Personal Finance Retirement Planning

Retirement Planning: Build a Practical Roadmap to Financial Independence

A clear, American-style guide to income planning, savings strategy, taxes, healthcare, and retirement decision-making with Professor Anthony Owens

Quick Course Facts

Self-paced, Online, Lessons

Videos and/or Narrated Presentations

5.7

Approximate Hours of Course Media

About the Retirement Planning: Build a Practical Roadmap to Financial Independence Course

This Retirement Planning course gives you a practical, step-by-step approach to preparing for a secure future with Personal Finance. Designed as a clear, American-style guide to income planning, savings strategy, taxes, healthcare, and retirement decision-making with Professor Anthony Owens, it helps you build confidence in every major retirement choice.

Build A Practical Retirement Plan With Confidence

Learn how Retirement Planning connects income, savings, and long-term financial independence
Estimate your retirement needs and measure your current readiness with a simple gap analysis
Understand employer plans, IRAs, Roth accounts, and investing basics for retirement
Create a tax-aware, healthcare-conscious roadmap that supports better decisions over time

A clear, American-style guide to income planning, savings strategy, taxes, healthcare, and retirement decision-making with Professor Anthony Owens.

Throughout the course, you will move from broad goals to detailed action steps, learning how to calculate the income you may need in retirement and compare that target to your current savings. You will also explore how 401(k), 403(b), IRA, and Roth accounts fit into a smart Personal Finance strategy, along with asset allocation, contribution benchmarks, and catch-up methods for mid-career savers.

The course also covers essential Retirement Planning topics that often get overlooked, including Social Security timing, pensions, annuities, withdrawal planning, tax-aware income decisions, Medicare basics, inflation protection, and legacy considerations. Each lesson is designed to help you make informed choices instead of guesswork, so you can build a plan that reflects your goals, lifestyle, and risk tolerance.

By the end, you will have a working retirement roadmap you can review and adjust over time. You will be better prepared to manage your savings, coordinate income sources, and make clear, confident decisions that support financial independence in retirement.

Course Lessons

Full lesson breakdown

Lessons are organized by topic area and each includes descriptive copy for search visibility and student clarity.

Foundations and Goals

1 lesson

Lesson 1: What Retirement Planning Really Means

18 min Preview

Retirement planning is not just about stopping work. It is the process of deciding how you want to live later in life and then building a realistic plan to support that life with money, time, and flex…

Spending and Lifestyle Planning

1 lesson

Lesson 2: Estimating Your Retirement Income Needs

20 min

This lesson helps learners estimate how much retirement income they may need by translating their current lifestyle into future spending goals. Professor Anthony Owens walks through the main categorie…

Net Worth and Gap Analysis

1 lesson

Lesson 3: Measuring Your Current Retirement Readiness

18 min

This lesson helps learners measure how retirement-ready they are today by comparing what they own, what they owe, and what their likely retirement needs may be. Professor Anthony Owens walks through a…

Goals and Contribution Benchmarks

1 lesson

Lesson 4: Building a Retirement Savings Target

20 min

This lesson helps learners translate retirement goals into a practical savings target. We focus on how much income may be needed, how to estimate a starting portfolio target using simple rules of thum…

401(k), 403(b), IRA, and Roth Basics

1 lesson

Lesson 5: Understanding Employer Plans and Retirement Accounts

22 min

This lesson explains the major retirement savings vehicles you are most likely to encounter through work: 401(k) , 403(b) , Traditional IRA , and Roth IRA . You will learn how these accounts differ in…

Asset Allocation and Risk

1 lesson

Lesson 6: Choosing How to Invest for Retirement

22 min

This lesson explains how to choose a retirement investing approach that fits your time horizon, comfort with risk, and need for future income. Professor Anthony Owens walks through the core tradeoff i…

Cash Flow and Habit Design

1 lesson

Lesson 7: How to Increase Your Savings Rate

18 min

This lesson shows how to raise your savings rate in practical, repeatable ways without depending on willpower alone. You will learn how to free up cash flow, automate good behavior, and use simple hab…

Acceleration and Recovery

1 lesson

Lesson 8: Catch-Up Strategies for Mid-Career Savers

20 min

This lesson shows mid-career savers how to catch up when retirement savings feel behind schedule. The focus is on practical acceleration: using employer plans wisely, increasing contribution rates wit…

Claiming Strategy

1 lesson

Lesson 9: Social Security Timing and Benefit Basics

22 min

This lesson explains the core Social Security decisions that shape retirement income: when you can claim, how claiming age affects your monthly benefit, and why your full retirement age matters. We fo…

Income Security Options

1 lesson

Lesson 10: Pensions, Annuities, and Guaranteed Income

18 min

This lesson explains how pensions, annuities, and other guaranteed-income sources can create a retirement paycheck you do not have to manage day to day. You will learn the basic differences between em…

Spending Your Assets

1 lesson

Lesson 11: Planning Retirement Withdrawals

24 min

This lesson explains how to turn retirement savings into a practical withdrawal plan . You will learn how to choose a starting withdrawal rate, decide which accounts to spend first, and reduce the ris…

Tax-Aware Income Planning

1 lesson

Lesson 12: Taxes in Retirement

22 min

This lesson explains how taxes shape retirement income decisions in the United States. You will learn which accounts are usually taxed, how different withdrawal sources can change your tax bill, and w…

Medical Planning

1 lesson

Lesson 13: Healthcare Costs and Medicare Basics

20 min

This lesson explains the retirement healthcare costs you are most likely to face and the basic structure of Medicare . Professor Anthony Owens walks through how Medicare works, what it does and does n…

Protecting Purchasing Power

1 lesson

Lesson 14: Inflation, Longevity, and Market Risk

20 min

This lesson explains the three risks that can quietly undermine retirement security: inflation , which reduces purchasing power over time; longevity , which increases the chance of outliving savings; …

Living Arrangements in Retirement

1 lesson

Lesson 15: Housing, Downsizing, and Lifestyle Tradeoffs

18 min

This lesson focuses on how housing choices shape retirement spending, flexibility, and quality of life. Professor Anthony Owens walks through the practical tradeoffs of staying in place, downsizing, r…

Beneficiaries and Legacy Planning

1 lesson

Lesson 16: Estate Planning Essentials for Retirement

18 min

This lesson explains how beneficiaries and legacy planning fit into retirement estate planning. You will learn why beneficiary designations matter, how they can override a will, and which accounts and…

Action Plan and Ongoing Adjustments

1 lesson

Lesson 17: Creating and Reviewing Your Retirement Plan

20 min

This lesson helps learners turn retirement ideas into a working plan. Professor Anthony Owens shows how to convert goals into clear action steps, review whether the plan is realistic, and adjust it as…

About Your Instructor

Professor Anthony Owens

Professor Anthony Owens guides this AI-built Virversity course with a clear, practical teaching style.