A complete, plain-language guide to building your own tax-free pension — nothing more than a Roth IRA and a low-cost index fund. It’s a finished book, published free, one short piece at a time, every Sunday. New here? Begin at the top and read down. Every part is free, always.
Bold titles are published — click to read. Plain titles are on their way. Only the very next one carries a date; the rest arrive on the following Sundays.
Start Here
The Story Behind Start Now
The Opening: How Anyone Can Build a Tax-Free Pension on an Ordinary Salary
The Whole Plan: On One Page (August 19, 2026)
Key Terms — a plain-language glossary
Book One — The Argument
The ten chapters. An hour or two’s read; the whole case, and everything you need to act on it.
Part I · The Idea
1. The Magic of Compounding
2. Why Hold Investments in a Tax-Advantaged Account
Part II · Running the Numbers
3. Case Studies: A Lifetime of Maxing Out an IRA
4. It Pays to Start Early: It’s Never Too Late
5. A Middle-Income Investor in a High-Tax State: The California Example
Part III · The Bigger Picture
6. Why This Falls to You: Retirement and the American Model
7. A Family Strategy: Gift-Funding a Young American’s Roth
Part IV · Both Sides of the Bet
8. What Could Go Wrong?
9. What Could Go Right?
Part V · Getting Started
10. Putting It Into Practice: One Simple Method
Interlude
You’ve Read the Book (and where to go next)
How to Become Wealthy, and Stay That Way
Book Two — The Evidence (the Deep Dives)
The optional, harder half: every number gets its arithmetic and every serious objection gets met head-on. Read them if you want to be convinced — or the first time the market makes you doubt.
A. The Return Assumptions (in two parts)
B & C. The Numbers, Continued
D. Japan: Did Stocks Really Fail a Generation of Investors?
E. Can America Keep Winning?
F. Even If the Market Delivers, You Might Not
G. Should You Own More of the World?
H. IRAs: America’s Largest Pool of Retirement Money
I. Beyond the Roth IRA: Your Other Options
The Companion Tool — a free AI prompt that applies it to your own situation
J. How Much of Your Paycheck Will Your Roth and Social Security Replace?
Closing
Further Reading & References
Notes & Sources
The End: A Gift, and an Invitation
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The book is finished; it’s simply arriving one piece at a time. If a reader’s question sharpens something along the way, I’ll say so.