Retirement: Paying Your Future Self

What you'll learn

• ✓Explain the three pillars of retirement income
• ✓Show why starting early matters
• ✓State the 4 percent rule and its limits

Lessons

1. 🏝️
   The Longest Unpaid Vacation

   What retirement actually asks of you
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2. The Three Pillars

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3. The Cost of Waiting Ten Years

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4. The 4 Percent Rule

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5. The Two Quiet Enemies

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6. Final Boss: Build the Machine

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Sources

All content is drawn from the sources below. We deliberately avoid unverified material.

• Benefits Planner: Retirement, Born in 1960 or later
  US Social Security Administration · institutional
  Backs the full retirement age of 67 for those born in 1960 or later, the roughly 30 percent reduction for claiming at 62, and the 124 percent benefit for delaying to 70 (lesson 2).
  https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/1960.html
• Retirement Benefits (Publication EN-05-10035)
  US Social Security Administration · institutional
  Backs the description of Social Security's pay-as-you-go financing through payroll taxes (lessons 2 and 6).
  https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10035.pdf
• Retirement Savings: Choosing a Withdrawal Rate That Is Sustainable (Cooley, Hubbard, Walz)
  AAII Journal, February 1998 · academic
  The original Trinity study: source for the 4 percent inflation-adjusted withdrawal rate and its roughly 95 percent historical success rate over 30 years with a 50/50 portfolio (lesson 4).
  https://www.aaii.com/journal/199802/feature.pdf
• Safe Withdrawal Rates for Retirement and the Trinity Study
  Retirement Researcher (Wade Pfau) · article
  Secondary analysis confirming the Trinity study's methodology, success rates, and the limits discussed in lesson 4 (30-year horizon, US historical data).
  https://retirementresearcher.com/safe-withdrawal-rates-for-retirement-and-the-trinity-study/
• 401(k) limit increases to $24,500 for 2026, IRA limit increases to $7,500
  US Internal Revenue Service · institutional
  Backs the 2026 employee 401(k) contribution limit of 24,500 dollars cited in lesson 2.
  https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/401k-limit-increases-to-24500-for-2026-ira-limit-increases-to-7500
• Investments (Bodie, Kane, Marcus)
  McGraw-Hill · book
  Reference for the future value of an annuity formula used in the lesson 3 early-start calculation (300 dollars monthly at 6 percent annual, compounded monthly, over 40 vs 30 years) and the compound inflation arithmetic in lesson 5.