Ready For Retirement
Ready For Retirement
How to Overcome Fears of Spending in Retirement
Ben has been a saver his entire life, which helped position him for an early retirement at the age of 53. Yet, he faces a big challenge. Having maintained his modest lifestyle, Ben’s comfortable portfolio has continued to grow and has nearly doubled in value. James and Ben discuss the challenges of making mindset shifts and the proactive steps Ben has taken to encourage himself to spend more.
Questions answered:
How did Ben decide to retire when he was in his peak earning years?
What are the steps Ben has taken to force himself to spend more?
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Timestamps:
0:00 - Meet Ben
2:36 - A lifetime saver
5:28 - Confidence to retire early
6:41 - Retirement reality vs expectations
9:12 - The appeal of retirement
11:46 - The biggest challenge - spending
14:13 - A growing portfolio
17:33 - The lure of subsidies
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My guest on today's podcast is Ben Ben saved aggressively so he could retire at the age of 53. And although he's really enjoying retirement, he's finding it's very difficult to spend money on certain things. As he's gotten older, he realizes that his healthy years won't last forever, and he also shares a new system that he's implemented that actually makes it easier to spend money on certain things. Listen in as Ben shares his secrets for what's worked and how it's led to some amazing memories that he wouldn't have experienced otherwise. It's all coming up next, on today's episode of Ready for Retirement. This is another episode of Ready for Retirement. I'm your host, james Canole, and I'm here to teach you how to get the most out of life with your money. And now on to the episode. Joining me on today's episode of Ready for Retirement is Ben Ben. Thanks for joining me. Thank you very much, james, glad to be here. Well, let's jump right in. You're retired today, but take us back to when you retired and what you did for work prior to retiring.
Speaker 2:Okay, I was an account rep for a manufacturing company here in the Cleveland area. That was pretty much my career for most of my adult life 28 plus years and I was probably in my mid-30s when I decided that I was not going to want to work until I was 65 or 70. So I kind of put a seed in my brain at that point that 50 might be a great time to try to retire early. And that was long before there was much talk about the fire movement or the ER movements, things of that nature. But that was sort of the goal that I set and I was very strict about not denying myself anything. But I also made savings a priority. So, due to the market downturn in 2008, that set me back just a bit, but I kept plowing right through. I kept investing monthly. Through all of that I never panicked, never cashed out. So at any rate, I retired at 53, 2017.
Speaker 1:53, very good. What was the intermittent 30s been that caused you to say I don't want to work until 65. I'm going to do this thing at 50 if I can.
Speaker 2:Well, unfortunately for me. Me, it was more a matter of um. I don't think that I pursued a career that I loved. I pursued a career that I I enjoyed and I enjoyed the challenges of it. But um, it was never something that I just felt so passionate about that I just imagined myself working um indefinitely. I have I have friends that are still working, that just love their jobs. They can't imagine doing anything else. They don't have any intention of walking away from them. But for me it was like I couldn't imagine changing into another career at that point in my life, and I had already been involved in sales for quite some time. So I thought transferring to anything else besides sales was not going to be necessarily easy. So I just thought, well, maybe the next best thing is to just set a goal for early retirement. So that's what.
Speaker 1:I did Very good. Now you set that goal in your early 30s. Did that transform you in that moment to become a very aggressive saver and investor, or had you always been that way, even up until that point?
Speaker 2:I'll go way, way back to tell you a story that will give you an idea of what my mindset was. So I started doing odd jobs when I was a teenager. I was mowing people's lawns and taking care of people's pools, probably from the time I was like 12 or 13 years old, and I can remember I had several people, of course, that just paid me in cash In those days. Some people wrote checks, whatever, but I was so proud of the fact that I was making this money that I would actually launder the money in a sink and let it dry and then I would iron the money. So the bills of saving and earning money was quite apparent to me.
Speaker 1:The original Monday Laundry. I love that.
Speaker 2:So you just was ingrained in you.
Speaker 1:No, hey, the little version of it. Was this something that was instilled into you by parents, that you that was instilled into you by parents? Was this just something that you had a natural inclination for, being naturally a saver, naturally just very into setting money aside?
Speaker 2:um, I think it was. It came pretty naturally. But I mean, I grew up, um, I never realized how, um, you know how we grew up. I was raised by a single mom. I had two older brothers but I never realized quite the sacrifices she made and what it took for her to raise three kids on her own, until I was much older.
Speaker 2:But I always sort of had a feeling that money was a very important channel for us and that it was something that I had to value and I had to appreciate and, and yeah, it was. It was something that, you know. It continued on as I got much older than, of course, but as far as like the inspiration to then, once I was an adult, become more of a saver and more dedicated to it, actually had a conversation just with a friend who knew that I was taking off on this new career path and he was suggesting to me, you know that have I ever considered investing money instead of just putting it in CDs or putting it in the bank? And at that point I hadn't. So that's when I first started to try educating myself on the stock market and on investing and on mutual funds, and that was sort of the very beginning of my adult saving trajectory, if you will.
Speaker 1:So you had a handful of experiences that are maybe formative in the way that you viewed money. What was it at age? Was there a number in mind when you said I want to do this at age 50? And it got pushed back till 53 because of 2008. It's still very early. What was it that gave you the confidence that feel that you could retire? Was it having a certain portfolio balance? Was it a certain amount of dividends coming from your portfolio? How did you think about that?
Speaker 2:It was pretty much based on the portfolio balance. What I had done, james, is, once my career started to take off, I pretty much lived off of what I was making in the early years of my career and as I progressed in my career I was basically on a commission basis. So the harder I worked, the more effort I put forth, the better the benefit in terms of a salary. So what I started doing pretty early on is, I just said each year I was basically going to live off of what I might have lived off of when I first started my career, basically, and everything else was going to get invested. So that was sort of the number that I was using. When it came to the time to retire, I thought, okay, well, if I can get my portfolio to this level and I can sort of follow loosely the 4% of what time, that was what my goal was going to be. So it was pretty much a portfolio balance and knowing what I was able to live off of in previous years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's talk about that now. So you retired at 53. You hit that number. You did a great job of not suffering from lifestyle creep, so to speak, and continue to invest, continue to do and save you retired. Was it everything you hoped it to be? Or what was different about retiring compared to what you maybe were anticipating?
Speaker 2:the lone duck out there, Everybody that was in my social circle, my friend's circle. They were still very much in the middle of their careers and still, in some cases, growing their careers, still in wealth accumulation mode, still in spending mode, building new homes, buying beautiful new cars and maybe taking a one or two week vacation per year, but in terms of being completely, you know, free and available to just do whatever they wanted to do, that wasn't the case.
Speaker 2:So I realized very quickly that, oh my gosh, I'm going to be doing basically all of this alone. So all the things that I thought I might want to do traveling, you know, visiting family, friends, those types of things it was going to have to be sort of strategic. It's like I can't just call up a friend and say, hey, I want to come out next weekend. You know, they might have a lot of things going on. They're still working, they might be on a project, they have family commitments. So, realizing that it was really going to be my journey and pretty much something I was going to be doing alone was something, for whatever reason, journey and pretty much something I was going to be doing alone was something for whatever reason, I just never really gave much thought about when I was still in my working year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when did that first hit you? Did you start to have that inclination, say at age 52, that you look around and no one else is really retired like you are? Or was it a little bit of a wake-up call when you did actually retire?
Speaker 2:It was more of a wake-up call. I mean, I had so many people. They were supportive, but at the same time I had so many people that just said you know, how can you stop working at 53? I mean, everybody thought that was such a crazy idea, and even friends that were looking at it from more of a monetary perspective they'd be like you know, you're making this great salary now. You know you're making this great salary now you could be on cruise control for the next five, seven years and just bank all that money. Why don't you just stick on and do what you're doing? And to me that wasn't even appealing. It was like no, that's not even something I want to do. So it's kind of hard to not have support systems in place in some aspects, because people are just like why would you walk?
Speaker 2:away from that, yeah.
Speaker 1:What was appealing to you. It can be tempting to say I'm at the peak of my earnings, I'm in a job that I'm good at, even if I don't particularly love it. It's not appealing to continue. What was most appealing to you at that time when you decided to make the jump to retirement?
Speaker 2:I think, just having the ability to sort of plot my own course and not have to be on literally living on someone else's schedule. When it comes to your career, you know I had tried to work remotely long before it was a thing. I pushed with my company to let me work remotely. I used to have a townhouse in Las Vegas and I thought it would be great to get away from Cleveland winters and spend a month or two working remotely. Great to get away from Cleveland winters and spend a month or two working remotely. And you know they shot it down year after year. I would propose it during my annual reviews and they're like no, no, we can't do it, we can't allow it and I honestly think if they had, allowed that.
Speaker 2:That might have bought me a little more time where I could have felt like I wasn't just constantly, you know, commuting to the office and having to deal with you know long days at the office behind my desk, behind my computer. It was more the logistics of what I had to do on a daily basis. I think if I could have tweaked what my job entailed, that might have had me stay on longer. I think it probably would have. Honestly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, very interesting. So that wasn't an option. You decided to move forward with retirement. You're 53, you jump into retirement. What do you? What, at that time, were you envisioning retirement might be like, or what would you spend your days doing, at least in your mind prior to doing so?
Speaker 2:Um, I think just the, the freedom of being away from a schedule, like I kind of mentioned before, was, was, was priority, priority.
Speaker 2:And I did want to spend some time catching up with people that I had been friends with for years but just didn't have the opportunity to see. So I spent a little bit of time doing some road trips and catching up with some people, visiting folks that I hadn't seen in quite some time, and that was pleasant. I got back into being a little bit more strict with a workout routine, taking care of myself, sort of self-care, um. So um joined a yoga studio, joined a gym. Um spent a lot more time biking than I, you know, had in previous years. It used to just be I would try to get out if the weather was nice on the weekend and I got all my chores done.
Speaker 2:Um, and you know, it was just so nice to be able to wake up and say, okay, well, I'm going to have a nice breakfast and then, yeah, I think I'm going to go for, you know, five hour bike ride today and just to not have a set schedule was so, so freeing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what? What's been the biggest challenge? So you have no set schedule. You can go on a bike ride if you want and go catch up with friends if you want, assuming, of course, they're available. You can go travel if you want. All that sounds wonderful. What have been the challenges, though, that you faced in retirement?
Speaker 2:Well, I think something that is a real issue for me is the spending issue. Giving myself is the spending issue Giving myself, if you want to say, permission to spend the money that I managed to save and earn? And I hate to say that I'm denying myself, but I oftentimes feel that that's the case right now, because I just look at my portfolio and I think, okay, this has the potential to open so many doors for me, but at the same time, bridging that, that mindset, that that gap that is making that transition from a saving to a spending mindset that I never anticipated, that in a million years I didn't think about other than thinking about that magic number and what I would possibly live on, um, you know, each year. But then then, honestly, it was like it became a challenge to see okay, well, you know, I lived on about four percent of my portfolio this year. What if I do like 3.8% next year, you know? And then it was like 3.5.
Speaker 2:It became ridiculous. I mean, I admit it, it's just like why am I doing this to myself? But that's literally what started to happen. It's like I kept tweaking that number down a little bit. So that's by far.
Speaker 1:I think for me personally probably been the hardest challenge. It's not so much I never feel bored, I never feel like I'm at a loss for something to do, but as far as looking at the potential for what my portfolio could unlock for me, that's been a hard thing for me to grasp. Yeah, yeah, I appreciate you sharing that, because I think a lot of people you know. It may sound ridiculous to someone that hasn't done it how can you struggle to spend money, but it can be a real struggle. So, for perspective, ben, no need to share the numbers, of course, but do you remember what the portfolio value goal was, what that number was that would give you the freedom to feel like you could retire back in 2017?
Speaker 2:Oh, like my magic number.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you remember what the magic number was without sharing it? Just do you recall?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I mean that number is like blazed in my brain forever your portfolio today. Is it larger than that magic number, the same as that magic number, or is it less than what that magic number was?
Speaker 2:To be honest, James, it's approaching double. It's approaching double.
Speaker 1:Would you say your spending has doubled since retiring, or if you could throw a number out there of how much it's increased, decreased or stay the same. What would that look like?
Speaker 2:No, it's actually. It's probably decreased. What I was doing which I realize in hindsight is not the proper way to look at it but I was taking the portfolio balance from when I retired and sort of, if I plugged in that 4% number, I never did the inflation increases, and then, if the portfolio had increased, I didn't change the amount that I was drawing from it. I just kept it consistent with what the value of it was when I quit working in 2017. So, of course, it's just it's continued to grow and I know that there's like the rule of I don't know if it's a 10-year rule, I can't quite remember what it is, but like that, in theory, your portfolio could double in value 10 year period and that certainly seems like I'm on track for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is something else.
Speaker 2:I never envisioned.
Speaker 1:Why? If you had to guess why that is, if you retired with a healthy portfolio balance at 53, it's since doubled to whatever healthy is. Take healthy times two. Obviously there's been inflation, things cost more, but still portfolio's doubled. Do you have a sense of why it's so challenging for you to spend more as your portfolio balance increases?
Speaker 2:I think part of it's not educating myself enough on just all the tax implications. I've been on an ACA health care plan since I retired and I had always chased the subsidies. So I knew that if I had taken out more from my portfolio, that was going to look like income on paper as far as the ACA health insurance plans are concerned and I would potentially lose my subsidy, which is quite significant. So I was sort of chasing a subsidy as a priority and trying to keep everything in check on paper. Now this is the first year I think I may have told you, but in January of this year I finally sold off a small portion of my taxable portfolio and I did it in purpose to try to force myself to spend more money, like in the next three years.
Speaker 2:Three to five year window is what I was telling myself. Give myself the permission to do it. Put the money in you know, basically a money market type account where it was easily accessible, and I basically paid full price for my health insurance, which was a difficult thing for me to do. It's you know, I look at that number and I just think this is crazy. But then I also look at my portfolio balance and I think, not allowing myself to access that because I don't want to pay for my health insurance. You know, full price for it is is pretty ludicrous, yeah, so I'm slowly getting the mindset where it needs to be, but it's it's still not quite there.
Speaker 1:Hey, slowly getting it is the way to do it. It doesn't happen overnight. But how has that gone for you? You, you sold, and so for anyone listening that's not familiar with, what does that mean? So if you keep your income under a certain threshold, you qualify for health insurance subsidies, which means it can save you thousands of dollars potentially on the cost of health care with which, if you're not working, you're not yet medicare age. It can be tremendously beneficial from a financial standpoint.
Speaker 1:The downside, on more of the emotional or psychological side, is do you feel like you're trapped in this low income environment or in this environment where you can't realize a lot of income because you're chasing a subsidy while simultaneously saying no to great things you could be doing from a personal standpoint or things you could be doing with your money? So you took proactive steps that began this year to try to alleviate some of that by forcing yourself to say I'm going to realize some income by selling some investments, so that's off the table. I can't trick myself, so to speak, and say, no, I'm doing this and it's going to be beneficial. How's that gone? Has that helped you to increase spending at all, or is it still the same challenge?
Speaker 2:It has helped a bit. I've done a couple of things. I got together with my family and we had to do like a family vacation and I picked up the tab for an Airbnb on the beach down in Charleston, south Carolina, for the whole family, so we could all be together for a week and that was very enjoyable. I'm glad I was able to do that, and I actually just came back from a vacation. I went to Italy for two weeks on a cooking-based type holiday and I literally booked the trip like a week before it commenced.
Speaker 2:I had heard about it over the winter and I thought about it for just a moment. And then, of course, I looked at the price and I thought, oh, I don't want to spend that kind of money. And then I found out that they had one single room left a week before the trip started and they said, hey, if anybody can travel last minute, this might be a great opportunity for you. So I looked at, looked at my airfare options and I made sure that they still had that room available and I said, screw it, I'm just going to do this. So you know, it was way out of character for me. It was something that, you know, in the past I never would have done. It was something that you know, in the past I never would have done.
Speaker 2:But honestly, once I got over there and I just saw how beautiful it was, I was like, ok, this was a good move, I'm glad I did this. Is there any part of you that regrets it? I struggled with the actual moment I was doing it, as far as like making the purchase. I literally had both windows open for the buy now button for the airfare and the buy now button for the reservation for the room, and I probably spent a couple hours just going back and forth about do I do it, shouldn't I do it, whatever. But once I made the decision, then I didn't regret it at all and I kept thinking that I purposely set up those funds at the beginning of the year so I could do things like that. So I gave myself permission to do it and once I made the decision, then there was no regret at all happened at the beginning of this year.
Speaker 1:I think that's a genius idea. Trick your mind almost into saying okay, I can't chase a subsidy anymore, I'm going to realize more income Now I have permission to spend. What prompted that? Even that by itself, as a decision to spend, so to speak, before the money is actually spent. How did you come to make that decision?
Speaker 2:I think it was just a matter of staring at this portfolio balance and thinking again. It could hold so much value besides just the monetary value, as far as just life experiences. And why am I denying myself that? There's really no way around the fact that at my age I'm on an ACA plan? That's the only way I can have health insurance.
Speaker 2:And if I want to enjoy more out of life and enjoy more from my portfolio and what it can provide, then you're just going to have to suck it up and accept that this is what you have to pay. You know, and don't even lose any more sleep over it. And I think I just got so tired after, you know, basically seven years of kind of having, I felt like everything was on pause. It's like when am I going to make the moves? When am I going to start? You know, feeling more comfortable spending what I've saved. And I think, for whatever reason, over the winter I just got to a point where it's like, you know, let's do this this year, let's have this be a trial run, let's see how it goes and see if we can kind of get that mindset turned around a bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, have you noticed a change to the mindset as you've put yourself in those uncomfortable positions of booking a trip to Italy last minute, of getting the tab for the Airbnb for the family? Has your mindset started to shift as you've done things like that, or is it still the same battle internally?
Speaker 2:I wouldn't say it's as much of a battle. I think the fact that I've I mean, I know that nothing is going to change in terms of the trajectory of my portfolio based on what I'm doing now, because I've pulled that money out separately, that's in a separate account, and as I do these types of things, yes, I'm going to chip away at that, that account, but in the whole big picture, I mean I was thinking about this on the flight back. I had eight hours under you know life and what the next chapter was going to be, and I thought you know that was pulling that money out to do the Italy trip was just, you know, I, you know I could do multiple trips like that in the next three to five years and and I'm, you know, getting to the point where I'm like, okay, you know, let's start thinking bigger picture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a couple of questions. So what you're saying is you it helped you to literally have that money pulled out ahead of time? So it's not. It doesn't feel like you're pulling money from your portfolio when you go book a trip. It doesn't feel like you're pulling money from your portfolio where you could probably really easily convince yourself not to pre spending it by setting aside. Am I hearing you correctly saying that's made it easier to do some of these bigger purchases or make some of these bigger purchases.
Speaker 2:That made it much easier because, like when I, when I booked the italy trip, then all I did was set up a transfer um, so that the funds would be in my checking account, so that I knew when the bills came due. You know, obviously everything is set up on auto pay, but then you know it's all going to be a seamless thing, so the money transferred and you know the bills will get paid sometime later this month and everything's going to. You know, all be done'll be done. But yeah, you're right, and I think not having that separate little egg, if you will, or that separate little basket or bucket, for me it makes a big difference. Mindset wise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a really good idea. What's next, ben? So a great trip to Italy, airbnb with the family. What are some of the things that you're excited for as you think about the next five to 10 years?
Speaker 2:Ooh, five to 10. That's a tough one.
Speaker 1:Or two to three. I'm from a different place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably on a smaller scale. There I have a friend that is talking about doing a trip to Thailand next year. We just started having conversations about it this past week and he's really got me excited because that's something that I've always wanted to do. But again, it's like just the airfare alone is quite significant, and I'm at a point in my life where I don't think that I want to sit in economy for 16-hour flights to Thailand. So I'm thinking, okay, well, how am I going to manage navigating, buying at least like a business class or some type of fare that's going to make me comfortable for that time frame? But I'm excited about the prospect. I think that it's something that I can look forward to for next year.
Speaker 2:And I really want to also sort of get better about. I want to educate myself better about, like the Irma, look back periods and things of that nature. Honestly, until you and Ari had mentioned those things in your podcasts, those weren't even on my radar. So now I'm starting to think, okay, I need to figure out a strategy. I want to start doing some Roth conversions, but I don't necessarily want to do it right now. I was thinking about waiting until I'm Medicare eligible and then having maybe a five or six-year window when I would start doing conversions. Those are sort of a longer-term plan. But as far as just spending more money and experiencing more in life, I think I'm going to try to do more things where I incorporate perhaps inviting friends to go on a trip with me and helping to cover some or maybe even all the costs, depending on the situation. If it would help be a little bit more motivation for somebody to be willing to take a week off of work and travel someplace, and also kind of selfish, because then I would have a travel partner.
Speaker 1:I didn't think it's a win-win.
Speaker 2:I didn't think I was doing a lot of these trips alone. I've gotten very good at being a solo traveler, but it would be nice to have some experiences with friends as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, it does seem, obviously in this high-level overview of that transformation, that shift has started to happen, of becoming more comfortable, not so focused on lowering the portfolio withdrawal rate, and more focused on what can this money do for me? I'm sure it's still going to be a journey, but if you could go back to Ben seven years ago, or even Ben prior to retiring, what guidance would you give him to try to help make this shift happen sooner or to go on with a little bit of a different mindset into retirement Ben?
Speaker 2:I would probably say the time to say, by the time this year happens, I would like to have experienced this and this, or I would like to. I can now do all sorts of things that I wish I would have had more thought about in my working years as far as what the retirement was going to look like, but I think having a game plan in place would have made things a lot easier, and also just educating myself on the fact that it's going to it's going to be okay to take money from your portfolio that's the whole reason you have it and that's the whole reason you'd save your entire life is to now turn that money around and have it work for you and have it bring you experiences. And you know, just like I said, work for you and have it bring you experiences. And, um, you know, just like I said, having a game plan would have been a wise move in my case.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how much? Say say you did have that game plan. So in 2017, you know that in 2018, you're going to go to Italy in 2019, you're going to do this great thing with family in 2020, probably not traveling 2021. You have like say you did have that game plan. Would that truly have helped? Or would there still have been the mindset hurdle to get over of? You know, I could lie to myself and say I'm going to take this great trip next year, but then the time comes and it's still difficult to pull the trigger and make the purchase. What? Would that have been complete, or would there still been challenges to overcome as you work through?
Speaker 2:that Well, I guess it's hard to say, since I didn't have a game plan in place. I think probably, even if I had the game plan, I think I still would have had these challenges, these mental challenges of giving myself the permission to spend money. Maybe it wouldn't have been as strong as it has been, but I still think that would have been a tough mindset for me to try and navigate through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I do think having a game plan would have been a little bit more inspirational I think so too, and one of the things that you mentioned, um, prior to this was at some point a certain fear kicks in. Of these are the last, not the last, but I'm not promised an infinite number of healthy years. I'm not promised an infinite number of years where I have my energy and vitality and strength and ability to do this. How much of the decision to do some of these things today is, I don't want to say, fear driven, but maybe reality driven of I just't do this forever versus being driven by other purposes or other reasons.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that's, you know, a real driving factor for me.
Speaker 2:I mean, just all you have to do is look at the news or, you know, hear about, you know well known person or celebrity or whatever that has you know had a health issue or had something very debilitating happened to them or, you know, even worse, they passed away at a relatively long, relatively young age and, um, I think the the fact that you know, none of us is guaranteed of an amount of time here has started to play into my decision-making process and sort of kicking me in the butt and saying, look, you know, you're still sort of at the tail end of the prime years is what I like to think. So why not take advantage of the fact that you know you still have the interest in traveling, you still have the ability to walk around the city and explore and, you know, don't, don't just wait for you know a better opportunity to come along. That's going to be a more you know a better, more beneficial opportunity to come along. That's going to be a more you know a better, more beneficial time to do things.
Speaker 1:Just start really pushing to do these things sooner rather than later. Yeah, I fully agree. I think death isn't something that anyone likes talking about, but there's a certain level of clarity you get when you realize nothing's promised. Tomorrow is not promised. If I were to go, what would I regret not doing? What can I begin doing now to eliminate or at least neutralize some of those potential regrets? So, ben, this has been very helpful and I appreciate you sharing that, because I think a lot of people feel silly sometimes thinking I have done well, I have saved well, and I do have a spending problem, but it's not overspending, it's, if anything, underspending. And how do I address that? How do I get through that? So thank you for sharing. Is there anything else you'd like to leave the audience with before we wrap up today's episode?
Speaker 2:I don't think so. I just wanted to thank you actually for everything that you've done online and on the podcast. I think that you're putting out just some of the best content available right now for anybody that's either already retired or thinking about retiring. I just appreciate everything you've done and I'm glad to be a little tiny part of it.
Speaker 1:Hey, well, thank you. I remember we started exchanging emails I don't remember exactly when, but one of the first listeners I want to say a few years back that you had sent me emails here and there. So fun getting to connect with you and actually do this podcast. I appreciate you sharing your perspective. I know a lot of people share similar challenges. Put that in a separate account, so already feels like the money's been spent by default. It maybe gives you a bit more permission to actually actually spend it on airfare on a trip. I think that that's one real simple thing that people can implement immediately and and probably address some of the same challenges that they're facing.
Speaker 2:Excellent.
Speaker 1:Well, very good, well, ben. Thanks so much for taking the time to be on the ready for retirement podcast. Appreciate it very much. And to everyone listening, thank you for listening and we'll see you all next time. Thanks, james Root. Financial has not provided any compensation for, and has not influenced the content of, any testimonials and endorsements shown. Any testimonials and endorsements shown have been invited, have been shared with each individual's permission and are not necessarily representative of the experience of other clients. To our knowledge, no other conflicts of interest exist regarding these testimonials and endorsements. Hey everyone, it's me again for the disclaimer. Please be smart about this. Before doing anything, please be sure to consult with your tax planner or financial planner. Nothing in this podcast should be construed as investment, tax, legal or other financial advice. It is for informational purposes only. Tax legal or tax professional who's familiar with your unique circumstances, before making any financial decisions.
