Do you remember those “Choose Your Adventure” books as kids? Do you remember hitting those dead ends, and then taking a different path? How can you take a different financial path to avoid certain financial doom coming to the majority of Americans?
Chris Miles will share how to take another path that can lead to a happy ending.
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Choose Your Own Financial Adventure
Thank you for reading. Thank you for sharing this show with others. Thank you for being a part of this and not just reading but also being a doer of the word as well. Thank you so much for being a part of this. As a reminder, be sure to check us out on MoneyRipples.com, not only check out the other tools and the things that we have, but we also have that Passive Income Calculator that you can take to figure out how much passive income you can create in your life right now. Check that out and take that.
One thing that came to my mind as I was thinking about summertime. I don’t know how you guys grew up. One of the things in the summertime when you are out of school you play outside with your friends and my generation, Generation Xers, played until it was dark or past dark when we played. Our parents were grateful that we were not in their hair. We were raising ourselves in a lot of ways. I also remember too, that besides playing outside and doing sports and things like that, I also was a big reader. I don’t know if you were like a bookworm like I was, but I was a major bookworm. I was one of those weird kids. I was reading the encyclopedia at age seven, nerdy, I know.
During the summertime, I loved getting to the fiction type of books. I got into non-fiction too. I loved Science, I loved Astronomy. I got into the fiction books. I remember the local library would always have this big book-reading contest. I would go for it. I’d check out as many books as I could, I had a huge stack. I didn’t have a basket on my bike. I had a huffy BMX dirt bike. I’d have to carry these books from the library for the 2-mile ride to my house. I remember one of my favorite books was the Choose Your Own Adventure. Do you remember those? In Choose Your Own Adventure they had multiple paths you could take at any different time.
You always freaked out when you hit that dead end, and all of a sudden, you died. You are like, “I got killed.” I love those Choose Your Own Adventure books. I loved not getting to the end, and having a happy ending, but I love seeing multiple endings and possibilities. I would take every twist and turn. I wouldn’t read straight through the book because that didn’t make sense. I would take every twist and turn if there was a point A and a point B to take, and I took point B the next time I’d take point A. If there was another split-off, I’d take that one next. I would go through all these different variations to see how many different variations of the book I would get. I loved having a book that was so living. It was something that had so much possibility.
I was thinking about that. I thought, “This reminds me of our adventure.” We are choosing our adventure in real life, aren’t we? We are taking different paths. We have the choice A, B sometimes C, D, E, and F. We got all these different paths we could take. We are always hoping to take the best one. I know with my generation we are big on making sure we make the right choices. Often it’s against the norms, going against what the general population or institutions will tell us, which is why I’m a rebel, but I know a lot of you are too. This message might resonate with you more because we are trying to do something very different than the norm.
I thought about the path that many of you guys are taking toward financial independence or freedom. Is it the path that is going to give you that happy ending? Is it going to lead to an ending that might be more devastating or tragic? That’s the ending I want to talk about for you because some of these endings have already been written and some of these endings we have already seen. Yet, many people keep making the same choices. They keep taking the same path. The common path is the one that’s about traditional retirement accounts. You save up in those 401(k)s. You get your company match, and you save up as much as you can. You are paying off your debts and you are doing everything that Dave Ramsey told you to do, and yet does it work?
That path has been determined. It’s one that we know it’s a common ending. Here’s the ending that we are seeing right now. This is not happening with the prime lifers that have moved on. They are already into retirement age and have passed it. Then we have the Baby Boomers that now have already got into retirement age, are pretty much entering it, or have already entered into it. We are seeing the same signs, aren’t we?
We are seeing the same ending and the same statistics saying they got about $80,000 to $100,000 saved up and that’s it. They are supposed to live on 3% of that, which means they are living on supposed to live on a couple thousand a year. This has been predicted. I almost finished a book called The Fourth Turning that was written back in the late 90s.
They are already predicting that Baby Boomers are going to enter into a place where they realize they have got to stretch it more like they have got to stretch out their money longer. They are not going to have as much as they would hope. They don’t have the consistent paychecks that their parents were getting before because they could rely on the government. That’s not the case. They have 401(k)s, IRAs, and things like that. Retirement plans are now they are trying to siphon off and live on as little as possible, hoping that Social Security will come in enough.
Therefore, as a result, they have got to simplify their lives, which I don’t think is always a bad thing. They have got to simplify their life. They have got to keep it very simple. Live on a strict budget and hope that they don’t run out of money and wonder what happens if they live too long. This is a common fear, and it’s not with the average Baby Boomer. This is not with the average retiree. This is happening even with those who have over $1 million. You have read me say the statistics over and over and over again. They have come out this year in 2023, that 35% of 401(k) millionaires, those that have over $1 million saved in 401(k)s, still worry about living too long.
They think it will take a miracle to be able to retire free. This is the common theme that we are seeing right now. We already know that a life of freedom has not existed yet. How many people are still going through the book, choosing their adventure, hoping that the ending will somehow change? Maybe it will be different for me, and maybe it could be, maybe you happen to get on the right end of the market cycle. What if you are on the wrong end of the market cycle? What if it ends up being worse for you than even your parents? What if it ends up being that way? Do you want something different? I know many of you are probably reading wondering, “I’m looking for answers.”
35% of those who have over a million dollars saved in 401ks still worry about living too long, thinking that it will take a miracle to be able to retire free. Click To TweetWe have talked about strategies so much. Am I giving away all the information? In some ways, yes. I will probably give away more information than I should. I have people tell me, “You give too much away.” Am I saying, “Here are the people to invest with?” No. That’s illegal. I can tell you how you can invest, but I can’t tell you what to invest in. I’m not an investment advisor. I’m not giving you investment advice. I can say, “Here are the types of investments that our clients are doing.” We talked about doing turnkey rentals. We have talked about doing lending where you lend the money to those real estate investors and you get paid a contractual rate of return.
We have talked about throwing your money with other investors and pulling your money together to buy an apartment, buying the self-storage, buying an oil and gas or mineral rights type of deal, buying into franchises or businesses, things like a carwash, or whatever it might be. There are so many options that you could be doing that now. Those are different paths.
Those are the paths that, it’s not that no one has taken, it’s not like this Choose Your Own Adventure book hasn’t happened. This path shows some happy endings. I’m not talking about myself, although that could be one of them. There are even people like our clients. There are people like that who have seen the happy ending. We heard one of our clients, who we are trying to get on the show, to be a guest. She hit her financial independence number. She’s now at the point where she works optional. She can now choose whether to keep working or not. That’s a powerful place.
Understand that this is not about retirement. We are not talking about retiring and living out your life and dying. I believe that we have so much more in us. I believe that getting to that point of financial independence is the next step for some of us financially. It’s not the last step. It’s not like, “Okay, I did it. Time to die. Happy ending. End of story.” No. There’s still more to choose your adventures along the way. There’s the ability for you to go and do your passion project and whatever that might be. It might allow you to be able to have more assets and more capital to go and serve people more.
Maybe you want to start serving missions. Maybe you want to start helping other people. Maybe you want to start working with this organization or that organization. Maybe you want to build and donate more money. Maybe you want to be able to help give your kids a leg up in life when they have had the headwinds against them, especially as we move into this crisis era with our markets. We haven’t hit the worst yet.
There’s worse to come, but it doesn’t mean that that’s over. It doesn’t mean that that’s the end of the story. It means that there’s a new possibility for you, your family, and the loved ones that you have in your life. For you, especially with the story you are trying to create and the lives you are trying to impact. You have more options. The great thing is you don’t have to wait until you are 70 years old like some people are.
Many people are delaying retirement right now to essentially shorten the lifespan that they have to be in retirement. Not a life of freedom but a life they can finally say, “At least I can quit that job. Maybe I can go from full-time to part-time.” I’m not even saying it’s bad to go part-time, because you might want to go part-time because you love what you do. Maybe you love your business, your job, or what you are doing.
Maybe you want the option to say, “I wouldn’t mind doing part-time work over here doing this thing that gives me plenty of freedom to do what I love over here.” That’s the power of this. This is not about creating more passive income. This is about what you believe the passive income will get you, buying your time back. Giving you that time freedom and that freedom essentially have more options in your life versus the plain old path. The adventure that everybody has been choosing is, “How can I get to that retirement? Stop working a job I hate, and then hopefully, I have something to do, and maybe I have enough life left.”
I’m here to challenge you that maybe we could do it younger while you still have life and vitality while can still have the energy to do things. I’m not saying that your life is over at age 60 or 65. There’s plenty of life for many of you there. Having witnessed what happened with my dad, I got to that point where he did work longer and he did work later. Even though he had saved a lot, it was still not enough based on investing in his 401(k) and paying off his debt. It did not work.
I will repeat this. That adventure is not an adventure. That’s a tragic ending. For him, he got to that point where he could retire and he’s able to relax for a few years. Then health issues came up and now his options have become limited. He’s now living in his prison. The prison of modern medicine is fortunate and unfortunate. Fortunately kept him alive, but unfortunately, has kept him in a life that he did not choose, or at least that he did not want to choose. It’s a life that was the result of the choices he made. That can happen to any of us guys. Who knows, I can end up not having life from this point forward. I hope that this is not my last episode. I’m not saying that. I think I have plenty of life ahead of me, and I’m doing what I can to make sure of that. You never know. There are no guarantees.
All you have is that decision right now. Is he going to say move to page 47, or are you going to go back to page 16? Which option do you choose? My invite and challenge to you is to choose a different path. Choose a path that has worked. The path has given people options. Not me, not our clients, not even a lot of our guests. There’s been plenty of people here, but I want those options and freedom to happen for you, which is why this show is happening.
This is why we are spreading this message and why we are creating that ripple effect through your life. That’s the whole purpose. That’s why I’m doing this instead of living and doing very little. This is my choice. This is my path. I thought I could go and retire quietly and do my thing and maybe do a few things I’m passionate about. Ultimately, this is what I’m passionate about. I love being able to teach and inspire, especially inspire you to action, which provides actual results and hope in your life.
That’s my challenge for you is to choose something different. Stop taking the pages that have been worn, torn, and turned over and over to get the same old stinking ending, which is people retiring with very little or never feeling like they will have enough because they don’t. They can’t have enough to do it. $1 million, 3%, and 30,000 years are not enough if you want a life of freedom and options to be able to have power in your life to bless more lives. My challenge to you is to do just that bless more lives by making different choices now. Visit us at MoneyRipples.com for any questions. Make it a wonderful and prosperous week. We will see you in the next episode.