Early Retirement - Financial Freedom (Investing, Tax Planning, Retirement Strategy, Personal Finance)

Celebrating 200 EPISODES (SPECIAL EPISODE) - The History & Future Of The Show!

• Ari Taublieb, CFP®, MBA • Episode 198

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200 EPISODES!

SPECIAL FRIDAY EPISODE 

  • History of the podcast
  • Vision moving forward
  • How to get the most value from your money

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Ari Taublieb, CFP ®, MBA is the Vice President of Root Financial Partners and a Fiduciary Financial Planner specializing in helping clients retire early with confidence.

Speaker 1:

We have now reached over 200 episodes, so this is a special episode. It's not going to be a specific topic on Roth conversions or health insurance or which account to pull from. It's going to be about the story of the podcast, how this started and the vision for it moving forward. So if you're looking for a more specific, targeted episode, totally get that. Many of you are just tuning in to go give me the information. What do I do? Is it Roth? Is it 50% equities? When do I retire? Got tons of different episodes for you on that, so make sure to check them out.

Speaker 1:

I want to thank all of you, because I could not do this without you all, obviously, or else I would just be talking straight into garage band and it would be a little weird. Now my fiance still feels still feels odd to say that it's only been about two weeks. But my fiancé is like Ari I just why are you talking to the wall every Wednesday? I'm like what I'm like? She's like, yeah, you're just talking to you know this little computer, you know what are you talking about. Now she's very supportive, but I said first of all, it's Mondays, not Wednesdays. Second, of all, three people listened last month and so that's three more people that care about optimizing an early retirement. And the point is, I didn't wake up and go oh, I just got to talk about tax planning and investing and withdrawal strategy and that's why I'm on planet Earth and investing and withdrawal strategy, and that's why I'm on planet Earth.

Speaker 1:

I was working about four years ago, so the first episode of this podcast was released on December 2020. And shortly after that, we had COVID and a whole lot more crazy stuff. But when I started the show, it was actually called Personal Finance Redefined. At the beginning, you're like hey, is that the worst name imaginable? Probably. So this was just super wordy. I needed to call it something. There was already a gazillion other podcasts and when I was working at my previous company called Nuveen, nuveen specializes in municipal bonds, which is how do you create tax-free income? So I'm here in California Many of you listening are in California, as well as all across the country, and so there are a lot of things I'm not good at, let's be clear. But I am good at Excel and I'm good at analyzing financials in various ways. So when I left school, nuveen recruited me to go. We want you to be one of our heads of the municipal bond department. So that is leading the charge on explaining to people in a clear way how they can create tax-free income and minimize taxes.

Speaker 1:

So here I am, thinking that I have this dream role that other people and even my parents, who will admit this saying how could you ever leave this job? You're in Century City, which is near Beverly Hills, and the lights and the parking. I'm like no, I get that. A normal person maybe should enjoy this, but I just don't. I think I'm making a difference, but I don't really feel it. I'm talking to these institutions and gigantic endowments but I don't actually feel I'm doing anything.

Speaker 1:

So I go to my manager this was two years after working there. I said, hey, why is it that no one else is talking about the stuff we're talking about when people retire early? Because I don't know exactly how an early retirement works. But when someone retires early, doesn't their income go away? Pretty much like they retire, and there's probably like a timeframe before social security hits and maybe they have to take those required distributions. Can't they be strategic in those years? And healthcare, and like who's talking about that? And they said now, my manager's a nice person. I had a few different managers. So if my manager's listening right now because I know a few of them from my old company do I don't know if, hopefully this is not you listening and offended but they said, and I quote Ari, do not worry about that, that is old, boring people. That's what they said.

Speaker 1:

My parents were not working with my company now root. They were working with Wells Fargo and they were burned by four different advisors. Many of you know this already. That's why I became an advisor. So my parents are not what are known as do it yourself first. They don't want to manage their finances. They make movies. They don't want to read tax law. They don't want to manage healthcare that they don't want to do any of that. They just want to make money, and they do a really good job making lots of money, but they don't want to have to worry about doing other stuff. So they're like I need to hire someone.

Speaker 1:

But every time they would hire someone, they'd get passed off to the next advisor or they wouldn't receive tax guidance, meaning it would only be hey, you should shift your investments so that you have a better allocation, and then they'd get hit with a tax bill and they'd be like hey, advisor, like what just happened? And they'd go, oh, just talk to your CPA. And then they'd talk to their CPA and I'd be there to help facilitate some of these conversations. And their CPA would say, go talk to your advisor. And they're like what the heck do I do? So heck do I do? So I was like, hey, there's something off with this industry.

Speaker 1:

So when I was at Nuveen I was like you know what? I want to start a podcast because I listen to a lot of podcasts. I already had a soccer podcast. So I'm like I know the equipment and I know where to go for this stuff. I'm a big soccer fan. So football, if any of you guys are in the UK, I know, if a few UK listeners you're like, all right, don't say that. So you get my point. So here I am, at Nuveen and years before.

Speaker 1:

So just going back a little bit, when I was in college I made contact with someone named James Canole. Now James Canole is the founder of Root. He is my business partner and when I spoke to him I went look, this guy's different. He has his CFP. So he's a certified financial planner at a very young age, which tells me he's doing something right. He has the competency to pass this difficult exam. He knows what he's doing. He already had his own business and I asked him to tell me his story and he said Ari, I was at Merrill Lynch, then I was at another firm.

Speaker 1:

I ended up leaving to create my own thing because there's not holistic planning happening, but it wasn't designed for an early retirement. So here I come, I'm at Nuveen, I'm staying in contact with this guy, james. I said listen, james, I want to make sure that anytime we're doing planning, if I end up working for you and partnering together potentially that we're doing it right I end up working for you and partnering together potentially that we're doing it right. I don't want to just join another financial firm because I work at Nuveen and he's like oh, I'm familiar with Nuveen Now.

Speaker 1:

Nuveen's a good company, but oftentimes they have I would say many of their funds have higher fees than I would like and I don't believe it can always justify the value. I know everyone doesn't like when I say that, but I just believe there are certain funds you should not own. It's the equivalent in many cases of going to Whole Foods and just buying paper plates. You don't need to do it at Whole Foods, go to the dollar store if you're doing that, or Costco.

Speaker 1:

So the point here I'm talking to James and, at the same time, part of my role at Nuveen was talking to a lot of advisors and, at the same time, part of my role at Nuveen was talking to a lot of advisors and some of the advisors, let's just say, weren't the most ethical. They would ask me hey, ari, what amount is Nuveen going to pay me if I put my client in this product? And I'm like, hey, don't you want to know how well the fund has done, the performance, the yield? Don't you want financial details? And they're like no, how much is Nuveen going to pay me? And I'm like thinking of my mom and I'm like, well, I looked at my mom's Wells Fargo account because at this point my parents were with Wells Fargo and I saw three Nuveen funds.

Speaker 1:

And I said, hey, mom, did your Wells Fargo advisor tell you about these funds and whether they're good for you or not? And she's like, I think they said something, but I don't really know, I didn't understand it. I'm like, okay, that means they didn't do it clearly. And what I imagine happened I still don't know to this day. But I imagine that advisor said hey, susan, that's my mom's name, susan, I believe that you really need to minimize your taxes because you're in California and you're a high earner. And I'm sure my mom was like, yeah, that's me, I'm so happy, please help. And the advisor's like we're going to use these Nuveen funds. Let's not go into detail about Nuveen or T Rowe Price or Empower. We're not going to get into the details with these funds. Just trust me, you need them. That's what you're paying me to do. And I bet my mom was like okay.

Speaker 1:

Now I asked my mom and she's like it kind of went down like that, a little different. But she was like hey, I just wasn't clear. I didn't want to talk about finances. That's just not my thing and I'm just I'm paying someone to fully delegate, so I don't have to worry about that and I'm hoping that they don't screw me over. But I'm not going to not work with an advisor Like I need some help. So I said, totally get it, mom.

Speaker 1:

And I'm thinking about this conversation while I'm at Nuveen and I'm like okay, I imagine my mom's not the only person who's going through this level of anxiety, seeking financial guidance but not truly getting it. She doesn't know that she's necessarily not getting the best guidance and she's sleeping well because she thinks she has a good fund. If 40 years continued, she probably wouldn't know. The difference is the reality and it's better than having cash. So she's probably going look, I know I could maybe do better, but at some point here I have to trust someone. And so I'm thinking about James and I go look, james is not the type of advisor or person that would go, huh, maybe this particular company Nuveen or Vanguard or Fidelity, maybe they're going to pay me more money, so I'm going to use them. I could just feel that is not who this person is, and I was talking to a lot of advisors when I was working at Nuveen, so it just felt different. So I went you know what? I ended up partnering with James and it was just James and I for a long time in this little office in Solana Beach, which is like North San Diego, and it was awesome. Now there's over 25 people that work here at Root.

Speaker 1:

When we started, it was $30 million that James was managing, right when I joined him. So it's a good amount of money, but it's not. You know, you're not making a living. So, general, I mean, you're making a living but you're not living in a very comfortable way, should I say, because you have expenses of running the business. If generally an advisor fee is 1%, well, 1% of 30 million is, you can see $300,000. So if $300,000 is the gross revenue, that's before you've paid himself, that's before expenses, that's and, by the way, it's not 1% because when you have north of a million dollars with us or most advisors, the fee comes down. So the actual like all in fee might be an average of 0.8 or something like that, just to give you perspective, in fee might be an average of 0.8 or something like that, just to give you perspective. So maybe in the range of let's just call it $250,000 is gross revenue. Well, he's got to pay himself, he's got expenses, he's got taxes, he's got you got the point here. So he's living comfortably and it's a nice little business. But I joined him, so now I'm another expense and he's like hey, I think I can make this happen, but I don't know Now.

Speaker 1:

At the time the YouTube channel and podcast was not where it is today, so we were one of Dave Ramsey's lead sources. So actually Dave Ramsey would essentially post a video or make a comment or say something on newsletter and say go work with one of my trusted Dave Ramsey sources and that one of those people was us. So James and I would have conversations with people that love Dave Ramsey, didn't know anything about us and Dave Ramsey he's a controversial figure. So some people reach out and they're like I hate Dave Ramsey. Other people are like I love Dave Ramsey. We'd hear it all and we're like this is good. We're getting in front of people that want financial guidance and we need to get people somehow.

Speaker 1:

The majority of what an advisor does in our industry is they're talking to new clients. So what makes what we're doing so different? Now, fast forward. Now it's been almost four years. My anniversary at Root will be in a week from now two weeks from now, actually and we have about $750 million and our goal is to grow sustainably. So right now you can see if you're trying to book a call with us, there's a wait list. We're not being mean.

Speaker 1:

I only have nine advisors that work for me currently at Root taking on new clients. Why is that? Well, how on earth am I going to know if an advisor is going to be proactive if they're not proactive to get this job, anyone can put oh, I'm a proactive person, so I'm going to go ahead and put that on my resume. Hey, that's great, but how do I really know? I don't. So what I'm doing is I'm waiting for people that watch our YouTube videos or listen to our podcast that go. I'm working at Vanguard, at Fidelity, at Schwab, and now I want to work for you as long as I get to choose who I work with. So what makes us really interesting is when you speak to us.

Speaker 1:

The first conversation is either with me or one of the client success managers here at Root, and it's our job to gauge is this a potential fit? Do we think one of our advisors will like working with you and do you want to work with us? And the reason we do that is let's pretend you instead skip that step and just started talking to an advisor, like, let's assume right now you want to go change advisors, you walk into Edward Jones. Edward Jones is a big, well-known investment company. You could pick Raymond James or Schwab. Let's just choose Edward Jones. You walk into Edward Jones. Edward Jones' advisor will say John, Jane, let's have a conversation.

Speaker 1:

So now this advisor is spending time, a lot of it, potentially talking to a client that might not end up working with that company with Edward Jones, maybe they do, but that's what this advisor is focusing on and spending their time doing. I'm not against someone talking to a new client, but if you're the person working with that advisor, I imagine you're like, hey, who's watching my money if you're talking to new clients? So if I said, hey, you guys watch our videos and let's assume hypothetically, you go, I want to work with Katie, who's one of our rock star advisors, well, katie's only talking to you after you speak to us and we make sure it's a good fit so that you get to hop right into planning with her. And that is really different because most of the industry you're, as an advisor, trying to one, feed your family and two, field new clients so that you can grow revenue and hopefully make more money. So it's a tricky industry because what advisors often are doing is trying to spend time with clients, but not too much, because that means they're not generating new business.

Speaker 1:

Our model's the opposite. We don't want our advisors spending any time talking to potential clients, we just want them advising and they're joining us because normally they're at a vanguard or schwab or something like that, and they're like look, I have 400 clients here. I work till 5 or 6 pm. I tell my clients to have work-life balance, but I don't have it. So what james's vision was? I want to create a place that people love to work. I want this to be holistic. I don't have it.

Speaker 1:

So what James's vision was? I want to create a place that people love to work. I want this to be holistic. I don't want people to have to go to insurance and then a tax planner and then a state attorney. It's like can we find one spot where someone can go for all financial planning?

Speaker 1:

So how does this tie back to the podcast? Well, the whole early retirement podcast was about. So I first episode was December 2020. Then I shifted the name, I believe in June of 2021, when I was like hey, I'm talking about early retirement concepts, but the podcast is called personal finance redefined. So I think I should probably shift the name, and that really changed things. And all I did was change the name and now more people were searching early retirement.

Speaker 1:

And so there's a phrase in the early retirement world called financial independence, retire early. It stands for fire and this is not a concept I believe in. This is when people will go. I'm in my 30s and 40s working so hard and I want to retire so badly. I never want to work ever again. I'm going to get a second job or I'm not going to spend any money on fun. I'm not going to prioritize my health, I'm just going to work like a crazy person and I'm all about working. I love what I do. But this phrase was essentially telling people save all your money so that you can retire at 40 and then never work ever again. And now they're not fulfilled, they don't have purpose. They just, you know, for 10 years maybe, didn't prioritize their health. So I made up my own definition and I said I believe in financial independence, but not retire early, recreational employment. I want you to know if you are working because you want to or because you have to.

Speaker 1:

Most of my clients that are in a position to retire early in their 50s don't actually just stop working. They go. I might take a few years off, I might work part time, I might do something else less stressful, but you're just doing what you want to do now, and that's what the whole method is. And when I'm talking about early retirement planning. The whole idea is, if you retire early, you have an opportunity, your income is really low and you can do things like Roth conversions or tax gain harvesting, which is paying 0% in taxes, and these strategies can often be so much more valuable than continuing to work, meaning sometimes, financially, you could be better off by stopping work, meaning you will literally have more money. Yes, you'll have more money by stopping work versus continuing to work, depending on your situation.

Speaker 1:

And oftentimes I'll say look, it's going to make more sense for you to work, but if you just keep working at this level for this long, well then there becomes a point here. It's a breakeven analysis of hey, you keep working, great, but here's how much you keep adding to your 401k. You're just adding to a future tax burden that we're going to have to fix, because if we just keep investing like this, you're going to have too much money in your 70s and you don't have enough money today. So I want you to start moving money out of your 401k and I want to start converting it, or I want you to start contributing to a different account. There are tweaks that need to be made, generally one to three, sometimes one to five years out from a retirement that most people don't make the tweaks on. And then here they are, everything's in their 401k, they're 53. And they're like, hey, I think I want to stop working or I want to taper down, but they can't because they locked up all of their money. So in early retirement is just what are all the strategies that exist so that you can retire on your own terms, which does not mean stopping to work.

Speaker 1:

Stopping work, you can actually determine wow, I'm going to give more and help out my children with a down payment or I'm going to actually and I've told this story before, but I'll tell it to you one more time the medical story of I'm a soccer player, I love playing soccer. I just flew a month ago from LA to Philly to get this new hip surgery. It would be my second and my brother knows that I'm in a financially comfortable position. And he said, hey, what if we just lived right next door? Like what would you do different? That's what he asked the surgeon and the surgeon said well, you don't live next door, you're in California, so I don't wanna make you guys potentially fly back if we do something today that doesn't work and now I'm costing you more money. My brother's like I get that. But what if, truly, we live next door? What would you do? He goes, I'd probably try one more injection and I'm over here like I want surgery. It's already been two. They didn't work. And my brother said, ari, we have the financial means to do this means and, by the way, this only worked because my brother knew I had the financial capacity to make this decision. If I didn't and I wanted to play soccer, we probably would have. He wouldn't have asked the question and I would have had surgery. I could be in a better spot. I could be in a worse spot. There's scar tissue and difficult things that occur with the hip surgery. So the point here is um, my brother asked this question. I got this injection. It's now been a month. I don't think I'm going to need surgery for a long time. So I can't exactly quantify my brother asking that question and the value it has on my life other than I'm so grateful I did not get a surgery. I did not create more scar tissue. I already had one surgery and now here I am able to make a financial decision of if I had to fly back and get surgery.

Speaker 1:

I'm comfortable doing it and many of you are right now going. Look, I think I'm on track to retire early. I feel I'm in a good spot, but I don't really know, and that I don't know is a normal thing that most people have when they're wondering about retirement planning. I'll explain. It's like an MRI I get hurt playing soccer. I'm not a happy guy to be around. Once I get my MRI, I go got it. I know the severity of the injury. Then I get my physical therapy program I go got it. I'm going to be back in two months. Then I have peace of mind because I know what I need to do. What I find is most people go yeah, I think I'm on track. I have a 401k I might downsize in retirement. I'm probably going to spend more the first few years, but I don't really know. So I know the early retirement world very well and I don't know many other aspects, but this is what I focus on is helping people generally who have between two all the way to.

Speaker 1:

We have one client with $50 million. We are helping people go. I've done a good job getting to this point. I no longer want to fully delegate. I no longer want to have to worry about. Am I leaving something on the table? What am I missing? And I'm wanting to work with someone. I just want to make sure it's worth the fee. And I'm a very transparent guy when it comes to fees, because I want people to know what they're paying for and I want them to beg for us to say hey, how much more would you let me pay? You guys, because this is awesome.

Speaker 1:

So the whole premise of the early retirement podcast is I've had right now we have, I think it's in the range of 400 to 450 clients working at root. The podcast is over 2 million downloads. So most of you 99% are not going to be working with Root, and I recognize that. You either have an advisor right now it's a family friend or someone you just trust and they've done a good job. Awesome. If you feel they're a good fit, you can use the ideas from this podcast to go to your advisor and ask more questions of should I have a brokerage account? When should we do conversions? What about withdrawal strategy? Hey, what's the plan for estate planning? What happens when you retire? Am I going to be passed to the next person at your office? What's the succession plan? You can use this podcast for your current advisor. You can use this podcast If you're like I don't feel I need an advisor.

Speaker 1:

I just don't feel that. I like I want to do this in retirement. I don't want to have someone else manage my money. This does not stress me out. You'd be like the opposite of my parents. You'd be like I want to read tax law. I love finding out about new long-term care changes and require distributions, and that's just that's my thing. I go awesome, then use this and maybe that can help you along the way.

Speaker 1:

And then others of you are like look, I need help, but I just don't know exactly when. And that's what I'm often preaching, which is an advisor can add a lot of value, but it depends on the stage of life. So if you are 53 and you have a million dollars in a 401k and you're like I want to work with Root, I will tell you don't work with me because we can't add value. And some people get mad. They're like why not? I want to hire you. I like the philosophy and I say look, you can work with us if you really want to. But if all of your money's in a 401k and you want to retire in five years. Does it really feel right for me to charge a fee when I cannot even manage the money? I would only be able to tell you, pick these 10 funds instead of the five funds you have. So I just don't feel it's worth hiring an advisor in often situations like that If someone comes to me and they go Ari, I'm 58.

Speaker 1:

I have $4 million. I have a million in IRA and 3 million in Microsoft stock because I'm just thinking of one client, who is that person? He's like I don't know what to do. Should I diversify? But there's taxes. When do I do it? I want to retire early. My wife is going to work two more years, so health care is covered. But then what do we do when we're off? But then wait a second. My kid's not doing so well. I want to be able to help them, but if I save, invest too well, I know my other kid is not going to work hard. I don't want to create an issue with we have too much money. That's where an advisor is adding significant value, when there are assets that they can manage and assist and ultimately give you total peace of mind. That my parents did not have, but also knowing, hey, it's happening in the correct manner, where this is an advisor that does holistic planning, where this is an advisor that does holistic planning.

Speaker 1:

So I tell everyone, when you're considering to hire an advisor, or listening to a podcast, you want to at least understand what's the story behind this guy that I'm listening to, because I listened to a history podcast that I love and the person who runs this show he loves history more than anyone I've ever met, and so sometimes I listen to a topic that, to be honest, I don't find that interesting. Now it sounds odd, but like he did a Genghis Khan episode and I just didn't love it. There's other episodes I really loved. I'm sure you guys feel the same way about this show and when I listened to it, he was so excited talking about Genghis Khan that I went oh, now I'm kind of interested. So I hope that your takeaway when I'm doing my podcast is that you're like well, this guy loves this stuff, because I do, and I promise you there is not an advisor that will care more about your money than the advisors working here, because what we're doing is not traditional in the advisor world.

Speaker 1:

When you're hearing me discuss planning, it's because if I could have a 30-minute conversation with you, I might be able to save you hundreds of thousands of dollars, and that is not something I take lightly. So I do try to keep it lighthearted and try to make jokes and some of them are silly and some of the comments that you guys leave and I'm very transparent, as you guys know, I'm looking at right now on my phone one of the comments. This was a few weeks ago. Anyone who's considering early retirement, it's a must listen. Ari creates great content for his audience, so thank you. But here's another comment.

Speaker 1:

You've good content, but you need to be concise. You need to be to the point. You're repetitive. You're very wordy. You just talk nonstop about conversations with your clients. Would you just get your main message across? I'm listening here to try to get an answer.

Speaker 1:

So you can see there are various people listening to the show. Some of you go it's too wordy, you just want the answer. Well, that's just not my style and it's not that I couldn't say you want to know exactly how much your income needs to be to contribute to a Roth? I'll tell you that answer. But it's almost like people are asking too often hey, I want to do surgery? Should I go in through the back or the hip, or what should I do? I'm like, hey, I don't know if you need surgery yet let's see if we could first determine is there a non-invasive or less invasive way of doing this. So yeah, sometimes I will be wordy and sometimes I will do a story because I want it to hit different in your brain. Sometimes I'll say hey guys, this is about to be a technical episode. Here's why I want this to be explained in a certain way. And let me know, did this resonate? Do you see why I wanted to do it this way?

Speaker 1:

I'm a huge podcast listener. I listen to comedy podcasts and history podcasts, and so I know what it's like listening to a podcast, when someone does not get to the point, when someone does too much fluff. So, ultimately, the vision for this podcast moving forward, I'll probably have on more guests in the future because I want you to hear from them, but the feedback hasn't been like hey, I need you to have all guests, you're talking too much. Generally, the feedback I've gotten from you so far is I like when you do your stories, because it resonates and sometimes they don't always apply to me, meaning I'm not here with $4 million, but I will one day, and it's helpful to know how that person would think through that situation.

Speaker 1:

So in the future, I'm going to have a community where I want all of you to be able to correspond with each other and say, hey, I retired early. Here's why I chose Cobra for my health insurance needs. Or I retired early, but I'm going to go back to work in five years. I'm just super stressed right now. Here's how I'm approaching this. I think there's a next level to this, but in the meantime, I'm going to keep putting out podcasts. I do one a week on this app. So if you're listening via the podcast app, that is exactly what I'm going to keep doing. I do three YouTube videos a week, so I do different case studies.

Speaker 1:

I have my early retirement academy. This is where I would recommend most of you start. So if you have an advisor, this is something you can go in and start playing around with. If you're like look, I'm going to need some point guidance, but I don't know if I need to hire you guys yet or I just don't. It some point guidance, but I don't know if I need to hire you guys yet or I just don't. It's a matter of timing. That Academy there's now over a thousand of you in that Academy, but this podcast it's doing over 60,000 downloads a month. So I'm so grateful.

Speaker 1:

But I also know that's a lot of you who have not enrolled in the Academy yet. That is what I would love all of you to do at a no brainer, because it's very affordable for a reason for 300 bucks you get to go in there and use the same software I use with my clients. You don't get to talk to me, there's not one-on-one guidance. It's affordable so that you get to go in at your own pace, putting your own figures, play around with the different measures and go, wow, should I do Roth 401k? Should I do traditional? What makes sense for my situation? So the whole reason that I love doing this show and why I'll always do it is I'm very lucky to get to talk to a large audience very intentionally about a specific topic or a very different topic.

Speaker 1:

But I want every week to be something different and my goal is that you take action. Sometimes the action can be yep, my spouse and I are going to discuss if we have the same early retirement goals. I want to travel and I don't. Sometimes I'll say hey guys, your takeaway is not adding more money to your 401k beyond the employer match. Get the free money. You already have a ton in your 401k. Let's get that brokerage account filled up so before you retire early, you can do a home remodel and that way, when you retire truly early and you stop working forever, you don't get unlucky and run the risk of retiring when markets go down. You do a home remodel, you travel, there's healthcare and now two kids still have to go through college and there's a big risk there. Where markets go down, you're in a tough spot where you might be able to be okay, but you probably won't be spending what you want the rest of your life. I want to protect against all of that unluckiness that could occur. So the whole point of all of this which I know I've already said is to bulletproof your retirement. You have worked too hard to not optimize this.

Speaker 1:

I think I said at the beginning of this this is gonna be a shorter episode. I'm 30 minutes in now and that's just sometimes how this goes. So I have my bullet points and notes of things I always wanna go over, but sometimes I just think something will resonate. So if you are a current client of Root and you love working with Root, you know I love hearing from you, and so shoot me a note If you're currently going. You know I think I want to hire root, but I don't know what else. Should I be considering Tons of different podcasts and videos for that. If you're like I don't know if I need an advisor yet, but this academy sounds a little interesting, go ahead and check that out in the description. If you're like, hey, this is all great, but I just don't want to pay for anything. I'm here for free guidance.

Speaker 1:

I like the podcast. It's another one. I'm sure you listen to five others Great, I hope I'm one of those and that you enjoy listening to it. There are other podcasts I really like as well and I'm not like hey, it's mine or only my partners is, in my opinion, the best in the industry. So if you have not checked out Ready for Retirement podcast, please check that out with James. If you're unfamiliar with, let me pull up his podcast name. But Retire Sooner, I like this.

Speaker 1:

This is done by Wes Moss, and Wes Moss he does a good job with stories. He's an older gentleman, so not me. He has on guests on the show. I like the approach that he takes. It's one that I resonate with, and there's a few others that are more technical that I listen to.

Speaker 1:

That you probably don't want to listen to, but if there's one blog I would encourage you to possibly listen to, I'd go to awealthofcommonsensecom I believe it's com, not org A wealth of I'm typing it in right now wealth of common. I have it bookmarked, so I forget. A wealth of commonsensecom. That's done by ben carlson, and this guy did a really good job. They're one to two minute reads of just quick things about hey, what does the fed rate cut mean for the economy? And, and so this is more technical. You do not need to listen to that blog. I like that. I know my advisors like that. So if you're like I want to nerd out about this stuff, great, that's an option. I would never tell my parents to ever listen to anything like that. They'd be like this is just not what I'm looking for.

Speaker 1:

So I want to make sure, no matter who you are, you're getting some level of guidance, hopefully something helpful, and hopefully you get to laugh a little bit along the way. I had someone send me an email this week who said, ari, I'm spinning right now and I'm listening to your latest episode. I'm like spinning what the heck is this guy talking about? What he meant was he's like on a spin bike and so it's fun to be like, wow, that's pretty cool. Like here's a guy listening to me talk about optimizing health insurance while spinning and I'm like, hey, I do that with a lot of my podcasts. So thank you all.

Speaker 1:

If you've felt any guidance from this, please leave a review on iTunes. Please give it five stars on Spotify. If you have not checked out the YouTube channel, I post a ton more there, so feel free to look at that. And ultimately, I just want you to get the guidance you're looking for. So I appreciate any Google reviews, yelp reviews, if that's your thing. Anything giving you the confidence to retire early that's what this is all about. So that is it for this Friday. Hope you guys have a great weekend and see you next time.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to another episode of the Early Retirement Show. If you have a question that you want answered in a future episode, you can always go to my website early retirement podcastcom that's early retirement podcastcom and you can go ahead and submit a question that I'll look to answer in a future episode. Thank you all for listening. Please do rate it, review it and share it with someone who you think would benefit from this information. If there's anyone out there that you know, I certainly appreciate it and I will see you all each week. Hey guys, it's me again. Please be smart about this. Nothing in this podcast should be construed as financial, tax or legal advice. Consult with your tax preparer or financial advisor before taking any action. This podcast is for informational purposes only.