Why a Mini Retirement Can Change Your Life

22:00But I also want you to think of another downside because if you have structure and identity in your workplace and you feel as though that structure and identity could be compromised by you taking an early retirement. If you like that structure, you like spending time with your coworkers, you like spending time with them and you guys are like a family working together, sometimes a mini retirement can actually be worse off for you than better. And so, you know, the grass is not always greener on the other side. You just want to make sure that you're considering those as well. If you have a lot of workplace friends or you just enjoy your work, you enjoy what you do, maybe you work in something that you really, really are passionate about, well, then just reconsider what you're doing here because this is not for everybody.

22:37Obviously, this is not for everybody. And if your finances aren't right, it doesn't matter how burned out you are. It's not for you. You got to make sure that you get these right, which is what I'm here to help you do. I'm here to help you with your finances. I'm here to help you show you those steps that you can take to get to mini retirement level. And so I think it's really, really important to think through that. It also just takes serious discipline to fund this on top of things like keeping your emergency fund intact and investing and making sure that you are hitting these goals. It's not like something you could just flip a switch and now you're saving for this because then you'd be compromising other goals if you don't have enough extra income coming in on hand.

23:12So you may have to have a little bit of a higher income to be able to do this, but we can plan this out and figure out a plan that see if it actually may work for you. Now, the other downside is obviously during mini retirement, you may not be investing during that time frame. And so we want to figure out how much you would actually be losing if you took a mini retirement. So here's what the skip returns would be by the time you retire at a 7 % rate of return. So let's say she invested$7 ,000 per year. That's normally what she would invest in a given year. And so in 20 years, she'd lose out on$27 ,000.

23:44That's what that$7 ,000 would grow to at a 7 % rate of return. And in 30 years, it'd be 53 ,000. At$15 ,000 of contributions per year, it'd be$58 ,000 in 20 years and$114 ,000 in 30 years. If she invested$24 ,000 per year in 20 years, that'd be worth$91 ,000. And in 30 years,$179 ,000. And then at$32 ,000 per year, it'd be$124 ,000 in 20 years and$244 ,000 in 30 years. So if you're deciding to take a mini retirement, that just gives you a good example of what that money would be worth. And what I would recommend is looking at how much you invest every single year and going to a compound interest calculator.

24:25If you go to mastermoney.co slash resources, we have an investment calculator there for you if you want to check that out. But if you look at this, you will see pretty quickly, wow, I am losing out on some opportunity cost here. It may be totally worth it for you to be able to go into your 30s and take a year off so that you can actually make these amazing memories and go travel the world or spend time with your kids. Absolutely. You're not going to regret missing that money if you have a plan to continue to keep investing. Like if you invest$32 ,000 per year, you're still going to be completely fine.

24:59I want you to know that. You're going to be completely fine. Just because you're missing out on that opportunity cost doesn't mean you still won't have millions of dollars by the time you retire. But you just want to know the numbers so that you can make an educated decision when we think about some of this stuff. Now, who should not be taking mini-retirements? Let's talk about that next. Now, there's a couple of people who should not be taking mini-retirements. And I do not want you considering this if you fall into some of these different categories. So the first one is if you're carrying high interest debt.

25:32If you have any high interest debt whatsoever, a mini-retirement is not for you. Your priority needs to be paying off that high interest debt, and then you can start to plan for your mini retirement and make sure you have the financial foundation. Now, we're going to talk about the steps here in a second on what you should be doing if you want to plan for a mini retirement, but that's going to be a big one for a lot of folks. So credit cards or any other costly debt like a personal loan or high interest student loans or high interest debts just need to be paid off as fast as you possibly can. Two is if you don't have the cash set aside.

26:03Now, mini retirement cash is not your emergency fund. Mini retirement cash is not your investment money. Mini retirement cash is not the money that you set aside for other personal finance goals. No, this is its own category that you want to set aside for the time frame that you want to spend. So let's say you spend$50 ,000 every six months. Well, if that's the case, some of you that may be high, some of you that may be low. But if that's the case and you spend$50 ,000 every six months, then you want to make sure that if you're going to take a six-month mini retirement, you at least at a minimum have that plus a little more, which we'll talk about.

26:36So you got to make sure that you are saving for this if you want to. Now, one cool thing you could do is you could save over time. So you can start to set this up in a way where you're saving over time. It'll compound and you can see a big difference there. Another reason not to do this, though, is if you have no re-entry plan. If you have no plan on how you will re-enter the workforce and you're just going to leave your job and your boss is like, I don't want you to take a mini retirement, you're like, sayonara, I'm not going to come back anyway. Well, I would definitely reconsider that and make sure you have at least some sort of plan to come back.

27:05If you have family members who own a business that can hire you, if you have friends who own a business that can hire you, if you have a re-entry plan where you can work at a Starbucks at 40 hours per week until you find the next job that you want to work at, if you have a small business on the side that can fund part of your lifestyle while you work part-time somewhere else, if you want to go get certified to be a Pilates instructor while you're taking your mini retirement and you want to go out and be an instructor where at least that's going to give you some income until you come back, you got to have a plan in place and get enough runway for you to be able to have a re-entry runway.

27:38So what a lot of people do is they give themselves a little extra cushion so that you can start to think through that. Also, if your career or industry punishes gaps, like if there is a gap in your resume and they're going to be like, what the heck were you doing during this gap? That's going to be another thing to really reconsider because if you are in an industry like, there's a lot of fast moving or promotion track fields that a lot of people are in, And if you have a long absence, that could set you back as being a qualified candidate for some of those. And so you want to make sure that that's something that you really are thinking through and weigh this honestly.

28:07Don't just say, nah, it's not really that, but you know deep down that it is something that you need to be considering. That's another reason to not really, really do this. So I want you to get clear on this, and I want you to make sure that you check all those boxes and ensure that that's not you before you consider this mini retirement. Now, let's get into step-by-step what you need to do if you are going to take that mini retirement. All right, let's dive into the mini retirement steps. I know a lot of you are waiting for this portion. You want to be able to take that mini retirement, and so let's get into it.

28:40One is let's get clear on your why and what that looks like. So if you don't understand why you're taking a mini retirement, if you just want to spend some time off and you want to rest and relax on a beach and you want to drink Mai Tais on a beach and you have no plan whatsoever, However, there's nothing wrong with that. But at the same time, this is most likely going to be less positive for you long term. Meaning if you're not planning on traveling or spending some time with your kids or spending some time with your spouse or just recovering overall from burnout or maybe you want to write a book or maybe you want to learn a skill.

29:10So many different things you could be doing. And so I just want you to make sure that you know why you are doing this. We did an entire episode. If you haven't checked that out, make sure you check it out on folks and what they should consider when they retire. And in that entire episode, what I explained was that most people who retire to nothing usually become depressed during retirement. You need to have a plan of what you're doing. Maybe you want to volunteer. Maybe you want to start working on a couple of different hobbies. Maybe you want to go spend some time with the grandchildren. But you've got to have a reason why you're retiring.

29:39And a mini retirement is no different. Because if you have too much time on your hands and your hands have nothing to do, all of a sudden that's going to lead to anxiety and depression. I can guarantee it every single time. Too much time doing nothing is not rewarding for most humans. We as human beings are meant to be doing something. And so if there is something that you are considering doing, you want to make sure you know what that why is. Because your purpose is going to drive the length of time and the budget and all this different stuff as well. It's also going to ensure that we know what our North Star is.

30:09Because if you want to travel for 15 months, we've got to make sure we have enough cash on hand for you to be able to travel for 15 months. Or if you just want to stay home with the kids and spend more time with the kids, well, maybe that's a great reason. And a lot of times for parents, you also might be able to save on some daycare costs too if your kids are really young. And so it could be a cost savings move for that short period of time as well. That could offset some of your salary, which I think is kind of cool. Next is let's think about the duration and the target. Now, I want every person to realize this.

30:37You can set up a duration and you can set up a target. But if you have to reenter the workforce, you are most likely going to be off on your guesstimate of what that duration will be. So you want to decide how long you want this to be. Is it three months? Is it six months? I really think if you're just taking one month off, that's more of a sabbatical or vacation. Honestly, it's a vacation. So I really think it needs to be longer than just what you're thinking in terms of that time frame. And so you want to pick a rough date when you think it would start and you want to pick a rough date when you think it would end and try to think through exactly how you'd feel that time.

31:06But you want to have a duration and a target date. Then you want to build up your number. And so once you have how long this is going to take, you need to figure out what your expenses are, what your burn rate is. and you want to calculate that number. So you want to look at housing, food, insurance, healthcare, emergencies, transportation, all of those different things. And you want to make sure you have enough cash on hand to live the lifestyle that you currently live for the timeframe that you want to take this mini retirement. So if you spend$75 ,000 per year, then you want to make sure that you save$75 ,000 if you're going to take a one-year mini retirement plus some cushion, okay?

31:45So it's going to be the timeframe plus the cushion to reenter the workforce is what we are looking at here. And so when you do this, you have that number in place. You're thinking through, what am I looking at here when I'm building this out? Okay, well, maybe I need$100 ,000. Let's say you're taking 12 months. You want$100 ,000 because you'll be doing some travel. You want to really, really enjoy this. We'll do$120 ,000 so that you have a little bit of an extra cushion that is going to allow you to reenter the workforce is the way I would look at it. That extra 10 to 20 % cushion never hurt anybody because it helps you buffer that reentry point.

32:17And I would also make sure I had an emergency fund already in place. Separate from this. Next, when you're saving it, I want you to save it in a separate dedicated account. Now, you have two options here. One is if you feel as though your mini retirement is 10 plus years away, you can actually invest a portion of this for the next five years or so and allow that money to compound or grow even a little bit more. But if you feel as though this money needs to be set aside for the next couple of years and just a high yield savings account is perfect for this, which needs to be a separate dedicated account.

32:45Now I have my favorite high yield savings accounts that we will link up down below in the show notes for you. We'll also link up some of my favorite brokerages if you want to check those out as well. But my favorite high yield savings account, companies like SoFi, for example, allow you to compartmentalize some of your savings. So you could set up a mini retirement bucket and it allows you to take that time off and spend that time off. But this needs to be on top of your emergency fund. You need to have that six month emergency fund fully funded. So again, mini retirements are luxuries. They are luxuries.

33:12They're not something every single person can do. And I want you to make sure that you understand that, but they should be something that you could plan for over time. Now, when it comes to the savings, some of you may be like, well, how am I ever going to save$50 ,000? That sounds crazy. But if you start now and you do it over time, over the course of the next decade, you may be able to do it and you may have it there and you may have the ability to be able to take that mini retirement. You'd be surprised at how much money you can start to sock away once you just get the ball rolling. Once you just get started.

33:39I don't care if it's$50 a month. Just start saving towards it. And if this is a really big goal for you that you actually want to do, just start putting money towards it. And you'll be shocked at how fast this money will grow. And you'll be shocked at how you just kind of find more money. And as your income increases, you can put a little bit more towards it. And all of a sudden, over the course of the next couple of years, you've got$10 ,000 in there that you never thought you would have had. And then you got$20 ,000. And then you got$50 ,000 all of a sudden. And then all of a sudden, you've achieved that goal.

34:03So I just want you to make sure that you know small amounts of money over time can grow to what? Very large amounts of money. Yes, that is correct. So I just want you to make sure that you do that. Also, is you want to solve healthcare before you leave. So when you're about a year out from doing this, you want to start to think through healthcare and start to have conversations to figure out exactly what you want to do when it comes to healthcare. Because the last thing you want to happen is some sort of medical emergency while you're on your mini retirement and you don't have health insurance.

34:31Because then you have a huge liability there that could really just ruin and put you back years with your finances. So please do not do this and try to say, I'm going to just risk it and have no health insurance for six months. The next thing I want you to do, though, is decide, okay, how am I going to leave work if I do do this? You got to have some conversations and see if your boss will let you come back. You can see if your employer will let you come back. Maybe you can move departments and they're going to have an opening where they know someone is going to be leaving over the course of the next, you know, couple of months in a different department.

35:01Maybe you move over there. Maybe you say, okay, if I get enough work done ahead of time, Maybe you have a job where you can get all your work done ahead of time where you get a little buffer going, and then you can come back. I mean, there's a lot of things that you can do when it comes to this. And in reality, if you can arrange this with your boss or line up another job, maybe just a couple months down the line or a year down the line, that could be something that would be really, really cool. Again, if you have debts, you need to be debt-free. You need to have your emergency fund in place. And if you do have any debts outside of your mortgage or whatever else, then you need to make sure those are paid off.

35:30I would make sure to even have my cars paid off, any of those types of things if you could. I think it's really, really important to do that. And so once you decide how you leave, decide how you're going to reenter if you do not know what you're going to do next, that would be the big, big key for me is I need to know how I'm leaving and I need to know how I'm getting back in once I have my plan set and my plan in place. So it's gonna be a lot of conversations to be had and it could delay six months from when you originally thought you would take this. You're not going to nail the dates whatsoever, but it can be really helpful to just have these conversations early, start talking through them and start talking about them.

36:04Now, when you position taking a mini retirement, when you're having conversations with your boss, I wouldn't say I'm burned out. What I would say is that I've always wanted to do this. And you talk through what you've always wanted to do. And then that will lead you to have a conversation where it's not complaining. You are just saying, this is something I've always wanted to do. It has been a dream of mine. It is something I have wanted to do since I was little. And yada, yada, yada, you go into it. That's going to be a much better starting point than going in and saying, I'm just so burned out.

36:34I can't do this anymore. They're just gonna be like, well, don't come back then because you're just gonna get burned out again. So it's one of those things where you want to make sure that you position it in a very, very different way than what most people do. Most people storm in there and then just go from there. So I want you to think about these two things as well, is when you are picking out what you want to do, you got to think through how to pick the right mini retirement. Because with this, early on, if you're doing this in your 30s or 40s, you can do things like, you know, the Appalachian Trail or backpacking Europe or going to all the national parks or taking adventure trips, those should be done early.

37:08The stuff that can wait are like the cruises or the luxury travel or the relaxing vacations. Those can wait. And so a mini retirement is really for some of these things that are lifestyle based or they're based on stuff you can't do later on down the line. If you want to enjoy your money, you know, relaxing vacations are fine, but you can always do those in your 60s. You can always do those in your 70s. So instead, just make sure you're thinking through, you know, picking the right mini retirement as you think about this. My relationship with money has changed a lot over the years. Early on, I thought building wealth was about making more money.

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40:24This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required compatibility and availability varies 18 plus. Now, who could this be great for? I'm going to give you a couple of different case studies here of who this could be good for.

40:56Just to give you some ideas. I want you to get the ideas churning and then we're going to dive after this into a money Q &A. So first is the Coast Fire engineer who is Maya. Now, Maya is 38 years old. So Maya spent her 20s and early 30s aggressively investing and has$520 ,000 invested. She has already hit coast fire, meaning that even if she never contributes another dollar, that balance should grow into a comfortable retirement by age 60. We're going to talk about that in the next episode, by the way, so I want you to make sure you're there. So she takes a six-month mini-retirement to travel through Southeast Asia.

41:29She saves a separate$18 ,000 to cover the trip and her runway and keeps her emergency fund untouched. And she pauses contributions for just half the year. Now, the skipped contributions cost her some future growth, but because her portfolio is already coasting, the dent is minor. And so she comes back, picks up a similar role and resumes maxing out. The lesson here for most people out there is if you are coast fire, that is a great milestone and a great indicator that you could take a mini retirement and be good with it. And when compounding is already doing the work, then you have to worry less about a big portion of what you're saving and investing because you don't have to worry about that 20 % or 25 % or 30 % that you're putting towards this.

42:05So anybody in my 20s or even the teenagers that are listening right now, making sure that you're investing early and often allows you to have opportunities like this in your 30s. And so making sure that you are doing stuff like this is really, really important. Let me give you another scenario, though, because that's someone who's coast fire. But what if you're burned out? Well, if you're running on an empty tank and you're like, I cannot keep going for a couple more years like this. You know, I need to step away to prevent the kind of crash that can cause health problems. It can cause mental problems and all these different things.

42:35So let me give you Marcus. Now, Marcus is a 45-year-old burned-out ER nurse. As we know, nurses have to work their hindtails off. And so many times, if you're a nurse, you can get overworked and burned out, especially if you're working a bunch of night shifts or 10-hour shifts. And so after years of overnight shifts, Marcus is fried and starting to make the kind of mistakes that scare him. Great reason to do this, by the way. He negotiates a three-month unpaid leave rather than quitting. So his job and benefits are waiting when he returns. He had built a$22 ,000 buffer specifically for a break like this, and he spends the time resting, hiking, and reconnecting with his kids.

43:10He returns clear-headed, avoids the full-blown burnout that would have forced him a much longer and costlier exit, and later credits the break with saving his career. So a break is not a luxury. So the lesson for this, especially if you're having burnout here, is that a break is not just for luxury. It's cheaper than crashing. It's cheaper than losing your career. And so you want to make sure that if you do need it, then maybe you take some of your money and you do this. You do this in a way that makes sense for you. But let's talk about the alternating example because I talked about this a little bit earlier too.

43:42But what if you're a couple and there's two of you and you're like, okay, well, one of us earns, one of us doesn't. You have two options. You can take a mini retirement together or you can do an alternating mini retirement and have the ability to be able to do some really cool stuff If one person is earning an income and the other one isn't, one person can take a mini retirement. Then maybe a year or two later, the second person takes a mini retirement. And this allows you to alternate and take longer mini retirements because there's income coming in. So let's look at Priya and Sam. They're 40 and 41.

44:11And they decide to take turns. So Priya takes a nine-month mini retirement first while Sam keeps working and carries the family health insurance, which is a good key and a good reason to do this. Their income drops, but never hits zero. And their essential expenses stay covered by Sam's paycheck, plus a modest$12 ,000 that they set aside. Priya uses the time with their young kids and plans a career pivot. Two years later, they swap and Sam takes his own break. Because one engine always keeps running, they never have to touch their long-term investments. And so they're continuing to invest, they're covering their costs, and so they don't have to worry about that kind of stuff.

44:46And with a partner, you can alternate freedom and never have to fully cut off income. And if your income, if you can live off one income or one income can cover a lot of it, then I think it's really, really cool to be able to do that. And now let's look at one more. Maybe it's someone who owns a business or they're a freelancer. Let's look at Jordan here. Jordan's 34 years old, and he runs a small online store and does freelance design. That together brings in about$2 ,500 per month, fairly passively. So he leaves his full-time job for a year to travel and grow the business. That$2 ,500 covers most of his lean monthly expenses.

45:18So he only pulls about$9 ,000 from savings across the entire year instead of a full year's worth. The side income also means that he is never starting from zero. And by the end, the business has grown enough that he does not have to rush back into a job. And so even a modest side income can really shrink how long or how short a mini retirement needs to be. So these are just four examples in situations where you could take a mini retirement. And I want to show you those examples so that you can see, is it possible for me? Is this something I can do? Depending on how low your expenses are, that's going to dictate how soon and how fast you could take a mini retirement.

45:54If you can get by with much lower expenses or you have dual income or you have multiple income sources, this is going to allow you the opportunity to be able to do this kind of stuff. So really, really hope you guys are letting your mind think through this and consider this. And before we dive into those questions, let me know down below, are you considering taking a mini retirement? And do you dream about taking a mini retirement? And tell me where you want to take this mini retirement. I would love to hear from you guys because I read all of your Spotify comments. I read all your YouTube comments and Apple Podcasts is releasing them now too.

46:23I read all those comments. So I want you to tell me if you are going to be taking a mini retirement and what you would want to do with your time. That's a really important component. Now let's jump into your questions. All right, the first question coming in from Pamela. Pamela says, I'm already retired and I only have a brokerage account and I have a lot of stocks that you mentioned in. What options do I have to lessen my tax track? Well, Pamela, this is a wonderful question, and thank you so much for listening, and congrats on being retired. That's absolutely amazing. I think it's really, really exciting to be able to do that, and you can tell us all about these mini-retirements, by the way, as we start to think through this, but the good news for Pamela is that being retired actually opens up some of the best tax tools available.

47:03So if you are not working, your taxable income is often significantly lower than someone who is in their working year. So you can use something like a 0 % capital gains rate. And we've talked about this a couple of times in the past, but it's all the way up to like if you're married filing jointly, you can get up to like 120 ,000 plus is what you would still stay in the 0 % capital gains rate. And so that's something that you can look into. And if you are single or you're ahead of household, depending on how you're filing, then it could be anywhere within a couple of different ranges. and so you could be either 0%, 15 % or 20%.

47:33And so taxable brokerages aren't as bad tax-wise as most people think and it's a really, really great thing to consider. Now, another thing you could do is what is called tax loss harvesting. So anytime you have an investment that is down, you can sell that investment at a loss or at a reduced amount of what it currently was. Maybe you bought some Apple stock recently and all of a sudden, you know, over the course of a year, that Apple stock went down a little bit. Well, if it went down a little bit and you sell those shares, it can offset some gains that you also have in your portfolio and then you just buy an investment that is similar that you want to buy.

48:03Now, you don't want to buy the same exact investment. You can't buy back into Apple right away because of the wash sale rule, but you can consider it. Now, I would use a professional to help you do this or you can use like a robo-advisor too. So a financial advisor, robo-advisor, something like that would be the best option. But a couple of other things that you could do is if you're charitably inclined, you can also donate shares. That helps reduce tax drag where it's better than donating cash sometimes, especially when you have appreciating shares. And so you can definitely do that through like a donor advised fund.

48:30There's a website called Daffy that helps you do that for individuals that you can look into. And you can think about the step-up basis. What a powerful thing the step-up basis is. But if part of this portfolio is money that you plan to leave to heirs, the smart move can be to not sell the most appreciated lots. So if something has appreciated, let's say you bought Apple stock in 2005 and it's appreciated by, you know, tens of thousands of dollars over the course of the last couple of years. Well, sometimes those are the shares to not sell because you can have step-up basis if you're going to hand it down to anyone.

49:01Well, they will not have to worry about that appreciation. Instead, when you pass that down to them, they will get it at the value that the current shares are when you pass it down. So really powerful stuff there and a really great way to hand money down. So here's a couple of things that I would say is to control the timing on your gains, use your low tax bracket in retirement to reduce the overall taxes that you're paying. It's a lot more than you probably think it is. And be strategic about when you sell and which ones that you sell. And so those are going to be the three things that I would look at.

49:28A tax brokerage is still a wonderful account for a lot of folks out there. But just being considerate about that stuff can be very, very helpful. So thank you so much for the question. If you have any other questions, feel free to reach out. All right, the next one's from Desi. So Desi says, Andrew, thanks so much for the work you put into this business. It's been really helpful for me. Well, thank you so much, Desi. I appreciate you. I find myself in a very privileged position with investments at 29 years old and would love to start looking at buying a house or land to build on in the next year or so.

49:53Would you recommend any type of security-backed mortgages or loans? Or just pay a small down payment and chip away at a normal mortgage? So, Desi, great question. And congrats to you on building wealth already at 29 and now being able to consider buying a house. What I would say here is that if you're looking at something like a securities-backed option, I would probably not be as inclined to do something like that up front. For those who don't know what that is, a security-backed line of credit is essentially what it is. or a pledged asset mortgage, let someone borrow against their portfolio rather than selling their portfolio.

50:27And the appeal is real because you keep your money invested in compounding and avoid triggering capital gains taxes that you'd owe when you fund it with a down payment. But there's risk that comes to this because collateral can be volatile. And if the market drops, the lender can issue a margin call, meaning that at some point in time, they can force you to either add cash or they can force you to liquidate your holdings at the worst possible time that you could possibly do that. And so you got to make sure that you're careful with this. Plus these loans, a lot of times can carry variable rates.

50:57I don't like variable rate mortgages. They have, you know, some people like a more than I do. I like to know what my rate is and I like to stick to it. Now it can make a lot more sense in high interest rate environments. If you have a variable rate, it makes a lot less sense in lower interest rate environments. Right now we're kind of right in the middle. And so this is one of those things that I definitely weigh out, but I would weigh it against a normal mortgage where like a traditional mortgage, you know what you're getting, you know When you close on a house, they give you this sheet that shows you exactly from month to month, exactly what you're going to be paying and how your interest is going to go and how your principal is going to get paid down and all that kind of stuff.

51:30When you look at that sheet, a lot of times you're like, man, I got to pay off my house faster. Look at all this interest I'm paying. It's hundreds of thousands of dollars. But in reality, it's just one of those things that you get. Whereas with something like a security back mortgage, it's less predictable. And if it gets called, I mean, that's the real risk. If it gets called by a lender, that's tough stuff for me to really want to do. So if you want to buy within a year, I would earmark some cash on the side. I really am more of a traditional mortgage type guy. If anybody has a rebuttal to that, let me know.

51:58But that's the way I am because it's safer overall, in my opinion. And in addition, I just don't ever want any loans called. I think long-term mortgages are just more secure in that way. And it's one of the things that I think I would consider long-term is kind of sticking with that. So yeah, it's not something I'm super interested in doing. But there are some pros and cons to it. I mean, if you wanted to do like a small portion of it, you could consider that, but not something long-term that I would really want to do. I prefer like a traditional mortgage or FHA or even veterans get a VA. There's a lot of other options out there, obviously.

52:33But that's the way I would go with this instead of trying to do something that could have that risk of variable rates and could get risk of getting called if the market drops. That's the two things I wouldn't want to happen. So if you can find one that doesn't do those two things, then that's potentially a very strong choice, but it's not something I've seen in a while. So, but let me know if you have any other questions on this and awesome, awesome work so far building wealth. Congrats to you. I think that's absolutely amazing. At 29, you're crushing it. So great job there. I truly appreciate you listening to.

53:03And listen, thank you guys so much for listening. And let me know again, are you going to take a mini retirement? What are you going to do with those dollars? If you want to work with me, we have two options for you. One is you can apply for one-on-one coaching. We will leave the link down below in the show notes. But two, you can join Master Money Academy. And Master Money Academy is the place where a bunch of wealth builders come together and we are all working towards building wealth together. We do weekly coaching calls. We have all of our courses in there and we just moved it to school. And it's gonna be a really, really cool platform, I think, that we're really excited about that allows us to do so much more for all of our members over at Master Money Academy.

53:41So really, really excited for that and can't wait to see you inside. We have free trials. So get a seven-day free trial. If you click the link down below as a podcast listener, really, really excited. If you want to check out, you know, a couple of things, you want to meet me, you can meet me inside and have the ability to be able to take some of our courses and just see if it's, if it's works for you. If it doesn't work for you, no worries whatsoever. No skin off my back. I'm there to help people in there. That's why I'm there. And so my entire goal is to help as many of you as possible. So thank you guys so much for being here.

54:09I truly appreciate each and every single one of you. and we will see you on the next episode.

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