The Plan You Were Given Was Probably Not Built Around You
Most of the plans I review were not built to hold up. They were built to be sold. This is what twenty years on both sides of that line has taught me.
The Industry I Set Out to Fix
If you are within ten years of retirement and you are not sure your plan will hold up, you are right to be skeptical. Most of the plans I review were not built to hold up. They were built to be sold.
I have spent more than twenty years working in retirement income planning and the physical precious metals business. The same patterns repeat across both. Income projections that assume the market keeps doing what it has been doing. Gold contracts structured around the coins the dealer makes the most margin on, not the bullion the client should own. Annuities built for the agent's commission, not the client's income.
Every recommendation I make is measured against one question: is this in the client's Best Interest. If the answer is ever no, the recommendation does not get made.
My name is Deric Scott Ned. I am an income planner. I work with people approaching retirement and already in it, and I am a physical gold and silver broker. I am based in Pasadena, California. I work with clients across the United States.
What I Look For in a Second-Opinion Retirement Plan Review
A second-opinion retirement plan review is a careful read of a retirement plan another advisor has built for you, before you commit to it. I look at the income projections, the products being recommended, the fees, and the assumptions behind the numbers. Then I tell you, in writing, what I see and why.
Most of the people I work with come to me already holding something. A retirement plan another advisor put together. A precious metals contract from a national dealer. A Social Security strategy they built themselves from a YouTube video. They want a second opinion before they sign, before they retire, or before they decide.
When I open those documents, the same things show up. Plans that look professional and read confidently and would not survive ten more years of real life. Sometimes the plan is sound and I will tell you that. More often there is a conversation worth having about what to keep, what to fix, and what to walk away from.
How a Best Interest Income Planner Works
A Best Interest income planner is obligated, by their own standard of practice, to recommend what is right for the client rather than what pays the planner more. The first conversation is a conversation, not a pitch. I review what you have, explain what I see, make recommendations, and tell you why. You decide what to do.
I do not work on commission overrides that bias what I recommend. I do not sell products I would not put my own family in. I do not use countdown clocks, paid celebrity voices, or scarcity language to move a deal across the line. The work either makes sense for you, on the merits, or it does not.
If a follow-up makes sense, we set one. If it does not, we do not. Either way you walk away from the first call with at least one thing you did not have before. That is what twenty years has taught me. The conversations that actually help people are the ones nobody is trying to close.
What I Help With
My core practice is retirement income planning, second-opinion plan reviews, and physical gold and silver guidance. I am based in Pasadena, California. I work with retirement income planning clients in the Los Angeles area in person, and with physical gold and silver clients across the United States.
- 01
Retirement income planning for people approaching retirement or already in it. Engineering reliable monthly cash flow from what you have, designed to hold up over twenty to thirty years.
- 02
Second-opinion reviews of retirement plans built by other advisors. A careful read of what you were given, with a written explanation of what I see and why.
- 03
Physical gold and silver brokerage, available to clients across the United States. When metals belong in a portfolio, in what form, in what allocation, with what custody. When they do not belong, I will tell you that too.
- 04
Roth IRA planning for high-income earners. There is a legal way to fund a Roth even when your income disqualifies you from contributing directly. Most people do not know it exists.
- 05
Self-directed IRAs for clients holding alternative assets in retirement accounts.
Pasadena, California
AFEA and Financial Education
I serve as Chapter President of the American Financial Education Alliance (AFEA), a non-profit dedicated to teaching financial literacy in communities across the country. The work is unpaid. I do it because most of what I see in my practice could have been prevented by a single honest conversation a decade earlier.
If This Sounds Like the Conversation You Have Been Looking For, I Would Be Glad to Talk
Forty-five minutes. Your situation, your questions. No pitch. If the work seems like a fit, we will keep talking. If not, you will have heard a careful second opinion either way.