What To Do If You Have Nothing Saved For Retirement

matter your age. We are talking to you if you have nothing saved or very little save for retirement, or if you feel like you're kind of starting late. We're gonna kind of talk about all the things. Yeah, we're gonna give you some practical tips, some encouragement, a little tough love. If I can say that, I don't want to say it's tough, but I think you with anything positive, we need to have some realization of the stakes that

are up for losing if we don't take action. But the great thing about this is is that even if you feel like you're starting late, every little action counts. So there's nothing you holding you back but you and we are going to, hopefully by the end of this episode, give you the encouragement, so you believe that too, and we're here with you because we're talking to ourselves and this as well. We all need reminders about retirement and what to be keeping our sights on because it's not

something we think about all day every day. Of course, that depends on where we're at in life, but it is a reminder that we often need to be focusing on. And do I have the things set up? Am I going to look back with some version of regret wishing I had made the most of this time? So we're going to talk about how to do that. Yeah. But first, this episode is brought to you by The Spending Makeover.

It's a three day challenge foe free that we are going to give you so that if you don't have anything saved for retirement, you can get on the path to controlling some of that impulse spending that you think may be keeping you from having extra margin to invest

and save. So if you feel like that is something you struggle with, which I think a lot of us do, then head to Frugal Friends podcast dot com Slash Makeover and get that free three day challenge with three videos a workbook, and it's really going to guide you through taking control of your discretionary spending. Do it? It's so fun? Yes, all right. So if you are getting serious about saving for retirement, then we have a lot of a lot

of investing and retirement episodes. We use the words interchangeably because everybody kind of recognizes retirement, but retirements not something that's at the top of your mind. It's something that's usually pretty far away until one five year period of your life. So we use that word because everyone understands it, but we also use the word investing, and we kind

of use them interchangeably. Sometimes we'll say saving for retirement when we really mean investing for retirement, just because saving is a more accessible word. But what we really mean is investing. And so anytime we talk about investing, we don't talk about investing to get rich quick to retire in your thirties or forties. Like we talk about investing as a habit that you build to essentially pay for bills and retirement. We definitely don't believe in going all

out and retiring super super early. So that's kind of how we talk about retirement and investing. So if you go back into our archives, really any episode that mentions retirement or investing is going to be helpful for you. Some of them are episode two oh five, how to Save for Retirement, which like I said, could be also titled how to invest for retirement, or episode ninety four, which is Retirement one oh one, and we basically cover kind of everything frugal people need to know about saving

for retirement. But we also have a recent episode with Delia and Barrows about understanding your workplace retirement accounts. We have our minimalist investing episode, and all of these different investing episodes. Don't be afraid of them just because they have the word investing in them. They are for you. Yeah, and it can be one of those set it and forget it things which you'll learn about in those episodes if you feel like going back, and we'll chat a

little bit about that today. But it doesn't have to feel I think that's one of the barriers to entry for a lot of people is I feel like I need to know so much in order to know what I'm going to need in my finances and retirement when I still feel like I'm figuring it out right now. And that doesn't have to limit us or keep us from thinking about being kind to ourselves when we're older. Now, there's some very easy, accessible things that we can be

doing that will really help us later in life. Here's a story before we get into the articles. Here's a story I hope you will find encouraging if you feel that way. So, my husband and I both have our own individual retirement accounts iras, and I kind of try to make mine more I don't know, fancy. I don't know if fancies the word. We're very simple. But I had different funds where for most of the time, my

husband was just in a target date fund. That's it, just a target date fund, which people will tell you, oh, you can do, you can make it yourself, you get lower fees, YadA YadA, you can get more aggressive. So he was just in the target date fund and I was in the more quote unquote optimized fund, and I was looking. So we started investing at the end of twenty seventeen, basically at the end of the bull market.

People want to say that it ended in twenty twenty, but it actually actually ended in twenty eighteen, and not officially. But if you look at returns, twenty eighteen was not the year you wanted to get started investing. It was a flat line year, and so we started in twenty eighteen December of twenty seventeen, and our return for five years, even with that flat first year, the twenty twenty stuff, the twenty twenty two stuff where everyone lost, we still gained.

But Travis, with his quote unquote like unsophisticated, you know, just target date fund, he beat me by a percentage point on overall return. Right, So, so don't do not be scared about the types of like investing itself. A very simple portfolio can yield more than an optimized one theoretically simplicity. Love it. Yeah, so let us get into this first article on what happens when you don't say for retirement from one of my favorite websites, Investipedia, a

cautionary tale. There were a lot of options that we could have gone with on the internet when what's going to happen to me if I don't say for retirement we were search We went with the not as harsh of an article with Investipedia and some helpful cautionary tales for us of what we could be looking at. Not being too doom and gloom either. I mean, there is just a reality to this and even the best laid plans could lead to some shifts that need to happen

in retirement. So I kind of walk away with this with some level of encouragement of like, Okay, it can get figured out, even if you start later in life, even if you don't have any savings right now. But to be able to look at the reality of, Okay, this is what my life, my financial situation might look like if I don't say for retirement, and is this the reality that I want for myself or are there shifts I can be making? So it's it I think

is worth going through. What they're listing out in this article is what happened for people who don't save for retirement, just to have an understanding to kind of put some motivation or fire under us to say, yeah, let's make some shifts, let's do some things right now, because I think many of us need to hear that. I think for many of us, what do they say, Almost half of Americans don't have a retirement saving So chances are

that's a lot of us listening in. Or if we do have retirement savings or investment accounts, maybe we're not doing the most that we could be with them. So the first thing that they list of what can happen is that we might solely live on social Security if we don't have any savings or investment accounts for retirement. A lot of times that means people's plans are to live on social Security. What it means is they need to find a way to live off of social Security.

But the thing about social security is that it's usually about forty percent of you like the income that you typically were used to making. It's like and there's definitely ways to maximize how much you take out of social Security. Those who are close to this stage of life know what that is. You know the age that you start

pulling from social Security. But essentially social Security is best as a an additional income, like an additional piece of money that comes in, not what you could solely live off of. It usually represents not enough to pay for your mortgage if you still have it bills, even if you want to do some fun things in your retirement age. It's not a great plan, but that is what most

people will then try to lean on and fall back on. Yeah, you're going to have to plan to start withdrawing as late as possible, so when you are seventy, I think it is you're going to want to plan to do it then. But again we've talked about this before, is that the average age Americans say they want to retire is sixty seven, and the average retirement age is sixty three.

But you're going to have to plan to work till seventy, but you don't know if you're going to make it there, so you still need to do other things to supplement that. So they recommend you might need to downsize your lifestyle,

which is one hundred percent. Most people do this anyway, even if they have saved, so this, I feel is maybe a redundant recommendation, but downsizing your home into something smaller, which can be just fantastic anyway if you don't have a bunch of children running around, and then maybe going down to a smaller car that takes less gas, that is more reliable, and then just kind of downsizing all

of the subscriptions and all of that things. So if you haven't thought about all of those, because everyone kind of thinks about downsizing their home, but there's a lot of other things to downsize, Definitely go get our spending Makeover Trugle Friends Podcast dot com slash makeover because we're going to give you space and guidance on how to take an inventory of all those things and then from there figure out what you can downsize, which, yeah, again

that could be possible for anyone in retirement, but it's not so great when that's not what you wanted to do, or you need to downsize as a result of not having saved, or you need to cut things that you wouldn't have otherwise wanted to cut just to make it work. So while there's kind of two sides, I think to look at that downsizing piece of yeah, plan for it.

That can be great. It's a great kind of frugal solution, but it is also a reason to be investing for retirement because if you're forced to downsize as a result of not having prepared, that can be a really, really tough reality for many. And we hope if you're listening to this you still have a little bit of time to save. But chances are if this is the episodes you chose to listen to, like you just searched it, then these are realities for you already. Like this first article,

these tips are already realities for you. You're going to have to pursue them. If you're a regular Frugal Friends listener and you're just tuning in, we hope that you've already kind of taken some steps and you're hearing this early enough to know that these are the stakes you're working with. So these are the things that are going to be at stake if you don't ramp up to the amount of investing that you need. They also list that it might be necessary to take on a roommate

if you still own a home. Many seniors, those in retirement age will turn to their homes as a source of income. That could mean running out a portion of their space as a separate apartment, it could mean just an actual other roommate in the home. I would even add that I've seen many times older adults needing to move in with their adult children, and that's another version of having a roommate. If you don't have enough saved

or invested for retirement. Housing is one of our biggest expenses that doesn't stop when we enter into retirement, and so be living with somebody else is often a way that those who don't have enough money saved will turn to to be able to pay the other bills that they have. So again, if this is not something that you want to be looking at in retirement age, then okay, cautionary tale. Otherwise then yeah, you could use it as a tip moving with your adult kids, take on a roommate.

But if that's not something you want, that would be a bitter pill to swallow of. Okay, I have to share my space now. After all my decades of living life, I now have to learn how to have a roommate to be able to afford life. And if you listen to episode two eighty five where we talked about how your parents' finances affect you, and you're listening to this and you're like, oh, my goodness, my parents don't have anything for retirement and this is what they're dealing with.

This is a good moment to prepare yourself that this may happen to you, even though you have time to save for retirement. That's another reason people retire earlier than they want to is because they become caregivers for their parents. So it's definitely a stake, not just in your saving for your retirement, but and if you don't want to do this to your children, if you don't want to

be forced to move in with your children. This is a stake that you have to be really aware of, is to save enough so that you don't have to force them to retire before they're ready. I don't know I say that's a reason to have kids. I mean, it absolutely is a reason to have kids. They owe you. You provided for them in their time of need, and they owe you provision in your time of nis. Why am identifying one to two of my nieces and nephews to really invest in their lives so that later on

they'll take care of me. Yeah, you don't have any kids in my own, so one or two of my nieces or nephews better pan out for us. I hope you're not thinking Jack's gonna do it. Jack, it's not the four year old growls at people. He's not going to care for me. Who literally growled at my son yesterday And I thought he was just making monster truck noises. No, that would be what you would think as like the mom of a very sweet boy, like they're making monster

truck was this? But Jack was not even growling. He was being a monster. He was very He was a very nice monster. Though I totally understood in a very big difference between a monster and a monster drop. Yes, all right. So the next one is you might have to continue working part time, which is actually something a lot of people in retirement do just for fun, but you're going to have to plan to do it for

supplementation of the Social Security income. So I think it is wise at this point to start thinking about what kind of part time work you'd like to do after retirement, whether it's consulting in your industry or taking on a part time role at the same company or a different field. Maybe you hone your skills in a you know, some kind of parallel field so that you can work part time.

It is never too early to start thinking about this so that when you do have to work part time in retirement, it's something that you at least can semi enjoy. So we don't want to like bea we don't want you to be miserable, and we're not going to tell you to be miserable in retirement just because you have to do some things differently. And the final reality that they mentioned in this article is that for some retirement

might not even be on the table. Many people who have not saved or invested enough for retirement, or maybe aren't willing to completely overhaul their lifestyle, then it just might not be an option to really scale back in working, and they might need to continue to work full time or end as long as possible if there's not enough saved, which is that can be fine, and many people choose to continue working just because they prefer that lifestyle and

want to set their hands to something. The pinch can come when your life circumstances demand something different, like needing to care for anyone in the family, an elderly parent, a spouse, an adult child who knows there could be things that require caregiving of us or our own medical concerns that would keep us from working full time. So there are those other additional pieces that need to be considered.

And I think just the bottom line that they are driving home here is that retirement without a plan, without some financial nest egg, will require a lot of sacrifices, a lot of overhauling, revamping, problem solving, and potentially just not being able to have the lifestyle that you may have hoped for in your later years, your golden years, yes, and they can still be golden. So we've talked about what the majority of retirement would look like if you

are starting very late and have nothing saved. And when we say very late, we're talking about like fifties. If you want to, you know, retire in your sixties and you have nothing saved in your fifties, that's kind of what we're saying. It might if you're in your forties, you might feel like you're starting late, but you actually have like a really good time horizon. So starting now

can still get you to a really good place. Obviously, not any of those sexy projections people talk about when people start in their twenties, But I mean, how many people really start investing in their twenties there, So we yeah, we did start investing in our twenties, but like most of the time, it's an accidental like you're automatically signed up for your four oh one K. So so our next article is from the Balance and it's seven tips for saving for retirement if you started late in life.

And so when we're looking at investing, if you're starting, say in your fifties, and you want to retire in your sixties or seventy, we're going to look at it different. We're not going to look at this money as a way to carry you through your full retirement. The first article, those tips are going to kind of really carry you through retirement, but you are not absolved from saving and investing for retirement because probably in the last five years of your life, all of that is going to change.

You're not going to be able to have a roommate or live with your kids. You'll probably need some really assisted, heavy assisted living care. You're gonna have more medical bills, You're not going to be able to work even part time. So and this sounds very sad, but this is kind of how to prepare. Like you're investing and your savings later in life can be put towards those last five ish years. That's kind of how you want to look

at it. And if you're starting at fifty and you're maybe investing from fifty to fifty five, then and you invest nothing else for the rest of your life and you don't use that money until you're gosh, worst case scenario seventy five, probably eighty, that money still has twenty or twenty five years to grow and compound interest, and that your money usually doubles around every ten years, so it can still make a lot of growth. If this is the way we're looking at that is encouraging. Yeah. Yeah,

first case scenario, isn't that bad. Yeah, So if you are closer to retirement and you're like, it's just too late to start investing, it's not. And it's really a necessity that you should be doing so that you have the quality of life that you want and it's less of a burden to any of your familial caretakers later on. So that's really what I think we want to have

that mindset going into this article. Yeah, so this one comes from the balance and it goes through different things that can be done if we feel like we're starting later in life. They are identifying forty as that later in life age. A lot of the examples that they give our forty, but a lot of these tips apply even if you're older. So the first one is to play catchup. So you are legally allowed to save nineteen thousand, five hundred and a four h one K retirement plan.

This was in twenty twenty one, so not too much different. Now after you turn fifty, you can contribute additional amounts sixty five hundred and catch up contributions. That's not a ton, but we might as well be taking advantage of those things. If that is the age bracket that we find ourselves in. Yeah, anything that has a limit has a limit for a reason, because it's really good for cosumers and not really good

for the irs or the government. And so we want to take full advantage of anything that has a limit, and that includes a four oh one K, or if you are not currently offered a four one K, then an ira or both if you have the funds too. The next is to identify how much savings you need, So this one probably should be first, but here we are. So again you might tell yourself you don't need a million dollars or that you want a simple life, which I think is what most of us do tell ourselves.

And if you're starting later in life, you probably won't get to a million dollars. So there you go. But in twenty five years you're going to see a lot of inflation. I think if you think back twenty five years, gosh, if you think about back two years ago and how much inflation and that we've seen, like in the eighties, with that inflation and just over time, a million dollars is this like arbitrary number that we think of as

a lot, but is becoming like less and less. So if you're thinking about it with that mindset, don't think more money means like you know is for more like bougie people. I think we all need to be investing in saving as much as we can, as much as our incomes and expenses allow. And if you get to a million, cool, you'll probably need it. If you don't, cool, we'll figure other stuff out. But you do need to

identify how much that is. And most experts agree that you should withdraw no more than three to four percent of your retirement portfolio each year. I think most people will say about four percent of your retirement portfolio. Again, if you're starting later in life, you're probably going to be saving and then just kind of taking it out in big swoops near the end of your life. I probably would not plan to take out four percent every year unless you've been saving for a long time and

you have that nest egg. So that's that's kind of But so if you have a nest egg, if you're starting in time to build that, then plan to do about four percent of it. So if you do the math, three percent of one million is thirty thousand and four

percent of a million is forty thousand. So if you're planning on living on forty thousand dollars a year in retirement, then you do need a million dollars, and they do reference that's that's assuming it's not accounting for a pension, rental properties, or potentially other socials of income during retirement social security. So that could be enough if you are living modestly and you have some of these other additional

sources of income. But it really is eye opening, like this is the amount of money that needs to be saved even to live modestly into retirement. And of course that depends on how long you're living. That depends on the value of the dollar at that point in life, and so if we're decades away from retirement, then for us, it probably is more than even that one million that

we want to be aiming at. Yeah, but definitely at least like taken to considerations the tips from the first article and how much that will net you, and then think of an ideal gap and whatever that is. Just try to shoot for that gap at least, whether it's a couple hundred thousand dollars, you know, seven hundred and

fifty thousand, whatever, you can do shoot for it. The next tip in here for those of us who might be starting a little bit later is to not take on more risk than what you are able to, and really that's dictated by our age. People in their twenties can accept greater losses, so their investments can be a little riskier versus people in their forties can accept less risk, and still less for people in their fifties. So being aware of the level of risk that's in your investment portfolios.

They give a couple of different asset allocation formulas that could be implemented and utilized. A few of them include one being invest a percentage of one twenty minus your age and stock funds, with the rest going into bond funds. This represents a higher but acceptable level of risk. Even more moderate risk would be investing a percentage of one hundred and ten minus your age and stock funds with

the rest and bond funds. And then finally, a more much more conservative level of risk would be investing the percentage equivalent to your age and bond funds with the rest going into stock funds. So that can be a helpful formula. Obviously, do what's going to make sense for you. Just know that less risk the older you get is the ultimate formula. But honestly, if that confused you, a target date fund is going to self allocate. It's going to do it for you in the percentages and grow

in conservativism the closer you get to retirement. So typically they say, if you are going to choose the date where you're going to retire, So if I'm going to retire at sometime between the age of sixty five and seventy, because the target dates there's not one for every year. They go every five years, so just whatever year is sometime between when you turn sixty five and seventy, choose that one. That's if you're if you're using it long term.

If you're not. If you're going to wait to pull any money out until later in retirement, then choose the one that is within the year the five years that you're going to start, you think you'll start pulling it out. So if you want to wait until eighty to start pulling it out, then whatever date is between whatever five year period is when you turn eighty, choose the I choose the later one because they do tend to run

more conservative the later you get to them. So that's how if you, like, if you turn eighty in twenty fifty three and you want to, you know, just do a target date fund, then the target date fund for twenty fifty or twenty fifty five is going to be for you. I would I am in twenty fifty five, that's not when I turn eighty, but so so yeah, target date fund, it will it will allocate in a really standard way and it will self rebalance and you

don't have to worry about it. And it's got, you know, if you go with a Vangard or Fidelity or a Schwab, really low fees so you don't need to worry about it. Simplicity and maintaining It's not about timing the market and keeping a pulse on it and checking what's happening every day. It's just making a decision one day, setting up automatic payments to that, and maintaining it. Yes, that's it, and

then thanking yourself later. And then remember like my husband was in a target date fund and beat my quote unquote optimized fund still, I mean just by one percent, yeah, but so well done still, and neither of us lost money overall, and even in the worst five years of investing in our lives. So yeah, and that's just been five years. And if we let it, if we let that money sit twenty years, then it will grow more.

I believe you can't predict the stock market, but I mean over its history, it goes up into the right and that's what we hope will continue to happen, at least in the next twenty thirty years. Who knows after that, but hopefully that's all you're gonna need to know. So the next one is to open a roth ira to save more. So it says once you're finished maxing out your four oh one K, to open an ira and

maximize that. I would say everyone needs to have a roth Ira or at least some ira, because a lot of us don't have four oh one ks or four or three b's, etcetera, etcetera available. About forty percent of people don't have them available, and even some of the ones that do have horrible options and don't need the tax benefits like immediately. So while four oh one ks fantastic,

they're way better than a brokerage for most people. Even if you don't need the immediate tax benefits, still having a roth ira if you're eligible is great because that's got tax benefits down the road. So most people aren't going to be able to max out both, especially when you get to the age where you can do ketchup contributions on both. If you can, that's great. I would ask you why haven't you been doing that the whole time? But I take rass do what you can head your bets.

Even if you want to do part, you know, half in a pre tax and half in a post tax, which is which would be half in a four O one k half in a roth ira do that. It's really up to you. There's I mean for us and for what the purpose of this episode is, Like wet, we don't have a recommendation on that. That's really up to you how you do it. But I mean, if you if you're maxing out a four one k, okay, open a rothyra. But if you're not maxing out a four one K, open a rothy ar. Anyway, if you're eligible,

just do it. The next on here is telling us to buy adequate insurance, stating that most personal bankruptcies are caused by unexpected calamity, and isn't that just the case. We don't know what's going to happen in retirement. If you could expect calamity, would it be calamity? Right? I think that that's so. I mean that's that's an emergency fund. That is what savings is for. We don't know what's

going to happen in retirement. I think it's good to plan for the worst while not dwelling on the possibilities of the worst. But we won't be so shocked by things if we have a contingency plan, if we've thought about it and we've put some things into action, it really reduces the feeling of something being a calamity. Yeah. So we can do this by buying adequate health insurance, disability insurance, I mean car insurance. I think you have to have car insurance to be driving on the road

most places. Okay, And these things are really going to help, especially if we've got dependence, being able to have life insurance set up, so these things can help us and be prepared for those calamities. Insurance is another one. We're not going to be able to tell you how much or what to do because it is so per person. This is where the five years before you retire or you want to before you want to start with, drying, retiring,

whatever feels good to you. It is really useful to get a financial planner, a certified financial planner that has the CFP designation because when you find a CFP, they're going to have a fiduciary duty, which is a legal ethical responsibility to you, not to the company they work for. Because you'll find a lot of financial planners and financial advisors from insurance agencies and their best interest is to sell you insurance policies, as retirement policies, as retirement accounts.

You're going to find a lot of money managers working for investments that are their best interest is to sell you on a particular fund of investments. You know, so you want somebody, especially in the five years before you retire, who's really going to be working in your best interest. You will pay them for that. If you're getting advice for free, know that you're paying for it in other ways.

But you want to pay for advice, and they're going to tell you this is the type of insurance you need, because if you're starting later in life with saving for retirement, you'll probably need more insurance than somebody who is not. And so that CFP is going to tell you kind of how to head your bets in pre and post tax investing. They're going to guide you on insurance. These are the things where like we get we get emails about this and we're like, we can't answer this for you.

And even if I, even if I had more information about you, I would not answer this for you because I'm I don't hold the CFP, I don't hold any you know, licenses to do that. So take some savings, take some money, pay for a certified financial planner to tell you what these things are for you. The next one we can tell you, we can give you all the advice on this one is to pay down debt. And we're talking about high interest debt, high interest car loans,

high end non mortgage debt. These are the things you're going to want to focus on. You may want to pay off your mortgage before retirement, but if you have nothing invested, a paid off house isn't going to buy you food in retirement. That's gonna be money. So you're going to need to really be careful with how much debt you pay off, even though yeah, you'd like to, I'm sure be debt free in retirement. That would be a huge weightlifted. But if you have nothing invested, that

may not be a wise dream. But paying down high interest debt pretty much anything. I would say definitely above ten percent, ideally above five if you can do it, those are the things to focus on, yish. And lastly, I love this one. You and your spouse come first. So this is a really helpful thing because emotional emotions come into play with spending, and especially I think, yeahs, so you have kids and grandkids, but reality is, we don't want to ruin our retirement savings and investing plan

if that like, by sending kids to college. I know this sounds like a really tough truth here, but it would be better if you have to choose between one or the other. Right Obviously, if you can do both, fantastic, keep contributing to your savings accounts and send your kids

to college. But at the end of the day, it's going to be better for you and your children if you continue to contribute to and focus on your retirement savings plan then to send your kids to college, because ultimately, if you trash your retirement savings by not trying, I mean that's what the article says. It's the word for

your places. But if you kind of interrupt, intersect that retire and savings plan and maybe even pull money out of it to give to your children, that's then setting yourself up to not be in a great place come retirement.

It may put extra financial burden onto the children to be paying for you in retirement or somehow financially responsible for you when your children have more time to be able to say for themselves in retirement, They've got the opportunity in their twenties and thirties to be saving for that retirement. They've got the rest of their lives ahead of them, versus you, who might be starting later in life, really need to be focusing on that retirement versus giving

all the money to the children. Yeah, here's a really easy way to make this decision. Ask your teenager, or if your kids are older, just ask them now if they, in their adult lives, would rather you pay for their college now or if they would rather take care of you part time to full time in their home in Yeah, in your later years, ask them which one they would rather do, and you're going to get the most honest answer from a teenager. But I mean, that's really what

it is. You're either paying for their college now, or they're going to spend their time or money taking care of you later in life. And so ask them what they want to do. Maybe they do want to take care of you in your older years, and in which case, cool factor that in. But I think most of the time they're going to say, I'll take out a student loan. The best gift you can give your children is your

own fine financial or tie or ment security. That's a line in the article that she just sang, yeah like a jingle. Yeah, it's a jingle. Now it's the best gift you can give to your children. And I agree, Yeah, in their in their forties and fifties freedom. As an adult child, I couldn't agree more absolutely, as an adult child who knows I will be a caregiver in my forties fifties, I will just believe that out there, wish you had received the best I wish somebody had as

giving that gift to your children. Yeah, you know what the best gift is that we can give to our listeners. Yeah, and I'm gonna ask you as a teenager or as a full grown adult, But I'm only gonna take your answer right now. The Bill of the week. That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you've paid off your mortgage, maybe your car died, and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore.

Bill Buffalo Bills, Bill Clint, this is the bill of the week, right, Jen, love your podcast. So I actually have a couple of bills of the week. One is the bill for the remaining car payment on one of our vehicles, as well as the balance for the birth center for my son. We actually refinanced those and was able to lower what was a ten percent APR and an eighteen percent APR to just around eight percent. The second bill is the remaining balance for the birth center.

Kids are expensive, love them to pieces though. I've paid it on our Chase credit card and they have the my Chase plan, so we're able to for a small fee, be able to pay it over a portion of time versus leaving it outstanding with the provider and having to incur severe interest costs by having the balance just hanging

out on the credit card. And actually a third bill anything else that we have from a medical standpoint, I've contacted the providers and asked that we gets it up on a payment plan, and I'm able to use my HSA, so again, it's not something that we're having to incur on our credit cards or anything like that. So a lot of moving wheels, but feel really good about the ways that we have to take care of those without going into your medical debt. So again, love you guys. Thanks,

that's great. Lowering the interest rate eighteen is very very high and it's definitely more manageable. So that's amazing, and I hope everybody checks out. We have an episode with doctor Virgie on negotiating medical bills. I will find that episode tell you what it is you are moving and shaken over there, which is awesome. Congratulations the birth of your child that is so exciting, and the fact that you have a health savings account you're able to utilize that.

I think just what stands out to me in your multiple bills is just kind of knowing the resources that are available to you, implementing utilizing them, and making some really wise decisions with your finances to get rid of some of this debt. Lowering these interest rates really really awesome, and hoping with you that all of these payments get

paid off quickly. That'll be a great feeling. Yes, if you all listening have a bill that you want to submit, if it has to do with moving and shaken, given birth, or just out there being a bill being a person named Bill. Visit Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash Bill, leave us your bill, Yes, and episode two thirty, that's the one negotiating medical debt. Episode two thirty. Check it out. That's a great one. And now it's time for my name right all right? So today, what is your biggest

worry about retirement? Jill. I've thought about this quite a bim and I think it comes from seeing what many people face in retirement, and that is just unforeseen medical issues and concerns. I guess I'm anticipating it, so maybe I'm kind of seeing it but not knowing exactly what it would be or look like. Some of that's unavoidable, but I think it's leading to a lot of different potential decisions for me, like the reality that retirement could

mean caregiving. It could mean me being chronically ill or face some sort of difficulty physically medically. That has a financial impact, But I think also an emotional mental relational impact that holds concern for me. I mean, I don't want to spend a ton of time thinking about that or considering that, but definitely preparing for it. I think in some ways it makes me consider what are the

things I want to do in life now. I have seen a lot of people hope for big travel, lots of excitement in their retirement years, only to experience a different reality, oftentimes that know no fault of their own, just life interrupts and that's not possible anymore. So it definitely leads me to think, how can I live life to the fullest now while I maintain a level of health, but then prepare for what that might look like in the future as well, kind of holding the tension of both.

I don't want to, you know, you only live once and blow all my money now because I'm anticipating, you know, not a great lifestyle in retirement, but kind of both how do I make sure that I am making the most of the right now while preparing for what might be to come, but yet optimistic about maybe having some really beautiful golden years ahead of me. So, but I would say that's that's a concern, you know, facing medical issues. I think it is a concern and potentially a very

real reality. Yeah, what about for you? I mean yeah, I mean I kind of you just summed up our whole ethos is to like live for today while being able to live in our golden years, to hold the tension between both. And I think I my biggest worry m okay, vulnerability time. Yeah here we are okay, Yeah, so entered the door's open. Yeah. I think we're saving. We're saving well, we're having children that can drive us around when we're old. I think just my greatest fear

might be just I don't know, maybe doing it alone. Yeah, because all of my grandfather died before I was born. My dad died when I was in high school. So I think that seeing what that did to my mom and my grandmother, I think that's really my only like fear. Yeah. Otherwise, I feel like we've prepared really well, right, And those are the things money can't, yeah, buy to enjoy the years that we have while hoping that we get good years in the future, but we don't know. There's only

so much we can do with finances. It's we can face additional difficulties and stressors if we've not prepared financially. But there are things that are going to happen in life that have nothing to do with money. They can be compounded and exaggerated by a lack of money. But yeah, the medical concerns, money can't solve that. The medical debt money, money solves. Yeah. Being doing retirement alone, it's not something. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's why you build community and friends if

you're alone. General, still be here. I've got longevity on my side and will be the old women, yeah, will be the old women who are roommates, just like living life together. Yeah, I'm down for that. Okay, you won't be all I will call you so yeah. Yeah, Well everyone, thanks for listening. Many of you know we have a membership. If you need friends in retirement, you want to start building friendships now and accountability to say for retirement, then

maybe have friends for retirement. Many of our listeners are paying down debt and we do monthly money challenges that offer accountability groups just in general help you make wise financial decisions. We have a lot of new members right now, so it's hot time to join and meet new double the size of the membership in January. Yeah, So currently we don't have any massive wins to report, but we are loving seeing everyone's intro posts. Yes, we have lots

of people from all over the country and world. We have probably about like one hundred and twenty hundred and thirty members in right now, and it is a great place to be pursuing financial security. I love all over the world. Is so fun. So yeah, you can join even if you're not living in the States. Thanks for listening everyone. If you want to check out this membership where we have all of these courses, interviews, challenges, and friends, go to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash club. Check

it out, See you next time. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni. What do you think we would do together if we were fully retired, Like we weren't working anymore for some reason, our husbands are not with us. What are we doing? Um? For sure, margaritas. I feel like we will have perfected the margarita. Yeah point, or we won't care. It's so true, It's so true tequila. Both of us prefer the tequila part of the margarita. Yeah.

So I don't think we will care. Yeah, I think we'll just we'll just be hanging out with our friends. We might learn to play bridge, we might join a bridge club. Do you think that that will be a thing for us as were older? That was the thing for the older people. Nineties clothes are back in style. It target, so they're selling pants with butterflies on them. So the things that were all the rage for the retirees will content like, they'll make cycles. I think I

think gen Z is going to get into Bridge. If we're being honest, I think they're gonna wow adopt it. I think you're just naming and claiming it right now. Yeah, I mean prophesying. First it's pickleball, then it's Bridge. We've got the vulnerability lightning round and we've got the prophetic post show, prophetic word post show by Jen. I'm here for it. Yeah, I'm here for the salt in tequila and Bridge. All right, Yeah, it's not so bad. I like it.