Where Retirement Planning Advice Usually Breaks
Let's be honest: retirement planning can feel like a fog of numbers, acronyms, and scary charts. But sometimes, a simple anchor—like the price of your morning latte—can make the abstract feel real. I'm not here to tell you to give up coffee. I'm here to show you what that $5 a day could actually become if you invested it instead. This isn't a lecture on frugality. It's a lesson in opportunity cost and compounding, using a price you know by heart. We'll run the numbers, talk about the assumptions, and poke at the pitfalls. By the end, you'll have a clearer picture of how small daily choices ripple across decades. Where Coffee Math Shows Up in Real Retirement Planning Financial Advisors' Quick Calculations Ask ten planners what coffee costs and you will get ten different answers. That's the point.