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Transcript

Zach:

Welcome to retirement today under co-host is Zach Holcomb. Alongside me, we have Michael Reese. He’s a certified financial planner, founder of the prosperity planning system and president and CEO of Centennial advisors. Mike, how are you today?

Mike:

Doing fantastic. Love living in Austin, Texas as always. And we’ve got a great show lined up. I know that

Zach:

Super excited about what we’re discussing on today’s program. We’re going to be talking about retirement now, specifically five years out from retirement and having a plan to make that work. So, Mike, let’s say I’m a little bit older. Let’s say I’m five years out for retirement. Let’s imagine I’m 55 and not 27. Okay. I’m going to be retiring in five years, but I haven’t really assessed the plan. I haven’t put anything together. You know, I haven’t really thought about what my expenses are going to look like, what kind of money I’m going to be spending. How do I put a plan together so I can step away from work when the time comes,

Mike:

Make work optional, right? And by the way, you might be five years out. You might be six years out. You might be two years out. I mean, the bottom line is if you’re within 10 years, you got to start thinking about this stuff. And you know, I think about it this way. Think back on your life, you know, how fast does five years ago? You know, I think back five years ago and you know, it seems like yesterday, right? It, it seems like five years ago. It was, I mean, to today it has, it’s like the blink of an eye. Well, that’s going to happen to you when it comes to your retirement planning, it’s going to be on you before you realize it. And there are a number of factors that you need to think of both financially and Zach, we talked about this earlier nonfinancial issues as well.

Mike:

Like, you know, what are you going to do with your time? I can’t tell you how many people I talk to. They say, well, gee, all I really do is work. If I retired, I’m not really sure what I would do. Right, right. So our, so we want to talk a little bit about what you need to do to prepare, right? Okay. Let’s start right away. You got to figure out what your life is going to look like. Right? You gotta figure out what it’s gonna look like. You know, my wife and I were talking the other day kind of about this issue. And you know, she was saying to me, she said, you know, Mike, we’ve got our youngest daughter. Madison is 15. She’s just finishing up her, her freshman year of high school. So she’s going to be in the house for three more years.

Mike:

Well, when she leaves Zach, we’re going to be what they call empty nesters. I know right now, does that mean I’m going to stop working? No. And I’m, I’m one of these people that financially I could have retired at this point. Gosh. about eight years ago I retired actually eight years ago. It wasn’t for me. I lasted four months, you know, four months of golf and candy crush. I just, hadn’t what we’re going to talk about later in the show, I had nothing to do with my time. It drove me crazy. So I am now in a wonderful position because I’m working. Not because I have to work. I work because I want to work. I actually love, I do like I would work for free. Well, my wife probably wouldn’t appreciate that, but you know, the point is what I’m doing is what I love to do and that’s fantastic.

Mike:

And you know, I’m able to control my schedule and, and work when I want to work. Take some time off when I want to take time off. But the key is going back to, you got to picture, what do you want your life to look like? So Becky and I are starting to have those conversations. We’re saying, you know, three years from now, if, when Madison, our youngest is gone, what are we going to do? Right. Do we want to stay in the same house? Now? We’re probably going to downsize again. Right? We’ll probably move into a smaller house, but we might look at buying another house, maybe in New Mexico for the summertime. You know, I don’t know if you’re aware of this Zach, but here in central Texas, in the summertime, it gets a little bit warm,

Zach:

Really. I mean, I’ve lived here all my life, but I’ve never noticed

Mike:

Just a real surprise, right? I mean, but Becky’s decided she doesn’t like it when it’s a hundred degrees and she wants a little cooler space. So maybe who knows, maybe we’ll find a place up in the mountains of New Mexico around house or something. I don’t know. I’m just spit balling right now. But maybe we do that. Maybe we look at maybe in the wintertime when it gets a little cooler, maybe we find a place down in Florida on the water. You know, we’re starting to explore that. I don’t know where we’re heading. I don’t know what that’s going to look like. I know I’m I know this. I’m always going to be based in Austin. Cause this is where the kids are and we’re always going to be there. But that doesn’t mean we’ll be here full time. And you have to think about that for yourself.

Mike:

If you, when you look to retire, if you’re gonna, if you’re planning on retiring in the next, you know, two, three, four, five, 10 years, you have to start thinking, what is your life look like, right? What is that going to look like? What are you going to be doing? How are you going to be spending your time? Are you going to be traveling? Are you going, do you have hobbies that you’re going to want to pursue? Well, that cost money. What do you want your lifestyle to look like? Because Zach, the problem is a lot of people. They really have no idea to do that, right? They’ve never thought through that. They’d never mapped it out. And you know, we talk about our prosperity planning system. All the time, prosperity planning is living the life that you truly want to live. It’s all about living your, you know, I don’t want to use the phrase your best life, but essentially that’s what it is. It’s where you’re living life on your terms. And you’re doing what you want to do. Maybe it’s spending time with grandchildren. Maybe you’re traveling. Maybe you want a second home, but whatever it is, you’ve got to start defining that. Because if you can’t define what life looks like, how in the world are you going to play?

Zach:

Right. So for retirement to become a reality, you have to figure out what retirement is going to be for you. You have to figure out what you’re going to do. You can’t just say, well, I’m going to stop working in three to four years. And that’s it. I’m just going to sit around for 30 years until I pass away, you got to have something to do.

Mike:

Right. You know, I’ve heard this said before, it’s kind of an interesting twist of phrase. I’ve heard people say you are either retiring to something or you’re retiring away from something. Okay. So what does that mean? If you’re retiring away from something, what you’re really saying is you’re like, I hate my job. I’m going crazy at this job. I got to get out of here. As soon as I can, that’s retiring away from something and that’s all fine and dandy, but that doesn’t represent prosperity. Planning, prosperity planning means you want to retire to something where you’re saying, okay, I’m working. Maybe I like my job. Maybe I don’t like my job, but you know what? I have some goals out there. I, there are things I want to do while I’m still on this earth. And maybe you want to start your own business of some type.

Mike:

Maybe you’ve got a hobby. Right? I had a guy, his hobby, Zach. I mean, this was his hobby was model trains. Now, when I first heard about that, I have to admit, you know, and by the way, for those of you out there who are in the model, trains, I hope this is not intended to be offensive in any way, shape or form. But originally I heard what model trains, like that’s, that’s some for kids, you know, that sounds like kind of, quite frankly, it sounded a little nerdy, you know, to me, of course says the guy that loves spreadsheets, right? I mean, if anybody’s a nerd, it’s me, but it sounded a little nerdy I’m thinking model trains, really. And then I found out he spent literally like 40, $50,000 on these things, like a legit set up. I mean it’s. And so I went to his house and it was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.

Mike:

It was, I mean, he was so passionate about, in fact now what he does, he actually builds like the little trains, a little you know, like the, the engines and then the cars. And he sells them on, on eBay and on, you know, different you know, and he goes to different well, before COVID he would go to these different shows and he would sell his, his little stuff. And, but with, he has so much fun doing it and to see his passion and the excitement and the energy that gave him. That was awesome. What are you retiring to now? You know, what’s, what’s your life going to look like? What is going to represent for you that process, that prosperous life, you know, where you’re living, where your best is yet to come, where you’re truly, truly living the life you’ve always wanted on your terms.

Mike:

You gotta identify that first. Right? So step one, figure out what the end game looks like, right? What are your goals? What do you want it to look like? And you know, I know as we’re, we’re coming up on time here coming up on a break, you know, one of the things I want, all of you to know, know there’s something we do for all of you. If you’re listening to the radio, you know, we’re a financial planning firm here. We help you with prosperity planning. That’s what we do. And you might be sitting there saying to yourself, you know what, I’m within, you know, a few years of retirement or I want to retire in the next 10 years. Maybe it’s time that maybe you’re sitting there and you’re saying, you know, I don’t, I don’t really think about this. I just work all day.

Mike:

Right. I just kind of keep on keeping on, but maybe you’ve been ignoring some of these issues. Maybe you’re sitting there thinking, you know what, it’s time, it’s time for me to start doing something about this. I got to start actually planning for this. Well, if that’s you, I invite you to give us a call. Let’s sit down and let’s walk you through our complete retirement planning system. One in which we help you map out, you know, what do you want that life to look like? You know how much money we’re going to talk about this in the next segment. I know how much money are you, good. How much income are you going to need to make that happen to make it reality? How are you going to generate that income? What are you going to do about taxes? What are you gonna do about your healthcare, right? What are you going to do about estate planning? What do you do about your investments? Do they need to change? I mean, there’s a lot of things you need to think about. And now is the time to actually, you know, let’s get this ball rolling and, and it’s really easy, right? Zach, all they gotta do is start with a 15 minute call.

Zach:

Yep. All you gotta do is reach out to us. 512-886-5850. Again, that number is 512-886-5850. When he give us a call, it’s just a brief opportunity for our team to learn. What’s important for you today and see what your life could potentially look like in retirement. We want to see if there’s any room for improvement in any of those areas.

Mike:

Exactly it, and you know, it is after hours, right? So when you call, you’re going to get our calling service and they’ll set up a 15 minute introductory call with our team. But here’s the deal. It starts, it’s simple. It’s easy. It’s a quick phone call and it’s free. We don’t charge you anything to talk. And the idea here is let’s have a conversation. Let’s learn a little bit about what you’re trying to accomplish. And then, you know, let’s see if we can be helpful in your overall planning. If we can, we’ll tell you, Hey, here’s what you need to do. If you want to do it yourself, rock and roll, go do it. You want our help? Here’s what we charge. But you know, it all starts with that simple phone call. So again, it’s 512-886-5850. Give us a quick call, set up that 15 minute conversation. Now here’s the thing. I know we got a break here, Zach, right? So I don’t want you going anywhere. We’re going to be right back. We’re going to talk about, you know, how you build income planning so you can replace your paycheck and make work optional. We’ll be right back.