I’ve been reading in the news that many big companies have been making people go back to work. Instead of working from your home, you may now have to go back to the office and your daily commute. Starbucks was the most recent company I saw where they’re now requiring employees to be in the office at least three or four days a week. I know it’s happening here in Austin because traffic is getting worse.

Every time I drive to the office in the morning, and home in the evening, I hear traffic reports. I think we’re back to pre-COVID traffic, which must mean that many companies here are forcing their employees to come to the office.

Working from home is cool. You can get up later in the morning or maybe enjoy an extra coffee or two before your workday. When the workday is over, your commute home is quick. You take a few steps and you’re there.

With the recent trend of companies bringing their employees back to the office, you may find yourself back at the grind. Maybe your drive to work is taking an hour of your day. When you drive home, maybe there’s another hour. For many people, it might be two to three hours of driving every day. That’s ten to fifteen hours a week wasted in your car.

I’m hearing a lot of people in that position saying they don’t like this. Maybe you’re one of those people and you’re thinking about how much you’d love to retire. Maybe you wish you could retire but your 401K didn’t cooperate last year, and you have less money now than when you started last year. I have a message for you; you may very well be in a better position than you think. You do not have to go from the frustration of driving into an office every day straight to retirement and not working at all.

There are some options in between. You could go part-time with your company. If you’re not getting the income you need, maybe you can supplement income from your retirement savings. Maybe you could leave the corporate world and start a consulting gig from your home. My point is that there’s an intermediate step that you might be able to take. In fact, for many of you, there’s an intermediate step that you should take.

I talked to a gentleman last week, who was a mid-level manager in the tech industry. He wasn’t at a high executive level, but he wasn’t starting either. He had somewhere around twenty to thirty people within his domain. His company had been putting pressure on him since COVID, adding responsibility left and right. He felt like he was in a pressure cooker. He told me that he loved what he was doing but he didn’t like the pressure. He didn’t like the time it took to drive into the office. He didn’t have enough money saved to fully retire, especially after last year’s market.

He didn’t want to stop working, but he didn’t want to work in that environment anymore. We had a conversation and explored what he could do. It turned out that he’s had several offers from different companies asking him to work part-time on various projects. We did the math and figured he could get 40-50% of his current income, but he could do it from his home, on his terms.

I pointed out that he’d get to be his boss and be self-employed. We had to account for taxes, though, because they’re a little different. He was at a stage where he didn’t need all his income. He had been saving a pretty good amount of money. He needed about 75% of his income to be comfortable. I suggested we take 40-50% of his income from his side gig and fill in the other 25-35% from his retirement portfolio. He had some money set aside he could access, and it worked well for him. This is to be used only as an example of one possible way taxes may be reduced using various strategies. This is one client’s unique story which is not indicative of future results and does not guarantee similar results for another individual.

Do you want to step aside and do a part-time job? Do you crave change? If you’re that person and would like to transition to an intermediate step, I want you to call us and get a Retire Right Report. In this report, we can help you map that out.

This gentleman I told you about had heard our radio show and called in. When we put together that report for him, he initially wanted to know how fast he could retire. He switched his focus to how quickly he could transition, and you might be the same. You won’t know unless you sit down and do some financial planning with us. Our Retire Right Report is a free report that puts together your financial baseline and tells you exactly where you are when it comes to your risk, income, growth, healthcare, and taxes. We can try to help you identify how to improve.

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