I Solved Retirement

Use This Secret Formula to SOLVE RETIREMENT!

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“What if the dice come up snake eyes and one of us dies at 59? Then the house wins…”

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Right now, with 401Ks and IRAs swirling down the drain of a jet-powered toilet, we need a hero to figure out what to do.

I am that hero.

I cracked the code on retirement. Watch the video — or read the transcript below — and find out how.

DISCLAIMER: These aren't options anyone should consier. This sarcastic take is for entertainment purposes only. Duh. Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: Dial 988

We started this channel with the goal of documenting two fifty-something self-employed Americans figuring out how to work less, enjoy life more, and ideally — not end up having to start eating cat food at 65.

Here’s the problem: Planning for retirement is impossible. Full stop. Unless you have a million or two in the bank, it’s simply not possible. And today, I’m going to show you the only viable solution.

If you’re like me, you’ve spent hours spiraling down the YouTube rabbit hole, watching videos about retirement planning and messing with countless retirement calculators online. And what do these calculators always come up with as a result? The message I usually get is either: “You will have a shortfall at retirement…” (which seems like a polite understatement), or I’m told that we need an amount of money saved up that we have no chance of saving up…

Look, we didn’t start saving until our early thirties. Before that, we had no IRAs, no investments, and no clue. We were just out there freelancing, building our businesses, & living the way many in their 20’s and 30’s live - meaning - we didn’t think much about the future.

Then came the first kid, then the second. And with that came a total freak out about the costs to raise these brand new human beings, how to pay for their college if they decided to go to college (they did), and then we also realized: “Oh crap. We’re going to get old someday. We might need money for retirement, too.”

Since neither of us had real jobs, that meant that there was no one setting us up with a 401(k) or a roadmap to retirement. We set up 529s for the kids and IRAs for ourselves. But freelancing and self-employment mean no steady paycheck. Some months, we saved a little. Other months? Not so much. And those pesky retirement calculators never seem too impressed with our “best we could do” savings strategy.

But here’s what really bugs me about retirement calculators: They rely on some sort of average age of death. It’s a total guess. They’re missing the key piece of information. The piece of information that would make it possible to plan for retirement. When are we going to freaking die?

Without knowing that, how can anyone plan with any accuracy? It’s like trying to arrange a road trip without knowing where you’re going or when you want to get there.

So, I came up with the only retirement plan that actually makes sense. Now, please understand. My wife Jennifer does not like or agree with this plan in any way. And I don’t recommend this to anyone. But I hope you’ll admit it’s logical.

I was deep in the woods on a motorcycle trip in West Virginia when inspiration struck. This idea was so brilliant, and the logic of it was so crystal clear that I knew I’d hit on something that was going to change everything. Finally, a solution. I felt relief.

Here’s how it works. Now, if you’re not competent in advanced and complicated higher math like I am, you may not be able to follow along with this. It’s okay - that’s what I’m here for.

This plan is based on an elegant formula that only a Beautiful Mind like mine could have come up with. Here it is….

Y ÷ X = Z. Just bask in the beauty and sophistication of that for a second. Mmm.

Okay, so X is how much money you need per year to live comfortably. You know? You want to be able to travel and do all of the things you’ve always dreamed about doing.

Y is how much money you will have saved by the time you reach whatever your retirement age is.

And Z, Z is the important component. Z is how many years you get to live.

Now, let’s plug in some hypothetical round numbers that are easy to deal with. Say you decide you need $100,000 per year to live comfortably. That’s X. And you’ve managed to save $500,000 by retirement. Good job. That’s Y. Let’s plug it into this extremely complicated mathematical formula to see what we come up with.

$500,000 ÷ $100,000 = 5 years

Boom. It’s that simple. You’ve got 5 glorious years to live it up.

If you knew exactly when the finish line was, you could spend freely for your final years. No hoarding pennies for some unknown future. No stressing about outliving your money. You’d be free to do whatever the hell you want to do right up until the final curtain call.

Now, here’s the catch. For this plan to work, you just need an exit strategy that you can implement when your time is up. Maybe one of those cool new euthanasia pods. Or a trip to Dignitas in Switzerland for a “physician-assisted euthanasia experience.” Heck, perhaps it’s as simple as using the classic Pillow Method. There are options!

And yeah, this is the part of the plan where Jennifer (and probably most people) would roll their eyes and say, “Absolutely not.” I get it.

But think about it like Spock would. Sure, the very end might be a bummer, but would five years of absolute freedom and clarity be better than 20 years of anxiety and confusion, and fear? The biggest stress in retirement planning is: “Will I have enough money to live comfortably until I die?” My plan lets you answer with an emphatic and definite yes.

Not knowing when we’re going to die makes retirement planning impossible.

Can Jen and I retire at 60 and go on epic adventures — like hiking through Patagonia or racing a Tuk Tuk across India? Not with any sense of security. Because what if we live to be 100? Then we’re stuck. It’d be irresponsible to blow our savings in our sixties when we might need it in our eighties, or nineties, or (God help us) 100 and beyond…

So what do we do? Keep working? Keep saving until we’re too old to have those sorts of adventures? What if the dice come up snake eyes and one of us dies at 59? Then the house wins. All that scrimping and saving and waiting? For what? For nothing.

The takeaway? You can not truly plan for retirement without knowing when you’re going to die. It’s not possible. Every retirement plan is a shot in the dark because none of us knows how long we’ve got.

And that’s why my plan — as ridiculous as it is — makes a weird and unsettling kind of sense. My retirement plan is the only one that is foolproof.

Of course, the other option I haven’t mentioned is to make so much money when you’re young that you don’t have to worry about this. I sure wish we’d thought of that. I’ll bet most of you wish you’d thought of that too. But we were too busy having fun. Oh well…

Maybe the best plan is to find a balance — live in the present as much as you can, plan smart, and don’t stress too much about the cat food.

But honestly, that’s not very satisfying, and it gives me zero comfort.

What do you think? Are you saving for the unknown? Do you have your own plan for navigating the retirement maze? Let us know in the comments. And let me know what you think of my retirement plan.

Join us in the future as we continue to figure out how to work less, live more, and hopefully avoid the cat food aisle.

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Don’t forget to get your Exit Strategy Retirement Merch - that pillow might come in handy!

https://my-store-1045c45.creator-spring.com/