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Episode #597 - I Just Lost My Job - Can I Retire Now?

“The best antidote to stress is resilience, having the ability to respond to change or adversity proactively and resourcefully.”

-Lauren Mackler

Roger: Hey there. Welcome to the show. Dedicated to helping you not just survive retirement, but to have the confidence to lean in and rock it. You do want to rock retirement, don't you? I mean, why not? Today on the show, we are going to round out our travel stories with a domestic travel discussion with two recent retirees.

Before we do that, though, we have a listener question who listener emailed in, say, hey, I just lost my job. I'm 59 years old. Can I retire now? So we're going to have a mini case study where we look through whether this is a reasonable thing given the facts that they shared and had to fill in some blanks. I'm going to answer this here on the show, but I'm also going to record video going through some analysis of this because that can maybe make it more impactful as you think about this for yourself. So you can hear and listen to it on the show. But if you want to see the video analysis of it as well, we will share that in our weekly email the Noodle, so you'll get a link to that video answer as well.

If you're not signed up for The Noodle, you can go to thenoodle.me and sign up there and get your weekly dose of retirement wisdom. In fact, we'll share this video answer two weeks in a row just in case you miss it this weekend.

Now, one announcement before we get to the show, and that is Tanya Nichols of Align Financial and I. You might know Tanya. She's been on this show a number of times answering questions. She's a fantastic retirement planner. She's also been a coach in the Rock Retirement club. She and I have collaborated privately for about eight or nine years and we are in the late in the beginning of a special project to collaborate more formally professionally. July is a busy month of getting a lot of that to the finish line. I'm excited to announce it and talk about it once it's done. So as a result, we're going to have the best of shows for July. We're going to have some of our better interviews with Michael Easter, Christine Benz, and there's a few others I can't think of off top of my head, but they're awesome. So July is going to be the best of show and then in August, we'll be focusing on answering your questions and maybe I'll be able to share what she and I have finished. So wish us luck on that and I hope you have a great summer.

But for now, let's get started with the show.

ROCKIN’ RETIREMENT IN THE WILD

Before we get to our case study, I want to profile some people rocking Retirement in the Wild. The first one I'm going to share is Pete. Now, Pete and I have known each other since he just retired or was getting ready to retire. He’s a member of the Rock Retirement Club. Pete has a podcast called Retiring with Enough and that podcast just hit episode 150. That's a big deal. Pete shared a thank you to me for the encouragement, which is very kind of him. Been a huge passion project for him and this has allowed him to help people financially instead of dentally. He was a retired dentist.

“It's funny how dentistry once was the main focus of my working career has faded and now I enjoy finance and podcasting.”

So this has become his passion project, his mission in retirement, and it's filled that void of serving people that he did very successfully as a dentist. So, Pete, I want to congratulate you on 150. That's a huge accomplishment. Retiring with Enough is a great show and we'll have a link to it in our noodle email.

All right, the second one I want to highlight is Adrianne, who is rocking Retirement in the Wild.

Adrianne says,

“I've been listening to your show for a couple years now. It's been very informative and has helped me think through various topics. I especially found the recent episode What Every Spouse Should Know helpful. I'm the spreadsheet geek and while my husband is supportive and involved, I wanted him to be aware of what he should know if something were to happen to me. He listened to the episode the other day and had a new appreciation for the planning process.”

Huzzah. that's awesome, Adrianne. Congratulations to you too. Continue to rock retirement.

LISTENER CASE STUDY

Now lets get to that email

An anonymous listener emailed in a few weeks ago, wanted to remain anonymous and he says,

“I am 59 and my wife is 58. I recently lost my job due to an economic downturn in the automotive industry. My wife is still employed, we are empty nesters and I am contemplating an early retirement as it's becoming ever so difficult to find work at my age.”

Then anonymous gives us some facts which I'm going to share when I answer the question because we'll do this in an organized way and I'll share where I'm missing items. So after those facts he says,

“So can we make it work if I'm unable to secure employment or do I need to go back to work? Thank you.”

59 years old, lost his job, wondering maybe if he could just not go back to work. Is that wise or is there a downstream issue that might cause stress later on? That is the question. So let's walk through this, looking at the facts and filling in the blanks where he didn't provide information to answer this question.

Now let's dive into some analysis as to whether Mr. Anonymous can retire rather than look for another job, given the facts that he shared.

We are looking at some retirement planning software for those of you watching the video, and I'll walk you through this. If you're listening to the show, we're going to call Mr. Anonymous, “Ram” and his wife “Ramette” is age 59. Ramette is 58. So we need to know that. I'm assuming that they are in Texas. I don't know that for a fact. I'm just assuming they are, which can make a difference because different states have different taxation rules around income as well as distribution from IRAs, et cetera. We're going to assume that they're in Texas.

The first thing we need to look at, and we're going to go through this screen by screen, is what is the period of time that we have to plan for? So Ram did say that they want to look at their early 90s from a planning time horizon. That works out well because my default ages for a male are 92. So we're going to use that for Ram and 94 for Ramette. So we're going to assume that we have a 30 year period of time that we have to plan for.

Now, Ram said that his wife is continuing to work and contribute to her 401, but we don't have any information on the income and how long she's going to continue to work. So I'm making the assumption that it is till age 65 or until 2032. So that's a simplifying assumption there. Now, what about spending? Now that we know the timeline, how much do they need to spend to rock retirement or to live their life?

Got a little bit of detail from Ram. He gave me two bits.

Number one is if I don't go back to work, I'm going to have to earn, he said, from his portfolio, $2,000 a month to make ends meet. So while his wife is working, he needs to make $24,000 a year after taxes. Is my assumption taxes will be calculated in the background. Then he said, when both of us are retired, we need about $7,000 a month to live our life. That is the information I have.

So we're going to assume that when they both retired in 2032, that they need $84,000 a year to live their life, inflation adjusted, with taxes being paid in the background. So my assumption is that this includes health care expenses, insurance on cars and house, eating out, traveling, utilities, everything. You need a new car; it's included in there. HVAC, it's included in there. So we're going to use a simple assumption that he gave me $2,000 a month while his wife is working, $84,000 annually when they're both retired.

Now, he did give me some information on their mortgage. It is like a $1,300 a month mortgage, but he said it would be paid off in five years, and he only said he needed $2,000 a month. So I'm just putting the mortgage aside for now because that will be paid off by the time rem at retirees. So now we know the timeline, we know what state they live in, we know the tax scheme, we know when Ramette's going to retire, and we know what spending they need.

Let's look at their resources. Let me go to the next screen here. Now, Ram was able to provide their current estimate of their Social Security benefits. In 2033, when he is 67, which is full retirement age, he will receive $37,200 a year. And then his wife is in 2034, her current estimate is $24,000 a year. So now we know what their income will be when Social Security turns on, which is pretty good, has a lifetime value of $1,678,000,000. One caveat here. If Ram doesn't work and he's looking at his Social Security statement where it says he's going to get $37,200 a month. That statement, that Social Security statement assumes that he continues to work until full retirement age. In this case, if he retires at 59, we're going to have a gap where there's a lot of zeros that will bring down his Social Security estimate by how much? Really hard to tell unless you do a detailed calculation putting in all his earnings year by year. In my experience, it does have an impact, but rarely is it significant. But it's still a good exercise to do.

So now we know when their income turns on, they're going to have a lot of income to help pay for their life, but there's still going to be a gap, gap while she's working, a gap before Social Security turns on and then a gap that's smaller once they get that guaranteed payment. They don't have any other income sources, no part time work, no pensions, etc. So wherever the gap is, it's going to have to be covered by their assets. And he gave me some of those numbers. He said that we have in joint savings, $90,000 a year. My 401k has tax deferral of $488,000 and I have $20,000 in my Roth 401. He says Ramette has $175,000 in her 401k and that she's continuing to contribute, but I don't know how much she's contributing. So I had to make an assumption and I just put $20,000 a year. So we're putting in, and if you see it on the screen, we're putting in that she's going to continue to save $20,000 a year, tax deferred until her age 65, when she stops working. So current day, they have 773,000 in assets to cover the gap, plus the savings of Ramit while she works. Those are the resources they have to cover the $2,000 a month they need if they don’t go back to work, plus the $7,000 a month that they'll need once they're both retired. Their only other asset, at least they shared with me, is their home, which is worth $400,000. The assumption it's going to be paid off because he said it would be paid off in five years.

All right, so now we know the timeline, tax scheme, the paycheck they need, the income they have and the resources they have. One thing we don't know yet, because we're doing like a 30 year time horizon to figure out whether this is feasible or not is okay, they got to $773,000, but how's it going to be invested? What rate of return will it receive? We don't know that. So we have to make an assumption for rate of return on those assets.

Now, if you're using a spreadsheet, it's relatively easy. You just put in the rate of return. Let's assume it's 6% and then you can just project out I earn 6% a year and do your analysis. If you do it via spreadsheet, that's likely going to overstate the feasibility and the reason is that 6% return you put into a spreadsheet is linear. And that just means that you get the same return every year. In 2008, when the markets were crashing, you still got 6%. When markets were great, you still got 6%. It doesn't account for the fact that returns aren't linear. Sometimes you have great years, sometimes you have really bad years, and they tend to go in streaks. So how do we account for that in doing a feasibility test to help Mr. Anonymous and Mrs. Anonymous here knows whether he should go back and look for work? Well, we have to factor in some of that variability in return. So on the software I'm going to go to, we go down to this section, we have to make some assumptions of how they invest those assets. So I'm going to assume that they invest in about a 61% stock portfolio, with the rest being in bonds and cash. The projected return for that portfolio is going to be 5.99%. 6%, we'll call it. So we're going to assume that they average 6%, but we already know that they're not going to get that every year. Right, because markets go up and down. There's this thing called sequence of returns, which essentially is, if I get all the bad returns up front and I'm taking money, it can really hurt me long term. We got to gauge for that. So the other assumption that we're making is there's a standard deviation around that 6% average return. You don't need to know what standard deviation is, other than that just is how we calculate. Well, I know I'm not getting 6%, but how much above or how much below how volatile are my returns going to be given my portfolio? Because just like weather, yeah, the average is nice, but I may be really cold days, and I may have really hot days. By putting this in here to assess feasibility on a very basic level, we're going to make a thousand copies of their spending and their income, and then those copies will be identical except for the returns that they get. We're going to use software to simulate, well, what happens if they get really bad returns upfront, what happens if they get really good returns upfront and all those different possibilities in between to get a sense for what percentage of those thousand trials were they able to sustain the living and not run out of money or have to make changes? That is essentially what financial planning or Monte Carlo scenario planning does.

Now, I think this question in this little mini case study is a really good example because basic estate or retirement planning is done with software like this that you're looking at either public software or this is a professional software that's, you know, the most widely adopted by retirement planners. It's actually a good example of basic retirement planning because oftentimes when we get the number, the feasibility number that we feel good about, we don't make the plan resilient, which is what is critical to making a plan resilient, to making sure that you don't get knocked off course.

If you want a good example of this, I think this is what happened to Rosie in our retirement, planning life case study, because generalist financial planners will use this type of software. Rosie had a plan that was feasible when she retired. The financial planner told her so, and then she went through a bear market right at the beginning. When we did our case study, her plan was not feasible because they didn't take the time to make it resilient, and that's the difference between real retirement planning and basic retirement planning. And it's important to know that software is not enough. So this is going to illustrate this because I've already walked through this before recording this with you. So let's look at the results. Let's go to using those 60/40 portfolios, looking at a thousand different scenarios. The confidence number or probability of success is 85%. If you're looking at the video, the dial looks pretty good. It's in the green. Green is good, right? Blue's better. Green is good, Purple is not so good. Software says this is totally feasible. Ram, you don't have to look for a job. This works. Is that enough? No, it's not. Because a feasible plan is not resilient, because life doesn't go as planned, even if we're trying to manage for returns.

So let's talk a little bit about what this number says, and let's do some stress testing with this number. It assumes 85% of those thousand trials. Ram and Ramette got to the end of their life and had enough or more. 85% of the trials were better than what they were shooting for is another way of stating that number. Another way of stating that number is 15% of the trials. They didn't have enough money to last their entire life. Now, that's not necessarily bad. It's also important to note of those failures, that 15% of the software is not smart. It looks at a failure of a dollar. We were a dollar short. Exactly the same as it would look at a failure of $100,000. A failure is a failure in software terms. This is a point in time. It also assumes that Ram and Ramette, if they implemented Ram didn't go back to work and they implemented their portfolio and took withdrawals as they needed, that they never ever, ever made a change regardless of what was happening in the world or in their life.

If we went through a, 2008, markets were crashing, they would stay the course and not make any adjustments to their investments or their spending. Their $7,000 spending is on the mark and they're never going to have a new HVAC come up. They're never going to have to buy a new car or help out a family member or have a long term care event. This is assuming everything happens exactly as they planned. We know how that works. That's why there software is not enough. We need to make it resilient.

So let's do some basic stress testing with this case study. The basic things that we stress test for is what happens if we have a great loss in the markets because we're still 60% stocks, 40% bonds and the worst case scenario that we know of is October of 07 to March of 09. That was the 08 debacle where the markets were down significantly. Stocks by themselves in that period were down about 50% from the peak to the bottom. But we don't own all stocks, they own about 40% bonds. So that kind of portfolio, assuming you stuck with it from peak to bottom, went down by 26%. So an easy stress test for this is, well, if RAM and Ramet retire today and we go through that horrible period and they lose 26% of their assets over 18 month period, how feasible is their plan in this case? If you're looking at the video, it's 60% confidence of success. This plan is not resilient to the markets because those can go in unexpected ways. And I think this is what happened to Rosie to some version, although it wasn't in 08 that this all went up. So although it looks great at an 85% it's not very resilient to losing money in the markets.

Let's assume that the portfolio went down by 18%. It gets to 71% confidence which is on the fringe of being underfunded. Now note, if you invest and you have a 30 year timeline, you're likely to experience six or seven bear markets in your lifetime and that bear market is defined in the stock Market is going down by about 20%. So you're going to have bad markets. If you have them upfront in this case, it could make this feasible plan very unfeasible for Ram and Ramette. So we know it's not resilient here.

What about if someone dies? What if Ram dies early because we have him living to 92 and Ramette living to 94? The underlying assumption of that is that we have both social security’s working for them and both social securities are inflation adjusted and they're in joint tax brackets. But what happens if Ram dies at say 72? Well, now they're 85% confidence in the software goes to 48% confidence. Assuming that they continue to spend their $7,000 a year or month not resilient to a premature death, what about a spending shock? And you know, we think of this as usually health care or long term care. It could be that it could be a family needs help. It could be a hurricane that hits a house and you have lots of expenses. It could be any number of things.

Let's assume that it's a healthcare event and they need $70,000 a year for three years when Ram is 80, needs some care. Well, there's a 71% confidence, so it goes from 85 to 71. Now that still may be doable, but it's assuming that we don't have bad markets early, we don't have higher inflation than we expected, we don't have unexpected spending because we're assuming the $70,000 a year is exact and that they're not going to need something in addition to that.

What are my observations? My observations for RAM and Ramette are hey, 85% confidence, the software is great, but it's not the whole story. The plan is highly constrained and it could work, but you have got to have everything go right. If you have a big market downturn, a premature death, a big spending shock that you didn't anticipate if you got your spending estimates incorrect, you're going to go from feasible to not feasible very quickly. So given this, although the software says yeah, it looks okay, I would likely not do this. Unless you really work at making the plan resilient by funding out. I still probably wouldn't do it. I think it's highly constrained. Some pathways for you, Ram, if you don't want to go get a full time job, is to go get a job earning something, even if it's part time. Because any money you earn now is going to help preserve your financial capital to Work for you longer. It's like a double win. You're going to have money to spend, you're going to stay busy, which will help you not spend as much, and you're going to allow your money to work for you longer to make sure the entire retirement is safe. I would be very careful in considering retiring now and not rely on software. So there's some analysis. It's not perfect. I had a lot of simplifying assumptions for the case of it, but this is a good example of the difference between a feasible plan and. A resilient plan and basic retirement planning and real retirement planning.

Now it's time for our last installment of travel stories, for this month, anyway. We're going to focus on two recent retirees that have focused on domestic travel now that work is out of the way as we explore why do retirees like to travel so much, what is it?

TRAVEL STORIES WITH CHRIS AND CATHY

We have Chris and Kathy here. Tell me a little bit about your story of retirement. And let's talk about travel.

Chris: Yeah, we'd be happy to. We decided to retire two years ago and, at that point, realize we're not bound anymore by any kind of work schedules of I can only take a week off or 10 days off or anything like that. So two years ago, we took a trip where we drove down to Florida, ultimately, where Kathy's dad was going to be in Sanibel. But along the way, we stretched it out and we added visits into Charleston, and Hilton Head, Virginia, visited with family and friends, and it was fantastic to be able to have that amount of time. It was, I think, three and a half weeks.

Kathy: Yeah, I mean, we were down in Sanibel for probably 10 days. We were doing this. We were alternating with my brother. My brother drove my dad down and we were driving him home. So on the way there was when we had our flexibility and since our calendar no longer had that. That little wedge where you had to be back.

Roger: So that was a big change of. You had, like, you didn't have. Okay, we got eight days to get whatever we want to get in, and then we got to go back to work. So mentally. And you didn't have.

Kathy: Yeah, that was the aha moment.

Chris: Yeah.

Roger: You didn't have to worry about the huge inbox when you got back to work.

Chris: Correct, correct, correct. So then we, you know, so then we took that and said, okay, we love this. We have a son who has been living in Los Angeles. He was in law school and graduated last May and we still had stuff of his here in New Jersey that, you know, he never found his way out there yet. So we said, hey, why don't we drive his stuff out? We've never done a cross country road trip and now that we know, we really like this time, let's do it. So that was last year's trip and it was absolutely amazing. It was about four weeks total.

Roger: So you took your time, you took your time, you took your time A little bit in New Jersey to LA, A good haul. Did you plan it out where you're going to stop or how did you use Uber planners? Or are you like, hey, let's just go and we'll find a hotel.

Chris: I'm the master planner.

Kathy: I'm the backpack. I drive and I go. You know, he knows what I like or not like. So he's not going to plan something I know he knows I won't like, but he enjoys that research.

Chris: On our, on this cross country trip, I think 7, 200 miles were driven. I didn't drive a single mile. She drove.

Roger: Seriously? that's how I am. I'm the driver.

Chris: But yeah, but yeah. So we planned it out and just said, hey, let's, you know, let's go see parts of the country we haven't seen. We did what we call our barbecue tour. We went to St. Louis in Kansas City and each for a couple days barbecue and, and saw what those cities had to offer, which was awesome. We went to your neck of the woods, Boulder, Colorado, and hiked the Flatirons and went to Red Rocks Amphitheater and did some things there. Then we went and hiked the five national parks in Utah, which we had never done before, and absolutely loved it.

Kathy: That was so cool.

Chris: Just loved it. Then we met up with our son and his fiance in Joshua Tree and spent time with them there. Then we spent a week in Pasadena while he graduated.

Kathy: Family in Palm Springs.

Chris: In Arizona, a cousin of yours in Arizona. Then we hit Santa Fe. I mean, it was absolutely lovely. Again, just that, we had time, and the ability to have the time.

Roger: What was your favorite park in Utah? Just curious.

Chris: Yeah, I think both of us loved Bryce.

Roger: Okay. You did that trip and that was. How, how long ago was that?

Chris: That was last spring. What was last, spring.

Roger: Okay, what was. One moment. This is going to be separate for each of you. I think that stands out from that entire trip. Not related to seeing your son. One place, one rib, that you ate, one experience.

Chris: For me, it was the whole experience in Utah. I had never been in that kind of environment, and to me, it was unworldly. It almost felt like the redness of the rocks and you felt like you were transformed onto Mars. It was just. Just stunning. and I just love taking in each of those five parks and, you know, spending. I think, all told, with the five parks, we spent about seven or eight days. Yeah. hiking the parks and just absolutely loved it. So that was.

Kathy: For me, I mean, it was a big. We're used to just, you know, green mountains. So that was just such a difference. Even just driving. I mean, New Jersey's flat, but we have a lot of people and buildings and the beach and New York City, and so just the flatness of, Kansas.

Roger: It's flat. It's flat.

Kathy: We went through the tip of Texas.

Chris: Yeah.

Roger: So it's not. For you guys. It wasn't flying over the country. It was driving over the country.

Chris: Right, Right. Yeah.

Kathy: Places we had, you know, we. For me, at least, I had only ever been. I spent a decent amount of time in California, but I have never been to anywhere in the middle.

Roger: Okay.

Kathy: So, that was just all.

Chris: Along the way, you know, we tried to take in some learning as we were in each of the states and going through the area. So, you know, we were struck by the amount of windmills in Kansas and also in Texas. But, you know, we're driving through Kansas, and so I start googling. How much wind power does Kansas generate? You know how much of their electricity is through wind power? It's like 60% and it just blew me away. It's just awesome to get out and explore and see things and learn and just enjoy it.

Roger: Sounds like in a little bit, at least for North America. This was you guys getting out of your bubble. These two trips.

Kathy: Yeah so you did a little bit of history and a little bit of nature. Every city in every town has something to offer. Just figuring out what's there.

Roger: Before I go on to a. A slightly different topic, I do need to ask, because my wife and I love road trips. Do you two talk when you're on a road trip or do you read an audiobook or what do you do?

Chris: So. So again, she drives.

Roger: Right.

Chris: This is just the relationship. She's a very bad passenger. So we've learned the best route, we've been here 37 years, and it was simply for her to drive. And I’m the passenger. So I am, I am the DJ, and so I play podcasts and the music and whatever it is. We talk through stuff and we don't do books, but I do on my own

Kathy: We don't do books together.

Chris: Yeah. So we just, you know, I take up the time that way and we talk and, through life and different things we want to keep doing and all that sort of stuff.

Roger: So go back to two years ago. Were you both working at the time or was one of you not working? Did you retire together? How did that all work out?

Chris: We retired together. so it was two years ago, and we were actually living in Pittsburgh at the time. I was working in a university. That job ended, and when that job ended, we knew we wanted to come back to Jersey, and so we just said, okay, that's it, we're done. We've had a rash of aging and dying parents, unfortunately, which a lot of us at this age that we had.

Kathy: Yeah, three have died in the last two years.

Chris: So, you know, at that point, you know, we said, hey, you know, we're still. We're 59. So. Okay, where you can look at in one respect and say you're young, but same respect, you add, 20 years on to it, 25 years on to. All of a sudden it's like, we're comfortable enough. Let's just do this and let's enjoy ourselves.

Roger: How did you adjust to being together, like 24/7, given that you both had been working.

Kathy: You know, it's interesting. I don't feel like it's been that much of an adjustment, but we've also, like, we moved. We sold a house; we bought a place. We've done major renovations here. Between cleaning out our parents places and moving, like, there's just been a lot of stuff going on.

Chris: Also say COVID kind of got us ready for it because I was working remotely with COVID and so we work together, I think we had moved out to Pittsburgh for this job that I took in university. Yeah, we actually separated for a while. I had moved out in advance of Kathy moving because we had a son at the time. Our youngest was about to finish high school. He still had two years to go, and we didn't want to relocate him, so they stayed in Jersey. I moved out to the Pittsburgh area. She joined me, but then it was COVID when she joined me and all of a sudden I'm not on campus anymore. So.

Roger: So you had some practice. You had some.

Chris: Yeah, so. So, yeah, so it worked out fine.

Roger: So you retire, you had practice, you've discovered road trips with your Florida trip and the cross country trip is a, which is a huge one. So that I think of that. We'll call that the honeymoon. Wow. We've been able to do these things that we haven't done before. As you think about travel, what is your plan, say for the next three or four years? How are you going to approach traveling in retirement?

Chris: It's the hardest part is deciding where we want to go. We have such a long list and we've been fortunate for the last several years. We've joined her brother Scott in Switzerland, which I know some other RRC members have done and are going to do, and it's a wonderful place in Europe.

Roger: Scott's going to be mad that you mentioned the name because when he and I chatted we, he specifically, specifically didn't mention the name in Switzerland. So I mean, there you go.

Chris: Last year we did, at the front end of that trip, to visit with Scott and we went to Belgium and spent eight days in Belgium. We went to Amsterdam, and parts of the Netherlands and went to an F1 race. We became F1 fans a number of years ago. So it was our first F1 race and we did that last year.

Kathy: We spent more time just in Switzerland in Geneva and Zermatt just trying to explore. I guess one of our bigger issues now is we're trying to concentrate on the shoulder seasons.

Chris: Yes.

Kathy: When maybe not so many people are there. So that kind of limits you. Then certain places, well, it's still too wintry here to go. So I like finding the windows that work.

Roger: What percentage of time over a 12 month period do you travel?

Kathy: I mean we've been gone close to three months.

Chris: Three months probably out of the year.

Roger: What is the pull to travel so much?

Kathy: I would say I feel like we didn't travel that much when our kids were smaller. I mean it's so complicated with the kids and the ages and I mean there's only six and a half years from top to bottom. We have three different kids, but, you know, the sports. We were doing sports football camps, and it was revolving around them, and now it's like, it's much more affordable for two people to travel, and you travel when it's maybe a little less inexpensive and it's just simpler. And we just found it. We've just enjoyed it so much learning, like I said. When I was in high school, history was not that exciting to me, but now I'm finding it so much, like, when you're there and you're. It's just so much more interesting.

Roger: That's a great. Yeah. You have more appreciation for history.

Chris: Yeah, for me, it's the same thing. I traveled a lot for work, but it was for work, and so while it was cool and you got to see some amazing places, you just dipped your toe in a bit. It's fantastic to truly be able to explore. As Kathy said, you know, we've. We found this love of learning more about regions and history. And, you know, this last trip we just made to Europe, we spent time in Bosnia and Herzegovina. So we went to Mostar, and we went to Sarajevo. It's 30 years past that the war ended, but it is just devastating how the scars are all still there. And so talking to the locals and learning from them, you know, everything about that has just been kind of interesting.

Roger: As I think about this, it's like a kid walking into an amusement park to explore things that they've never seen before. I don't mean to make it trite in that way, but you finally have the time and the resources and the interest and appreciation to go see new. Because I'm wondering why it is we want to go to far places to travel. I wonder what that is about that.

Chris: We want to do a mix. I mean, we. We've talked about. We've done things now locally, too, because, you know, anyone can say this of where they live. It's like you live somewhere and you don't see and appreciate all the things that are literally right outside your door. And so, you know, we're starting to do more of that, too. Like, we're in New Jersey near the shore, but we're the northern shore near New York City. I had never been south to Cape May before. So like a year ago, we drove down to Cape May, I'd never been there. It's like kind of silly that I'd never been there. So we're trying to mix and match things along the way and just kind of, you know, get some different experiences.

Kathy: Yeah, I mean I'm hoping even, you know, like I said, we had family that was sick and things like that, but hopefully we can do more just, even just for the day trip, like fix, fit more of that stuff in as well.

Roger: Do you think this three month a year travel cycle is a season or do you think this is a new identity as explorers?

Kathy: Right now I feel like when we travel we're still kind of in that hurry up mode. We're trying to get as much in while we're in places. I mean, I feel like at some point we may settle more where we're someplace for a week and we're doing a little bit more just being present in the moment. But right now we're just trying to see as much as we can and we have the energy to do that. So I don't know your thoughts on that.

Chris: Yeah, I think we'll vary. The next cross country trip because we do have a son and fiance now living out in LA. We want to plan more road trips out to see them. We obviously we can fly, but we now know we love doing it. We started to plan another trip. We want to do the northwest region and really, you know, hit Oregon and Washington and a lot of the national parks in that way.

I think one of the things, Roger, to your point, I think one of the learnings that Kathy just brought up is we are trying to jam too much in sometimes. I think, you know, let's back off a little bit. So I started to plot that trip out and now I'm starting to tinker with it and say, okay, you know what, let's do that another time and let's spend more time in these places.

Roger: I had that experience the other day because I use a co working space which is the lobby of 150-year-old hotel and it's right next to the water in Salida. I sit right by the big pan glass window. While I was working, you can sort of see the world go by. I saw a friend go by with a dog, and I got to pet the dog. But I could see the people that were jamming it all in that were here. You could tell they were like, okay, we're going to go right here. We're going to do this, and you could see the different energy in them, you know, not manic, but not chill. So I can see the value of both.

Kathy: Yeah.

Roger: Now, other than work, given the big road trips are new to you, it didn’t sound like you had much anxiety about doing that, logistically or otherwise. What tips or suggestions would you give to others that maybe have never traveled internationally or have never done a big road trip about how to approach it and how to make the most of it and feel comfortable?

Chris: If you have the time and interest.

Kathy: A lot of time.

Chris: There is so much content available to put together an amazing trip for yourself. I've immersed myself in it. Kathy, gets involved in it, and we just sit down and start literally saying, hey, what about this? What about this? We watch videos on this, and we kind of search it out, and you kind of start to then put the beginnings together of a little bit of a block and tackle schedule, and, hey, we can hit these regions. Then Kathy's really good about filling in all the logistics. She'll start to research a little bit about the public transportation and what we want to get and all that sort of stuff. I just think we've made a good team trying to put it together.

Kathy: One of the last trips, you did use some AI to say, what should I like kind of as a starting, what should we do in this area? Then once you figure out how many days you want to be somewhere, then you figure out housing. We do a lot of Airbnb. We found ways to travel and stay in places very, very affordable.

Chris: My game that I do play, Roger, is how low can you go in terms of accommodation price? In terms of accommodation price but still being happy and wanting to be there. So one of the things, you know, we.

Roger: I don't like that game. I don't want to play that game.

Chris: One of the things we've talked about and we both agree on is we want to do this extensive travel, but we don't want to break the bank. One of the first things, in our opinion, that breaks the bank is accommodation and what we learned about ourselves on these trips. We get up early in the morning, especially trips that Involve hiking. You're up and out at 6, 6:30 in the morning. You're not back till the evening. So you're barely at this accommodation that you're spending this money on. Right. So we started the trip last year in Europe. We got mostly private rooms with a private bath, an Airbnb, as opposed to a whole place. We didn't need a whole place. We stayed for eight nights in Ghent, Belgium and it was $80 a night and it was the most lovely experience. We had a whole floor to ourselves. The couple that owned it was wonderful. We met both of their mothers.

Roger: You make a really good point around those things. That's, that, that makes sense to me. I would like to play that game because you get local experience.

Chris: So, that's what I mean. Not some roadside motel for $40. But, hey, if you spend the time and you want to commit to trying to find these places, they're there.

Kathy: Just breaking it down, you know, once you're in an area or region, you figure out where you're staying. He's really great with all these video bloggers.

Roger: There's so much. It's not like going into the, it's not like going into the AAA and getting the trip ticket.

Kathy: They do the kind of hikes I like or they do the kind of city tours that I'm you know, you, you kind of find some that work for you that seem like you can relate to it. There's so many of them and he just goes on YouTube.

Chris: This isn't us because we're doing, you know, two, three months a year. But I've become fascinated with the nomad travelers. Sell everything and just go, again it's not us and we're not going to do it, but there are so many great insights from those folks of their experiences on how to slow down a bit and enjoy an area and just, you know, how to take in the local culture.

Roger: We're going to share a link in The Noodle to a blog from two clients that I have that are full time RV’ers in the U.S. I think they're doing a trip to Alaska this year. Their blog, they go to some of the most amazing places. When we have a meeting, the first 15 minutes, they're giving me the debrief of the experiences that they've had.

Chris: Yeah.

Roger: We'll share that, because there are bloggers like that that have amazing ideas that might not be on, you know, just a normal Google search.

Kathy: My cousin did that for six years. They did the RV thing, went cross country every single year. But they would spend Thanksgiving with us and his parents were out in California so every year they did this loop.

Roger: Okay, last question. Because I could have fun chatting with you guys forever. What is it internally that travel adds to your life?

Kathy: I just feel like it makes learning so much more interesting. Like in person.

Chris: I think it's just expanding your horizons. I used the phrase getting out of your bubble, just, you know, going out and exploring different places. I wouldn't have thought two years ago even that we would travel to Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was one of our favorite places that we visited and explored. It was so interesting and so fascinating to talk to the local people. I just think for both of us, it's just been this better understanding of the world and cultures.

Roger: It sounds like it expands who you are as a person.

Kathy: Yeah.

Roger: Well, safe travels. Make sure you come through Salida. Beautiful place. Do that and we'll take you on a cool adventure here.

Chris: Sounds good. Thanks, Roger.

TODAY’S SMART SPRINT SEGMENT

Roger: All right, on your marks, get set, and we're off to take a little baby step in the next seven days to not just rock retirement, but rock life.

All right, in the next seven days, confirm for yourself that you have some runway of safe assets. I would say at minimum, two years to cover the expenses that you have in your life that's not going to be covered by income anymore. Minimum two years. I went through 2008 with clients with two years cash reserves. We now do five. But at a minimum, check the resiliency of your plan, even if it says it's feasible.

Now that we are done with my grandfather's journal, which is really sad, to be honest with you. I enjoy reading it. I have experienced it differently by reading it out loud with you over the last six months or so. But also so many of you have shared your experiences and your mementos of your grandparents or your parents, and it's just wonderful to see. So thank you so much for all of that. Truly great people.

What are we going to do at the end of the show now? Well, for now, I think I'm just going to share things that I'm really thinking are cool or interesting that I'm curious about or geeking out on. What I want to talk about today is electric bikes.

I'm going to tell you now, electric bikes are game changers. Now, I've been a cyclist, a purist, for decades. I love my analog bikes with carbon and speed and all that, but I also love my electric bike. Got a new one here in Salida. My wife got an electric bike last year and she is not a cyclist. She has some neck issues and so forth. But we got her a bike that is comfortable and she and I just did a 15 mile exploration around the town of Salida. By having an electric bike, it allows both of us to go explore in a whole different way from walking or driving in a car. We could stop and look at the river, we could stop and talk with people. If we see something, we can say, hey, let's go this direction. That's what we did. And she's not a cyclist. Doesn't really matter what age you are, having an electric bike can open up the world to you in a whole different way. They've been coming down in price significantly. So I highly encourage you to check them out even if you don't think of yourself as a cyclist.

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