The Straight-Talk Retirement Guide

Build income

Guaranteed income you cannot outlive, matched to the expenses you cannot skip.

Reduce taxes

The surprises that quietly cost the most, and the levers that address them.

Retire confidently

A plan built to bend instead of break when life does the unexpected.

Retirement, in plain English

The industry has a word for everything. This book has an answer.

Most retirement advice hides behind terms built to keep you nodding along. Here is the same information, said straight.

They saySequence of returns risk

→

Straight talkA bad year early in retirement does more damage than the same year later. The order your returns happen in can make or break the plan.

They sayRisk capacity

→

Straight talkHow big a market drop your finances can actually survive, which is not the same as how big a drop you can stomach emotionally.

They sayIRMAA surcharge

→

Straight talkCross one hidden income line by a single dollar and your Medicare premiums jump for the whole year.

They sayTax-efficient withdrawal sequencing

→

Straight talkThe order you pull from your accounts can hand you years of lower taxes, or quietly cost you them.

What's inside

One idea, worked all the way through: retirement is a design problem, not a destination.

Eleven short chapters take you from the seven variables that make your situation unique to the Roles-Based Method and the Retirement Stack, the framework that turns it all into an actual plan.

CH 1–2

Why no two retirees should have the same plan

The seven variables that make your situation unlike anyone else's, and why the right plan starts there.

CH 4

Turning savings into a paycheck

How to build income you cannot outlive, and where guaranteed income belongs in the plan, and where it does not.

CH 5

Why the first years of retirement matter most

Sequence-of-returns risk in plain terms, and how your portfolio's job changes the day the paycheck stops.

CH 6

The taxes that quietly cost the most

Social Security taxation, the IRMAA cliff, the RMD tax bomb, and the widow's tax trap, plus the levers that address each one.

CH 7

A plan that bends instead of breaks

Long-term care, market shocks, and family emergencies, and how a resilient plan absorbs the surprise rather than shattering on it.

CH 8

Taking care of your spouse and heirs

The decisions that protect whoever outlives you, and the difference between leaving money and leaving it well.

Who it's for

Written for people who want to understand their plan, not just be handed one

A few years out

Build the design before the decisions get expensive and hard to undo.

Newly retired

Turn a lifetime of saving into a steady paycheck without guessing.

Already retired

Tighten the income and tax strategy you already have in place.

About the author

Sean Jantz

Sean is the founder of Jantz Wealth Solutions and has worked in financial services since 2012. He is an investment advisor representative with a fiduciary duty on the portfolios he advises, and he is insurance licensed, so he can use the right tool for a client's situation rather than the one tool he happens to sell.

He is based in Twin Falls, Idaho, serving families across Southern Idaho and, increasingly, virtually across the country. He wrote this book for the conversations he has every week: clear, direct, and free of the jargon that keeps good people in the dark about their own money.

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Discover your own retirement design

The book's final chapter points here. A short, free questionnaire surfaces what your retirement plan should prioritize. No pressure, and no sales call unless you ask for one.

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