EP 97: Beyond the Numbers: Embracing the Lifestyle Shift in Retirement
The X's and O's
In this episode of the Retirement Plan Playbook, hosts Brent Pasqua, Matthew Theal, and Joshua Winterswyk of Evermont Wealth discuss investment strategies, retirement planning, and current events.
The conversation kicks off with an analysis of the cryptocurrency market's recent bullish trends, particularly highlighting Bitcoin's surge following ETF announcements. The team explores inflation's impact, potential Federal Reserve actions, and the broader implications for investors.
The episode transitions to discuss the cancellation of Apple's ambitious Project Titan car initiative, focusing on the implications for AI development and the challenges of automobile manufacturing.
The hosts also address a potential future where 401k plans could be reevaluated by the government, examining the implications for savers and the overall economy.
Lastly, the episode delves into lifestyle planning for retirement, emphasizing the importance of finding a new purpose, staying socially and physically active, and planning for unexpected scenarios.
The dialogue concludes with personal recommendations and a candid discussion about fast food choices and prices, offering a light-hearted reflection on the accessibility and costs of convenience meals in today's economy.
01:35 The Bitcoin Boom: A Deep Dive into Cryptocurrency Trends
03:31 Inflation and Economic Trends: Navigating the Financial Landscape
07:10 Apple's Project Titan Cancellation: Shifting Focus from Cars to AI
11:58 The Future of 401k Plans: Debunking the Myths
17:03 Beyond the Numbers: Embracing the Lifestyle Shift in Retirement
22:59 Finding Purpose in Retirement
29:11 The Importance of Continuous Learning and Growth
31:21 Financial Planning for Retirement: Preparing for the Unexpected
32:37 Setting Goals and Planning for a Successful Retirement
35:04 Evermont Recommends: Air Fryers, Fast Food, and Birthday Wishes for Brent
Connect With Evermont Wealth:
Transcript
Intro: Welcome to the Retirement Plan Playbook hosted by Brent Pasqua, Matthew Theal, and Joshua Winterswyk of Evermont Wealth. This podcast dives deep into investment strategies, retirement planning, and current events, equipping you with the insights needed to craft a robust retirement playbook adaptable to any political or economic climate.
Intro: Join Brent, Matthew, and Joshua as they guide you through the complexities of retirement planning. Offering expert advice. to tackle challenges and the later stages of your journey. It's time to build your optimal retirement playbook. Now let's dive into today's episode.
Brent: Welcome to the retirement plan playbook. In this episode, we're going to be discussing strategies and tap tactics on embracing the lifestyle shift in retirement. I'm your host, Brent Pasqua founder of Evermont wealth and a financial advisor committed to. Navigate the complexities of retirement planning.
Brent: And today joining me are my friends and also colleagues, Matthew Theal and Joshua Winterswyk are both certified financial planners at Evermont wealth. And they're obviously experts in this field. So welcome to be here
Matthew: guys. Hey, Brent. How's it going, Josh? How are you doing today? I'm good. Thank you. Dude, I am fired up.
Matthew: Let me tell you guys something right now. We are so back right now. Do you guys know what I'm talking
Joshua: about? I have an idea. Yes. Because all last week you came in to the office, this fired up. Brett, do you
Brent: know what I'm talking about? I do now. I didn't before, but yes, I know. You, I'm sure you want to let it out because we've been dogging on you on this for the last year.
Matthew: Dog. You guys have been dogging on me. Everyone's been making fun of me. I talked about this a lot in 21, but we're so back Bitcoin all time highs. It got through 70, 000 on the strength of this ETF announcement about a month and a half ago, or another is now Bitcoin ETFs. And it's been the most bullish thing for the, Bitcoin cryptocurrencies since it happened.
Matthew: And it's just exploding.
Brent: Now, is this happening with your NFTs that you were talking about during that time also?
Matthew: Well, now my NFTs aren't good, but somebody paid 16 million the other day for an alien crypto punk. We are so back guys. It's like 2021 again. I'm so happy.
Joshua: I'm not as excited. No, dude, we, we missed it.
Joshua: We, we missed the run up.
Matthew: Dude, there's another runup, I can't say my Bitcoin price prediction, but it's going a lot higher from here. I'm really excited. Is this
Brent: with all cryptos right now or is it just Bitcoin?
Matthew: This is with everything. Bitcoin's leading the charge, but all of the kind of like meme coins or like, they call 'em like bad coins.
Matthew: I'm not gonna curse on the show. They're all going up again. Everything's going up the, you know, all the bad stocks in the stock market. People are trading monkey pictures left and right. Like it is
Brent: back. I feel like a lot of the sentiment though was when we had that massive run up last time, everyone talked about how much money they had in crypto.
Brent: And in Bitcoin, and then it completely tanked out. And then they were like, I did have this much and now I only have that. Do you think there's another sell off where some of these people start taking their profits now?
Matthew: Yeah, potentially. You know, that could always happen. Like when you get back above your high water mark, you start taking profits.
Matthew: But I think most of the people holding Bitcoin are like long term holders and most likely aren't going to sell. And then when you factor in the demand coming from the ETF, Just BlackRock's ETF alone is buying more Bitcoin daily than is currently being mined per day. So it's just the econ one on one problem, right?
Matthew: It's supply versus demand. When there's more demand, price is going higher. Is this
Brent: an indicator of inflation right now or possible increase in
Matthew: inflation? Dude, that's such a good question. I think inflation is going to surprise a lot to the upside this year. The federal reserve seems to be hinting at raising rates a lot or excuse me, raising rates.
Matthew: They're going to be, they're hinting at cutting rates right now, right? And you just see this with the monkey pictures, with the Bitcoin, even with the stock market, mag seven and video, all these companies going up a lot over the last you know, 12 months, there's more spending power in the economy.
Matthew: People are rich. You, you tack in 5 percent interest rates per a hundred grand. You're making 5, 000 of income right now. Like people have a lot of money and that they're spending it.
Joshua: Demand's still high. I mean, just even go out to the grocery store, go out to dinner you know, every restaurant's packed, there's a wait people are still spending money and look at, they're spending money to buy alien punk coins for how many millions?
Joshua: 16 million. Yeah, that's a, that's a pretty good indicator that there's still a lot of money out there. But there's a lot
Brent: of people still complaining about how expensive everything is.
Matthew: They're complaining, but they're still buying it.
Brent: But how can the feds cut rates? If we feel like inflation is still going up,
Matthew: they're going to make a massive mistake.
Matthew: And what it seems like if they do it, it's like politically driven. It did happen in 2018 when Trump was in office too. I don't know if you remember that. Yeah. They're raising rates and then he pressured the fed. And then we've got a big bull market in 2019.
Joshua: I mean, there, there could be a slowdown right before the end of the year.
Joshua: Absolutely. But so far, what we've seen through this rate, you would think the slow down would have already happened because of the rate hikes, but it hasn't. And it's almost accelerated. So I'm with you, Matt. I think that inflation might be surprising to everybody this year.
Matthew: Anyways, I'm just so happy we're back.
Matthew: 2021 was fun. This year's getting off to a good start. And it's
Joshua: not that fun. So what are, what are you, my Instagram page is filled now with Komodo dragon coins. That's not fun.
Brent: So what are you doing with Bitcoin? Now? Are you buying more? Are you doubling down? You're holding what, what's your position?
Brent: Yeah.
Matthew: So I'll tell listeners what I did personally. I've always had enough Bitcoin where I don't want to put more in inside of a Coinbase account, but also I took this opportunity. I have an IRA, it's not a ton of money, but one year I made an IRA contribution, it grew over like the last five or six years.
Matthew: I no longer do the IRA cause we've got the 401k plan here at the office. But I took that opportunity and I divested it completely out of stocks into the Bitcoin ETF. And the reason I did that is because for myself, it makes up, you know, call it, you know, about 5 percent of my retirement funds. And I saw that as a really good hedge to add the Bitcoin ETF now that it's possible to put it in retirement accounts.
Joshua: I'm not doing that.
Matthew: No, you don't have
Brent: to. It's not for you. I'm not doing it either, but I understand why you're, you're leveraging to it, but you've been very excited and very happy over the last week. You feel like you were right over the last
Joshua: year. Yeah, he just got his money back. He got his money back now.
Joshua: He's happy. I don't want to be that down. I'm playing a little bit of the other side here for you, Matt, but I have been interested in, in the crypto markets now that they're back up, but it is just kind of. Funny that everyone's real excited just because they got their money
Matthew: back. I like markets and I like it when markets go higher because it makes me feel better.
Matthew: And it makes the people around me feel better. I'm not one of these guys who roots for the market to crash and crumble and for the world to end. I just like being optimistic.
Brent: There you go. All right, so let's get to the hot take headlines. Apple cancels project Titan, AKA their car. This has been for many years they've been working on this car.
Brent: I mean, I feel like for at least a decade, I've been hearing about this car. And now all of a sudden the project gets canceled. Surprise, not surprise. And what happened
Matthew: here? I always thought the project was a joke. Like I didn't actually think they're working on a car. I just thought it was something that like Apple fanboys dreamed up because they wanted it to like compete with Tesla.
Matthew: But I guess this was real. They actually had real human beings working on a car, which is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I don't know why they'd be working on a car. And the
Joshua: employees were surprised that it was canceled. So that's even more surprising to me. That's wild. And they're going to focus more now on AI, which makes more sense as a company in my eyes.
Brent: And it wasn't just 10 employees. It was 2000 employees.
Joshua: I guess it goes back to, and an Elon Musk has talked about it, how hard it is. To develop cars and every aspect that goes into being a car maker. And this is another example of showing you how hard that is
Matthew: inside the United States. Nobody's being Tesla.
Matthew: Don't you shouldn't even try. They have a monopoly now on the electric car market. Rivian's not beating them. Lucid's not being them. None of the other car manufacturers for GM are going to come close to touching Tesla. It's over. They should just focus on making hybrids and gas powered cars that people actually want.
Matthew: Oh,
Joshua: you're not excited for the R3? No. It seems like it's got a lot of good
Matthew: press. It doesn't matter. Listen to Elon Musk talk about how hard it was to launch the model three. It sounded like the guy was sleeping on the factory for two straight years to get that car
Joshua: launched. Yeah. And I think it's just on that manufacturing side of making it efficient and also being a good rent company.
Joshua: Right. So I think that, you know, I don't, I'm not that optimistic on all those other car makers either, but.
Brent: The way I kind of think of it is like the iPhone. Like, yes, there's a small segment of people that have something else, but the iPhone, but the iPhone is so dominant as the primary phone source for so many people.
Brent: You look at Evie market, when you're driving down the road, it is all day. Tesla it's everywhere. They make the best one. They make the best one. They're going to continue to be the, the leader. The only thing that I think can compete is like you said, somebody wants something a little bit more luxurious or a different type of car than Tesla, or they just don't like Tesla.
Brent: And they want to go out and they don't want to be full gas and it's going to be hybrid. But also
Joshua: I think it's not a new player, right? It's not, maybe not be Rivian or lucid, but I do think that like Toyota and Kia have that capability of making a really good EV car. They do, but they're
Matthew: not sorry, I did say American.
Matthew: Yeah. No, no American manufacturers touching Tesla Toyota Kia. They could still do it. You're already seeing them pull out. And then I think in China there's a big electric vehicle manufacturer home blanking on their name. Yeah. I was
Brent: trying to think of it also. Is it
Matthew: BYD
Brent: or something like that? But I think the concern with that is how much they're going to be monitoring you when you're driving around the car.
Brent: I mean, they have cameras in there. They. Voice. I mean, you're going to monitor everything that you do. I wouldn't drive a Chinese car. I would not either. Me either. The only thing I wanted to say about the Apple car is the thing that I kept thinking about with the Apple car though, is the technology.
Brent: Like if they advanced technology that was going to be put towards their car, what do they do with that? Then do they scrap it or do they sell it off to like Tesla or somebody else?
Joshua: I don't know. That's a good question. And it makes me think of being excited about if they actually made a car because I am in the Apple ecosystem.
Joshua: And how convenient that would sound of having all of our devices linked up and everything kind of being one spot. So I am a little surprised that they're scrapping this, but for the good outcome that they're going to focus on something that they're better at, which is, let's say more technology around AI.
Matthew: And I would doubt that Apple created anything useful with how many employees did you say they had? 200, 2000, 2000 employees working on that car. Factor in just how far Google is ahead of them with their self driving car and how far Tesla is ahead of them That's the
Joshua: question I have for you But you know, do you think do you think they created anything better or more innovative than Tesla already has in their cars?
Brent: Well, I'm sure they created something They weren't doing it for that long and didn't create something especially with how smart they all are. So I'm sure there's something there, but why they scrapped it, I guess, you know, maybe in the years we'll kind of get to know that, but it could just be a money standpoint where dollars and cents are better put towards AI.
Brent: And the focus is just advancing what they're really good at in the car market. Maybe just not. They're just in a different market. They don't need to be in the car market.
Matthew: Yeah. They need to focus on AI or their stocks going to get left behind.
Brent: Okay. So let's get into another headline. There's something that you've been talking about for a little while.
Brent: You brought this to our attention about a couple of articles that were written regarding killing 401k plans. Once you kind of give us a little insight on what's happening here and what that means to some of the listeners. Yeah,
Matthew: I think this is a really important topic and I think it's going to start making its way through kind of the, let's call it the radio, the deep internet, and it's going to be used as a scare tactic on a lot of people.
Matthew: And what this is referring to is there's a Bloomberg opinion piece, meaning it's just somebody's opinion. It's not news. It's not fact. It's an opinion written by this girl named Allison. And what she's speculating is. That the government you know, Congress will eventually kill off 401k plans. And what this means is the 401k plan will cease to exist any further.
Matthew: They're not going to take your money. That's already in 401k plans. They're just going to stop the tax code provision. And find a different way for Americans to save. I don't know if this is necessarily right or wrong. I think it's interesting, but what she's saying is that with how much the government spending and, you know, interest every day, the rising deficit.
Matthew: That the tax provisions inside 401k plans give Americans too big of a tax break.
Joshua: This was clickbait. It was. It's clickbait. Fear mongering here. You're 401. I think the headlines like you're 401k might be gone. Come on. Like that's really bad. I think it's almost irresponsible, but I do. The data is coming from economists, right?
Joshua: Economists have run the numbers about who's getting the actual benefit from the 401k plan and it favors the wealthy. And so she's, you know, taking that information and saying, Congress is looking at, you know. Getting rid of 401k. Cause it's not really helping everybody and they can get more tax dollars for social security.
Joshua: So there's all these different layers. This is like a fascinating story to me to this story, but at the core of it, it is really clickbait and I think that it's, you know, irresponsible a little bit here.
Matthew: It's funny because you said like newsflash, it's favoring the wealthy and everything favors the wealthy.
Matthew: I don't know why people get up in arms about it. You mean
Joshua: the tax code? Yeah.
Matthew: Owning a business favors the wealthy. I mean, I don't, I don't understand it.
Brent: The reason it doesn't seem like it makes sense to me is because the government just now pushed out the required minimum distribution age, the age that you have to start taking money out of your 401k plan from what was a few years ago.
Brent: And I think 2020 at 70 and a half. And it moved at 72, then it moved to 73. And then for people born in certain age groups at 75. So you're saying you're not going to be able to put into something anymore because of some, some reason, but now you, the government doesn't, isn't making you take it out as early so that they can get their tax dollars.
Brent: So that to me, it just doesn't make sense. Why wouldn't you just push the distribution age earlier? It's conflicting. It's conflicting what they're doing. Their actions are saying.
Matthew: Yeah, absolutely. And I think like where this could go in the future is maybe one day ultra wealthy, like maybe you make a million dollars a year.
Matthew: You don't get the upfront tax break from contributing to a 401k. Maybe it switches to something like that.
Joshua: They are making small adjustments though. Like even for higher high earners, you know, the catch up needs to be only a Roth. Instead of pre tax and making small adjustments like that make a little bit more sense, but I agree with you, Brent.
Joshua: Why would you push out the RMD age within get rid of 401ks? Those things kind of don't align with their, and the problem with this piece is there's no like even solution and the data is coming from economists. It's not from actual practitioners or the investment companies who actually 401ks because there's a lot of money.
Joshua: In 401k planning, the management of 401k managed by these huge investment institutions. And do you think they're just going to. Okay. You're going to take the 401ks away when we're some of your biggest donors. I don't think that's going to happen either.
Matthew: Yeah. I bet the execs at Fidelity were laughing. I was reading this article.
Brent: Yeah. I mean, there's a big lobby groups everywhere that would love to get their hands on this. I think the one thing I was thinking about though, if they did, you know, if you can correlate the two things is like in an IRA, if you make too much money, you're phased out of contributing into your IRA. And so I think if the 401k, they wanted to make adjustments to the 401k plan, they could phase people out based on income.
Brent: If you're going to make X, you can only put in X amount of dollars into your 401k plan. So there is solutions if they want to go down that path. We're talking about killing it and they ain't killing it. No, we
Joshua: see this with our clients of how impactful it can be, right. Through force savings through planning, you know, as a practitioner, I think, you know, this is such a great tool.
Joshua: I would be. Really upset pounding my fist on the table if they got rid of the 401k
Matthew: It's very successful. And if you use it correctly, the 401k is very successful way to save for retirement. I agree
Brent: All right, let's get into the corner. Today we're going to be talking about beyond the numbers Embracing the lifestyle shift in retirement You know, there is sort of this thought that obviously once you get to retirement, you, you want to develop a purpose.
Brent: It's a new purpose. It's a new change. You don't have to get up every day and go to the grind and sit in traffic or go to work or have to answer to your boss. You're your own boss and you have now control to do whatever lifestyle planning you want to do. Let's talk about a little bit about. What that stage looks like once you do enter into retirement and how important it is to do lifestyle planning.
Brent: Yeah.
Matthew: So the way I see this is, you know, as financial planners, our job, when we work with our clients is to put the numbers together, tell what's possible. Right. And, you know, we build out these elaborate, very detailed plans, going through cashflow, running projections, projecting out their balance sheet, how much money they're going to have in their seventies, eighties.
Matthew: How much income they're going to have in their sixties and it's just numbers, right? And we show the clients and it's great. You know, you're going to make 200, 000 when you're 77, whatever it is. And this other section though, this is more on the clients, right? How do you design that ideal lifestyle in retirement?
Matthew: How do we use the numbers that we just showed you in the meeting? To get you a nice retirement and that's lifestyle planning
Joshua: to me. And what I hear as well is, you know, there also has to be time spent on realizing your goals or, you know, generating and creating goals for yourself for retirement. Those are my most successful retirement plans are when, you know, our clients really come to us with specific things they want to do.
Joshua: Specific hobbies, they like specific goals and our conversation then comes, how do we achieve, you know, what your lifestyle looks like for you into the future, not just what is the most tax efficient or what do the numbers say?
Brent: Yeah, I think when a lot of people get to retirement, they don't want to just exist into retirement, but they want to live in retirement and to live in retirement also takes planning.
Brent: I I've been encouraging all of my clients. Since I began that their money isn't just a pool of money. That's supposed to sit there and be passed on to their inheritance. This pool of money is going to be a pool of money that they need to live off of and enjoy and do the things that they want. So yes, we can plan all day for the numbers.
Brent: But at the end of the day, there's this bigger other aspect that we've always worked with clients on and that's what their lifestyle is going to look like.
Matthew: I feel like when we're working with clients, there's usually like two extremes. You have the ones who are like really, really diligent savers and they've, they've built up nice next nest eggs for themselves.
Matthew: They really live within their retirement means. Like they have a really good understanding of their financial plan and their numbers and what it all means. And they have a real hard time spending money. I don't know why that's the case. It seems like they've maybe built it up and they're like, ah, Don't really want to spend it.
Matthew: And then there's the other ones who I I feel like spend very very freely and as advisors We kind of have to be like, okay, like, you know, pump the brakes a little bit. You're spending a lot it just seems like two polar opposites and it's really tough to get one group to spend And enjoy and figure out what they want to do.
Matthew: And it's really difficult to get another group to slow down a little bit.
Brent: Yeah. And I think that's, you know, part of what financial nature though, is for so many people. Just some people, their whole life have been savers and some people have been spenders and, but you try to take the positives in both sides and help people kind of see and understand what they could and should, and can do with their money.
Brent: And That should impact their lifestyle if that's done correctly, but how I think the question then becomes is like how do you find? A purpose in retirement or how do you build your purpose in retirement? That's
Matthew: a good question. So there's a few You know, I definitely say like we remember we had marissa on the podcast marissa the personal trainer So from a health standpoint, she was talking about, you know Making sure you got that workout routine dialed in and I think she even talked a little bit about like, you know Making sure you're eating properly.
Matthew: So you feel good, especially in your old ages, right? So what, what is it like three days a week? You're working out four days. How often would you do work out Brent? I work out
Brent: six. That's my gosh. My goal is always six.
Joshua: Zero right now. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not high on that a meter right now. I'm trying to pump it
Matthew: up to two days.
Matthew: For like 40 minutes a time.
Joshua: Yeah. I'm trying to find the time with, with kids. It's hard.
Matthew: I hear. Okay. So let's cut the middle between you and me. Let's say it should be four, three to four, four days a week. So, you know, how did they do that? Is it the senior center going to do like a little Pilates aerobic something like that?
Brent: Yeah. I mean, there's different ways that people enjoy, obviously working out, whether it's walks it could be swimming, it could be Pilates, it could be, you know, The different communities that all have, you know, work out different gyms, different classes. Yes. There's lots of ways, obviously.
Matthew: And then the other one, so it's health and wellness.
Matthew: And then what about travel, right? Like you're going to put, you got to plan out these trips. And are we going to Europe? We're going to Asia. Are we staying local and doing RV? What are we doing in travel?
Joshua: I think it's even taking a step back though. You know, those are the first two things that come up a lot in our meetings, like, you know, wellness and travel, but like finding purpose, right?
Joshua: Like. Really reflecting and figuring out what truly brings you happiness, right? And I don't know if a lot of financial planners or a lot of even people are even thinking about this as they're planning for retirement, cause they're so stressed out about the money side of things, but we see it having an actual purpose and defining that as you go in to that transition is only going to help with making that transition not only.
Joshua: Easier, but it's also going to be a more for fulfilled retirement for these clients. So like you're saying, if it's, is it wellness, is it, you know, what do you want to do, is it travel, is it, you know, just spending more time with the grandkids, taking some time to figuring out what is, you know, the best retirement look like for you.
Joshua: Do
Matthew: you, do you guys feel that it's hard for high achievers to find that purpose? Like maybe they're so successful at their job, that their job becomes their identity.
Brent: I think it, everybody is so different. It truly is. Some people naturally find a new purpose and then some people don't. I'll give you an example.
Brent: I obviously coached my son's little league team and one of the kids on my little league team his grandpa was a coach both in high school for football and softball and baseball and so forth. And he retired several, many years ago. He just turned actually 70 over the weekend. But what he found a purpose in is being involved in his kids, literally practices and games and helping out coaching.
Brent: And for the last five, six, seven, eight years, he's been coaching nonstop. He coaches alongside with me every practice, every game, he's always there and turning 70 and to have that strong of a purpose still. To be able to be that close to your grandkids, be coaching, have helped kids out, be such a good influence on others.
Brent: Like that's truly developing a purpose in retirement. And I would
Matthew: imagine that I've never met the guy before, but I would imagine he, he seems younger than he is. Is that correct? Yes,
Brent: because he's active. He's active. He's got to be there on time, you know, four or five, six days a week. He has, he's on a calendar, he's on a schedule.
Brent: And so that is a purpose.
Matthew: Right. And then I know some people also go kind of the religious or spiritual route, right? Where they're getting involved in Bible study groups, women's networks, men's groups you know, that kind of thing. So that's a good way to find purpose. Golf clubs. What's that? Golf clubs.
Matthew: Golf clubs. Yeah, there you go. You could do the country club. Golf club.
Brent: Yeah. And so then my next thought is like, how do you really stay socially and physically active though? So, I mean, obviously there is working out, but like, what else could you do if you don't have a lot of activities to do?
Joshua: I always go back to this and I see it now within even in my own family, but what keeps you active as kids, if you do have your kids or you do have your grandkids, You know, spending that extra time because like my little guy's two years old now and I'm constantly running around with him, you know, and even when my parents are around him, the grandparents, they're constantly running around.
Joshua: That's actually, and even Marissa on our podcast said, that's a good workout chasing kids around. Right. But I think it's also finding what you enjoy now in retirement. You're also going to have the time to explore new things with friends, family, and stuff like that for active and social engagement.
Matthew: Another strategy too could be just, you know, simply reading books exercising your mind a little bit where you're not doing like something passive, like watching TV, where you're actually, you know, picking up a book, you're reading or writing, journaling,
Brent: things like that. I've seen so many people though, not know what their purpose is going to be as they get closer to transitioning to retirement, or they didn't know how they were going to stay active in certain ways.
Brent: And then once they got into retirement, shortly thereafter, whether it's a month, a couple weeks or a year, they started to really find what their new purposes were. And then all of a sudden now, they have a normal calendar where they don't even know how they worked before because they're so busy with their new purposes.
Brent: I think as much as you do planning as, you know, let's say you're in your 50s and you're doing retirement planning, you may not know what your purpose is, maybe not even at 65. Yeah. But once you transition, and we could talk about these all day long with our clients about what their purpose may be, but people naturally develop their new purpose.
Joshua: Well said. And that, what I see on the other side of that is if you don't, it's almost even harder to spend money. You know, if you don't have that purpose yet, I feel like the clients that I have that don't, or haven't really figured that out, you're less likely to take that distribution for something you're not as passionate about, or you don't have the love for.
Joshua: So it almost even kind of hurts you, right? Cause you're not, you're not, You're, you're nervous about money in retirement, but then not having a real purpose, you're also then nervous to pull out money for something that's not right in line with where you want to be lifestyle wise. Yeah,
Matthew: that's, that's a good point.
Matthew: And then when you're thinking about finding a purpose, do you guys feel like it could hold clients back from actually retiring? Like they end up with just working too long because they're scared and afraid, like they, they don't know what they're going to actually do in retirement and they haven't took the time to plan it out.
Matthew: Or you know, from not even a number standpoint, but also from a lifestyle plan
Brent: standpoint. Yeah. There's a lot of people that are, are overachievers and they dedicate all of their life to working. And when they're not working because they've committed so much time to working, they don't actually know what they're going to do, or they don't sit down well.
Brent: They don't relax well. They don't stop well. And so they don't exactly know what their new, like, you know, eight to 10 o'clock at night is going to be. And, and that just takes a little bit of time though, that, that shouldn't stop somebody from transitioning that should just, you know, they'll, they'll have to know that because they're that way, they've worked so hard that when they do stop working, they're not just going to get sit there because they've been an
Joshua: overachiever.
Joshua: They'll figure it out. Yeah. Like their personality's not changing. No.
Matthew: And we keep talking about working, but I think there are ways where you could kind of like do a trial retirement where part of your lifestyle maybe is like doing consulting or part time work. Like Josh, you mentioned golf. Wouldn't it be kind of cool to work at like a country club, like we're going to pro shop or something if you're retired for a few hours a
Joshua: day.
Joshua: Yeah. But I mean, even if you're like a long term golfer, right. Volunteering, do they have a kid's program? Do they have a, you know, a teaching program or a liaison for new members? Join the board stuff like that. So there's just, you know, when you have, when you start working on like your community and your social network you'll find ways, you To kind of experiment on activities that you might enjoy.
Joshua: Just given the example of the golf club.
Brent: Yeah. One of the ways that I think that is important is someone, and people should think about is opportunities for continuous education, personal development, continuous growth, what I see a lot happening though, and it's been more so over the last, like I would say, seven to 10 years.
Brent: Is when people get retired, they get consumed by news media and it changes their, their mood. It changes their anxiety, their personal feelings towards people or personal feelings towards politics or whatever it may be. And it really, I feel like it takes away from somebody being going into the personal to gross, to be still being able to have opportunity for growth within yourself, educating yourself.
Brent: You're kind of just getting consumed by that information. You're being fed it and it's not being fed healthy information. Yeah.
Matthew: It's 24 hours a day and the news is it's fear porn. It's meant to scare you. It's meant to make you keep watching and the people who produce news know how to do that and to make you really
Joshua: scared.
Joshua: And that's only gotten worse. What I hear you say to Brent is like when you're working, you have this motivation to continue to like learn in most cases. Yes. And then when that transition happens, that kind of motivations lost, but it doesn't have to be lost. Absolutely. Absolutely. It might just need to switch to a different, you know, interest.
Joshua: And I think that that's really good advice for a lot of people. Cause don't be afraid that you're not going to keep learning. Don't be consumed by all of this negative media. Just take that motivation to a new interest. Yeah.
Brent: And don't stop learning because you know, listening to the news or watching TV is just, you're being fed something.
Brent: You're not actively engaging in thinking of new things or you're not being taught new things. You're just listening. But like if you go to local college courses and you start engaging in college courses or online platforms or social clubs or different networks do being on a board, being a volunteer on things that have great causes.
Brent: You're going to be engaging in, in, in embedding yourself with more information that's helpful for your continuous growth, which hopefully that ultimately leads to a healthier lifestyle and a longer life. And then how do you plan for the unexpected? And what can some of those unexpected be?
Matthew: That's where we come in, right?
Matthew: So our job as financial planners is to help create that plan that looks at rosy scenarios, but then also looks at stormy scenarios. And when you're creating a financial plan, we're going to want to look at, you know, your assets to make sure. Your portfolio, your, your home, everything is set up and protected properly, and you're going to be able to make it through some storms.
Matthew: But then also you know, do you have longterm care insurance? What's our plan around that? Are you set up health insurance wise? Are you good with, with Medicare? Are you happy with your policies? We dive into all that during the financial planning process.
Joshua: The best thing to do here is to be proactive.
Joshua: We know that there's threats in retirement. We know a lot of them, some of them we can't. for sure. But we could try to solve for as many as possible. And if you're not actually being proactive, whether you hire a financial planner, you're doing this on yourself, but if you're not being proactive, then some of these life events could potentially really You know, have major consequences to your lifestyle, to your retirement, to your family's overall kind of wellbeing.
Joshua: So if you're not being proactive, you have to be in retirement.
Brent: I think one of the things that I think about is like, how do you take what we've, the information we've talked about today and like, how do we relate that to clients or how do we create actionables with clients on this? Or, you know, you're just thinking about yourself.
Brent: One of my favorite questions that I always sit with people and ask them You know, what are your goals? Like, what do you want to do? What do you want to accomplish? Where do you want to go? What's on the bucket list? Like what things are important to you and start writing those down. Just, you know, goals were important from the time that you're a little kid to the time that you probably pass away.
Brent: Like you have to establish some sort of goals of things that you want to do at all times. Because then you have something to really work towards. You are, you have a purpose naturally if you start creating goals. And so I like to hear when my clients say, I want to go here or I want to do this, or I want to fix and change my house around like this way.
Brent: So it's more accommodating to how I want to live or it's more comfortable. I want to see these things. Those are the things that I think we start to sit with our clients for. Solve them and then hear their experiences once they do them and it makes it very fulfilling for what we do It makes
Joshua: it very rewarding.
Joshua: I think to piggyback on that. I totally agree And also ask yourself, you know, what do you want to accomplish? Look at yourself in five years from now. And when you look back over the last five years, what is it that you wanted to get accomplished? And that even as planners, that gives us even better information to even help you in my opinion, because then we can plan strategically all of these goals that you have.
Joshua: In a timeframe, and it's going to make you even feel more comfortable. So I think it's a really good place to start is to look at, you know, even if it's three years or five years and say, where do you, when you look back, what do you, what would you have wanted to accomplish in your life if that's, you know, retirement or in the future or whatever that may be.
Matthew: Yeah. Well said. And then for the high achievers, the ones who are having trouble taking that step into retirement, jot your, your Monday through Friday down, start at 8 AM calendar it out, just like you would when you're working. You know, 8 a. m. Maybe I'm at, at the country club on Mondays and then Tuesdays.
Matthew: I'm going to this men's group or, or ladies group. And then at noon, I'm working out and just structure your whole day. Like you would, you're working and you're going to have a very successful retirement. Yeah, I agree.
Brent: I agree. I think setting those goals and setting those timelines are great. All right, let's get into the RPA recommends Matt.
Brent: Why don't you hit us first?
Matthew: All right, I'll go first. All right, guys, I need some help. I think I know my solution, but I just want to make sure I'm making the right decision here. So I think I need an air fryer, but let me tell you why. So my kids love French fries. Both my kids just pound French fries.
Matthew: The other night we got burgers and French
Brent: fries are good though.
Joshua: I love French fries. I love French fries.
Matthew: French fries are really good.
Brent: What is the worst thing for
Matthew: you? Right. Which is probably why we'll go down the story. But so anyways, all the French fries get eaten and my daughter still wants French fries and she felt she didn't really get a lot because my son ate him and then like my wife and I ate him and she eats very slow.
Matthew: So long story short, I'm in the drive through McDonald's on a Friday night at like eight o'clock and she's getting her first happy meal. She's getting some French fries. The stupid happy meal was 6 and 80 cents. There's 10 fries in the bag and four McNuggets.
Brent: Yeah, this is a rookie mistake right here. Let me tell you, because we get happy meals and you have to get an extra French fry, like a large French fry or medium.
Brent: I don't know what they are. But you have to get more. Yeah, that was your first screw up. That was a
Joshua: rookie mistake. You and your wife would have also had some McDonald's fries. Here's the thing, though,
Matthew: guys. I agree, Brent. It's too expensive. It shouldn't cost that much. And I'm done with this pricing. I know this is kind of a little
Joshua: map mini
Brent: rant.
Brent: Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're excited about your
Joshua: Bitcoin. Bitcoin going to 72, 000. And How bulled up everybody is, but you're mad at prices.
Brent: Now you, now you don't have enough french fries in your happy
Matthew: meal. So anyways, I think I need to get an air fryer and start making homemade fries. Yeah,
Brent: that's a good idea.
Brent: I'm surprised you don't already have one. I
Matthew: don't like kitchen. I
Brent: don't like gadgets. Yeah, but you'd have to store it somewhere.
Matthew: You exactly. You have to store it somewhere. Then you got to pull it out when you want to use it. It's a pain.
Joshua: I wanted to give you a stat too. The big Mac meal at McDonald's is 18 now.
Joshua: That's
Matthew: stupid. I'm sorry. That is ridiculous. That, that
Brent: is crazy. Like
Matthew: McDonald's is not good. Like, can we just go back to the days where like, you know, high school people worked in McDonald's and they made 11 an hour and there was a dollar menu. In and out
Joshua: supply. I'm going to disagree. I don't have McDonald's very often.
Joshua: I really don't. I like in and out. I'm with you. If I go out to fast food, it's in and out. But when I do have McDonald's, it's fire. So
Matthew: anyways, I need an air fryer. That's where I'm going with this I think I'm gonna get
Brent: one. Yeah, I agree. I think it's more I don't have one for the same reasons you don't but I See the value in it and I do see people making very cool things in it and it looks like it could be very valuable
Joshua: I have one I use it
Matthew: all the time.
Matthew: I think you recommended it like a year ago
Joshua: or something Yeah, I'll help you find one. I think the play though is if you don't want less gadgets Getting like a toaster oven, air fryer. I was looking at that way. You don't have like a toaster oven, an air fryer and a toaster, right? You can have it all kind of in one.
Joshua: But I will say they're really nice to cook like, like for exactly like you're saying, you got kids, you want to throw in something in the air fryer really quickly, easy to clean. It does a really good job. I'm a big fan of the air fryer.
Matthew: They have one that's actually all three combo microwave that costs about a hundred happy meals.
Matthew: So I I might get that. I don't know. Well, you have two
Joshua: kids, so it could save you from a, you know, a lot of happy meals. Yeah.
Matthew: All right. Enough about me. All right.
Brent: My RPA recommend is my, my weekend was absolute chaos. Like every weekend lately, like I just, I'm nonstop from one thing to the next all day long, every weekend long.
Brent: And we're down to from three cars to one car because two cars are in the shop. I didn't feel like cooking on set on Sunday night. Like I'm just tapped. I'm not going to spend two hours cooking and prepping food. My wife wasn't going to do that. Finally, you know, at five o'clock on a Sunday, we can take a deep breath and I wasn't going to spend it cooking.
Brent: I went to Del Taco. I had been wanting it for probably like three months. I don't eat fast food very much, but I'd been wanting it for so long. I probably haven't had it for 10 years. My kids have never had it. And I'm like, you know what, they didn't want it. They're fighting it. They're like, we'll just eat at home.
Brent: We'll eat fruit. We don't want to eat this. You know, they didn't, they want nothing to do with it. I'm like, no, we're going to make this happen. I'm going to go get Del Taco and it is what it is. And you know what? It was pretty good.
Joshua: You text saying you're going to Del Taco. I was like, what? Del Taco
Matthew: is so good.
Matthew: It's like the most underappreciated fast food in America. They
Joshua: do have good stuff. I actually, you know, like, Younger like teenage college days. I didn't eat that like that much of that. It would kind of like Taco Bell. And then once I started to go to Del Taco, like Taco Bell was gone. It was Del Taco. I'm like, you can get.
Joshua: You know Mexican tacos bean cheese burritos and french fries like that's my jam
Matthew: Yeah, so the play is you get a combo burrito chicken taco double del And a fry did you ever get a Dan's meal?
Joshua: No, what's that? I never got it again. These are for like the del tacos Del taco fanatics, but I guess it was like a deal that they used to have with tacos and burritos and stuff But I I don't think it's around anymore.
Joshua: What'd you get?
Brent: I got a burrito, I got chicken taco, I got a hard shell taco, got a bean cheese burrito. Like I, I got a bunch of, but here's the thing. It still costs me like over 40. Yeah. That's what I'm saying.
Matthew: We're sick of these
Brent: prices. You know, any fast food before it used to cost for a family, like 20, 25.
Brent: And now it's over 40. Did your kids like it? They did my, you know, it's surprisingly enough, my daughter liked it the most, which is the one I thought would like it the least. And she, for some reason, just. Went crazy and was eating everything. Did you get french fries? Yeah. Yes, of course I had to because I knew if there was any chance I could ever go back to Del Taco again and not have them be Upset about it.
Brent: I had to swindle them with french fries Yeah, so they get they got home and they had french fries and they were happy about that
Joshua: I don't drink soda anymore, but they also have cherry coke there which a lot of places don't
Matthew: two summers ago I went on a Del Taco heater and after we play golf, I would always go to Del Taco after our rounds It was so good
Brent: It is good.
Brent: I'm glad I went. I worked out this morning though, trying to burn that off, but you know, it is a good experience.
Joshua: I'll keep on the, the food theme. So yesterday, actually all this last week I grew up, you know, from when I was young until about high school and cheap little town called Chino, California.
Joshua: And they had a burger place called Andy's burger. I feel like every town kind of has that. Would you say Andy's? Andy's burger. Okay. And it, this is just like burgers. They have like french fries. They have all different kinds of things. I feel like every, I think like Rancho, they have like Tams Burger or Terry's Burger or whatever it is.
Joshua: Yeah. They have a bunch of different stuff. Right. So it's like nostalgic to me and it's good. Usually it's, it's, it's really good. So they like built a brand new Andy's Burger and Chino and we were driving through Chino and I told my wife, I was like, Hey, let's go check out that new Andy's burger. I, I heard it opened up with the intention of like her being.
Joshua: You know, Hey, let's eat there. Right. So I was like, yeah, I'm down for it too. So we drive past dude. It's so nice. We went there all new facility kitchens, all clean, new and nice. Cause the older building was like, Oh, it's been there forever. So yeah, I got a burger, some fried zucchini, French fries. Kid Love it.
Joshua: Oh, my wife loved it. And it's all brand new in Chino. I was really happy for them 'cause that place has been there forever. And this is like a new state of the art drive through burger place. It's nice.
Brent: It's, it's cool that you could go to a place that was so little or mom and pop place back in the day and that they grow and they advance and they make it better.
Brent: And it still has that nostalgic feeling. Yeah, it was
Joshua: cool. I even called my dad, I'm like, Hey, I'm at Andy's burger. He was mad at me. I didn't invite him. So now probably have to go back.
Matthew: judging on the recommends, it sounds like we're all hungry. Cause we all talked, we all mentioned food. One last thing before we close the show, right?
Matthew: It's your birthday week. Just want to wish you a happy birthday. Thank you, sir. I know you probably didn't want that, but happy birthday.
Brent: Happy birthday. And I'm being a big four, three. I have a lot more gray hair coming in. But you know what? My kids are good. They're healthy. That makes me happy. At least you don't shy away from your
Matthew: age.
Matthew: You look good, man. Yeah. Yeah, you do. You look we had a client the other day. I say that you looked I looked older than
Brent: you. Yeah, but we have that running
Joshua: joke. That's been for a while though
Brent: Well, thank you guys yeah big four three and Happy birthday. All right. Thank you guys. All right. Well, thank you for listening to the retirement plan playbook as always you can get our show notes show notes at retirement retirement plan playbook.
Brent: com But as always, thank you. Thank you.
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