June 2, 2025 • 21 mins
Retiring early doesn’t mean cutting out everything you love, it means being intentional about what truly adds value to your life. In this episode of Root Talks, we take a closer look at the spending choices that can either delay or accelerate your path to early retirement.
We explore which tradeoffs are worth making, where small changes can have a big impact on your timeline, and why some expenses are still worth every penny. This isn’t just about saving money—it’s about aligning your spending with your values, your future goals, and the life you actually want to live.
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Advisory services are offered through Root Financial Partners, LLC, an SEC registered investment adviser. This content is intended for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered personalized investment, tax, or legal advice. We do not provide tax preparation or legal services. Always consult with your CPA or attorney regarding your specific situation.
Viewing this video does not create an advisory relationship with Root Financial. We only provide advisory services to clients under a written agreement. Investment strategies discussed may not be suitable for everyone. All investments involve risk, and past performance is not indicative of future results. Any opinions expressed are as of the date of recording and are subject to change.
Comments left on this video reflect the views and opinions of the individual commenters and do not necessarily represent the views of Root Financial Partners, LLC. Comments should not be considered a testimonial or endorsement of our services and have not been solicited or compensated. Root does not verify the accuracy of comments and is not responsible for their content.
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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):
I was talking to someone who said that they
wanted to retire early and theyasked if I should stop going out
to eat, and I said no, don'tavoid going out to eat just
because you want to retire early, but at the same time, don't go
out to eat for every mealbecause if you do, that really
will change how much longer youneed to work.
So in today's video if you'rewatching on YouTube or podcast,
if you're listening on any ofthe podcast apps I'm going to
(00:30):
tell you five things that reallydo make a difference if you
want to retire early, that Iwould consider either cutting
back or scaling back on, andthree things that I personally
love.
Paying for that I would notturn off.
And yes, it will shift my quoteunquote early retirement.
But the point in life is not toretire just for the sake of it,
it's to go.
Hey, if I do retire now, I canactually do what I want to do
and I'm not just retiring going.
Well, I can't really spend onwhat I want because I have a pet
(00:51):
peeve.
Many of you know this by now.
For those who don't, my petpeeve is when people say the
following I think I can get byin retirement spending $4,000 a
month.
I mean I think I can do it.
I think I can go back to likethe college days where I really
just lived off of eggs andpeanut butter sandwiches and
(01:12):
I'll say, I'm sure you could doit.
The point in life is not to getby.
How much would you love tospend Now?
Yes, sometimes I'll havesomeone say, well, you know, I
could get by on $4,000 a month,but I'd love to spend $10,000 a
month.
And I'll say great, is thatafter taxes?
Meaning you walk away with$10,000, a blank check, not a
blank check, a check filled with$10,000.
Not that anyone uses checksanymore, really and they go yeah
(01:32):
, that's what I'm looking for.
I said, great, that might meanthat you need to work five more
years.
And someone might reply saying,well, I'd actually rather only
work two more years.
If that means I can only spend$8,000 a month, that would still
be of interest, because Ireally don't want to work five
more years.
I have other people and I'd saythe majority of people go look,
I'm going to work as long as Ineed to so that I can really
(01:54):
spend that $10,000 a monthbecause that's what I want to
spend.
So today you might take an ideaaway that you go.
You know what that's reallygoing to shift what I'm doing
and that's what I try to do.
I try to keep these fun, I tryto keep them educational, but I
also want you to take action.
I hope that you leave and go.
Wow, this is one thing thatreally is different.
And if you do find there's onething that really helps, please
(02:16):
drop a comment below on YouTubesending me an email.
I love getting to hear from youguys, so we're going to start
hopping right in.
This is a list that I puttogether and, if you don't know
already, my name is Ari Taublieb.
I'm a certified financialplanner, I'm the host of this
podcast, the Early RetirementPodcast, and I am the chief
growth officer here at RootFinancial.
So the first one is cooking athome Now when people go out.
(02:40):
So I'm going to walk youthrough right now.
These are the five things toconsider either cutting back
entirely or scaling back on.
It does make a big difference.
So I'm curious.
I'm a curious person, so Ilooked up online.
I go hey, what would it mean tomy early retirement if I were
to only eat at home?
And ChatGPT said cooking athome can cut your food costs by
(03:01):
50% to 75% of the time, and sowhat I'll see too many people do
is go, well, that's a big deal.
50 to 75% of the time I'mabsolutely going to make
everything at home.
And then what they find is theygo to the grocery store and
they buy things they otherwisewould not have bought because
they're hungry at the grocerystore.
So the way I'll explain it toclients is everything about
(03:24):
retiring and optimizing is aboutmomentum.
So, for example, let's pretendthat you have a mortgage payment
and it actually really lightsyou up.
You're incentivized to go workharder, have that second job, or
you're actually just putting inextra hours at your current
role because you love getting tosee that mortgage balance go
(03:44):
down, hours at your current rolebecause you love getting to see
that mortgage balance go down.
Well, it might, on paper,actually make sense for you to
not pay down the mortgage andinvest the rest of the money in
a brokerage account, because ifyour mortgage rate is 5% but you
could invest and get, onaverage, 10% just using a
historical average of the S&P500, that might make more sense
on paper, but it doesn't feel asgood.
(04:05):
It just doesn't feel as real.
When you add a thousand bucksto your brokerage account, yes,
it helps, but when you pay downthat mortgage, you see that
balance go down.
It just feels better.
So sometimes the actualfinancial answer is not the
answer I'll recommend to clients.
So in this case, what I'll tellclients is what do you love
doing?
Do you go out to eat becausetruly and this is where we get
(04:26):
to know our clients really welldo you go out to eat truly
because you don't want to cook,because you had a long day?
Do you go out to eat trulybecause you like the taste of
food?
Why do you do it?
Now, most of the time it's abalance, but most people and
I'll use myself here I go out toeat with my fiance.
We're getting married in just afew months now and I'm very
excited, if you can't tell, andwe personally love the
(04:48):
restaurants that are new.
It just is exciting.
Maybe there's one thing welearn.
Maybe it's the ambiance.
I'm the weird guy that likesfinding out what the soap is in
the bathroom.
I know it's weird, but I justthink it's cool.
Is it the foam soap or is it adifferent kind of soap?
I just I'm into it, and so wego for the experience.
So we don't love going out toeat because I eat a lot and it
costs a lot of money, and evenif we could afford it, it
(05:11):
doesn't feel as good.
So this is a choice that we go.
We love spending on newrestaurants, so it might not be
great, but when a new one comesto town, we go to it.
That's our thing.
We also love breakfast burritos.
So once a month no brainer weare going to get breakfast
burritos.
There's a place called Wake andLate in Los Angeles and if you
live in LA or you travel to LA,you have to get this and tell me
(05:31):
if you think it's amazing,because it is, and if you don't
think so, that's a problem, butthat is the first thing.
So if you are like, hey, welove going out to eat, that's
what we do for date night everyweek, or it's just my thing, I'm
not saying cut it out.
I'm saying, hey, the reality isit does cost more.
But if it's one of those thingsthat allows you meaning, if you
get to celebrate by going outto a nice meal and you're
(05:53):
willing to work longer that day,well, if it's going to cost you
100 bucks for that meal, butyou worked way harder and
brought in $1,000, well then, itwould make sense to do so.
So, first thing is justawareness around eating out.
Are you doing it because you'relike, hey, I'm really just too
lazy to cook, or are you doingit because you're like, hey,
it's for the experience, notright or wrong?
Number two, this is a common onesubscription services.
(06:15):
So I have a client that came tome and they were paying for
Paramount Plus four times fourdifferent accounts.
This maybe should have beennumber one, because it's just so
easy.
Now, I say easy, that'sprobably the wrong word.
It's actually simple.
It's simple to understand allof your subscription services
because you can put it on aGoogle Sheet and see what you're
paying.
(06:36):
Or you can use mintcom.
Or a lot of people use RocketMoney.
I know a lot of people that areusing oh, it's a Monarch Money,
that's a.
If there's one you really like,put it in the comments below to
help other people find whatthey use for budgeting.
But this is something that'svery simple to find out, but
(06:58):
it's not always easy to cancelthose subscriptions.
So that's something that ifyou're like, hey, I'm really not
paying for ESPN, for example.
Myself, I watch a lot of soccerand I once signed up for this
one service and I needed it forthat one game.
Well, I'm going to put areminder on my calendar to
cancel it, but there have beentimes where I have not.
Go check your subscriptions.
(07:18):
That's just simple, easy stuff.
Number three there's a big one Ithought about putting this
number one as well but new carsand upgrades to cars.
Okay, so I have a client thathad bought a car and I believe
in buying cars in cash.
However, that's not the mostfinancially optimal thing to do.
You could buy a car, you couldput a down payment, you could
get a 3% interest and invest therest, but I just find life is
(07:42):
simpler when you don't haveanother payment.
It just makes it easier.
Some people go.
That's not optimal and theywould be correct.
But I believe there'soptimization and there's
simplicity and there's a balanceto that.
Believe there's optimizationand there's simplicity and
there's a balance to that.
So when I buy a new car, I buyit in full, and I bought a Mazda
.
My family has four Mazdas, sowe are Mazda people and I bought
(08:03):
it because I'm not a car guy.
It's not my thing and I lovethat it doesn't break down often
and it gets me from A to B andthat's really all I need.
But my car was having lots ofissues.
So I took it to the shop andthey said it was going to cost.
The car I bought was about$23,000.
And they said that if I wantedto upgrade the car it wouldn't
be very much money.
I think it was like 3,500 bucks.
And then I had an issue whereand I'm going to butcher the
(08:26):
name it wasn't the engine, butit was the alternator.
I think the alternator wasgoing to be like $5,000.
So they're like you shouldreally just upgrade your car,
since you just bought this one.
And I personally am like look,the reason I'm an advisor is
because my parents were screwedover by multiple advisors and
they were taken advantage of.
So it's hard for me to know hey, is this person giving me good
(08:47):
advice at the dealership?
Even if they're well intended,I don't really know.
And so I'm very hesitant and Inaturally have a skeptical bias
where what I'm going to do isactually say hey, maybe that
makes sense on paper, but I'mgoing to keep my current car and
I'm going to pay themaintenance and then, if I want
to buy a different car in thefuture because I want a
different car.
That's a different story, butthe reason I bring it up is I'll
(09:10):
see lots of clients that have acar that go yeah, I'm going to
absolutely buy that new car whenit comes out.
And they keep upgrading theircurrent car.
But they'll upgrade it for, youknow, alternator brakes $3,000.
Oh, they need to update anengine.
Oh, another $2,000.
Oh, and then all of a suddenthey're paying just small
amounts over time when it reallywould have made sense for
(09:31):
safety purposes to buy a new car.
So the last thing I want is forsomeone to over-optimize which
I've had a client do this, andthey might be listening if they
know who they are, where theyare really trying to get every
inch out of that car, which I'mnot against, I like the
philosophy.
But if you're trying to getevery inch out and now you're
not driving safely, that defeatsthe purpose of all the
investing you've ever done.
(09:51):
Driving is literally probablythe thing that can kill you the
fastest in your entire life.
That's the thing that scares meabout driving is I go look.
Even if I'm trying to be asresponsible as I can, there have
been times where I am tiredbehind the wheel.
I think I'm a responsibleperson.
I try to pull over when I feelthat way, but if there's other
people who have felt that youdon't want to be in a car where
the brakes are not optimal.
(10:12):
So the point here is, please,safety overall.
That would defeat all theinvesting If you got in a car
crash and now you can't travelin retirement.
So not trying to get dark here,just real life stuff.
Number four impulse purchases.
So that I try to limit.
That is something I really tellmy clients if you're going to
buy something, you're using the24 hour rule.
Now, if you're at an airportand you're thirsty and you're
(10:33):
like, why would I spend $8 forwater, I will actually say this
is what I do, recommend buyingit.
And they go what do you mean?
That seems like somethingthat's so frivolous.
It's $8.
Shouldn't I have just broughtmy water bottle?
I go, you should have, but ifyou didn't, don't not drink
water.
And yes, it's.
But that's not going to dictatewhether or not you retire early.
So I certainly encourage you,don't, simply, which I have a
(10:56):
lot of people who they're tryingto retire early and if that
means cutting every cornerimaginable.
They're trying to do it becausethey really don't like where
they work or it's just they'refed up with it.
I resonate, I can empathizewith it, because I've been at a
role that I didn't love.
But what I don't want you to dois go honestly and not drink
water Like a best case scenario.
(11:17):
If you really are itching to notbuy an $8 water, go ask for a
water cup and then fill it upwith the water fountain.
But then now you're gonna haveto keep doing that.
So just buy the $8 water bottle.
It's not gonna feel good butover time you'll realize hey,
this was actually somethingworth doing and I had a client
actually send me an emailrecently saying that there was a
Chick-fil-A at the airport hewas in and traditionally he
(11:38):
would have never been able tobuy.
I think it was like $11 forlike eight Chick-fil-A nuggets
and he said I would have neverdone it because that price does
not resonate with me.
But listening to the podcastand being a client at Root, I
know I'm going to be more thanokay.
So that's something that I, oldme, couldn't have done.
And now I do it and I don'tthink twice.
So we're not about spendingfrivolously for the sake of it,
(11:59):
but please be reasonable withyourself and the number five.
So luxury vacations, I will sayif you're still working today
and it's a stressful job, it'sreally hard.
I give you kudos if you cantravel and truly be away from
work, because I find most people, if they're in a high-paying
job and there's a lot of stressinvolved even when they're
(12:21):
traveling so luxury vacations ifyou are working a really
stressful job, most of the timeyou're still going to be working
.
Hopefully you can truly turnoff.
That would be my goal.
We are very strong about that.
We're very passionate aboutmaking sure when people are out
of the office, they truly areout of the office.
There's no Slack, there's noemail, but it's difficult and
(12:41):
the reality is, if you're takinga luxury vacation to reset, I'm
all for it, truly.
I personally have a budget.
I spend $14,000 a year ontravel that I can see do as I
see fit.
If I want one big fourteenthousand dollar trip, awesome.
If I want three mini trips orwhatever a mix, I can do that.
But I like having that as myguardrails.
(13:02):
And if I get a bigger bonusbecause performance or otherwise
or whatever it is I want tomake sure that I'm sticking to
that fourteen thousand dollaramount because that's my annual
target.
I feel good about it.
I actually like having that,but it's not saying I've ever
gone over it.
I have, and in those instanceswhere I go over it I will cut
(13:23):
back other things so that I'mstill on track for my goals of I
wanna one day buy a particularhome I want, and this is my big
kind of frivolous purchase thatI will do in the future.
Some of you guys are going tothink I'm nuts and I don't blame
you with this, but this issomething.
Maybe I'll do it when I'm 70.
I want I was at a Chicago hotelonce.
I don't know what the name ofthis is, but it spins your car
(13:45):
so you can install it in yourdriveway.
I have no idea how much itcosts.
I've never seen it in anyresidential home.
It might look crazy.
It might look like you have anIron man house where I might
actually see it and then notwant it, but I thought it was so
cool at the hotel where you go,park your car and it'll just
spin it around for you and itdoes it pretty quick.
So you have a remote controland you go and then all of a
(14:06):
sudden the car is facing theright way to depart and I just
thought I'd feel like Batman ifI had that.
So maybe in the future that'llbe my frivolous purchase, but
not for a while.
So those are five things toconsider scaling back or cutting
in terms of keeping.
So these are my personal threethings that I tell my clients.
I love.
Keeping these, please.
I would imagine you should dothe same.
High speed Wi-Fi.
(14:28):
Nothing is worse than slowWi-Fi or having a computer that
lags.
So if your computer is going alittle slower, please, I
recommend, go to the Genius Bar.
Go to have someone a friend, aneighbor, a coworker to speed up
your computer, whether that'spaying for high you know fast
Wi-Fi, or whether that's havingfor high you know fast wifi, or
whether that's having the latestcomputer.
Don't just buy a computer everysingle year for the sake of it,
(14:50):
but the faster you can operateif you get that little spinning
wheel of death.
That thing causes me moreanxiety than anything in the
world.
So I encourage you certainlypay for products that work well.
If they don't work, don't justhold on to it until and hope
that eventually it gets better.
Basic insurance, okay.
So this many of you know.
(15:10):
But I say there's three typesof insurance underinsured,
overinsured and unnecessarilyinsured.
I don't need you unnecessarilypaying for something.
I do not want you underinsuredand you cannot be exactly
insured, so I want youoverinsured and that is
something that is insurance Ipay for and I hope I never get
my money back.
I am paying, hoping that Inever die, but if I were to die,
(15:31):
then Alice would be receivingthe insurance proceeds from that
.
So that is my no-brainer.
It's really cheap and I love it.
I feel good about it.
Every day I go to bed honestlythinking, hey, if something
happened to me, for whateverreason, if I die on the soccer
field which I hope I never do,die on the soccer field, but it
wouldn't be the worst way to go.
But anyways, here I go ramblingagain.
(15:53):
If I were to die on the soccerfield, alice would make sure
that our future children wouldbe able to go to college and I
still want them to have someskin in the game.
So I want to get that set up acertain way, because I had that
and it really motivated myself.
But I love knowing that therewould be certain procedures and
protocols in place.
And then number three this is anodd expense.
(16:14):
Okay, some of you are going tobe like, are you really paying
for this?
But I just love it.
Okay, some of you are going tobe like you don't really do this
, do you?
But I do.
Okay, so the expense that I payfor it's not meal delivery
service.
Okay, because things like blueapron, which we've tested out,
we'd find they don't really workwell for us because we're
somewhat picky eaters.
(16:35):
But what we do is we meal prep.
I don't think it's odd, I thinkit's cool, but I will meal prep
on a Sunday with my parents.
This is the ultimate hack toconnecting with your parents.
It's hard, at least for us.
We live about an hour away fromour parents both myself and
Alice and it's one of thosethings that I can call my mom
(16:55):
and I can talk to her, and it'sawesome.
I can call my dad.
Do the same.
But if we're meal prepping, it'san odd camaraderie that it
brings, and when the chicken'sin the oven, you're ending up
talking a lot, but you're alsostill feeling purposeful.
So it's probably just like aproductivity issue of my
household that we always feellike we have to be productive,
but meal prepping gives us a tonof time with our family.
(17:17):
So we're not using like a mealservice like blue apron or cook
unity or um, what are some ofthe other ones and there's a lot
of them out there HelloFresh.
We don't do that, we're notgonna do.
We tested out a few differentservices and what we find is
like we need to be reallyexcited for lunch or we're not
gonna eat it.
I know that's bad, but I'm notgonna eat lunch unless I'm hyped
(17:39):
, knowing hey, oh my gosh, it'sgonna be this, it's gonna be
great, I made it, I'm excitedfor it.
So that's one thing that wewill meal prep and sometimes I
find that I'll buy more thingsthan I need and then I'll end up
making dinner with my parents,so I stayed there longer.
What can I do to use money toget more time with my family?
It sounds kind of bad that way,because you're like, can't you
(18:00):
just hang out with them?
Like, why do you need money tohang out with them?
It's not really the money, it'sthe fact that we're meal
prepping and that costs money.
But I'm purchasing time.
Many of you know my sauna story,but I'll leave you all with
this.
So my dad loves Facebook.
He is truly addicted toFacebook and he knows it.
He loves getting to scroll.
He's like a five-year-old whojust found TikTok for the first
(18:21):
time, and my dad's in hisseventies, which I love.
He has a youthful energy, oneof the most fun people to ever
be around.
I love my dad, but my dadsometimes it's hard to be
present with us.
So my brothers said, hey, wewant to connect with our dad
more.
So one of the things that we'vepurchased which is one of my
favorite purchases, if not myfavorite of all time is I bought
(18:41):
a sauna that wouldintentionally overheat my dad's
phone, so when he's in the saunahe cannot scroll.
He has to talk to us.
Many people, including myclients, hey, ari, do you really
need to buy a sauna just totalk to your dad?
Can't you just tell him to sitdown, put down the phone?
I go, you try telling afive-year-old to put down the
phone.
They're just not going tolisten every time.
So this is something that webought because we wanted a sauna
(19:03):
anyways.
Now we have one.
Now we sleep better.
We used it all the time.
Now I don't live at home, mydad uses it.
So here it is, something that Ipurchased that he probably
never would have ever bought onhis own, but now he loves it.
Now he sleeps better.
Can't exactly quantify thatimpact on your health.
So these are just some new,different ideas.
Maybe you learn one thing, maybeyou learn nothing, from today.
(19:23):
Hopefully it was entertainingat the least.
But if there was one thing youlearned, please drop a comment,
please do let me know.
You can always submit aquestion if you want me to
discuss any topic in the futureat earlyretirementpodcastcom.
And that is it Once again.
You all should know that I havemultiple ways of working with
us.
We have the Early RetirementAcademy.
That is just if you want to goplay around.
(19:46):
There's a budgeting tool.
You can go find out when youcan retire early.
You get to build your own plan.
And then, of course, there'sthe formal process, working with
Root, where you can go to ourwebsite, rootfinancialcom, click
, get started and you can followthose steps to begin working
with us.
That's it.
See you next time.
Thank you all, as always, forlistening to the Early
Retirement Podcast.
I love getting to host theseshows and make different content
(20:07):
for you guys every single week.
I've not missed a single weekin years, and that is because I
love getting to do this.
Now, please be smart about this.
Before you actually execute anystrategy that you see me talk
about or hear me talk about,should I say Please talk to your
financial advisor, your taxpreparer, your estate attorney,
please be smart about this.
None of this should beconstrued as financial advice.
(20:30):
This is for fun, educational,informational purposes only.
Once again, just quickdisclaimer here.
Guys, please be smart aboutthis.
Appreciate you listening, asalways.
You can, of course, submit aquestion on my website,
earlyretirementpodcastcom.
If you, of course, want me toaddress a specific case study or
topic.
I will not promise I can get toit, but I respond to every
(20:53):
single person and if I find itwill be helpful for a lot of
people, I will absolutely makean episode on it, at the very
least give you some insight.
That's it, thanks, guys.
I was talking to someone who said that they
wanted to retire early and theyasked if I should stop going out
to eat, and I said no, don'tavoid going out to eat just
because you want to retire early, but at the same time, don't go
out to eat for every mealbecause if you do, that really
will change how much longer youneed to work.
So in today's video if you'rewatching on YouTube or podcast,
if you're listening on any ofthe podcast apps I'm going to
(00:30):
tell you five things that reallydo make a difference if you
want to retire early, that Iwould consider either cutting
back or scaling back on, andthree things that I personally
love.
Paying for that I would notturn off.
And yes, it will shift my quoteunquote early retirement.
But the point in life is not toretire just for the sake of it,
it's to go.
Hey, if I do retire now, I canactually do what I want to do
and I'm not just retiring going.
Well, I can't really spend onwhat I want because I have a pet
(00:51):
peeve.
Many of you know this by now.
For those who don't, my petpeeve is when people say the
following I think I can get byin retirement spending $4,000 a
month.
I mean I think I can do it.
I think I can go back to likethe college days where I really
just lived off of eggs andpeanut butter sandwiches and
(01:12):
I'll say, I'm sure you could doit.
The point in life is not to getby.
How much would you love tospend Now?
Yes, sometimes I'll havesomeone say, well, you know, I
could get by on $4,000 a month,but I'd love to spend $10,000 a
month.
And I'll say great, is thatafter taxes?
Meaning you walk away with$10,000, a blank check, not a
blank check, a check filled with$10,000.
Not that anyone uses checksanymore, really and they go yeah
(01:32):
, that's what I'm looking for.
I said, great, that might meanthat you need to work five more
years.
And someone might reply saying,well, I'd actually rather only
work two more years.
If that means I can only spend$8,000 a month, that would still
be of interest, because Ireally don't want to work five
more years.
I have other people and I'd saythe majority of people go look,
I'm going to work as long as Ineed to so that I can really
(01:54):
spend that $10,000 a monthbecause that's what I want to
spend.
So today you might take an ideaaway that you go.
You know what that's reallygoing to shift what I'm doing
and that's what I try to do.
I try to keep these fun, I tryto keep them educational, but I
also want you to take action.
I hope that you leave and go.
Wow, this is one thing thatreally is different.
And if you do find there's onething that really helps, please
(02:16):
drop a comment below on YouTubesending me an email.
I love getting to hear from youguys, so we're going to start
hopping right in.
This is a list that I puttogether and, if you don't know
already, my name is Ari Taublieb.
I'm a certified financialplanner, I'm the host of this
podcast, the Early RetirementPodcast, and I am the chief
growth officer here at RootFinancial.
So the first one is cooking athome Now when people go out.
(02:40):
So I'm going to walk youthrough right now.
These are the five things toconsider either cutting back
entirely or scaling back on.
It does make a big difference.
So I'm curious.
I'm a curious person, so Ilooked up online.
I go hey, what would it mean tomy early retirement if I were
to only eat at home?
And ChatGPT said cooking athome can cut your food costs by
(03:01):
50% to 75% of the time, and sowhat I'll see too many people do
is go, well, that's a big deal.
50 to 75% of the time I'mabsolutely going to make
everything at home.
And then what they find is theygo to the grocery store and
they buy things they otherwisewould not have bought because
they're hungry at the grocerystore.
So the way I'll explain it toclients is everything about
(03:24):
retiring and optimizing is aboutmomentum.
So, for example, let's pretendthat you have a mortgage payment
and it actually really lightsyou up.
You're incentivized to go workharder, have that second job, or
you're actually just putting inextra hours at your current
role because you love getting tosee that mortgage balance go
(03:44):
down, hours at your current rolebecause you love getting to see
that mortgage balance go down.
Well, it might, on paper,actually make sense for you to
not pay down the mortgage andinvest the rest of the money in
a brokerage account, because ifyour mortgage rate is 5% but you
could invest and get, onaverage, 10% just using a
historical average of the S&P500, that might make more sense
on paper, but it doesn't feel asgood.
(04:05):
It just doesn't feel as real.
When you add a thousand bucksto your brokerage account, yes,
it helps, but when you pay downthat mortgage, you see that
balance go down.
It just feels better.
So sometimes the actualfinancial answer is not the
answer I'll recommend to clients.
So in this case, what I'll tellclients is what do you love
doing?
Do you go out to eat becausetruly and this is where we get
(04:26):
to know our clients really welldo you go out to eat truly
because you don't want to cook,because you had a long day?
Do you go out to eat trulybecause you like the taste of
food?
Why do you do it?
Now, most of the time it's abalance, but most people and
I'll use myself here I go out toeat with my fiance.
We're getting married in just afew months now and I'm very
excited, if you can't tell, andwe personally love the
(04:48):
restaurants that are new.
It just is exciting.
Maybe there's one thing welearn.
Maybe it's the ambiance.
I'm the weird guy that likesfinding out what the soap is in
the bathroom.
I know it's weird, but I justthink it's cool.
Is it the foam soap or is it adifferent kind of soap?
I just I'm into it, and so wego for the experience.
So we don't love going out toeat because I eat a lot and it
costs a lot of money, and evenif we could afford it, it
(05:11):
doesn't feel as good.
So this is a choice that we go.
We love spending on newrestaurants, so it might not be
great, but when a new one comesto town, we go to it.
That's our thing.
We also love breakfast burritos.
So once a month no brainer weare going to get breakfast
burritos.
There's a place called Wake andLate in Los Angeles and if you
live in LA or you travel to LA,you have to get this and tell me
(05:31):
if you think it's amazing,because it is, and if you don't
think so, that's a problem, butthat is the first thing.
So if you are like, hey, welove going out to eat, that's
what we do for date night everyweek, or it's just my thing, I'm
not saying cut it out.
I'm saying, hey, the reality isit does cost more.
But if it's one of those thingsthat allows you meaning, if you
get to celebrate by going outto a nice meal and you're
(05:53):
willing to work longer that day,well, if it's going to cost you
100 bucks for that meal, butyou worked way harder and
brought in $1,000, well then, itwould make sense to do so.
So, first thing is justawareness around eating out.
Are you doing it because you'relike, hey, I'm really just too
lazy to cook, or are you doingit because you're like, hey,
it's for the experience, notright or wrong?
Number two, this is a common onesubscription services.
(06:15):
So I have a client that came tome and they were paying for
Paramount Plus four times fourdifferent accounts.
This maybe should have beennumber one, because it's just so
easy.
Now, I say easy, that'sprobably the wrong word.
It's actually simple.
It's simple to understand allof your subscription services
because you can put it on aGoogle Sheet and see what you're
paying.
(06:36):
Or you can use mintcom.
Or a lot of people use RocketMoney.
I know a lot of people that areusing oh, it's a Monarch Money,
that's a.
If there's one you really like,put it in the comments below to
help other people find whatthey use for budgeting.
But this is something that'svery simple to find out, but
(06:58):
it's not always easy to cancelthose subscriptions.
So that's something that ifyou're like, hey, I'm really not
paying for ESPN, for example.
Myself, I watch a lot of soccerand I once signed up for this
one service and I needed it forthat one game.
Well, I'm going to put areminder on my calendar to
cancel it, but there have beentimes where I have not.
Go check your subscriptions.
(07:18):
That's just simple, easy stuff.
Number three there's a big one Ithought about putting this
number one as well but new carsand upgrades to cars.
Okay, so I have a client thathad bought a car and I believe
in buying cars in cash.
However, that's not the mostfinancially optimal thing to do.
You could buy a car, you couldput a down payment, you could
get a 3% interest and invest therest, but I just find life is
(07:42):
simpler when you don't haveanother payment.
It just makes it easier.
Some people go.
That's not optimal and theywould be correct.
But I believe there'soptimization and there's
simplicity and there's a balanceto that.
Believe there's optimizationand there's simplicity and
there's a balance to that.
So when I buy a new car, I buyit in full, and I bought a Mazda
.
My family has four Mazdas, sowe are Mazda people and I bought
(08:03):
it because I'm not a car guy.
It's not my thing and I lovethat it doesn't break down often
and it gets me from A to B andthat's really all I need.
But my car was having lots ofissues.
So I took it to the shop andthey said it was going to cost.
The car I bought was about$23,000.
And they said that if I wantedto upgrade the car it wouldn't
be very much money.
I think it was like 3,500 bucks.
And then I had an issue whereand I'm going to butcher the
(08:26):
name it wasn't the engine, butit was the alternator.
I think the alternator wasgoing to be like $5,000.
So they're like you shouldreally just upgrade your car,
since you just bought this one.
And I personally am like look,the reason I'm an advisor is
because my parents were screwedover by multiple advisors and
they were taken advantage of.
So it's hard for me to know hey, is this person giving me good
(08:47):
advice at the dealership?
Even if they're well intended,I don't really know.
And so I'm very hesitant and Inaturally have a skeptical bias
where what I'm going to do isactually say hey, maybe that
makes sense on paper, but I'mgoing to keep my current car and
I'm going to pay themaintenance and then, if I want
to buy a different car in thefuture because I want a
different car.
That's a different story, butthe reason I bring it up is I'll
(09:10):
see lots of clients that have acar that go yeah, I'm going to
absolutely buy that new car whenit comes out.
And they keep upgrading theircurrent car.
But they'll upgrade it for, youknow, alternator brakes $3,000.
Oh, they need to update anengine.
Oh, another $2,000.
Oh, and then all of a suddenthey're paying just small
amounts over time when it reallywould have made sense for
(09:31):
safety purposes to buy a new car.
So the last thing I want is forsomeone to over-optimize which
I've had a client do this, andthey might be listening if they
know who they are, where theyare really trying to get every
inch out of that car, which I'mnot against, I like the
philosophy.
But if you're trying to getevery inch out and now you're
not driving safely, that defeatsthe purpose of all the
investing you've ever done.
(09:51):
Driving is literally probablythe thing that can kill you the
fastest in your entire life.
That's the thing that scares meabout driving is I go look.
Even if I'm trying to be asresponsible as I can, there have
been times where I am tiredbehind the wheel.
I think I'm a responsibleperson.
I try to pull over when I feelthat way, but if there's other
people who have felt that youdon't want to be in a car where
the brakes are not optimal.
(10:12):
So the point here is, please,safety overall.
That would defeat all theinvesting If you got in a car
crash and now you can't travelin retirement.
So not trying to get dark here,just real life stuff.
Number four impulse purchases.
So that I try to limit.
That is something I really tellmy clients if you're going to
buy something, you're using the24 hour rule.
Now, if you're at an airportand you're thirsty and you're
(10:33):
like, why would I spend $8 forwater, I will actually say this
is what I do, recommend buyingit.
And they go what do you mean?
That seems like somethingthat's so frivolous.
It's $8.
Shouldn't I have just broughtmy water bottle?
I go, you should have, but ifyou didn't, don't not drink
water.
And yes, it's.
But that's not going to dictatewhether or not you retire early.
So I certainly encourage you,don't, simply, which I have a
(10:56):
lot of people who they're tryingto retire early and if that
means cutting every cornerimaginable.
They're trying to do it becausethey really don't like where
they work or it's just they'refed up with it.
I resonate, I can empathizewith it, because I've been at a
role that I didn't love.
But what I don't want you to dois go honestly and not drink
water Like a best case scenario.
(11:17):
If you really are itching to notbuy an $8 water, go ask for a
water cup and then fill it upwith the water fountain.
But then now you're gonna haveto keep doing that.
So just buy the $8 water bottle.
It's not gonna feel good butover time you'll realize hey,
this was actually somethingworth doing and I had a client
actually send me an emailrecently saying that there was a
Chick-fil-A at the airport hewas in and traditionally he
(11:38):
would have never been able tobuy.
I think it was like $11 forlike eight Chick-fil-A nuggets
and he said I would have neverdone it because that price does
not resonate with me.
But listening to the podcastand being a client at Root, I
know I'm going to be more thanokay.
So that's something that I, oldme, couldn't have done.
And now I do it and I don'tthink twice.
So we're not about spendingfrivolously for the sake of it,
(11:59):
but please be reasonable withyourself and the number five.
So luxury vacations, I will sayif you're still working today
and it's a stressful job, it'sreally hard.
I give you kudos if you cantravel and truly be away from
work, because I find most people, if they're in a high-paying
job and there's a lot of stressinvolved even when they're
(12:21):
traveling so luxury vacations ifyou are working a really
stressful job, most of the timeyou're still going to be working
.
Hopefully you can truly turnoff.
That would be my goal.
We are very strong about that.
We're very passionate aboutmaking sure when people are out
of the office, they truly areout of the office.
There's no Slack, there's noemail, but it's difficult and
(12:41):
the reality is, if you're takinga luxury vacation to reset, I'm
all for it, truly.
I personally have a budget.
I spend $14,000 a year ontravel that I can see do as I
see fit.
If I want one big fourteenthousand dollar trip, awesome.
If I want three mini trips orwhatever a mix, I can do that.
But I like having that as myguardrails.
(13:02):
And if I get a bigger bonusbecause performance or otherwise
or whatever it is I want tomake sure that I'm sticking to
that fourteen thousand dollaramount because that's my annual
target.
I feel good about it.
I actually like having that,but it's not saying I've ever
gone over it.
I have, and in those instanceswhere I go over it I will cut
(13:23):
back other things so that I'mstill on track for my goals of I
wanna one day buy a particularhome I want, and this is my big
kind of frivolous purchase thatI will do in the future.
Some of you guys are going tothink I'm nuts and I don't blame
you with this, but this issomething.
Maybe I'll do it when I'm 70.
I want I was at a Chicago hotelonce.
I don't know what the name ofthis is, but it spins your car
(13:45):
so you can install it in yourdriveway.
I have no idea how much itcosts.
I've never seen it in anyresidential home.
It might look crazy.
It might look like you have anIron man house where I might
actually see it and then notwant it, but I thought it was so
cool at the hotel where you go,park your car and it'll just
spin it around for you and itdoes it pretty quick.
So you have a remote controland you go and then all of a
(14:06):
sudden the car is facing theright way to depart and I just
thought I'd feel like Batman ifI had that.
So maybe in the future that'llbe my frivolous purchase, but
not for a while.
So those are five things toconsider scaling back or cutting
in terms of keeping.
So these are my personal threethings that I tell my clients.
I love.
Keeping these, please.
I would imagine you should dothe same.
High speed Wi-Fi.
(14:28):
Nothing is worse than slowWi-Fi or having a computer that
lags.
So if your computer is going alittle slower, please, I
recommend, go to the Genius Bar.
Go to have someone a friend, aneighbor, a coworker to speed up
your computer, whether that'spaying for high you know fast
Wi-Fi, or whether that's havingfor high you know fast wifi, or
whether that's having the latestcomputer.
Don't just buy a computer everysingle year for the sake of it,
(14:50):
but the faster you can operateif you get that little spinning
wheel of death.
That thing causes me moreanxiety than anything in the
world.
So I encourage you certainlypay for products that work well.
If they don't work, don't justhold on to it until and hope
that eventually it gets better.
Basic insurance, okay.
So this many of you know.
(15:10):
But I say there's three typesof insurance underinsured,
overinsured and unnecessarilyinsured.
I don't need you unnecessarilypaying for something.
I do not want you underinsuredand you cannot be exactly
insured, so I want youoverinsured and that is
something that is insurance Ipay for and I hope I never get
my money back.
I am paying, hoping that Inever die, but if I were to die,
(15:31):
then Alice would be receivingthe insurance proceeds from that
.
So that is my no-brainer.
It's really cheap and I love it.
I feel good about it.
Every day I go to bed honestlythinking, hey, if something
happened to me, for whateverreason, if I die on the soccer
field which I hope I never do,die on the soccer field, but it
wouldn't be the worst way to go.
But anyways, here I go ramblingagain.
(15:53):
If I were to die on the soccerfield, alice would make sure
that our future children wouldbe able to go to college and I
still want them to have someskin in the game.
So I want to get that set up acertain way, because I had that
and it really motivated myself.
But I love knowing that therewould be certain procedures and
protocols in place.
And then number three this is anodd expense.
(16:14):
Okay, some of you are going tobe like, are you really paying
for this?
But I just love it.
Okay, some of you are going tobe like you don't really do this
, do you?
But I do.
Okay, so the expense that I payfor it's not meal delivery
service.
Okay, because things like blueapron, which we've tested out,
we'd find they don't really workwell for us because we're
somewhat picky eaters.
(16:35):
But what we do is we meal prep.
I don't think it's odd, I thinkit's cool, but I will meal prep
on a Sunday with my parents.
This is the ultimate hack toconnecting with your parents.
It's hard, at least for us.
We live about an hour away fromour parents both myself and
Alice and it's one of thosethings that I can call my mom
(16:55):
and I can talk to her, and it'sawesome.
I can call my dad.
Do the same.
But if we're meal prepping, it'san odd camaraderie that it
brings, and when the chicken'sin the oven, you're ending up
talking a lot, but you're alsostill feeling purposeful.
So it's probably just like aproductivity issue of my
household that we always feellike we have to be productive,
but meal prepping gives us a tonof time with our family.
(17:17):
So we're not using like a mealservice like blue apron or cook
unity or um, what are some ofthe other ones and there's a lot
of them out there HelloFresh.
We don't do that, we're notgonna do.
We tested out a few differentservices and what we find is
like we need to be reallyexcited for lunch or we're not
gonna eat it.
I know that's bad, but I'm notgonna eat lunch unless I'm hyped
(17:39):
, knowing hey, oh my gosh, it'sgonna be this, it's gonna be
great, I made it, I'm excitedfor it.
So that's one thing that wewill meal prep and sometimes I
find that I'll buy more thingsthan I need and then I'll end up
making dinner with my parents,so I stayed there longer.
What can I do to use money toget more time with my family?
It sounds kind of bad that way,because you're like, can't you
(18:00):
just hang out with them?
Like, why do you need money tohang out with them?
It's not really the money, it'sthe fact that we're meal
prepping and that costs money.
But I'm purchasing time.
Many of you know my sauna story,but I'll leave you all with
this.
So my dad loves Facebook.
He is truly addicted toFacebook and he knows it.
He loves getting to scroll.
He's like a five-year-old whojust found TikTok for the first
(18:21):
time, and my dad's in hisseventies, which I love.
He has a youthful energy, oneof the most fun people to ever
be around.
I love my dad, but my dadsometimes it's hard to be
present with us.
So my brothers said, hey, wewant to connect with our dad
more.
So one of the things that we'vepurchased which is one of my
favorite purchases, if not myfavorite of all time is I bought
(18:41):
a sauna that wouldintentionally overheat my dad's
phone, so when he's in the saunahe cannot scroll.
He has to talk to us.
Many people, including myclients, hey, ari, do you really
need to buy a sauna just totalk to your dad?
Can't you just tell him to sitdown, put down the phone?
I go, you try telling afive-year-old to put down the
phone.
They're just not going tolisten every time.
So this is something that webought because we wanted a sauna
(19:03):
anyways.
Now we have one.
Now we sleep better.
We used it all the time.
Now I don't live at home, mydad uses it.
So here it is, something that Ipurchased that he probably
never would have ever bought onhis own, but now he loves it.
Now he sleeps better.
Can't exactly quantify thatimpact on your health.
So these are just some new,different ideas.
Maybe you learn one thing, maybeyou learn nothing, from today.
(19:23):
Hopefully it was entertainingat the least.
But if there was one thing youlearned, please drop a comment,
please do let me know.
You can always submit aquestion if you want me to
discuss any topic in the futureat earlyretirementpodcastcom.
And that is it Once again.
You all should know that I havemultiple ways of working with
us.
We have the Early RetirementAcademy.
That is just if you want to goplay around.
(19:46):
There's a budgeting tool.
You can go find out when youcan retire early.
You get to build your own plan.
And then, of course, there'sthe formal process, working with
Root, where you can go to ourwebsite, rootfinancialcom, click
, get started and you can followthose steps to begin working
with us.
That's it.
See you next time.
Thank you all, as always, forlistening to the Early
Retirement Podcast.
I love getting to host theseshows and make different content
(20:07):
for you guys every single week.
I've not missed a single weekin years, and that is because I
love getting to do this.
Now, please be smart about this.
Before you actually execute anystrategy that you see me talk
about or hear me talk about,should I say Please talk to your
financial advisor, your taxpreparer, your estate attorney,
please be smart about this.
None of this should beconstrued as financial advice.
(20:30):
This is for fun, educational,informational purposes only.
Once again, just quickdisclaimer here.
Guys, please be smart aboutthis.
Appreciate you listening, asalways.
You can, of course, submit aquestion on my website,
earlyretirementpodcastcom.
If you, of course, want me toaddress a specific case study or
topic.
I will not promise I can get toit, but I respond to every
(20:53):
single person and if I find itwill be helpful for a lot of
people, I will absolutely makean episode on it, at the very
least give you some insight.
That's it, thanks, guys.
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