Frequently Asked Questions

Because the Bucket Strategy separates near-term income from growth assets, a market decline doesn't directly impact your monthly income. Bucket One is held in safe, liquid instruments outside the equity market — your income arrives on schedule regardless of headlines.

Ideally, retirement income planning begins several years before you expect to retire. Starting earlier creates more time to coordinate savings, Social Security (opens in a new tab), Medicare (opens in a new tab), taxes, investment risk, and the transition from earning a paycheck to drawing income from your assets.

Investment management focuses primarily on how assets are invested. Retirement income planning goes further by coordinating when and where income will come from, how taxes may affect withdrawals, how near-term spending needs are supported, and how the investment strategy connects to the rest of your retirement plan.

Our work is organized across three connected lanes: investment management; retirement and financial planning; and tax management and distribution planning. Depending on your situation, the planning may coordinate retirement income, Social Security, Medicare, cash flow, withdrawal sequencing, required minimum distributions, Roth conversions, Qualified Charitable Distributions, survivor planning, beneficiary decisions, and legacy considerations. Lighthouse Financial Strategies and Cambridge Investment Research do not provide tax or legal advice, so we coordinate with your CPA or attorney when appropriate.

Yes. We meet with clients in person at our Boardman, Ohio office and can also conduct planning meetings by phone or secure virtual meeting when appropriate and where permitted. The format can be selected based on your location, preferences, and the type of conversation.

Yes. Social Security and Medicare are considered alongside retirement income, taxes, and cash-flow needs. We help you evaluate how those decisions fit within the broader plan, while recognizing that final benefit, tax, and coverage decisions may require coordination with the appropriate government agencies and qualified professionals.

Yes. When appropriate and with your permission, we can coordinate with your CPA, attorney, insurance professionals, and other advisers so that the different parts of your retirement plan are working from the same information and toward the same priorities.

The plan is reviewed on an ongoing basis, with formal strategy meetings scheduled as appropriate for your situation. Reviews may address income needs, investment changes, tax planning opportunities, beneficiary and legacy considerations, and important changes in your family or financial life.

Not necessarily. The appropriate arrangement depends on your circumstances, the services you need, and whether the assets can be coordinated effectively. We explain what we believe should be managed or included in the planning relationship before you make any decision.

Yes. Clients generally receive secure online access through the applicable custodian or client portal to view account balances, holdings, activity, statements, and available tax documents. The specific portal and features depend on the account and custodial arrangement, and we explain how access works during implementation.

Your assets are not held at or by Lighthouse Financial Strategies or Mike Moss. They are held in your name in custody at a private trust company. Your account protections, statements, and online access are explained before any transfer or account opening.

Whenever possible, both spouses or partners should join the call because retirement decisions often affect household income, taxes, healthcare, survivor planning, and legacy goals. Having everyone involved helps ensure that priorities and concerns are understood from the beginning.

You do not need to have every document organized for the call. It is helpful to have a general understanding of your retirement accounts, investments, income sources, Social Security estimates, pensions, insurance, debts, and the questions that matter most to you. We can explain what additional information may be useful after the initial conversation.

Compensation structure and fees are discussed transparently as part of the introductory conversation. You deserve to understand exactly what you're paying and what you're receiving before any engagement begins.

A relaxed, no-obligation 20–30 minute phone call — not a sales pitch. We focus on understanding your situation and retirement concerns, explain our planning process, and determine whether a next step may be useful. There is no pressure to move forward.

We begin by organizing the information needed to understand your complete financial picture. From there, the Beacon 360 Process moves through designing the plan, reviewing recommendations with you, implementing the agreed-upon strategy, and then monitoring and updating the plan as your life and retirement needs change.

We do not provide tax or legal advice. However, tax management and distribution planning is one of our Three Lanes of Focus. We work alongside your CPA to coordinate a tax-efficient income strategy as part of your overall retirement plan.

Our four-step planning framework: Discovery, Design, Build, and Protect. It begins with understanding what is most important to you — and ends with ongoing, active management of your plan. Every step has a purpose, and every purpose leads to the next.

Sequence-of-returns risk is the danger created by the order in which investment returns occur once you begin withdrawing money. Two retirees can experience the same average return over time yet end up in very different positions, simply because one encountered a market downturn in the early years of retirement while still taking withdrawals. Selling investments for income while their value is down can meaningfully reduce how long a portfolio lasts. That is a central reason we structure a retirement income plan so that we never take income from a growth asset.

Lighthouse Financial Strategies works best with pre-retirees within 5 to 10 years of retirement and retirees—typically age 50 and older—with approximately $1 million or more in investable assets. Our ideal clients value an ongoing planning relationship and prefer a structured process with professional fiduciary guidance to coordinate their retirement income, investments, taxes, Social Security, Medicare, and legacy planning, rather than trying to piece together complex retirement decisions on their own—all to help them retire with greater clarity and confidence.

A time-segmented approach to retirement income. Your savings are organized into purpose-built buckets — each covering a specific window of time in your retirement. The central rule: we never take income from a growth asset.