December 2, 2024 • 10 mins
Could the key to a happy retirement be more than just financial security?
Discover the often-overlooked emotional and psychological dimensions of early retirement that can make all the difference. We explore surprising research findings showing a dip in life satisfaction post-retirement and reveal how it can take years to regain your pre-retirement quality of life. Through a compelling client story, we demonstrate the potential dangers of focusing solely on wealth accumulation, especially when unexpected health issues arise. Learn why aligning financial goals with personal well-being is crucial for a fulfilling retirement experience.
We invite you to become part of our conversation by submitting your questions and feedback through earlyretirementpodcast.com. Your interactions are vital, and sharing our podcast can help others navigate the complex landscape of early retirement. Don't forget to rate and review us to help spread these valuable insights. While our discussions are rich with information, remember to consult with financial or tax professionals before making decisions based on our content. This episode offers thoughtful exploration and practical guidance for planning a satisfying post-career life.
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Ari Taublieb, CFP ®, MBA is the Chief Growth Officer of Root Financial Partners and a Fiduciary Financial Planner specializing in helping clients retire early with confidence.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to the Early Retirement Podcast.
Today we are going through afun article that my client sent
me and they told me this helpedthem in their early retirement.
And they told me not to saytheir name for security purposes
, but it's John.
No, it's not John, I'm justkidding.
But this is going to be a funepisode and it's an important
one, because if you have enoughmoney to retire, great.
(00:21):
That's a piece of the puzzle.
It doesn't solve everything andthere's a point where you have
plenty of money and go look,maybe I don't need 10 million,
maybe if I had 3 million or 2million, I could retire, spend
more time with family andfriends and do what I actually
want to do in retirement.
So I want to show you a fewstatistics that were really cool
in this article might make youthink a little differently when
it comes to an early retirement.
(00:42):
Once again, if you don't know,my name is Ari Taublieb.
I'm a certified financialplanner, I'm the host of the
early retirement podcast thatyou are listening slash watching
right now, and I'm the vicepresident here at Root Financial
Partners.
Now, if you're listening on thepodcast app, this is not going
anywhere.
Some of you guys have sent me afew notes going hey, are you
only doing the YouTube channelnow or is it what's happening?
(01:04):
I go everything's going to keepposting to the podcast app, per
usual.
That's a lot of your just dailyroutine weekly routine, should
I say and then I'm going to keepposting to YouTube as well,
because I like making contentthere where you can actually see
it and some people resonatewith that more trying to help
you all out.
So this article comes from areally cool company and you can
(01:25):
see in the upper left here oryou can just listen to what I'm
going to say.
It's called Barking Up theWrong Tree, which I just thought
was a cool name, and the titleof the article we're going to go
through is how do you have ahappy retirement Four secrets
from research.
The reason this video is titledpodcast three is because I only
think three of them are worthnoting.
They're all good, but three bigones.
Here's the first one and I amquoting this and you can see
they discuss exactly this in thearticle.
(01:46):
So I'm going to link the wholething if you want to read it.
But they say healthy retirees inthe first year of retirement
rate their overall quality oflife slightly higher than those
who are still working.
So just slightly.
Very quickly, somewhere betweenyears one and two, retirees hit
a low point and they just startcrying.
It just doesn't stop.
No, they don't cry, but theyare sad and in large part that's
(02:09):
because they're like I justworked a job for 20, 30 years
and now I really don't know whatI'm going to do for purpose and
fulfillment.
That quality of life, as theysay here, beginning in year
three, starts to recover, butonly slowly, and it's not until
they are eight or more yearsinto retirement we finally see
their ratings improve to whenthey were still working.
That's powerful.
Now I can also give you realguidance of someone not fun but
(02:30):
important to hear.
This was today when I'mrecording this.
On Wednesday, so Monday, I wasspeaking to a new client and
they were upset that they had $3million and I said listen, I
don't know why you're sayingthat.
I don't hear that often thatsomeone's upset that they have
$3 million, but tell me more.
And she said you're missing it.
I have a bad degree of sciaticaand I want to travel in
(02:50):
retirement and now I don't thinkI'm going to be able to do that
to the extent I'd like I said,tell me more.
She said well, I feel like Icould have done everything I
wanted to do and more with $2million in retirement.
So I've been working the lastfour or five years thinking I
just don't know if I have enough.
When now I realize I do haveenough, and now I've got this
health issue, I don't know ifI'm going to get over.
So I'm thinking of all of youout there who are like I can
(03:13):
never have too much money.
I get that and that's, by theway, how most of us feel.
Oh, I could always do somethingto find more money, but there
truly does become a point whereyou do have too much, and that
example should illustrate that.
So a few stats that I want toillustrate here.
75% of pre-retirees believethey will find their lives
satisfying in retirement, butonly 54% of retirees had that
(03:35):
experience.
I actually thought that was anencouraging stat when I read
that the first time.
Some of you are like what'sencouraging about that?
Less people actually findsatisfaction than they initially
thought.
This is still a good amount ofpeople that do enjoy their
retirement, so that to me isactually encouraging.
(04:16):
No-transcript that come to me,reach out going.
I want to retire early withconfidence financially, make
sure I'm there and then purpose.
I'll figure all that stuff out.
And then what happens is thefollowing.
You can see here they in fact,for many, after the first two
years of retirement theyexperienced something similar to
a mild depression weakenedself-esteem, loss of direction,
(04:39):
loss of purpose, much reducedlevels of motivation and
open-mindedness.
They might be a ManchesterUnited supporter, just kidding.
I'm a soccer fan, okay, so ifyou guys watch English soccer
games, that's what I'm talkingabout here.
They go on to say this, which Ithink is relevant Nobody
mentions the existential crisisthat comes free with your senior
(05:00):
discount.
I just thought that was a goodquote.
They go on to say, sure,sitting around in a robe all day
is fun occasionally, but wearit every day and you're not
enjoying life.
You're slowly turning into asad velour Hopefully I'm saying
that right Ghost haunting yourown house.
So lots of things that theytalk about in this article.
I'm not going to bore you todeath with all of them.
Some of them are reallyimportant stats.
(05:21):
The biggest thing I tell peopleif I'm trying to give them
confidence, is do not expectyour retirement to be linear.
My pet peeve is when people dothe following and I am very
transparent about this, as withmost things.
And someone came and they saidAri, I think I could get away
with spending $6,000 a month inretirement.
I said, I know you pretty welland I looked at your plan and I
think you could get away witheven less.
(05:41):
And they're like okay, maybe Icould do it.
I think maybe you're right.
I said, but I don't want you to.
Retirement is not about gettingaway with something.
You want to get away withsomething.
You want to get away with agreat plan.
Go work 30 more years tillyou're 90.
Your plan will look great.
Look, that's not why we'redoing this.
The goal is to go.
How early can I retire and notrun the risk of running out of
money?
That's the balance we need tothink about.
(06:03):
So I think this is a goodexample.
I want to illustrate this withsomething a client told me and
James a while ago.
James is the founder of Root,for those of you who do not know
.
So we're talking about what arecalled required minimum
distributions with a client,which is when you're going to
have to take out a certainamount of money from your
pre-tax 401ks, iras, things likethat.
Now they were like, hey, I seethat you're worried about this,
(06:27):
but I'm not that worried.
I was like, why Don't you wantto save on taxes?
They go, yeah, but, to behonest, you're telling me that
I'm gonna have to take up moremoney than I'll even need.
And I'm like, yeah, that's whywe need to save you on taxes.
And they're like, no, I thinkyou're missing the point.
I all I heard you say was I'mnot gonna run out of money, I'm
(06:56):
gonna have too much money thatI'll ever even need.
I said, oh, that's aninteresting way of looking about
it.
So, like dogs and Halloweencostumes, for most of human
history the concept of retiringwas about as plausible as time
travel.
You didn't retire from anything, you just worked until you died
or incapacitated by a tragicscythe-related accident while
harvesting wheat for your feudallord.
Look, I try to keep itlighthearted and fun here, okay,
so that's why I wanted toillustrate this.
This whole concept of aretirement is new.
(07:18):
In addition to an earlyretirement, some of you might
need income for 40 or 50 plusyears that concept.
That's why I don't love thetraditional 4% rule.
That are designed for aretirement of.
You know retire at 65, die at95, live 30 years, two kids,
white picket fence.
It does not apply to you.
Could you do it and could youmaybe be okay?
Sure, most of you don't want tobe okay.
(07:39):
You want to optimize.
So the third one that I wantedto illustrate here is is and I
really like the way they saidthis is to go.
You didn't leave your job whenyou retired.
You didn't.
You left a whole ecosystem that, for better or worse, gave you
life structure.
Most of you guys not all of you, but most of you guys you know
went to elementary school, thenmiddle school, then high school,
(08:00):
then maybe college, then got ajob, maybe some stuff in between
.
Take a gap year, you go travel,and now there's the first time
that you actually have to createyour own curriculum, and that
is not easy.
And some people go yeah, it'sjust gonna be like a light
switch, like, look, I'm stressedright now at work and then I'm
going to be not stressed, Idon't have to work.
But the timing of this isreally important.
(08:21):
Some people make this mistake.
They go oh, I need some sort ofplan, so I'm going to travel,
and then they go.
I don't want to travel, and ifI do travel.
It's in a different stage ofmind than I thought Others of
you truly are like no, I do wantto travel.
So let me give you a few stats.
Here they go.
The problem is, most people donot make plans.
Even if they say they do, fewerthan four in 10 people put even
(08:41):
a moderate amount of effortinto it.
The mistake I see people makeis they put tons of effort into
oh my gosh, what's the rightasset allocation.
Oh my gosh, should I convert tothe 22% bracket or 24% bracket?
And look, that's my job.
That's what I love.
My job is to do these things soyou can live your dream
retirement.
A big stat here.
Not fun, but important.
(09:02):
According to a 2017 GenerationsAhead study, a solid 62% of us
are more afraid of running outof money in retirement than of,
you know, death.
Let that sink in.
More Americans are afraid ofliving than dying.
If this isn't the most on-brandexample of 21st century
neurosis, I don't know what is.
So I'm going to link the wholearticle in here Lots of great
stats, lots of hobbies, lots ofideas and things that you can
(09:24):
get social and enjoy yourretirement.
I'm going to link it below, butjust wanted to give you this
insight, because I had a clientthat told me that this really
shared some helpful things forthem.
And if it makes you all outthere think 1% differently about
your retirement, that's why Ido this stuff Once again.
If you're looking for holisticplanning, a few options for you.
Number one is you can enroll inthe Academy, get access to the
(09:46):
software, start playing aroundwith the tool.
And for you, number one is youcan enroll in the Academy, get
access to the software, startplaying around with the tool,
and then, of course, we have ourfull service working with us on
an ongoing model.
Please, please, please, besmart about this.
Please know everything today,educational and informational
purposes only.
See you, guys next time.
Thank you for listening toanother episode of the early
retirement show.
If you have a question that youwant answered in a future
episode, you can always go to mywebsite.
(10:06):
Want answered in a futureepisode.
You can always go to my website, earlyretirementpodcastcom.
That'searlyretirementpodcastcom, and
you can go ahead and submit aquestion that I'll look to
answer in a future episode.
Thank you all for listening.
Please do rate it, review itand share it with someone who
you think would benefit fromthis information, if there's
anyone out there that you know,I certainly appreciate it and I
(10:27):
will see you all each week.
Hey guys, it's me again.
Please be smart about this.
Nothing in this podcast shouldbe construed as financial, tax
or legal advice.
Consult with your tax prepareror financial advisor before
taking any action.
This podcast is forinformational purposes only.
Welcome back to the Early Retirement Podcast.
Today we are going through afun article that my client sent
me and they told me this helpedthem in their early retirement.
And they told me not to saytheir name for security purposes
, but it's John.
No, it's not John, I'm justkidding.
But this is going to be a funepisode and it's an important
one, because if you have enoughmoney to retire, great.
(00:21):
That's a piece of the puzzle.
It doesn't solve everything andthere's a point where you have
plenty of money and go look,maybe I don't need 10 million,
maybe if I had 3 million or 2million, I could retire, spend
more time with family andfriends and do what I actually
want to do in retirement.
So I want to show you a fewstatistics that were really cool
in this article might make youthink a little differently when
it comes to an early retirement.
(00:42):
Once again, if you don't know,my name is Ari Taublieb.
I'm a certified financialplanner, I'm the host of the
early retirement podcast thatyou are listening slash watching
right now, and I'm the vicepresident here at Root Financial
Partners.
Now, if you're listening on thepodcast app, this is not going
anywhere.
Some of you guys have sent me afew notes going hey, are you
only doing the YouTube channelnow or is it what's happening?
(01:04):
I go everything's going to keepposting to the podcast app, per
usual.
That's a lot of your just dailyroutine weekly routine, should
I say and then I'm going to keepposting to YouTube as well,
because I like making contentthere where you can actually see
it and some people resonatewith that more trying to help
you all out.
So this article comes from areally cool company and you can
(01:25):
see in the upper left here oryou can just listen to what I'm
going to say.
It's called Barking Up theWrong Tree, which I just thought
was a cool name, and the titleof the article we're going to go
through is how do you have ahappy retirement Four secrets
from research.
The reason this video is titledpodcast three is because I only
think three of them are worthnoting.
They're all good, but three bigones.
Here's the first one and I amquoting this and you can see
they discuss exactly this in thearticle.
(01:46):
So I'm going to link the wholething if you want to read it.
But they say healthy retirees inthe first year of retirement
rate their overall quality oflife slightly higher than those
who are still working.
So just slightly.
Very quickly, somewhere betweenyears one and two, retirees hit
a low point and they just startcrying.
It just doesn't stop.
No, they don't cry, but theyare sad and in large part that's
(02:09):
because they're like I justworked a job for 20, 30 years
and now I really don't know whatI'm going to do for purpose and
fulfillment.
That quality of life, as theysay here, beginning in year
three, starts to recover, butonly slowly, and it's not until
they are eight or more yearsinto retirement we finally see
their ratings improve to whenthey were still working.
That's powerful.
Now I can also give you realguidance of someone not fun but
(02:30):
important to hear.
This was today when I'mrecording this.
On Wednesday, so Monday, I wasspeaking to a new client and
they were upset that they had $3million and I said listen, I
don't know why you're sayingthat.
I don't hear that often thatsomeone's upset that they have
$3 million, but tell me more.
And she said you're missing it.
I have a bad degree of sciaticaand I want to travel in
(02:50):
retirement and now I don't thinkI'm going to be able to do that
to the extent I'd like I said,tell me more.
She said well, I feel like Icould have done everything I
wanted to do and more with $2million in retirement.
So I've been working the lastfour or five years thinking I
just don't know if I have enough.
When now I realize I do haveenough, and now I've got this
health issue, I don't know ifI'm going to get over.
So I'm thinking of all of youout there who are like I can
(03:13):
never have too much money.
I get that and that's, by theway, how most of us feel.
Oh, I could always do somethingto find more money, but there
truly does become a point whereyou do have too much, and that
example should illustrate that.
So a few stats that I want toillustrate here.
75% of pre-retirees believethey will find their lives
satisfying in retirement, butonly 54% of retirees had that
(03:35):
experience.
I actually thought that was anencouraging stat when I read
that the first time.
Some of you are like what'sencouraging about that?
Less people actually findsatisfaction than they initially
thought.
This is still a good amount ofpeople that do enjoy their
retirement, so that to me isactually encouraging.
(04:16):
No-transcript that come to me,reach out going.
I want to retire early withconfidence financially, make
sure I'm there and then purpose.
I'll figure all that stuff out.
And then what happens is thefollowing.
You can see here they in fact,for many, after the first two
years of retirement theyexperienced something similar to
a mild depression weakenedself-esteem, loss of direction,
(04:39):
loss of purpose, much reducedlevels of motivation and
open-mindedness.
They might be a ManchesterUnited supporter, just kidding.
I'm a soccer fan, okay, so ifyou guys watch English soccer
games, that's what I'm talkingabout here.
They go on to say this, which Ithink is relevant Nobody
mentions the existential crisisthat comes free with your senior
(05:00):
discount.
I just thought that was a goodquote.
They go on to say, sure,sitting around in a robe all day
is fun occasionally, but wearit every day and you're not
enjoying life.
You're slowly turning into asad velour Hopefully I'm saying
that right Ghost haunting yourown house.
So lots of things that theytalk about in this article.
I'm not going to bore you todeath with all of them.
Some of them are reallyimportant stats.
(05:21):
The biggest thing I tell peopleif I'm trying to give them
confidence, is do not expectyour retirement to be linear.
My pet peeve is when people dothe following and I am very
transparent about this, as withmost things.
And someone came and they saidAri, I think I could get away
with spending $6,000 a month inretirement.
I said, I know you pretty welland I looked at your plan and I
think you could get away witheven less.
(05:41):
And they're like okay, maybe Icould do it.
I think maybe you're right.
I said, but I don't want you to.
Retirement is not about gettingaway with something.
You want to get away withsomething.
You want to get away with agreat plan.
Go work 30 more years tillyou're 90.
Your plan will look great.
Look, that's not why we'redoing this.
The goal is to go.
How early can I retire and notrun the risk of running out of
money?
That's the balance we need tothink about.
(06:03):
So I think this is a goodexample.
I want to illustrate this withsomething a client told me and
James a while ago.
James is the founder of Root,for those of you who do not know
.
So we're talking about what arecalled required minimum
distributions with a client,which is when you're going to
have to take out a certainamount of money from your
pre-tax 401ks, iras, things likethat.
Now they were like, hey, I seethat you're worried about this,
(06:27):
but I'm not that worried.
I was like, why Don't you wantto save on taxes?
They go, yeah, but, to behonest, you're telling me that
I'm gonna have to take up moremoney than I'll even need.
And I'm like, yeah, that's whywe need to save you on taxes.
And they're like, no, I thinkyou're missing the point.
I all I heard you say was I'mnot gonna run out of money, I'm
(06:56):
gonna have too much money thatI'll ever even need.
I said, oh, that's aninteresting way of looking about
it.
So, like dogs and Halloweencostumes, for most of human
history the concept of retiringwas about as plausible as time
travel.
You didn't retire from anything, you just worked until you died
or incapacitated by a tragicscythe-related accident while
harvesting wheat for your feudallord.
Look, I try to keep itlighthearted and fun here, okay,
so that's why I wanted toillustrate this.
This whole concept of aretirement is new.
(07:18):
In addition to an earlyretirement, some of you might
need income for 40 or 50 plusyears that concept.
That's why I don't love thetraditional 4% rule.
That are designed for aretirement of.
You know retire at 65, die at95, live 30 years, two kids,
white picket fence.
It does not apply to you.
Could you do it and could youmaybe be okay?
Sure, most of you don't want tobe okay.
(07:39):
You want to optimize.
So the third one that I wantedto illustrate here is is and I
really like the way they saidthis is to go.
You didn't leave your job whenyou retired.
You didn't.
You left a whole ecosystem that, for better or worse, gave you
life structure.
Most of you guys not all of you, but most of you guys you know
went to elementary school, thenmiddle school, then high school,
(08:00):
then maybe college, then got ajob, maybe some stuff in between
.
Take a gap year, you go travel,and now there's the first time
that you actually have to createyour own curriculum, and that
is not easy.
And some people go yeah, it'sjust gonna be like a light
switch, like, look, I'm stressedright now at work and then I'm
going to be not stressed, Idon't have to work.
But the timing of this isreally important.
(08:21):
Some people make this mistake.
They go oh, I need some sort ofplan, so I'm going to travel,
and then they go.
I don't want to travel, and ifI do travel.
It's in a different stage ofmind than I thought Others of
you truly are like no, I do wantto travel.
So let me give you a few stats.
Here they go.
The problem is, most people donot make plans.
Even if they say they do, fewerthan four in 10 people put even
(08:41):
a moderate amount of effortinto it.
The mistake I see people makeis they put tons of effort into
oh my gosh, what's the rightasset allocation.
Oh my gosh, should I convert tothe 22% bracket or 24% bracket?
And look, that's my job.
That's what I love.
My job is to do these things soyou can live your dream
retirement.
A big stat here.
Not fun, but important.
(09:02):
According to a 2017 GenerationsAhead study, a solid 62% of us
are more afraid of running outof money in retirement than of,
you know, death.
Let that sink in.
More Americans are afraid ofliving than dying.
If this isn't the most on-brandexample of 21st century
neurosis, I don't know what is.
So I'm going to link the wholearticle in here Lots of great
stats, lots of hobbies, lots ofideas and things that you can
(09:24):
get social and enjoy yourretirement.
I'm going to link it below, butjust wanted to give you this
insight, because I had a clientthat told me that this really
shared some helpful things forthem.
And if it makes you all outthere think 1% differently about
your retirement, that's why Ido this stuff Once again.
If you're looking for holisticplanning, a few options for you.
Number one is you can enroll inthe Academy, get access to the
(09:46):
software, start playing aroundwith the tool.
And for you, number one is youcan enroll in the Academy, get
access to the software, startplaying around with the tool,
and then, of course, we have ourfull service working with us on
an ongoing model.
Please, please, please, besmart about this.
Please know everything today,educational and informational
purposes only.
See you, guys next time.
Thank you for listening toanother episode of the early
retirement show.
If you have a question that youwant answered in a future
episode, you can always go to mywebsite.
(10:06):
Want answered in a futureepisode.
You can always go to my website, earlyretirementpodcastcom.
That'searlyretirementpodcastcom, and
you can go ahead and submit aquestion that I'll look to
answer in a future episode.
Thank you all for listening.
Please do rate it, review itand share it with someone who
you think would benefit fromthis information, if there's
anyone out there that you know,I certainly appreciate it and I
(10:27):
will see you all each week.
Hey guys, it's me again.
Please be smart about this.
Nothing in this podcast shouldbe construed as financial, tax
or legal advice.
Consult with your tax prepareror financial advisor before
taking any action.
This podcast is forinformational purposes only.
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