Retirement isn't just about building a nest egg—it's about crafting a balanced, fulfilling life. Dive into a conversation that goes beyond the numbers.
In this episode, John and April uncover the holistic approach to retirement planning that goes far beyond financial savings.
You’ll discover…
Why retirement planning involves much more than just accumulating wealth
Four essential areas to focus on for a balanced retirement
How to identify your personal retirement needs and goals
A unique approach that differentiates Curry Schoen Financial from other advisors
The most common yet overlooked expenses you need to prepare for
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript:
April Schoen: Hello and welcome to today's episode of The Secure Retirement Method. Today we talk about something important, and that is how retirement isn't just about money. I know a lot of us think that. We get sometimes even obsessed about that, thinking that retirement is all about the money, and how much money do we have, and what is that going to look like. But it goes way beyond just the money side, the financial side of our lives. And today I'm joined by John.
John Curry: Hello April. Hello everyone.
April: And we're gonna talk about these four key areas in life that are really crucial when we're thinking about having a fulfilling retirement. We're gonna talk about your health, wealth, time, and relationships. So let's dive right in. So John, as you're thinking about this, I know you're gonna be coming up on your 50th year in financial services and helping people with these topics.
John: Yeah, for a long time.
April: Long time, long time. And, you know, we can kind of joke sometimes that a lot has changed in those 50 years, but I think a lot of stayed the same, too.
John: I agree with that. More has stayed the same.
April: Absolutely. And so, we're going to get into this today in talking about these four crucial parts of someone's life. I think these are important while we're working, too, but today we're going to focus on the retirement side. What have you seen from your perspective of how these four different components work together when we're thinking about wealth, health, time, and relationships?
John: Well, first of all, most people come in the door worried about retirement. They're very insecure. And that's why, when I created the Secure Retirement Method, I used the word secure. Not a comfortable retirement, a secure retirement. And secure retirement means different things to different people. But it's not just about retirement.
You could be 35 years old or 20 years old. We all have some insecurities about money, and if not, everything would be perfect. But everybody's worried about. Do I have enough? Will I have enough? Will I lose my money in the market? But the things from a wealth-building standpoint, people come in with this mindset of, okay, I have to work harder, investing money, and put myself in a position where the best balance that I have in this account, a 401k, my IRA, 457, deferred comp, TSA, whatever they've got. 403b.
Okay, I have to use this money to take care of me in retirement. Then they are worried about rate of return. Okay, am I getting a good rate of return? Then they worry about, okay, am I gonna lose my money? Because you could. Go back and look at 2008. The market was down 47% for a lot of our clients. 401k, just half of it disappeared, you know, and that's scary. Could it happen again? Yes. And it will happen again. Question is, when?
So I think number one is from the standpoint of the wealth side is people, they're anxious, they're concerned, and part of this is because they do not have the unique planning process that they can follow to help them address those issues. And we'll talk about that some. Matter of fact, why don't you talk a little bit about our planning process, and then we'll talk about the health side of it.
April: I think a couple of things on that, you're absolutely right, in that the first people think about, is this money side when we think about retirement. But you know, I know we, what we've seen, especially in the work that we do with our clients, that it's not just about accumulating some big number in their retirement account. It's about having this holistic approach to the financial side.
So yeah, I'll talk a little bit about our planning process. And we have a proven process that we take all of our clients through. I was just meeting with a new client last week, and he's retiring next year. And one of the things that he said is that he wanted to work with someone who could help him figure out the timetable, even. When do I need to do what? When do I need to sign up for Medicare? When do I need to apply for Social Security?
He's retiring from the state of Florida. So then he would say, well, when do I need to let them know about my DROP options and what I'm gonna do with that? When do I need to let deferred comp know? So he just even had a lot of questions about the when and the timing side of things. A lot of clients, and this might sound silly, but they really wonder the how. How do you do these things?
John: Correct.
April: How do you sign up for Social Security? I've done a great job-saving money, and I've got money in my retirement accounts, but how do I actually start turning this account balance, this account, into income? What's the process for that? So I think some of it's that. But when we're looking at overall retirement planning, we look at having this bucketed approach to retirement income.
So we first take a look at what are the guaranteed streams of income that you are going to have in retirement. That might be Social Security and a pension, and we call that your retirement baseline. What is the base income going to be for you in retirement? And that's a great starting point for us. We've got to know what's that guaranteed income going to look like.
And then we can have conversations around, is that enough, or do we need more guaranteed income in retirement. And then from there, we also want to have other distinct buckets. We want to have buckets for discretionary income. So if we have all of our basic needs covered by guaranteed streams of income, and that would be the ideal situation. That our basic lifestyle is covered by guaranteed streams of income.
John: Absolutely. That should be the goal.
April: That's the goal, right? And we think about having working and you got this paycheck coming in every couple of weeks, we want to have the same feeling in retirement. We want to have that income just coming in on autopilot, so you don't have to worry about it. You don't have to think about it. And then we want to have discretionary income, so we've got assets that we tap into for discretionary needs. Thinking about maybe we're going to take a trip, or maybe we're going to remodel the house or something. Whatever it is. A new car.
John: Or a wedding. Something pops up where you need money to help a family member.
April: What are those things that are going to happen that are outside of our basic living needs? And then we also need asset buckets that are continuing to grow on our balance sheet. Ones that we're not tapping into because we know you're going to need more income tomorrow than you need today. We've got to have enough future income coming in to offset inflation.
John: And we hear a lot about inflation nowadays, don't we?
April: That's right.
John: The Fed is focused on it. They're absolutely obsessed with it, trying to get it down to 2%. They say it's around two and a half right now. But I don't know if I believe that. You go to the grocery store and see what I pay for milk and eggs, I'm not so sure I believe the numbers anymore.
April: Absolutely. I know we don't have enough time to get into all of this today. And the intricacies of these buckets, because there are definitely some key points. You gotta think about the tax situation. You gotta think about required minimum distributions. You know, there are some assets that are better suited for that guaranteed stream of income.
There are some assets that you can't use for the growth bucket because you have to tap into it for required minimum distributions. So there's a lot of intricacies there, and a lot of things that you want to work through, but that's definitely one of the things that we look at. you
John: On a regular basis, a few times a week now, somebody will say something to me along the lines of, hey, why are you still working? Are you still working? Do you have to work? Different questions. And I'll tell people, look, here's my retirement plan. I have two things that are working for me that help me tremendously with retirement.
I have life insurance in place as one bookend, and I have guaranteed streams of income on the other. Now, some of those guaranteed streams of income are two pensions, Social Security, the VA benefit, and annuities I purchased to guarantee me income. So as you were saying earlier, all of my base expenses are covered.
If everything else went away and I had those benefits, my life's good. Now, in the middle I have money that's in the savings account, making very little interest right now. But it's parked there for a reason because I want to use that to do things. I have money in money market accounts, in my brokerage account, then I have individual stocks, then have some ETFs.
So I'm in a position that if I need money, I have it available. When we get into some of the health issues in a few minutes, I'll explain more of why that's important. But the key thing is, these buckets you're talking about, most of us want to leave money behind in some form of legacy to someone or something, some organization.
So that could put somebody in a position where, how do I do that? And that's why I have the life insurance in place because it allows me to use the life insurance to replace every dollar if I spend the dollar, I have guilt-free ability to spend every dollar that I have in savings and investments.
April: I think that that's great. Thinking about that and how to structure that, I know that's what we coach our clients on. So on that theme, can you talk a little bit about why having money set up correctly is more important than just having some magic number? Sometimes people think, what's my number? How much do I need to have saved before I can retire? We get that question a lot, and we talk it's not so much about having some magic number and just having all this money saved up. It's really about how you have it structured and set up. So can you talk about why that's more important?
John: I'll tell you why it's more important for me. I have money coming in that I don't have to worry about the market. I don't have to worry about, did the market go up or down today? Because it's guaranteed income that shows up in my account. Some of it shows up on the first of the month. Some of it shows up on the second Wednesday.
Social Security is the second Wednesday. It's just like a mushroom overnight, it pops up, and that's in my account. So I would say to people listen to this, some of your money, a good portion of your money, should be invested in a way that increase guaranteed, reliable streams of income for you that can never go away, never. Now you can't put all your money in something like that, because you have to have liquidity.
Liquidity is a big deal, and we focus on that with people. But for me, April, it's come down to where it's more important today, I'll be 72 in less than two months, December 9th, I'll be 72. At 72 all of this means more now than ever. And I'm gonna jump into the health side for just a minute. I know you probably have some questions on this as I go through it, but I look at my health situation.
You know, three and a half years ago, my right leg was amputated above the knee. That was a life-changing event. That's the most difficult thing I've ever dealt with. Heart surgery back in 2008 was child's play compared to this. Changed everything. How I walked for six months. I was confined to a wheelchair, then I finally got a prosthesis.
Had to learn how to use it, still learning how to use it. I still fall every now and then. So the health side has become even more important. And I started working on that back in 2008 after the heart surgery. And I read and I study about longevity. But I also pay more attention to health, because what good is it to retire with all the wealth that we've been talking about, but your health is so bad that you can't do the things that you like to do?
You can't travel and you can't walk across the parking lot because of knee replacement or hip replacement, things like that. And I'm seeing that as I'm getting older. I see things that pay more attention to. We have a lot of clients in their 80s and 90s, even 100 and you see they can't do some of the things they used to do. And you reach a point that you don't even want to do it. There are things I used to want to do. I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that now.
April: How would you say thinking about your own health journey, how would you say that that has shaped your view of planning for retirement, especially in the most recent years?
John: That's an interesting question. I would say that the latest challenge that I'm dealing with is the cancer. I have colon cancer that already spread to the liver when we found it. And I would tell everyone listening, please pay attention to your doctors and get colonoscopies scheduled and go. Don't miss it, because that's how we found mine.
And when I asked the doctor, if we had not found it, what do you think my life expectancy would have been? She said, I think you'd have less than a year, six months to a year if she wouldn't have found it. Now that we found it, what do you think? She said I think you have three to five years. But she was quick to point out that she's not God.
She can't cure me. She can just treat me. And it reminded me. I told her what my dad used to say, God will not take me till he wants me. When God wants me, He will take me. So you can't run around worried about dying. I don't worry about it. People say, well, I would think you'd be more depressed or whatever. I'm not going there. I'm not going there.
But what it has made me do is pay attention to my health, because some of the reading, and I noticed you have the book here, Outlive by Peter Attia. I've always been a big student about longevity. Started that with a guy named Ken Dychwald who made it popular. We're living longer as Americans, although life expectancy has dropped some for men and women in the last few years. We're living longer in retirement than most people think.
Well, let's take a picture of that. At one time, I weigh 284 pounds. Now I hover around 212, 213. So I got serious about my health because I realized that if I started making changes in my 40s and 50s, it would pay big dividends later. Someone your age, tender young age of 40, so the things you're doing today when I see you in the gym are going to give you huge benefits when you're my age that you don't even realize yet.
April: And it's interesting. As you know, John, my really good friend, we work out together several times a week. And we talk about this, that the things that we do today it’s not about looking a certain way. And it's not necessarily trying to do something for today. It is all those future benefits.
John: Big time.
April: We talk about how, and we see you, we see other people in the gym. We're like, you know what? We're gonna we wanna be. She was telling me how she was in the gym working out, and there was a gentleman who was 84 and was doing the leg press. That's what we want to be. We want to be in the gym, you know, 40-something years from now, doing this together, and it's all about building those future benefits on that. A lot of times you'll hear that, that saying too, that your health is your wealth. I have a friend who's a personal trainer, and her thing is, is she'll say, you either pay for it now, you pay for it later.
John: Just like the old oil filter commercial that some people will remember, pay me now or pay me later. You do the oil change now or buy an engine later. It's the same concept. It's the same concept, the same idea. But one of the things that I'm amazed by, you made a comment about being in the gym. One of the things I do is the farmer’s walk with 53-pound kettlebells. One in each hand. That blue carpet wear was 90 feet according to Tom.
So I walked down 90 feet that weights down, rests are 45 seconds to a minute, and then repeat. I'll have people come to me and say why are you doing that? Why do you do that? I say, well, it works on my balance. It works on my strength overall, my hand strength, my grip. And then research has shown that one of the measures of how healthy you'll be in retirement is how good your grip is.
And I work on that. I mean, my hand grip is like where I could, I could grab your arm and you're not getting loose. And it's not just about going to work out. Why are you doing it? I like the concept of functional fitness. You know, have the false illusions. I'm not going to look like Mr. Universe or whatever. I just want to go in and get in better shape.
I did some traveling in September, the first time in four and a half years, I was on an airplane. And that travel, that little trip, speaking in Dallas, Texas, I was there, got there Sunday and left on Wednesday, flew to Columbus, Ohio, spoke there, came back on Friday. So it was an experiment. It was a test. Okay, how am I doing?
And do I even want to travel and speak like I used to on a regular basis? I used to be on a plane two or three times a month, and this was four and a half years in between. That was the big deal. What I learned from that, April, the most important thing I learned from it, number one, I loved what I did, but the most important thing was I have to work on my endurance and my stamina. I gotta walk more.
So now what I'm doing, I was going to increase the number of days at the gym. I'm not doing that. I'm walking more outside, up and down hills because I have to be able to walk longer distances. And it's more difficult with the prosthesis. It wears on the hips and the left knee. So I just have to work on that.
April: What are some other things? So you mentioned there, like grip strength, you mentioned endurance, and walking. So what are some other things you think that people should be thinking about, as kind of being prepared for that, or things they should be working on for their health? What are some things else that you're working on?
John: I'm working on more and more of making sure I don't sit as much as I used to. Like when you come in to work. Yeah, folks, I'm still working two or three days a week. This week, April is making work a lot.
April: It's good for you.
John: But you sit too much. We all are sitting too much. So what I'm working on more and more April is getting up and moving more. I've always talked about the key is, how did you go from 284 down to 213, 214, 212. Real simple. Eat less, move more. But the things that I'm reading and studying that are impacting people as they're getting through their 80s, 70s, 80s that's limiting them is overweight, okay, not strong, and endurance.
April: And mobility.
John: Mobility and the ability to get out and walk. Some of the things that I'm involved in with my lady, Susie, we'll talk about relationships later. But do I have the ability to go do some of the same things? Some things I can't do. There's some travel that we do for festivals because of our role in Springtime Tallahassee. I'm not gonna do those. But, yeah, I'll just be in the way. The other things I do, and I do it with fervor.
April: That's right! So let's move on and talk about time. I love talking about this, especially thinking about retirement. So one of the things I think that people don't think about is how much time they're going to have now that they're retired. And people may look forward to that of being able to be on their own time and doing the things that they want to do. But how have you noticed that people handle now having all of this free time now that they're not working? Both the good and the bad, because I know we see both.
John: Well, let me start with me first, then I'll tell you what I see. When someone says to you, I think you have three to five. Years to live, it damn sure changes your focus about time. And even the oncologist, she said, John, I'm amazed at how you responded when I told you that. I don't see any anger, bitterness. What's up? I said, well, I appreciate you telling me what you think, but I think I'll live longer. I may not. If I don't, I don't, but I'm prepared. Everything's in place. I'm at peace. I've had a good life. If I die today mid-sentence, I've had a good life.
April: Let's not do that today.
John: I'd rather not. I'd rather not do it today. I'd rather not do it any day. I even talked about it sometimes in workshops and speeches I did when I was gone in September, that one of the financial hazards is dying too soon. I said, I don't know about you, but whenever I die, it's too soon.
But when I see with people who come in the door or just chatting with a guy at the post office yesterday, a total stranger. I didn't know him, he knew me. He said you're John Curry, the retirement guy. I said you're close. I'm the Secure Retirement guy. Well, somewhere along the way, he had gotten a postcard that we'd set and he told me about it as he was throwing away a political postcard. He said that's how I'll remember you because I used to get postcards from you about your seminars.
So we're talking about retirement. He said, if I had known that I was going to be this old in retirement, I would have taken better care of myself. So think about it. Goes back to health again. So we spend all these years trying to get wealth, then in the end, we're spending all of our money to try to get health.
April: And time.
John: And time. So the time part of it, what will you do with your time? I'm struggling with this a little bit now, because, you know, I'm fortunate that I have a place on Lake Talquin so I go there. But if I'm not careful, I'll catch myself sitting too long, either on the back porch there or watching television. Because I love watching the financial and political news. I'm a junkie when it comes to that.
I could sit in front of that television, well, from 6 to 9 in the morning Maria Bartiromo, then from 9 to 12 watching Stuart Varney because I like what they cover. But that would be six hours of my life I did nothing. So instead, I am working on watching less television and reading more. I'm back to reading two or three books a month again. I got off for that for a while. But how do you spend your time? What do you want to do? What do you want to do with that time?
April: I know when we're working with clients, we talk about how important it is that we're retiring to something, not just from something. Because sometimes we get to a place where we're so unhappy in our job. We're so frustrated. There's been maybe management changes. Maybe there's, sometimes we hear too, they're making all these software changes.
I don't want to deal with it anymore. And so sometimes we're retiring from something, and that's okay, as long as we're also retiring to something. So really thinking about what are you gonna do now that every day is Saturday and Sunday?
John: Correct. Expand on that. What do we tell people about that?
April: Absolutely. So right now, if you're working a traditional job, and we work Monday through Friday, then we have Saturday and Sunday to go do the things that we want to do. So like this past weekend, I feel like I did nothing but run 90 miles an hour because Saturday morning, Eli had soccer, and then a flag football game, and then we went out with my in-laws to celebrate my brother-in-law and sister-in-law to celebrate Brian's birthday.
And then on Sunday, we went to church and we played golf and had dinner with the family. And so it was just, it was great, and it was wonderful. We got to spend some time outside. It's a beautiful time in Tallahassee right now outside. And you know, it was great, but it was just jam-packed.
So then you kind of come in on Monday like, oh, I need a break. I need to rest from my weekend. So now, what will we do, though, if we've got seven days of free time? We're not going to golf all seven days. So what are you going to do? But some of our clients, they do now play pickleball.
John: One of our clients plays golf every day. Literally every day that man plays golf.
April: Yes. So, but what are we going to do? And you need money for that too, right? So thinking about what are we going to do with our time? What is that lifestyle that we want to have in retirement? Do we want to volunteer? Now there are a lot of our clients that we hear that they're doing so much wonderful things in retirement, whether it's volunteering or traveling, or their hobbies that they say, I don't know how I ever had time to work. Isn't that amazing?
John: I hear that all the time. We hear it every time we see clients.
April: And, you know, my favorite story to talk about all the time is a client of ours who was 90 at the time, and we had reached out, scheduling a time for us to get together, to meet and review his things. And he goes April, I have got to let go of some of my social commitments. I have no time in the next three weeks.
John: Was that Charlie?
April: Mm-hmm.
John: I thought so.
April: At 90 years old.
John: Yeah, he's 97 now I think.
April: And I was just like, this is where you say, oh, I want to be like you I grow up. To have so much going on in your life and to feel still so engaged in having a purpose. And I think that's the thing for most people, is like again, is going back to that purpose, whether it's good or bad, we get a lot of our purpose and our identity from work.
John: Well let's talk about that. You made a comment earlier about your dad, that when he retired, that, you know, he lost that social connection with people that he worked with. My dad retired at 62 and he died at age 85. 85 and a half, to be exact. Almost to the day. And I asked him, I said, any regrets?
And one of his regrets was, he said, son, I retired too soon. I should have worked longer. I said because of the money. He said, no, just because of the relationships. He said because you think about it all this time. He's on his deathbed when we're having this conversation, he said, all this time I've been retired, I've enjoyed the time with your mom.
I've enjoyed the time with you, going to the lake house, riding the pontoon boat. He said, but I should have worked longer. I would have had a better financial situation, and I would have maintained a relationship with those people. But I've lost those relationships because they don't keep in touch. He said I regret that. I regret that.
And one of the things that I want to work on is nurturing those types of relationships. I picked up the telephone this morning on the way in and called a friend. I've known him since 1975. 49 years. A colleague, you know. We talked for 15 minutes and it was great, but we don't talk enough. Too busy. Everybody's busy. Too much to do.
April: Yeah, so let's talk about the relationship side of things, and what we see. I do think that the social aspect is important too. If you think about it, we spend more time at work than we do with our family. So you know, now that we're retired and we don't have that aspect of our lives anymore, what is going to fill that?
Are we going to maintain those relationships with the people that we used to work with? And then also, what are we doing while we're working to foster those relationships with our family or whoever is important in your life, whether that's friends or, you know, your spouse or your kids, but who are those relationships? And how are we going to work on those? Do you want to talk about the relationship side for a few minutes?
John: I do. I do. Because another thing that happens when you are facing some type of health crisis, especially one that's shortened your life expectancy. I have no false illusions. I used to tell people I'm gonna be like George Burns lived to be 100 years old, or Kirk Douglas, 102. Kirk Douglas and I have the same birthday, December 9. So I always used it as an example. Bob Hope lived to be 100 years old.
Betty White missed it by about two weeks. These are all people that I read and studied because of how they adapted to change. But I have no false illusions. I'm not gonna live to be 100 years old, but what I can do is if I have the wealth in place, and I work on my health and I manage my time wisely, okay, if I got this time who do I want to spend it with?
I got to thinking about that big time, especially when I was when you go to chemotherapy, the infusions, you’re sitting in a chair for four or five hours, sometimes. The whole day is about five six hours from that. So it gives you time to think. So I got to thinking about some things. There are people around us that are toxic, that when you're around them, they drain your energy, they don't give you energy.
So one of the things I've worked on for many years, even more so now, if I'm around someone that's draining my energy, I limit that time. I want to be around people that I feel like I'm encouraging them. They encourage us. It's almost like it's two batteries, you know, we energize each other. And if I find that I'm around someone who’s toxic, I get the hell away as quickly as I can. I'm nice, I'm cordial about it.
And I've got family members that are in that mode that I spend very little time with. I spend time but I'm going to limit it. So the question I have for people is this, when you retire and you have this money, hopefully good health, and now all this time, who are you going to spend it with? You going to be by yourself? Studies have proven people who are by themselves, they get real lonely, they get into a period of depression, and they don't do very well.
So you got to have some social interaction. I would encourage people to think about that way before you retire, a long time before you retire. For me, I rejoined a couple of organizations I dropped out of because I like those people. I like being there. For a while, I stopped going to my Rotary Club. Now I'm going back to Rotary and I enjoy it because of the people here.
So I would just say, determine where you want to spend the time. What are the things you want to be doing, but most importantly, who will you do them with? And think about this, if you have no relationships, and you have the wealth, you got the money, you're in good health, you can travel, you got the time, and you got nobody to do it with, what kind of life is that?
And I'm working diligently on repairing some relationships that frankly, suck. Family wise. I had a very good friend tell me over the weekend, look, you've done all you can do, you've reached out, you've done all you can do. The other person has to want to do it. And I said, thank you for that reminder. That's true.
But what are the relationships that you want to work on? You think about it. You got work, okay, we got your free time, maybe with your children. You go to soccer games, you go to flag football games. You meet other people there. There's a common interest. So what is the common interest? And that's where you're most happy when you're doing things like that. And then the same this with work. A friend of mine, his name's Chuck.
He said, why do you still go to work? You don't have to work. Why do you do that? And I said, well, let me ask you a question, Chuck, if you're doing something you love doing, you're dealing with people you love doing it with, and you have a team around you you love working with, and you still get paid. When would you want to stop that? He said, well, you put it that way, never. I'd always wanted it.
And I said that's what I have. I said, because of the relationships I have with people. At the same time, if somebody comes in and they're rude to you, me or Leslie or Luke, our team, we're not gonna work with them. Well, we have a little come to Jesus. You can't do that. We're going to work on mutual respect. And if we don't have that, then we probably should not work together. It's a two-way street.
April: It's a two way street, that's right. Also what I think is interesting about thinking about these four concepts is, you know, it's very clear that retirement is more than just about the money. And even though that might be where people initially think about retirement, all of these other aspects are tied into it at the end of the day. And I really think it's more about having balance in these areas.
And yes, you know the money is important, right? You got to have money to be able to go do these things. You got to have money to be able to go travel, if you want to travel, or even to spend on things for your health, or spending time with people that you want to spend time with. So yes, I'm not cavalier and just thinking it's not important, but it is just one piece of the puzzle.
John: You're right. And other things, let's think about activities we've talked about, going to the gym. Membership is not free, right? Going to play golf. You gotta pay greens fees, get a cart, or you gonna walk. So everything you do, you need money, everything. Now you can just say, well, I'm not gonna go to the gym. I'm just gonna have some weights at home and walk. You can do that. And some people do it very well. I don't do that so well.
I find that going to the gym a couple of days a week is good for me. I used to go three days a week and work with a trainer, and it was the best health I ever was in. Talking about leg presses earlier. One time I was leg pressing 600 pounds. That's how we found the aneurysms that later led to the amputation. I was in my 60s when I happened.
So you look at how you spend your time, your money, the people you spend it with. It's all connected. And I think that's where we're different than most financial advisors. We don't just say okay, how much money you got, where do you want to put it? Have the conversation first. Who are you? What do you stand for? What's important to you? What does the future look like? What do you want it to look like?
You know, and that's where our planning process helps so much because we can actually demonstrate, okay, this is what you said you wanted. Here's a picture of it. What do you think? Well, I don't like that. Well, you have time now to make changes, so what would you like to change? But you asked a question earlier about the money side.
I think most important is, before you get into how to invest is how much money do you think you're going to need/want in retirement. And the truth of the matter is, none of us really know for sure. We don't know for sure what's inflation going to be, or what's our tax rate. We don't know that.
April: What's healthcare gonna cost?
John: Healthcare, that's the biggest expense we have. And then work on at least, as you call it, the baseline, what is the minimum number you want to know that's coming in every day, every month or other. And I would just tell you, from a peace of mind standpoint, I have that, and I am going to preach that until the day they bury me. I'm just going to say over and over, it's the four things. Work on your wealth, your health, your time, relationships.
Over and over, until people get it. And then, you know what? Every time I work on teaching that, I did that, I spoke six times in one week, and every time I spoke, I made sure that I shared that with people. And you know what? People in the room, I'm talking about advisors, other advisors are like, wow, that is so different because we're not hearing that. We're not hearing that which is so important.
April: Absolutely. And I'm just, I want to remind you listening to this too, that we're here to help guide you through this process. We understand that retirement is about the whole person. It's not just your bank account. So if you're interested, you want to learn more about how we can help you, feel free to reach out. You can go to our website and find ways to connect with us.
You can listen to other podcast episodes. We have a YouTube channel. Make sure you subscribe to our YouTube. But yeah, if you want to start working through this process of thinking about retirement, especially in these four areas, not just the money side, but all of it. Your health, your wealth, your time, and your relationships, again, I would encourage you to just reach out. A lot of times how we structure that is scheduling a time for a call.
So it's a 30-minute call. We do not charge for that call. It's complimentary, and it's just a time for us to get to know you a little bit, and understand, what are your concerns when you think about retirement. What questions do you have?
Of course, we'll share with you how we work with clients. And we're obviously, we're not the right fit for everyone, but I do know that at the end of those 30-minute calls, it's really clear if it's a good fit for us to work together, and we talk through what that looks like.
John: I'm gonna make a very bold comment. There's no way, no way that someone will not benefit from either a 30-minute conversation for coming sitting down face to face with us. Because we've had people walk away and say wow, I'll learn more in one hour with the two of you, or with you or with me, than I ever have before when it comes to financial planning and retirement planning and estate planning. And it's because we have no need to pressure anyone. We could be just as relaxed. If we do business, great. If we don't, it's okay too. There's zero pressure. Zero. Come have a cup of coffee and chat.
April: Well, thank you guys for tuning in today, and we look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Goodbye.
John: Thank you.
Voiceover: This material is intended for general public use. By providing this content, Park Avenue Securities, LLC and your financial representative are not undertaking to provide investment advice or make a recommendation for a specific individual or situation, or to otherwise act in a fiduciary capacity. If you'd like additional information about our services, visit our website at curryschoenfinancial.com, or you can call our office at 850-562-3000. Again, that number is 850-562-3000. This podcast is for informational purposes only. Guest speakers and their firms are not affiliated with or endorsed by Park Avenue Securities, Guardian, or North Florida Financial, and opinions stated are their own. April and John are registered representatives and financial advisors of Park Avenue Securities LLC. Address, 1700 Summit Lake Drive, Suite 200, Tallahassee, Florida, 32317. Phone number 850-562-9075. Securities, products, and advisory services offered through Park Avenue Securities, member of FINRA and SIPC. April is a financial representative of the Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, New York, New York. Park Avenue Securities is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Guardian. North Florida Financial is not an affiliate or subsidiary of Park Avenue Securities or Guardian.
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