The Retirement Road Trip

Welcome into Mr. Stillman's opus the podcast we talk some finance investing, retirement planning, a lot of different stuff with John Stillman as a present founder of Rosewood wealth management.

Then he's on with now John, how are you would seven see if a lot of people during this time of the year and the holidays will had all broke take a road trip and visit family and and spend some time with loved ones and that, artists to our topic today which is the retirement road trip so you think about if you're heading out tomorrow. A road trip. There is a long checklist of items that you have to be sure that you've gone through that you haven't forgot anything in retirement planning's the same way some of those exact same items need to be addressed so today on the show to look at some of those items that should appear on both your road trip checklist and your retirement planning checklist that is the plan for the show, so will start off with the first item on the road trip checklist and that's very basic but very important. You gotta decide where you're headed heavy over to one of those road trips where it's not really about getting to a particular place. It's just it's more about the journey than the destination.

I love those were Tricia yes he that is the disgusting idea.

I cannot fathom the concept of driving with no purpose in mind. I hate being in the car I wanted to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. No detours. I'm not going to go on a road trip just for the joy of traveling okay so there you are able. So give me an example of destination list road trip that you've done what I would say like, okay, let's okay when I was in Connecticut I was like, let's just go somewhere that we not been for so I looked on the map found a town that was kind of an area want to go so I cut up through the woods, you know, see the foliage you.

Hey, we might see an apple cider shop on the side the road want to stop at work in only my pop off at this little farmers market on the way all the worry to see we might not see anything like this get there town might stink. We might turn around but we shall see what happens yeah that sounds like Dante's seventh circle of hell to me, but to each his own LOL I don't remember exactly will be dead. I think we had a good meal at a local restaurant.

So try out something I'm glad you enjoyed it well.

So yeah you want to decide where you going you want to have a destination in retirement planning. You can't just say well I want to be retired. That's not really a destination is not a purpose. What you want to do with your time if you want to travel in retirement where you want to travel, crossing the streams here with deciding where you're going where you want to live are you live in the house that your analogy 64 now your to be 84. At some point is that the house figuring out can you live there. When you 84.

Does it work for an 84-year-old a limit. Those of the kinds of things you'll think about how much income are you gonna need to make those things happen so deciding what you want life to look like in retirement is really important because the financial plan hinges on what you want that lifestyle to be so what you were going what you have the destination yet. Determine how you get there. There's a lot of different options when you're traveling you know what's what You going to use to get there. How you gonna get there but and if you're like me you might disable get there how we get there, but you have to have a route in mind when you take off when you were a young lad growing up in Birmingham. Did you guys ever order the triptych's from AAA no.

So basically never heard I was was you say alright I'm going through Birmingham to Nashville Birmingham to Nashville sounds great well and let's pick a further drive than that Birmingham Chicago who should get very good Birmingham to Chicago and you call AAA and you say alright. I want to triptych to get me from Birmingham to Chicago. They're gonna send you this little book of maps and exhibits your route. It shows your route from Birmingham to Chicago but is not one big map you turn the pages that I can zoom did enough but you couldn't have it all on one map it's multiple pages that shows your route as you traverse from Birmingham to Chicago right so obviously this is outdated with GPS on our phones right.

In fact, I remember when I was a kid sit in the backseat. Looking at the outlets when we meet on the trip and just think how cool would it be if there was little red dot on this Atlas that showed me where I was and that that rat dog would move along with the car and I could I could track our progress as we drive in it but in a seven-year-old meal like but obviously that's impossible that will never happen and now I have that on the phone but in any event, that determining your route on a road trip now is a lot easier than it used to be. So what is determining your route in retirement planning while there's a lot of questions we want answer like how much risk are you willing to take. For some people they want to get from point A to point B with the least amount of risk possible. Let's not have any more volatility than we have to little else to get from point A to point B there other people who love the risk they want to take as much risk as they can, while still getting from point A to point B, so I think of risk on a spectrum from 1 to 99 with one being no risk and 99 being the highest risk possible. There are some people say alright what I can create the income that I want in retirement and have a risk number of 25. Sign me up for that. Now you might say what we could still create income that you want but have a risk number of 65. The note give you 25 the least amount of risk possible. There would be other people though that would take the 65 so this is range of risk that you can have with a plan still works, and we have to determine what route you're most comfortable with. What gives you the most peace of mind.

You know what type of investments are going to get the job done for you. Are we getting an SUV. I'd are we hauling a trailer or camper behind a pickup truck like what is our vehicle of choice for this road trip.

That's part of determining your route, who's going to coach you along the way, is that backseat driver cellular to do you have an actual navigator in the passenger seat looking at a map tell you where to turn.

All those things going to determining your route and of course you can apply the financial context of that pretty easily to who whose directions are you listening to what want you to give me some financial context of this next one because what you're in the car, you know, seven-year-old John the backseat with the Atlas out you will hear some music, though on the road trip special girl from Birmingham Chicago can be a long drive so how dies deciding what you're going to listen to on your drive relate to financial planning. When I graduated from high school a bunch of my friends and I left for the beach the next day in one of my friends's graduation gift to me was he burned me a bunch of CDs area specifically to use on this trip so's like journey and John Mellencamp had all this classic rock stuff yet a zeppelin CDU NARA thing so at a wide range of music for that particular trip and actually they're still in my truck.

To this day really.

There was no but they're in there if I need him now I have a brother-in-law who he doesn't anymore. But he used to drive a truck for a living and so he'd get up at four in the morning and drive all day and be back at home by for the afternoon. Well one year for Christmas for him. I mapped out because he loved listen to talk radio and so I mapped out for him.

This is very inexpensive gift, but he liked it.

I mapped out on each of his routes because he had a different route every day a week. What talk radio hosts were on and the times that he would be driving like what station he can find them on. So no matter what day the week he had and what route he was driving he knew exactly like my little chart and see who we could tune into in that particular area. That particular time.

So that's probably a little more scientific than most people are going to be in deciding what to listen to before they go on a road trip access.

Certainly one way to do it if you want.

So in retirement planning. You need to decide what you're going to listen to as well is that financial news in the mass media is that money magazine is that Forbes didn't listen to a lot of friends or family or coworkers when it comes to financial advice I could tell you how often somebody tells me well. My brother-in-law does this or a guy at work told me I should do this. Yeah. And you know it could be that that person is correct for their own situation. It's also possible that they're just completely wrong to begin with, but it's possible that the right for them. But that advice is right for you because you have a different situation. You know I was here well always heard you have to have $1 million before you can retire, but based on what our talk is about the other day and they had that mindset well you know we only have $257,000 in only five more years to retirement were never really get to know you will guess what, you don't need to tell you have a $4000 a month pension that's almost going to legally replace your current income and eerily fine. We can draw a little bit of income from the money that you do have saved and maintain your lifestyle so you don't need $1 million to have the life that you want so who are you listen to. Do you have a financial advisor.

Do you have a CPA, you have an estate planning attorney. Are you listening to those people are they talking to each other. Are they listening to each other. It's important to identify which voices you're going to let into your financial world.

Okay, that makes sense to me now think you final think is when you're on the road in your you're making out a long road trip is nice to be able to sit back and relax sometimes to put it on cruise control. So when you're on that road trip from Birmingham to Chicago to be a lot a highway driving involves 65 straight north for most of you don't want to be on the gas and brake the whole time you're going to have the cruise control set for a good portion of that trip. I would have to imagine your right ankle was going to be really tired of pushing the gas for 12 hours straight for however long it takes to give Hermione to Chicago so you also have to keep in mind though that there are times where cruise control isn't going to work traffics heavy and you have a lot of stop and go or whether is bad and you have to slow down for water in the road or fog or whatever cruise control is not going to be our friend. Well in your financial life. It's also nice to have some things on cruise control when you can just so when you retire. We don't want to be every single month trying to figure out okay where we gonna take income from this month. Yeah, we got our Social Security, but we need another $2500 was at 2500 coming from know we want that to be set up in such a way that you have monthly pay checks coming in here account every single month and there are many different ways that could be structured, but you want to be sure that there is moneylending in your checking account because if you have to do this calculus every month of Iowa, where my taking the money from this time. Now, you never get to spend with confidence because you're always good. Try to talk yourself into taking out less because you're afraid you can run out and so you take out as little as you can, then you can't enjoy your life because you're trying to make sure you don't run out of money but if we have that autopilot concept set up without moneylending your checking account without you having to think about it while now it's just like in a paycheck and you can live your life just like you did when you were working so there are going to be things that are unpredictable, though, and we have to address those like just within the last month talk somebody who's about to redo their kitchen. Okay, where do we come up with the money for that. Another couple whose daughter is about to get married in their April wedding. Where's that money going to come from.

You know you have to buy new car or put a new roof on the house and you don't have the money to sitting the bank part. Where's that money going to come from okay will this is not autopilot.

These are anomalies that we have to address but in terms of your monthly lifestyle.

We want that to be autopilot cruise control is much as possible in each of these checklist items will help you reach your retirement final destination and hopefully safely with plenty gas still left in the tank so John appreciate that breakdown on the retirement road trip, but these are all great points.

Make sure you check out Rosen wealth management.com in touch with John help set up your road trip checklist and make sure your route is taking care of us. You're not just heading out aimlessly like I did that one summer in Connecticut so they were joining us. Happy trails to happy trails to you in deed of trust serial Mr. Silva's opus subscribe an Apple podcast reverie listen to podcasts on whatever app that might be and that you have the next episode with the right to talk to you