Your Living Retirement Plan

Everything Together

🔄 Quick Recall: Over seven lessons, you’ve built individual components: your retirement number, savings strategy, portfolio analysis, tax-efficient withdrawals, Social Security optimization, healthcare planning, and stress-tested contingencies. Now you’ll connect them into a single living document that serves you for decades.

The power of this plan isn’t in any one calculation. It’s in having a complete framework that answers the question every retiree faces: “Am I going to be okay?”

Your Retirement Plan Summary

Here’s how every component fits together:

The Annual Review Prompt

Once per year (birthday, New Year’s, or tax day — pick a consistent date), run this comprehensive review:

Annual retirement plan review for [year].

Updated numbers:
- Current age: [X]
- Years to retirement: [X]
- Total retirement savings (all accounts): $[X]
- Annual contributions: $[X]
- Annual spending: $[X]
- Social Security estimate: $[X]/month at age [X]

Changes since last review:
- [Job change / raise / new expenses / paid off debt / inheritance / etc.]
- [Any health changes]
- [Any life changes — marriage, divorce, children, etc.]

Review:
1. Is my retirement number still accurate? (Re-calculate with updated spending)
2. Am I on track? (Gap analysis: current trajectory vs. target)
3. Is my investment allocation still appropriate for my timeline?
4. Has anything changed my tax strategy? (New tax brackets, Roth conversion window?)
5. Should I adjust my Social Security claiming plan?
6. Is my healthcare strategy still appropriate?
7. Re-run Monte Carlo: what's my current success rate?

Provide: Updated action items ranked by impact.

✅ Quick Check: Why review annually instead of quarterly or monthly? Because retirement plans operate on decade-long timescales. Monthly market fluctuations are noise — they don’t change your 20-year trajectory. Annual reviews capture meaningful changes (salary increases, spending shifts, life events) without generating anxiety from short-term market movements. The exception: review after major life events regardless of timing.

Life Event Trigger Reviews

Run a focused review when these events occur:

Job change:

My income changed from $[X] to $[X]. Update my retirement plan:
new savings capacity, new employer match, impact on timeline.

Inheritance or windfall:

I received $[X]. Analyze: best allocation for retirement
(pay off debt, invest, Roth conversion, etc.) given my tax bracket
and current plan.

Health diagnosis:

I've been diagnosed with [condition]. Update my plan for:
increased healthcare costs, potential earlier retirement,
long-term care probability adjustment, and impact on
Social Security claiming strategy.

Market crash (20%+ decline):

Markets have dropped [X]%. My portfolio is now $[X].
Should I: (1) continue my current withdrawal plan,
(2) trigger my contingency spending reduction,
(3) rebalance, (4) accelerate Roth conversions
(buying low with converted funds)? Model each option.

When to Get Professional Help

AI handles analysis beautifully. Some situations need human professionals:

Finding the right advisor: Look for “fee-only” (paid by you, not commissions) and “fiduciary” (legally required to act in your interest). Use AI to prepare for advisor meetings: “I have a meeting with a financial advisor to discuss [topic]. What questions should I ask? What red flags should I watch for?”

Your Implementation Roadmap

This week: Create your retirement plan summary document with current numbers for every component.

This month: Run Monte Carlo simulations and set up your contingency plan with specific triggers and actions.

This quarter: Optimize one area — implement the single change (Roth conversion, fee reduction, contribution increase) that your analysis shows has the highest impact.

This year: Complete your first annual review and establish the review habit.

✅ Quick Check: Why start with the summary document rather than implementation? Because having your entire plan in one place transforms retirement from an overwhelming abstraction into a manageable system. When everything is documented — your number, your gap, your strategy, your contingency plan — the next action is always clear. Without the summary, retirement planning stays in the “I should really get to that” category. With it, it becomes “adjust my contribution by 1% this quarter.”

Key Takeaways

From this course, you now know how to:

• Calculate your personalized retirement number based on your actual lifestyle, location, and healthcare needs (Lesson 2)
• Optimize savings by finding budget capacity and choosing the right account types for your tax situation (Lesson 3)
• Analyze your investment portfolio for hidden fees, overlap, and age-appropriate risk (Lesson 4)
• Plan tax-efficient withdrawals that minimize lifetime taxes across traditional, Roth, and taxable accounts (Lesson 5)
• Strategize Social Security claiming and healthcare funding — including the pre-Medicare gap and long-term care (Lesson 6)
• Stress-test your plan against market crashes, inflation spikes, and longevity risk with Monte Carlo simulations (Lesson 7)
• Maintain a living plan with annual reviews and life-event triggers that keep you on track for decades (This lesson)

The most important takeaway: retirement planning isn’t a one-time event — it’s an ongoing conversation between you and your data. AI makes that conversation possible for everyone, not just those who can afford $5,000/year in advisor fees. Your plan will evolve. Your tools will improve. But the framework you built in this course — the prompts, the analysis approach, the review cycle — will serve you for the rest of your financial life.

Congratulations on completing the course! Claim your certificate and start your first annual review — the most important financial conversation you’ll have this year.