The Steward's Desk
Articles on the decisions I help clients make every week: retirement income, Social Security, taxes, investing, insurance, and what to do when life hands you something new. Each service page collects its related reading, or browse everything below.
Plain-language writing on retirement income, Social Security, taxes, investing, insurance, and estate planning. New pieces land here as I write them.
How many months of spending you actually need, and what makes your number bigger or smaller.
A goal-funding system that runs on automation instead of willpower and spreadsheets.
Morningstar keeps finding that investors trail the very funds they own. Where the gap comes from, and what closes it.
What long-run evidence says about active picking, costs, and the odds you're accepting.
Why the taxable-first default exists, when it costs you money, and how a tuned order works.
Two retirees, same average return, different outcomes. Why the early years count double.
Your CPA looks backward at last year. Planning looks ahead at the next twenty.
Paying some tax now to skip more later: the mechanism, the window, and the side effects.
An honest comparison of cost, duration, and cash value, with a verdict that depends on your situation.
Your income supports everything else in the plan. What group coverage misses, and how to check yours.
What each document does, what probate really involves, and who needs which.
Five account types where a form on file, not your will, decides who inherits.
Health, other income, and your spouse's benefit all move the answer. How to think it through.
Claiming on a spouse's record, including after divorce: who qualifies and for how much.
COBRA, the marketplace, or a spouse's plan: how to bridge the years before 65.
The two-year lookback that sets your premiums, and the planning levers that manage it.
Vesting, taxes, and the sell-or-hold question, answered in plain terms.
What counts as qualified, and the options if your child takes a different path.
The order of operations when you can't fully fund both at once.
Contribute now, grant over time: how DAFs work and when they're worth the setup.
Giving straight from your IRA after 70 1/2, and how it counts toward your RMD without counting as income.
What to start five years out, three years out, and in the final year before a sale.
The identity shift, the cash question, and a calm order of operations for the proceeds.
Very little needs to happen right away. What can wait, and what actually has deadlines.
The clock, the exceptions, and why spreading withdrawals across the window is a tax decision.
The math view and the sleep view, both taken seriously.
One wins the arithmetic, the other wins follow-through. How to pick, or blend the two.
A quick, useful starting point
The checklist version of what these articles keep circling: the spots where careful, successful people still get surprised.
If an article raised a question about your own situation, bring it to a short call. We'll look at your specifics together.
The same topics I plan around with clients: retirement income, Social Security timing, tax planning, investing, insurance, estate basics, and situational ones like equity compensation, inheritances, and business exits. Every article aims at a question people actually type into a search bar, answered in plain language.
I do. Jesse Plunkett, CEPA, CRPC, the advisor behind True Stewards Advisory. Each piece reflects how I actually plan with clients, not ghostwritten filler. You can read my background on the Meet Your Advisor page or look me up on 
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No. Articles are educational and general by design. Your situation has specifics no article can see: your accounts, your taxes, your family, your timing. If something here raises a question about your own plan, a short call is the right place to take it.
Almost always. Everything is handled virtually, so where you live is rarely a barrier. The only exception is a handful of states where I'm not registered yet, and if that's you, I'll tell you on our first call.