Ep 80 - The 10 Commandments of Retirement with Fritz Gilbert

Welcome to the Humans vs. Retirement podcast with me, Dan Halet. This show will help you navigate the intricate financial and non-financial landscape of retirement planning, investment and income strategies, and the human experience beyond the traditional work-life paradigm. Join me as I delve into the challenges, triumphs and unexpected journeys individuals face as they transition into this new phase of life. From experts across many different areas to personal stories.

We uncover the secrets, insights and practical tips to empower you on your retirement journey. Whether you're just starting to consider retirement or already enjoying this chapter, this podcast is your guide. to making the most out of this remarkable phase of life. Now, on to the show. What really happens when the paycheck stops? But life keeps going. In today's episode of the Humans vs. Retirement podcast, I am so thrilled to welcome someone whose voice and work has shaped the way...

thousands and thousands of people think about life after work. Fritz Gilbert. Fritz is the author of Keys to a Successful Retirement and the creator of The Retirement Manifesto, one of the most widely read retirement blogs on the internet. But more than that, he's a real person. figuring out retirement in real time and doing it with honesty, humility, and heart.

This is not a financial how-to episode. Yes, we talk about money, the 4% rule, spending mindsets, guardrails, and portfolio flexibility. But more importantly, we explore what so many people miss. that retirement is far more than a numbers game. It's a life reinvention. And if you're not preparing for that side of the equation, the non-financial stuff, you could be walking into the most disorienting phase of your life.

totally unprepared. Fritz shares his journey from global executive to small town retiree, from spreadsheets to storytelling, from financial freedom to finding purpose. building fences for rescue dogs through his and his wife's inspiring charity, Freedom for Fido. Along the way, we explore the emotional rollercoaster that retirement can become, the shock, the identity loss, the loneliness, and how to avoid it all by doing some surprisingly simple...

but deeply important work before you ever retire. You'll hear about Fritz's 90-10 rule of retirement preparation, the 10 commandments he wrote to guide his own journey, and why purpose, passion, people... and play matter so much more than market returns once you've stopped working. Whether you're nearing retirement already in it or simply curious about how to live more intentionally in the second half of life, this conversation will give you insight, inspiration.

and maybe even a blueprint for designing a retirement worth waking up for. So grab a coffee, take a walk or settle in and get ready for one of the most thoughtful conversations I've ever had. on what it really means to retire well. Fritz Gilbert, a very, very, very warm welcome to the Humans vs. Retirement podcast. Dan, thank you much. It's a pleasure talking with you. I feel like we're old friends. This is great.

conversations um and actually just as as full disclosure for the audience this is take two of me and fritz or fritz and i proper english um fritz and i had a wonderful conversation about uh six weeks ago that unfortunately just didn't record properly. So we both had a quick chat beforehand and can't really remember what happened in that conversation. So hopefully this one is better. I don't know, right? I'm sure it will be. You know, it's not like anything. Practice, practice.

And, you know, then you'll succeed. So, you know, it's funny. People are like, oh, my gosh. That happens, right? This is not the first time I've had this happen on a recording. And it's funny because you do a lot of these. I do a lot of these. I was thinking about this getting ready for this call. And I was like, you know. I don't even remember what we talked about. It was only six weeks ago, and I don't have a clue what we talked about. It's funny. What I do know, Fritz, is I learned loads.

I mean, just from a selfish point of view, it was a wonderful hour we spent together. Now let's get this recorded and get into this and get some value out there to people listening in. Fritz, I'd love you to share your story. It's intriguing. It's one where isn't maybe a typical journey into what you're doing. Now, you run and write one of the most read retirement-focused blogs, I think, in the world. I mean, you know, the number of people that read that. You've got a wonderful book.

called The Keys to Successful Retirement. Just let me know kind of how that journey went for you and what made you get to a point where you started the retirement manifesto blog and you wrote the book. Yeah, thanks, Dan. To me, it's kind of a story of what we should be doing in retirement, right? The whole purpose of retirement is to kind of reinvent ourselves, find things that give us purpose, find things that give us a passion. And.

The retirement manifesto is just kind of one of those things that happened in my life that's kind of indicative of it. You know, I was a corporate guy. I worked in the aluminum industry, as you say, in the UK, aluminum, as we say here. You know, corporate guy for 30 years, traveled the world, spent a lot of time in the UK.

You know, did a lot of traveling, worked hard, but enjoyed the journey. I wasn't really obsessed on retirement. I just saved aggressively and, you know, got married, had to have a beautiful, wonderful daughter, now granddaughter. I enjoyed the journey and just kind of woke up in my early 50s saying, you know, we've been saving pretty aggressively. Let's start taking a look at the numbers and see if there's any chance we can get out early. And long story short, we were able to get out at 55.

But looking at looking at the retirement manifesto in particular, you know, that was something I started two years before I retired. So even though I was still very much working and very much focused on getting, you know, through my career.

I was already starting to think about what things can I experiment with now that might turn into something in retirement. And that's really where my writing started. And I couldn't be happier with where it's led over the years. It's been a great run. I've enjoyed it.

I think you've got many more stories to tell, right? One of the reasons why I think it has been so successful is that it... comes from a place of experience and you know you've this is not theory this is not behavioral experts although we know a lot of that

make sense but you know you're sharing your life story you're you're doing research into this and digging further and experiencing um you know other things in your which i think is um what a lot of people want i think we you know when when we've talked previously um i don't think there's enough people for retirees to look up to now you know there isn't enough people sharing their story that's why some of my best uh podcast episodes are the

when I have my clients on, talk about a real story, right? This modern day retirement that people are going into, there isn't... people to look up to or a blueprint of this so i think when people share their story it just gathers so much interest because there's so many questions to answer right yeah and it's interesting you say that because that's probably the number one comment i hear from my readers you know is that

They appreciate the fact that I'm just one of them, right? I'm just a retired person trying to figure this out, and I just do it publicly. Like you say, so many people that create content in this space, and there's some very good content creators, but most of them... are either academics, they're financial planners, maybe they're in the academic world.

If you look at how many are actually retired and combining kind of their personal experience and doing research along the way, there aren't that many of us. It's strange, you know, and I do think that. That's definitely given me a certain credibility within my audience because I'm just a guy figuring this stuff out. That's the approach I've always taken. I think it fosters communication. You look at the comments on my posts.

It's a really fun community that's developed around this. I think there's a lot of trust and we're all just very openly trying to figure it out together. And that to me is the most rewarding part of it is the engagement with the readers.

It's interesting you say that. I mean, and obviously, if anyone watching the video, they'll notice that maybe I look a bit older than I am, but I'm in my early 40s. So I'm not... retired but i do actually talk about my experiences and i think that's what maybe just stands me and maybe a bit of

better stead than maybe just this financial planner that deals with retirement. And I talk to people a lot about how I believe I retired from corporate world at 35, right? I had some... pretty serious mental health issues that was developed through you know being in corporate world and not loving life and all that stuff. And I made a decision at 35 to try and uncover my purpose and uncover my passions and do something that's aligned with values.

And it felt like at 35, I do what many people do at 55 or 60. And when I talk about my emotions to people that are in their 60s retiring, they're like, oh, yeah, I feel that. Oh, and I feel that. The age is irrelevant here. I think it is an emotional journey that we go through when we think about the transition from career to this new phase of life.

And I think that's maybe why I can resonate with it a little bit. And maybe hopefully I'm well-practiced for when I want to retire. Who knows? But I think it's really important that those shared experiences... are communicated and discussed and talked about. ED HARRISON Yeah. And it's interesting you mentioned the early retirement, which I would agree with you. You did a major

shift, which is really what financial freedom is all about, is giving you the ability to do something that gives you more sense of purpose. So I think I agree with your... argument there. But an interesting thing, last week I was at a conference which was really focused on early retirees. And two things that struck me. One, when I've gone to these in the past, it's all about the numbers. How much does it take to get there? Blah, blah, blah.

obvious that more and more people have achieved financial independence now and more more of these conference people are people that are post you know having having to work and the shift has has focused now more on the psychological um transition and what helps make that transition smooth exactly what you're talking about and and recognizing you can create your own life and some of these people were in their 30s some of them were in their you know late 50s

It doesn't matter. It's that same transition in life of no longer having to work for that paycheck and deciding what that's going to do to your life and how you're going to reshape your life because of that very significant fact. And it's a fascinating time in life. It's not an age-dependent thing. It's a financial-driven thing, really. Yeah, yeah. And I see more of that, right? Whether it's, you know, the fire movement, whether it's your 50 or 60.

Age is not really coming into this more. I think we've got a way, particularly in the UK, this state pension age or when you could claim your social security in the States. That age was kind of almost a marker post for people. It's like, well, I can't get my government pension, my state pension until I'm 65, so I'll retire at 65.

I think lots of people now are just going, well, actually, I'm going to retire when I feel emotionally ready to retire or when I feel financially free enough to retire. And the age thing just isn't necessarily coming into it in a great deal, which I find. I find that's a whole new ball game, isn't it? Of thinking about how to prepare for this second phase of life that you go into. Yeah.

Yep, agreed. And the other thing we should mention is obviously that's for the people that have been fortunate and have done well and have saved and have put themselves in a position. The other half of the equation, and it's probably over half of the people, right, over the population. are people that haven't saved and they're hoping you know against all hope they're just hoping to hang on by their fingernails to make it to age 70 because they you know don't have any savings at all

And if you look at the statistics, at least in the US, and I'm sure it's probably true in the UK, the percentage of people that are forced into retirement earlier than they want to, it's over half. It's like 54%. Your listeners are probably in the first camp, right? They're prepared. They're paying attention to this stuff.

But we need to have empathy for the millions of people who aren't and are losing their jobs and they don't have any savings. There's a real crisis out there. And for us to not have to deal with that. situation but instead be able to think about what we want our lives to be we're fortunate now we worked hard to get there right um but some of those people aren't there due to irresponsibility some of them just have had a bad

string of luck, right? So I think it's always important to mention that there's other people that are much less fortunate that are at the same age and struggling with a lot bigger issues than we are. Just on that, actually, it's really interesting you bring that up.

And I think it flows nicely into what I want to talk about next. I want to break this down into kind of the financial preparedness and the non-financial preparedness. I want a better word for that. Life preparedness, whatever that may mean. This is why I think it's important to step away from planning for an event, right? So retirement is an event that people seem to plan for.

I think people at some point in their lives, if they're still working, maybe in your early 50s, should plan for a retirement even if you know that you don't want to retire because... I think there is real danger going forward that we could be met at the door of our office building with the cardboard box to say, oh, by the way, you're not needed anymore. There could be a health event that means you can't or don't want to work.

And there could be numerous other things that force your hand to step back from work or to cut your hours or whatever. And so... i think that situation could come up more and more and more as we kind of as society develops ai takes hold all this stuff that we know is happening um so i think it's i mean i'm you know just fascinated to get your your thoughts on this

I think people should plan for retirement, plan for their second half of life, even if it's not in their thought process or on their agenda. And then you've got the blueprint to know that actually there's a bit of peace of mind there if something happens. 100%, Dan. And I think not only that, but if you think in your plan, okay, I'm going to work until I'm 65 and here's my plan and here's how I'm going to get there.

We'll have another plan that says, okay, what if I'm forced out at 62? What if I'm forced out of 59? I just was reading an article yesterday from a friend of mine who's been retired exactly one year. He lost his job in a downsizing. He was going to go until he was 59.

He lost his job when he was 52. It took him a year to find another one. He found another job at 53. He's like, okay, I should be able to still make it out by 60. But I'm going to have a plan because what if this job doesn't work out either? So he had a plan. Okay, what happens if I have to get out by 55 or 54? A year later?

he lost his job again another downsizing but it fit in his alternative scenario and he's like you know what i know i can make this because i had that scenario sketched out and he was able to start transitioning mentally into a retired life and maybe he'll take on some you know

part-time work, something that keeps him busy, that can make a little bit of money, but he's not freaking out like he was the first time he got downsized because he had a plan, recognizing that it was a very real possibility that he could be in that situation. plans are free, right? You can lay out spreadsheets. You can think about things. You can sketch stuff in a notebook. It doesn't matter how you do it.

Going through the mental exercise of looking at various scenarios and not just saying, oh, I'm going to work till I'm 70 and I don't have to worry about it. Guess what? You're probably not going to be able to make it to 70. So have some plans laid out that you can just. deal with a situation if it comes up with some thought process ahead of time instead of just reacting in a panic. No cost and huge benefits to doing that type of an approach. Yeah.

I often talk to clients about this and I try and bring it into stories and analogies and I go into sports or stuff like that. But, you know, the way I look at it is, you know, I'm a big fan of American football, but by the way, the X's and O's, you know, you...

You know, the playbooks in American football are some of the biggest things I've ever seen in my life, right? And so there's a reactionary thing. They don't know what the other team are going to do. So when the defensive line sets up, they've got something that they can call on to. It's the same thing. It's, you know, it's in a football game, you don't do that. Any sports, golf, the caddy has to be completely flexible. They doesn't just go by the yardage map.

I talk about anything with uncertainty in most facets of life or career, there's plans for uncertainty. You don't know what you're planning for, but you do know. And I suppose it's a bit like maybe if someone in the army has to knock down a door and they don't know what's behind the door to kind of either battle. or it might be kids. You have to have an understanding that you don't know what's behind the door. You're going to knock the door down and you need ultimately...

so many plans to understand what we could be facing or not. And I think the same things with retirement, you're knocking down the door at a certain point and you just don't know what's behind the door. So one plan is going to fail. You need multiple scenarios to understand this. I think it's so important for people to start to get their head around.

Yeah, I think another, speaking of that, it makes me think of your investment portfolio as well, right? You're going to be diversified. You're going to have some stuff in cash. Well, cash isn't earning me any money. That's okay. You have your cash because that's your contingency plan against market downturns, right?

You are intentionally self-optimizing your portfolio to be flexible to deal with unknown futures, right? So it's the same with the financial side as it is with the preparation side as it is with the psychological side.

I think contingency planning in general is time well spent. So let's talk about planning. Let's break this down into... Um, let's talk about the financial preparedness because in your book, you do emphasize obviously the importance of financial readiness. Um, and so just share with me maybe, you know, how did you approach this? What was your thinking and what lessons have you learned?

from writing about this and speaking with other people about, you know, some real foundational steps to make sure that you feel financially prepared for what's coming up. Yeah, and I'll try to do this as an elevator speech because I think you and I are both on the same mindset that the financial stuff is absolutely critically important, but it's not sufficient, right? And it's the non-financial stuff where most people get it wrong.

So let me just give a quick summary of the financial high level how you do this. 4% safe withdrawal rate is a fairly well-known axiom. proven through various studies. And the 4% rule basically says, if you look at your portfolio, you multiply it times 4%. That's how much you can afford to live on. So let's just, to make the math easy, let's say you're going to spend 100,000 pounds in the UK. You would need multiply that times 25.

because that's the inverse of the 4% rule, 100 times 25 is 2.5 million pounds, right? So if you have 2.5 million pounds, we're talking big numbers, sorry, the 100,000 was an easy number to use, but it's probably higher than most people spend. $100,000, 100,000 pounds, you got 2.5 million pounds in your investments. Guess what? You're able to retire. That's the high level math. So what do you need in order to determine that?

The most important thing, and a lot of people don't do the detail on this they need to, is how much are you going to spend? And that's one piece of the equation that's not that difficult to determine, right? Investment returns. A lot of the future unexpected things in your life are hard, but you can quantify how much you're spending, right? So we did a year of actual tracking of our spending when I was 53, tracked every dime, put it in a spreadsheet.

And then we said, okay, what's going to change when we get to retirement? Well, we're going to move out of the big house in the city. We're going to buy that place in the mountains. It's a smaller house. We're going to have it paid off for by selling the big house, using the money to pay off a small house.

Okay, we're going to want to travel a little bit, so we've got to put in the price for an RV or a caravan, as you say. You know, you build it up. We need to buy insurance. We've been getting it through my employer. How much is that going to cost? And we came up with a reasonable retirement living expense. And we use that basis to determine, okay, when do we have enough to retire? And it's not that complicated.

Now, the part that takes a little bit more work is preparing your portfolio because now you're moving from years and years of accumulation and just saving every month with your paycheck. to the exact opposite of paying yourself out of that portfolio every month.

And there's some work that goes into there. I've written numerous articles about it. I call it the bucket strategy, but there's different ways you can go about it. But recognizing that there's a mental shift from accumulation to decumulation or withdrawal. is an important part of that process as well. So those are the two big things, quantifying how much you need and then restructuring your portfolio to be able to create a more predictable paycheck in retirement. Those are the two focus areas.

Yeah, I think it's really important on that. I think I call it moving from a savings habit to a spending mindset. Yeah, perfect. I got stuck in the language of accumulation and decumulation. Someone went, what the hell does that mean, Dan? So we do know that we've been told to save. Saving... is a skill i think that we've learned um our parents and our grandparents may have kind of said you need to save for a rainy day and workplace pension contributions and all of this stuff that

that kind of is forced down us. I do think there's a massive gap then because we're not taught to spend our money in ways that are aligned with how we should and need to spend it in retirement. um and that's i mean i've written loads about that and that we could take up four hours i think of conversation around that um so i think it's really important to think about how you do move from a habit into into a different mindset um

And like you said, I think too many people sleepwalk into it. They don't actually do that prior work. And what I love about what you just said, Fritz, what you did is, well, let's just track this for a year. If you kind of all of a sudden...

three months in, you know, before you retire, start to think about what you spend now and what you're going to spend in retirement, you're too late effectively, right? I mean, you're not, well, you're not too late, but you could really understand what your spending looks like. And you can think about how that spending might change over time as well. There's no exact science to this, but...

A lot of people will go to me, well, do you know what, Dan? I know that I want and should be spending more a little bit earlier on in leisure activities. So can we have an increased budget there? And I'll think about what that might look like going forward. It doesn't mean you need to put another budget. on it but the mindset that you know that you're spending will will maneuver um i think is is is really important and then as you said once you figured that out

then that's when you're, you know, the asset location, when your money can be located in different areas. I'm a big fan of the bucket strategy. pre-funding spending so it's out of the markets that you know that you can spend over the next 12 months and let the investment side do the heavy lifting for for kind of you know keeping pace with inflation etc um but as you said it

you know, it's not actually that hard. It's pretty simple. And there's so much focus that goes on to that. And the trouble with that focus, Fritz, and I'm sure that you've seen this, is the more that people focus on that, the more they dig into the world, the more they get...

deeper the more they start thinking about new fads and they see you know that the politics affect the stock markets over the short term and you know then you get decision paralysis and all of this stuff because you've just people have gone two, three, four, five layers too deep into this. And they've gone into areas that really has no impact on their, or no positive impact on their retirements. It actually has probably a negative impact. 100%. And I would argue.

How do you want to spend your retirement years, right? Do you want to spend your retirement years obsessed about, you know, who won the latest election and what's going to happen with this policy or that policy? Heck no. Right. I'd rather be outside taking a hike in the Lake District. You know, I mean, you guys have some beautiful countryside. Get out there and enjoy it. Right. And I think part of the planning process has to be how do I build a system?

that allows me to enjoy the life I want to live without being too entrapped into all the details of this stuff. And I'm 100% DIY guy, and I probably spend less than 10 hours a year on my finances. Right. It's not complicated and you don't have to look at it every day and you don't have to make adjustments. You put your cash buffer in place, you refill it a couple of times a year and you get on with living life and you don't worry about it because, you know, over time you.

Chose your asset allocation based on what risk profile you have and how much risk you're able to stomach. And you don't worry about the volatility in the market. And if you do. then you've got to question your asset allocation and the way you're going about it because you don't want to spend your retirement years obsessed about your money. There's so much more that you should be doing with your time that's so much more valuable. So, yeah.

Sermon over, but that's a big point of mine that I really believe passionately about. No, I agree. And actually, I just want to, before we move on, I just want to touch on one thing. I think you mentioned, I think, appetite for this. So if your money invests in the markets gives you anxiety, and there is no way that you feel that you could switch off, then investing isn't for you, right? That's where buying guaranteed income comes into it. If you genuinely cannot take the ride.

and it stops you from doing stuff, then you need to explore other allocations. There is more than one way to do this. The best way to do it is the way that sits right with you as an individual, allows you to sleep well at night and have fun during the day. Now, I don't really care what that looks like from there onwards, but that's the allocation that you need. And don't be afraid.

I think, to be flexible on it. You may enter into retirement and a year later go, this journey's been hell. I can't take it anymore. If this happens again, we're not going to enjoy ourselves. So you just need to review that. And then I think just quickly before we move on, one of the stats that I...

come across is the amount of time you look at the portfolio, right? I mean, I think if you look at it daily, you're likely to see the portfolio going down like 70% of the time. I mean, it's like, if you look at it annually, you're likely to see it going up. something like 60 percent of the time so you know choose and we have control over that so you can choose the way that you consume the journey if you if you want to

Yeah, let me add two things. One thing, I look at our net worth once a year, December 31st. That's the only time I look at it all year. And it's the only time that matters, right? Is once a year, you update your spreadsheets. Looking at it more than that doesn't necessarily bring any value. You could argue once a quarter, you know, whatever. The second thing is, you know, this is an interest of mine. I'm a personal finance hobbyist. I've always liked money and managing it, but my wife's not.

So the other thing is DIY versus hire a pro. When I pass or even when I get into my mid-70s and you have to start worrying about cognitive decline, I've written a letter of instruction to my wife. Here's the financial. professional i want you to use because she doesn't want to manage this stuff and she's comfortable having a professional run it because she knows i've been in touch with this professional and they know how we're doing things and i just told my wife

Hire this person. You'll never have to worry about this stuff. Whatever they say to do, do. I trust them. They know what they're doing. And you don't have to worry about the financial side. So even there, DIY versus outsourcing, that can be a way that you go about it so you don't have to. have any anxiety, hire somebody you trust and do what they say and enjoy the non-financial parts of your life. What a segue into the non-financial parts of our life.

um well done it's as if we uh practiced this before i think that yeah it's like deja vu hey everyone i hope you are enjoying this episode I wanted to quickly jump in to let you know if you want to hear more from me about planning and living your second half of life, then I have three things for you to do.

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And lastly, go visit the Humans vs. Retirement Sketch Store where you can view and purchase my Use Anywhere, Anyhow, Anytime licenses for all of my retirement sketches, as well as my hardcover coffee table style.

retirement sketchbook. That's it from me. Let's get back to the show. I think this is a wonderful model that you've come up with that I've used since and just developed it a little bit with my uh language i love this so let's talk about what you call the 90-10 rule of retirement And so we've had a look at the finances. And you said in that bit that the very, very start is kind of like, this is pretty simple. We don't need to spend a lot of time on this. People spend too much time.

actually where people need to spend their time, where the biggest bang for their happiness buck lies is all of the non-financial stuff. That's the challenge that people face in this retirement. So talk to me about what the 90-10 rule looks like and why it's really important for people to take note and start thinking about what they focus on leading up to and in retirement. Yeah, so the 90-10 rule in summary is...

As you're preparing for retirement, you're going to be spending 90% of your time thinking about the finances, right? And there's certainly a need to do that. At some point, you need to make sure your finances are correct. But typically on the front side of retirement, you're almost obsessed with the numbers. So let's call it 90%.

And I had had a friend tell me this as I was going through this phase. And I was like, nah, it's not going to happen to me. I'm a numbers guy. I'm a spreadsheet guy. No way. And sure enough, it did.

The reality of it, the 90-10 rule, is after retirement, and there's a period of transition, so let's say maybe two years into retirement, three years into retirement, but at some point into retirement, once you've been through some market cycles, once you've kind of set up your paycheck, you've kind of lived with it for a couple of years, the reality of it is you're spending like 10% of your time thinking about the finances and 90% of your mental energy is going into

living life and finding fulfillment and doing things, experimenting with things and, you know, finding things that you enjoy. And you don't really think about the financial side of it once you get into retirement. It's a very strange phenomenon. Everybody I've talked to, they go through the same thing. And you could argue the numbers, but that's the premise is that you think about it a lot before you retire. And then after you retire, you think about it very little. The lesson being.

moderate your focus a little bit before you retire and force yourself to think about and plan for some of these non-financial areas as well. Because in time, you're going to find that it's those non-financial areas. that really determine how happy and successful you are in retirement. I think we talked about this before. This is what made me go away and think about how this can be discussed and talked about and modeled.

into a little bit of a framework for clients and i've kind of done this twofold i think there is this absolute emotional journey that that people go on and um at its lowest ebb it can be like depression right i mean you get you get frustrated and you get into doubt and you get into depressed that you know it can be really bad for people and i think one of the ways that people can

maybe circumnavigate that a bit doesn't mean that you go downwards a little bit on the curve because you go into you know a retirement shock and after the honeymoon phase you might start thinking about well what's next but how can you kind of flip across to then go, well, actually, how do I flourish in this life? And actually, I think a lot of it is to do with this focus leading up to and during those first years of retirement.

about your purpose and your identity and your relationships and your time and all of that stuff. And so it kind of made me think about, well, how can someone think about those ratios? And maybe I think we said about this kind of glide path that you can potentially go on where you go, well, do you know what? If I'm three years away from retirement.

maybe i should be focusing 60 70 of my time on the non-financial stuff if i'm a year away from retirement i really should be thinking about what do i want to do What am I retiring with and to? Maybe that should be something more like 80%, 20% in favor of the non-financial. And as you said, Fritz, when you get into retirement...

You should be as close to 0% focus on the numbers as you can possibly feel comfortable with because you should be thinking about the life that you're leading. Yeah, and it's interesting because you talk about that.

period of depression or disorientation after the honeymoon. There's actually been some work, Riley Moynes did a TEDx talk on this. And he says that 85% of retirees go through that phase two and disorientation, depression, call it what you will. 15% of people avoid it. I was one of those 15%. What did I do? I focused.

I was writing every single week on my blog, right, for two years before I retired. I was really intentionally focused on the non-financial areas before I got to retirement. And I'm convinced in my book. That's the only key that I list twice is the importance of planning before you get there, both on the financial and on the non-financial. But the advantage of focusing on the non-financial that nobody talks about. I don't even know if it's been studied, but I'm convinced it's real.

is that can also help you leapfrog over that phase two retirement shock phase because... The way you get out of that phase two, if you don't plan ahead and you get into it, now you're depressed and you're having a hard time, it's all around trial and experimentation, right? Figuring things out. What was I doing? Two years before I retired, I started writing my blog.

That was trial and experimentation, right? So you can, by planning effectively and looking at the 90-10 rule and forcing yourself to do more non-financial stuff before you retire, you can actually pull ahead phase three. of retirement and do it before you retire. And it eliminates that depression trough that many people go through. So there's tremendous value to it. I think your framework of the glide path is really effective. It's a good way to think about it.

Yeah. I mean, again, the numbers are plucked out of air, but I think if that mindset comes in, right, this kind of like, actually, I need to glide this down as rapidly as I can feel comfortable with. I think it's really important. And also...

without getting too depth into the depression thing, I've done a lot of reading on this, you know, and all of the studies are actually quite shocking to me. I didn't realize they were as bad as what they are, right? People that enter into retirement are 40% more likely to be depressed. people that aren't i mean that's a that's an unbelievable number and then the stats coming out there's a the journal of gerontology basically says that um loneliness

and social isolation has a bad effect on people smoking 15 cigarettes a day from their health point of view. The health challenges people go through if they're lonely and socially isolated. are unbelievable. They're talking about a loneliness epidemic. They're talking about all of this. I come across this unbelievable stat in the UK. I didn't believe it and I had to search it, but back in 1990.

9% of all divorces were by couples age over 60. It's now 40%. 40% of all divorces now are by people 60 plus. Now, I know there's some demographic factors that have gone into that. but not as much as six times the equivalent of what it is. So this is such important work that people need to put in.

Yeah. And, you know, some people might listen to that and say, well, heck, why should I ever retire then? Right. I'm going to be more chance of being depressed. I'm going to be lonely and I'm going to be divorced. Right. The important message is you don't have to be right. Planning before you get there is what you need to do to avoid those risks. And if you take the time on the front end, basically what happens, I think, when people get into this depression.

is they don't realize everybody thinks about losing the paycheck that's natural i'm going to lose my paycheck i got to replace my paycheck What people don't take time to think about is I'm also going to lose my sense of purpose. I've got a mission. I go in there every morning and maybe I don't really like my job, but guess what? It gets me out of bed. It gets me on the, you know, I've got to be.

telecommuting or driving to work by 7.30 in the morning. I've got to get this presentation done for my boss. You've got all this structure to your day, all these objectives, all this work that you're doing. You're feeling fulfilled. You're doing something. you lose all of that as well as the paycheck. And it's when people start feeling the results of not having those challenges in their life, the positive challenges, that's what leads them into these areas of decline. And that's what...

focusing on this stuff before you get there can avoid. Because you can think about, okay, how am I going to challenge myself in retirement? Because I really like it when I get that job at work that's tough and I figure it out and I get a little pat on the head.

Well, what am I going to do to replace that? Well, I don't know. Figure it out. Try some things. Trial and experimentation. Start a blog, right? You experiment and you find ways to create those fulfilling areas that you used to get from work. And that's how you avoid that 40% depression. That's how you avoid the loneliness. That's how you avoid the divorce is finding a way to fill those things in your life. And it's so much more rewarding, Dan, when you can do that.

with the freedom of retirement and things that are time dependent and you can structure them in your day however you want to versus just, well, I'm just going to keep working because I don't want to go through that. And then you're handcuffed. to a job that you don't like, that limits your time. You've got less and less time left every day that you live, right? We're all going to die. And you don't have to have a job to get those other benefits that you don't think about.

recreate those and reinvent yourself in retirement. And if you do that right, it's really fulfilling. So that's the other side of the coin. I think I love, you know, we've talked about investing before and the linking, but the risk and reward thing here comes to mind, right? But, you know. Everything carries risk. Walking outside of our front door has a risk to it. As human beings, we evaluate risks all of the time and we learn to deal with risks. I think...

To me, the risk-reward of retirement is a wonderful trade-off. Yeah, there are risks. If you don't get it right or you don't put the work in, then there are quite significant challenges and risks that could come your way. Having worked with hundreds and thousands of people that know, and you've dealt with much more than me and spoke to many more, I do know that the people that get this right, the reward is...

so much more monumental than anything you could think of, right? The freedom of time that you have, the ability to truly do stuff that you value, that is passion and purposeful. people get so much more out of it. But I think people are, you know, because we're survive first, thrive second creatures, our natural survival instincts kick in and we don't like the fear bit or the risk bit.

And it often just overwhelms us. So I think, again, like you said, this is quite simple but not easy, that old saying, right? Simple things are not easy. It is quite simple, but it's really challenging to do. But if you put the work in, you can really come out the other side and the rewards are just tremendous. Yeah, spot on. And I think the other part, too, that people don't realize you're so used to using the analytical side of your brain as you're working through the financials or whatever.

This is all the other side of the brain, right? This is artistic. This is creative. This is that side of your brain that you haven't exercised much. So it's not intuitive how to do it. And that's the other thing that I think scares people. It's that risk reward, you know, stability type mindset. But it's also how do I go about doing this? It's not it's like you got to go back to when you were, you know, a young child and playing in the dirt. It's how do you.

open yourself back up to be free to explore and try stuff. And that takes some exercise. That's not intuitive how to go about it. So I think that's the other thing that scares people. Yeah. strategies or things have you found effective then Fritz when you think about purpose and fulfillment whether it is uncovering it and or maintaining it particularly at this stage of life have you got any thoughts that you could briefly share on that

I think the biggest thing, Dan, I've told this to so many people. I told it to my wife, actually. And we can tell you her story. But the thing that I've kind of come away with, what's the simplest single step you can do to figure this out? It's foster your curiosity and start reflecting on things that you're interested in that you might want to explore, right? Just spend time thinking about it.

But, and this is the key point, as you start thinking about something, let's use my blog again. We're beating a dead horse, but it's a good example. I was thinking, you know, maybe that's something I'd like to experiment with as I'm getting into retirement. Well, what's the important part is to take that first step, right? I was home on a weekend. My wife was gone. I was like, okay, I'm going to try to start a blog. And I Googled how to start a blog.

Oh, okay. I got to go to this blue host thing and get a website. Okay. You know, I had no idea what I was doing, but I was taking that first step. I was trying to figure it out. And if the first step kind of works and you're kind of, Hey, this.

This is kind of fun. I kind of like this. You take the next step and the next step. The next thing you know, you can be running down a path that you never saw coming. And probably not, right? Nine out of 10 of them, it'll kind of dead end. It won't go anywhere. Okay, fine. You chuck it. You move on to the next. But to me, that's the biggest takeaway is start listening to your mind and your spirit. What is interesting you? What have you thought about maybe getting into?

And then take the first step. To me, it's as simple as that. Because if you do that enough times, you're going to find a few things, right? And that's all it takes. Find one or two really good things. You're on your way.

But the only way you find those things is to take those first steps and explore a few areas and see where it leads. I'd love you to share your wife's story because what she has set up and what you two both do now, basically finding. hers and your purpose in the charity work that you do i think is phenomenal um share that for me because i think it's a really interesting example

Yeah, thank you. And again, it goes back to the process, I think, is more important than the specifics of what we did. But it's a great story that helps demonstrate the process. My wife was a stay-at-home caregiver for her mom. Her mom had Alzheimer's, lived with us, and she was a stay-at-home mom when we had our daughter. So for 25 years, my wife was giving care.

And my mother passed away shortly after I retired, my mother-in-law. And my wife unexpectedly kind of, that was, well, this is kind of like retirement, right? That had been her job for so long. And unlike my retirement, where we had planned for it, we had talked about it, we had, you know, had all these discussions. We knew, yeah, at some point mom's going to be gone and we'll be free to travel and things like that. But we failed to recognize.

that that was taking away kind of my wife's primary role in life was this caregiving, and she was getting rewards from that, right? So she was going through this retirement shock phase that we talked about earlier. And she happened to see a show on TV where a charity was being profiled out in Washington or Oregon that was building these free fences for low-income families. She goes, you know, we should do that. I should do that. And I was like, yes, you should.

Take the first step. It's exactly what we just talked about. She had an interest. I said, yeah, you should. She goes, but I don't know anything about running a charity. I said, you don't have to. Take the first step, right? I don't know how to build a fence.

No, but we can probably find some people around here that can help us learn that. Let's figure it out. And it went from that, Dan, to just that light bulb of I should try this, to she set up a 501c3, which is the legal designation here by the IRS to set everything up. Right. She set up a board of directors. She set up all her bylaws. She's got a website. She's got 200 and something volunteers. She's got, you know, a big annual fundraiser. We've built 170 free fences now.

for low-income families in our area. We've gotten over 500 dogs off life on a chain, and it's turned into this tremendously fulfilling area of our lives because you've got... The volunteers, we call it the Fido family. So we've got the relationships. We talked about loneliness earlier, right? Loneliness is gone. I've got more friends than I've ever had in my life. Really dear, common interest type friends.

We're outside doing physical activity, right? Well, there you go. What's important as you get older, activity. We're outside getting activity. We're giving back to the community. Well, okay, that's rewarding, right? You're giving back. That's that self, that's it. That's that.

How do you replace those senses of fulfillment from work? We're doing that because we're giving back. It's all of those things that we talked about wrapped up into one small example of what can happen when you take that first step. And it's just created this entire organization in this little town that we live in where dozens of retirees are getting the same benefit that we are out of doing this work.

many people are generating, not to mention the recipients. So yeah, it's really true. It's called Freedom for Fido. Check it out. We're on Facebook. We post videos and stuff of all the, you know, when we let the dogs off the chains and, and it's, it's become more important to me. than my writing by far, and clearly to my wife. And what's so neat about it, Dan, you talked about gray divorce earlier. This is something my wife and I are doing together. So it's fostering that relationship together.

Plus all these other benefits. It's a phenomenal thing. Never expected we'd be running a charity, but it's the most rewarding thing I've ever done in my life. I love it. And everyone should check out the charity. I think it's the work that you do. I've watched some of the videos. It is just amazing. And the joy on everyone's face when the dog gets left off the chain and all this stuff is just phenomenal. And it comes back to all of the research, right?

Let's look at the research and say, well, actually, does that research actually play out in the real world? Well, yes, it does. Because actually giving back our money and our time is a massive thing that helps us feel... happy and content being around people with shared interests again helps us be happy and content actually helps us make us makes us live longer as well um you know creating uh being part of the community

And all of these things that we know that research and studies have shown have such a positive impact on us as humans, you're living that out every day. and it's having such a positive impact on new community other other people

which I think is absolutely tremendous. And it comes back to, I think, this role of attitude and mindset. And so what you've highlighted there is really the significance of attitude at this stage of life. And I think how someone's attitude can really influence what they do and how they do it and their happiness levels, et cetera.

Have you got any thoughts on that? I know you've shared a lot of that, but that kind of attitude and mindset thing is huge, right? 100%. I would argue that it's pretty much self-fulfilling, right? And as you talk about planning and things you should plan for.

One of the big areas you need to plan for is what kind of mindset are you intentionally choosing to take into retirement? And I think about the article I wrote, The Ten Commandments of Retirement. I wrote it like two or three months before I retired. And the entire purpose of that article was to kind of outline for myself. It wasn't about, oh, make sure you spend less than your 4%. It was nothing about that at all.

it was 100% about mindset. And it was things like intentionally choose to be grateful, right? Look at the glass half full. Find ways to give back. And if you think about our charity now, that wasn't even a... a seed of an idea when I wrote these 10 commandments. But if you look at that charity work and compare it against those 10 commandments, I bet it checks off like seven or eight of those mindset habits that I said I was going to follow. It's phenomenal how this works.

So basically the whole purpose of my 10 commandments and everybody's commandments should be different, right? These should be very personal and these should be things. And I find myself thinking about these, Dan, like I'll start getting negative about something. I was like, wait a minute. Nope. Choose to have a positive mindset, right?

I've got it hanging on my office right on the other side of that bookcase back there. So I look at it and it's really helpful because I'm seven years into retirement. And I still, it's a good little cross check, right? Keep your mind straight. And it's so important to go into this with your correct mindset. And I think...

What you'll find if you follow your curiosity, take the first step, especially in those areas where you can give back to the community or others, you don't know where that's going to lead. But ultimately, when you compare it back to those mindset... things that you established you'll see perfect alignment and that's what's so fascinating about this journey right is i never expected where these things would lead

But I look back at the consistency of how I followed these principles that I established for how I was going to mentally go about it. It's spot on. So that's I would say that's almost as important as anything. is determining and figuring out how you're going to self-correct your mindset to keep yourself thinking about this the way you should. It's so great. It comes back to me, I think, you know.

If you run a business or you work for a business, a lot of businesses will have their mission, their values. I think it's really important to have your own internal. mission and values and to write it down and to stick it on your fridge or your wall it can be 10 commandments it can be five commandments it can be a sentence it can be a statement of purpose

Ikigai is a wonderful way to kind of maybe create this statement where you're thinking about, you know, who you are, what you do and why you do it. And just come up with something.

that is almost your guiding North Star, something that if times get tough, you can look at and go, ah, no, that. And like you said, everyone that does that often kind of... almost files it away maybe both mentally and metaphorically and physically um and then they'll come find it and they go oh it's interesting i wrote that down five years ago And every decision I've made has been with that in my mind, right? It's kind of like...

You know, that has been the thing. So this exercise of thinking about, you know, writing down some commandments, writing down a sentence, I think is hugely valuable because there are going to be lots of decisions. and lots of scenarios that you come across that's going to need something as a guiding principle. Yeah, spot on. Again, talking about how we're focused on the 90-10 and the non-financial areas, what better – and this is one that's kind of a little bit more easy to –

implement, right? It's hard to figure out your purpose and all that. How hard is it to say, okay, write down five or six things that you're going to say, okay, I'm going to follow these guidelines mentally in retirement. It's not hard, right? Have an attitude of gratitude, give back to others, be curious, right? remain flexible, willing to change. You can come up with those really quickly. So that's one of these things that maybe it's a good place to start.

Because some of this stuff is a little fuzzy and hard to get your hands around. This one's not. This is a really easy exercise that everybody would benefit from. I think it's a great place to start, but I think it's a great place for us to wrap this up on. um because i want to go on the 10 commandments for the next two or three minutes with you okay and and and just pick out a couple i'm gonna i'm gonna list them down i'll read them out and i want to pick on a couple um i'm gonna pick on one

And then I'll let you pick one. And then we can very briefly just go, why is this important? Is that fair? Yeah. So you've already mentioned a few. So have an attitude of gratitude. Give with a generous heart. Pursue passions. Keep the balance.

Make no obligations. Take care of your body. Stay flexible to change. Cherish friends and family. Have fun and keep eternity in mind. I think they are wonderful. And I've... written them down and saved them in a word document on my computer you know i think they're really cool right and um i've taken the headings and done a little bit of work thinking about how that applies to me

One I want to touch on very quickly with you, which I think is really, really important, is commandment number five, which is make no obligations. And what you kind of say is that consider giving yourself a year free from commitments. to explore and enjoy this freedom without constraints. I think it's so important. I think a lot of people that enter into retirement think they almost need to kind of mimic what they've been doing and they don't give themselves the freedom.

to stay free from commitments, to say no to stuff that doesn't truly light them up. They feel like they have to fill their diary with busyness like they've done for the last 20 odd years. I think it's really important to actually give yourself that.

that grace to make no commitments and have no obligations. Yeah. And this one was driven somewhat by research, Dan, because as I was preparing for retirement and researching this, you know, I found a lot of people who just started grabbing onto things because you do. That's one of the things you miss from work is being busy. And it's a natural default to just get busy. But once you get busy.

it's a lot harder to filter out the things that you don't really want to do and focus on the things that you do. It's so much easier to just not let the things in in the first place. So be very slow and very intentional on letting things into your life. and use that freedom that you've now earned to do that and focus on things that you think or you're experimenting with that you think are going to bring purpose. Don't just...

Fill it with tactical stuff that takes your takes all your day away. That's not that's not a fulfilling way. So, yeah, no, I'll be honest. I broke this one. This is the only one of the Ten Commandments I broke. And it was I got an offer to be on a board of directors.

right at the same time I was retiring. And I was like, oh, that's an obligation. Wait a minute, I'm not supposed to make any obligations, right? But I talked about it with my wife and I said, you know, to me, this is kind of neat because it'll be an advisory role, very high level. I'm not going to be involved in the details. And that would, that...

to me sounds interesting. That sounds, you know, that was something that I thought sounded fulfilling. And it was kind of, you have to do it now or it's going to be gone. So I think the other thing is recognize these are principles.

But there are times where it's okay to challenge them based on, like we talked about way early on, we don't know what changes are going to happen, right? You don't know what the future is going to bring. So sometimes it's okay to be flexible to change. Let's talk about that one, number seven or eight. And even though I said I wasn't going to take on obligation, this is an obligation I'm intentionally choosing to take on. And it worked out well. Okay, my turn to pick one.

Let me end up and keep eternity in mind, because this has really become something I've become more and more convicted about. Maybe it's because we're getting older. But, you know, we sit here and talk about how to have a fulfilling life and how to handle all the financials. But if you really step back and think about things in a much, much bigger sense, you realize none of this really matters.

right in the eternal scope of things eternity and everything else we are so blessed to live in the first world you know economies where we even have this ability to have this discussion And, you know, we spend so much time focusing on retirement, which is going to be a, what, two or three decade period of our life, right? How much time do we really spend about thinking about things that are going to last forever? And that's the point of number 10 is recognize.

There's stuff beyond this world. You know, I'm a Christian and I'm convicted of that, but I don't judge other people. My challenge is make sure you leave room in your life for spirituality and spending time to figure out what you believe. Because ultimately, those long-term eternal questions are so much more important than anything we've talked about today.

And it's important to keep them in the right perspective. So not to be preachy, but I really think that's an important principle that everybody's got to think about and determine for themselves where do they put spirituality in their circle of life. It's a big one.

Yeah, I agree. And it can, like you say, even if that's not something that you, you know, your faith or doesn't lead you down that road, you know, I think about what you're doing, you know. Freedom for Fido is something I think that will live on well beyond you and your wife. You've put steps in place. You know that you're going to, you know, there's going to be many more.

fences put up for low-income families with dogs on chains like well beyond you yeah um and i think it's that stuff as well isn't it it's kind of you know thinking about what you're doing now and how that yeah Yeah. Yeah. You know, your children, your grandchildren, you can argue the same thing there. Investing in things that are going to last well beyond your life. It's yeah, it's all of that. Again, I think the exercise and the point is

The financial stuff is what everybody focuses on, but ultimately you'll find it's just not that important. It's all this other stuff that really leads you to finding a successful retirement. And I love what you're doing, Dan. You and I are so aligned on what's important. And I think we're preaching. same message and and i i really appreciate you having me on because it's

it's a message that needs to get out there. And it is, I think it is starting to penetrate and you're starting to see more and more of the financial planning industry talk about these non-financial areas. I think that's because hopefully people like you and me that are, you know, seeing that this stuff matters. And I think it's starting to get some traction, which I'm kind of excited about that.

Well, Fritz, this has been a wonderful second conversation and I've got a load of new stuff out of this. So thank you for two hours of your time. The audience is only going to get an hour of it. But look, thank you for all the work you do. I constantly reference your blogs in my newsletters. I think you write amazing stuff, real.

world experience stuff that people can get so much value from no matter where they live in the world there's not much you talk about in terms of you know you know local to you um in terms of being in the states but And so I encourage everybody to go and subscribe to the Retirement Manifesto, to buy Fritz's book, to look at the charity, to connect with you and to kind of just, you know, take on board everything you say, because I think it's...

It's so wonderful. So listen, thank you once again for your time. I know it's early in the morning there for you. So it's been an absolute pleasure to have this conversation with you. Yeah, well, thank you, Dan. The pleasure has been all mine. And I really appreciate the honor of being on with you. And best of luck with what you're doing. I applaud what you're doing. I'm honored to be a small part of it. Thank you much.

I really appreciate that. And that just leads me to thank everyone once again for tuning in to the Humans vs. Retirement podcast. Until next time, take care. Thanks for tuning in to the Humans vs. Retirement podcast. I hope this show will arm you with insights, strategies and a newfound excitement for navigating life beyond the nine to five grind. Remember, retirement isn't just an end point. It's a vibrant chapter brimming with opportunities for growth, adventure and purpose.

Keep exploring, stay curious and embrace the next phase of your life with enthusiasm. Until next time, may your retirement dreams continue to flourish and inspire.