Are you tired of hearing that retirement has to wait until you’re 65 or older?
In this episode, I break down why the traditional retirement approach isn’t serving most people and what you can do to create financial freedom on your own terms—sooner than you think.
From why Social Security and the 4% rule may not be enough to how alternative investments like real estate can accelerate your financial goals, we’re tackling it all.
Here’s what I cover in this episode:
- Why so many Americans are worried about running out of money in retirement
- Why relying on the “traditional” retirement path can leave you working longer than planned
- The outdated strategies financial “experts” are still pushing
- How alternative investments, including real estate, can unlock financial independence faster.
Stop waiting and retire earlier with passive income!
TRANSCRIPTS
Speaker 1 (00:00):
More financial experts are saying now more than ever, that you’ve got to wait until after 65 to be able to retire. Is that what you want? Is there a way? Is there hope? That’s why I’m cover this episode. Hello, my fellow Ripples. This is Chris Miles, your cashflow expert and anti financianal advisor. This show is for you, those that work so hard for your money and you’re now ready for your money. Start working harder for you to today. You want that freedom cashflow now, not 30 or 40 billion years from now or well after the age of 65, but you want it today so you can live that life that you love with those you love. But most importantly guys, it’s not just about being rich, it’s about living a rich life because as you’re blessed financially, you have a greater capacity of blessed lives of those all around you.
(00:55)
Thank you so much for tuning in today and really allowing me to create that ripple effect through you and your lives as well. I appreciate you guys binging, you’ve been sharing with others and you know what? This ripple effect could not happen without the help of all of you. So thank you so much for being a ripple in so many ways in shapes and sizes, not just in ripple effect in your own life, but even allowing me to create a great ripple effect to then also create a ripple effect through others’ lives too. If you want to help people do that, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Leave us a great review and tell us what you love about this show. Also like and subscribe these videos as well. Alright guys, so here’s the thing I want to talk about today is do you have to wait longer than age 65 bill to retire?
(01:37)
I’ve seen increasingly number of articles talking about this method, talking about how it’s so necessary, how you have to have it. Is that really the case? Well, let’s go see what the experts have to say about this. First one I should want to talk about is actually Larry Fink. He’s the CEO of BlackRock, obviously a big fund. Now, I’m not going to share the article here on this just because I have two other articles already to share, but just to share really quickly what he said. He said that multiple times that the older generations should retire in age over 65 due to changing demographics that our country, he claims that people are living longer than they did in the early 20th century. Well, duh, obviously, and that the social security program worked during that era because more than half people who worked and paid into this system never lived to retire and to be paid from the system.
(02:25)
Okay, good point. He’s like, it’s not just that more people are retiring in America, it’s also that the retirements are increasing in length. Said, think today, if you’re married and both you and your spouse are over the age of 65, there’s a 50 50 chance that at least one of you will be receiving a social security check until you’re 90. And of course, with the social security running out, that’s a big issue. Now he’s right, they actually do say the 65 year olds, that there’s a 50 50 chance that one of you, if both couples are alive, one will live till they’re 92 years old. So think about that. I mean, that is a very true thing, and I’ve been saying this for a long time. This is why the 4% rule for becoming financially independent, retire, that kind of thing just is not a good rule to use because so many people are living longer as a result of that and inflation’s being going higher.
(03:09)
The 4% little guideline, it wasn’t even a rule. The 4% guideline happened from someone studying between 1926 and 1976. What would be a safe way to pretty much put your money in and not run out of money? But that was back on 1976 statistics, not now, 50 years later almost, right? So it’s a very different world Now, I see this other article that or came out that recently as well talking about people needing to work longer and really about how people are worried about retirement. Let’s go into that right here. Alright, so the article is here, new Challenges Force Americans to Reframe Retirement Plans. Of course, no surprise there. Now he says, plan for retirement is arguably the longest investment most people make, so it can be overwhelming. Now, here’s the challenge that’s coming out. Allian Life Insurance that said that 63% of Americans worry more about running out of money in retirement than about death.
(04:06)
That means guys, about two thirds of us are freaking out more about running out of money than dying. Like, Hey, I don’t care if I die early because I’m going to run out of money first and then I’ll die. This is a serious concern. Most of ’em, you’ll see 71% of Gen Xers, my generation, are concerned about running out of money as opposed to 64% of millennials and 53% of baby boomers. I do find it interesting that there’s less baby boomers worried about it. Now, it could be of course that baby boomers now are already into the retirement. They’re already living it, and maybe they’re hoping that there’s some hope, especially when they have social security. I know with my generation, we worry because social security is supposed to be going bankrupt here in the next really four years, and then by 2034 could be drastically reduced, which means that onus, all that responsibility falls on us to do it.
(04:50)
And of course, what’s the number one reason? Everybody says inflation, right? Inflation’s the number one thing that they all say. Now, here’s what I want to find out is what do we do? Well, Kelly Levine, VP of Advanced Market Solutions at Allianz Life, just so you know, Allianz is definitely a big financial company which has lots of financial advisors. Here’s what Kelly says. Kelly says, running out of money in retirement is a scary thought. That’s why having a thorough financial strategy for retirement is so important. A financial professional can help you figure out what strategies will work for you, and you write it down, he continues. A written financial plan can help you ensure that you are prepared with your finances so that your money can last your lifetime and help you ease the concerns you have that you’ll run out of money. Alright? Can I just call this as it is?
(05:38)
I’m all about writing things down. Writing things down is a good step. That’s been proven strategy of success for a lot of people’s writing down their goals. Here’s the thing, do you think writing down your goal about how you want to retire on a piece of paper and maybe even create a little game plan of what you think will be based on false assumptions of what kind of rate of returns you’ll get and everything else? Do you think that’s really going to work? No, it won’t, right? That doesn’t save your life writing on a piece of paper like, Hey, I love writing a piece of paper. I’m going to be a multi-billionaire. Well, it doesn’t mean it’s ever going to happen, is it? Right? And again, I’m all about manifesting and all that kind of stuff. I’m not discounting that, but just by saying, I’m going to write down my financial plan.
(06:14)
My financial plan is save more. I’m going to put more money in here. I’m going to try to get a bigger rate of return on my money. I don’t have any control of that, but I’m going to try it. Come on. What kind of piece of crap advice is this? And this is of course a guy that works with that very large company, and of course he’s telling you, seek out financial professionals. Again, I’m not about seeking out financial professionals, but here’s the problem. Is that financial professional, financially secure themselves? Are they able to retire? Are they able to do these things? And by the way, I’m talking about not from their business commissions that they earn off of. You put locking your money away forever either. So of course, what’s the answer, right? What should we do? He says, well, Americans, of course, they’re surveying, right?
(06:56)
47% of Americans view retirement as a slow transition from working full-time. Well, 38% Think about the date as a set date in the future. What this means is about half Americans say, well, I’m going to have to go scale down to part-time work and then I’ll scale out versus this is the date I’m going to retire. Less and less people are thinking they can have an actual retirement date. And remember, we talk about retiring early, by the way, one in five. Well, they say 15% don’t even see them ever being able to stop working or starting retirement. So there’s a lot of those issues that happen. So what do we do?
(07:30)
It says here, the top methods to avoid outliving your retirement savings include, you’re going to be shocked. Number one, this is not what financial professionals recommend. This is what Americans are doing. One, increase my current retirement contributions. So almost half of people said, I just got to save more. Of course, that’s what they all keep telling you. Notice that the financial professionals told you you should be able to save X amount of dollars. Aren’t the ones being held accountable for telling you you should save X amount of dollars because they over promise and under-delivered. That happens all the time. That’s why I left being a financial advisor for one, right? So that’s one. And no surprise increase what you’re saving. Number two is what cut your spending just live cheaper. Even though inflation’s making you have to spend more money somehow you have to reduce your lifestyle significantly more just so you can cut costs.
(08:19)
It’s not just about cutting costs, even if you even have to even now cut costs just to break even because inflation’s going up. You still have to live a lower lifestyle just to break even from where you were. But now you’re saying, well, now we got to go even more than that. I got to go even more than this is the hard thing guys, is that it’s not just about cutting down your spending, right? That’s not an issue here. I mean, there are issues with some Americans, but there’s a lot of Americans saving money already that have already cut their spending down and they just have to keep cutting it more. And now, of course, I’m not telling you that you shouldn’t be a wise steward of your money and you shouldn’t look at ways to save money and to cut spending. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying that this has been the advice and the answer that everybody’s been doing, yet we are still scared of running out of money. If this hasn’t worked yet, why do we keep doing it?
(09:13)
Here’s the other one, working later and entering retirement later. Well, that’s obviously what they’re saying in this article. And then here’s one, investing in lifetime annuity plans. 35% say that, okay, well, annuities can be okay, but unfortunately the annuity plans still aren’t enough either, but that’s a good plan. Now they’re seeking professional advice, but does it really work? Right? This is part of the problem. Now, let me switch to this other article because really what we’re hearing from Larry Fink with Blackstone, or sorry, with BlackRock, we have Larry Fink with BlackRock saying Just work longer. We need to, is almost like a social responsibility for the younger generations to work longer so we don’t eat up all the social security faster, right? We’re seeing that. We’re also seeing other people saying that maybe we should just save more, spend less, all that kind of stuff, right?
(10:04)
We get this all the time, but is that really is the answer that we need to you? Well, let’s look at the article because guess what, Dave Ramsey? Dave Ramsey has a different point of view on this. He says he unveils the major steps unveils, right? The secret to hidden early retirement. I’m so excited for this. I can’t wait to see what Dave, he says for me. I hope it’s good. Well, let’s take a look here. All right, once I get past all the ads, of course. Alright, of course, he talks about the early retirement. I’m going to scroll down to the part that really makes a difference. He says, first thing is you need to make a smart and realistic assessment of your overall retirement goals. Okay, great. Make a goal. I get it. That’s always good. Now, he’s saying, if your dreams are ambitious such as lots of global travel, your desired budget will obviously be quite a bit more ambitious than if you seek a modest retirement lifestyle.
(10:55)
All I have to say is, duh. We need to get that. Now. Second, you should also use these well thought out goals to create a mock budget specifically. That means being precise about how much money you will need on a monthly basis. This includes expenses such as medical costs, food, phone, internet, car costs, utilities, entertainment, and home repair. Let me ask you this question, do you even know remotely know what those costs are going to look like? Now it’s a mock budget for a reason because it’s literally a mock budget. It’s fake. You have no clue. Do you even know how much monthly medical costs are going to be when you’re retired? No. You hope they’re lower, but could they be higher? You don’t know. You really don’t know this stuff. So that’s part of the problem here. Food costs. Do we know what food costs are going to be?
(11:37)
No, because we can’t trust governments. Inflation, numbers, phone, internet. Hey, 20 plus years ago, we didn’t even know we needed the internet, right? 25, 30 years ago, the internet wasn’t even hardly talked about that much. It was like a brand new thing and now it’s an essential thing. So there’s all these things that come out that are new car costs. Well, we don’t know what cars are going to cost back then. Utilities, they’re going to go up way more than inflation. Are they going to be crazy? So I get it. He’s telling you to do something that’s good, but I’ll tell you this is the hard thing is that say you’re 25 years old and you’re trying to create a mock budget for 40 years from now, it’s impossible. It really is impossible because you don’t even know how much you’re going to be spending down the road.
(12:18)
You don’t know how much inflation is going to be. And if you throw out those inflation numbers, you start to think it’s ridiculous because you say, wait, is it possible that in 40 years, even from today, I want to live a middle class lifestyle, is it possible I have to live on hundreds of thousands of dollars a year? The answer is yes. Yes, that’s very possible. Could be if you’re living on less than a hundred thousand a year in the future and 40 years from now, that could be below the poverty line given inflation. Just think about that for a second. That can be below the poverty line, right? And of course, we’re told we got to live on 3% because people are living longer. Just like Larry Fink said with BlackRock, people are living longer, so therefore we got to live on less to let our money last.
(13:00)
Given fluctuations and interest rates going up or not going up, things like that, you could be getting paid less than you expect in retirement, and therefore 3%, it means you got to have at least three and a third million dollars saved up and that’s just a live in poverty. Think about that for a second, right? So you got to be, and not to mention if you’re putting in numbers that the stock market won’t deliver for you, that’s another risk, isn’t it? So we running into all these little what if scenarios, these issues that come up, you got to be careful of. So creating the mock budget is hard unless you create a shorter term one. This is why we talk to people about trying to retire in the next five, 10 years, right? Maybe 15 at most, because you can forecast a shorter term much more easily than trying to look out 20, 30, 40 years out.
(13:48)
We just don’t know what we’re going to be spending in 20, 30, 40 years. I don’t know what I’m going to be spending in that time. Therefore, that’s why when I ask people, how much do you want in retirement? When I used to ask this question all the time, the answer was always, as much as I can get, as much as I can. Now, more shorter term, I ask people, well, what would you need to replace your expenses or to replace your income and or pay for your expenses right now? Well, I know my expenses if they’re 10,000 a month, it’s 10,000 a month, right? It’s 20,000 a month. 20,000 a month. I got some people that want 30, 40, 50,000 a month they want to live on. Great. Now we’ve got something we can work with that we can actually use regardless of what goes on with inflation.
(14:28)
All right? Now scrolling down here. Now, Dave Ramsey stressed the evaluation for your finances. Here is what he says. Of course, he goes back to his seven baby steps. Having the thousand dollars emergency fund, paying off all your debts, three to six months savings, investing 15% of your income for retirement savings. Well, apparently it’s 15% enough because what we’re just finding out is of course people are saying they have to save more. And I know there’s a lot of people who have been saving at least 10, 15 if not 20% of their income, and still they think the answer is save more. As the other article said, you got to save for college too. Have mortgages paid off, all that kind of stuff. Build wealth and giving. Okay, great. I love his little baby steps. I love really the first three steps. Well, I’ll take out number one.
(15:11)
I mean, that’s the beginning, but I’d be like, forget that. Go to number three. Build up the emergency fund. I wouldn’t even do that before having all your debts paid off. Build up the emergency fund first. That’s safer. I did the baby step. I’m trying to pay off debts before I had the emergency fund didn’t work. And I don’t mean a thousand and a thousand bucks is just not enough. I’m sorry. It just doesn’t work in reality. I’ve seen it too many times. Alright, now here’s what he says. If you want to retire early, you need a bridge account. What’s a bridge account? In his words, a bridge account is basically a brokerage account. It’s a brokerage account that you use that is not like a 401k or an IRA or a Roth. It’s money that you can access before your 59 and a half.
(15:50)
So you’re say if you want to retire early, get a bridge account. Totally agree. You should have that. By the way, we call that infinite banking between savings accounts and infinite banking. That’s basically it, right? So yes, that’s the bridge account you could be using. Now they talk about using a brokerage account and just investing and you can contribute whatever you want. Yes, that’s true. You can do that. So he’s saying do that. That gets you at least till whatever age, till age 59 and a half or whatever age the government picks for you at that time when you can retire, and then your 401k and IRA step in. So this is not doing this instead of the 401k ira, this is on top of. So if you’re already, I know many of you that you’ve reached out to us, you’ve been max funding your 401k each year, right?
(16:31)
You’re max funding and putting it over 20 grand a year, and now they’re saying, we’ll do more if you want to get any hope of retirement before you’re 60, right? So okay, fine, save more. That’s not really anything earth shattering. Now, here’s the other thing too. It says a fifth step, and I look at this interesting too. Here’s how you do early retirement. What is it you do? Wait, wait, what is this? Invest in real estate. Whoa. And it says if you can afford it, it says, if you can afford it, invest in real estate. Why? Because Dave Ramsey invested in real estate and that’s where he is made most of his money. But besides his business, real estate is the number one place he’s done it. So finally, we see some advice from Dave Ramsey saying you should do real estate, but he puts this caveat in here, right?
(17:15)
This is what I love. It says, but he emphasized that doing this only smart if your own home is already paid off in full. So he’s saying first pay off your house, and then he says, and then you pay, real estate investments should only be paid for with cash, so don’t get a mortgage on these real estate investments. Here’s the problem I have with this guys. First and foremost, right? Let’s just say that you’re aggressively paying off your house like he’s suggesting you’re doing. It takes 10 years, right? 10 years to do this, okay? If you’ve been following this podcast, you’re probably looking for great ways to create passive income right now, right? Well, we got you covered here with central lending. Central lending specialized in alternative investments that actually are designed to create steady returns and long-term financial security for you and your family.
(18:03)
Now, they prioritize transparency. They love building those strong relationships, giving you that confidence, peace of mind knowing that you have your money working harder for you so you don’t have to work so hard for that money. You want to learn more how to do that, go to central lending.com and check out what they’ve got today to create your passive income and wealth creation right? Now, here’s the problem. You’re taking 10 years to try to pay off this house, and that would be a very aggressive goal. Right? Now, you’re also supposed to be saving into your 4 0 1 Ks and IRAs. Oh, and you’re apparently supposed to be doing these brokerage accounts, but let’s just say you decided not to do brokerage account and you just go in aggressively pay down your house in the next 10 years, you just lost 10 years of opportunity cost. That’s 10 years of opportunity cost.
(18:42)
That’s 10 years. You could have been making the money in real estate, but you didn’t because he says you got to wait until you pay off your house. Guys, do you realize, I’ve used this example many times in other podcasts because it’s easy numbers to understand, but I put a $32,000 down payment on a property just six years ago. That property in total with appreciation, everything else says pay me $165,000. That same 32,000 in the stock market would’ve got me about 65,000, would’ve been just over double, but I have a hundred thousand dollars more than the stock market by buying the real estate. Now, what is that going to look like in the next four years, even if there’s not a lot of appreciation, let’s just say that the property doesn’t appreciate a whole lot, but I’m still getting paid $8,000 a year, guys, I’m going to have over $200,000 earned on this property, this one property in 10 years by not paying off the house early, not trying to pay it off aggressively earlier, 10 years earlier or whatever it might be.
(19:38)
That’s time you can never ever get back. They always say that time is your best friend, but it can be your worst enemy, especially if you procrastinate. Now, if you’re trying to follow his advice, and by the way, you finally pay off your mortgage, but then what happens? They tell you to pay save up enough money to buy it in cash. You’re like, yes, I just freed up that say it’s $2,000 a month or Well, if you’re aggressively paying off, your mortgage might have been three or $4,000 a month and now you’re trying to save up money for properties that also keep appreciating. So you got to chase it as the properties tend to appreciate and grow over time. You’re trying to save up money while chasing after these returns rather than locking in the price Now while it’s cheaper getting the mortgage and then you could pay it off. So I’m not even saying you should pay it off. I’m just saying if that was your goal, that would be easier. It’s the same reason why you don’t save up all your cash to buy your first home. Why didn’t Dave Ramsey say that? If that were true, why not do that? No, I’ll pay off your house and then only pay cash for investment properties. So stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. So dumb. That doesn’t really work.
(20:42)
So I get it. I know why he says to do that, right? I get this. I understand why he says his way because he does not want to ever make you think that debt is okay. And this is the problem with people that get caught up. They get caught up in thinking that they have to obey their rules. They get so firm on a strategy, not a principle, but a strategy that they get locked in and one they can’t see clearly because they don’t want to have to contradict themselves. Listen, understand this. Principles are eternal. Strategies are not. Strategies change over time and with circumstances, but they can be adjusted. What works today may not work tomorrow. What worked yesterday may not work today. Those kinds of things here. So a principle would be live on less than you earn, spend less than you make good principle produce more than you consume.
(21:38)
That’s a principle. What’s not a principle is be debt free. That’s a strategy. And the problem with his strategy is that’s not a great one. Let’s just say you do pay it off, and I’m not saying you shouldn’t have paid off properties. That’s not the point of this. I’m just saying the strategy. If you’re trying to retire early, you’re trying to aggressively pay off this house, maybe trying to pay off 10 years sooner, and then you finally do and you’re like, oh, good. Now we’ve got maybe 3000, $4,000 a month. I can now apply to buy a property and you’re trying to buy that first single family home. Maybe it’s worth about 150,000 now, but of course, because you’re saving about, say, 40,000 a year that you’re trying to save mortgage payments. Now you’re trying to aggressively save that. Now you’re taking that money and of course you’re waiting four years later and what that 150,000 property now is worth 1 75.
(22:23)
So you got to save another half year or a year to get there and you finally get it and you finally get to that point and you’re like, yes, done. I’ve got it, and now you’re going to do it again. And now you got to chase that same PR property you’re going to try to buy tomorrow might be 225, 200 50,000 by that point. You see, the problem that we’re running into here is that these prices keep going up. You’re like a dalmatian chasing a firetruck, hoping to get freedom, but what if you could say, you know what? I can take that money. Let’s just say that instead of aggressively paying off the house, that extra 40,000 a year you’ve been trying to pay down on your mortgage. What if instead that 40,000 year was a down payment for buying a property this year? And then what if you did it again the next year?
(23:04)
And of course you’re taking the cashflow from that property to get the down payment on it. It may only be a few hundred bucks a month, but you’re still making a few hundred bucks a month and you’ve got the ability to lock in that rate. You can lock in your interest rates, just case rates go up. Again, you lock in the fact that your debt and your price was locked. So now that your renters are paying down your mortgage for you, they’re helping you pay down your mortgage and you still have a few hundred dollars of profit, and if there’s any appreciation, you get that gain just like I did right now. Again, I’m not making any promises of gains and how much it appreciates or not. The average has been about four, four and a half percent is typical for the growth of real estate.
(23:44)
So if you start to do that and you start to do that once per year, just imagine how many properties you can have and how much they can be paying you. Yeah, you might be able to. Finally, in 15 years you finally bought that property, you paid off your house and you bought that property. That’s free and clear, and maybe you’re making a thousand bucks a month, right? Cool, awesome. But all in the meantime, I’m making rent increases. I’m making more money as time goes on, just like that property started out, I was making 300 bucks a month. Now it’s over 700 bucks a month. So guys, I’m making well over eight grand a year on that same property with just $32,000 down payment. And of course, if you do that year after year, after year after year, you can imagine how much that compounds and grows.
(24:25)
This is why I told my client, instead of aggressively paying off his mortgages on his house and even his rental property, he was trying to pay it all off in six years. I said, sell the rental property, take the equity out, go and invest in other places. And so he invested and bought in the beginning six properties in Louisiana. He had been cashflow on those properties. He then took the cashflow than those bought more properties. Guys, it’s been five of those six years so far. He hasn’t had the sixth year. 2025 will be the sixth year, fifth year, and what’s happened, guys, he’s over a hundred thousand dollars a year. Guess what he would’ve been if he had gone to all the six years to finally pay off his mortgages? He would’ve had 4,000 a month, not over 8,000 a month, 4,000 a month freed up, and then he would start to try to build and grow his assets.
(25:08)
But right now, guys, he’s over a hundred thousand dollars a year instead of trying to cashflow 50,000 a year, over a hundred thousand. Now, by the way, just so you know, he waited two years so he’d even take immediate action. He still waited two years later and still after this three years, he went from about 6,000 a month now to over 8,000 a month, just three years later. That’s the difference. It’s about acceleration, not accumulation. Is he taking more risks? No. By the way, just so you know, his mortgages are still being paid down. They’re almost gone, and now he’s has so much money coming in. Now here’s what he could do. He could take that extra now, almost a hundred thousand a year. He could pay off one mortgage this year, freeing up a couple grand a month the next year, do the same thing, free up another couple grand a month.
(26:00)
He could still free up his 4,000 a month and have his a hundred thousand a year. He would have now 150,000 more of cashflow in just six years versus he was just hoping to get about 50,000 by paying off two mortgages. You see my point here? That’s the difference. But again, some people get so locked in to what they say, right? I mean, everybody’s telling you just to save more money, live cheaper, just live cheap forever. And hey, you know what? Don’t even buy. You should buy real estate, but you know what? Just buy it all on cash, right? Pay off your mortgage first, then put in cash. You will be chasing after higher prices your whole life. Yes, you’ve got that mortgage, but why not do the same thing? Why not lock in a price with real estate now? Now, if real estate prices crash, which I don’t think they really will crash a whole lot if at all, but if they do, great.
(26:52)
Okay, you get an asset. Does it cash flow? If it cash flows, that’s what matters. Regardless of the value and the price, it’s the income that comes in. You want to retire sooner. That’s how you do it, guys, and that’s why I kind of leave you with this right now. Take properties away from your mind. It could be properties. It may not have to be properties, it doesn’t matter. I’ll tell you two people, two examples I had. One became a client, the other did not. I had one lady that came to me. She was a health coach, single 55 years old, want to retire by 65, had a quarter million dollars sitting in mutual funds, $250,000 there. The financial advisor told her, he says, listen, you’re going to have to save up a lot more to do it in 10 years. And I asked her, I said, well, how much do you need per month to live on based on today’s expenses?
(27:37)
She said, $2,000 a month. This is 2019, by the way, so it’s probably higher than that now, but she said 2000 a month. I said, okay, great. Well, if you want to live on 2000 a month, you’re probably going to need pretty close to a million dollars in your mutual funds, especially after you pay taxes on this money. So you’re going to need about a million dollars saved up. You got to quadruple your money. Now, guys, pause right here. If she had actually done that, let’s just say that she decided to stay in the stock market, right? Stock market in the last five years has doubled. So her quarter million would’ve become hopefully, maybe not depending on mutual funds because they usually do worse than the market, but it could potentially be about a half million dollars now, but that’s still not enough. She still needs to double that, and that’s based on yesterday’s dollars.
(28:24)
If of course now she needs $3,000 a month, which is 36,000 a year, she probably needs to have closer to about $45,000 a year coming in, maybe more based on taxes. Well, to do that guys times that by 30 or so, now she’s going to have about closer to a million and a half dollars. Instead of a million dollars, she needs about 30% or 50% more because the income went up 50%, a million and a half. So now she’s a half million things. She’s great. I’m halfway there. Oh, I’m a third of the way there because I got to keep growing this. See, the problem that’s happening, you’re chasing inflation because you have to keep growing this money. Anyways, so I told her, I was like, yeah, this is why the financial advisor’s saying good luck. And she’s like, yeah, I don’t know if I have any hope.
(29:06)
I was like, well, you’re hoping to do it 10 years, right? She’s like, yeah, well, how about this? Get rid of this accumulation mindset and let’s talk about earning income off this money. What if you could earn 10% income from investing this money, especially with something that’s backed by real estate, not just gambling in the stock market? She said, well, okay. I said, well, for example, there’s plenty. She’s like, are there things like that out there? I’m like, there’s plenty of examples of this out here right now. 10%. What’s 10% of $250,000, 25,000 a year. What’s that per month? Just over 2000 a month, exactly. Just over 2000 a month. Okay, so I’m like, yeah, so this actually means that technically in the next year or so, you could be retired just because you get your money working harder for you. Yeah, but Chris, is that real?
(29:55)
That sounds too, could be true. There’s no way. I mean, are you lying to me right now? And she was this, I mean, she was somewhere between disbelief and elation, right? It was kind of like a, oh my gosh, this is amazing. Are you sure? Can’t really work? She wants it to work. She wants hopes for it to work. I said, yeah, there are no guarantees something could happen, but yes, I mean, it’s math. It’s 10%, 10% of 250,000 is 25,000 a year. That’s your goal, isn’t it? And the thing is, she just wanted, her dream was to work as a health coach. Like if I just do that a few hours in the morning and then have the rest of the day off, that would be my dream. That would be my perfect day. And I was like, you could have your perfect day much sooner than 80, 65. Well, that was a Friday. The weekend comes and goes. I email her the following Monday to see what her thoughts were, any follow-up questions, things like that. And she’s like, yeah, I was talking to my girlfriends over the weekend and we just decided that I’m just going to stay in mutual funds.
(30:53)
So here’s what happens. Her mind just expanded to the point where her head was about to explode, and then she met with her friends right back to where it was, back to that same old place. What’s crazy, that same year, one of our clients, he was actually on this podcast a couple times now, we’ve interviewed him, and I’m talking to him just a few months ago. He started in 2019 as well with a quarter million dollars to invest in the market. Now, granted, he had job interruptions due to covid with 2020. The things that happened there, his industry shut down a lot. 2023, there were strikes which also shut down his industry, so he had headwinds that stopped him from being able to save as much money. Despite all that, with his quarter million dollars he did, he bought several properties. He actually just bought properties.
(31:37)
He even lend it. He bought properties that are now his total net worth, pushed him up over a million dollars. He’s now a millionaire, and his properties have now valued the equity in them, right? When you take out the debt and everything else, the equity, that 250,000 and now has become over two thirds of a million dollars, but over $660,000. But here’s the best part, guys, because yeah, you might say, well, she could have been about half million. That’s a little bit better. Well, 160,000 is quite a bit better, significantly better, but the best part of this is, guys, the best part about this is that he’s cash flowing 3,500 a month. That’s over 40,000 a year. Now, would that have been her or not? I don’t know. It could have been better. It could have been a little bit worse, but she could have been there already.
(32:25)
She could have been living the life of her dreams, but she didn’t do it because she shrunk back to the very same articles I had just shared with you, didn’t she? That’s the choice that you have for yourself. Do you allow yourself to actually believe in things that have worked for so many people that have already been proven, worked for me, for many of our clients or whatever it might be, and even people outside of our clients, there’s millions of us that have done the same strategy. There are literally millions of us that are in this place or already seeing it, proving in our lives right now. While there’s also hundreds of millions of average Americans that are struggling worrying about running out of money, think that it’ll never be able to make it because, and this is not even about retiring early guys. This is about they have to retire after the age of 65.
(33:12)
They can’t even have a fixed date because they don’t know what it’s going to look like, and truth is, we don’t even know if they’ll be alive at that point. You don’t know if you’ll be alive. Then how long do you have to wait and hope and pray that you’re finally going to live the life of your dreams only to find out later that you don’t even make it? Or maybe find out later that your time is now limited? If you knew that you only had five years left to live, would you make decisions differently? Would you keep doing the same thing you’re doing, or would you do something a little bit better? Would you spend more time with your family? Would you even try to focus your money in a different way to say, you know what the heck with retirement? I’m going to focus on my money here and now to create a life here and now so I can enjoy my time.
(33:57)
The whatever remaining days I have, I don’t know how many days I have left. You don’t know how many days you have left. I hope we have decades and decades left ahead of us, but we don’t have any guarantees. There is no little guaranteed satisfaction guaranteed. Sticker says, you’re going to be alive to this age. Nothing is for certain in our lives. All we have is today. What will you do today to change this? Are you going to accept the crappy stuff out there that’re just telling you work longer, work part-time longer, or do whatever you got to do? Just make it work until you finally are almost the point of death and then you can retire. Or maybe you might get a decent retirement. Maybe you can save up enough, but you got to sacrifice and suffer and work so hard for so many years putting away and delaying your satisfaction.
(34:43)
By the way, that’s the other point that Dave Ramsey says, just cut down your lifestyle right now and enjoy, and don’t enjoy life today. Don’t create those memories of your family today. Just delay it. Sacrifice a little bit longer, so then maybe someday you might have that early retirement. Is that what you really want? Is that worth it? That’s the thing. You guys have a choice. You have an option. You could do something differently. That’s where it requires you to start focusing instead on the accumulation theory of financial advisors and all the financial experts out there that really has not been working for people. As you can already tell by everybody worried about this more than death, but instead, focus on something that has worked for millions of us that has been proven to work, which is what we’re talking about with alternative investments. I don’t care if you use us or somebody else, right?
(35:27)
I mean, obviously we love to help and serve people, but just try it out. Try something different. Try a different path. Even just say, Hey, I’m going to go try to buy rent. Even try to buy a property. You don’t even know what you’re doing. People have accidentally become millionaires. I don’t recommend this, by the way. I recommend getting some guidance, but try it out. Try to say, Hey, I’ve got X amount of dollars I put in the market here, X amount of dollars in real estate here and see where you are in 10 years with that money. It’s the same thing. You’ll find out that I found out, regardless of all that, especially if I’m not buying it just out and right in cash when I’m buying a property, but I’m leveraging a mortgage and things like that, like a 30 year mortgage, that’s fixed, man, it’s hard to compete.
(36:03)
It really is so hard to compete with that, so I’m not giving you investment advice to say You should go do this. I’m just saying, guys, we’ve already been doing this for years. It’s already working. There’s so many of us already doing it. Why shouldn’t that be you too? Why do you have to become another statistic, another person living in fear? Why couldn’t you be the other one that’s not that percentage, that minority that could be doing something different, that can get a better result in your life? I challenge you to do that instead. Obviously guys, if you wanted to learn more, you can always check out our website, money ripples.com, but guys, the choice for you is right now, what will you do with your life today that can create a better trajectory for a brighter future tomorrow, and that creates a legacy not just for you, but then shows your children and your grandchildren a better way to live life. Because imagine if they did it younger and started sooner. What could their lives look like as well? You could create a legacy, not just a faith and of devotion and loyalty to your family. Then also create a legacy of prosperity too. That’s what I challenge you guys to do today. Go and make it a wonderful prosperous week. See you later.