My neighbor Walt retired in March. Did everything right — 38 years at the same company, maxed the 401(k), paid the house off early.

Three weeks in, he leaned over the fence and asked me something I haven't stopped thinking about:

"Now what do I do with it?"

Not the time. The money.

Here's the thing nobody tells you. Every book, every advisor, every late-night calculator session — it's all about the FIRST half. Accumulating. Saving. Growing the pile.

Almost nobody prepares you for the second half: the day you stop adding to the pile and start living off it. Different rules. Different risks. Different mistakes — and the second-half mistakes are the ones you can't earn your way out of.

And the timing matters more than it did for our parents. 10,000 Americans hit retirement age every single day right now — the biggest wave in history — while the country runs a $36 trillion tab in the background. The generation spending down its savings is doing it in the shakiest dollar environment since the 1970s.

Walt asked his advisor the "now what" question. He got a shrug and a brochure.

So I went and found the thing I wish someone had handed him in March: a straightforward checklist for the spend-down years — what to lock down, what to watch, and the one move most second-half retirees say they wish they'd made sooner.

If you're within five years of the line — either side of it — this is worth more than another decade of accumulation advice.