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Retirement Income Engineering
The season changed.Your plan should too.
You spent thirty years planting, saving, investing, and building. Now you are approaching the harvest. That takes a different plan, a different kind of advisor, and a fundamentally different way of thinking about every dollar you have earned.
SEC Registered
Investment Advisor
Fiduciary Standard
Your Interest First
Distribution Specialists
Built for the Harvest Season
Values Driven
Legacy Aligned
The Shift Nobody Prepares For
Everything you learned about investing becomes dangerous the day you retire.
Most advisors built their practice around growing money — the planting season. Retirement is harvest season. The rules invert, the risks change, and a fundamentally different kind of plan is required.
The Old Playbook
Traditional Approach
Manage a portfolio and hope the math works
One-size-fits-all risk tolerance questionnaire
60/40 allocation regardless of income needs
No plan for what happens when a spouse dies
"If your portfolio earns an average return, you should be fine"
How We Work
The Back40 Approach
Engineer income that pays regardless of markets
RISA behavioral assessment before any recommendation
Every dollar assigned to a purpose-driven role
Surviving spouse protection built in from day one
"Your essential expenses are covered. Period."
Our Philosophy
A farmer doesn't hope for a good harvest.
He reads the soil. He plans for the season. He builds a structure that protects what he's grown no matter what the weather does. That's how we approach retirement planning. Not with hope. Not with guesswork. With the kind of truth, trust, and integrity that built this country's farms and families.
Dustan grew up on a farm in Wisconsin. The "back 40" is the remote, often uncultivated forty acres at the farthest edge of the property — the land with the most potential and the least attention. That's the retirement plan most people are sitting on. We're here to bring it to life.
Truth
We show you the math including the trade-offs. Every recommendation comes with what you gain and what you give up. No hidden agendas. The numbers are on the table.
Integrity
We protect the surviving spouse by default. We plan for all six retirement risks, not just the convenient ones. We don't cut corners because retirement doesn't give second chances.
Discipline
Every dollar gets a job. No idle assets. No unfunded risks. No hoping the market cooperates. We engineer outcomes the same way a farmer engineers a harvest.
Trust
Every client takes the RISA behavioral assessment before we make a single recommendation. Your plan is built around how you actually think — not what's convenient to offer.
"I started Back40 because I never wanted another family to stand where mine stood — grieving and guessing at the same time."
Dustan Christensen — Founder & Principal Advisor
Your assets are held at institutions you already trust
Charles Schwab
Custodian
Solomon API
Portfolio Manager
API Financial Advisors, LLC
SEC Registered RIA
Nationwide
Insurance Carrier
Prudential
Insurance Carrier
North American
Insurance Carrier
Equitable
Insurance Carrier
Our Services
The Framework in Practice
Each service is a discipline inside the EBP Framework — not a standalone product, but a coordinated piece of your plan.
Income Planning
Retirement Income Planning
We build the income floor before we take market risk with the rest.
Learn more
Portfolio Strategy
Investment Management
The goal is not to beat the market in a good year. The goal is to not be permanently impaired in a bad one.
Learn more
Tax Strategy
Tax Strategy & Roth Planning
Strategic Roth conversions, withdrawal sequencing, and RMD planning that can save six figures over your retirement.
Learn more
Your Next Step
It Starts With a Conversation.
No cost. No pressure. No product pitch. 30 minutes to talk about your retirement and what comes next.
01
01
Discovery
Your story
We start by listening — your timeline, your goals, your family. No forms yet.
02
02
Risk Audit
Your profile
RISA behavioral assessment plus a full portfolio review before any strategy.
03
03
Blueprint
Your plan
A visual FieldMap showing how every income, growth, and legacy dollar works.
04
04
Strategy
Your clarity
Every assumption, number, and trade-off — on the table. Nothing hidden.
05
05
Implementation
Your freedom
Account transfers, Roth conversions, income applications — done for you.