The story of how RetireEasy came to be has been reported in quite a few newspaper articles over the last few years, but I’ve never given the whole narrative from my   side – and I’m always being asked to do so. Here then is a potted version of how we started and what happens next!

RetireEasy was founded in 2010 and launched late 2011 to fill what we saw as an urgent need amongst those contemplating their retirement to understand what the impact of their financial decisions would have on their lifestyles in retirement. Since then, many thousands of people have taken advantage of the software to ensure they have their retirement plans in good order… but the very first “subscriber” was me.

The story starts as far back as 2004 when the financial services company of which I was managing director and partner was sold to an American group – meaning that, on completion of the sale, I had a lump sum sitting in my bank account, and contemplating retirement. I was just 60 years old with anything up to 40 years left to live.

I thought to myself: OK, that’s great, I’ll pay off my mortgage and invest the rest of that money wisely.

So far, so fine and dandy. I thought: “I don’t have to work again and I can travel, relax, drive my sports car on track days across Europe; and I won’t ever have to worry about money again.”

By the way, it was not a fortune I’m describing, but enough to live a comfortable retirement as long as I was careful. The income that I could take from the investments would not be enough to do the things I was planning, but if I took a little capital as a top-up each year, that would do it.

Not so fast! Always being one to look for the cloud in every silver lining it struck me like a lightning bolt from that very cloud: “If I spend some of the capital each year, how do I know when the money will run out? What if I live longer than I expect? What if I need to find a lump of money in a hurry? What if I actually earn or inherit some money along the way?

The first solution…

Several days were spent pondering the problem, but then I realised, if I create an Excel spreadsheet covering 40 years and figure in the variables, I would be able to predict how much I could spend before running out on my 100^th birthday. Not only that, but if my investments went up, I could increase my annual spend… and vice versa if they went down.

Which they did, big time, in 2007-8!

Now, I am an Excel junkie (which is different from being an expert, by the way) so setting this up was a pleasure… or at least, it was until I realised that it was not as simple as I expected.

The list of variables became longer and longer and longer – to the point where I needed a dashboard page to bring them all into one place. I ended up with a pile of worksheets with multiple @if formulas; and, as many of you will appreciate with Excel, the more complicated it becomes, the more scope for error and corruption there is as you edit going forward.

It turned into something of a nightmare, but it did stop me from worrying about the future.

Still, although I didn’t know it then, the prototype for RetireEasy had been born.

Come that crash in ’08 and I could re-calculate and understand what I could now do.

When I married Naomi in 2009 she saw immediately with her marketing background the potential of such a tool for other people facing the same sort of dilemma as myself: how much could I safely spend in retirement? We also knew that many people are now wondering if or when they could retire. Perhaps such a tool could answer that question too.

Who else might want help too?

Naomi suggested we research the market and we found that no such tool existed. A friend and very able IFA, Mark Soper, came on board, and we recruited a software company to create a program that could be sold to people who shared the same concerns as I had, whether they had less funds or much, much more. The RetireEasy online planning tool was born.

Since then, we’ve kept tweaking the product to improve it, garnered massive praise from the media and users alike, and developed several different versions of the software to suit different needs and budgets.

Then, in 2014, Tony Watts OBE, joined our board bringing with him his deep knowledge of retirement issues and his journalistic skills.

In 2016 we introduced a “Premium” version which has some superb additional features – including allowing users to save as many different scenarios as they want, so they can more readily look at their future options. We also teamed up with marker leaders Morningstar so that the value of subscribers’ portfolios can be automatically updated every day.

But we want to go further…

We’re in regular touch with a large group of our subscribers who give us feedback on the product and ask if we can keep on enhancing it – but of course that does require investment.

To ensure that we continue to develop the products, we are now raising our prices from 1^st May although, like I mentioned, this will only apply to new users joining from that date.

Anyone signing up before 1^st May will benefit from the current prices.

This is also to reflect the level of sophistication now available with the programs, which are light years from when we started out. We also compared other planning tools out there – and we know we’re still way better than anything available unless you move up to a professional tool costing many times more.

But, there are several thousand of our users who have and are benefitting from using the less sophisticated versions of the program –  so we’d like to encourage them to upgrade and get an even better handle on their financial futures.

Therefore, all current Basic LifePlan and Classic LifePlan users will be able to upgrade prior to 1^st May at the current prices. And that could mean a saving of £60 a year.

The new prices as of May 1^st will be: 

• RetireEasy LifePlan Basic: £2.99 per month (currently £1.99)
• RetireEasy LifePlan Classic: £4.99 per month (currently £2.99)
• RetireEasy LifePlan Premium: £6.99 per month (currently £3.99)

Described by the Investors Chronicle as “The Holy Grail”, RetireEasy is designed to help you enjoy your retirement to the full. And upgrading your account will really make a difference to the functionality of your program.

The more control of your future you have, the less you’ll need to worry. As our motto goes: “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”.