Retirement Answers

Jacob: 00:01

One of the things that I hear from retirees often is, I wish I had just done it sooner. Take some of the wisdom that other people that have gone before you have had, learn from it, and say, hey, how does this apply to my life, and what can I do to improve, number one, my life, but also my chances of a successful and fulfilling retirement? Welcome to Retirement Answers, a podcast built to answer your most pressing retirement questions. If you're someone who's either thinking about retirement or already in retirement, well, you're in the right place. Hey there, my name is Jacob Duke, and each week I'll be walking through different tips and strategies to help you succeed in retirement.

Jacob: 00:38

So let's go ahead and get started with today's show. Hey, friends, and welcome back to another episode of Retirement Answers. My name is Jacob Duke. I am your host as always. This week on the show, I wanted to share with you four reasons to retire as soon as possible.

Jacob: 00:57

Now, before we jump into these four reasons, I wanted to say a quick thank you for everyone who tunes in every week to the show, and hopefully it's been beneficial for you. Again, if you're enjoying the show, number one, share it with a friend, that way they can benefit from it as well, but also share a rating and review there on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. It helps me out a lot to know that I'm providing good content that's beneficial, but also helps other people just like you find the show and also benefit from these same conversations and topics. So I'd appreciate it if you did that. All right, let's go ahead and get started.

Jacob: 01:29

So you're thinking about retirement and you're really just not sure when the right time might be. You've asked friends and they've said, Hey, I'm going to retire at 55. I'm going to retire at 65. Whatever their age might be, or maybe you've talked to people that have gone before you and retired, maybe a previous manager or boss or colleagues or maybe family members that have gone before you, you ask them about it, and they might have different takes or different answers or different things about their retirement experience that might lead you to either work longer or retire sooner, one of those two outcomes. Or maybe they just say, hey, 60 is a good number, so go ahead and do that.

Jacob: 02:00

Or maybe 65 as soon as you get to Medicare age, that's a good number, so just go ahead and retire then. But what if there are some other reasons that you should evaluate to change maybe your retirement date or move it up a little bit? And so the first thing you've got to evaluate for yourself is how important is time to you or how precious is your time? Here's something that a lot of people say, or we kind of toss around a little bit, going to be, you know, time is money. For example, if you are an electrician and you're waiting on supply to come in to be able to go finish a job that you're doing, well, every day that passes and you don't have the opportunity to go finish that job, that's time that's passing and you're not able to make that money.

Jacob: 02:40

So time is money. It's the way that we take a resource that we have time and we go turn it into a different resource called money. So, time equals money. That's something that we hear oftentimes, but something that I might would say is actually time is greater than money. And here's why.

Jacob: 02:56

Time is great and money is great. Now, money is something that we all strive for in terms of having more of and perhaps creating a financially stable situation for our spouses, our kids, our families, and perhaps leaving generational wealth to the generation behind us. So that's something that we all strive towards is more money, not necessarily even to be rich, but just to be, you know, secure. But what if I said that time is worth more than money? And here's here's why.

Jacob: 03:20

You know, money is something that you can always earn back or always get more of or find a way to to earn back if you lost it. You can't say that about time. Time is something that once you spend it, once it passes, you do not get that back. There's no way to add that to the end of your life and replenish this hypothetical bucket that you could have with money. So if you have a million dollars and you go invest in something with a friend with a 100,000 of that and you lose every bit of that $100,000, well, you can regain your status of a millionaire if you can invest the other 900 you have left over and make that $100,000 back.

Jacob: 03:57

Right? The same cannot be said about time. So whenever we think about this in regards to your retirement and when you decide to retire, start placing a premium on your time. Here's the reality. None of us are guaranteed tomorrow.

Jacob: 04:10

We don't know what tomorrow holds. And if we look at the life expectancy of us here in The US, in 2022, the average was about seventy seven and a half years. Now, that average was broken across both male and female, and and males actually, passed away sooner than that. So it was about '74, 75 years old. Females, it was just over 80 years old on average.

Jacob: 04:30

So females, you have the upper hand here, you've got the opportunity to live a little bit longer. But if that's the reality and you retire later than you want to and you only live to 77, let's say, well, how much more time spent working is actually beneficial for you? Or how much more life could you have lived had you retired earlier and gone to do the things you wanna do or spent time with your kids or grandkids or family that was valuable? So if you think about it this way, time is greater than money because money can be earned back in some capacity. If we kinda continue down this life expectancy route, what I've done here is I've done a little bit of math, and if you retire at 60 and you live to the average life expectancy of 77.5 years old, that means only 22% of your life is left to live.

Jacob: 05:14

So less than one quarter of your life is left to live over the next seventeen years. Now, you retire at 65 rather than 60, so you push out your retirement five more years, that means 15% of your life is left to live. And if you delay your retirement until 70, only 9% of your life is left to live. So whenever you put it in that perspective, does that change your outlook? Does that change your mindset?

Jacob: 05:37

Does that maybe give you a different idea around when you should retire? And you can figure out all the math and the numbers and the details of of putting together a plan, and I help people do that every single day. But what I wanna do is maybe emphasize the fact that we're not guaranteed tomorrow, that we have no idea when we might pass, and for me, my goal as a retirement planner is to help people actually use their money, their hard earned money, to pay for the things in life that are most valuable or fulfilling for them. So it might mean to be able to pay for the family vacation every year. That might be something that's just most valued because the value that someone receives by having all of the family in one place, in one location, just together as a family could be the greatest gift that someone could receive.

Jacob: 06:19

Or it could be building or buying a dream house in a perfect location that you've always wanted to do. So the outcomes could be different, the dreams or the desires could be different, but if you have less years to appreciate and enjoy those things, what is it worth to you to keep working? So that's the first thing, is time is precious. It's actually, in my opinion, more valuable than money, because you can always earn money back, but you cannot get time back. The second reason to retire ASAP is that your energy and your health is probably going to be the best it is right now compared to five or ten or fifteen years down the road.

Jacob: 06:53

So whenever we think about your health and how that plays into your retirement success, but also just your retirement enjoyment and fulfillment, if we don't have a healthy body, mentally or physically, then we're not going to be able to meet those different fulfilling goals that we have for ourselves. So whenever we think about this in kind of like a retirement timeline or phases, think of it in kind of three different ways. You've got your go go years, which are always on the front end of retirement. You've got your slow go years, which are in the middle years of retirement, and then you've got your no go years kinda on the back end or the back one third of your lifespan in retirement. So when you break it down in these three stages, you got go go, slow go, and no go.

Jacob: 07:32

Your go go years are whenever you're gonna go. You're gonna go do all the things you wanna do, you're gonna take that vacation you've always wanted to go on, you're probably gonna spend more money during this time frame than any other time frame throughout retirement, barring any, you know, crazy health stuff in the later stages of life. But this is your time to actually go and do the things that matter to you. But here's the catch, if you retire too late, after your health has been diminished some, then you're not gonna have any go go years. You're not gonna have the opportunity to go enjoy that vacation with the family that you've always wanted to go on or explore whatever new thing or hobby that you wanna, you know, check out and try.

Jacob: 08:06

If you don't have the health to do them once you get retired, then what's the point of being retired? I see this a lot of times, people end up, you know, pushing off retirement just a little bit longer, make a little bit more money so that I can be a little bit, quote, more stable, right? And then they give up their health along the way in those later years of work, and they get to retirement, they're not able to do what they wanted to do in the first place. All the money they saved was for a particular purpose, but they can't actually go do that thing they wanted to go do. So that's the second reason to maybe retire sooner than you originally thought, is your health, right?

Jacob: 08:38

Are you in a good spot from a health standpoint? Do you have the energy to do things? And if you do, why wait? If you have the financial wherewithal to maybe push the envelope a little bit, why wait if you're healthy? Because what I've seen is spending goes down in retirement, not up.

Jacob: 08:53

Most of the time we think of our expense in retirement increasing with inflation, but that's been the furthest thing from the truth as I work with retirees every single day. People spend less money as they age as opposed to more. So use your go go years, use your health, but also use your money during that phase of retirement. The third reason to retire as soon as possible is relationships. If you've been working really hard and you've been grinding, if you've been going in at 7AM and leaving at 6AM every single day for twenty, thirty, forty years, you've put in the time, you've put in the work, you've earned everything that you've gotten.

Jacob: 09:28

Now, along the way, you probably had to give up relationships or have less of a relationship with certain people, or perhaps relationships have been broken because of your work or your work ethic. And so there's pros and cons of being a hard worker or actually dedicating yourself to working hard, but this is maybe a reason to retire sooner than you expected. Maybe you need to rebuild relationships, maybe you need to start relationships, maybe you need to kind of foster relationships and figure out new stages of relationships. So this could be with a spouse, this could be with kids, it could be with grandkids, it could be with, you know, friends or colleagues or whatever it might be. But if you don't have the time or the ability to prioritize connections with loved ones, then you're not gonna have a fulfilling retirement or fulfilling life.

Jacob: 10:16

At the end of the day, if you go do the most fun thing ever, you go on the trip you always wanted to go on, or you wake up every day, you know, next to a beach, and you don't have someone next to you or someone around you that you enjoy spending and enjoying those things with, then what's the point? Like, you're not going to enjoy it as much as you thought, The idea of it was great, but if there's no people or relationships around you that are valuable to share those things with, then it's probably not gonna be all that you thought it would be. So retirement could be your opportunity to rebuild, rekindle, and establish relationships that will carry you through the rest of your life. Because what we found is that retirement leads to loneliness a lot of the times, and what happens here is most people focus on the financial side, but they don't focus on the emotional or the personal side, And you need to do that in order to have a retirement that you can sustain, but also enjoy and be fulfilled in. So think about the people that are around you, you know, think about the people that you want to connect with or start connecting with, and focus on doing that before you retire so that you can have an easier transition into retirement.

Jacob: 11:17

And instead of jumping off a cliff into retirement, more like jumping off a curb. It's really small drop, and it's just like life as you've been living it. So learn how to live retired almost, while you're still working, and create connections, create relationships that you want to carry through retirement, and it makes the jump that much easier. And the final reason to think about retiring as soon as you possibly can is gonna be the fact that your peak satisfaction in life typically is going to occur in your fifties and sixties. Now, how do I know this?

Jacob: 11:46

Well, a study was done and what typically happens in the normal lifespan of an American is we typically have some of the most joyous times in our early stages of life. So let's say before 20 or 25, right? So we're in school, we're having fun with friends, you know, responsibility is really not on our plate at that point. We don't have anything that we have to take care of. We don't have mortgages to pay.

Jacob: 12:06

We don't have kids to take care of or car payments to make and all these different things that come up, you know, early in a career. So, typically, fulfillment or peak satisfaction is not at that stage of an early career. Now, once you get kind of mid career, so in your forties and fifties, you kind of level off a little bit. It increases some, but you might have some sort of what we call a midlife crisis, if you will, where you're kind like, what's going on? Why am I doing this?

Jacob: 12:30

What's what's what's life really about? And then once you get to your sixties, that's whenever your peak satisfaction comes into play. Now, why would this be? Well, as you get to this age, you start to reflect a little bit. You start to think about all that was, right?

Jacob: 12:44

So you kind of flashback throughout the stages of your life, the people that were there, the things you did, and you start to say, oh, man, this this life thing, it's pretty good, and it's been really it's been really fun, right? And so you kinda can appreciate what you've been through. Once you get to this later stage, you can kinda look in the rearview mirror. Obviously, everything's always harder in the moment when you're going through it, but when you look back over your life, you can see, oh, that wasn't as bad as I thought, and I'm glad I did it that way, and I'm glad that was difficult because it, you know, shaped me and molded me and changed me in a certain way or improved me in certain ways. Now, whenever we get to our sixties, kind of sixties and seventies, that's where peak satisfaction in life is gonna be because you can look back and see all the things that you've been through and all the good times and the hard times, but also now you can appreciate life, right?

Jacob: 13:31

You can appreciate the opportunities that you have to wake up every day, go enjoy a workout or a sport or some sort of hobby that you enjoy with someone that you appreciate being with, and it becomes valuable, right? Whenever time's not on your side, things are magnified, so you can appreciate things that much more and you can say, hey, I enjoy just going to get a cup of coffee with a friend, like that's valuable and that's really fulfilling, as opposed to, you know, the coffee that you got on the way to work every day, you know, that probably wasn't valuable to you in a sense of like fulfillment, it was probably more valuable to you in a sense of energy, but just know that your peak satisfaction typically is gonna come in life in your sixties and seventies, as you get to reflect on your life up to this point, and then also explore and create new things and new opportunities for you in this next stage called retirement. So all of this to say, you know, these four reasons are reasons to retire immediately. They're reasons to think about, hey, can I retire sooner than I thought I would?

Jacob: 14:27

Because some of these things you don't get back once they go. Once you pass them up, you don't get them back. So would you rather spend your peak satisfaction years working the same job you've worked forever or putting off that friendship that you've been wanting to kindle? Or perhaps your health is deteriorating and you don't know what to do, or you think you can't retire yet because of money, or maybe you think money is more important than time. These are different reasons to kind of maybe reshape your thinking and evaluate your situation.

Jacob: 14:52

And what this kind of leads me to is what I call the three P's of retirement, or perhaps even life, I guess. But purpose, passion, and people. If you can figure out what your purpose will be in retirement, it'll make it that much more exciting and fulfilling. Now, you also have to be passionate about different things, whether it be a new hobby or a sports or maybe trips that you're gonna plan every single year. Like, find something that you're passionate about.

Jacob: 15:15

Maybe it's continuing to work just in a different capacity. Maybe you can be a consultant of some sort or find something new that you wanna learn that you could be passionate about. The key there is that you don't have to go do those things, but that you get to go do those things. So you gotta have a purpose, you gotta have passion, and then number three, the people that you get to do it with. That's really what leads to a fulfilling life, and I encourage you to evaluate this as you kinda plan out your retirement.

Jacob: 15:38

Now, here's what I'll say. If you find purpose, passion, and people, the three p's, if you find those three things in your job every day, then retirement may not be for you. And guess what? That's okay. Retirement doesn't have to be for everyone and doesn't have to look the same for everyone in a traditional sense.

Jacob: 15:56

So if you find your purpose through your work, right, it's who I am, you find it something that you're passionate about, like you really enjoy everything you get to do every day, and then also you get to be with people that you truly enjoy being around and you find them valuable in terms of they give you energy rather than take it all away from you, then retirement may not be the best option for you. Perhaps part time work or maybe some sort of partial retirement could be in the cards for you. That way you have a little bit more time to go do some things you'd like to do outside of work. And so in saying that, one of the big takeaways here for you might be that retirement's not the same for everyone. It won't look the same for everyone.

Jacob: 16:31

And everyone has a different idea of what retirement should be. So here's my encouragement for you. Think about these things that we've talked through. Think about how they might apply to your life. Ask yourself these different questions.

Jacob: 16:42

Think about how you might change your mind or change your plan if answers are different depending on, you know, what you might value or not value, and maybe it might end up changing your perspective. So do the hard work of kind of analyzing yourself, analyzing your life, getting know yourself perhaps a little bit better and know what you truly want. Because one of the things that I hear from retirees often is, man, Jacob, I wish I'd just done it sooner. So take their experiences, take some of the wisdom that other people that have gone before you have had, learn from it, and say, hey, how does this apply to my life and what can I do to improve, number one, my life, but also my chances of a successful and fulfilling retirement? So hopefully this is helpful for you as you evaluate your situation, and if you have questions about this, feel free to shoot me an email.

Jacob: 17:28

It should be listed down in the description below. Again, if you enjoyed the episode, give it a thumbs up, give it a rating there on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. So thanks for tuning in. Talk to you again soon. Hey, it's Jacob again, and I wanted to extend a quick offer to you.

Jacob: 17:44

If you have a question and you would like to have it answered here on the show, please email me at jacobretirementanswers dot net. And I'd love to answer that question for you right here on the show. Also, wanted to remind you that nothing discussed in today's episode is meant to be financial, legal, or tax advice. Retirement Answers is for educational purposes only. Thanks for tuning into this week's episode.

Jacob: 18:05

Look forward to talking with you again next week.