PODCAST EPISODE 254: Can Millennials Retire Early?

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0:05

Hello, and welcome to your business, your wealth. My name is Paul Adams. I’m joined by Corey shepherd. And a little known fact many people do not know about Corey Shepard

0:16

is that he’s my business partner.

0:20

No,

0:22

you’re right. No, you’re right. Statistically speaking like a lot of people don’t even know anything about it so that it really is a little known fact, they don’t even know I exist. Most people that know you.

0:33

Paul, that is such a great intro to this article, because you’re actually you got to be asking the right question and looking at the right sample set and thinking past the first statement, just like, you know, if you said, if I said, you know, picture a woman in her mid 50s likes knitting and cats, and kind of quiet and introverted. Was she either issue librarian or a salesperson? What’s the right answer? Well, the right answer word librarian. I mean, you would think cuz I’m talking about some demographic stereotype. Except if you think about the, like, the pot odds, like there are way more salespeople, yes, in the country than librarians. So strictly speaking, you’re better off guessing that she’s a salesperson. Right? So you’ve got to think past those initial preconceived notions and my notion of everyone knowing who I am and being famous, you’re absolutely right. They don’t even know.

1:31

Partner.

1:33

I prefer to think everybody knows who I am through Korea. I just walk into new place and like, do you know Cory Shepard, and they’re like, No, I’m like, I’m his business partner. And anyway, he said, send him the check for dinner tonight. So just right. Yeah. It hasn’t worked yet. I keep trying.

1:52

So

1:57

you know, the millennials. They’re just trying to get on more headlines every day. Like, that’s what the whole generation and I am being technically the millennial generation. Although I feel like I’m an elder. Millennial. I try to look like you’re a millennial statesman. I think that would be fair to say to women. Stay tuned, is what we prefer. Yeah. So the

2:21

title this article, millennials want to retire at 50. How to afford it is another matter. I thought about throw my phone across the room when I read the title.

2:35

Like, like, right, ever, people, if you read any news at all, people struggle to have enough money to retire at 65 or 67. When Social Security starts, and that’s with Social Security covenant, people with Union pensions have a difficult time saving enough money to retire. Like, yeah, retiring it that’s to retire 65 or 70. So I want to shortcut that by nearly 20 years, and hope but man affording it could be another now, I must say something else here. Sorry, Cory. I didn’t, I didn’t, I wasn’t prepared for the rant I have in me, for this article. It’s just flown out. But,

3:17

you know, we’ve talked about on the podcast before about this idea of affording something that if you are saying I can’t afford or can’t afford, you’re already in the wrong game. You’re making it about their game that’s from there’s a great section of my book came out required about me buy my first car, and how the salesperson got me into what can I afford each month, and that made it their game. So it’s the financial industry’s game when we’re talking about what we can afford? Yep. So absolutely. So if you say, I can’t afford that, even with your friends, like I we’re all going to why we’re going to I can’t afford that. Because the second you say that people try to overcome that. Well, what about this? Or if you do that, if you just pause and say, I would do that, but it would break strategy for me.

4:05

And I think you’ll find in the characters of this article that I mean, they’re real people, but their characters in the article, I think what you’ll find is that if they took the approach of I have a strategy and I don’t want to break strategy, they’d probably be more successful than being in the afford paradigm.

4:25

All right, let’s jump back at it and Netflix article. So this is a young doctor, an anesthesiologist in Atlanta, Dr. Patel, who’s 33 sec. I’ve been practicing saying it so let me say she’s a cardio thoracic anesthesiologist.

4:45

I just say, yeah, no, no. Yes. My mom says I say that for her so she can hear that we’re going to clip this and just send it to her. And she’ll hate it. Maybe she’ll maybe she’ll take you to Chick fil A and thanks for mentioning her at this

5:00

Chicka Chicka fills my wife called Chick fil A for over 20 years. And my wife was riding with her and chuckled and said, You mean Chick fil A? And she goes, No says Chick fil A. And my wife turned off the highway went in the parking lot.

5:15

Chick fil A, and my mom went on saying that wrong, ever since they opened. so loving, so great. So she wants to walk away from work at 50. And she’s 33 now. Yeah. And for people that aren’t as familiar with advanced medical degrees. How long ago? Did she probably get out of school?

5:41

I mean, at 33 She’s probably in her first few years of practice. Yeah, I was gonna say says she’s been at the employer. She’s out for two years. But I think there’s probably a year before that if she got out when she was 30. So she spent a decade paying to effectively work and learn. And now she’s earning. Right? And what would you guess she’s making as a cardiothoracic anesthesiologist?

6:11

You know, I would say, somewhere in the like, north of three to four, depending on the contract, how much she’s working different, different pieces. But let’s so let’s say 350. Just for the, for the heck of it. Got it. So she’s got this same. I want to be able to retire at 50.

6:30

Yep.

6:33

But here’s the article saying, oh, sorry, go ahead. I was gonna say because one of our aims is, I want to get to a point, I don’t have to work for money anymore. And I can work for pleasure. So she’s okay with working.

6:47

But she contributes to a 401 K and a Roth invest in stocks, and a brokerage account maxes out or HSA, all good things. She’s also paying off a $250,000 loan for medical school and paying for wedding in December. So two things, one

7:04

sounds like whatever the wedding cost is, is big enough that it’s making it harder to save for for the future. So it’s like, no problem, but you just want to spend a lot of what on a wedding now more than you want to retire at 50. Like, that’s, there’s no proud, okay. It’s a choice we get to make. Yeah. Now, I would also say, like, if you want to retire at 50, don’t become a doctor. Not that you can’t, maybe it’s a great but, but it’s not if you’re paying you’re incurring 250,000 in loans for med school, and then trying to pay that down and save all that money just to be done 15 years after, I mean, it’s possible. It’s just the odds of like, there’s other ways to make enough money to put it aside and not have that big bill, that you’re there dwarfing it. Like it’s just, you know, the breakeven, like you just finished paying off your loan. And now you can have the ability to earn this higher income, like, maybe you want to do it for for longer. And I know we have visited on the podcast in a while Cory, but you know that there’s an illustration out there of like, let’s say somebody’s Max funds and IRA, yeah, for like eight years, so 20 to 28. And then they never do it again. And then somebody starts age 29 and saves every year all the way to 65. And the person started earlier has more money. So not only do they are I mean, I just had never thought of that before, Cory, but what a key point

8:42

you want to retire 50 doctors, probably not the way to do it, cuz you’re going to spend the 10 years of some of the most important earning years at the beginning, you’re gonna be actually outlaying money, you won’t be investing it. And then on top of it, you’re gonna go into the marketplace with this deep debt burden. And one thing at least I’ve noticed for many physicians, correct me if I’m wrong, is that let’s say an executive starts making 350 a year, you kind of picture their career is going to be they’re going to make more but when a doctor comes out making 350 a year, they’re not. It’s not like they’re going to be making 802 years because they unless they become an owner or something else that but as an employee, they’re not going to claim like say a salesperson would.

9:25

Now I will say the anesthesia is probably one of the better specialties to pick because you come out like really relaxed, really?

9:36

Oh no.

9:38

You have think about like a cardiac surgeon. If you think about a doctor that could be making million 2 million a year heart surgeons one that you that you think about but they have to train for a long time. And so, you know, they so it’s kind of a tough, break even schedule like you’re training for that much longer. So then you’ve got to go

10:00

Come out and just, you’ve got to make all that money save a bunch there. And frankly, it’s harder as a cardiac surgeon to save a bigger percentage of your income because everyone expects you to have the nice car and the nice house, you tend, like there’s a lot of that lifestyle pressure, it’s anesthesia, you can kind of run the radar a little bit more, I think Dr. Thomas Stanley talks about it in the book stop acting rich and start living like a real Millionaire is that doctors have some of the highest social pressure around spending of any occupation.

10:32

Maybe a close second would be most financial advisors we run into.

10:38

But then this doctor is feeling a lot of spending pressure, because she’s going to pay for her wedding, she’s probably got some family expectations around that. Now. Also, if she wants to retire at 50, a 401k is the worst place to put most of your money 401k Because and Roth Roth, and the HSL ra HSA will be access till 65. But a Roth, you know, you know, after you’ve had it for five years, you can get your principal out before 59 and a half. So like, that’s, oh, that’s a good point.

11:12

That’s uh, you can’t get all of the growth but a 401k. Unless it’s a Roth 401 K, maybe it should, but it just locks it up too much. We like the brokerage account account fees. But there’s also like this just in the when one of the advisors injecting some realism. And this is real, that achieving that independence most likely require saving between 50 and 60% of their income.

11:39

And yeah, and the thing is, we’re talking about before we came on air, it doesn’t matter how much money you make, you can be making $4 million a year. And we tend to float up our lifestyle based upon the amount of room our income affords us.

11:59

And as a result, no matter how much money you make, it’s really hard, especially after paying taxes. to then say 50% is like out of reach for a lot of people. I love this quote from Lyman just a little bit further the adviser it requires saving as much as possible and spending as little as possible and doing both of these as soon as possible. I love that too credible. That is. That is a great tattoo.

12:28

Yes. Yeah, well, or you could just return a tattoo that letters Fitr E, on your arm. This is the financial independence retire early movement, which is really what this is what like, I feel like Millennials are saying I want the benefits of this fire movement without the hard work and sacrifice of this fire movement. That’s what this article is, is telling me like fire or don’t like fire. Like, I appreciate what they’re after. I appreciate the mechanics of it in the folks that that works for them. Like, I like going out to nice restaurants too much. Like it’s just a thing that I love and spending that that money on it. Probably I’m not going to do the work for five years and then you know, get a Million Dollar Portfolio and then live off of $40,000 a year for the rest of my life. That’s just not me. I am working towards financial independence to just know that what that track is and I know that that’s just like good for where I’m at and I don’t have anything bad to say about the fire movement. I just get what they’re after. But I do feel like this article is trying to water that down. Yeah, I gotta say let since since we have the benefit Korea being offended in our society on the behalf of somebody else, I’m going to do that.

13:52

The idea like if you’re a fire movement person, you would get a little Vomit your throat over the idea because most fire movement folks like when you watch online, these are folks that make like 80 100 a year and they’re still saving 40 Like it’s amazing. And it takes a lot of effort and concentration for them to do that and focus or concentration. And if you think about the word concentrate, it is removing all diluting factors. So if what you’re going to do is tilt into fire, that is used cars, that is keeping an iPhone for until it dies. That is and that’s think about it that’s also still live in a pretty dang good lifestyle. Like that doesn’t need to be if you’re making 350 a year and I don’t know if she has a spouse that works but if you’re making 350 a year you can still live a pretty good lifestyle. But the key and the difficult and this is the difficult this is where fire people make their ground

14:53

is that she could live and work and still have a lifestyle, too.

15:00

Weiss is good as the average American family making $45,000 a year. But you’d be living a lifestyle, a fraction of the people she spends time around. And most people can’t do it. Because the lifestyle addiction, which you’re seeing it says here, her quote I like it’s challenging to save 50% of her salary, even though she’s not a big spender, which that’s relative. That’s a relative, like not a big spender. I would have to give up vacations and the things that are splurge II like eating and finer restaurants or flying to New Jersey to see my family at the drop of a hat. And they said adequate preview to it before you say it. Yeah. And here comes the entitled millennial line. Go ahead, Cory,

15:40

adding that she could save 3000 a month if not for her loan obligations, except the loan obligation is what gave her the increased earning potential in the first place. That’s like a construction company buying an excavator paying $3,000 a month for they make half a million dollars. You’re owning that excavator and they’re like, why? If it weren’t for this dang loan payment? I’d be making really

16:04

like no, that’s, and so she’s definitely working at a for profit hospital, because there’s no talk about student loan forgiveness. So, you know, that is one way that a doctor could get out pretty well. You some of your years of residency counts are those 10 years of payments, the rest of your work in years, you’re paying income based payments, and after 10 years, your loans paid off, however much it it was so much, you know. So that’s one way if you’re going to be a doctor and trying to do this is get on your get on a nonprofit hospital and know how much which wouldn’t. I mean, I know we’re talking a little bit here out of turn, and it’s not unlike me to take you in a different direction. But it’s very good that a lot of those nonprofit organizations that you can work for that will you work for him for 10 years, your student loans are paid for four? aren’t a lot of them and lower cost of living places to

17:01

I mean, they can they’re here in Chicago there, they could be anywhere. So it doesn’t necessarily mean but here’s but here’s where I’ll take you in a different place than you were going, is it doctors tend to make the same almost anywhere you go actually sometimes more in lower.

17:21

Yeah.

17:23

Which, by the way, if you guys listening, don’t know, Corey works with like, 95% of all our physician clients, his wife is a doctor, like he really understands this market. Well. So that’s why if you guys notice, the way we’re swinging back and forth are some of this because Cory knows these this industry and these people really, really well. But all that would be like you could go move to a place where you know, you could be you could be living off 30% of your income and still be the big dog in town. Yeah, exactly. Right. And now with post COVID. And we’re not really postcode, but you know what I mean? Yes, we are lab work double. I wrote working. Should I announce we’re done with it today? Today? Yeah. This podcast.

18:10

Next one, so I’m sorry, I said anything. So the

18:17

you could choose to work to live somewhere with a lot lower cost of living and have the same job a lot more people have that ability now. And so this is what we’re talking about, like actually saying, Okay, I’m gonna go for my eight or $900 million house, here in this expensive suburb, and go move somewhere rural, and buy a 200 $300,000 house that’s just as big, maybe not quite as up to up to date,

18:51

and cash out some money and put that towards the future, spend less on my house, spend less on my car, there’s all kinds of ways to do it. There’s no problem with affording it, except the problem of wanting to make those decisions. But it’s a it’s a blank slate, or everybody and so just be clear on what it is you want, like human life, like all suffering comes from having what you don’t want or not wanting what you have, then that’s all all suffering. And then this is what I hear from this this article is folks aren’t just they’re kind of millennials, especially kind of living between two poles and not wanting to commit fully in one direction or the other and wanting the benefits of of both. We just got to cut that out.

19:41

I’ve got a little request for Miranda here. Hopefully she’s all tuned in. Miranda, could you look up we I did a podcast some time ago that you probably have find on the website called watch what you say it could cost you millions because it really ties in for those of you who are physicians or people period who go through a period of time where

20:00

I’m struggling happens with a lot of business owners, and then all of a sudden, boom, income goes way up. It’s just very predictable for doctors. But the reason I bring it up is oftentimes in those struggle periods, it’s so easy to say to yourself when it’s hard, or to say to a spouse, it’s like, I know, it’s tough that we have to budget, you can’t get the, but I’m telling you, when we get through this, honey, I’m going to buy an Escalade for the family, or we’re going to get that big house on the hill, or we’re going to do whatever instead of setting a strategy before your income goes up, that when our income goes up, we’re going to make this incremental increase in lifestyle and be able to save like champs because then you get the reward of having a little bit better lifestyle, but then you also get the real benefit of setting aside a lot of money and Sue’s Miranda rights back to me. Let me know what episode that is. I’ll let you guys know. If not, it’ll be in the show notes. You’ll put it there after.

20:56

You know, go ahead. I just liked this next one, it kind of speaks to what we talked to the 2022 retirement insight surveys from Tia revealed similar views with 31% of people from 30 to 39, indicating they have an above average level of confidence in their ability to plan for retirement, which if this show has taught you guys anything before, people subjective opinion about their capacity to act effectively is really not good. Luck. 90% of people rate themselves above average in driving skills. Yes, yes. Almost half of you are wrong.

21:36

young millennials, those 25 to 29 are the most assured 40% said they have an above average level of confidence in their ability playing now. Quick, quick question, Cory. I’ve been preparing for this. But of people from the age of 25 to 40.

21:53

What percentage of them were highly competent in their abilities to do planning, without any professional?

22:02

Like, they could just do it on their own? And they could probably, maybe it could have been better, more optimized if they worked with someone like you. But when right? What would your guests be where you somebody shows up? You’re like, dang, that person really knows their stuff about money. And I’ll help them but they don’t need me.

22:18

Because I am biased? Yes. Yeah, I would, I was gonna go seven. Like, I think it’s even less than 10. Especially when we’re talking under the age of 40. They just haven’t had enough time. Definitely people aged 25 to 29. barely know how to plan a vacation.

22:34

And if you’re a 25 to 29 year old that knows how to plan a vacation, don’t take offense at what I said, just know suck it up and realize you’re one of them who can congratulations and then and emails. Think about the person we’re talking about is that friend of yours, that kind of annoys you with how they nerd out around money. And they’re always talking about this article they read or that article, and they and they can rattle off the top five things you should do to get ready for retirement and they maybe

23:04

don’t spend as much money as everyone else, maybe they got a little bit of a reputation as a tightwad, like, that’s the person we’re talking about. We actually we meet them, about half of them are more don’t become our clients. Some of them are our clients, not because they been they have a whole bunch of knowledge. And they just want to tune up that little bit more and get that little bit extra edge. Or as we would say one of our most competent clients is sound Financial Group is a CPA, he’s brilliant, etc. And one of the things he said to me is your my internal control, same term they use in corporate finance to make sure mistakes don’t happen because of a motion or negligence. That’s what I am to them.

23:47

I want to make one more point before we wrap here today, Cory and that is this little segment right here. When she says I don’t want to get caught up in save, save, save and then retire at 65. Now, number one, pause there for a second.

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If you’re really saving your birthdate

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meaning what? You’re gonna retire at 50. If you save save, save, save, save.

24:18

You won’t have to wait six months that’s just flood thinking right there just want to make that point.

24:24

But she’s seen too many people put their lives on hold until they retire only become ill or have their spouse die. Now I don’t think that that happens. That’s not an often occurrence. I hear people say that you might know one person out of the 1000s of people, you know that that’s happened to and I guarantee you they were older than you. Which means the lifestyles we have today around health and our knowledge of what to put in our bodies and how to care for ourselves so much better than the people that were 40 years older than us. And people will make decisions that drive them to the ground financially based up

25:00

Han, this totally false narrative that I don’t want to be that person just saves up a bunch of money, and then I get 65. And I die right away, that does happen. But it doesn’t happen often enough that you should make your plans right, you know what happens 99.9% of people, they not 99.99. But a lot of people, the more likely outcome, it’s why I get a little tuned up at prepper, sometimes, of which I am one is, the joke is you’re planning for the point 000000 1% likelihood of a zombie apocalypse, but you’re not planning for the 95% likelihood, you’re gonna make Dave 65 and spend the rest of your life in poverty. And yet, you’re buying more prepackaged food, like, I get the prepackaged food, but then I make different lifestyle decisions that allow me to save an obscene amount of my income.

25:46

And we don’t disagree with the sentiment that woman has, this was a different person than the doctor. Yeah, at this point. Were like, the financial industry does want you to defer a bunch of your life for later because they get to have this growing amount of money this whole time that they’re managing, and you’re not getting a lot of use out of it. So we sound financial group, we’re not about a life deferred. We’re about how what’s a good life you can live now, and continue to live for the rest of your life. And let’s have a lot of enjoyment now. So I’m all about not deferring that to down the road. But I think it’s a straw, another straw man argument, where no one’s asking you to do that. Right. Right. And, and it all comes back. We talked about this all the time, it comes back to your aims.

26:36

Right? Like for me, and my family comes with our aims. And everybody’s aims are going to be different enough that the same advice won’t work. So it’s great to read articles like this to learn something. But then you have to sort what is the opinion from the fact. And then as we talked about, in our, one of our previous episodes, it’s like, and they’re still working to make money and keep you engaged in their content. Even great organizations like the Wall Street Journal, like we talked about a couple episodes ago, they’re just going to be a be testing, they’re always advertising other parts of their content in there, they’ve got all the ads everywhere. That if what you’re going to do is use media to educate yourself, you just have to do it in a discerning way. And I think listening this podcast, just a good check periodically, to let you know what to watch for when we talk about articles like this.

27:28

So info at SF je way.com. If you have any questions about anything we talked about today, we’d love to start a conversation. Or if you’re working with a financial advisor, go check your math and ask those questions like, here’s where they want to retire, what path Am I on? What would I just ask, What would I have to do to retire when I’m 50? See what they say could be a good start to the conversation. And one thing I’ll throw on that

27:55

do not let rate of return.

27:59

Oh, yeah, tamp down the seriousness of the numbers you need to take a look at.

28:05

Because if we put in 10%, it’s a very different set of outcomes than seven. And doing that six or 7% rate of return for the sake of those projections will leave you with a surplus if things don’t work, things do better. But it’ll leave you with enough if they don’t do as well as we plan we’d hoped and, and you might just have a lot of extra money to spend at age 48 through 50 and still hit your plan. It’s your second good point I was gonna say six they might you said six or seven. Like if you’re you’re planning on this retire at 50 I wouldn’t use more than a 6% rate of return in those calculations because over shorter periods of time too many things can happen to impact your your rates of return as we’re seeing now. September 2022, the market having the lowest point it’s had in a little while. So yep, and then just for fun guys, we’re gonna ask Miranda to put in the show notes for you. In case you haven’t seen the article before want to see it when you hear us talking about you got to say 40 to 60%. There’s an article by a guy named Mister Money Mustache. It’s one of the most popular articles of finance on the internet. And it’s called the shockingly simple math of being able to retire early and it’ll walk you right through and it gives just some good pointers that if you wanted to take on the fire movement, or you want to just ridiculously increase your savings and be told like that’s like basically today being punk rock is being super responsibly responsible financially. Right used to be punk rock was like have Mohawk all that. No, I drive. I drive a Ford Explorer that looks like it’s you know, I don’t know, like close to the crusher. Not quite. It still has most of its original paint, but it’s meant to be towed behind the RV. I don’t go anywhere most of the time. So that’s I drive a toaster because all I need

30:00

got to do is make toast.

30:02

warmth in the winter is nice. That’s it. That’s all I care about. That is counterculture now. And it’s hard to do, especially if you’re new to top 1% income brackets for those of you considering taking it on, or you’re struggling through it despite the social pressure, just from Korean i Congratulations, stick with it. You will have wildly different outcomes from your peers that just put 10% in their 401k But unfortunately, you’ll be able to do some really cool things your old age they won’t. So with that.

30:31

Are you ready to say goodbye to everybody ready to say goodbye SOG family. Thanks for tuning in. And, as always,

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we hope this has contributed to you being able to design and build a good life

 

 

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