Afford Anything - Q&A: He Wants to Die With Zero – Here’s How to Spend $1M Without Running Out

Episode Date: April 28, 2026

#710: What does it really look like to balance financial optimization with real-life tradeoffs—whether that’s choosing meaningful work, spending down your savings, or deciding where your next dollar should go? Mike is planning to retire at 60 with $1 million saved and a clear goal: spend it all during his lifetime. He wants to know how to structure his withdrawals so he can maximize income now while still covering the decades ahead. Kip was planning to retire after feeling burned out—until a chance conversation led him to a completely different role within his company. Now he’s happier than ever, but he’s also curious about whether real estate syndications are a smart next step for investing. Jessie and their spouse are about five years away from early retirement and trying to decide where their next savings dollar should go—keep maxing out Roth IRAs, or shift toward a taxable account for more flexibility? We’ll get into all of that—and how to think through each of these decisions—on today’s episode. Resources Mentioned: Listen to Kip’s previous question: https://affordanything.com/episode627 Don’t miss the YFRP Webinar! https://affordanything.com/rental2026 Join the YFRP waitlist:⁠ https://courses.affordanything.com/⁠ Stay in the Loop:⁠ https://affordanything.com/newsletter⁠ Die with Zero, a book by Bill Perkins: ⁠https://amzn.to/3P1ydBS⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joe, I've often had the thought that one of the toughest parts about retirement planning is that you don't want to over save and yet you don't know how long you're going to live. If only we knew, right? Yeah, exactly. If we had that perfect timer. Are you planning to die at the age of 90 or 100 or 110? I mean, I think many of us hope to live past 100, but is saving for that saving too much? Then again, you don't want to be 105 and broke. Right. But you also don't want to be 85 years old and miss out on all kinds of adventures because you save too much money and wanted to make sure that you had enough for later.

Right. Exactly. So how do you address that? We're going to discuss that in today's episode. We're also going to talk to a caller who is calling back with an update. This is a caller who previously wanted to retire and now is loving his job. Wow. And we're going to hear from a caller who is planning on retiring at the age of 53, which is in five years. You mean it was five years ago? No, five years from now, you'll be turning 53. We're talking about his age. Okay, I'm good. All of that is coming up right now.

Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that knows you can afford anything, not everything. This show covers five pillars, financial psychology, increasing your income, investing, real estate, and entrepreneurship. double-eye fire. I'm your host, Paula Pant. I trained in economic reporting at Columbia. Every other episode-ish, we answer questions from you. And I do so with my buddy, the former financial planner, Joe Saul C-high. What's up, Joe? Oh, we had a tough night last night. Cooper, my cat, accidentally ate an entire bag of scrabble tiles. Ooh. So we took him to the vet and there's no word yet. Come on. Come on. Come on. And with that, we will go to our first question, which comes from Mike.

Hi, Paula. Hi, Joe. This is Mike in Idaho. I have a question about retirement account withdrawal strategy. I'm a 57-year-old divorced man and plan to stop working at the age of 60 with $1 million in retirement accounts, 50% of that in traditional and 50% in Roth. In addition, I have a paid off $500,000 house, which I plan on liquidate just in case I ever need long-term care insurance or long-term care. I plan to claim Social Security at the age of 70 as a form of longevity insurance in case I live longer than 87. I plan on buying health insurance on the exchange from 60 to 65 until I am Medicare eligible. I would like to spend every penny while I'm alive. Considering the bulk of my retirement accounts will be spent during the ages of 60 to 70, but we'll need to supplement Social Security from 70 to, I'm going to say 92-ish.

What would be the best withdrawal strategy for me to live on the most money I can every month from the age of 60 to 92 and die very close to zero. Thanks for your help. I love hearing your ideas. Mike, I love the question, and congratulations on your upcoming retirement. I like how thoughtful this is, like how he truly has begun to think about all the different aspects and not just the money, but the fun, about the new adventures that you're going to have. I'm really, really excited about this question.

The toughest part of your question is how to die with zero and we don't know when death will happen. The older you get, the greater the probability of living past 92, which is to say, when you're 60, it's hard to predict what your health is going to be like when you're 85. But when you're 85, based on the level of health that you have, you could. could at the age of 85 be looking at yourself, looking at your health going, you know what? Based on my current condition, I think I've got another 20 years left in me. That's not something that you're going to be able to know until you're 85 and assessing at that time. You'll look at Paul Merriman, 84.

Going strong. That guy is like hiking through the Pacific Northwest. I'm speaking at two different conferences with Paul this year. Right. He is every bit as much, I find this so annoying. He has every bit as much energy as I have on stage. At 84, man. At 84, it's hard to keep up with him.

He is like running the conference circuit, just having meetings, shaking hands. The only thing that he's not doing is tequila shots at the bar at night. How do you know? Other than that, he is every bit as spry as any 35-year-olds. I think tequila shots with Paul Merriman, it would be just a blast. That would be an absolute blast. We share that to illustrate the point that there is tremendous variation in the level of health, the robustness, the quality of life that a person has when they're between the ages of, let's say, 80 to 85. And based on how vigorous a person is at that time, they might think, all right, the end is likely in the next five to 10 years.

Or they might think, you know what, I got 15 to 20. ahead. I think this is the second biggest issue, Paula. I think there's a bigger one. Yeah. Essentially, Mike, what you're asking about is what is the absolute 100% maximum safe withdrawal rate that I should lean on? And just having spent a lot of time studying this and speaking about it on stages and, you know, I'm working on a project. on this. I think it's really important to note that you're setting yourself up for a retirement that is not nearly as happy as you might think it is because of the huge amount of worry that happens when you're riding the jagged edge of the safe withdrawal rate. If we're actually solving for

more happiness, which I think is what you're asking, I want to have the most happiness I can. I got this money sitting here. So let's turn it into a happiness factory, right? Let's go and just make as much happiness as we can. If we get on that jagged edge, what happens is you will begin worrying about sequence of returns. You will begin worrying about every geopolitical problem that happens. You'll begin worrying about when the Fed raises interest rates. You will find yourself being angry Mike on the couch, screaming.

about politicians versus having all the fun that you really want to have. And once again, I don't, I don't know that's the case, but statistically, that's what happens when you're riding very much on the jagged safe withdraw edge because Paula, the safe withdraw rate has moved over the years. And we don't know what it's going to be. And sadly, we won't know until Mike, you're gone. We'll go, oh, you could have spent more or oops, you shouldn't have done that. But we don't know what the future holds. So we have a lot of statistical evidence over the past roughly 50, 60 years. But as Josh Brown from Ritt Holts' management and CNBC said on my show, he said, you know, in the big scheme of things, Paul, retirement hasn't been around that long. Right. Retirement is a very new

concept. 60 years of data. And a lot of that data also includes a lot of people that had pensions So the way that we're saving for retirement has morphed. Even in the last 25 years, it's changed. Right. And you're seeing the evidence in the way that people save. Like, Gen Z is phenomenal about putting money in their 401K. It's just absolutely phenomenal. Gen X, people that I grew up with, our parents have pensions.

So Gen X didn't have our parents telling us, hey, you know what, you should probably do and didn't have the surround sound of that. So while Gen X has struggled with contributory retirement accounts, they've done it. Gen Z is on top of it. That is a way of life. It's the thing that you do. So when it comes to even the statistics we have around safe withdrawal rates, I don't know, while they're great, I don't think we can look at the next 30 years and predict that safe

withdrawal rates are going to be the same as they were the last 30 years for that reason. I want to echo, Joe, what you said about living on the jagged edge because one element that you are likely to grapple with in retirement, and Mike, I don't know you, but I'm speaking, again, in broad aggregates, people in retirement are likely to face anxiety, particularly when you get into your 80s. You know, 60s, you're young. 70s, especially early 70s, you're young. 80s is really when age starts catching up with you. And aging starts to feel exponential rather than linear. You become very aware of your frailty. You become very aware that if a dog, and it doesn't even have to be a vicious dog, it could be like a friendly collie. But if a friendly collie were to jump on you, you might fall. And that might be the end.

You become aware that you have these vulnerabilities, that things that would have been insignificant non-events in your 60s could be deadly in your 80s. Balance in the shower. Right. Yeah, not wanting to travel because, you know, the hotel is not going to have a grab bar in the bathroom. It doesn't mean that this is impossible, though. I think, Paula, a good strategy here would be this. Now, I'm going to give you the caveat first.

And it's a story that OG, our friend on Stacky and Benjamin's has shared from his practice. He has a client who knew that they didn't have enough money for retirement. And when he started working with the client, the goal was, was just to cobble together what was left to make the rocket ship go as long as it could before it ran out of fuel. And what was interesting in this story that OG told was the client said, you know what, I overspent my money early in my retirement. But I don't regret that. I understand that I have to live a different life now. But I look back on all these memories and all the stuff that I did early in my retirement during my quote, go go retirement years. And I'm very happy with that.

And he very well, though, understood the tradeoff was he was going to have a moment. much more frugal end of life existence from the time that he and OG got together and the end of his life. And I think, Mike, if you're able to accept a tradeoff like that, because we don't know when you're going to die, but we do know that there's going to be some no-go years at the end, right, where you're just not physically going to be able to do stuff, I think you can create kind of a tiered strategy where you do spend more in the early years, but you have to accept this tradeoff of there's going to come a time when I'm going to need to do minimum viable retirement. So I think the way that I calculate this is I look at what my minimum viable retirement would

probably be for my entire retirement. Like what is this minimum number that I know that I can live on and be somewhat happy? And then I've got a ball of money left over. And then I begin choosing tactically how and when I'm going to have these big, either epic life moments like you, we haven't talked about exactly what a happy retirement looks like to you, but it's one of two things for people. It's either A, I have these big epic moments. I travel around the world. I go to these places. I do these things. I have these experiences and these big experiences. Or I have lifestyle A on a daily basis. And I know that I'm an a downshift to lifestyle B.

Yeah. I think Joe, and this is where I disagree with you slightly, if you think about retirement spending as in the shape of a smile or really in the shape of a smirk, right? What is a smirk? It's like a smile except one side is higher than the other. One side of the mouth is higher than the other. And retirement spending is sort of shaped like a smirk where it's high in your 60s because you're having fun, you're traveling, you're.

you're engaging in hobbies, you know, you're living your best life. It dips in your 70s when you're still generally healthy. You can take care of yourself. You just tend to stay at home a bit more. And then in your 80s and 90s, it rises because so many of the things that you didn't previously need help for, you need help now. Like unloading the dishwasher causes such back. pain that you just can't bend down to unload the dishes anymore, you know, or you can't reach overhead to load the dishes into the cabinet above the sink. The retirement industry has a name for these things, and they're called activities of daily living.

Right. And when the activities of daily living get to the point you're saying that you need help, that's why your expenses go up. Well, and it's not just because often activities of daily living, that gets as granular as buttoning your shirt, right? zipping your own zippers, things of that nature. If you think about the amount of dexterity required to button a button, that's a lot. You need some nimble fingers to be able to do that.

That's actually quite a talent. I mean, Joe's laughing at me right now. But like, truly, marvel at the fine dexterity needed to be able to button a button. It's actually quite intricate. I don't want to brag, but I button my own shirt today before work. Guess what I did, Lou? Well, no, it's true because there will come a time when that is a major accomplishment. Anyway, a point that I'm trying to make, I realize I'm bumming everybody out about their 80s right now.

But the point that I'm trying to make is that you don't want to get to your 80s and feel anxiety because you lack the resources to be able to get help at the time that you need it. both of my parents are 85 and my dad has told me that he he deals with a lot of anxiety. Being 85 is by definition being vulnerable and that leads to anxiety. And so he started meditating. Meditation really helps with the anxiety and it's free. That, Mike, is the thing that I want to prevent. I totally get that you want to enjoy your retirement and I support the die with zero philosophy and simultaneously, I don't want to create a situation in which your 80s and 90s are

marred by anxiety about dwindling resources. The reason for my answer to the question, the way that I answered it, because I'm going to stick with that answer, by definition, if Mike has a philosophy of die was zero, he's already looking at a Medicaid existence at the end, especially if he ends up needing to any of that activity, a daily living help, then you certainly would qualify at that point if you've spent your resources. So either, A, Mike hadn't considered that, but his question was so reasoned and so thoughtful that I think he's already, he's already thought about that. Now, what he can't feel that I think you brought to the table, Paula, which is the same thing

I brought to the table for early in retirement is the anxiety affiliated with. with that minimal existence and having these challenges that you didn't have before and, you know, how are you going to feel? Which is why I led with the gentleman who has accepted that. He's already accepted that that's in his future. And if you're willing to accept, because I think that's just important in a die with zero philosophy is you've got to be willing to accept the fact that you might outlive your money. I mean, the dream is to put the last quarter in the Coke machine and clutch your chest at the same time. Like, that is awesome. If you can do that. If that were to happen, you technically wouldn't need the Coca-Cola. No, you wouldn't. You wasted

that last quarter. Why am I saying a quarter? You wasted that last like. Yeah, that's right. Where are you buying a Coca-Cola for a quarter, Joe? I want that place. Well, okay, you're pretty several quarters. You're tapping your phone. That's right. You know Coke machines take credit cards now and credit cards. Yeah, and load it onto your phone. So really, you just tap your phone against the Coke machine. There it is. So Mike, assuming that you're willing to have all of that uncertainty later, which I think was the point with OG and his client, Paula, was that he was very, very at peace with the fact that he had made, in hindsight, some decisions which were going to hurt him for the rest of his, the rest of his life, which is why I think you still need to timeline out

your minimal burn rate. What does that look like? And then figure out how you're going to parcel the rest, full well knowing that the remainder of your years may be on a more frugal existence than you would like with more uncertainty about things like help, right, getting help when you need it because anyone who's on Medicaid will tell you that the help that you receive is at the government's behest. And they're generally not my preferred provider when it comes to services. And it doesn't mean that these people are all bad. It just means that the standard deviation to put it in, to put it in financial terms, goes through the rough. It's high variance. Yeah, that's a high variance outcome, statistically speaking. Mike, what I would recommend for you,

you mentioned long-term care. I think long-term care insurance is going to be a great thing. And the good news is, since you're 57 years old, you are young enough that you can, at this age, lock in long-term care insurance before the premium is really spike. So if at 57 or 58 you were to buy a long-term care insurance policy, you'd be able to get that policy right now for at the low end of the spectrum, somewhere between 1,500 to 1,500 annually. That's for a very basic policy, a policy structure of about 165,000. This is just according to some quick research I did through the National Council on aging. your costs of course are going to vary depending on your state and region, et cetera, et cetera. But I do think that would be a good use of your money.

Here is the math. People hear $1,500 a year and they go, hard pass. There is no way I want to do that. Mike already told us in his question, Paula. He's like, I got that quitting my home to cover it. Here's the thing. I don't know what that policy covers that you're quoting. But if it covers the state.

statistical averages that this may happen to you, right? And the biggest risk, what you're doing is you're saying, I am covering the probability that this will happen to me and will eat up my assets. And I'm going to cap that at $43,750. And what I did was I took 35 years, 92 from where you are right now, which is when Mike has predicted he's going to die. So I took 35 years times that 1,500 bucks. You have said, I'm going to guaranteed spend $43,000, $750. But then after that, I'm going to spend zero if I'm in the statistical middle of people. Like that's it. And what that effectively does, Mike, all the sudden we go from long-term care being this, you know, onerous output of funds that you hope you never use to liberating all of the equity in your

house. Now we've just made it so all that equity you can use for whatever you need it for. And there's several ways to access it, right? In the past, we've always said reverse mortgages are horrible. There are so many crooks in that industry. The good news is over the past 10 years, especially as more Americans age and have long, longer retirement periods, what have we seen? We've seen that industry really clean up a lot. Doesn't mean it's clean yet, but it's cleaned up a ton to the point that a reverse mortgage could be on the table. You could do that.

Stay in your house and take the equity out. Second thing that you could do would be to just sell it and downsize or move to a place. You know, if you've got stairs, we talked about, you know, mobility issues, Polly. You could move to a place that's more suitable later in your research. retirement years. Well, on one hand, you can look at this as a $44,000 expense. You look at it the other way, you go, yeah, I'm only spending $44,000. I mean, that is, I have capped it. Now, and I know what people are saying, well, Joe, you haven't capped it. But if we're looking at the statistical probability, then we have significantly cut our out-of-pocket expenses.

And we've also spread it over a number of years versus because think about this, Paula, if I spend $1,500 this year for future coverage, I'm also locking in inflation if my policy has an inflation writer. I'm locking that in and I'm essentially getting a discount because I'm paying for it in today's prices with tomorrow's expected outcome of a much higher price tag. Right. Joe, his direct question was about withdrawal strategy. My recommendation would be to plan a smile-shaped or smirk-shaped withdrawal strategy.

So don't assume flatline spending. That's the thing I dislike about the 4% rule of thumb. It assumes a flat line that's inflation-adjusted. I would recommend, Mike, a withdrawal strategy that plans to spend more money right now, you know, in your 60s, when you're young and healthy and can live life, plan to spend more now, but also plan for that to be a smirk where your spending is really going to go up in your 90s, 80s and 90s. I would sit down with an online planner or an online calculator, and I would plan out a drawdown strategy with, you know, layer in your return assumptions,

but plan a drawdown strategy on a retirement planner that assumes higher withdrawals between the ages of, let's say, 60 to 66, 67, then assume that you're going to drop for the next 12, 13 years, then assume it's going to kick back up once you hit your 80s and assume it's going to get much higher after 85. And I would even map that out year by year, you know, layered with your return assumptions so that you can make that whole comprehensive plan, that 35-year plan. And then throughout your retirement, go back and update that every year based on how the market has actually performed and how your assets are actually doing.

And Mike, you already know my take on this, which is to look at what that minimum viable retirement looks like and then think through, is this a greater lifestyle on a daily basis today? or is it these big epic events that you want to have? And then timeline those out, play them for those additional things. Awesome. So, Mike, thank you for the question. And congrats on your upcoming retirement.

We're going to take a moment to hear from the sponsors who make the show possible. When we return, we're going to hear from a caller who previously, actually on the topic of long-term care, this caller previously called in with a question about long-term care and retirement. and since then made some work-related changes. You know, I'm not going to spoil the story. He'll describe it. That's coming up next. Welcome aboard via rail.

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Our next question comes from Kip. Hi, Paula and Joe. My name is Kip, and you both answered a question about long-term care and retirement for me back at episode 627. After listening to you guys and the stats you provided about the typical length of a long-term care stay, I decided to pull the trigger to retire. Also decided that I would fund long-term care expensive out of pocket if needed. I started the retirement process, and during this process, it is coming for management to have a luncheon when long-term employees leave. During the luncheon, I talked to people that I had not spoken to in ages and explained. I was just burnt out, stressed, and not fulfilled in my current role. And that is why I was retiring.

I learned that our company, which is a large Fortune 500 company, has an entire community outreach department. In short, instead of retiring, I transferred over to this department and I cannot be happier. I get to help people every day. Additionally, I was able to keep my company health benefits and not spend down my retirement accounts right now. On the negative side, I had to take a significant pay cut, but it was all worth it. It's been five months, and I'm down 15 pounds. My blood pressure is doing great, and I'm just overall happy. So thanks for the nudge and the confidence to pull the trigger and make this change. Otherwise, I would probably still be unhappy and still searching. On a different note, could you guys

speak a little bit about real estate investment syndicates? I have a friend in court. that just won't stop talking about them. I'm not currently an accredited investor, but do you have the assets to qualify them as to these syndicates that I've been looking into, they all require you to be an accredited investor. From what I can see as the pros are the tax benefits and the better returns over the S&P 500s over long time periods. But the negatives are the liquidity of the investments, the opakness of the investments, and the trustworthiness slash performance. of the sponsor. Do you guys think these are good investments for people that they're not needing the money immediately? And if so, how do you pick a sponsor and evaluate an investment choice?

It's just so many out there. I'm just wondering which guys think. Thanks again for the help. And I know you guys will always have fun and provide a great answer. Thanks again, guys. Kip, oh my goodness. I love what the way that your life has turned out since that question, holy moly, I am so happy for you. I think there's definitely some things that we should chat about in Kip's experience. First of all, Kip, you are living the dream. The real dream is work that is fulfilling. Like I am a firm believer that there's a fundamental human need to be of contribution,

to do work that is meaningful, to build, to create, to contribute. And many people don't find that in their jobs. And I think that's a lot of what drives people towards retirement, because retirement then will give you, for many people, retirement is what gives you space to figure out, all right, how can I contribute to society? Because I was not able to do that in my job, right? But you got the best of both worlds. You were able to transition to another role.

in which you are contributing to society, you have purpose, your blood pressure is down, you've lost 15 pounds, you're healthy and you're living a life of purpose, and you're doing so with a paycheck still coming in and health benefits still there. That is the ideal outcome, in my view. We often think, and I think this is a big misconception, especially in the financial independence community, that quitting our job is going to help us get rid of the lack of meaning in the things that I'm doing. And that's generally when I talk to people that want to retire early, it's because they don't necessarily find a lot of meaning and what they do. They don't find a lot of freedom, a lot of time, a lot of, a lot of all the different things. And yet, and yet,

that theory that this will help us is completely, completely false. Do you mean the theory that retirement will help? The theory that retirement will help with this, with getting rid of this meaninglessness. There was a piece just in January, and this isn't the first piece. I mean, this is a continual stream of research coming out, but a piece in the Wall Street Journal in January saying that having enough money is not the biggest problem that retirees face.

having the right health care is not the biggest problem. Those two are really important. But they called it, Paula, mattering is the problem. The fact that we are now retired and I don't feel like my life matters, that what I do matters. And so in this quest for happiness, if we're really solving for happiness in my brain, you know, Kip, you said that the downside was a pay cut. If you're fine financially, who cares about the pay cut? Yeah, exactly. And this is a reason, by the way, to be financially independent. So you would think that we'd be chasing this mattering. But often I feel like we're, and this is so trite. It is so trite, but it's so true what I'm about to say, which is, you know, you got to retire to something,

not from something. How many times we heard that, right? Right. But it's true. It's a cliche because it's entirely true. You can't just run from the meaninglessness that you have. You have to run toward meaning. And by the way, meaning, because I know how much hate we get, Paul, people like, oh, this purpose thing is overrated. It isn't overrated. It's just that you're misdefining it like you have to build an Eiffel Tower or you have to some Taj Mahal to, you know, so that whatever, you don't need to do that. But just kept what really got me excited is when you're like, I'm in a job where I'm helping

people. The mission is now bigger than you. Right. And every study shows that if we get away from the. selfish retirement vision toward a more selfless community-oriented vision, it gets better. And I've got an example of this, Paula. I spoke with this researcher, a woman named Dr. Anna Corwin. She has gone on to publish a lot of stuff.

But I talked to this woman maybe 12, 13 years ago. She had done this study of Catholic nuns. And these Catholic nuns don't retire. They continue until they die with this community service stuff. What's funny is, is that in her research, not only do they live nearly a decade longer than the population in general, they're generally happier. When you look at what Catholic nuns own, they own nothing. They own next to nothing. They have very little of the trappings. And yet, what do they have? They have this mission that's way bigger than them. They have this mission to serve a community. And so the joy they get from serving that community and the,

And they also have community amongst themselves. 100%. Yes. And you see this study with nursing homes too, you know, that famous study where they gave half of the people in a nursing home a plant. And they said, you have to make sure this plant lives. And everybody else might have had a plant, might not have, but they didn't give them any special instructions.

Everybody already knows where this study's going. The study showed that people that had to keep the plant alive, a mission bigger than themselves, that person lives longer. So for solving for happiness, Kip, you're on it, man. You are on it. Yeah, exactly. Kip, the story you shared, this is the best possible outcome. I mean, wow, what a best of both worlds. There was a story, another story that the Wall Street Journal just ran. It was actually an editorial written by two retirees, former Wall Street Journal editor who'd retired several years ago, one of the most depressing headlines I've ever seen, the headline said, where does our free time go in retirement? Too often? It's social media.

And the piece goes on to talk about how in retirement, with the absence of bosses and meetings and deadlines, there is nothing to interrupt just zombie doom scrolling. And so I'm I'm going to quote, actually, so this was written by Stephen Kreider, Yoder, retired Wall Street Journal editor. He said, quote, we retirees have a particular vulnerability. We have time on our hands and no external authority telling us to snap out of it. And I'm continuing to quote, quote, let's have a show of hands. How many retirees have ended a day looking up from the phone, wondering where the time went, and feeling the mental equivalent of having finished off a family-sized bag of potato chips.

Oh. Yeah. End quote. And so I posted this on Twitter, on X, and it went super viral, over 400,000 views. I was reading through my comment feed, and a lot of people made the point, and I thought this was a very valid point, they said, you know what? retirees scrolling social media today is the equivalent of the retiree that just channel surfed 20 years ago that sat on their rocking chair and watched the prices right and just channel surfed all day long. And I was like, oh, that's a good point. Yeah. And then I thought, well, what did retirees do before television was invented?

But, you know, retirement is a pretty new social phenomenon, at least in the United States. it didn't really exist before the development of television. There wasn't much before then, and it didn't last very long. What's the Hobbs quote? It was brutish and short. It was brutish and short. Right. It is interesting that a successful retirement looks a lot like entrepreneurship.

Being a self-starter is important. Treating it like a job, but a job that you love is important. Christine Ben's in her book last fall, how to retire. It was shocking that the very first chapter of this book, she's talking to an annuity expert, which is exactly what you expect. But Paula, they didn't talk at all about annuities. They talked about this. They talked about getting out of bed, putting on actual pants. With a button. With a button. Setting a schedule. So you've got your scheduled activities for the day and sticking to that because I like what he said in that piece about we don't have any boss who's telling us what to do

anymore. So blowing off the things to doomscroll longer, you go, well, I deserve it. I'm in retirement. The bad news is, is yes, you do. Beware what you ask for. When it comes to real estate, real estate is not my forte, but real estate syndication gets very much into an area, Paula that I know a lot about because evaluating investments is something I've spent my entire career doing. So if you don't mind, I'll take a quick stab at this and then we'll hand it over to the expert. I think syndication is far more dangerous than people give it credit for. The number of headlines we've done on stacking bedemines over the years related to people not getting what they wanted out of syndication is big. It can be immensely profitable. It can be fantastic. But here is

the problem with syndication. And Kip, you actually alluded to this in your question. But a lot of people don't even know what real estate syndication is. But this is where you are essentially like a limited partner. You are handing money to a general partner to somebody who is going to make all the decisions. You don't make any of the decisions. They're going to buy and develop some property. Maybe they've even already bought it and they're already developing it. They're going to give you a list of conditions around a property or properties, you're going to be the funding. They're going to take your money and leverage it so that everybody's able to hopefully do really well. And if things work out as expected, it can go really, really, really well. But much like if people have

ever done a Kickstarter campaign, if you know what Kickstarter is, you're helping some developer, some maker create a new thing, even if, even if the maker has a long, long track record of successfully bringing things to market, you can still hand the money and they could just run away with it. Unexpected things still happen. So the past, what you're evaluating here, Kip, is the past. And you have to do that. And the number of people that get, there was a huge developer in Dallas just maybe 18 months ago, the Dallas newspapers did this horrible expose it got picked up nationally about this guy who could tell a great story, got millions of dollars. In fact, Paula, there was one person that was being profiled in the piece who had given this

developer over a million dollars. And they only had like a million and a half for all of their retirement. So they gave this guy two thirds of his retirement. And the guys didn't know what he was doing. He had no idea. He was a great talker, but he had never done syndication before. And shock of shocks, he ran into zoning requirements. He didn't know anything about. He ran into the fact that cost overruns with contractors that this guy didn't know anything about. He was just great at sales and people flooded him with with money. So you have to look at their past track record. In this case, I would have told a client of mine that asked me to evaluate this. I would have said, this guy's got no track record. He's telling you a great story. He's got great numbers. He probably has charts and

graphs, right? He's got no track record. You can't hand the money that you can't afford to lose. So if you do hand him money, make it a small amount and consider it a bet. But even after the track record, the problem with syndication is somebody could have done 20 of these, 30, these, 40 of these, 100 of them. And the next one could still go really bad. And there's nothing you can do about that. I see people go, well, rather than put my money in index fund, I'd rather give it to a real estate syndication. As if we're talking about two honey crisp apples, we're not even talking about apples. We're talking about the same type of apple. These things are not risk-wise anywhere in the same generation of each other.

They're not even close. A real estate syndication is always at the end, even after meticulous research, going to be a bet that this particular person is going to do what they said that we're going to do on top of the fact that you also have concentration risk, meaning it's one development versus in an index. You've got hundreds of different companies that have hundreds of different outcomes that are going to help you get rid of that concentrated risk. So I don't know, Paula, that's my feeling about syndication. It can be huge.

It could be great. Yeah. I actually have the same feeling. So the sponsor risk that you were talking about, Joe, that is huge. You are essentially casting a vote for the management capabilities of that sponsor, right? Like, how are they going to manage the expenses? How are they going to handle vacancies? How are they going to manage this project?

Evaluating a manager is itself a specialized skill set, right? So that first and foremost is the big thing. The other, and this is really the major problem that I have with it, because you might argue, all right, well, if you were to choose an individual stock, you are essentially casting a vote for the executive team of that company. And that is true. The difference is if you're buying an individual stock, which I don't recommend doing also, at least not with any significant amount of money, like a tiny amount of play money, sure. The difference is if you're buying an individual stock, it's a publicly traded company that is subject to reporting requirements, financial disclosure requirements.

And so you can read through the finances of a publicly traded company. There are earnings calls. There's mandatory reporting requirements. There's a huge level of visibility that you get with a publicly traded stock that you don't get with a real estate syndication. And there's another upside of the fact that it's publicly traded. I love the freedom of information. But if I don't like that information, Paula, I can get out. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's highly liquid. If for some reason I get a sniff of something going badly with my syndication,

I can't get out. I still can't get out. Right. Yeah. So with syndication, there's a lack of transparency and a lack of liquidity. Red flag, red flag. Yeah, we're several degrees up. the food chain, many degrees up the food chain from even an individual stock. Right. Exactly.

Kip, you asked about accredited investors. That's why most syndications do require a person to be an accredited investor is because there's so much risk involved. And to anyone who's listening who is an accredited investor, I still wouldn't recommend it. I'm an accredited investor. I don't, I don't touch this stuff. That said, Kip, I don't want to position it like. it is a rip-off or that it is, you know, some kind of scheme. These are very legitimate. There are fantastic people in that arena. I know some of them who do very, very, very well, have a long history of doing well.

But the past does not equal the future. And I think once you understand that, once you understand that, you're going to, you know, if you've got one and a half million dollars, you're not going to give them a million bucks. Yeah. Maybe if their minimum is 50,000, maybe if you strongly believe in the, believe in it. Well, do any of them take less than 50? Oh. Like I can't think of a syndication that I've seen that takes less than 50.

If you have one and a half mill, I wouldn't give them 50. Maybe if you have like, well, then you're saying you wouldn't do it. Then you're saying you wouldn't do it. Yeah. Yeah. One half million dollars than you wouldn't do it. Because I don't know. generally for most of these syndications, the floor is 50. Like, that's the low floor.

Yeah, maybe if you have three or four mil, I mean, just as a percentage of your net worth, I would want it to be tiny. The reason I have the position I do is I want to emphasize it is that combination of lack of liquidity and lack of transparency. And between the two, the lack of transparency to me is the bigger piece. The operator can tell you that they're sharing the numbers, but are those numbers accurate? Have they been third party verified? Like, you just don't have the protections that you do if you're, for example, buying an individual stock. You don't have the legal protections. You don't have that external regulatory scaffolding that serves as investor protection. I have a question for you, Paula. Yeah, what's that? What percentage of investors

who are currently in syndications? They're already. investing in it, truly understand the investment that they have. I could only speculate. Me too. But I think your and my gut feeling is a lot different than the gut feeling of the world at large because we spend so much time on this and in this community. Do you want to go first? Do you want mine?

The question is what percentage? What percentage understand or what percentage don't understand? Let's do that. No, no. Let's do what percentage do understand because on the count of three, I can hold up the answer with the number of fingers that I'm holding up. Okay. All right. So count of three number of fingers that I'm holding up. For those of you watching on YouTube, you'll see this. For those of you listening via audio, go to YouTube. All right. I'm going to hold up the number of fingers, count of, well, counting down for three. It'll be three, two, one, boom. All right. Okay. Three. Three, two, one, boom. Whoa. We're pretty close.

Wow. Okay, so I guessed five percent. Oh, you said five percent understand. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought that was 50. No, no, this is a five. You're saying five percent of people understand. Yeah.

95 do not. That's my guess. God, I thought my number was high. We're way off. If we're talking like a deep understanding of I really know the numbers, yeah, I'd say about probably five percent. Well, and I defined it a little differently. a full 30% of people have no clue, no clue whatsoever. So you think 70% do understand.

Do understand. Maybe not the deep understanding that you're talking about, but I think 70% do. I think 70% is not a huge number. If you flip it to 30% of people don't understand, that scares the hell out of me. Like a full 3 in 10 have no clue. Yeah. Okay, yeah. I guess we're operating off of different definitions of the word understanding because

If you think about a tree, like I often liken knowledge to a tree. So are we talking like tree trunk level understanding or are we talking leaves and branches understanding? You're talking leaves and branches? No, no, I'm talking tree trunk. I think 5% of people have tree trunk, like core. You mean, but they understand the entire tree? They understand everything.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. See, I'm even having trouble understanding the analogy. Right? So the tree trunk is like the core of the tree, whereas the leaves and branches are the visible component. Okay. The more salient component. Okay. I can see, you know, maybe 50% or so having the leaves and branches understanding, but only 5% having the tree trunk. Yeah, I think your number could be right. It could definitely be right there. But I think 30% of people just don't even know that there's a tree in that forest. I don't even know where the tree is. Can't see the forest for the trees.

I got no idea. Like, I thought it was a lake. I had. I had no idea. That was a tree. But that number scares me. I mean, that's a big enough, either way you take that, it's a big enough deficit in our understanding of that tool. Mine comes from the number of people, when I was a financial planner that were in limited partnerships or were in these closed end reits, you know, which is kind of a similar construct to a syndication, a little different, but similar, that your money's locked up. It's a little more transparent, but there's nothing you can do about it. You still have no liquidity, even though they have to give you numbers along the way and they have to revalue it. These companies can revalue the shares

in a lot of magical ways that might never come to fruition. But I would see a full 30% of people in that market that would go, oh, they just told me it was like I was buying shopping malls or they told me I was buying nursing homes or I was buying ski resorts. That's a, that's not really cool. Well, did you ever think about the fact you can't sell off the bathroom of your ski resort to get money? Like, you can't take the ski shop and just peel it off when you need 20 bucks. No, I never thought about that. They just said that, hey, look at ski resorts aren't going out of business anytime soon, so I should own some. Which is funny because ski resorts are really struggling with, right?

With snow. Yeah, with snow. With the base product. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. With the one thing that you really need at a ski resort. Well, but they still got the mountain. They still got the mountain.

Yeah, Nepal has mountains and we have no ski resorts. No ski resorts. You know who's got the tallest mountains in the world? You know who's got Mount Everest? Oh. Us, Nepal. Yes. And you also know who doesn't have ski resorts, also us, Nepal.

Okay. So I'm going to make a new syndication. Yeah. I want $50,000 from everybody because there's this huge opportunity in the market. Afforders. We can build some ski resorts in Nepal. Think about the opportunity. I'm going to make a graft and it's going to go up into the right.

Oh, boy. Yeah, like the slope of a mountain right before you ski right back down. Yes. We're going to call it Money Mountain. We're going to make mountains of money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Joe, are you familiar with the concept of an avalanche? Avalanche of money?

When we clean up on this deal? Imagine skiing down. on Everest. Or on a porno, or we've got 10 out of the 14 tallest mountains in the world. Listen to all these flexes in the last like five minutes. We do. You know what we don't have? A ski industry. You know why? Because we don't have our act together. Because we don't have venture capitalists who are thinking about this all the time. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. We don't have an environment that is friendly to investment. But you also have not exploited the natural beauty of your of your country.

Oh, no, we certainly have. Everest is just covered in trash. Well, that's true. Covered in trash. But Anna Perna was not. Yes. Anna Perna was not. All right.

Kipp's like, wow, you really went off the rails on that question. Kip, so if you were a tree. If you were a tree. All right. Well, Kip, thank you for the question. Congratulations again. on the life that you have built. All right, we're going to take one final break

to hear from the sponsors who make the show possible. When we return, we are going to hear from a caller who is planning on retiring five years from now at the age of 53. Could AI help you do more of what you love? Workday is the AI platform for HR and finance that actually knows your business. We help you handle the hat to-dos so you can focus on the can't-wait-to-dos.

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Habaniero, more like Habinier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. Welcome back. Our final question today comes from Jesse. Hi, Paula and Joe. Love the show. My wife and I are trying to figure out where our next savings dollars should go. If you were in our shoes, would you keep maxing out Roth IRAs or start funding a taxable brokerage account for more early retirement flexibility? What tradeoffs are we facing by not having a taxable account? We plan to retire in about five years around age 53. Right now, we contribute enough to my Roth 401k to get the full match, max out our HSA, and max both Roth IRAs.

Our balances are roughly $350,000 in traditional IRAs, $475,000 in Roth IRAs, $250,000 in a Roth 401k, and $95,000 in our HSA. say. We likely only have the capacity to fund either the Roth IRAs or a taxable account, not both. Thanks so much. Jesse, let's imagine that your question were a tree. Oh, no. Is it an evergreen or a decision? Jesse, nice job of saving. Paula, I've got some thoughts for Jesse, but I do.

think that, Jesse, when it comes to tax diversification, my friend, you've done a nice job because on one hand, you've gotten the burden of the hand, which is tax savings today with some of your money, with a good chunk of your money, and you still have flexibility later on, which is great. So I think you built yourself a fine engine for retirement. Yeah. Okay. Joe and I have not discussed our answer beforehand. I know what I'm going to say. I'm so curious, Joe, if we have a matching answer. I almost want to write it down and then, like, do a big reveal. I'll be honest.

Like a cue card. I'll be honest. Go ahead and share it. Fund the Roth IRA because the contributions that you make to a Roth, you can take out at any time. So the gains that you make, you'll have to keep in. Those are age limited, time restricted. But the base contribution that you make to a Roth, you can take that money whenever you want. So you still preserve that flexibility. So go with the raw. That would be my default answer,

but I want to do one thing before I do what Paula suggest, which is, I don't know what your lifestyle needs are until the time when you can get at this money without having to use any of the special exemptions that are out there. So if you're only going to need what's called the basis, the money you put in, well, then certainly, I think tax sheltering it, Paula is the way to go. Like, you nailed it. But if I need more than that or I'm close to that line, that's when I switch my answer to be the brokerage account. The taxable brokerage. Given that they're retiring at 53, so, you know, they're only six and a half years behind turning 59 and a half. And that's assuming that they retire like

on the day that they turn 53, right? So if they retire at, let's say, 53 and a half, we're talking about a six year gap. Her mask kills her. So, incredible. Trees and math skills and mountains. You know, and if they retire at the age of 53 and a quarter. But what if they retire at 53 in seven and a half months? What then? What if they wait till they're 54 and a half, Paula? Ooh. Oh, now you're just one more year syndroming. Yes. Right? Yeah. That's not good. Yeah. No, don't want to do that. All right. So point is, if they retire at 53, then they have between six to six and a half years that they need to solve for.

Yeah. Which means even if they need more than the basis, they've got a variety of options. They can SEPP 72T. You know, they can. There's just the pain in the ass factor versus just putting it in the brokerage account. So that just, Paul, I think, I think there's one missing variable that we don't know. And it's that. How much you're going to spend? And once we know it, Paula's got the answer unless it's over that.

And then you fill in with the brokerage. Right. Wow. That was a quick answer. It was quick. Well, we spent enough time talking about ski resorts with trees and people not knowing syndication. Yeah, don't put too many trees in your ski resort. You might.

No. Yeah, that's dangerous. But Jesse has planted a nice retirement tree. He has. Yes, people often use an oak tree as a symbol of retirement. I don't know why oak specifically, but that seems to be really popular among financial planning firms. Like if you just start paying attention to the logos that financial planning is always. It's always an oak tree.

Maybe the acorns thing, the acorn analogy, acorn to an oak tree. I don't know. It's just really overdone financial planning trope. And logos are always Hunter Green or Deep Blue. Yes, yeah, exactly. Right. But for obvious reasons, I think there's a neuro-linguistic programming thing going on there. Like, have you ever seen a financial firm with like a red logo?

Yeah. Alert, danger, danger, danger, danger. Or a bright yellow. You know, I would do. We're actually talking about the afford anything rebrand because we're due for a website refresh, probably in the next year or so. Purple and yellow. Those are going to be our colors. Oh, cool.

Yeah. Majestic. Yeah. I mean, like, bright. purple and yellow. Like I'm talking New Orleans style. With mountains in the background? No, no mountains. No mountains. No mountain. No tree. No, zero oak trees. No, it's, but it's purple and yellow. Those are our colors. Anyway, Jesse, back to your question.

Already? What I like about what you've built is, you know, we talk here about the tax triangle. You've got a perfectly built tax triangle. So the tax triangle, of course, that split between tax deferred, tax exempt, and taxable accounts. And you've got with tax deferred and tax exempt with your traditional and your Roth, you've got a beautiful, those two corners of the triangle are really well done. So I understand why you're thinking, well, wait a minute, shouldn't we build out the taxable corner of the tax triangle? Like my assumption is that's where this question is coming from. But the only reason to build out the taxable corner of the

Tax Triangle is to preserve flexibility. And given that you can tap the contributions in your Roth IRA at any time you want, and not just the new contributions, but the existing contributions, you've got $475,000 in a Roth right now, there must be years and years and years of accumulated contributions. You can tap the nominal value of those initial contributions whenever you want, given that you have that available to you, I don't see any particular reason to skip out on the tax advantages of a Roth in order to build the taxable corner of the triangle. So roth it up. And you also ask what tradeoffs are you making by not having a taxable brokerage account? Again, the only reason

you'd have taxable is for flexibility. And all of the contributions that you've made to your Roth IRA, both in the past as well as in the future, that gives you that flexibility right there. So I don't really see it as a trade. Unless you need more than that amount, it's not a trade-off. I guess I'm trying to poke holes in my own argument. I guess if there is one trade-off, it would be that if you were to pull money from the contribution bucket, you simply have less money that continues to grow tax-exempt over time. but that would still be true if you were to make those those contributions to a taxable.

So that's not a, it's a bummer, but it's not a tradeoff because that would be true in either case. I actually think that, Paula, you might be overthinking this a little bit, which is fine. This is what we do. But I think that you've done a great job of saving. You know, there's the- Wait, I'm overthinking it? Yeah.

Why? I think this can be a very, very simple answer. I know. It is what we do here. We give people options and it's okay. It's great. Yeah. I hate being like, your answer is this.

We're done. You know, like I'm really trying to think through the pros and cons. But when it comes to making Roth IRA contributions, I see all pros. And I mean, maybe one, Joe, to your point. One potential con. Yeah. But even I think the likelihood of the con being a con, the likelihood that the amount of money that they're going to need exceeds the contributions that they've made, given that they have nearly

half a million dollars already in a Roth IRA. And I don't know how much of that is contribution and how much of that is growth. But they must have spent decades making Roth IRA contributions. You know, and this is interesting because so now I'm going to overthink it. Ooh. Yeah, see, this is what happens when you spend time with Paula. You end up going, You're staying in front of the ice cream stand, you're like, but I could go for strawberry. But you know, I kind of like the chocolate. But there's also good points for vanilla. But as I think about this, you know, his basic, if I go to the basic question, he only has enough money to fund the Roth.

And he's talking about how much money to fund the Roth with, which then by definition takes my reticence out of the picture. because if he only has enough money to do that anyway, that means the only thing that he's going to, the only thing he'd be able to spend in any plan would be that amount of money. You know what I mean? If his plan exceeded spending that much money, then it'd be a flawed plan. Oh, you're saying no matter how you slice it.

If that's the amount that he can save, if he puts it in the Roth, he's going to be able to get all that money back. Right. And if he's planning on spending more than that, then we start questioning the plan. Right. Because his burn rate's too high. Exactly.

Exactly. Yeah. So no matter how you slice it, putting it in the taxable wouldn't make sense because he's still contributing the same amount no matter what. And by putting it in the taxable, he just misses out on tax advantage growth. Yes. Now, in less, it's this very small sliver in the last few years. But as Paula already did the math, and he doesn't have that many years to go, whether genius math skills, we know that the interest on that money is not going to be high anyway.

The return's not going to be that high. So if it happened to be that he wanted to spend the interest on that money as well. The returns on that money, you mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, which because he's so close is not going to be a material number. Right. Then you're putting it in the Roth.

So now I have overthought it. Yeah. To the point that you've overthought it, but you've added clarity to the answer because now both of us firmly have the answer of put it in the Roth, no exceptions. Yeah? For people that don't know, she's pointing herself, see, see, see? No, I'm pointing at you being like, yeah, do you concur? I'm thinking about it.

I'm thinking about it. I think I do. All right. Then Jesse, put it in the Roth, no exceptions. I don't think we spend enough time comparing Jesse's retirement to a tree or a Mountain. Maybe next episode, Jesse. Maybe when he calls in to tell us how well it's gone. Yes. Jesse, call us back between six to six and a half years. Oh, no, wait. He's turning 53 in five years, right? So actually call us back in five years when you turn 53.

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Because we're planning for between 11 to 11 and a half years out. That's right. So yes, Jesse. please give us a call back in five years and let us announce when you retire five years from now. Please call us back and make that announcement. All right, Joe, I think we've done it. We've got to find at least one more analogy. Well, Joe, where can people find you if they'd like to hear you make analogies elsewhere in your life? A great place to find me and Paula most of the time is Monday afternoons on our YouTube channel

because we do one of our three shows a week live. So the Stacky and Benjamin show, the greatest money show on Earth, because it is a variety show, circus of headlines and some deep thinkers and this Friday episode with Paula, Jesse Kramer, and OG, and Doug and I,

and we dive into whatever is on the collective thoughts of the internet at that time. Really, I'm kind of just, We're looking at the zeit guy. So a couple weeks ago, we did a great show about financial statements. Like you open up your app for your credit card. What's the first thing Paula looks at when she looks at the credit card?

What's the first thing OG and Jesse look at? And it's cool because these people do it all the time. They're not necessarily pros at looking at your credit card statement. But because they do it all the time, it's nice to get these people's feelings and watch where they're similar and where they're different. So we record those live on YouTube. And if you just subscribe to the Stack of Benjamin's YouTube channel, you'll get a notice that we're going live. But it's generally around 3.30 Eastern and do the math for where you are.

So come join us. And the comment section, Paula, is always fun. Yeah. Like the people chatting along with us is always a good time. Oh, that's great. I love that part. And you can hear Paula's amazing trivia skills as well. Well, Joe, thank you, as always, for.

spending this time with us. And thanks to all of you for being afforders. I have an announcement. I am hosting a webinar. You know, a lot of people are like, can you actually invest in real estate in the year 2026? Is it realistic? Given home prices, given interest rates, how is this possibly a thing? And if you have that question, I'm answering it on May 12th. I will be there live to answer the questions that you've got. The URL is afford anything.com slash rental 2026. That's afford anything.com slash rental 2026.

Thank you so much for being an afforder. If you enjoyed today's show, please share this with the people in your life. Share it with. You know where this is going. Your local ski instructor. Anyone who has one of those oak tree logos, like, once you start looking for them, you'll see them everywhere. Everywhere.

Every freaking financial planning for them. It's like they all got together and collectively decided we're all going to use a freaking oak tree as our logo. Yeah. So share it with anyone you know who has an oak tree in their logo. Share it with your arborist. Share it with the people at the Fortune 500 company who know about a T-year. within that company that you would like better. Share it with your buddy who's thinking about doing a real estate syndication.

Share it with anyone who's read the book, Die with Zero. Share it with the Catholic nuns in your life. Share it with the people who have long-term care insurance. Share it with the people who don't. Share it with anyone whose blood pressure has dropped recently. Share it with the 5% of people who understand the trees and the leaves of a real estate syndication. And share it with the 70% of people who have a branch and leaf level understanding,

but not a tree trunk level understanding. Share it with your venture capitalist friend who's interested in investing in Nepal. Ooh, hashtag do not recommend. Share it with all of those people and more, because that is the single most important way that you spread the message of F-I-R-E. Thank you again for being an afforder. Remember, sign up for the webinar is afford anything.com slash rental 2026. I'll see you there live on Tuesday, May 12th. Thank you again. I'm Paula Pant. I'm Jossol-C-Hi. And we'll meet you in the next episode.

Yeah. Oh, ooh. I tried to shake a bottle of juice, but the cap was already loosened. Paula wetter pants. Yeah, I did. Ha ha ha.