Worried to Death

Summary

Jill on Money with Jill Schlesinger

Episode: Worried to Death
Release Date: July 14, 2025
Host: Jill Schlesinger, CFP®
Platform: Audacy

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Introduction

In the episode titled "Worried to Death," Jill Schlesinger addresses the anxieties surrounding retirement finances. The show features a heartfelt conversation with John, a federal retiree grappling with fears of depleting his savings and the potential loss of his home. Jill navigates through John's financial situation, offering actionable advice to alleviate his concerns and provide a clear path forward.

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Caller Profile: John from the South

Timestamp: [02:40] - [03:00]

John, a 64-year-old federal retiree, reaches out to the show expressing deep worries about his financial stability in retirement. Having retired five years prior, he fears that his savings may not sustain him, potentially leading to the loss of his home. John's wife remains employed with the federal government, adding complexity to their financial dynamics.

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Assessing the Financial Situation

Timestamp: [03:00] - [07:41]

Jill begins by dissecting John's financial landscape:

• Income Sources:

  • John's Pension & Social Security: Gross annual income of $55,000 ([03:31] - [03:43]), netting approximately $4,060 monthly.
  • Wife's Employment: Earning in the low $90,000s, with a projected pension of around $44,000 annually upon her retirement at 62 ([03:57] - [05:23]).

• Monthly Expenses: Estimated between $7,000 to $8,000 ([04:17] - [04:32]).

• Savings & Investments:

  • Thrift Savings Plan (TSP): Over $1 million combined.
  • Emergency Fund: $79,000 in a high-yield savings account.

• Assets:

  • Home: Valued at $315,000 with an outstanding mortgage of $76,000 at a 4% interest rate, remaining for another 12-15 years.

Jill emphasizes that, based on these numbers, John and his wife are approximately meeting their monthly expenses with their combined income. However, she underscores the importance of verifying exact expenses to ensure there are no hidden oversights.

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Identifying the Source of Anxiety

Timestamp: [07:49] - [10:31]

John's primary fear revolves around outliving his savings, especially with the mortgage still active. Jill reassures him by highlighting:

• Income vs. Expenses: Their current net income surpasses their estimated expenses.

• Investment Strategy Concerns: John reveals that due to market volatility, he shifted 80% of his TSP into the G Fund, limiting his investments in stocks and bonds to a mere 20%. This conservative approach, while safe, may hamper the growth needed to sustain long-term financial health.

Jill points out that halting market participation can lead to missing out on potential growth, which is crucial for funds intended to last 30 years. She advises a balanced investment approach to ensure both safety and growth.

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Actionable Recommendations

Timestamp: [10:31] - [14:43]

Jill provides John with a two-pronged strategy to address his concerns:

1. Expense Tracking:

   • Objective: Gain a clear understanding of monthly expenditures.
   • Action Steps: Review credit card statements, bank records, and track all outgoing expenses for at least six months.
   • Purpose: Ensure that monthly spending aligns with current income and identify any discrepancies or unnecessary expenditures.

2. Investment Reallocation:

   • Current Issue: Over-concentration in the G Fund limits growth potential.
   • Recommended Allocation:
     • 50% in the G Fund: Provides stability.
     • Remaining 50% distributed among Stocks and International Funds: Balances growth potential with manageable risk.
   • Rationale: A diversified portfolio can better withstand market fluctuations while still allowing the retirement funds to grow adequately.

Jill emphasizes the importance of gradual adjustments to avoid sudden market impacts and advises maintaining a balanced investment strategy to support long-term financial needs.

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Conclusion and Final Advice

Timestamp: [14:37] - [14:43]

Jill concludes by reinforcing that John's fears, while understandable, may stem from uncertainties rather than actual financial instability. By implementing structured expense tracking and revisiting his investment strategy, John can regain control and peace of mind regarding his retirement finances.

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Notable Quotes

• Jill Schlesinger on Tracking Expenses:

  "This is not because I think you're going crazy. I think it would be worth your while to track your expenses, to give you peace of mind."
  [08:29]

• Jill Schlesinger on Investment Strategy:

  "We cannot afford to sit in the G fund because if you have 2 million, I would probably say, yeah, you could. What's a big deal? But I think that what might help you to know is that, like, mathematically, a balanced portfolio will grow enough to keep up with you."
  [10:05]

• Jill Schlesinger on Reassurance:

  "You are going to take control of this. You will absolutely be able to do that."
  [13:08]

---

Key Takeaways

1. Importance of Expense Awareness: Understanding and tracking monthly expenses is crucial to ensure that retirement income sufficiently covers living costs.

2. Balanced Investment Approach: Diversifying investments between stable funds and growth-oriented assets can safeguard against market downturns while promoting financial growth.

3. Open Communication: Discussing financial plans and concerns with a spouse can alleviate fears and lead to more informed decision-making.

4. Professional Guidance: Seeking expert advice can provide clarity and structured strategies to navigate retirement financial challenges effectively.

---

By addressing John's specific fears with tailored advice, Jill Schlesinger showcases how structured financial planning and strategic investment adjustments can alleviate retirement anxieties and promote long-term financial security.

Transcript

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[Jill Schlesinger]

Welcome to the Jill on Money show. It's Monday, July 14th. Happy Bastille Day. You can just play Les Mis over and over as a little fun factoid for yourselves and enjoy it. Wimbledon is over. Maybe it's the Paris. Is it the French Open yet? Mark. Or not.

[John]

Are you serious? That's come and gone.

[Jill Schlesinger]

It's already done. When was the French Open?

[John]

About a month ago.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Okay, let me just do it again. Again. Okay. It's Monday, July 14, and we are celebrating Bastille Day by doing a loop to loop broadcast of Les Mis. Just kidding. No, we're not going to do that to you because those songs, they stick in your head. Mark, have you ever seen Les Mis?

[John]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Yeah, someday you'll see it with your child and it'll be a beautiful thing. And you'll never get those songs out of your head. I won't even start now. Hey gang, if you've got a financial question, if you are starting your rebellion of your jillonmoney.com, click the contact Us button. Write us a note if you want to join us on the air live. Check the box. Mark does everything else. And while you're on the website, don't forget to sign up for the free weekly newsletter which comes out every Monday. And check out all of the content that lives there. We've got a blog, we've got another podcast, we've got a radio show. Videos, books, resources, it's all there. Go to jillonmoney.com today we are talking to John, who joins us from an unknown location in the south. But I couldn't shield you from the south because I already just heard your accent, John. So it's the real deal. Have you lived in the south your whole life?

[John]

Yes, I sure have. Jill.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Yeah. Don't call me ma' am, because I know you people. You call me ma'. Am. We're ending this. Okay. Right. Now. What brings you to us, John? What can we do for you?

[John]

Well, I'll tell you the truth. I just caught your show here recently and thought I'd give you a call. I'm pretty worried down here. I've been retired about five years.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Okay.

[John]

From a federal retiree. My wife is still working right now, thankfully for the federal government. I think I jumped the gun and retired too soon. And I'm worried to death that I'm going to run out of money. I may even lose my house.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Okay, wait a minute. Let's wait. Before we go into full blown panic mode, let's try to peel back the layers and see what's going on. So you retired from the federal government five years ago. You're receiving a pension, John.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jill Schlesinger]

How much is that pension?

[John]

Well, all total. My pension, it's Social Security. Plus my what I get from OPM, the gross is 55,000 a year.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Okay.

[John]

Comes out to a net of like $4,060 a month.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Okay, so four grand a month net. All right. And your wife is still working. How much is she earning right now?

[John]

She's earning in the low 90s.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Oh, that's great. Fantastic. How old are you guys?

[John]

Well, I'm 64 and she's 61.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Okay, next step here, which is how much money do you guys spend in a given year or on a monthly basis?

[John]

That's a tough one. I've never. We never really have tracked this and that. I've recently started trying to. And just off the top of my head, I'd say 7,000amonth at least.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Okay. And maybe it's eight.

[John]

Could be. Yeah.

[Jill Schlesinger]

All right, I'm going to look at 8 and just see how we look with that. Okay. What about the amount of money that you have in savings? So how much money did you accumulate? Whether it's in the thrift savings plan or your wife has a retirement account? Tell us a little bit about that.

[John]

Well, last time I checked in the tsp, we had a little over a million.

[Jill Schlesinger]

And what about your wife?

[John]

Well, that's both of us. Yeah.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Okay, so she's also A government worker?

[John]

Yes.

[Jill Schlesinger]

What is her likely game plan when it comes to her own retirement and her pension then?

[John]

Well, she's wanting to retire when she's 62, and if we've done the math right, that's going to put her at about 44,000 a year, maybe gross, you think? Yes.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Okay, so let's say that we filter everything out and that's 4,000amonth net for you. Let's say she ends up with 3,500amonth net for her. That'll probably be about right, I think. And now we've got $7,500 a month in income for you guys, net. And those two pensions have inflation adjustments, right?

[John]

They do.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Okay, so that's one huge worry to take off your list. Do you have. Besides the thrift savings plan accumulation that you guys have had, are there any other assets that you have socked away? It could be a retirement, like an ira. It could be a brokerage account, it could be savings. Anything else that's out there?

[John]

Yeah, we put up money in an emergency fund in one of those high yield savings accounts.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Oh, great. How much is in there?

[John]

There's 79,000 in there.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Okay, that's great. Perfect. We get to the house now. So you said when you first came out, I'm scared I'm gonna lose my house. Is there something weird about this house that I don't know about? What's your house worth?

[John]

Well, it's just that we still owe a mortgage on it. I still owe $76,000 on it.

[Jill Schlesinger]

That's not terrible. What's the interest rate?

[John]

It's a little under 4%. I think it's like 3.97 or something.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Okay, so we're just going to call it 4%. How much longer do you have that mortgage? How long will it be in place for?

[John]

Oh, it's another good 12, 15 years.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Okay. And what is the house worth?

[John]

Well, according to the insurance companies, it's worth like $315,000. Okay, make me insure it for.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Do you. Do you want to stay there? Are you happy there?

[John]

Yeah, my wife's happy here. She wants to stay here.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Happy wife, happy life. That's what they say, right?

[John]

Yeah.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Okay. Anything else that is in your financial life that we have not covered in this first few minutes?

[John]

No, I think that's about it. The house is really all we owe for other than the credit card, every end of the month.

[Jill Schlesinger]

The credit card, though, you don't run a balance, you pay it off every month, right?

[John]

Yes.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Okay. You have no other debt? There's no car loan or anything?

[John]

No. No.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Okay. Why are you so worried? I want to just like. Let's take a deep breath, okay? For real. Let's take a deep breath.

[John]

Okay.

[Jill Schlesinger]

She is going to have a pension. She's also going to eventually have Social Security. You guys are just about. On a net basis, you're just about meeting your needs, your expenses. You cannot be spending a ton and ton of money more than what you have articulated to me because you don't have any debt and you've been doing just fine. Do you feel like. Let me ask you this. As you look at the last five years that you've been retired and your wife is still working, do you ever feel like you. Like there's some whopping bill that you just couldn't pay for?

[John]

No. No.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Okay.

[John]

So far, no.

[Jill Schlesinger]

All right. I mean, I guess it is possible that you are spending more than you realize. It is possible that instead of $8,000 a month, maybe it's $10,000 a month. Maybe that is possible. I don't know. I really think it would be worth your while. This is not because I think you're going crazy. I think it would be worth your while to track your expenses, to give you peace of mind. I think you're probably okay, but I think that you're driving yourself a little crazy because you don't know. And the unknown is the scary part. So instead of saying to your wife, oh, my God, babe, I love you, but you can't retire till you're 65 because I'm scared. Get your arms around what is going on here. Because in my mind, if it were, if you're spending even. Let's call it $9,000 a month, that means just to do the math with you, let's say you're spending nine grand a month and you only have $7,500 a month coming in net. The other fifteen hundred dollars a month, that would make up that gap to get you, you know, from, you know, eight to $9,000. Right. That other money would come from your Thrift Savings Plans.

[Carvana Customer]

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[Jill Schlesinger]

You would pull the money out a little bit at a time. It doesn't have to be big. You might start with yours since you're older and this money hasn't been taxed yet. And you might say, you know, I'm going to pull some money out. Are you in the. In the Thrift Savings Plan? Are you mostly in stocks? Do you have stocks and bonds? A little bit of everything.

[John]

Well, that's my problem. Since I've retired. I did real well through 2024. And then I got a little worried here back at the end of December, and I put all of it in the G, I've kind of dabbled back in. I'm just minuscule in the C, the S and the I right now. Like 20%.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Okay.

[John]

80% in the G. Okay.

[Jill Schlesinger]

So you've panicked.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Okay, thank you.

[John]

I did. When it was up.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Yeah, exactly. Okay, so if you took 25 grand a year out of your combined thrift savings plans, you would more than cover whatever gap you have. You'd be fine. We do need that money to grow. We definitely do. You can't afford to sit in the G fund because if you had 2 million, I would probably say, yeah, you could. What's a big deal? But I think that what might help you to know is that, like, mathematically, from a thrift savings plan, which has a million dollars in it in just a balance, like 50, 50 portfolio, not 80% stocks, but a balanced portfolio, you'll grow this enough, it will keep up with you. You hopefully live for 30 more years. Everything is good, but it should be able to cover whatever the gap is between your pension, Social Security, and your expenses. And the only thing that I will just say is that to get your arms around the expenses is important because this won't work if we've mistakenly undershot your expenses, meaning that if it's 8,000, you think it's 8,000, and I say, oh, maybe it's 9,000. If it's really 12,000, then we have to revisit this. So here's. You have. You have two bits of homework for yourself. One is just track the expenses or look at the first six months of the year. You know, we just were at a halfway point, right? Pull up your credit card bill, pull up your bank statement, look at everything and say, where are we? Where did the money go? And look at it, and maybe you'll say to yourself, well, this doesn't account for a vacation that we're going to take or this, that, and the other thing, try to get your arms around all of those expenses. And I think that if it's 10 grand or less, you're fine. If it's more than 10 or 9,500, it's going to be a problem. And then you're going to get back in touch with us. The other part is you've got to get a plan to put that money back into the market. Eventually, when this is all reallocated, you can be 50% in the G fund, maybe 5% in the S fund and 10% in the international, and the rest goes into the large cap. That's it. And then you're sort of 50. 50, right. 50 in the G, 50 in the other stuff. You should be in a place where half of your money is at risk and it's scary when it goes down. But you don't need all this money at once. But we do need to grow it. We need this to last for 30 years.

[John]

Okay? Okay. Yeah.

[Jill Schlesinger]

All right. And then at some point, that mortgage is done, which is great. And you should be fine. Okay, well, you really should be. I don't want you to worry. I feel like you're worrying sick and we don't even know if you have anything to worry about yet.

[John]

You've been a ton of help. One thing I didn't mention, I do have mine split like this. Crazy. But I have hers 100% in stocks.

[Jill Schlesinger]

Oh, she's crazy. And then you're crazy. So now that's fine. So what you can do is. Same thing. You both should be more balanced, invested. She like risk? Is she into this or not? You can tell me the truth. She's like, yeah, if I change it, she'll kill me. She loves risk.

[John]

No, no, she's not crazy about risk. But she doesn't want to lose the money, you know?

[Jill Schlesinger]

Okay, so let's. Same thing. Half of it in the safer stuff in the G fund, the other half spread out among the riskier stuff, the stocks. Same thing for both of you. Now, the longer she works, the better this goes, obviously. Right? The pension amount increases. But don't force her to leave until you really understand what these expenses are. We don't have enough information for you to be in full blown panic mode. What I want you to really understand is that you are going to take control of this. You will absolutely be able to do that. Okay. And we just need you to again, get your arms around the amount of money that you're spending. That's really important to me.

[John]

Okay.

[Jill Schlesinger]

All right.

[John]

Makes perfect sense.

[Jill Schlesinger]

And I think that you're going to be in really, you're going to be in good shape.

[John]

Alrighty, Jill, I really appreciate it.

[Jill Schlesinger]

All right, man. Thanks for getting in touch with us. Let us know. And you must get back in touch with us and tell us what the actual expense number is. And then by then you will have changed your allocation. I'm sure the market will drop as soon as you change the allocation. Don't blame me, but it's just going to most likely. That's what happens all the time. Happens all the time. So hang on. It's going to be a ride. All right, gang, if you're worried that you retired too soon, get in touch with us. There's no reason why you need to panic. We can pull this together and really try. From my perspective, let's walk through what all of the issues are. That is what we're trying to do. If we can do that together, I think you'll be so much happier, truly. It's just not something that you need to freak out about. It's going to be okay. Let's walk through this. Okay, good. All right. If you've got a financial question, just let us know how we can help you out. Go to jillonmoney.com Click the Contact Us button. We will work it through with you. It's okay if you remind yourself about that. That, like, I don't need to freak out. I don't need to be on my own. I'm here with Jill and Mark. They'll walk me through it. That's great. Okay. All right, gang, do something nice for someone else today. Change your work, Change your wealth, change your life. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you tomorrow.

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