Ep 118 | 3 Retirement Fears and How to Overcome Them

In this podcast episode, I discuss 3 retirement fears and limiting money beliefs that can keep you stuck with retirement planning. This episode will support you in how to rewrite those beliefs and take control of your finances for a successful retirement. 

What you’ll learn in the episode:

✅ Identify what are some limiting beliefs around money that hold you back in retirement planning

✅ Understand common limiting beliefs like “I don’t have enough money” or “I haven’t saved enough”

✅ Learn how to change limiting beliefs with factual evidence and a clear financial system

✅ Discover the power of overcoming limiting beliefs by tracking your cash flow and setting realistic goals

Resources mentioned:

Episode 116 A Retirement Ready VIP Session Experience

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Or, grab one of my free resources to help you take the first step:

5 Must-Do Steps for Retirement Planning — A simple guide to help you prepare with purpose

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Transcript

 So to dive into these fears, these are ideas and thoughts that may be an actual belief of yours. Money, beliefs, money scripts. You may have heard the term being used. They all start with an idea and a thought, and as we begin to think about them more and add our own quote evidence to it, they become into a belief.

But sometimes these beliefs do not have factual evidence behind them, meaning the reality is not going to be supportive. It's more based off of a feeling than a fact. And with money, we really want to back it up with factual evidence. Then we can deal with those emotions and those feelings. So today's episode.

I want to help you with three of the biggest fears, money beliefs people have and help you rescript. These help you learn how to solve this fear and get rid of the belief that it is true, and then look for something else that is going to serve you better to believe in.

And this is how you move forward. We experience fears or emotions about our money, and we need to dive into them and ask ourself are they true or not? The first fear we're going to dive into and the statement may be similar, you might be using different words. The fear is, I don't feel like I have enough money.

Where is this fear coming from? There's three areas or possibly more, but there's three I'm going to talk about today. That is a broken cashflow system or you haven't measured up expenses to income or you're not finding progress in your goals, those things are kind of from step one to step two to step three.

Somewhere within those beginning steps. Things are broken for you. They're not working for you. What is the solution to solve this fear? To bring in some factual evidence so that you can begin to move on. And honestly, you're gonna create another belief, but we want to rewrite these into something that then we can evaluate if that belief is serving us or not.

The broken cash flow system, what I mean by that is your expenses, your bills, your money incoming in is just not lined up. Having a successful system, a money management system is going to support the feeling or not support the feeling. Of having enough money. I worked with a client. She came to me, she had been retired for about a year, and she said, I don't have enough money.

I have to go back to work so quickly. Did the first steps that I do with every client, and I said, you have more than enough money. But then as we began to look at her bank accounts, her savings accounts, all of where her income was going in and her bills were going out and they were not lined up. That was creating this fear.

This feeling that she could not stay retired. And to have that feeling, we've got to, reach out to that factual evidence. Another client, same, same situation. When her bills were auto paid, the income wasn't there 'cause it was in a different spot. She was getting late fees.  all of those, were adding up, creating even a bigger problem.

So really looking at. How your income is coming in and where are you paying your bills? Secondly, haven't measured up expenses to income. Have you actually written a budget framework? I know I talked about this a couple episodes ago. To actually know if one plus one equals two. That is how simple a budget is.

I know sometimes we overcomplicate it, but what are your committed expenses? What are your committed needs and what does this equal compared to the income you bring in? That right there will say you have enough money. And once you look at that, then you can determine, okay, is it my cash flow system? Do I need to structure that differently?

And then being able to move out from there. The third one is, not finding progress in your goals. Whatever your goal is in your, you're just thinking, I don't have enough money to reach this. Whether that's a down payment for a home. To be able to save enough for retirement, whatever it is, and you're not finding progress that can create the feeling.

Granted, there's bigger different steps that need to happen in that, but essentially all of these have one solution that is to come back to your current finances and solving the fact of, number one, do you know if your committed expenses outspend your income? Answer that question. And then the second one is your income being deposited, where your bills are being paid from.

And if you answered those both on the positive, then it's gonna be something about your goals. What if you don't solve this fear? What if you just be like, ah, that's too much time. I don't wanna look at it. you keep putting it off. This fear will continue to challenge you with retirement planning.

Many people are feeling out of control with their spending and their cash flow, making them feel like retirement is impossible. But if you come back and answer those couple of questions, that right there can lay the foundation to then keep moving forward. Keep, driving yourself toward your goal of retirement.

If that was what it is, or whatever other goal it is. Just like I said, you may not be finding progress in those goals, and that's gonna take a little different work to look at. Definitely something I can help you solve in the VIP session. Two hours, we can find out what is wrong and not helping you find that progress to your goal.

Moving on to fear number two. I'm afraid I haven't saved enough. Yes, this is very common. This is a real feeling. This is something that many of you who are looking at retirement in the next, you know, 5, 10, 15 years, that you are saying, I don't have enough money saved. What if I don't have enough money saved?

Where is this fear coming from? You may have not been a consistent saver. You are not currently saving. Or the third area you are not sure the actual number that you need to achieve to have saved, to be able to retire comfortably. Go back to haven't been a consistent saver. Yep. This is everyone.

Very few people can say they have been consistently saving from the day one of their job. There are people, yes. But this is a very common, especially among the women that I serve and help, is there, like I was raising my kids, I was getting into a home. I was, doing all of these things and so I haven't been consistent.

Yep. Been there, done that. It's. And or the level maybe wasn't at the level you knew it should be because we're trying to survive life as a mom, a working mom providing for our children. We are focused on that phase. And then once we get into, nearly empty nest or empty nest, and now you're looking at the next phase ahead and you're like, man, I'm afraid I haven't saved enough.

And in the midst of that being a consistent saver or not a consistent saver, maybe you currently right now are not saving at all. This one's easy to solve. Gotta start saving. Gotta start saving. I would rather see an inconsistent saver, then non saver. Make sure you are saving money towards retirement.

And the last area. Which is an even greater fear. Again, just like I did in with our first fear. There's a third area that most of us probably camp in. We may have solved the other two or know how to solve the other two, and still in the action phase, but you're not sure the actual number that you need to have saved to be able to retire comfortably.

There is a lot of information out there. A lot of information out there, and I can guarantee you if you talk to 3, 5, 7 financial planners, they're going to give you a different number. What do you do? Well, let's go back to a very simple math problem as your starting point. Okay? This is not the end result.

This is the starting point. Helps you start seeing like what is your trajectory towards savings? Retirement is a math problem. Well, to me it's more than that. But at this stage, for this fear, you need to understand what your annual expenses are. How do you figure that? I want you to calculate what your monthly expenses are.

Again, this is why a budget is so important, knowing what your commitment, what it is to take. Excuse me, what it takes to run your house each and every month. Multiply that by 12. There's your annual expense times that by 25, and this gives you your savings goal. Now, I talked about this. In a real situation in episodes one 16.

Go back and listen to that episode to understand more about adjustments, the levers you can pull, how to dive into that number deeper, but at least this point you can go, all right, I am not there yet. How can I get there? The feeling of being afraid that you don't have enough money becomes factually true.

Yes. You're like, okay, but what if I can't get there again? Go listen to episode one 16. I promise that I will share more in that episode about the adjustments, the levers you pull, the things you can do. My motto, retirement is possible for everyone. This is just a rough number to get you going, to get you moving.

To rewrite the, I'm afraid I haven't saved enough. You're answering that question. You're giving yourself a starting point. What is the problem? If you don't actually figure this out? You don't know your goal. You don't know what actions to take to be successful in reaching that number.

Spending a little bit of time. Diving into it, working with somebody on helping with projections, trajectories, all of those different things to whittle down this number. This was a number that proved problematic on my journey. And if you are somebody who has a pension or you're going to wait until social security aid age, that is guaranteed income that has to be taken out of your expenses.

You don't need to save as much if you have some guaranteed income, and that was an answer I could not get from financial planners. I hope they can answer that now, but all of the ones I tried did not. If you're wondering how that works, what that looks like, this. FI number. Financial independence number is an area we cover in the VIP session.

Again, episode one 16. I share what that session looks like for you, how we solved this number for my client, and giving you a path of action steps ups. Moving to the last fear, which is a big one, and I understand, I'm sure everybody has this. Everybody has this fear. I don't care who you are, if you're a consistent saver, if you have reached your FI number, what if I run out of money?

As you think of that question, is there anyone that you have honestly known? Okay, I'm not talking about, you might have heard. Again, we're looking for factual evidence of running outta money. I just now, your level might be lower than you want it to be. Yes, that can be true, but that is not running out of money.

Where is this fear coming from before I tell you how to solve it? No one is certain the amount you'll need, there are ballparks, there's estimates. They can give you a number or two. This will support you. We don't know how long we will live. There's just no guarantee, but we do need to plan to live.

Finding that balance is key. I have an Aunt 99. She's still living very well. However, the point I wanna make with that is when you retire between the age of 55 to 70. You are still spry, you're still happening. Things, you're gonna go do your great experiences and spend some money between 70 and a hundred.

I'm just gonna go up to a hundred. People do live longer than that. 70 to a hundred mm, roughly. I'm, I'm using 70. It might not be that low of a number, but there's a next phase of retirement where you're not spending as much money. You honestly become so simple in life as you age, that to live on that annual expense is no longer possible.

You physically cannot do it. How do I know this? My mother said to me one time, I have too much money and I can't spend it all. I said, good for you. They lived a very simple life, and from that point she was in her seventies. From that point, the expenses just went down because I said, how much do you spend a month?

And she told me. I'm like, holy cow. So that you've gotta be, thinking about the actual living of retirement. We are not going to be spending money like we did when we had kids, when we were gallivanting all over. And just like I said, if you are retiring 55 to 70 and you are going to be, or 75, let's push that up to 75 and you're gonna be traveling a lot.

Yes, there's going to be a higher number there, but you're not going to outspend, I would hope, outspend your money just to travel. What is the solution? Well, what is the solution to this? This one is easy and you're thinking how? Come back to the current day, come back to who you are with money, get to know your spending habits.

We all have times where we're very good, and I'm not gonna say frugal, but we are within means. We do really well. We're on top of it. And then there are moments where we quote overspend. That is a very, very normal. up and down, up and down rollercoaster that we ride. It is very normal, but you've gotta understand who you are.

Is your rollercoaster always spending time in the up or are there some times that it comes down? Really experiencing that, being aware of that, understanding how much it is that you truly need to quote, survive. Not with the extras. Dial into food costs. utility costs your housing. Those are your necessities.

And then the next area you wanna solve is what it is you expect from your money. That is key. That is key. That is going to help you in now and is going to help you prepare for retirement. What is the challenge? If you don't solve this fear of running outta money, there will be no active planning. You'll constantly be stuck in a state of fear, the financial stress, the unhappiness,  just approach and come back to the current day. There is no guarantees. But if we work hard within a shorter realm and just keep moving ahead to those potential targets that we can set, we're going to be making progress, and that is what we want. We want to be making progress, fears, hold us back. These limiting beliefs keep us from taking appropriate action.

I want to extend an invite to my three day. Bootcamp Experience Retirement Readiness Bootcamp. We will spend three days covering pretty much everything we've talked in here, helping you get the solutions you need, understanding what those next action steps are. Like I said, it's a three day. There is a special happening on day four, be sure to join to get that information.

If you're not able to attend the live sessions, they will be sent in a replay, but you're going to want to watch those as quickly as possible so you can get into that bonus on day four. Before I close, I want to just say planning is key. And understanding the gap between your current savings and FI number is the work that we do in that bootcamp is the work that we do in that VIP session.

If you don't wanna wait until June 3rd, jump into a session, but better yet to find inspiration This Friday, a bonus episode with financial planner Greg Luan. He is sharing his client's success. And his clients are low income earners. But they have learned how to make smart decisions. I am so glad I have found Greg because most financial planners that I have been communicating with are looking for people who are making $250,000 and more.

And Greg is not that person. Greg is for the average individual, just like me, where we are. Quote, lower income, but we're happy income earners. I want you to realize you can be a low income earner and be a happy income earner, so make sure you listen to that episode. Be inspired, join the bootcamp, send me your questions.

I hope this episode was helpful, and we'll see you next week.