08/12/2026
A couple retires. They leave the IRA alone because it's tax-advantaged, and they start Social Security early for the income.
It feels like the responsible move. Preserve the tax-deferred account. Take the guaranteed income while it's there.
Ten years pass. Nothing dramatic happens in that decade. No market crash, no bad decision, no red flags. The IRA just keeps growing, untouched, the way it's supposed to.
Then they turn 73.
The RMD comes due, calculated off a decade of uninterrupted growth. It stacks directly on top of a full Social Security benefit that's already been running for years. The bracket they land in is higher than either of them expected, and it's not a one-year problem. It's the shape of the next twenty years.
Nobody did anything wrong. There was no bad advice, no mistake, no oversight anyone could point to. They just planned for the money and not for the sequence.
That gap, between what you save and how you actually draw it down, is exactly the kind of blind spot the Guide to the Gaps is built to catch before it closes. Link in our bio.
