April 29, 2025 • 12 mins
Are you truly ready for retirement? Jon Hicks dives into the emotional and financial aspects of retiring, emphasizing four crucial elements: emotional preparedness, sufficient savings, managing portfolio depletion, and discussing plans with your significant other. These factors are vital in determining whether you can retire now or need to wait. Planning for retirement involves understanding both financial stability and personal readiness to ensure a smooth transition. Schedule your complimentary appointment today: RetirementSolutionShow.com Follow us on social media: YouTube | Facebook | LinkedInSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Retirement Solution Podcast with financial advisor John Hicks,
founder of Jahagen Capital.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Can you retire this year?
Speaker 3 (00:10):
This year?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I guess can you retard this year?
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Still? It depends on the way the wind is blowing,
the amount of tariffs, we're discussing, how beautiful my hair
is today. Wow, we don't really know what's going to happen.
We don't know what's going to happen down I mean
what I would say, But you know, it's it's interesting
regardless regardless of what happens with the current potus and
(00:38):
things like that. You know there's going to be ups
and downs for the next twenty five to thirty forty
fifty years, however long we're left on this planet. There
it is. And my guesses most people can still retire
when they want if they plan right.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
And that's what you're here to help us figure out,
mister financial advisor, John Hicks, founder of Jahagen Capital. I
had the branch here to ask John for his ideas
about one question in particular that a lot of people
might be wondering. It is estimated that over four millillion
Americans are going to hit age sixty five this year.
(01:09):
In twenty twenty five folks. I know. Obviously with that
comes a wave of folks that want to retire. Of course,
so the question a lot of people have, particularly after
the volatility we've seen, is can I retire? Can I
still retire? As I was saying this year, what and
(01:30):
you're saying twenty thirty, forty, fifty years, all forever into
the future. It should be regardless of what the market's doing,
you should be able to retire. So the question then
for you is Okay, what do we need to have
figured out before we answer that question.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
My whole feeling is that people can probably retire earlier
than they think. Okay, but really there's four main things, right.
So number one, and more important than the amount of money,
is are we ready to retire? What are we going
to do? Mentally? What are we going to do emotionally?
Because the two biggest things that happen and a lot
of us is we lose a sense of identity. You know,
if we don't have that job anymore. If you are
(02:05):
the CPA in your firm and all of a sudden
you're like, man, I'm going to hang it up one day,
and now you're no longer the CPA. Or controller for
that firm. What are you then? Are you just Dan
that doesn't hang out with the water cooler anymore? Are
you prepared for what you're going to do next? A
lot of people focus on retiring from this job, or
retiring from this occupation, or retiring from this terrible company
(02:27):
I'm working at, as opposed to thinking what am I
retiring to? What am I going to be doing? I
can only play so much golf. Plus my rotator cuff hurts,
you know, I don't know if I want to go
through surgery. Right. So the biggest thing we have to understand,
and this is to me, in my opinion, the biggest
one about can we retire this year or tomorrow? Are
you ready for it? What are you going to do
with your time? Are you ready for it? Emotionally?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Mental?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Emotionally, it's an emotional thing. Like for men especially, it's
a sense of identity and then where's our social network
going to be? Winen are just really a lot better
at that than guys. Guys like, oh, I'm going to
go fishing and play golf every day, and they they
don't want to. They're like, man, this is getting boring.
You know, I'm terrible at golf. I realized now that
I play every day instead of once the long every
(03:09):
day really bad. I really hate it. Mark Twain was right.
Golf is just a good walk spoiled. So you know
it goes that way, you know, so anyway, So that's
number one. Emotional be emotionally ready. The second thing is
the bucket of money, right, it is have you saved enough?
What we really need to know is where's that income
(03:30):
going to come from for you to stay retired. Anyone
can retire tomorrow. The question is do you have enough
money to keep you retired or do you have to
go back and get another paycheck because we didn't save
well enough. Right, So, you know, whether it's Social Security,
or you have airbnbs, or you get a you know,
two million dollars saved, or or you're gonna work a
little part time or or you're you know whatever, whatever
you're gonna do, you have to have a big enough
(03:50):
pile of money, right, And so some people use the
four percent rule. I think that to me, in my opinion,
I don't think the four percent role is a very
good rule. But having said that, if you basically just
use that, I think it's fine as a benchmark. Right,
So if you've saved two million dollars and you can
pull four percent off of that, that's about eighty grand
a year, So eighty grand a year plus whatever you
(04:12):
get from Social Security, let's say thirty grand one hundred
and ten. Can you live off of one hundred and
ten thousand dollars a year before taxes? Right? So if
you can, that's important. This is what most people focus
on first. Emotions really the big one. But yeah, you
have to have enough money, right, because it lets you
do one of a couple of things. It's like, well,
maybe I'm two years away from that, I can put
(04:32):
some more money away, and or I can shave off
some debt, right, or you know, the house will actually
be paid off, So we're going to have that. But
you may have extra healthcare costs, right, And if you're
going to retire before age sixty five, there's going to
be extra costs potentially until you get onto medicare unless
your company is awesome and they'll pay for that until
you get to medicare age. So those things factor in.
(04:54):
So the budgeting and have you saved enough is number two?
So number one is emotions. Number two is do you
have a big enough pile of cash? Number three? Right,
this is a big one. Can you handle your bank
accounts maybe depleting over time as opposed to growing. See
this is a big one, man. This is so. Dowbar
(05:14):
is a company who puts out this report every year
and basically it talks about how well does the average
investor do? Do they do real well? Do they beat
the market? You know? Do they fail miserably? What they
found out is most people don't do very well when
they have a bias. And unfortunately, if we've been working,
put our money away, saving that four one k, maybe
(05:36):
even getting a match, generally, because we're not using that money,
we're seeing it increase over time. You know, maybe not
every month if the market goes down or whatever, but
over time we generally see that big old pile of
money growing and growing and growing. And something happens. It's
like a switch switches to the wrong way, or the
(05:56):
wires get crossed and you start to smell something burning.
When all of a sudden, we know, hey, I'm going
to have to start taking about four thousand dollars a
month every month from this account. And you realize, if
we've had a couple months like we have here recently. Wow,
my money's not growing anymore. As a matter of fact,
I've got less money, not only the four thousand dollars
(06:18):
I was pulling out, but I got some market losses
in there too. And for some people who have not
prepared themselves for that, or they don't have the right
type of asset allocation, they don't have the right plan
that can make them do really dumb stuff. And I
watch these people, I say, these people, any of us,
This can happen to any of us if we don't
have the right plan. I watch people fail miserably. They
(06:40):
absolutely try to time the market. They start looking for
more sophisticated investment plans, when frankly, the ones that work
the best are really simple. The money that you can
afford to risk, take a little bit of risk with
it if you're comfortable, But the money that you can't
afford to lose, you shouldn't really risk much of that
at all, very very minimal risk with the money that
(07:02):
you need to send you income. Right, people haven't prepared
themselves for this, so that so that that that idea
of we may start seeing depletions makes people blow up
even if they could retire, they won't be successful at
it because they're thinking in the different paradigm. Right, Okay,
that's the third one. Emotions. First, do you have a
big enough pile of money? Are you prepared for what
it's going to look like, which is depletion actually using
(07:25):
that money you've said, And here's the fourth one. Have
you talked this over with your significant other, your spouse?
Of the first ones, see, it's the most important. I
don't think.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
It's the most people.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
It is probably the most important because it's the one
that is going to impact our emotional well being from
that day to every day potentially going forward, or until
you get a divorce, right or one of you die.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Got it?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
So is your spouse on board? Because being part of
that spouse being on board off and often comes back
to number one, what are you gonna be doing with
your time? I watch a lot of people say, John,
I'm really thinking about getting this golf club membership. We
talked about it. I know it's gonna cost him about
forty grand I think that we're prepared for that. I'm
ready to do that a couple of days a week
(08:14):
and I'm like, great, It's like and you know, I'm
not gonna take the boat out often, but I'm gonna
get out there and do some more of that. And
I'm thinking about a pole barn, thinking about going out there.
I might do some cars on the side. And what
we find out, because he has not discussed this with
a significant other, is that his wife has very different
plans for the use of his time. For instance, Ralph,
(08:35):
you've been telling me for thirty two years that you
are gonna screen in that porch, and for the love
of all that's holy, you're gonna do it. You're gonna
start at the minute that you put that last time
clock sliding, that you're gonna do it right. And it's like,
oh my goodness. So it's very important whether you're like
Ralph and you need to screen in the porch, or
(08:56):
you have a lot of honeydo list items that have
been neglected over the past ten twenty forty.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Before you've been working, you've both been working, or one
of you was working a lot, and your spouse wants
to spend time with you.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Sure, and sometimes that's fabulous, But twenty four hours a day,
seven days a week. I've talked to a lot of
ladies and they were saying, listen, John, I know that
we all thought it was a good idea that we
got Ralph retired. He needs to not be hanging out
on the couch in the den when the ladies come
over to play cards. Let's just be real. I need
(09:31):
him to do something else with his time for at
least four to five hours a week so that it
would be great. And this is where you typically, even
though it wasn't part of the plan, you see some
fellas saying, maybe Lowe's needs some extra help, maybe home
depot needs extra help in the lawn and garden section
during the summer. You know, So you find yourself out
there in an orange bib apron, watering flowers and chasing
(09:53):
down bees. A good little to me, frankly, it sounds fabulous,
very nice, I know. Yeah, in some regards it sounds
sounds actually perfection. Yeah, I'm not gonna lie to you.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
So, but those are the big four right. So Number one,
are you emotionally ready to retire regardless of what the
markets are doing? Number two, have you saved enough money?
And by the way, if the market keeps sliding, it
could cause you to not be able to it or
not be able to tire retire as early. Number three,
do you understand that you may see depletion in your
portfolio so you don't do dumb stuff? And number four
have you spoken to your spouse really about what you're
(10:27):
gonna do with your time? Not about the money part,
but what you're gonna do with your time. If you
get those four things in gear, guys, you can probably
retire when you want. It just depends on do you
want to retire now, do you want to wait it out,
do you really like your job, You're just looking for
something different to do. Those are different questions.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Understanding what you need to have checked off on the
list of things to do before you hit that retire
button is all part of the planning process that goes
into the plans they built at jay Hagen Capital. It's
just as John you said it several times in this conversation.
It's so much bigger than just the money. It's such
an emotional process and there's a lot more that goes
(11:05):
into it. Good news is you don't have to have
to figure out these things by yourself. At Jahagen Capital,
they help folks retire every single day, so they are
well versed on the many different conversations that come into
the fold when it comes to planning for retirement, and
they can help you through the process as well. So
visit us at retirement solutionshow dot com. We also have
links posted in the show notes. Just click there to
(11:25):
start the conversation with John and his team at Jahagen Capital,
or again it's retirement solutionshow dot com.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Thanks for listening to The Retirement Solution Podcast with John Hicks.
Begin the conversation about your savings plan with John and
the team at Jahagen Capital by visiting Retirement Solution radio
dot com. Be sure to listen to John's radio show,
The Retirement Solution Saturdays at eight am and Sundays at
nine am on NewsRadio eight forty Whas.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Jahagen Capital Incorporated is not licensed in all fifty states.
To find out if Jayhagan Capital Incorporated is licensed in
your state, please call five zero two six ninety sex
thirty five. J Higgen Capital, Incorporated is not affiliated with,
nor endorsed by the Social Security Administration or any other
government agency, and does not provide legal or tax advice.
By contacting House, you may be provided with information about
insurance and annuity products offered through j Higgin Capital Or
(12:12):
LLCNPN number one eight eight two seven zero nine four
This is the Retirement Solution Podcast with financial advisor John Hicks,
founder of Jahagen Capital.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Can you retire this year?
Speaker 3 (00:10):
This year?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I guess can you retard this year?
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Still? It depends on the way the wind is blowing,
the amount of tariffs, we're discussing, how beautiful my hair
is today. Wow, we don't really know what's going to happen.
We don't know what's going to happen down I mean
what I would say, But you know, it's it's interesting
regardless regardless of what happens with the current potus and
(00:38):
things like that. You know there's going to be ups
and downs for the next twenty five to thirty forty
fifty years, however long we're left on this planet. There
it is. And my guesses most people can still retire
when they want if they plan right.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
And that's what you're here to help us figure out,
mister financial advisor, John Hicks, founder of Jahagen Capital. I
had the branch here to ask John for his ideas
about one question in particular that a lot of people
might be wondering. It is estimated that over four millillion
Americans are going to hit age sixty five this year.
(01:09):
In twenty twenty five folks. I know. Obviously with that
comes a wave of folks that want to retire. Of course,
so the question a lot of people have, particularly after
the volatility we've seen, is can I retire? Can I
still retire? As I was saying this year, what and
(01:30):
you're saying twenty thirty, forty, fifty years, all forever into
the future. It should be regardless of what the market's doing,
you should be able to retire. So the question then
for you is Okay, what do we need to have
figured out before we answer that question.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
My whole feeling is that people can probably retire earlier
than they think. Okay, but really there's four main things, right.
So number one, and more important than the amount of money,
is are we ready to retire? What are we going
to do? Mentally? What are we going to do emotionally?
Because the two biggest things that happen and a lot
of us is we lose a sense of identity. You know,
if we don't have that job anymore. If you are
(02:05):
the CPA in your firm and all of a sudden
you're like, man, I'm going to hang it up one day,
and now you're no longer the CPA. Or controller for
that firm. What are you then? Are you just Dan
that doesn't hang out with the water cooler anymore? Are
you prepared for what you're going to do next? A
lot of people focus on retiring from this job, or
retiring from this occupation, or retiring from this terrible company
(02:27):
I'm working at, as opposed to thinking what am I
retiring to? What am I going to be doing? I
can only play so much golf. Plus my rotator cuff hurts,
you know, I don't know if I want to go
through surgery. Right. So the biggest thing we have to understand,
and this is to me, in my opinion, the biggest
one about can we retire this year or tomorrow? Are
you ready for it? What are you going to do
with your time? Are you ready for it? Emotionally?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Mental?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Emotionally, it's an emotional thing. Like for men especially, it's
a sense of identity and then where's our social network
going to be? Winen are just really a lot better
at that than guys. Guys like, oh, I'm going to
go fishing and play golf every day, and they they
don't want to. They're like, man, this is getting boring.
You know, I'm terrible at golf. I realized now that
I play every day instead of once the long every
(03:09):
day really bad. I really hate it. Mark Twain was right.
Golf is just a good walk spoiled. So you know
it goes that way, you know, so anyway, So that's
number one. Emotional be emotionally ready. The second thing is
the bucket of money, right, it is have you saved enough?
What we really need to know is where's that income
(03:30):
going to come from for you to stay retired. Anyone
can retire tomorrow. The question is do you have enough
money to keep you retired or do you have to
go back and get another paycheck because we didn't save
well enough. Right, So, you know, whether it's Social Security,
or you have airbnbs, or you get a you know,
two million dollars saved, or or you're gonna work a
little part time or or you're you know whatever, whatever
you're gonna do, you have to have a big enough
(03:50):
pile of money, right, And so some people use the
four percent rule. I think that to me, in my opinion,
I don't think the four percent role is a very
good rule. But having said that, if you basically just
use that, I think it's fine as a benchmark. Right,
So if you've saved two million dollars and you can
pull four percent off of that, that's about eighty grand
a year, So eighty grand a year plus whatever you
(04:12):
get from Social Security, let's say thirty grand one hundred
and ten. Can you live off of one hundred and
ten thousand dollars a year before taxes? Right? So if
you can, that's important. This is what most people focus
on first. Emotions really the big one. But yeah, you
have to have enough money, right, because it lets you
do one of a couple of things. It's like, well,
maybe I'm two years away from that, I can put
(04:32):
some more money away, and or I can shave off
some debt, right, or you know, the house will actually
be paid off, So we're going to have that. But
you may have extra healthcare costs, right, And if you're
going to retire before age sixty five, there's going to
be extra costs potentially until you get onto medicare unless
your company is awesome and they'll pay for that until
you get to medicare age. So those things factor in.
(04:54):
So the budgeting and have you saved enough is number two?
So number one is emotions. Number two is do you
have a big enough pile of cash? Number three? Right,
this is a big one. Can you handle your bank
accounts maybe depleting over time as opposed to growing. See
this is a big one, man. This is so. Dowbar
(05:14):
is a company who puts out this report every year
and basically it talks about how well does the average
investor do? Do they do real well? Do they beat
the market? You know? Do they fail miserably? What they
found out is most people don't do very well when
they have a bias. And unfortunately, if we've been working,
put our money away, saving that four one k, maybe
(05:36):
even getting a match, generally, because we're not using that money,
we're seeing it increase over time. You know, maybe not
every month if the market goes down or whatever, but
over time we generally see that big old pile of
money growing and growing and growing. And something happens. It's
like a switch switches to the wrong way, or the
(05:56):
wires get crossed and you start to smell something burning.
When all of a sudden, we know, hey, I'm going
to have to start taking about four thousand dollars a
month every month from this account. And you realize, if
we've had a couple months like we have here recently. Wow,
my money's not growing anymore. As a matter of fact,
I've got less money, not only the four thousand dollars
(06:18):
I was pulling out, but I got some market losses
in there too. And for some people who have not
prepared themselves for that, or they don't have the right
type of asset allocation, they don't have the right plan
that can make them do really dumb stuff. And I
watch these people, I say, these people, any of us,
This can happen to any of us if we don't
have the right plan. I watch people fail miserably. They
(06:40):
absolutely try to time the market. They start looking for
more sophisticated investment plans, when frankly, the ones that work
the best are really simple. The money that you can
afford to risk, take a little bit of risk with
it if you're comfortable, But the money that you can't
afford to lose, you shouldn't really risk much of that
at all, very very minimal risk with the money that
(07:02):
you need to send you income. Right, people haven't prepared
themselves for this, so that so that that that idea
of we may start seeing depletions makes people blow up
even if they could retire, they won't be successful at
it because they're thinking in the different paradigm. Right, Okay,
that's the third one. Emotions. First, do you have a
big enough pile of money? Are you prepared for what
it's going to look like, which is depletion actually using
(07:25):
that money you've said, And here's the fourth one. Have
you talked this over with your significant other, your spouse?
Of the first ones, see, it's the most important. I
don't think.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
It's the most people.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
It is probably the most important because it's the one
that is going to impact our emotional well being from
that day to every day potentially going forward, or until
you get a divorce, right or one of you die.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Got it?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
So is your spouse on board? Because being part of
that spouse being on board off and often comes back
to number one, what are you gonna be doing with
your time? I watch a lot of people say, John,
I'm really thinking about getting this golf club membership. We
talked about it. I know it's gonna cost him about
forty grand I think that we're prepared for that. I'm
ready to do that a couple of days a week
(08:14):
and I'm like, great, It's like and you know, I'm
not gonna take the boat out often, but I'm gonna
get out there and do some more of that. And
I'm thinking about a pole barn, thinking about going out there.
I might do some cars on the side. And what
we find out, because he has not discussed this with
a significant other, is that his wife has very different
plans for the use of his time. For instance, Ralph,
(08:35):
you've been telling me for thirty two years that you
are gonna screen in that porch, and for the love
of all that's holy, you're gonna do it. You're gonna
start at the minute that you put that last time
clock sliding, that you're gonna do it right. And it's like,
oh my goodness. So it's very important whether you're like
Ralph and you need to screen in the porch, or
(08:56):
you have a lot of honeydo list items that have
been neglected over the past ten twenty forty.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Before you've been working, you've both been working, or one
of you was working a lot, and your spouse wants
to spend time with you.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Sure, and sometimes that's fabulous, But twenty four hours a day,
seven days a week. I've talked to a lot of
ladies and they were saying, listen, John, I know that
we all thought it was a good idea that we
got Ralph retired. He needs to not be hanging out
on the couch in the den when the ladies come
over to play cards. Let's just be real. I need
(09:31):
him to do something else with his time for at
least four to five hours a week so that it
would be great. And this is where you typically, even
though it wasn't part of the plan, you see some
fellas saying, maybe Lowe's needs some extra help, maybe home
depot needs extra help in the lawn and garden section
during the summer. You know, So you find yourself out
there in an orange bib apron, watering flowers and chasing
(09:53):
down bees. A good little to me, frankly, it sounds fabulous,
very nice, I know. Yeah, in some regards it sounds
sounds actually perfection. Yeah, I'm not gonna lie to you.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
So, but those are the big four right. So Number one,
are you emotionally ready to retire regardless of what the
markets are doing? Number two, have you saved enough money?
And by the way, if the market keeps sliding, it
could cause you to not be able to it or
not be able to tire retire as early. Number three,
do you understand that you may see depletion in your
portfolio so you don't do dumb stuff? And number four
have you spoken to your spouse really about what you're
(10:27):
gonna do with your time? Not about the money part,
but what you're gonna do with your time. If you
get those four things in gear, guys, you can probably
retire when you want. It just depends on do you
want to retire now, do you want to wait it out,
do you really like your job, You're just looking for
something different to do. Those are different questions.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Understanding what you need to have checked off on the
list of things to do before you hit that retire
button is all part of the planning process that goes
into the plans they built at jay Hagen Capital. It's
just as John you said it several times in this conversation.
It's so much bigger than just the money. It's such
an emotional process and there's a lot more that goes
(11:05):
into it. Good news is you don't have to have
to figure out these things by yourself. At Jahagen Capital,
they help folks retire every single day, so they are
well versed on the many different conversations that come into
the fold when it comes to planning for retirement, and
they can help you through the process as well. So
visit us at retirement solutionshow dot com. We also have
links posted in the show notes. Just click there to
(11:25):
start the conversation with John and his team at Jahagen Capital,
or again it's retirement solutionshow dot com.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Thanks for listening to The Retirement Solution Podcast with John Hicks.
Begin the conversation about your savings plan with John and
the team at Jahagen Capital by visiting Retirement Solution radio
dot com. Be sure to listen to John's radio show,
The Retirement Solution Saturdays at eight am and Sundays at
nine am on NewsRadio eight forty Whas.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Jahagen Capital Incorporated is not licensed in all fifty states.
To find out if Jayhagan Capital Incorporated is licensed in
your state, please call five zero two six ninety sex
thirty five. J Higgen Capital, Incorporated is not affiliated with,
nor endorsed by the Social Security Administration or any other
government agency, and does not provide legal or tax advice.
By contacting House, you may be provided with information about
insurance and annuity products offered through j Higgin Capital Or
(12:12):
LLCNPN number one eight eight two seven zero nine four
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