Retirement Income Planning
 in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas

Ongoing, coordinated planning for the withdrawals, taxes, Social Security, and estate decisions that come once you stop building wealth and start living on it, possibly for 30 years.

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It's free, and you decide afterward
whether it's worth continuing.
Serving Dallas–Fort
Worth families since 2014
Nick Lalonde is a CERTIFIED
FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional
Affiliated with LPL Financial, a Fortune
500 company; Member FINRA/SIPC

Check the background of this firm on FINRA’s BrokerCheck.

“How much can I spend each year without running out of money?”

Retirement, as an idea, is younger than it feels. When Social Security set America's retirement age at 65 in 1935, life expectancy at birth was about 61.¹ The system was never designed around decades of life after the last paycheck. For most of a century, retirement meant a few years, not a third of your life.

Today it's a different math entirely. If you and your spouse are both healthy at 65, there's roughly a 50% chance one of you lives to 92, and about a one-in-four chance one of you reaches 97.² Work 30 or 40 years, and your investments may need to produce income for nearly as long as you earned one, while the cost of nearly everything keeps climbing. That's not the retirement the system was built around. It's the one you have to plan for.

Most people have heard that their investments need to keep working in retirement, creating the paycheck their employer used to. What's rarely said is that drawing money down is a completely different discipline than building it up. Morgan Housel makes the point in The Psychology of Money: getting wealthy and staying wealthy are two different skills. Building wealth rewards patience and optimism. Drawing it down demands coordination: which account, in what order, at what tax cost, measured against how many years the money has to last.

And while all of that is happening, many retirees are quietly losing money to the IRS. Required withdrawals begin at 73 or 75 whether you need the income or not, can pull more of your Social Security into taxable territory, and can raise your Medicare premiums two years later. When one spouse passes, the survivor files single, and the tax on the same income goes up. None of it announces itself. It just compounds, year after year.

Unlike a rough stretch during your working decades, a bad decision made after the paycheck stops has less time, and no new income behind it, to fix.

The questions our retired clients bring to us:

How much can I spend each year without running out of money? What if I live to 95? Does my plan actually stretch that far?

Which accounts should I draw from first to help manage my lifetime tax burden?

When should I start taking Social Security, and how does that interact with everything else?

How do I manage Required Minimum Distributions without getting pushed into a higher tax bracket?

Is my portfolio still built the right way now that I'm spending from it instead of adding to it?

What happens to my spouse financially if something happens to me?

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¹ Social Security Administration, "Life Expectancy for Social Security". Life expectancy at birth in 1930 was 58 for men and 62 for women; the Social Security Act of 1935 set the retirement age at 65.

² Stanford Center on Longevity, "Understanding Longevity," based on the American Academy of Actuaries and Society of Actuaries Longevity Illustrator. For a married couple both age 65, there is a 50% chance one spouse survives to age 92 and a 25% chance one spouse survives more than 32 additional years.

What a Good Retirement Income Strategy Looks Like

Your plan is built and stress-tested for a retirement that could run 30 years. You have a tested number for what you can spend this year.

Every withdrawal has a reason behind it: which account, in what order, and what it does to your lifetime tax bill.

Your Social Security start date was chosen on purpose, not defaulted into.

If something happened to you tomorrow, your spouse would know exactly who to call and what happens next.

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Retirement Income Planning at Third Act Wealth Management

Serving retirees and pre-retirees is at the heart of what Third Act does.

Our practice is built around the specific discipline of turning savings into income: income modeling against long time horizons, tax-efficient withdrawal sequencing, Social Security and Medicare analysis, and a portfolio restructured from growth toward income.

Your beneficiary and legacy questions get raised in the same conversation, not scheduled as a separate meeting months later.

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See the full picture

Every relationship starts with a Complimentary Second Opinion: roughly 10 to 20 hours of real planning work, spent understanding your accounts, income sources, and estate documents before you decide anything.

Our Approach

Build the strategy

We model your income into your 90s, then build a tax-conscious withdrawal plan so you know where each month's income comes from, in what order, and what it costs in tax, with Social Security timing and Medicare premium thresholds built in.

Keep it current

We meet on a set schedule to review progress and adjust the plan, and we reach out whenever something in your plan changes enough to warrant a conversation.

What We Charge

Third Act runs on a fee-based model. Your advisor fee, any fund expense ratios, and platform fees are put in writing before you decide anything. We work with retirees who have $1 million or more in investable assets. The Complimentary Second Opinion that starts the relationship costs nothing.

Why Us

Four Reasons Retirees Choose Third Act

Built for the spending years

Most advisory practices are built around people still saving. Ours is built for the turn from saving to spending, so drawing income well is core work here, not a side offering.

We plan for the retirement people actually live

Your income gets modeled into your 90s, including the years when one spouse is managing alone, instead of stopping at a tidy average.

Taxes get planned every year

Withdrawal order, RMD timing, Roth conversion windows, and Medicare premium thresholds get reviewed while the decisions are still open.

Someone is watching between the meetings

When tax law shifts, a market move changes the math, or an account needs attention, we reach out when your plan needs it.

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What Our Clients Say

Nick has been a trusted source of financial advice and support for us for years. He takes the time to really understand your goals and risk personality. His knowledge, diligence, and patience in answering questions, make him an adviser I recommend

Debra B

Nick and his team have been great to work with. One of the best decisions I have ever made regarding my money and future!

Mark M

I have been working with Nick for five years now and have been very pleased with his service. Nick is knowledgeable and attentive and truly wants the best for all of his clients. I highly recommend Nick and Third Act

Lance M
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These statements are a testimonial by a client of the financial professional as of the 9/9/26. The client has not been paid or received any other compensation for making these statements. As a result, the client does not receive any material incentives or benefits for providing the testimonial. These views may not be representative of the views of other clients and are not indicative of future performance or success.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should I plan for my money to last?

Longer than most people assume. For a healthy couple at 65, there's roughly a 50% chance one spouse lives to 92. We model your income against long lifespans on purpose, so longevity is a planning input rather than a surprise.

I'm already retired. Is it too late to start planning?

No, if anything the opposite. Once you're spending from assets instead of adding to them, the cost of an unplanned decision on withdrawals, RMDs, or Social Security compounds faster than it did while you were still working.

How much can I spend each year without running out of money?

We model it against your actual assets, spending patterns, and time horizon, then stress-test that model against different market environments, so the number you get is tested, not estimated.

Isn't drawing down my portfolio just saving in reverse?

No, and that assumption causes real damage. The order you draw from accounts, the timing of withdrawals against markets, and the tax cost of each dollar all matter in ways they didn't while you were saving. It's a different discipline, and it's the one this service is built around.

How do you help manage RMDs?

RMDs are mandatory starting at 73 or 75 and taxed as ordinary income. We plan the timing and amount ahead of time so they don't push you into a bracket you didn't see coming.

What happens to my spouse financially if something happens to me?

It's one of the first questions we raise directly, not one we wait for you to ask. We review your beneficiary designations and survivor income picture together, then help facilitate that conversation with your estate attorney wherever documents need updating.

Are you a fiduciary?

Yes, in our fee-based advisory relationships. It's also a requirement of the CFP Board's Code of Ethics that Nick is held to as a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional.

Still have a question?

The first meeting is free, and it's the easiest place to ask it.

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You spent decades building this.

Let's find out whether the plan behind it is built for how long retirement actually lasts now.

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Prefer to call?

+1 (214) 764-2095
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Traditional IRA account owners have considerations to make before performing a Roth IRA conversion. These primarily include income tax consequences on the converted amount in the year of conversion, withdrawal limitations from a Roth IRA, and income limitations for future contributions to a Roth IRA. In addition, if you are required to take a required minimum distribution (RMD) in the year you convert, you must do so before converting to a Roth IRA.