The Lifetime Income Model™ Strategy: Investing for When You'll Actually Use the Money.

A time-segmented approach to retirement investing that aligns each portion of your portfolio with a specific time horizon — designed to reduce volatility, protect income, and let long-term money keep working.

Why one big portfolio doesn't fit retirement.

Most retirement portfolios are built around a single risk profile — “moderate,” “balanced,” “growth.” That works fine while you’re accumulating. But the moment you start taking income, a problem emerges: you’re withdrawing from the same pool whether markets are up or down.

A bad sequence of returns in the early years of retirement can permanently impair the plan, no matter how good the long-term average looks on paper.

Time-segmented investing solves this by recognizing a simple truth: the money you need next year and the money you need in year 25 shouldn’t be invested the same way.

The Lifetime Income Model™. Five time horizons. One coordinated plan.

Years 1–5 | Immediate Income

Years 1–5 | Immediate Income

Years 1–5 | Immediate Income

Conservative, income-stable, low volatility. Money you're spending soon — shouldn't move with the market. Delivers monthly income without short-term market exposure.

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Years 6–10 | Near-Term Income Reserve

Years 6–10 | Near-Term Income Reserve

Years 6–10 | Near-Term Income Reserve

Conservative to moderate. Replenishes Bucket 1 as it’s spent down. Captures modest growth while maintaining low volatility.

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Years 11–15 | Intermediate Growth

Years 11–15 | Intermediate Growth

Years 11–15 | Intermediate Growth

Balanced. Allows measured equity exposure — enough to outpace inflation, structured enough to recover from typical market cycles.

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Years 16–20 | Long-Term Growth

Years 16–20 | Long-Term Growth

Years 16–20 | Long-Term Growth

Growth-oriented. Nearly two decades before needed — pursue meaningful equity returns and ride through volatility without disrupting income.

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Years 25+ | Legacy and Late-Life Growth

Years 25+ | Legacy and Late-Life Growth

Years 25+ | Legacy and Late-Life Growth

Aggressive growth. Longest runway — may fund late-retirement needs, healthcare, or generational wealth transfer. Time is its biggest advantage.

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A plan that breathes with the market — instead of breaking with it.

When markets are strong, we harvest gains from later buckets to refill the near-term buckets — locking in growth at favorable times. When markets are weak, we draw from already-conservative near-term buckets, leaving the growth buckets untouched and giving them time to recover.

The discipline is the difference. Most retirees, left to their own decisions, end up selling growth assets at the worst possible time — when they're down — because they need the income. The bucket strategy prevents that scenario by design.

Why we use five time horizons instead of three.

The traditional bucket strategy uses three — short, medium, and long. That works, but it leaves a gap. The “medium” bucket ends up doing too much work, trying to be both an income reserve and a growth engine.

The Lifetime Income Model™ give us cleaner separation. Each bucket has a single job. Each transition is smoother. And the longest bucket — the 25-year horizon — gives us the freedom to take meaningful long-term growth risk without ever touching income.

Who benefits most from a Lifetime Income Model™ approach?

Retirees taking income now: You’re already drawing from your portfolio. Volatility hurts you the most. The Lifetime Income Model™ strategy is built around protecting your monthly paycheck.

Pre-retirees within 10 years: Sequence-of-returns risk is highest in the five years before and after retirement. Building the bucket structure now means you enter retirement with the plan already in place.

Business owners planning a transition: After a business sale or succession event, you suddenly have liquid assets that need to produce reliable income. The Lifetime Income Model™ structure is designed for exactly that transition.

See What Your Income Could Look Like

Use our Retirement Income Estimator to get a personalized projection of how the Lifetime Income Model™ could work for your specific situation — your assets, your timeline, your income goals.

TRY THE RETIREMENT INCOME ESTIMATOR →

Free — no obligation. Takes about 3 minutes.

Want to see how the Lifetime Income Model™ strategy would work for your situation?

We’ll walk you through it specifically — your timeline, your income needs, your tax picture.

Schedule a Conversation

Investment advice offered through Integrated Partners, doing business as Four C Financial, a registered investment advisor. The information on this website has not been approved or verified by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission or by any state securities authority. Registration as an Investment Adviser does not imply a certain level of skill or training.

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Lifetime Income Model Fact Finder

Complete the worksheet below. Our planning team will build your personalized Lifetime Income Model and schedule a time to walk you through the results.

Fill in what you know — estimates are fine, and you can leave anything blank that doesn't apply. The more complete the picture, the more accurate your model will be.

Client

Name (First / Last) *

Date of Birth

Gender

Male Female

Email / Phone *

State of Residence

Gender is used only for life-expectancy assumptions in the income model.

Spouse / Partner

If applicable — otherwise skip this section.

Name (First / Last)

Date of Birth

Gender

Male Female

Retirement

The age at which each person's plan begins.

Plan Start — Client (Retirement Age)

Plan Start — Spouse (Retirement Age)

Investment Risk Tolerance

Retirement Income Need

Please tell us whether these figures are Gross or Net. Gross is before income taxes. Net is what you need in cash, regardless of tax treatment. Pick one — we don't need both.

These figures are *

Gross (pre-tax) Net (cash needed)

Living Expenses — monthly (inflating)

Liabilities — monthly (level)

Insurance Premiums — monthly (level)

Additional Expenses — monthly

Estimated Tax Rates (if known)

Total Monthly Income Needed

If you don't know your tax rates, leave them blank — we can estimate.

Income Floor — Retirement Income Sources

Guaranteed or recurring income you expect to receive. Estimate if you're not yet collecting.

Income Source	Monthly Amount	Start Age	End Age	COLA / Inflation	Spousal Benefit
Social Security — Client
Social Security — Spouse
Pension
Annuity
Disability
Other

COLA is any annual cost-of-living increase (e.g. "2%" or "Yes"). Leave End Age blank if the income continues for life.

Total Investment Amount

Total assets available to fund retirement

Total annual contributions (if still working)

List the individual accounts below — we'll use them to confirm this total.

Investment Accounts

IRA, Roth, 401(k), brokerage, annuities, cash — add as many as you need.

Other Assets & Liabilities

Life Insurance — total face value

Real Estate / Other Assets

Total Outstanding Debts (balance)

Anything else you want us to know

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Your information is confidential

What you provide is used only to prepare your personalized income plan. It is never sold or shared with third parties. Four C Financial takes your privacy seriously.

Send Us Your Statements

Documents are optional, but they make your model far more accurate than estimates alone. Most helpful: a recent statement for each investment or retirement account, your Social Security estimate from ssa.gov, and any pension or annuity summary.

Upload Documents Securely →

Opens a private Dropbox upload folder — no Dropbox account needed. Your files go directly to Four C Financial, and no other client can see what you upload. Please don’t include full Social Security numbers, account passwords, or login credentials.

“Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” — Warren Buffett