The Four Buckets After COVID-19

His toolkit was simple: a few sheets of paper he called a "factfinder," a Montblanc pen, and more energy than most people bring to a meeting about money.

But, somehow, it worked. Clients trusted him. They opened up.

And they walked away not just with a plan but with confidence.

I, too, brought my own kind of energy — eager, analytical, and well-certified — but without the decades of trust he had earned.

So, I leaned into the tools.

Financial planning software allowed me to aggregate a client's entire financial life and model hundreds of future scenarios.

I was dazzled by how adjustable the inputs were, how easily I could simulate tax strategies, spending shifts, or a bear market in year six of retirement.

The Assumption

Underneath it all, there was an assumption baked in that I hadn't fully questioned: that retirees would simply maintain a balanced investment portfolio through retirement — some mix of stocks and bonds adjusted by risk tolerance as they aged — and withdraw steadily from it year by year.

That assumption never sat right with my dad.

You see, he had lived through the dot-com bubble and the financial crisis of 2008.

He knew firsthand the emotional rollercoaster retirees went through when their portfolios dropped just as they started needing income.

He'd seen too many people cancel vacations or delay retirement because of bad markets.

For him, retirement wasn't a simulation, it was real life, and he had seen enough to know stocks and bonds didn't cut it.

While I ran scenarios, he talked about income sources.

While I focused on risk tolerance questionnaires, he focused on income floors.

And while I avoided the word "annuity", he explained to clients how they could use one to create freedom from market swings, freedom to spend without guilt, freedom to enjoy what they had worked for.

The Life Lesson

At first, I resisted.

Like many younger planners trained under fiduciary standards, I had been taught to be product-skeptical — especially of anything with a commission.

Annuities, I thought, were the tools of a past era, misused and misunderstood. In many planning circles, they were practically taboo.

But then came 2020.

The pandemic hit, and everything changed.

One conversation stuck with me. A client, newly retired, called in the depths of the COVID crash. We had built a plan together. We had modeled countless scenarios. His probability score was strong.

But that day, none of it seemed to matter. "Should we move everything to cash?" he asked.

I paused. Surely, he wasn't serious?

Our entire plan was built on maintaining a diversified allocation: staying the course through volatility, not timing the market.

But the more I listened, the more it sounded reasonable.

"Just temporarily," he said. "Until things get better. Then we'll get back in."

It wasn't irrational. It was emotional, and deeply human.

But that's when I realized something crucial: the financial plan we had built was beginning to unhinge — not because the math was wrong, but because the framework wasn't strong enough to carry the emotion. And he wasn't the only one.

That's when it started to sink in. Robust planning, multiple scenarios and strong probability scores were fun when everything was calm.

But in moments of stress — the very moments that define retirement — they're not enough.

I needed a better way to help clients think through uncertainty without abandoning the plan entirely. That's when I finally started listening to Dad.

We talked not just about client cases but about how retirees think, behave and make decisions with their money.

Retirement is a transition filled with competing goals and emotional friction: the desire to spend versus the fear of running out, the urge to protect against risk versus the wish to leave a meaningful legacy.

The Framework

Dad had built the right kind of plan — simple, steady, and effective.

By blending secure income with growth, he gave clients confidence, even in a crisis. His toolkit wasn't trendy, but it worked. And his clients were better off because of it.

But how could we turn that wisdom into a scalable process — one that didn't depend on decades of experience or silver-hair credibility?

We needed a framework that was both collaborative and practical. Something that used proven tools, educated clients, and worked for modern advisors.

So, we started drawing out buckets. We knew what retirees we needed — more security, more lifetime income like their Social Security.

Annuities were a natural complement to that income stability — but how could we introduce them without triggering their aversion?

That's when the Four Buckets framework really came to life.

It aligned with how people naturally think. We categorize things in our minds — so why not do that with money? Each bucket had a distinct purpose, starting with the most familiar (everyday spending) and progressing to the more complex (growth and legacy).

It created an educational journey, giving retirees clarity and confidence as they moved through the process.

It highlighted the value of Social Security — and asked a simple, powerful question: "Why not have more income like that?"

And when it came time to allocate their savings — how to fill their buckets, the path forward started to show itself.

We weren't just building plans. We were answering questions, alleviating fears, and creating a system that worked.

Did the sophisticated planning tools go away? Not at all.

Today's retiree still benefits from seeing their full financial picture updated with a click — far better than relying on outdated spreadsheets.

But when it comes to retirement, the obsession with probabilities starts to fade.

This isn't training anymore.

It's race day, and retirees stand at the start line.

Does your plan help them run a good race all the way to the finish?

Ethan Lohr, CFP, is a partner and financial advisor at Lohr & Co., a financial planning firm based in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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