About the Author

The author is a retired software engineer and manager. The tool, the manuscript, and now this web site has been a retirement hobby project. The tool came first. The tool was originally motivated by an exchange with an annuity sales professional who threw up the “I bet you don’t know where your money is coming from” challenge. He was right, but two weeks later I showed up at his office with a spreadsheet that was already more comprehensive than his sales tool. It “spiraled out of control” after that. The book grew from what I learned with the tool and the fact that the tool became complex enough that it called for stand-alone documentation. A contributing factor is that I have been unable to find any books that focus on the modeling process. The tool will remain free: I spent my almost my entire career developing commercial software. It was great, but I am not going back there. The manuscript may be offered for sale at some point.

The author is not a financial advisor or any other sort of financial professional; hence the avoidance of providing advice. That said there is a chance that I have as good a handle on the “mathy” aspects of retirement modeling as many financial advisors. Of course, their role is far larger than just cranking the handle in a model

Addendum: the annuity salesman did not make the sale because the product pitched was just not a good fit for me. I suspect that it would be wonderful for others. JRTN is neutral on the question of the sensibility of commercial annuities.