The Simple Numbers That Reveal Your Retirement Readiness
episode
Wealthy After 40: Retirement Planning and Budgeting for Gen X
16 min
1 speaker
3 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
What if the scariest part of your finances isn't the numbers themselves, it's just knowing what they are? Today, we're talking about facing your reality with money, with compassion, and I promise it's not as bad as you think. Hey there, and welcome to Wealthy After 40. I'm Dailene Higgins, your podcast host and financial coach. If you're a Gen X woman or couple who's worried about retirement, maybe you feel like you're starting late or don't have enough saved, you're in the right place. This show is all about ditching the financial stress and creating a retirement plan that works for your life now and later. So grab your favorite drink, settle in, and let's figure this out together. Welcome to part one of part four.
If you missed last week, I did an overview of the four phases of my framework that I walk clients through. We are diving deeper into phase one today, which is your money reality. So what does that mean? And why does it come first? You can't make changes or create differences, build a plan on guesses. There's a lot of people who are like, I'm not sure. I think this, well, it's about this. This is about really diving into what is not truth, but what is the actual numbers? What are they? What do they mean? And this is the difference between what you fear and And like I said, what is truth? Because we're fearing an unknown. To get rid of that fear, we have to create a known. Now, I know that's hard and difficult as money is challenging.
Money is really challenging. I have thought a lot lately about talking about money. And I've talked about this before. And whenever I go on a podcast and do a interview, I always say people are more willing to talk about sex than they are about money. Even with our kids, right? We like, did you have the birds and the bees talk? Well, did you have the money talk? It's such a space that needs so much more to be talked about. And I've even shared in way earlier episodes how to talk about money without talking about the actual numbers. For you to talk to me, I don't really need to know how much you make, right? I don't need to know where you love to spend your money, although that's helpful as a coach. But to talk in general, what are your struggles?
What are your challenges? What's worked for you? What hasn't worked for you? These are all simple things. And I think if you think about that, as you go into your work on defining your reality, You come in with compassion, not judgment. Right. That's going to change everything. It just you have to understand what is truly going on. I've had individuals say I don't make enough money and I show them $600 in their bank account or in their budget leftover, which is in their bank account. And just working through a lot of these thoughts as they come to me and then we do this first step. This first step is crucial, but it is the hardest. It is the hardest for most individuals. Second, a lot of people are like, what am I actually looking for or looking at?
Let's dive into that. All right, so the very first thing you can look at without having to get into all of the nitty gritties, right? You're not a numbers person probably, like I am a numbers nerd. And if you are, you can dial in even more. So these are for those of you who are like, I just wanna know a number and what it means. As I had a client ask me one time, I don't know what to do with my numbers. So the first one you're gonna look at is income numbers. meaning how much money you make, and this is going to be a gross pay versus your expenses. And truly what that is, the bills and the spending you're doing, are you living on less than you make?
What is the purpose of defining your 'money reality' before planning retirement?
And I know some of you are like, oh, I hate that statement. But honestly, right there, you can get a reality. Now, what are you scared about? And then you have to unpack that even more. But if your income is greater than expenses, checkmark, you're doing good, right? You're doing okay. Now, if expenses are more than income, you've got a little bit of work, but it doesn't mean that you were bad, right? It just means you're out of balance.
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Chapters
3 chaptersSpeakers
1 identifiedMore from Wealthy After 40: Retirement Planning and Budgeting for Gen X
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