Elm Lifetime Investing & Spending Analysis

We chart our financial course through life choosing how much to spend and how to invest what's left, periodically updating our choices as circumstances evolve.

This is the essence of financial planning at Elm: specifying in advance a desired spending and investment policy conditional on relevant aspects of our life, varying investment opportunities, and our preferences for the benefits derived from our wealth.

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Answers to life's most pressing financial questions

* How much risk should I take?

* What's my sustainable spending rate?

* When can I retire?

* How much can I give, during my life and after?

How much of my savings can I safely spend each year?

Spend too much and you risk running out. Spend too little and you sacrifice years of living you didn't have to.

Common Approaches Get it Wrong

The 4% Rule

Feels prudent. But it's a fixed dollar amount that ignores what markets actually do. Over a long retirement and uncertain markets, it carries a high probability of running dry.

Spending your dividends / income

Feels natural. But dividend yield has little to do with what's actually safe to spend, and it silently erodes with inflation.

A fixed percentage of the portfolio

Feels adaptive. But it can quietly shrink your real spending by a third or more over time without you noticing.

All three try to set your spending without touching how you're invested.

We think that's a mistake.

How much happiness does money buy?

Optimizing investing and spending for a lifetime of utility

We take the same objective researchers use - maximizing the expected utility of your lifetime spending - and calibrate it to you: your risk aversion, your longevity, your income, and how you weigh your own spending against what you leave behind.

The result: how much to invest, and how much to spend - updated as your life does.

Read the full framework: Riding the Wheel of Fortune →

Your Inputs

Wealth, income, longevity, risk aversion, bequest preferences

Expected Lifetime Utility

The academic consensus objective - not an arbitrary target

Your Policy

An investing rule and a spending rule, both implementable

A Personalized, Actionable Plan

01 - Right Now

How much to invest, right now

For your current wealth level, we solve for the optimal fraction to hold in risky assets. It's not a single guess - it's a rule that tells you what to do at any wealth level, including ones you haven't reached yet.

02 - Over Time

How that evolves over your life

As your wealth changes, so does the optimal allocation. We show you the expected path — and the realistic range around it, which widens the further out you look.

03 - Spending

How much to spend, each year

Spending as a proportion of wealth, translated into real dollars — adjusted for inflation and cost-of-living, not just nominal terms.

04 - The Destination

Where your wealth is likely headed

The median path your wealth follows under the optimal policy, together with the range of outcomes - so "where am I headed" has an actual answer, not a guess.

Equity Allocation vs. Wealth

Equity Allocation over Age

Spending Rule & Median Spending

Real Wealth Over Time

The inputs behind your policy

All of it comes back through a short questionnaire before we build your preliminary analysis.

Net worth & account types

Taxable, traditional IRA, Roth IRA, and real estate

Longevity

Yours, or jointly with a spouse

Spending vs. bequests

How you weigh your own spending against what you leave behind

Future income

Including its uncertainty, plus Social Security

Risk aversion

We help you calibrate it - most clients can

Subsistence spending

A floor you'd very strongly prefer not to fall below

A flat fee, a short process

$5000 Flat fee for the full process

1

Questionnaire

A short set of questions on your finances, goals, and preferences.

2

Preliminary write-up

We build your policy and return the four charts, with our analysis.

3

A call, together

We walk through the results and answer your questions.

4

Iterate, if useful

Different income scenarios, updated assumptions — as many rounds as it takes.

Know where you stand.

Start the questionnaire, and we'll show you.

Start the Questionnaire →

Prefer to talk first? Reach out to clients@elmwealth.com