You built a retirement engine in Phase 2. Now you use the same system — automated, separated, goal-by-goal — to fund everything else in your Dream Build: the house, the kids' education, the sabbatical, the experiences. The guardrail is simple: retirement never drops below 20%. Everything beyond that is yours to build toward.
Every step before this one was about protection and compounding — securing the builder, eliminating the threats, filling the tax-advantaged buckets. Step 13 is where the system finally gets personal. Your Dream Build — the vision you wrote in Step 0.1 — gets actual dollars pointed at it.
This is also where a lot of people go wrong in the other direction: they fund goals at the expense of retirement, rather than in addition to it. The guardrail in this step exists to protect the engine you spent all of Phase 2 building. Goals are additive — they live on top of 20%, not instead of it.
What $10,000 not invested at age 30 costs you by age 65 at a 7% return. That's the math behind the guardrail — every dollar redirected away from retirement now carries a compounding price tag decades from now.
Your Dream Build worksheet named the goals this step funds. If you haven't revisited it since onboarding, now is the moment — pull it out and rank the goals you actually want to work on first. The system runs the same for all of them; only the account type changes.
Each goal gets its own account. That separation isn't just organizational tidiness — it prevents you from accidentally raiding one goal to fund another, and it lets you match the right account type to the job.
Before opening any goal bucket, confirm your total retirement savings rate is still ≥ 20%. Goals live on surplus. If funding a goal would push retirement below 20%, the goal timeline moves — not the retirement rate. There are no loans for retirement; there are plenty of ways to fund everything else.
Total retirement savings rate — 401k + IRA + HSA combined — stays at or above 20% at all times. Goals are funded from surplus, never at retirement's expense.
Name the exact number for each goal. "College fund" isn't enough — pick a target (e.g., "$80,000 by 2037"). The right number will depend on your timeline and specific situation.
20% eliminates PMI; 10% is a practical middle ground in most markets. Save from surplus in 2–4 years max — beyond that, consider a lower down payment rather than pausing retirement.
No annual contribution limit, but gift-tax exclusion is $18,000/year per child ($36,000/married). Growth and qualified withdrawals are tax-free. Start as early as possible for maximum compounding.
Short goals (under 3 years) stay in savings — don't take market risk on money you need soon. Longer goals (3+ years) can invest in a simple index allocation.
Decide in advance what share of bonuses and tax refunds each goal bucket gets. Auto-routing windfalls prevents the "spend it or save it?" decision each time.
Pick one goal. Give it a number and a date. Confirm retirement is at 20%. Open the account, set the transfer. That's the whole move — and it replicates for every goal that follows.
For education: any major brokerage's 529 plan or your state's plan (check for the state tax deduction first). For a home down payment: a high-yield savings account separate from your emergency fund. For early retirement or experience goals: taxable brokerage at Fidelity, Vanguard, or Schwab with a three-fund allocation. Label every account with the goal name so there's no ambiguity.
Here's exactly how to work each move from the lead measures above — skip to whichever one you're on.