78 year old father just gave $40,000 to a phone scammer. By the time the family found out, the money was gone. This happens every single day.

Americans over 60 lose more than $3 billion a year to financial fraud. And those are just the cases that get reported. The real number is likely double or triple that.

Cognitive decline makes it worse. Financial decision making is one of the first abilities to deteriorate with age. People who were brilliant with money their entire lives start making decisions that don't make sense, and they don't realize it's happening.

If you have aging parents, here are the conversations you need to have now, not later.

Get a durable power of attorney in place. This allows a trusted family member to step in and manage finances if your parent becomes unable to. Without it, you're looking at a court ordered guardianship, which is expensive, slow, and public.

Set up account alerts. Most banks and brokerages can send notifications for large withdrawals, wire transfers, or account changes. This gives the family an early warning system.

Simplify their finances. Consolidate accounts. Set up automatic bill pay. Reduce the number of credit cards. The simpler the system, the harder it is to exploit.

This is one of the most important planning conversations a family can have. And almost nobody has it until it's too late.


06/17/2026

Everyone plans for retirement like they'll spend the same amount every year for 30 years.

That's not how it works. Not even close.

Retirement spending follows a pattern researchers call the "spending smile." It starts high, dips in the middle, and rises again at the end.

In the early years (the go go years), you're traveling, dining out, renovating the house, checking things off the bucket list. Spending is at its peak. Most retirees spend 10% to 20% more in the first five years than they expected.

In the middle years (the slow go years), spending naturally declines. You travel less. You eat out less. You settle into a routine. Annual spending often drops 15% to 25% from the early years.

In the later years (the no go years), spending rises again, but for a different reason: healthcare.

Long term care, medications, in home assistance, and medical procedures drive costs back up, sometimes dramatically.

Why does this matter? Because if your plan assumes a flat 4% withdrawal for 30 years, it's wrong. You might need 5% in year one and 3% in year fifteen and 6% in year twenty five.

A good retirement plan models the smile. It gives you permission to spend more early when you can enjoy it, prepares for the lull in the middle, and reserves for healthcare at the end.

Retirement isn't one phase. It's three. Your plan should reflect that.

06/16/2026

Nobody warns you about this part of retirement so I will.

You've spent 30 years being the person who
does the thing. The VP. The partner. The one they call when something breaks. And then one day, you're not.

The financial plan was perfect. The portfolio was solid. The tax strategy was dialed in. But six months into retirement, you're sitting in your kitchen at 10 AM on a Tuesday wondering what you're supposed to do with yourself.

This is the identity crisis nobody talks about. And it hits high achievers the hardest. Your job wasn't just income. It was structure. It was purpose. It was community. It was a reason to get dressed in the morning. When that disappears, no amount of money fills the gap.

The retirees who thrive aren't the ones with the biggest portfolios. They're the ones who built
something to retire TO, not just retire FROM. Board seats. Consulting projects. Volunteering.
Teaching. Mentoring. Something that gives them a reason to show up.

If you're five years from retirement and your entire plan is financial, you're only halfway there.
Start thinking now about what your days will actually look like. Try things. Volunteer before you retire. Take on a side project. The hardest part of retirement isn't the money. It's the Monday morning.


06/15/2026

You make $400,000 a year. Your emergency fund has $15,000 in it. That's not an emergency fund. That's two weeks.

The standard advice is three to six months of expenses. For a high earner spending $15,000
to $20,000 a month, that's $90,000 to $120,000 in liquid cash or near cash.

That sounds like a lot. And it is. But here's why it matters more for high earners than almost
anyone else.

If you lose your job, your replacement timeline is longer. Executive and senior level roles take
six to twelve months to fill, not six weeks. Your expenses are higher. Your lifestyle is harder to
scale down quickly. And unemployment insurance barely covers your grocery bill.

If you're a business owner, the math is even more stark. A slow quarter, a lost client, a lawsuit, or a key employee leaving can create a cash crunch that forces you to liquidate investments at the worst possible time.

Your emergency fund should cover six months of fixed expenses at a minimum. If you're a business owner or single income household, push it to nine to twelve months.

Keep it in a high yield savings account or a short term Treasury fund. Not in the market. Not in your brokerage. Not in crypto.

An emergency fund isn't earning a return. It's buying you the freedom to make good decisions when everything else is going wrong.


06/12/2026

You own a business and your only retirement plan is a SEP IRA. You might be leaving $100,000 or more in tax deductions on the table every year.

A SEP IRA allows contributions up to 25% of net self employment income, capped at $70,000 in 2026. That's solid. But it has limitations. You can't make employee deferrals. And if you have employees, you have to contribute the same percentage for all of them.

A solo 401(k), on the other hand, lets you make both employee deferrals ($23,500 plus catch up contributions) AND employer profit sharing contributions. Total limit: $70,000. Plus the super catch up if you're 60 to 63.

But the real power move for high income business owners? A cash balance pension plan.

A cash balance plan can allow contributions of $100,000 to over $350,000 per year depending
on your age. All tax deductible. This is how business owners in their 50s and 60s supercharge their retirement savings and slash their current tax bill at the same time.

A 55 year old business owner netting $500,000 a year could potentially shelter $250,000 or more through a combination of a solo 401(k) and a cash balance plan.

That's a tax deduction that changes everything.

If you're a business owner making over $200,000 a year and you're not exploring these options, you're paying more in taxes than you need to. Full stop.

06/11/2026

Not all financial advisors are the same. And the wrong one can cost you more than having no advisor at all.

Here's what to look for:

First, understand the difference between a fiduciary and a suitability standard. A fiduciary is legally required to act in your best interest. A suitability standard only requires that a recommendation be "suitable," which is a much lower bar. Always work with a fiduciary.

Second, ask how they get paid. Fee only advisors charge you directly and don't earn commissions on products they sell you. Fee based advisors may charge fees AND earn commissions. Commission only advisors make money when you buy products. Know the difference.

Third, look for credentials. A CFP (Certified Financial Planner) designation means they've passed a rigorous exam covering financial planning, tax, estate, insurance, and investment management. It's not the only credential that matters, but it's a strong signal of competence.

Fourth, ask about their typical client. If they usually work with people in a completely different
financial situation than yours, they may not have the expertise you need. A good advisor for a 30 year old tech worker is very different from a good advisor for a 58 year old pre retiree.

Fifth, ask what they actually do beyond investments. If the answer is just portfolio management, that's not comprehensive planning. You need someone who coordinates your tax strategy, estate plan, insurance, Social Security, and retirement income all together.

The right advisor should feel like a partner, not a salesperson. If your gut says something is off, trust it.


06/09/2026

The S&P; 500 has averaged roughly 10% per year for the last 100 years. The average investor has earned closer to 6%. The difference isn't fees. It's behavior.

People buy when they feel good (after the market has already gone up) and sell when they feel scared (after it's already gone down). Buy high, sell low. Over and over.

In 2008, millions of investors sold at the bottom and missed the recovery. In 2020, people panicked in March and sold right before one of the fastest recoveries in history. In both cases, the people who did nothing came out ahead.

This is not a willpower problem. It's a design problem. Your brain is wired to treat financial losses like physical threats. When your portfolio drops 30%, your fight or flight response kicks in and screams "get out now."

The antidote is a plan built before the crisis hits. A written investment policy. A cash buffer so you're not forced to sell. An advisor who talks you off the ledge when every headline is telling you the world is ending.

The most valuable thing a financial advisor does is not picking investments. It's preventing you from making the one emotional decision that wipes out a decade of returns.

Your biggest risk in retirement isn't the market. It's yourself.


06/08/2026

You got a $50,000 raise three years ago. You have no idea where it went. That's not a budgeting problem. That's lifestyle creep.

It happens to almost every high earner. You make more, so you spend more. The car gets nicer. The vacations get longer. The house gets bigger. And somehow, at $350,000 a year, you're saving the same percentage you were at $200,000.

Lifestyle creep is invisible because it doesn't feel reckless. You're not blowing money on anything crazy. You're just slowly upgrading everything by 10% to 20% every few years.

But here's where it hurts: your retirement plan is built on replacing a certain percentage of your income. If your spending keeps rising, the number you need to retire keeps rising with it.

And most people don't adjust the plan.

A couple spending $120,000 a year needs roughly $3M to retire comfortably. A couple spending $200,000 a year needs closer to $5M. That's a massive difference created by a series of small decisions that didn't feel like decisions at the time.

The fix isn't deprivation. It's awareness. Know what you spend. Know where it's going. And every time your income jumps, make a conscious choice about how much of that increase goes to savings versus lifestyle.

The people who build real wealth aren't the ones who earn the most. They're the ones who kept the gap between earning and spending wide.

You just retired. Nobody is withholding taxes from your paycheck anymore. And you have noidea what to do about it.Welcom...
06/04/2026

You just retired. Nobody is withholding taxes from your paycheck anymore. And you have no
idea what to do about it.

Welcome to the world of quarterly estimated tax payments. If you don't figure this out, you're
going to owe a penalty next April.

In retirement, your income comes from multiple sources: Social Security, IRA withdrawals,
pension payments, brokerage dividends and capital gains, maybe rental income.

Some of these withhold taxes. Some don't. And the default withholding is almost always wrong.

The IRS expects you to pay taxes as you earn income throughout the year, just like you did with payroll withholding. If you owe more than $1,000 at tax time, you'll owe a penalty for underpayment.

You have two options: increase withholding on your Social Security or pension (by filing Form W4V or W4P), or make quarterly estimated payments directly to the IRS using Form 1040ES in April, June, September, and January.

The safe harbor rule is your friend. If you pay at least 110% of last year's total tax through withholding and estimated payments, you avoid the penalty regardless of what you actually owe.

This is one of those boring administrative things that nobody talks about, but getting it wrong can cost you hundreds in penalties and a very unpleasant surprise every April.

Set it up once, review it annually, and stop worrying about it.


"I'll get a financial plan next year." That sentence has cost people more money than any market crash.Every year you wai...
06/03/2026

"I'll get a financial plan next year." That sentence has cost people more money than any market crash.

Every year you wait to start Roth conversions, you lose a year of low bracket space you'll never get back.

Every year you wait to rebalance your asset location, you pay taxes on dividends and interest that should have been sheltered.

Every year you wait to review your estate plan, your family is one unexpected event away from a mess that could have been avoided.

Every year you wait to buy long term care insurance, the premiums go up and your health gets harder to underwrite.

Every year you wait to consolidate your old 401(k)s, you pay fees on money that's not working for you.

The cost of waiting is never zero. It just doesn't show up on a statement.

I've sat across from people who said "I wish I had done this five years ago" more times than I can count. Not because they made bad decisions. Because they made no decision at all.

The best time to get a financial plan was ten years ago. The second best time is today. If you've been putting it off, stop. The math only gets worse from here.

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1104 S Rock Street
Georgetown, TX
78626

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