There's another smart way to make the bucket approach adaptive: scale each year's debt bucket using your funded ratio.

Instead of holding a fixed 5 years of expenses in safe assets, hold 5 years of expenses divided by the current year's funded ratio. When the funded ratio is low, the bucket automatically grows to protect more years. When the funded ratio is strong, the bucket shrinks and frees more money for growth.

It's a simple formula that adjusts risk exposure dynamically—protect more when vulnerable, pursue growth when secure.