Can You Retire With $500,000? $750,000? A Million? SB1897

Someone with half a million dollars confidently retires and thrives. Someone else with a full million dollars runs into trouble within a few years. The dollar amount alone never tells the whole story, and today's episode proves it with three real scenarios side by side. Joe and OG walk through exactly what changes the math: your age, whether Social Security has kicked in yet, how much of your spending is already covered by guaranteed income, and how many years that portfolio actually needs to stretch. What You'll Walk Away With Why the question to start with isn't "how much do I have," it's "what's the gap between my expenses and my guaranteed income"A real comparison of three retirement scenarios (500k, 750k, and 1 million) that shows why the smallest portfolio can actually be the least riskyWhy the "safe withdrawal rate" debate among experts (ranging from under 4% to over 5%) matters less than having a plan for flexibilityThe often-overlooked lumpy expenses, property taxes, insurance premiums, home repairs, that can quietly wreck an otherwise solid retirement budgetWhy retiring early and taking Social Security ahead of schedule creates a double reduction that compounds for both you and a spouseA clear breakdown of how many years you actually have left to "practice" your retirement spending before you commit to itWhy This Matters Now A specific dollar figure feels like it should provide an answer, but retirement security depends on the relationship between that number and your actual life: your fixed expenses, your guaranteed income, your timeline, and your flexibility if plans change. Two people with wildly different account balances can have equally solid plans, and two people with the same balance can be in completely different positions depending on when they start drawing from it. The real work isn't chasing a bigger number. It's understanding exactly what gap that number needs to fill. From the Basement A Social Security deep dive digs into a genuinely useful and underdiscussed detail: how retiring early doesn't just shrink your own benefit, it can shrink a spouse's spousal benefit too, and by how much. Plus, a Golden Girls trivia detour and a listener note that sparks a good, honest conversation about teaching kids to give. Resources Mentioned Stacking Benjamins Field Kit https://stackingbenjamins.com/fieldkit — the all-in-one budgeting and net worth tracking toolSSA.gov https://www.ssa.gov — create an account to download your official Social Security earnings statementThe 201 Newsletter https://stackingbenjamins.com/201 — deeper dives on topics covered in the show See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:33Speaker 01

  In a world where overspending, debt, and keeping up with the Joneses rules us all, where the voices from the merchants, restaurants, and credit companies lord over the common man. Out of the darkness, like a beacon of hope, comes a new voice, a voice that's rich and creamy, like your favorite butter, and delicious, like cheeseburger pizza on your diet cheat day. It's The Stacking Benjamins Show.

• 1:10Speaker 02

  Live from Joe's Mom's Basement, it's The Stacking Benjamins Show.

• 1:25Speaker 02

  I'm Joe's Moms Neighbor Doug, and here's a question. How little does it take to retire and not regret that you've left the workforce? Today, we'll talk about retirements of $500,000, $750,000, and $1 million, and what bumps in the road people with these amounts of money can expect. But that's not all. Anna and OG are back with Week Two of their current Financial Basics series. And of course, I'll swoop in halfway home with some of my heartwarming and feel-good money trivia. And now, two guys who always feel good rolling out a bet on a Monday because they get to spend it with you. It's Joe and OG.

• 2:13Speaker 03

  Oh Doug, flattery, flattery for the win on a Monday. Hey, everybody. Happy Monday to you. I am Joe Saul Sehi. I got the raspy voice going today. Didn't do a little bit of traveling. And excited to be back in the basement alongside my pal OG, who's also been traveling. You've been pedaling your little feet off.

• 2:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm never doing it again.

• 2:36Speaker 03

  The bicycle's dead to you?

• 2:37Speaker 04

  If anybody wants a bike, it's for sale. Free to a good home.

• 2:41Speaker 03

  OG suddenly realized this miracle called a car is just even more amazing than he thought it was.

• 2:47Speaker 04

  It was very hot last weekend. One star. Do not recommend.

• 2:51Speaker 03

  Wrote in the hotter-than-hell, a ride that I've also done. Although you did the full monty, you went all the way to 100 miles.

• 2:58Speaker 04

  I did do it full monty. How did you know? Or police and everything. It's like a police escort. It was great.

• 3:05Speaker 03

  I did 100K when I did it. I was not going to do the 100 miles, so congrats to you, man.

• 3:11Speaker 04

  Wait, I could have done 100K? There's an option?

• 3:15Speaker 03

  Who knew?

• 3:16Speaker 04

  What the heck?

• 3:17Speaker 03

  I think there was even, wasn't there even a 50K?

• 3:20Speaker 04

  Actually, I saw on the thing that there was 10, 25, 50, 75, 100. And I'm like, what? What am I doing? I could have done like 20 minutes. Like go up there, ride my bike for a little bit, get a little sweat on.

• 3:34Speaker 03

  Get the t-shirt.

• 3:34Speaker 04

  I've been home for kickoff of the TCU game.

• 3:37Speaker 03

  I don't know, dude. It doesn't always have to be going over mountain passes and 100 miles in the Texas heat. Like, what are we thinking?

• 3:44Speaker 04

  Wish somebody would have told me.

• 3:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, if only there was somebody out there who knew that ahead of time. We got a great show today, OG, because people often ask you all the time, "Hey, I got $500,000. Think I can retire? I got $1 million. Am I close to retirement?" What's funny is this answer is more nuanced than people think that it is. And we're going to paint that picture. We're going to show you what you really need to know before you decide to tell the boss to shove it. That's going to be the focus on today's show. But before that, we've got a couple sponsors who help us keep on keeping on. We're going to hear from them. And then OG and I are going to come back and we are going to walk through, "What if you got $500,000? Can you go today?"

• 4:30Speaker 03

  "I think you might be able to." "750?" "Sounds good." "Million dollars?" "Okay, I'm listening." Let's see what the bumps in the road might look like. Remember Superman? It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Superman. We built the equivalent for your money. It's a budgeting app, it cancels subscriptions, it protects and helps you build credit, tracks your net worth, so many more. It's the Super App Field Kit. Boom, boom, boom. You don't want to spend time managing your money, you want to live. So get Field Kit, so everything is in one place and you stop staring at screens all day. Check it out at stackingbenjamins.com/fieldkit. Well, you may know that Chaos is the name of the game here in Mom's Basement.

• 5:10Speaker 03

  What with guests coming in and out, Cooper the Cat getting in the way, Doug being, well, being Doug. The holidays make it even worse because it's all about food and big meals. And the problem is, prepping for those takes forever. But what about those between meals, right? The meals between those huge, huge, huge bookends? Well, that's where Factor comes in. Factor is made with high-quality ingredients that you recognize and trust with over 175 banned ingredients. You always know you're eating something that's good for you, even when you don't have time. It's ready in two minutes. Whether it's lunch between meetings or dinner after holiday shopping,

• 5:50Speaker 03

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• 6:34Speaker 03

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• 7:08Speaker 03

  Well, today, we're going to do Retirement by the Number Stackers. $500,000, $750,000, $1 million. And I know what happens when people hear those numbers. Somebody hears $500,000, OG, and goes, "I'm set." Like, that is great. There's actually a woman on TikTok who very confidently gives advice. And I was like, I'm watching her video, and she's just saying things with such this tone in her voice. And she goes, "Hi, my name is so-and-so, and I retired at 53 with half a million dollars." And immediately, to me, as a guy who's been in this industry for 30-plus years, I immediately just shut down.

• 7:52Speaker 03

  I'm like, "Nope, that's not working for me." She has yet to see what the other side of that looks like.

• 7:58Speaker 04

  Well, maybe. I mean, frankly, I've had clients that retired with half a million dollars. I think we'll talk a little bit about that today. There's some analogy there about, are you able to, are you able to make it? But it's not how much you got, it's how much you keep.

• 8:11Speaker 03

  So, yeah, good point.

• 8:12Speaker 04

  It'll be a fun, fun conversation today.

• 8:14Speaker 03

  But I do think that to present that without all the, and here's how I did it, and just be like, "I'm your guru for everybody." I don't know. Anyway, somebody else, though, OG, has $1 million. And I know there's other people in our audience who go, "I could never retire with that little money." Like, "I've done my own math, and I need, I need more." Both these people might be right. Here's the big question. Where do we start? Before we launch into these three different people, I want to start with the $500,000 person. What do we need to know before we retire? In other words, I don't think the place to start is, "Hey, I got $500,000, OG, can I go?" You're going to have some questions back to them.

• 8:58Speaker 03

  What are some of the questions that the person needs to answer first?

• 9:03Speaker 04

  Well, I think a couple things. Firstly, I want to know what sort of guaranteed income streams you might have. You know, it's different if you're 52 years old with half a million dollars, like your, like your person that you mentioned on, on the internet, because you probably don't have social security at that point. You could have a pension, you know, maybe a schoolteacher worked for 30 years. That's pretty common, you know, maybe you could.

• 9:28Speaker 03

  Police officer, firefighter?

• 9:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, service-related type of thing. What kind of guaranteed income is a big component there? And/or are you planning on retiring from your current job, but you're going to have a little bit of side income? You know, "I'm going to stop, I'm going to stop my nine-to-five, but I'm going to work weekends at Home Depot and pick up a few bucks," or, you know, whatever. So that's important. I want to know what the situation is relative to fixed expenses. What kind of debt payments do you have still? Obviously, the person who has a paid-for house and no car payments and no, you know, credit card bills and no student loans left and, you know, all that sort of stuff. That person's going to be in much better shape than, you know, you can only eat so much food. You know what I mean?

• 10:14Speaker 04

  Like, you go out to dinner every single day, every day of the year. That pales in comparison to having a mortgage payment and a car payment and some student loans and a little bit of consumer debt. You know what I mean? Like, if you take away the guaranteed fixed expenses, and now all you have to do is just your consumption, that's very adjustable. You know, you can say, "Well, this week is high expenses because I want to go out to eat. Next week is low expenses," or, you know, travel or whatever. So that's a really big component. And then also, I want to kind of look to the future and say, like, "Are there any big things on the horizon that we should know about?" Again, retiring at 53 with a middle schooler, which is what I would have if I retired at 53,

• 11:00Speaker 04

  is a different thing than retiring at 53 being an empty nester. Because if I retired at 53 and somebody looked and said, they'd go like, wait, what you've like, what are you doing for college? That's a big thing coming up on the horizon. I'm not saying you have to pay for it. I just need to know, like, what are you thinking you're going to do with that? Because, you know, if you think you're going to stroke $100,000 check for college in four years, we should probably put that in the plan.

• 11:27Speaker 03

  This brings up this huge point, which is, again, that we don't start with the amount of money. What we need to do is figure out, what I'm hearing, OG, is we need to figure out what the gap is. If my lifestyle costs X, and that those income streams you talk about cover Y, then my portfolio needs to produce Z, right? It just needs to fill the... So the big question you're asking is, what's the gap? And how long are these gaps? And what are the bumps in the road going to look like?

• 11:57Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I think the other thing to consider, too, is magically changing your lifestyle from one tier to the next is not very realistic. I know that people can do it because people lose jobs and they have layoffs, or they get, you know, forced to early retire. And, you know, you got to figure out what you're going to do. But if you have the opportunity to choose your retirement, I don't know of anybody who has done an early retirement and purposefully reduced their lifestyle, or been able to do it. You know, it's like, it's like, you're just used to the experiences that you have. And I don't

• 12:39Speaker 04

  mean experiences like travel experience. I mean, you know, you shop at a certain grocery store, you buy a certain amount of name brand stuff, you have this cable package. Does anybody have cable anymore? You know, streaming package. You replace your car at this frequency. Like, this is who you've become. And while it's not impossible, it's like changing somebody over who's like an amazing spender, to turn them into being an amazing saver. It's just not in your nature, you know? And it's hard. It's not impossible, but it takes a big amount of discipline to do.

• 13:16Speaker 03

  Well, you brought this up on graduation day. I like the clip that you played about getting disciplined ahead of time. So if you think you want to retire and you have a wide gap to fill, can you narrow that gap and work at narrowing the gap, I think, before you retire?

• 13:35Speaker 04

  I think this was one of your things, right? When you were an advisor still, it was like, if you think you can live on 2,000 a month, then you should be saving 2,000, you know?

• 13:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, play test it.

• 13:44Speaker 04

  You should be putting two grand a month in your brokerage account right now. Well, no, no, I can't right now, but I will as soon as I retire. Okay, okay, buddy.

• 13:53Speaker 03

  All right, Pinocchio.

• 13:55Speaker 04

  Sure, buddy. So if you think you can, then do it, especially if it's a big reduction.

• 14:02Speaker 04

  And I don't say that to be like snarky about it. I'm not trying to pee in somebody's Cheerios. I'm just saying, it's just really hard to do that when you have the other option of like, well, I'll just work a couple more years. If you had that option, right? If you don't have the option, it's a different scenario.

• 14:18Speaker 03

  All right. So the first place that we're working from stackers then is not the amount of money. It's figuring out the gap. That is step one. What is this amount of money going to fill? So if it's $500,750 or $1 million, what's the gap? The second is figuring out, we're not getting into portfolio construction today. We have other episodes for that. We can link to those in the show notes. We do have to talk about how much we're going to take out of that portfolio. Now, I, for those of you that have heard me talk about this 30 times here, on Afford Anything, on stage, wherever, I am not a fan of taking out the bleeding edge from your portfolio, because I believe that creates a bunch of stress.

• 15:01Speaker 03

  And the last thing somebody wants in retirement is a very, very stressful retirement, where you're taking out every single penny that you can. But what I want to do is use a number, OG, that we can use for 500, 750, and a million, just to get a level playing field. Follow me. So not a huge fan of this safe withdrawal rate. In fact, I became less of a fan last year, OG, when Bill Bangen, the guy that originally proposed the safe withdrawal rate at 4%, bumped it up and said, hey, it might be, under a lot of circumstances, 5.2. And then, just a couple of months later, Morningstar and their research team comes out with their

• 15:42Speaker 03

  white paper that says, we think it's 3.9. So we can't even, we get these huge experts that can't even agree on what the safe withdrawal rate is, OG. Is it 5.2? Is it 3.9? Like, I know, part of it is how you invest, but this idea of safe withdrawal rate drives me crazy for, well, for the reason that we can't decide what it is.

• 16:04Speaker 04

  Well, the reality is, is that you have absolutely no idea what your portfolio is going to do. You don't know how you're going to behave when your portfolio doesn't behave the manner in which you expect it to. I actually think that putting a stake in the ground around a certain percentage is probably as good a spot to start as any. And I think it's safe to say that we probably could all agree that 10% is probably too high, despite the fact...

• 16:33Speaker 03

  Except for one dude in Tennessee.

• 16:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:35Speaker 03

  Who thinks that's a, just a fine number.

• 16:38Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, again, in the last 15 years, the market's done really well. And you probably could have taken 10% out and probably been okay. Save a year or two in there that probably nuked it up a little bit, 2022, maybe. Or you have this dynamic withdrawal that is, you know, I'm just going to live on whatever it produces of returns. But the question then is, well, if you have a negative year, do you wait for it to get back to even money before you start? You know, it's like, it's just unreliable. That's not how life works. Your electric bill is your electric bill. You can't call...

• 17:11Speaker 03

  That's what I was thinking.

• 17:12Speaker 04

  Call them up and say...

• 17:13Speaker 03

  My portfolio is down. Give me a year.

• 17:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm good for it, but I need to wait for the market to recover. So I think it's as good a spot as any. And if you, if you say, well, it's, you know, I believe it's five. Okay, you know, whatever. It's probably not 10. It's probably something greater than two or three, because you're trying to balance out life expectancy and return on life. You know, you probably don't need to retire with half a million and die at 92 years old with 4 million. You know, you kind of probably left a little on the table. If you wanted to, I'm not saying you have to spend the money.

• 17:47Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 17:47Speaker 04

  But I would put a finger in the wind at around 4% or 5% and be okay with that as a starting point.

• 17:52Speaker 03

  Well, for this exercise, I went with the 3.9. And, and the reason I did...

• 17:56Speaker 04

  I can't do that math in my head, so I'd go with 5.

• 18:00Speaker 03

  Well, I've already done the math for you, for this, for this exercise. So we're going to be good. But the reason I went with the low one is because I want the less stressful retirement.

• 18:08Speaker 04

  Well, I'm going to give you a little pushback. I know that that wasn't your intent here, but that's okay. This is what makes it great radio, Joe. I think the alternative of being a little overspendy early is less stressful. The difference between 4% and 5% is five grand on half a million dollars, right? Which is, for maybe a lot of us, not the world's most profound delta, but $400 a month, if you kind of break this down into a monthly thing, you know, if I'm assigning dollars to this, I'm going like, where, where does this $400 go? That's easily your grocery budget if you're an empty nester. It's easily your cell phone, water, and maybe your electric bill. I do think it's different to say, you

• 18:53Speaker 04

  know, hey, is this, is this four, is it five, or in your, you know, 3.9 versus five, or something like that. With a little bit of an asterisk being, you have to be amenable to making some small changes, you know, like our friend Paul Merriman says, you know, if things are really great, then maybe I can bump it up a little. If things are really crappy, then, you know, it's a little lighter if you have that flexibility.

• 19:19Speaker 03

  No, 100%. And you're actually getting into a more nuanced discussion that I think we have to table for today and build a whole nother episode around. Because I do think, I think, you know, when we had Dana on the show, Dana Anspa, I know that she, like you, OG, looks at it, take out more, but monitor it. And I think if you have a professional in your corner, I feel much more comfortable that that will get done, right? And that the level of stress that you'd have while you're working through your retirement savings, while you're spending in the early years, and you're spending more than the 3.9 that

• 19:58Speaker 03

  I suggested here, then you've got somebody who's helping you recalibrate, somebody who's worked with a much bigger swath of people. So they know that, you know what, you're going to be okay. Here's our strategy. If the market changes and things don't work the way that they are now, here's what our game plan is. But if you're not working with somebody, what I generally see from a do it yourselfer is panic, right? Is sitting in front of your favorite news show, complaining about stuff in Washington, watching the stock market on CNBC or Fox Business, yelling about inflation, the price of eggs drives you crazy. You worry the whole time because you're on this island by yourself. So if

• 20:43Speaker 03

  you're going to be that person, then I would just prefer you stay away from the safe withdrawal rate. So that's why I went with the low number. So at $500,000, that's about 19.5. $750,000, that's $29,250. And at $1 million, that's 39,000 bucks.

• 21:01Speaker 04

  Can we just say 20, 30, and 40? Are you okay with that rounding, Joe?

• 21:07Speaker 03

  We could, but I didn't. I actually did the regular, I did the, I did the work here, man. Don't...

• 21:13Speaker 04

  20, 30, 40.

• 21:14Speaker 03

  Don't make me round when I did the actual work.

• 21:16Speaker 04

  And the other thing, by the way, as you quoted those numbers, I think we have to make this monthly. We don't live our lives in annual increments. You know what I mean? Like, if somebody asks you how much money you make, rarely do you quote your annual gross salary. You would say, I bring home 3,500 every paycheck, I guess. You know, like, that's the, that's the rhythm that we're used to. I would look at this, and I would say 1,700 bucks a month.

• 21:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:47Speaker 04

  And then maybe $2,500 a month, and then maybe $3,500 a month. That's, those are kind of your numbers.

• 21:53Speaker 03

  All right. So let's do this. 500,000 bucks, they're bringing home 1625 a month. All right?

• 21:57Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 21:58Speaker 03

  So let's start with that. I'm going to say, somebody comes up to you, they got $500,000. I'm going to introduce them to you a little bit at a time, and you tell me your thought. Like, does this immediately make you go, oh, that's good? Or, eh, that's a yellow flag. So $500,000 person comes to you and goes, I'm 65 years old, and I have $500,000. Your thought based on that age?

• 22:26Speaker 04

  I mean,

• 22:29Speaker 04

  so I have so many questions. Just based on the age, I would say probably doable. One word answer, doable.

• 22:36Speaker 03

  Well, you like it. I like it because you're eligible for social security.

• 22:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, doable.

• 22:43Speaker 03

  I also like it. Number two, because you're not trying to do the early retirement thing where you're putting up more strain on your portfolio. So I like that. Second thing, mortgage is paid off.

• 22:53Speaker 04

  We're 65 and the mortgage is paid off?

• 22:55Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 22:55Speaker 04

  Okay, we're just stacking.

• 22:56Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 22:56Speaker 04

  Like you're slow playing the data.

• 22:59Speaker 03

  I am. That's exactly what I'm doing.

• 23:01Speaker 04

  All right, 65 and mortgage paid off. More doable.

• 23:06Speaker 03

  Even better. A hundred percent. And the reason I like that is because $500,000 frankly, oh gee, for 65 to what could be 105 is we're going to have Linda Gratton on Wednesday, who's a longevity expert and talking about redefining this whole idea of retirement. So if you're looking at that amount of time, having as few bumps in the road as possible, I think really helps. Third thing, social security covers almost all my basic expenses.

• 23:37Speaker 04

  That makes me pretty comfortable. I would want to go through and define what your basic expenses are. But honestly, I think this is a little bit more common than people think when you, when you consider basic expenses being things like food and electricity and water bill and heating and that sort of thing. I will tell you the area that people don't really forecast very well in their brains is the annual expenses or less than monthly expenses that come out or less frequently than monthly expenses. If you have a paid for house, you probably still pay property taxes. But in a lot of states, your property taxes are once a year, maybe they're twice a year.

• 24:19Speaker 04

  Maybe they're twice a year and they're vastly different numbers. Like my mom's house in Michigan. One of the tax bills is a thousand bucks and then one is 5,000. So it's kind of an asynchronous. And does that do six months apart? It's like one's due in September, one's due in February. So it's not really. It's just, it's just weird timing. Or auto insurance, right? Like, or your house insurance, sometimes you pay annually. And so when we think about these monthly expenses, we think like, oh yeah, my AMX bill is 1,500 bucks a month. So yeah, my social security covers all of it. Well, except for Christmas, when you Christmas shop or except for September, when the property taxes are due. So be careful with those oddly timed expenses.

• 25:05Speaker 03

  Well, and that's great because in the person's back of the envelope math, they think they need only about 1,250 a month from the portfolio. And so if they can take 1,600 a month, that's going to cover, I think, a lot of those surprises that you talk about, OG. They're going to be careful. And I think they'd have to keep a good, make sure they got that emergency fund in place. But I think it covers it. But then, not only are they looking at retiring, their roof is also thinking about retiring right now, and so is their HVAC system.

• 25:41Speaker 04

  I have some of those retirements pending at my house right now, presently, you can tell.

• 25:45Speaker 03

  Getting ready for the party.

• 25:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's not a party coming. It's like more like put out to pasture.

• 25:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:51Speaker 04

  So how do I feel about that? Well, I'm not afraid of that. I'm not afraid of that. If you're saying, hey, I need 1,000 or 1,200 against my 1,600 bucks. I'm not as anti debt as some people are. When the arbitrage makes sense and you're not going to do both, the risk that you get into with debt is you borrow the money. Then your lifestyle doesn't account for that borrowing. And now you are increasing your lifestyle and borrowing cost. You know what I mean? It's like that snowball. HVAC system's eight grand. There's probably a deal out there if you're brand agnostic and you're like, I don't, I don't need a top of the line carrier.

• 26:34Speaker 04

  I don't even know, you know, but I can, I can do the deal with train and get 0% financing for 60 months. Yeah, do that. Why wouldn't you? People do with cars all the time. We have no problem doing with cars. Plus there's rebates and different areas, communities, utility company, federal government, people have different rebates. Or like in Texas, you never replace your roof. You just put a tarp on it and wait for the next hailstorm.

• 26:59Speaker 03

  That's what my realtor told me when I bought my first house here. They said, never replace your roof. Never replace your roof.

• 27:05Speaker 04

  The downside is I think they're on to that because we did two roof replacements in 18 months when we first bought our house. And now our deductible is higher than the roof replacement would be. So.

• 27:18Speaker 03

  Roughly bazillion.

• 27:19Speaker 04

  Yes, rounded up to.

• 27:20Speaker 03

  This is all I have for the half million person. I think the roof and the HVAC though, are the only potential Achilles heel for the reason though that you, that you mentioned. Because big, these big lumpy expenses OG are the really with, with half a million dollars and the potential for still 30, 35, 40 years of retirement. These big rocks are the only, that's, that's the thing you got to watch out for, I think, when you're coming in a little hot. Let's move to the 750 person. So same age, same general lifestyle. And if we think about the amount of money that they're going to bring in per month.

• 28:00Speaker 04

  Like 2,500?

• 28:01Speaker 03

  2,500 ish dollars. Same age, same general lifestyle, but a little plus, right? They want to spend a little more money. A lot of their basic expenses are not covered just by social security OG from the portfolio. They want to spend just over 2,500. They want to spend around 2,800 a month from the portfolio.

• 28:25Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 28:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. But I also think based on what you and I talked about around safe withdrawal rates. I think this is where I'd feel much more comfortable if you had a plan to reexamine your spending on a reasonable basis, you know?

• 28:41Speaker 04

  Yeah. The more that you're spending that is discretionary, the more that you have the flexibility to make changes down the line. Look, I'm all for living life. It's like, I, I just don't understand why people want to not do stuff or not experience things or not support or surround themselves with people that they want to be around. It just makes absolutely no sense to me. And then miser all their cash and never do anything. And you know, there's a balancing act for sure. And there's a trade off, you know, there's a client that I had a long, a long time client. He retired very early, you know, in his late 40s from a utility company.

• 29:22Speaker 04

  And his previous advisor had told him it was no problem to spend 10% of his portfolio because that's what the market was doing. This was many, many, many years ago. You know, we coached him up and said, hey, this thing seems like a big number. And he said, I don't care, you know, I'm just going to live my life. And he did for 20 years. And then he finally ran out of money. About age 70, 71, he ran out of money and he said, you know what? I'll tell you something. You would think that I would be mad that I ran out of money. I'm not. He's like, I got a paid for house. I got social security that pays my bills and puts food on the table. And I got to spend the last 20 years with my kids and grandkids every single day. Hanging out with them, going to practices, going to games.

• 30:04Speaker 04

  It was like a second chance of being, not second chance, but like a second time being a dad. It's like, I had to be a dad for my kids. And then when they had kids, I got to be a dad all over again and a granddad for 20 years. And now they're grown, the grandkids are. He goes, I live in a great community, paid for house, got a little dingy. Life is good. You contrast that to what if you had worked until he was 65, like a quote, normal person? He would have had millions of dollars, never experienced any of those things, which life is better. I don't know. Not for me to say, but.

• 30:36Speaker 03

  Well, not for me to say either, but I wonder as I'm listening to your story, like is there, uh, you know, it doesn't have to be either or, right?

• 30:43Speaker 04

  Well, yeah. And honestly, of course, along the way is like, you know, if we just take off the gas just a little, right? I'm not saying you have to go from all gas to all break, but if we could just let it off, just to, just for a little bit. And the thing with retirement planning is especially if your lips are just barely above water. And maybe this scenario of 2,800 bucks a month is one of those scenarios where it's like, you know, if everything goes according to plan. You know, if you retire Jan 1 of 2013, you're good. If you retired Jan 1 of 2007, probably not good. You know, like some of it's just that luck factor. You're just trying to, trying to work through that.

• 31:23Speaker 04

  But in both of those circumstances, if you get lucky, if that 750 can very quickly inch its way to like 1.2 and your spending stays at that 2,500, $2,800. You are so golden, it's insane. Like you're done. Like you don't have to worry about withdrawal rates, safe withdrawal rates, anything. You don't have to worry about like what allocation I have in my portfolio, stocks or bonds or like, what kind of risk can I take? Because you can absorb, you know, if your portfolio is 1.2 and you're only taking out $2,500, you can absorb a 40% market decline before you get to that quote unquote, safe withdrawal rate of that portfolio. So what does that mean? It means that you can be more aggressive with your investments, which then what happens generally?

• 32:07Speaker 04

  You go from that 1.2 to 2.5, you know, and now that compounding is working in your favor pretty quickly.

• 32:13Speaker 03

  Now you're talking about a whole different game plan.

• 32:15Speaker 04

  Whole different thing. Yeah.

• 32:17Speaker 03

  For this discussion, let's just keep him, the portfolio staying right around 750 throughout his early retirement years. You know, it's funny because my next question to you was going to be expensive travel, but I think we already kind of answered that. This 750,000 person, I think, can do the expensive travel. I think they do it. You mentioned Paul Merriman, the Paul Merriman way. Paul Merriman's has said on this show that when times are great for the market, he takes the extra money and he and his, his lovely wife, they traveled the world. And in years when the market went down, they traveled the Pacific Northwest where he lives. They went and they did a little bit more local stuff. So I don't think expensive travels out, even though they're eating every dollar

• 33:01Speaker 03

  and a little bit more of what, you know, the, my conservative numbers.

• 33:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, but that expensive travel is part of that 2,800 bucks. It's not $2,800 a month. And then I also need 20 grand to go to Europe.

• 33:14Speaker 03

  No, this is, they want an additional 20 grand.

• 33:16Speaker 04

  But that's, oh.

• 33:18Speaker 03

  That's, that's the scenario I'm talking about.

• 33:20Speaker 04

  Maybe once. Yeah. Not in love with that idea.

• 33:25Speaker 03

  I think markets go up. I think you can handle that. You don't think so? Do it the mayorman way?

• 33:29Speaker 04

  No, because your $2,800 today is not $2,800 in 10 years from now.

• 33:35Speaker 03

  Oh, you're still worried about inflation? Yeah.

• 33:37Speaker 04

  I mean, is there anything else to be worried about? Like, that's the only thing to be worried about.

• 33:42Speaker 03

  We've had no inflation lately. What are you talking about?

• 33:44Speaker 04

  I'm looking at, my mom just texted me this as a matter of fact. She has a long-term care policy and she said, hey, what should I do with it? Basically, you know, guaranteed benefit, guaranteed premium.

• 33:56Speaker 04

  Except it's not. Our bad. We did the math wrong. So her choices are reduce the benefit, reduce the time period, reduce the inflation rider, reduce the, you know, reduce, reduce, reduce, or accept a 15% premium increase. Which one of these boxes do you want to check? That's just the reality of life, you know? Milk costs more money today than it did 20 years ago.

• 34:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:19Speaker 04

  It just is. So you need a portfolio that's going to grow with that. And if you're taking that growth in those good years, what are you going to do when it's not a good year? The purpose of the growth in the good years is to insulate you for the not so good years. So if you're always like right up against it, like I said, that person who retired in 2013 and has taken all the growth every year, they're, they're in the catbird seat, except for the years when it goes down, then they get destroyed.

• 34:45Speaker 03

  Some great discussions around travel and bleeding every dollar. All right, let's go to a million dollars.

• 34:51Speaker 04

  Woo, party time.

• 34:52Speaker 03

  Yes, million dollars.

• 34:54Speaker 04

  Finally.

• 34:54Speaker 03

  So the first two were 65 years old. The person with a million is 57.

• 35:01Speaker 04

  Million bucks in 57?

• 35:05Speaker 04

  Do we, do we know what our spending is?

• 35:08Speaker 03

  It's coming, but your first thought?

• 35:11Speaker 04

  What's your spending? That's my first thought. My first thought is I need, I need more info.

• 35:15Speaker 03

  Well, and the reason I think you need more info is because, you know, this time factor is not insignificant. The thing I liked about 65 was the fact that they have that guaranteed income stream now and fewer years. But now we not only have let go of for the first few years, that guaranteed income stream, but second, you know, we just cranked up the number of years that we also need this to cover. So no social security yet, no Medicare yet. Portfolio needs to fund almost, almost everything.

• 35:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, pretty concerning. Those first 10 years. I mean, taking social security at 62 is such a penalty.

• 35:59Speaker 04

  If you've got some, you know, this changes if you're a federal worker and you just retired at 57, or you were a lieutenant colonel and you just retired at 57, that, that changes things quite a bit. If you, you know, and of course you're spending, but if you're, if you're just John Q. Public and no guaranteed income and not going to get any for probably the next 10 to 13 years.

• 36:23Speaker 04

  This requires some math. That's, it's not as clean cut as the other two.

• 36:28Speaker 03

  It is interesting that the million dollar scenario I gave you, and I did that on purpose, obviously. The person with a million dollars, I think,

• 36:34Speaker 04

  Don't say, Joe.

• 36:35Speaker 03

  Has the most fragile retirement of the three, which was my goal. The half million person has the most.

• 36:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:43Speaker 03

  We definitely don't want to start with 500, 750 or a million. You can see how the goal changes everything, stackers. When you want to retire becomes super important. What is the gap that you're trying to fill? And what penalties are you willing to take? Are you going to take the penalty so that you can get social security early at 62? Lots of things to consider. Glad we were able to dive into those OG. I would love to get your thoughts, stackers, on retiring at these three numbers, 500, 750 and a million dollars. Join our Facebook group, The Basement, stackingbenjamins.com/basement. And that gets you in the club where we talk about a lot of the things that happen on the show. We'd love to have you join us along with the 201,

• 37:27Speaker 03

  which is our newsletter where we dive even more into, into this topic. I'm sure Kevin Bailey, who writes our 201 newsletter is going to have a lot of fun. Of course, if you don't get the 201 newsletter, that's stackingbenjamins.com/201. Coming up, OG is going to be back. I get to give my vocal cords a little rest here. It's going to be OG and Anna and their financial basics. But first Doug, coming back down the stairs, man, it's about time. What's on tap for today's trivia?

• 37:58Speaker 02

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• 38:40Speaker 02

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• 39:15Speaker 03

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• 40:43Speaker 03

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• 41:11Speaker 03

  There is a financial conversation that's coming to millions of American families and there's a pretty good chance nobody wants to be the person who starts it. Inheritance. And here's why that matters. An estimated $124 trillion to heirs in charity is expected to be transferred by Americans over the next 20 years. It's an extraordinary amount of money, but Kiplinger's research found that 51% of adults and their parents, get this, never talk about money. And there's a pretty big disconnect. 47% of parents expect to leave a meaningful inheritance, while only 24% of adult children expect to actually receive one. Nearly 30% of parents don't even have a will in place.

• 41:55Speaker 03

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• 42:28Speaker 03

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• 44:30Speaker 02

  Hey there, stackers. I'm synth music lover. Seriously, I'm not, but it fits the script, so let's just go with it. And man, who's a huge fan of all things Miami, and by that, I mean Cuban sandwiches, Joe's mom's neighbor Doug. A show originally called Miami Nice definitely was playing on the Miami Vice brand while being an entirely different type of show. That's why ultimately NBC trashed that title and went with another for the long-running series starring Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan, and Estelle Getty. What was the name? Of course, if you've ever watched any reruns on TV, and I mean any reruns, you've seen this one. Of course, it was The Golden Girls. And now, speaking

• 45:13Speaker 02

  of gold, how about this week's basic segment with Anna and OG?

• 45:20Speaker 04

  Okay, Anna, season three, episode two, we're going to talk about social security, and specifically around framing this decision for people that are thinking about retiring early. Because if you're, you know, looking at some numbers, and you're doing some calculations, and you're downloading some stuff from social security, and your retirement plan and stuff like that, there's some, some things that you may need to be aware of if you're gonna pull the trigger a little earlier than, than normal, right?

• 45:48Speaker 05

  Absolutely. If you're just retiring on time, get that statement. Look at that statement. If you're retiring early, we got some things we gotta talk about.

• 45:57Speaker 04

  We got some splaining to do. All right, so a couple of quick things. Let's talk about two bullet points around social security that maybe not everybody knows. Talk a little bit about the 35-year rule. What is 35-year rule? What does that mean?

• 46:13Speaker 05

  This is just basically how social security is calculated. They are going to be using the highest earning years. Like, let's say you worked for 40 years, they're going to use the 35 highest earning years of those 40 years.

• 46:28Speaker 04

  And this could include even your 11-year-old paper route, for example?

• 46:33Speaker 05

  Your snack stand at the country club at the pool, like myself.

• 46:37Speaker 04

  Like you. What happens if you are going to retire and you don't have 35 years?

• 46:43Speaker 05

  Then they're gonna fill that in with a nice, big zero.

• 46:47Speaker 04

  Donut. A donut goes in there. So, as you're thinking about your retirement planning, as you're thinking about your social security planning, if you don't have 35 years, or if you have 35 years, but like, you know, 10 of them are from when you were 13 to

• 47:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, $2,000.

• 47:01Speaker 04

  20, and you're making Snack Shack money, that's gonna be factored. But, there is some adjustment that they make, right?

• 47:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, so what they're gonna do is, when, when you download the statement, you're gonna see the dollars for what you actually did earn that year, which is really fun. But when they're doing the calculation, they are actually going to do an inflation adjustment to each of those years, so that it is as if you had retired at 65, or as if the numbers were from the year you're gonna turn 65. Is that correct?

• 47:28Speaker 04

  Well, it's 60, yeah. So they wage index you until 60, and then from your earnings from 60 till your full retirement age is your actual, actual dollars, is what they calculate there. So yeah, when you see the two grand of Snack Shack money, it's not gonna be counted as two, it might be counted as three or four, but it's still not some magically

• 47:47Speaker 05

  It's just inflation.

• 47:48Speaker 04

  Increased number, yeah. So, this really matters as you're thinking about this early retirement thing. So, we just had somebody that retired, they were 50 years old, and worked kind of a normal after-college job. But what's the calculation difference, or what do we have to consider if you're kind of on this fire path, and you're gonna, and really, and I think 50 is a pretty early retirement. So, what would you have to be aware of? And by the way, you said something earlier, you said, "Download your statement." If you haven't done this, ssa.gov, create a login, it's id.me, you have to go through the whole thing. But, once you do that, you should download your social security statement annually, right? Just to make sure. So, ssa.gov, if you haven't done that. Okay, so, 50 years

• 48:32Speaker 04

  old, you're gonna retire, what does that person have to be aware of when they're looking at their statement, when they're starting to think about retirement? What do you have to know that maybe you're not being told when you look at that statement?

• 48:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, so let's say you're 49, and you're looking at it, and you're about to retire next year. They're gonna look at, when doing the calculation from that statement, as if you were to work and continue to work from 50 to full retirement age. They're gonna base their calculations off of your current income level. So even if you're deciding, "Hey, I'm gonna pull back, and I'm gonna do part-time, or I'm gonna work at a coffee shop, I'm gonna do this like, coast fire thing, too," this also is gonna play into it, because they're assuming that you are working at the same level that you currently. So if you're maxing out social security, they're assuming you're gonna max it out, and you're gonna continue to do that until full retirement age. If it's lowered in some way, you need to do the calculation yourself on that.

• 49:28Speaker 04

  Yeah. And to kind of give some context here, we did the math on this, just so that people know. So let's assume that you started working at 22, right? You graduated college, you, you kind of earned maybe half social security wage max from 22, it just kind of ramped up until you got to 40, so that kind of 18-year track. And then, from 40 to 50, you made the social security max. Which, social security max this year, what we mean by that is, how much do you get credit for? What's the maximum you can get credit for, for social security? It's $176,000 this year and some change. That's, if you make above that, then you don't pay social security taxes, your employer does, but you don't, you're, you're, you're maxed out. So, we calculated that person, 22 to 50, kind of

• 50:13Speaker 04

  ramped up to 40, and then from 40 to 50 was at the max, versus the number that's on their statement when they're 50, versus what they will really get at 67, is almost a 20% reduction. So, not zero. You know, that's, that's, it's a pretty profound change. If you're looking at your social security statement going, "Oh, I'm gonna get like, $3,500 bucks, great." It's like, well, maybe it's more like, you know, $2,800. So, be aware of that. And this also affects spousal benefits, yeah?

• 50:45Speaker 05

  Yes, that's a good point. So if your spouse did not have earned income, or is just significantly less than yours, they might, whether we're talking about early retirement or not, they might qualify to tap into spousal benefits, which is 50% of your social security. In that case, you also need to consider this for them, when, if you're gonna retire early, your benefit is reduced by 20%. We have to use that reduced benefit to then calculate their benefit.

• 51:17Speaker 04

  They're, you know, they're gonna be reduced as well. So, if you were gonna get $3,500, now you're gonna get $2,800. Your spouse was gonna get $1,700, but is now getting $1,400. So, you know, this is a $12,000 a year change, all in, you know, based on retiring at 50. Not saying you shouldn't do that, but I think it's important to recognize that that's a calculated difference. Spousal benefits are reduced, or could be reduced, your benefit will be reduced because of this. There's another reduction that can happen, and that is, if all of these calculations are based on full retirement age, which full retirement age today is, for most people, age 67, I think there's maybe some lingering folks

• 51:59Speaker 04

  out there that are in the 66s, but, you know, for all intents and purposes, we'll say 67. But you can claim social security as early as

• 52:07Speaker 05

  62.

• 52:08Speaker 04

  62, and as late as

• 52:10Speaker 05

  70.

• 52:11Speaker 04

  70. So, you know, you've got some wide range of decisions there, along the way, of when you're gonna do that. And, and if you take it before 67, then there's a reduction, right? So, you know, you're 50, you've got a reduction coming, because, you know, just the calculation's gonna be, oh, some zeros in there, or some low numbers. And then on top of that, if you decide to take it at 62, or 63, or 65, there's another reduction that basically hits you on top of that. So, to kind of give you an idea here, just penciling this out, if you're looking at the number for age 67, your full retirement benefit, which is what's presented on your social security statement, it'll also show you the

• 52:54Speaker 04

  62 number, which is roughly 75-ish% of that full number. You can also wait till 70, which is roughly about 120% of the age 67 number. So you get a, you get a benefit, a bonus, by waiting. You get a huge reduction by getting it early. But then there's the trade, well, how long are you gonna live?

• 53:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, just let me know in an email, when you're gonna die, and I can tell you when to take it.

• 53:20Speaker 04

  And the spousal benefits are, are compounded on top of that for survivor benefits. So, this is not a, a decision to be made in a vacuum. And one thing about social security, just to kind of give everybody a heads up here, you get one oopsie. Can I say, is that, is that the right phrase?

• 53:38Speaker 05

  Oopsie daisy?

• 53:40Speaker 04

  An oopsie daisy. You get a one oopsie daisy.

• 53:42Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 53:42Speaker 04

  Where, if you file for social security, you can say, "I changed my mind." Pay back everything you got. So you know, you gotta have the liquidity. You couldn't have spent the money. You needed to save it or have a way to pay it back. Pay back all the money within the 12 months from your filing date and just say, I actually didn't change my mind. I'm gonna do it later. After 12 months, you're locked into whatever decision you made. So this is a really important decision, you know, that you have to make at 62 through 70, somewhere in there, you're gonna affirmatively elect social security and how that affects your spouse or spousal benefit, how it affects your survivor benefit. And now dovetailing into your early

• 54:22Speaker 04

  retirement decision. But there is some nice news here. So we talked about age 50 being, you know, a 17 to 20% reduction hypothetically. At 55, it's not as bad.

• 54:36Speaker 05

  No. Yeah, your reduction, I think, would be maybe close to like 5%.

• 54:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:42Speaker 05

  In benefit.

• 54:43Speaker 04

  Because you've packed a few more years in there, you know, at those higher things.

• 54:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, especially because it's your higher earnings. So they're not as likely to tap into the paper route time period and earning years.

• 54:54Speaker 04

  Paper route earnings.

• 54:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, there's less zeros. So that's a huge benefit to working those couple of years.

• 55:03Speaker 04

  It's interesting because when we talk to people who have pensions, it seems like that's a number that they have in their mind, right? Like, I gotta get to 29. I'm at 29 years. I can't retire today. I gotta get my 30 because I get a big increase by waiting till 30. Or, you know, I gotta have this magic formula that, you know, it's my highest three. So I gotta get that extra year of the highest three. You know, we just had a conversation yesterday with somebody that said, hey, you know, I'd love to retire in 2028. I can't. I gotta wait till 2029 because I need that extra high year for my pension. I feel like that's not really a discussion that we have a lot of with social security because it's like, well, it's this nebulous thing. I think it's a really important piece when it comes to, you know, your early retirement planning of, hey, am I gonna retire at 53

• 55:47Speaker 04

  or 55? Well, this is gonna affect the social security plan as well, just like it would affect your pension. So put this in the decision matrix, I think, along the way. Any other kind of tidbits of info on social security, Anna, that you think people should know?

• 56:04Speaker 05

  I think what everyone should be doing, if you haven't already, is grab your statement from ssa.gov. Make sure that you create an account, get those updated statements. They'll email them out to you. Take a look at that and make an estimate based off of what you picture for your retirement timeline, how that's going to impact those numbers and how that's gonna impact your plan. Were you basing it off of that larger number? And now we need to pull it back? And does 50 or whatever the number still makes sense for you? Do that. See how it affects spousal benefits.

• 56:37Speaker 04

  Yeah. This is a great tool, by the way. Ssa.gov's got a lot of resources. You can also screen grab some of this information. This is a great use of AI because it's gonna be able to do math for you and say, hey, here's my earnings history. You know, just screenshot it. It doesn't have your social and all that sort of stuff. Be aware of security. But screen grab that, put it into chat or Claude or whatever your tool is and say, hey, if I'm gonna work for the next five years, how does this affect my social security? If I'm not gonna work for the next five years, what do I gotta be aware of? It's gonna give you some real easy calculations there to kind of model out, you know, if you're DIYing this at home. And if you're not DIYing it and you're working with somebody, make sure you're calculating this as part of the deal. Okay?

• 57:20Speaker 04

  That's gonna wrap it up for social security stuff. I mean, we could talk for hours on this. We could talk about Medicare, long-term care stuff. That's coming up on the horizon here as well. If you've got questions or you think of something here that you wish we would have talked about, you can just email me, [email protected]. If you want to talk to us about your plan, stackingbenjamins.com/og. So dealer's choice on how you reach out.

• 57:43Speaker 06

  Hey, I'm Rob Berger. When I'm not rolling in the dough, that's right, I'm stacking Benjamins.

• 57:50Speaker 03

  Let's wander out here on the back porch for just a second, OG, because we have had some great letters from our stacker community. James wrote to me and said, greetings, Joe. I listened to the podcast a few days ago about teaching children about money. And this was our special Friday Roundtable, episode 1887. James said, I know you had some experts on the subject. After I listened, I didn't recall hearing anything mentioned about giving to charity, to church, to help others. I'd say that was an oversight. And you know what's funny, James, is that I laid out that entire discussion and 100% you are right. That was an oversight. So I love your note because I think there are some great lessons to teach

• 58:33Speaker 03

  there. He said, as a young boy, my mother would give me an allowance and every time we'd take out a portion for savings, another portion to give to the church. It was a long time ago. So these amounts were measured out in nickels or even pennies, but the lesson was there and it's very scalable. Just thought I'd give you something to think about. Best regards to you and your SB game. Well, not only am I thinking about it, Jim, I wanted to bring it to the podcast. I think that's a great thing for kids to learn early. OG.

• 58:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, we, I subscribe to the theory that you should get used to saving money. I just believe that when you're a kid, or when you're 20 years old, or probably even when you're 30 years old, frankly, you probably don't know exactly what you want to support yet. You haven't maybe found the exact thing that is the most impactful for you or your family. While I think it's noble to, you know, have 50 bucks a week, come out of your paycheck and go to United Way, no offense, but I don't think they're gonna miss it. I would much rather save and invest that money until I find the thing that really gets me excited and then be able to do something meaningful that moves the needle for whatever group

• 59:43Speaker 04

  it is. So I want to really focus on, you know, one specific thing or two specific things in depth with all the resources that I have. I tell my kids that they need to save and invest money with the idea being, keep your eyes open for the things that excite you. But I'm not super passionate about like, having them say like, oh, well, I put $25, you know, from my paycheck into this generic charity fund. They don't particularly care about because they're 17 years old. But I think the habit of saving money and the habit of putting that aside is a good idea. But we also do other things like around the holiday time and stuff like that. We really kind of get engaged in our community. And that's

• 1:00:27Speaker 04

  where they see a lot more action than the 25 buck thing.

• 1:00:32Speaker 03

  With the boots on the ground.

• 1:00:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:34Speaker 03

  Getting your hands dirty.

• 1:00:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, a lot of that. Yep.

• 1:00:36Speaker 03

  Around the holiday. It reminds me when Chris Field was on the show, the giving expert, talking about how giving a hundred bucks is great. But you know what? If you're somebody who's great at social media, doing some social media on behalf of your favorite local charity goes a world further. Like, if you give them way more than a couple hundred bucks in terms of your expertise.

• 1:00:56Speaker 04

  Well, and a hundred dollars, I think, you know, using that hundred dollar example, when you go out for breakfast in December and you can tell that that server is on their about 700th table, you know, of pancakes at the IHOP and it's showing the wear of 700 pancake deliveries at 10:45 in the morning on a Saturday, that person probably benefits from that hundred dollars way more than a generic 501(c)(3). You know what I mean?

• 1:01:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:26Speaker 04

  To me, that's more meaningful than, more impactful and gets and does the work in my community more than, you know, a generic

• 1:01:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:35Speaker 04

  online contribution to Red Cross. No offense to the Red Cross.

• 1:01:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, I like James, to church, to help others. Good stuff. We did not even bring this up at all. James, thanks for the note. And if you've got a note for the show, just send it to me, [email protected]. All right, that's gonna do it for today. Big thanks to all of you for hanging out. Today, we talked about retiring on three different amounts of money and about how you really want to think about that. I hope we were able to open your eyes on the approach that is far superior to just thinking, I've got X amount of money. Can I retire? A lot of questions to ask first, but you can see that when you begin with that end in mind and work backwards, things get a heck of a lot better for you and your retirement. Speaking of retirement, Linda Gratton is a retirement

• 1:02:22Speaker 03

  and longevity expert, OG. She's a psychologist and there's a lot of psychology at play when we start thinking about the fact that you might live to be 130, maybe 140 years old and retiring. Think about somebody that says-

• 1:02:37Speaker 04

  Means I need to start saving around age 100. Until then, spend, spend, spend.

• 1:02:41Speaker 03

  Right. Think about somebody who's gonna retire at 55 or 50. What are you gonna do from then to 140? Linda thinks we need to blow up the way we think about our life and reexamine it. We're gonna talk about a new way to look at retirement and how to live a 100-year lifestyle, she calls it, on Wednesday show. Can't wait to say hi to Linda. But for now, let's say hi to Doug. Doug, what should we have learned from today's show?

• 1:03:07Speaker 02

  Well, Joe, first, take some advice from our headline. $500,000 for retirement? You can make it work. Everything is possible, depending on your lifestyle, feelings about bringing in some income from time to time, and how you manage your portfolio. Second, did you write down Anna and OG's lesson for today? What are you doing? Get started. Come on. The big lesson? Never, ever, ever call Joe's mom a golden girl. She'll say, thank you for being a friend, and then punch you in the face harder than one of B. Arthur's one-liners. She was so salty.

• 1:03:46Speaker 02

  This show is the property of SB Podcast LLC, copyright 2026, and is created by Joe Saul Sehi. You'll find out about our awesome team at stackingbenjamins.com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. And oh, yeah, before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don't take advice from people you don't know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug, and we'll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.

• 1:04:33Speaker 07

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