Review of a DIY Retirement Plan: EDU #2636

September 9, 2026

Chris’s Summary
Jim and I continue our Fun Number™ series with a listener email laying out a DIY retirement plan built account by account, each with an assigned purpose. We cover where her approach lines up with positioning dollars by spending need, where tax planning could change what comes from which account, and how declining ability to manage money shaped her decisions.

Jim’s “Pithy” Summary
Chris and I get back to the series we interrupted, this time with a long email from a listener who has done the work herself and laid the whole thing out for us. She is retiring next year, she has been tracking her actual spending for years, and she has built a DIY retirement plan that throws out the two rules of thumb she started with a decade ago. I have never understood where that 75 to 80 percent of income number came from. Your mortgage or rent and your utilities do not shrink because you stopped working, and the money you were putting into the 401k does not vanish. It goes to fun.

Where she really got my attention is that she gave every account a job. She has a good life account, a reserve for emergencies, aging and long term care, one for charitable giving, and one that exists to be spent. That is her version of what we do, and I like it. I do have a couple of caveats, and one of them I feel strongly enough about that I went looking for the sound effect button. It has to do with which account the charitable dollars should come from.

We also get into what she calls the basics of life, which is close to what we call the Minimum Dignity Floor™, why positions get etched in Jell-O and not in stone, the studies on when your ability to handle this material peaks and why your confidence never gets the memo, and the question of who her tax planning is actually for.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:34:14 — 43.1MB)

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