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

How Do I Know When I Can Retire Early (Not Work Forever)?

• Ari Taublieb, CFP®, MBA • Episode 216

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Is $7.8 million enough to retire at 57, debt-free and confident in your financial future? Many of you are thinking...OBVIOUSLY!

Join us as we unpack this intriguing question, sparked by a listener's inquiry. While the numbers may suggest a straightforward answer, we dive much deeper, exploring the intangible aspects of retirement planning. At the heart of our discussion is the Sequoia system from Root Financial, a structured approach that transcends mere financial analysis to help you find true purpose and fulfillment in your post-career life.

Crafting a sustainable retirement cash flow strategy is no simple task, as we reveal through stories of clients with similar portfolios leading vastly different retirements. It's not just about how much you have, but how you want to live. We discuss the dynamic nature of financial planning, emphasizing the need to adapt based on lifestyle expectations, family dynamics, and multiple income streams like investments or pensions. Our aim is to ensure you can enjoy your desired quality of life without the fear of outliving your resources.

Balancing enjoyment and financial security involves a thoughtful approach to investment risk and tax strategies. We delve into the perils of concentrated investments and the challenges of being overly conservative. Through personal anecdotes, such as my dad's risky investment in Monster stock, we explore the emotional side of financial decisions. Finally, delve into optimizing tax and estate planning strategies, highlighting that true wealth is not just about money but the absence of worry, allowing you to focus on what truly matters—making the most of a fulfilling retirement.

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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:

If you had $7.8 million, do you think you could retire? Some of you are like, of course, I mean, I don't even need that much. Others of you are like I think so, but I don't really know if I really want to spend what I want to spend. Is that going to make sure? And what if I retire too early? And who knows? That's what today is going to be all about is diving into a real case study, thinking through do we have enough? And if you don't have 7.8 million, you can use this same framework, the principles we're going to go through, to show you how to think about it for your financial strategy.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, now I think a lot of times. It's easy to think of can I retire or not? Well, how big is your number? Do you have a big enough number? And of course it's different for everyone, but you get big enough and it probably seems like yeah, of course. Or if you get small enough, it probably seems like no, of course, not 7.8 million.

Speaker 1:

That's not just a random, arbitrary number. I think that came from somewhere. You want to share. Where that came from, ari, let's share it.

Speaker 1:

So I got this email and I posted it on Instagram as well Minus, of course, for security reasons, their actual email. But the subject line says what you can see if you're watching on YouTube and if you're listening on the podcast app, whether it's early retirement podcast, ready for retirement we're going to explain it for you. Subject line says one simple yes or no answer on early retirement. Hello, ari, I've enjoyed watching the videos. I just need a simple yes or no. If I have 7.8 million in my stock portfolio and I have no debt, can I, at 57 years old, and my wife, who is 51 years years old, retire right now? Thank you.

Speaker 1:

So when that came in, I read everything that I just told you right there and I only read one thing. I read him say should I get surgery? I'm in pain Now? My brain and we're going to walk you guys through it today was thinking the following Do you want to retire? How will you spend your time? What's your health like? What accounts? Do you have Any gains? You plan to do another job? That's more fun. What about tax strategy, estate planning and about 2000 other questions. So, james, what were your thoughts when you saw that?

Speaker 2:

Well, I love the subject line. It says simple yes or no, and I think and I get where this person's coming from Like I said at the beginning, it seems like okay, number gets big enough yes, you can do this. Number gets small enough no, you can't do this. That is obviously one very big, important part of retirement planning is how big is your number? How much do you have in your portfolio? That's one component of it. All that number really tells you is how much income your portfolio can create for you. What that can look like.

Speaker 2:

And one of the things that we do at Root Financial is we have our Sequoia system, which means when anyone comes to us, whether they have $8 million, whatever the number is, it doesn't matter. It's the same process, because we worked with hundreds and hundreds of people over our years of doing this and we found there is a way of doing this. There's a right way of doing this. It's not to say there's a formula, there's a cookie cutter solution for everyone, but there is a very structured process that anyone should go through, regardless of their asset level. So if you're listening to this and say, oh, I don't have $8 million, this doesn't apply to me, this applies to you.

Speaker 2:

If you have 8 million, if you have 80 million, if you have $80,000, what we're going to go through is what should you be asking yourself? And we're pulling this right from the Sequoia system that we have created internally as our way of helping guide clients when they ask similar questions. So someone comes to you Ari, I'm just going to say 8 million, because that's a easier round number to say than 7.8 million. So I have $8 million and I come to you and I say, ari, take me through your Sequoia system or just take me through any process. Do I have enough to retire? Where are you going?

Speaker 1:

first, I'm starting with purpose. It's like do you even know what you want your retirement to look like? Like what, what are you going to do? And not just the classic like, oh, I'm going to golf or I'm going to volunteer. It's like, hey, we need to go deeper than that and just thinking through what you might want to do is very different from what you might actually want to do. Some of you are going to hear what I just said and go. It kind of sounds like the same thing. It's very different. So we start with purpose, because the mistake we've seen is people want to hop right into what investment allocation do I need? And what about tax planning? And we could certainly do that, but I feel like we'd be missing a lot, which is why we start with that purpose there.

Speaker 2:

So that's where we always begin, and I'm going to add to that the person that asked this question. He is 57. His wife is 51. They've done well. $8 million is no small fee, so congratulations to them. I don't know if that was selling a business. I don't know if that was just through hefty savings. I don't know if that was inherited. I have no idea what that came from, but congratulations.

Speaker 2:

Here's what I notice when you are looking to retire. It's called in your fifties, early to late fifties. You've done that. My guess is you probably have a pretty high income If you've saved that amount. Again, I have no idea what they did to get here. I'm just going to assume for a second they have a high income.

Speaker 2:

Your friends, your coworkers, your neighbors are going to look at you like you're absolutely out of your mind when you say you're about to retire. It's just not socially normal. Now we think it's normal. We love it. If you don't love what you want to do at work, or if you don't love what you're doing at work and there's other things you'd rather be doing, but you're going to be surrounded by people saying why are you giving up this job? Why are you giving up this income. Why are you giving up your peak earning years? And you need to have a good answer for that, and that answer shouldn't be you know, I don't want to have to work on this project anymore. I don't want to have to wake up to an alarm clock anymore. That's great. You can retire and you're going to really love not having an alarm clock and not reporting to your boss for about two months or three months.

Speaker 2:

But then one day you're gonna be like what am I actually doing? Well, what am I doing with my life in this sense of hey, I've got money but I lack purpose. That's the money's not going to solve that. You could double the 8 million, you could triple the 8 million If you don't have that purpose, that thing that you want to retire to. No, we would not advise retiring Now. We might recommend a mini retirement or take some time off, but don't think that just retirement magically is going to cleanse all your problems if you don't have a plan for what you want to retire to. So that's what we would start with Once you have that purpose. Do you have anything you want to add to that, ari?

Speaker 1:

No, I think, once we have that purpose, that next phase, here's how we like to begin. So, james, I'm going to ask you a fun question, very difficult question what is your pet peeve? Number one pet peeve Some people, slow drivers in the left lane, whatever. What would you say is your pet peeve?

Speaker 2:

I hate when people ask me what my pet peeve is. So I'm going to say my pet peeve is. People ask me what my pet peeve is. I like that. I don't know.

Speaker 1:

I don't know, but I'll say slow drivers, okay, slow drivers. My pet peeve is when people go like this. You know, james, I think I could get away with spending $5,000 a month in retirement. I think I could do it. In fact I could probably get by on $3,000, because when I was in college I did it and I think I could do it again and I'll say I'm sure you could. That's not the point of retirement. The point of retirement is how much would you love to spend and are you in a position to do it? Which is why sometimes we see clients who have $10 million and we will recommend not retiring because they want to spend 80, 100,000 a month. Other times people would say I don't even know what I would do with that. Who are those crazy clients? So that next process is how do we create income, that cashflow?

Speaker 2:

in retirement Exactly. And the reason that comes after purpose is because, if it just starts with, well, how much money can my portfolio support each month? But we don't know what you're using it for. You know, if I don't know what your lifestyle likes you want to look like, it could be very different. Two people could both have $8 million but have very different lifestyle expectations. Therefore, that $8 million needs to create very different amounts of income. And so to your point, ari, if that person comes in and says I only want to spend $4,000 per month, of course you can retire. That's such a small amount relative to the portfolio you have. Our work is probably going to be around. How can you spend more, not just for the sake of spending, but in a very meaningful, purposeful way that's going to add to your quality of life.

Speaker 2:

Versus, if this person says you know what I want to spend $40,000 a month, okay, that's $480,000 per year. That represents a 6.1, 6.2% withdrawal rate on your portfolio value. So we might go back to that person and say this is what your withdrawal rate is and most people might say, okay, that's not sustainable. I can't sustain a 6.2% withdrawal rate for 40 plus years in retirement. That's crazy. There's a good chance that fails and I have to go back to work in my eighties? Well, maybe.

Speaker 2:

But what if we dive deeper? What if that $40,000, a big chunk of it is a mortgage that's going to be paid off in three years? What if a big chunk of that is you're currently supporting three kids, two of whom are in college and one of which is about to get married, and so you have some really significant cash outlays? What if a big chunk of that is you're supporting parents who are aging, but they're not going to be here forever? So it's not just what are your expenses, what are the cash flow needs, it's how are those going to change over time? So we don't just look at that in this example, say, you know, mr or Mrs Client, no, I'm sorry, you can't retire because you're spending too high of a percentage of your portfolio. We can take a big step back and see how that spending changes year over year, based upon lifestyle factors, based upon mortgage payoff, based upon family dynamics changing. Then we can start to get an actual sense of can you do this or not.

Speaker 2:

But it's hard to say a simple yes or no, not even if we have their expenses, but if we haven't fully dissected those expenses to see how are those going to change over time, to see can your portfolio support this?

Speaker 1:

If you had to put your money on it, do you think they would spend 40,000 a month, every single month, for the rest of their lives? No, and because of that, we have a process that we prefer which is going great. Let's really live on a dynamic basis, for example, let's assume, never fun to talk about, but that is our job. To bring up. Something happened to him. And now Jane, just picking a random name here, jane is like I don't really want to travel and part of our big retirement plans were travel, but now that I'll have my husband with me, I don't really know if I want to do that, so it's going to change. Well, how do we create this income? Well, that's step three.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, how do we create this income? That's step three. That's where investments come into play, because your investments aren't your only source of income, but if you're retiring early, they're probably they might be. It might be your only source, at least until social security kicks in, until maybe a pension kicks in, I don't know, maybe a rental real estate or something else like that. But let's assume that this person is spending $25,000 per month, which again sounds like a huge number to a lot of people, pay less attention to the number and, more importantly, pay attention to the framework. If they're spending $25,000 per month, that's a withdrawal rate of about 3.8%. So on paper, we say and what name did you assign to this person? John and Jane, is that what we're calling them? Okay, john and Jane, you're spending 3.8% per year of your portfolio. That's a very sustainable rate over time.

Speaker 2:

And then we take a deeper look at their portfolio, and it's all NVIDIA, and we say oh well, no wonder you have such a large portfolio balance. You put a few thousand bucks into NVIDIA. Now it's $8 million. Well, congratulations, but I would not feel comfortable telling someone they could retire if all their portfolio was in one single stock. I don't care, though, whether their withdrawal rate is lower than what might be sustainable long-term. If you look at the 4% rule, look at guardrails type rules. Those rules are premised on the fact that you have a more diversified portfolio. So don't just think, oh, all my portfolio is in Nvidia or Apple or Tesla. Well, if they continue doing well, you can support retirement for 40 years.

Speaker 2:

But the second they have a 50, 60, 70% decline. That's not going to be the case. Or maybe it's the opposite example Maybe it's $7 or $8 million in treasury bills and they say, hey, I sold a business, I just tucked in treasury bills. I don't want to have to go through the ups and downs of the market and be really conservative with it. That's great in the short term, but you're 57 and 51, john and Jane. Inflation is going to increase somewhere between 350 and 400% over the course of your lifetime. If your money's not growing to keep up with that, those treasury bills are going to feel really safe and secure upfront, but you're gradually going to diminish your portfolio balance. More importantly, you're gradually going to diminish your purchasing power over time and that's not an acceptable outcome either. So it's that sense of once we know that you have a sustainable spending rate. Are your investments as perfectly dialed in as possible to support that?

Speaker 1:

I've never spoken to this person, but if I could speak to them, what I would want to tell them is I would say please don't make the following mistake that we see all the time, which is people have two thoughts. And right now, if you're watching on YouTube, you can see both my hands and if you're listening, the story will resonate, hopefully equally as much. And what people do is they go look, I know I think I have the assets to retire. I don't know for sure, but I think I'm in a good spot. But I don't have social security yet and I don't have inheritance. It might come, it might not.

Speaker 1:

I don't want to rely on it. I don't have a pension yet. There's a lot of stuff, so it's just, it's kind of all up to my portfolio now. So I don't want to spend too much too early and then run the risk of running out. And that's a lot of you going yeah, that's kind of me. And at the same time you're like, hey, but isn't this when I have my energy and my health, shouldn't I maybe be enjoying this? And most people have these thoughts collide and they underspend. And then they reach out to us and go yeah, so I'm 74, 75, and I've got plenty of money now, but I really don't know if it's as valuable, and so I just don't want you guys or this person to make that mistake.

Speaker 2:

That's a great point. That that, that. How could you not be afraid of that? You're retiring at 57 and 51. Sure, you have a big portfolio bounce, but there's always this fear of what if? What if there's a major downturn? What if I have a major health event? What if family needs some significant support? What if there's a major downturn? What if I have a major health event? What if family needs some significant support? What if inflation spirals out of control? What if? What if? What if? All leading to what if I run out of money? What then? And so there is this delicate balance between preserving and protecting and making sure you're okay for the future, but also not being so extreme with that that you sacrifice the best years of your life and wake up one day with a huge amount of regret that you missed out on doing things when you had the energy and the health to do them.

Speaker 1:

Which brings us to step four, which is what everyone loves paying. What is step four?

Speaker 2:

Step four is taxes. So Sequoia system we go through purpose, then we go to cashflow and income, then investments, then taxes. What is tag? What are we looking at? Everyone wants to start with taxes. How can I get the right tax strategy dialed in? Why do we start? Or I should say, why don't we have that upfront Tari? Why do we keep that as step four?

Speaker 1:

We keep taxes as step four, because when we're doing any planning for any client, there's a lot we need to know about you, and I'll use my dad as an example. So I don't know if this guy, john, who reached out, has a concentrated position where he bought Apple stock for 2 million and now it's worth 8 million. There's a lot I don't know, but my dad has a lot of monster stock and he loves monster and James, you know what would happen if I told him he had to sell it tomorrow? He would shoot himself in the foot and cry and probably take me out of the will, because every time it goes up he's just so happy. I said, dad, I get it. You're a human, you're not a robot.

Speaker 1:

But do you want monster energy to dictate how many surf trips you take in retirement? He's like no way. I said well then, maybe we should consider about diversifying. And he goes no, no, no, but the taxes, the tax hit, that would occur. I don't know if that would be worth it, and it is very rational for him to say that. But sometimes what we see is people will avoid paying taxes when in reality, monster energy might go down way more than whatever he would have had to pay in taxes. So the reason we don't start with taxes is we have no idea if we need to sell something. We have no idea how much you want to spend, we have no idea if you actually plan on giving assets to children or to friends, and the last thing we want is you to go pay a bunch of taxes unnecessarily, which is why one of our favorite quotes here is we're all about being patriotic, just not to the point.

Speaker 2:

You pay more in taxes than you need to yes and beyond that, there's this sense of Ari. We could take a financial situation like this, a financial plan like this that we have in front of us, and we can make the tax strategy look really, really good on paper, because we're going to say, hey, john and Jane don't spend a dime. I don't know what the makeup of their assets are, what's in IRAs, what's in Roth IRAs, what's in brokerage, but let's assume a big chunk of that's an IRA and at some point they're going to get hit with these major tax bombs, these required distributions. They're going to push them way up into a really high tax bracket. Well, we could show them on paper. What if you only spent $3,000 a month drawn from your brokerage account? You keep your income taxes super low. Simultaneously, you're doing some pretty significant Roth conversions. Look how much this saves you. You end up saving $4 million over the course of your lifetime. When you look at the tax adjusted ending portfolio balance, look how awesome that is and you see that $4 million and it looks really attractive, until you go back to the assumptions.

Speaker 2:

Well, the assumption is you don't do anything. You sit on your sofa all day long because you don't have any money to spend because we're letting the tax tail wag the dog, in the sense of if we're prioritizing taxes too much, what it means is don't live life, Don't take those surf trips that your dad's taking, don't do the things that you want to do, because that means you're spending money, and spending money means you're taking more out of your portfolio, and taking more out of your portfolio means taxes. You're putting you in a higher bracket. So there's these competing interests and taxes should not be the driving force here.

Speaker 2:

Because if you got to the end of your life and you had a strategy that saved you millions of dollars in taxes but you missed the surf trips, you weren't able to do the things with your friends and family that you wanted to do. You never took the trip, you never donated to the charities you wanted to donate to. That's a pretty pathetic retirement. I don't care if your tax strategy saved you millions. It should not be the driving factor. So when we get purpose in place and then cash flow to support that purpose and then allocate your investments to support that cash flow, now we can dial in your tax strategy to support all that and save as much as we possibly can, given the constraints of preserving a certain lifestyle and a certain level of spending.

Speaker 1:

Amazing points and quick little thing for all of the CPAs that are out there that are overwhelmed. Some of you guys that are watching this right now you have a CPA, some of you are your own CPA, but what I need you to do is stop beating up your CPA, because you're being really mean to a waiter and people go. I don't understand what you just said and what I'm saying is you are oftentimes going. Why isn't my CPA telling me about those Roth conversions that James just said? Maybe I should do those? Why aren't they telling me about the whole healthcare subsidy versus harvesting?

Speaker 1:

And what they're trying to do is file your taxes and 500 other people's taxes. They don't have oftentimes the capacity because the IRS gives them the worst schedule in the world to come to you and do this tax planning around your stock options, around charitable giving, around withdrawal strategy. That is not what they do. And so someone said, oh, should I stop beating them up? And I go kind of, because they don't have the ability to do what you're asking them to do. So because of that, just quick note on the tax planning. What are some of those ways, james? That if this person goes through the process, and even after I've dialed in my purpose and how much I want to spend, it looks like I'm still going to have a tax bill.

Speaker 2:

What should I look at? Yeah, there's so many things that we look at. The first is what's the breakdown of your asset allocation in terms of what types of accounts do you have Roth, pre-tax brokerage assets? We look at your asset location which are the right assets in the right accounts to minimize the tax impact of the growth that you have? We look at things like Roth conversions, which tend to be the things that do have the ability to save you six, seven figures over the course of your lifetime If it's the right situation.

Speaker 2:

For some people, roth conversions actually aren't effective at all and actually backfire. So that's a really important point is don't just assume that you're going to retire and should do those, but should absolutely look at them as a possible option Tax gain harvesting, tax loss harvesting this can do with your tying to your portfolio solution through things like separately managed accounts, through things of that nature, to really make sure that you're dialing what that can look like. Are you charitably inclined? You know when someone says they want to leave money to charity, I say that's wonderful, but what can we do over the course of your lifetime to take advantage of that charitable giving, to also take advantage of the tax benefits you get while you're alive, you're not getting tax benefits to leave money to a charity after you pass. So what can we do in your lifetime?

Speaker 2:

Estate planning, beneficiary titling all these things tie into taxes with the core being don't Again I'll say this again because it bears repeating, because too many people do this don't let the tax tail wag the dog in the sense like this isn't the driving factor of all the decisions that you're going to make in retirement. Once you've made the right decisions for you and your family, what you want your life to look like, then we can absolutely optimize the most possible tax savings given those constraints. And those are just a handful of things we might look at doing possible tax savings given those constraints and those are just a handful of things we might look at doing.

Speaker 1:

Beneficiaries sound a lot like security, which is our next step when it comes to the Sequoia process, which is how do you protect what you've worked so hard?

Speaker 2:

to create. Yes, and this is where we're looking at things like insurance and estate planning. Now, sometimes this is fairly simple. It's just a checklist to make sure do you have the right insurance coverages? Or maybe do you have insurance coverage for things you don't need anymore? You know, for example, by the time that you're getting close to retirement, this individual might not need life insurance anymore. If he dies maybe a good chance his wife's just fine inheriting the portfolio and totally good, and you can cancel your life insurance policies. Probably doesn't need disability insurance anymore if that's the case.

Speaker 2:

Now, certainly you need to look at things like health insurance. If you're retiring and you're losing your coverage through your employer, do you have someone that can help connect you with the right person to maintain the right benefits to get the coverage that you need? Do you have umbrella insurance and right property and casualty insurance of what's one of the biggest risks here, of what if you get sued and all that money evaporates overnight? So how do you protect that? All kinds of different things like that. Do you need long-term care insurance? So looking at the things that you need to have to protect the plan and the wealth that you've created. And then estate planning and estate planning is at the surface level. Do you have the right documents in place to carry out your wishes should you become incapacitated or deceased? But at a level beyond that, john, you pass away today.

Speaker 2:

Your wife's 51. She's young, she's probably great, she probably remarries at some point. What if she remarries? Someone that spends down all those assets? She's responsible, but then she gets married and something else happens, like I don't know if they have children or not, but are you okay with that outcome? Or vice versa, she passes and he remarries and his new spouse spends on all the assets.

Speaker 2:

Well, now there's nothing left for the children. Are you okay with that? Or do you need some estate planning provisions in place to protect against that? You know what? If one of you passes, how do you make sure that the children if there are children and if this is a desire still have assets that they would ultimately receive once the both of you have passed? And a remarriage couldn't do anything to impact that. A divorce couldn't do anything to impact that. So all kinds of things where it's just looking at how do we most effectively carry out your wishes under circumstances when things don't quite go as planned? Or they do go as planned, which is, at some point we're all going to die, and making sure that the assets get dealt with appropriately at that time.

Speaker 1:

I find this is the number one most overlooked aspect of planning. Because it's not sexy. It does not sound fun to go talk about getting your estate docs in order. So we'll often ask clients what's your estate plan? And they're like you know, it's pretty impressive. I already have a trust and a will, james, and you may never even heard of this. There's these medical directives I got those two and power of attorney. So like I'm kind of balling and we're like that's great. What's your estate plan? And they're like hey, were you like not listening to me? I just told you. And we're like no, that's awesome. Those are documents, estate planning. What's your plan, james? Not to be mad at me, when you're 75 with $20 million, wishing that you and your wife just spent 30,000 more every year on travel to really enjoy it, and most people go huh. So estate planning goes certainly beyond the document stuff it does.

Speaker 2:

It does, and sometimes it's as basic as a review to make sure you have the right things. I will say most people don't have all the right things, and so a simple review can highlight some key weaknesses or vulnerabilities in their plan to as far as some strategic planning. For what do we do in certain cases? How do we make sure that your wishes are carried out in the way that you would want them to be carried out, to make sure that the people that inherit these lots and lots of dollars that might be worth lots more dollars when you pass away, are there provisions for what they need to do with that, to make sure it continues to be managed wisely in a way that you would be happy with? So you know we're doing this. You know we're 25 minutes in now to highlight the fact that this person asked a very simple question I have $8 million. Can I retire, yes or no? And, as you can see, it depends. And even if the answer is yes, that doesn't mean that everything's optimized and the people that are working with us here at Root they don't want to just. They worked too hard to do just okay in retirement, To say, okay, I've reached that level or that threshold of enough. I'm just going to stop here and call it good. They want to do the best they possibly can, and maybe they don't want to be the ones having to manage this and be responsible for it, but we want to make sure.

Speaker 2:

How are we maximizing income today while still protecting against your ability to create income in the future? How are we maximizing the way your portfolio is invested to support your goals today and in the future? How are we using tax strategies to minimize the amount of taxes you pay in your lifetime so that you can do more with your money? How do we put the right plan in place with insurances, with estate planning, to ensure that you're not just doing okay, because the home is titled in the name of the trust and so are the assets, but your intentions are carried out both during your lifetime and after, and there might be even some strategic planning that goes well beyond that. So that's where a well-defined process we call our Sequoia system and those are the steps that we go through can take that question and not just give you a yes answer which you might feel like okay, cool, but you're going to feel a little insecure in that. What do I do? How do I withdraw my funds? How should I do? How do I withdraw my funds? How should I invest? What should I do with taxes? To feeling totally confident in dialing in with your retirement and actually being freed up to be able to focus on the things you want to focus on.

Speaker 1:

We have a not a rule, but we have something that's fun that we'll do in our family, which is anytime a family member or a friend reaches out and they ask not something like this, but something similar, where you're like, hey, this is not a simple answer, we'll send the response we want to send to like the rest of the family, just for fun, and then we'll bring it up and show it to them later. So for this person, if I could, what I would want to send them and they get to hear it is, I'd want to say simple comma, probably like. Probably like it depends on a million other things and like you know, when that one family member is like, hey, what do you want for dinner, or whatever it is, and like that one family member.

Speaker 1:

The better example is I had someone recently, a cousin, that had came over, and we went to a restaurant and I know them and their personality and they were looking at a menu as if it was like the first time they're at a restaurant and I'm like, oh, you know what you're going to order. And there was this sense of like. Oh, you know what you're going to order. And there was this sense of like. I'm just overwhelmed by the options, and I feel like that's how this person might be feeling, which is like, hey, he knows he has lots of money, or she knows like they don't need us to tell them that, but there's still something missing. So if we did say yes confidently I think you're right, james they'd be like okay, yeah, but like why is the feeling still the same? Like you told me words, but that didn't really change it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, as Nick Murray says, if you're still worried, you're not wealthy. So we want people feeling wealthy, regardless of asset level, and that comes from a lack of worry and a plan to accomplish everything that's most important to you. There you go Sequoia system, sequoia system, ari. Where can people find you if they want to follow along and see what you're all about and what you're doing?

Speaker 1:

If you want to see my cousin try to order on a menu, go to Early Retirement Ari on Instagram and then LinkedIn. First and last name Ari Taublieb. I don't know anyone who only has a first name, so I don't know why I said that on LinkedIn, but Ari Taublieb on LinkedIn, and then Early Retirement Podcast. That's where a lot of you are listening to this right now, as well as the YouTube channel where, if you want to see our faces and our reactions when we go through all of these fun things and are sharing our screen, we certainly encourage you. Sometimes it's fun to just see us go along. Others of you I know are currently working out while listening to us, so if you're currently doing a deadlift, good luck.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, lift on Cool, and I am on Instagram. Good luck, yeah, lift on Cool, and I am on Instagram. James Canole On LinkedIn. James Canole Podcast the Ready for Retirement podcast. Youtube, james Canole. And then, if you're interested in Sequoia Systems, okay, you know I'm that person. I have these dollars and I feel like I'm probably okay, but I want to feel really confident. I want to know that I'm being taken care of and having these things optimized for me. Go to rootfinancialpartnerscom. Rootfinancialcom. Click on start here and see if we're a good fit to do some of those things. But I think that's all we have for today, ari, unless you have anything else, we'll see everyone next time. 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, earlyretirementpodcastcom. That's earlyretirementpodcastcom, 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.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for listening to another episode of the Early Retirement Show.

Speaker 2:

If you have a question that you want answered in a future episode, you can always go to my website, earlyretirementpodcastcom. That's earlyretirementpodcastcom, 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 will 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. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Early Retirement Show.

Speaker 2:

If you have a question that you want answered, 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. Hey guys, it's me again. Please be smart about this. Nothing in this podcast should be construed as financial, tax or legal advice. Please do consult with your tax preparer or financial advisor before taking any action. This podcast is for informational purposes only. 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.

Speaker 1:

Thispodcastcom.

Speaker 2:

That's earlyretirementpodcastcom, and you can go ahead and submit a question that I'll look to answer in a future episode. Consult with your tax preparer or financial advisor before taking any action. This podcast is for informational purposes only. Hey guys, it's me again. Please be smart about this, and I will see you all in a tweet. 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, earlyretirementpodcastcom. That's earlyretirementpodcastcom, 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. 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, earlyretirementpodcastcom.

Speaker 1:

That's earlyretirementpodcastcom, and you can go ahead and submit a question that I'll look to answer in a.

Speaker 2:

Please be smart about this.

Speaker 2:

Nothing in this podcast should be construed as financial, tax or legal advice.

Speaker 2:

Consult with your tax preparer or financial advisor before taking any action.

Speaker 2:

This podcast is for informational purposes only. Hey guys, it's me again. Please be smart about this. If there's anything in this podcast that you need to know, I certainly appreciate it and I will see you all each week. Consult with your tax preparer or financial advisor before taking any action. If you have a question that you want answered in a future episode, you can always go to my website, earlyretirementpodcastcom. That's earlyretirementpodcastcom, 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 will 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. 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, earlyretirementpodcastcom. That's earlyretirementpodcastcom. 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. Hey guys, it's me again. Please be smart about this. Nothing in this podcast should be construed as financial, tax or legal advice. I certainly appreciate it and I will see you all each week.

Speaker 2:

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, earlyretirementpodcastcom. That's earlyretirementpodcastcom, 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. Thank you for listening to another episode of earlyretirementpodcastcom. That's earlyretirementpodcastcom, 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, share it with someone you think will benefit from this information. If there's anyone out there that you're taking any action, this podcast is for informational purposes only. 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, earlyretirementpodcastcom. That's earlyretirementpodcastcom, 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 or leave it. Invite out with someone. Consult, 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. I certainly appreciate it and I will see you all each week.

Speaker 2:

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, earlyretirementpodcastcom. That's earlyretirementpodcastcom, 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 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. Please be smart about this. Nothing in this podcast should be construed as an early retirement show or legal advice. Consult with your tax preparer or financial advisor before taking any action.

Speaker 1:

This podcast is for informational purposes only. 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.