[Music] All right, Ryan L133 has a question. He says, I am an air traffic controller that has to retire at 56. I have a TSP and a 30 to 40% pension. I feel like I am losing so much compound growth by forced early retirement. Any suggestions? Um, so there are a lot of professions, Ryan, that have this, you know, mandatory retirement or just early tenure. You know, you have teachers or you have military personnel or obviously air traffic control or airline pilots that either have an age they have to stop working or they hit teen and they start leaving early. And just because, and this is something important to not just because you retire, just because you are no longer working does not mean that your dollars stop compounding. I think people are amazed by this. They think, Okay, I'm going to build, I'm going to build, I'm going to get some, my number at 65, and then that's where the journey ends. $1 turned into 88, and the 88 doesn't go anywhere else. In reality

that's not what happens even at 65 or in your case at 55. Some portion of your portfolio needs to probably be 40-year money, and then some portion needs to be 30-year money, and some portion needs to be 20-year money. So even at 55, which is a relatively young age, your dollars are still going to have the opportunity to compound, and some portion of your portfolio is going to be still risk-on. It may be less than it was when you were 35, but just because you retired doesn't mean that your dollars cannot stop working for you. What you're going to have to assess is when I look at my TSP balance and when I look at that 30 to 40% pension, will those two sources be enough to allow me to live the life that I want to live? If the answer is no, then the issue may not be, Okay, well, my money stopped compounding. The issue may be, Okay, I got to figure out something to do from age 55 to 60 or from 55 to 65 to

bolster the plan. But just because you retire doesn't mean that your money retires. It does not stop working for you when you leave the workforce. Ryan, I'm only a bean bag toss from being at that 56 part there, so I mean, I can tell you what I think that this means for you. Yes, your employer and the government are telling you at age 56, you have to retire from the air traffic controller. So maybe that means potentially you're done with your peak earning years. But that doesn't mean because you wouldn't have asked this question unless you had something in the back of your mind that says, Hey, I don't know that I'm going to be done at 56 years of age. So you don't have to listen to them on saying you're completely done with how you spend your time. But I would challenge you, you're going to be at this threshold that you'll have the most valuable resource that you can't get more of, which is time, and you have to figure out

how you now want to use it now. It sounds like between the tsp, between the pension, you're going to be in a pretty good financial position. I don't know how old you currently are, and I don't know how far in the future CU. I don't know if he gave that data point to us, but I would tell you right now, use this blessing of this threat margin of time that you have to figure out what you want to do, what brings you joy, you know, and you can use this valuable resource. I think that that's, like I said, a blessing and a good thing that you are already having these questions and these thoughts. Use that curiosity to kind of make sure that you hit that threshold because you know it's coming, and you do it as peak efficiency as possible, um, and you don't have regrets. I'm kind of excited for you because I think that that means you might have a new beginning if you have the energy and the excitement that you think that you're walking away.

from you know you want to go do more and work um I I I more power to you you know figure out what that thing is because I can tell you know 20s something year old version of myself thought that I was going to be done at 50 to 55 years of age but now here I am in this this decade of being in the 50s that I'm like no I still have tons of energy I still have tons to create um so I think it's a blessing that you actually get to now have resources behind you and even income and cash flow coming in that you can go pursue what what the next chapter is. We've had clients Bri I'm kind of like going through in my head who've been in a similar situation. They were like very high earning careers you know maybe making $150 $200,000 a year. They hit retirement and while they weren't ready to retire they weren't ready to exit what they really wanted to do is just go find a job that could cover

their living expenses. So, where they might have been making $200,000 pre-retirement, they go find a job making $50,000 or $60,000 because they know that's what their footprint is. And rather than being able to save and build the 25%, they just do that for 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 years and let the money that they had earned continue to grow. That's a perfectly viable ease into retirement, if that makes sense. And we've seen a lot of people do that really, really successfully. And Ryan, you have a luxury most people don't have. Most people have to work to pay the bills, so you don't actually own your time. You're encumbered by your obligations. Use this as, like I said, as that cool opportunity where you work for the desire, the pleasure, and the actual benefits you get out of it, as emotionally and spiritually, versus the other side of it where you wake up and you go, I don't really want to do this, but I have to do it. You have

the potential at 56. You work for the passion, the desire, not because you have to. I think that's a pretty cool place to be. mhm

Retiring at 56—Am I Missing Out on Compound Growth?

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