In this presentation, Jim Stryker reframes retirement planning by distinguishing a present (accumulation) financial position from a future (post‑work) financial position, emphasizing that the key question is not the retirement age but the cash‑flow level needed to sustain retirement. He outlines five "found money" levers—mortgage optimization, qualified plan efficiency, tax strategies, education‑funding methods, and major capital‑purchase financing—to uncover hidden value. Using a detailed case study of a 58‑year‑old client, Susan, who earns $211k, holds $1.2 M in qualified accounts, and owns two mortgage‑free homes, Stryker demonstrates how an initial projection (retiring at 65 with a $175k lifestyle) would deplete funds by age 77. By applying inflation and tax adjustments, optimizing income sources, and reallocating assets within a Personal Economic Model (PEM/PIM), he creates a revised plan that extends retirement solvency, eliminates the cash‑flow shortfall, and yields substantial gains: $1.6 M additional net lifestyle value, $2.4 M more spendable income, $772k larger safe‑reserve tank, $363k higher death benefit, and roughly $900k increase in estate value. The talk is analytic, spreadsheet‑driven, and showcases how strategic adjustments can dramatically improve retirement outcomes.
Chapters
Raise your hand if you ever made a mistake at least once in your life. Keep your hand up if you made the same mistake twice. 3 times? We got a 4? All right, I'll just keep on going. All right, so we're definitely in the right room. There's no perfect people here. Raise your hand if you want to work your whole life or till at least age 100. Nobody. Wow. Okay, great. So that means at some point in time in life, we turn off the income spigot from an employer or a place that pays us, right? And then we transition to that next phase of our life. And this vernacular for this evening, We're going to call that a future financial position. So we all have a present financial position. The future position is when we're going to turn that off. So I'll be referring to that a lot. So the question isn't at what age you want to retire, it's at what cash flow level can I retire at? So we focus on these 5 key areas where we look for this found money. We focus on the mortgage, huge opportunity there. As you know, most of you didn't raise your hand having hundreds of thousands of dollars stored away earning you a negative rate of return, which is not liquid. So we look at those opportunities. We look at qualified plans. I didn't have any takers in here either that wanted to have their retirement plan in that plan. So we look opportunities to make those more efficient. Also paying taxes. This is a huge opportunity for us. How you fund your children's education costs. And then the last one is how you fund major capital purchases and how to look at things in terms of a price versus a cost. There's a big difference. We're going to show you guys that as well. And so we're going to talk about the present accumulation position. That's the present position. That's when we're in the accumulation phase of our life. And then the future position or the future disposition retirement position. That's the post-work position. So position A, we'll call it. Position B, present and future. Make sure you have both of those planned plans in place so that you can get to where you want to go in the retirement phase adjusted with taxes and inflation. So, I'm going to do a little case study with you guys. I have a client that I worked with that came to an event just like this. After I got done helping her and building her position, I asked her, I said, "Hey, would it be okay if I shared your scenario with everybody?" Because I think it's a really, really good baseline for everybody. And so, I want you to meet Susan. Incredible human being. Love her. 58 years old. She earns $211,000 a year. She had about $1.2 million in qualified accounts. She contributes $22,500 a year to her qualified account. She has a 6% company match. Doing what she thought she should do. She owns 2 very expensive homes free and clear, one oceanfront home on the Oregon coast, and then another one in the city. Her goal when she came to this event was, hey, I want to retire at 65. That's the age, not necessarily the income level, but I want to do it with a reduced lifestyle of $175,000 a year in cash flow with no mortgage. And, you know, the things that I want to do in my life, I think that's going to work. I'm like, okay. And she goes, and I don't really think I need to adjust anything with inflation at this point. I think I'm going to be okay reducing my lifestyle. Again, I don't really have a bunch of travel plans. And this was her words. So I'm listening and she said, I don't really think I need to adjust anything with taxation as well. I think taxes are just going to go up a little bit, but it's not going to affect me. This is how we look at everything. So it's a little bit analytic and it's kind of spreadsheety, but we have all the inflows and all the assets and all the tax rates and all the rates of return and all this stuff. And we build all this stuff out in another form. So I just want to point out the highlights for you guys. In her present position, I said, hypothetically, you're 58, at 65, let's retire you. She goes, okay. So I turned on all her income sources. So I had to shut off the income. I turned on Social Security. We were able to optimize that. She had some rental income and I turned on everything else that she and I built this case so that she was only making money, never losing money, because we don't want to get into the market, you know, conversation. So I just said, hey, it's a static rate of return. Let's see if it works. Got your company match in there. Let's see. Put her $75,000 salary in there, didn't adjust it with inflation or anything, and boom. And I said, here's where you end up. You retire at 65, you ran out of money at 77. You only made money, you didn't lose money, you got no mortgages, you got a million bucks in your qualified accounts. How do you feel about that? She goes, well, that stinks. I said, all right, well, we got to go to work. So what are we going to do? We've got two choices. Find better products with a higher rate of return. Maybe that's good. Maybe you have to take on more risk, or let's go through what you're currently doing and see what we can help you find unknowingly, unnecessarily that you're transferring away. So that's what we ended up doing. So we went to work, we rebuilt everything. This was the result. I still retired at 65. We turned on the additional income sources, newer, better. Remember, better is always different. So we turned on everything. We adjusted everything with inflation and taxation this time because we know things are going to get get more expensive. We also know taxes aren't going down. And we just built a plan so she never runs out of money. So I said, "Which plan do you want? Plan A or Plan B?" So she said, "Okay, what are the real results here?" And so this is a PEM. This is a personal economic model. And we all have one of these. Every single one of us has one of these. And so if a picture's worth a thousand words, the plan that I just built for her is worth $2.6 million because that's the difference that we were able to make for her just moving around what we're able to to move around. And so, as a result, I just said, instead of giving you a spreadsheet side by side of your present position and your future position, why don't I just build it in your PIM? So, the left side is her present position. The right side is her future position. And I broke it down in these boxes down below. And so, the increase or difference at age 90 for her was $1.6 million in net lifestyle increase. Over $2.4 million of increase in spendable income. $772,000 in her traditional safe tank. An increased death benefit which she didn't have, $363,000. And then we increased her estate almost $1 million, $900,000.
