In this episode, Jason shares an important announcement about the future of the Retirement Budget Calculator. He explains why the tool will no longer be available to new public users, what this means for existing users and Parker Financial clients, and the lessons learned from nearly a decade of building retirement planning software. Jason also reflects on how this decision supports a renewed focus on delivering deep planning and investment management for the families he serves.
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467 Important Announcement
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Announcer: Welcome back America to Sound Retirement Radio, where we bring you concepts, ideas, and strategies designed to help you achieve clarity, confidence, and freedom as you prepare for and transition through retirement. And now here is your host, Jason Parker.
Jason Parker: America. Thank you for joining me for this important update that I wanna share with you.
Before I do though. I want to reassure our current clients that nothing is changing for you. If you work with Parker Financial, we will continue to serve you with the same level of care planning, depth, and disciplined investment management that you’ve come to expect. Now here’s the announcement going forward.
The retirement budget calculator will no longer be available for new public signups. Existing users can continue to use their accounts and for Parker Financial clients, we will continue to use RBC for your financial planning. Now, I know this news will be disappointing for some when I shared this inside the RBC community, the very first comment said huge disappointment, and I understand that reaction and I want you to know that I hear you.
And I also want to say thank you. Over the years, thousands of you have signed up, supported the tool, offered suggestions, sent encouragement, and helped us to make it better. Many of you invested your time and money into it, and your support truly matters to me. This community has been filled with thoughtful, intelligent people who care deeply about planning well and retiring with clarity, confidence, and to experience freedom.
And they’re not just trying to escape work, but they’re retiring to something meaningful. So today I wanna share not just the decision, but the story behind it. Retirement budget calculator started with a spreadsheet. I built it for my own family because I was frustrated with the retirement software available at the time.
Most tools focused heavily on investment returns and treated spending like a single number that’s simply inflated each year. But that’s not how real spending works. Spending changes over time. Early retirement often costs more mid retirement costs, less healthcare costs often rise later. Different expenses inflate at different rates, and I wanted a tool that modeled how people actually spend that spreadsheet grew and eventually became software.
I remember when I first discussed building it into a cloud-based tool. The initial estimate was about $500. And then another experienced technology leader told me that the MVP that I wanted to create was gonna cost closer to $100,000. I thought he was crazy. A hundred thousand dollars just to get something into the world that was already built as a spreadsheet.
He wasn’t crazy. He was actually right. Building reliable financial software is complex, and the deeper we went, the more complex it became. The retirement budget calculator officially launched in May of 2017. Early pricing was $5 to have lifetime access, and then it went to $27, then to $54. People signed up quickly and from the beginning.
I felt the weight of responsibility because when you build a planning tool, accuracy matters. Even small rounding errors kept me awake at night. Over nine years, retirement budget calculator became incredibly sophisticated. We built detailed cashflow modeling, flexible retirement timelines, start and stopping of income streams and expenses, asset level withdrawal sequencing.
A full tax engine modeled after the 10 40. A tool to be able to model Roth conversions. Social security optimization, Monte Carlo analysis, bucket strategies, long-term care scenarios, inflation, stress tests, qualified charitable distribution strategies, withdrawal strategy comparisons, a planning community, and eventually an AI planning assistant trained on my books, podcasts, and planning philosophy.
Each feature was built to answer one core question. Can I retire and not run out of money? I’m incredibly proud of what we built and building. It made me a better advisor. My understanding of planning taxes and retirement strategy deepened through each iteration. You guys probably remember that movie from the 1990s called, uh, field of Dreams.
There was a, a famous quote in there. He said, if you build it, they will come. And you know what? People did come, but most people would not pay, at least not sustainably. We tested pricing models, trials, subscriptions, one-time fees, free versions, coupon codes, marketing campaigns, PR firms, media appearances, affiliate programs, books, podcast promotions, YouTube, everything we knew to try.
We won FinTech awards appeared on national media, reached millions through the podcast. But growth remained modest. Most users would sign up, get, get their answer and leave. And although I’m glad that we were able to help them get what they needed, it just doesn’t support a complex software platform. So then we pivoted the retirement budget calculator into a lead generation tool for Parker Financial, and we ran that strategy for several years.
The conversion rate for people who would use RBC and then become clients of Parker Financial remained low. Meanwhile, Parker Financial, my investment advisory firm, our financial planning firm continued to grow primarily through referrals from clients, CPAs, and attorneys. So after nine years, I had to make a decision based on stewardship of time, energy, team capacity, and resources.
RBC is most powerful when paired with professional planning and disciplined investment management. The depth of modeling it provides requires context, interpretation, and strategy. Used alone. It helps used with guidance, it transforms outcomes. My team is small. There’s five of us at Parker Financial and we currently serve about 300 families, and we are committed to serving them exceptionally well, and that means we can only onboard a limited number of new relationships each month.
Rather than continue to try to grow RBC as a mass market DIY platform, we are choosing to focus where we create the greatest impact, direct client relationships and professional planning. This is not a shutdown. It’s a refocus. If you’re looking for strong DIY retirement planning software, here are several tools worth exploring.
Number one, Bolden. Number two, projection lab. And number three, max Fi. Each offers thoughtful capabilities and maybe able to serve you well. Do I have regrets? A few building RBC required enormous effort and stress financially. In hindsight, other investments would’ve produced greater returns, but I would not trade the relationships, the learning, the growth, or the people that I’ve met along the way to everyone who supported this journey.
Thank you to our Parker Financial clients. We’re here. We’re continuing forward, stronger and more focused than ever, and as always, my mission remains the same to help people achieve clarity, confidence, and freedom in retirement. Thank you for being part of this journey.
Announcer: Thank you for tuning in to Sound Retirement Radio.
For articles, links and resources from today’s show, visit sound retirement planning.com. If you enjoy the podcast, share it with a friend and give us a five star review. Ready to kickstart your retirement planning head over to retirement budget calculator.com. Need assistance with investment management.
Explore our services@parkerfinancial.net. Information and opinions expressed here are believed to be accurate and complete for general information only and should not be construed as specific tax, legal, or financial advice for any individual and does not constitute a solicitation for any securities or insurance products.
Please consult with your financial professional before taking action on anything discussed in this program. Parker Financial, its representatives or its affiliates have no liability for investment decisions or other actions taken or made by you based on the information provided in this program. All insurance related discussions are subject to the claims paying ability of the company.
Investing involves risk. Jason Parker is the president of Parker Financial LLC, an independent fee-based wealth management firm. Located at 9 2 3 0 Bayshore Drive Northwest Suite 2 0 1, Silverdale, Washington. For additional information, call 3 6 0 3 3 7 2 7 0 1 or visit us online@soundretirementplanning.com.
