Welcome back to the early retirement podcast. I want all of you to know the earliest time you can retire. Doesn't mean you actually need to retire. In fact, most people think when I say, hey, you're in a position to retire that people just do. That doesn't happen that often. Most of the time people go, wow, that's great to know. I'm going to keep working another year for my team so I don't just leave them high and dry. Or I've got this project or I don't know what I'm going to do yet in retirement,

but it's really nice going to work knowing I don't actually have to be here.

If I have a bad day, if politics change, I have the ability to do what I want to do,

which is spend my time on whatever it is I want to do.

And that's once again where I want all of you to live.

I don't want you in that I don't know phase. Many of you have heard this before, but I'm a soccer player and my wife says I'm worse than hangary when I'm injured. If you don't know hangary, that's hungry and angry, a very dangerous combination. And she used to think right when I get my MRI, I'm going to be even worse than that. Why? Because I'm going to see the severity of my injury. But the truth is I relax, and I relax if the injury is bad, because now I know the truth. I have a plan. Got it. I might have to do six months of physical therapy or a year to get back on the field, but I know what I need to do in order to, once again, play soccer, which is the goal in this case. I want all of you to know, wow, what if markets went down right when I retired?

Or what if tax brackets change? Or what if my health changes? Or what if, what if I live longer? Or what if, what if, wow, I still see that I would be in a position if I were to make the following changes. Great. I still want to retire. So if you're wondering, okay, what do I need to know before I retire. Once again, guys, you can email me the word retire in the subject line, and I will respond back with a free guide. It's a checklist to make sure you don't forget anything. If you want to build your own plan, just make sure to put in the subject line in the word optimize, and then I'll send you the software that I use to build financial plans. And then finally, we love to help people retire early.

So you can go to our website, rootfinancial.com.

And that's when people are like, wow, I need to be financially educated on all retirement topics. But I don't want to actually be the one in charge of implementing it because I want to be enjoying my retirement.

And it's our job to make sure we're helping you get the most true value out of what you've worked so hard for. So many people just keep working until 60, 65, thinking, you know what? That's what I've got to do. That's what my parents did. But that's not the reality. The reality is there's so many of you who listen to this podcast who go, wow, maybe I could retire earlier, but don't take action on it.

And we want to show you, hey, here's when it could be possible. And we're not just going to sugarcoat it. We're not going to blow smoke. We're going to show, hey, here's the reality based on your situation, how much you could spend, here's what's reasonable. So it might surprise you, but it also might be a little bit of tough love. and we believe in being transparent.

So hopefully the podcast resonates.

I do all of this for you guys.

For free. but it also might be a little bit of tough love, and we believe in being transparent. So hopefully the podcast resonates. I do all of this for you guys for free, and I love getting to do it. So thank you in advance for letting me record these episodes or also it just feels like I'm talking to outer space. So I appreciate you guys emailing me for these free guides. That's a long intro. Let's get to the episode. I remember, I think I saved up $500 or maybe $1,000. So it was like a little boy saving

up that kind of money. Back in the 70s, that was a lot of money, you know?

Yeah. So I went down to the bag, I think it was the savings and loan. I opened up a CD account

that was paying 15.5%. And I think I put it was a savings and loan. I opened up a CD account that was paying 15 and a half

percent. And I think I put it in there for three months. It was either a three month period or a six

month period. I think it was three months. And, you know, after three months I got the statement

and I was like, wait a second. I didn't have to do a thing. Left a finger, shovel any snow, deliver any papers, and I made all that money. I was hooked. I mean, I was hooked, and I've had this thing ever since, you know, ever since then was save more, live better, you know. And so I've been saving and saving and saving and saving.

And that's what kind of got me to where I'm at today.

What I'm doing in this new show, retirement reality, is having heartfelt, candid conversations

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