“Stop Worrying About Healthcare Pre-65” | Retirement Reality

Melody describes her retirement with one word: peaceful.
Not the kind she chased while working, the kind that finally arrived when she stopped.

After 30 years in a high-pressure tech career, Melody retired at 55 with a clear trade-off in mind: less money, more time. She didn’t walk away because she hated her work. She walked away because constantly operating in conflict (even healthy conflict) required her to be someone she wasn’t, day after day. 

In this episode of Retirement Reality, Melody shares how she intentionally built a life that feels calm instead of compressed. She talks about choosing time over income, using spending guardrails instead of rigid rules, and why paying off her mortgage mattered more to her peace of mind than chasing higher returns. She also explains how that decision unlocked affordable healthcare before 65 — something many people assume is impossible.

But Melody’s story runs deeper than early retirement math. She opens up about surviving financial abuse, rebuilding her life from zero in her late 30s, and how budgeting, self-education, and emotional healing worked together to create stability. Today, retirement looks like volunteering at a cat rescue, gardening, exploring art and history, and creating handmade objects simply to give them away.
Melody’s journey is a reminder that retirement isn’t about perfection or privilege. It’s about alignment between your money, your values, and the life you want to live next.

As you listen, consider this:
If you could trade some income for more peace, would you?

Interested in a custom strategy to retire early? 
→ https://www.rootfinancial.com/start-here/

Get access to the same software I use in my videos and join the Early Retirement Academy here  → https://ari-taublieb.mykajabi.com/early-retirement-academy

-

Melody 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.

Advisory services are offered through Root Financial Partners, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. This content is intended for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered personalized investment, tax, or legal advice. Viewing this content does not create an advisory relationship. We do not provide tax preparation or legal services. Always consult an investment, tax or legal professional regarding your specific situation.

The strategies, case studies, and examples discussed may not be suitable for everyone. They are hypothetical and for illustrative and educational purposes only. They do not reflect actual client results and are not guarantees of future performance. All investments involve risk, including the potential loss of principal.

Comments reflect the views of individual users and do not necessarily represent the views of Root Financial. They are not verified, may not be accurate, and should not be considered testimonials or endorsements

Participation in the Retirement Planning Academy or Early Retirement Academy does not create an advisory relationship with Root Financial. These programs are educ

Create Your Custom Early Retirement Strategy Here

Get access to the same software I use for my clients and join the Early Retirement Academy here

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

Welcome to Retirement Reality

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to the Early Retirement Podcast. I hope you're enjoying these interviews. Hopefully they are resonating in a way. And if they are, just shoot me a note. Email me, ari at rootfinancial.com, and tell me, yep, super helpful or no. I missed the old content where it was more 10-15 minutes, quick tidbits, maybe a story. I make all this content for you guys. So let me know what would be helpful. And then once again, if you want, you're gonna see a link in the description to get a free guide to retiring with confidence. That is everything. So if you look and you get overwhelmed, don't be. It's not to make you go, oh my gosh, I'm missing something. It's to give you that feeling of, wow, maybe I'm not worried about something, or maybe I am worried about something that for no reason. I I just am in a better spot than I thought. Maybe it's that moment of clarity where you go, wow, yeah, maybe I can retire earlier than I thought. Or maybe you get a little sense of, wow, it's a good gut check for me to see. There's lots of things I hadn't considered. So I just want you all to get confident and finding out when you can retire, when you can make work optional. Thank you for as always listening to this podcast. I'm gonna go ahead and play the interview now. Guys, enjoy. Melody, what I'm really curious on is so you retired at 56. You could have retired at any time. I mean, you could have worked till 65. Now, maybe you wouldn't have wanted to because of the stress that you shared, but why specifically did you choose to walk away at the time you did?

SPEAKER_00 1:18

As I was thinking about it, I spent a lot of time you know pondering my finances and realizing that I was a little tired. And a long career will take it out of anybody, but I realized that I had a choice between the luxury of more money or the luxury of more time. And I decided to take the luxury of more time. And it means that I have, you know, maybe not an extravagant retirement, but I have more time to enjoy it.

One Word For Retirement: Peaceful

SPEAKER_01 1:49

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. Guys, get ready for this episode. Listen to this. At 39 years old, zero dollars, retired at 56 years old. Divorce, financial abuse, a passing away of a spouse all inspired her to go, I'm gonna take control of my life. And some of you that worry strongly about health care before retirement, and it just weighs on you with extreme, oh my gosh, how on earth am I gonna retire? You're thinking it's gonna be a few thousand dollars every month. She spends$250 a month for healthcare. And I know some of you are thinking that was a typo, where you think I meant to say$2,050, but it was not. I know that wasn't a typo because I'm saying it. But my point stands here, which is she is incredible. The inspiration, the stories, she taught me something that I explain at the end that is going to change how I look at life. And I hope if you guys find this equally enjoyable and educational, that you throw her some love in the comments because she deserves it. I told her I'm just proud of you, and I hope you guys are as well. This episode is incredible. Enjoy. Melody, thank you for joining on another episode of Retirement Reality. I ask all my guests the same question first, which is if there was one word to describe your retirement so far, what would it be?

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Okay. Well, Ari, thanks for having me. I'm really looking forward to our discussion today. And thinking about the one word that would describe my retirement, I would say it is peaceful. And I want to extend on that a little bit because during my career, um, which was really pretty high pressure, intense career, I had to work to find a level of peacefulness and contentment outside of work to balance out all of that stress. And so I worked on a lot of varieties of it, whether it's simple living or slow living or coziness or the Danish concept of hoogah, um, which is about you know getting together with friends and family and the good feelings that that gives you and along with your home. So those are things that I deliberately worked on for many years in order to have a more balanced life along with my career. But in retirement, after all of that, having that sense of peacefulness and that sense of being content, it's as natural as breathing and it's wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Wow. What was the career that was so stressful?

SPEAKER_00 4:50

I was working in tech. Um, so we were I was at a larger tech company, and yeah, living on the bleeding edge, which I did for 30 years, that will take a lot out of you. Um, and while I love the intellectual challenge of it, and I really liked a lot of people I worked with, there's a lot of conflict, healthy conflict that comes with it, but that's not natural for me. So I had to put on a more assertive facade, and I really had to sort of pump myself up every day to get ready for my career. Um, and that is exhausting, and I needed something to balance that out in my life.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

I think that's a really good point that I haven't actually heard before. And I think it's such a strong point, and it hits me hard because that exact explanation of conflict is not natural to me, and I had to pump myself up a little bit each day. That's my wife. Now, my wife loves teaching, but she's not your natural teacher who wakes up in the morning kind of happy, smiley all day, born to be a teacher. She's good at it. She likes doing it. There's not something else that she's like, I would love to do it. So every morning there's a little bit of like, okay, kind of time to put my teacher face on a little bit. And I'll ask her, why are you tired at the end of the day? Oh, was it just all the kids? She goes, No, kids are pretty good. I go, what was it? And she goes, Well, I just feel like I'm being the best part of me constantly, and that's exhausting. So I'm glad that you brought that up. Now, Melody, if you don't mind sharing, how old are you today and how long have you been retired?

SPEAKER_00 6:31

I am 56 years old, and I retired this last January when I was 55. Uh, so I'm very fortunate that I was able to retire early.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Congratulations. Now, on your form, you are very honest with me, and I love the transparency, and you shared things along. Hey, I've gone through some difficult things. There's been financial abuse. I'd love to share and be honest about that. So I definitely want to hear more about kind of how you even got to this point. But I want to start by asking, who the heck are you hanging out with? If you're retiring this early, are your friends still working? Do you have a community? Who are you hanging out with?

SPEAKER_00 7:11

I very intentionally created community. And I started that a few years ago when I became an empty nester. But um, I have volunteer work that I was doing a minimal amount when I was uh working. I work at a I volunteer at a local animal shelter that it's a cat rescue. So they work with uh cats that need some special attention on health to get them well enough to be able to be adopted into their forever homes. And that's a passion project for me, and I've met some wonderful people for doing that. Um, you know, I have my uh my church uh that's a wonderful community there. I've recently joined a gardening club, uh, so making some new friends from there, and you know, I have a handful of friends that I've made outside of work because I'm you're always there at the pleasure of the company. And so I never wanted to count on work to be the sole source of my community and the people I knew and the friends I had. So I've been quite deliberate about that.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

Good for you. And Melody, what I'm hearing is one word that you are not, which is you are not bored. Is that safe to say?

SPEAKER_00 8:26

I'm not, but I'm not afraid of boredom either. Because boredom to me means that nothing is going wrong. So if you've lived through chaos, as I have, and we'll talk a little bit about that more later, boredom is actually wonderful. It can be refreshing and restorative, and it means that you are at peace. And so that's never something that's worried me.

Why Retire Now: Time Over Money

SPEAKER_01 8:50

I like that. I really like that framing because I know a lot of people who are worried to retire and be bored because they go, Well, my schedule, what am I gonna do? How am I gonna spend my time? And you're out here living and going, Yeah, I'm not scared, and I'm gonna be bored naturally because life, you know, you can only volunteer so much until you eventually go, you know what, there's gonna be an hour where during the day you might be bored and you're saying embrace that. So I think that's really cool. Now, Melody, what I'm really curious about is so you retired at 56. You could have retired at any time. I mean, you could have worked till 65. Now, maybe you wouldn't have wanted to because of the stress that you shared, but why specifically did you choose to walk away at the time you did?

SPEAKER_00 9:31

As I was thinking about it, I spent a lot of time, you know, pondering my finances and realizing that I was a little tired. And, you know, that a long career will take it out of anybody. But I realized that I had a choice between the luxury of more money or the luxury of more time. And I decided to take the luxury of more time. And it means that I have, you know, maybe not an extravagant retirement, but I have more time to enjoy it.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

You are time rich, which I love. I want to go a little deeper because I love how you looked at that, which is look, I can make more money, and I'll have people tell me, I'm worried about, you know, am I gonna run out? I go, it's a very easy solution. They go, Great, what is it? I go, work till you're 100. You'll be fine. They go, yeah, well, I don't want to do that. I go, well, I don't blame you. So you could stop working today. And they go, well, I want to spend more than 2,000 a month. I go, well, then let's look at what your options are. So I'm curious, did you come across a financial plan or educate yourself? And as soon as you saw, wait, I think I can make this happen at the numbers that are attractive to me. I'm gonna now start looking into retirement. Did you see the numbers and then go, okay, I'm gonna do one more project and then kind of massage how I'm gonna tell my boss? Once you found out financially, okay, maybe I don't need to keep working, how soon after that did you actually look into retirement?

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Okay. Well, I use a number of tools to help me with my finances. Um, so there is software that I use to model um over many years what my what my financial future would look like, you know, if I work another X number of years or if I retire today. Um but that's pretty you know basic. It's it's like you spend the same amount and it's kind of level. And so looking at that, um I realized that I would be okay if I scaled back on my spending. And I've been uh a constant user of a budgeting app for many years. Um and so what I've done is you know, I I looked at my budget and realized, you know, well, I could cut back on these things, still have a wonderful time, and be able to enjoy myself. So what I've done now is since I've retired, I realized I could implement guardrails for my withdrawal strategy. So I'm doing that. And then on my on my budgeting, I set each category has a priority, priority one, two, and three. So if the guardrails ever tell me that I need to spend less, I just are at category two or priority two items on my budget to start hacking away at those items. Um, and you know, priority one is what I need to exist. And I've got a lot of leeway between one and three. And so, yeah, and I can cut back if I need to. Yeah, I can have a wonderful life even on priority one only. I don't think I will ever need to do that. Um, but I knew I could.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Melody, you're so reasonable. And this is something that will surprise you because I'll hear people go, look, I'm gonna retire if I can only spend$8,000 a month every single month for the rest of my life. And I'll say, I want to be six foot seven, okay? I'm five foot five. There's only, you know, we live, we don't live in fairy land. So there's certain things in retirement that, you know, make way to my heart that I love. And you said one of those words, which is guardrails, which to me is just a reasonable approach. It's like being a business owner. Imagine you own a business and it's doing well. You might try to go, you know, invest in the business so that it grows more. You might say, you know what, we did well this year. We're gonna take some profits. But if the business is not doing well, you're probably not gonna go buy a piece of equipment because it just doesn't make sense if the profits aren't there. Same thing in retirement. You're now a business owner of your own life. And you can say, you know what, markets did well, I'm taking that extra trip. But you have to be willing in other years to possibly not do that. And so I love how you're looking at this. Do you mind sharing just generally on a monthly basis what amount is your priority one and then all the way to priority three?

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Oh, you know, I haven't looked at it in that right now. I'm using priority three plus I have a bit of a buffer over that. So I'm allowing myself about$5,500 a month. I don't have any debts. I've paid off my mortgage, and so it's that that is quite comfortable.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Yeah, let's I I want to ask on that, and I promise we will get to some of the things that you shared in the forum initially. I just get too curious. Paying off the mortgage, I've shared this example a lot, but as someone who told me even off-air that you are a DIYer, which stands for do it yourselfer, I like managing it on my own. I'm curious how you came across the decision to pay off your mortgage. And the reason I bring it up is I'm wondering right now, and I like to guess to keep myself entertained. I do a lot of different episodes, so I'm gonna guess if that's okay. If you paid it off all at once, if you did it along the way with extra payments. And the reason I'm gonna guess, and the reason I tell this story often, is there's a weight that goes off your shoulders when you don't have a mortgage. And people will celebrate and go, oh, I'm debt-free. But you don't really celebrate when your investments go up by 100,000. That'd be weird to throw a party with your friends and say, guys, here's what happened. So there's the financial analysis, which is very clear and says, well, if my mortgage rate is 3% and if I put my money into the SP 500, maybe I could get 10%. Why on earth would I possibly pay down the mortgage when I could invest and do better? Well, there's good arguments of it doesn't do 10% every year. That's just an average. But over time, that might be the best financial decision, but it's not always the best life decision. So if I had to guess, I bet you put extra payments to your principal. But I want to hear from you if you're open to sharing, how did you pay off your mortgage before you retired?

ACA Strategy: Healthcare For $250

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Yes, I paid off extra payments towards the principal over a period of a small number of years. I decided that I wanted to get rid of the risk of having debt that I owed. Um, and that actually helps with my peace of mind. And I'm very much aware I had a sub-3% mortgage that I could have made more in the stock market, but that would not have given me the same peace of mind. And that that's actually been quite helpful in my retirement. And here's why um I'm actually using the ACA plan, and I'm able to very carefully manage my income to get a healthy uh subsidy on that because I'm not paying the mortgage.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

You are speaking my love language. Melody, I could talk to you for 4,000 hours. And if I didn't have any other meetings today, that's maybe what I'd want to do. Obviously, I don't want to take all your time if you're volunteering. But I will say this is something that freaks out so many retirees. I can't retire. Healthcare is gonna cost$10 trillion. And I joke on YouTube that I'm the meanest advisor. I'm not mean, just transparent. And the reason I'm transparent is there's people out there worrying needlessly, going, oh, it's gonna cost$10 million. I mean, I know I have a brokerage account, but like, what's that gonna do? And I'm like, it could do a lot. So do you mind sharing how much you're paying for healthcare as a retiree before 65?

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Um this year it's about 250 uh per month. Uh I actually expect it to go down next year because this year I had a little bit of income from working at my job. Um and I can manage my uh HEI by making some additional contributions to my um traditional IRA because I have some income coming in, or I'm using a bronze plan and I can contribute to my HSA. I have a healthy amount in my HSA, and for me it actually made sense to use a bronze plan because overall the amount would be the same as this compared to a silver or gold, but I can use the tax advantage money to pay for any of those medical expenses.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

You're like my dream early retiree person, Melody. Because people hear bronze and they go, bad, bronze is bad. There's people that will hear HSA, I mean, I can't put that much into it compared to my 401k. Maybe I just skip that. And you're like, no, there's value in these things. And what I love that you're bringing up, by the way, Melody, I can already hear some people in the comments. And I want to hear from you guys if you're watching this right now in the comments, how much are you worried about healthcare? And be honest, if you're like, that's the number one concern. Some of you are thinking, did you just edit this? Because Melody said$2,050 a month, right? No, Melody did not say that. Melody said$250. And some of you go, yeah, but I put some basic assumptions of, you know, I want to live off$150,000 a year and I've got a$401. So why is it saying$2,000 a month? Well, it depends on your income. And Melody, I love the way you're looking at this. And I mean, I think the answer is clear, but I'd love to hear it from you. Why do you think so many people who are worried to retire early just kind of assume healthcare is going to cost$10 trillion?

SPEAKER_00 18:52

It's a lack of knowledge. Uh and I worry about things that I don't understand. So, in order to alleviate my own worries and concerns, I will research things to death. And you know, from the conversation you've seen that I've made the time to inform and educate myself. And once I have that knowledge, then the worries are greatly reduced.

From Financial Abuse To Agency

SPEAKER_01 19:19

So reasonable. Once again, I love this. Okay, now let's shift gears a little bit, if you don't mind, Melody, because you shared on my form here, and it might have been a long time, so you don't recall exactly what you had shared, but I'll paraphrase here. But you were awesome and you were saying, hey, you're living your best life, and you've got new interests of history and art, which I want to hear about. But you also shared my history includes significant abuse financial as well. Why did you say that? And if you don't mind, please share.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Okay. Um, I think it's important that to for everyone who comes from different backgrounds to realize that even if you don't have all of all of the advantage, you can turn things around. And to go into my story a little bit, I'll just give you the briefest um explanation. My family of origin was quite dysfunctional, and that led me to having dysfunctional marriages because I had not gone through the healing process myself yet. Uh, I was in my late 30s, I was finally getting some wisdom and discernment and getting myself out of that situation, was going through a divorce, and at that point my then husband passed away. So I was left, and that was around 2007. So I was left with a um complicated grieving, a lot of debt to pay off, and um the Great Recession was just getting started, so that was not a good time, but I did have some good things, and and I reflect on that, and these things make me smile, and that I have two wonderful now adult children, but they were a teenager and preteen at the preteen at the time, and they were my reason for getting my act together and for going on. And I have some extended family who were supportive while giving me space to learn and develop as I needed to as a person, and fortunately, you know, I had the um education and aptitude and interest in a career that has a lot had a lot of growth possibilities. Now, up until that point, my career had not done been terrific because I had a lot of other things going on in my life. But I was really able to lean into my career. I you know, moved to a new state, got a job at a big tech company, and did the best I could to prepare for my future. Um, and so I went from basically zero at age 39 to being able to retire at 55.

Art, History, And Crafting A Rich Life

SPEAKER_01 22:08

I imagine I'm thinking the same thing as everyone watching, which is I am so proud of you. Because that is something that you easily, Melody, could have said, you know what? Life gave me a tough go. It's not fair. And so because of that, I'm going to have to work till I pass away. And you said no. Now you said it, but more importantly, you took action on it, which is much more difficult to do. So I hope everyone in the comments gives you equal love of how proud we are of you. So now you get to talk about your art and history, things that you couldn't have possibly maybe spent as much time on because you're working. Do you mind telling us a little bit about those things?

DIY Investing, 60/40, And Asset Location

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Okay. Well, I love art, but as an observer, um, so I really enjoy Renaissance era era art and then also uh French impressionist art. So I had an opportunity to go to Paris a number of years ago and see Monet's home. Um and that was inspiring to me. So when I have a chance to travel, um I love going to museums and you know learning about the history and the culture of the area that I'm visiting, uh exploring the different art of the people who were local to that area. Uh so that is something that I think adds a lot of richness to those experiences. Now, for me personally, while I'm not an artist, I'm trying to learn to become an artisan. And what that means is I have creative hobbies where I make something which would tend to be everyday objects, um, a lot of textiles, but some other things as well. But I try and elevate them, I try and make them with care, and and I also like to give them give away what I make. And so that is my small way of making something that I can share with the world.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

39 years old with zero, retired at 56, now spending time on doing all these fun projects that you get to enjoy doing and then give away that joy without saying, oh my gosh, you have to pay for it, or you can just be a kind person. This is beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Oh, well, yeah, I'm I've worked hard at it, and it means a lot to me to be a good person and to have the world be a little bit better because I was a part of it.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

Well, these are refreshing conversations. Melody, I have a few more questions if that's okay. Now, the first one is when it comes to saving for retirement, I I find some people go, you know, my dad told me to set up a 401k, so I just did it, but I didn't really know if I should do it. I just kind of did it so he'd shut up. There's other people who will tell me, you know what? I was, you know, part of a webinar that I saw once and it made sense to me, so I signed up, or it was my first day on the job, and they gave us a pamphlet that said you should put something to the match. Didn't know what that meant, but I did that. At 39, you mentioned that you had zero. Did you know about 401ks or IRAs or just general retirement saving things before that, but couldn't implement it? Was it 39 where you went, you know what? I'm really gonna start to research myself and ask myself, should I put money to a brokerage account or a 401k? And how did you actually do this?

SPEAKER_00 25:37

I had some basic knowledge that I had developed through my 20s and 30s, which was difficult to implement during the during that time. Um, but since then I really took the time to self-educate. Uh, there's a lot of wonderful resources on there. You know, work in a tech, I'm on the internet a lot, um, and I can find information pretty easily. Uh and there's lots of wonderful books out there. There are seminars that were uh somewhere offered by my employer through the the um uh the brokerage that we had our 401k through. So I went to those. Um there are some that were specific to women's concerns, which I appreciated that they did. Um, and it it's all I always approached it with that there's more to learn. Now I know myself I'm not a fabulous investor. Uh I'm I'm not doing anything exotic. I have a basic 60-40 portfolio, which I have spread across a number of different account types for the different tax treatments on that. But I'm not expecting to make a killing on that. What I do really well is the budgeting and the having a rich life without needing to spend a lot.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

You know what's so wise about what you just went over? You you are kind to say different tax, you know, treatment, aka asset location, which some people just how on earth could you know? I had a client once share, wait a second. So if I have like all of my bonds and I want to make sure that you know they're being treated well, shouldn't I put like 6040 in my brokerage and 6040 in my IRA and 6040 in my HSA? And then I explained, well, there's different tax treatment based off of where it is, and you can be really strategic, and that's what you just alluded to. For example, if a Roth IRA is an account we want to touch last, it might make sense to put the types of assets that might grow way more in that account, like equities, just as an example. Obviously it depends, but the fact that you are already thinking along those lines is awesome. The most important thing you said though, however, is not the sexy side of things. So it doesn't get as much attention. It's way more fun to talk about what return we could get, but you know what's actually more impactful? What you just said, which is in your control. You're spending. And it's way easier for people to go, you know what? Yeah, so I want to spend more, and maybe if I hit it big with these few stocks, and yeah, I know it's more than maybe I should have, but I really just think it could change my retirement. And I'll always say, but do you need it? And I could tell if you are my client, I won't even need to ask you that because you've already thought through that, which is you've got your level one and level two and level three. Now, did you do research that just told you, whether it be through Vanguard or Fidelity or just general YouTube that told you, you know what? I'm going to just make sure that, you know, my investments do what I generally want them to do. I'm not going to try to hit a home run. I'm going for more consistent singles and doubles for lifetime income, and I'm going to be happy with that. Did a mentor teach you about that? Where did you learn this?

Advice To Pre-Retirees: Heart And Mind

SPEAKER_00 28:45

It was all DIY. I'd never had a real financial mentor other than some basic, you know, spend less than you earn. Um Fidelity, uh, Vanguard, yes, they have a lot of good resources. Uh, read some books. Um, yeah, read Dave Ramsey back when I was trying to resolve the debts I was left with. Um, some wisdom there, but you know, as after I got to the point where that was no longer a concern, I needed to get more broad based because it's sort of his approach is very strategic for a certain population, I think. Um and I wanted to have a more broad set of information. So I don't use all of the information that I've collected over time, uh, but it it informs my decision making. So it's not just this is the only way I know how to approach it. Like there are many, many different ways that you can do something. This is the one I choose because it works for me.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

You sound like you don't marry ideas, which might just be the superpower of life. You have the best perspective because if you put all ideas on a table, there's people that go, well, that was my idea, so can we do that one? versus going, which idea makes most sense? And to use Dave Ramsey's example, I'm very familiar with Dave Ramsey and his baby steps, and I think they play a really significant role for a certain person. And that concept that he talks about of the debt snowball of going, you know, it feels good paying off that one card. It's like, yeah, that's one less card to deal with. Maybe it's not always the most financially wise thing if we're looking at interest rates and doing a deep analysis, but if it gets you to actually take action and it's real momentum, it's powerful. So similar, I'll try to use some of those concepts that I find make people take action in my world, such as the mortgage example of look, maybe your advisor might tell you not to, but guess what? You're gonna sleep better. It's one less thing to worry about, and it's actually gonna make it go into work a lot easier because you're like, one more paycheck. Well, now that's another principal payment, and you're more excited about it, and you take action. So I actually draw from a lot of his principles, although there's a lot of things he says that I completely disagree with. Now, Melody, the way I like to end these shows is by shutting the heck up myself and letting you talk to someone who's thinking, and this could be someone in your head, it could be a friend, it could be a coworker, it could be young you, but someone five years away from retirement who's just worrying right now. They're worrying about whatever it may be. Do I have enough money? What am I gonna do with myself? How should I look at the next 40 years of my life? The concept of turning off income is just scary. What would you tell that person?

Internally Coachable And Change Agency

SPEAKER_00 31:31

Okay. I'm gonna talk to younger me. Um, and the first thing, and I really the most important, is forgive yourself for whatever mistakes that you have made along the way. You know, your your current position may not be optimal, but you can learn from it. You can improve and do better going forward, but beating yourself up over what's happened in the past, although it's a very natural and human thing to do, it doesn't help. And so just take the time, work through those emotions, get past that. And then the second is to trust yourself that you have the knowledge you need, or if you don't, you can recognize that there is a gap in your knowledge and you have the capacity to learn. So trust that you can do that. So for me, those were two things that that's getting the heart and the emotions right, the rest, the mechanics of learning to invest, learning to uh budget, and you know day by day going through, you know, working on your career. That's the mind portion. But you have to have your heart and your mind aligned to the same goal and working on the same place and both healthy and getting there. Because if you don't, you will self-sabotage. And it's so important to resolve whatever feelings that you have that may be holding you back and get yourself to a good place to prepare yourself for that future that you want.

Final Thoughts and Disclaimer

SPEAKER_01 33:10

You've taught me something today, Melody, that I've never actually said out loud or like fully understood that I'm about to tell you because it's gonna change my life. So thank you. But I first want to say I wish you a peaceful retirement, using your word for the rest of your life because you deserve it. But there's uh a word that is spoken about often in sports. And I played sports growing up. I was never the most athletic, but one of the things that people would tell me is I'm coachable. And we look for that when people reach out. Are they coachable? Do they have humility? There's a new term. I don't even know if this is proper English, but I'm making it up or I'm stealing it from you, whether it's in your head. Internally coachable, meaning you you're asking yourself, do I have the capacity to research this? You're coaching yourself. Most people I find they are seeking someone else to help coach them. So, for example, if I'm hiring a new team member, I'm asking them to be coachable. So I'm seeing if they complete the task that I mentioned and are they willing to shift? And I'll see someone do that, but that's very different from what you just said. Imagine I was talking to a new potential team member here, and they had self-reflected coming to me. Hey, by the way, you told me to do this task, but I actually found that this was another way to do it. But I don't want to be disrespectful to you. I just thought this might be more helpful. What do you think of that? That's now something that wouldn't have normally crossed my mind that I imagine is what maybe led to a lot of your success. So don't know if that's ever crossed your mind, but that's what I was thinking of.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

Very much so. And it's a very deliberate choice to do that. Yeah, I spent my career being a change agent and needing to have an open mind as we go through that creative conflict process. I know that my ideas are not all the all the always the best. And you know, we can we collaborate together to come to the better ideas. But I learn along the way and I build on my own ideas and the ideas of others to get to the best possible outcome.

SPEAKER_01 35:15

Brilliant. Melody, you are the poster child for an early retirement, even though it wasn't a cookie-cutter way to get there. So I appreciate you coming on the show and sharing.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

Thank you. It's been my pleasure to talk with you.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

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, early retirementpodcast.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.