Most retirement planning quietly assumes you'll stay put. She was changing country, currency, tax system, and house all at once.
Denise is 61, a nurse practitioner in a federal healthcare system in California, and she is retiring at 62.
She is also moving to Canada.
That second fact changed everything about how her plan had to be built. Most retirement planning quietly assumes you'll stay put — same currency, same tax system, same house, same everything, just without the job. Denise was changing all of it at once.
What she was working with
More than most people, and scattered across more places than most people. A Thrift Savings Plan. A brokerage portfolio. Two existing annuities from prior years. A cash position. Two Canadian retirement accounts from an earlier chapter of her life. An inherited IRA. A managed retirement account. A house in California with meaningful equity and about nine years left on the mortgage.
Total assets, roughly $1.63 million. Net worth after the mortgage, about $1.47 million. Investable, about $960,000.
And no structure connecting any of it to a monthly number.
Why guarantees mattered more here than usual
When you retire in the country you worked in, market volatility is a problem. When you retire in a different country, you get a second problem stacked on top: exchange rate volatility. Her income arrives in U.S. dollars. Her groceries, her housing, and her healthcare are priced in Canadian dollars.
A portfolio that swings 20% is uncomfortable at home. A portfolio that swings 20% while the exchange rate moves against you is a genuinely bad year — and there's no job to go back to.
So the objective wasn't “maximize expected return.” It was: replace her take-home pay with income that doesn't depend on markets, and do it before she gets on the plane.
The two-bucket approach
We sorted everything by tax character rather than by where it happened to be sitting, because qualified and non-qualified money can't be commingled in a rollover, and trying to do it in one motion is how people create taxable events they didn't intend.
Pool one — qualified. The TSP, one of the existing annuities, and a managed IRA, rolled together into a single contract with a premium bonus that helped offset surrender charges on what was being moved. Roughly $458,000 after the bonus.
Pool two — non-qualified. The brokerage portfolio, cash, the second existing annuity, and the inherited IRA, consolidated into a separate income contract. Roughly $435,000.
The thirty days that were worth $5,000–$7,000
Here's the detail I'd point to if someone asked what this work actually consists of.
One of her existing annuities had a contract anniversary in early July. Moving it in June would have forfeited a full year of interest crediting — the policy credits on the anniversary, and an exchange executed the day before gets nothing for the eleven months preceding it.
So phase two of the plan waits until August. One month past the anniversary. That single scheduling decision captures an estimated $5,000 to $7,000 in interest that would otherwise have evaporated.
Nobody's website tells you that. It comes from reading the contract.
Where she landed
Guaranteed monthly income starting at retirement: about $8,982, from five sources — two income annuities, U.S. Social Security at 62, her federal pension net of the survivor benefit, and an estimated Canadian benefit.
Her current take-home pay, after taxes and retirement deductions, is about $8,700 a month.
She replaces 100% of her working take-home pay with income that doesn't depend on the market, and comes out roughly $282 a month ahead.
And then the part not in the income column
Selling the California house nets an estimated $250,900, tax-free under the primary residence exclusion. Her two Canadian accounts hold about $163,000 more.
That's roughly $413,900 of liquidity that is deliberately not counted in the monthly income figure. It's not there to produce income. It's there so that when something happens — and over a thirty-year retirement in a foreign country, something happens — she has a reserve she can reach without disturbing a single income stream.
A plan that spends every dollar on income isn't a plan. It's a tightrope. The reserve is what makes the guarantees usable.
No question gets waved off.
Every account, every election, every date on the calendar gets examined — including the ones that turn out not to matter. You will never get a recommendation you can’t explain back to me in your own words. If something falls outside my lane, I’ll tell you that plainly instead of guessing at it.
When we’re finished, you won’t just have a plan. You’ll understand exactly how it works, and why it works for you.
Client names have been changed and identifying details omitted or altered to protect privacy. Figures reflect projections prepared at the time of each engagement and are specific to that individual’s circumstances. They are not guarantees and are not a recommendation to buy or sell any product. This content is for general educational purposes only and is not financial, tax, legal, or investment advice. Stream Income Group is an insurance and financial services firm. Any guarantees referenced are backed solely by the financial strength and claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company. Please consult qualified tax and legal professionals regarding your individual situation.