Your Retirement Journey and My Financial Coaching Why
The quicker you get started, the shorter that journey's going to be. The longer you're like, I'll just deal with it later. It may or may not happen.
Have you ever wondered why some people make steady progress on their retirement journey while others stay stuck, even with a good income? I was there too, budgeting, saving, planning, but never feeling confident it was enough. That's why I became a financial coach.
Over my 13-year retirement journey, I learned that reaching retirement is possible, but I didn’t have a clear path, checklist, or anything telling me what to do next. What I learned on my journey is the exact steps I help clients take to get them to retirement. I’ve become the retirement coach I wish I had on my journey.
What You'll Learn:
✅ My journey to retirement, from financial blogs to creating my own retirement roadmap
✅ Why I used my budget as my retirement checklist
✅ The critical first steps I wish I'd known on my retirement journey
✅ How questioning each expense supported me in getting retirement ready
✅ Why your current budget directly impacts what you'll need in retirement
Click HERE for Unedited Transcript of Episode
Welcome to the Wealthy After 40 podcast, where I help you enjoy your money now and later. So about four years ago, I decided it was time for me to actually pull the plug and retire, but that journey had started 13, 15, actually 15 years before that. So as I'm sitting with this, you know, the year prior of the year prior. I said to my husband, I'm gonna retire. He said, okay. When I'm like in a year, and to me that was safe. I think that's why I said that. A couple of days later, I'm like, I'm not leaving right before winter. So I ended up choosing August 1st and I said, you know what? That'll play honor to my mom. We had just lost her. That would be her year. August 1st is her birthdate and her death date, which I know is a rarity. And I'm like, oh my gosh, that would be so good, so good. And so that stuck with me a little bit longer. I would say probably three, four weeks. And then I said, why am I leaving at the end of summer? Yep. My choosing of my date was all around weather. I am a weather person. I love the heat. I loved being warm. I hate being cold. And so I also was like, you know what? I have not had a summer off in a very, very long time. I'm sure you can relate. And so that is when I solidified my June one. So as I was like, okay, there's my date. That's when I'm leaving. I am 50. What the heck am I gonna do all day? What the heck am I gonna do? So I began thinking and exploring, and I came across financial coaching as a job. Now, prior to my retirement, I was a budget manager. I taught cops how to budget. 22 of them every year. I had to get in line to correlate, to be able to take what they knew they needed and translate it into what the auditors needed. I was the middleman and making sure that happened. So, you know what? I love numbers. Numbers has been my thing. I have an accounting degree, I have an MBA, and you know, I just love numbers. As soon as I hear something and I need to make a decision, I usually go, the numbers are out. You are probably a creative, you go the creative route, it's however you work. So I'm like, oh my gosh, financial coaching would be so good. Plus I will have just like finished one of my biggest dreams, one of my financial goals, right? It's, I had done several others that I was proud of, but I'm like, man, if I can help people feel this good about achieving their financial goals, that is what I want to do. So I stepped into the space June one and started working with clients and that's what I was doing. Whatever goal you want, whatever you want to do, I'm gonna help you get there. You wanna buy a new house, you wanna, you know, pay off your debt, you wanna do whatever. So as I was a financial coach for a year, year and a half, I realized. I had learned so much on my 15 year journey, if you've listened to episode one, where I share my story, I talk about my entire journey, and I'm not gonna cover that here, but I realized that on that journey, every effort I was doing, even though I was making purchases for our short term goals, every effort was made for me and my husband. He was supposed to retire after me. He actually retired before me. That's a whole different story. But I really realized how better suited I was to help individuals walk every step that they need to retirement. And why? Because I figured it out. I did not have a guide. I did not have specific steps. I was just figuring it out. Now, like I said, numbers is in my wheelhouse. I am a longtime learner, so reading and learning and you know, doing all of that. But I also had some time. I had some time. I had never really just thought about retirement. So if I'm gonna give you any advice early on in this episode right now, you've just got to decide you're going to retire. Okay? Step one. So as I'm reflecting back, I'm like, okay, what did I learn? Well, you know, I still had the same, am I on track? Am I saving enough? But when I started, I knew the one thing was certain that my budget would be the key in finding the answers I needed in finding the steps in guiding me to retirement. Now again, I didn't have a guide. I didn't have specific steps. I knew I needed to save. We all know that. But I didn't know I needed to save my sinking funds first. I say that hesitantly here, but yes, that's what I would tell you to do. You've got to have sinking funds, sinking funds in an emergency funds, and I struggled with that. I've shared that in my story. But I just, I wish I would've known that, but still, my budget was my guiding light. How did I learn this? I looked at what others were doing. So there were two big people that I followed. There were several others that were on their way to early retirement, so on the same similar journey. Motley Fool, he's huge now, if you are in that space. And Jeff Rose. Those are the two names I remember. They were just bloggers at the time. They were on my weekly reading list as to what are they doing, how are they doing it, what are they learning? What more do I need to learn? And it was through these efforts. Again, I'm a long time learner that I really just started dialing in. There were other people doing other things. They're, you know, blogs were huge, podcasts were not as big at the time. But you have to take the medium that you learn best in. And so if you're listening to this, podcasts are your best. So you're going to go there for more information. Maybe you can read books as well, or maybe you can find articles online. There's so much information online now than there was 15, almost 16 years ago, so again, going back, not to beat a dead horse, but my budget was my guiding light. I knew what I wanted to do short term and long term. So, you know, go head back to episode one if you wanna know what that was. And so I just knew I needed to dial in my expenses to those two things. We were recreating as a family. So the RV's, the recreational property, those types of things were short term and long term was retirement. But I spent time with every single expense, they're listed on my budget. I worked my budget over and over and over, but as I spent time with each expense, I would ask myself, number one, if it was needed, or number two, could I do it better? Those are actually words from one of my clients. At the time I just knew I was evaluating it, but I loved it when she said, I have re I have taken off three expenses 'cause I know I can do 'em in a better way. Those realizations are gold. I love helping clients recognize something like that, but I dialed into every expense. And as I did that, I found more money to be set aside to savings, sinking funds, emergency funds, retirement savings. Ultimately, this meant the more I was saving, the more I was setting aside for future meant the less I needed to live on in retirement. That's the formula. It takes a bit to get there, but if you are living on a certain amount that's less, that is what you need to live on. Retirement, give or take. I know that's not an exact, but it's a really good guidance. I, but on my journey, I learned how to take paydays, create opportunities. It's only on pay. Well, it's not truly only on payday, but on paydays, you have your money for two weeks or 30 days, depending on when you get paid to do the best you can with it. That is your opportunity to really make a change. And so in between was when I dial into the expenses. I still make foaming hand soap today. I still wash on cold water. I still use half the amount suggested of laundry detergent than the manufacturer says, there's other things I do as well. One of my most favorite books on my journey, it's called The Tight Wad Gazette. Now that's frugal, that's thrifty, and there is an extreme there. I did not go extreme, but what I share with clients I'm going to share with you is to learn what other people are doing in the areas of you're like, well, I could do this better, it doesn't mean you want to get rid of the expense, but you wanna do it better. What can you do? The other thing I learned from this was being able to create the systems. Having your daily money in a system where you see what's happening, where you see how it needs to flow, where your money is going, does that feel good? What is your savings doing? It's all about that savings percent. I've talked about a savings challenge before. These are all the systems, the strategies that I help clients employ to be able to replicate month after month, year after year. 'cause it's a long journey, but it's only as long as you make it. The quicker you get started, the shorter that journey's going to be. The longer you're like, I'll just deal with it later. It may or may not happen. So look, I can give you all the strategies and the frameworks in the world on this podcast, but if you are thinking, I don't even know where to start with my situation, sometimes we think that my, so your situation has different elements and it may, and if you're thinking that it's time to have a conversation. I have Clarity Connection calls available for this purpose. They're available to you. They are 45 minute coaching sessions where we will tackle your specific situation, what you believe is your biggest stumbling block, that all of these strategies and frameworks don't apply to you. So please schedule your call at Elevate Finances US slash connection. Let's spend 45 minutes in helping you understand what your situation is, what the problem is, and it may or may not be what you think it is and get you that action step to move forward. This will help you no longer be spending your wills. Let me be your motley fool, your Jeff Rose. Let me help you get the momentum going. So my biggest reason, my biggest why is I want you to feel as accomplished about your money as I was and am, right? I'm still on a journey. I'm on the other side of retirement, but it's still a journey from day to day. If you join my email list, which you can do by taking the quiz or if you download the checklist, those can be found at a backslash of quiz or a backslash of checklist. Elevate finances us. Join my email list where I share what is happening financially with me. How I'm, you know, maneuvering through that. I will also be sharing a little bit on Instagram, so come follow me over there if you're a part of that. And I'll, you know, to just learn how this actually applies day to day and that retirement isn't the end. You still need to know how to manage money. You still have got to segue. Emergencies. You've gotta have syncing funds, you've gotta know how your cash flow is handling. And I do all of these things with my Systems Daily management system, the dual growth system, and the Retirement Clarity System, which I developed after my 13 year journey, taking those steps that I did, and let's get them employed for you quicker. Thank you for tuning into another personal story of mine, which sometimes I hesitate in sharing and it's much more easier through email sometimes on stories. But I'd love to hang out with you in a different way. But please, if you are stuck, schedule that clarity connection. Call today and let's get you moving forward. Thank you for tuning into this episode. We'll see you next week.
