Pod Insights Money Guy Show X% of Americans Will NEVER Retire… featuring Erin Talks Money! About this episode Nearly 70% of Americans believe they’ll never retire, but you don’t have to be one of them. We sit down with Erin from Erin Talks Money to break down JP Morgan’s study of 5 million retirees and reveal the four key behaviors that lead to retirement success: valuing your time, staying consistent, focusing on what you can control, and remembering that money is just a tool. Packed with real-life examples, investing strategies, and timeless lessons, this episode will help you chart your own path to financial independence.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 The best part of waking up? A full cup of Folgers coffee and music on full blast.
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0:56 Brian Preston? 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?
1:03 Speaker 03 Brent, I am so excited to talk about this because we get to work with hundreds of retirees every day here to bound wealth. We know what makes them successful. But not only that, we are so excited today to be joined by Aaron from Aaron Talks Money.
1:18 Speaker 04 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.
1:43 Speaker 03 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, 1 in 4 adults over 50 do not expect to ever be able to retire. So this is a widespread issue right now.
2:00 Brian Preston? 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. 1 in 3 millennials say that they're not confident. And their ability and not to tell on y'all's age, but that's you guys. Forty-four percent 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.
2:25 Speaker 04 I think that's the biggest question in personal finance. Like, will I ever be able to walk away?
2:30 Speaker 03 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.
2:48 Speaker 04 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?
3:03 Brian Preston? Especially when you think about they only put in $24,000.
3:06 Speaker 04 And 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?
3:15 Speaker 03 They save for a lot longer. They're gonna have to have more money.
3:17 Speaker 04 Turns out they only have a quarter million dollars. So they have less money than somebody who invested for 10 years.
3:23 Speaker 03 Even though they save more, they save three times as much and ended up with like $40,000 less.
3:28 Brian Preston? So it's almost like that, you know, we all think about when we're in our twenties. We know that money is just scarce. And so when somebody you watch content like this and you're in your twenties and you're broke as a joke, you're like, why should I even start? This is kind of your motivation is because yes, you might be broke, but even little sacrifices can create huge results. Because your friend, if you think about it, if you flipped 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, Aaron, 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.
4:12 Brian Preston? 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, Aaron?
4:20 Speaker 04 If you stay invested from 25 to 65, investing that $200, you'd end up with nearly $600,000. Just 200 bucks.
4:27 Speaker 03 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 at this study, there were some key takeaways that we want you to know. And the very first one is you get to choose your heart. Cause a lot of you are going to say, you've already alluded to this, Brian, man, I'm, I'm young, I'm in my twenties and money's tight and housing is expensive and rent is 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.
5:05 Brian Preston? And there's actually, I love our illustration because we always talk about the power of discipline. And this is the thing, you remember I had that high school teacher that got me all excited because he made what seemed impossible seemed right and right in front of me and easy is that that high school teacher say is a, if you could just save a hundred dollars 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 twenties and you're broke as a joke. You're looking at this and you're going, okay, maybe I could do a hundred dollars. 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,
5:48 Brian Preston? 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. Obviously you've still got time, but it is amazing that you'd have to save now a thousand dollars a month, a thousand 52 dollars 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 heart. I know that you're broke in your twenties, but it doesn't take just pennies on the dollar, literally will do more by putting that money to work.
6:24 Speaker 04 And we have these stories that we tell ourself. We say, oh, when I'm 30, I'll make more and it'll be easier. When I'm 40, I'll make 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.
6:41 Speaker 03 And we get it. Look, 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 percent of my pay, they're also going to put an X percent. So at a minimum, I'm at least going to do that. And no matter what, I'm gonna, I'm gonna avoid Starbucks. I'm not gonna eat, I'm gonna do whatever. I'm gonna 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,
7:26 Speaker 03 you can set yourself up to make that hard decision early, just a little bit easier.
7:31 Brian Preston? Well, I always like the forced scarcity is you get pay raises? Because I like that part where you said, make the, 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.
7:59 Speaker 04 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.
8:09 Speaker 03 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, the whole headline of this piece is that if you can start early, and if you can say, 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.
8:49 Brian Preston? 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
9:34 Brian Preston? how you maximize your opportunities.
9:36 Speaker 04 I love your guys' Wealth Multiplier. I get so excited when I see that it's $88, but now that I hone in on 40 and I see that it's seven, I just wish I could have saved more. Can I go back in time?
9:49 Speaker 03 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. Now, the second takeaway that that successful retirees realize is not only do they recognize the value of their time, they also recognize that consistency is key.
10:15 Speaker 04 JP Morgan has a wonderful case study on this. If you look at the returns of the S and P 500 for the 20-year period going from '05 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%.
10:31 Speaker 03 Unbelievable.
10:32 Brian Preston? Can you imagine that $10,000 turning into close to $72,000?
10:35 Speaker 04 That's 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, the $70,000 would be cut to nearly $33,000. If you missed the 20 best days.
10:50 Speaker 04 Best days in a 20 year period, you'd be $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.
11:02 Brian Preston? 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, 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. Is that I always see trolls crawl out from underneath the bridge and they go, I've seen this illustration before. We all talk about missing the best days. I would miss the worst days too.
11:26 Speaker 03 Cause I'm that good.
11:27 Brian Preston? And I always remind, 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 gotta nail it on two different sides, sides of it. You have to actually sell before the, you know, the markets go down and then you have to buy back. Now, Erin, I've seen something 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?
12:07 Speaker 04 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 a fool's game. We all have day jobs. We're not.
12:14 Speaker 03 That's not what we're gonna do with our full time. So the question becomes, okay, well, what, 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 gonna start investing. I'm gonna get my money working for me, but a year goes by, two years, three years. I think, man, I just, I'm not a millionaire yet. Like I've saved all, most of the money in my account is what I've saved. Or maybe there was a downturn and it 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.
12:59 Brian Preston? What always. Worry about is um is the quit, you know, is because people get motivated. I'm sure you look at your data too, Aaron, as I know, like last month, third, 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 go fund your 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 that's 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 it's just going, you're going to
13:44 Brian Preston? 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.
13:52 Speaker 04 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.
14:10 Speaker 03 Good legs and good glutes.
14:12 Brian Preston? 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.
14:26 Speaker 03 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 is past. If you're someone who gets skittish and is afraid of the markets, maybe going out there and buying a triple levered 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.
15:10 Speaker 03 Where the market is down and you don't have to waste mental calories, creating opportunities for you to not be consistent.
15:17 Speaker 04 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 the market's down, went down a thousand point. 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.
15:35 Brian Preston? That is a great outlook. 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 an emergency reserve? Should I be funding Roth IRAs? Where, where am I at in my financial journey? And that's why we love, I reached down for it.
15:52 Brian Preston? 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.
16:04 Speaker 03 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.
16:40 Speaker 04 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.
16:53 Speaker 03 That's right.
16:54 Speaker 04 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.
17:07 Speaker 03 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 are that much in capital gains rates.
17:21 Speaker 04 And those are the things that make headlines.
17:23 Speaker 03 Right, exactly. The things that the financial media wants you to clue into are not actually the things that you can't control, but it gets none of the press and it probably matters way more than all the other stuff.
17:32 Brian Preston? 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 Aaron 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 and investing as early as possible. So the army of dollar bills has that much compounding growth working for it in the background.
18:05 Speaker 03 So when
18:06 Speaker 00 The best part of waking up, a full cup of Folgers coffee and music on full blast.
18:32 Speaker 00 Shop Folgers instant coffee and more at your nearest retailer.
18:37 Speaker 01 Hey, Spotify listeners. When you travel with American Airlines, you'll enjoy comfort and convenience at every altitude. Before takeoff, unwind in the Admirals Club Lounge with curated self-serve offerings of hearty bites and refreshments. In flight, stay connected with high-speed Wi-Fi. Sponsored by AT&T. Your journey is designed to feel easy from the moment you check in to the moment you arrive. No matter where you're going, American gets you there. Book now at aa.com.
19:02 Speaker 03 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, 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 thing. You get to choose.
19:30 Speaker 04 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.
19:45 Speaker 03 That's right.
19:45 Brian Preston? Well, and I love, you know, once again, all those new people coming in. You're probably going, looking at this and you're hearing the content. And you're like, well, how much should I be saving? And that's the good, here's the good news. Go to money guy.com slash resources. We have a great illustration on how much you should save. So it's a, you cross reference what's your age versus your, in an intersection with your savings rate. And you'll very quickly see if you figure out this content in your twenties, your money goes a long way. You'll more than likely replace more than a hundred percent of even your working income in retirement. If you really hit the ground running, but don't worry. This is why we can save, saving 25% of your gross income in your thirties, all the way up to your 40 years of age, you're probably going to be okay.
20:28 Brian Preston? Now, if you've discovered 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.
20:46 Speaker 04 These resources are so good. I've used them for years. So yes, tell everyone to go download them.
20:52 Brian Preston? And I'll give Bo credit. He has, we have really fancy spreadsheets behind us. He loves some good macros that kind of power these things.
21:00 Speaker 03 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 can have 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.
21:45 Speaker 03 And so even how I think about where I'm putting my money from a tax perspective can have a significant impact.
21:51 Brian Preston? 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 401k. 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.
22:34 Brian Preston? So load up those Roth IRAs, the Roth 401ks, 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 dividend is 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.
23:05 Speaker 04 I think you said it with speak to the CPA and you, 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.
23:21 Speaker 03 It's about how much you get to keep over your life. And then, but maybe you're saying, guys, I, okay, I, you heard this and you've 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. Cause when it comes to building inconsistency, 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.
24:03 Speaker 03 But technology has changed the world to where it's now it's easier than ever to actually implement some of these systems that do make wealth building almost inevitable.
24:11 Brian Preston? Yeah. Have you always been an index investor, Aaron?
24:13 Speaker 04 No, I started as an individual stock picker because Warren Buffett was my hero.
24:17 Speaker 03 Of course.
24:18 Speaker 04 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 Vogel's got a better plan over here. I'm signing up for this.
24:30 Brian Preston? 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. Now, 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 active 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 and 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
25:14 Brian Preston? 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 fund, retirement funds that you can get into. And it's, as Beau 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
25:57 Brian Preston? 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 somewhat, 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.
26:19 Speaker 04 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. Fun, fun. This is where my money going. We're done. That's target date. Everyone can win with them.
26:38 Speaker 03 It's about setting up a system that allows you to be consistent.
26:42 Speaker 04 Yes.
26:42 Speaker 03 I love that. The fourth thing that successful retirees recognize, and this is a big one, right? Cause 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.
27:10 Speaker 04 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.
27:21 Speaker 03 To everyone, yeah.
27:22 Speaker 04 So whether you're 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.
27:50 Speaker 04 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, it doesn't mean anything.
27:56 Speaker 03 Yeah. I think it's wild. You know, this is, these are great principles for retirees to be successful. But I love how you started today. This isn't something you have to wait until you're retired to be able to really focus on these. Cause 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.
28:23 Speaker 04 I don't think retirement is like an end goal. I just think it's another phase.
28:27 Speaker 03 The transition.
28:28 Speaker 04 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 your course of your entire life.
28:37 Brian Preston? 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 a great research in some of his books about what creates happiness. Cause 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 three million dollars, four million dollars, 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 for 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,
29:19 Brian Preston? 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 in, probably in my thirties at the time and I was, we were out at a birthday dinner. And it was, we were out with a bunch of couples and one of the couples is the, the husband was a good bit older. And he was there and he was, so he was all, he was 10, 12 years older than all of us. And he was like, guys, get out there and do the traveling now. Cause he goes, when you get in, you're a little bit older. You, if you think you're going to hike that mountain, when you're 60, it's probably not going to be as easy as it is, as you're thinking it is.
30:00 Brian Preston? 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 to let money be a tool. It cannot be the driver of who you are. If you think it is, you're going to find, and 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.
30:23 Speaker 04 A hundred percent. If you're not hiking the mountains at 30 and 40, you're not going to be doing it at 60.
30:27 Speaker 03 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.
31:04 Speaker 04 Throw the blinders on.
31:05 Speaker 03 Throw the blinders on. That's right. It's another great. These blinders are great. We should start selling these things.
31:10 Brian Preston? 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.
31:23 Speaker 04 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, five 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.
31:37 Speaker 03 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
32:16 Speaker 03 decisions right now. And we know right now, if we're not thinking about the end, wasting time can be even more expensive than wasting money.
32:26 Brian Preston? And this last one, I feel like it's appropriate for Aaron kind of to close this part out because we had so many great conversations off camera and you were sharing kind of you, you've got a background in nutrition and I mean, it's kind of crazy. You, we were like, Aaron is your, if you want nerdy knowledge.
32:42 Speaker 03 It's like the most interesting woman in the world.
32:44 Brian Preston? It's not only finance. There's a lot of health stuff there as well, but we know that health is wealth.
32:50 Speaker 04 To me, I had a big health scare when I was 17 and 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 little bit of a kicker. It left me with the side effect of epilepsy.
33:14 Speaker 03 Okay.
33:14 Speaker 04 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.
33:41 Speaker 03 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, to make sure that you're doing the things that you should be doing and not missing the things that you shouldn't be missing.
34:12 Brian Preston? 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 money.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 Aaron. So you can figure out where, how does this all relate to me and where am I at in this entire process?
34:37 Speaker 04 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.
34:44 Speaker 03 Love it. Now, 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 we want you to come learn all these concepts we're sharing. We want you to use the free resources. We 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.
35:09 Brian Preston? Man, that is a great setup for a portion of our website where we actually have where you can learn how to use. Can become a client because we do give away so much free advice and because 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. Now, Aaron, this has been an absolute blast having you on.
35:32 Speaker 04 It's been a dream.
35:33 Brian Preston? I mean, this, 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 Aaron'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.
35:53 Speaker 04 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 masters in finance to come work for them. And life took me a different direction, but I got to meet you.
36:07 Speaker 03 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?
36:13 Speaker 04 Check me out on YouTube under Aaron Talks Money.
36:15 Brian Preston? 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 slash resources specifically for the free stuff. I'm your host, Brian, joined by Bo and of course, Aaron today, Money Guy team, out.
36:32 Speaker 03 The Money Guy Show is hosted by Brian Preston and Bo Hanson. Brian and Bo are partners with Abound Wealth Management. Abound Wealth Management is a registered investment advisory firm regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission in accordance and compliance with the securities, laws and regulations. Abound Wealth Management does not render or offer to render personalized investment or tax advice through the Money Guy Show. The information provided is for informational purposes only, may not be suitable for all investors, and does not constitute financial, tax, investment, or legal advice. All investments involve a degree of risk, including the risk of loss.
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