About this document
Retirement readiness is not a net-worth number. It is the answer to one question: if the paycheck stopped tomorrow, does the plan still work? This checklist walks the ten domains that determine the answer.
For each domain you get the HLG view, a short checklist, and the marker that tells you whether that piece is handled. Work it section by section. Mark honestly. Patterns will show themselves.
Use it two ways. First, as a self-audit before our next review so we can spend the meeting solving rather than surveying. Second, as a living document. Keep it in your Legacy Vault, revisit it each year, and update the markers as life changes.
What is inside
- Income Replacement
- Tax Strategy (with 2026 federal brackets and contribution limits)
- Healthcare and Long-Term Care
- Social Security Timing
- Investment Strategy and Sequence Risk
- Insurance as Foundation
- Housing and Debt
- Estate and Legacy
- Identity, Purpose, and Spending Behavior
- Documentation and Records
Closes with a Final Readiness Self-Assessment and a Next 90 Days action list.
How to use it
Before our next review. Print it, run through each section, mark what is handled and what is not. Bring it with you. We will spend the meeting on the gaps, not the basics.
As a year-end check. Once a year, sit with it for an hour. Tax brackets and contribution limits refresh each January. Beneficiaries, insurance, and estate docs often lag life changes by months or years. One session clears the drift.
Questions. Mark anything you want us to explain in the margins. Send it back or bring it to the next session. No question is too basic to put in writing.
Preview
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