“You have a number in your head. Maybe it’s $1.5 million. Maybe it’s $2 million. It’s the number you believe is your ticket to a secure, worry-free retirement.

But let me ask you a question. When the market drops 2%, do you feel 2% less secure? When you see a headline about inflation, does that number in your head suddenly feel… smaller?

If you answered yes, then that number isn’t giving you security. It’s holding you hostage.

You’re focusing on something you have absolutely no control over—the market, the economy. And it’s keeping you in a perpetual state of anxiety, always feeling like you’re ‘just one more year’ away from being safe. 

That’s exactly why we’re making this video today – to show you why chasing numbers like $1.5 million can trap you in endless accumulation and how lifestyle-first planning enables retirement with confidence regardless of arbitrary targets.

Today, we’re going to break that cycle.

Let’s get right into it.

The Arbritrary Number Trap

Breaking that cycle doesn’t happen by finding a better number. It happens with a fundamental shift in how you view retirement itself. It’s a shift built on four core principles that will move you from a state of anxiety to a state of control.

The first principle is understanding THE ARBITRARY NUMBER TRAP. What is the ARBITRARY NUMBER trap? It’s the belief that a big number like $1.5 million is a magic bullet for retirement. 

The problem? Its always a moving goalpost.

According to the 2025 Annual Retirement Study from the Allianz Center for the Future of Retirement, 64% of pre-retirees worry about running out of money more than they worry about death, and  62% say they are not saving as much for retirement as they would like to.

When these people were asked why, most respondents cited high inflation (54%), Social Security not providing as much financial support as they need (43%), and higher taxes than expected(43%).

When you feel like you can’t control the outside world, what do you do? You focus on the one thing you think you can control: your savings number. 

You just keep trying to make it bigger, hoping a larger number will finally make you feel safe. This is the trap. It becomes a moving goalpost, a finish line that moves further away the closer you get, all because of external fears.

This number-focused planning completely overlooks the strategic approaches that can make you ready to retire right now, with the resources you already have.

Now that you understand why the Arbitrary Number Trap can delay retirement, let’s discuss the lifestyle equation approach that shows how to plan retirement around what actually matters.

The Lifestyle Equation Approach

So what is the alternative to picking a number like $1.5million as your retirement savings goal?

Instead of starting with an abstract number, start by designing the retirement you actually want to live. 

Ask specific questions: Do you want to travel internationally twice a year or buy an RV to explore national parks? Each of these decisions has a real, tangible cost. Designing your retirement around these desired activities and experiences is what reveals your true financial requirements.

Because it focuses on funding the life you want, rather than accumulating an abstract number,  a lifestyle-first planning approach often reveals you need less savings than generic calculators recommend. 

Research by financial planning experts at Morningstar identified a phenomenon known as the “retirement spending smile.”  It shows that retiree spending isn’t a straight line. It’s typically highest in the early, active years, then decreases significantly in the middle years, before rising again slightly at the very end due to healthcare costs. 

Most online calculators inflate your budget by assuming you’ll spend at your peak spending level for 30 straight years. 

Understanding your actual spending patterns allows you to create a realistic budget, not an arbitrary, inflated one.

So, the Lifestyle Equation gives you the most important number: what you need to retire. But it doesn’t answer the most important question: when should you retire?

Finding that answer requires understanding the next principle, which is important because it’s the only one that money can’t solve.

We’re talking about THE TIME VALUE REALITY. 

The hard fact is that your health and energy will decline with age, regardless of additional financial accumulation. Longevity researchers often talk about the difference between your lifespan and your healthspan. Your lifespan is how long you live, but your healthspan is how long you live in good health, free from limiting diseases. 

For many, that healthspan ends years before their lifespan. 

Why is this so critical to understand? Because the retirement experiences you dream about—whether it be hiking the Grand Canyon, playing on the floor with your grandkids, exploring a new city on foot—all require a level of physical capability that cannot be restored once it’s lost, no matter how much money you have. 

Each year of delayed retirement trades irreplaceable time for marginal financial gains. The opportunity cost of just one lost year of healthy retirement at age 63 can far exceed the benefit of an extra $50,000 at age 69. 

Experiences and relationships require an investment of time, and that time is a non-renewable resource. You can always find alternatives to make your money work harder, but time has no substitute. The timing window to create those memories with your family is finite, and additional wealth cannot reopen it.

Now that you understand importance of  your time & value situation, if you’re wondering how to escape the arbitrary number trap and plan a retirement around what actually matters, click the link below to book a call and we’ll help you develop a personalized retirement strategy for your situation.”

At this point, the logical question is: if my time is truly this valuable, how do I build a plan that lets me claim it back sooner? How can I possibly have the confidence to step away without that giant nest egg?

The answer lies in our final principle. It’s the ‘how’ that makes the ‘why’ possible.

And that is THE STRATEGIC ASSET MIX.

So what strategic mix enables confident retirement without that massive number? 

It’s about having the right tools for the job. For example, your taxable savings in a brokerage account can become a powerful tool, providing flexible income for early retirement years before you turn 59 and a half, without the penalties of a 401(k).

Roth strategies and conversions can create a bucket of tax-free income, which is a game-changer. A dollar of tax-free income is worth far more than a pre-tax dollar, which means Roth accounts effectively reduce the total portfolio size you need to generate your desired lifestyle. 

Combining these with a strategic withdrawal sequence—knowing which account to pull from and when—is how you optimize taxes and dramatically extend your portfolio’s longevity. 

Why does this strategic planning prove more effective than just saving more? Because it’s not about how much you have; it’s about how much you keep.

Lincoln Financial Group once surveyed 250 recent retirees and asked, in terms of expenses, what the biggest surprise was in retirement, do you know what the number one answer was?

Taxes.

While respondents overestimated the costs of healthcare in retirement, they tended to underestimate the expense of taxes.

And “Despite the significant impact that taxes have on respondents’ income, a surprising portion of the retirees were unfamiliar with the specifics of their tax status.”

This brings us back to the beginning of this video, where not understanding your numbers can lead to arbitrary number trap.

Tax optimization through smart asset location can significantly increase your spendable retirement income without you having to save an extra dime. 

A well-structured plan with flexible withdrawal strategies allows you to adapt to market conditions—pulling from cash reserves in a down year, for instance. This can extend your portfolio’s life far more effectively than simply adding more money to a poorly structured, tax-inefficient account. 

Now, let’s see what this looks like when you put it all together.

Let me tell you about a hypothetical couple we’ll call Mark and Susan. At age 62, they had $1.5 million in various retirement savings accounts, and were caught deep in the Arbitrary Number Trap. 

They felt ready, but their plan was just a simple mix of stocks and bonds and they had no idea how to turn it into a reliable paycheck – and they were terrified of what taxes and potential market downturns would do to their portfolio.

First, we went through Mark and Susan’s Essential and discretionary expenses.

Understanding what they were looking for in a retirement lifestyle was and important exercise for them. It also helped them understand what they NEED on a yearly basis from their retirement portfolio (with those essential expenses) vs. what they WANT to spend to make retirement worth living.

Once we applied that Lifestyle Equation through understanding their expenses. We calculated their Portfolio Income Needs – what we often refer to as their PIN, was $65,000 a year after taxes. 

Your portfolio income needs is calculated by tallying up your total desired annual spending in retirement. From that, subtract all of your other predictable income sources, like a pension or Social Security. The number that’s left over is your PIN—the exact job your portfolio must do for you each year.

Back to Mark and Susan – Looking at their simple, unstructured portfolio, it wasn’t clear if they could generate that income reliably, which is why they felt they needed to work longer. But their plan wasn’t in a shortfall, it just needed to be strengthened.

So, instead of just saving more, we focused on action. First, we applied a smarter investment allocation. We moved two years of their income needs—$130,000—into cash, creating a buffer that immediately insulated them from any stock market volatility. Their income for the next two years was now secure.

Next, we built a smarter withdrawal strategy. For the first few years of retirement, they would live off their cash buffer and pull any additional money from their taxable brokerage account. Why? Because doing this keeps their official taxable income extremely low. 

This opened up a massive opportunity: with their income low, we could begin strategically converting funds from their traditional IRA into a Roth IRA at a very low tax rate.

This tax planning was the key. It allowed them to build a bucket of tax-free money for later in life, dramatically reducing their lifetime tax bill.

Finally, this strategy informed their Social Security decision. Because they could live comfortably on their taxable savings for the first few years, they could afford to delay filing for Social Security until their full retirement age of 67. That strategic delay permanently increased their future benefits, creating a larger, inflation-adjusted stream of income for the rest of their lives.

The End Result?

By restructuring their investments, creating a tax-efficient withdrawal plan, and maximizing Social Security, we built a system that could generate their $65,000 of after-tax income with a high degree of confidence. This allowed them to enjoy their “go-go” years of retirement without the anxiety of running out money.

They went from a state of fear with $1.5 million to a state of confidence with the exact same amount. They didn’t need a bigger pile of money. They just needed a strategic plan.

Imagine that feeling. You wake up, you see that the market is down, and you feel… nothing. No panic. No anxiety.

Because your income for the next two years is sitting in cash, untouched. You have a plan for taxes. A plan for healthcare.

You are no longer a passenger, hoping the market takes you where you want to go. You are the pilot. That is true financial freedom. It’s the confidence that comes from knowing you’ve focused on everything you can control.

Now that you understand why waiting for arbitrary targets like $1.5 million often delays retirement unnecessarily, and how lifestyle-first planning with strategic implementation enables confident early retirement, you can escape the number trap and focus on what actually matters.

If you want help developing a lifestyle-first retirement strategy that enables early retirement without waiting for arbitrary targets, answer the questions below to book a call and we’ll help you design retirement around what you actually want rather than what calculators say you need.