The Reckoning of my Days
Philosophers have argued a long time about how much of the future belongs to us. The Stoics told us to be ready for whatever comes but never to cling. The Existentialists said our plans are brittle things set against the dark stretch of time. Economists, perhaps the most hopeful of the lot, built equations to model risk and return.
And so I find myself turning to an unlikely companion, not a psychic or a wealth manager, but a machine. What follows are my learnings from that experiment: how I laid my life bare before an artificial intelligence, invited its contemplation of my future, while still brushing up against the oldest philosophical questions of how to live.
The process begins with candour. You type into the chat the kind of details you would rarely tell anyone outside your family. It is part confession, part inventory. Once the data is in, the machine does its trick and your messy spreadsheet of a life becomes a clean narrative arc. Of course, the numbers are only half the story. AI can point out that continuing to work an extra ten years might add a few extra crores to your corpus, but it cannot tell you whether those ten years are better spent in an office or on a mountain trail. That decision is yours. This is where ChatGPT becomes less a calculator and more a Socratic partner. It asks, without asking: what is wealth for, if not to support the texture of your days?
One must admit there’s a comic undertone to this exercise. For all our ancient anxieties about kismat and karma, we now find ourselves negotiating with a chatbot: “Tell me, O algorithm, will my retirement be secure?” Yet perhaps this is no less philosophical than consulting the oracles of Delphi, except that the AI answers in compound annual growth rates instead of cryptic riddles.
Practical How-To: Using AI for Retirement Planning
For all the contemplative elegance in imagining one’s retirement, the path begins with something more practical: putting your numbers on the table. AI thrives when you provide clear, structured information. Think of it as feeding the oracle the right sacrifices; in return, you get clearer prophecies. Here is a step-by-step framework:
1. Gather Your Numbers
Before your chosen AI tool, sit with a notebook or spreadsheet and list:
- Current age and desired retirement age
- Income (all sources): annual take-home salary, bonuses, passive income from other sources
- Expenses: monthly essentials, discretionary spending, lifestyle costs
- Assets: Bank balances and fixed deposits, mutual funds, stocks and bonds, retirement accounts (PPF, EPF, NPS), real estate (self-occupied, rented, land), gold or other tangible assets
(It would be useful to list the stake of each in your total net worth)
- Liabilities (if any): EMIs, loans, credit card balances
- Insurance: health cover, life cover, accident cover
2. Phrase Your Situation Clearly
When entering your details, write as if you are explaining your finances to a thoughtful friend, not an accountant.
Include as much data as you can think of, but not necessarily in a single prompt. Information on important milestones (having children, property purchase, marriage), number of dependents, income and assets of spouse make the picture even clearer. For example:
“I am 30 years old and live in city A. My annual take-home is ₹X. I am married and my husband’s annual take-home is ₹Y. My net worth is ₹X and it is split across mutual funds (a%), stocks (b%), fixed deposits (c%), retirement funds (d%), gold (e%), and land worth ₹Z. My goals are to have two or three children in my thirties, buy a house in city A by 32, and retire around 35. I have no liabilities and no dependents. I have life, health and accidental cover amounting to ₹X. Can you map out what my post-retirement life could look like?”
This style of input encourages the AI to translate dry numbers into a narrative.
3. Run Alternate Scenarios
One of AI’s strengths is iteration. Don’t stop at a single projection. Some useful scenarios to test include:
Property purchase: “If I buy a house worth ₹2 crore at 35, how will this affect my retirement at 45?”
Early or Late Retirement: “What is the difference between retiring at 40 versus 50 in terms of corpus and lifestyle security?”
Children’s education: “Estimate the cost of raising three children with private schooling and higher education in the best institutes of India (and global), and show how it affects my retirement corpus.”
Growth rates: “What happens if my investments grow at 7% annually instead of 10%?”
Career changes: “If I switch from a corporate job to a lower-paying but more flexible role at 38, what happens to my retirement plan?”
Relocation: “What if I move to a smaller city with lower living costs in my 40s? How does that extend my retirement runway?”
Treat this like exploring parallel universes of your financial future.
4. Request a Decadal Timeline
AI can convert scattered financial data into a life arc. For example, you can ask:
“Show me how my financial health might look in my 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s given these assumptions.”
This gives you snapshots: where your income peaks, when your investments compound most, how much buffer you carry into old age.
5. Stress-Test for Risks
Retirement planning is not just about rosy projections. Ask the AI to model risks:
Health emergencies: “If I need ₹20 lakh for a medical crisis at 55, how does this affect my finances?”
Longevity: “Plan as if I live into my 90s. How much should I draw annually to avoid running out?”
Market downturns: “What if my portfolio loses 30% value in a market crash at age 50? Can I still retire securely?”
Job loss: “If I face unemployment for 2 years in my late 30s, can I still meet my retirement goals?”
Family emergencies: “If I need to spend ₹15 lakh for extended family support at 50, can I still maintain lifestyle security?”
Inflation shock: “If inflation averages 8% instead of 5%, how will my retirement savings be affected?”
6. Ask for “Time Value” Calculations
Money is one axis, but the more haunting one is time. With AI, you can go beyond compound interest and ask:
“What is the financial worth of one hour of my time today?”
Take your annual income (say ₹X), divide by annual working hours (roughly 2,000 if you work 40 hours/week). The AI will spit out a per-hour worth.
“What will one hour be worth when I am 40, assuming my salary grows at 10% annually?”
This lets you glimpse how your time monetarily compounds with experience.
“What happens if I reduce my paid work by 10 hours a week and instead spend them in community teaching or volunteering?”
AI can calculate the financial loss but also help you reframe the non-financial gain: improved networks, fulfillment, reduced burnout.
“If I take a 2-year break for childcare, what is the financial cost per year of that decision, and what is the time gained with family?”
7. Align Numbers with Values
This is where the exercise moves from accounting to philosophy. Once you see the numbers, ask questions such as:
“Is an extra crore or two worth postponing retirement by three to five years?”
“What non-financial responsibilities (aging parents, children, community work) should my retirement plan make space for?”
“What if I retire earlier but at the cost of less wealth - how much more time with my children or spouse would that buy?”
“If I dedicate 7 hours a week to exercise, what is the financial equivalent of avoided healthcare costs in old age?”
“If I want to leave behind a charitable trust or fund a school, how much should I allocate each decade?”
Here, AI becomes less a calculator and more a co-philosopher. It quantifies the invisible, and forces you to decide whether you prefer the visible (rupees) or the intangible (contentment). These reflections allow you to use AI as a mirror for priorities, not just a calculator.
8. Iterate Over Time
Your financial story is not frozen. Revisit the AI annually or biennially with updated data. Treat it like an evolving diary of wealth and goals. With each revision, the AI sharpens the map and highlights how small course corrections (say saving 5% more, shifting an asset, delaying a purchase) can ripple through decades.
Finally, we arrive where all plans inevitably point: to the tension between control and surrender. The machine can compute how long our wealth will last, but not how long our laughter will echo in a child’s memory. Retirement, then, is not only a financial state but a philosophical one: a wager that our accumulated resources can sustain not merely our bodies but our chosen ways of being.
The ancients warned us that fortune is fickle, and yet we continue to draw charts against the shifting winds of fate. Perhaps that is our truest instinct. If the oracle of old spoke in riddles and the AI speaks in returns, the burden is the same: interpretation.
No more shall we content ourselves with plans that stop at asking: “Will I have enough?” Instead, we will ask ourselves: “Enough for what?”
“There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.”
- Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare.
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