Design a retirement plan aligned with your goals

Retirement planning is not an activity for people in their fifties — it's an activity for anyone with earned income, because every year of delay costs more than a year of extra contributions later can recover. This intermediate plan teaches the math that makes that concrete and the specific accounts and strategies that translate that math into actionable decisions.

The session covers calculating a retirement number from estimated expenses and withdrawal rate, determining a realistic timeline, understanding the major tax-advantaged account types (traditional and Roth 401k, traditional and Roth IRA, HSA as a stealth retirement vehicle), contribution limits and the specific situations where each account type is more advantageous, constructing a simple investment allocation for long time horizons, and setting up annual review triggers. The numbers are personalized to your actual situation, not hypothetical averages.

Compound interest is the principle that makes starting early the most important variable in retirement outcomes. A dollar invested at 25 grows to roughly $20 by retirement at a 7% average annual return; a dollar invested at 45 grows to roughly $4. This is not argument — it's arithmetic. The most powerful retirement planning decision most people can make is not optimizing their allocation; it's starting before they feel ready.