I am a 44 year old man married to a 45 year old woman. I have about 950K in tax deferred retirement accounts (401k), of which approximately 690K is from a prior employer. My wife has 45K in a 401k, also from a previous employer. She also has about 165K in a 403b from our state pension and about 78K split in 2 different Roth IRAs.

We also have about 110K in (post tax) joint investment accounts and about 60K cash in savings.

Due to her long time state employment she’s not likely to be eligible directly for SS but could apply for spousal benefits when I take my SS (currently planning to wait 26 years on that, but it should be approximately 4K/month if I do)

We have no debt, and own our home and cars outright (house valued at about 370K)

We’ve done a budget and our expenses (necessary + discretionary + some leeway) are about 7K a month.

That’s a lot of background, but basically, I’m concerned looking at the potential long term growth of our primarily deferred accounts, and the tax implications (RMDs etc) it may have moving forward. I’m also concerned about the current allocation of our assets as it’s heavily weighted towards Domestic Stocks/tech with minimal bonds or international stocks.

I am trying to determine a few things before I meet with my Financial Advisor.

I’m likely going to move the 690K from my prior employer into a IRA so I can more directly control the allocation, but also to facilitate some conversions to Roth IRAs in my name. I am hoping to get some help here in understanding informed questions to ask about that conversion. I plan to have the Financial Advisor meet with my tax accountant to prevent bumping me up into a higher tax bracket with the conversion. Is there any other important questions to ask?

Now about allocations (for the new Roth and in general). I am a bit cynical (based on past issues with non-fiduciary advisors) and am hoping I’m not going to be nudged towards instruments that benefit my advisor. I am also expecting to be pitched an annuity and interested in understanding how to discuss this (it seems a bit early for me to consider annuities given my wife has a pension) Is it reasonable to expect that my advisor should be able to offer sensible ways to mitigate market risk without capitulating to an annuity at 45(ish)?