X% of Americans Will NEVER Retire… (featuring Erin Talks Money)

Introduction: Can You Ever Retire? (0:00)

Brian: What if we told you that almost 70% of Americans don’t think they’ll ever be able to retire? You might be thinking, should I be worried?

Bo: Brian, I am so excited to talk about this because we get to work with hundreds of retirees every day here at Abound Wealth. We know what makes them successful. But not only that, we are so excited today to be joined by Erin from Erin Talks Money.

Erin: Thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be here. I’m stealing your line. I also run a personal finance channel here on YouTube. And I’m hoping today we can dive into a recent study from JP Morgan Chase where they studied 5 million retirees looking at their spending habits and we can kind of break it down.

The Retirement Crisis: Not Just a Young Person’s Problem (0:47)

Bo: All right, but first we have to level set because this is not a generational issue. A lot of folks think that it’s Gen Z or millennials that are worried about retirement, but we know that right now one in four adults over 50 do not expect to ever be able to retire. So, this is a widespread issue right now.

Brian: Well, I think if you actually got in the numbers, 55% of Gen X, that’s my generation, they don’t think they’ll be able to retire. One in three millennials say that they’re not confident in their ability. Not to tell y’all’s age, but that’s you guys. 44% of Gen Z say they feel behind in their retirement savings goals. So man oh man I mean it feels like this is a universal struggle that everybody’s kind of nervous about.

Erin: I think that’s the biggest question in personal finance like will I ever be able to walk away?

Key Takeaway #1: Successful Retirees Know the Value of Their Time (1:37)

Bo: And so the question is okay JP Morgan has this great stuff. What are the things that we learned from this study and what can you take away in order to set yourself up for successful retirement? The very first thing I thought was wonderful is that successful retirees know the value of their time.

Erin: JP Morgan has a great visual on this. If we have an investor who started investing at say 25, invested to 35, just that 10 years, invested $200 a month, by the time they got to 65, they’d have $293,000. I mean, that’s amazing, right? Especially when you think about they only put in $24,000. That’s incredible. I’ll take that return any day. But what if we have somebody who started later in life? Say they started at the age of 35, but then invested all the way through the age of 65. You think they’d come out ahead, right? They save for a lot longer. They’re going to have more money. Turns out they only have $254,000. So they have less money than somebody who invested for 10 years.

Bo: Even though they save more. They save three times as much and ended up with like $40,000 less.

Choose Your Hard (2:32)

Brian: So it’s almost like that, you know, we all think about when we’re in our 20s, we know that money is just scarce. And so when somebody you watch content like this and you’re in your 20s and you’re broke as a joke, you’re like, “Why should I even start?” This is kind of your motivation because yes, you might be broke, but even little sacrifices can create huge results because your friend, if you think about it, if you flip the script and you said, “Okay, I’m going to procrastinate and wait until I’m in my 30s before I save and invest.” It doesn’t always get the same reward as just doing a little bit in the beginning. But Bo, Erin, we know there’s actually a better way. Instead of having to be an either/or of somebody who says, “Hey, I’m young and I’m going to quit or being the person that says, “Hey, I’m older, but I’m committed.” What if there was somebody who said, “Let’s get it in and let’s just be consistent, automatic for the people and automate the process.” What happens with that situation, Erin?

Erin: If you stay invested from 25 to 65, investing that $200, you’d end up with nearly $600,000. Just 200 bucks.

Bo: It’s unbelievable that if you can start early and you can stay consistent, it is so much better than the person that does either or. And so, as we kind of looked through this study, there were some key takeaways that we want you to know. And the very first one is you get to choose your hard. Because a lot of you are going to say, you’ve already alluded to this, Brian, man, I’m young. I’m in my 20s and money’s tight and housing is expensive and renting’s expensive and it’s just it’s going to be difficult. But you can either choose. You can make life hard now and figure out how to save 20 bucks or you wait until you’re in your 50s and 60s and then you have to make some really hard decisions to make up for not doing it earlier.

The Power of Starting Early (4:09)

Brian: Well, and there’s actually I love our illustration because we always talk about the power of discipline. And this is the thing. Remember I had that high school teacher that got me all excited because he made what seemed impossible seemed right in front of me and easy. He said if you could just save $100 a month, you’d be a millionaire. Well, we can see the data is for a 20-year-old, if you could just save $95 a month, you’re on your path to being a millionaire. And so, a lot of you guys are, like I said, you’re 20 or you’re in your 20s and you’re broke as a joke. You’re looking at this and you’re going, “Okay, maybe I could do $100.” But this is why we want to get you even more excited because think about the 30-year-old. Yes. Now, that same thing that a million that a 20-year-old had to save, $95, the 30-year-old has to save $340. That’s almost four times harder. That much more commitment if you wait until your 40s. I’m over 40. You guys fortunately haven’t crossed there yet, but you still got time. But it is amazing that you’d have to save now, $1,052 a month. That is 10 times harder than the 20-year-old. This is the power of exactly what we set up. You choose your hard. I know that you’re broke in your 20s, but it doesn’t take just pennies on the dollar literally will do more by putting that money to work.

Erin: And we have these stories that we tell ourselves. We say, “Oh, when I’m 30, I’ll make more and it’ll be easier. When I’m 40, I’ll make more.” It’s not easier. You have kids. You have a house. Like life, it does not get easier. The money doesn’t have more breathing room. Whatever you can save, even you said save 20 bucks. It doesn’t matter if you can’t hit 95, save anything.

Sandpaper the Friction (5:47)

Bo: And we get it. Look, it this is hard. But there are things that you can do because the next takeaway that came from the JP Morgan piece was that you can sandpaper the friction. You can figure out how do I remove the stuff that makes this hard. Maybe the way that you’re going to save is you’re just going to say, you know what, my employer says that if I put in X% of my pay, they’re also going to put in X%. So, at a minimum, I’m at least going to do that. I know no matter what, I’m going to avoid Starbucks. I’m not going to eat out. I’m gonna do whatever to get my employer match so that I can get my money working. If you can make the good habits as easy as possible and then maybe make the bad habits as hard as possible. Maybe I’m not going to get a credit card yet or maybe I’m only going to have one credit card or maybe I’m not going to swipe for everything or maybe I’m going to give myself a cooling off period. Whatever that may be, if you can implement those strategies, you can set yourself up to make that hard decision early just a little bit easier.

Brian: Well, I always like the forced scarcity. You get pay raises because I like that part where you said make the good habits as easy as possible and the hard habits or the bad habits that much harder. When you get a pay raise, why not just go ahead and automatic for the people set up a portion of 60% of that pay raise going towards investing. Now you’ve made it that much harder to get access to that money, but you’ve automatically set it up for wealth building. Man, I love a good forced scarcity plan.

Erin: And you said it right there, automatic. Make it automatic. Just set it up so it’s a percentage of your pay. That way, even if your pay does increase, you’re automatically contributing more total dollars. Just automatic.

Save Early and Often (7:18)

Bo: And then the other thing is another key takeaway is we want you to save early and often. I mean, that’s kind of the whole headline of this piece is that if you can start early and if you can stay consistent, you’re going to set yourself up. But saving is only one part of it. You have to save and then you actually have to put that money to work. Far too often we see people who flex that muscle and they get the savings done and they live on less than they make and they just see their checking account get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. You actually have to put that money to work. And if you need some motivation on why you should do that and why you should have your money working for you, we have a great illustration, Brian, we talk about it all the time called the wealth multiplier.

Brian: Yeah, I would encourage everybody go to moneyguy.com/resources. You can also look at the wealth multiplier. And this does show kind of the math behind the backing of how does a 20-year-old turn a $95 investment into a million. It’s because every dollar that comes into their control at 20 actually has potential to turn into $88 at retirement. For that 30-year-old, it’s $23. For the 40-year-old, it’s $7. A lot of you, you’re like, I don’t fit into those nice five-year increments. What’s my number? That’s okay. That’s why I would encourage you go out to our website. We actually let you go to our wealth multiplier tool. You can play around with the calculators and see specifically for your age. It doesn’t matter if you’re 23, 37, 52. We’re going to have your wealth multiplier so you can see how you maximize your opportunities.

Erin: I love your guys’ wealth multiplier. I get so excited when I see that it’s $88, but now that I’m honing in on 40 and I see that it’s seven, I just wish I could have saved more. I wish I could have done more, right? Like that was can I go back in time?

Bo: We say this all the time. The absolute best time to start investing was yesterday. So absent that, the second best time to start investing is right now, today. So if you can figure that out and you can start early, you can set yourself up for success.

Key Takeaway #2: Consistency is Key (9:07)

Bo: Now the second takeaway that successful retirees realize is not only do they recognize the value of their time, they also recognize that consistency is key.

Erin: JP Morgan has a wonderful case study on this. If we look at the returns of the S&P 500 for the 20-year period going from 2005 to 2024, if you just stayed invested, if you had $10,000 from this period, you would have had an annualized rate of return of over 10%. Wild returns I would take any day of the week. But that’s if you stay invested, if you got scared, if you sold, if you missed just the 10 best days, this $70,000 would be cut to nearly $33,000. If you missed the 20 best days, 20 best days in a 20 year period, you’d be down to $20,000. If you missed the 60 best days, hard to miss, but you’d have a negative return. You’d have about $4,000, $5,000.

You Can’t Time the Market (10:06)

Brian: What’s amazing to me is that people see this illustration. And we just turned a 10% annualized rate of return. If you miss 10, it’s down to six. You miss 20, it’s down to three and a half. Miss 30, a month of that period, it’s down to 1% basically less than cash. I always see trolls crawl out from underneath the bridge and they I’ve seen this illustration before. We all talk about missing the best days. I would miss the worst days too because I’m that good. And this is why it gets back to the whole point of the key takeaway here is consistency is key is that look to be a good investor you get to be lazy. You don’t have to do anything. You just have to set the behavior of saving and investing and then just grin and bear or put, you know, I’ve heard Erin you talk about put on your blinders is just hang in there through the whole process to actually miss the worst days. You got to nail it on two different sides of it. You have to actually sell before the markets go down and then you have to buy back. Now Erin, I’ve seen some in this data. Isn’t there something about that these things are all interconnected? So you really couldn’t time those worst days, could you?

Erin: The best days and the worst days are usually within a week or two of each other. So trying to get in and out is just it’s a fool’s game. We all have day jobs. That’s not what we’re going to do with our full time.

Don’t Squeeze the Sponge Before It’s Fully Soaked (11:21)

Bo: So the question becomes, okay, well, what do we do with this? What is the key takeaway? And one of the things we like to say around here is we don’t want you to squeeze the sponge before it’s fully soaked in. Far too often we see people say, “Okay, I understand I’m going to start investing. I’m going to get my money working for me.” But a year goes by, two years, three years. They think, “Man, I’m not a millionaire yet. Like, most of the money in my account is what I’ve saved.” Or maybe there was a downturn and it’s actually less than I put in and they end up bailing out far too early. But we know that if you can give it time and you can let the money stay in, you can let compounding interest take hold, it turns into something amazing. But you have to give it time to get there. You have to actually let your money start working for you.

Brian: What I always worry about is the quit, you know, because people get motivated. I’m sure you look at your data too, Erin, as I know like last month, close to a third of our audience was brand new people to the channel. And so I know that we’re inspiring a lot of people probably to fund their Roth IRA the first time, but there’s also a lot of people that are going to get excited, but then that first downturn is going to happen and they’re just going to quit because none of this works without the consistency. So that’s why one of the behaviors that I talk about and get really excited about sharing with people is what I call ABB. Always be buying. If you just can automate the process and set it and forget it, you will protect yourself not only from those downsides coming and scaring you to death, but you’re going to see it as an opportunity because you’re going to be buying into that volatility and making money even when things are going up and when things are going down.

Erin: Like you said, put the blinders on. And also in the beginning, I always like to remind people, we are doing the grunt work. The market’s not yet carrying us. So if you do the grunt work, you put your legs in it. You’re getting the you’re climbing the stairs. You’re not taking the elevator. So in the beginning, we get the good legs, we get the good glutes, you put the work in. You hang in there, you don’t bail.

Brian: Good legs and good glutes. That’s a way to pull in because I always tell people, don’t skip leg day because everybody, if you get into the whole workout routine, you always know the worst workouts are leg workouts. And that’s why you see people all muscular on top and all skinny on the bottom. We’re all about building up the glutes and the legs. I love that.

Have a Plan You Believe In (13:30)

Bo: And so, one of the ways that you can make sure that you’re able to stay consistent is have a plan that you believe will be successful both before the volatility happens while the volatility is going on and even after the volatility has passed. If you’re someone who gets skittish and is afraid of the markets, maybe going out there and buying a triple leveraged ETF is not the way that you need to start your investing journey. If you’re someone who even the thought of just the stock market in general concerns you, maybe you should think about a solution like a target retirement index fund where all you have to do is answer two questions. How much can I save? And when do I think I might need that money? And you can literally set it and forget it and always be buying and purchase that every single month whether the market is up, whether the market is down. And you don’t have to waste mental calories creating opportunities for you to not be consistent.

Erin: And I always I’ve been investing for probably 25 years at this point. I don’t know. It’s been decades. But when there is volatility, I don’t check it. That’s my rule. So market’s down, went down a thousand points. I’m like, I don’t care what my account’s doing. I’m still going to need this in 20 years time, 30 years time. Today doesn’t matter.

Brian: That is a great outlook. And but I think a lot of people back to those new investors, they’re probably like, “Okay, this sounds great, but I don’t even know. Should I be funding emergency reserves? Should I be funding Roth IRAs? Where am I at in my financial journey?” And that’s why we love I reach down for it. It’s almost like there is a system that will tell you what to do with your next dollar so you can go ahead and triage your personal situation and figure out exactly where are you in your Financial Order of Operations.

Key Takeaway #3: Focus on What You Can Control (15:10)

Bo: Again, we’re talking today about what successful retirees know and traits that successful retirees have in the midst of the fact that 50%, one in four Americans over the age of 50 doesn’t think they’ll ever be able to retire. And we want to change that today. We want to alter that. And so, another thing that successful retirees know is they have a very clear understanding of what is in their control. I mean, we all know in this world there are unknown unknowns, but there are very much some known knowns and there are some things we can control and successful retirees understand the differences in those and how to focus on the ones that they can actually impact.

Erin: And I feel like so much of it comes down to knowing and focusing on the things you can control. Because if you start focusing on the things that are outside of your control, you just get kind of panicked for no reason and you’re kind of lost. JP Morgan kind of broke it down to looking at the things we can control, things we can kind of control, things we can’t control, and what’s most within our control is how much we spend, how much we save, and where we put these dollars.

Bo: I love that they want you to focus on that. They don’t because what you did not hear in there is market returns. I can control what the stock market does or maybe tax benefits and tax policy. Well, I can’t control if I pay this much in capital gains rates or that much in capital gains rates. And those are the things that make headlines and the things that the financial media want you to clue into are not actually the things that you can control, but it gets none of the press and it probably matters way more than all the other stuff.

Brian: Yeah, I think there’s an in between as well. You know, the anxiety stuff, of course, like the market returns, tax policy, try to, as Erin said, put on your blinders on those things, but I really do want everybody to lean into what do you save versus spend, what is your asset allocation, and then, you know, in the long term, you also do have limited control on, hey, can you go earn more money? Can you make your shovel a little bit bigger? And then also making sure that the longevity, start saving, investing as early as possible so that army of dollar bills has that much compounding growth working for it in the background.

Tighten the Bolts Before Blaming the Wind (17:10)

Bo: So when you think about like setting yourself up for a successful retirement, we want you to tighten the bolts of your financial plan before you start blaming the wind, right? Don’t focus on the external factors that could potentially impact this stuff if you’ve not already done the hard work of focusing on the things that you can control. Because at the end of the day, your behavior is most likely the biggest difference maker in your financial outcome, not the extenuating circumstances outside of the things you get to choose.

Erin: And I think your behavior gives you the confidence. If you have a solid plan, you’re like, “These are the things I’ve done. This is my checklist. This is what I focus on.” You know you’re good. If you’re like, “Oh, this is how the market’s performing. This is how Congress is passing new tax changes.” You always feel out of control.

Brian: That’s right. Well, and I love, you know, once again, all those new people coming in, you’re probably looking at this and you’re hearing the content and like, well, how much should I be saving? And that’s the good here’s the good news. Go to moneyguy.com/resources. We have a great illustration on how much you should save. So, you cross reference what’s your age versus your intersection with your savings rate. And you’ll very quickly see if you figure out this content in your 20s, your money goes a long way. You’ll more than likely replace more than 100% of even your working income in retirement. If you really hit the ground running, but don’t worry. This is why we can save 25% of your gross income in your 30s all the way up to your 40 years of age. You’re probably going to be okay. Now, if you discover this, we have something. We’re an open tent big umbrella here. If you’re somebody who discovers this and you’re in your 40s or 50s, it doesn’t mean your opportunities passed you by. It just means you might need to save a little bit more. So go use this resource to kind of figure out where you are and spot check yourself.

Erin: These resources are so good. I’ve used them for years. So yes, tell everyone to go download them.

Key Takeaway #4: The Three Bucket Tax Strategy (19:03)

Brian: I’ll give Bo credit. We have really fancy spreadsheets behind this that lots of some good macros to kind of power these things.

Bo: Another thing that I think is so interesting, not only do you need to focus on the internal things that you can control and really think about your behavior, but one of the ways you can even use your behavior to impact your strategy is thinking about okay, how am I going to tactically do this? Like what are the decisions that I can make that while it may not affect the entire picture in a grand scale, these small degree changes kind of impact like where I invest. We talk about all the time, Brian, that as someone’s financial journey is progressing, like early on, you want to focus on the stuff that matters. But as the portfolio gets bigger and bigger and bigger, small tweaks and paying attention to small things, while you may not be able to impact tax policy, you do recognize that taxes impact your portfolio. And so, even how I think about where I’m putting my money from a tax perspective can have a significant impact.

Brian: Yeah, I love that you can, maybe it’s my CPA background, but I love that you can legally manipulate how you structure your accounts. And that’s why we’re always talking about the three bucket strategy for somebody who’s brand new to this. Look, a lot of you are going to get into your 401(k) and yes, you might be funding your Roth portion, but your employer historically has been in that pre-tax. So, you’ll have your pre-tax buckets, which are going to be taxed at ordinary income when they come out. So that’s why we typically see in a portfolio retirement type assets like bonds and things that are going to be taxed at ordinary income. We load up in those accounts tax-free. This is your Roth accounts. When you fund your Roth IRAs and so forth, we like to get a little growth going here because we want to maximize that tax-free growth opportunity. So load up those Roth IRAs, the Roth 401(k)s, the health savings accounts after you cover your deductible. And then there’s the after-tax accounts. This is like your taxable brokerage accounts. There’s nothing wrong with filling these up because they’re also tax favored. Your dividends are going to be taxed better. Your capital gains rates are going to be better. And I also love the liquidity. These are great bridge accounts if you decide you’re part of the FIRE movement or FINE movement and you want to have some opportunities to do things a little more flexibly. These accounts are going to be those bridge accounts that let you have access earlier.

Erin: I think you said it with speak to the CPA and it’s not just about your taxes today and it’s not just about your taxes in retirement. If you utilize these buckets throughout the course of your entire career and in retirement, you can lower your lifetime tax bill and you get to keep more. And it’s about how much you get to keep.

Brian: It’s about how much you get to keep over your life.

Building Systems: Target Retirement Index Funds (21:32)

Bo: And then but maybe you’re saying, “Guys, okay, you heard this and you got these tax buckets. This sounds complicated. This sounds advanced. This sounds like something I just don’t know if it’s my skill set.” And that’s okay because when it comes to building in consistency, one of the things we want you to do is we want you to build in systems. We want you to do things that might likely set you up for the highest probability of success. And what’s amazing is the world has made this so much easier. I mean, back in the day, Brian, back when you started investing, investing was a lot harder. I mean, you’d have to go down to Fred Flintstone’s office. You’d have to meet with him, have him sell you some products. You couldn’t do it the way that we get to do it today. Technology has changed the world to where now it’s easier than ever to actually implement some of these systems that do make wealth building almost inevitable.

Brian: Yeah. Have you always been an index investor, Erin?

Erin: No. I started as an individual stock picker because Warren Buffett was my hero, of course. And when I was, you know, 16, 17, I’m like, I’m going to be the female Warren Buffett. Get ready. And I was not. I lost money. And I’m like, oh, I’m sorry. John Bogle’s got a better plan over here. I’m signing up for this.

Brian: Yep. I love when I started creating content back in 2006. I actually one of the earlier shows I did was that here’s a great investment that only 5% of people knew about. And I was talking about index funds. That’s right. But it shows how the world has changed now is because it used to be if you go all the way back, it wasn’t that long ago, back to the early 2000s, most people were using actively managed mutual funds and that was considered the easy set it and forget it besides outside of individual stocks. Well, I’m happy to report that we’ve even had another development in the fact that because we love index funds. They’re low cost. They’re very tax efficient, but a lot of times you figure out, okay, which index? I mean, I know you guys talk about the S&P 500, but there’s international investments, there’s small cap investments, there’s real estate. Well, how am I supposed to manage all these different index funds, including bonds and so forth? Sounds complicated. Well, here’s the part, and this is what we like. Indexed target retirement funds for those who don’t know, is because they’re low cost. Now there are target retirement funds that have much higher internal operating expenses but we like if you look at the big providers like Vanguard, Charles Schwab, Fidelity Investments, they have really low-cost target index retirement funds that you can get into and it’s as Bo has already kind of detailed this. If you can tell me how much you can save and when you need it, they do this brilliant thing where they create what’s called a glide path. Meaning that while you’re younger, and look, by the way, you can look at every one of those providers I gave, they are a little different. So, if you want to be more aggressive, go figure out which one is more aggressive and has less bonds in it and you choose that one. Or if you want to be more conservative, you get an active role in this. But the cool thing is is that while you’re younger, they’re very aggressive to a degree, but as you get closer and closer to retirement, this glide path brings down that asset allocation to a point that so it’s managing all those complexities that probably turn a lot of people off.

Erin: Absolutely. And I mean really when it comes to index funds, everyone should be utilizing them in some capacity, whether it’s your entire portfolio or a piece of it, but whether you want to be fully involved and choose your individual index, whether you want to have a hands-off approach and just be like, I’m choosing this one. This is where my money’s going. We’re done. That’s target date. Everyone can win with them.

Bo: It’s about setting up a system that allows you to be consistent. I love that.

Key Takeaway #5: The PUSH Principle (24:52)

Bo: The fourth thing that successful retirees recognize, and this is a big one, right? Because a lot of stuff we’ve talked about has been sort of like in the micro. I think this is a big macro. And I think retirees who actually live a fulfilling retirement understand that when it comes to our wealth, when it comes to our money, when it comes to the decisions that we’re making, at the very end of the day, money is nothing more than a tool that allows us to focus on the things in this life that truly matter to us.

Erin: JP Morgan has a part where they touch on this in their study and they developed what they called the PUSH principle. So one, you have to have a purpose. Now this is for something that they said for retirees, but I think it applies all across life. So whether you’re in your working years, whether you’re retired, you have to have something that you’re getting up for in the morning. And then next use, how are you using your time? How are you giving back? How are you getting connected with other people? Which brings us to socialize. Are you spending time with friends? Are you doing things outside of your home as far as an activity that you love? Something that again speaks to your purpose and health. I love health. I think though we have that conversations off camera, but I mean, man, if you don’t have your health, I mean, it doesn’t matter how much you have in the bank account, it doesn’t mean anything.

Bo: Yeah. I think it’s wild. You know, these are great principles for retirees to be successful. But I love how you started and said, “Hey, this isn’t something you have to wait until you’re retired to be able to really focus on these.” Because if you can focus on these four areas, even in your working years, one of the things that you may find is that while retirement and financial independence is still going to be wonderful and it’s still something to aspire to, it does not mean that the life you’re living right now in the working years has to be bad. If you can clue in on these, it can be a good thing.

Erin: I don’t think retirement is like an end goal. I just think it’s another phase, the transition. Yeah. And it’s not like, oh, I’m going to restrict myself today to one day be able to take a vacation or one day be able to do these things. You should do these things throughout the course of your entire life.

Know Your Why (26:47)

Brian: I liked this PUSH principle because, by the way, this is an echo. There’s nothing new under the sun. I’ve read enough content. Jonathan Clements had great research in some of his books about what creates happiness because that’s ultimately everybody looks at money and I think a lot of people falsely think they put a value. If I just could save $3 million, $4 million, I’ll be happy with my money. No, that is not the way it works. It actually you have to pay attention to every one of these concepts because you have to feel purpose or value. Give you something worth waking up for and then knowing what you’re going to not getting away from. And that’s why I like the use and then the socialize. If you don’t have a group of people that you’re kind of socializing, friends, family, that’s where the happiness, that’s where the fulfillment is. And then what are you doing if you save this pot of money and then you’re just not healthy enough to even enjoy it? So, it’s back to that final component of health. Health is wealth. And I’ll never forget I was probably in my 30s at the time and we were out at a birthday dinner and it was we were out with a bunch of couples and one of the couples the husband was a good bit older. And he was there and he was 10, 12 years older than all of us and he was like guys get out there and do the traveling now because when you get a little bit older if you think you’re going to hike that mountain when you’re 60 it’s probably not going to be as easy as you’re thinking it is. So get out there make sure you’re maximizing every decade that you’re on this beautiful planet. And that stuff has hit me. I mean it’s always let money be a tool. It cannot be the driver of who you are. If you think it is, you’re going to find you get to the top of the mountain, it’s going to be a good bit emptier than you realize. So, make sure you’re very purposeful with what you’re using your money and what the big why is for you.

Erin: 100%. If you’re not hiking the mountains at 30 and 40, you’re not going to be doing it at 60.

Bo: And so, what’s one of the ways that or what are some of the takeaways on how you can really view money as a tool? You just said it, Brian. The very first one is know your why. Understand who you are and what you value. When it comes to retiring, if you hate warm weather, really don’t like sand, and don’t like to be in the water, don’t assume you need to go buy the beach condo just because that’s what the neighbors did or that’s what someone in your social group did. Make sure that you understand the financial decisions that you’re making, both during your working years and even your retirement years, reflect the things that actually matter to you, not the things that you believe other people are going to perceive as you being successful.

Erin: Throw the blinders on.

Bo: Throw the blinders on. That’s right. These blinders are great. We should start selling these things.

Brian: And as I this is another echo. I kind of got carried away and just threw them all out there already. But know what you’re It’s not what you’re retiring from. It’s what you’re retiring to. So be very purposeful and deliberate with those decisions.

Erin: You can’t retire from anything. Like your life goes with you. Wherever you go, there you are. Isn’t that the saying? Like it doesn’t matter if you have $50,000 in the bank, $5 million. If you don’t have a purpose, if you don’t have friends, if you don’t have your health, it doesn’t matter.

Bo: That’s right. And if you can begin with the end in mind in all of those areas, you’re going to allow yourself to make that transition smooth. If you begin with the end in mind, thinking about your health. I want to be this healthy in my 60s, 70s, and 80s. It’s going to change the decisions you make in your 30s, 40s, and 50s. If I want to spend time traveling with friends once I’m in my 50s and 60s and financially independent, then you probably ought to start working on building those relationships with those friends now. If I want to be able to support my family and help my grandkids and travel or whatever those things may be, if you understand what that beautiful picture in the future you want to live towards is, it’s going to impact the way that you make decisions right now. We know right now if we’re not thinking about the end, wasting time can be even more expensive than wasting money.

Health is Wealth (30:34)

Brian: And this last one, I feel like it’s appropriate for Erin kind of to close this part out because we had so many great conversations off camera and you were sharing kind of you’ve got a background in nutrition and I mean it’s kind of crazy. If you want nerdy knowledge it’s like the most covered. It’s not only finance. There’s a lot of health stuff there as well. But we know that health is wealth.

Erin: To me, I had a big health scare when I was 17. When I was 18, I had a brain tumor. I was paralyzed on the right side of my body. And it took months, took months and years to get back from it. But I just I don’t think you know until you’re in those moments how precious your health is. And it’s kind of a kicker. It left me with the side effect of epilepsy. Okay. And I have about one seizure a month. And when those seizures happen, I get my reminder that it does not matter, like if I don’t have friends, if I don’t have like a rock-solid group to lean on, if I don’t have my health, none of it matters. And it all compounds. You were saying like foster those friendships now. Foster your health now. Do everything now. Whether you’re 20, 30, 40, don’t wait until you’re 60 because 60 will come.

When to Get Help (31:50)

Bo: I love that. So, we’re talking about what successful retirees do. One of the things that we’ve seen and we get to work in this area, right? We work with a lot of folks who are working through this transition from their working years into financial independence. One of the things that we have recognized is that when it comes to retirement, again, a lot of successful retirees, they recognize when it makes sense to ask for help or when it makes sense to seek guidance, to get an outside opinion, and make sure that you’re doing the things that you should be doing and not missing the things that you shouldn’t be missing.

Brian: Yeah, this is once again I love sending people to the website because it gives you we’re just trying to give it away. We really are. And that’s why if you go to moneyguy.com/resources, maybe we’ve stirred something up that’s got some curiosity. We have a retirement guide that we’d encourage you. Please go check this out. It will let you kind of cross reference a lot of the things we covered today with Erin so you can figure out where how does this all relate to me and where am I at in this entire process.

Erin: You guys are just the king of resources. I’ve been listening for years and your resources just get better and better and you give it away for free. So check it out.

Bo: Now I love we believe that there is a better way to do money. It’s why we talk so much, Brian, about the abundance cycle because what we want is want you to come learn all these concepts we’re sharing. We want you to use the free resources. I want you to be able to apply them to your life and actually be able to use these things so that you can start doing money so that hopefully one day you reach a level of success where you say now it’s time to fulfill the abundance cycle.

Brian: Man, that is a great setup for a portion of our website where we actually have where you can learn how to become a client because we do give away so much free advice and really there’s no ask on that because we’re counting on that abundance cycle. You will have complexity show up. That’s just a natural part of success. So, if that is you, if you resemble some of these things, go check it out.

Closing: Thank You Erin! (33:37)

Brian: Now, Erin, this has been an absolute blast having you on. I mean, this has been great because, you know, how you first came into my life was I just, you know, it’s amazing how the algorithm just starts showing up stuff, but you had a video. This is why we were like, we got to get Erin’s take on this is because you had a video that just exploded on retirement. So, that’s why we wanted to have you and get your take and it’s been an absolute pleasure to have you on today.

Erin: It’s been a dream. I have listened to you guys for over a decade and I told them this off camera but it was my dream when I was working on my master’s in finance to come work for them and life took me a different direction but I got to meet you.

Brian: I love it. If folks out there want to know more about you or want to engage with your content, where can they go check that out?

Erin: Check me out on YouTube under Erin Talks Money.

Brian: Guys, remember there is a better way to do money and we truly do believe hopefully you heard it from today is that money is only a tool. If you want to get more, go to moneyguy.com/resources specifically for the free stuff. I’m your host Brian joined by Bo and of course Erin today. Money Guy team out.