Joshua William

July 26, 2026

Stop Letting Overtime Become Your Retirement Plan

There's a weird thing that happens in police work.

You start treating overtime like it's part of your salary.

Your base pay might be $80,000, but you regularly make $105,000.

So eventually you start living like you make $105,000.

Now you have to work overtime.

That's a shitty position to put yourself in.

Overtime should buy freedom

Imagine making an additional $20,000 every year.

Over ten years, that's $200,000 of gross additional income before considering any investment growth.

Where did it go?

For a lot of officers, the answer is trucks, guns, eating out, vacations, subscriptions and random shit they couldn't tell you about six months later.

There's nothing wrong with enjoying your money.

The problem is consuming all of it.

What if part of every overtime shift bought investments instead?

Now you're converting hours of your life into assets.

That's a completely different way to think about OT.

Investing doesn't need to be exciting

Police officers seem to have a strange relationship with risk.

We'll chase somebody into a dark backyard at 2:00 in the morning and then tell ourselves investing is too scary.

You don't need to become a day trader.

In fact, constantly trying to find the next hot stock can be exactly what you don't need.

A long-term investment strategy can be boring.

Regular contributions. Diversification. Appropriate retirement accounts. Reasonable costs. A strategy based on your timeline and risk tolerance.

Then give it time.

Build alongside the pension

I'm not anti-pension.

I'm anti-pension and a prayer.

If your pension ends up providing exactly what you need, great.

But imagine reaching retirement with a pension plus retirement accounts, investments, cash reserves and maybe income from a business.

Now you've created options.

Maybe you retire.

Maybe you stay because you still love the job.

Maybe you go part-time somewhere.

Maybe you tell everybody to screw off and go fishing.

The point isn't which option you choose.

The point is actually having options.

That's what investing should ultimately do for you.