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

The Not-So-Obvious Reason To Retire Early

• Ari Taublieb, CFP®, MBA • Episode 263

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We often focus on the fear of running out of money in retirement—but what if the bigger risk is running out of health before you can enjoy it? After watching The Amazing Race, I was reminded of a client story we hear all too often: years of diligent saving, only to be sidelined by health issues just before retirement begins.

At Root, we’ve seen clients retire with more than enough—only to realize the extra working years came at the expense of their physical well-being. One client had $3 million saved but told us she would’ve been happier (and healthier) retiring with $2.2 million if it meant enjoying her travel plans pain-free.

That’s why we encourage thinking about your money in terms of “movement speeds”:

  • Walking dollars: short-term cash for 1–3 years
  • Jogging dollars: mid-term goals for 3–7 years
  • Sprinting dollars: long-term investments for 10+ years

This framework helps you balance living well today with planning wisely for tomorrow. The most consistent advice we hear from our clients? Don’t just plan to retire—plan to enjoy it. Prioritize your health alongside your wealth.

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Advisory services are offered through Root Financial Partners, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. This content is intended for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered personalized investment, tax, or legal advice. Viewing this content does not create an advisory relationship. We do not provide tax preparation or legal services. Always consult an investment, tax or legal professional regarding your specific situation.

The strategies, case studies, and examples discussed may not be suitable for everyone. They are hypothetical and for illustrative and educational purposes only. They do not reflect actual client results and are not guarantees of future performance. All investments involve risk, including the potential loss of principal.

Comments reflect the views of individual users and do not necessarily represent the views of Root Financial. They are not verified, may not be accurate, and should not be considered testimonials or endorsements

Participation in the Retirement Planning Academy or Early Retirement Academy does not create an advisory relationship with Root Financial. These programs are educational in nature and are not a substitute for personalized financial advice. Advisory services are offered only under a written agreement with Root Financial.

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


Speaker 1:

Today's episode is story time. I'm going to tell you the not so obvious reason that people retire early, or should at least be planning on retiring early, and it's not the traditional yeah, I want to spend time with family or I want to travel. Now why on earth am I recording this episode? Well, I was watching the Amazing Race this weekend and it's the first time I've ever seen it. I promise I'm going to connect the dots from the Amazing Race to retirement planning, because many of you are probably very confused right now, especially if this is your first time tuning into the program. Now I have all of my episodes on YouTube in addition to the podcast. If you're listening, today's episode will be equally effective. Sometimes I will have a case study where I'm going into great detail and I want to show you here's exactly how this couple is going to save on healthcare and how exactly they're going to spend and how they're going to shift that when markets do X, y or Z. I think you should watch this on YouTube so you can actually see me do it, versus listen on the podcast. Today's episode. Whether you're watching on YouTube right now and can see me, or you're listening on the podcast, it will be equally effective. Now here's the story and why we're going about this. So right now, we have about 53 employees that work here at Root. They are amazing team members that make all the magic happen. I make a lot of different videos and podcasts, so people like yourself who are listening or watching reach out and go wow, this sounds different. It sounds like if I work with Root, I'll have my finances optimized and doing everything I want to do, which is awesome. But there's a large majority of you who like managing your own money or who find that an advisor might be helpful, but just not right now. It just might be a matter of timing. I'm the weird advisor that says everyone doesn't need one. It just depends on when it makes sense for you. So here's how the amazing race connects to this.

Speaker 1:

I will talk to a lot of people who will say Ari, I'm finally retiring. I'm really excited. I'm going to spend time doing slow travel, because traditionally I would take a week off work. That's fun, but it's not the same. If I'm in Portugal, and I love it, I want to be able to stay a week, and I can't do that until I'm officially retired. I'll have other people who say look, I just want to redate my spouse. It's been a long time I've been working the last 30 years we have kids. I feel like we haven't really connected and it's more us time. I'll go awesome. But then there's a whole batch of other people and these other people are retiring, but it's not due to choice. Technically there is their choice to some extent, but it's really a health decision where now they can't really retire and be excited to go travel because their health won't allow them to.

Speaker 1:

Very sad, it's something that I didn't really consider when I started the podcast. How many people would reach out and say I want to retire early. And here I am giddy and excited to help and they're explaining in a sad tone yeah, I just am not going to be able to hike, and that was my dream, and so now I'm going to be seated and you know, I don't even know if it makes sense to keep saving to my 401k. Those are real tough conversations. That is really rewarding when I'm able to help someone go through that. But here's why I'm telling you this story today. So right now at our company we host the very first Survivor Draft, where we literally draft within the company. Okay, who do we think is going to progress of the TV show Survivor. I've never watched reality TV show before, so this was a new experience for me. It's fun because every Friday we'll have an internal team meeting and talk about okay, how did it go, what surprised. It's fun. That is survivor.

Speaker 1:

I was telling my fiance Alice hey, alice, I don't really think I would do well on survivor, but wouldn't it be funny if I applied and I was on it? And she's like no, you would hate it because you're so pasty, you would get sunburned so fast. You are the worst person in the world when you are hangry, hungry and angry. So you'd absolutely not go on the show unless you want people to try to really be upset with you. And I was like okay, tell me how you really feel, you know, but I didn't say that. Anyways, the reason I'm bringing this up. Alice said if you were to go on some TV show and she loves me very much, okay, so for those of you who go, you should not let her talk to you that way. No, no, no, she's, we're awesome, okay, I'm just being dramatic here. So Alice said if there's a show you should go on that I think you really would do well on.

Speaker 1:

Where she gave me a compliment was the Amazing Race, and I said I've heard of it and in my opinion, it wasn't as good as Survivor. However, I took a lesson away from it, as I do from almost everything in life, which maybe that's just personality. Whatever, here's my point. When I was watching the Amazing Race, this couple was so nice and they were interviewed by the main host, who said why are you guys doing this? Not because you're terrible, but they weren't good. Okay, they were like second to last or last in almost everything, in the first episode at least. They said why are you doing this? It looks like you're almost doing it for a bigger reason. And they said when our mom retired, she wanted to travel and go on adventures and she got Alzheimer's and had other hip issues and so our mom was never able to do any of the things she wanted to do. She's still with us, not fully there, but we're doing this for her.

Speaker 1:

And it made me think. Okay, I would love to ask the mom how it all unfolded, but I had a few thoughts. The first thought was imagine and this is the truth for a lot of people saving and investing throughout your whole career for this magical day of retirement. And then, all of a sudden, you retire and now your health doesn't allow you to do what you want to do. Would you look back and go God, I really wasted all of that time? Probably not. You probably would say I had a lot of good memories along the way. But some of you really are grinding really hard, and so I just want you to pause and go. Is it worth the level of grind that I'm doing today?

Speaker 1:

The reason I bring that up is what I don't want you to do is sacrifice your health to the nth degree, where now you retire and can't really do what you want to do. For some of you, not a problem. For a lot of you, you are honestly saving and investing to your 401k. You're sitting at a desk all day and there's probably a part of you wondering okay, does it make sense if I retire in the next year or three years? Well, the risk is, as most people see it, you retire too early and run out of money, which is a real risk. But there's another hidden risk, which is the risk that you sit there for two more years and now, because you didn't move your body, your health isn't in a good position and now you can't really enjoy what you've worked so hard for the last 30 or 40 years. There's a balance there, obviously. The reason I'm bringing this up is it's really sad when I hear people who want to retire and they can't do what they want to do.

Speaker 1:

I've told this story many times, but there's one woman who reached out to me and she had $3 million and she said she was upset. And I said listen, lady, I don't want to be mean or anything, but I don't hear that every day there's a lot of people that would love to have $3 million. So why are you so upset? And she said I'm upset because I didn't need 3 million. I just thought I needed more, just a little bit more. If I had two or two and a half million, I could do everything I wanted to do and more. Now I've been sitting at my desk and I have bad sciatica and so, yeah, I can still hike and travel, but I'm uncomfortable In the process of actually traveling.

Speaker 1:

I was worried that if I didn't save enough money and I wanted to fly first class, that I literally was not gonna be able to travel or enjoy it Like I know. I could go. But if I'm going in and I said, how much money do you need? And we talked about it and she was right With about 2.2 million she could have flown first class for the rest of her life, went on plenty of trips and would have been fine. Now she has 3 million. She's not upset legitimately that she has 3 million, but she doesn't need the 3 million. So it's almost like she oversaved, which sounds weird.

Speaker 1:

But what I don't want you guys to do is like over invest for retirement, where you're putting so much time and energy into this retirement word when the reality is along the way. You should be saving, but you should also be spending, and I see too many people that undersave and I see too many people that oversave. Because you're a human, you're not a robot. I'm not expecting you to be perfect. What I am expecting you to be is honest with yourself. Take myself, for example. I am a workaholic and I love it.

Speaker 1:

Now, for a long time, I was the person that wanted to respond so quickly to every email because I wanted to improve and show my manager that I was really competent and I wanted to make sure everyone knew that I was willing to do what I need to do to climb the ladder. And then my family said hey, ari, you're always working on Fridays, even late. When are we going to get to see you? And it just went over my head and I realized, wow, that was six months of times. I could have been watching movies in the evenings with my family instead of working more. Now, maybe at that time that's what I valued more. Whether it be right or wrong, that's just the truth. The reality is I love my family. I just at that time maybe, wanted to really grind and show and move up the ladder. Nothing wrong with that as I look back on it.

Speaker 1:

But I wasn't honest with myself. I wasn't saying I'm making a conscious decision here, I'm choosing this over this, and I'm going to explain to my parents hey, I love you guys so much. I'm really trying to grind so that I can move up to this next role and get paid X amount and have X responsibility. That is not where I'm at now, in my stage of life. Now I recognize that I want to work forever as long as I love what I do. If I don't love what I do, I want to have the option to do something else.

Speaker 1:

I think all of you probably want exactly that as well. You want to work because you want to, not because you have to. That's everything I preach. I just want you to know when is that possible? And I'm not trying to say I need you to go save and invest like a crazy person, where now you're absolutely sacrificing everything along the way. And I'll have people who reach out and say, yeah, I'm doing the backdoor Roth and I'm maxing my 401k and I'm doing the superhero, and so it's pretty awesome, I'm on track to retire by 48. I'll say great, how many trips does that let you take along the way? They'll say none, because I'm saving and investing all my money, I go. That's defeating the purpose of this, unless that's your specific goal. Most people want to enjoy life along the way. They want to save and invest as well for their future.

Speaker 1:

So why am I bringing this up? When the amazing race was happening and this person said we're doing this for our mom, I went wow, I hope the daughters learned. There's two daughters. I hope they learned, and I think they did, because they're going on the amazing race. Now they go. We're in good health. Our mom would have loved to do this. We're doing this now for our mom. Well, if that mom could go back and change anything about her life.

Speaker 1:

The reality is, maybe she did everything she could. Who am I to judge? I have no idea, but she in the video at least, she was severely overweight. She seemed like she was very stressed. She seemed also like she wasn't fully there. Now, a lot of that could be due to poor diet. A lot of that could be due to genetics A lot of assumptions that I don't know. But what is in your control truly is how you take care of your body along the way, and that is the most precious thing you have.

Speaker 1:

And my clients tell me if there's anything that I could preach to all of you, because we have hundreds of clients here at Root and there's hundreds of thousands of you and millions that watch the content every single month. They said, ari, if there's anything I could do as a client to tell you, to tell your audience, is prioritize your health. I know it's cliche, but it's really easy to sit through lunch. Nowadays A lot of us are virtual and it's I'm going to work through lunch, or we don't end up standing up, or we go to the bathroom and we take our phone and we're still on our phone and we find that we go eight, nine hours and we didn't really take the time to breathe. I'm guilty of that. We are actually starting internally, at root here. One of our advisors also is a yoga teacher and breathwork coach, so she's starting to take us through intentional breaks. So are things getting done? You know 0.01%. You know slower than if we didn't do that. Yes, but that's something that we view as worth it, because we want our team members here to love their lives and to be healthy. It's what we preach.

Speaker 1:

So, all of this to be said, when you're saving and investing, just be very honest with yourself. Are you maxing out your 401k because you want to retire by 45 and that's the dream? Are you currently listening to this 60 years old going hey, I really want to retire by 62 and I really need to ramp up how much I'm saving and investing, even if that means I take two less trips this year, awesome. Now you're doing it for a very clear reason. What frustrates me is when people are saving and investing but it's not clear. You want every single dollar. You have to have a goal, and the way I like to explain it is.

Speaker 1:

You have dollars that walk, dollars that jog and dollars that sprint. You want dollars that are walking. When a dollar is walking, you can tell it to turn around and you can grab that dollar really easily. It's not far ahead of you, it's just walking. That's like emergency fund or cash, or what I call your sleep number how much money's in your bank account that lets you sleep at night. Maybe you're going to buy a car in the next year or you're going to downsize. Those are dollars you want readily available in the next one to three years. Then there's certain dollars you want jogging, where, if you had to go tell them to turn around, it's not the end of the world, but you can't just get it tomorrow, and that's a good thing. When you have dollars jogging, that means you can get more return for the dollars because you don't need it as quickly, which means you want to investing, which means it's more subject to, of course, growing more quickly, or what some call more aggressive.

Speaker 1:

Now for jogging dollars. I view that as dollars that are, for example, in a brokerage account that you don't need, maybe for the next three to seven years. Maybe in the future you're going to want to retire and pay for travel or healthcare or remodel or kids college. Those are dollars you want jogging. Then there's dollars you want sprinting like Roth IRAs or dollars that you're not going to use for 10 plus years, that if you yelled at that dollar and told it to turn around, it would be hard to catch because it's trying to make as much money for you as possible. So put your different dollars in different buckets. Understand how much you need to save and invest.

Speaker 1:

Once again, the reason people work with Root is that they don't have another job having to do this in retirement. But working with us is about timing, which is why I offer that Early Retirement Academy. This is that solution for those clients not clients, excuse me for those listeners or viewers like yourself who still want to get optimal with your finances. You're not sure you need an advisor yet, but you want to see what are you on track for. If you are interested in checking out that, you can see it in the description of this episode. That's it for this episode. The next episode will be back to my traditional series. I just wanted to share this after watching the Amazing Reese. I hope you guys are all in great health and that you're doing everything you can to make sure your health stays that way, even if it means saving a little bit less and spending time or money on things that would help improve your health. That's it for this one. See you guys next time.

Speaker 1:

Thank you all, as always, for listening to the Early Retirement Podcast. I love getting to host these shows and make different content for you guys every single week. I've not missed a single week in years and that is because I love getting to do this. Now, please be smart about this. Before you actually execute any strategy that you see me talk about or hear me talk about, should I say Please talk to your financial advisor, your tax preparer, your estate attorney. Please be smart about this. None of this should be construed as financial advice. This is for fun, educational, informational purposes only. Once again, just quick disclaimer here. Guys, please be smart about this. Appreciate you listening. As always, you can, of course, submit a question on my website, earlyretirementpodcastcom, if you, of course, want me to address a specific case study or topic. I will not promise I can get to it, but I respond to every single person and if I find it will be helpful for a lot of people, I will absolutely make an episode on it. At the very least give you some insight. That's it, thanks, guys.