The Hidden Perks of Starting Late for Retirement Success

0:00You might think you're behind, but what if I told you that starting later actually gives you an advantage. By your 40s and 50s, you know your values, your lifestyle, and your income is likely higher than ever before. That means that your money decisions you make now are smarter, more intentional, and more powerful. Stay tuned as I share with you how to find your late start advantage. Welcome to the Wealthy After 40 podcast, the show for Gen X women and couples who are ready to ditch financial stress and feel confident about retirement. I'm your host, Daylene Higgins, financial and retirement coach, helping Gen Xers master their money and create a personalized retirement plan so they can stop spinning their wheels and step boldly into their dream retirement.

0:55If you're feeling behind, don't worry. Continue listening to this podcast, as well as be sure to grab your free guide, 5 Must Do Steps to Start Retirement Planning Now at elevatefinances.us backslash must do. And remember, let's make retirement possible together.

1:17Welcome to the episode and the second episode in the series about your late start, getting started late, however you're thinking about that. Starting later means you have clarity, resources, and life experience on your side. Things that you did not have at the age of 25. So when you focus on what you can do now, with all of those pieces, and we're going to gather those pieces in this episode, you'll move further and faster because of those experiences. experiences. Let's start with what clarity do you have now? Identifying your advantage here, your late start advantage. What clarity do you have now versus your 25-year-old you?

2:12Now think back to when you were 25. What were you doing? What was a highlight of the day or the week or the month. You may or may not have been a parent. You may or may not have been in college. 25 is a lot it could be going on in differences for all you listeners. But I want you to think about you. You yourself at 25. What did you know about money? What did you feel about money? And then what clarity do you have now? So to better help you define this, when you were 25 and it was payday, what did you do? Now I described all sorts of different 25-year-old scenarios. Maybe you were like, I paid my bills, we were scraping by, we were newly married, I was in school, whatever it may be.

3:10Maybe you were like, well, I was out partying with friends and I just was like, oh man, I can go fill up my car with gas. I can head out to this party or whatever it may be. That feeling you had and what you specifically did on a payday with your money. Now I want you to fast forward to today. When your paydays come, what do you think about? What do you do? What challenges? What hurdles? And as you think about that, how do you handle money different than you would at 25 if you were dealing with the same situation? Now you're thinking, why is this important? Well, I want you to really see what 15, 20, 25 years has done.

4:02and reflecting back to that age and thinking about now, you see the growth. You see all that you've learned. And when you think about it, you are like, well, I'd rather have this than that, whatever those two things are. You can begin seeing how your values show up. 25 year old year you was still trying to really blossom figure out who they were are all those things but really from then till now and if you reflect back which I'm going to help you do that you can start seeing your specific values with money now if you've been here long enough you know that I love talking about, you know, putting these values on your money, on your life, basically on your life so that you can spend your money to support how happy you want to be.

5:04I had a client. She was one of my low income earners. And when I first began working with her and looking at her situation, she was like, I, you know, I buy organic food, I buy, you know, know, specific specialty foods. I'm like, okay. And she says, and I buy nice clothing, like upper end clothing. I don't buy a lot, you know, and she didn't. She didn't spend a lot of money, but she already had defined these two areas. This is, and I don't want to forgive those. I don't want to give those up, she says. I'm like, perfect. Drawing the lines, having those values set helps an individual be able to take action easier.

5:51She was in a much better spending than some of my other clients, even earning more money. She just needed to make sure she had enough money. That was where she needed my support and my help. My other clients who haven't figured this out yet, and I help them. Those are exercises I walk them through. I work through them, helping them understand who they are with money better, but they continue to wrestle with thoughts of overspending or I'm bad with money because they have not yet defined these values around their money, around their life. And essentially, they're not happy about how they spend their money.

6:35As you begin to reflect and gain clarity on the growth you have had from 25 to now, And why do I keep bringing up 25? Typically, that's when you're starting a career, you know, give or take, you've really surpassed college, all of those things, and you're headed into that career, starting to get a little more serious about life. If you haven't already married, you're committing to something and really starting to fill this sense of, I've got to take care of myself. recognizing from this starting point to now you've learned a lot money is a part of every day every week every month the things you have learned are very very important now the struggle is because we are at this age is to go back and remember but that is what i plan to do and help you resolve so how do you take this clarity and apply it to your money situation and retirement planning?

7:41Well, it's time to start inventorying all of the things. Now, if you're somebody who has inventoried for a business, I'm sorry, but that's not what we're doing. Okay, we are going to make lists. I hope I have some list makers out there. It's very similar to like a pros and cons list. and I taught my daughter from a very young age that this is how you make hard decisions. When she comes to me with this decision now, she'll say, I've already got my pros and cons list. And so then we can talk through them. And so that's what I'm gonna guide you through in a sense to help you inventory your life experience with money.

8:26And the reason we are doing this, if you remember last episode, I said you need to define your starting point. Now, this is where we've got to bring all of that knowledge, all of that experience back to the forefront of our mind so that we truly know our starting point. What do I want you to do? I want you to dive into your past years and explore what you think and believe about money. Ultimately, what worked and what didn't work. I'm going to walk you through this and I want you to continue this after this episode, but I'm going to walk you through a couple of areas. I'm Sherry O, host of the Mature Allure podcast, where we talk about beauty, wellness, confidence, money, and all the things that matter most to women 40 and beyond.

9:17Join me and my guests each week for honest conversations that inspire, uplift, and keep you laughing. Tap into Mature Allure today.

9:35Budgeting. Are you currently budgeting using a budget? And again, this is just an inventory. Why or why not? Have you in the past? What worked? What didn't work? Why didn't it work? And if something worked, what was it? Maybe you've just forgot. I've done this multiple of times and I'm like, oh my gosh, why do I forget that that's the easy way of doing this? And so that is why I need you to do this exercise. We're going to start with budgeting. What worked and what didn't work? Spend some time going back through the years. And my guess is that a 25, probably very few of you were budgeting. I know there's going to be some.

10:18And then you're like, okay, but yeah, over the years I've attempted budgeting. Well, what was that like? And really start thinking about it. Start there. Think about that. Exhaust this category. Then you're going to move into saving. Am I currently saving? How is that going? Where am I saving? Is that easy? Is it hard? Why haven't I been saving over the past years? Because I know life happens. We've bought homes. We've bought cars. We've put kids through college. We've had life happen to us. having to tap into those savings or having those experiences. But I need you to write down what worked and what didn't work.

11:03Okay, I'm going to sum this up with a pretty bow in just a minute. The next area I want you to inventory is debt. Now debt I want you to think about, is debt your best friend? And what do I mean by that? Do you run to debt, meaning your credit cards or a loan when something bad happens? Are you leaning on debt for every waking moment? Are you constantly looking for that zero percent interest for two years? I can go get it. Okay. And if you are, that's fine, but you need to inventory this. Or is debt somebody that you really, when you retire, you want to leave behind like some of the coworkers you have?

11:52This is where you've got to explore what have you learned from 25-year-old you, and maybe you did have your first loan before that, but what was that experience like as opposed to now? What did you learn? What has helped craft a better way or what? And we've all had them. What was probably not the best loan to take out or the best step to take or whatever it was. Remember, and this is not about judgment in this. This is just inventory. What worked and what didn't work. And the reason you're wanting to do this, I'm going to walk you through a few areas in just a minute, but the reason I want you to do this is this is what I do for clients in my retirement roadmap session is getting the clarity and understanding I'm not going to create a budget for them if they already have one.

12:48That's just not something to do. I don't need to recreate something if it's working. But if they're like, well, this is what I have, but and then they give me this isn't working, then I can focus on that. That is what I want you to do with this exercise. All right, another area, well, other areas that are going to make retirement planning easier as you're older, as we are mature, as we have wisdom, all of those things, they are good. You know your health so much better as you're approaching your 50s, your 60s. If you have a health concern, a health issue, and I'm sorry, that's not good, but 25-year-old probably did not know about it.

13:33But you can plan and prepare for that now. You also probably have a better idea of if you're going to stay living where you're at, or if you're going to end up following family somewhere else? Or who do you even want spending time with you in retirement? We have so much more advantage because we are so much closer and we have learned so much. I just got off a podcast interview and she, the Gen Xer as well, and she says, I am just ready to live life the way I want to. And that is what I'm wanting you to grab and those experiences and sift through and be like, these are the things I want to do. Okay, this is your late start advantage.

14:22Going back, reviewing those areas and starting from what was working or getting rid of what wasn't. Let's not try it again. Let's not waste our time. And as you're going through this, if you're like, I just can't think of that. I'm not sure how to put this together. I don't know if I remember these experiences. And you want somebody to guide you through that. And so it'd be a great subject for the Clarity Connection call. Let's spend 60 minutes in covering who you were at 25, 35, 45. We'll do it together. I'll walk you through it. I'll help you explore those pieces so that those memories can come back easier.

15:07Because I know there's been a lot that I'm like, I don't remember that. I don't remember that. But hopefully speaking to somebody that will open up the, you know, get the juices flowing, open up the mind and be like, oh yes, I remember that. And oh yes, I remember that. Just having somebody talk it out with you. If you're interested in that, head over to elevatefinances.us backslash connection, schedule 60 minutes, and let's dive into that. If there's something else you want to discuss, not this, we can do that as well. Be sure to schedule your call today. To recap this episode and what you ultimately need to do, okay, I'm just going to sum it up.

15:48I want you to inventory what worked and what didn't work with money in the last, however old you are, to 25, okay? Budgeting, saving, debt, all of the things. Maybe you've traveled, maybe travel you need to put on there, whatever it is. Anything money related, but I was just getting you started with budgeting, saving, debt, all of the things. two columns, what worked and what didn't work. Free flowing thoughts, let it pan out, and then you can better find your starting point. Oh yeah, I remember when I was budgeting this way and it worked really well. I just needed to figure out this. And then you start there instead of, well, I got to make a budget because I don't have one.

16:40This is the recall and this is why it's important. And again, if you need help diving into it, be sure to book that call. But also stay tuned for the next episode as I'm going to help you find quick wins to really put into action your quote late start. We are not starting late. We have wisdom and we can take action next episode to get ourselves to retirement. I hope you'll tune in. And if you missed last week's, it was part one, today is part two, and next week will be part three. We'll see you next episode.

17:20Thank you for spending this time with me. If you're not already following the show, be sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And I'd love to stay connected with you between episodes. So come join me inside my Facebook community, Retirement Ready Hub for Gen Xers. It's where we're having real conversations about money, sharing wins, working through challenges, and building a clear path toward retirement. And remember, retirement isn't just a dream, it's a plan, and you get to make it possible.