Retire with certainty

Your savings should send you a paycheck for life.

Not a number on a statement that rises and falls with the market — an income that arrives every month, that you cannot outlive, and that a bad year on Wall Street cannot take away.

See what your savings would payHow it works

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Guaranteed lifetime incomeThe traditional 4% withdrawal
savings run outAge 65Age 95

Illustrative only. Not a projection of actual results.

The real risks

Four things can undo a retirement. Most plans address one.

01

Living longer than your money

A 65-year-old couple today has a real chance one of them sees 95. Thirty years is a long time to guess at a withdrawal rate.

02

A bad market at the wrong moment

Two poor years early in retirement do permanent damage — you're selling shares to eat while they're down, and they never fully recover.

03

Taxes on money you already earned

Every dollar in a traditional IRA or 401(k) is a dollar you own with the IRS as a silent partner. Rates today are not rates forever.

04

The quiet cost of everything

Groceries, premiums, property taxes. A fixed income that never rises is a pay cut you take every single year.

Growth alone answers none of them. A pension answers all four at once — which is exactly why they worked.

How it works

It isn't a product. It's the order you do things in.

Your 401(k) and IRA were built to accumulate. Nobody ever told you how to turn them into a paycheck. Pension Plan 2.0 is that missing step — three moves that rebuild what your parents' generation was handed automatically.

  1. 1Grow

    Build the base

    We take what you've already saved — IRA, 401(k), rollover, brokerage — and position a portion of it to grow without downside market risk. You participate when markets rise; you don't give it back when they fall.

    • IRA & 401(k) rollovers
    • Principal protection
    • Tax-efficient positioning
  2. 2Turn on

    Switch it into a paycheck

    At the age you choose, that money begins paying you a set amount every year for the rest of your life — yours and your spouse's — whether you live to 80 or 105, and regardless of what the market does after.

    • Guaranteed for life
    • Single or joint
    • The longer you wait, the higher it pays
  3. 3Keep

    Keep more of it

    Income is only what you keep. We coordinate the order you draw from each account, when Social Security starts, Roth conversions, and Medicare thresholds — so the paycheck is efficient, not just large.

    • Roth conversion planning
    • Social Security timing
    • IRMAA & bracket management

The Why It's Better Calculator

What would your savings pay you for life?

Three questions. One number. See your guaranteed lifetime income next to what the traditional 4% rule would give you.

Your numbers

Who the income covers

Your guaranteed income, starting at age 67

$59,000/ year

$4,917 every month — for life.

Based on a 11.80% lifetime payout rate at issue age 62, after waiting 5 years.

See the full comparison

Where the 4% rule runs dry, what each approach pays you over your lifetime, and the difference in dollars.

We'll only use this to send your report and follow up. No spam, opt out any time.

This calculator is an educational illustration — not a quote, an offer, or a projection of actual results. Guaranteed income figures use current lifetime-payout rates for a hypothetical contract issued at the age entered, and are rounded down rather than up. Actual rates vary by carrier, product, state, and issue date, and are subject to change. The comparison assumes a 4% initial withdrawal increased annually for inflation from a portfolio earning a constant assumed return; real market returns are never constant. Your own results will differ. Guarantees are backed by the claims-paying ability of the issuing carrier. Comparison assumes a 4% initial withdrawal, a 5% assumed annual return, and 2.5% inflation, projected to age 90.

The deception of the pile

Cash flow is king.

A pile of money is a number. Cash flow is what that number does. Confusing the two is the most expensive mistake in retirement — and not for the reason most people assume.

$1,000,000 at 65. Here is what each version actually pays you.

The pile, played safe

4% withdrawal

$40,000/ yr

It lasts — and that's the trap. At 90 there is still $774,634 sitting unspent, because the only way the pile survives is if you take barely half of what it could pay.

The pile, matched

7.63% withdrawal — the same income

$76,300/ yr

Take the income the guarantee pays and the money is gone at 80 — 15 years. Then nothing, for however long you live after that.

As cash flow

7.63% lifetime payout

$76,300/ yr

The same income as the middle column — $6,358 a month — except it is still arriving at 85, at 95, at 100. There is no balance left to run down.

The first two columns are the same million dollars. The only difference is how much of it you dare to spend — and there is no setting that gives you both. Take the safe amount and you leave $774,634 unspent after a lifetime of being careful. Take the income you actually want and you are out of money at 80, with a decade or more still to live.

That is the deception in one line: a pile can give you the income or it can give you the longevity. It cannot give you both. Only cash flow does — which is why the third column pays the same $76,300 as the middle one and simply never stops.

And notice the 4% rule was never a promise of a comfortable retirement. It is a survival setting — calibrated so the money outlasts you in the worst case, which means living as though the worst case is coming, every year, for thirty years.

Computed with the same engine as the calculator above: 4% initial withdrawal raised by 2.5% annually, from a portfolio earning a constant 5%, to age 90. Real markets are never constant, and a poor run of early years changes this picture materially. A lifetime payout rate is not a rate of return — it includes the return of your own principal, which is why the two figures above are compared as spendable income and nothing else. The trade is real and runs both ways: the portfolio keeps a balance your heirs may receive and stays liquid; guaranteed income trades some of that for certainty and higher income now. Illustrative only — not a projection of actual results.

How long you'll live

A million is plenty for eighteen years and thin for thirty-two. The balance can't tell you which retirement you're planning for — so a safe withdrawal rate has to assume the long one, every year, forever.

What the market does, and when

Two bad years at the start do damage two good years at the end can't undo. Same average return, completely different retirement — because you were selling while it was down.

What everything costs by then

The number on your statement is in today's dollars. Your groceries in 2045 are not. Income that never rises is a pay cut you take every year for the rest of your life.

Almost nobody runs out of money because they saved badly. They spend a whole retirement being careful with a pile that was never designed to become a paycheck — and nobody ever showed them the difference.

Why a paycheck

Why your retirement deserves a paycheck.

For most of the last century, retirement came with one. You finished work and a check kept arriving — every month, for as long as you lived. Nobody had to calculate a safe withdrawal rate, because nobody was withdrawing anything.

Then the pension quietly disappeared and was replaced with a balance, and a generation was handed the hardest financial problem there is with no instructions: make this last, and you don't get to know for how long.

01

You cannot spend a balance safely

A number on a statement can't tell you what's yours to spend, because the answer depends on how long you live — and nobody knows that. So every withdrawal becomes a guess wearing a percentage sign, and the safe guess is always to spend less.

02

People with a paycheck actually enjoy their money

The retirees who spend comfortably aren't the ones with the biggest balances. They're the ones with income they can count on. Without a floor, most people underspend for decades out of a fear that never quite goes away — and arrive at 85 having denied themselves a retirement they had already paid for.

03

It takes the market out of the decision

When income is guaranteed, a bad year is something you read about rather than something you respond to. No cutting the travel budget because of a headline. No selling shares while they're down to cover the property taxes. The plan doesn't change, because it was never depending on the market to work.

04

It protects the one left behind

One of you will handle the money alone one day, often the spouse who never did. A portfolio hands them a job at the worst possible moment. A paycheck just keeps arriving — same amount, same day of the month, nothing to manage.

“A balance asks you a question every single year. A paycheck answers it once.”
See your paycheckHow it works

Case studies

What this looks like on a real kitchen table.

Not slogans — the situations we actually work with, what the analysis turns up, and what changes. Composites, so no client's details are ever on display.

Married couple, early 70s, Western Pennsylvania

A large rollover with no plan to draw from it

The situation

A career's worth of retirement savings sat in one traditional IRA. It had grown well, but every dollar was still fully taxable, and required distributions were about to start pulling money out on the IRS's schedule rather than theirs. Their statements showed a balance. Nothing showed them an income.

What we found

Almost everything was in pre-tax dollars, so projected distributions pushed the household into a higher bracket and toward a Medicare premium surcharge — a cost that had never appeared on any statement. They were also drawing from the portfolio in a down year without realising what that costs permanently.

What we did

$750,000 was repositioned to produce guaranteed income covering both of their lifetimes, switched on at 72. Alongside it we set a multi-year conversion schedule to move money into tax-free status deliberately, staying under the bracket and Medicare thresholds instead of tripping them by accident.

Guaranteed household income
$66,975 / year for life
Paid monthly
$5,581
Covers
Both lifetimes

Single retiree, mid 60s, Allegheny County

Enough money, no confidence it would last

The situation

Savings were adequate on paper but held entirely in market-exposed accounts. Every downturn set off the same question — whether to cut back — and the answer was always a guess. The anxiety was doing more damage to their retirement than the market was.

What we found

Essential monthly costs — housing, insurance, food, utilities — were well defined and stable. Nothing in the plan was matched to them. The entire balance was being managed as one undifferentiated pot, so there was no way to know which part was actually spoken for.

What we did

$400,000 was repositioned to cover the essentials with income that arrives whatever the market does, beginning at 67. The rest stayed invested and fully liquid — for travel, for grandchildren, and for the things you can't plan for.

Guaranteed income
$3,343 / month for life
Annually
$40,119
Essential expenses covered
In full

Married couple, late 50s, still working

Ten years from retiring, and early enough for it to matter

The situation

Both still working, both maxing out their plans, and both assuming the decisions that mattered were still years away. They came in for a second opinion on their allocation, not for an income plan.

What we found

They were the one group with the most to gain and the least awareness of it. Because the payout rate rises with every year of waiting, starting a decade early produced dramatically more income from the same dollars than the identical amount committed at retirement.

What we did

$600,000 was positioned now, with income scheduled to begin at 68 — ten years of deferral credits, covering both lives. Everything else stayed exactly where it was and kept growing.

Guaranteed household income from 68
$97,260 / year for life
Paid monthly
$8,105
Annual income per $100,000 committed
$16,210

Case studies are composites representing situations we regularly work with. They do not depict any individual client, and figures are illustrative. They are not a guarantee or prediction of future results — every situation differs, and yours will produce different numbers.

Who you'd be working with

Tony Fontana — Fontana Financial Services, LLC

A first conversation is a conversation. No pressure, no recommendation until I understand what you're trying to protect — and if Pension Plan 2.0 isn't right for you, I'll tell you that.

Call 412-394-8860More about Tony

Straight answers

The questions people ask before they trust anyone.

What actually is Pension Plan 2.0?

A retirement distribution process. Companies used to hand people a pension — a check every month for life. Almost nobody gets one now; you get a 401(k) balance and a wish of good luck. Pension Plan 2.0 rebuilds that check out of the savings you already have, using insurance-based solutions that guarantee income for as long as you live.

Do I have to move all of my money?

No, and you shouldn't. This covers your essential expenses — the bills that have to be paid whether the market cooperates or not. The rest stays invested, liquid, and available for travel, grandchildren, and everything else.

What happens to the money when I die?

That depends on how the contract is structured, and it's one of the first things we'll design. Joint coverage continues paying your spouse for their lifetime. Remaining account value generally passes to your named beneficiaries. We'll show you the specifics in writing before you decide anything.

Is this an annuity?

Insurance-based solutions, including fixed indexed annuities with lifetime income benefits, are typically how the guarantee is delivered. But the annuity isn't the plan — it's one component. The plan is the order of operations: what you convert, what you protect, when income starts, and how you keep the tax bill down.

How do you get paid?

For insurance-based solutions, the issuing carrier pays the commission — it doesn't come out of your premium as an upfront deduction. You'll be told exactly how any recommendation compensates us before you sign anything. Ask directly; you'll get a direct answer.

What's the first step?

Run the calculator on this page to see your number. If it's interesting, we'll have a 20-minute call to understand your situation. If it's still interesting after that, we build the actual plan. There's no cost or obligation at any point in that sequence.

You spent forty years building it.
Spend twenty minutes protecting it.

See your number first. If it's worth a conversation, we'll have one — no cost, no obligation, no pressure.

Run my numbersOr call 412-394-8860