Not everyone gets to spend much time in the Preservation phase. If you get started and do well, you might find you’ve built up the resources projected to retire comfortably and live out your life with all your needs met. Financial planning is frequently viewed as just making sure the Accumulation phase has been “successful” – that, with a given set of assumptions about your life and your spending, you will not risk running out of money. Preservation is concerned with adjusting the settings for risk and time horizon in your accumulated investments, all while keeping an eye on potential setbacks. Once your Accumulation starts coming together, other objectives may come to the forefront – like planning for any inheritance or charitable gifting. 

Preservation reminds investors to carefully calibrate the settings on each corner of their portfolio; choosing the right amount of risk exposure for each section of the wealth you’ve grown to live on in retirement. This might mean an effort to lock in gains. This might also mean using one corner of your wealth to keep growing that snowball for goals that are still in your “out years” – ten years or more down the road. It might also mean reevaluating any changes in your picture and whether any adjustments to your portfolio construction can strengthen your likelihood of success. Being attentive to these settings is also a crucial step in the lengthy phase of Distribution.