Retirement Planning for Real Life
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Feel like you have not enough time (or money!) to plan for retirement? Learn step by step how you two can rock your retirement and still have fun now!
Rock Your Retirement Planning

Let me ask you two questions – What are you going to be doing during retirement?
How much money do you think you need to retire happy?
Gotta love analytics. You all that data floating about.
Once a week I look over things including what people searching when they discover Couple Money. And you know what I found?
Believe or not, I noticed pretty much every day people discover my site with some variation of this one question.
How much do we need to retire?
It’s a big question for sure, but I don’t think it’s the right question.
At least not to start with.
As you probably discovered with that first question I asked, retirement can be completely different things to everyone.
And sometimes you two can have differing opinions.
So how do you figure what you need to do? You have to look at it at two different angles. Of course, there’s the technical part with the specific investments in your portfolio.
But you before you do that you need a game plan. One that is robust and at the same time, can adjust as your life changes.
Which is why I brought the Retirement Answer Man himself – Roger Whitney!
Not only is he is a Certified Financial Planner who’s worked for over 25 years and he’s the author of Rock Retirement.
His mission is to shift people’s mindset from investing in a portfolio to investing in what they love.
Because this is a huge deal, we’re having a two-parter.
In this episode we’re discussing:
- The problem with traditional retirement planning and calculators
- Striking that balance between taking care of things down the line while still loving your life now
- How to rethink and plan your retirement as a couple
Hope you enjoy!
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Resources to Rock Your Retirement
Ready to prepare for retirement while still having some fun now?
Here are some fantastic resources to set things up and help you plan for your retirement together.
- Rock Retirement – Roger has written an incredible book that breaks down how you can plan and save not just for retirement, but a life you love now!
- Free 401(k) Analysis: blooom
- The Secret Sauce to Financial Independence & Early Retirement
- Retirement Answer Man Podcast
- Best Budget and Money Apps: Personal Capital, Tiller, Mint
- Automatic Saving: Qapital
- Jumpstart Your Marriage and Your Money
- Financial Independence and Parenthood
- Setting Up Your Retirement with the Right Tools
- How to Get on the Same Page with Financial Independence




Key Takeaways on Retirement Planning
I want to focus on some key takeaways I got from chatting with Roger:
- Look at your life as seasons or phases. Whether you plan on retiring early or not, it really pays to make sure you're appreciating and planning around the season of life you're in. Don't sacrifice time you can't back with your family to shave off a year from your plan. Look at your options and see if you can strike that balance between preparing retirement and
- Define your goals holistically. Numbers are wonderful, they are objective, very easy to track, but don’t create your goals around a number.
- Have a way to easily see your numbers. As you two go through seasons, you do want to keep trap of your financial health, not to be anxious, but keep tabs on things.
If you haven’t already or it’s been awhile, during your next money date go ahead and talk about what’re you’re thinking about with retirement.
Once you have a sense of what you’re going for then start working backward, including some ballpark numbers along the way.
So just focus on that for now. Next week we’re getting into some specific things to look for when investing including ways you can maximize your 401(k) and other accounts.
Want to swap ideas, stories, or ask some questions about planning for your future?
Join me in our free and private community Thriving Families over on Facebook. Couplemoney.com/fb
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Music Credit
Like the music in this episode? Our theme song is by Gentle Regime. Additional music by Lee Rosevere.
This episode was originally released in October 2018. Show notes have been updated August 2019.