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Farnoosh Torabi
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Dr. Annie Cole
Are you ready to take control of your finances and build the life you've always dreamed of? I'm Jessica Morehouse, a Canadian money expert, accredited financial counselor, best selling author and host of More Money. Each week I bring you inspiring interviews and practical advice to help you make smarter financial decisions. Tune in to More Money on your favorite podcast platform and let's start your journey to financial empowerment today.
Farnoosh Torabi
So Money Episode 1829 how to afford a Micro Retirement at Any Age. You're listening to so Money with award winning money guru Farnoosh Torabi. Each day get a 30 minute dose of financial inspiration from the world, world's top business minds, authors, influencers and from Farnoosh herself. Looking for ways to save on gas or double your double coupons. Sorry, you're in the wrong place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life. Welcome to so Money.
Dr. Annie Cole
Everything we do related to money is grounded in how our brain works. You have unconscious beliefs that have been ingrained in you since the time you were little. You watched your parents either struggle with money or you lived in a nice house with means that were greater than your needs. You learned so much about money along the way and you're still learning all those things. And those things are subconsciously impacting everything you do.
Farnoosh Torabi
Welcome to Sew Money, everybody.
Jessica Morehouse
I'm Farnoosh Tarabi. We're talking about a lot of things.
Farnoosh Torabi
Today, including the micro retirement trend. Are you aware of this? Taking intentional breaks from work to rest, reflect and recharge. Whether you're in your 30s, your 40s, or beyond. Our guest today has a blueprint for how to afford these career pauses without derailing your financial future. Dr. Annie Cole is our guest. She's a financial coach, educator, and the founder of Money Essentials. She has a doctorate in learning and leading with a focus in neuro education. And she's on a mission to help women understand the brain science behind their money habits and build wealth on their own terms. Dr. Andy's personal journey is very inspiring. She began earning just $26,000 a year like I did once upon a time, and is now on track to retire by age 41. All while staying aligned with her values, avoiding lifestyle creep. That's a big one. And creating financial freedom through investing and intentional living. She also has a four phase plan for financial independence. So we have her break that down, talking about also the psychology behind our money block and again exploring this popular concept of micro retirement, which I'm not sure if we can all really afford that right now, but she offers a compelling case.
Jessica Morehouse
Let's get into it. Dr. Annie Cole, welcome to Sew Money.
Dr. Annie Cole
Thanks for having me. So excited to be here today.
Jessica Morehouse
We're going to talk about a lot of interesting issues pertaining to money and work. I'm going to learn so much from you about the micro retirement. What is that? But also you have such an interesting perch. You work closely with women. You have a doctorate in education in learning and leading, I should say from the University of Portland with a concentration in neuro education. So right off the bat, Dr. Annie, I. I'm really interested to hear what you have discovered about how the brain works in the context of personal finance, our relationship with money. As you were getting this, this degree, did you cover personal finance at all in the context of neuro education?
Dr. Annie Cole
Such a great question. And you know what's funny is I never planned to start a business as a financial coach. It really just came out of this personal passion and personal life experience of learning how to budget, to invest in the stock market, to advocate for myself. And so when I was studying education, I really was learning about how the brain works, how adults learn. And I was thinking I was going to use it in an educational context and become potentially a teacher. And so nowadays I think of myself as a teacher, but in the financial education space and specifically doing it through coaching and also some online courses. So, honestly, what I see, the biggest piece that overlaps there is that everything we do related to money is grounded in how our brain works. You have unconscious beliefs that have been ingrained in you since the time you were little. You watched your parents either struggle with money or you lived in a nice house with means that were greater than your needs. You learned so much about money along the way, and you're still learning all of those things, and those things are subconsciously impacting everything you do. So I could go a million different directions, but I think that's the core of what we need to realize is that a lot of what we do is subconsciously happening.
Jessica Morehouse
Right. I was reading an article that you wrote on Business Insider. Catchy headline, where you're on track to retire at 45. I'm 45, by the way, so I'm leaning in on this. And you started your career earning $26,000. Also my life. And you followed a four phase plan to get to where you want to be. One of those phases included changing your money mindset. Can you. Can you walk us through these four pH. The first being again, changing your money mindset. Where you had a thought pop up in your mind, like, what if I just went for something bigger, which is not something, I guess we often think we can do in our financial lives. We're making $26,000 a year. What am I supposed to do?
Dr. Annie Cole
Yeah, and I think there's so many of us that are stuck in that trap. I think the average salary is somewhere around between 50 and $60,000 right now. So imagine, you know, you. That's just average. So whatever we see as average, we're going to expect. I think we also, you know, total side note, we're seeing on social media people making $10,000 a month, a hundred thousand dollars. So our what's normal is being very skewed. But basically, think about it this way, your beliefs are going to be grounded in whatever you're exposed to over and over and over again. And then those are going to be your expectations, and those are going to be your beliefs. So for me, for example, I was going to school for psychology, went off and got my degree as a social worker, and it was normalized that you're going to sacrifice if you want to help people, especially in social work, you're going to sacrifice money. That's just the norm. So it took me a while, honestly, it was sparked by the financial hardship of just trying to live off of $26,000, where I finally realized, I just can't do this. And so I took a bridge job, started to rethink what I wanted to do, figured out how to go back to school and thought about specific careers I could have that would pay a little bit more and then have had multiple epiphanies since then. But it was kind of a reality check mental shift of I just can't do this. And I guess I could have thought, you know, I'm just going to be stuck in this. But something inside of me said, I want to make a change.
Jessica Morehouse
So phase two in the article, you're right. Like we got to learn how to provide massive value. And I'm thinking to myself, you know, we might have studied something like a liberal arts degree or education, where again, it's ingrained like you're not going to make millions of dollars, you're not going to probably even make six figures, at least not right away or for the beginning of your career. How can you actually do that? What is the value that you need to add to get to a higher number?
Dr. Annie Cole
I think this is so critical. So if you think about money at the root of money, it's really just a value exchange. If we didn't have corporate environments, we didn't have job boards, we would be walking around literally trying to say, how could I give you something so that you would give me something back? And then we have created all these structures to do that in the form of jobs. That's why value is so important. So if you have a job, let's say you have an entry level job, you're a graphic designer, if you show up every day and you do the minimum you're going to get by, it's going to be fine. You probably won't get fired if you create some sort of unique leverage like you do it for faster than anyone else, or you have more vibrant colors or your design is leading to better conversion rate. Whatever your unique leverage is, that's where you can lean into providing unique value. And the more your value is unique to you, the more you're going to become irreplaceable and probably very promotable and someone who people want to have stick around. And if you go into the freelance space, you're going to be able to probably charge more because you have such a unique skill set. So that's where value starts to intersect with how much money you can make.
Jessica Morehouse
Yeah, it reminds me of a really life changing story Honestly, on this podcast, this couple was on the show, both teachers, and they wanted to make more money. I think one was a librarian, another taught, I think math, and also was like a football coach at school. And they realized, and this is like something we talk about so much on this podcast, that they were simply making money from what they did, not from what they know. So the knowledge economy tends to pay more in terms of value, right? In terms instead of like the doing economy, which is very transactional, I'm going to pay you to like run the library. But what they had too, that they weren't monetizing was all the knowledge they had that went into the jobs they were doing that they could then teach to other prospective teachers or current teachers. So they started to turn their syllabus, their syllabi, for example, into templates for other teachers and selling those online. The coach started to turn his coaching techniques into like a downloadable online. And eventually those extra revenue streams made it so that they could literally like quit their teaching jobs. Wow. Then they started like a whole online school about monetizing online. Because through that they also learned, you know, the importance of having a funnel and marketing and all the digital stuff that goes into creating an online business. And so just a snapshot, one example. But it was life changing for me to hear that.
Dr. Annie Cole
Right.
Jessica Morehouse
Because now I tell people from that story, you make money in two ways. What you do and what you know. And what you know is usually way more monetizable. It's more flexible too. You can do it online, you can do it on your own schedule. So I totally hear what you're saying. And I co sign. Also, phase three investing. Let's talk about that. So you're making $26,000 a year, as I was. And there's no, it's like, this is not possible. I have student loans, I have my rent, I have to feed myself. Now you want me to invest. And by the way, kicker, the benefit of this won't be achieved until I'm like in my 60s. So. Talk about delaying gratification. How did you do it?
Dr. Annie Cole
I think that's one of the biggest pieces that holds people back from investing, honestly. And you know, when we get about into the micro retirement topic, I also think it's a reason why people are trying to enjoy their life now and because you're going to have to wait so long to enjoy retirement and the fruits of your labor. So investing is something that definitely you have to be thinking long term and you have to have some sort of a carrot or motivator to get you to do it. The only reason I did it is because my employer offered it and happened to have this match. And so that was what got me. It was the match. You know, I'm going to put this money in, they're going to match it. I honestly, I think I was putting away $20 a month. It was ridiculously small. But I remember telling myself back then, I went to so many, you know, the retirement presentations, the workshops where they said, if you do this, this is what will happen in the long term. And I bought into that. And so for me, it wasn't even the dollar amount. It was, I'm going to set up this habit now because it's only going to get harder. I'm going to make more money, it's going to be more enjoyable. I'm going to have kids or a house. At that point, my finances were actually probably the best they were going to be as far as expenses. So I just made it a habit young. And then as I made more, I purposefully tried to avoid lifestyle creep and then upped what I could invest, which is honestly the biggest reason why I'm able to retire so early because I front loaded and put so much in while I was young.
Jessica Morehouse
A lot of this is just getting into the habit, but you brushed over something really critical, which is you avoided lifestyle creep. I think this is such a universal challenge where you know, you're making what you're making and you think, okay, if only I could make this much more and then you make that much more. But then you're still on this hamster wheel. You're never feeling like you're catching up. And at a place where, you know all your buckets are filled, there's always lack. How do you do it?
Dr. Annie Cole
Yeah, there's two main things that I do. So One is that I really try to align my spending with my values and I will spend large amounts on the things that matter to me. So my house is a big one for me. I won't spend money. Like I never get my nails done. I. I literally won't even go get a haircut. You know, there's something that just don't matter to me. Organic groceries, taking hair looks lovely, by the way.
Jessica Morehouse
I'm like, how is that possible?
Dr. Annie Cole
Well, my mom actually is a hairdresser, so I have her sneak up and cut my hair every now and then. So, yeah, you know, there's pieces like that where I won't spend money on that. And then groceries, I will spend a lot on groceries. Because my husband and I cook together almost every night of the week and it's this huge, you know, connector for us, and it's really fun and we're really into nutrition. So find the things that you want to spend money on, spend the money on those, and then avoid the things that you don't really find value in. So, you know, it's, it's usually the things like the Uber eats or something that you're spending on, but you don't really want to. The more you can habitualize not spending on those things, the better you'll feel overall. So that's definitely a big one. And then the second thing that I, I do myself and I always promote is find a lot of things that you love that are free. A lot of times the research is going to tell you that you will fall in love with your life when you have a sense of purpose, strong connections, those things are really simple. You could just be having dinner with friends a couple of nights a week, and that doesn't cost you anything extra. You might want to go on walks. Doesn't cost anything extra. So, you know, just find the things that you really love that will make you feel fulfilled. And when we have a fulfilled life, we're less likely to go try to find that joy in spending.
Jessica Morehouse
All right, we're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, we're going to talk about micro retirement, which is not exactly quitting your job, but maybe quitting for a little.
Farnoosh Torabi
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Dr. Annie Cole
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Jessica Morehouse
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Dr. Annie Cole
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Jessica Morehouse
All right, we're back with Dr. Annie and you just went through the four phases of how you became on track to retire at 45. Are you 45 yet?
Dr. Annie Cole
No, I'm 36, so I have nine more years. Honestly, I'm on track at this point to retire even earlier. I think these days it's more like 41. But I, I will say a lot of people have asked, you know, what are you going to do when you retire? I, I love what I'm doing so much now. And I've been able to create this work life balance where I do the work I love and make good money that I may not even retire. The goal for me is to always have options. That's what money does. It gives you freedom, options to do what I want to do.
Jessica Morehouse
Amen. Because, yeah, 41. And just, you know, people think retirement is just like, like lounging on a beach, golf. I don't know. That's. First of all, I don't even want that for my actual retirement. But we, we're, we're busy people. We like to keep busy. We like to make impact. Well, speaking of retirement, the micro retirement is making its round on social media. I love social media for this. It's like they put a new name to sometimes what is a tried and true trend. And this is called, and this time we're talking about micro retirement. Can you tell us what this is, what you think of it? And we'll get into more of the how. But what is it essentially?
Dr. Annie Cole
Yep. So I love this topic. I am so obsessed with the micro retirement because I think no matter what you call it, the goal is taking care of yourself and it's finding work life balance, which so many people these days are burnt out and need to be taking care of themselves. So I think it's, it's trying to solve a major problem across our globe right now. And what a micro retirement is, is really just taking a break from work. It can take lots of different formats. So you could be saying, I'm going to quit my job cold turkey and take a year off to travel. I'm going to take an intentional one month break from work and plan it out with my employer. So it's either paid or unpaid time off. I'm going to take two weeks off using my pto. So it could be a lot of different things and a lot of different lengths of time, but the goal is the same. It's always, I want to take care of myself, I want to replenish, I want to stop working for a little bit and just focus on me.
Jessica Morehouse
It reminds me of a book that my friend Neha Roosh wrote called the Power Pause. Now, in that book, she's talking about stay at home mothering, by and large, stay at home parenting. But as you're describing this micro retirement, it kind of resembles. What she's describing is like you're intentionally taking a break from your career, a pause, if you will. And it's not like you're going to maybe like, to your point, maybe you're going to go travel, but for others, it's like, I'm going to spend more time with my family because that's what I'm prioritizing right now. As we know, it's so hard to balance work and family in this country with such few resources. I think this has, like a real wide application where we think of this as like a social media trend. Oh, we're just talking to Gen Z or the younger workforce. But I think this is applicable to anyone who is on, you know, in the workforce, whether you're looking to do this as a. Because as a parent, it's important to you, or for your own mental health or, you know, you're in transition, you're like done with this industry and you want to figure out next steps. The big question is, though, how do you afford it?
Dr. Annie Cole
Yep.
Jessica Morehouse
How do you afford it?
Dr. Annie Cole
And I think that's where it's really important. You use the word intentional a lot. And I. That's what I always come back to, too. You want to be really intentional because if you just, let's say you quit your job cold turkey and you say, I just need a break, what are you going to get out of that break again? Do you want to spend time with family? Do you actually need to connect with a therapist and get some real support? Because you are burnt out and you're experiencing psychological symptoms that you need to take care of. So being intentional as much as possible is going to be powerful because that means you're going into it with intention, so intentional about the outcome and then intentional about your finances. So if you can plan ahead, if you're not in a place where you need to take an emergency mental health break, you might decide you're going to set aside a certain amount and you basically backwards plan. So I know that I'm Going to take, you know, 45 day break. I've planned it with my employer. I'm going to use part pto, I'm going to part save up for it. You could financially plan for that so that you've set it up in advance. If you are going to take a whole year off in between jobs, you're done with your industry, you want to move on. In that case, maybe you want to look at all of your assets. So what do you have in savings? You know, I recommend you are not pulling out your retirement or anything else that's going to be really important to have over the long term. But potentially savings or one way you can do it is to pick up some sort of gig work or freelance work. Even though you want to take a break. There is a version of micro retirement where you just do something very light. Maybe you go part time at work or you try some freelance work to have the income. So really crunching the numbers and finding out this is how much it will cost to cover my expenses during this break. And then this is the different ways I'm going to bring income in or savings or whatever to cover that amount. So you know exactly what you're going to do going into it.
Jessica Morehouse
Intentionality is really important also because you need a narrative when you're going back in the workforce. Let's say you're not going back to the same employer where they already know the situation, they've already agreed with on all this with you. But if you're looking to do a micro retirement so that you can get into another field, what's the story that you share? And I guess you want to be as honest as possible, but it's all marketing. You know, you want to, yeah, you want to make sure you're branding this and could it, could calling it a micro retirement versus other things be beneficial? Like I'm always curious why certain names are speaking to the times versus like just calling this a break or calling this a sabbatical, which is what often employers. Some employers provide. You know, they've been providing that for decades.
Dr. Annie Cole
Yeah, if it was me, if I had taken a break and then I was coming back. I think like you said, the narrative is always most important when you're looking to, to get hired. People want to understand again, they want to know what is the value you're providing. So I would create a narrative that is tied to the value you're going to bring to that job. So if you want to call it a microtiment, you can. The hiring manager may have no idea what you're talking about. You could call it a break, but whatever you do, I would focus on what you got out of it. That is making you even more amazing for the job you're coming into. Because also hiring managers know people are burnt out. People sometimes aren't really passionate or committed to the job they want to come into. So if you have this, this renewed energy or this like I did this thing, I traveled to this place, I discovered this issue. Now I can't wait to make a difference in this field. That would be an amazing story. So I would just think about it that way. And also know you can share as much or as little as you want. You don't have to share a lot about your break if you don't want to. You can just say I took a gap year and now I'm reentering the market. I mean, frame it however you want. There's really no right answer.
Jessica Morehouse
What about like the fact that right now we don't want to, we don't want to be job hunting right now. It's a really tough hiring market depending of course on your industry. But you know, I'm thinking of like the federal government. Like, you know, people are getting laid off left and right. Grants are going away, so teaching jobs might be going away. And so it begs the question, like, is this the right time to be micro retiring? If your goal is to reenter the workforce in the next three to six to nine months, yeah, I think you.
Dr. Annie Cole
Should first think about low hanging fruit ways to take care of yourself. Because I mean, to be completely honest, there might, it might not be the right time to take a micro retirement. Maybe you're planning up for something that you're going to take next year or over the long term if it's not financially possible for you. It should not be a dichotomous, I'm going to take a micro retirement or I'm going to do nothing. It should be I'm going to take care of myself in small ways. Because what we see in the research again is that folks are burnt out. They're not using their pto, they're not using their benefits. So use the things you already have. Take days off, take real days off. Go and use your benefits to meet with a counselor or get the mental health support you need for burnout. Plan your day in a way that does all of the little things that promote well being, like eating good food, getting good sleep, seeing people that care about you. Those are very tiny things that we let go when we get Busy. And we don't realize that they compound on each other. So if you're not doing them, they compound and make us feel crappy. But when you add those things back in, they also can compound to make you feel like you have the energy to push through. So think really small if financially it's just not an option. You have lots of tiny things you can still do.
Jessica Morehouse
Yeah. Wow. All right, let's shift gears a little bit to offer some more advice to listeners who might feel stuck, they might feel late to the personal finance journey of saving and building wealth. As someone who has done it and has so much to teach, what do you say to people who worry that they're, like, too late to the game to build wealth to retire early? They'd love to get on these trends, they'd love to invest, but they're really struggling and they're not early in their careers. There may be folks who have dependence, children, parents. You know, the sandwich generation is something that you speak to often. So just want to get some advice from you as well for those folks.
Dr. Annie Cole
Yeah, I think I could probably say all day long, don't feel limited. You know, you. You can restart at any age. And even saying that sometimes folks will feel like, well, what does that really mean? And so one of the things I think is most powerful is to actually do some number crunching, because the numbers won't lie. And there are lots of ways you could crunch the numbers to say, well, actually, if you were to work with a career counselor and you got into a job that paid 10,000 more per year, here's what that would do. Or if you added a hundred more dollars a month to your retirement account, now this is how much it would impact your retirement date and cut it back by this much. If you start paying off your debt in this way with this strategy, you'll be debt free in this many months. So moving the financial planning, I think that's where the power lies, because that's where people see the reality and the options and they suddenly go from, I have no idea, it's all in my head to like, oh, I see how I could get out of this. I see how I could get to where I want to be. And all of a sudden they're excited. They have all this hope, and it's real. Like, it's real numbers that they can act on instead of just ideas or these mantras of, like, you can do it. You know, there's. There's real numbers telling you what's possible.
Jessica Morehouse
Yeah, well, and share what's the brain science behind that? Because as you're speaking, I'm getting it right. At first it feels like you're climbing a mountain, but you take that first step and then that leads to the second and the third step, like there's something to be said. And again, this could be back to like, how our brains are wired about just getting started. It's like getting up in the morning, just, you know, you don't want to go to the gym, you know, but just like putting on your clothes like you're. You're halfway there, you know, and so. But yeah, how do you actually get to doing that first step? I want to look at the numbers, but I'm afraid that's usually the hardest phase.
Dr. Annie Cole
It is the hardest phase and there's a lot of research about around building habits. I love the book the Power of Habit. It gives some really practical research back, tips on how to start habits, like, you know, leaving out your shoes by the door so that it's really easy to go to the gym, things like that. So I would say when it comes to getting it off the ground and figuring not all of your numbers, set up an appointment with someone who can do that work with you. Because a lot of times people will offer free consultations. It's completely off your shoulders to do it on your own. And then once you have that plan laid out and you have the motivation and the excitement there, you can take that first step, which will give you confidence and the energy to keep going with the other steps. So honestly, I would start there with some sort of consultation because if you're trying to do it on your own, and again, you have it all in your head, but you don't even know how to write it down. I could give you a step by step strategy on this podcast, but it would probably, you know, take quite a bit of time. It'd be way better if you just hopped on a call with me or another financial specialist and we just walk through that with you. That way you don't feel alone and we can just start to lay it all out.
Jessica Morehouse
What are the biggest questions people are coming to you with today in 2025 with so much uncertainty, we're halfway to a recession if we get another quarter of negative growth and we're technically in a recession. And I'm just curious, taking us behind the scenes of what is the sentiment right now and how are you showing up for your clients? Best?
Dr. Annie Cole
Yeah, it's definitely around investing and then so many folks are leaning into working for themselves. I would say A huge majority of my audience is actually trying to work for themselves and either become some sort of a coach, online business owner, create digital products. And I don't know if that's just bias towards me. Those are the people I've attracted. But honestly, so many women that I work with are trying to figure out how to get clients online, how to get their business off the ground, how to do both. There's a lot of people I'm talking to who are doing a 9 to 5 and also trying to start their business. So people are exploring self employment at rates that I have never seen before. I mean just the percent of people that are talking about it is those. Yeah.
Jessica Morehouse
And I mean you think like we hit, you know, a ceiling there, you know, with like the Internet and like Covid and people from working from home. But I get it, you know, there's, there's uncertainty on both sides, but it seems like more and more there's uncertainty in the corporate world with everything that's happening, tariffs and et cetera.
Dr. Annie Cole
Yep, I think that's definitely true. And it's, I think it's also people wanting to feel empowered and in control. So there's been a lot of news lately about rolling back work from home options, which I, I personally think is a bad move. I feel like as you know, the micro retirement quiet, quitting all the pieces, it's showing us that people are already really frustrated with the way employment works. And then you have all these people trying to be self employed. If we're moving away from giving employees what they need, I think we're just going to keep pushing them away. So I hope employers are thoughtful. I know they're thinking about it, but it's just such a fine line between keeping your employees engaged and having them on just leave.
Jessica Morehouse
Well, I'd love for people to come find you. So tell us, what's the best way?
Dr. Annie Cole
Yeah, the best place is going to be my website. So it's money-essentials.com so many goodies there. You can work with me. I also have a team of about 25 different experts, experts that you can connect with because my goal for Money Essentials for women is that you pop in and you get all of your money questions answered. So we have debt specialists, divorce specialists, tax strategists, career coaches, a blog. We do tons of online events. We have about 14 different events coming up soon. And they're again on topics from tax strategy to how to start a side hustle. So check it out. My book is also there, 101 ways to build wealth. If you want to grab it, it's just $10 for the ebook. And again, 101 tips from my own journey and what helped me build all.
Jessica Morehouse
Dr. Annie Cole, thank you so much.
Dr. Annie Cole
Thanks for having me.
Farnoosh Torabi
Thanks so much to Dr. Annie Cole for joining us. To learn more about her, visit our links in our show notes and I'll see you back here on Friday for a fresh episode of Ask Farnoosh. I hope your day is so Money.
Dr. Annie Cole
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Podcast Summary: So Money with Farnoosh Torabi – Episode 1829: How to Afford a Micro Retirement at Any Age
Release Date: May 21, 2025
In Episode 1829 of So Money with Farnoosh Torabi, host Farnoosh Torabi delves into the increasingly popular concept of micro retirement. Featuring expert insights from Dr. Annie Cole, a renowned financial coach and founder of Money Essentials, the episode provides listeners with actionable strategies to afford leisure-filled breaks from work without compromising their long-term financial stability.
Dr. Annie Cole joins Farnoosh as a distinguished financial strategist with a doctorate in learning and leading, specializing in neuro-education. Her mission is to empower women by elucidating the brain science behind financial habits and guiding them to build wealth aligned with their personal values.
[02:50] Dr. Annie Cole: "Everything we do related to money is grounded in how our brain works. You have unconscious beliefs that have been ingrained in you since the time you were little."
Dr. Cole shares her four-phase plan that propelled her from earning $26,000 annually to being on track for retirement by age 41. This structured approach is designed to help anyone, irrespective of their current financial standing, achieve financial freedom and afford micro retirements.
The journey begins with a fundamental shift in how one perceives money. Dr. Cole emphasizes the importance of aligning one's financial beliefs with their ambitions rather than societal averages or expectations.
[07:03] Dr. Annie Cole: "It was sparked by the financial hardship of just trying to live off of $26,000, where I finally realized, I just can't do this."
Key Insights:
Increasing income is closely tied to the value one offers in their professional capacity. Dr. Cole discusses how enhancing one's unique value can lead to higher earnings and greater financial opportunities.
[08:55] Dr. Annie Cole: "The more your value is unique to you, the more you're going to become irreplaceable and probably very promotable."
Key Insights:
Investing is crucial for long-term financial growth, but many are hesitant due to immediate financial constraints. Dr. Cole shares her approach to habitually investing, even with modest amounts.
[12:19] Dr. Annie Cole: "I front-loaded and put so much in while I was young... that's why I'm able to retire so early."
Key Insights:
Maintaining financial discipline by preventing expenses from rising in tandem with income boosts financial security and accelerates the path to retirement.
[14:31] Dr. Annie Cole: "Spend money on the things that matter to you and avoid the things that don't. This alignment keeps your spending in check."
Key Insights:
Micro retirement is defined as taking intentional breaks from work to rest, reflect, and recharge. Unlike traditional retirement, micro retirements can occur multiple times throughout one's career and do not require complete withdrawal from the workforce.
[21:17] Dr. Annie Cole: "A micro retirement is really just taking a break from work to take care of yourself and find work-life balance."
Key Insights:
Affording a micro retirement hinges on intentional financial planning and clear goal setting. Dr. Cole outlines strategies to make such breaks financially viable without derailing one's financial future.
[23:24] Dr. Annie Cole: "Be intentional about your finances. Plan ahead by saving specifically for your micro retirement and explore ways to generate income during the break."
Strategies Include:
Financial decisions are deeply intertwined with psychological factors. Dr. Cole emphasizes understanding and addressing these subconscious beliefs to enable sound financial planning.
[29:05] Dr. Annie Cole: "Engaging in financial planning transitions people from feeling stuck to seeing real, actionable options."
Key Insights:
Maintaining financial discipline, especially as income increases, is crucial for achieving financial independence and affording micro retirements.
[14:04] Dr. Annie Cole: "Align your spending with what truly matters to you and find free activities that fulfill you."
Strategies Include:
For those who feel they are behind on their financial journey, Dr. Cole offers encouragement and practical advice to overcome feelings of being "too late" to build significant wealth.
[29:47] Dr. Annie Cole: "Don't feel limited. Restart at any age by crunching the numbers and creating a realistic plan."
Key Insights:
Amidst economic uncertainties, including the potential onset of a recession, Dr. Cole addresses current financial sentiments and offers guidance on adapting to changing circumstances.
[32:36] Dr. Annie Cole: "People are increasingly interested in self-employment and entrepreneurship as a means to gain financial control."
Key Insights:
Episode 1829 of So Money with Farnoosh Torabi offers a comprehensive exploration of micro retirement, providing listeners with a blueprint to achieve financial independence and personal fulfillment. Dr. Annie Cole's expert insights underscore the importance of mindset, value creation, disciplined investing, and intentional spending in building a life that accommodates both work and well-deserved breaks.
For further resources and personalized financial strategies, listeners are encouraged to visit Money Essentials and engage with Dr. Cole’s wide array of services and educational materials.
Notable Quotes:
About So Money with Farnoosh Torabi
So Money is an acclaimed podcast recognized by The New York Times, Time Magazine, Real Simple, and MSNBC as one of the best in its genre. Hosted by Farnoosh Torabi, an award-winning financial strategist, TV host, and bestselling author, the show has amassed over 40 million downloads and multiple Webby Awards. Each episode features conversations with top financial leaders, authors, and entrepreneurs, offering listeners practical advice on saving, investing, and building wealth through an inclusive and equitable lens. To access exclusive content and join a community of like-minded individuals, visit SoMoneyMembers.com.