Am I Wrong to Worry About Retirement, with $2 Million Saved?

29:30Powerful takeaway. Just a huge, huge takeaway. As you can tell, I love these books. Yeah. Yeah, the research that they have done on U.S. millionaires is incredible. Yeah, still maybe second to none. Yeah, yeah, even now, even 30 years later. So thank you, Stephen, for the question. And best of luck calculating the objective truth of your own personal financial situation, which is independent of anyone else's and which has nothing to do with your age. We're going to take a moment to hear from the sponsors who make this show possible. And when we return, we're going to hear from a caller who is wondering how to factor for the value of his home when he's thinking about his net worth.

30:16So we're going to hear from him. And then after that, we are going to address a question from a listener. She and her husband are both in their 50s. Their children are now young adults. And they're also worried that they might be worrying too much. So we're going to address both of those questions coming up next.

31:02us at discoverlankaster.com slash amplified.

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33:23Welcome back. Our next question comes from Jack.

33:29Hi, Paula. Jack here. I have a, I hope, a pretty straightforward question. I try to keep track of my wife and I's net worth just to keep tabs on retirement goals and stuff. And I don't really know what to do with our house. So obviously, it's an asset. But at the same time, we don't own it outright yet. It seems silly to go to Zillow and look at how much Zillow is valuing the house and then subtract from that number how much we owe still. And hopefully that number is positive. Most of the time it is lately, which would imply the outstanding debt is less than the value of the house in the marketplace.

34:06But then there's closing costs and all that other stuff. So we don't plan on ever selling the house, but what should we do with it? Should we just leave it out of our net worth? Should we do that rote, simple calculation I just put forth using Zillow? Or is there something else we should do. Curious for your thoughts. Thanks. Jack, that's a fantastic question. So first, there is a debate. I just want to acknowledge that there is no consensus within the personal finance world. There is a debate, and I have a strong take on where I land on this, about whether or not a person's primary residence should be considered when calculating their net worth.

34:45So there are some people who believe that you should leave your primary residence out of your net worth statement entirely. And their argument is essentially, you always need a place to live. And therefore, for some reason, you should just leave that out. I think you can tell where I come down on this argument by just the fact that the way that I'm describing it, I completely disagree. I think that your personal residence belongs on your net worth statement. But there are some people in the personal finance space who disagree with that. So I should state that for the record. If you ever wonder what Uber nerds do on a Friday night, yeah, we debate this.

35:26At the bar. Yeah. It is horrible. There's three beers in and all of a sudden the fisticuffs come out. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So I try to do justice to their argument. Their argument is with the rest of your net worth, you can sell those assets. You can draw down on those assets. If you're calculating the assets that are in your brokerage account, or if you're calculating income that's coming in from rental properties, or if you're calculating the value of gold or art or Bitcoin or whatever the heck else you own, those are all assets that you can either produce an income stream from, such as a rental property, or that you can sell.

36:13And by virtue of selling, you also really produce an income stream. So their argument is essentially that you would never do that with your primary residence and therefore you shouldn't count it. That's the position from which they come. And the position that I espouse, Paula, which is closer to yours, is let's look at the ways, even if you think you're not going to sell the house, that you still might need that number. Number one, if in the future you get this great opportunity to buy into a business and the business needs to take out debt and you're a part owner, they're going to want a net worth statement from every person involved.

36:51And this number clearly belongs on the net worth statement. It's going to make you look better in terms of the bank. Or if for some other reason you decide that you need to borrow funds. They're going to want to know what your net worth is. They're going to want to know what collateral they might have available. This truly belongs on the net worth statement. I do think though, Paula, in defense of people that are like, okay, you're never going to sell it and it's not something that you're going to use to reach your goals like Stephen was talking about. We'll never put the house as money, the equity inside the house as money we're going to use to get our FI number or to put kids through whatever the goal might be.

37:28If I'm not going to use it for that, I think personally, Jack, going to that Zillow number and looking at it, it's kind of sloppy, but it doesn't really matter that it's a little sloppy. I mean, don't get me wrong. There's some Zillow numbers. You look at them and you laugh and you go, are you kidding me? There's no way I get that. Okay, then don't use a Zillow number. Okay. So, but I think, Joe, if I can cut in here for a moment, I think we're now conflating two different questions. So A, there's the premise of his question. Should this number be counted? And then B, there's the question of if it is counted tactically, how do I do that?

38:07Exactly. And so I want to address B second. Separately. Okay, fine. Yeah, I want to address that separately. Sticking just with A then, the answer is, of course it counts. Yeah. Put it on the sheet. If I'm three beers in, I'm coming hard at the other nerds telling them, nope, it goes on the sheet. Yeah. And I should add, just to round out why Joe and I both agree on question A, the premise of should it be counted. There are plenty of people who will tap the equity in their primary residence for various things. There are people who will take out a loan against their primary residence to start a business.

38:49There are people who will take out a loan against their primary residence to buy a rental property. That is money that you can tap. And yes, when you're borrowing against your primary residence, you borrow against a percentage of it, maybe 70%. So you're not borrowing the entire thing. But it is still value that's on your balance sheet. It's still money that is yours. And how many times have we taken questions on this show from people who have led with, my circumstances have changed. It counts. It's real. It's real value. Exactly. And that's the other thing is I talked in the last question about what would you do if the proverbial poop hit the fan?

39:31It's a question I think about a lot. If there was truly some type of an emergency situation, a theoretical person might sell their primary residence, move into a tiny apartment and use that money for the big emergency thing. Money is a tool. And in some type of a dire situation, that is a tool at your disposal. It is an option that you have, even if you never exercise that option. So I think all the tools should be counted. So anyway, that is why Joe and I both agree on the premise of, yes, count your primary residence towards your net worth. Moving then to part B of the question, which is tactically, how do you do this?

40:16So there are a couple of different methods depending on how accurate you want to be. And again, I'll start this with don't conflate precision for accuracy, because all of these, the following tactics that I'm about to describe will give you a number that feels unduly precise. advice and sometimes precision can be conflated with accuracy. So tactic number one, it is a variant of what you talked about, Jack, when you talked about Zillow, but it goes a little bit beyond that. So what I do, this is actually what I do personally when I'm putting together a spreadsheet of my net worth. I will go to Zillow, to Redfin, to Trulia, to homesnap.com, to realtor.com, I will go to a wide variety of websites that estimate home value.

41:08And I will note all of those home values, all of those estimated home values on a spreadsheet. If there's any one that is like a weird outlier number, typically if you're pulling five numbers from five different websites, all of which are algorithmically generated, Four out of five might be fairly close to one another. Oftentimes there's one out of five that's some weird outlier, sometimes two out of five that's a weird outlier. I throw away the outliers and then with the ones that are relatively close to one another, I take the average. And so that is a variant of using Zillow, but it isn't reliant on a single source where there is then that single source failure.

41:53Instead, it's taking the average of a bunch of algorithmic predictions minus the outliers. So that's one way in which you can do it. Another way, a second tactic, which is more accurate but more time intensive, is to look at comparable recently sold homes in your area. So what a real estate agent would do if they were trying to assess the value of your property is they would look at comparable homes that have sold within the last 60 days. They're not looking at the listing price. They're looking at the actual closing sales price. Now, when I say comparable homes, homes are, of course, very different from one another.

42:38There are going to be certain homes. Maybe there's a home that sold within a mile of yours, but it has one extra bedroom. or one fewer bedroom, or it has a swimming pool and yours doesn't, it has a fireplace and yours doesn't. There are going to be these variations. And so what real estate agents do is they will make adjustments, either plus or minus, that smooth out that variation between the comparable property and your home, which is referred to as the subject property. And by virtue of making those plus minus adjustments, you then can approximate how well that comparable home sale applies to your own subject property home sale.

43:23And then if you do that with three or four comparable recent sales, you can arrive at a pretty good estimate of what your home could probably sell for at this moment. So that practice, which is known as running comps, It's much more labor intensive, which is why if I'm just putting together a spreadsheet for my own edification, I don't bother doing it because I don't need to be that accurate. So the juice isn't worth the squeeze, but that would be a more accurate way to do it if you really want to approach that. Yeah. Option one, if there are no pending deals where I'm going to need that equity to show up, option one, doing it the first way that you suggested, I think is clearly that approach has more efficacy.

44:13If we're thinking about time versus the squeeze. Yeah. There is a third way, which is great. I have a real estate professional lives right across the street from me. Great friend of mine. And she does that stuff for fun. So if you can do option too, because your friend likes to do it for fun. Joe's solution is find someone else to do the hard work. Delegate. But actually, you know, some real estate pros, they do think it's fun. Yeah. And you can even say to them, I would say to Amy, our neighbor, I go, Hey, I don't know if, if this would be fun for you, but what do you think my house is worth?

44:48She's like, Oh, I'll pull some comps. Great. And then she'll go, I think I could sell it for X amount of money. there it is perfect and amy's super good at her job now if amy sucked at her job i mean i think i could sell it for a lot yeah so you can do any one of those tactics list it jack put it on the sheet list it on your net worth statement not listed on the market i was like joe that that is a fairly dramatic tactic wow i mean it would give you market data but geez. Jack, just list your house.

45:29I was trying to get the cop, but I accidentally sold my house. I think I made an error. Might be a bridge too far. Yeah. Great question. How many nerds do you think we enraged with that, Paula? Wait, I want to address one final piece of Jack's question also, because he said, if I did sell it, there would be transaction costs. Technically, even in a hypothetical world where he wanted to access that value, he wouldn't be able to tap that entire value. There are transaction costs associated with that sale. So Jack, what I would say is if you want to adjust for that, I would just give yourself a 6 % haircut.

46:10And again, it depends on how much specificity and how much accuracy you want the spreadsheet to have. If you're compiling the spreadsheet for your own edification because you want to see that you are directionally creating progress, you could do it if you're putting together a spreadsheet for business partners and it's going to be audited. It's still not typically commonplace to do that. So even in that situation, if you want to take a 6 % haircut just as a rough round number to adjust for those transaction costs, I don't think it matters a lot one way or the other. Not to mention with that lawsuit settlement from the National Association of Realtors, the entire cost structure of what will it cost to sell a home is now totally up in the air.

47:01So we're going to have new precedent being set. What I like about your 6 % number. What's that? It's conservative. I like my balance sheet to be very conservative, especially when it comes to the value of a house, which will change in so many ways. So many ways. You put your house up for sale and that number is going to blow in the wind. Yeah. So if you make your costs toward the high end, that's good. If you negotiate a better deal than that later, it's extra money in your pocket. Well, thank you for the question, Jack. We're going to take one final break to hear from the sponsors who make the show possible.

47:43And when we return, we're going to hear from a listener. She and her husband are in their 50s. They have a$2.2 million net worth, no debt, but they're worried. We'll hear from her next.

47:57This Friday, the NBA on Prime tips off with their debut doubleheader. First up, Boston brings the action to the Garden as the Celtics face the New York Knicks. Then out West, it's a battle of the superpowers as the Lakers try to poster the relentless pace of the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Celtics and Knicks, who has the most hustle in defense? This game will come down to who wants it more. And the Timberwolves and the Lakers, it's two Western Conference heavyweights going toe-to-toe. Buckle up, folks. This one's going to be electric. Celtics-Knicks, T-Wolves and Lakers. Coverage starts Friday, 7 o 'clock Eastern, only on Prime.

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49:12Welcome back. Our final question today comes from Patricia.

49:41works from home and makes about$165 ,000 a year with additional cash bonuses up to$100 ,000 gross and stock bonuses of restricted stock units and performance units, averaging$35 ,000 per year. For the past three years, we've used the cash bonuses to buy cars for son 19 and daughter 18 and replace our much-loved travel van. The stocks have been cashed out and are in a money market brokerage account. Some of our financial basics. Our net worth is about$2.2 million with no debt. We have$1.2 million in IRAs and Roth IRAs invested at T. Rowe price with a mix of 70 % index and mid-cap funds and 30 % bond and U.S.

50:31Treasury long-term index funds. A target date 401k, to which we contribute the max and catch-up amount to each year, and an HSA that we also max out yearly and haven't used. We have about$150 ,000 in an emergency fund that's a high-yield money market account. The remaining$950 ,000 is our house, valued at about$625 ,000, a second home in Michigan near Lake Michigan, and the cars. Right now, we spend about$100 ,000 a year on living expenses, which will drop to about$65 ,000 a year in retirement after direct costs associated with our kids are gone. Both have college costs covered between scholarships, tuition reimbursements from my daughter's career path, and they each have a$529 ,000 with about$60 ,000 each for any additional expenses.

51:22My husband is planning on a pre-retirement in 2030 where he'll be working from a travel trailer while we tour the U.S. with an eye out for possible retirement locations. Otherwise, we'll stay here or head back to Michigan. Full retirement will be in 2031. That's when I'm eligible for Medicare and can start taking my Social Security of$1 ,700 a month and using savings and investments for living expenses until husband takes his Social Security at$70 at$4 ,300 a month. I keep feeling like it's not going to be enough and we should be doing more. Please tell me I'm wrong. So, Pat, thank you so much for the question.

52:04This is, Paula, one of my favorite questions that we've ever had. So, Pat, I really, really like this question because this is, in some ways, a hardcore financial planning question, which I always enjoy. But I also like the fact that this is also a behavioral question in the middle of it. So let's tackle it right from the end. The note you ended on is, please tell me I'm wrong. So I'll tell you, you're wrong. Because you are wrong. Now, you've already done this math, but let me go over this. And this is some back of the envelope stuff, Paula. I'll just do this to look directionally. You and I were talking about before we even hit record today that with regard to Steven's question earlier, I don't like the rules of thumb.

53:08Where should I be at 30, 40, 50, those types of things. But what I do like, just to very quickly get where I want to go, some of the shorthand stuff. So if a million dollars equals$40 ,000 a year in expenses during retirement and Pat and her husband's net worth is$2.2 million of which 950 ,000 of that is houses. Getting back to Jack's question and assuming that she doesn't want to sell those homes, I then lop off a million dollars, 950 ,000-ish. she is now at one and a quarter million dollars, which is available without doing any real estate transactions for her goal. That would equal then conservatively about$50 ,000 a year.

54:01She wants to live on 65. So the work, Pat, is not done. It's not done. And my very first question is tell me about these two houses. How much of that equity is in the game for your financial independence years? How much is not? And we'd have a discussion there first. But I think you can make it without it. You're only$15 ,000 away. And we're talking about 2030. And based on the fact that you're now empty nesters, and I'm assuming based on the fact that the money for stocks have already, that money's already gone to the kids' cars. We've checked that box. You've already checked all these boxes.

54:42I'm assuming then some of that money in future years may be able to also supplement making up the difference. Man, I think if you're not there, you are close. You are very, very, very close. I could tell you that though all day long. And I don't know, Pat, if I were in your shoes that I would believe it because back when I was a financial planner, I knew a lot of people like you, Pat, people that would worry and it would keep them up at night. This is not a little worry. This is a big worry. This is a, are we stepping in it with the rest of our life? And if I stop working, am I going to mess everything up?

55:26And because of that, people have, and you've seen this before, Paula, one more year syndrome. I'm just going to work another year, a little icing on the cake just to make sure. And you know what ends up happening? You end up wasting valuable time because of your fear and uncertainty. I think the only way that I, when I was a financial planner, was ever able to help somebody pass that fear is working with you one-on-one on cold, hard numbers. Not the back of the envelope stuff that I just did. Cold, hard numbers. Here's where you'll be next year based on your plan. Here's where it would be the year after that.

56:09Here's where you're going to be the year after that. And we go through each of those numbers and you feel confident then about all the assumptions we're making, not the back of the envelope that equals 40 ,000. So I think you're around 50. That was very quick. I wouldn't do that. I would be very comfortable with all the assumptions. I would know what the assumptions are in my plan. And I will tell you that for my quote, hypochondriac clients, which I don't think it's hypochondriac, by the way, I think this is rational. I think if everybody tells you not to worry, you can tell them where to go.

56:43Because no matter what I tell you, you're going to worry until you get those numbers. And I think what's really cool is the only thing that is undisputable is math. Those numbers are cold. They are cold numbers when those numbers tell you good things and you know when they tell you bad things. And I think even if you find holes in your plan, I think you'll be far more comfortable with the holes when you know exactly where that Achilles heel is. When you know where that is, I think you're going to be far more comfortable. So what I would do is I would hire a financial planner specifically to help you dive into those numbers.

57:30This is a perfect time to sit down with somebody who's done this before, because that will also give you a sense of calm. You may retire once. Your goal is to retire once. When I was a financial planner, Pat, I probably retired 150 times, Paula. You mean you retired 150 people? Yes. I've been through it so many times, and every time I could do it with more certainty. So being next to someone who's done this 125 times, 200 times, that also can give you some confidence because they've seen you before. They go, oh, yeah, this is how we handled that. And I think that experience will also give you confidence because you only want to do it once.

58:15So I think you're doing great. There are things that I certainly would do differently. We can get into that later if we choose to. I don't know that we need to. I want to know what should she do differently? Because as I was listening to all of her numbers, they sound spot on. I mean, she's handled her finances very, very well. I think so too. I'm particularly impressed by the 529s. They're funded. The kids are 19 and 18. I mean, wow, they've done an amazing job. I can add two more to that. You know, it's funny during all these higher interest rate times that we've been in lately, the number of times I still see people that don't have a high yield savings account.

59:00The fact that her emergency fund is in a high yield savings account, I think it's fantastic. And you know what? It's not a ton of money, Pat, but it's money and it counts and it gets you there faster. And the number of times I've had conversations, people going, you know, okay. So I go to from half a percent to 5%. $30 ,000 or 50, whatever the number is. That is free money. It's free FDIC insured money. Why would I not have my emergency fund and a high yield savings account? If you're walking your dog right now and you don't have money in a high yield savings account, I'm not talking to Pat, I'm talking to you, you, not them, you.

59:40Because I know there's so many people listening to this right now that are going, oh yeah, that's me. But that's a great one. The HSA maxing that out yearly. How great is that, Paula? Yeah, I love the HSA max out. The HSA has triple tax advantage. There is no better tax advantage to count than the HSA. It's wonderful. So Pat, I think you're rocking those things. Obviously the houses, I think that's fantastic having some real estate presence. That's great. And you may not even count that real estate, which is also cool. The two things that I think you could do better, and this will go hand in hand with, I think when you meet with a financial planner, that 401k being in a target date fund, the target date fund is going to quote, land the plane too soon.

1:00:31Meaning it's too conservative. It is too conservative. Even if let's say you said 2030, 2031, let's say use a 2035 fund. Because these companies don't want to be sued, they will still be more conservative than they need to be to ensure that you have a safe landing and don't lose money. But because of the fact that what I'm telling you to do and what's going to give you certainty, which I think you really need just the confidence to know that you're as well off as Paul and I both think that you are. I think when you're in the middle of getting that confidence, what's going to give you confidence is knowing kind of when you're going to spend those dollars.

1:01:11So let's get rid of the target date fund and instead target specific amounts of money into the bucket of time when you're going to need that money. I will bet that will create a little bit more aggressive allocation, but it will also create a much, much bigger amount of money for you in the future because of the fact that you will safely, quote, land the plane at the appropriate time instead of doing it early so that T. Rowe Price doesn't get sued. I'm assuming this is at T. Rowe Price as well. It might not be. Vanguard, Fidelity, whoever. I don't think you need the target date fund, which brings the second thing, which is the money at T.

1:01:52Rowe Price. I love T. Rowe Price. 60 % index funds, 40 % bonds also just seems too conservative for me again. But again, I don't know that. But I think that when you do the financial plan and you start bucketing out what I'm going to need that money, I think you're going to find an allocation that is closer to what you really need than this directionally appropriate but not really specific approach that you're using right now toward reaching your goals with this money. Directionally appropriate, but not really specific. So essentially what you're saying is her asset allocation could be more dialed in.

1:02:32This is different, but it truly is, Paula, the same discussion that I've... We've been having about Paul Merriman. Yeah, this is like a thematic to the last few weeks. I seem to have blown up every Facebook group online with this discussion, but it is. this is the same argument I'm using against VTSAX, right? It'll get you there. What Pat's doing will get her there, but she could do so much better if she bases it on her end game. Pat, if you do meet with a financial planner, there are three things that I would recommend. One is to meet with somebody who has a fiduciary duty to you at all times.

1:03:16So the question you want to ask is, do you have a fiduciary duty to me at all times? Make sure you use the phrase at all times because it is possible for somebody to have a fiduciary duty to you some of the time, but not all of the time. And that can actually happen in the same conversation. So that's one question that I would ask. The second question is, are you fee only? Because I would recommend going to a fee-only financial planner. And the third is, and this is going to be controversial, but personally, I do not like the assets under management model. And I would steer clear of anyone who's going to push you towards assets under management, which goes by the acronym AUM, an AUM model.

1:04:06On top of those guidelines, Paula, I also think, Pat, you really want to go back to specifically the type of advisor they are, how they work with you. You need somebody who you're not delegating this to, because I meet a lot of people who are financial advisors and a lot of clients, they just want somebody to handle it. You want somebody who's going to have the heart of a teacher, who's going to show you these numbers and walk you through the plan. So almost somebody who's going to do it hand in hand with you, I believe, versus somebody who just says, okay, magic. Yep, Pat, you're okay. Because I don't think a financial planner, even if they have a ton of experience, them just saying, yeah, you're good.

1:04:53It's going to be great. This needs to be your plan. So for me, when it comes to interviewing, all the things that Paula said are checkboxes that I want to check. But the biggest checkbox of all for me is how is this person really going to work on my team? And am I going to have this relationship that I need? Because different than just this arbitrary hire a financial planner, you have a specific mission that you are out to fulfill. You and I talked about a gentleman, Big Earn. Yep. Big Earn. And I mentioned to you - Dr. Karsten Jeska is his official name. Yes. And I mentioned to you that if I were in the market right now for a financial planner, Big Earn would be my financial planner.

1:05:41Now, let me tell you some things about Big Earn. Yeah. Big Earn is not a financial planner. He's not. He has a PhD in economics, but he is not a financial planner. Yes. He's not a financial planner. He's not a fiduciary. He's not a licensed person. I just took everything Paula said and threw it out. And this is where I think that people online, Paula, get it wrong, is that I totally agree with everything you're saying, but my first criteria, my very first criteria is I need somebody who's matching me. And Big Earn is a guy who I know very well. He will fight with me, which is what I'm looking for.

1:06:19Everybody's not looking for that. I'm looking for that. That's what I want. I want somebody who's going to go, Joe, you are messing this up. Yes. Please give me that. I want somebody who's not going to be afraid of fighting with me, and as you, Paula, you've known me a long time, I will fight back, right? I will always fight back. And often I'll be wrong as hell and I'll fight back. I need you to push through Joe's ego and just punch me. And Biggern would do that. I also need that person to have enough credibility that I will believe them. There are some people that fight with me and I just, they're not the right who for me.

1:06:53Meaning you can tell me all day long, oh yeah, your approach to XYZ sucks. Well, you know what? I don't value your opinion. So I need to value your opinion. When I got help with social media, I went to MIT and it was specifically because that was my who. When it comes to social media stuff for my company, I didn't want the snake oil salesperson, you and I, Paula, get these emails all the time. So this resonates with us, but maybe not for the whole audience. But we get these snake oil salespeople, oh, your social media could be so much better. No, don't care. But if Sinan Oral, my professor at MIT, tells me my social media sucks, I'm listening because I'm a moron if I don't.

1:07:34So that is the number one criteria, Pat, for you. You need to think, does this person have the credibility it takes to make me feel comfortable enough that I'm going to sleep at night? And then, am I a fiduciary? How do I get paid? like all those things people talk about. I do those after I accomplish that number one goal because they can be all the things, Paula, that you mentioned, and I'm still not going to hire them. Okay, great. You're a fiduciary. I don't care. I think you're a moron. I said this on a previous show. A person can have the right credentials, but if you don't assess that they have both intellect and wisdom, then they're not the right person.

1:08:24Absolutely. I thought when you said that last time, I was like a hundred percent. Yeah, exactly. Because having credentials alone does not mean that you have good judgment. But getting back to Big Earn, so a lot of people listening will go, well, wait a minute, Joe just said, no, it's because I know the market and most people listening to the show don't know the market. So I would take everything Paula said first. Are they a CFP? Are they fee only? Are they a fiduciary? All these things. How do they work with me? Take those first. And then are they quote big earn? Yeah. Do they have both the wisdom and the intellect that big Urn has.

1:09:05Yeah. Yes. But I can go right to Big Urn because I know Big Urn. I know the space. I know what I'm looking for. I know specific. Most people aren't privileged to have that. And the big question that's hard for you and I to answer is how do I find the right person? Well, that top of the funnel, I think for most people should be what Paula, you're talking about. But beyond that, then I think, Pat, you've got to have it deep in your gut that this person is going to give me that that heart of a teacher. By the way, if for anybody who's wondering, the reason that Dr. Karsten Jeska is referred to as Big Earn, Earn is the acronym ERN for early retirement now, which is the name of his blog.

1:09:43And he's big. And he's big. He's so he's super tall. I just interviewed him in person in at the Bogleheads conference in Minneapolis. And we have like a foot of height differential. Cameras try to put your eyes at roughly the same level. You know, that's one of those things that videographers do. They want your eyes to be the same level because otherwise it looks weird on camera. And we had to make some adjustments in that shoot. Paula had to sit on 18 books. But Pat, I love this question. Love, love, love this question. This truly is the time where I think getting very comfortable with these numbers is going to help you behaviorally, which is awesome.

1:10:30It is awesome. It's this dovetailing of all these things that will make these years exciting. And by the way, Paula, one more thing I think is exciting. Having that 2030 to 2031 year where you're playtesting, you and I both love this idea of playtested. It's so cool that you're going to go try out different areas to see where you might land. That's neat. Yeah, absolutely. Working out of a travel trailer, that sounds like an amazing adventure. For a while. Well, when it stops being fun, then you stop doing it. And for some people, that fun is forever. Yeah. For me, as you know, Paula, it was roughly seven months.

1:11:11Yeah. That's what's cool is you get to do it until you decide you don't want to do it anymore. It's fantastic. Yeah. But Pat, if you do move up to Michigan, and make sure you bring some cans of Skyline with you because the moment you said you're from right outside of Cincinnati, my first thought was, Skyline! For those of you who are wondering what we're talking about, I'm referring to the best chili in the world. So thank you, Pat, for that question. And congratulations on being so darn close. You have done so many things right. And you've still got time. You know, there's still six years. and you've done, you're very, very on track for this 2030 goal.

1:11:55Yeah, I think it looks really good, Pat. Yeah. Well, Joe, I think we're signing off for today. I think we've done it. No. Okay, that was super fun. That was a lot of fun. Joe, if people want the party to continue, where can they find you? Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, the greatest money show on earth. We call The Circus. It's the Stacking Benjamin Show. It is a variety show on Mondays. We have Monday Mentor Day. Wednesday, we dive into a case analysis or into some big headline. And on Friday, we have a roundtable discussion with some amazing people like the Paula Pant and other notable people from the personal finance space.

1:12:32And we take a great topic. One topic I really like that we discussed lately was health and wellness. The chicken or the egg. What comes first, being healthy or being wealthy? And I thought it was really, really neat. The scary part, I think to me, Paula, in that discussion was this idea that I'd never considered before your healthy life, not your life expectancy, but your healthy life expectancy. And the fact that in the United States, that age is 66 years old. That's scary. Really means that as much as we focus on money, we should focus on our health as well. So Stucky Benjamin Show every Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

1:13:09That was a fun discussion. And you can listen to that on your favorite podcast playing device. Speaking of which, if you enjoyed today's episode, please follow us on both Apple Podcasts and Spotify, as well as any other favorite podcast players you enjoy. Also, please come find us on YouTube, youtube.com slash afford anything. thing. I should mention we are trying our best to get YouTube videos out kind of close-ish to when our audio episodes come out, but there is still some variation. So we're releasing these audio episodes, of course, every Tuesday and Friday, and we're releasing episodes on YouTube when post-production is ready.

1:13:53Find us on YouTube, subscribe to our channel, hit the notification bell and you will get notified whenever we have a new video up. Also, subscribe to our newsletter, affordanything.com slash newsletter. And don't forget to tell your family, your friends, your neighbors, your colleagues, share this show with the people in your life. Thank you so much for tuning in. My name's Paula Pant. I'm Joe Solcihai. And we'll meet you in the next episode.