
A Retirement Ready VIP Session Experience
Apr 15, 2025
Retirement is one of the biggest financial milestones in life. Yet, many people find themselves asking, "Am I ready to retire?" or "How do I know if I can retire?" If you're wrestling with these questions, you're not alone.
This blog post will walk you through the essential factors that determine retirement readiness and how a Retirement Ready VIP Session can help you gain clarity and confidence in your financial future.
What Does It Mean to Be Retirement Ready?
Retirement readiness isn't just about having a certain amount of money in your bank account or investments. It’s about understanding your financial position, knowing your expenses, and having a clear roadmap for achieving your desired lifestyle in retirement.
A structured approach can help you determine whether you're truly prepared. In my Retirement Ready VIP Session, I work with clients to assess their financial health, identify gaps, and create actionable steps to help them reach their goals.
Common Questions About Retirement Readiness
Many clients come to me with pressing questions such as:
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How much do I need to save for retirement?
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Am I on track financially?
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Is it too late to build a secure retirement plan?
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When should I pay off my mortgage?
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How much savings should I have outside of investments?
These are the exact types of questions we address in a VIP session, providing you with tailored answers and a clear financial strategy.
The Retirement Ready VIP Session: A Deep Dive
A recent client came to me feeling uncertain despite having already taken solid financial steps. Her main concern? Determining her FI (Financial Independence) number and whether she was on track to retire comfortably.
Before our session, every client completes two essential steps:
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Retirement Readiness Questionnaire: This helps uncover your financial habits, goals, and retirement dreams.
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Financial Spreadsheet: A clear, structured overview of your financial situation, covering income, expenses, savings, and investments.
This prep work allows me to assess your retirement readiness score and tailor the session specifically to your needs.
The Five Key Areas of Retirement Readiness
During the VIP session, we analyze five crucial areas:
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Cash Flow & Budgeting: Understanding your income, expenses, and financial habits.
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Savings Strategy: Ensuring you have the right balance of liquid savings and investments.
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Retirement Planning: Identifying how much you need and how to get there.
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Investment Knowledge: Evaluating whether your investments align with your goals.
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Subject Matter Expertise: Reviewing Social Security, Medicare, pensions, and other key financial topics.
Key Insights from a Recent VIP Session
Let’s walk through some of the key takeaways from a real VIP session:
1. Understanding Your FI Number
Your FI number is the amount you need to be financially independent. For my client, we calculated this number and found a gap between her current savings trajectory and her target amount.
The good news? There are strategies to bridge that gap, such as:
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Adjusting expenses
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Maximizing investments
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Exploring additional income sources
2. Should You Pay Off Your Mortgage Before Retiring?
Some people prefer to retire debt-free, while others prioritize liquidity over paying off their home. This decision depends on your financial situation, risk tolerance, and retirement goals.
During our session, my client gained clarity on how her mortgage fits into her overall plan and what steps to take next.
3. The Importance of Liquid Savings
Investments are great, but having accessible cash reserves is crucial for unexpected expenses. My client recognized that she needed to bolster her liquid savings to maintain flexibility in retirement.
4. Planning for Irregular Expenses
A major challenge my client faced was handling non-monthly expenses. We implemented a sinking funds strategy—allocating money into savings buckets for things like vacations, home repairs, and gifts—so she could enjoy her retirement without financial stress.
The Power of a Personalized Retirement Plan
By the end of the session, my client had:
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A clear roadmap for reaching her FI number
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A decision-making framework for her mortgage
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What actions to close the gap between savings and her FI number
She left the session excited, motivated, and with a tangible plan to take action.
Are You Ready for Retirement?
If you’ve been asking yourself, "How do I know if I can retire?" now is the time to get clarity. A Retirement Ready VIP Session will help you understand where you stand and what steps you need to take next.
Welcome to today's episode. I'm excited to share with you the results of a live VIP session. Now, I'm not playing the session live. I'm walking you through a deep dive of what the experience was like and also letting you know what it could like. Look like for you. I'm excited to share these specific results and kind of better explain what my retirement ready VIP session is all about. You can read more on the sales page by using the link down below in the show notes, or just stay tuned. I'll, I'll share with you exactly what it is. The purpose of the VIP session is to answer your specific questions. You might be wondering, how much do I need to save? Am I on track? Am I too late? Is it going to be possible? Whatever that question is, we will answer it. This session also will support you by giving you strategies to help you overcome. Some big challenges and hurdles that either you feel you have or I can see on your journey. This session is tailored to you. It is, giving you the specific advice you need to achieve what you want. My client came to me wondering if she was on the right track. She had already put a lot of actions into place, but was still swimming in. Am I doing the right thing? Is it going to work? Am I on track? Am I gonna reach there? all of those things. Her number one question was, what is my FI number? Now? FI is financial independence. That's the number to, achieve a comfortable retirement. Well, there's lots of levels in that comfort, comfortable, but you know here that I talk about creating your own. With hers, we identified what that FI number was, and she was wondering if she's on track to get there. Before the session, she filled out a questionnaire that detailed her specific desires and wishes about retirement. It also answered like what she had done in, managing money, how she felt about it. Was it working for her, was it not working for her? I ask all of those things. I. It's not a long questionnaire, but it helps me get to know who you are a little bit better with budgeting and your desire for retirement. She also completed the financial spreadsheet. Now that might sound scary, but this provides an overview of the financial situation financial situation. You just list all of the things as I ask 'em on the left side. Fill in that number and keep on going. This financial spreadsheet is used as the basis during our session. All clients submit the same prep work prior to your own individualized two hour session. Getting it into me before the session and at the time I request, which is 48 hours, helps me prepare what I'm seeing. Now how I'm scoring you on the retirement readiness scorecard I have. And when we jump into this two hour session, we're hitting the ground running and everything about this session is about getting results for you. My client, as I already a little bit shared, she came to me wondering what her fi number was. Was she on track? And if not, what should could she do? Which I love that question as that shows, kind of an abundance mindset instead of, is it not gonna happen type of thing. So very, very key there. She was wondering when she should pay off her mortgage. I. And how much savings she should have outside of investments. These questions are very common. You may be having those same questions or something similar, or you might be like, I'm not even there yet. I understand that. The start of the session is the overview of your finances, like I said, by using a retirement readiness scorecard. I rate what I see in each area. On this prep work as being on track or it needs at attention. Sometimes there's few things that are mastered, and then I give action steps for those areas that are not mastered to help you move forward and master them yourself. There are five areas that I review, cashflow and budget. They are together. There's sub areas below that. Savings is area number two, retirement planning. Also, again, some subsections underneath this area. Four is investing basically your knowledge about it. And number five is what I call subject matter. This is social security, Medicare, pensions, stock options, all of those things. Taking your prep work, I score your scorecard. We meet in the session and we review this. It helps us kind of align up those action steps. What feels good to you, what you know you can do or you maybe not quite ready to do, and we start building this roadmap for you to reach retirement. Back to my client. She had a very solid financial foundation. She had a budget. She was tracking expenses, her savings were off the charts. And she was managing debt very well. Mortgage student loan, that was it. Paying off her credit card every single month. Her biggest challenge came from not having a plan for those irregular non monthly expenses. You hear me talk about this all the time. These are sinking funds and savings buckets, and most. Most times not. This is a biggest stumbling block for all of my clients. Not quite sure how to plan for these. How much to set aside, how do I work this in? That was my client. She says I do really well and then, I see a piece of furniture I love, or it's a birthday, something like that. And I overspend, nope, we just haven't quite got that system into place to cover those things that we normally do. That we normally enjoy spending our money on. We talked about. Her random expenses as that's what she defined them and explained how in long-term coaching, creating a plan can support her to being prepared for those. Planning, for those, knowing how much to set aside, how much is too much, how much is not enough. all of those things that come with those sinking funds and save savings bucket. Those are your sinking funds are your emergency funds. They're going to be made up of different categories for you, for your life, who you are, what you've got going on. They're different for everybody. All right, the next thing we walked through was how I had calculated her FI number, gave her the first number, and there was a gap from. Savings projection to the actual FI number, projecting off her current expenses, but then knowing and educating her on the levers she could pull, there's things we can do to close that gap. Get a little bit more cozy with our expenses. look at some of our investments. Do we have a good mix? Are we maximizing? Do we need to go talk to a financial planner about that? What are our other income sources that may reduce that FI number that we're going to get monthly? How do all of those things factor the other factor? At what age, these are very important to be able to fit in the plan. Now everybody's. Income sources are going to be different. How much we're saving, how much we need kind of goes off of how much we make. So being able to calculate that FI number and then knowing those levers for you that you can shift and move, and how to start closing that gap more quickly to making retirement possible for you. The next area we covered was her question about. Paying off her mortgage and when now this is a personal finance decision, there are some people who say they will never pay off their mortgage. There's other people who won't retire until it's paid off. You know it. It can be you're in one camp or the other, or maybe you're not filling either camp and you need coaching around how that feels with everything else, getting that plan in place, what does it look like and how does that make you? Phil and carrying it with you into retirement or not. being key on that and thinking of that if that's something that you have. The next area we went to was her concern about liquid savings. She had heard my episode where I talked about that I needed more, and I recognized that in our moving situation, that having more liquid savings. It's more than you think, and kind of exploring that with her as to her position, her family situation, her desires that she wanted to do in retirement, relocation, all of those things. And then helping her understand why liquid savings as opposed to 100% investments. This was how we walked through. And spent our time, we spent about 40 minutes doing the overview, covering all of things, discussing what worked for her, help her understand, what I was seeing better understand what she was doing, and kind of piecing those together to really solidify those action steps. And then it is a two hour long session. But I love to give her a break, get up, walk around, get the blood flowing, clear that head, and then we come back to. Specialized coaching. We spend about 45, 50 minutes in that what? What do you need coaching on immediately? What do you want to achieve from this session? And then we work on that in the second part of the session. I love these sessions. There's so much accomplished, there's so much done, and it is very tailored to you. I'm sure you have two hours in your life plus maybe an hour on the side to fill out this prep work. To really get an idea of what you need to do next. That's what this is. the purpose is to answer your questions. The goal is to give you a plan to be able to move forward and recognizing, should you do it by yourself or should you do it with a coach. I love holding these sessions. My client and I, we had such a great time together. She was so excited. By the time we got off, she had written down so many notes. I also keep notes, you get deliverables that are spelled out, specific, all of the things I covered, and so it was just such a great time. I love spending two hours with new clients and help support them in their retirement journey. As you know, I have. Been a proponent of that for the last six, eight months that retirement is possible. This session is one of those ways to understand how possible it is. So some takeaways from this session with my client is the importance of having a structured savings strategy. Now I've kind of teased and I still have it coming. I will have a savings academy. It's going to be a course with some group coaching later in the summer. If you're interested in that, make sure you have joined my newsletter. Second thing we know is how understanding your FI number helps you take control of your retirement path. understanding there's some levers you can do that are going to be personalized to you. What you need to do, double down on, pull back on something, whatever those things are. Again, the mortgage payoff debate, it really is coaching, it's really personal finance. It's not a one size fits all. It, it really, you have to dig deep into yourself and understand why you believe what you believe, or why you don't have a belief, and then going from there and exploring that. If you are asking the same questions or similar questions that my client had, it's time for you to book a retirement ready VIP session. For those who book a session before the end of April, not hold your session, just get it booked, get it on my books, get it in there as I will be gone a couple weeks in May. And you will receive an extra financial health audit that we will do in addition to what I've just described. As well as I will give you some bonus worksheets to support your specific action steps that we define in that roadmap. Please, if you're thinking about it, consider it retirement ready, VIP session. The link is down in the show notes. Get it booked before April 30th to receive those bonuses. And have such a great time doing it. I'm so excited to support those of you who are ready to start moving forward. And if you're not quite ready, I understand, keep listening, keep staying in tune, and we'll see you next week.Click HERE for Full Transcript of Episode
Retirement Ready Boot Camp
Next boot camp June 2, 2025
Join me for the Retirement Ready Boot Camp, a free 3-day experience where you’ll:
✅ Increase your retirement readiness by understanding where you stand financially
✅ Design a retirement lifestyle you love—beyond just vacations and free time
✅ Discover if you have enough to retire and what to do if you don’t
Whether you’re 10 years away or just starting to plan, this boot camp will guide you through the essentials to make sure your retirement dreams become a reality.
Retirement planning doesn’t have to be stressful. Join now!
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