The reason we're here is because I never planned on this early retirement thing.

We just thought we would work until we're 65 and then this whole thing wouldn't be an issue.

Hello, hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money Podcast.

My name is Mindy Jensen and I'm in the Money Guy Show studios today with the Money Guys,

who are going to be helping Carl and I figure out how to get our way out of the middle class trap.

Brian Preston and Bo Hansen, otherwise known as the hosts of the Money Guys show, are both CFPs.

Brian is also a CPA and Bo is also a CFA, which is a bunch of letters that I'm throwing at you.

But what that means is they know taxes and investing and money and finances.

Carl and I find ourselves in a good but not so good situation.

We have discovered that we are in the middle class trap.

We've done everything right, but we were

prioritizing current year tax reduction instead of thinking about RMDs down the road. So we find

ourselves sitting on a kind of big pile of money in a 401k, a traditional 401K. So Brian and

Bow are going to help us figure out a way to kind of access that cash. I feel like your self-awareness is perfect. I mean, because I was sitting here, I mean, you guys know the situation you're in, it sounds like. Well, and it's interesting. I think so many people, you are describing it as a middle class trap. And that is correct. It is a trap that I'll be thought through. but it's not a bad thing. There's a lot of people out there when we kind of go through the numbers, but holy cow, I would trade places with you guys. But there are some things that with some strategic thinking and some strategic planning, I think you're going to be able to solve for. So it's not as perhaps dire as maybe it sounds, but there are some things that you're going to be able to do. And I don't think there are a lot of folks that are dissimilar to this. They find themselves at the stage of life, you are saying, oh, wow, we have this ticking time bomb. What are we going to do about it? Well, and I think people aren't thinking 20 years ahead. If I do nothing and the stock market returns,

you know, the rule of 72 and I could be facing incredibly large RMDs, required minimum

distributions, where I am now paying a lot of taxes to the government. And frankly, I'm a better

steward of my money than the government is.

So I don't want to do that. I think that there are ways to pull money out of the 401k so that I can

reduce my RMDs down the road. Plus, we have two children. And I don't want to leave them a pile of

traditional money when I could leave them potentially a pile of Roth money.

It's way better to do it that way.

I want to hear more of y'all's story, but I do think just because people go jump in and go, what's this trap that you are talking about?

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