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Episode #576 - Rocking a Solo Retirement: Nick's Views / Laura’s Views

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.”

-Mark Twain

Roger: Welcome to the show dedicated to helping you not just survive retirement, but to have the confidence because you're doing the work to really lean in and rock it.

All right, today is the last in the Retirement Plan Live series with Laura and Nick. Nick, haven't they been awesome? What a blessing to have Laura and Nick and everybody else that raised their hand to make this series possible. Thank you so much. Today we're going to talk about their perception of investment risk and aging as a solo, as someone who's never married and doesn't have children, or as much of a support network.

Then on January 30th, we're going to talk with Laura in a live event where we're going to go through her vision, whether it's feasible, and how to make it resilient. Then Monday, February 3rd, we're going to do a live event with Nick, and do the exact same thing. Both of them at 7:00pm Central.

If that isn’t enough, on Thursday, January 30th, we open enrollment for the Rock Retirement Club. I invite you to join the club and get access to all of the tools you, you need to build your retirement plan of record, as well as have the support from experts in the field and a cohort of over a thousand pre and post retirees, all with no hustle or sales pitch. Once you're in a club, it's a safe place to focus on retirement planning. We'll have an open house on February 4th, and you can learn all about that at livewithroger.com. With that said, let's get down to the work and talk about risk and aging.

LAURA’S VIEWS

We are back with Laura. How are you doing, Laura?

Laura: Really good. How are you?

Roger: I am great. I am great. It's January. I think by the time this comes out, because it's doing it before. I am 58 now, so I have about a month when my wife is two years older than me and, and so now she's only one year older than me again, so I can't tease her till next year.

It's been great doing this with you, by the way.

Laura: Oh, likewise. Thank you so much. I'm very appreciative of this because I'm realizing the more that I learn, you had mentioned peeling an onion, you know, the last time we spoke, layers and layers and layers, and it doesn't seem to end. There are some people who get all into it and they're looking at their computers every day and they're trying to figure things out and they're maximizing and minimizing and doing all these things to make their plan work. Although I want to be aware and make sure I do the best plan, I don't want to spend my retirement just managing my finances. So, thank you very much for your help.

Roger: You hit on a direction that a lot of things are going. I've had a lot of time over the holidays to really reflect on the next step forward, and you hit on a lot of those. In my practice, I mean we're very detail oriented working with clients, but also in the club and definitely on the show. This should not be a new job.

Laura: Right.

Roger: This is a means to an end. Just like you have to visit a doctor and go through a protocol in a certain rhythm, you should do that with your retirement plan. Beyond that, maybe you're working on something the doctor said to work on. It doesn't become your life.

Laura: Yes.

Roger: For those that make it their life, usually it's because they just love geeking out. I think another thing, and there could be a combination of this, Laura, I think it is it gives them the sense of control.

Laura: Yes.

Roger: I mean I do that too with updating my net worth, like, oh, where's it at? But it makes me feel like I'm in control and I know what's going on. You said something last week that I have been noodling on and that is related to taxes. Well, how do you figure this out? I think it was exactly the inflection that you said it.

Last year we did an episode and we'll put a link to it in 6-Shot Saturday. That is a great question. The answer is you can't, which is so hard to get over. We had a show where we talked about the difference between complicated problems. Transportation is a complicated problem. How do I get this from point A to point B? You can map out the routes, you can map out the vehicle and the fuel and everything else and you can actually create an algorithm and a plan to achieve it. That's a complicated problem. It's solvable with things happening periodically.

A complex problem is one in which the inputs and preferences are changing constantly, which makes it so fluid that it can't be solved. It can only be managed.

Laura: Okay.

Roger: That may sound esoteric, but it's so critical because if you think you can solve complex problems, you're going to drive yourself nuts.

Laura: Okay.

Roger: So, the more we can own that. Right. Anyway, now we're going to talk about a lot of things we can't solve. You ready?

Laura: Okay, I am.

Roger: We're talking a little bit more under the third pillar of resilience and getting a sense of where you're at as a person. We're going to have you take the RISA, which is an income style awareness personality test. This is going to help tease out how you think about providing for your life. One of the two extremes is something called systematic withdrawal. I just have all my money and I invest it and I take out a percentage each year. The other extreme, which is safety first. I just buy a bunch of guaranteed income and I never think about it again.

Okay, so we're going to have you take that test and we'll take a look at that when we meet on the 30th live, which will be fun. Just like any personality test, you get a feel for. You know, we want to make sure the style in what you provide for your life matches not just the numbers, but what you're comfortable with so you can have confidence.

But before you take that test, let's just talk about it in an abstract way. How do you feel about markets, risk, and investing? What's your experience there?

Laura: I wouldn't say I have a lot of experience. I mean, I understand it. I pay attention to it. I know politically, with different political climates, people think that it's better this way or that way. But at the bottom line, when you look at the market, the market tends to always eventually go up. I do understand that.

I know there are times when the market does go down, and we've had some years that have been terrible. But ultimately, everyone in charge, I think, has the same goal to have the market go up. I understand it from a basic standpoint and what we have to look at and how it varies and things.

Roger: How did you survive 2008 when all those 401ks that you had scattered about went down by a good percentage?

Laura: I mean, there was nothing to survive because I just left it there. Eventually the market was corrected and the money was back in there and has grown since. I do know some people who made the drastic change and pulled it out of the market and went to bonds or changed the percentage and I think I'm faring better than they are at this point. But I do know that obviously, you know, you make different decisions depending on where you're at in life. I just figured in time it would correct itself.

Roger: Well, and during that time, I'm guessing you saw them go down, do you recall? Like, did they get down by half or a third?

Laura: I think there was like a third maybe.

Roger: Okay, so you take your 1.3 million 401k or retirement accounts, right now, what is a third of that? I'm doing some quick math. That's like it went down by $433,000.

Laura: Yeah. That's a good thing. They're all separated and I didn't quite see that one big drop.

Roger: I never thought of that. But yeah. Plus, you were working and contributing.

Laura: Correct.

Roger: You're busy because you were working and doing your health and your dogs and all that. Do you think that needs to change when you retire? I mean, you've always, you've had great experiences. But what's your plan for when you retire?

Laura: You know, my thought was part of it. Leave it in a little more of a risky or stock situation. Then, on the other part, maybe move some of it, especially within the next five years of spending in something that is a little more stable and a little more secure.

Roger: Okay, and what's the logic behind that thought?

Laura: I don't want to be homeless. Making sure that, that I am not, you know, that there's resilience, as you would say.

Roger: Okay. Okay.

Laura: Yeah.

Roger: Have you thought about that? I agree with that. Conceptually you want to get a little bit less aggressive. If you're in retirement and you make this adjustment to more moderate allocation and all your aggressive stuff starts to go down. Let's say we go through another 2008. Have you thought through how do you know when you should worry and when you shouldn't?

Laura: I have not necessarily thought through that. I think that if I've lost 50%, yes, I definitely would be worried. Yes. But being that I was still working, I didn't worry as much.

Roger: Which makes sense because you're living off of your income.

Laura: Right.

Roger: It is hard. Like even in 08, if you were 100% in stocks, stocks went down 50%, but they came back and made tons of money and knowing that they are coming back, it's, you know, you're sort of stuck. It's like, should I worry or just wait? Should I worry or just wait? You sort of grapple with that.

Okay, we'll have you take the RISA and we're going to work through this on the 30th.

Laura: Okay.

Roger: To put some framing around it so you have more of a protocol to know when to worry and when not to.

Laura: Okay.

Roger: So just building that I think is helpful. Now you have some wrinkles to your retirement because you are single with no children and don’t family network that's going to be there when you're 60, 70, 80. Your mom's age 87, right? 87.

Laura: Yes. 87. Yes. I do have a lot of nieces and nephews, but my plan is not to burden them with that.

Roger: So housing, let's start there and I'm just going to bring up some topics and just get your impression and you have a good reference of your mom.

Laura: Yes.

Roger: So, let's use her as your future self. You knew her when she was 80 and 75. So think of her in those different stages. From a housing perspective, what is ideal for you in your mind? Are you going to stay in your house forever?

Laura: I would, I mean, what is forever? You know, I would say that I would stay in my house until my mid-70s at least.

Roger: Okay. When you're not able to because you're wearing out your body doing all this fun stuff, running, cycling, who's going to get up on the ladder and clean out the gutters or change the light bulbs and things like that.

Laura: I think at that point I would definitely have to hire someone to do that. And that is a cost that I hadn't quite considered. But at that point I probably wouldn't be traveling as much maybe or.

Roger: Oh. So, they would sort of equal.

Laura: So maybe they would. Yeah.

Roger: Okay. This is definitely a lot of over the horizon questions. Right. My mother in law is 82 and she does not have dementia, she is quite sharp. But she is trying to talk to the insurance rep for auto or health care insurance talk and navigate getting health care payments or doctors. It's not great. It's not pretty.

Laura: No.

Roger: So, when you're 81 or 2, have you given any thought as to who's. Who's going to help me even manage your healthcare?

Laura: I think that's a huge market that people start need to start tapping into really, to offer services like that. Because I do see it with my mom.

I mean, yesterday she got a call. I don't know why they called her. She canceled her doctor's appointment for this week. Why are they calling her? I don't know, but she gets confused. You do need someone that kind of has your back a little bit. No, I mean, I have got to meet younger people, I guess. Make friends that are younger than you. I don't have a plan. But I definitely see a need in the market out there for, you know.

Roger: Yeah, I wouldn't expect you to have a plan.

Laura: Yes, it is kind of a crazy thing. Like, I do see what everything my mom's going through. I mean, even this, trying to figure out your retirement, as you get older, you want less complication, not more.

Then at 65, you have to figure out, you know, Medicare and part A, B, C, D, E, F, G. You know, that's what it seems like. Like all these different layers of stuff that. That really is complicated. As your mind becomes a little less complex or able to handle some of those things, they do get. I can see how people get overwhelmed.

Roger: Not having a partner or a child to help, like, my wife is the advocate for her mom, makes it hard to get on the phone with them and deal with them. So, I agree that this is a gap in services to have those people in place.

I do think that the market already is starting to address that. I think that will be a growing industry of some sort. What form it takes, I don't know. We have a lot of single people that we work with and a lot of single people in the global war. Do you do this? There's got to be somebody that can do this.

Laura: Right, Right.

Roger: Same thing with home health, navigating health insurance. What about socially? I mean, you're very active, you're very connected. As we age, the current environment pulls us to isolation if we don't battle that.

Laura: Yes, I see that tremendously. With my mother, we have the senior center that she goes to, which I think is great. She pushes back on going, which I find interesting. But it's something that is an awesome service out there where people get together, they have lunch, they dance, they play cards, they play bingo. So, I do know there's services out there that are pretty awesome. She was going on a regular basis back when she could drive in her mid-70s. Then Covid hit and that's where I really saw, especially for the elderly, how bad socially that was for people too, because she lost all those connections.

Roger: Yeah. Covid from a health perspective, but from a social perspective as well, hit some people extremely hard.

Laura: Really hard. Yes.

Roger: What do you think her pushback is to go to the senior center?

Laura: I think sometimes it's just comfort at home. You know, she's got to get up, she's got to get dressed and go. I think it's more the creature comforts that we have. Sometimes changing your routine is hard and as you get older; people get a little more set in their ways. So, I think that is the pushback with her.

Roger: Yeah, I think a lot of this area, Laura, is whether it's isolation, emotional and mental support. Every study looks at your social network, your social capital in the human aspect is critical to happiness and connection. Emotional mental health. We have got to be really proactive about it.

Technology makes it so much easier to make connections if you try. So, I think it's just something to be aware of.

Laura: Yes and no. I think it's great you bring it up. It's something that I have been more aware of just now, because I mean back, let's say when I was in college, you know, you just had plenty of people to talk to and even at work. But sometimes when you're at the top of the ladder, if you will, you know, you can't just have those casual conversations.

I've been much more active in pursuing like the meetup groups I think I mentioned before. we have so much out there with technology that makes it so much easier. If I want to go on a hike, I can just do a meetup hike, you know, bike ride. I can do a meetup m bike ride. It makes it so much easier to make connections if you make the effort.

Roger: One area that you're going to have, more evolved skills than most is that you are comfortable living alone and you're comfortable navigating socially as a single person.

Laura: Yes.

Roger: One thing I've observed my mother in law to an extent, but definitely some clients, male and female, is the married forever. People that lose a spouse, especially later in life, and they are so lonely because they've never developed those skills.

Laura: Yeah, it's got to be really hard. Really, really hard. I mean, I see it in a way with my mom, just the simple things that, well, your dad used to do these things and I'm like, okay, well here, let me take care of it. But how did you not learn, but that's true. I've heard it with some of your podcasts where it's one person being the primary and the other person either doesn't want to get involved or doesn't. It just doesn't interest them. It's like, well, there's no guarantee that both of you are going to leave this earth on the same day.

Roger: Oh, there's almost a guarantee that they won't.

Laura: Yes.

Roger: Yeah.

Laura: Although there is a lovely story of a couple that were, they were both poets that actually did that together.

Roger: Okay.

Laura: Yeah.

Roger: Okay.

Laura: But that's the only story I've ever heard. But yeah, we come into this world together, we leave this world alone. We leave this world alone. I don't think people, especially if they've been in long term relationships, are prepared for that.

Roger: Yeah. Outside of all the logistical stuff you name, I think it's literally just being alone is not something that has been practiced. If you've been in a long term relationship, you never even think about it. You have some more evolved skills that are to your benefit in that. It's good to really like yourself and be comfortable with yourself.

Laura: And my dogs.

Roger: And your dogs. Yeah. I don't know. We say that we're going to be dog free when Sherlock passes because we want to be able to travel a little bit more. I don't know if we're going to be able to handle that.

Laura: Yes, it's a tough one. I thought of that too, because I do want to travel. But then it's like, but what about my day to day? I need, you know, my dogs motivate me. I get out every day. I mean, I went on a four mile walk with them today and they're wonderful companions and they don't talk back.

Roger: I don't know about that. Sherlock, the last two days walking him, he's such a chill dog. He's a big Great Dane and he's been like; I'm going this way. He's been much ornerier about that than he usually is.

All right, so on the 30th, what we're going to do is we're going to hang out. We'll have some people hanging out with us that we won't see.

Laura: Okay.

Roger: They'll be able to type in questions that will moderate. But you and I are Going to walk through, review the vision, what Laura wants, look at the feasibility of that vision, and then navigate that a little bit of how you can test different scenarios and then look at how resilient it is and start to frame in the resilience of it and even talk about, well, how might you allocate it to make it more resilient? So, you can have a framework to know when you should worry or moderate or change, and then you can just ask questions to your heart's desire of what about this? I don't understand that. Where are taxes and all that other stuff? Does that make sense?

Laura: Okay. Yes, it makes sense.

Roger: Okay.

Laura: Very excited.

Roger: I am, too. I am, too. I love it. I love this journey for you. All right, well, I'll see you on the 30th.

Laura: Okay, thank you.

NICK’S VIEWS

Roger: All right, Nick, today. Well, first off, how are you doing?

Nick: I'm doing good. How are you doing today, Roger?

Roger: Good. Anything on your mind that has percolated from our conversations that you want to share?

Nick: Yeah, actually, there was something. After we finished up the last session, I realized one of the things I hadn't really said was in my taxable brokerage account, currently, I'm reinvesting all of my dividends back into new shares. That's going to be about $9,000 this year. I would be more than willing to turn off the reinvestment function and make that part of my income if it made my retirement hopes and dreams more possible.

Roger: Okay. well, let's talk about that for a second before we do, though. I didn't even do it intentionally. I started to move forward with the things that we were going to talk about today, and I stopped myself because I reminded myself it's always good, especially if you're talking to someone else, in a structure like this, to stop and say, is there anything on your mind that came up? Because it's easy to keep moving forward, and having time to step away from conversations and go back to them, I think is actually extremely important. Even with a spouse or a friend, like, if you have an argument with somebody, it's good to step away, let's marinate and then go back and readdress rather than just keep plowing forward. A lot of times as a planner, it's easy not to leave the room for that. But I think in personal relationships, it's not either. So good.

Let's talk about this. So, in the feasibility test that we'll look at on the third with you. We don't pay attention to reinvestment or not. What happens is we don't think of it as income. The reason is that the return assumptions we use for the long term feasibility testing assume dividends that are just naturally reinvested. If you look at an index return like the S&P 500, let's say it returned 8% over 10 years behind that assumption that the dividend is getting reinvested. It's just the default. So, when you're doing feasibility planning in software, it's best not to include income from the investments that you have. So, we don't need to worry about it.

Now when we get to resilience and how do we map out how you're going to pay for life? Then it becomes an option that we look at.

Nick: Okay, good.

Roger: Yeah, but I'm glad that you brought that up because that's not the first time I've answered that question. And it won't be the last. No doubt

Let's talk more qualitatively about risks in life. How do you view investing when it comes to risk in stocks and bonds, ups and downs? Give me your elevator speech on that.

Nick: Well, when I started investing at 25 years old. I don't know if you've heard of them, but in dividend reinvestment plans, which were an easy way for somebody with just a little bit of money to buy shares in a company, and at the time they were pretty friendly. I started at $25 a month as a young soldier in the army. Of course, as I've aged, I've probably become a little more risk averse as I've gotten closer to retirement. But I also understand that the market goes up and down and that I might need to manage my retirement from a point of view of, is the market down this year? Maybe I need to do something different than if the market was up. That's kind of how I've been approaching my retirement time, I learned to be a little bit less risky and at the same time understanding that, you know, I'm going to have to learn how to navigate the ups and downs of the market in retirement.

Roger: So, when you say I've been learning how to get less risky, what does that mean in practical terms?

Nick: So, 10 years ago I was 100 in stock. You know, I didn't have anything in any fixed income, treasuries or bonds. Over the last 10 years, I've slowly been moving my balances so that I'm probably 55%, maybe in stocks in my retirement accounts. This is not my brokerage in my retirement accounts, which is my Roth and my traditional IRA, and probably 5% in corporate bonds and maybe 40% in treasuries.

Our retirement program allows us to buy into a specific kind of government treasury fund that comes with a better interest rate than what is available otherwise. I don't quite understand the dynamics of it, but the treasuries that we purchase through our retirement program are a little more generous than the interest rate is. Does that help?

Roger: That helps. That helps. How did you develop that strategy? Was 45% in bonds a target? Was it a guesstimate? How did you come up with that?

Nick: It was kind of my target. I kind of feel like from my knowledge of the financial markets that I want to be more conservative in the first few years of my retirement. Then, and then maybe once I get through the first five years, maybe I can start shifting a little bit back towards stocks. But I know that protecting your balance as you get close to the retirement date is important and, and we've had a, Except for the big correction and during COVID we've been pretty robustly heading upwards. That isn't sustainable forever, and I know that.

Roger: Okay, I'm going to pull on this thread just a little bit. Okay, Nick, what makes you think, or where did you learn that getting more conservative in early retirement is what you should do?

Nick: I read personal financial magazines and I follow a few writers online and it kind of it feels like it’s general knowledge. Maybe that's why I'm interested, I was interested in doing this to make sure that I'm making the right decisions as I get close to retirement. But it feels like a lot of the information you find in the financial magazines and online, say 40/60 or 45/55 or even a 50/50 as you head into retirement is probably not a bad idea because bonds generally not always, but generally move differently than stocks. Of course, they have a little bit more guarantee underneath them as opposed to stocks. So, I was trying to protect my balance as I headed into retirement.

Roger: That makes total sense. I have said that in general terms.

Nick: Terms and I probably heard you say it too. But I didn't want to say that I'd heard you say that in case you didn't.

Roger: No, that's okay. I can take it. Two things on that.

One is, that is general advice. As you are at or near retirement, it's good to slow down from a risk perspective because of sequence of return risks going forward. That is a good. A true general statement, I would say. Did you have a filter to figure out one? Does it apply to you in your specific situation, and if so, to what degree does it apply?

Nick: So, I guess when you hear retirement advice, it's kind of generalized and not specific to anyone's specific situation because it's like the drawdown scenario of 4% a year is kind of the rule that everybody says is the rule, but I know that's not necessarily a rule. It's kind of a recommendation, like a heuristic.

Roger: That is totally normal. But I think it is also instructive when we get generalized heuristics or rules, many of them may not apply to us in any way. It's important to have our own plan of record to see what does and what does not, and that's what we're going to do in building it out. Resilience.

I was just curious as to the logic behind it, which is all sound logic from a general standpoint. Whether it applies to you or not is separate. I think of that with my business because all the business advice on the industry that I'm in, I don't follow almost all of it because I'm not playing their game. I have my own specific game and structure based on my life and preferences, so I have to be careful in reading general what retirement planners should do business wise, because it doesn't apply to me. It might actually pull me in directions that aren't applicable to me at all. I think that's important for you, but also important for everybody else as they think about this stuff.

You moved 5% in corporate bonds after two bad years in bonds.

Nick: Right.

Roger: Okay, so we're about 45/55 stocks to bonds.

Nick: Right.

Roger: These last two years were horrible years in bonds, and if you're in a bond fund, you actually lost stock, like losses in bonds. Did you feel odd doing that because the markets were so good and you were missing out? Did you have some fomo?

Nick: I do have a lot of fomo. Let me tell you.

One of the interesting things is that as part of my readjustment to my retirement account in the last eight years, I started right around 50, starting to slowly migrate more into bonds. I looked at the bond fund, the kind of corporate bond fund versus the government fund in the late 2018, 2019 time period, and it didn't seem to be doing significantly differently. I don't know why, but I bailed out of the corporate bonds completely. It's only been in the last two years that I've been going back into the corporate bonds, after the real collapse, I went, okay, well maybe now I should go back in. I don't know why I even made that decision four or five years ago to migrate out of them completely because it was not like I had some special knowledge of what the corporate bond scenario was going to be. But I've only started to add back on corporate bonds because I'm hoping that maybe they've reached their nadir and they're going to be on their way back up. That's where that 5% in corporate bonds actually came in was just in the last two years, I've started to reallocate to those.

Roger: So, you actually dodged a bullet unintentionally by making that move. Maybe there's some intuition that you can't identify that actually drove that. It might have been more thoughtful than you realize consciously.

Nick: As far as I know, it was a complete accident. But maybe you're right.

Roger: You never know. The mind's an amazing thing. We're going to send you a RISA assessment link, which is the Retirement Income Security Awareness. I always forget the acronym.

Nick: Okay.

Roger: Kevin Lyles and Wade Fowler are going to roll their eyes at me. But it's an assessment that we actually license in the club for people to take which is essentially like a personality assessment to get an idea of internally where you fall on safety first versus having lots of optionality because it's really important to match your withdrawal strategy and investment style to who you are and you intuitively did that with bonds. You had all of the fear of missing out, but you moved to more safety so you didn't have that regret of having things go down. It's important that we solve the cycle. What sets you up for success psychologically, not just simply the math. So, we'll have you take that and we can look at that when we meet on the 3rd of February.

Okay, let's switch gears a little bit. You are a single dude.

Nick: I am a single dude.

Roger: No children, but lots of nieces and nephews.

Nick: Lots of nieces and nephews.

Roger: You're going to get old. God willing. Hopefully it will be really old.

Nick: I hope so too.

Roger: Right. So, when Nick is 80 and he's done all this travel and these things, who's going to change Nick's light bulb?

Nick: That's a great question. I'm hoping to solve that as much as I can on my own. That's one of the reasons why I do maintain a long term care plan because I would like to be able to as long as I'm able to manage my own life whether that means I'm managing it with assistance from friends or somebody I'm paying. I would like to manage my life as long as I can. I think we all desire to keep our independence as long as we can. I don't feel like I want to burden any of my nieces and nephews with that kind of responsibility. It would be my intention not to.

Roger: If Nick can't change his light bulb, it's something that you can't solve for now. You're what, 59, right? 57.

Nick: I just turned 57.

Roger: 57. That's right. I know that you can't solve this now, but it's something to be aware of, right?

Nick: Right.

Roger: Now let's ask another question. Who are you going to have coffee with now? Obviously, you have your social network now. Who are you going to have coffee with when you're 80?

Nick: Where I live there is a pretty robust community with a lot of activities within the public sector. There's a senior center that's just maybe mile down the road where I could hop on the bus and go and have coffee with other gray hairs, as they say.

Roger: Well, that's interesting because you're 57 and you already have gray hair, Nick. So, at least you have hair.

I had a conversation the other day with someone, your cohort, Laura. Their mother sort of didn't like going to the senior center. We explored that because it felt like you were a senior, right? There's some stigma to that, but you're already thinking that way, which is a healthy thing. It's like, I got options, I got options.

Nick: Well, one of the advantages for me is I do live in a multi residence building, and some of the relationships I've built since I've lived here are with people who are younger than me. Some of them are older, some of them are younger. Of course, there's no guarantee that they'll all stay here, but I figure, you know, I've, I've always been able to interact pretty well with people 20 years older than me and people 20 years younger than me. Hopefully I won't lose that knack as I get older and I'll be able to continue to develop relationships even in the people who live right around me. We have a dinner group that goes out once a month from my community and I'm hoping that will continue and allow me to have maybe some folks who I could have come change a light bulb.

Roger: Whether you did this intentionally or not, is you live in a micro community, an ecosystem, whether it's a high rise or whatever, with people that are moving in and out. There are interactions in common areas. There's this dinner club where even if the dinner club may regenerate with people that are totally different, but you play in traffic, you naturally bump into people.

Whereas if you live in Laura's situation, who lives in a single family home and would love to stay there, your world can get very small because you don't naturally run into people to get your mail, maybe. You actually have set yourself up to have some success there.

Nick: Of course, the other issue is something which I'm currently addressing in my own life. My mother, she had a fall a month and a half ago and she lives in a single family home. Her world had already been shrinking because of her mobility issues prior to the fall. One of the advantages to living in a community like I live in is, like you said, I'll have natural interactions with people because they'll be in the hallways and they'll be in the common areas. Whereas when you live in a single family home and you're not able to. If you’re able to navigate out of that single family home, you can still stay there, but you have limits on navigating out of it. It can really collapse your social network really fast.

That's why when I was shopping for my home, first of all, I had parents who were older, and I didn't know what that situation was going to entail. One of the reasons I looked for a single, you know, a single family or a single level living style was to accommodate my parents or my aunt and uncle. It would also benefit me. I've come to realize really quickly as I watch some of the older residents around me having the ramps and the elevators and, and the ability to walk across the hall and knock on a door and say, hey, Nick, can you help me out is really great. I made a distinct decision to stay away from a single family home because, even in robust neighborhoods, as your abilities decrease, I knew that your social network could decrease pretty rapidly.

Roger: That's excellent points. Thinking about your mom and your aunt maybe have served you well here as well. Then you have the maintenance part of it, right? The yard, the sprinkler, the garage. One other aspect of it that I want to pull on here was, your mom had the fall.

Nick: My mom just had a fall right before Thanksgiving.

Roger: We have all these services now, like in Whole Foods and other places. Well, anybody will deliver groceries to you, and you can order a Big Mac and have it delivered to you. You know, anything. It’s very convenient but keeps you in your house even more. You could literally live without ever going out of your house. I have an old gentleman who I haven't talked to in years, but used to work at the firm that I owned who volunteered every Friday for a local charity. I don't know if they have it nationwide called Meals on Wheels. Are you familiar with that?

Nick: Yeah, they do.

Roger: Okay.

Nick: Yeah. Both my mom and my dad get meals from Meals on Wheels.

Roger: He had a Friday schedule, so every Friday afternoon he would deliver meals. He had his portfolio of people, so he saw the same people every week. I always admired him for that. That's a commitment. But his interaction with every person ended up becoming like a home check in unintentionally. Are they okay? Just because you walk in and you bring the food and built some low level relationships and many of the people in his portfolio, he was the only person that they saw all week.

Nick: Yeah, I know. That's not uncommon.

Roger: To your point, I think these are things to think about. Now you're 57 and it's serving you now. But if you live in a single family home now, have it on the horizon as a possibility when you're 65 or 75. It's not like you have to do it now. The earlier you do it, the more integrated you can get, which is helpful. But don't feel like you have to decide black and white right now.

Nick: Yeah. But I think people often want to hold on to our independence and our way of living. We have a pretty strong connection to it. I don't know how or if we'll ever get my mom out of her house. She really, really, really, really wants to stay there. Even though it's got stairs and it's not exactly the most conducive place for a senior citizen. There's a strong desire to stay in your own space and I realize that.

It can be hard to make the move from single family home to multifamily dwelling anytime if you're used to a single family home. I would agree with you, Roger. It's something that if you're in a single family home, you need to keep track of how your life is changing as you get older and hopefully make the decision before, you're forced into the decision.

Roger: There's an old saying, it's never the thing, it's the thing about the thing. I think that applies here. I've seen this in Shauna, my wife, who I'm not supposed to talk about on the show, but hey, she's downstairs and she's tired. I'm joking. She knows. She sort of does. I know my boundaries. When we've looked at Colorado and I've shared a lot of that story, you know, we were looking at building a single family home.

Nick: Right.

Roger: I was fine with not doing that, but that was her image in her mind. She likes her yard. We ended up we bought a townhouse in town on a trail with people around us with really no yard. She absolutely loves it.

Nick: Yep.

Roger: It's just that it didn't fit the paradigm that she had in her head. I think like now, I'm not saying this specifically about your mom, but as we get older, things represent security, memories. It's much more of a psychological journey that maybe that's where some of the answers are to help people think about this and get out of their own head or navigate it, because we don't even know why we're so convicted. Like in your mom's case, this is my place. Because you don't want to get to the point, I would think, Nick, of her having to resign herself and you pulling her out for her own good. Right.

Nick: That's not a great scenario.

Roger: Not a great scenario. So. But it sounds like you've set some things up.

The last part of this is what the heck are you going to do for passion and curiosity and hobbies? My intuition, based on our discussions, is you live in a metropolitan area that is robust in culture, in museums and in transportation and things like that. You sort of are playing in the playground. You're not living on a farm away from, you know, ability to do something.

Nick: Nope, you're right. I'm in a pretty robust metro area with a lot of opportunities. As a matter of fact, a friend just retired, I guess on the 31st of December and one of the things that she said was, I've decided that I'm going to go and spend time in a museum one day a month. I was like, if I retire in a year, I want to be on your Wednesday list. Let's go do it together, we'll get lunch and we'll go do it, you know. I live in a pretty robust community.

I am currently volunteering while I'm employed. I would like volunteering to become kind of the replacement to work. I would rather work for free because I want to, rather than work for a check because I have to. As a veteran, I'm interested in being involved in the local veterans community. You mentioned the meals, on wheels. We have a lot of that available in our community where you can pick people up and take them to appointments or bring them a meal. There's a lot of different volunteer opportunities. I see myself probably spending parts of three to four days a week volunteering, leaving my weekends and maybe a day in the middle of the week to me.

The other advantage to the volunteering is when you want to do what I want to do, which is take a trip or go to the family cabin in the summertime, I can say I'll be back in a month. The organization you volunteer for may be a little jammed up, but you're not required to go back to work. I'll just state it. This is what I'm doing.

Roger: Nick, I'm loving all this.

I do want to pull on one thread related to your friend in the museum. If I heard correctly, she said, “I’m going to go to one museum a week. I have a day I'm going to a museum.”

Nick: A month.

Roger: A month. She's going to set one day a month aside. My assumption in that is that this is what she's going to do, and if nobody goes with her, she's doing it.

Nick: Right.

Roger: Right. Her telling you that story inspired you. I would love to do that too. And now you have someone to go with.

Nick: Right.

Roger: Assuming she wants you to go, but she was going to do it anyway.

Nick: She is an actress on the side, so she could have been pretending, acting like she wanted me to join her.

Roger: You don't know. Right?

Nick: Right. You have me wondering.

Roger: Now you sound needy, though. We don't want to sound needy, but my point is that this is a female in a metropolitan area that is going to go do something, and now she's communicating it to others.

Nick: Right.

Roger: That makes her interesting. She's doing something interesting, and if you want to do things with people, or if you want to build a social network, job number one is to be interesting enough for people to want to be your friend.

Nick: Oh, right. Definitely.

Roger: Does that make sense?

Nick: Yeah, it makes complete sense. To be honest, I wasn't the only one who jumped. There were other people in the group, one of them who's already retired was like, I'm going to join you. Start now. I'm not going to wait for Nick to join us in a year. I'm going to do it now.

Roger: She's an actress and all actors have some craziness in them. So, she's probably interesting already. But that's separate, I guess. My point is a lot of us desire for more community, more friends.

Nick: Oh, yes.

Roger: I'm better at it than I used to be. But it's hard. It's hard. We tend to wait for somebody to ask.

Nick: Right.

Roger: They wait for somebody to ask them to do something rather than announcing it. Most people, if you're default, usually are waiting for someone to ask or to be given an opportunity rather than to create the opportunity. So, it takes a little bravery.

Nick: Exactly.

Roger: All right, Nick, the next time we talk will be on the third, when we have the feasibility test. We'll look at resilience. We'll talk about the dividends and not the dividends, and we'll identify some risks and opportunities for you to take steps will rationalize how much you should be safe on your investments versus not given the totality of Nick's specific situation, not just generalized rules of thumb. Then you'll be on live, your camera will be off, and you'll be. As we build out the story of the version one plan of record, you'll be able to ask questions and challenge and make tweaks to it as we go. So, it'll just be like this, but it has some structure around it. That sounds good?

Nick: Sounds good.

Roger: Anything that you want to share or want to ask that hasn't been.

Nick: I don't think so. I think we've done a pretty thorough job of covering everything up to this point.

Roger: All right, well, as things come up, we can address them when we chat.

I'm looking forward to hearing your conversations about finances and retirement

I want to thank you for being willing to do this because I think it helps a lot of people that we'll never know about, which is a beautiful thing.

Nick: Right? I agree. I think the dynamic of a single male and a single female was inspired, actually, because I know that just when you read economically, the difference between males and females, often there's a different dynamic for females when it comes to finances and retirement. I think it'll be interesting. I'm looking forward to hearing your conversations with you and Laura.

Roger: Yes.

Nick: I'm looking forward to hearing that part of the conversation.

Roger: Yeah, I think I did really well with having you and Laura. You two have great spirits and wonderful stories.

SMART SPRINT

On your marks, get set, and we're off to take a little baby step that you can take in the next seven days to not just rock retirement, but rock life.

All right, in the next seven days, go to a link that we're going to share in our 6-Shot Saturday email. That's our weekly recap of the show where we're able to share resources. If you're not signed up for that, you can go to sixshotsaturday.com. I’m going to share a link to a Hartford website.

Hartford has partnered with the MIT Age Lab. We've had the director of the Age Lab on the show, I guess years ago. We need to have him back because he's a great guy.

The reason I want you to go to this website is because Hartford has licensed a lot of the studies that the MIT Age Lab has done around aging and how to navigate that. There's a guide on buying and maintaining a car, a guide on conversations with older drivers, maybe you're dealing with parents on this. A smart way to prevent and detect home fires. How to age proof your home and on maintenance, a way to design kitchen. I think Nick is doing a big kitchen remodel. Well, there's design suggestions from the Age Lab and research and how do you design a kitchen and bathroom to help you maintain your independence in your home. There are a lot of great resources on that website. We'll have a link to that in 6-shot Saturday.

BONUS

Now we're on to our next installment of the missions that Sigmund Canceller flew in a B17 in World War II. Let me get to the page of his book. Last week was a heavy one. All right, so that really dramatic one where they were the only ship from their squadron to come back, that was on July 19th. That was a trip that took seven hours. Lost a lot of ships. They had a bombardier that they hoped hit the earth safely. That was on July 19. Now his next mission, number 16 and 17, was the next day, July 20, 1944. Think about that.

“Ship number 183, sortie 11 bombed an airdrome in Germany today. There was no flak but encountered or seen 100 to 150 fighters. Hot time in the air today. P-38 done a darn good job today. Carried a load of incendiaries and done a good job. Mission was 6 hours 50 minutes long, altitude 24,000ft.”

Then as an addendum, it looks like he wrote later because it's in a different pen,

“One ahead of jerry. I hope he doesn't get even again.”

The opinions voiced in this podcast are for general information only and not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance references historically and do not guarantee future results. All indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested in directly. Make sure you consult your legal, tax or financial advisor before making any decisions.