Q. I am a 53-year-old woman who was widowed 10 years ago and recently remarried. I have $355,000 that has been invested through Charles Schwab upon the advice of a financial adviser, as follows: $73,682 in Gabelli Asset fund, $90,826 in Harbor International fund, $102,150 in Janus Twenty fund, $83,083 in Yachtman fund, and the balance in a money market fund. I am charged 1 percent annually by Schwab for maintaining this portfolio, and I take $2,500 monthly for my own use. Should I be more aggressive with this money, with retirement looming in 10 to 15 years?

P.T., Holliston

A. This would be a fine retirement portfolio, but that's not how it's being used. When you combine your withdrawals and the fee charged by Schwab, your annual withdrawals amount to nearly 10 percent. This has been working well during the bull market, but taking fixed withdrawals that approach 10 percent from a stock fund is a dangerous strategy.

Let me illustrate. Suppose that the next two years each bring a 10 percent stock market decline, and that your portfolio follows. At the end of the first unpleasant year, your portfolio would have fallen to $287,961; at the end of the second, the figure would be $228,229.

Even if the market then gave you consistent 10 percent annual gains for the next 10 years, the damage would have been done, and the sequence of withdrawals would draw the balance down steadily, ending at about $110,000.

If you're going to treat this money as a source of income, I would adjust the portfolio significantly toward fixed-income investments. Your sequence of withdrawals wouldn't allow the fund much capacity to grow, but you would face much lower risk of serious erosion of principal.

Conversely, if you consider this money a retirement asset, you should stop spending it, or at least substantially reduce the withdrawals.

I can't understandy why you have a financial adviser and pay Schwab an annual fee to manage the account. I would ask each how this portfolio might be realigned in view of your withdrawals, and then I would choose just one adviser to go with.