Laid Off at 51: Are We Ready to Retire? | Making a Millionaire

Summary

Episode Summary: "Laid Off at 51: Are We Ready to Retire? | Making a Millionaire"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Money Guy Show
• Hosts: Bryan Preston and Bo Hanson
• Description: Bringing confidence to wealth building with simplified strategies from The Money Guy. Learn how to apply financial tactics that go beyond common sense to help you reach your money goals faster.
• Episode: Laid Off at 51: Are We Ready to Retire? | Making a Millionaire
• Release Date: June 23, 2025

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of the Money Guy Show, hosts Bryan Preston and Bo Hanson engage with Chris and Heather, a dynamic couple from Tennessee, both aged 51. Earning a combined income of approximately $225,000 through salaries and rental income, Chris and Heather boast a net worth nearing $2.5 million. However, a recent unexpected layoff for Chris throws their financial independence into question. This episode delves deep into their financial journey, challenges, and the strategies they employ to navigate this pivotal moment.

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Meet Chris and Heather

Host's Introduction:

[00:52] Bryan Preston: "Today we're talking to Chris and Heather. They're both 51 years old and live in Tennessee. They make about $225,000 between their salaries and rental income and they have a net worth of almost two and a half million dollars. A recent layoff has left them wondering, have they hit financial independence? Let's dive in."

Background:

• Chris: With 29 years in software development, Chris has accumulated significant experience and investment assets, including rental properties.
• Heather: Transitioned from being a florist to working with the city's gas department, Heather brings a diverse professional background to the table.

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The Impact of the Layoff

Initial Reactions:

[02:08] Bryan Preston: "So how'd you guys get here? What's your story? How did you end up where you are today?"

Heather’s Concerns:

[00:58] Heather: "I get freaked out. I don't like it. I don't want to touch a retirement yet. I don't want to go anywhere near it. I want it to sit there as long as possible because I don't know what the future brings and I just want them to work."

Chris’s Perspective:

[20:04] Chris: "One thing happened when the thing went south in 2008...it was a scary point in time for us...our faith is the really important thing. ...if we have us and our family and we live in some dumpy little apartment, you know, who cares?"

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Building Wealth: The Journey So Far

Early Savings and Investments:

[04:10] Bo Hanson: "Wow. And so that's a good decision." [05:24] Bryan Preston: "What I want people to hear is you'd have to know exactly what you were doing, and you'd have to get every single decision right. But you got one decision right. And that one decision was, hey, we're going to start saving pretty early, and we're just going to let that money work. Am I accurately encapsulating?"

Challenges Faced:

• 2008 Great Recession: Chris's loan to his father resulted in a significant financial setback.

[06:10] Chris: "We took a big hit right around the time of the 2008 Great Recession, and I had loaned my dad a big sum of money...and he lost it all."

Budgeting Struggles:

[08:04] Bryan Preston: "Is that what caused you to start thinking about, you said earlier, I didn't even think about it. Is that the catalyst that made you start focusing on focusing on it and taking it seriously?" [09:05] Bryan Preston: "Like, we can get out of this hole."

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Current Financial Status

Net Worth Breakdown:

[02:59] Bryan Preston: "You have about $100,000 in cash. You have about 1.7 in investment assets, another $630,000 in rental properties, which is amazing."

Savings and Investments:

• Cash Reserves: Approximately $100,000.
• Investment Assets: Around $1.7 million.
• Rental Properties: Valued at about $630,000.
• Additional Savings: Heather and Chris are diligent savers, contributing significantly to HSAs, Roth IRAs, and 401(k)s.

Commitment to Saving:

[18:40] Bo Hanson: "By the way, congratulations for being in that post. 50 as a fellow person will make Bo feel like the entrepreneurs." [18:56] Chris: "We have been saving about 21% of our gross income. We've got about $47,000 going into your HSA. You're maxing that out. We're both maxing out Roth IRAs at $16,000 each."

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Retirement Analysis and Projections

Initial Projections (“Dream Plan”):

[28:19] Bryan Preston: "What you can see is each one of these bars is an individual year of your retirement...you retire at 65 with about three and a half million dollars. Your portfolio would start providing for your living expense need...leave behind about $8.3 million in today's dollars for the kids."

Adjusting for Layoff (“Doo Doo Plan”):

[31:19] Bryan Preston: "So what's the spend number? How much could we actually spend starting right now every month for the rest of our lives and still have a high probability of success." [37:29] Chris: "60,000, that's not a big deal. I could make that."

Monte Carlo Simulation Results:

• Dream Plan: 98% probability of success.
• Doo Doo Plan: 37% probability when retiring immediately post-layoff.
• Adjusted Spending ($10,500/month): Near 80% probability of success.

Key Insights:

• Flexibility is Crucial: Balancing between spending and income generation is essential.
• Tracking and Adjusting: Continuous monitoring of expenses and adjusting spending habits can significantly impact retirement readiness.

[42:34] Heather: "It's definitely peace of mind. Knowing the route isn't all uphill."

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Strategies and Next Steps

Options to Improve Retirement Prospects:

1. Increase Income: Chris considers shifting to a passion-driven job in competitive robotics, potentially earning an additional $60,000/year.
2. Reduce Spending: Adjusting their monthly expenses to a sustainable level, such as $10,500 from $12,000.

Homework Assignments:

[45:34] Bryan Preston: "Figure out what system you guys are going to implement together so that you have confidence around the tracking that you're doing." [45:34] Bryan Preston: "Build the next steps... Is it brush up on your resume? Is it begin making connections? Is it start looking for the opportunities that can give you paid gigs?"

Balancing Passion and Income:

[38:55] Chris: "Robotics is really expensive and I would like to be able to help people who don't have as much money to be able to participate...I could still make pretty good money doing that."

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Conclusion: Resilience and Forward Planning

Hosts’ Reflection:

[35:02] Bryan Preston: "Because you saved 25% of your gross, because you practiced deferred gratification, because you thought about the future, you are in a position right now that when life threw an unknown unknown at you...you get to choose what your next pivot looks like."

Chris and Heather’s Takeaway:

[43:01] Heather: "Absolutely." [43:27] Bryan Preston: "When you have enough savings and a solid plan, unexpected setbacks don’t derail you. You have options and guardrails to navigate through uncertainty."

Final Words:

[42:32] Bryan Preston: "That's a testament to your early discipline and strategic planning. You’re in the driver's seat defining what the next phase of your life looks like."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Bryan Preston on Early Saving:

  [05:24] "What I want people to hear is you'd have to know exactly what you were doing, and you'd have to get every single decision right. But you got one decision right. And that one decision was, hey, we're going to start saving pretty early, and we're just going to let that money work."

• Heather on Budgeting:

  [12:39] "The budget that we have, it's like I still kind of in my head fall back to where we were at. ... sometimes I get really bad at it and I don't put my receipts in."

• Chris on Financial Setbacks:

  [20:33] "One thing happened when, when the thing went south in 2008...our faith is the really important thing. ...if we have us and our family and we live in some dumpy little apartment, you know, who cares?"

• Bryan Preston on Options:

  [37:51] "You have options. You have good options. Not hard options either."

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Key Takeaways

1. Early and Consistent Saving Pays Off: Chris and Heather's disciplined approach to savings and investments has secured a substantial net worth, providing a foundation to navigate unexpected financial challenges.

2. Flexibility and Adaptability: Life events, such as job loss, require reassessing financial plans. Being flexible with spending and income generation is crucial for maintaining financial stability.

3. Importance of Budgeting: Continuous tracking and adjusting of expenses ensure that living within means remains sustainable, especially during retirement.

4. Multiple Income Streams: Diversifying income through salaries, rental properties, and potential side ventures like competitive robotics can enhance financial security.

5. Emotional Resilience: Maintaining a positive mindset and focusing on what truly matters—family and personal fulfillment—helps in managing financial stress.

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Moving Forward

Chris and Heather stand at a crossroads, faced with the reality of Chris's layoff. However, their solid financial base, coupled with strategic planning and disciplined saving, equips them to navigate this challenge. By exploring opportunities to increase income and adjust spending habits, they can realign their financial trajectory to ensure a comfortable and fulfilling retirement.

For listeners inspired by Chris and Heather’s journey or those facing similar financial uncertainties, this episode underscores the importance of proactive financial planning, flexibility in the face of change, and the enduring value of disciplined saving.

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Resources & Further Engagement:

• Join the Conversation: Interested in similar financial discussions or becoming a guest? Visit moneyguy.com/apply.
• Access Free Resources: Explore valuable financial tools and guides at moneyguy.com/resources.

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Disclaimer: The hosts, Bryan Preston and Bo Hanson, are partners at Abound Wealth Management, a registered investment advisory firm. The content provided in this episode is for informational purposes only and does not constitute personalized financial, tax, investment, or legal advice. All investments carry risks, including the risk of loss. Abound Wealth Management and the Money Guy Show are not liable for any investment decisions made based on the information provided.

Transcript

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[Bryan Preston]

Welcome to Making a Millionaire. Today we're talking to Chris and heather. They're both 51 years old and live in Tennessee. They make about $225,000 between their salaries and rental income and they have a net worth of almost two and a half million dollars. A recent layoff has left them wondering, have they hit financial independence? Let's dive in.

[Bo Hanson]

Give me a gut check. You get this shock and awe news about the job. Are you scared? Are you comfortable? How do you feel?

[Heather]

Oh, you're all looking at me. Oh, I get freaked out. I don't, I don't like it. I don't want to touch a retirement yet. I don't want to go anywhere near it. I want it to sit there as long as possible because I don't know what the future brings and I just want them to work.

[Chris]

I've done software development for, for 29 years now. I think she started out just being a stay at home mom for most of the time.

[Heather]

Well, I started out as a florist.

[Bryan Preston]

Floors okay. Awesome. Florist.

[Heather]

And then now I work with the city and the gas department.

[Bo Hanson]

Does that stress out Valentine's Day that you actually had a background in that Valentine's Day?

[Heather]

Hate Mother's Day and not really thrilled about Christmas and Thanksgiving just because of all the work.

[Bo Hanson]

Same reason I don't need parties anymore.

[Heather]

A lot of bows. A lot of bows. Your hands get really torn up with rose thorns. Things like that. Man, I told him, never buy me flowers, buy me chocolate.

[Bryan Preston]

I tell my wife the same thing, never buy me flowers, just bring me chocolate.

[Bo Hanson]

That's what I tell her.

[Bryan Preston]

Well, also, well, you guys were so kind. You kind of shared with us a net worth statement of where you guys are presently. I think to kind of level set we ought to look at where you guys are right now because you have done a fantastic job of building wealth, of building up towards your great big beautiful tomorrow. And you can see right now as you guys sit here, you have a total net worth of about two and a half million dollars. First and all that's wild, right? Like, is it that incredible? You can see that you have about $100,000 in cash. You have about 1.7 in investment assets, another $630,000 in rental properties, which is amazing. So we should just pause for a moment and say, you guys have done a fantastic job. And so I think one of the questions that the audience probably has is, how'd you get here? What's your story? How did you end up where you are today?

[Bo Hanson]

By the way, Heather's reaction. Do y' all go over a net worth statement every year?

[Bryan Preston]

Did you just figure this out for the first time?

[Bo Hanson]

Does this shock you to see? Is this a shock and awe moment?

[Heather]

I knew it was up words, but not. No, I did not know.

[Bo Hanson]

Chris, what are we doing here? You know, you're supposed to be having annual net worth meetings.

[Chris]

It's not annual, it's all the time. I tell her, hey, guess what? And she just doesn't care as much as I do.

[Heather]

How are we doing on a monthly basis? Good. Okay, great.

[Bryan Preston]

That's it? Just check in.

[Heather]

We're doing great.

[Bryan Preston]

So how'd you guys get here? What's the story? Give us the background. How did you get to this spot? At 51 years old, there's been a.

[Chris]

Lot of highs and lows. And honestly, for most of my life, I didn't know what I was doing with, with, in terms of money. I started working and it was right before, you know, when the dot com stuff started happening. And, you know, it was pretty easy to get good money back then. Right away I made some pretty good money. I bought a house fairly early, but as far as, like, what to invest in and how much to save, I was just guessing. So right out of my first job, you know, I got a 401k. I'm like, how much should I put in? I'm like, it says I could put in this much. I'll just put in that. Whatever the maximum was.

[Bo Hanson]

Wow. And so that's a good decision.

[Chris]

Yeah. And so I was living off not very much money, but I thought that's just what everyone did because it seemed like the smart thing to do. And so that ended up being a lot of what, our retirement. But it just, it seems like just by luck, I don't know, just you.

[Bryan Preston]

Didn'T really plan anything. You just say, hey, I got, I can save this much. I'm going to start saving. And without a whole lot of strategies, just starting early and saving worked out pretty, pretty well.

[Chris]

Right. But it was easy for me Because I was just living by myself, and I could live on, you know, $20 a week of food and stuff like that. We got married. Then she's like, yeah, we're not.

[Bryan Preston]

Things change a little bit.

[Chris]

Yeah. Investing, it was difficult to know what to do, and so there was a lot of just luck as far as, you know, I got into the real estate at the right time, but then my dad would help me with investing, and I just kind of let him. You're the finance guy. You just take control of it. And it turns out he didn't really know what he was doing very much. So I don't know how, like, I couldn't tell you how much my money grew and how much I put in or anything back then, because I didn't.

[Bryan Preston]

You were just saving. You weren't focused on a whole lot other than. I'm just, hey, I know I'm saving for the future. I'm just kind of let the money do what the money does.

[Chris]

Yeah, exactly.

[Bryan Preston]

What I want people to hear is you'd have to know exactly what you were doing, and you'd have to get every single decision right. But you got one decision right. And that one decision was, hey, we're going to start saving pretty early, and we're just going to let that money work. Am I accurately encapsulating.

[Chris]

Yes.

[Bryan Preston]

What the story was?

[Chris]

And even in. Even in the, like, the leaner times, like the messy middle times, we were still saving. I would say around 10% or so, maybe 13%.

[Bryan Preston]

Sure.

[Chris]

And so there was always. We're always putting something away.

[Bo Hanson]

A lot of people go see us say. But yeah, he said he was maxing it out, but I could tell by the tone, were there some mistakes or just. I think it's always good to share, because I know I made ton. Look, I wrote a book, and half of the book is all the mistakes I made and how not to make those for yourself. Were there any mistakes at the beginning also, Chris?

[Chris]

Yeah, we took a big hit right around the time of the 2008 Great Recession, and I had loaned my dad a big sum of money is, you know, over $100,000, and he lost it all. And so we had a. We basically had a rental property. We took out a mortgage to give him money with it, and now we had this big payment, and he wasn't paying it back. And so it was pretty lean at that time.

[Bryan Preston]

Yeah.

[Bo Hanson]

Heather, how does. Cause I know families are tough. Your parents especially, they give you life, so that puts you in a certain status. But here you Are the spouse. I mean, how was that season?

[Heather]

Well, I felt horrible for him because his dad. So it was kind of like my experience wasn't his experience for sure. And so it was just trying to support him and all that and just okay, where do we go from here? Type attitude. Because yeah, it was, it was hard because you're just, it's, it's sticky because it's family messy. Yeah. And then with him having regrets about things and so it's like, no, but where do we go? What steps should we take? And I knew he's a very logical person. So he looks at data and so it was, I kind of just followed where he. So it was like, okay, what's our food budget? What can we afford? What can we, you know, what steps do we take? What can we stay in our house? Can we, you know. And so he was really good about just guiding us along there. So I just kind of leaned on him too with that because, I mean, he could talk at me all he wanted, I suppose, but it was just like I, I knew he had a better picture of our finances than I did at that time.

[Chris]

Well, not really because that's actually when we started, we started actually figuring out.

[Bryan Preston]

Is that what caused you to start thinking about, you said earlier, I didn't even think about it. Is that the catalyst that made you start focusing on focusing on it and taking it seriously?

[Chris]

Well, when we first got married, I wanted to do a budget and so I developed my own budgeting software and.

[Bryan Preston]

It was, that's what I did when I wanted to do a budget. It wasn't built, it was horrible.

[Chris]

It was so hard to use and I ended up not using it. And that was kind of the end of the budget. It was like, this is so difficult to get anything done. And then when this happened, I thought that we had been living, you know, pretty responsibly and it just, when I started going through the numbers, I'm like, man, there's a lot of inefficiency and waste and things like that that we can figure out. And so we just went through all of the expenses and just started like, we can cut this, we can cut that. This is, this is wasteful. And we got to this bare bones budget and we're like, alright, if we do this, we'll be okay.

[Bryan Preston]

Like, we can get out of this hole.

[Chris]

Yeah, it'll be difficult, but it'll be fine.

[Bryan Preston]

You had to make some tough decisions, but you did. And we're able to crawl out of it.

[Bo Hanson]

What I think is amazing Is that even with that hardship and that hits you to the core because it's family, it's blood. But yet here we are, we're about to have a discussion on your multi million dollar net worth with zero debt. I mean isn't that, and I think that is so good for anyone to hear, is that this journey doesn't have to be perfect.

[Chris]

That's right.

[Bo Hanson]

You can make lots of mistakes and still come out on the other side. Because the thing that you said was luck. You know, at the beginning you weren't giving yourself enough credit. And I keep hearing this theme. You're very disciplined and discipline is that first ingredient to wealth creation. And just the wake up and utilizing that is pretty amazing.

[Bryan Preston]

So as you guys sit here today, I mean you mentioned it, you don't have any debt on the book. So obviously that hundred thousand dollar home equity line that was taken out and then lost, got paid back and now you actually have rental properties that you own. As you guys sit here today and you're trying to think about your path forward in the future, what are you, what are the things you're looking for help with? I mean, what are the things, what was the thing that made you come on making a millionaire? Say I want to know if, if I can answer this question or what would the guy say about this? What are those things for you guys?

[Chris]

I've been doing software for a long while and you know, recently I started coaching competitive robotics and it's been pretty cool. It's been a lot of fun. I statements.

[Bryan Preston]

When I started budgeting, I built my own software. Oh, by the way, I coach competitive robotics. It's just a thing that I do and just. That's unbelievable.

[Bo Hanson]

Chris is the most interesting, cooler than.

[Bryan Preston]

Anything on my resume. That's awesome.

[Chris]

I just, I just, you know, and I've, I've always coached things like youth sports, coached all our kids youth sports and everything. And I've just really enjoyed it. But especially with this robotics thing, it's been amazing and I can see how much kids learn and get out of it. And I would like to be able to do something along those lines at some point for kind of a second career and trying to figure out when can I do that.

[Bryan Preston]

It's a safe assumption based on the way you frame that, that if you were going to go do that, it's likely going to create less income than your current career. Is that the idea around making that shift?

[Chris]

Yes, it would be. Well, that's one thing with competitive robotics is really expensive to get into And I would like to be able to find ways where I could help kids who, you know, they don't have as much resources to be able to. To get into it even. Because even just to start getting into it if you have no, nothing. Know anything about it. It's just expensive to get into.

[Bryan Preston]

I love it. All right, so how can we make maybe a career shift to maybe not focus on the things you have to do, but do something that you enjoy more, like competitive robotics?

[Bo Hanson]

What else?

[Bryan Preston]

What are some other goals, financial goals that you guys have or things that you're looking to. To lean in on?

[Chris]

We. So we have three kids. One of them's out of college, one of them's in college, one of them's in high school. And so there's college to. To pay for. And we kind of have. Have a pretty good idea for that, but we just, you know, we want to make sure that's taken care of. And then also, just as the kids get older, you know, things are getting expensive, like housing and stuff. Being able to help give them a little bit of a jump start, perhaps.

[Bryan Preston]

So help kids out with, like, future needs, like housing and that kind of stuff. Heather, what about you?

[Heather]

The budget that we have, it's like I. I still kind of in my head fall back to where we were at. And that was a long time ago, but the remnants are still. They sit with you. Yeah, we have our little budget app that we use, and sometimes I get really bad at it and I don't put my receipts in. And so my goal right now, it sounds silly, but it's important to me is to stick with it, because it doesn't. We are not on as strict of budget as we used to be, obviously, but it's still important to know what you're spending.

[Chris]

We thought we were doing it right. We thought we were doing good.

[Heather]

And then. So that's why when you just look at your receipts, you know, okay, this is how much we spent on gas this month. This is how much we spent on groceries this month. This is how much we spent on Heather's fun things. You know, it's like, there's budgets for everything. So it's not like you don't get to do things. It's just knowing where it's going.

[Bryan Preston]

Yeah, I love it. Having a purpose and a reason behind your dollars.

[Bo Hanson]

I do want to share, though. I think that without a doubt, I love budgeting, especially starting out. But it's also. I'm okay that as your life progresses and as your net worth grows, you can add some slack in the system.

[Heather]

So that it definitely has, which is good.

[Bo Hanson]

So I think I want to give you permission that that's okay. But there is something under the surface that I do think when big life things come your way, it sometimes can be a jolt to say, oh, my gosh. Yeah, let's get back to the basics of what kind of created. I know, and I wanted to just give you guys an opportunity. Is there anything that's made you specifically, Heather, where you said, y' all need to start tracking this more. You feel, like, recommitted. Is there. Is there anything else going on?

[Heather]

I guess in the past, we had money set aside for a new car, and all of a sudden, Chris was like, I. We've been spending the money isn't there anymore. We ought to resave for that.

[Bryan Preston]

So it was earmarked. But then those earmarked funds kind of.

[Heather]

Got okay because we needed to pay bills. And so that kind of was kind of, wait, we can't do the new car now. You know, it was, like, so eye opening.

[Bryan Preston]

Oh, wow.

[Heather]

And so that. They're just like the ripples of life that just kind of stick with you. And so it's like, we aren't as. I don't want to say strict, but we're not as.

[Chris]

Like, if we go over budget on something, we're just like, oh, that needs. That budget needs to pop up.

[Heather]

That needs to go.

[Chris]

Just needs more tracking.

[Bryan Preston]

It's more tracking.

[Bo Hanson]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Maybe I should say it that way. We. It's like, it's important to just keep track over our. We have everything in, like, categories. And so it's like, you know, you have extra money here, and you have extra money here, and then you have extra money here, and then, like, I have, like, my little fun. Fun that I get to have, and he has. And so, you know, you can just be splurging, but you've accounted for. Exactly, exactly. You've accounted for the things that you spend. And so that's when I say, I. Keeping track of your receipt. It's just so I know where those things go. And it's like, we're not as strict as. I mean, I guess it sounds strict, but it. We're not as strict as we used to.

[Bryan Preston]

You're more just keeping an eye on it. Yeah, that's right.

[Bo Hanson]

Maintaining.

[Bryan Preston]

Yeah. What I'm trying to say, a lot of what you're focused on is kind of, like, immediate. Like, right now. How are we tracking? I noticed any. You didn't mention financial independence. You didn't mention retirement. You didn't mention any of that kind of stuff. Is that a goal that you guys have? Because as you sit here at 51 with 2 1/2 million dollars, a lot of people are going to see this, say, these guys, where are they? Are they financially? Is that not something on the radar for you guys?

[Chris]

Yeah, that's. That's part of what we'd like to find out. Well, definitely for him, I mean, I would like to change careers at some point. And that timeline has actually been accelerate. Just yesterday I found out I got laid off. And so I only have till June with this current job. And so it's been something I've been planning, like, oh, could I retire at some point soon? And so now these questions come up a little bit sooner than expected. And it's like, well, do I, you know, do I get another job? Especially because our youngest is going to college. And I was thinking it might be a good idea to have a regular job during college or, you know, could I do something else and just make, you know, some money between now and, you know, whenever? I don't even know what that number would be.

[Bryan Preston]

First of all. Wow, right? That's a huge signi. Because I think about in like a small, you know, we were saving for a car, and then when it came time to buy the car, the money wasn't there. And that was like, oh, and now here we are. Oh, I'm kind of thinking about financial independence. And now this thing happens yesterday where it's like, oh, wow, are we there? Is the money that we had for retirement gonna be there? Are we gonna be okay? I gotta believe that some of the stuff that's, like, rumbling around in the car as you're driving here, right? Like, what's. What's this gonna look like?

[Chris]

I've been kind of expected, but it came out somewhat all of a sudden. And so just trying to think about what. How much money do we actually need, like, in the immediate right now? What. What do we need to get by? And then for what's in retirement, like, how much more do I need to keep adding to retirement, you know, or is it good where it is and can we just hang out where we are until we can access the retirement funds?

[Bryan Preston]

I love this. Well, let's talk about what you guys have been doing, because you said, okay, how much have I been saving and where should I. And how much we need to keep saving. Let's talk about what you guys have currently been doing, because we know that you're at a $2.5 million net worth, which is amazing, but it's not like you took the foot off the pedal. You guys are still great savers. When we look at your savings priority, how you guys strateg, you're still saving about 21% of your gross income. You've got about 85, 50 going into your HSA. So you're maxing that out. We love that. That's a solid step five. You're both maxing out Roth IRAs at $16,000 each. Again, another step five.

[Bo Hanson]

By the way, congratulations for being in that post. 50 as a fellow person will make Bo feel like the entrepreneurs.

[Bryan Preston]

I get those catch up doesn't get.

[Bo Hanson]

The catch up contributions.

[Bryan Preston]

And then you're also putting money in your 401k. So it's 18% of salary. Chris 22, 5. So you guys have been saving about 5, $47,000.

[Chris]

It's actually a little bit more than that.

[Bryan Preston]

A little bit more than that.

[Bo Hanson]

Okay, so you're taking advantage of a little more of that catch up too.

[Chris]

We did the full max.

[Bryan Preston]

Wonderful. Awesome. So you guys have been fantastic savers. So again, you've done some things well. You started saving early, maybe you had some hiccups along the way. Then you started paying attention to it, started tracking it, starting seeing where your money and then you figured out, how can we improve our savings? How can we continue to make sure we're putting money aside for the future? Because who knows when on that random Thursday a phone call is going to come in that says, hey, circumstances are changing. One of the things that we love to be able to do is get to sit in this seat and tell people, okay, well, let's look at where you are today. Let's look at what you've done so far. Let's really analyze and assess. Are you at the financial independence point or if you're not at the financial independence point, what steps are required or what would you have to do to be able to get there? Does that sound like something that would be. Yes. Interesting and helpful for you guys to walk through?

[Bo Hanson]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Awesome.

[Bryan Preston]

Wonderful.

[Bo Hanson]

Give me a gut check. Are you. Because, I mean, when I see two and a half million dollars, I feel pretty good about that. But then you get this shock and awe news about the job. Are y' all, what's your baseline right now? Are you scared? Are you comfortable? How do you feel before we get into actually showing you some numbers?

[Heather]

Oh, you're looking at me.

[Bryan Preston]

I want both of you, but how do you feel? Did you see that all the eyes turn.

[Heather]

Oh, I get freaked out. I don't, I don't like it. I don't want to touch a retirement yet. I don't want to go anywhere near it. I want it to sit there as long as possible because I don't know what the future brings and I just want him to work.

[Bo Hanson]

Well, you got kids that are about to go to college. I get that. I get that.

[Heather]

Feel old enough yet to even be like looking at, even touching anything on preach.

[Bo Hanson]

51 is like 35.

[Bryan Preston]

Not the 51 year olds. That's what I'm hearing you say.

[Heather]

I don't, I don't feel ready yet. I don't know.

[Bryan Preston]

I got it.

[Bo Hanson]

And how about you?

[Chris]

One thing happened when, when the thing went south in 2008. You know, we learned a really good lesson as far as relying on money. And you know, it was a scary point in time for us back then because I realized we did put a lot of security in our retirement and our money situation. And really I was just realize our faith is the really important thing. Through that whole thing, that was what got us through. And I just thought, you know, if we have us and our family and we live in some dumpy little apartment, you know, who cares?

[Bryan Preston]

We'll be okay.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Bryan Preston]

And so we know the things that really matter to us.

[Chris]

Yeah. And so like with the, the stuff right now, it's like, well, we have, we have enough money. Like if we bought like a very small house, we would be fine. It's just, it's just like how much extra would it be? I guess I love that, I love that.

[Bryan Preston]

That's a great perspective, especially going to an unknown like this to figure out, okay, well, what's the minimum threshold? But again, you guys have done a lot of the hard work of saving and building. And so one of the things I want to answer is, okay, well, we can answer the minimum threshold, but are you at the point where you could maintain the actual desired standard of living the desired lifestyle that you have? And I think it'd be super fun for us to dive into those numbers. Okay, I'm no robotics expert. I want to be very clear. But I would imagine when it comes to robotics, the quality of the materials that you're using to build the robotic thing, probably improve the robot that you build. Is that a safe, safe analysis? Like if you have good materials that you're using, you get a good outcome on the back end? Well, personal finance is no different. So when we think about you guys, I want to run through the assumptions the inputs that we're using for your retirement plan because the outcome, the analysis is only going to be as good as the assumptions we put in. So I want to make sure that all of this is accurate and representative of the life that you are currently living in the life that you want to live. So we know that right now both of you are 51 years old. And we're going to assume in our base case that we're going to have an age 65 retirement for both of you. So we're going to work to full retirement age. In our base case, we're also going to assume an expiration for you guys of age 95. So we want to have like a nice long life, a nice long retirement that we're going to be planning for. When we think about the money that we want to spend, you guys have told us you put together, bud, you said, hey, our base living expenses to live the life that we want to live on Our terms is $9,000 a month. Is that accurate?

[Chris]

It's pretty close.

[Bryan Preston]

It's pretty close because when we looked at the numbers, nine was in there, but it seemed like there were a lot of months where it might have actually like trended closer to 12. And what I want to do is I want us to be very realistic around what our living expenses are. Because you said, Heather, you said this comment. I've like put asterisks by it. You have to know what you're spending, you have to know where your dollars are going. That is so true in the accumulation and building phase. But it is even more true in the decumulation financial independence phase. Because the viability of a long term plan is very much going to depend on spending. So I want us to be so, so accurate with what we model so that you understand and recognize what you're actually getting into. Because while you can cut to the quick and you can cut all your expenses down, I think for most folks that's not the goal of financial independence. The goal is to live the life that you want to live the way that you want to live it on the terms that you want to live in. So we're going to use 9000 as our base case, but we're going to deviate from that pretty, pretty quickly. You guys also said, hey, there's this idea that we might want to buy a future house. So we've got this money that we've been saving up about 400,000, a little over $400,000 that might be for a future home purchase. The way that we Wanted to think about this in the plan because you didn't tell us like when that house might happen or what that might look like. We just assumed that that pot of money is already earmarked for that house and we had to arbitrarily picks we just had in 2030, whatever that pot of money is grown to, we're just going to use that to go buy the house. So that's your house fund, and in 2030, you're going to buy a primary residence. Does that sound like a reasonable assumption?

[Chris]

Sounds about right.

[Bryan Preston]

So then when we think about the resources with which you have to work, we know that you have your cash reserves at about $108,000. We know that we have this like home buying fund that right now has about $416,000 in it. And then we have all of your various investment accounts. We have the Roth 401K, the SEP IRA, the traditional 401K, traditional IRA, all the HSAs, and then we have all of your rental properties in Alabama. So if we look at you guys, you are at about a $2.4 million total net worth. That's the net worth with which we have to use to provide for financial independence. Anything. You don't have some crazy big trust fund account that's left off of this, right?

[Chris]

No.

[Bryan Preston]

Okay, awesome. So this is what we have to work with. These are the numbers. So then when we think about, okay, well, what are the resources you have to use? We know that right now or as of a few days ago, Kris, your salary and bonus was about $125,000 a year. Heather, your salary bonus was right at $50,000 a year. So as a household, about $175,000 household income. So we'd assume if you were going to pivot to a similar career, you would make around that income. That's again, that's our base case scenario. We also know for each of you, you're going to get Social Security benefits at some point in retirement. For our base case, we're saying, hey, what if they wait until they hit full retirement age? So you're going to work till 65, pay into Social Security until 65, and then at 67, you'll begin drawing a benefit. Well, based on though, based on your income and what you've paid into the system, we're estimating, Kris, that your Social Security will be a little under $47,000 a year. And Heather, yours will be right around $23,000 a year. When you get to Social Security age. We also know that you have some rental income coming in from all these Alabama properties. It's about $50,000. And then, Heather, you have a pension that's going to be about $8,400. That will start when you get to age 65. $8,500 annually, not monthly, but it's just we want to make sure we factor that in. From an income standpoint, is all of this accurate?

[Chris]

The pension might not win on. No, the pension, yes.

[Bryan Preston]

Is that good? Okay, great. Because again, the quality of the output will depend on the accuracy of the input. So we want to be as, as accurate but also as conservative as we can. And so what we said also is, okay, if you're working, we're imagine that you're going to continue being saver. So you're going to do things like max out your HSA. You're going to do things like put 18% of your salary into the 401k. We're going to max out the Roth IRAs. Kris, your current former employer was putting money in. So there's an employer match that we were, that we were including in this. So as long as you're working, we assume that you're going to be saving. So what we said is, with all those assumptions about your unique scenario, what does this look like? If we have a 3% inflation rate, so we, that $9,000 a month is going to grow at inflation and our cash will grow at inflation and our property values will go up with inflation. So that way we're tracking that appropriately. And then what's it look like? If just on a straight line basis, the money that we're investing can grow at 7.4% annually, straight line. And the way we came up with that is that's just a 6040 portfolio. Average historical return on a 6040 with appropriate standard deviations. All right, so 3% inflation, 7.4% long term rate of return makes sense. All right, so let me show you what the plan actually looks like.

[Bo Hanson]

This is where it gets exciting.

[Bryan Preston]

What you can see is each one of these bars is an individual year of your retirement. So you can see that every year the bar kind of goes up. We get almost to 2030. And you can see that your consumable portfolio will have grown to about $2.4 million. We then go buy that house that we've been saving for you guys, continue working all the way out until age 65 and then at 65 when you retire in today's dollars. Because we've brought all this back into present value terms in today's dollars. You would retire at 65 with about three and a half million dollars. Your portfolio would start providing for your living expense need. And what you notice is the portfolio continues to go all the way up until you guys leave this Earth at age 95 and you leave behind about $8.3 million in today's dollars for the Chase.

[Bo Hanson]

That's crazy.

[Bryan Preston]

So 8.3 million. Think that'd be okay? Is that like an okay inheritance? Think that that would work right now, I do want to deviate one iota here because I don't think that 9,000 is the spending number we ought to be using. Because again, we look at your budget, it looks like 12,000 was probably closer to the actual spend to maintain the standard of living that you guys want to maintain. Does that's, does that feel right? Does that feel.

[Chris]

Because with 9,000 we have like a little wiggle room, but with 12,000, that's when we can, you know, afford to upgrade vehicles or buy, go on vacation.

[Bo Hanson]

Got all the one off stuff.

[Bryan Preston]

Yeah. Live the life that you ultimately want to live. So watch what happens when I Change this to 12,000. As you would expect, there's a meaningful impact to the plan right now. Instead of you leaving this Earth with $8.3 million, you leave this Earth with 5.4 million. So that additional spending did cut out about $3 million out of the plan, but it's still pretty solid. Right. But we know, we do know that the market does not give us 7.4% rates of return every year. So one of the things that we have to do is we have to run this through a Monte Carlo simulation. And what this does is it runs a thousand different iterations of a thousand different possible market outcomes, some of them really, really positive and some of them really, really negative. And the way the system works, it says of those thousand iterations, how many got us all the way to age 95 without us running out of money, without us having to change our behavior, without us having to cut back. And what you can see is if you were to work the way you're working right now, all the way till age 65 and then retire, you have a 98% probability of success of not having to change your behavior. That means that 980 of the thousand scenarios got all the way into the plan with no behavioral change.

[Heather]

That's lovely.

[Bryan Preston]

Sounds. Sounds pretty good, right? Sounds pretty comfortable. But that's if you work till 65.

[Chris]

Yeah, that's not gonna happen.

[Bryan Preston]

That's not right. Like, Chris is like, this is Cool.

[Bo Hanson]

I was letting both set it up. But we all know life has happened and there's all kind of other things, so we needed to plan for other contingencies.

[Bryan Preston]

So then the question becomes, we've had this thing happen now where employment has changed and we're unsure exactly what future employment may look like. And so whenever we plan, we think about what's the worst case scenario. And worst case scenario would be, this is it, you are done. Today starts your retirement. So if today were to start your retirement, we have to adjust some of our assumptions. So one of those assumptions is we're not going to be working out till age 65. We're also not going to be saving the same way that we were saving because now when we go down to one income that's going to have to provide for living expenses. And then the other change that's going to take place is Social Security was built as though we were going to pay into the system all the way until 65. If you stop working now, well, you only paid into the system until 51. So your Social Security benefit would also have to decrease. So if you were to retire today and your Social Security also decreased. Okay, now, now we have some problems, right? Like this doesn't look ideal. You can see that even on our straight line assumption, by age 84, the portfolio has, has been depleted. It's now gone to zero. For good measure, we have to look at the Monte Carlo simulation again to see what the probability of success is. You can see that now it's dropped to 37%.

[Heather]

Right.

[Bryan Preston]

So what that tells us immediately is we have a problem. So I'm going to pause there for a moment. Tell me where your mindset is right now.

[Chris]

Spending 12,000amonth. I mean, that's, that's a lot for us. It's. We, because we have that excess wiggle room, we basically, you know, we want to save 25% of our income. So we put that away. And then beyond that, it's just, oh, this is money that we can use for whatever we want. So in some ways it's not the amount of money. We would just do less.

[Bryan Preston]

Less things. Yeah. So imagine one of the questions you're trying to ask is, okay, well, 12,000 doesn't work. Is, is there a number that does work? You tell me if that's a question you're curious about.

[Chris]

Well, I'm just trying to think, how much do I need to keep saving now for retirement? Because that will help me determine how much, what kind of a job that I should get sure. I guess that's the main question. How much money should I be making right now? That's a great access retirement.

[Bryan Preston]

I love that. Because whenever we face problems, there's always. There's always. There's only two levers that people have to work with and that. Brian, you say this all the time. There's two levels. Only two things you can do when you're trying to solve a financial problem.

[Bo Hanson]

You can make more money or you can spend less. Those are the two levers you've obviously. This is what I call the doo doo plan. You know, when we're putting on the 3D glasses. So I don't. And I say this for you, I got a giggle for a little because I can see, you know, even our discussion as we were walking into the studio. Heather is probably a little nervous about this just from some of our discussions. So that's why I'm telling you this is as bad as it gets on the doo doo plan. But the good news is this isn't actually what I think the down to earth plan is. I think that there's lots of alternatives, some levers that we're going to be able to pull. And Beau kind of laid out the dream plan that was the 65 and all the other things. So now we've kind of given you. If you worked until 65 and all this, you go leave the earth with a gazillion dollars, which was somewhat unrealistic. But now we're giving you this baseline of the doo doo to plan because some things have. Life has happened. I'm excited for Beau to fill in the gaps on kind of what the down to earth plan is, because that's where we start building this thing back. So hopefully you leave here feeling like we at least paid respect to what opportunities you guys have.

[Bryan Preston]

So let's think about this, right? You said there's two lovers. I can spend less or I can make more, increase my income. And you just said, hey, it'd be great if you could just tell me, if I got to go to another job, how much money to make? Like, how much do I need to save? What does that number look like? Okay, well, what we figured out. And again, I'm going to go back to our illustration because you can see we have this issue where we're kind of running out of money in our 80s. If we just got the straight line right, and it's a pretty low probability we were actually able to go back door into the math and say, okay, if Kris were to be able to Generate some sort of income, and that income could provide for their living expenses. Might you guys be in what's known as coastfi? I've done enough saving up to this point that if I can just create enough income to cover my living expenses, I don't have to save a whole lot more. I can just let my money continue to grow. And if I let my money continue to grow for a certain amount of time, it will grow to the point to where then it can provide for me. And so we said, okay, what would their coast fine number be? If we're going to assume that Heather keeps working, how much would Kris have to go out and make? So they don't really have to save anymore, but they could just live off of their incomes and provide for their living needs. And what we found was if you could get a job that pays $60,000 a year, or if you could side hustle and make $60,000 a year, you notice that on our straight line, it kind of flattens out that, you know, you start retirement, you have today a consumable portfolio of about $1.8 million. You live this life that we've laid out at a $12,000 a month burn rate. And you can see when you leave this earth, you leave behind about $1.8 million. It's kind of like you've lived off of the interest. So if we take this and we run it back through our Monte Carlo simulation, just assuming that you can bridge that gap, earning $60,000 from today until 65, well now all of a sudden you're at an 81% probability of success. Just so you know, when we are doing assessments for clients, we say, hey, if we can get you above 80%, we feel really, really comfortable. Because what this is saying, it's not saying that in those 19% of scenarios, people ended up homeless on the side of the road. That's not what it's saying. In 19% of the scenarios, you might have had to tighten the belt a little bit. You might have had to what you.

[Bo Hanson]

Go do naturally instead of, instead of.

[Bryan Preston]

Staying at 12,000, you might have had to go to 10,000. You may have had in the great recession, maybe you didn't buy the new car, you didn't go on the expensive trip. You just tighten the belt, which we all do when those sort of things happen.

[Bo Hanson]

And there's also the go go years, the slow go and the no go years. It kind of. So you don't have to hit 100%, you don't have to hit 98%, I think I would feel good at 81%. So that actually changes things. Now, we still have more levers to pull, but before we do, give us feedback on these numbers.

[Chris]

Yeah, well, 60,000, that's not a big deal. I could make that.

[Bryan Preston]

You can make that. So that sounds like a pretty attainable goal based on your skill set.

[Heather]

So in this scenario, how for him doing the 60? That would be until 65.

[Bryan Preston]

That's what we modeled right here.

[Heather]

Okay. Okay.

[Bryan Preston]

Him earning $60,000 until 65 and then fully retiring. And then both of you fully retire.

[Heather]

Okay.

[Bryan Preston]

Okay.

[Chris]

Well, hopefully I'll be doing if I'm earning that much money. It's doing something that I really. I imagine I'd be doing that past 65 also.

[Bryan Preston]

Sure.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Bryan Preston]

This may not be retirement. This may be next endeavor. It may be the next thing.

[Chris]

That's what I'm looking for.

[Bo Hanson]

I also heard you share earlier, your heart of an educator is you do this, you just threw it out there on the down low about advanced robotics and stuff like that. And then you've even shared with us that you do some, you've. You've done some teaching to like a cohort of homeschooled kids and other things. Is this something that, I mean, could that generate 60 grand? Or is it going to take something.

[Chris]

Plus that it could generate? I don't know if I could generate the part. Robotics is really expensive and I would like to be able to help people who don't have as much money to be able to participate. So I don't want to necessarily make a lot of money. But, you know, I do, I do. I can program and I can do stuff, contract work, and I don't have to work full time. And I could still make pretty good money doing that.

[Bryan Preston]

Okay, love that. So one of the things I think we ought to look at is what if you don't earn any more income? What, what if you actually have to figure out, okay, what is our real spend number? So what I want to do is I want to take away you working. Let's go back to the doo doo plan where you are not in a good spot, where the portfolio does have a high probability of success. And we said, okay, well, what's the spend number? How much could we actually spend starting right now every month for the rest of our lives and still have a high probability of success. And we were pretty excited to see that. If you could drop your spending from $12,000 a month to $10,500 a month, the plan actually works again. You can see that you go from 8.3 million on the dream plan to now you're still leaving behind when you leave this Earth, about 1 1/2 million dollars for the kids. So you have some cushion built in. When we take this and we run it back through the Monte Carlo simulation, looking at those thousand different scenarios, thousand different iterations, you can see that we're right there close to that 80% right. Like, we are right there within a stone's throw. So if you guys could say, okay, well, 9,000 was pretty lean and 12,000 is doing all the things we want to do. Maybe 10,500 is that happy medium. Maybe that's somewhere that you could land and say, okay, well, I don't have to go work anymore. I don't have to generate income. But if we can spend at that level, it opens some doors, open some opportunities.

[Chris]

A lot of our spending right now, again, comes from robotics. Robotics is just really expensive. We have one more season of it, and then that kind of goes away so that spending goes down. We don't spend a lot. We don't really like for vacations. I like to read books. It's not.

[Bryan Preston]

Have you read any. Have you read any really good ones in the last year? Is there like a book that you're like, this book was just so good.

[Chris]

Brad, you got the thing.

[Bryan Preston]

That's awesome. That's great. And what I hope you're recognizing is we're laying out individual scenarios. The real answer for you guys probably isn't one of these distinct scenarios. It's probably some combination therein. You may go make some income, and you may make $30,000 a year, and you may not spend 10,500, you may spend 11,000, but the combination of those shows you where the guardrails are. Because all we want you to, because you've had this incredibly uncertain thing happen in the last 24 hours. And what we want you to know is where the guardrails are. Okay. Based on what we've done so far, what are the pieces and parts we need to know so that we can continue on the path that we're on and pull and adjust the appropriate levers. That's the peace of mind we want you guys to walk out of here with.

[Heather]

Absolutely.

[Bo Hanson]

I want to get. Make sure I'm giving you guys enough space to kind of process. And they didn't even share what seeing these actual numbers does, not only to know it mathematically, but even as the relationships side of things.

[Heather]

Oh, it's definitely peace of mind. Knowing the route Isn't all uphill.

[Bryan Preston]

You have options.

[Heather]

Yes.

[Bryan Preston]

You have options.

[Heather]

Yes.

[Bo Hanson]

Good options.

[Bryan Preston]

That's a testament.

[Heather]

Not hard options either.

[Bo Hanson]

Yeah. This isn't like, oh, my God, we got a bowl of bag of potatoes, and that's what we're gonna be eating for the next week. You guys rock and roll for all the sacrifice early on.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Bo Hanson]

You got good options.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Chris]

And, you know, I look at the numbers a lot, and it is nice knowing that it's not just me. That. Because I can see, look at the numbers, like, I think we're okay, but, you know, I don't do this for a living, so. Yeah, it's kind of good confirmation.

[Bryan Preston]

I don't imagine. If I were to ask you a week ago, hey, Chris, do you think in the next week you're going to get a call that's going to rock your world? You wouldn't have said that. But. But because you guys did the thing early on, because you saved 25% of your gross, because you practiced deferred gratification, because you thought about the future, you are in a position right now that when life threw an unknown unknown at.

[Bo Hanson]

You, it threw a grenade.

[Bryan Preston]

It didn't derail you, it didn't throw you off. And you guys are far enough in the journey that you get to choose what your next pivot looks like. Are we going to just track better and figure out what our spend is? Am I going to go find another job making the same income and do that for a few more years, or am I going to go find a job and a hobby and a passion that I love and do that forever? You guys kind of get to be in the driver's seat defining what the next phase of your life looks like.

[Bo Hanson]

I want to give y' all credit. We talk about different phases of wealth building, and I think for a lot of people, and this is why it's so important, when you're young, you have to kind of have them make the wealth phase. Whereas I feel like sometimes young people, when they start making good money, you. You admitted, Chris, early on in the 90s, it was easy to go make good. I think a lot of people just assume forever they'll be in this type of scenario. So if you disrespect the make wealth phase, where you actually use the ingredient of discipline, then when you get to post 45, where you kind of need to be in the maintained wealth phase, you're kind of struggling or scrambling to play catch up because you did all the make wealth phases, you're maintained even With a grenade thrown in. In the middle of this, I felt so happy, because the good news is Beau and I had already run through some of this thinking we were going to talk about a normal retirement. And then that's when Megan came and gave us the news. I already had this peace of mind for you guys because we were like, oh, my gosh, the timing couldn't be better for y' all to come on the show, because I think now y' all's journey back home is going to be. Y' all good to have discussions. And I'm going, I know Bo's about to share your homework with you, but I think a big part. Y' all. Y' all's homework is different than a lot of our guests, because a lot of our guests was like a checklist of this, this, and this. You guys, is more of the journey now, of all of the sacrifice and discipline of the good years is now paring fruit that you get to kind of think about what is life? What's the life we want to live from this day forward. And that's kind of exciting.

[Bryan Preston]

All right, you guys ready for the homework?

[Chris]

Sure.

[Bryan Preston]

All right, here's the homework. First thing I have for you, you said this is one of your goals. I want to track better. One of the things I want to do is track better. Well, this is a wonderful time to start doing that. So as you go home, figure out what's your system going to be for tracking better. Are we $9,000 spenders? Are we $12,000 spenders? Are we 10,500 spenders? Are we somewhere in between? So one of the homeworks, figure out what system you guys are going to implement together so that you have confidence around the tracking that you're doing. The next thing you got to do is figure out, based on the three Ds that we laid out, based on the doo doo, based on the dream, and then based on the down to earth, which option are you going to pursue? We have a favorite, and I don't want to lay this on you, but I'll tell you our favorite. We love the idea of you going out and making not the same income that you were making, but if you could go out and make an income of like $60,000 doing what you love, and you allow those dollars to continue to grow from now until you get to normal retirement age, you just have to get a whole lot less creative. Because we didn't talk about this, but we could look at your account structure and where you have to pull dollars from right now. And you could do it like there is a scenario, but you have to do stuff like tap into your Roth IRAs and that sort of thing. And, man, if you could just let those dollars grow from 51 where you are now to just 59 and a half or maybe 65, it just makes it a whole lot. I don't want to say easier, but it makes it a whole lot easier. So it's one of those things. I think that's a great scenario for you to consider. But you guys have to figure out, what do you ultimately want? What do you want this next phase to look like? And then your last thing is build the next steps. If that's the case, what is the first next thing that you're going to do? Is it brush up on your resume? Is it begin making connections? Is it start looking for the opportunities that can give you paid gigs? Right now, you'll know that better than anyone else, but you have to start the process of moving in that direction. And you guys get to define what are the next 40 years look like. Now that we're at this pivot point.

[Bo Hanson]

Everybody assumes that things are easier, especially when they see success. But the reality of that, and we see it all the time with our clients, is that, man, it's not the straight line. The financial order of operations isn't even a linear process. There's going to be steps back and there's even times where you have to dust yourself off and figure out where you go. But, I mean, I got so excited just knowing that we got to have this conversation, have this discussion about how you can live your great big beautiful tomorrow. I just feel so fulfilled knowing that y' all made the sacrifice early on. And that's why anybody who watches our content, and even for people who get a late start, just do something. Today is the day to make action happen so you can start building your great big beautiful tomorrow. And that's why both others want to join and come on or even know how to become part of making a millionaire. What do they need to do?

[Bryan Preston]

Yeah, if you'd like to be on Making a Millionaire, you can go to moneyguy.com apply or if you want to access any of our free resources, you go to moneyguy.com resources.

[Bo Hanson]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming on. You've been great. I'm your host, Brian Preston. Mr. Bo Hanson. Money Got Team Out.

[Narrator]

Making a Millionaire is hosted by Bryan Preston and Bo Hanson. Brian and Bo are partners at Abound Wealth Management. Abound Wealth Management is a registered investment advisory firm regulated by the securities and Exchange Commission in accordance and compliance with the securities laws and regulations. Abound Wealth Management does not render or offer to render personalized investment or tax advice through Making A Millionaire. The information provided is for informational purposes only, may not be suitable for all investors, and does not constitute financial, tax, investment, or legal advice. All investments involve a degree of risk, including the risk of loss. The guests featured on Making a Millionaire are not clients of Abound Wealth Management.

[Bryan Preston]

At the time of recording.

[Narrator]

Their participation should not be considered a testimonial or endorsement of Abound Wealth Management.