Any way you look, it seems like a million dollars is that magic number needed for you to retire comfortably. That's why in today's episode, we're going to talk about why that's not the case. Whether you have less or more, that's not the number you should be paying attention to. So tune in to see exactly what you should be paying attention to. Aaron, I was talking to a neighbor where the headquarters of Rout Financial is. And this neighbor was asking some questions

about retirement because he found out what I do for a living. And I told him a podcast that I do.

He started to listen to the podcast and he said, ah, this isn't going to probably connect with me or resonate with me.

Your most recent episode was, how do you retire with $3 million? I just don't have $3 million.

I think there's a bit of discouragement that

is that really what it takes to actually retire? And when we started talking and he started

to tell me about what he had and what's going on and before long, it became very clear to me that

this individual could retire with far, far less than $3 million. This individual had nowhere close to that. He had saved

well, done well, provided for his family, but it became very clear, very quickly, this individual

did not need that. And in fact, he had about $300,000 in his portfolio, and it was plenty

sufficient to do everything he needed and then some because of the actual cash flow that he was

going to have through retirement. And so, Aaron, I think that what would be helpful to go over

in today's episode is, how much do you need to have to retire? Do I need that million dollars? Do I need

that $5 million? Or is there something else I should be looking at to determine what is the amount

needed for me to feel like I'm in a comfortable spot to retire?

I feel like every headline we see says you need a million dollars.

And it tries to put this feeling out there that if you don't have a million dollars, get ready for a rice and beans retirement.

Just because you're not going to be able to make ends meet.

And this is just the narrative that gets so pushed. And I feel like it adds to a lot of

discouragement because the vast majority of Americans can look at their account balance at the end of the

year and say, I'm nowhere close to that. Yeah. And this, so I'm going to go back to the individual I was

talking to. Why did he not need three million or even one million to retire? And by the way,

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