Amy: Tonight, how does this sound? You wanna stop working sooner, maybe rather than later, and actually live the retirement that you've always dreamed about? Well, there are some barriers we wanna point out to you tonight that you might have to overcome. You're listening to "Simply Money" presented by Allworth Financial. I'm Amy Wagner, along with Steve Sprovach. For most people, Steve, I would say that the goal is not to work until the day that you were put into the ground, right?

Steve: Absolutely, not. Not gonna happen.

Amy: From many of us, the goal is, you work all these years, right, decades and decades, the grind, the Monday through Friday, the whatever it is that your job requires of you. And the hope is that, at some point, you retire from that and you have, they call it the golden years, right?

Steve: Sure.

Amy: The years of just kind of enjoying life, and kicking back, and traveling, hanging out with the grandkids, whatever that looks like. But it doesn't just happen because you want it to happen. It has to happen with some planning.

Steve: It does. And, you know, we're human. You know, it's such a big life event. You're going from the grind, putting up with, you know, co-hosts and things like that.

Amy: Do you mean the highlights...

Steve: I know where you're getting at.

Amy: ... the highlights was putting up with co-host.

Steve: I know where you're getting at. But that's okay. No. And this is what you worked your life for, but then there's no paycheck. So, this is a really big deal for people to go through. And I have seen it just eat people up. I've seen it in my family, I've seen it professionally. And, you know, we've all heard the phrase "paralysis by analysis." Well, I'll give you one that is something I'm seeing more and more of these days. And that's paralysis due to volatility. Doesn't ring the bells. It's not as poetic as paralysis by analysis. But I'll tell you what, when the market gets volatile, and that's something that's never gonna go away, but when the market gets volatile, it's only natural. It's only human nature to say, "You know what? Maybe I'll just put that off a little bit and wait till things settle down." Well, guess what? They might not ever settle down.

Amy: So, let's go back to 2015, right? And say in 2015, you and your spouse sat down and you said, "Okay, 2020 is going to be the year, right? We're going to retire in 2020. I'm gonna retire in 2020, whatever that looks like." And then all of a sudden, you get to 2020, "Oh, and by the way, there is an unprecedented global pandemic and markets are absolutely tanking." My heart, during that time, I remember being like, "Oh my gosh." It was scary on every level. But if you were retiring, and had no knowledge, like, no one knew how that was gonna play out. All you were watching was the markets in free fall and the economy absolutely shutting down. Times like that, wow, can be especially scary. But I think that for a lot of people, any kind of market volatility can be especially scary because once that paycheck isn't coming in anymore, it's like a switch has been flipped, right?

Steve: Right. Right.

Amy: And you're living off of everything that you've accrued all those years. That can be a scary prospect for a lot of people.

Steve: It can, but, you know, friendly advice from a guy who's done this for 40 years, only control what you can control. And part of the price of admission of investing and getting better returns than the bank is you don't have the safety of the bank. You're gonna have volatility. So, if you're gonna make a retirement decision based on volatility and the perfect time, you're never gonna find that time. Here's how you can self-analyze, Amy. Okay? If you normally look at your 401(k) statement, maybe every quarter you get a statement, "Oh, okay. I guess that's where it's at." And you just toss it in the garbage. And as you get closer to retirement, you start looking at the balance every day and maybe even several times a day, which is ridiculous if you're in mutual funds, because they don't change their price over the course of the day. Different subject. Okay? But a lot of people do this. I will see stress in someone's eyes and I'll ask the spouse, "Does he or she do this all the time? Do they check their accounts?" "Oh, 10 times a day, minimum." Okay. We need to step back and talk about volatility and controlling what you can control and letting go of what you can't, because that is stress that now has entered your life and makes retirement a lot less worthwhile.

Amy: Remember when you were young and first married and talking about, like, having kids. I don't know if you were like this, but I would be like, "Oh, well, maybe kids next year because by then maybe I'll have some flexibility in my job or my husband, blah, blah." You were always making excuses because it just didn't feel like the right time.

Steve: When's the time right? Yeah.

Amy: For such a huge life change, I think retirement is a lot like that. It's really easy to say, "Okay, we can retire if all of these boxes are checked and everything is perfect." Well, that rarely happens. The stars rarely align in that way. So, if you are someone who then chooses to focus on the volatility in the market, you're gonna drive yourself crazy. Which I think is one of the other barriers is not having a plan, right? If you have a plan for retiring, you can run that plan through every possible scenario when inflation is high and markets are down and everything's working against you. And if that plan still comes up with, you're gonna be okay, well, then you're gonna be okay.

Steve: You're listening in "Simply Money" on 55KRC. I'm Steve Sprovachh, along with Amy Wagner, and we're talking about barriers to retirement. And, Amy, I've got one for you here. And this is something that I'm not sure there's a solution, but you've gotta have a retirement mindset. What I mean by that is, okay, you've done a good job of saving, you've been disciplined, you've been putting money away, sacrificing a little, maybe not getting the new car when you wanted to, but because of that, you've got the ability to go ahead and retire and retire comfortably. Well, guess what happens in retirement? That money is gonna be spent. You've gotta go from being a saver to a spender. And for some people, that's not just difficult. That can be next to impossible.

Amy: Another thing I think that we see from people a lot is, like, where do I even begin? Right? I know I wanna retire, I know I wanna spend more time with the grandkids, but this is what I've been doing all my life. I've been working, so where do I even begin? And I'm gonna go back to the point I just made about having a plan, right? If you have a plan, even if that plan changes, if you think about a map and there's a detour, at least you know, okay, well, this is where I was going to be and here's how I can detour around it. Same thing. Maybe you were planning on working until you were 65, but all of a sudden you are 61 and there's the option for an early retirement buyout at work, right? And does that make sense or does that not make sense? Well, if you're starting from scratch, wow, that can be incredibly overwhelming to figure out whether this works for you or not.

Steve: Well, like you said, where do you start? I mean, I'm thinking of my parents, they didn't know what a stock was, they didn't, you know, investment advisor, stockbroker. That's not our world, you know? And for a lot of people, it boils down to, who do you trust? And there's a lot of stories out there about, "Well, yeah, I went to this guy and I lost all this money, or he's gonna charge you commissions." That's the biggest problem, is where do you start? Well, the first thing I'll say is, if you are a do-it-yourself, or if you're a smart individual, and this is a passion, maybe you can do it yourself. There are plenty of programs out there that you can download or you can buy and set up your own financial plan. If you're not one of those persons, though, it's time to start interviewing people and interview more than one. That's a key.

Amy: Well, I also think you want someone who, I mean, even if you are the smartest DIY-er in the world, and you've done a great job with your investments and you've stayed in the markets and you've never market times and you've done everything exactly right, it's not just about that, right? There are ways to make sure that the accounts that you're withdrawing from are more tax-advantaged to you, you know, there's the concept of long-term care and insurance, and do you need life insurance? And I think regardless of how well you've managed things to that point, having someone in your corner who has walked lots of other people through this process of retiring before can say, "Hey, have you considered this? Have you considered that? I know lots of people who have had an issue with this." And all of a sudden, you're thinking about things that maybe you haven't considered before that are really, really helpful in this process.

Steve: As some people get closer to age 65 than others in the cohost community, I can vouch for the fact of, okay, and let's start paying attention to Medicare and rules and Medigap insurance. And this is off-topic a little bit, but you've gotta start researching. And the same is true about retirement. You've gotta at least get comfortable with the language. It is a different language.

Amy: Knowledge is power.

Steve: It is, it is. And as they said in "Animal House," knowledge is good. That's where I get most of my philosophy from.

Amy: It is amazing how often you do quote that movie, which is also a little bit scary.

Steve: It is.

Amy: But, yeah, to your point too, like Social Security, right? There are so many misconceptions and fallacies out there about that program. And let's face it, it's a government program, so it's gonna be incredibly complicated. But understanding how Social Security works, when is the best time for you to claim, you know, lots of different strategies there. I totally agree with you that educating yourself about kind of all things retirement is a big deal.

Steve: Yeah. And let's talk about types of advisors because a lot of people call themselves investment advisors. What does that mean? Well, there's not one mandated definition. I mean, I've actually even seen a business card from somebody that called themselves a financial engineer. I have no clue what the qualifications are for that.

Amy: Sounds good, but what does it really mean?

Steve: Exactly. So, I think the first thing you want to do, as you're interviewing advisors, as you're getting ready for retirement, after you've learned some of the terminology, and make sure you learn the word fiduciary. I mean, that's somebody who's paid and is held to a very high legal standard of looking out at what's best for you, not necessarily putting money, what's best for putting the most money in their own pocket. So, you need a fiduciary. And I think one of the first questions to ask to determine that are, would be, how do I pay you? How do you earn your money? How do you get paid? And don't accept, "Well, the company pays me. You know, whatever investment you buy pays me." Well, indirectly, that's a commission. When somebody earns a commission, by definition, they're not a fiduciary. When somebody charges a fee, whether it's a percentage of assets or to do particular work, like produce a financial plan for a fee, okay, more likely to be a fiduciary, good starting point.

Amy: There's a lot of potential boundaries, right? A lot of potential roadblocks that you can hit along the way here. But I think the key is talking about it early. I mean, I know lots of people who are saying when we even talk about retirement, they're like, "Well, I'm just gonna wait until I'm in my 60s and figure that out." I'm 46, and this is a not surprising, but it's a conversation we have a lot in our house about, what does it look like for us? And do we wanna stay here? Do we wanna move somewhere warmer? You know, what do we think the kids are gonna end up? And then how do we get there? And what does it look like on a...? There's so many things that are part of it. I will say it's probably one of the biggest transitions you can possibly go through in your life. So, the earlier you talk about it, the more often you talk about it, the more often you look at these potential roadblocks and barriers and make sure you're removing them, the better off you're gonna be.

Here's the Allworth advice. If you can just get past these roadblocks on your path to retirement, you're gonna get there. And hopefully, you're gonna do it at a time that you had actually planned for and wanted to be there. Coming up, is a target-date fund in your 401(k), a good place to invest, and should you pay off that mortgage or invest the money? We're gonna ask the advisor next. You're listening to "Simply Money" here on 55KRC, THE Talk Station.

You're listening to "Simply Money" presented by Allworth Financial. I'm Amy Wagner, along with Steve Sprovach. If you can't listen to our show every night, well, we hope you will subscribe and get our daily podcast, then you can listen to it any time, maybe on your way to work the next morning, when you go to the gym, and you probably have that friend who could use a little bit of financial help as well. Spread the word to them. All you've gotta do search "Simply Money" on the iHeart app or wherever you turn to for your podcasts.

Coming up at 6:43, there are some key questions to ask yourself if you think I'm gonna tell that boss to take that job and shove it a little earlier than I had planned, we're gonna tell you how you can do that. I often scratch my head when talking about the decisions that people make with their money, Steve. And this is one of those situations. No doubt, Steve Jobs, big deal, right? Dude, co-founded Apple, huge name, changed the trajectory of the entire globe. I get that he's a big deal, but are you gonna pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for his nasty old sandals?

Steve: We need to start a segment that we call "More Money Than Brains" because...

Amy: I love it.

Steve: I mean, that's what we're talking about here.

Amy: We could do hours of shows about that segment.

Steve: They had an auction of his old Birkenstocks from the '70s. I mean, have you seen the picture? They're ratty. I mean, they are ratty. They're old. I hope they lost their smell by now. And somebody bought them for $220,000, an old pair of Birkenstocks.

Amy: You know, it's funny, you know, you think about these auctions and they, like, describe whatever it is. And usually, it's like amazing piece of artwork or something that they're describing, its impressionist painter or blah, blah, blah. No, here they are describing, again, a pair of old Birkenstocks, the cork and jute footbed retains the imprint of Steve Jobs's feet, which had been shaped after years of use. What? And who cares? And who is gonna pay $220,000 for that pair of shoes? Makes me scratch my head.

Steve: Well, on a related note, I have a pair of old sneakers that you're gonna be seeing pretty soon. We'll see what they go for. Oh, no thanks.

Amy: I will give you money to throw them away.

Steve: Yeah, exactly.

Amy: How is that?

Steve: How much? I am in.

Amy: Well, so you don't make these stupid mistakes with your money, we have this next segment. This is as an advisor, you can ask us any questions, even if they involve old Birkenstocks and paying for them, because we'll tell you, that's a crazy idea. First question comes from Mark in Colerain. Every time I bring up money, it just causes major stress with my wife. We can't seem to agree on when we want to retire. So, do you face these scenarios and what do you suggest I do about it?

Steve: Do I face them? Every day. Are you kidding me? You know, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hang on a second. I might have this wrong, but are you saying there may be a communication issue between a husband and wife?

Amy: Never happens.

Steve: Is that possible?

Amy: Yes.

Steve: Never. No, I mean, this is the type of thing. If you're not talking to your spouse about it, you better before you pull the string because you might be, well, you might not, let's put it this way, you might have half of what you thought you had very shortly. Okay? So, this is, keep in mind, especially if you've got one breadwinner and another spouse who maybe doesn't make as much or maybe is not the breadwinner, there's a lot of stress in at least one of those person's life over lack of a paycheck. Let's put it that way. So, yeah, this is something you both have to be on the same page. I have seen it, Amy, where I've got a couple in the office and, you know, one, maybe the husband will say, "Yeah, I plan on retiring next year." And the wife looks at her husband like, "Who are you?"

Amy: Say what?

Steve: "....and when did this come out?" You know, that's not a good place to be. Communication, you know, something you deal with every day.

Amy: Well, a couple of thoughts about this, Mark. First of all, if your wife is stressed when you bring up money, I wonder how it is that you bring up money, right? Because there are people out there who, the subject of money only comes up when you think someone did something wrong, right? Why did you spend this on this? Why did you do that? How did you... Right? So, if that's the way that you're coming at this, it's never gonna be successful. I say start small. And just with this, maybe something along the lines of, what are your hopes and dreams for the future, right? And you're not throwing them out, you're just listening to them. And then you start chiming in with yours and you kind of build this dream together, and then you add the layer of money on it. Okay? How do we get there? How do we do that? For a lot of people who grew up in homes where there was no discussion about money, starting to talk about money can be stressful. But I think making it kind of a regular cadence in your life can make it a lot easier pretty quickly.

Steve: Yeah. Communication, but also here's a solution. Get somebody to do a financial plan for you.

Amy: Yeah.

Steve: Okay? And go into that plan without it, okay, yeah, I'd like to retire at such and such an age. The planner will tell you if it's doable or not. And all of a sudden, you know, you might think that you were able to retire at 62, and the planner might say, "Not the way you're going, buddy. It's 65 at best." And, you know, of course, that would make the spouse really happy and nod and everything else. But now you've got a, I don't wanna say disinterested, but somebody who's not emotionally tied into the decision, who's a professional that does nothing but determining what a successful...

Amy: Switzerland, right? Yes.

Steve: Exactly. Exactly. And let that person, let the CFP doing the plan, the investment advisor doing the plan, figure out, okay, it's doable, it's not doable. And, you know, if your dream is doable, once your spouse who is nervous about the decision sees, "Oh, okay, the money does work out. But wait, did you count? Okay, you did account for that." Then they start buying into the decision and they're a lot more comfortable.

Amy: Next question comes from Daniel who lives in Mount Lookout. I'm 45 years years old and my new company offers a 401(k) menu of funds to choose from. That's good. Lots of options. Daniel wants to know, is a target date fund a good option for me?

Steve: It's a good place to start, don't you think? I mean, you know, you're starting with a company and you're not gonna split up your first paychecks, you know, 10 or 20 bucks going into the plan, 13 different ways. So, it's a good starting place. But once you get established and, you know, you get through the beginning phases of starting a new job, have somebody take a look at it because there's probably some better choices there.

Amy: If Daniel was 25 years old, right, rather than 45, I would say, yep. Go for that target date fund, just start investing, get that company match. You can set it and forget it and kind of cruise for a few years. But the fact that Daniel is 45, and if he was any older than that, I would say, "Ah, you probably have enough money in retirement accounts at this point." Not necessarily this new 401(k), but hopefully, others where this is real money, right? It's starting to be real money and you're looking at how many years did it take me to work to get this? At that point, I think you've gotta take a more active role in how that money is actually invested and figure out, rather than kind of that one-size-fits-all approach of a target date fund, which is simply, "Hey, I'm gonna retire in 2040, and so here's the kind of mix of bonds and stocks and we're get gonna get less aggressive in stocks and more into bonds as we get older." That's essentially what these target date funds are. So, when you get to the point where that's real money for you, that's probably not the best investment.

Steve: Yeah, I agree. Target date funds, to me, are a placeholder. It's something, okay, you gotta fill something out today. I don't have time to research it. I'll start with that. But as soon as possible, have somebody take a hard look, do the research yourself, bring in a professional, but they're generally not the best choices by a pretty good stretch that you have available to you. Find out what the best choices are, use them because you're getting into the home stretch. You wanna make this money grow so you can retire.

Amy: Coming up next, we've got specific ways that you can protect your kids from ID theft, what you need to know to protect them. You're listening to "Simply Money" here on 55KRC, THE Talk Station. You're listening to "Simply Money." I'm Amy Wagner, along with Steve Sprovach.

Tonight we're talking about something that we have always been incredibly passionate about here at Allworth, and that is protecting, not only your identity but your child's identity. Joining us tonight is our credit expert Britt Scearce from WesBanco. Britt this has been a journey that we've kind of been on when we used to be Simply Money, then we switched to Allworth. It's very important to us that people understand, how much your children can be impacted. And I think most people don't think about it until you are an adult.

Britt: Exactly. I mean, there's over 1.4 million identity theft reports in the U.S. right now. And a bunch of those are children's identities. And that's especially troublesome because, with children, in many cases, it's not identified for many months or even years.

Amy: Just got something in the mail yesterday. So, the timing of this is very interesting, that one of our kids, it was a credit card application or something, you know, you've qualified for this credit and it was one of our kids' names. And at first I thought, "Ah, must have just been a mistake." And then I thought, "We should probably look into this."

Britt: Yes, you definitely should, because that is one of the red flags. If your children start to receive, you know, credit card offers in the mail, or bills in the mail, or collection calls, pre-approved offers, you know, because here's the thing, the way those pre-approved offers work, lenders actually buy lists from the credit bureaus with parameters that they wanna send offers to people with those particular parameters, with certain credit scores or certain levels of debt and that sort of thing. And the only way that you can show up on that list is if you have information at the credit bureau. So that would be a really important thing to follow up on if you do have one of your children receiving things like that. And I would recommend that you go out there and you freeze the credit reports on your children because that is a way that there is no way to open up an account under that Social Security number. If someone does have your child's Social Security number, there's no way they can open up any new accounts without that credit bureau being unfrozen You can do that with credit bureaus.

Amy: Let's dig into that a little bit, Britt, freezing your credit because I know a lot of people maybe aren't as familiar with that. It used to be something you had to pay for at the three major credit bureaus. Now, over the past few years, Congress has made it free to do it. Let's talk about what the steps are, the fact that you have to deal with each individual credit bureau, and how it can help.

Britt: Exactly. You just simply would go to each of the three credit bureaus, Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian, and there's a process on their website to freeze your credit report, you can do this for your children, you can do this for yourself. Now, I will tell you, if you do question whether or not your child has information on the credit bureaus, there are some extra steps that you do have to take in order to get a minor's credit report, you're gonna actually have to fill out one of their minor credit report request forms. If they're under 18, you actually have to send in some additional identifying documentation to prove that...

Amy: Their parents?

Britt: ...that you are in fact their parent or their guardian. You know, you're gonna have to send in your driver's license, your Social Security card, the child's Social Security card, birth certificates, things of that nature in order to prove that, you know, you're legit, that you're not trying to steal their identity. And you go through that process of finding out if there's anything on that report. And if there's nothing there, then you don't have any issues. Just, you know, freeze it. And then that way you don't have to worry about anything being able to be opened under that Social Security number for that child.

Amy: Britt Scearce joining us tonight, is our credit expert from WesBanco talking about what you need to do to protect your child from identity theft? Britt, I was recently filling out information. My son was trying out for a basketball team at school. He was filling in the online information and they were asking for like Social Security number and things like that. It amazes me how many places ask for that. I never fill it in, but I think a lot of parents don't know, is it necessary for this organization to have the Social? I always err on the side of caution.

Britt: I agree with you. There is no reason for any organization to have your child's Social Security number unless they're signing up for, you know, something...you know, there's a health, you know, perhaps a medical situation or they're signing up for student loans, or something of that nature. But there's no reason for day-to-day organizations to be asking for someone's Social Security number. There's no reason that I can think of that you should have to provide that kind of information. If they have the child's name and their address and their date of birth to prove that they're old enough or young enough to play on a particular team or something like that, that should be all the information that they need.

Amy: So, making sure that you protect their personal information. Britt, I also think because kids, my gosh, are interacting online at such a young age now, having that conversation with your children about sharing personal information, I mean, obviously, from a number of standpoints, but one of them has to do with protecting them from identity theft.

Britt: Exactly. Our kids a lot of times are, you know, they haven't lived long enough to know that there are people out there trying to harm them. You know, in many cases, you know, we do our best to try not to scare them, you know, but alert them to the fact that you wanna limit what you share, especially on social media. You don't necessarily need to share your exact birthdate, you don't necessarily need to share your address, or definitely never share your Social Security number or things of that nature. You definitely wanna make sure that, without scaring them to death, you can certainly make sure that they are vigilant with their personal information. You don't want to never use... You know, you might wanna monitor their social media so that you know what kind of things they put on their profile or what kind of things that they're sharing, and maybe just alert them to, you know, some of the things that they want to share on a limited basis.

Amy: But I'm wondering at what age, you're talking about freezing your child's credit. As soon as they're born?

Britt: I would. There are many examples of people stealing a Social Security number of infants and literally it being 10 or 15 years before it gets discovered.

Amy: And the tangled web, I'm sure.

Britt: Well, yeah, I mean, and unfortunately. And, Amy, this is gonna sound terrible, but in many cases, these are parents or relatives that actually do this. They can take the child's Social Security number, use their own date of birth, and then basically create a synthetic identity and open up Duke Energy accounts, open up credit card accounts, open up mortgages, you know, rental agreements, things of that nature. And then, of course, when they go bad, all those adverse credit reporting marks go on that Social Security number. And, of course, I've seen many children over the years, once they get to the stage where they're looking to purchase a house and they pull up their credit report and find out, "Oh my gosh, this says I've had an American Express account for 15 years. I've never had that kind of an account before."

Amy: Sure.

Britt: And it prevents them from being able to buy a house or do other things that they want to do, and then they find out it was a relative that did it to them.

Amy: Oh, you know, parents, we do so much to try to protect our children. And protecting them from identity theft has to be at the top of the list. Make sure that you are freezing their credits, freezing their score, you know, looking at red flags, keeping an eye out, and not sharing their personal information. Great insights as always from Britt Scearce our credit expert from WesBanco. You're listening to "Simply Money" here on 55KRC, THE Talk Station.

You're listening to "Simply Money" presented by Allworth Financial. I'm Amy Wagner, along with Steve Sprovach. Straight ahead, rental car fees. Of course, we hate fees of all kinds, so we're gonna help you save a few bucks. You know, I think, Steve, there's a lot of people who are just counting down the days, right? How much longer do I have to do this Monday through Friday gig, put up with the boss, the commute, whatever it is that you don't exactly love about your job? And if you dream about an early retirement, well, it can happen. But I think there are a few questions that you would need to ask yourself. And if you can check all these boxes, you're probably in pretty good shape.

Steve: A few questions? Yeah. There's more than a few.

Amy: Okay. More than a few.

Steve: Assuming you've discussed this with your spouse, and assuming...

Amy: That's a good place to start.

Steve: ....assuming you're both on the same page, which doesn't always happen, yeah, let's start with something that nobody wants to think about. How about long-term care insurance? Okay. I was one of those people that... It's not cheap. I was one of those people that said, "Okay, I don't wanna buy this when I'm 40 or 50. What are the, you know, odds I need it?" But you know what? 60 to 65 is the sweet spot. You get older than 65, they start getting pretty expensive. Before 60, yeah, let's be real, you know, what's the possibility you need it? And then I have open heart surgery. I have a triple bypass when I was barely 60, you know, and okay, well, long-term care, well, I gotta wait two years before I can even think about getting a real quote. And guess what? It might be a little bit more expensive. So, at least get the data. Maybe you don't wanna buy it, maybe you've got enough money to self-insure, but at least get the data on what it costs and have a meaningful conversation. Because if there's a couple and one of them starts having major long-term health issues, it can really put a world of financial hurt on the healthy spouse.

Amy: Here's another question. Are you debt free? And we're talking credit card debt, we're talking about your mortgage. It may not sound like a big deal, right? You've been carrying that mortgage for years just to keep paying it in retirement. Here's the deal. Money not going out, it's the same as money coming in. So, you're essentially giving yourself a raise in retirement if you get that mortgage paid off. And I think it's also very much kind of a mental, an emotional thing, Steve, right?

Steve: Yeah.

Amy: You don't have that paycheck coming in anymore. But at the same time, for most of us, our home, our monthly mortgage is our biggest expense. If you no longer have that going out the door, think about how much easier you sleep at night.

Steve: Yeah. But if you're in your early-mid-'50s or so, how are you gonna get rid of your mortgage? I mean, you know, it might be a pretty big balance. Well, I don't know how, but you have to put a game plan together. Because I have seen people carry a mortgage in retirement, and, you know, after three or four good years, you're gonna have a down year. And all you need to see stress just build up on somebody is that person that said, "I'm not paying off this mortgage. I'm only paying, you know, 4% or whatever on it, and I'm making more than that in my accounts, not in a day on year." And the stress just builds and builds when you see your account balance drop down and then you're taking money out of your investment accounts in retirement to pay down the mortgage that you didn't pay off before you retired. That's brutal. I'll give you another one. Make your dependents independent. Now, you've got some teenagers at home. I hope you're starting to give them reasons why they don't wanna stay at home after college.

Amy: Yes. This is a huge one, I think, because what we saw, especially during the pandemic, was all these boomerang kids, right, going out and coming right back...

Steve: They cost money.

Amy: And I get it during the pandemic, but for many people, they're still there. And think about how much of a drain that is on your money every month. If you wanna retire early, for most people, it becomes not an option when you have 20-somethings, 30-somethings, you're still paying their credit card bills, their health insurance, buying their groceries, their gas, whatever it is. So, I think for people to really be able to retire early and do it well, your dependents have to be truly independent.

Steve: I think you need to lay the groundwork now so that if I interview, let's say, Grace, in four or five more years, "Hey, you gonna live at home after college?" "No. Are you... Live with my mom?"

Amy: "My mom? No way."

Steve: "No, no." Then you've done well.

Amy: I was gonna say, you could probably ask Grace that question today. And she would say the same thing. But again, we have conversations with our kids. And obviously...

Steve: Of course, you do.

Amy: ...if there's something bad going on, they're always welcome to come home. But what I've seen far too many times is they just become really comfortable there. And it's hard to even have the conversation about them getting back out on their own. So, this is something that you've gotta tackle and take pretty seriously if you wanna retire early. Also, do you have a financial plan, and has it been stress tested?

Steve: And we probably beat this to death about having a financial plan, but I'll tell you what, you know...

Amy: Because it's so important.

Steve: It is. And there are two types of financial plans. A financial plan somebody draws up to get you to buy something or a financial plan that's a real representative analysis of where you're at and where you're likely to be. And by the way, if things don't go as good as we think, let's stress test it and put a bad timing scenario on it. I don't try to make them look good. And I make that clear to everybody. I want to beat the heck out of it. I wanna see what breaks their financial plan. Because that tells me this is how much room you have for error. This is how much tolerance you've got. And, yeah, I'm an optimistic guy, but you know what? If things head south, what if we enter 2008 from today, this is the high point, and we go into a 2008 spiral? I wanna see what happens to their plan 20 years down the road. If it's still successful, I'm feeling pretty good, and they should too.

Amy: Another thing, too, is do you have a trusted sounding board, right? You're talking about stress testing, you're talking about breaking the plan. Who's doing that for you? Who's helping you think through these things? I would say, find a trusted professional. But if that's not, at least someone who has retired themselves, who can talk through maybe some mistakes that they've made that you can learn from. Legal documents, right? Do you have those in order?

Steve: Big one. Yeah.

Amy: Lots that need to be done there. And also, in this one isn't so much financial, it's a plan for your time. Do you have a passion project that you're excited about tackling? Because I know lots of people who get really excited about retirement. And then the reality is, like, what am I gonna do?

Steve: Yeah. Exactly.

Amy: It's a tough transition.

Steve: It is. And if you don't have hobbies, you're gonna melt down within a year. I've seen it in my own family. It's important to have outside interests outside of work. Because when you're not at work, you're gonna be spending a lot of time doing something. And I hope it's not just watching "The View" and Oprah all day long in retirement.

Amy: Here's the Allworth advice. Making work an option, not an obligation, this can be doable depending on how you answer the questions that we've just talked about. Coming up next, helping you save money the next time you're renting a car, what you need to know. You're listening to "Simply Money" here on 55KRC, THE Talk Station.

You're listening to "Simply Money" presented by Allworth Financial. I'm Amy Wagner, along with Steve Sprovach. I feel like this has happened to anyone who has ever traveled and rented a car, right? You book it online or you call and you figure out how much it's gonna cost you, and then you have a great vacation, you return that car to the rental place. And all of a sudden, you're looking at the bill and you're like, "Wait a second, what? This is not what I signed up for. This is not what I was quoted." And you are just slammed with extra fees that you were not counting on.

Steve: I remember the first time I flew out to Phoenix and landed at Sky Harbor Airport. Nice big airport. Well, Phoenix, pretty big city. And they had just built, you know, it was great, they have shuttle bus takes you to this huge building for nothing but rental cars. It was like half mile offsite. You pull in and start filling out the papers and, "Wait, wait a second. What's this facility usage fee?" I mean, it was massive, that's like a $10 million building they gotta pay off. And guess what? It's coming out of everybody's pocket that rents a car there. These fees can be drastic, but there are ways to beat the system.

Amy: So, one way is, and to your point, Steve, if you're flying into an airport and you're renting that car right there on the premises, maybe you look at renting a car from somewhere 10 minutes away. Nerd Wallet did some interesting research and they found that it's about 26% more expensive to rent that car from the airport compared to renting it from a nearby location. The one thing that you obviously have to keep in mind here is how to get from the airport to that location, right? If you factor in the cost of Uber, or Lyft, or whatever, and it still makes sense, well, then that might be a good bet for you.

Steve: Yeah. It's certainly an option. And one that they never cease to amaze me. Costco, I found out a couple of weeks ago, you can actually buy a casket at Costco.

Amy: I've seen that.

Steve: But you can also rent a car through Costco, and there's some serious savings there. You know, if you don't go directly through Avis, or Budget, or Enterprise, or whatever, you can go through Costco and some other groups.

Amy: Yeah. So, Costco Travel actually helps you. You know what it's like when you land and you're at the counter and they're asking, is it just you that's gonna drive? Is your spouse gonna drive too? And you're thinking, "Well, I'm gonna drive part of the time and they're gonna drive part of the time." Well, then they're gonna likely charge you an extra fee for an extra driver. If you are a Costco travel member, well, often those fees are waived, also sometimes they can be waived through like AAA and memberships like that.

Steve: That's what I use, yeah.

Amy: It's good to just kind of do some research on, okay, what are the benefits of really being in, you know, members of these organizations? Under 25, man, you can be hit with some huge fees. But again, AAA often can waive those fees. So, the key here is to understand maybe what fees you could be facing and kind of how to get around them through your memberships, Costco, whatever it is, there are options out there.

Thanks for listening tonight. We hope you're gonna tune in tomorrow. We're talking about the impact an increase in how you spend money could have on the next move made by the Fed. You've been listening to "Simply Money" presented by Allworth Financial here on 55KRC, THE Talk Station.