Brute Force is Not a Retirement Plan

Retirement planning feels more urgent when you don’t like your career.

I’ve always admired people who genuinely love their work.

But I didn’t like my career from the early days. Instead of pivoting to something else, I decided to hunker down and save and invest my way out.

Trying to achieve an early retirement largely drove my spending and investment decisions even though retirement was decades away.

I wanted to travel again, not work.

I wanted to be a fully-present Dad, not a grumpy commuter.

I wanted flexibility, not more billable hours.

For a time, I felt trapped in my career, especially when we had our first kid and my wife left her career.

That’s about when I started my side business writing articles online.

Soon, something unfamiliar started to happen.

I started to love my work.

Not my career, my side business.

The project was 100% mine. It succeeded or failed based on my decisions and efforts, not teammates or the whims of a client.

Most surprisingly, when I left my IT career to be a full-time online creator, the desire to retire early went away.

Ironically, all the saving and sacrifice to reach my early retirement goal became the financial foundation for me to work longer.

So now instead of chasing “age 55, one year before my Dad retired” — my long-time early retirement target — I‘ll retire when I’m ready, supported by a comprehensive DIY financial plan.

Self-employed, there’s no corporate age discrimination, mandatory retirement age, or incentives to leave when it’s convenient for an employer.

I’ll stop working when it’s right for me.

Subscribers tell me they’re mentally ready to retire, but unsure about the numbers.

They fear a market correction, long-term healthcare costs, taxes, inflation, and the unexpected.

We should be cautious of those things. Inevitably, something unexpected will happen.

But instead of fearing the impact of unknown variables, prepare.

It’s nearly impossible (or at least, extremely time-consuming) to build and maintain a spreadsheet complex enough to absorb all the variables (especially long-term tax planning).

DIY planning software does this for us now, better.

Many of us have abandoned spreadsheets for tools like ​Boldin​ and ​ProjectionLab​​.

With massive user bases kicking the tires and teams of developers adding features and refining capabilities, these tools provide accurate feedback and projections of our finances in real time.

Careers drag on. By our early-to-mid 50s, most of us are thinking about what comes next.

Even if you love your career, you may have other ambitions that need more hours of your day to fully achieve.

At age 60, you’re likely healthy enough to chase your second act.

But by 70, health problems are more likely to intrude.

Without a measured financial plan, aspiring retirees default to “brute force” — saving more than enough, with an aggressive buffer and no finish line in sight.

The problem with a brute-force plan is you may work longer than you need to when you’d prefer to be spending your days doing something else.

Adding 2-3 years to a career subtracts 2-3 years from retirement.

That’s fine if you genuinely want to keep working (quite a few subscribers are in this basket as well).

But that’s a big chunk of time when our days are starting to feel more numbered.

If you’re still working out of fear, or defaulting to brute-force retirement planning, it’s time to rethink your planning strategy.

Most of my followers struggle to justify the cost of a financial advisor, especially those that charge based on assets under management (AUM).

Personalized financial advice is expensive.

Generalized financial advice is abundant and free.

The challenge is sorting through all of the free advice and applying it to your personal situation.

That’s where the DIY planning tools come in.

One percent AUM on a $1 million portfolio runs about $10,000 a year. Boldin is $144. ProjectionLab is $129.

AI models can serve as a second opinion, but they can’t build the plan for you.

Put your real numbers into a tool like ​Boldin​ or ​ProjectionLab​ and refine and modify your plan over time.

That’s how a brute-force plan becomes a measured retirement: fewer unknowns, less fear, and a confident answer to “when can I stop?”

Featured image vis DepositPhotos used under license.

Craig Stephens

Craig is a former IT professional who left his 19-year career to be a full-time finance writer. A DIY investor since 1995, he started Retire Before Dad in 2013 as a creative outlet to share his investment portfolios. Craig studied Finance at Michigan State University and lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and three children. Read more.