Beginner course
Retirement planning
How much is enough, and how to draw it down without running out
The second track: turning a number into a plan. How to size what you need, why the order of returns matters more than the average, and which withdrawal rules actually survive bad decades. Each chapter pairs with a calculator you can run on your own numbers.
Course agenda
- Your number: spending, safe withdrawal rates, and the one equation underneath
- Sequence-of-returns risk — why the average return is a comforting lie
- Monte Carlo: reading a range of futures instead of a single line
- Withdrawal strategies: fixed, dynamic, and guardrails
- The bucket approach: never selling into a crash
- Inflation, taxes, and the things that quietly break plans
By the end, you should be able to
- Put a defensible number on what financial independence costs you
- Read a success rate and a percentile band without over-trusting either
- Choose a withdrawal rule that matches how flexible you can actually be
Chapters
Chapters are on their way
Each chapter is published here once it’s written up, so this list grows as the course runs. The reading below is a good place to start in the meantime.
Recommended reading
Written guides and calculators that cover this ground already.
- Your FIRE number: every major method, calculated and comparedThere's one equation underneath every FIRE calculator. The whole debate is about how to set one number in it. A field guide to seven methods — Bengen's 4% rule, Morningstar's forward-looking SWR, CAPE-linked rates, Guyton-Klinger guardrails, dynamic withdrawals, and the variants (Lean, Fat, Coast, Barista) — plus the architecture that combines them.
- Will my money last? A beginner's guide to the Monte Carlo retirement calculatorWhat a Monte Carlo retirement calculator actually is, how it works under the hood, and how to read every number it gives you — explained in plain English.
- The bucket strategy for retirement: a simple guide with a $1.5M exampleKeep a few years of expenses in safe, boring investments and the rest in stock index funds — so a market crash never forces you to sell at the bottom to pay your bills. Explained with a $1.5M, $5,000/month worked example.
Calculators to run alongside
Educational only, not financial advice. These write-ups explain how instruments and strategies work. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell anything, and any figures are illustrative teaching examples rather than live quotes.