“Everyone’s retirement is different—location, timing, length, activities, finances, health, family, and goals all vary—so no single plan can be written in stone,” begins Bonnie Treichel and Jamie P. Hopkin’s new book, Your Retirement Sketchbook, in its first paragraphs.
It’s a concept that’s challenged—and even revolutionized— the retirement industry in the past few years. Financial factors like concerns over rising costs of living and increased medical expenses, coupled with renewed personal outlooks and goals, have shifted traditional retirement norms. Rather than immediately transitioning out of a 40-hour work week or spending their newfound time at home, more individuals are working longer into their retirement years, choosing a second career, and moving countries and continents.
There are also new factors in retirement planning today that many in recent generations will have to overcome. This includes navigating a “digital afterlife,” where investors must plan for digital assets after death, or even organizing a digital estate planning process.
These are all factors highlighted in the new book, “Your Retirement Sketchbook,” by ERISA Attorney and Endeavor Law Founder & CEO Bonnie Treichel, along with Bryn Mawr Trust CEO and WSFS Bank Chief Wealth Officer Jamie P. Hopkins. Out March 31, the book can be utilized as a sketchbook, where readers write notes and draw sketches to visualize retirement over the course of their careers.
Unlike other books that break down retirement planning by age group, Treichel and Hopkins wanted “Your Retirement Sketchbook” to also work as a conversation-starter among different generations of families and friends.
“I wanted something that you could pick up and put down, it didn’t matter if you were talking to your 18-year-old kid, your grandparents, an aunt or uncle or maybe between partners,” said Treichel in an interview with 401(k) Specialist. “It’s not a read cover-to-cover [book]—you can pick it up and put it down, and you can talk about it around the dinner table. You can start, you can stop, you can go where you need to go to put it all together.”
The concept of “Your Retirement Sketchbook” could be drawn back to LinkedIn. Hopkins, who used to work as a finance professor of practice for Creighton University’s Heider College of Business, would (and still does) post videos on the platform illustrating a variety of financial topics, from health savings accounts (HSAs) to how artificial intelligence (AI) technology could change client interactions with financial professionals.
Creating “bite-sized” chapters in the book, each filled with drawings expressing retirement concepts, allows readers to digest the content more clearly while encouraging retirement and financial planning. While traditional financial communications have been recognized as convoluted, filled with jargon and unclear terms, the duo wanted to break the mold by offering visual alternatives.
“Most people are visual learners, and most education, especially in financial services, is not visually based,” said Hopkins. “We don’t do a lot of drawings, we don’t draw out scenarios, we use words and Monte Carlo and excel sheets. The more we can lean into this visualization approach for educating about retirement, the better off people will be.”
Hopkins and Treichel also liken retirement planning as a sketch itself. Individuals can rework their plans for retirement as they move throughout their careers and personal lives, with the reader being the main character of the story. “Retirement should be taught as this ever-evolving sketch as you change and move. It’s very malleable as your life changes,” Hopkins added.
The book, which details 125 retirement planning lessons for readers, started off with 175 points during its initial development. While the workbook focuses on holistic themes like gray divorce and pet care in retirement, Treichel notes that if the duo were to publish a second book, she’d like to incorporate other wellness topics like the process of in vitro fertilization (IVF) and its impacts to financial and retirement planning. “For females or couples in life who spend money on multiple rounds, there’s a lot of planning that goes in that and could impact your retirement,” she said.
It all draws back to the point that retirement planning is no longer linear for most individuals. Multiple factors in life, whether new or ordinary, could shape and continue to resketch individuals’ retirement lives. While a financial plan organized by a professional could be helpful, developing a workbook allows readers to take ownership of their future. That active empowerment could help individuals visualize their retirement—at whatever age, and however unordinary it may be.
“If you are empowered to resketch and continue to do so, then you’ll be more empowered to get where your future self wants to be,” she said. “The two 70-year-olds on the beach, holding hands, that’s that brochure we get. But do we all want that? We might want something different.”
Your Retirement Sketchbook by Jamie Hopkins and Bonnie Treichel. Harriman House, 340 pages, $19.99