‘Are We Enough?’ How This Couple Retired With Confidence

Thomas Martin has worked since the age of 10, in the military, as an investment advisor for Merrill Lynch, and a long career in technology strategy. His informal approach to retirement planning: work until 62 and earn more later.

His wife Leslie had a different feeling. A CPA by background, he knew their numbers. But knowing your numbers and trusting your plan are not the same thing.

“You’ve become this typical saver,” Leslie said on a recent episode of the Boldin Your Money podcast. “You just put it aside because that’s what they told us to do… And I got to a point where I started to say, ‘Do we have enough?'”

None of them had a real answer.

Do You Need a Financial Planner for Retirement, or Can You Do It Yourself?

Planning for retirement doesn’t always require hiring a financial planner. Some people want specific advice and a set of professional eyes. Others prefer to run the numbers themselves and stay hands-on as their plans change. The key is to make informed decisions with enough clarity and confidence to follow through.

Leslie started where her background pointed: Excel. He built a picture of them outside, ran numbers and tests. Then he hit the wall. “I remember sitting there one day and going, there has to be an easier way,” she said.

Thomas suggested hiring a consultant. Leslie stepped back. “I’m a DIYer,” he said. “I wanted to control what this was. I really wanted to run the what-ifs.”

A search for YouTube personal finance content led him to Boldin. The planning went from using a spreadsheet alone to something they did together. “We started having weekly family meetings,” Thomas recalled. “Leslie was dealing with what she saw, what she learned, and what we might miss. For a while, it was a weekly thing, sitting down to review what the tools were saying.”

Thomas had worked as a consultant himself. He had seen how that relationship worked from the inside, and they both came to the same conclusion. “The questions that would have to be answered are things that we have to answer ourselves,” said Thomas. “It’s the same questions that a consultant would ask us. So we started working on things ourselves.”

Leslie put it plainly. “I have something about paying for parking,” she said. “I don’t want to pay for advice, but I will pay for a tool that makes me independent.”

The tools were a way to stress test and think you’ve reached a level of confidence that normal advice wouldn’t give them.

How to Know When to Retire Early

Thomas had a date in his head for when he would retire: 62. But at age 58, the job market changed, his interest in continuing his current path changed, and Leslie’s modeling gave him real numbers to consider.

“If I could have looked at some of the modeling that Leslie had done with tools,” he said, “I wouldn’t have just said, ‘I think I’m ready. I’d have said, ‘No, I’m going to go find something else to do or change what I’m doing.'”

There was something else. Thomas’ parents, both active and healthy in their mid-70s, went from competitive swimming to a foster home within six months. One developed dementia. One was diagnosed with ALS.

“I’m 61 years old, I don’t use anything over the counter. I’m healthy,” said Thomas. “But that could all change tomorrow. So let’s enjoy retirement while we still can.”

How Do You Know When It’s Safe to Spend When You Retire?

For people who have spent 20 or 30 years saving, spending in retirement can feel like a departure from the habits that got them there. So the instinct is often to wait, or skip buying something. What often breaks that pattern is being able to plug a number into a tool, watch it move between 10- and 20-year projections, and see the program take hold.

About 90 days after retiring, Thomas had an idea. He wanted a Honda Gold Wing, specifically the 50th anniversary edition, which costs $33,000. In the past, that conversation would have hit a wall.

“Having a program allows you to have a different conversation,” she said. “That can get into the system. Which is a very different conversation than… my emotional need or desire and reaction around it.”

The plan didn’t just say they could retire. It gave Thomas permission to use. “I see and understand how it will be played, worst case, best case,” he added. “I no longer feel disabled by not having a fixed income.”

Leslie organizes their reflections on what she and Thomas call their travel years, slow travel years, and no-travel years. Years to go now. The Winnebago Rebel they bought before the pandemic, trips to national parks, and fishing. He doesn’t try to save everything for the end.

“I don’t want to blow the nest egg,” she said, “but I also don’t want to skip something just because I’m worried about money when I’m at an advanced age.”

Research supports this. An analysis from JP Morgan found that retirement spending tends to peak in the early years and decline by about 5–8% every five years, then declines in the late 80s and 90s.

Staying Invested When the Market Goes Down

Leslie came close to pulling everything out of the money during the recession of the early 2000s. Thomas interviewed him. “I’m afraid,” he said. “I thought I was going to take everything out, Tom said no. I’m thankful for that, because over time things sort themselves out.”

Remaining calm in the midst of market turmoil was not a personality trait they relied on. It came from understanding their exposure. Leslie got a clear picture of two things she couldn’t control.

“It’s really about managing your taxable income in retirement and your expenses,” he said. “These are two levers. What happens in a market that you have no control over. So we plan for the worst case scenario. What if we have a 10-year downturn?”

Using that situation in the Boldin Planner, instead of estimating by instinct, gave them a framework for the decisions they would make out of fear.

Start Your Retirement Plan Before You Think You Need It

Thomas’ advice for retirement planning is straightforward: don’t wait until it’s too close to retirement. “Whatever date you think you will retire, plan your plan four or five years before that,” he said. “You can then focus on many other non-financial aspects of retirement before you get there,” such as building a new social and career network.

That way, “if something good happens and gives you the opportunity to retire, or something bad happens and causes you to retire, you’re not playing.”

Leslie helps celebrate. “Saving is good,” he said. “But saving with a plan is better. Even if the plan is going to change, you have a better understanding of what you can do and what you want to do. You try to combine those two things.”

If you’re working on the same question Leslie and Thomas started with, the Boldin Planner lets you show different retirement timelines and spending levels and see how each flows into your projected income and plan for life over time. Get started for free.

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