Your wealth does not have to grow. I'd say when you're 65 is a good time to say, you know what? Can I flatline my wealth? Can I do see my wealth deplete a little bit? Because there's just gonna be things that are gonna change.

And you have one life to live, and today's the day to do it. If you're 65, today's the day. You need to the things you wanted to do, today's the day.

Welcome to the Up Your Average podcast where Keith and Doug give no nonsense advice to level up your life. So buckle up and listen closely to Up Your Average.

Good morning, Doug. Hey, Keith. The world is a beautiful place, isn't it?

It is a beautiful place. I was noticing that on my way into work this morning. We had a beautiful sunrise here in Indiana, and it was one of those ones where the backdrop was a storm out to the west, little dark clouds, sun coming in, glistening off the top of the trees, and I was telling my co pilot Spencer just how good it is to be alive.

It is good. I'm enjoying some of America's coffee today.

What's that taste like?

It's pretty good. I'm in Black Rifle Coffee Company. You've there, it's an homage to our military and just people that are serving us, and just a fun little coffee shop.

Yeah, that's very cool. Now, are they from out there or is this a chain type thing? Okay.

Yeah, I had a wedding in Gatlinburg earlier, well, late last year, and they had two of them in Gatlinburg, so I don't how many chain stores they have, but you have a certain clientele here. It's a safe place to hang out, let's put it that way.

So one of the themes is, is I'm taking kids to school and you are visiting kids, and so you're at a different stage of life than me, but if somebody's listening in, my guess is you're either taking kids to school or you're hoping to go visit your kids somewhere. Kids are a big deal.

Yes. My we moved my daughter, Kristen, out here. I lost track three or four years ago and literally moved her into the apartment complex across the street. We're in Phoenix, and there's just a certain spider sense to me. I just didn't feel very comfortable about everything that was happening here, and so I thought, this is me being the controlling dad.

I came across the street, her apartment literally, I can see it from the window here. I came over here and bought her a $100 gift card and gave that to her so that she would come across the street over here where all these safe looking young men hang out and have her hang out here. So I'm just being honest. That's awesome. Yeah.

I don't know what you call that action, but that was just being a dad, I think.

I think it's just being a dad. You just care, and you're concerned, and you're trying to do the best you can. The theme of I being a don't care if your kid's in a car seat or or if you're flying out to Phoenix to see him. You care and you're concerned.

Yep. Exactly. Exactly. Well, I think today, I just had an idea that we would talk about an anxiety or guilt free spending in retirement, and I don't know that we can give that to anybody because those are kind of matters that one would have to address really at the soulish level. They're ideas that you have to, I think, come to peace with to make the most out of life and to have an anxiety or guilt free spending in retirement.

I think there's ideas we can help you think through, but you have to take into account there's different personalities. Like I'm biased towards being a saver, and I think my son Caleb is a little further down that road than me, and I would guess from our friendship, you're more biased towards being a spender than me, and so this idea would probably speak more to me than to you. Yeah.

One of the greatest things about having so many clients and so many relationships is we get to work with spenders and savers, and I think the goal would be, I mean, I hate to say balance, but to kind of come towards the middle a little bit, and so if you are a spender, maybe ask yourself, Why do I spend money the way I do? And take inventory of it and think deeply. Probably goes back to your childhood. Why am I a saver? Did I save all my Halloween candy?

I mean, I had a sister. My sister Karen, I don't know how long she had the Halloween stash, but Christy and I would be sneaking into her Halloween candy bag and eating Tootsie Rolls in March, so just asking yourself and being real, Why am I this way? And then communicating that with your spouse is a huge deal because my guess is they're going to be probably different than you.

Right. And as you know, I put the title of anxiety and guilt free. I think anxiety free and guilt free are two different probably streets you might need to look yourself in the mirror for, but as I was prepping this morning, I just had this thought, and it could be true, I didn't read it anywhere. I just had this idea that the distance we are from the farm and the ocean, farmers and sailors, the more anxiety Americans or people have. Like the more you get away from risky behavior as a part of life, the more things that really aren't risky can create anxiety for you, and so it's just an interesting thought.

Well, I spent some time on a farm just last week, and shout out to the Kopke farm. Probably can't see it on my phone, but what we have here is a cow and a baby cow. I think there's a heifer. I don't know, but yeah, life on the farm is, there's some risk on the farm, especially when things are being born.

Well, and another shout out to the Kapkes. I wear a hoodie of theirs around, and they have another part of their business that I advertise when I'm wearing the hoodie, so I like them. Well, there was a 1970s song by the Byrds, and it said, To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose. And so, you know, when we're talking to Caleb, he's in the accumulation season, right?

A young person?

Yes. Yes. And Caleb cannot really, probably most of his siblings can't really afford America's coffee. They need to have a Mr. Coffee in their kitchen and brewing their coffee, right?

Yeah. And they think they can afford it, but when you're paying $4 for a coffee, you're spending tomorrow's money today on something you could probably use to accumulate for tomorrow. So when you're thinking there's a season, there's an accumulation, and there's the word decumulation that I saw. And decumulation, I had to look into multiple of dictionaries to find it, and it's the disposal of something accumulated. How complex is that?

Yeah. That's the heart of the matter for retirees.

Let's talk about the psychology of that, Doug. I was thinking about you and some word pictures to help people think about the accumulation thing and why psychologically it might be a little challenging. But you ran cross country, and when you ran cross country, you knew there was a path that you had to take, right?

That's right.

Yeah. I forget. How many miles is a high school cross country?

Boys were five ks, 3.1.

Okay. So when I would go watch my daughter run cross country or track, it was always a I mean, it wasn't her giftedness, let's just put it that way. And to come out when they I don't they shoot a gun, I think, to start the thing. And on a number of occasions, Kelly came out of the gates too fast. Okay.

And my heart was broken for her with that. It created a stressful situation where she was huffing and puffing and crying at the end. And so when you ran cross country, you knew you had this 3.1 miles. So did you come out of the gates sprinting, or how did you psychologically know what to do to run those 3.1 miles?

Well, I had a great coach, and so first of all, I had a coach who could speak into us, and we could do training drills on how to come out of the start, but you're not in blocks like you would be on a track, and so you don't have to come out in a sprint, but you do have to come out at pace, and you want that pace to continue to build for that first half mile or so until you can settle in, and then you just lock into that pace until about the two and a half mile mark, and you hope you have some gas in the tank for the end.

And that's probably the thing that we're talking about with retirees and having anxiety or guilt free spending is there's this kind of noise that they may hear in their head that I'm going to run out of money and things like that, and that could happen. In my experience, I can only think of one client out of over the years that ever did that, and so there's

some- Well, and that one client that I can think of might be the same one you can think of. I called them maybe a year afterwards, two years afterwards, and they told me they wouldn't change anything.

I love that.

Because they didn't know the life that was ahead of him. He lost a spouse, and so he was happy to have spent the money living and doing adventures with his spouse.

Yeah, yeah, and so that's psychologically something you're going to have to think about is that nobody can, even if you have millions and millions of dollars, nobody can tell you you're not going to run out of money. It's just there's too many variables in the world, and so to live an anxious lifestyle and in fear of running out of money may also prevent you from living. But I was thinking of some other psychological examples. So the Muskogem Trail in Evansville, Indiana was a hike I did as a kid, and it left Angel Mounds, and it was a 13 mile hike along the levee of the Ohio River towards the Evansville Museum. And a shout out to any of you that are down near Evansville, if you haven't seen the Picasso at the Evansville Museum, that needs to get on your to do list.

It's a worthwhile thing. So here's what comes to my mind when I think of that hike is this thing right here. Tell me when you see this, Doug.

There we go.

Yeah. Have you ever seen something like that?

I sure have. Yeah. It's been a while since I used one like that.

It would go over your shoulder and you started the morning with probably cold water, but the 13 mile hike, it assumed whatever the temperature was outside. But it's the same psychological principle, right? You could put your lips on that bad boy and chug it all down in the first mile, and then you're going to be an unhappy camper as you get down towards the finish line of that hike. So that was another psychological idea that came to mind when I was thinking of something like managing your resources for the retirement and having the freedom to use them. I've probably mentioned this one in the past is that when I was in college, my folks covered tuition in the room and board, but any extracurricular activities were on me, and so my first semester in college, I came with a lot of cash, and when I finished the first semester, I had 99% of it left because I was afraid I was gonna spend it all.

So I missed out on opportunities, And then I don't remember how the second semester, but we didn't have that same issue the second

semester. Nice.

Yeah. And so the idea that I wanted to encourage all of our friends with is that there is a lifestyle where you can enjoy the things that are important to you and you can live in a way that probably you won't run out of money. Yeah. I think everybody would like us to say you definitely won't run out of money, but I don't think anybody can honestly tell you that. Nobody knows I the future, think one

of the pieces of feedback we hear from time to time is just, I don't want to be a burden to anyone. I don't want to be a burden to my kids, and the odds are is you will, that'll be great for your kids because they'll have to walk through life with you and get to know you in a whole new way, and they'll get to to man up or woman up and be strong, and that's good for them too.

Right. Think when people have said that to me, I just kind of tell them, You're going to be a burden. It's hard to know what sort of burden you're going to be,

but at the same Yeah, it might not be a financial burden. It might be health or

Yeah, it's just hard to know what the burdens may be. I just think about, and this is just me, probably fourth grade, Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory was a book our teacher read to us aloud, and I don't even know why she did that, but at fourth grade in the day, you should have been reading on your own, but it was fascinating to me, and the idea that grandma and grandpa were sleeping head to toe in a bed and living in mom and dad's house, that's the burden I think people perceive in their heads, and probably in the 1920s, people thought that same way for their family, that we want to be that burden, and then the 1930s came along, and no matter how they tried, they couldn't prevent the 1930s, right?

Yeah, true. So what do you think about the thought of, you've accomplished this stack of wealth, whether that be something liquid or not liquid? What do you think about the concept of that wealth not being the high number every year?

Well, that's what one of the thoughts I put together for our friends to kinda help them up their average is really to review your expectations and what you expect. If you're, say, 65, realistically, twenty years is probably the maximum you've got, right? Like that's probably I mean, there are people that go beyond that, but being healthy, you probably got 10 of that 20 to be kind of the healthy that you are now. And so think through what are your expectations, what are things and then sort through those and say, are they reasonable? Like maybe you sit down with yourself, me or Phil or Caleb, and talk through what those are, but there's probably you could probably build a bell curve and ramp up some spending in the next if you're 65, you may even it may be biased closer to 65 where you spend a lot more in the next five years, and then maybe spend a little bit less as you're going into it because you have to think through what's your health going to be like, what's your activity level going to be like, and it makes sense to spend a little bit more sooner than later.

How would you advise or tackle the topic of, Keith, postage stamps have gone up over time?

Well, I think that's a true thing, and we've seen some of the most significant inflation in the last forty years and the last five years. So that is an anxious idea. If you've gone to the grocery and looked at your grocery bill, you know that it's significantly different than it was five years ago. However, what I've noticed about the grocery is I don't eat as much as I used to either. You might see that in the next decade, Doug, but the consumption-

I need

to not. Yeah, the consumption that I had in my 40s, I don't consume in my 60s. And so a lot of inflation is on consumer goods, the prices, and so I'm not going to be buying as many things as I did. I'm not going to be sending kids to college. I'm not going to be doing a lot of the things that I once did, and frankly, if you do see your principal depleting a little bit, y'all are wise and smart.

You can figure out how to entertain yourself in free ways. There's parks. There's all kinds of things you can do.

So make adjustments. Score and make adjustments.

Yeah, I think so. Also, like you said, is that your wealth does not have to grow. I'd say when you're 65 is a good time to say, You know what? Can I flatline my wealth? Can I see my wealth deplete a little bit?

Because there's just going to be things that are going to change, and you have one life to live, and today's the day to do it. If you're 65, today's the day. The things you wanted to do, today's the day.

Yeah, I think I've said this on this show before, but my neighbor Greg, he's a hero of mine in a lot of ways. Not only does Greg have the best Christmas lights display in the neighborhood, but he told me why he wanted to retire one day, and he said, I want to spend some more time with Ms. Cindy, and he's like, Who wouldn't want to do that? So I just think valuing your time, valuing your relationships, that's what a great retirement looks like to me.

Totally funny. You know, I was visiting a friend last week, and he used a quote, I don't know, I think I heard that maybe it's going to snow in Evansville this weekend, or not Evansville, Indianapolis this weekend, but he used a quote that evidently came from the World War II. He said, We've got to beat the hoarders, and the idea was that we're gonna You know, if the snowstorm comes to Indianapolis, we're gonna get to the grocery and get our milk and bread so we beat the hoarders, right?

Yeah. Yeah. It's not us.

And I think of Milton Friedman. There's a video out there with Milton Friedman, and he said that greed is always the other guy. And I just loved that quote, greed is always the other guy. And I think as your financial advisers that our responsibility as your friends is to be honest with you and tell you, when we sit down and do a review with you, it tell you, hey. You need to kind of loosen up the grip on that money, and this is what you need to do, whatever this is.

Yeah, whatever that is, yeah. Yeah. One of the questions that you and Amanda put together on our client questionnaire is, say you're 80 years old, what couple things do you look back on on your eightieth birthday with a big smile? I think that's a great question for the person today to say, Well, okay, am I moving towards that or am I moving away from that?

You know, I didn't understand these principles when my dad was dying. I was concerned as his financial advisor and his son, and thinking of a Charlie and Chocolate Factory, didn't necessarily want him in my guest bedroom, but he bought my mom some of the most spectacular gifts the last year of his life, and he celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary maybe a year before. Like, had some premonition that that wasn't gonna happen. And I think of my friend Tom. I think Tom bought his bride a gift on their 40 year too, so he had I always thought he had some premonition, and you know, had he not bought that, he wouldn't have had any time to have regrets about it, but for her, she knows to this day that he loved her and made that expression.

So there's a really cool thing with that, I think.

Heck yeah. Another guy I can think of, Keith, who was a big influence in our life, He's passed away now. He would buy his wife a single rose or a single flower every Friday. How fun. We can all do that.

Yeah. I hope Caroline's not watching this, but those little things, that's a way to loosen your grip and to add some romance and to add some fun in your life, just those little things.

There's all sorts of those things, and I think really what we're talking about to be able to do this is to have communication with us. We can talk you through and tell you what our opinion is. We don't have a crystal ball that knows exactly what it is, but we can also probably provide some creativity to you and help you think through some ideas that maybe we've seen and help you look at it. But I just think that there is a season for everything. There is a time for everything, and decumulation of the things that you've accumulated is probably a lot harder than accumulating.

Like there's some positive reinforcement for accumulating things. You can score it. Everybody likes to see something that's bigger. They like to know that they're making progress. But the idea of living, like literally living, there's really not an easy scorecard to show that you're making progress in living.

I think you really have to define for yourself what is life, what is living, and what does that look like for the people that are really important to me. It's not gonna show up on your income statement and your balance sheet. It's gonna show up in the memories and then the experiences of those that are closest to you.

Yeah. Man, it's exciting to be able to walk through that season of life with people.

It is, and those things are fun. You just never know. I think I might have mentioned to you one of the things that I have done in the months that have gone by is I've really thought of generosity to people that don't even know me, and one place that's happened is in a restaurant. When I sense that I'm stirred to, I'll ask the server what's their greatest tip ever, and if it's within my means, then I will trump that one for them because So cool. It gives them a memory and an experience, and I may not remember it five years from now, but most of the time, that number is gonna be something that's not gonna change the time or situation, right?

And it's gonna send somebody into their day, into their weekend with a mindset that may be irreversible. It may change the whole world. You don't ever know.

Right, right. Well, that's fun.

Yeah, Yeah. And I think why I just wanted to kind of step on this idea, there's a proverb that talks about that your inheritances will find wings and you'll be shocked at how your inheritances that you leave to people will be spent. I'm never shocked at how that enrolls, but if you're not around it, then you might be surprised what might happen. And so there's some benefits to you directing what happens to it in the real time while you're consuming oxygen.

I had a great conversation with one of our clients just yesterday. She's a third generation client of ours. Her kids, we've got a fourth generation here, and she was honoring her stepmom with some of her inheritance that she had received. I just thought, Man, that is cool. You never know where your money's going to go, and you could think the worst, but there's also some of the best stuff that can happen with where your money might go, and so I was pretty inspired by what she was doing for her stepmom.

This is kissing and telling, but I think maybe this will be helpful for people. There was a time that my dad was spending more money towards the end than I felt comfortable with, and so one of the things that Connie and I did was send mom and dad a substantial amount of money every month because it would have delayed my retirement, right? Right. But our friend Mitch Anthony discussed the idea of helping your parents with their money and the benefit to giving them a little bit of free cash flow, and I realized, you know what? If I have to work a year or two longer so my parents don't have to fret about their financial situation, so be it, and it was probably one of the greatest economic blessings of my life to step in in that situation.

Connie and I were both on board. It was a high, high expense time of life. I think we had all five kids when that was going on. We had stuff going on everywhere, and it didn't fit into a traditional financial plan. Like no financial advisor would say do that

thing. Yeah, no.

Yeah. And I think that's a advantage that Gimbal Financial can bring to our friends and clients is that we are willing to step outside the box and help you think better about your future and how your resources can not only bless you, but bless those that are important to you.

We touched a little bit on AI last week, and you could go to AI and you could get all the feedback and information you want, but asking the better question is where the art is. And so just even digging deep, you're a human. Humans are better than AI, so you dig deep and asking the question, Hey, what should I be doing with my time? Looking yourself in the mirror, What should I be doing with my resources? And yeah, you talk to Keith about that, and then he'll just expand on, Well, maybe consider this, or Have you thought of that?

And so would love to hear people's feedback on de accumulation, what that looks like for them.

Man, I hope you're able to do it. I hope you're able to relax and do it, and I hope that you could just live more freely. I hope that our conversation today has really helped up your average and helped you think better about the resources you have as opposed to, trying to beat the hoarders. So anything else, Doug?

Nope. Have a great week.

What a fun time. I'll see you guys soon.