Rethink Retirement into Your Freedom Day

Re-thinking Retirement into Living For Today

We often think of turning off working and turning on the fun when we think of retiring. Jeff Kikel, of Freedom Day Planning, wants us to think of it differently.

In this episode, we talk about re-thinking retirement from taking 4% of your portfolio to creating streams of income to support your lifestyle. Jeff shares the exact steps he follows to get there and some ideas he and his clients have employed.

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Contact Info:

Contact Jeff Kikel

Time Stamps

00:30 Meet Jeff Kikel: Entrepreneur and Author

01:27 Understanding the Concept of Freedom Day

01:40 The Shift in Retirement Mindset

05:21 Achieving a Work-Optional Lifestyle

06:55 Generating Passive Income

09:26 Alternative Investment Strategies

15:47 The Freedom Day Method

22:25 Planning for Financial Freedom

23:22 The Importance of a Bucket List

24:04 Challenges of Early Retirement

25:00 Understanding Freedom Day

26:06 Personal Experiences with Job Quitting

27:50 Living the Freedom Day Lifestyle

33:04 Income Strategies for Retirement

37:16 Final Thoughts and Recommendations

40:42 Conclusion and Podcast Promotion

• Transcript

  Introduction to the Me Financial Podcast

  h Welcome to me financial the podcast designed to inspire your financial life. Hello everyone. And welcome to the me financial podcast. I am Michelle Moses, your host. And today we are going to be talking about creating your freedom day. Uh, and I would kind of equate that to somewhat of a retirement, but we have Jeff Kickel here to talk to us about it.

  Thank you for joining us, Jeff. Um, glad to be here. Yeah, I am glad. I'm excited to talk about this.

  
  Meet Jeff Kickel: Entrepreneur and Author

  Jeff is a published author, speaker, and entrepreneur. He is the CEO and founder of T Works Coworking and president of Freedom Day Wealth Management. He helps people find their work, optional lifestyle, what he calls their Freedom Day.

  He's the host of the Freedom Nation podcast and enjoys building businesses and making money. And he gets to travel because of that. So welcome. Sounds like we have a lot in common. I love it. We're in the same business. And I looked at your website and I was like, Okay, we're [00:01:00] going to get along well because you do a lot of the same stuff I did.

  Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, when we're talking about things about creating businesses, I just am fascinated by, you know, the different ways that we can do business and how easy it is to do it from anywhere. And this is just kind of what you are talking about is kind of how I, plan for retirement. And so I'm very excited to talk about what your philosophy is with the mindset of it, but then also what the Freedom Day is.

  
  Understanding the Concept of Freedom Day

  So let's start off with that about what is a Freedom Day. First off for the rest of the show, we shall not use the R word ever. Okay, we shall use the big R word. Big, you know, line through no R word.

  
  The Shift in Retirement Mindset

  Um, you know, I, Freedom Day basically came out of, you know, I've spent 30 years in the investment business and the financial planning industry, um, work for multiple firms and what I noticed was around 2012, 2013, there was kind of a mindset shift [00:02:00] in the clients that I was dealing with and so, you know, I had We're younger, you know, let's call them mid thirties to early forties.

  Um, I call them the, the four hour work week generation. They're the people that grew up reading Tim Ferriss four hour work week. That would be me. I, me too. Um, I read it every year, religiously, twice a year. Um, and have for, since the book was published. Um, and that generation is just kind of wired different from my generation.

  Uh, my generation was, you know, work hard, keep working, get your pension, all this. Yeah. You know, just you get a good job, you know, you get a good education, you get a good job, you just work hard and you'll succeed in the end. Um, that generation's like, yeah, that sounds great, but I don't want to spend 40 years working, then get to the point where, you know, I've saved and scrimped and done everything I could so that I could downsize my house, have one car, take one cruise per year and [00:03:00] wear black socks and sandals.

  I, I just don't want to do that. So, you know, they're the generation that for when they were really young and they were in their twenties, they were like, screw it. I'm going to go, you Half a year and, you know, live all over the world and do that kind of thing. And then they had kids and reality hit and they all of a sudden were like, Crap, I am working a job now, but I don't want to do that lifestyle.

  Right. I want to figure out how to get out early. Now the other side of the coin were my older clients who were You know, in their 50s and early 60s and they were going, crap, I, I, you know, I didn't plan well, I didn't save well, I followed the rules that the retirement industry gave me, and the reality is there's no way in hell I'm going to be able to retire, so I'm probably going to have to keep working, and I'm going to have to downsize my house, get one car, take one cruise per year, and wear black socks all the time.

  So that was the common thread [00:04:00] when I looked at all of that. Well, you know, you have certain clients, and I'm sure, Michelle, you see this when you sit down with a client and You know, they come in with that, Oh God, I'm never going to be able to retire. And you look at the assets that they have and their goals and what they spend.

  And you're like, before I even put it in the financial planning software, this is going to work. You're going to be okay. But you know, they have that kind of negative feeling about it. Well, and most people do have that negative feeling. I feel like, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's just that fatalistic, you know, I'm just never going to be able to retire.

  Um, and I remember sitting down with my first client that this came up with, uh, about 2013, 2014. And, you know, I mean, I knew the numbers. I'm like, geez, I can do this on the back of a napkin. It's going to work. And I basically told them, well, you have your freedom day. You, you woke up this morning and you didn't have to go to work that day.

  And I saw this kind of smile come on their face and we went through it and they were like, wow, I [00:05:00] don't really have to get up and go to work tomorrow. And I was like, yeah, you're right. Well, I started using that terminology more and more over the next few years. And then I just got to the point where I stopped using the R word completely.

  And we started focusing on Freedom Day. And, and I think the biggest thing is, and to answer your question the long way, what is Freedom Day?

  
  Achieving a Work-Optional Lifestyle

  Well, Freedom Day is the first day that you have a work optional lifestyle. What does that mean? It means you have enough income or assets to be able to generate enough income to not have to get up and go to work that day.

  Well, the difference between that and the R word is the R word is this kind of thing that's out there and there's, it's time bound. Right, and you're going to stop working and you're automatically going to start pulling money, assets out of your retirement. I'm just, I'm not going to live a life for 40 years and then all of a sudden I'm going to hit 65 or 66.

  And then all of a sudden I'm going to start living life and I'm going to have enough assets to do that. [00:06:00] So there's this, you know, that fatalistic thing when you're coming in there and you're coming in hot at 62 and 66 is the place and you're not going to make it. And we've been so brainwashed into this thought of, well, you have to have these assets.

  and not what you should be thinking about is you have to have a certain amount of cash flow to live your life. Right. Well, Freedom Day, I mean, I could have, you know, I, and I've proven this thing three times since I got my Freedom Day. I was like, you know what, I'm going to start all over again, something fresh.

  Um, the one skill that I learned over the last 10 years of my life is how to make money. Um, I understand now how to make money. And so you can drop me in any place, give me a few dollars, and I'm going to figure out how to make money. And I'm going to generate enough income within a very short period of time.

  
  Generating Passive Income

  Now, are you trying to always, are you always trying to make a passive [00:07:00] income or are you just trying to make an income? Um, well, I mean, at the beginning, you're probably going to have to make an active income, but you know, my goal is to get to passive as quickly as possible. Okay. And by talking about passive, what do you mean by passive income?

  Well, I mean, it can be a multitude of things. It could be that you create, you know, best example of going active to passive. Let's say I have some kind of skill or I want to develop a skill. I want to be able to do SEO for local businesses. Okay. So search engine optimization, it's a skill that can be learned.

  It's really, it's really not very complicated. You just have to understand how web browsers work. So I can go out, I can learn how to be an SEO, you know, how to do SEO. All I have to do is know enough about SEO to talk about it, get my first client, and then I can use that money to pay for a course to learn how to do SEO and over deliver for that client, and then take that money [00:08:00] and continue to go and get additional clients and grow from there, but then my price for what I do is going to eventually get to the point where Thank you.

  You're welcome. I'm kind of capping out, you know, the maximum I can do with time. Well, what would I do then? Well, there's tons of people who work overseas, who work in, you know, I mean, I was in Europe, in the Czech Republic. I mean, Czech dollars, Czech kroners, I still don't understand. It's like monopoly money to me.

  But I could literally hire somebody over there that would cost me probably a hundred dollars here for like twenty dollars an hour over there and they would be making bank. So I could become the sales force at that point and manage a team of those guys and then I could scale that business in a passive way.

  So I'm not having to do the physical work. That's one example. Okay. Um, another example. And I mean, this, this year is my. Year of [00:09:00] what I call 5 by 10. So what is 5 by 10? I have 5 revenue sources. And my goal for this year is to take all 5 of those revenue sources, 2 of which are brand new, and get each of those to 10, 000 per month, every month, this year.

  So that's going to generate 50, 000 in revenue per month. Most people make in a year. Yeah.

  
  Alternative Investment Strategies

  And I like that you're talking about actual businesses because I feel like most people talk about passive income and they're talking about, uh, having rental homes. And while I think that's great, I just don't think everybody can have a rental home.

  I mean, that's just not the story for every single person. And it's not the right reality is you follow the 99 percent of the gurus out there, what they do. I mean, it works. but it works until it doesn't work. Um, you know, so the reality is, okay, I go out there, I use the burr method. So buy, [00:10:00] renovate, rent, refinance, repeat, you know, so that's the method that most real estate investors use.

  Well, the problem is you're leveraging the hell out of those properties and you know, you're, you're paying a mortgage and then you're getting rentals and you're maybe making an extra 200 a month if you're lucky. Yeah. You have to have so many. Yeah. Hope that nothing breaks. Yeah. That you don't have a renter that destroys the place and all that.

  So, you know, one of the, one of the guys I interviewed on my podcast, a guy named Scott Jellison, um, you know, Scott taught me a technique called slow flips. And you know what a slow flip is, is you find a house that's an absolute pile of garbage, you find an investor that's willing to back you, um, you know, typically most of these properties are 30, 000 and below, and they're out there, trust me, um, and you effectively buy that piece of property on a five year [00:11:00] note, to that investor at 12%.

  Um, now I've, I've got control of a 30, 000 piece of property. I immediately turn around and sell that to someone else and carry the financing myself. So now I don't own the property. I become the bank. And you know, if you'd asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, Um, I wanted to be the bank. Yeah, I really understood how banks work and all I do is collect checks now.

  So that took me from a traditional real estate investor where, you know, I had figured out ways to make more than that extra 200 a month, but now I have none of the headaches of, uh, you know, somebody there, I have none of the headaches of, you know, managing a property. I have none of the headaches of. it being empty for a while, all of a sudden I just get an upfront, you know, amount of money for a down payment and I get checks every month.

  And so my job is to [00:12:00] deposit checks once a month into my account. Because you were willing to take the risk on the house in the first place. Yeah, exactly. And then I figured out a better way of doing it, which was to find tax deed properties in certain states where I was able to go in and buy a house for like 1, 000 and then do the same technique.

  So I was able to fund that out of my pocket. Yeah. And now I have no debt on properties and I have nothing but cashflow coming in. And so that is literally my job every day besides managing client accounts is I find those properties, acquire them and turn around and slow flip them. Okay. All right. I like that.

  And you also, and then you help people find their freedom day. Is that the other part of your business? Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, a big part of what I do is teach. Yeah. So, you know, there's a, I only work with a very, very, very specific segment of investors. Um, you know, they're, they have to have a certain amount of assets.

  They have to be [00:13:00] willing to do some things a little bit outside the box. As far as investing, I don't do stocks, bonds, cash. We do things that, uh, that generate. income streams, and those income streams are going to come in way, way higher than what your typical, you know, stocks bond cash portfolio is going to be.

  I just call them alternative investments. I call them all alternatives. And these are really not alternatives. They're just out there. Yeah, they are just out there. Subsegments of the market and their strategies. That I've learned, and I've used, you know, I basically am always the guinea pig, so I test it in my own portfolios, and once it works, then I bring it out to the clients, but because of that, some of this stuff is a little bit more hands on and requires more work.

  Right, right. Um, you know, so I, that, I do, and then through my podcasts and the books that I write and all that, that's for the mass market. It's for those people that are sitting out there that are, uh, what I call a cubicle warrior. They're sitting in a cubicle, they go there every day, and they die just a little bit every [00:14:00] day.

  Um, I want to help them to say, Oh, well, maybe I've got a really cool skill that I can do. You know, maybe I'm great at making PowerPoints. Okay, well then, let me go sell that skill to somebody else, and once I get to the point where I'm really good at that and I'm making money at it, then I'm going to find some other people who are like me, or I can train, and then I'm just going to bring them in, and now that's a passive income source for me.

  Other people are doing the work. Well, and I think even when you're talking about people that are going to a cubicle, like for your example, uh, and they do want to, a lot, a lot of people don't want to completely retire. They want to be enjoying their life still and to do things that interest them. And, um, so I do think that retirement has become, and I know that you're talking about freedom day of a hundred percent, you know, having passive income or replace your income, uh, your current income, but, uh, that sometimes people will work and then they could retire just a little bit [00:15:00] early because they could supplement their income with a part time job or some one of these skills also.

  So I do think we're definitely seeing this hybrid thing because I know that I don't really want, I enjoy working, but I get to do what I want to do. Uh, and so it's the same thing for these people that go to a job, yeah, that they could just at least. So, so I, even if you guys, I think some people, um, do enjoy going to a job.

  I have learned this over the years. I thought everybody hated going to an office, but there are some people that thrive on it. But I do think that you'll get something from listening to this just because when you do retire, you could supplement your income with, because it is stressful to go into retirement and then go from earning all this money to all of a sudden turning off that faucet.

  And then all this, you're, you know, taking money out all of a sudden.

  
  The Freedom Day Method

  Well, and you know, I think the biggest thing is, you know, what, what I, so I created what I call the Freedom Day Method. So it's an eight step process. You know, I mean, it's, it's pretty simple. So, you know, step one. You've [00:16:00] got to figure out your situation.

  So you've got to figure out your cashflow situation. So you do, you sit down and you look at what's coming in, what's going out. Uh, first off, if it's going the negative way, uh, you've got to figure something out pretty quick. You've either got to reduce expenses or increase income. And then second step is we have you build a bucket list.

  Now, everybody thinks that the bucket list is like something you do when you're ready to die. Well, I think everybody needs a bucket list from early on in life. Why? Because you need those things to kind of be those carrots for you as you go. So then step three is you're going to look at some kind of alternative income outside of your job.

  So what could that be? Well, it could be real estate investing. It could be, you know, you've got some kind of special skill that you can sell. Uh, there's two sites that you can go to Fiverr and Upwork. where you can actually utilize some kind of skill, even if it's the skill that you have from work. I mean, [00:17:00] that's true.

  That's a good point. I've even seen people help people do couponing and do, you know, Ebates and things like that. Like they help people maximize all that money that are active income. It's where you have to actually put out effort. to do. Maybe you have to find clients. Maybe you need to, you know, you've actually got to do a project or whatever.

  But what we do is, when we do our bucket list, we pick out three things that can be done in the next six months. that have some kind of price tag to them. I'll give you an example. So when I did my first bucket list, it was right when a whole lot of turmoil was happening in my life. I went on a business trip.

  It was a, there was a, you know, industry vendor conference, went to this thing. I didn't want to talk to anybody. So I was in my room all by myself. And we had gotten a bucket list journal when we got there. And so I was like, crap, I've never done this before. I'm in this really pretty place. I'm just going to do this.

  And so I did my bucket list and I came up with. [00:18:00] And this happened last year. I realized that, you know, anything that flies, floats, drives, I am an absolute passionate about. And I realized that I had 10 things on my bucket list that were things involving flying, floating, driving, something like that. And there was 12 of them.

  And I was like, you know what, if you do the math, everything costs about 400 a month. And so I'm like, you know what, I'm living what I eat. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to create a, you know, a source of revenue. So basically what I, what I was able to do was acquire a property. I turned around and I started using that property for midterm rentals to nurses.

  That was really how we got into the real estate business was we started doing midterm rentals for nurses. Now here's the beauty. If you want to be a rental person, rent or find properties close to [00:19:00] hospitals. And then take those things, furnish them, put them up on, on furnish, uh, furnishfinder. com, which is where all the traveling nurses go to, and you have the best tenants you'll ever have, who pay you double the amount of rent that you would normally get.

  and they stay for like 13 weeks at a time, sometimes 26 weeks when they're on a contract. They do not complain. They do not trash your house. All they want is someplace safe and quiet to come when they get off of a 12 hour shift. Right. So that piece of property, that one piece of property was generating 500 a month.

  So I'm like, cool. So now I'm going to go live my my little dreams of all the things I wanted to do. And so I went and drove a Lamborghini on the, on the, uh, F1 track here in Austin. Um, I drove a James Bond car, you know, the, uh, the, uh, V8 Vantage in England when I was [00:20:00] over there. Um, II planes last year, uh, did all of this stuff.

  And it was all paid by that 500 a month. It was coming in that way. So that's what we do. We figure out a way to make that money. Well, and that's what I love about what you're talking about is that a lot of people would say, okay, earn this, and then you're going to save it. Whereas you're saying you're going to earn this and then you're going to reward yourself.

  And tell us what you, what you talk about rewiring the brain. Cause I really love this. It's spot on. Rewiring the brain is, is we start to realize. Okay, I want this, and I'm not going to put it on credit, I want this, and all I have to do is make some kind of money to pay for this. And you realize that 400 is not too hard to make.

  Now, let's say I wanted to go ride that, so if I wanted to drive a Lamborghini in Austin, at the F1 track. It costs 468 to do that. What could you do to make 468? Guess [00:21:00] what? You can sign up for Uber today. You can go out and drive Uber for a week and make more than 468. So that you could go do that. And you'll get, and you're driving a Lamborghini.

  Right. At the, at the F1 track. So it's not hard to make money, but what it starts to teach you how to do is, if I want this, I need to create some kind of source of income to do it. Yes. So, that's an active income way of doing it. Mine was a passive income way of doing it, taking a skill that I knew and turning it into something That gives me, and then once I was done last year, when I finished in December, I still have that 500 a month of income that's coming in that I can do whatever I want with.

  So now we've got our brain retrained. We go to our next step, which is step four. And that is we are going to eradicate debt in our lives. So we're going to get really fast, really serious about creating more and more income outside of our job. That's going to get rid of our debt because you're never going to [00:22:00] be free if you have debt.

  And are you including housing debt in this? I that's my last last thing to go. Yeah, that was my one question because I don't know that I mind housing debt, but I wasn't sure. No, I don't. You know, because I mean, you got to have someplace to live. You know, I have a 2. 75 percent 30 year mortgage. I'm not paying.

  I mean, if I, if I'm not smart enough to make more than 2.

  
  Planning for Financial Freedom

  75%, um, I need to fire myself at that point. So I don't get rid of all that, basically that, except for your house. I mean, and the goal for this year is I told you I I'm doing the five by 10. This year, uh, the goal with the five by 10 is I already have enough income to live on.

  So that five by 10 is going to pretty much eradicate the two pieces of debt that I have left in my life, which is solar panels that I put on my roof and the house at that point. And literally within a year and a [00:23:00] half, I'll have that. All, all of that will be paid off and then I'm free and clear at that point.

  All right. It's the only way I would do it. I wouldn't do it any other way. Okay. And so when you work now, and I will get back to the steps cause I know we're not done, but when you work now, uh, is it basically to go and do the things that you want to do, like you're coming up with new things? Yeah.

  The Importance of a Bucket List

  And that's why you have to have a bucket list.

  So this is another reason you've got to have a bucket list because there, there are some other strategies similar to this. I will say. Uh, that are out there and they shall not be mentioned, um, but that was one of the things that as I saw the movements of people that are like, I want to retire early. And what they do is they would live, you know, like poppers, like poppers forever.

  I just don't think, yeah. And then they expect to be able to just, oh, you're going to live this fantastic life and all that. Well, if you've lived like a popper for 10 years, you're not. And if you were disciplined enough to do that. You're not going to be able to go, [00:24:00] Oh, well now I'm going to live my life all over the world.

  And I'm going to do this and that.

  Challenges of Early Retirement

  And well, and that's how I feel when people come to me and they want to retire at like 50 or 52. I'm like, well, yeah, you, you have enough, but you need to budget. I'm like, you're not going to be able to live. Like you can now. And they're like, Oh, I'm like, well, yeah, you have a lot, but I mean, you're going to live to your 90 or 95, you know, like that's a 40 years in that traditional lifestyle.

  Yeah. 40 years of just taking my, that's a long time to, long time to have to rely on that. Yeah. You know what the industry tells you is, well, 4 percent per year. Well, that works all fine and dandy until you have inflation. Right. It's just the unexpected. Well, and all the unexpected stuff. I call it like, you're going to be.

  Uh, you're going to have fingernails on the wall because you're going to be so worried about what your investments are doing versus if you are just working part time or doing some consulting or, you know, whatever it is, it's going to alleviate so much of that [00:25:00] stress. So, yeah.

  Understanding Freedom Day

  And it's, you know, the reason I say Freedom Day is.

  Freedom Day gets you to the point where, you know, and we'll get to that next step, which is when do I get to my Freedom Day? Well, Freedom Day is the day that I have a hundred and twenty five percent of what I call my MRI, my minimum required income from the first step. What is it that I need to bring in per month to live?

  Yeah. Not to go, you know, on a world cruise or anything like that. But what do I need to live my life on a monthly basis? Once I've reached that point, You're now at the next step, which is step seven, which is, do I quit my job or do I stay? Getting to your point earlier, which was, well, there's some people that like doing what they're doing.

  That's great. If you love doing what you're doing, you are going to be the best employee that's ever existed because you know you don't need to be there and you got up, went to work because you [00:26:00] love to be there at that point. And that's when life gets really good, is when you just enjoy what you're doing.

  
  Personal Experiences with Employment

  I was, when I, you know, I, I did this all wrong, by the way. So I did everything out of order and I quit my job and started my businesses. Mainly because I just absolutely vehemently despised the company I was working for. No, that's, that's how I did it. And then I was broke for quite a few years and had debt and then had to pay it off.

  And it was, yeah, not good. I would not recommend it, but I couldn't take it. No wonder we get along well. I could not take it. It was like going to prison every day. Yeah. No, I mean, I, the, the, the last, The last review I've ever had working for anybody, uh, the president of the company, when my idiot of a boss walked out of the room to make a copy of the worst review I'd ever gotten in my life, the president of the company looked me in the face and said, you are the worst employee we've ever had working for us.

  You're too independent. You want to just go do things without permission. And I was like, [00:27:00] but you hired me to do that. That's what I was hired for. While your other morons here are just sitting in the office, sucking in leads coming in. I was out there generating business for you. Um, so that was my, that was my, I'm never working for anybody.

  I don't, I'll live in a car before I work for somebody else. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, but. Yeah, it's much better if you have the income already. Yes, and you plan it and you don't have to go through the stress. Yes. Yeah. And it's less stressful. And if, like I said, if you're that person that hates what you do for a living, you are going to be the worst employee that has ever existed.

  And the fact, you know, you get up every day and you don't have to be there and you're going and you hate it. You're probably the person that needs to leave that job and then go to step eight, which is you live.

  
  Living the Freedom Day Lifestyle

  the Freedom Day lifestyle, which is, hey, I've got my, my map, my, my bucket list that tells me the things I want to do in life.

  I'm probably still going to have [00:28:00] to do some kind of work, but you know, if it's managing my investments, if it's, uh, finding real estate opportunities and taking some money and putting it into there and generating revenue, whatever it is, It's well, we're learning a new skill. Yeah. And I think that people get too caught up in that it's either real estate, you know, or it's whatever their job is, or it's consulting and it can be so much more.

  And that's what I appreciate about your outlook is that it could be driving Uber. It's, it's not that your work goes away. I mean, even the four hour work week is work. I mean, you got to work a lot to get to the four hour work week. Yeah. And so it's the same thing. I mean, you're still going to be working.

  It's just that you're going to be doing it in a different way. If you looked at more enjoyable. Yeah. What, I mean, what Tim did was okay. He built a business that I mean, basically he just sold and had all this crap ton of money, and then he put it into other investments. But, I mean, what did Tim do? I mean, Tim went from okay, I'm a stressed out, freaked out [00:29:00] entrepreneur to hey, I want to go travel the world, I want to go to, you know, I want to go to, to Buenos Aires and learn tango and then compete in like a national tango competition and win, I want to go over to Japan or over to China and you know, figure out how to win a, a, uh, a kickboxing championship and stuff like that.

  So he, he had things that he was doing in his life. While he was working. Yeah. Well, yeah. While he was working. All the stuff is in the background with Brain Balor, with Brain, whatever, Brain Quick, which that was his company. He basically made it to where he only had two clients. Um, and that was just generating enough revenue for him to be able to do whatever he wanted.

  And so. I think that's the part that people miss or they don't understand about. I agree. Yeah. Was, oh, well, you know, you can just work four hours, you know, a week and, you know, that's it. Well, yeah, you can. I mean, I. It gives you the [00:30:00] option to work four hours a week if you need it, but not every single week.

  Are you going to work four hours? Yeah. I mean, I. It gives you just a flexible lifestyle. I was on vacation in Europe. I worked for exactly, uh, 35 minutes in a bar in Prague, um, doing some of the, the trading strategies I do for clients. I do that once a week, you know, basically 9am, 9am to 10am in the market here in the United States was about four o'clock in the afternoon in Prague.

  I was sitting in a bar. All I needed was a good internet connection. And I made, you know, myself and my clients probably about 25, 000 in a period of 25 minutes with a, with a, you know, a nice. Well, and that's what we're talking about. It's not that it's going to happen every single week because you put a lot of work in to get that, to get to that point.

  And so, yeah, it's the point of just having the flexibility of not having to be at a desk. [00:31:00] Yeah, it was my proof that I could do that. That was kind of the final test of, okay, if we decide in the next year or two to go and spend a month, let's say one of our bucket list items is we want to spend a month in the Cotswolds in England.

  So that means if it's a month, that's going to be four trading Fridays and one portfolio trading day plus I've got, you know, real estate purchases that I'm making. So could I be able to do that? And so during that two week period, I was in Europe. I bought two pieces of property and I traded one day, was only one Friday where there was a trading day in that time period.

  So I, I traded the day I left and the day, the next week. And, you know, I was able to do all of that and still visit 13 Christmas markets, four different cities. Then planes, trains, automobiles all over Germany. Drink some old wine over there. No, blue wine I can't take. My wife [00:32:00] and I tried that in Munich and we're like, It's rough.

  Okay, so we literally, we shared one and it was like, Here, you finish it. No, you finish it. I know, I thought that I would love it, but it wasn't my shtick. I don't like hot wine. Hot wine. It was more the flavor for me, but it was a little strong. It's hot. And it's yes. Okay. So anyway, okay. So back to the steps.

  So you, you reach 125 percent of your monthly income that you need. And then you're at your freedom day and then you have the option to either work your job or you can go off and do your, what your chosen job. Step number seven is what I call, should I stay or should I go? Oh, I like that. Should you, should you stay or should you go from your job?

  Um, no matter what happens, whether you stay in your job, whether you decide to leave and go do something else, that next step is step number eight, and that is day lifestyle and you've got [00:33:00] to, you've got to fill in the void of getting up and going to work every day.

  
  Income Strategies for Retirement

  Um, you know, I always loved, you know, when I was, when I was still using the R word and I was talking to clients and I, you know, I, I realized what I did bad as a financial planner, which was, I was taught to do, which was you focus on the numbers and you don't focus on, you know, The next step.

  What's that gonna be like? Because in our business, you know, you know this, in our business, when somebody leaves their job, there's one of two things that happens. They're either a natural spender or they're a natural saver. So if you're a natural saver, that becomes the most stressful part of your life because you're used to going, well, I go to work and I make X amount of dollars, and I take X minus four and take that four.

  And I put it into investment accounts and I keep building. Well, that's why I hate that 4% thing. Yeah. You guys all need to go back to my, how I plan for [00:34:00] retirement because my, my clients don't feel that way because of the way that I planned for it. 'cause the 4% thing is, again, you're climbing the walls.

  Yeah, yeah. You're stressed. And, and, you know, you need to focus on the cashflow part. So the people that are good savers, if you follow the traditional cash, or the traditional retirement route, last time I'll say that, um, that says, okay, well you save this amount of money and then you can take 4 percent of that out and you're going to have it invested kind of conservatively and maybe make 6 to 8, you know, 6 to 7%.

  That's not bad. And then taxes are in there and everything else. And that's what you're going to live on. Well, now, if I'm not, you know, now I'm living on that and I'm going, well, crap, I'm not saving now. I'm totally stressed out. Yeah. The. Whereas if you have something coming in, then yeah, then you're not as stressed out.

  Yeah, you're not stressed out at all. You know where your money's coming from every month. Um, if it's passive income, okay, I don't really have to work to do [00:35:00] that. I can go and do stuff all over the place. Well, there are, and the people that I feel like are savers and that, um, Are good retirement, they actually do set up their own, um, kind of passive income.

  And it might just come from utility stocks or dividend, different stock, you know, stuff like that. Or they have one rental home that the, you know, they do have those little things where it's like, okay, it is making money versus I think what people picture is, okay, I have all this stuff just like my 401k, it's all in stocks and bonds.

  Mm-Hmm, . And then I'm hoping and praying, you know, living on a prayer here that I can make 4%. You know, and that that's how people picture it. And it's not that way. It is way more con. No, you don't want it convoluted. No, you don't want it that way because that's the way to set yourself up for stress. Yeah.

  And the way I used to do planning, and I still do for some clients that have a lot of money and you know, they have enough that lower returns can get them by. You know, I've always done planning to say, okay, let's bucketize this. And we're going to put one [00:36:00] bucket into something that's guaranteed that, you know, you're going to get, so usually we'd use an annuity.

  Um, and I'm not a big, you know, there's all kinds of annuities that pay us really well, but are crap for clients. I would typically just say, well, we're going to put it into You are speaking my language. Yeah, we're going to put it into a guaranteed annuity. That's what I do. What's called a SPIA. That's exactly what I do.

  Then I have a bucket number two, yeah, it's medium and then bucket three is like, let's just pretend to just let it ride. Yeah. Well, and you know, it's bucket two is our discretionary spending. So we might just take a certain amount of money. Maybe we take a hundred grand and we're going to burn through that over, you know, five years and we'll make a little bit of interest, but it's.

  riskless, and we know we'll have it. And then we leave our growth bucket, which is our biggest piece to grow for five years. So wait, I make time my friend instead of my enemy. Exactly. And then I just in five years, I'm going to refund that middle column again. And we'll just keep doing that. Yeah. Yeah.

  [00:37:00] Somebody's got enough money, they can do that. Yeah. And it is a big mindset shift, I think, for that, you know, and that's the thing is that you're and that's all you're talking about, too, is like, we're reconfiguring how your money is coming in. Yeah. So that you can change your mindset about it. And that's what I think is so beautiful about what you're teaching.

  Yeah. And if you, you know, so here's, here's the thing that I would tell you, if you're out there listening one, find somebody like Michelle or myself that can talk about income strategies with you. If you have somebody that's just telling you, well, we'll just put it into a portfolio and then we'll just pull 4 percent off of it.

  run, run fast because they don't know what they're talking about. Um, because that, you know, once again, like I said, with the Burr strategy of real estate, it works until it doesn't work. It works until you have a year where all of a sudden the market, you know, cranks down 30%. You know, we have a 2008 again where nothing made money.

  I mean, there was absolutely zero. The [00:38:00] only thing that made money was treasury bonds. And that was only like two or 3%. Everything else lost. massive amounts of money. And if you're living off of your portfolio at that time, you think your stress level goes up when 30 percent of your assets just disappears.

  And you're 85 years old and you can't enter the workforce again. I mean, this isn't, we're not just talking about right when you retire. I mean, you gotta be thinking about, are you 82? Are you 85? You know, that kind of thing. Or, um, or you're 65 and it's like, okay, now 30 percent of this, you know, just, yeah, I just retired and I have to figure something out.

  Whereas what we're talking about is much more at, I call it just, you're taking control of yourself. You're not being a victim to whatever is happening out there. And that is, that is the best way to not stress out about your finances is to be active and to, yeah, take control of it. Take charge of it. So, yeah, so I really like, yeah, I love your strategy.

  Am I missing anything? Have we missed anything to cover? I mean, it's as simple as that. I [00:39:00] mean, it's one of those things that I'm like, it's not hard. I didn't invent any of this stuff. I just figured out how to put it together in the right combination and be the Guinea pig who screwed it all up for 10 years to get to that point.

  That strategy will work. All you have to do is follow those eight steps, and if you just follow those eight steps, you'll get there. And you'll get there as quickly as you want to. You know, some people, Freedom Day could be, you know, let's say I need to make 5, 000 a month. You know, that's what I need to live on.

  Well, 5, 000 a month, I mean, I could do that in probably two months pretty easily. It's not hard to do that. I mean, you could go out. I mean, this is what I did when I stupidly, uh, quit my job and started a business or started two at the same time. And I was getting to the point where I'm like, Oh crap, we're running out of money.

  We're not bringing enough in. Uh, my plans were not working exactly as I'd planned. Well, I was like, what do I know really well? Well, I know how to get money [00:40:00] from banks really well. So, I started going on to Upwork and I was selling business planning services for a thousand bucks. I would do a business plan for you that, I would personally guarantee that we would get funding for, uh, because I would work with the bank for a thousand bucks.

  Cause I was like, I need money fast. I can do about one of those per week because I had a really good template and I was good at talking to bankers. And I'm like, for a grand boom, I guarantee you will get funding or I will refund your money. So, I mean, that was paying my 5, 000 bucks a month that I needed to survive.

  I like it. The other businesses. Yeah. Oh, I love it. Thank you for the examples and everything.

  
  Final Thoughts and Resources

  Uh, and we will make sure you guys listen to his podcast too. He's got, uh, again, um, that what's the name of your podcast? I'm sorry. Uh, is FreedomNationPodcast. com. Yes. If you go to that, it'll take you to the podcast.

  And if you're, you're on Apple Podcasts, so I did [00:41:00] subscribe, but if you go to his podcast, he does have examples of where he's walking people through and talking more about this. Uh, and I do think that it is a, uh, great way to be thinking about your finances. So I really appreciate you coming on here.

  Thank you. Thanks, Michelle. I appreciate it. It was wonderful. And, uh, It's good to have somebody else in the trenches that, uh, that believes the same thing. I know we got to come together sometimes, you know, especially when you go to some of these financial meetings. Uh, and you guys will, I'll have Jeff's information in the show notes.

  I'll have a link to his podcast. Uh, he has a book. He's got all kinds of things that you can check out. So thank you again for being on and everybody. Thank you so much for listening. Uh, be sure to tell your friends, share with your circle and subscribe to the podcast and let me know if you have any questions.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and should not be construed as professional financial advice. Always consult with a qualified financial advisor or professional before making any financial decisions. The hosts and guests of this podcast are not responsible for any actions taken based on the information presented.