Saturday, August 8, 2026 · Cleveland, Ohio · Fee-only fiduciary since 2003 · · info@larryjohnint.com
Larry John Retirement Management Agency
Fee-only · Fiduciary · Est. 2003

You worked forty years
for this money.
Now it has to work.

We are a small, independent retirement-planning firm in Cleveland. No products to sell, no quotas to hit — just straight advice for people who are close to retirement, or already there.

start a conversation See how we charge

No cost · no obligation · 90 minutes with a real planner

The Halvorsens
Fig. 01 — The Halvorsens, three weeks after their final review. Photo used with permission.
Now accepting 3 new families this quarter.The waitlist reopens in October.
Custody at Charles Schwab · your accounts stay in your name
CFP® professionals on staff plus one very patient CPA
Zero commissions, ever — we sell advice, not products
In person or by phone — your pick, every meeting
23
Years in practice
$212M
Under advice
340+
Families served
98%
Client retention
01

The Firm

Most firms sell retirement products. We decided, twenty-three years ago, to simply advise on them — and to charge a plain fee for doing so.

Larry John spent his first fourteen years in this business inside large brokerage firms, watching good people get handed the wrong annuity because it paid the best commission. In 2003 he left, rented two rooms above a hardware store in Lakewood, and started over — charging a flat fee and answering to nobody but his clients.

Today the agency looks after $212 million for more than 340 families across Ohio and forty-one other states. We are still deliberately small. Every client knows their planner by first name, every planner here is bound by fiduciary duty, and the coffee is still bad.

We don't do television. We don't sponsor radio segments. Nearly every family we serve arrived the same way: somebody's sister told them to call us.

"If the advice pays the bill, the advice stays honest. That's the whole business model." — Larry John, CFP® · Founder & Senior Planner
Larry John
Larry John, CFP® — Founder & Senior Planner

The fine print, up front

Registration
SEC-registered investment adviser
Compensation
Fees from clients only
Products sold
None. No insurance, no brokerage.
Credentials
CFP®, CPA, CFA on staff
Custodian
Charles Schwab & Co.
Founded
Lakewood, Ohio — 2003
Team
Seven people, one office dog
Original office
Fig. 02 — The original two rooms above the hardware store in Lakewood. Now the conference room; the lamp stayed.
02

What we actually do all day

No. 01

Retirement Income Planning

The heart of the firm. We map every account, pension and Social Security dollar into a monthly paycheck you can count on — then stress-test it against bad markets and long lives.

Drawdown strategy · Tax buckets · Contingency plans
No. 02

Investment Management

Boring, diversified, evidence-based portfolios built to fund your plan — not to chase magazine covers. Rebalanced quarterly, explained in plain English.

Evidence-based · Quarterly rebalancing · Tax-loss harvesting
No. 03

Social Security & Pension Decisions

For most families, Social Security is the largest asset they own — and the claiming decision is irreversible. We model every filing scenario before you touch a thing.

Filing strategy · Spousal coordination · Pension elections
No. 04

Tax-Aware Withdrawals & Roth Conversions

The years between retirement and required distributions are a once-in-a-lifetime tax window. We fill it deliberately, bracket by bracket, year by year.

Roth conversions · RMD planning · Bracket management
No. 05

Estate & Legacy Coordination

We work alongside your attorney to keep beneficiaries, titling and trusts aligned with what you actually want to happen — and we host the family meetings so you don't have to.

Beneficiary audits · Trust funding · Family meetings
No. 06

The Last Five Years Before Retirement

A dedicated program for the home stretch: the final savings push, the healthcare bridge, the pension election, and the goodbye party. Done in the right order, it's the most valuable five years of your working life.

Transition blueprint · Healthcare bridge · Final paycheck
03

How it works

Nobody hands you a 40-page binder and disappears. Here is the entire process, start to finish — the same for a schoolteacher as for a company president.

01

The Conversation

90 minutes · no charge

We meet — in person or by phone — and you talk while we listen. Goals, worries, numbers, family. You leave with at least two useful answers whether or not we ever work together.

02

The Blueprint

~6 weeks · flat fee

We build your written plan: income projections, tax strategy, Social Security timing, an estate checklist. Then we present it, argue about it together, and revise it until it's right.

03

The Work

ongoing · quarterly reviews

We manage the investments, execute the plan, handle the paperwork, and sit down with you every quarter. When life changes — and it will — the plan changes with it.

First meeting
Fig. 04 — First meeting, last handshake. After that, we do the work.
04

The whole fee schedule. On the website.

First $1,000,0000.85% / yr
$1,000,001 – $3,000,0000.65% / yr
Above $3,000,0000.45% / yr
Full written plan, flat engagement$2,400
…or spread over eight months$300 / mo
Second opinion on an existing plan$600

That's the whole table. A complete copy of our Form CRS and ADV Part 2A is provided before any engagement, and is publicly available at adviserinfo.sec.gov.

What you will never pay us

  • Commissions of any kind
  • 12b-1 or revenue-sharing fees
  • Surrender charges or load fees
  • Performance or incentive fees
  • Exit penalties or lock-in contracts
"The goal was never a number. The goal is a Tuesday morning in October with nothing to worry about."
What the plan is for
Fig. 05 — What the plan is actually for
05

Notes from the desk

Social Security
Social Security · July 2026 · 8 min read

Should the higher earner wait until 70? A decision tree for married couples

The single most common question at our kitchen-table meetings, answered with the actual math — including the case where waiting is a mistake.

Read →
Taxes
Taxes · June 2026 · 11 min read

The Roth conversion window: why the first five years of retirement matter more than the last twenty

Between your last paycheck and your first RMD sits a narrow, low-income window. Used carefully, it can save a family six figures.

Read →
Markets
Markets · May 2026 · 6 min read

What 2008 and 2020 taught us about retirement drawdowns (and what they didn't)

Sequence-of-returns risk is real, but the popular fixes are often worse than the disease. A look at what actually held up for our retirees.

Read →
06

Mail we keep

Larry told us we could retire eight months earlier than we thought — then spent the next hour arguing why waiting might be better for us. Who does that?
Marta & Eugene K.Retired teacher & mail carrier · clients since 2011
After my husband passed I couldn't face the paperwork. Their team sat with me for three hours and sorted every account, every bill, every beneficiary.
Dolores P.Widow & retired nurse · client since 2016
We came in for a second opinion and found out our old advisor had us in eight mutual funds we didn't need. Plain talk, flat fee, no drama.
Sam & Ruth T.Small-business owners · clients since 2022
07

Fair questions

The ones every new family asks in the first meeting, answered the way we answer them there. Anything else — call us. A person answers the phone.

Yes. As an SEC-registered investment adviser we are fiduciaries 100% of the time — not just "when it's convenient." We sign a fiduciary oath with every new client, and you're welcome to hold the paper.

For ongoing investment management, typically $250,000 in investable assets. For planning-only engagements there is no minimum — some of our best work has been done with a folder of statements and a legal pad.

At Charles Schwab, in your name. We never take custody of your money. Our authority is limited to trading and deducting our agreed fee — you can see every transaction and every penny we're paid, any day, online.

Absolutely. About a third of our planning clients keep their accounts elsewhere. You pay the flat fee, get the written Blueprint, and take it wherever you like. Several have come back years later; none were pressured to.

Your named planner, plus one associate who knows your file cold — so there is always a second person who can pick up the phone. No call centers, no outsourcing, no "team of specialists" you've never met.

Roughly half our families live outside Ohio, in 41 states and two countries. Video meetings work fine; and once a year, Larry insists on mailing every client a handwritten note, which works even better.

08

Book the conversation

Ninety minutes, no charge, no drip-campaign follow-up. If we're useful, great. If we're not, we'll say so and point you somewhere better.

Office

1120 Euclid Avenue, Suite 410
Cleveland, Ohio 44115
Parking validated in the Arcade garage.

Phone


— a person answers.

Hours

Mon–Thu 8:30–5:30
Fri 8:30–3:00
Evening meetings by appointment for working couples.

Contact Us

We reply within one business day. Usually sooner.