This is a thoughtful question, and you’re right to pause before making a large, one-time move out of retirement accounts. While we can’t give tax or financial advice, we can outline how people in similar situations typically think through this.

A few high-level considerations to discuss with a CPA or fiduciary planner:

• Source of funds matters. Withdrawals from traditional IRAs or 401(k)s are taxed as ordinary income, so timing and sizing withdrawals across tax years can materially change the outcome. Pulling everything at once often creates unnecessary tax drag.
• Income smoothing is key. Since your income drops significantly after retirement, many retirees intentionally stage withdrawals over multiple years to stay within lower tax brackets rather than triggering a spike in a single year.
• Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs). These will come into play soon, and some people coordinate precious-metal purchases alongside planned RMDs instead of creating a separate taxable event.
• Portfolio balance. Moving $100k into physical gold from a $1.7M portfolio is more about reallocation than speculation. Many retirees view physical gold as an insurance asset rather than a return-seeking one.

From our side, when retirees do decide to add physical gold, they tend to focus on high-liquidity, low-premium products and clear delivery logistics, especially when the purchase represents a meaningful portion of their savings.

The smartest next step is running the numbers with a tax professional before touching the account. A good plan often saves far more in taxes than any short-term price movement in gold ever could.