Wrapping up: what is to be learned?

No matter how hard I tried, it was hard to reduce the size of this paper. I hope that you found it intuitive and comprehensive enough.  I also hope that I’ve convinced you that these are the things we will have to do in our retirement. We have become our own money manager.

Some conclusions and final thoughts

1) This is a plan; it is only a plan:  Life will work out differently.

• You will not switch from Case 1 to Case 2 to Case 3 all that quickly.
• Your spending will change, so any projections will come out differently.
• Your actual results may be better or worse. You need to adjust for what has happened.

2) You have to stay on top of it. 

• The example showed that even IF you had perfect knowledge, things could change and will be reducing over time.
• Once you have things set up, it’s not a lot of work to change them. Just type in the new #s and press play.

3)  Can you use this before retiring?  Absolutely.  In this case the income ratios and such provide you with savings goals.

4)  Are there improvements?  That’s like asking if I’m full of hot air (of course I am).  Things you can solve for, ways to add more detail to the calculations, any and all of that are possible. I’ve done a fair amount of that already. The real question is – are they necessary?  You can decide that for yourself.

5) Any tool is a “Play Toy” – so play with it! See what happens if you change your targeted rate, assumptions on spending and so forth.  Many brokerage companies and financial planners have tools that may be able to provide you a back-check on what your thinking is.

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