New Retiree Shares How He Retired At 58 | Retirement Reality

Martin loved his job, but was ready for a new chapter.

Martin shares how he retired at 58 to pursue his health and how he has been preparing for retirement for the last 30 years.

Martin's wife still works, but he's not having an issue finding things to do in retirement.

Hope you enjoy the insights shared!

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Martin is not a client of Root Financial Partners, LLC and received no compensation for participating in this video. His statements reflect his own opinions and experience and are not indicative of any specific client’s experience and are not a guarantee of results. No cash or non-cash compensation was provided, and no material conflicts are known.

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Participation in the Retirement Planning Academy or Early Retirement Academy does not create an advisory relationship with Root Financial. These programs are educational in nature and are not a substitute for personalized financial advice. Advisory services are offered only under a written agreement with Root Financial.

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Ari Taublieb, CFP ®, MBA  is the Chief Growth Officer of Root Financial Partners and a Fiduciary Financial Planner specializing in helping clients retire early with confidence.

Transcript

Host Announcements And Show Updates

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I cannot wait for you to hear today's interview because this is a fun one, but a few key announcements. The first one being, as you can tell, if you've been listening to the podcast for some time now, it's been over five years since I started posting these podcast episodes every single week, and I rely on you guys to tell me what resonates most. You have told me the past month it has been awesome to hear these interviews, and many of you have shared, you already saw them on YouTube. It was nice to listen again. A lot of you have told me, hey, I really don't tune into YouTube. I prefer listening on the podcast app. It's easier for me while I drive, while I work out, whatever it is you like to do. So this is not going to stop. In fact, starting in March, I'm going to start to double up. So for the month of February of 2026, if you're listening to this, this is going to be a month of more interviews because you guys have all shared how much they have resonated with you, which is once again my ultimate goal to give you confidence to retire. And maybe you heard one thing that was a big takeaway, such as, wow, if I didn't have this superhero account, I couldn't have retired early. And boom, that prompted you to take action. So now you go get that superhero account. Or maybe it was someone explaining that they're paying 200 bucks a month for healthcare before Medicare kicks in, and you are thinking, wow, I couldn't retire because of healthcare, and now you're thinking very differently. So this is going to be a fun series. We're going to continue. I'm going to also do separate episodes. So it will become a podcast that you'll get episodes twice a week. That's going to start in March. So for the rest of February, we are going to continue these interviews. A few other announcements. I have started a new one-page plan series. And what this is, is if you follow me on Instagram at early retirementari or TikTok or on uh Facebook or YouTube, what I'm doing is I'm doing a sample, one-page plan in less than three minutes. So if you were to tell me your goals, such as I want to retire in three years, I have 1.2 million in my 401k, 200k in a superhero account, and I want to spend 6,000 a month. Am I on track? I will then record an episode very short, three minutes or less, because that's what the platform allows. And I give you my yes, you're on track, or no, you're not on track. And there's also a way for you to leave a voicemail. And so this is going to be a fun series because what I'm going to be able to do is respond directly to you guys. So if you want, you can of course um email me and just put in the subject line me, literally those two letters M E, and then I will send you the link where you can submit the information so that I can do this for you. And once again, that is my complete goal, ultimate goal, is to give you guys the easy ability to be able to find out are you on track or are you off track? And I'll be very honest and transparent as I always am. Now I do have over a thousand submissions, and I try to do one to two episodes every single day, and I post those daily on my various social channels, so make sure to check those out. But if you want a faster response, the best thing you can do is call into the show and leave me a voicemail. So if you want to write this down or if you want to just somehow tell your spouse or someone who's working out next to you, if you're at the gym, uh that would be very weird. But the number is 213-316-8397. We're going to put that in the description below. So if you're like, I missed the last number, no worries, we're gonna drop it below. But that's how you will get the fastest response because what I'm gonna do is a series where I respond directly to your voicemail. So it's the same thing as the one-page plan. The difference is you're actually explaining it to me via voicemail as opposed to me reading it on a screen and then writing it down and doing a review. So that can be a more interactive way for you to get to hear my guidance. And once again, it's never going to be financial advice. It's just a quick review, but it's a really fun way for me to feel like I'm close to all of you, getting to really share with you, hey, here are my thoughts. This is something you're worrying about for no reason. Or you know what, you're actually in a spot where I don't know if it makes sense to hire an advisor. Or you know what, this is a great example of why we need to bring your spouse in earlier than you think because it sounds like you're more stressed than you even know. And it's my job to be able to read in between the lines, and I feel like that is what I'm good at. So thank you for allowing me the opportunity to showcase my ability to hopefully help you retire with confidence. Now, with that being said, my final request here is if the content resonates with you, everything I do is for all of you, once again, to retire with confidence. So please leave a review if you listen on iTunes. If you're on Spotify, please just give it five stars if you think it's worthy of five stars, of course. And then if you're on YouTube, I love seeing your comments. My team does an amazing job of saying, all right, you gotta check out this comment. And I will personally respond to so many of them. So I will respond with a video message or an audio message. I can do that directly in YouTube. It's very easy for me to do so. The podcast platforms don't make it as easy. So if you haven't been feeling as much love as you feel you maybe deserve because you've been listening to the show for a while, or you submitted a question and it hasn't quite been addressed, I'm gonna do this forever. So I if you're wondering, hey, when is it gonna get to me if I had a specific question on superhero accounts or what can I do if I want to look if there's a case study for people like me? I'm currently working on a new app that hopefully can organize all the content I've done so that hypothetically you could search, hey,$1 million, 60, and you'd see a bunch of case studies for people like you. You can do this right now on YouTube, but it's not going to exclusively bring up my content. And there's tons of awesome other creators out there, so maybe you'll you'll catch someone else who you find resonates with you. So my hope is that you enjoy these interviews, you resonate with them. Once again, if you want me to interview you on a future show, all of this is available in the description below. And then finally, you know, I exist and make all this content so you can truly enjoy your retirement. My hope is that you don't listen to the podcast forever unless you really love it, in which case awesome, with this stress or thought is a better word of should I be doing that? Well, you already just talked about Social Security. That is one strategy I didn't consider. I I always thought I should collect early because then it would take less pressure on my portfolio. And then really I'm talking about how that can ruin a Roth conversion strategy. And now you're thinking, oh, should I worry about that? And now I'm retired. Did I screw up? I don't want you to worry about any of those things. So that is why we exist, to be able to play the role as a true partner. I am that one weird advisor that says everyone doesn't need one. It's all about timing. So if you're five years out from retirement, wondering, hey, should I have a conversation to even see if an advisor can help? We would love to have that chat with you. And we might just tell you it's too early and we can't help. We might say, nope, it's a great time. We might say, you know what, you're very close, and here's what I would think about. We are very honest and transparent, and we hope everyone in our industry can follow in those footsteps. So, with that being said, let's listen to the interview and enjoy this month's worth of episodes for February 2026. Thanks, guys. What has surprised you about retiring so far?

SPEAKER_01 7:06

I had no idea how much stress I was under. So my last day on the job was a Monday. The next day, it felt like a ton of bricks were off my shoulders in a way that I never could have anticipated before. And I didn't have a super stressful job, but not having any of that there anymore instantly made me feel like a completely different person.

First Impressions Of Retirement

SPEAKER_00 7:30

What I'm doing in this new show, Retirement Reality, is having heartfelt, candid conversations with people who have already retired so you can hear from them what worked well, what didn't, and everything in between. I hope you enjoy. And if you're retired and you want to personally come share your story on a future episode, there's a link right below this in the description of this episode where you can apply to be a guest. Now go enjoy the episode. My guest today just retired at 59 years old. He's coming up on two months, and he is so excited to share what allowed him to retire, how he saved for his retirement, his best tips along with what he's spending his time doing now in retirement. Tons of fun stories and was so grateful to share this experience. He might be the most prepared person I've ever met on retirement, and apparently he makes a mean vegan burger. Enjoy today's episode. Martin, we are back, another episode of Retirement Reality. I'm asking everyone one question to begin. And I know you are a recent retiree. What is one word you would use to describe retirement so far? Awesome. Oh, I like that one. I've gotten freedom. I've gotten uh no more hassle, which is three words, but they were so excited I didn't want to say anything about it. But I love that. Awesome. How recent is this retirement?

SPEAKER_01 8:51

So September one will be the two-month anniversary. So retired on July one uh from a job that I held working in a school for the past 16 years. And then prior to that, I was working federal government for 20 years.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Wow. Well, first of all, thank you for your service. In terms of teaching, I have a soft spot as my wife recently married, is still, I almost said fiance there, but my wife, she teaches third grade. What were you doing in the teaching sector?

Career Background And Why He Left

SPEAKER_01 9:21

So um fortunately, these folks were smart enough not to hire me as a teacher. I was the uh I was the director of technology for an independent school uh in the Washington, D.C. area uh for the entire time I was there. So I so I did basically uh if it if it had a plug, uh an on-off switch, if it was something that was used by teachers or used by students or the business side of the school, it was all my responsibility or the people who worked for me. Love it. So we had you know it was it was it was a it was an amazing job. Beautiful school. Uh I I think it's the beautiful most beautiful school in the country. Um very dynamic campus. It wasn't your typical uh four through twelve um school. It was uh an independent school, part of there were two other schools on the campus, so it really operated like a small college in terms of a lot of the dynamics and the the business side of it. Um and with my role having to interface with all the other schools, um, I had a pretty unique position myself and then the IT directors at the other schools. We had unique positions within our schools because we really interfaced with the entire business operation versus the teachers or um a lot of the administration that was much more narrowly defined in terms of who they dealt with. So I and I like variety.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

Uh every day was something different. It was a school that has a lot of um, without giving the name of the school, it is a school that's also attached to uh uh uh a tourist attraction. So there's a lot of activity that happens on the campus that doesn't happen on a normal school, and that brought all sorts of uh, you know, interest. It was never the same day.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

I already like this. And the reason I'm telling you that, Martin, is because I have a lot of people who go, Oh my gosh, I can't wait to retire. I'm gonna have to do my job anymore. That is not what I'm hearing. What I'm hearing is you loved it, and now you're just in a new stage of life. Do you mind talking to us a little bit about how that transition occurred? Why did you retire? And how old are you?

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Yeah, so uh and I I'm glad you asked that because I think this is pretty important. Um so I'm 58, I'll be 59 in December. I had been thinking about retirement for a since I was in college, just a random conversation I was having with a professor one day. Uh I don't remember what we were talking about, but something I said caused, and he was probably my age, he's he's probably in his 50s. Um and something I said caused him to say, hey man, I want to retire soon. I'm not trying to work forever. And it was the first time, and so I was probably you know 17 or maybe 18, I guess, uh 18, 19. I thought, huh, that's interesting. Retirement, don't know a lot about it. This guy doesn't seem that old, but he's talking about retirement. And then when I got into uh government work, the federal government, not to bore people with a long story here, but the the federal government had moved from a recently had moved from a retirement um program where basically all you had to do was show up. If you worked, you know, say 30 years, you'd retire with a 80% uh pension of 80% of your highest three years.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Not bad.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

That's what my parents retired under. It was great, you know, awesome. When I started, they uh a couple years before they had phased that out because you can see how that would be fairly costly. Um they phased that out and put in the thrust savings plan, which operates more like a 4041k type of deal. When you start working in the government, big organization, the day you're starting, somebody's retiring. And I had the opportunity to work with a lot of people who were you know close to retirement, and you work with people closely, and it's no longer that you're that person, somebody older, that's you know, Bob or Sally, that you're your co-worker. And getting to know people and see them retire and realize, huh, somebody who's 62, 63, they're not as old as I thought they as I would expect them to be, because I know them now on a you know different different level. Um and everybody said, this is a new retirement system. You have to think about what you're doing. You have to swirl your own money away, put it into this because the government's not doing it for you, or at least not to the extent uh that it was. I took it to heart, um, put in, I didn't know how much to put in, put in as much as I could at the start, fast forward a few years, ended up uh doing some personnel work, got much more whoa, sorry. Talk in my hands.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

It gets exciting.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Yeah, got much more insight into how this worked, and then as a personnel person, ended up telling people that we ended up hiring, you have to think about saving for retirement. And I wasn't even 30 at this point. I'm like, you have to do this. I still had no idea when I was gonna retire or anything. I just knew that you needed to do it. Move forward to like leave the government 20 years later or whatever it was in this new job where I love where I work. Beautiful place, the people were amazing. I liked everything about the job. Uh working with kids, if you're somebody who likes kids, uh working in school in a school is a blessing. Um what got me thinking I need to think about something else, though, is over time, you know, the bloom started to fall off the rose a little bit in the sense that some of the things that they the foundational foundational uh task for my job, I just got kind of bored doing. They was were starting to become a little bit uh much more of an effort than they should. And I recalled a conversation that I'd had a few years prior with a teacher who had left had retired. She called me a couple years later to see if I had some information, and we just started talking. And I said, What caused you to retire? Like, what was your signal to retire? And she said, I love teaching. And this was this was somebody who had taught for decades and was a really good teacher. And she and when she left, she was a really good teacher. She said, There was just things that I had to do as a teacher that I didn't have the energy to do anymore. It wasn't necessarily working with the kids, but it's all the other stuff, and the other stuff is what you have to do to be a teacher. And that was my signal that maybe I need to step aside and let somebody who has a you know all the energy do this instead of me. And that stuck with me. And that's really the reason I left. And I told my boss, I said, I love this place. You know, there's just I mean, it's uh I'm an evangelist for this school.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Um, but there's things that you hired me to do. The job hasn't changed. You can't change these things. These these are things that you would expect somebody in my position to do. And I've changed. And I'm in a position where I can do something about that. Not change the job, but I think we can transition away from me doing this job, bring in somebody who has the energy to do it the way it needs to be done, and everybody's happy.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

What was the conversation? Were were they open to that? Going, oh my gosh, Martin, I um I completely see this was on the cards. We're like, whoa, whoa, I thought you were gonna be here the next 30 years.

Designing Daily Life And Health Routines

SPEAKER_01 17:35

So we're having a start, uh it was either the start of school or the end of school year. Some party at the head of school's house. Uh, I reported reported to the head of school. Our director of facilities had been there for 30 years. He and I worked like this. And he had just told her he was leaving. And he's like 64, 65. Um, he had just told her he was leaving, and I noticed they were having a conversation at this party. So I kind of walked over to them and I said, So and so. Are you leaving? Because it sounds like you know, it's just eavesdropping on your conversation. Are you leaving? And he goes, Yeah, I'm I'm leaving. And he's having this conversation with our head of school, who already knew at this point they were just kind of chatting. I said, Okay, that's interesting. So he and I leave the party together and we're talking. The next day I went in and I said to the head of school, I'm like, I gotta tell you, I'm in the same position. And her her face was, you know, and she's the same age as I am. Right. So she's not expecting that uh, you know, that I'm gonna have this conversation. But I felt good about it because as I explained to her, um, you know, I'm like, I'm not leaving to go work for somebody else. If if anything, this place has ruined me from working in schools because I get to do so much, and I I have so much um uh power is not the right word, but I've got a huge footprint in this place. And I can turn on the news every day and in the background of the weather on a lot of these things. I mean, I can see this place.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

I've had significant impact here, and I think we can take it to the next place and make this not be something bad. You all are gonna miss me because I'm a wonderful person. But I don't think you'll be sorry I have left if we do this the right way, working together. Beautiful. And uh it's a lovely thing. I I feel so fortunate, Ari. I can't tell you how fortunate I feel. Um A, I left on my own terms with things going on, especially in the DC area right now. I've got a lot of friends who are, you know, I don't have any friends that are completely, you know, kind of out, but I've got a lot of friends who are on pins and needles right now.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

And you know, and being my age and having that be something that you weren't anticipating happening, I mean, even if you're on track to retire, most people aren't thinking of retiring at 58. You know, it's a couple years later. So if you're all of a sudden something might be changing and you have to think, okay, can I do this with uh, you know, a year or two or three or four earlier, that's that's a lot of stress. Um, so I feel extremely fortunate. Um and you know, and that's been uh I've had to kind of temper my excitement because I'm trying to be sensitive to the fact that everybody that uh you know my peer group is not in this situation.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

Yeah, I can tell, but you're also literally glowing, which I love to see. Okay, you are literally glowing. I mean, your smile is just I love it. I have a comment that I want to make on that because it's just so powerful, but I have a question first. I want to go to today, and I'm going to ask, what hobbies are you now able to pursue that you just weren't able to during your working years? I want to hear about some of those hobbies and things that you're excited about. But the main comment I want to make, which I just think you did beautifully right there, is look, you were at a party, you overheard one, a lot of people wouldn't have even really gone up to someone and said, Hey, I kind of overheard your conversation, and it sounds like you're maybe retiring, and then the next day you went in and you said, I'm putting Martin first, because I cannot tell you how many people are like, Yeah, I know I'm in a good spot, and yeah, there's plenty of things I want to do and I want to prioritize my health, but I just they're gonna need me. And then they wait a year and another year and another year. And then to your point, you don't want to retire where it's not on your term. So I'm giving you kudos and saying, if you heard that from Martin, Martin just went in there and he just did it. So I hope if you're listening and watching, you do choose to put yourself first in life. And you did it beautifully. With that being said, let's go to that question of okay, what hobbies were you just not able to pursue because you're busy loving your job that you can now spend time on.

Cooking Goals And Vegan Experiments

SPEAKER_01 22:13

So now, so one of the things I did in kind of planning out what I'm gonna do, uh, I'm not a big bucket list guy. Um what I did, and having talked to people who've retired, watched a lot of videos of people who have retired, uh, what I focused on was kind of trying to figure out what am I gonna do. And I focused on the mundane because even if you know I have a list of all these great and wondrous things I want to do, the day-to-day, you gotta figure out how you're gonna get through the day to day. Um, so what I did was I just put a plan together and I trialed it. Every time I took a day off, that was during the week, I would just work through a different iteration of this is what I think I might do, you know, when I'm not working. I've what I told people I was gonna do, and fortunately that's what I'm doing, is focused on health. Um, focused on I wanted to learn, I wanted to start cooking more. So try to start cooking a little bit more. It's not working out quite as as frequent as I'd hoped, but that's still the thing. Um, but it's really focused on health. I have always been healthy. Uh work out a good deal. Used to I can if you ask me who's Martin, one of the first things I'd say is I'm a runner. Um, but you know, with running comes injuries. Uh and when coming up with this plan of how are you gonna live day to day, I also was very conscious about not trying to put something together. This gets back to your point about the hobbies, that what happens if you get derailed for some reason? Then what are you gonna do? So I don't want to say, okay, I'm gonna start running again, work myself back up to marathon pace and try to qualify for the Boston Marathon, and then end up getting injured.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

What happens then? Sure enough, I got injured. I'm only two months into this. Now I'm walking. But I found through walking there's a health aspect that I never considered about walking. And I'm in a place health-wise that I would not be two months after retirement had I not gotten injured and kept on running. It's crazy, but it's just the way things work out. The the point being though, that um I put I made sure I had plan B's for all of my plan A's.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

You have such a healthy mindset on this, Martin. Sorry to interrupt. I just cannot help but but say you have such a healthy mindset about this. I have a client who said, I'm gonna golf in retirement. I said, Well, what if something happens? They go, Well, that's what I'm doing. I'm gonna golf. And they were miserable because then they couldn't move. But your mindset here is I'm not gonna run myself into the ground, even though it might sound fun to try training again for the Boston Marathon, because I'm looking at longevity. So I want to hear the rest of your thought there, but it's just too powerful.

The Money Plan And Confidence To Quit

SPEAKER_01 25:15

So here's I'm also a creature of habit. Uh I'm I feel very fortunate in this regard because as a retiree, which sounds weird to say, but as a retiree, and certainly somebody who retired early, um, most of my friends are not retired. So I spend a lot of time by myself. Um, my wife is still working, she's 56, she's still working, likes where she works, wants to keep working. Uh, we have a 15-year-old uh son who is in 10th grade, and we have two uh grown daughters who are you know launched out of the house. So I have some anchors in place um and can't do all the things that maybe a typical retiree is gonna do. My wife and I can't go on a month-long vacation because she has to work from the office where she is because of the type of work she does. It's not a uh job that can be done remotely. So um, but what I do though is today's a perfect example of it, because like I said, I'm a creature of habit. Um wake up, drop my son off at the bus stop, come back home, make some coffee for my wife, go on a what would be a 10K run, and instead it was a four and a half mile walk, come back, catch up on the news, uh go to uh Pilates class, come back from that. I'm talking to you now, otherwise I'd probably be eating lunch or something. Um and then and then in the uh afternoon or evening, probably do you know, maybe another walk or some other kind of workout. So what I'm doing a lot of is I mean frankly, I'm working out a lot. Um but I enjoy doing that. So that's that that's just something I like. I'm not doing a lot of strenuous uh type of things because as I'm particularly as I'm now walking four and a half miles instead of running six uh as I did today, I've got a lot of time to think because I'm doing this stuff by myself. And I'm somebody who, when I run, I could run 15 miles by myself and be completely fine. I could run with 15 or 20 people and talk the entire time and be completely fine. So I realized that in trying to figure out what I want to do day to day as a retiree, it depends a lot on my personality. And I couldn't say to somebody else, all you have to do is this, because if that's not their personality, it's not going to they're not gonna be able to copy what I'm doing. For me, it's now granted, I'm two year two months into this. Two years from now, this might be a different story. But I'm enjoying just doing what I want to do. And being by myself is not a big deal because I know in you know an hour and a half, my son will be home, in two hours my wife will be home, and you know, it was back to that, and I've already, you know, had the day to do what I want to do.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

I want to do another interview with you in a year from now because I'm excited and I have a sense that you will have some very impactful thoughts, such as, hey, it turned out Ari, I was walking and I actually recovered to the point where I was able to do another marathon, but I instead decided to do it over in this other location for a year for fun. And my wife saw me and she was saying she loved her job, but she decided to retire early because she saw how much fun I was having. The amount of change that occurs when someone retires is wild in a good way. Now I have a very strong question for you that I'm gonna ask in a moment because this has been a very positive conversation. I will joke on YouTube, and it is a joke, that I'm the meanest advisor. I promise I'm not mean. I'm very transparent. I don't want anyone to retire too early and run out of money. And I don't want Martin mad at me when he's 80 with$10 million, going, why didn't you tell me I should have spent more? Or why didn't you tell me I should have retired earlier, or whatever that may be. But I want to ask first, what is your favorite dish that you're cooking?

SPEAKER_01 29:26

So I am vegan-ish. Um I'm not gonna turn down a cheese pizza, um, but I'm not gonna eat a creme brulee for dessert. So it's kind of um so I've what I uh do is uh when I left, again, this wonderful job I had, uh, and the many ceremonies, celebrations, and acknowledgments of my retirement that went on for like the last I was getting sick of them towards the end. There were so many of these things. But they gave me a bunch of cookbooks, a bunch of uh vegan and vegetarian cookbooks. Right now, I'm just working my way through these cookbooks. Um trying to, because I'm certainly no, I am a novice book at best. Okay. I'm trying to um stretch myself and challenge myself by making some of these things that you know are are a challenge. The issue though is we've got things going on in the evening. My son, I have to take him to you know tack window class or something. My wife might be doing something after work. And I'm making a lot of food for the first time. And you don't know whether you it's gonna keep or so I'm finding it a little bit of a challenge to do that. But I mean, I make a mean vegan burger with either soybeans or with beets or mushrooms. There's all these different varieties of vegan burgers. And you make these things, and like I'm making it, I'm like, yeah, how good is this gonna taste? Then you bite into it and you're like, oh my God. Like a meat eater would love this. Don't tell them it's meat because it's not meat, you know. Right. But uh my wife, my wife is like, stop calling something a burger if it's not meat.

Purpose, Identity, And Avoiding Busywork

SPEAKER_00 31:12

But um This is interesting to me because one, you definitely need to eat with the amount that you're working out. I love that you can work out and prioritize your health to this degree. And I say to this degree for a very important reason here. I had someone who recently had shared, hey, so why do you love this stuff this much? Like you're posting videos like crazy. And I go, look, it really hit me when a woman told me that she was mad she had three million dollars. And I told the woman, I go, look, I don't want to be mean here. There's a lot of people who would love to have three million dollars. So why are you upset? And she said, I didn't need three million dollars. I needed two million dollars. I said, Well, what's the problem? You have more than you need. She goes, the problem is I am now 64 and I don't have the health that I once had. I said, Okay, so what, you travel less? She goes, No, no, no. I was working unnecessarily, and now I have sciatica. And when I was working, I did take care of my health. But I would walk in the evening, but I was still sitting at a desk all day. So I wasn't able to prioritize my health to the degree that would allow me to travel for my future. So here's a woman who did the right thing. She saved, she invested well, arguably too well, because now she has plenty of money, but she's like, I can barely travel to the degree I want to. So now she has the issue of too much time. What I love about what you're sharing is you now have the ability to not just go for a walk or go for a run, but then go Pilates, then maybe go for a walk in the evening. And so the fact that you are literally purchasing your time with the dollars you work so hard to earn is beautiful. What I want to know about, what has surprised you, and I know you're a recent retiree at this point, but what has surprised you in the sense of, you know, I didn't know if I was going to miss routine. And I know you've thought about it and you have your routine, but I will often hear people who have thought about it meticulously, like you have, which I love, who are saying, you know, it it really is one of these things that until you retire, you can't know. But it turns out what's been difficult is not having a paycheck come in. It's the first time I haven't had the hit every month. Other people have shared, you know what, the truth is I'm home and I find that not only do I have so many hobbies and things I want to do, I want to cook or walk or run, but it's actually just why didn't I do this earlier? Because I'm in such a great spot. So what has surprised you about retiring so far?

One Minute Of Candid Advice

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Uh well, a couple things. One, um I didn't have the most stressful job in the world. Uh a lot of the stress that I did have was because I had fallen out of love with some of the aspects of my job, which then just makes it a bit more challenging. That being said, I had no idea how much stress I was under. Even when I was thinking, and I I am I make a decision and I slow roll it because I want to try to figure out everything before I actually jump. And so as I would try to imagine not having the stress from work, I'm on a day off, this is what I'm gonna be doing. But you still can't completely divorce yourself from that stress because it's always there. The I don't remember what day of the week it was, I think it was actually a Friday. Uh no, it was a Monday. So my last day on the job was a Monday. The next day, it felt like a ton of bricks were off my shoulders in a way that I never could have anticipated before. And you know, to reiterate, I didn't have a super stressful job, but not having any of that there anymore instantly made me feel like a completely different person. Um and I so that's kind of one thing I would say to folks is when they're thinking about what I'm gonna do, remember it you really can't anticipate not having whatever pressure from work. You can only do so much, unless you're real good at meditation or something, you can only do so much to block that out because it's always there to pull you right back. And uh one of the things I think folks have to, and even myself, I was having a conversation with a friend. I could deal with things being thrown at me from left field because it would happen all the time with just crazy stuff. And I could kind of handle that pretty well. Now things are pretty regular. And I said to him, and this is somebody who's also recently retired, he's been about a year in at this point. I said, the one thing I'm concerned about is what's my ability? Am I gonna end up being one of these people who's like yelling at kids on the porch, you know, get off my grass? Yeah. I'm I'm kind of that way anyway, but but am I gonna let something little like that throw me off the edge because I'm no longer in the habit of dealing with a lot of stress? It sounds kind of counterintuitive, but if my is being having a relatively stress-free environment going to lower my tolerance for dealing with stress. Makes sense. And I don't know how that's gonna, you know, I think as it's playing out, uh, you know, I think I'm way more calm than I was before. But that's, you know, that that's certainly uh one aspect. There, and Ari, there's something else you asked, and I I kind of deviated from the question, but I wanted to address it. I just can't remember what you said.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

Yeah, me either. I get so lost. I love this so much. Um, but we can come back to it if it does reach your memory. I wanted to know specifically, I'm looking at I have my lit long list of questions, and every time I look at these questions, I always just get so into the conversation that I'm like, uh, I don't need this list. Um because what I'm thinking about right now is I want to switch gears a little bit to the financial side, not in great detail or going over conversion strategies or the C fund that you want to tell everyone about. Not not that. I want to learn about what so many people struggle with, which is if I retire, there's a phrase that people say a lot, practice retirement. And this is alluding to what you just said, which is that sounds great, but you can't really, I mean, you're not really gonna know until you're there. And so my question is when you were looking at the finances, was there a time where you went, it clicked? You went, oh my gosh, I saw this one graph and now financially I know I'm in a good spot. Was it, hey, I know I'm in a good spot, but I'm gonna work a few more years to just feel better about it because I'm unsure with politics or I'm unsure with if my wife says she loves her job, but she also was complaining last week. So what if there's now no longer another income source? How did you come financially to the decision we're in a good spot?

SPEAKER_01 38:08

So uh kind of going, not going belaboring this, but please back to the earlier part when I started working and taking advice of smart people and investing, and I didn't know how much to put in. So I started with whatever the number was. Yeah. Went with uh it I might have been doing it, was at least whatever the match was, uh, and then maybe a percentage or two more than that. Did that for a couple years, then had a conversation with somebody who knew a little bit more and started adding 1% a year. It might have been 2%, but I just kind of gradually increased it. You will never notice if you're trying to save for retirement. I challenge anybody, you will never notice saving 1% more a year. You just won't notice it. Um got to the point where I was maxing out, and then as my career progressed also, got to the point where I was maxing out um what I could contribute, you know, from into the whatever plan I was in in terms of the federal limits, and then had some the some extra that I would just put into uh brokerage. So I just did that. And because it had been something I did so long, if I ever got a raise, it would just automatically add to this. So I was never thinking, I'm now contributing whatever it was, 20 some percent, because it was never 20%. My salary was my salary after that was taken out, and I never looked at it with that part that I was taking out. I never looked at it with that part added in. So it really was invisible money. Fast forward a few decades. Um one day I was just kind of curious, and I pulled up an online count uh uh calculator, punched some numbers in and It's uh, you know, you're you'd put your demographics in. Uh I can't remember which one I used, but some free thing online. Put my demographics in, and it gave me uh random Monte Carlo or something like that. Spit out the stuff, and I'm like, that can't be right. That is a lot of money. That's insane. So then I found another one, something similar. Did another one, something similar. And then that got me going down this rabbit hole of watching YouTube videos and things like that. Finally, had the next time I had a conversation with my uh advisor, because now I've left the government, rolled my CSP into uh uh uh IRA. So I'm having kind of regular conversations with my advisor. And I said, what would it look like if I retired? And he said, Well, what do you want to, you know, what's your plan to spend? What do you want to do? Let's have a conversation, not about money. Let's have a conversation about what do you want to do? What are your dreams? And I said, This is what I think I want to do. Um, this is what I think it may cost, this is when I think I want to do it. He said, Yeah, you can retire if you want. You got a lot of money. Don't worry about it. I'm like, okay. I wasn't quite expecting that. I mean, it's kind of expecting it, but to hear it from somebody who now who knows me and really knows the ins and outs of my financial situation. Uh that was almost a uh coyote catches the roadrunner moment.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

And it's like, okay, you've caught the roadrunner, now what are you gonna do? You know, there's the prize. So um so I I went into this with a high degree of knowledge that I could afford to do it, could probably afford for my wife to do it also, um, without her contributing anything. So then the the the question becomes, and this is something that is doesn't have an answer yet. Um it's the lingering question, and you talk about it all the time. I mean, all my friends that have crystal balls, including my own, we all have them, but they're all broken for some reason. And uh I'm I am afraid of not afraid, but I don't want to underspend because I'm more at risk of underspending than overspending. I don't want to underspend because if I knew at 65 I'd have X amount, you know, maybe I would go buy that sports car. Um but I don't want to be in a situation where lightning strikes, you know, people step off the curb the wrong way all the time. So that I think is the one thing that is the most challenging. And I've talked to my advisor about this and said, you know, I don't want to, you know, he says, what do you want to spend? And I'll say, well, this is what I need, and also think a little bit bigger. Like, okay, well, let's do this, but I don't want to spend money unnecessarily. So let's be reasonable about this. And he'll say, Well, you don't want to be, you know, the richest person in the graveyard. So, but that's the question. And that's the the constant push-pull because you don't know what's gonna happen. Um, that being said, I think I'm in a a place where I what I did was I set myself up where I just pay myself once a month. Uh, it's just an automatic goes in. It's actually a raise from what I was making before. Um, and I'm gonna ride that as long as I can until my advisor says, look, you need to step it up a bit. You're spending. Um, you know, the dream that my wife and I have is to buy a house at the beach, relocate to the beach. Um, but we're very specific in our needs and in our wants. And you could show us any product, any category, anything in the world. You could show us different tiers of what that item is. No price tags. We're always going to pick the most expensive one. So that's the thing. You know, we we have enough where, you know, I don't have to worry about spending money on a vacation. Um, but I might have to think about what I would spend on a house.

SPEAKER_00 44:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

Yeah. Okay. And that, but that's the thing. I don't have a bucket list, like I said. Uh I've got very small things that I want to do, and this house is really our dream. So that's what we you know ultimately will want to do.

Finding Purpose in Retirement

SPEAKER_00 44:22

Love it. A few thoughts. The first thing is I see a lot of people who know my trigger word. So my trigger word is fine. I don't do fine. When people they'll joke with Ari, we how was your weekend? They'll always say, Ari, was your weekend optimized? Because it wasn't fine, because I don't do fine. But the reason I I talk about this very seriously is because when it comes to planning, a lot of people do what you just shared there, Martin, which is good. It's, hey, I have this amount coming every single month. It feels good. It's almost like replacing your income. So you're like, there's some stability I'm keeping in my life. And the weird thing about it is retirement is such a dynamic thing. I'll advise people to consider being what's called a retirement boxer, where you're constantly kind of just looking a little bit about okay, what needs to change. But if you're boxing too much, if you're in the ring all the time, it's a matter of time until you get hit. And just being in the ring is stressful. So what I like is I like a nice little balance there. By no means am I going into personalized advice here. But what I see a lot of people do incorrectly is they'll say the following. They'll say, you know, I don't have Social Security yet. You know, I don't have rental income. There's no inheritance yet, everything's on my portfolio. So right now, I don't want to spend too much. I might have 40 years to live. And I've got a kid who's about to go to college, and I've got healthcare, and I've got a home remodel. So what people do is they underspend in the years they have their best health. And then there they are in their 70s, 80s, going, why didn't I spend more? And they'll beat themselves up and I'll say, Don't beat yourself up. Because I've talked to both people, and the people in their 70s, 80s will go, Well, I really didn't have the confidence to spend more earlier because I was just so worried, what if I overdo it and run out and I get lucky, unlucky, because markets do this or do that. I go, that's because you're a human, you're not a robot. So the easiest way I like to explain it is with a bowling analogy, which is when you're going bowling, and I'm not a big bowler, so I know nothing about it, but I know you have to hit over as many pins as you can. Are you a good bowler by chance? I haven't bowled in a while, but I I'm confident in my bowling. Okay. I bet you're better than my wife. I make fun of her in this. I go, my wife is so bad, she doesn't only hit no pins, she will hit other people next to her. Okay. So there's a cheat code to bowling, and there's a cheat code to retirement. And the cheat code is bowling with the bumpers up. And that's what a retirement spending strategy is supposed to look like, where you go, here's the most I can spend based off what's happening. Here's the least that if I don't at least spend this, oh my gosh, I've got to do something. For example, I love that you have a monthly amount coming every month, and you're new to the retirement game. But what I see a lot of times is it starts to add up where you don't. I'm just gonna pick a number. I'm gonna say 10,000 a month hits your account every month. Just throwing out something. 10 a month, and then you spend eight, and then you spend seven, and then you spend nine, and you start to it starts to get added up. You're not spending enough, and then you'll go, I'm gonna use that on one trip. Nothing wrong with that. A lot of retirees live their life that way. But what happens is if markets do really well in a year, what will often encourage is, hey, this is a year markets did well. I'm not saying go buy the beach home, but I'm saying, what would we rather do? We'd rather save more and be intentional about saving for this beach home. Would we rather say, you know what, because hobbies are just less important, what we're gonna do is we're gonna instead go do this other tax technique, which might yield X dollars, which means buying that home in two to three years is a no-brainer based off what markets do. So retirement is all about confidence. And I love, Martin, your thoughts and your level of preparedness here. I want, I have two more big questions I'd love to ask if that's okay. The first one is about purpose, because you strike me as someone who really did their job diligently. You did your best when you were at work, you enjoyed it. Yes, there was a stress component that obviously you could kind of feel your shoulders go off when all of a sudden you didn't have to do some of these other tasks. But in terms of purpose, do you find, and I know you're new, so that's why I want to do an interview with you in a year from now, but do you find yourself ever thinking about, you know, I don't, I don't have that same purpose now. And so I don't really have goals, so to speak, and deadlines as much. So I think I might miss that, but I'm gonna worry about that later in retirement. Do you go, I'm not worrying about that at all? How do you look at purpose?

SPEAKER_01 48:36

So that is a really I I'm glad you asked about purpose. And uh you know, you you had mentioned that that might come up, and I'd been thinking a lot about that. That word purpose. And I was I struggled with it because I'm like, well, what is what is my purpose? Um I realized that maybe the word isn't right for the way I'm thinking about it, because it's not I was never in my entire working career, I was never, if you asked me what I was, I think I mentioned it before, I'd tell you I was a runner before I was before I tell you I was the director of technology or I was this or or that. You know, I'm a husband, I'm a parent, I'm a runner, I'm a friend. The job I have is a job, and that's the thing I do. And I never defined myself by the job. I tried to do the job as best I could for all the reasons that you'd want to do that, but I never defined myself by it. So when I told people I was retiring, what I would get or hear a lot back from people is, what are you gonna do? They would think that I need to do something that is meaningful because they're trying to contextualize it for themselves. Uh I had a buddy who said, Well, if you could come help me on this like business thing. I'm like, okay, well, explain it to me a little bit. And I said, Man, that sounds like work. I'm not trying I I told people, I'm like, if I am fortunate that if you ever see me working again, it is because you're looking at a guy who wants to work and not because he has to work. At this point, I want to get to the point where all of this feeling that I have now, you know, the the honeymoon period, as they call it. If I ever get out of the honeymoon period, I'll know it's coming. I'll see that light at the end of the tunnel, and I'll start trying to figure out a way to move to a different track. Um so in terms of purpose, my bigger purpose hasn't changed at all. I'm still who I was uh two months ago, and the things that motivate me in life haven't changed. That's you know, husband, parent, friend, runner. That's maybe runner slash walker now. But uh, but you know, those things haven't haven't really changed. And if I get to the point where the days start becoming boring, there are things I can do. Uh, you know, there there are volunteer opportunities all over the place, but I didn't want to jump into a lot of stuff right off the bat and miss something otherwise. I would tell people all the time, I don't know what's gonna happen. I am as curious as anybody is because when I don't have kind of the the um constraints of a nine to five job, what is that gonna allow my mind to do? So I'm gonna take some time to kind of see what happens. I've got some of the bigger pictures, like I said, I'm not worried about the day-to-day. So I'm gonna just let things happen for a bit and see see where it goes. I may end up building a better mousetrap. I might say the mousetrap is just fine and I can just live with the one that we've got.

Advice for Future Retirees

SPEAKER_00 52:11

You've been so transparent, Martin. This is so impactful. I cannot tell you how grateful I am for you to come on and share this. I like to end these episodes with some silence on my end. I'm going to give you a full minute, and if you go over, that's okay. But I like to say you have a full minute. You'll have no interruptions from me. I will not talk about cauliflower, conversions, nothing. It's all you speaking to someone who wants to retire early, and it can be anything. It can be, look, your parents are going to question you, your friends, your coworkers. It can be your best advice on how you make the vegan burger so good, which I'm going to tell your wife if you need, I will let you still. We're calling it a burger. If you need me to come back you up, I'll do it. Whatever you want to share financially, emotionally, spiritually, to someone who wants to retire early. They feel it's just, I just don't know. There's some questions in their head. I'm going to be silent for the next minute and I'll let you speak to that person.

SPEAKER_01 53:10

So I would say the one thing that you really need to do when you're planning is be honest with yourself. You need to take a serious, serious thought and think about what you're going to do. Everybody's situation is different. Mine is one where, again, I'm a lot of my day is by myself because the people that are closest to me have, you know, real life things going on still. Um, but you really need to think, what are you going to do? Can you do that? Is your personality one that fits with what you think you're going to do? And if not, that's fine. Just think about how you're going to deal with it. And maybe what you thought you were going to do, you know, I could sit on my deck all day and, you know, watch the hummingbirds in my hummingbird feeder, but that might not work for somebody else. So as much research as you do on the financial side, on the um intellectual side in terms of all this stuff, that's great. You should listen to people, you should ask questions, but at the end of the day, you need to realize that your retirement is your retirement, not anybody else's. And you really need to make sure that you have been honest with yourself. Because it's like a lot of things. It's I almost look at it as a relationship. And you know, if you're dating somebody and you decide you're gonna take it to the next level, they've got a little couple things that nag at you. You need to make sure those things that nag are not things that are gonna derail you later on because they're probably not gonna go away. So you need to figure out how you're gonna handle them. And it's the same type of thing here. If I was concerned about spending time by myself, I probably wouldn't have been able to do this. Because I spend a lot of time by myself. That's my situation. Somebody else's might be, you know, I really am going to miss the control I had over managing a project or this thing. I don't know how to replace that type of thing. And if you can't that's so that's something you should focus on. What is another outlet for doing that? Doesn't mean you need to keep working. But think about what another outlet might be. Um that's probably my biggest piece of advice. And I would I I'd be curious as you do this uh, you know, work through this series, people who have been retired for a while, whether they would say, Yeah, you know, the bloom fell off the rose, and this was the thing that ended up being a challenge for me.

Final Thoughts and Disclaimer

SPEAKER_00 55:54

So wise. Martin, cannot thank you enough. And to your point, guys, let us know in the comments if you are retired and you're like, wow, I see why Martin's saying all of this, because he's been doing this for a few months. Um, but here's what he's actually gonna be feeling in a few years. You could be right, you could be wrong. Let us know your comments below, please. If you're someone who is excited about retirement and you heard something today that made you go, that really is just I've always known I need to be honest, but now I'm gonna really take it a step further and take action. Beautiful. Let us know. Hopefully this resonated with you. Martin, thank you so much for coming on.

SPEAKER_01 56:26

Thank you, Ari. It's been a pleasure and uh appreciate the opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 56:30

If you enjoyed this episode of Retirement Reality, check out how we help people retire with confidence. You can see we have an FAQ section on our website. If you just hover over the resources tab, you can go ahead and see this FAQ section here and learn everything about what it's like to work with us, including our personalized planning process, a quick overview of how everything works, do you have enough money to become a client? Where will your money be? Everything from tax planning to fees. We are extremely transparent and want to make sure that you're working with someone that resonates with you. Hopefully you enjoyed this episode. And if you once again want to be a guest on a future show so that you can share your story, you can see that in the link of this episode. Thanks. Thank you all, as always, for listening to the Early Retirement Podcast. I love getting to host these shows and make different content for you guys every single week. I've not missed a single week in years, and that is because I love getting to do this. Now, please be smart about this before you actually execute any strategy that you see me talk about or hear me talk about, should I say, please talk to your financial advisor, your tax preparer, your estate attorney. Please be smart about this. None of this should be construed as financial advice. This is for fun, educational, informational purposes only. Once again, just quick disclaimer here, guys, please be smart about this. Appreciate you listening as always. And you can of course submit a question on my website, earlyretirementpodcast.com. If you, of course, want me to address a specific case study or topic. I will not promise I can get to it, but I respond to every single person. And if I find it will be helpful for a lot of people, I will absolutely make an episode on it. At the very least, give you some insight. That's it. Thanks, guys.