From a Real Client: A LETTER FROM Julliette?

I got an email the other day.  If you have any interest in the RetirementView software I thought you might want to read it.

Here it is….

Hi Tim,

I was just telling another person today about your software, strongly encouraging it (again).

During lunch, he was telling me that he’s thinking that the consulting assignment we’re on now may be his last.  I asked how he was sure he can afford to stop working yet.  He said he knows his budget and his savings and what he can expect from investment returns and SS. I don’t doubt that, but to me it seems so much more complicated than that.  Has he factored in inflation?  How can one estimate what one will lose to tax payments when one begins to liquidate assets from IRAs vs ROTH IRAs vs taxable investment accounts? That makes too huge a difference to not factor that?  I can’t imagine even THINKING about deciding when one can end one’s career without either using a sophisticated software package like yours or hiring a financial planner to do an analysis (who might end up using your software to do it, or a package that’s similar!).  When a question is as critically important to answer correctly as this one–whether one has enough savings to last the rest of one’s life and cover any likely contingencies– it seems that one would be foolish to not invest the money to double check their relatively rough estimates.

I’ve told so many of my friends about your software, and it amazes me that I don’t think anyone has acted on the recommendation (though one does plan to as soon as she has some time she can anticipate dedicating to it).

As for me, in response to losing my job 5 years ago, I made the decision to change my profession in order to be more marketable long-term.  It took three years to research and decide what I want to do next, then study to learn the new career, and then network and jobhunt like crazy.  The painful result was that I decreased my savings by $170K during those three unemployed years (it’s very expensive to live near Boston!, and some of that was paying taxes on some partial IRA to Roth conversions I decided to do while I was earning practically nothing and thus at a low tax rate).

That set my financial plan WAY back. The good news is that although it took a long time and was VERY challenging, I eventually managed to get a very good job in my new profession (Business Analysis consulting).  In the almost 2 years since then I’ve saved as much as I possibly could to start getting back on track for what I hoped would be an early retirement from my technical profession. My ardent desire is to be able to focus on my passions for art and loving (primarily) and sailing and being outdoors and exploring. It feels so discouraging that between having withdrawn so much of my savings to live while unemployed and my portfolio having lost so much value in the recession (and not fully recovered), there’s been such a major setback. And the outlook for ROI seems so very low that after inflation takes its toll, it’s not appearing that I can realistically hope for my savings to double in 7 years as rates of return used to enable.  But oh well. One must adapt and deal with the what is.

I really love knowing that I’ll be able to reassess where I stand with regards to a reasonable retirement year estimate with the aid of your software in which I have a good deal of confidence (even though I don’t have much confidence in the crap shoot of my choice of variables to enter into your software!, since those variables could go any which way, as we’ve seen).

Thanks again for a super product!,

Julliette

—- we’ve left her full name off so not to violate her privacy.  But thought you’d see some real insights into HOW and WHY people use our software.

Thanks and Happy Planning!