How Much Do You Need to Retire? (Less Than You’d Think)

hello my dear listeners and welcome to the Bigger Pockets money podcast today we talk to West Moss about the common traits of people who are able to retire early and the ones who are able to maintain a happy retirement yeah you're going to learn from West here an expert who has worked with thousands of retirees and in addition to his game plan for getting to retirement we're also going to get a deep dive on maybe the more important work that he's done in the research that he's conducted onto what makes retirees happy and unhappy so lots to think about there this is a great show hello hello hello my name is Mindy Jensen and with me as always is my 4% rule loving co-host Scott trench awesome Andy great to be here with my always banging on about the uh validity of that 4% rule co-host Mindy Jensen that was awesome Scott that was the best one ever always banging on I love it oh Scott you're so good Scott and I are here to make Financial Independence less scary less just for somebody else to introduce you to every money story because we truly believe Financial Freedom is attainable for everyone no matter when or where you're starting that's right whether you want to retire early and travel the world go on to make big-time Investments and assets like real estate start your own business or cultivate today the things that will take decades to bear fruit but lead to Ultimate happiness in retirement will help you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way you can launch yourself towards those dreams Scott I am so excited to talk to West Moss today he is fabulous and this show is awesome and I don't want to wait another minute to bring him in and without further Ado let's bring in West Moss West Moss is a seasoned Financial educator and a certified financial planner he is the host of the podcast retire sooner and the longtime host of Money Matters a weekly call-in Financial show on 95.5 WSB Atlanta's news and talk Wes is also the author of four books including bestsellers you can retire sooner than you think and what the happiest retirees know Wes welcome to the Bigger Pockets money podcast I'm so excited to talk to you today awesome to be here thank you so much for having me Wes you write a lot about retirement what got you so interested in it so early retirement is something that uh I I think that I've always thought about this relationship M between money and happiness so you know what's enough what is enough money to be able to stop working and I'm I'm always fascinated by Gallup does this there there's there's a bunch of other there's a bunch of research firms that do research around job satisfaction so how much do people like working in America and if you look at like if you look at LinkedIn you'd think that everybody loves their job in the United States right and the reality is as much as we like to say we are the best working culture and I think we are by the way most people just don't like their work they hate it and or or they could take it or leave it and the Gallop poll that originally opened my eyes to this was I don't know 15 years ago and they've continued to update this research and it's still similar to this but it's essentially such that of one in five people in America So 20% do love their job they're totally engaged they're good at it and then three and five Mindy are they don't hate work but they don't love it either they're just take it or leave it it's okay and then one in five dislike their work so much that they're they're trying to bring their company down they they they would like to see their company do poorly they'd like to see their boss get fired they they they'd like to see their Co so think of it think of how how that is in the in the world that we live in 80% of people don't love work but 100% % of people want to get to economic freedom 100% of us want Total economic freedom so to me this idea around just shaving off a year of retirement or two years or or five years for the retired student podcast and the books I've written is really about helping that 80% of people in America just get to a Financial Freedom at a little bit sooner than they otherwise would have here in the United States people in the Finance space mean all sorts of different things when they say retire what does retirement mean to you so I think very simply it's economic freedom it's not having to work at the job that you don't love okay so it sounds like you are defining retirement as synonymous with financial Independence correct okay for the most part okay you know the other thing Mindy too that I've written more about in the last year is UN unretirement this to me is I I discovered this in two different ways one the the the the the the our mission statement for the retire sooner podcast is to help a million people retire at least one year sooner I thought oh that what a million people one year sooner that'd be a million years extra economic freedom and then if you look at the 55 plus civilian labor force it dropped by about two million people in in that year and a half of the in the early days of covid so essentially I I was I remember checking in with this a year after we started the podcast I think wow we just we did it we helped way more than a million people retire early because the the civilian labor force of 55 plus dropped by almost two million people and you can make a case that obviously not all of those people retired but they did leave the labor force for one reason or another and a lot of those people were what I think of pull forward people where they weren't quite ready to retire but Co kind of rocked everyone's world and they said H I I'm I was pretty close to being able to retire I'm just going to pull this forward a year there are a lot of people that just kind of said I'm G to I'm going to retire sooner than I maybe had planned and and then here as we sit here today couple years later almost all of those people have unretired and they're back in the labor force in the 55 plus so there is there's been a movement in the last year and a half to two years of people that said wow maybe retired a little bit early some of it could be some of it is that we've had massive inflation and people that thought they were ready for retirement weren't quite ready for prices to go up by 20% over the course of a couple years and they decided to go back in addition we have a really strong labor force right now it's a really tight labor market so that that experienced group of people the 55 plus have been coaxed back into the labor force because people want them to work and they're entering back into the labor force this unretirement much more on their terms as opposed to working the job that they may not have loved so that that that leads me into a question I wanted to ask here about you said one in five Americans loves their job three is indiffer and one five actively hates it so much they're trying to bring the company down woof interesting stat there um there's an interplay with this you keep using the word economic freedom the way you've used it implies your belief that it is just a broad 100% Universal wish for Americans I I've wondered in the past if as folks progress towards that Journey let's say that they're H most of the way they are getting close to this point of economic freedom Financial Freedom um is there a relationship between the way they feel about their job and the gradual attainment of that goal so for example do the one in5 americ Americans who love their job are they disproportionately folks who have good savings habits wealth uh wealth optionality to leave if things got bad if get bad the ability to speak up and say no I'm not going to take on that responsibility or I'm not going to do it that way if you want me to work here is is that relationship correlated in your mind yeah so so say that again so correlated in that they are there is there's a group that doesn't NE they do love what they're doing they do have good savings habits and they're and they're not trying to run from work is that where you're is is the fact that I hate my job if I'm one of the Americans who hates my job uh is that directly related to the fact that I'm totally dependent on my job and is the fact that I love my job uh likely to be related to the fact that I don't really need I don't I I like it but I don't need it to sustain My Lifestyle yeah that's a awes that's a really I think that's a smart question I I think that to some extent and again I I I I see this not just through these Gallop holes um but just in in the real world it is it's it's hard for people to land in a spot that gives gives them both which is this this career they really feel like they're contributing to the world and they're they're they're being paid well to do it that is that's a really it's kind of a hard thing I wish we could all do that right when you get out of college your graduation speaker kind of tells you that you can do that it's like go out save the world and you're G to follow your passion and it's the money's going to come like that's a it does happen for a fair amount of people and b i we want it to happen for everybody but it's just the reality is that's hard to land and then you end up with having people that they get into a career America's expensive the career's kind of paying for everything they they're paying for life and then they kind of get they get a little bit trapped into it and it's hard to jump out of it so I think it's it's a really good aspiration a fair fair amount of people can do it 20 maybe 30% of Americans find that perfect balance between I really do love this and I'm making money but it's just not as easy as we'd like it to be and May and maybe guys it's because this economy evolves so quickly the army of America productivity is is great but it also can quickly leave people behind that that was going to be another question I always have here is you know we talk a lot about Financial Freedom I love the term economic freedom that um you know same same thing here um whenever Bigger Pockets content or financial you know fire financial Independence retire early content seems to get you know outside of the bubble of the financial Independence Community it's immediately shot down by a hoorde it seems of naysayers who say how ridiculous it is how unattainable it is how it can never get started how the folks that are pursuing Financial Independence can't seem to relate to normal people who would never able to possibly get ahead you know you've said 100% of Americans would take economic freedom and I believe you but I don't think 100% of Americans believe it is attainable or realistic in any sense what what's your take on that that problem set it's Susie orman's fault and here's why I say that because Susie Orman says that you need at least SE $5 million to retire and you need to work till you're at least 70 a very few people can even conceive saving five million dollars in after tax after tax money number one number two not all Americans want to work till they're 70 unless you're in that group that really loves work and again I wish we were all there but not we we as we we know that not everybody's there a lot of people a half 2third I don't know what the exact number is I don't know if gallup's totally right on that but I know and I can just think about the client base I've worked with over so many years most people but by the time they're ready to stop working they it's it's it's pretty rare that people like oh I really love it the other thing is that you've get even someone that does love their job after 30 years of it they're like I'm I've done this for 30 some years like I want to do something else so that's the first step it's and I'm not I'm joking about Susie obviously but the the financial whether it's Wall Street whether it's someone like a a financial pundit that says you need x amount it it makes it seem totally unattainable right to most people say look oh just get the five million bucks okay talk to a 30-year-old about is that really going to work and see how and after a year come back and say are you on path to save $5 million how many people are able to do that so here's here's my answer to that is that I the the world propagates numbers that I think do seem pretty unrealistic then I publish a book 10 11 years ago you can retire sooner than you think and the median value median not mean but the median number to jump from the unhappy to the Happy retire E camp was 500 Grand so wait a minute that's attainable now it's only one of a couple Financial things you need to do but think of it this way 500 Grand pay off the mortgage multiple streams of income and you can live in America and and even to this day now it's been 11 years you can still make that work if you don't have a mortgage and you live I I see people do it every day I've got clients that are I've worked with many families over the years that that spend a their monthly amount of spending is really low and they can to some extent live on that because they have a really good Social Security payment they may have a little bit of a pension and they're married so they have two Social Security payments now I will say those numbers have gone up if you were to adjust that guys today for inflation that median number looks more like 700,000 in liquid retirement savings not net worth liquid retirement savings and about one and A4 million for the average of of that group I th those are those are still big numbers but they're also not I think inconceivable as if you give yourself 20 30 40 years to do it awesome so so one one and a quarter million includes the paid off house right it it does that's a big part of it y you know because I I was I was setting up for a question around what is enough CU that was the word that was a word used really illuminatingly in the very early part of this interview and is that is that your definition of enough for the median uh American who's looking for a comfortable retirement um here and do you think that most people would agree with that definition of enough and it's tight no question about it but if 11 if 10 or 11 years ago you had $500,000 and you had a balanced 6040 S&P 500 and bond portfolio which has been it's been a terrible couple years for bonds but that 500 using the 4% R so taking out 4% plus inflation every year would be over $800,000 today so that worked over the last decade even with the crazy inflation that we've had and and let me do let me just a quick math on that imagine you you have that million in a quarter some people say that's too low some say it's I can't even get there that's crazy high at 42% and I know there's a debate around the 4% rule I think Dave Ramsey came out the other day and said 8% is cool you make 12 fl's four you live on eight there were a lot of YouTube responses to that that I think Mindy just summed up succinctly the the the tone of of many of those responses there I am going to throw out there if you have not yet read through the original Bill bangan article in the Journal of whatever from 1994 I have a copy of that article email me Mindy biggerpockets.com I will send it to you it is fascinating you can do 4% 8% don't bet on it and mayy I'll offer this up too I bangan had not updated his study for like 30 years or it been like 25 years and we had our team just I just we totally recreated it and the 4% rule absolutely works so I actually think of it as a 4% plus rule because it it makes it so that you know it's a little it's a dynamic rule of thumb to follow and it's really it's really more like four to four and a half percent and that's a range that you always want to come back to anyway I don't know of a more important number in all of financial planning because it solves for all the things we're looking it solves for not running out of money that's like kind of important it's a number one thing I always say number I keep saying number one it's a super important thing it's a fear it it hearkens to your allocation says you need at least 50% in equities because that's where you get your inflation protection so it it it it also solves for that and then it solves for inflation it raises your with what what the dollar amount you're withdrawing every single year for whatever inflation is it's so it checks all those super important boxes yet we have an industry that is totally at War over the number Wade Fu foul says you can only do like two and a half percent Dave Ramsey says you can do eight no wonder everybody's so confused just get an email from Mindy she'll she'll walk you through the number the most important Financial rule you need to understand in order to have the confidence to live on the money that you saved I wonder what the $5 million and uh work to your 70 uh advice from Susie Orman implies was that like a 1% half a percent what withdraw rate and then you're working until you're 70 when you don't need to you probably have all this money and then you'll like never spend it because you're 70 and you don't have any place to go now not that 70 is the end I'll be all I hope to still be kicking around when I'm 70 but uh Wes back to what you said your this 500,000 which was a few years ago and now it's 700,000 that is uh including a paid-off house having a paid off house is difficult if you're constantly upgrading your house and you're constantly spending all the money that you have in your account but if you buy a good solid house that's going to fit your needs forever and you don't move it's very easy to have a paid off house and then retire on this 500 700,000 that you were saying and you can still live a comfortable life can you go on extravagant vacations every single week no you'll need more money but you can have a very comfortable retirement yes you can retire and I the people that are arguing against this I just I have to be nice because they're probably listening but I wanted to to shake them and be like could you please listen to what I'm saying I'm saying it's possible let me show you how I agree with the uh 4 per rule I think we've we've talked about this at late we actually Michael kitus I think is you know taken b b banging's work and really evolved it even even further in a lot of ways with those studies I you know if people are going to argue about the 4% rule I think first the wrong and second we're not going to convince them with more discussion at this point but where I think someone will argue with you Wes potentially is saying is 700,000 enough at a 4% withdrawal rate even if I've got a paid off house right I just did some quick math here and 700 Grand at 4% is $2,300 a month and if 4.5% withdrawal rate is $2,600 a month you know could could you walk us through how you'd Invision this you know median you know American maybe maybe not living in one of the most expensive cities in the country but you know in a suburb that's you know got a$ four or $500,000 house how how do they make that work that spending work or at least Bridge it until the time they can collect that social security so if you let's do the math on the 700 which again I I think of this as a bare as a bare minimum in liquid retirement asset that's number one number two we have to remember that we we do need a essentially to have a paid off mortgage because that our living expenses are ultra low and then the third really important piece to this is multiple streams of income now if you have no other streams of income then that combo doesn't work so think of it think of it this way 700,000 four to quarter is about 30 grand a year right doesn't sound like a ton but it's 30,000 plus whatever inflation is over time that's one two Social Security one husband Social Security two wife now you're talking about 3,000 a month for one 2,000 a month for the other that's that's 36,000 a year then 24,000 a year that's that's $60,000 so people this is the other thing that gets a bad rap now you could also say those Social Security numbers sound a little bit High I see Social Security numbers like this all the time for people that have had decent pretty pretty good wages over time put those two together and now you've got 30,000 and 60,000 and that's without even a pension imagine you work for utility company for 20 years or 15 years then you could maybe have and I see people that have you know 1,500 bucks a month I worked for a little while for with a utility company it wasn't a lot but I get 1,500 bucks a month 30,000 from your savings 60,000 from Social Security 1 and Social Security 2 that's 90 a year to to Mindy's Point you're not or to your point Scott you're not maybe living extravagantly but if you don't so you've got your 700 that lead plus your social that leads to 90,000 you're going to be at a super low tax tax bracket by the time you get to retirement extraordinarily low tax bracket and with with with very minimal housing costs if if the mortgage is paid for then that's that's a pretty that that's enough to live even even in America now maybe not San Francisco maybe not New York City but there are a lot of great places in the in the United States that you could go live a really comfortable life on that I'm not not saying it's an extravagant existence but it's it's it's more than and here's the reality it's more than most retirees live on I think like like I buy that I think that that sounds super reasonable I just checked in the median household income in 2022 was 74580 bucks so with a paid off house and the income streams that you just described you know this should be this is not a uh I I think that yeah plenty of people listening to this going to say no I want more than that that's totally fine but this is a very reasonable bar to set for the median American as in terms of what enough is I think um and the next question is you know how realistic is it how does somebody go about approaching that in in your in what's the simplest way that you know you would give advice to somebody to approach that maybe they're starting this a journey at 35 40 years old and want to catch up how how do they get there I think that Scott that's the the reality here is that as long as you give it enough time it's super possible if you as as long as you're giving it 20 25 30 pretty much any any type of savings you put in a calculator at for 35 years at a 7% growth rate and yes the S&P 500 has been more like 11 11 and a half but let's just call it seven or you're going to get it's not too tough to get to a million bucks in savings if you're giv it 35 years so if you're 25 and here's the reality most people are not really thinking about saving all that much to 25 to go to 65 that's 30 years it's a long time but my my wrath is Right 35 45 5 I'm sorry that's 40 years that's 40 years so you could start at 35 and have you you still have 30 years to get to age 65 that's a it's a lot of time for compounding there well yeah and if you're starting then you don't have to be putting away 50% of your income it can be a nominal part of your income that isn't really pinching and I think that a lot of people don't understand that they're like oh well I've got to you know really live like like a a miser in order to be able to retire and and I mean Scott do you remember we had a a talk at work once where we were just presenting this idea to our co-workers and one of our co-workers raised her hand and she's like I don't want to stay for retirement right now I'm young I want to live and I was like oh okay I don't have any comment for that Medium pocket I don't have that pocket the but the other thing thought is I think back to our conversation Mindy when you were on the retire sooner podcast and and your expertise around real estate and how you do it with buying a property fixing it up selling a property and doing that in a really constructive methodical way over time uh I've had a lot of families I've worked with over the years that the the liquid retirement savings part of their overall plan is is not the majority of it the when I say multiple streams of income I take that super seriously it is social security number one it's social security number two so you and a spouse if you're married and it's obviously financially a little easier to be retired because you're splitting costs if if you have a partner or a spouse but then it's not just that there are pensions are still a real thing there's not a lot of 25y olds are going to have with them when they're 60 but they're not they're not D they're not extinct they're they're very real number one number two a little bit of real estate income can go a really long way I'm not saying you need to be a land baron and have every greenhous on the Monopoly board but one rental property two rental properties cash flowing a th000 2,000 bucks a month I mean I'm not again we're not talking about you know the Empire State Building here but but when I say multiple streams of income that's that is another one that can obviously be extraordinarily powerful I love it I think that that's that's the key is right is these these additional streams of income and if you can you know I we don't talk very much about social security and pensions here on Bigger Pockets money because most I think of the the folks listening are really thinking about how to achieve this goal early and you know Social Security is kind of that that that think that uh you know it seems very distant to me sitting here at age 33 as an income stream um but it's super real and we had a big we had a discussion about this um uh a while back with Tom from the mle fool uh in a great discussion there and and look you know that is going to be there for this generation it's not going to maybe 100% all be there for the Millennials but something north of probably 65 70% will be there and if you're not factoring into the planning here that that's a I think that's a mistake because that absolutely will be I think something that that Americans can count on to some degree Scott here's a here's a I'd say a broader example of that when I hear pension I think federal government I think utility worker we're in I'm in the South so Southern Company is the giant utility here and if you work for them you've got a pretty serious pension but think of how many teachers there are in the United States there are think of how many teachers there are in every single state I've been working with a teacher for the last 20 years who she was so young when we would talk about her pension it seemed like it was ridiculously far off she I just got an email two Friday nights ago it's like 6:30 on a Friday night and she goes I just I found out that I've only got like what you know 11 months left and I hit 30 years she started teachers start early she started when she was like 24 34 44 54 years old you do 30 years at in Georgia and this is I've looked looked at a lot of other states Texas is almost exactly the same you get 60% of your your highest threeyear salary for the rest of your life add Social Security to that add another social security to that add a paid off house pretty much came over and you too can be on a private island like Susie Orman and this is you know this is coming from the book you can retire sooner than you think it isn't coming from the book you can retire and do roundtrip cruises luxury cruises around the world every single day for the rest of your life think about having a basic retirement and then okay I've SE I've cemented that what do we call that coastfi now I know that I can have a great basic retirement I don't want a basic retirement I think I want a little bit more okay then save a little bit more bump that number up a little bit more read my 4% rule article Mindy at biggerpockets.com I will send it to you and just keep going up until you have the level of retirement that you want Wes you you do you you you done a great job walking us through kind of the basics around enough and and you know how people feel about you know retiring and moving toward economic freedom but I think a huge body of your work has to deal with this concept of happy retirement and so can you define happy versus unhappy retirement and what you've uncovered or thought through as it relates to that whether it's philosophical or practical yeah I think that and I I've done this through a couple different means guys I've done this through research trying to which is really kind of informed some of these areas of that are let's say not exactly money based uh through I I did a surve I I did my first research study back in call it 2013 around this and asked Financial questions and lifestyle questions but then to separate the happy versus unhappy group really I took the top two quintiles I had five quintiles of of of scoring if you will and took quintile four and five the the happiest group the centile one and two throughout the middle and then compared those two groups so some of this is just through survey data the the other is just seeing this now in practice because I did that 11 some years ago and then seeing how that's played out over the last 10 plus years I I can see how it works in practice and in in real life so I think of that softer side of retirement guys is the One Core Pursuits which is you may not have to have this Grand purpose I I got an email from a a liter that said Wes I feel like when you you talk about core Pursuits you're putting too much pressure on me like you're saying the need to be these need to be your life passions and he said my only BL passion is my family and my wife and then he listed all these things he likes to do like plays guitar every week he goes SEC football games every you know every weekend in the fall he has a band he's he plays pickle ball in tennis he runs I was like dude you got a million core Pursuits that's that's all I'm asking I'm not saying you need to have be the dolly llama in retirement but having three to five things that you you love to Chase and that you love to improve on and take up time and give you structure that's all we need those are core Pursuits so that's that's a big part of the retirement happiest quoti is to have 3.6 core Pursuits unhappy retirees have 1.9 so less than two close to four that that to me is the first one and then socialization and then family those are the three really big pieces of uh and health I get which is kind of goes without saying but that's the softer side of retirement that is really insightful data here what does socialization mean for what you were talking about as a second point there how does one set themselves up for success in early or traditional retirement one organized social group at least that that so what is how do you actually what's the rubber beat the road there or how where's the rubber meet the road you got to have one organized social group or more and my only definition for that is that it meets once a month right regularly that's it and and that's not if somebody doesn't have an organized social group then that I think is a pretty attainable goal and it sets the foundation for your socialization now of course you can do way more than that and I'm sure you your listeners like well I'm I have church and a Bible study and I've got a running group and a tennis team and my golf buddies like for some people that's no big deal and for some people it's like well what do you mean like how do I how do I do this socialization thing all I was all I did was work and a lot of entrepreneurs are like this like I made all this money I all I did was really work though how do I get how do I have friends outside of work and work work friends are cool too and they're fine but they don't they're not there forever unless we work forever so that is one very practical thing that I think I've seen people do it's it that absolutely Works to to give you a social Foundation this is all in your book happy what the happiest retirees know I believe so guys but I get it confused on which book is in what I don't even know okay so you got to buy all the books all all the books in order to get no no no no it's it's this book I love it I think I this is this is super fascinating here and and I wonder how many of these patterns are set not in the Years leading up to retirement but all of your adult life heading up into that point is that is that right I think of the word I didn't use this in these books but I as I write new things about this is that I probably missed the word cultivation such a we all know that like again we just talked about retirement you you've got got to have a really long run day way to make it to get to the 700 to get to a million and a quarter to get to whatever it is you got to have 20 30 40 years minimum for most people it it to some extent it is better and more helpful to do these other areas like socialization like core Pursuits to cultivate them all along the way so you're doing them in your 30s so important because it's harder to just kind of reset and start when you are 60 and you've probably no folks maybe your listeners can can visualize this where you have you you have friends or you have a couple where one of the the two says they need to get stuff they need to have more Hobbies they need to have more things to do I do a lot of things I do this and I do that but Jim doesn't do anything he just likes to work and his he PID around and has only there's only one thing that Jim likes and so Jim can go get a bunch of core Pursuits and he can go start being maybe social if he's not already but I think it's really hard if you're in your 60s and you're kind of starting this so I think if you're cultivating it in your 30s knowing that it is absolutely 50% of the equation for a happy retirement the money side's one half lifestyle is the other half and yeah I think it's much better to cultivate them over time cuz this core Pursuit and the socialization thing are obviously interrelated right I mean like what you just said like here here are the social one group well if that's pickle ball group then you're good if that's the what you know whatever the the core Pursuit is there seems like a really high overlap between those two things in my mind there and then that leaves the family piece which is another one that's cultivated over a lifetime of course and and one of my I think the most practical statistics out of that research and I see I see this in play over and over and over again is that there's some there we we don't want our we we want independent children I I think the millionaire next store book talked a lot about millionaires have independent kids the along that same theme if you if you don't want your kids you you don't want your adult children to live with you but you you want them to live near you and those uh uh parents that live near half their kids so let's call it you got four kids you live near two of them and they're in the in the same city let's say or the same state so you can you can see them on a relatively frequent basis the happiness levels there are through the roof relative to someone that has three kids and all three kids live in a different state that's that's not great long term for for the retiree and it's not great and and you don't have a ton of control over that and but it it's something that I just think that I it's super important to be near your adult kids in one way or another as an adult kid not close to where my parents are currently living I age it uh has changed our relationship it's changed their relationship with their grandkids because you're just not there to see them um I I completely agree Mindy here's the other thing is it the question I have on all of this is it just a statistic or is it prescriptive like can you do something about it and the answer is on this this is one of the harder ones to do something about it but it's it's not impossible and I've I've seen families that are and I've seen I think about our our family uh I've got four I'm one of four siblings and one of my siblings just by work and school he he was pulled from the east coast to the west and once you go to California you get like sucked in and it's really hard to leave because you can surf and you can snowboard all in the same day if you really wanted to and if you married somebody from there their family's from there and guess what you ain't leaving so it's it's not like it's it's not the parents' fault that the kids just scattered all over the country but I've seen I've seen very often a a a family in their 60s or 70s make the conscious decision to say gosh I think we really liked I thought we were going to like Florida but I have three kids and six grandkids and they're in Georgia and I'm going I'm going back to Georgia because that I that is that is home for me and it's home because my kids are still there and my grandkids are there and that's something you can do you can do something about it you can move yeah it's it's got to be a conscious decision and it has to be something that you know everybody's on board with and if you can't be by all of your kids maybe three of them are in you know a certain location or close enough that you could be by most of them um but yeah uh it was not meant to be for me and my family and that's you know that's just the way it happens and you can pick your favorite exactly yes pick your favorite kid that always works out well you have four kids right Wes which one's your favorite they're not adults yet so I'm sure I'll have a favorite the older they get right now they're all they're not s yeah they're still young enough that I would say I still love them equally yes yes I love my girls equally as well Scott only has one so he can have a favorite right now yeah I got a lot of I got a lot of work to do in pursuit of retirement here and and getting first those kids then those grandkids and then uh you know your baby's one you can't have grandkids for a while got a lot of cultivation to do okay Wes this has been so much fun I really appreciate your time do you have any final thoughts for our listeners I would just say that the theme today and I know that this is this is a theme for you guys but it's the this attainability that it's not impossible to get to whether it's Financial Freedom or econom I don't know why I call it economic freedom but to me that's that's the term that that resonates and all of it's hard and it's all and it takes a long time and if you look at the wealth statistics in America you could just they're they're they're pretty D you know you can easily if you just scary retirement statistics and it's 60% of people have not you know have one year of retirement savings you know uh so you you hear a lot of scary statistics and I think it knocks people down before they get started very often that I can't even I can't even win at this game so I'm not even going to start the race and I think the work that you are doing and we're trying to do as Educators is we're trying to make it more attainable for more people it'll never be for everybody but if we can take it from only 5% of people can really do this to 25% of people that can that can do this I think that's a good thing for the world W I'm sorry I know we just asked for a rapid question but I I do have one more here you mentioned that there was the cultivation of Court Pursuits the socialization the family did wealth the the number end up anywhere on the list and how far down was it yeah okay so the answer was yes but then it plateaued um it absolutely was it was it was a there was more there was absolutely more happiness her uh whether it was whether it was income whether it was savings liquid retirement savings happiness levels Rose the more income Rose and the more overall liquid savings Rose however at a certain point there was diminishing marginal happiness per new dollars that's a fascinating topic and that's what that's what I found in my research however there's research out of Wharton that that says that's not true and happiness levels just keep going up and up and up and up and up and up the more money we have sounds like it's going to be like the it's the new 4% rule nobody will argue it forever there's no perfect answer I I just think that it's really just about getting to a found AAL number and then beyond that it doesn't really increase your happiness more money more happiness I guess we having be having to do more Bigger Pockets money here for a long time then if if uh that research proves out well and that's why and that's why let me and I want to clarify this too to me those happy versus unhappy that that inflection point that's that that median of 700,000 and I think it's and happiness may not be the perfect word for that it may just be up I've got enough financial Foundation to not be I'm not wor I can make things work work forever uh I think that's an inflection point awesome Wes where can people find out more about you and read these books and get access to some of the data and the research that you've uncovered in your awesome career here so just retire sooner team.com retire sooner team thank you so much really appreciate it really enjoyed the discussion and um thanks for all the work you do yeah thank you guys really it's so fun to be on a podcast um thank you guys thank you Wes this was super super fun I always love talking to you and we will talk to you soon thanks VY holy cat Scott that was West Moss and that was a fantastic episode I loved hearing from him I loved hearing the tips for what makes somebody happy absolutely agree 100% to sum it up you need to have something to do in retirement and if you don't you are going to have a very miserable and rather short retirement because uh can I be very blunt Scott you're going to die right you are Mindy uh uh uh yeah on on that particular dark note here here here are some things that I that I took away from it though right is you know we've talked extensively about the game plan to get there I I love his definition of enough right I mean every retirement and every journey to Financial Freedom begins with defining the goal posts and setting achievable goals and getting them knocking those out and not having them move and become more and more and more and more and more over time and I thought his definition of enough was very carefully constructed very thoughtful and very powerful now an early retiree someone their 30s 40s or maybe early 50s probably going to need to be a little bit bump those up a little bit because Social Security is so far away um that they're going to need other income streams and will probably be uncomfortable with a diminishing net worth along that uh journey to traditional retirement age but um the principles are are really helpful there and I I like I mentioned earlier I got even more out of the what makes you happy in retirement discussion than I did about out of the game plan uh piece and lots to think about there in terms of cultivating you know I'm glad we had that last question about uh total net worth because there is a point to accumulating a little bit more and there is additional happiness probably that comes with having the more optionality with a bigger pile of money at the end of the day but more important than that are the core Pursuits are the family dynamics that you start in your 20s 30s growing up uh 40s 50s 60s 7s 80s uh the friends and the Social Circles that you cultivate and you know that thrw some light on the fact that you know um I'm glad I I'm glad I played uh more video games uh rather than going outside growing up because that is a lifetime Hobby and rugby while I loved it very much is probably not something I'm be able to do in a uh retirement whether early or traditional so what about you Mindy what what what did you learn from today's conversation well I'm definitely not going to be playing rugby when I'm 70 uh but if you do Scott you should play a 70 and up rugby league I bet there's other ruggers out there that are that are wanting to play but you know there's sevens rugby so 70s I they like that yeah there you go um I I could not agree more with his uh core Pursuits yes all you need something to do in your retirement and I have seen this um I I like that he says core Pursuits I have seen this in Carl's early retirement where he is pursuing everything he wants to do this and this and this and this and this and he is busier now than he ever was when he had an actual job and you know figure it out now what it is that you love to do because Carl has started to he's been retired for five years he is starting to figure out what he likes to do what he doesn't like to do but it's been a process and he could have been paying attention to this a little bit sooner but he was so focused on the end goal of retiring early that he didn't he knew he had to have something to do in retirement but he didn't really focus on core Pursuits so you know just like you've got a bucket list think about your retirement bucket list what are the things that you want to spend your days doing I just think that there's there's not enough thought given to actually what you're going to be doing after retirement um especially in the early retirement community so uh think about how you're going to be spending your days more so than just collecting the money yeah running to something rather than away from something right exactly that oh wow thanks Scott succinct is his middle name all right Scott should we get out of here let's do it that wraps up this episode of the Bigger Pockets money podcast he is Scott succinct trench and I am Mindy not succinct Jensen saying see you roundtown Bigger Pockets money was created by Mindy Jensen and Scott trench produced by kayin Bennett editing by Exodus media copyrighting by Nate weinrub lastly a big thank you to the Bigger Pockets team for making this show possible [Music] w

Channel: BiggerPockets Money

Views: 51,775

Keywords: retire, retire early, how much do you need to retire, how much money do you need to retire, early retirement, how to retire early, financial independence retire early, financial independence, financial freedom, FIRE, the fire movement, fire movement, the 4% rule, 4% rule, the four percent rule, retirement investment, retirement saving, how to invest for retirement, 401k, 401(k), retirement age, wes moss, biggerpockets, biggerpockets money, biggerpockets money podcast, podcast

Id: HVMyZ7no2eI

Length: 48min 13sec (2893 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 16 2024