Imagine a life where money is important but doesn't overshadow the joy of living.
Yes - I post episodes every Monday (even on Christmas)!
Level One - can you retire?
Level Two - how MUCH can you spend in retirement?
Level Three - are you going to be maximizing tax savings in retirement?
We dive into each level in more detail so you can understand what you need to do to optimize your early retirement goals.
Create Your Custom Early Retirement Strategy Here
Ari Taublieb, CFP ®, MBA is the Vice President of Root Financial Partners and a Fiduciary Financial Planner specializing in helping clients navigate the nuances of an early retirement.
PS: Before anyone decides to move forward with our services, I want to ensure we're the best fit to help you reach your goals and I personally have the first conversation with you.
Imagine a life where money is important but doesn't overshadow the joy of living.
Yes - I post episodes every Monday (even on Christmas)!
Level One - can you retire?
Level Two - how MUCH can you spend in retirement?
Level Three - are you going to be maximizing tax savings in retirement?
We dive into each level in more detail so you can understand what you need to do to optimize your early retirement goals.
Create Your Custom Early Retirement Strategy Here
Ari Taublieb, CFP ®, MBA is the Vice President of Root Financial Partners and a Fiduciary Financial Planner specializing in helping clients navigate the nuances of an early retirement.
PS: Before anyone decides to move forward with our services, I want to ensure we're the best fit to help you reach your goals and I personally have the first conversation with you.
There are three levels to your retirement, and we're going to go through each of those in today's episode. Now number one I want to just start by saying thank you guys. It's been an amazing year. We're going to explore some fun stuff in today's episode, but I really could not do all of this without you. So thank you.
Speaker 1:Now, what I'm going to do from here is I'm going to hop right in. As you guys know, I like to do so, and I'm going to start with some thoughts, and these thoughts are not just thoughts I made up, these are thoughts that have come from you guys, and so I'm going to make these assumptions in addition to these thoughts. So tell me what you think. Okay, and I know obviously you're not replying because you're just listening, but I want you to really think through what I'm going to say here. So let's make an assumption that at some point, you've thought, yeah, I want to retire. I just don't know. Is it next year, is it three years from now? Is it five years from now? Are you going? You know what? I think I'm in a good spot, but if markets don't perform well, then I'm not really not sure. Are you thinking? You know what I do feel I've got a good amount in that 401k or that IRA or that Roth IRA. But how am I going to bridge that gap? If I want to retire early, where's income going to come from? And my plan looks good on paper? Maybe I've done some Excel stuff, but you know what? I don't know because the timing of these things is really confusing me. So security is going to come on at some point. I don't really know when I should take it. But in addition to that, there's that brokerage account you talk about. How much should I put in there? How much is too much? Right now I'm saving? Should it all go to my 401k? Should it go elsewhere? I could go on and on and on. But the reason I'm doing it this way to start out today's episode is because I do not want you to get paralysis analysis. Okay, a big phrase that I'll talk about here at the firm is called head trash. I don't want you to have head trash. Part of my job as an advisor is to say here are things I'm going to advise you on. Please invest this way, because here's how you can see it'll benefit you. Here's why we want to use this tax strategy.
Speaker 1:Sometimes people get so lost in quantifying things, it can actually be to your detriment where you don't take action, and I do not want that to be the case and I talk about that a lot on the show because there's amazing episodes out there and podcasts and all these things that I also listen to and it sounds great. But then I go, hey, there's a lot to this and I'm just going to try to keep it simple, because oftentimes simple is the best way to do it. And then I go actually, I understand this philosophy, so maybe there's something better out there, but I don't understand it, so I'm not going to do it. And I know I personally do that If I go to a doctor or any other line of my physical therapist a lot of you know I play soccer If they're telling me I should do all these fancy exercises, but I don't understand it, I'm just not going to do it, even though I know it could be better. I need to understand it. So my goal today is to keep it really simple, where you understand exactly what I'm talking about in a way that is going to resonate, hopefully, a whole lot different than any other episode I've done before. So please do let me know if this is helpful.
Speaker 1:Now I'm going to tell you all the not all, but I'm going to give you all three levels right now and then we're going to explore them in more detail because I know some of you are very busy people. You're listening right now and you've got things to do and I want you to go do those things. So here's what I'm going to start with. The level one okay is can I retire and am I in a good spot to retire, whether it's in one year, three years or five years? That's level one. Now, if you know that answer, then great, some people go I'm going to go retire Now. I'm not giving anyone the green flag or the green light in my eyes off level one.
Speaker 1:Level one is can I retire? Am I in a good spot? Maybe you've done some basic projections on your end and you go yeah, looks pretty good If I want to spend 6,000 a month and inflation assumption is this, and yeah, maybe I could do better, but it looks pretty good. So level one is like Am I in a pretty good spot to retire? Now, we're gonna explore these in more detail. Let's level one okay.
Speaker 1:Level two is saying okay, I now know I'm in a pretty good spot to retire. But what should I do so I understand how much I can spend? People go, wait a second. What did you just say? What should I do to understand how much I can spend? Because I do not want you retiring going. Yeah, I did pretty good and I think I can spend 6,000 a month. And then here you are 20 years later in your 80s and 90s and you're going. Why didn't I spend 8,000 a month? Why did I spend 10,000 a month? Because I just didn't know what spot I was in.
Speaker 1:Most people don't know what spot they're in. They're in the I don't know phase and a lot of you know this example. But I'm a soccer player and I love playing soccer. I'm not fun to be around when I get hurt, but what I do is I get an MRI and I understand how bad is the injury. Then I get my physical therapy and I go got it. Here's what I need to do to get back on the field. Here's my action plan, and most people I find don't have an action plan, or they do, but it's in their head, so they don't really stick to the plan.
Speaker 1:So level one is can I retire? Am I in a good spot. Level two, like I just said there's how much can you spend? What's the most you can spend without running the risk of running out of money? And then level three is saying okay, with all of my planning, is there anything I'm doing right now that is optimizing for my taxes? Because taxes are gonna be one of the biggest expenses throughout your entire retirement and I do not want you going. Oh my gosh, I look back 20, 30 years. I could have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars. So most of you know my dopey joke here, but I'm all about being patriotic, just not to the point. You pay more taxes than you need to. So these are the three levels we're gonna explore today in a whole lot more detail and it's gonna be a ton of fun, but those are what I wanna make sure you're thinking about.
Speaker 1:I wanna make sure, by the end of today's episode, you are fairly clear, if not crystal clear, on what level you're at right now and you might go. Yeah, I feel like I'm level one, like I've got a pretty good spot. I think I'm in a good spot. I don't know how much I can spend, but I think I won't run out if I'm kind of in this range. Some of you are gonna go hey, I think I'm in a good spot, but that's assuming I collect Social Security at this age and maybe I should do better. Like, don't get that paralysis analysis.
Speaker 1:I do a whole episode on Social Security. I do a whole episode on Roth conversions. I do an entire episode on how much you can take from your portfolio. So today is less about quantifying the whole episode, but where are you at? I wanna take a step back today, before 2024 begins. I want you to have a really clear sense of, like, what should my game plan be in 2024? Because the truth is, all of you will not work with me or my firm, and I get that, even though I wanna work with a lot of you and a lot of you have reached out to work with me, that's just not the reality. And so I wanna give you all as much helpful guidance as I can. And if I can help you, great. If you're just listening to this podcast episode and this is how you get your information to learn and this is what you're looking for, then great. Like that's why I do this as well.
Speaker 1:So, with that being said, let's hop into the review of the week. I'm pulling up right now on my phone, no-transcript, keith, who says I feel like a superhero. Ari has the best financial podcast that I've come across. I've always been a pretty capable saver investor. I've listened to many experts but find most content pretty basic. Ari goes deeper into personal finance and explains options that many others don't cover. He has verified some of the decisions I've made, like opening a brokerage account parentheses, superhero account, you got it, hwc, keith, you're a good listener account to help retire early. So I'm gonna pause. Then I'm gonna finish this review.
Speaker 1:If a lot of you don't know, but if you're gonna retire early, you need some way to pull income and the most efficient way to do so is through a brokerage account because it keeps your income low and you can do all these awesome tax strategies like Roth conversions. So, hypothetically, you retire at 55, you go great. What do I do until 59 and a half? Where can I pull income from? So some people try to just make sure they have enough in their brokerage account to last for four years. Then, at 59 and a half, they start pulling income. That's level one. That's how much am I in a good spot? You could do it. But level two is saying, hey, what about tax planning? What's the most you can pull? And so just diving into this brokerage, the superhero account. More detail, that's what HWC Keith is talking about right here. So more to come on that, but he said he has provided a wealth of content on what to consider beyond just saving for retirement.
Speaker 1:I look forward every week to the latest episode. That is a very kind review, one of my favorites. So, seriously, hwc Keith, thank you for doing so. If I've helped any of you in any fashion, please do leave a review, or shoot me an email, or leave a review or a comment on YouTube if you're watching there. All of this is, of course, in the podcast app and on YouTube.
Speaker 1:So, with that being said, I'm gonna start with a quote, and this is a quote that comes from Daniel Crosby, who is a PhD and a psychologist and asset manager. Now, I really like Daniel. He's one of my mentors that I just look up to, and I think it's because he does a really good job of keeping things simple and understanding what you should and should not focus on. So we're gonna go through these different levels, like I said, in a moment, but he says this and I just wanna make sure you hear this loud and clear.
Speaker 1:He says one of the occupational hazards of our work as financial advisors is that money can become too real. Even if you're not a financial advisor but you are a DIYer which stands for do it yourself, or you have an advisor but lack a plan, sometimes you'll start diving into your finances in more detail. So what he's saying here is some of you have advisors right now and I know a lot of you because you're reaching out you're like, hey, I feel like I might know more than my advisor at this point. They don't specialize in earlier retirement or tax planning, but they're doing a good job. They've done good for me up until this point and I just don't wanna break up with my advisor. So I have them, but I have thoughts. So sometimes I just go do my own personal finance investigation if you will. And so what he's saying here is one of the hazards of really understanding your money is it can become too real, too important and too large in our mind.
Speaker 1:In years dedicated to mastering financial planning and investment management. Now a lot of you may be not masters, but you are sophisticated investors. Most of you aren't coming to me going what's a 401k? You wanna help me optimize it? Okay, and he goes on to say it can inadvertently elevate money to an unhealthy level of importance, oftentimes resulting in personal misery. Okay, so what on earth did he just say there? What he just said is, if you get too obsessed with your money, you are gonna leave things on the table, and those things that you're leaving on the table you cannot quantify.
Speaker 1:So I put together just a quick little list here of what so many of my clients started with in terms of assets and thoughts and things like that that I just wrote down in this little list here that I'm gonna tell you guys right now. And a lot of these clients are coming to me. They're going all right, I just wanna retire, I wanna spend more time with my spouse, I wanna do this, I wanna do that. I say, great, I want you to do those things also, but what I wanna make sure we're doing is we're not getting too lost in the finances, that you actually forget what's most important here, because no one comes back to me and says, oh my gosh, all right, I'm so glad my average return last 20 years was 8.329652%, they say I'm so glad I retired two years earlier because I didn't know if my spouse was gonna be in the same health condition and we wanna travel like crazy. I say great, that's why I love this stuff.
Speaker 1:Okay, so here's some things that, admittedly, I do get obsessed with quantifying, because I love numbers, I love my job, I love what I do, but I don't wanna get so lost to the point that we actually don't focus on what the goal is, and so I'm gonna walk you through this right now, and this was, admittedly, very hard for me to do, but these are thoughts that I wrote down here, I'm just gonna share it to you. A lot of this I prep my podcast and I outline them, and then sometimes, when it makes sense to go off the cuff, I'll do that if I think it makes most sense. So here's an example of something I didn't go off the cuff on. I said what can you really quantify? Fun experiences, meaningful work, strong relationships, working for something that's maybe bigger than yourself, maybe doing some more pro bono work at your work, or mentoring, or volunteering and getting better each day? Now, I know a lot of this sounds surface level, but the premise is, if you're going to work every day and you don't feel like you're getting better or it's not fulfilling or helping in some fashion. Consider alternatives, consider part-time work, consider looking at things that maybe pay a whole lot less, but if you enjoyed it and you could do it for longer, good luck. Quantifying that on your health. I'll ask my clients in our review meetings. I'll go how well are you sleeping? Because you're not sleeping well but your finances look good, then there's a problem If you don't know what you're gonna do in retirement for purpose and fulfillment. Another problem Too often it's just can I retire? That's once again level one. So, with that being said, let's hop into some of these levels. I promise today won't be the longest episode, but I hope that this is helpful and I'm gonna start going through these levels by giving you some context for just this year alone.
Speaker 1:The biggest single day percentage drop in the S&P 500 this year was 4.24%, and that was on June 12th. So a lot of people, if you have a million bucks, you go oh my gosh, it's almost $50,000 of a decline in my portfolio. Does that change my retirement projections? Those are natural thoughts a lot of people have maybe you in fact. But despite that drop and all the volatility. That's happened this year. S&p 100 is up 23%. So we look at last year, wasn't the case. We look years before. It did a little better.
Speaker 1:So what I don't want you to do is go hey, just based off of this year, can I retire, can I not retire? Level one here, which I said, is can you retire Whether it's in two years or three years or five years from now? That's level one. And so here's the exercise to keep it really simple, so you can take an actionable item from this, which is look at your assets today and say if you retire tomorrow, where on earth would income come from? Now? Some of you are gonna go sorry, I'm 57, I wanna retire early, but it's all in a 401k. I don't have enough in a brokerage account. So the answer for you should be either you can't retire, or you use the rule of 55, or you look at other options, not saying you're gonna do it.
Speaker 1:But if you wanted to retire tomorrow, where would income come from? Now? Some of you are gonna go hey, I don't know. I don't know where I should come from. That's why I'm listening to these episodes, try to get an understanding. And so sometimes the answer is if you were to retire tomorrow. We can't, and so therefore, we need a brokerage account and we're not gonna max out our 401k anymore, even though we've kind of always been told to do so for the tax deduction. But that's when you can become a little bit qualified rich, cash poor and I've talked about this in other episodes but the goal is not to just have a ton in your 401k or your IRA.
Speaker 1:If you wanna retire early, you've gotta bridge that gap, and if you're gonna have these big RMDs later, you're just adding dollars to that 401k, you're just adding to this RMD problem that you're gonna have in the future, and so RMDs tend for acquired minimum distributions and I wanna make sure that you are being tax efficient through this Now. Tax efficient, that's level three. Okay, we're still at level one right now, and level one is can you retire? So don't get the paralysis analysis of oh my gosh, I know Social Security's gonna get turned on, but I don't know when, or I don't know what's the exact timing of when I should pull from this, and that keep it really simple. Let's assume you have $2 million, whether it's in a 401k or Roth IRA. All that's super important, okay. But to keep it simple.
Speaker 1:If you were to retire tomorrow, where would income come from and then go? What about a year from now? What about two years from now? What would your withdrawal rate be? So let's just keep it once again, super simple. I'm just pulling up my calculator on my end right now. If you can see this, if I'm on YouTube, if you're on the podcast app, you can't see me do this, but I'm saying what if you have $2 million and let's just assume it's all in the IRA and you wanna take out 5%? Okay, that's $100,000. Would you be able to do everything you wanna do at $100,000? You might go yeah, I feel like $100,000 a year, but that's not counting my mortgage and that's not counting I'm gonna do additional travel and I'm gonna do and. So that's where people get lost and they go yeah, it's a loss, I'm just gonna keep working. Yeah, I'll do six more months, I'll do one more year, two more years.
Speaker 1:It's called GP planning in our industry and that stands for goalpost planning. We go yeah, once I have $2 million or $3 million, I want you to get that head trash out of there. It has nothing to do with the number. It completely depends on what you wanna spend and what would you really wanna do in retirement? Would it be fulfilling? So some of you are gonna hey, that sounds good, but I'd love to spend $200,000 a year. Okay, that might not be realistic with your plan, but it depends. I have clients with $10 million plus dollars and they are not in a position to spend $200,000 a year. I have other clients that do have $10 million and they're in a wonderful spot to spend $400,000 a year and the reason for it is maybe they only wanna spend a ton of money the first five years when they wanna travel like crazy and then all of a sudden they go hey, we still wanna live a fulfilling life. Just, it's gonna look a little different. So don't marry your retirement expenses.
Speaker 1:But, number one, get a clear sense how much do you really wanna spend? I do have a cash flow planner that will help you out with this. Go in the link in the description and you can see this For 2024,. Start to model out how much do you really need so you can do everything you wanna do and dream big. Do not be conservative. Understand that if you were retiring tomorrow, is this a number that, if you had this monthly check, do you feel you could really do everything you wanna do. That's like number one how much do you wanna spend? Then number two and this is all still of level one is number one is Really, how much do you want to spend? And level two is what assets do you have to make it happen?
Speaker 1:I don't believe you need a million to retire, two million or five million. Maybe you have a pension, maybe you have rental income, maybe you have social security. And all of the timing of that is gonna cause anxiety. Why? Because you're a human and you're gonna go well. That sounds good, but social security might not start until 70 and that's 10 years away. So maybe I should delay retiring and ooh, markets are doing this. I'm gonna wait one more year. That's head trash. Get a plan in place and understand when you no longer need to keep working. And there should be a time in your mind where, if markets don't do well, you're still gonna be in a great spot. So that's what I'll do.
Speaker 1:With my clients, I say what if we don't do any of these strategies I talk about? So someone comes on board with us. We're not showing them Roth conversions immediately. We're not showing them charitable giving. We're saying what if you changed nothing, what are you on track for? And you'll say, great, here's what you're on track for, and that's assuming health insurance is accounted for and travel and all these things that aren't gonna be there forever and maybe the mortgage will go away. You go, got it. Here's my general plan.
Speaker 1:Now what can I maneuver here, now that you've got level one in place? Now we go to level two, and level two is how much can you spend? Let's assume that you've got $2 million and you go, ari, I just wanna know what's the most I can spend. And I'll tell a client and I'll do this with them. Right now I'm kind of doing this on my calculator. I'll say the most you could spend, like I'd be comfortable. If you wanna spend 120,000 year, you know that's nearly 6% of your portfolio you could easily do that.
Speaker 1:And they're like wait a second, ari, that sounds a little different when you sat on a different episode, because once you said maybe I can only take out 4% or no, not the 4% rule. You don't like that. Maybe it's that guardrails approach that 5.2 to 5.5% they go. Yeah, I think that's what you said. So 6%, that's above that. So I think you're kind of getting something wrong here. And I'll tell a client I go, you're absolutely right, I would have it wrong if it was 6% one year and then 6.2 and then 6.5 and then 7%. But most of you it won't be like that.
Speaker 1:Most of you, what's gonna happen is you're gonna retire early and you're gonna wanna spend, and I want you to spend, and what's gonna happen is is you're gonna be spending and you're gonna go oh my gosh, is this sustainable? Can I do this? Then you're gonna look at a graph and you're gonna go wait a second. Once social security comes in, my withdrawal rates really low, meaning I wanna spend 120,000 a year now, but if social security comes on between my spouse and I and there's 50,000 coming from there, well, now only 70,000 is coming from my portfolio, and 70,000, assuming, by the way, guys, no growth at all 2 million bucks. You're going. Well, that's super sustainable. Now I'm at like a 3.5% withdrawal rate, but now wait a second. Okay, 3.5% withdrawal rate, but now I'm in my 70s, I'm in my 80s. Money might not be worth as much to you. And so what I'll tell a client is I'll say what's the most you can spend. It depends on when you retire and how many years you wanna spend at that degree.
Speaker 1:I have clients that are coming to me, guys, they have a 7% or 8% withdrawal rate and people go how on earth could you recommend that as an advisor? I go, I could not. I could not sleep at night and they go. Well, you just did, I go. I could not. If it kept going up and up and up and up and up, then it's not sustainable. But if there's one year where you're gonna buy a new car, you're gonna travel, and it's just one year and markets are doing really well, I'm telling a client this is the year to do it. Go renovate the home, go do this and go do it with total confidence, not like I'm gonna do it, but really Ari's just being a nice guy here and I don't know if I'm in a good spot to do it. None of that.
Speaker 1:I want you to go spend and know that if you're spending, you're in an amazing spot to spend. So the point of this is level two how much can you spend? It is time to become a successful spender. So I want you to really dream and say level one, how much can you spend? Level two what's the most you can spend. I want you to have a really successful retirement, and the way that you do that is you dream big. Now, sometimes our feedback is if you wanna spend this amount, wonderful, you're working two more years or three more years to be able to do that and you might say, great, I just didn't know if it was five years away or one year away. Sometimes our feedback's the opposite you can do this sooner than you think. So that's level two.
Speaker 1:Finally, level three is how do you minimize taxes? I do not want you crushing taxes and the truth is most of you are because if you're listening and you're considering an early retirement, you're probably in a good spot. You probably have between one and 10 million of assets just liquid assets, excluding real estate and you just wanna make sure you're optimizing. And some of you have 500,000 bucks but a really healthy pension or you have rental income or inheritance is coming in or whatever it is with you. You likely are going to be leaving money on the table from a tax perspective and I don't want you to. I wanna make sure and that sounds very obvious here but I wanna make sure you don't get crushing taxes, not just in one year, but over the course of your lifetime, and the only way to do that is with a really, really good tax strategy, and I do.
Speaker 1:You know I have episodes on Roth conversions, on donor-advised funds, on taxi and harvesting. Let this episode simply be about helping you understand taxes in a more high-level idea of the following let's assume you retire 57 and you go all right, I've got 100,000 that brokerage account that's gonna get me till 59 and a half, meaning at 59 and a half. Then I'm gonna start pulling from my IRA. So in these first years of retirement my income's gonna be really low. I'm gonna pull from that brokerage account and what's gonna happen is, when you pull from that brokerage account, your income's really low because you're just paying capital gains taxes on the gains. It's not any ordinary income and maybe you just have some amount in cash as well. So maybe your income could be crazy low.
Speaker 1:And you do all these amazing Roth conversions and let's just say markets go down like 20, 30%. You've heard my episodes by now. You know when markets go down it's a great opportunity to a Roth conversion. And then all of a sudden you're like all right, you know markets went down and so I was living off of that 100,000, so I used 70,000 of it to live and then I did a big Roth conversion and it cost me like 15,000 taxes. So now I don't have a whole lot left to get me through next year.
Speaker 1:Like how am I gonna bridge this gap? So I'm telling you this because when markets go down or your income is low, you wanna consider Roth conversions and you don't wanna just have enough to get you to 59 and a half. You wanna have extra, you wanna have buffer, because if markets are doing different things, you wanna be able to throw gasoline on that fire because those Roth conversions can be legitimately a millions of dollars to your bottom line. So most people reach out, they hit, you know. I'll ask them very frankly they hit why are you hiring me? And they'll say you know what? I'm hiring you because tax planning is not being incorporated in my plan right now and I need that. I know there's stuff I'm missing out. I don't know what I don't know and I say great, let's go a step deeper. What about charitable giving? What about how much you can spend? What about if we don't do Roth conversions? And very few people are gonna not? You're gonna understand this next analogy, but you've probably not seen me explain it this way, so here's what I want you to think about.
Speaker 1:One client came to me and a lot of you know this story, but I'm gonna give it to you anyway. They said all right, you sound really excited about these Roth conversions. We do this, we do that, we can save millions. And I said I am, I'm really excited because you could see what it's gonna do for you. And they said well, you know, I just don't want you to not be excited, but I wanna tell you like I'd really love to do some more travel in the first series of retirement. And I said whoa, whoa, whoa, this is really really helpful information. And they're like what do you mean? And I said well, when we first talked about travel, you said maybe you wanna do a few international trips, but nothing crazy. And now you're saying you wanna do a lot of travel. How much travel do you love doing in a dream world? And they're like to be honest, I'd love to fly first class. I never have. I'd love to spend 60,000 year on travel, but just for the first three years.
Speaker 1:I said, wow, I don't wanna do amazing Roth conversions anymore. I mean, you sound so excited before and that it could add millions. I go, yeah, I could still get add millions, but I would rather we don't optimize a Roth conversion and instead you go spend more on travel. You go do more fun and, yeah, your Roth conversion on paper won't be as great, but that's not the purpose of this. If you wanted the best Roth conversion, well, what you would do is you would stop working and if you have big RMDs, you're gonna do a ton of conversions. Don't spend any money, live under the freeway and your conversions on paper will look great. That's not why we're doing this. It's not why we're having this conversation.
Speaker 1:So my client was like, oh my gosh, I get it now the point not to optimize conversions. At the same point, I wanna go travel. Now I'll tell a client you know if this is a no brainer, it's a $50,000 decision to take this trip or not. I'll say, hey, can we push that trip back by one year? And here's the reason why. And they might go. You know what. I get it, but I'm taking the trip anyway and I say, great, I just want you to know why we're doing it. You might go. No, I really see. It's a $60,000 tax savings or 80,000 by just waiting six months on this. I'm happy to do so. That trip, you know, I can push back. I'm gonna have to negotiate with my spouse, but I can get it pushed back. So these are the levels that I wanna go through.
Speaker 1:So ask yourself right now what level are you in Number? You might be at level zero, which is I don't even know what I'm on track for. That's why I'm listening to this, trying to get a sense of this. You might be level one, which is I think I'm in a pretty good spot to retire when I want to, but I really don't know when. Am I truly in a spot? What's the earliest time that I could retire with total confidence? But that's level one.
Speaker 1:Level two how much can you spend? Not just what's the minimum, that if you take this out, you're going to be okay and leave $10 million at the end. I'm sure a lot of you have done some retirement projections and it almost looks preposterous Like, yeah, well, a 5 million or 10 million or 20 million If it grows like this. What if it doesn't grow like that? What if it does grow like that? What if it grows more than you think? What if you invest like this? That's level two. How much can you spend if you do all the right things? And good luck quantifying that on your sleep, on your health, on your life? You can't. And then level three is don't get crushed in taxes, Okay, just, quite simply. So hopefully this was a helpful episode Once again. If it was, this is the last episode for 2024. Please, do leave a review. You can all, of course. If you do listen to the end of these episodes, you can email me directly.
Speaker 1:I'm going to give you a quick overview right now for any of you that do reach out wondering hey, what does our process look like, what it looks like for 2024? Is anyone who reaches out, they're speaking with me directly. Some people go hey, am I going to get one of your associates or a junior or someone that? No, okay, you reach out to root financial. You are speaking with me. Now what happens is we have a conversation.
Speaker 1:Our agenda is fairly strict in the sense that what we're going to do is we're going to. I'm going to ask you some questions to get a clear sense of what you're looking for and see, are we best positioned to help? And I'll tell you right now. Some people are coming to me and they just want their investments managed. They want to know about tax strategy. No estate planning, no income, no tax. I say we're probably not the best fit for you. We do holistic planning, so just know that Okay.
Speaker 1:Number one is are we a potential good fit? If yes, number two is I go through our process on that call and I show you here's how we can help. Here's exactly how we help you implement all these things in a really simple, effective way. And then number three is I want to get to know you. I want to know your personality, your unique planning needs, so that I can understand which advisor here, which lead advisor, would be best for you. So almost think of it like I'm a financial matchmaker Now not matchmaking the sense of what services do we use? Because we only offer one service, because it's the best, which is holistic financial planning.
Speaker 1:I want to get a sense of what advisor would you enjoy meeting with. Who would be a really good fit? That, if you're speaking with them in the next 20, 30 plus years, would you enjoy meeting with them Now? That would be your lead advisor. That is the person you are speaking with on a daily basis not daily basis, of course, but you could reach out to them on a daily basis to say, hey, what's going on with this? Or should I update that? Like? That is your lead advisor. That's your main contact.
Speaker 1:I am what's called your senior advisor, so I'm the one overlooking for 2024 the plans, and I'm working closely with those lead advisors to ensure, if anyone's retiring early, that they understand the nuances involved, that there's nothing missing, because with health insurance and withdrawal rates and tax planning it becomes a lot. So I work very closely with our lead advisors to implement these things for our clients. And then, finally, I want to make sure that you're over the moon. And so what do I mean by that? If someone's coming to us and like I think I should do this, but I'm just not sure yet, I'll say don't hire us.
Speaker 1:Like, we want to work with people where it's a priority. They're eager to move forward. They understand what makes us different. We do a holistic approach and they want to start living their best life. They want their spouse taking care of, they want to make sure multi-generational wealth with their children is being handled. They want to retire with confidence. Who is the people that are coming to me? So we don't work with everyone. We work with people that are really excited, and we do call it a partnership because we ask for 100%, because we give you 100%. We want it to be the same there. So hopefully this was some helpful insight.
Speaker 1:Hopefully today's episode was helpful. Once again, an amazing 2024. Thank you all. Excuse me, 2023. I'm already too excited. 2024 is going to be amazing and I hope you all truly have an amazing new year, and I've got a ton of fun content and ideas to come in 2024. So make sure to stay tuned. Thanks, guys, love you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to another episode of the Early Retirement Show. If you have a question that you want answered in a future episode, you can always go to my website, earlyretirementpodcastcom. That's earlyretirementpodcastcom, and you can go ahead and submit a question that I'll look to answer in a future episode. Thank you all for listening. Please do rate it, review it and share it with someone who you think would benefit from this information. If there's anyone out there that you know, I certainly appreciate it and I will see you all each week. Hey guys, it's me again. Please be smart about this. Nothing in this podcast should be construed as financial, tax or legal advice. Consult with your tax preparer or financial advisor before taking any action. This podcast is for informational purposes only.