Plan and year
$1,200 once, then $95 a month (or $950 a year prepaid). Everything in Plan, plus a defined rebuild window: quarterly check-ins against your dated pages, a December execution list, IRMAA premium monitoring, and a rework when a rule or a major life date changes inside the purchased year.
Inside
Plan and year
The plan is reworked when a rule changes or when your facts move inside the purchased window. You keep the same product shape: income plan, conversion schedule, withdrawal order, and deadlines, updated for the year you are in. Compare Household if you need two spouses and survivor paths on one model.
Plan and year: a dated plan plus a scheduled refresh
Plan and year includes everything in Plan, then adds a defined update cycle so the claim dates, conversion rows, withdrawal order, and deadline ledger can be rebuilt when the calendar moves or when your facts change inside the purchased window. The fee is published on the pricing page. It is still not a percentage of assets and still not an open-ended advisory subscription dressed up as a plan.
Cadence calendar
- Purchase week. You pay the published Plan and year fee, create or open your account, and submit the same core inputs Plan requires: ages, accounts, income sources, Social Security estimates, Medicare status, and spending needs.
- Initial delivery. You receive the first full dated plan: claim recommendations, conversion schedule, withdrawal order, and deadline ledger, with assumptions printed beside the numbers.
- Change window. During the purchased year scope, you can submit material updates such as a job exit date, a revised balance, a new pension estimate, a marriage or divorce fact that changes filing status, or a health-related longevity assumption you want scored again.
- Scheduled rebuild. Ivory Plains regenerates the affected pages on the cadence defined for your purchase so conversion instruct-by dates and RMD years do not go stale while you are still inside the paid window.
- Year boundary. When the purchased year scope ends, the delivered pages remain yours as a snapshot. Further rebuilds require a new purchase at the then-current published fee. There is no automatic renewal charged without your checkout action.
The point of the cadence is mechanical. Tax years roll. IRMAA lookbacks roll. Conversion room changes when wages stop or Social Security starts. A one-time Plan is correct for households whose facts are stable and who want a single set of dates. Plan and year is for households who know a major date is coming inside the next year and want the schedule rewritten when that date lands.
An update is a new print of dates under updated inputs. It is not a weekly call, a portfolio review, or a chat thread that replaces the document.
What changes in a rebuild
Claim dates can move if earnings, longevity assumptions, or survivor needs change. Conversion amounts resize when bracket room or IRMAA tiers shift. Withdrawal order flips when you cross 59½, when Rule of 55 applies after a job exit, or when RMDs begin. Deadline ledger lines move when birthdays, enrollment windows, or instruct-by buffers need new calendar anchors.
What does not change: you still file with Social Security, instruct custodians, and enroll in Medicare yourself. Ivory Plains still does not take custody of assets or charge an AUM fee. Support at support@ivoryplains.com still answers how to read pages and how to submit inputs, not how to place trades.
Choose Plan and year at checkout when you want the initial plan plus the update cadence described above. If you need two spouses on one cash-flow and survivor model, compare Household on the pricing page. If you only need one delivery and no rebuild window, Plan is the lower published fee for that narrower scope.
Plan and year in depth
Plan and year is $1,200 then $95 per month, or $950 a year prepaid. It keeps the same statute framework as Plan and rebuilds when brackets, IRMAA tiers, wages, claims, or your inputs move.
A one-time Plan is accurate as of its stated date. Plan and year exists because retirement calendars are not static. When you stop working, start a check, or hit a Medicare lookback year, the conversion lines and withdrawal map need a new print date.
What rebuilds cover
- Updated claim recommendations when estimates or work stoppage change
- New conversion dollar amounts against current brackets and IRMAA
- Withdrawal order refreshed for the years still ahead
- Deadlines reprinted for the active calendar year
You still file and instruct yourself. Support is support@ivoryplains.com. No AUM. No discovery call. Household ($3,400/yr) adds two-spouse and survivor scope when you need that unit of analysis.
When a rebuild matters
Plan and year exists because brackets, IRMAA tiers, wages, and claim status move. A conversion schedule sized while you still earn wages is wrong the year wages stop. A withdrawal order that ignores a new Social Security check underfunds or overfunds accounts.
The $95 monthly option or the $950 yearly option keeps the print date current. You still execute. Ivory Plains still does not file for you. Support is support@ivoryplains.com.
Cadence of a Plan and year engagement
Plan and year starts with the same delivery as Plan, then keeps a rebuild window open. When you report a job exit, a claim filing, a balance update, or a statute change that matters to your lines, the pages reprint with a new plan date.
That cadence is why the fee is $1,200 plus $95 per month or $950 a year prepaid instead of a one-time snapshot. Household at $3,400 per year is the two-spouse version of ongoing scope. You remain the person who files and instructs. No AUM. No discovery call. Support is support@ivoryplains.com.
Extended field guide: Plan and year as scheduled refresh
Plan and year starts at $1,200 and continues at $95 a month or $950 a year prepaid. It is for households that want the Ivory Plains ledger with an expected refresh cadence (new SSA estimates, resized conversions, adjusted withdrawal phases) without necessarily needing Household’s broader coordination posture at $3,400 a year. It remains a dated planning product you execute yourself. No AUM. No discovery call gate.
When Plan and year is the right tier
Choose it when you know facts will move annually: partial retirement, staggered claims, multi-year conversion campaigns, equity compensation that varies, or simply a preference to rebuild before each tax year rather than improvise from memory. Choose Plan instead when one delivery is enough. Choose Household when complexity and coordination needs exceed a refresh-only posture.
Plan and year is not a loophole to get unlimited chat for $95 a month. The cadence is for regenerating dates and amounts after inputs change. If what you want is someone to approve trades, you want a different product category. Ivory Plains will not pretend otherwise to win the checkout.
- Initial ledger plus update path
- Same action pages as Plan: claim, convert, withdraw, deadlines
- Cash pricing, not a percentage of assets
- Support oriented to inputs and page-reading
- Clear upgrade path to Household if coordination needs grow
How the four action pages stay linked
Claiming decisions set when Social Security income begins. Conversion windows set ordinary-income room by tax year. Withdrawal order sets which account funds spending without wrecking those years. Dated deadlines set SSA, Medicare, custodian, and tax clocks. After any update, read all four again before you instruct anyone.
- A moved claim month without resized conversions is a broken plan
- A conversion year without a funding source is a paper exercise
- A withdrawal change that ignores IRMAA lookbacks is a future premium surprise
- A deadline you never calendarized is not a deadline you owned
How refreshes should work
A refresh is not a chat about markets. It is corrected inputs followed by regenerated dates and amounts. Before a refresh, download SSA estimates, update balances and basis notes, confirm stop-work and claim intent, and list anything that changed in employer coverage or pensions. After a refresh, re-read all four action pages. Then replace last year’s checklist entirely rather than merging conflicting dates by hand.
If you pay monthly and never refresh, you are funding readiness you do not use. If you refresh and ignore the new deadlines, you are funding PDFs. The product works when cadence and execution travel together. Put new deadlines on a calendar the same week the refresh arrives.
Worked examples
Example A: conversions planned across six years while both spouses delay benefits. Each January, wages and portfolio income differ. Plan and year resizes conversion dollars so IRMAA cliffs and bracket targets stay intentional instead of hopeful.
Example B: one spouse retires, the other works two more years than expected. Refresh updates bridge funding and claim pairing instead of leaving an obsolete dual-retiree schedule in force while a paycheck continues.
Example C: large Roth conversion year completed; next refresh accounts for the new basis and the IRMAA lookback so the following years do not pretend last year never happened.
Example D: custodian change mid-campaign. Processing times and forms change. Refresh updates deadlines so December instructions still settle in the intended tax year at the new firm.
- Gather fresh estimates and balances
- Submit changes as inputs, not as vague worries
- Receive regenerated pages
- Diff the new dates against last year’s checklist
- Execute the new deadlines
- Keep support questions tied to pages and fields
What fails on Plan and year
Failure mode one: treating $95 a month as payment for investment chatter. Failure mode two: skipping refreshes until a crisis, then wanting an emergency redesign overnight without updated inputs. Failure mode three: refreshing inputs poorly (wrong estimates pasted in haste), then blaming the product for precise wrongness. Failure mode four: refusing to read deadlines after a refresh because the claim months looked familiar enough to skim.
Plan and year buys synchronized updates. It does not buy someone else to log into your custodian.
Input quality and tier changes
You can start on Plan and upgrade when cadence becomes necessary. You can start on Plan and year and move to Household if coordination needs grow. You can also simply execute without drama. There is no AUM ladder to climb and no discovery call to reopen. Fees stay public: Plan $1,200 once; Plan and year $1,200 then $95 a month or $950 a year prepaid; Household $3,400 a year. There is no AUM fee and no mandatory discovery call. You file and instruct yourself. Questions about reading a page go to support@ivoryplains.com.
Monthly fee versus yearly published option
Plan and year can be paid as $95 a month after the $1,200 start, or as $950 a year prepaid. Choose the payment shape that matches how you avoid accidental cancellation, not the shape that feels like a gym membership you might ghost. The planning value is the refresh path. The billing shape is logistics.
Before each refresh window, block time for inputs the way you block time for tax prep. Thin inputs produce thin updates. If a year had no material changes, still confirm that fact explicitly rather than skipping; silence is not confirmation. Then re-calendar deadlines even if claim months stayed put. Custodian processing times and tax dates can still move.
Refresh anti-patterns
Anti-pattern one: refreshing only after a loss year because anxiety spiked. Anxiety is not an input. Balances and claims are. Anti-pattern two: sending a paragraph of feelings without numbers. Support will ask for fields. Anti-pattern three: regenerating pages and leaving old calendar entries active so two claim months coexist. Delete the obsolete reminders the same day.
Anti-pattern four: using Plan and year while maintaining a secret spreadsheet that overrides conversion amounts. Either change inputs and regenerate, or admit you are not using the product. The rules have no clause for shadow ledgers.
Buy the plan
without a discovery call
The fee and what is inside it sit on the page. Send the statements and get the dates back.
