The New Rules of Wealth

Most retirement plans are not plans. They are collections of accounts. A 401(k) here, an IRA there, a Social Security decision left for later, an old life insurance policy, and a trust signed years ago that may or may not be funded. Each piece was set up at a different time, for a different reason, and none of them was written with the others in view.

Lindahl Lucas built Avinci Wealth Management around that observation.

A background in many disciplines at once

Lucas was a collegiate All-American decathlete and a Hall of Fame record holder, and later coached two USA Track and Field teams. The decathlon is ten events, and what decides it is not mastery of one but performance across all ten.

He argues retirement planning works the same way. "The household that retires successfully is rarely the one with the best portfolio in isolation," Lucas says. "It is the one whose five pieces fit together."

His route to founding Avinci was deliberate. Continuously licensed in insurance since 1987 and in securities since 2005, Lucas spent six years at Financial and Tax Architects, where his conviction about coordinated planning took shape. He also founded Lucas Insurance Services in 1987, an independent agency that places insurance and annuities for Avinci clients when those products fit the plan. That agency may receive commissions from issuing insurance companies, which creates a conflict of interest and is disclosed in writing before anything is placed.

Why coordination is difficult

Under the conventional arrangement, the client coordinates everything. The investment professional, the insurance agent, the trust attorney and the CPA each work within their own engagement, and the client is left to make sure nothing falls between them.

That places the heaviest burden on the person least equipped to carry it. Professionals, business owners and pre-retirees are occupied building and protecting what they have. Few have time to act as their own chief financial officer, stitching together advice from four or five specialists who may never speak to one another.

The results are familiar. Tax planning that does not reference the income plan. An income plan disconnected from the investment allocation. A trust that was never funded. A Social Security decision made on instinct rather than arithmetic.

The Retirement Blueprint

The Retirement Blueprint is the named methodology Avinci uses. It is a four-step process intended to bring each part of a client's financial life under one coordinated strategy, so that the tax strategy supports the income plan, the income plan supports the investment allocation, and the estate documents reflect the same strategy as both.

It is not a product and not a software tool. It is a written document and a meeting cadence. The process gathers the complete financial picture, builds a year-by-year projection of income and tax exposure, presents a clear snapshot of the client's position, and refines the strategy over time.

Tax strategy is central, particularly for higher-income households approaching or already in retirement. Avinci helps clients evaluate opportunities such as Roth conversions, using tax projections to consider when and how much to convert, with the goal of managing adjusted gross income across years rather than treating each year in isolation. Decisions made today can affect future income, tax brackets, Medicare-related costs and the broader retirement picture.

In practice that means accounts coordinated under one strategy rather than managed separately; a multi-year conversion schedule with amounts, years and the tax considerations behind each one; account titling and beneficiary information gathered and reviewed with the client's attorney; a claiming analysis modelled against life expectancy, spousal benefits and tax brackets; and an insurance review of what to keep, what to reconsider and what may be missing.

Perhaps most usefully, a market decline meets a planned response rather than an improvised one, because the plan anticipated that markets fall. Sequence of returns risk covers why that matters most in the first years of retirement.

Five disciplines, one plan

"We do not do one thing," Lucas says. "We work across several areas so clients have clarity about their assets and their retirement."

The five disciplines are investment management, tax planning, retirement income, insurance and estate coordination. Clients work directly with the founder, with estate documents drafted by their own attorney and tax returns prepared by their own CPA. An eleven-point checklist covers how to audit a plan you already have against those five.

Avinci serves professionals, business owners and pre-retirees across Los Angeles, Santa Clarita and Ventura Counties, with three offices and secure video meetings for clients who prefer to meet remotely.