Domain 1 of 9
money.
Income, drawdown, taxes, pensions — the math behind the rest.
Money is the domain everyone else builds a product around, and the one Bearings treats as merely first among nine. It matters — income that lasts, drawdown in the right order, the timing of a pension claim, the tax mechanics that quietly decide how much of your own money you keep. These are real questions with real consequences, and getting them wrong is expensive.
But money in retirement is less about a single number than about a set of decisions that interact: when to claim, what to draw first, how much risk to carry in the years right before and after you stop working. The goal isn't a bigger pile. It's a plan you understand well enough to stop worrying about.
What Bearings measures here isn't your net worth. It's whether you've thought the money questions through to the point of footing — whether you could explain your own plan to someone you trust, and believe it.
The goal isn't a bigger pile. It's a plan you understand well enough to stop worrying about.
What the assessment asks.
A few of the 6 questions that surface this domain — less about whether you've done a task, more about whether you've reached some footing.
- —I have a clear picture of where my retirement income will come from.
- —I understand the order in which I should draw from my different accounts.
- —I know how my government pension(s) fit into my plan and when I'll claim them.
- —I have a written investment plan, or my advisor and I share one.
Reading in money.
See where you stand in money.
The assessment takes about fifteen minutes and covers all nine domains. Find your bearings.
Take the assessment