Use This Forever Paycheck Framework To Plan For The Retirement You Actually Want

Most people planning for retirement can tell you a number they’re trying to hit. Far fewer can tell you what they’re actually going to do once they get there. That gap is at the center of HerMoney CEO Jean Chatzky’s new book, The Forever Paycheck, and it’s the focus of a recent episode of the HerMoney podcast.

Chatzky argues that most retirement planning starts with a spreadsheet, instead of the life that money is supposed to fund. “The number you’re saving toward has to be in service of something bigger than the number itself,” she said.

To help you decide what you want your retirement to actually look like, Jean Chatzky offers two frameworks: a set of six foundational questions, and a five-step process borrowed from product design. 

First, Ask the 5 Ws and an H

Before you touch a retirement calculator, Chatzky suggests working through six questions first:

• Who is actually retiring? Is it just you, or you and a partner? And if it’s the latter, are you both picturing the same life?
• When do you plan on making the change?
• What do you want to do with your time once you get there?
• Where do you want to live during this next phase?
• Why are you making this change in the first place?
• How are you feeling about all of it — excited, nervous, maybe both?

These are big questions, and they deserve more than one-word answers. She suggests writing your thoughts down, sitting with them, and coming back to revise them more than once.

Then, Design Your Retirement Like A Prototype

Once you’ve got some answers to the 5 Ws and an H, the second framework in The Forever Paycheck borrows a process from design thinking — the same method product designers use to build anything from an app to a piece of furniture — and applies it to your own life.

1. Empathize. What actually brings you joy? What feels meaningful or purposeful to you: not what you think retirement is “supposed” to look like.
2. Define. Take what you learned in step one and turn it into an actual written retirement goal.
3. Ideate. Get specific about what you want to do, broken into the short term, medium term, and long term.
4. Prototype. Take a few of those ideas and actually try them on before you commit to them fully.
5. Tweak and adjust. You’re allowed to revise the plan as you learn what actually fits and feels good to you. This isn’t a decision set in stone. 

Why This Matters When Designing Your Forever Paycheck

Jean Chatzky’s own thinking on this was shaped by a story about her late father. After he passed, her mother found a bucket list tucked inside one of his favorite books, which nobody in the family knew existed. When she looked closer, it was more of a record than a wish list: he’d launched an educational foundation at his company, started consulting at a local university, and taken up the trumpet as an adult, simply because he’d always wanted to. 

That story is the heart of the argument behind The Forever Paycheck. As Chatzky puts it: ‘I think money’s only job is to let you build the life you actually want, which is just another way of saying money is a tool, not the actual goal.”

Try it yourself: If somebody found your bucket list today, what would it say about you? And how many of the items on it have you already checked off?

MORE ON HERMONEY:

• Spending More? This List Of Emotions Could Explain Why
• Protected vs. Growing: The Split Your Portfolio Actually Needs
• How Paying Off $5,000 In Debt Before Retirement Can Be Done 

Have a question about The Forever Paycheck or your own retirement? Send it to mailbag@hermoney.com. Jean may answer it in an upcoming mailbag episode. Leave HerMoney a review on Apple Podcasts and email us a screenshot for a chance to win a signed copy of the book.