0:00:00 - Speaker 1

Discussions in this show should not be construed as specific recommendations or investment advice. Always consult with your investment professional before making important investment decisions. Securities offered through registered representatives of Cambridge Investment Research Inc. A broker-dealer member, finra, sipc Advisory Services through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. A registered investment advisor. Cambridge and Greenway Wealth Advisory are not affiliated. It's time to dive into some insider secrets of investing and retirement planning To make your retirement as smart and as elegant as possible. This is Money Chic with Sherry Rash.

0:00:31 - Speaker 2

Hey everybody, welcome into another edition of the podcast. It's Money Chic, women and Retirement, with Sherry Rash and myself here to talk about the psychologist point of view for retirement planning. So we've got this article here from Psychology Today, written by licensed professional counselor Kate Schroeder Hopefully I'm saying that right and it's called the Psychological Investment in Retirement. We'll post the link in the show notes if you'd like to check out the article. But we're just going to kind of analyze and break down a few key points today here on the podcast and get Sherry's take on some of this as someone who's, you know, doing this every day with retirees, pre-retirees. So, sherry, first of all, welcome, and how are you?

0:01:11 - Speaker 3

Doing good. I'm looking forward to talking about the mental aspect of a big life change such as retirement, because I just made a big life change last week I brought a puppy into my already very crowded, very crazy house.

0:01:28 - Speaker 2

Well, hopefully he or she, I guess, will get lots of love.

0:01:33 - Speaker 3

Yes, his name is Flash Rash and he's quick. He is quick, so he's holding up to his name but he's getting lots of love and awesome.

0:01:43 - Speaker 2

What is he?

0:01:44 - Speaker 3

It's been fun. A golden doodle.

0:01:48 - Speaker 2

Oh, okay, yeah, Good dogs for sure. And you know, we just lost Ars recently and we got her when my daughter was 10. And it was like her second dog, I think.

And we had her for 15 years and I just think all kids should grow up with a dog. It's just such a cool bond and they were just like best buddies forever, you know. So from she was 25, you know, my daughter had her. She's 25 years old when she passed away right? So she had her for 15 years and it's. I think it's just an awesome bond that kids and dogs can have together.

0:02:17 - Speaker 3

Yes, it teaches them the love, the responsibility. I had my 11 year old up walking him this morning. Right Well, a short of a walk at eight week puppy can have, but you know, going potty outside at six in the morning and it's a lot, it adds a lot of value, it really does A lot of work, but a lot of value to life.

0:02:35 - Speaker 2

It really does, and we won't get too far into the weeds since we're on the podcast on that, but a fun little trick that does work well. If you need some help with the potty training thing, we took those little jingly balls that cats play with that, have the little bells inside them and tie a string to them or ribbon to them and hung them on the doorknob.

And every time we took the dog, when she was little, to go potty, we'd touch the her nose to the bells and tell her going outside, and she quickly learned that she would go ring the bells when she wanted to go out.

0:03:01 - Speaker 3

That's great, so that was a good idea, yeah.

0:03:03 - Speaker 2

Fun little way for her to say hey, I got to go yeah.

0:03:06 - Speaker 1

So give it a try, I will.

0:03:08 - Speaker 2

That's our tip. Thanks for hanging out. This was the podcast.

0:03:10 - Speaker 1

No, just just teasing.

0:03:11 - Speaker 2

All right, so let's jump into this thing here today. So, yeah, you're right, it's a big life change right. And we all have these different moments in in time in our lives. But retirement certainly is a big one and many people actually spend so much time sherry focused on the X's and the O's, the money right that we kind of don't think about some of these other aspects that play into it.

So again we're going to go through some of these key points, just kind of let you give your take on what you see. I'll ask you some questions around that as well and just talk a little bit about this and again we'll post that link if folks would like to read the article. Pretty interesting stuff. But first key point is how many people how few people, I should say, I guess really consider the consequence of walking away from something that maybe has defined them for a long time, and sometimes we get lost in that right. I mean, how many people are so wrapped up into their job that it becomes a major part of their identity and even though you may be frustrated, you're ready to kind of get out of there kind of thing. You don't realize how much it is you until you're no longer doing it.

0:04:13 - Speaker 3

Our lives really are centered around our jobs. I mean pre-COVID, where work locations don't necessarily matter as much anymore, Because so many people are virtual. Right, but they did for sure, but we lived where our job was. We would move for our job, so even our location alone, where we lived, could have been a result of the job that we had or have?

0:04:36 - Speaker 2

Yeah, no, very true. And when people are coming in or people are thinking about doing this again, we're focused on the money and it's all these little daily aspects of it. You know, it's the thing that makes up a lot of our and maybe right, right or wrong, I guess, whatever your viewpoint is on how much your job defines you, I think we're certainly trying to learn how to not do that as much, but either way, it's still a huge, huge component for people and they just underestimate how that's going to make them feel when they truly do walk away from it. The author goes on to talk about the number one thing, sherri, that retirees struggle with is finding something meaningful and lasting in retirement, and I think that's probably a huge piece of that Retire to something.

0:05:17 - Speaker 3

Right. I mean, our job gives us something to wake up for every day that we find needing. In that we have pride to do, and when you retire you are losing that thing Although, like you said before, it can be a source of frustration, but it also gives us some meaning. So you definitely need to replace what that is, and consistency, I think, is also something big. Waking up, getting ready in the morning, having that routine is so was our lives for so long that when you wake up in retirement and you don't have that routine, you definitely feel like something is missing. I always I say every time you know when the kids are getting back to school or we get back from a vacation.

It was really nice while it lasted, but I always liked getting back into a routine, so especially, if you have a similar sentiment to, that is I enjoy vacation, but I like being home, I like doing my thing and having my routines and my activities. If you share that same sentiment, you may have a challenge in retirement that you didn't even realize.

0:06:24 - Speaker 2

Yeah, humans crave structure, whether we want to admit it or not. I think it's kind of, you know, core into our programming that some kind of structure is good. We all kind of want that freewheeling lifestyle, but after a while it does kind of you do kind of spend your tires. And anybody who's made the transition to virtual or working from home pre-COVID or after COVID knows this to be true. Because you go through this phase where you're like, oh, this is so great. And then you start to. Then, a little later on, you're like, well, maybe I should take a shower, you know, maybe I should actually put on some clothes instead of just my pajamas right from the night before, because no one sees you. So you could work many times, you know, in your PJs, right. And so my wife did it. I did it.

When I first did the training, a lot of people, just tons of people I know, did the same thing, where they just kind of struggled in finding some of that structure. So it's a great point, you got to find something to retire to, to give us some something to strive for. I suppose she goes on to talk about retirement is a good time to maybe embrace the person, sherry, that you've always wanted to be or do more of the things that you want to do. I mean, that's kind of the goal of retirement, isn't it? The citizen seems like she's doing the groundbreaking there. We want to do the things we want in retirement, but I like the idea of maybe embracing the person you want to be, because we do get so focused on work and it does consume us so much that maybe it's added this layer of stress that we no longer know how to let go of, and early in retirement that could be a struggle for people.

0:07:44 - Speaker 3

Well, I think you're right. Nothing she's saying here is groundbreaking or that that shocking, but it serves as a good reminder of hey, you do need to think about these things. Don't take it lightly, it's. I was thinking about this a lot before we got started, and in the English language, a lot of words can mean the same word can mean a couple different things. Right, so retirement is a destination, but it's also a period of time. Right, I want to retire. Okay, I hit that destination, but you're in retirement as well, which is a period of time, and I think so often we think about retirement as just the destination versus the period of time, which can easily be a third of our lives. So we put so much effort and focus into actually retire ring that we don't think about retirement, the period of time thereafter.

0:08:41 - Speaker 2

I definitely agree with that statement for sure. It's just, it's an interesting transition that many people just don't find themselves prepared or aware of or really thinking about and we're going to talk about. You know how you see that actually in practice here in just a second We'll we'll flip from the article into kind of the practicality of it. But some people view their, their time off or the break as actually even more stressful. I mean, I don't know how many advisors I've talked to through the years that say people are super looking forward to retirement. Then they get into it, then they feel like they're really stressed about the you know, I don't know the lack of productivity or whatever the case might be, or or just the, the non-structure maybe that comes back into play, but they can get stressed over it.

0:09:24 - Speaker 3

Sure, I mean waking up and not knowing what. What you're going to do today can be stressful. I I always say, like I just need an hour by myself. Like you know, give me, I have four kids, I'm, you know I'm, I'm split into so many pieces. Let me just have an hour by myself and then I'll go and I'll get my nails done, or I'll. You know, I'll have that time and it's like what am I going to do?

I'm antsy like wait. I'm alone. What? What's next? Who's going to? You know? Ask something of me. So that definitely is a real thing and I have an idea for this. Many companies are offering this as a benefit, or more and more, I should say, are starting to offer it. But start taking some sabbaticals, work with your employer to have, you know, a period of time off from work and I my my former company, I know offered this as a benefit after you were there for so many years and take a sabbatical and use that time to kind of practice for retirement.

So what are you going to fill your time with volunteering or what have you giving back to the community, but using that as the productive time but also a test drive as far as what's retirement going to kind of feel like.

0:10:36 - Speaker 2

Yeah, you know, if you want to try to find the silver lining in the whole COVID you know thing we've been dealing with there could be that right I mean many people you know especially if you were close to retirement and things were shut down and you were sent home or it didn't even work from home. Maybe you kind of got a little taste of what it was going to be possibly like when retirement truly got there, sitting around, you know, with no real structure, a little bit more exaggerated since we couldn't really even go anywhere, right, but still kind of the same idea of of the home kind of aspect and also just the being together. That's another animal that many times retirees don't truly think through. There's that kind of fun aspect of yeah, I get to spend more time with my loved one, but then we start to do it every day and then the loved ones look at each other and go and get away from me, go do something.

0:11:20 - Speaker 3

That's enough time, thank you, but you have something to do.

0:11:24 - Speaker 2

Don't you need to be somewhere right now? Yeah, so that's a fun aspect and an interesting aspect that we don't often think about. So let me go ahead and transition, sherry, for the sake of time, and get to some other questions I have, from your standpoint, a little bit here. So have you seen clients? Do you have you had people coming in when you first started working with them and you're working through the process of building their plan, obviously for retirement, that are not or maybe let's start with R that actually are mentally prepared for retirement as you're talking to them? They've got it all worked out, man. They know they, they know what they want to do from that mental aspect and all that kind of stuff. They're totally into it. Do you have many of those? No, not really. No.

0:12:03 - Speaker 3

And I can kind of tell that from my conversations and I'll ask questions what do you picture your retirement to be like? Because ideally I'm just talking to my clients about retirement when they're about five years out. So we're preparing, we're having the conversations we're planning.

But you know I'm asking what do you think it's going to look like? What if you could describe your perfect retirement? What would it be? Because that's important for me, for my planning financial aspect, to know. Are they going to have a side job? Are they going to work? Are they going to turn that hobby into income? That helps me planning wise. So a lot of times there's not an answer for that and it is so important to think about financially but also for your emotional well-being.

0:12:47 - Speaker 2

Now that's a great point. She did mention in there too. A key point was, you know, just like saving the money, the earlier we can start on this transition period like you mentioned five years or whatever the better. Right. So engaging in that psychological growth before retirement, and it definitely can help us find some more structure in things. Hopefully, have you seen clients you know, truly struggling in this transition. So you said not many are prepared, but was there anything that helped pull them out of that difficulty and what kind of a role you know can you kind of put into that for them?

0:13:20 - Speaker 3

I've seen clients struggle with the idea of it and what I've actually seen more often is retirement to be delayed a little bit. You know the date's coming, but they just can't pull the trigger and actually do it, rip the bandaid off. So I've seen retirements delayed quite a few times and that's okay, you know that's all right, because I think that was because they realized I'm not prepared. I may be prepared financially, but I'm not prepared emotionally for it. So I've definitely seen that happen. I've seen clients start new hobbies, get more involved in their communities, so finding different ways to keep busy I've definitely have seen, which is great, because there is a newfound joy in finding something new to make your life better.

0:14:12 - Speaker 2

Yeah, definitely. And the softer side of this, I guess we'll finish up with this. Sherry, did you feel like this was going to be something you'd be doing in your profession, I mean, obviously, as a financial advisor and a money coach, if you will? You know, your job is really around that aspect. Do you intentionally include some of this in the planning conversations, or was it kind of something you've had to evolve into just from the nature of the beast?

0:14:39 - Speaker 3

I take this the emotional side of money thought process with every client I talk to, because not everyone thinks of money the same way. Not everyone has the same approach when it comes to spending and saving and everyone has a different money personality and it's important for me to know that. So if I have a client, through years of working with them, that I realize they just feel like they can never have enough saved. I know that as we're preparing for retirement and I'm shaping the conversation, so you absolutely it's not just dollars and cents. I always incorporate that softer side of planning because it is emotional. We can't live without money, we can't survive. It's the means as which we, you know we work for money and then we spend it to live. So but there is certainly an emotional element to it that an advisor really needs to understand when they're working with a client.

0:15:37 - Speaker 2

That's awesome. Yeah, for sure. Did you enjoy the article? Did you find it interesting? Anything else in there I missed that you'd like to bring up.

0:15:44 - Speaker 3

I thought it was a good reminder of you know, it's maybe it's always something that we keep in the back of our minds, but I thought it was a good reminder of hey, you're preparing financially, but you really, really have to prepare mentally.

0:15:59 - Speaker 1

And.

0:15:59 - Speaker 3

I don't think that that's stressed enough. And you know just like saving for retirement early, the sooner you can start thinking about this and preparing yourself for it, the better off you'll be. You'll never have done yourself a disservice by thinking about what you're going to do in retirement too much.

0:16:17 - Speaker 2

Very good points for sure, and not getting wrapped up in just the well. We want to travel, we want to see the grandkids. That's kind of easy, a little hanging fruit, if you will. It's really that daily routine that people wind up struggling with, right? It's really finding some fulfillment in the minutia, if you will. So great conversation this week here on the podcast, as always. If you have not subscribed, please consider doing so. Money Chic Women in Retirement. Type that into the search box of whatever platform app you like to use for podcasting, or you can just find it all at GreenwayWealthAdvisorycom Sherry's website. That's GreenwayWealthAdvisorycom. A lot of good tools, tips and resources on the website. There Again, greenwaywealthadvisorycom, check out the article. We'll put the links into the show notes there as well, and don't forget to subscribe. We'll see you next time here on the program. Sherry, thanks for your time, as always.

0:17:09 - Speaker 3

Thank you.

0:17:09 - Speaker 2

And we'll see you soon here on Money Chic Women in Retirement with Sherry Rash.

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