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

Why I Love Retirement Planning At 29 Years Old

• Ari Taublieb, CFP®, MBA • Episode 268

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What does soccer have to do with retirement? A lot more than you'd think. As a 5'5" former college soccer player turned financial advisor, I’ve learned it’s not about brute strength. It’s about smart decisions. That mindset guides the way I approach financial planning today.

At 29, people ask why I care so much about retirement. The answer is simple: good planning gives you time. And time with the people you love is the most valuable thing there is. I've seen how a well-structured plan, from managing taxes to optimizing healthcare and using flexible accounts, can buy you years with aging parents, a spouse, or even just your own freedom.

But there are traps, like being "qualified rich." That $2 million in your 401(k)? After taxes and penalties, it’s not what it seems. That's why I'm a big fan of what I call “superhero accounts” like brokerage accounts that let you retire on yourterms. And don’t get me started on the healthcare gap between early retirement and Medicare. It’s one of the biggest mindset hurdles we help people overcome.

I got into this work after watching my own parents get burned by multiple advisors. Some were too fancy, some were too hands-off, and none truly planned holistically. That gap in the industry is what I aim to close.

To me, the goal is recreational employment. Working because you want to, not because you have to.

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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:

I am 29 years old and I love retirement planning. That is weird. I am the first person to recognize that I love retirement planning for many of the reasons. I love soccer. I am not tall. I'm five foot five, I'm not fast and I'm not that strong, despite me doing everything I can to put myself in the best position possible. There's only so much I can do. But soccer is about decision making and this is a magical sport to me because you can be very slow, you don't have to be tall and you can be very impactful on the field. I ended up playing college soccer, so why am I connecting this to retirement planning?

Speaker 1:

I find retirement planning is very much just high level decision making and there are instances where I will go to someone and say would you rather keep working? It doesn't sound like you would, but confirm with me would you rather keep working? But if you do keep working, you will be able to spend $10,000 a month after taxes, adjusted for inflation, for the rest of your life. Assuming we manage your healthcare subsidy in the following way we do this tax strategy, you set up this estate plan, or would you rather stop working and start spending $6,500 per month right now? What would you prefer? And I find most people don't just hit me with yes, this is the answer. It's well, right now it would be really hard to stop working, because I'm currently working on a project. So even if I could, I wouldn't want to. And you just said 10,000 a month. But I feel like I'm probably going to want to spend more at the beginning because I have my energy and my health, and then maybe it will come down. So I don't want to tell you 10,000 a month and then all of a sudden I'm only spending 8,000 a month and then I pass away with like $5 million. So what I find is, if I ask a question like that, it gets people's brains spinning and then I'm really seeing what they're thinking. Then we can really start diving into planning. So I'll ask a question, I'll do hypotheticals, I'll run scenarios, I'll make so many what ifs so I can understand how someone is thinking.

Speaker 1:

I eventually became a financial advisor. Is they would talk to their advisor Advisor would say, yeah, fill out this questionnaire what's your risk tolerance on a scale of one to 10? And my dad would say he's an eight, and then my mom would say she's a two, and then markets would change and then the advisor would say what's your risk tolerance now? And then my dad would say, well, maybe I'm a six now. I was an eight before, but I'm down to a six. And my mom's, like I was a two and now I'm like a negative 1000.

Speaker 1:

And I would always think what a dumb question. I know that sounds harsh, but I go risk tolerance how do you feel, on a scale of one to 10, that there's no way to judge financial planning this way, like if you have better questions, you will get better answers. And so I'm obsessed with this stuff, because the reason that many of you are working so hard, you're trying to optimize, is because you want to spend your time on what matters most, with who matters most. If you can be wise with financial planning, with numbers, quite simply, and you get three more years with your spouse or your mother or father, who might not be in great health once again, because you are good with math, you now can spend more time with who you care about most. I mean, good luck quantifying that, okay. So the reason I love this stuff excuse me there the reason I love this stuff is because if you ask good questions and you use high quality decision-making, you can get your time back, which, honestly, you can't exactly quantify, and I cannot tell you how many people have come saying I can't wait to retire at 60 years old and travel for so many years with my beloved spouse and then a health event occurs and it's because they were working unnecessarily or they were adding more money to a 401k when it should have gone to a different account, because they found out they wanted to retire at 54, but all their money was locked up, so locked up in the sense of you can't touch it till 59 and a half. So now, what the heck do you do? You want to retire early. You don't want to pay crazy taxes. You want to pay crazy penalties.

Speaker 1:

If this person had maybe stopped maxing out their 401k at 50 and instead put money to a brokerage account, which I call a superhero account, they would have been in a great spot to retire early. And all they did was they invested too well. What does that mean? Well, they invested too well. They put too much money in an account that really gave them a tax benefit in the short term, but it made it so they can't actually access that money. So how helpful is that.

Speaker 1:

This is a phrase I made up. It's called qualified rich. If most of your money is in a pre-tax 401k, that's great. But if you tell me you have 2 million, I will tell you you don't. You might have 1.6 or 1.7 after taxes. So many people don't factor this in. They don't factor in healthcare. I beg my clients, please do not cheat yourself. Don't just say there's no way I can retire early.

Speaker 1:

I have healthcare. I've been having my employer provide that for me. Now I'm 60 and I'm going to retire and Medicare doesn't come on till 65. Yep, I'm going to have to work part-time or I'm going to have to figure out something, and there are situations where it does make sense to do that. But there are other situations where it just makes sense to pay the fee because you have the ability to do so. You have the means. It might feel weird, but I have clients that go oh my gosh, the idea of paying four or five, a thousand dollars a month, potentially four or 500 bucks not four or 5,000, but four or 500 bucks a month and maybe a thousand on healthcare for me and my spouse oh my God, I could never do that, when the reality is, it might be for a few short years and you're able to actually really prioritize your health and do what you want to do. So obviously I'm already going on my ramble here before I've gone over what I want, but I am obsessed with this stuff because if you are smart with numbers, you can live a better life. That is why financial planning is, quite frankly, cool to me.

Speaker 1:

Now, over a year ago, if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see on my screen. If you're listening on the podcast app, I'm going to explain it for you. It'll be the same experience, but I put this out and the title of the episode was I didn't want to become an advisor. After what I saw, financial advisor reveals the full truth on what it means to be an advisor, and that is the truth. The last thing I ever wanted to become was a financial advisor. Now I'm really grateful I'm an advisor now. I'm currently making all these videos and podcasts for all of you and I love what I get to do here.

Speaker 1:

But what really changed my life was James Canole. Not what, but who changed my life was James Canole and I worked at a company called Nuveen, which is this big, fancy municipal bond shop where I worked in Beverly Hills and the lights and the parking and I was the only person that brought my lunch to work and I just didn't fit in and I was miserable. I had the job out of college that other people said aren't you so happy? And I'm like maybe I should be, but I'm just not, and so I don't know what to tell you. In the same way, if you said, hey, why do you love soccer so much? I'm like it's just playing chess with my body. That's just how I feel and I love it. So you guys left over like 90 comments on this, just amazing comments.

Speaker 1:

Some of these I want to share now, just to highlight how much I love you guys, because I'm making these videos, whether you guys watch them or not, because I love it and if one person watches it and they get value. That's why I do all of this, which reminds me, and I do all these podcasts where, yes, I prep them. I have an agenda, but sometimes I just have an idea and I'm running with it. So I'm going to pull up a chart that I want to show all of you. Many of you have seen this, actually, I have it right here, so I'm going to bring this up, but if you're not watching this, still all good, you can see it. You can't see it? That would be very hard, but I'm going to explain it for you. But you can see, when I started this podcast, it was in December of 2020. So it's been, you can see, a very long time oh, almost five years. But what you can see here is for the first year and a half to two years nearly. No, not, nobody listened to it, but it would get three, five, 10 views per month, 10 downloads per month.

Speaker 1:

And my now spouse would kindly say why are you talking to the wall every single Monday? Because no one's listening to this. Now, she wasn't trying to say it in a berating way. She was saying it in the sense of hey, like, is this the best use of your time? She was trying to be helpful and the truth is she was right. Very few people were listening, but I just did not care. I wanted to do it and I thought people would care about tax planning, which is the number one thing, in my opinion, that people overlook. That adds tremendous value to someone's retirement.

Speaker 1:

So here I am, recording these podcasts talking to this inanimate object all the time, and then, all of a sudden, it really started to grow. When I talked about this phrase recreational employment. Are you working because you want to or because you have to? And if you still love what you do in the same way, I love it, I'm not going to stop. But things change, politics change, and I never want to have to work. I want to choose that. I want to work and I want all of you to know when that is possible for you. So if you're still working today, you're working because you want to, not because you have to. You can now see it's done millions, not millions, but you can see between YouTube and podcast, it has done millions of downloads and every single month the show is continuing to grow and that is because of all of you who share this with your friends and loved ones, and I just thank you for that. So this is a cool chart to see. For basically two years it took a very long time and so, for those who are just listening, it was basically doing almost no downloads every single month until I started talking and would get 5 000, 10 000, 20 000. It recently excuse me, earlier this year I did 80,000 downloads.

Speaker 1:

80,000 of you decided to listen to this podcast, where here I am talking about tax planning for 10, 15, 20 minutes, or financial planning or how to make your spouse interested in finances, from a 29-year-old who is not close to retiring to empathize and resonate with these people, and my answer has always been because I'm going to care about it more than they are, and it's not because it's not even up to me, I just do it is how I feel I'm going to research and understand and speak to clients who I work with, and we have hundreds of clients here at Root that I want to know deeply what are your concerns? What are your fears? What's made you so excited about retirement? What's worked well, what hasn't. There are over 3,500 people in our free community, the Root Collective, which you can join in the description of this episode of people not me, including me, but not only me who are going. Yep, I'm listening to Ari's podcast, or Ari's partner, james, and they are helping me understand what I need to do so I can retire with confidence. And has anyone else done X, y, z so you're able to share thoughts? I'm able to provide input, but, quite frankly, I just love this stuff. So here's a few comments I just want to highlight to say thank you, guys.

Speaker 1:

So this was over a year ago. Mark Wilbanks here says excellent, you understand your why and that is priceless. Mark B says very nice to get to know more about your life history and why you became an advisor. Jody Filute says thanks for sharing this. I found your history interesting. I also had bad advisor experiences. So for those who don't know, my parents were burned by multiple advisors. That's why I eventually became an advisor. They started at one firm I'm not allowed to say the name but they started at one firm where it was good. I wouldn't say it was optimal vitamins, but it wasn't terrible. But that advisor eventually retired and my parents got passed off to a younger advisor that they did not resonate with. So they switched to a different advisor that other advisor and I've told this story before.

Speaker 1:

But my parents? They grew up. My mom grew up in the San Fernando Valley. My dad grew up in Long Island, new York. My dad's a big surfer. They moved to Malibu. They would rather live in a shack in Malibu if that meant they could surf, and by they I mean my dad. My mom was like the weather sounds good and I married some nut job, who loves surfing, so my dad is living on a very nice street. That's where I grew up in Malibu. We did not have anywhere near the wealth as the other families around us, but it was still an amazing childhood.

Speaker 1:

My mom was walking one day and hit it off with Barbara Streisand who literally the singer Barbara Streisand, who said that they could use I mean, my mom, could use her advisor. My mom's like we hit the jackpot greatest thing ever. They got terrible service because my parents don't have $10 trillion. So they found that the service was a mismatch. Barbara's advisor worked with people like Barbara, not like my parents. So then my parents went to the super low cost solution that many of you know today who went. It's good, but it's just not giving me the tax or estate or withdrawal planning guidance I need. My parents were great at making money, not great at saving and investing. It's a completely different skill set. They chose to spend it on me, and so I'm grateful for that, but it means they are still working today in their seventies, even though if it was up to them, they would be scaling back and not working to the same degree. Luckily, they like what they do.

Speaker 1:

But Jody C here says I had bad advisor experiences pitching front end load investments, then resigning from a company with my commission telling me paying cash for medical and using my HSA as an investment is not smart, even stating they're not allowed to give me tax advice. Jody goes on to say I've searched for holistic advice. I finally just gave up on advisors, says. I think James and you, james, your partner have great podcasts and I've been telling my friends and family about them. I've done so much research and never came close to the great data and easy explanations you both provide. Gina G says I love you made the video. I know some of it, but not in this detail. Very happy for you and the whole root team. You didn't just accept the norm and saw there was a better way. Your passion and dedication is amazing. Keep up the great work. Then, finally, carrie Evan here says I enjoyed hearing your story. Soccer, power Rangers, surfing your parents must be proud.

Speaker 1:

As a 55-year-old getting ready to retire this year, I feel confident in our plans, thanks in part to you, james, and a few other CFPs I've learned from on YouTube. Thank you so. So many comments, guys. I just want you to know I love this. I'm never going to stop. This is your show, not mine.

Speaker 1:

If there's ever something you want me to address, you go to my website, earlyretirementpodcastcom, submit a question. I give you all access, if you want, to the Early Retirement Academy. That's where you can go, pay a few hundred bucks, go run your own what-if scenarios. It's a good gut check. It's not the root experience where you get us as your true partner. You can run some what-if scenarios, you can kind of build your own plan. It's a good starting spot and then ultimately, we do everything we do so you can spend your time on what you care about most or we can handle everything else for you, but we're a true partner. We're not just telling you what to do. You're still the CEO, we're the CFO. It's our job to work as a team to accomplish your goals. That is it for this episode.

Speaker 1:

Thank you guys for watching. I appreciate and love all of you. 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.

Speaker 1:

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, and 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.