The Step-By-Step Guide to Self-Funding Your Retirement!

Transcript:

On this episode of the personal finance podcast, the step by step guide to self funding your retirement.

Welcome to the personal finance podcast. I'm your host, Andrew founder of master money. co and today on the personal finance podcast, We're going to be talking through the step by step guide to self funding your retirement. If you guys have any questions, make sure to hit us up on the master money newsletter by going to master money.

co slash newsletter, and you can sign up for the news letter there. And you can respond to any of those emails and those will come directly to my inbox. And don't forget to follow us on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or whatever your favorite podcast player is. And if you're getting value out of this show.

Consider leaving a five star rating and review on Apple podcasts or Spotify. Can I thank you guys enough for following the show and leaving those five star ratings and reviews. It truly does help us grow this show and cannot thank you guys enough. Also, we are finalizing the brand new master money.

really excited about that. So you're going to see a lot more YouTube content coming out. So if you go to the Andrew Giancola YouTube channel, if you just go on YouTube and put my name in, that is going to have all of our podcast episodes. It's going to have our original YouTube content. And a lot of the YouTube videos that we're going to be doing are based on this exact subject, things like retirement, Things like breaking down index funds and ETFs and kind of diving deeper into some of them, things like talking through personal financial situations.

And so there's a lot of cool things that we're going to be doing on the YouTube channel as well. And so if you're interested in that stuff, make sure you check that out. Now, today we're going to be diving into the step by step guide to self funding your retirement. And this is a really, really important subject because I think a lot of people at least need to understand the steps that they need to take in order to be able to retire.

So I'm going to give you all the steps. That I want you to think through and consider in this episode so that you understand how exactly this works. And this stem from a question from a reader of the newsletter that came across and said, Hey, can you do an episode on how exactly you can actually self fund your retirement?

And so we're going to talk through that as well. Also. If you are self employed on the back end of this episode, I'll give you some additional options. If you are self employed on some things to consider, uh, because I think there are some additional things that you want to make sure that you are doing if you are self employed.

So this is an action packed episodes without further ado, let's get into it. All right. So we're going to get right into this episode. And the first thing I want you to think through is that I want everybody listening to this podcast and know one thing at the top of the show. I truly believe that every single one of you will be able to retire.

If you could follow these simple principles that we're going to be talking about in this episode. Now, if you've been listening to this podcast a long time, or if you're brand new to this podcast, stick with us, because we're going to give you as many principles as we possibly can in the coming episodes this year, that are going to be helping you be able to retire.

Even if you feel like it's too late, if you're in your thirties, if you're in your forties, if you in your fifties and you're saying to yourself, man, I didn't save in my twenties. I feel like it's too late. It is never too late to start saving retirement and putting together a retirement plan. I'm going to show you how to plan for this to day.

I truly believe that you can do this. I know you can do this. And so just listening through this episode is going to be the first step that you take towards your financial education to be able to do this. So number one. The number one thing I want you to do is we're going to assess our retirement needs.

Now, when I coach people and I help people through some of this process, this is one of the hardest things to come up with because the question is, well, how much do I actually need in retirement? I really have no idea, but we can put together a plan that's going to help us figure out what this number is.

And when we put together a plan, we want to make sure that we also adjust for changes. And so when it comes to retirement, you don't want to play games with not having flexibility and making sure that you're just right on that fine line of what your retirement number is. Now you want to give yourself additional cushion and flexibility.

The retirement game is all about being fluid, baby. It's all about being able to be flexible when it comes to different situations. And so we want to make sure that first we figure out what our annual expenses are going to be. And we'll talk through more of these annual expenses as we go through this, but there's a lot of things you're going to have to ask yourself.

How much do you want to travel? Well, most people in retirement travel the first couple of years. And so you want to think through how much you specifically want to travel when it comes to retirement. Secondly, we have to think through healthcare and how healthcare is going to factor into some of these things that we're going to be doing.

Also, what hobbies do you have? Like we talked about in the episode, talking about when you want to retire at age 55, you got to think through your hobbies and how you want to go through that process as well. And so I want you to think through your annual expenses. I want you to go through your expenses now, but think through, am I going to have a mortgage?

Am I going to have these additional expenses with kids and all this other stuff? You want to make sure that you were thinking through all these annual expenses and you add those up. Then I want you to factor in inflation and You're ensuring that your savings are going to be maintaining their purchasing power over time.

And so when we think through some of this stuff, we're going to be factoring in inflation and really think how inflation is going to adjust based on when we retire. And if you plan on retiring for a longer period of time, maybe it's 30 years, maybe it's 20 years, maybe it's 40 years. Who knows when you're retiring, then you want to also make sure that you're thinking through that longevity planning as well.

And so we want to set up a retirement savings goal. This is going to be the most important thing that you start off because this is going to be your North star. It is really important that you make sure you have this goal in place so that this is the indication of where you want to go. This is the big goal, the big idea.

And then we're going to take steps every single day in order to try to achieve this goal. And so the way to figure out this number is first, you're going to take those annual estimated expenses. And so say, for example, you want to spend 60, 000 per year. You're going to take 60, 000 and you're going to use the rule of 25.

So you're going to multiply 60, 000 by 25. And what you're going to get there is the number you need to have in order to be able to retire. And so 60, 000 times 25 is 1. 5 million. If you want to live on 60, 000 per year, and this is based on the 4 percent rule. If you've been listening for a long time, you've heard of the 4 percent rule.

But if you haven't, the 4 percent rule basically States that you can draw down 4 percent of your portfolio. That is the safe withdrawal rate. When you have your dollars invested. You can draw down 4 percent every single year and be able to preserve your wealth throughout retirement. And typically that's about a 30 year portfolio is what the safe withdrawal rate has tested over time.

Now, some people say that this is very conservative. A few people say that it is aggressive. Most people say it's conservative now after they've done a lot of, uh, Additional studies, but then every year thereafter of that 4 percent you're going to adjust for inflation. So every year, year one is going to be 4 percent and inflation is 2%.

You're going to adjust for inflation every year thereafter. So that is exactly how that works. Uh, and so the rule of 25 is just a quick math. It's going to get you there really, really fast. And so it's a really good, quick, Back of the napkin math that you can do. And so everybody listening to this podcast should actually have an idea, at least of what they want that number to be.

So if you want to spend a hundred thousand dollars per year, you multiply that by 25 and you've got yourself 2. 5 million, everybody listening. I want you to do this back at a napkin math. If you've heard me say this a million times, you never actually done the math. I want you to do it. I want you to go out there and do it for a lot of people.

Is very personal based on, you know, your cost of living in your area, and there's a lot of factors that you have coming into play. So you got to make sure that you have some of these numbers that you are thinking through. Now, second thing we need to be doing is as we start to progress through this, we want to make sure that we know how we're going to invest our dollars.

And I personally think that most people, especially Yeah. Most people listening to this podcast, if you're in, you know, the corporate world or you are, even if you own your own business, we want to maximize our retirement accounts. And there are three of them that I think are really, really important to think through.

Number one is most people don't realize this is a retirement account, but it is the HSA, the health savings account. The HSA has triple tax benefits, meaning money goes in tax free. The money will grow tax free and you can pull the money out tax free as long as you have a qualified medical expense. But the qualified medical expense list is getting longer and longer every single year.

Now the cool thing about the HSA is there is no timeline as to when that qualified medical expense has to happen. So you could break your arm when you're 25 and reimburse yourself at the age of 65. Because there is no timeline for those qualified medical expenses. And quick, cool side note, by the way, is that Amazon now has HSA eligible badges on a lot of their products.

So for example, I was looking at something weird the other day. I forgot what it was. Um, but it said, this is HSA eligible. It was something I would never think is HSA eligible. So Amazon, you can actually shop by HSA eligible items, which is really, really cool because you can keep those receipts. And then you can reimburse yourself later on down the line.

So that's a quick tip I just found out, uh, via Amazon. Some of you may have already known that hack, but that is a really, really cool tip. And so this is something where, you know, your HSA is the first one I would look at because the HSA has those triple tax benefits. In addition, healthcare costs are rising rapidly.

And we'll talk a little bit more about this later on in the episode. But healthcare costs are rising at a 7 percent rate every year. The inflation rate for healthcare is 6 to 7 percent a year. That's scary. Honestly, I don't want to, you know, scare you guys on this podcast, but that is something that if you're in your twenties or you're in your thirties, you really got to have a plan for healthcare in the future because the costs just keep rising every single year.

Now, when we come to that, the HSA is first. Secondly is the Roth IRA. Now, the Roth IRA, I love because you contribute money that you've already been taxed on. The money grows tax free and you can pull the money out tax free. And the tax free growth, the growth of your money is the majority, especially if you have a long term time horizon.

And so this is a beautiful thing for people. I've used the example a number of times. If you max out your Roth IRA over the course of 30 years, you're going to have about a million bucks in that account and about 800, 000 thousand of that million dollars is going to be completely tax free money. That is super powerful when it comes to building wealth.

And we want it to try to avoid taxes as much as possible. So making sure we utilize that as another big one. Also, we have the 401k and we have the Roth 401k and the traditional 401k. The 401ks are also another amazing option for retirement specifically because you get a tax deduction upfront. They're pre tax accounts.

So you get a tax deduction up front. Okay. Then when your money is in the 401k, it grows. And then when you pull the money out, then you pay taxes on that money when you pull the money out. And so those three options, which is also like a traditional IRA works a similar way. Those three options are accounts that we definitely want to make sure that we are considering.

Also, if you are listening and you were over the age of 50, you have this cool thing called a catch up Contribution where you can utilize the ketchup contribution to be able to add additional dollars that us below 50 cannot utilize yet. And so the government gives you that option to put in ketchup contributions for each of these accounts as well.

So those are things that I definitely think you should consider. Is making sure that you were thinking through those three accounts. Now also is there's the 403 B and the four 57, which are for, um, government employees. It's the same thing as the 401k at that level. Uh, and so those pre tax accounts are really, really important.

Number three is once we start to do this and we have our retirement accounts and we're working through some of those retirement accounts, we need to decide how we're going to invest our money. So when I'm in retirement accounts, I personally like to invest my money into index funds and ETFs. So index funds, ETFs, pretty much the same thing.

It's different on how they trade and there's some other. Little nuances, but index funds are by far my favorite way to invest. In fact, we have a course called index fund pro, which literally teaches you how to invest in index funds in the exact same way that I do it. And that is why we teach that courses because I think it's such a powerful way to build wealth over time.

And so you got to figure out, Hey, where do you want to invest your dollars? And how do you want to think through this? But also, do you want to diversify your investments? Maybe getting some bond allocation in there. For me, I buy a total bond market index fund. That is the way that I get my bond diversification.

When I add bonds to my portfolio, do you want to add real estate and rental property income to your portfolio? We talk a lot about real estate on this podcast, and it is one that I think a lot of people could, if you're interested in real estate, be successful at and adding some additional income to your retirement.

If you're interested in real estate, that is definitely something that is great to have in retirement to have some cashflow and properties have that diversification of assets. That is a great thing. Now, do you want to deal with tenants and toilets? That's another question because a lot more work than it seems like it is up front, but it is a great investment and I love investing in real estate.

Also cash on hand. You want to make sure that you have some cash on hand in order to be able to take care of various situations. I think in retirement, everybody should have a minimum of one year cash on hand. But really my plan is to have two or three years of cash on hand. That is just what makes me comfortable personally.

That's what reduces my stress and anxiety when it comes to Retirement and so I'm going to have two to three years of cash on hand in retirement if not more But depending on how comfortable I am So I like to have cash on hand, especially when interest rates are like they are right now at you know Five percent at the time recording this that is a great time to have cash on hand cash is no longer trash at those levels They will not stay at those levels forever But that is just where they are right now and that is a position where I am okay with having more liquidity at that five percent range And so what you want to do is once you pick out some of these investments, you want to figure out, this is a big deal here.

You want to figure out what your asset allocation is going to be. Your asset allocation is a multimillion dollar decision. And most people just don't realize how important the impact of the asset allocation is. And this means how much of stocks am I going to buy? How much of bonds am I going to buy? How much cash on hand am I going to have?

How much real estate am I going to have? And what Percentage of my investments. Is this going to be the asset allocation? If you get the asset allocation wrong, you could cost yourself over a million dollars. So you really got to make sure that you are getting this asset allocation, right? And it comes down to a, your risk tolerance, how much risk are you willing to take on?

For me, I love just having a large portion of my portfolio in stocks, specifically the S and P 500, because I am very pro and bullish on the On the future of companies in the S and P 500, they are, most of them are companies here in the U S and they are companies that, you know, typically Apple, Amazon, Google net, you know, all these massive, massive companies.

I'm bullish on all those companies. If you think those companies are going anywhere, you are absolutely wrong. Microsoft, all these other companies that are in the S and P 500 Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett's company. All of these are companies that I truly believe in, in the long run. And so I have a very large portion of my portfolio invested in the S& P 500 because that's what I believe in.

But if that kind of stresses you out and you're like, I don't like when the market goes up and down, I don't really like these changes and levels in the market, then maybe you need to adjust your asset allocation to something different than mine. Maybe you need more bond exposure because bonds kind of level out your portfolio.

There's not as much volatility. Up and down in the market. And so this is something that's really, really important for a lot of people to assess their asset allocation. If you guys want me to do an episode on how exactly to assess your asset allocation, let me know, shoot me an email and we will absolutely do that.

Uh, and I can give you a step by step guide on how to figure out what your asset allocation is, uh, and that is something I think could be really, really valuable. So let me know if you want me to go through that as well. But as you start to progress and choose your asset allocation and assess your risk, that is going to be super, super important.

So one thing you could look at is how fail proof is the portfolio. And there have been a lot of studies if you go back and look and Vanguard has done a ton of these. Vanguard is a great resource, by the way, for a lot of these studies looking at different portfolios. And you can go look at, Hey, what's a 60, 40 portfolio done historically.

Um, and you can go look at studies and ways that they actually look at this. And we've done episodes on all this stuff. So if you want to check some of those out, we'll link a few in the show notes so that you can check some of these out as well, but making sure you're taking advantage and know why you have your asset allocation.

That is a multimillion dollar decision. You got to make sure that you get that one, right. Now, the next thing is we want to make sure that we are minimizing taxes when it comes to retirement. And this is a big subject that get complicated very, very quickly. So if you're new to personal finance or you're new to money, this can be something that over time can feel like it's overwhelming.

And one thing I want you to think through is, first of all, the accounts that we talked about early, these tax advantage accounts are a great way for Anybody with any level of job to work through, you know, the 401k, the IRA, the HSA, the Roth IRA, these are great tax efficient ways to reduce your tax liability and they're easy ways to reduce your tax liability that anybody can do.

And then also just considering, you know, tax efficient investments, things like that is a great starting point for a lot of people. Now we can get really optimized and maximize some of our taxes and we will have episodes and we've had episodes coming out on how to get really efficient with some of this stuff.

But for now, just thinking through some of those tax advantage accounts is a great starting point for people who are looking to self fund their own retirement. Now, another thing I want you to think through is I want you to manage your debt and what your debt strategy is going to be when you get to your retirement age.

Debt is a wealth killer. We want to make sure that we avoid debt at all costs when it comes to a high interest debt. Why? Because high interest debt is compounding against you instead of helping you pay your Build wealth in the future. Debt will rob you of your wealth if you take on too much debt. And so I want you to understand, we want to make sure that we have zero debt above a 6 percent interest rate.

And then below that 6 percent interest rate, you know, it was okay to have things like your mortgage, or if you have a car payment or things like that, if you have high interest debt, anything above a 6%, we want to make sure that we prioritize and pay off that stuff. So anything like a credit card, for example, or anything like personal loans, all that stuff needs to be paid off as fast as we possibly can.

Okay. But then the real thing a lot of people need to think through is your mortgage strategy, because when it comes to retirement, are you going to have a mortgage? Are you going to have a mortgage on hand that you're continuously going to be paying, because that's going to raise the amount of money that you need invested in order to be able to retire.

Now, if you're in your 20s or your 30s and you have a house that you've been living in for a little while, you can actually strategize to pay off your mortgage early so that you are mortgage free in retirement. I think that's a really cool way to enter retirement is being completely mortgage free. If you're in your forties or fifties, and maybe you just bought a house, maybe it's a little tougher, but you can absolutely do it if you want to, but not having that mortgage liability, you can be helpful for a lot of people.

Because if you don't have that mortgage liability, you could do a lot of really, really cool things with your retirement. And you'll be able to retire faster without that mortgage, because you'll need less to live on. And so that is another thing. You'll never get away from taxes. You'll never get away from, um, you know, home insurance and all that kind of stuff.

I mean, I guess you could, you could take the risk of not having home insurance, but that'd be very risky. But I would, um, for sure, make sure I at least have home insurance and taxes. So you'll always be paying those on your house, no matter what, but you won't have that mortgage payment, which could be a big, big difference.

Um, and I think that's a really cool way to enter retirement is not having any debt. For me specifically, the goal is to be completely debt free, um, and not have any debt carried over into retirement when I want to fully retire, which may be never because I love business and I love, you know, what I do.

Now, another consideration though, that you can think through is, are you going to have supplemental income? Are you going to have a little, Extra additional income. Like you get bored. Do you want to start a little business on the side? Are you going to have some income coming in where you have part time work?

Maybe you're really into fishing or yoga and you want to be a yoga instructor or a fishing captain. That kind of stuff can be really cool to add into your retirement. Cause you make money while doing stuff that you love. And so just thinking through, are you going to have that part time work or that flexibility, or are you going to have side gigs that you maybe are going to make a little money on as well, and maybe it's just surrounding your hobbies or things You really like to do, um, over that timeframe.

Now, here's a big thing that we're gonna talk about is this is one that is just not talked about enough in retirement is healthcare and healthcare is going to probably be one of your biggest expenses, if not your biggest expense in retirement. And so we want to think through a couple options here.

First, we have our HSAs that we talked about up front. That's another beautiful thing about the HSA is it also helps you prepare for the major healthcare costs that you are going to be landing on when you enter retirement. The HSA is going to really be a huge benefit for people with these massive healthcare costs.

And so if you could max out your HSA, that is absolutely amazing when it comes to this. But also you want to think through, well, what are my health care costs going to be? Do I need to have additional cash on hand? How am I going to prepare for this looking through Medicare and all that type of stuff? Do I need Medicare Part B for additional costs?

All of this stuff can get pretty complicated. And so when it comes to health care, it's really, really good. And we'll do a full episode on this, but it's really good to start planning it out now. And the HSA is a great planning progress to start, but there is going to be that health care costs. Like I said, it rises 6 to 7 percent every single year.

That is the health care inflation rate over the course of the last couple of decades. And so we want to make sure that we are prepping for this and having enough money on hand to cover these costs. I mean, it is very, very important, um, that we do that and do not leave this Out of the equation. Also, long term care.

What is your plan? Long term? If you cannot take care of yourself and so long term care insurance is an option, but it gets really complicated with long term care insurance, and it also gets very, very expensive. And so you really want to make sure that you are considering all the pros and cons if you go that route.

But long term care insurance might be able to save you on some significant stuff. But there's a lot of things you need to evaluate before you make that decision. Let's take a break and then come back to a withdrawal strategy. All right. So one thing you want to think through is once you get to retirement age, you want to actually think through, well, how am I actually going to withdraw this money from some of these accounts?

And so I'd love to just kind of go through some of this stuff with people because, um, it can be really, really helpful to kind of know which order to withdraw and kind of set this up early and often. So the sequence of withdrawals actually matters when it comes to a lot of this stuff. So for people, I like going taxable account first.

And you withdraw from that taxable account first to allow tax advantage counts to grow when you're in retirement. That could help you, but it very much depends on your specific situation. Because your situation may be something where, for example, you need to plan for RMDs or required minimum distributions from traditional IRAs and 401ks.

And those start at age 73 at the time I'm recording this. And so, so, You might have to go RMDs first, then taxable. Um, but there's a lot of different options that you have available to you there, but I'd rather have that tax free growth inside of my account for a longer period of time if I can in the Roth IRA.

And so I like the taxable first for some scenarios, but you need to talk to your CPA. You have to have a CPA in your corner when it comes to a lot of this stuff to make sure that works best for you. It's gotta be your personal situation needs to fit exactly how you're withdrawing on some of these accounts.

Um, and so you want to make sure that you're just thinking through that as you do. do this. And then you can check the 4 percent rule and kind of adjust as needed. If you are doing the 4 percent rule and you're realizing, Hey, my portfolio is just really accelerating. There's been a ton of really good years there.

You might be able to make adjustments. You can talk to your CPA. You can talk to a fee only planner. If you wanted to and kind of get a couple hours in and develop a plan there, like a CFP or something like that. And so when you do that, that can be another great option for you as well. Now I want to talk through a couple considerations if you're self employed.

So if you're self employed, you heard me mention things like the 401k, the Roth IRA. Well, if you don't have access to a 401k because you're self employed, you can do things like the solo 401k. Which I utilize myself and the solo 401k allows for higher contribution limits compared to traditional IRAs. And it also has the same kind of tax benefits that a traditional 401k will have.

There's also the SEP IRA. Now the SEP IRA is easy to set up and maintain has higher contribution limits, but there is some complicated things that come in rules around the SEP IRA. So I preferred the solo 401k to the SEP. And there's also a simple IRA, which is another option as well. But those are some of your options that you have if you're self employed.

But one thing you also want to think through when you have a business, and if you're listening to this podcast, a lot of people don't realize this is you want to go through succession planning. So if you own a business, Hey, is this business something that you can sell? Because if you can sell that business, you may be able to retire way faster than you ever thought you could.

Most businesses, people don't realize this, but most businesses are sellable now. So you can sell your business, even if you're in some sort of business where it's a service based business and they utilize your services, you can train someone to do the same exact services that you do. And you can sell them the business with the clients.

You may not get as much money if it's only you in the business, but you can still sell that business. And that's going to give you a large cash lump sum. That's going to help you supplement your retirement. And you may be able to retire way faster. In addition, another thing you could do is if you do sell a business and someone wants to come in and they want you to sell or finance that business, you could also do that.

The risk is a little higher than a lump sum, but that could also give you cash flow in retirement if you're confident that the person can actually run the business the way that you did. So think about valuing your business as you start to progress through this kind of stuff. And one thing I would do.

Is if you do own a business, I would look around for people who might possibly be buyers in the future. And I would start to have conversations with those people and just kind of talk to them and start to build relationships because those relationships could lead to a huge payday for you coming down the line by valuing your business.

So regularly get assessments of the value of your business one. And if you don't know how to do that, we can do a step by step guide on that. But I would try to get the value of your business as part of your retirement planning and then think through what your exit strategy is going to be. Because again, businesses are just additional assets that will allow you to retire sooner through a bunch of different various ways.

But overall, I would definitely consider selling the business in retirement. And most people like, for example, right now there is a high percentage of baby boomers who are retiring. A large portion of those baby boomers are not selling their businesses. They're just letting the business fizzle away. And that is one of the saddest things that could ever happen.

Because if you just understand that you could most likely sell your business, even if you don't think you could sell your business, there's no way, shape, or form. Imagine if you just get 50 K for your business for something you thought you couldn't sell, you need to put it up on some of these marketplaces and list it for sale and see what kind of bites you get.

It's better than letting it fizzle away. You can see it. Sell the assets in the business. There's a lot of things that you can do. And so making sure that you understand and kind of assess this stuff is going to be really important. You can connect with a business broker too, and they can kind of give you estimates of what they think your business could sell for.

And if you have business brokers that are like this business can't sell, you can also just list it yourself and then see what kind of bites you get. But continuing to stay connected is going to be huge for people who are self employed as well. So listen, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode on the step by step guide to self funding your retirement.

If you guys have any questions on this stuff, please let me know and we can put together some additional episodes on your questions and we can put them on Q& A's and things like that as well. So, that is our entire goal with this podcast, is to bring you all as much value as possible. That is our entire goal, is my goal is I want to support you.

You as much as I possibly can. And I appreciate each and every single one of you listening to this podcast. Can I thank you guys enough for being here with us today? If you guys are getting value out of this episode, consider sharing it with a family member or a friend, and don't forget to check out our resources page.

We have a bunch of personal finance resources, um, that you could check out completely for free. So thank you again so much for listening to this episode and we will see you on the next episode.