Can Robert and Denise retire at 62? See the financial planning process unfold.

What happens when a couple with $3 million wants to know if they can retire earlier than planned? In this retirement planning case study, I walk through Robert and Denise's hypothetical situation. Robert is 62, Denise is 58, and Robert originally plans to retire at 65. Rather than simply asking whether they have enough money to retire, we build the plan around what they actually want their retirement to look like and then stress-test it from several different angles. In this video, I cover: • How I define retirement spending and separate essential expenses from flexible spending • How Monte Carlo analysis helps evaluate sequence-of-returns risk • How the funded ratio provides another way to evaluate the strength of a retirement plan • How historical stress testing can show what a retirement might have looked like during difficult market environments • What changes when Robert's retirement moves from 65 to 62 • Why healthcare costs before Medicare can be so important • What questions still need to be addressed before the plan is complete This is the first video in a series following Robert and Denise's hypothetical retirement plan. Future videos will look at Social Security, healthcare, tax planning, and portfolio construction. The goal isn't simply to answer, "Can they retire?" It's to understand the trade-offs between different retirement decisions and how much flexibility the plan provides. This video is for educational purposes only and uses a hypothetical case study. It is not financial advice or a recommendation for any individual.