Retirement: Retire NOW If You Answer YES to All 6 Questions

  • 27th Jan 2025
  • 3 min read

Ray G. shared this one with me. I thought it was excellent and passing it along.

Spoiler - #6 asks about money, but no depth there, but that's not what this video is about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DssaNYl6iSQ

I can hear the working folks saying, "but Mark, the money is the important part!" Absolutely true, but it's not the only thing to pay attention to.

At some point you're going to start asking yourself some variation of this question - "how much do I need to retire?" The answer comes in two parts:

  1. Calculate/estimate/forecast your spending in retirement, until death. If you're married, that includes your spouse.

  2. Get some estimate of how well your predicted savings, at current rates, will cover that spending.

At the risk of repeating myself, you're going to want to do this math problem at least two ways, so you can compare answers and understand why they don't match. Here are some choices:

Some people are very good with excel and can model their retirement with that tool. It can be a complex model though, and this may take you quite a while to work through.

Some people will hire a financial advisor. More about this later in this note.

There are online modeling tools. You can Google to find some of them. Some are free. Some you pay a subscription for. My advice would be to start with a free option to see what sort of information you need to have, which is not trivial at the beginning. Subscription-based sites usually offer more options, but they can also be overwhelming to start with. I compare this situation to certain kinds of software, like AutoCAD. I can buy AutoCAD for my PC, but that doesn't make me a skilled AutoCAD user. It takes time and experience to understand how to use these retirement tools. It's not a couple of hours and out pops the answer.

https://www.boldin.com/

https://www.honestmath.com/

https://www.calculator.net/retirement-calculator.html

https://ficalc.app/

Financial Advisors:

There are a few options here. One is to find an advisor that you pay by the hour to look at the data you provide and output a report or plan. The other is giving an advisor some of your retirement savings to manage, of which they will collect around 1% to pay their fee. Frequently referred to as "assets under management." There are some other variations. Some look like subscriptions where you pay a flat fee on a schedule for them to manage money and provide advice.

"Assets under management" may mean an advisor only accepts clients who have at least some minimum dollar value of assets.

For younger folks not retired yet, it may be best to pay for a plan every few years. This is a "are we on track" approach. You may also lack the assets to go with a "assets under management" option.

The math of retirement isn't terribly hard. What you're paying for is experience and strategy. An advisor can help you see things you may not be aware of, or missed.