The 3 Levels Of An Early Retirement | What Level Are YOU At?

Now , what I'm going to do from here is I'm going to hop right in . As you guys know , I like to do so , and I'm going to start with some thoughts , and these thoughts are not just thoughts I made up , these are thoughts that have come from you guys , and so I'm going to make these assumptions in addition to these thoughts . So tell me what you think .

Okay , and I know obviously you're not replying because you're just listening , but I want you to really think through what I'm going to say here . So let's make an assumption that at some point , you've thought , yeah , I want to retire . I just don't know . Is it next year , is it three years from now ? Is it five years from now ? Are you going ?

You know what ? I think I'm in a good spot , but if markets don't perform well , then I'm not really not sure . Are you thinking ? You know what I do feel I've got a good amount in that 401k or that IRA or that Roth IRA . But how am I going to bridge that gap ? If I want to retire early , where's income going to come from ?

And my plan looks good on paper ? Maybe I've done some Excel stuff , but you know what ? I don't know because the timing of these things is really confusing me . So security is going to come on at some point . I don't really know when I should take it . But in addition to that , there's that brokerage account you talk about . How much should I put in there ?

How much is too much ? Right now I'm saving ? Should it all go to my 401k ? Should it go elsewhere ? I could go on and on and on . But the reason I'm doing it this way to start out today's episode is because I do not want you to get paralysis analysis . Okay , a big phrase that I'll talk about here at the firm is called head trash .

I don't want you to have head trash . Part of my job as an advisor is to say here are things I'm going to advise you on . Please invest this way , because here's how you can see it'll benefit you . Here's why we want to use this tax strategy .

Sometimes people get so lost in quantifying things , it can actually be to your detriment where you don't take action , and I do not want that to be the case and I talk about that a lot on the show because there's amazing episodes out there and podcasts and all these things that I also listen to and it sounds great .

But then I go , hey , there's a lot to this and I'm just going to try to keep it simple , because oftentimes simple is the best way to do it . And then I go actually , I understand this philosophy , so maybe there's something better out there , but I don't understand it , so I'm not going to do it .

And I know I personally do that If I go to a doctor or any other line of my physical therapist a lot of you know I play soccer If they're telling me I should do all these fancy exercises , but I don't understand it , I'm just not going to do it , even though I know it could be better . I need to understand it .

So my goal today is to keep it really simple , where you understand exactly what I'm talking about in a way that is going to resonate , hopefully , a whole lot different than any other episode I've done before . So please do let me know if this is helpful .

Now I'm going to tell you all the not all , but I'm going to give you all three levels right now and then we're going to explore them in more detail because I know some of you are very busy people . You're listening right now and you've got things to do and I want you to go do those things . So here's what I'm going to start with .

The level one okay is can I retire and am I in a good spot to retire , whether it's in one year , three years or five years ? That's level one . Now , if you know that answer , then great , some people go I'm going to go retire Now . I'm not giving anyone the green flag or the green light in my eyes off level one . Level one is can I retire ?

Am I in a good spot ? Maybe you've done some basic projections on your end and you go yeah , looks pretty good If I want to spend 6,000 a month and inflation assumption is this , and yeah , maybe I could do better , but it looks pretty good . So level one is like Am I in a pretty good spot to retire ? Now , we're gonna explore these in more detail .

Let's level one okay . Level two is saying okay , I now know I'm in a pretty good spot to retire . But what should I do so I understand how much I can spend ? People go , wait a second . What did you just say ? What should I do to understand how much I can spend ? Because I do not want you retiring going .

Yeah , I did pretty good and I think I can spend 6,000 a month . And then here you are 20 years later in your 80s and 90s and you're going . Why didn't I spend 8,000 a month ? Why did I spend 10,000 a month ? Because I just didn't know what spot I was in . Most people don't know what spot they're in .

They're in the I don't know phase and a lot of you know this example . But I'm a soccer player and I love playing soccer . I'm not fun to be around when I get hurt , but what I do is I get an MRI and I understand how bad is the injury . Then I get my physical therapy and I go got it . Here's what I need to do to get back on the field .

Here's my action plan , and most people I find don't have an action plan , or they do , but it's in their head , so they don't really stick to the plan . So level one is can I retire ? Am I in a good spot . Level two , like I just said there's how much can you spend ? What's the most you can spend without running the risk of running out of money ?

And then level three is saying okay , with all of my planning , is there anything I'm doing right now that is optimizing for my taxes ? Because taxes are gonna be one of the biggest expenses throughout your entire retirement and I do not want you going . Oh my gosh , I look back 20 , 30 years . I could have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars .

So most of you know my dopey joke here , but I'm all about being patriotic , just not to the point . You pay more taxes than you need to . So these are the three levels we're gonna explore today in a whole lot more detail and it's gonna be a ton of fun , but those are what I wanna make sure you're thinking about .

I wanna make sure , by the end of today's episode , you are fairly clear , if not crystal clear , on what level you're at right now and you might go . Yeah , I feel like I'm level one , like I've got a pretty good spot . I think I'm in a good spot . I don't know how much I can spend , but I think I won't run out if I'm kind of in this range .

Some of you are gonna go hey , I think I'm in a good spot , but that's assuming I collect Social Security at this age and maybe I should do better . Like , don't get that paralysis analysis . I do a whole episode on Social Security . I do a whole episode on Roth conversions . I do an entire episode on how much you can take from your portfolio .

So today is less about quantifying the whole episode , but where are you at ? I wanna take a step back today , before 2024 begins . I want you to have a really clear sense of , like , what should my game plan be in 2024 ?

Because the truth is , all of you will not work with me or my firm , and I get that , even though I wanna work with a lot of you and a lot of you have reached out to work with me , that's just not the reality . And so I wanna give you all as much helpful guidance as I can . And if I can help you , great .

If you're just listening to this podcast episode and this is how you get your information to learn and this is what you're looking for , then great . Like that's why I do this as well . So , with that being said , let's hop into the review of the week . I'm pulling up right now on my phone , no-transcript , keith , who says I feel like a superhero .

Ari has the best financial podcast that I've come across . I've always been a pretty capable saver investor . I've listened to many experts but find most content pretty basic . Ari goes deeper into personal finance and explains options that many others don't cover .

He has verified some of the decisions I've made , like opening a brokerage account parentheses , superhero account , you got it , hwc , keith , you're a good listener account to help retire early . So I'm gonna pause . Then I'm gonna finish this review .

If a lot of you don't know , but if you're gonna retire early , you need some way to pull income and the most efficient way to do so is through a brokerage account because it keeps your income low and you can do all these awesome tax strategies like Roth conversions . So , hypothetically , you retire at 55 , you go great . What do I do until 59 and a half ?

Where can I pull income from ? So some people try to just make sure they have enough in their brokerage account to last for four years . Then , at 59 and a half , they start pulling income . That's level one . That's how much am I in a good spot ? You could do it . But level two is saying , hey , what about tax planning ? What's the most you can pull ?

And so just diving into this brokerage , the superhero account . More detail , that's what HWC Keith is talking about right here . So more to come on that , but he said he has provided a wealth of content on what to consider beyond just saving for retirement . I look forward every week to the latest episode . That is a very kind review , one of my favorites .

So , seriously , hwc Keith , thank you for doing so . If I've helped any of you in any fashion , please do leave a review , or shoot me an email , or leave a review or a comment on YouTube if you're watching there . All of this is , of course , in the podcast app and on YouTube .

So , with that being said , I'm gonna start with a quote , and this is a quote that comes from Daniel Crosby , who is a PhD and a psychologist and asset manager . Now , I really like Daniel .

He's one of my mentors that I just look up to , and I think it's because he does a really good job of keeping things simple and understanding what you should and should not focus on . So we're gonna go through these different levels , like I said , in a moment , but he says this and I just wanna make sure you hear this loud and clear .

He says one of the occupational hazards of our work as financial advisors is that money can become too real . Even if you're not a financial advisor but you are a DIYer which stands for do it yourself , or you have an advisor but lack a plan , sometimes you'll start diving into your finances in more detail .

So what he's saying here is some of you have advisors right now and I know a lot of you because you're reaching out you're like , hey , I feel like I might know more than my advisor at this point . They don't specialize in earlier retirement or tax planning , but they're doing a good job .

They've done good for me up until this point and I just don't wanna break up with my advisor . So I have them , but I have thoughts . So sometimes I just go do my own personal finance investigation if you will .

And so what he's saying here is one of the hazards of really understanding your money is it can become too real , too important and too large in our mind . In years dedicated to mastering financial planning and investment management . Now a lot of you may be not masters , but you are sophisticated investors . Most of you aren't coming to me going what's a 401k ?

You wanna help me optimize it ? Okay , and he goes on to say it can inadvertently elevate money to an unhealthy level of importance , oftentimes resulting in personal misery . Okay , so what on earth did he just say there ?

What he just said is , if you get too obsessed with your money , you are gonna leave things on the table , and those things that you're leaving on the table you cannot quantify .

So I put together just a quick little list here of what so many of my clients started with in terms of assets and thoughts and things like that that I just wrote down in this little list here that I'm gonna tell you guys right now . And a lot of these clients are coming to me .

They're going all right , I just wanna retire , I wanna spend more time with my spouse , I wanna do this , I wanna do that .

I say , great , I want you to do those things also , but what I wanna make sure we're doing is we're not getting too lost in the finances , that you actually forget what's most important here , because no one comes back to me and says , oh my gosh , all right , I'm so glad my average return last 20 years was 8.329652% , they say I'm so glad I retired two years

earlier because I didn't know if my spouse was gonna be in the same health condition and we wanna travel like crazy . I say great , that's why I love this stuff .

Okay , so here's some things that , admittedly , I do get obsessed with quantifying , because I love numbers , I love my job , I love what I do , but I don't wanna get so lost to the point that we actually don't focus on what the goal is , and so I'm gonna walk you through this right now , and this was , admittedly , very hard for me to do , but these are

thoughts that I wrote down here , I'm just gonna share it to you . A lot of this I prep my podcast and I outline them , and then sometimes , when it makes sense to go off the cuff , I'll do that if I think it makes most sense . So here's an example of something I didn't go off the cuff on . I said what can you really quantify ?

Fun experiences , meaningful work , strong relationships , working for something that's maybe bigger than yourself , maybe doing some more pro bono work at your work , or mentoring , or volunteering and getting better each day ?

Now , I know a lot of this sounds surface level , but the premise is , if you're going to work every day and you don't feel like you're getting better or it's not fulfilling or helping in some fashion .

Consider alternatives , consider part-time work , consider looking at things that maybe pay a whole lot less , but if you enjoyed it and you could do it for longer , good luck . Quantifying that on your health . I'll ask my clients in our review meetings . I'll go how well are you sleeping ?

Because you're not sleeping well but your finances look good , then there's a problem If you don't know what you're gonna do in retirement for purpose and fulfillment . Another problem Too often it's just can I retire ? That's once again level one . So , with that being said , let's hop into some of these levels .

I promise today won't be the longest episode , but I hope that this is helpful and I'm gonna start going through these levels by giving you some context for just this year alone . The biggest single day percentage drop in the S&P 500 this year was 4.24% , and that was on June 12th .

So a lot of people , if you have a million bucks , you go oh my gosh , it's almost $50,000 of a decline in my portfolio . Does that change my retirement projections ? Those are natural thoughts a lot of people have maybe you in fact . But despite that drop and all the volatility . That's happened this year . S&p 100 is up 23% .

So we look at last year , wasn't the case . We look years before . It did a little better . So what I don't want you to do is go hey , just based off of this year , can I retire , can I not retire ? Level one here , which I said , is can you retire Whether it's in two years or three years or five years from now ? That's level one .

And so here's the exercise to keep it really simple , so you can take an actionable item from this , which is look at your assets today and say if you retire tomorrow , where on earth would income come from ? Now ? Some of you are gonna go sorry , I'm 57 , I wanna retire early , but it's all in a 401k . I don't have enough in a brokerage account .

So the answer for you should be either you can't retire , or you use the rule of 55 , or you look at other options , not saying you're gonna do it . But if you wanted to retire tomorrow , where would income come from ? Now ? Some of you are gonna go hey , I don't know . I don't know where I should come from .

That's why I'm listening to these episodes , try to get an understanding . And so sometimes the answer is if you were to retire tomorrow . We can't , and so therefore , we need a brokerage account and we're not gonna max out our 401k anymore , even though we've kind of always been told to do so for the tax deduction .

But that's when you can become a little bit qualified rich , cash poor and I've talked about this in other episodes but the goal is not to just have a ton in your 401k or your IRA .

If you wanna retire early , you've gotta bridge that gap , and if you're gonna have these big RMDs later , you're just adding dollars to that 401k , you're just adding to this RMD problem that you're gonna have in the future , and so RMDs tend for acquired minimum distributions and I wanna make sure that you are being tax efficient through this Now .

Tax efficient , that's level three . Okay , we're still at level one right now , and level one is can you retire ? So don't get the paralysis analysis of oh my gosh , I know Social Security's gonna get turned on , but I don't know when , or I don't know what's the exact timing of when I should pull from this , and that keep it really simple .

Let's assume you have $2 million , whether it's in a 401k or Roth IRA . All that's super important , okay . But to keep it simple . If you were to retire tomorrow , where would income come from and then go ? What about a year from now ? What about two years from now ? What would your withdrawal rate be ? So let's just keep it once again , super simple .

I'm just pulling up my calculator on my end right now . If you can see this , if I'm on YouTube , if you're on the podcast app , you can't see me do this , but I'm saying what if you have $2 million and let's just assume it's all in the IRA and you wanna take out 5% ? Okay , that's $100,000 . Would you be able to do everything you wanna do at $100,000 ?

You might go yeah , I feel like $100,000 a year , but that's not counting my mortgage and that's not counting I'm gonna do additional travel and I'm gonna do and . So that's where people get lost and they go yeah , it's a loss , I'm just gonna keep working . Yeah , I'll do six more months , I'll do one more year , two more years .

It's called GP planning in our industry and that stands for goalpost planning . We go yeah , once I have $2 million or $3 million , I want you to get that head trash out of there . It has nothing to do with the number . It completely depends on what you wanna spend and what would you really wanna do in retirement ? Would it be fulfilling ?

So some of you are gonna hey , that sounds good , but I'd love to spend $200,000 a year . Okay , that might not be realistic with your plan , but it depends . I have clients with $10 million plus dollars and they are not in a position to spend $200,000 a year .

I have other clients that do have $10 million and they're in a wonderful spot to spend $400,000 a year and the reason for it is maybe they only wanna spend a ton of money the first five years when they wanna travel like crazy and then all of a sudden they go hey , we still wanna live a fulfilling life . Just , it's gonna look a little different .

So don't marry your retirement expenses . But , number one , get a clear sense how much do you really wanna spend ? I do have a cash flow planner that will help you out with this . Go in the link in the description and you can see this For 2024, . Start to model out how much do you really need so you can do everything you wanna do and dream big .

Do not be conservative . Understand that if you were retiring tomorrow , is this a number that , if you had this monthly check , do you feel you could really do everything you wanna do . That's like number one how much do you wanna spend ? Then number two and this is all still of level one is number one is Really , how much do you want to spend ?

And level two is what assets do you have to make it happen ? I don't believe you need a million to retire , two million or five million . Maybe you have a pension , maybe you have rental income , maybe you have social security . And all of the timing of that is gonna cause anxiety . Why ? Because you're a human and you're gonna go well .

That sounds good , but social security might not start until 70 and that's 10 years away . So maybe I should delay retiring and ooh , markets are doing this . I'm gonna wait one more year . That's head trash . Get a plan in place and understand when you no longer need to keep working .

And there should be a time in your mind where , if markets don't do well , you're still gonna be in a great spot . So that's what I'll do . With my clients , I say what if we don't do any of these strategies I talk about ? So someone comes on board with us . We're not showing them Roth conversions immediately . We're not showing them charitable giving .

We're saying what if you changed nothing , what are you on track for ? And you'll say , great , here's what you're on track for , and that's assuming health insurance is accounted for and travel and all these things that aren't gonna be there forever and maybe the mortgage will go away . You go , got it . Here's my general plan .

Now what can I maneuver here , now that you've got level one in place ? Now we go to level two , and level two is how much can you spend ? Let's assume that you've got $2 million and you go , ari , I just wanna know what's the most I can spend . And I'll tell a client and I'll do this with them . Right now I'm kind of doing this on my calculator .

I'll say the most you could spend , like I'd be comfortable . If you wanna spend 120,000 year , you know that's nearly 6% of your portfolio you could easily do that . And they're like wait a second , ari , that sounds a little different when you sat on a different episode , because once you said maybe I can only take out 4% or no , not the 4% rule .

You don't like that . Maybe it's that guardrails approach that 5.2 to 5.5% they go . Yeah , I think that's what you said . So 6% , that's above that . So I think you're kind of getting something wrong here . And I'll tell a client I go , you're absolutely right , I would have it wrong if it was 6% one year and then 6.2 and then 6.5 and then 7% .

But most of you it won't be like that . Most of you , what's gonna happen is you're gonna retire early and you're gonna wanna spend , and I want you to spend , and what's gonna happen is is you're gonna be spending and you're gonna go oh my gosh , is this sustainable ? Can I do this ? Then you're gonna look at a graph and you're gonna go wait a second .

Once social security comes in , my withdrawal rates really low , meaning I wanna spend 120,000 a year now , but if social security comes on between my spouse and I and there's 50,000 coming from there , well , now only 70,000 is coming from my portfolio , and 70,000 , assuming , by the way , guys , no growth at all 2 million bucks . You're going .

Well , that's super sustainable . Now I'm at like a 3.5% withdrawal rate , but now wait a second . Okay , 3.5% withdrawal rate , but now I'm in my 70s , I'm in my 80s . Money might not be worth as much to you . And so what I'll tell a client is I'll say what's the most you can spend .

It depends on when you retire and how many years you wanna spend at that degree . I have clients that are coming to me , guys , they have a 7% or 8% withdrawal rate and people go how on earth could you recommend that as an advisor ? I go , I could not . I could not sleep at night and they go . Well , you just did , I go . I could not .

If it kept going up and up and up and up and up , then it's not sustainable . But if there's one year where you're gonna buy a new car , you're gonna travel , and it's just one year and markets are doing really well , I'm telling a client this is the year to do it .

Go renovate the home , go do this and go do it with total confidence , not like I'm gonna do it , but really Ari's just being a nice guy here and I don't know if I'm in a good spot to do it . None of that . I want you to go spend and know that if you're spending , you're in an amazing spot to spend .

So the point of this is level two how much can you spend ? It is time to become a successful spender . So I want you to really dream and say level one , how much can you spend ? Level two what's the most you can spend . I want you to have a really successful retirement , and the way that you do that is you dream big .

Now , sometimes our feedback is if you wanna spend this amount , wonderful , you're working two more years or three more years to be able to do that and you might say , great , I just didn't know if it was five years away or one year away . Sometimes our feedback's the opposite you can do this sooner than you think . So that's level two .

Finally , level three is how do you minimize taxes ? I do not want you crushing taxes and the truth is most of you are because if you're listening and you're considering an early retirement , you're probably in a good spot . You probably have between one and 10 million of assets just liquid assets , excluding real estate and you just wanna make sure you're optimizing .

And some of you have 500,000 bucks but a really healthy pension or you have rental income or inheritance is coming in or whatever it is with you . You likely are going to be leaving money on the table from a tax perspective and I don't want you to .

I wanna make sure and that sounds very obvious here but I wanna make sure you don't get crushing taxes , not just in one year , but over the course of your lifetime , and the only way to do that is with a really , really good tax strategy , and I do . You know I have episodes on Roth conversions , on donor-advised funds , on taxi and harvesting .

Let this episode simply be about helping you understand taxes in a more high-level idea of the following let's assume you retire 57 and you go all right , I've got 100,000 that brokerage account that's gonna get me till 59 and a half , meaning at 59 and a half . Then I'm gonna start pulling from my IRA .

So in these first years of retirement my income's gonna be really low . I'm gonna pull from that brokerage account and what's gonna happen is , when you pull from that brokerage account , your income's really low because you're just paying capital gains taxes on the gains . It's not any ordinary income and maybe you just have some amount in cash as well .

So maybe your income could be crazy low . And you do all these amazing Roth conversions and let's just say markets go down like 20 , 30% . You've heard my episodes by now . You know when markets go down it's a great opportunity to a Roth conversion .

And then all of a sudden you're like all right , you know markets went down and so I was living off of that 100,000 , so I used 70,000 of it to live and then I did a big Roth conversion and it cost me like 15,000 taxes . So now I don't have a whole lot left to get me through next year . Like how am I gonna bridge this gap ?

So I'm telling you this because when markets go down or your income is low , you wanna consider Roth conversions and you don't wanna just have enough to get you to 59 and a half .

You wanna have extra , you wanna have buffer , because if markets are doing different things , you wanna be able to throw gasoline on that fire because those Roth conversions can be legitimately a millions of dollars to your bottom line . So most people reach out , they hit , you know . I'll ask them very frankly they hit why are you hiring me ?

And they'll say you know what ? I'm hiring you because tax planning is not being incorporated in my plan right now and I need that . I know there's stuff I'm missing out . I don't know what I don't know and I say great , let's go a step deeper . What about charitable giving ? What about how much you can spend ? What about if we don't do Roth conversions ?

And very few people are gonna not ? You're gonna understand this next analogy , but you've probably not seen me explain it this way , so here's what I want you to think about . One client came to me and a lot of you know this story , but I'm gonna give it to you anyway . They said all right , you sound really excited about these Roth conversions .

We do this , we do that , we can save millions . And I said I am , I'm really excited because you could see what it's gonna do for you . And they said well , you know , I just don't want you to not be excited , but I wanna tell you like I'd really love to do some more travel in the first series of retirement .

And I said whoa , whoa , whoa , this is really really helpful information . And they're like what do you mean ? And I said well , when we first talked about travel , you said maybe you wanna do a few international trips , but nothing crazy . And now you're saying you wanna do a lot of travel . How much travel do you love doing in a dream world ?

And they're like to be honest , I'd love to fly first class . I never have . I'd love to spend 60,000 year on travel , but just for the first three years . I said , wow , I don't wanna do amazing Roth conversions anymore . I mean , you sound so excited before and that it could add millions .

I go , yeah , I could still get add millions , but I would rather we don't optimize a Roth conversion and instead you go spend more on travel . You go do more fun and , yeah , your Roth conversion on paper won't be as great , but that's not the purpose of this .

If you wanted the best Roth conversion , well , what you would do is you would stop working and if you have big RMDs , you're gonna do a ton of conversions . Don't spend any money , live under the freeway and your conversions on paper will look great . That's not why we're doing this . It's not why we're having this conversation .

So my client was like , oh my gosh , I get it now the point not to optimize conversions . At the same point , I wanna go travel . Now I'll tell a client you know if this is a no brainer , it's a $50,000 decision to take this trip or not . I'll say , hey , can we push that trip back by one year ? And here's the reason why . And they might go .

You know what . I get it , but I'm taking the trip anyway and I say , great , I just want you to know why we're doing it . You might go . No , I really see . It's a $60,000 tax savings or 80,000 by just waiting six months on this . I'm happy to do so . That trip , you know , I can push back .

I'm gonna have to negotiate with my spouse , but I can get it pushed back . So these are the levels that I wanna go through . So ask yourself right now what level are you in Number ? You might be at level zero , which is I don't even know what I'm on track for . That's why I'm listening to this , trying to get a sense of this .

You might be level one , which is I think I'm in a pretty good spot to retire when I want to , but I really don't know when . Am I truly in a spot ? What's the earliest time that I could retire with total confidence ? But that's level one . Level two how much can you spend ?

Not just what's the minimum , that if you take this out , you're going to be okay and leave $10 million at the end . I'm sure a lot of you have done some retirement projections and it almost looks preposterous Like , yeah , well , a 5 million or 10 million or 20 million If it grows like this . What if it doesn't grow like that ?

What if it does grow like that ? What if it grows more than you think ? What if you invest like this ? That's level two . How much can you spend if you do all the right things ? And good luck quantifying that on your sleep , on your health , on your life ? You can't . And then level three is don't get crushed in taxes , Okay , just , quite simply .

So hopefully this was a helpful episode Once again . If it was , this is the last episode for 2024 . Please , do leave a review . You can all , of course . If you do listen to the end of these episodes , you can email me directly .

I'm going to give you a quick overview right now for any of you that do reach out wondering hey , what does our process look like , what it looks like for 2024 ? Is anyone who reaches out , they're speaking with me directly . Some people go hey , am I going to get one of your associates or a junior or someone that ?

No , okay , you reach out to root financial . You are speaking with me . Now what happens is we have a conversation . Our agenda is fairly strict in the sense that what we're going to do is we're going to . I'm going to ask you some questions to get a clear sense of what you're looking for and see , are we best positioned to help ?

And I'll tell you right now . Some people are coming to me and they just want their investments managed . They want to know about tax strategy . No estate planning , no income , no tax . I say we're probably not the best fit for you . We do holistic planning , so just know that Okay . Number one is are we a potential good fit ?

If yes , number two is I go through our process on that call and I show you here's how we can help . Here's exactly how we help you implement all these things in a really simple , effective way . And then number three is I want to get to know you .

I want to know your personality , your unique planning needs , so that I can understand which advisor here , which lead advisor , would be best for you . So almost think of it like I'm a financial matchmaker Now not matchmaking the sense of what services do we use ? Because we only offer one service , because it's the best , which is holistic financial planning .

I want to get a sense of what advisor would you enjoy meeting with . Who would be a really good fit ? That , if you're speaking with them in the next 20 , 30 plus years , would you enjoy meeting with them Now ? That would be your lead advisor .

That is the person you are speaking with on a daily basis not daily basis , of course , but you could reach out to them on a daily basis to say , hey , what's going on with this ? Or should I update that ? Like ? That is your lead advisor . That's your main contact .

I am what's called your senior advisor , so I'm the one overlooking for 2024 the plans , and I'm working closely with those lead advisors to ensure , if anyone's retiring early , that they understand the nuances involved , that there's nothing missing , because with health insurance and withdrawal rates and tax planning it becomes a lot .

So I work very closely with our lead advisors to implement these things for our clients . And then , finally , I want to make sure that you're over the moon . And so what do I mean by that ? If someone's coming to us and like I think I should do this , but I'm just not sure yet , I'll say don't hire us .

Like , we want to work with people where it's a priority . They're eager to move forward . They understand what makes us different . We do a holistic approach and they want to start living their best life . They want their spouse taking care of , they want to make sure multi-generational wealth with their children is being handled . They want to retire with confidence .

Who is the people that are coming to me ? So we don't work with everyone . We work with people that are really excited , and we do call it a partnership because we ask for 100% , because we give you 100% . We want it to be the same there . So hopefully this was some helpful insight . Hopefully today's episode was helpful . Once again , an amazing 2024 .

Thank you all . Excuse me , 2023 . I'm already too excited . 2024 is going to be amazing and I hope you all truly have an amazing new year , and I've got a ton of fun content and ideas to come in 2024 . So make sure to stay tuned . Thanks , guys , love you . Thank you for listening to another episode of the Early Retirement Show .

If you have a question that you want answered in a future episode , you can always go to my website , earlyretirementpodcastcom . That's earlyretirementpodcastcom , and you can go ahead and submit a question that I'll look to answer in a future episode . Thank you all for listening .

Please do rate it , review it and share it with someone who you think would benefit from this information . If there's anyone out there that you know , I certainly appreciate it and I will see you all each week . Hey guys , it's me again . Please be smart about this . Nothing in this podcast should be construed as financial , tax or legal advice .

Consult with your tax preparer or financial advisor before taking any action . This podcast is for informational purposes only .