Dan Caplinger

It's going to be a jump into the void and you just kind of have to have the faith that it's going to work out.

And that's kind of what I'm trying to build myself up to at this point.

Oh, I've got spreadsheets out the wazoo, bro, which should surprise you, not at all.

And I've been tracking them throughout my career.

And so I can go back and look at what I've done in the past, how it's gotten me to where I am today, what it is likely to bring me to in the future.

And I feel confident about the projections that I've made, that they're as good as I can make them, but there are still all these...

unknown unknowns out there that you have to somehow account for.

And the way that I've done that is to try to give myself as many additional escape valves, as many, I call them slush funds, almost of kind of extra pockets of money that are dedicated for certain things that like, if I need more money in one area, it'll be there.

It won't necessarily affect the

my regular budget and I try to use spreadsheets to figure out where I'm gonna be with my investments and what effect changes in how I invest might have on what my future looks like.

I do use some online calculators.

The social security websites calculator for social security has been extremely helpful.

In addition, there are some calculators on the Motley Fool website that I've used really just to kind of double check my numbers on my spreadsheets and also to try to get some additional insight on

Kind of what the established financial community would tell me is the right answer.

And then I can kind of customize and do my own tweaks to make it more my own because I know what my preferences are.

I know where I differ from kind of where the mainstream thinking is.

And so making allowances in my own personal financial plan that I can do, but I still like to know kind of where the baseline is.

What's preventing you from retiring?

It's a combination of factors, bro.

But I'll tell you, I mean, I've been thinking about retiring for a long time now.