A free 10-minute diagnostic

The Four Leaks Scorecard

Find out how much money is quietly leaving your retirement — and which hole is costing you the most.

Imagine a bucket. You have spent twenty years filling it — every paycheck, every contribution, every year you did not take the vacation.

And the whole time, water has been running out of four holes in the bottom.

That is not a metaphor about being bad with money. Most of the people I work with are excellent with money. It is a metaphor about design. You can be an outstanding bucket-filler and still end up with a half-empty bucket if nobody ever told you to look underneath.

The four holes

Sequence of returnsTwo retirees, same money, same average return, same withdrawals. One runs out in year twenty-one. The only difference was the order.
The tax bill you have not been shownTax deferral is not tax forgiveness. It is a loan, and the IRS sets the rate later.
Forced withdrawalsAt 73, the government requires you to withdraw — and start paying — whether you need the money or not.
FeesThe largest line item nobody ever sends you an invoice for.

Each leak is manageable alone. The problem is that they arrive together and make each other worse.

That is the failure mode. Not one dramatic event — four ordinary ones, arriving at once.

The scorecard walks you through all four, three questions each, and gives you a score out of twenty. It takes about ten minutes.

Most people find at least one question they cannot answer. That blank is worth more than any answer on the page — because a gap you can see is a project, and a gap you cannot see is what people mean when they say retirement snuck up on them.

Send me the scorecard

Free. Ten minutes. No obligation of any kind.

I ask for your email so I can send the file. I follow up with a few notes over the next week, and then I leave you alone unless you ask otherwise. You can unsubscribe any time.

Already read the book?

All ten worksheets from Designing a Tax-Free Retirement are free and printable. Get the reader toolkit →

About Denise

Denise J. Boisvert is a licensed insurance professional with more than twenty years of experience, serving clients in all fifty states. She is the creator of the Purpose Driven Wealth Plan™ and the author of two books on financial design.

Disclosure: Denise is a licensed insurance professional and is compensated by insurance carriers when a client implements a policy or annuity. Nothing on this page requires you to purchase anything.