Episode 398: My Financial Freedom Story and The Steps You Need to Take To Reach Your Dream Life

Christine Benz 0:02

Just make sure that you have things in every day that give you a chance to pursue some Jordan brummett calls them small p purposes, like things you know, daily things, daily hobbies, bird watching, running, whatever it is, ideally, you would have some things like that that you can practice every day, even as you are aspiring to some bigger ticket goals. T minus 10

Jamila Souffrant 0:28

seconds, welcome to the journey. To launch podcast with your host, Jamila Souffrant as a money expert who walks her talk, she helps brave journeyers like you get out of debt, save, invest and build real wealth joining her on the journey to launch to financial freedom in 54321,

hey, hey, hey, journeyers, I have some exciting, exciting news. I am bringing back my personalized group coaching program for the month of November. So I’ve gotten so many requests. How can you work with me? How can I ask you questions? I just need some one on one help, or just some guidance on applying what I’m learning from your podcast or the book to my life. And so now is your chance. So if you’re listening to this in real time, my group coaching program is back up, and so you can join me in the month of November, very small, intimate group settings where we’ll be doing live classes, and you can ask me questions. Submit questions in advance. You’ll get access also to my signature course. Map your path to financial independence. This course breaks down step by step, how to break free from traditional work systems relieve financial stress and build a life filled with freedom. And so you’ll have access to the course right away, once you sign up, and you can work through the course while we are doing our group coaching sessions. And I’m so excited to finally bring this back so I can meet you where you are and you get the help that you need. So if this is something that sounds exciting and you want to learn more, go to journey to launch.com/coach me. So that’s journey to launch.com/coach me, C, O, A, C, H, M, E, again, with the coaching sessions, you’ll get four live small group coaching classes that you can submit your questions in advance. Replays will be sent out. You’ll get lifetime access to my map your path to financial independence course. You’ll also get my fi calculator, and this is where I can help you plug in your own numbers so that we can walk through how do you get from where you are now, whether you are in debt or don’t have a lot invested, to this plan of more flexibility and financial independence. We’ll walk through your numbers in this spreadsheet, and I can help you one on one with that. Also you get some free bonuses, and you can find that all out on journey to launch.com/coach me. Now, if you register and sign up by october 25 you’ll get $100 off. So do that right away. But even if you do not join by then, we will have, hopefully some spots left, but they are going fast, so if you do want to join me, now’s your chance. Go to journey to launch.com/coach me. If you want the episode show notes for this episode, go to journey to launch.com or click the description of wherever you’re listening to this episode in the show notes, you’ll get the transcribed version of the conversation, the links that we mentioned, and so much more. Also, whether you are an OG journeyer or brand new to the podcast, I’ve created a free jump start guide to help you on your financial freedom journey. It includes the top episodes, to listen to stages, to go through, to reach financial freedom, resources and so much more. You can go to journey to launch.com/jump start to get your guide right now. Okay, let’s hop into the episode. Hey, hey, hey, journeyers, welcome to the journey to launch podcast today. We have a special guest, Christine Benz, who is the director of personal finance for Morningstar and senior columnist for morningstar.com She is the author of How to retire, 20 lessons for a happy, successful and wealthy retirement, and numerous other books. She’s also the co host of the podcast the long view, which features in depth interviews and thought leaders in investing and personal finance, which I had the honor of being a guest on. In 2020 barons named her to its inaugural list of the 100 most influential women in finance, and she was named to the list again in 2021 Christine, I’m so excited to have you on the podcast. Welcome

Christine Benz 4:39

Jamila. Thank you so much. It’s such an honor to be here. You know, I’m such a big fan of your work, and we loved having you on our pod, so it’s really a treat to be here. Thank you.

Jamila Souffrant 4:49

Well, I think having you on the show really is great because you really are a pillar within the personal finance community, and I can’t wait to get more into your background about how you. Created this career and navigated that. But you know, you talk about one of my favorite subjects of retirement, even though, you know, I like to and a lot of my listeners want to reach retirement a lot earlier than the standard age, but you have a lot of research and work and experience with talking about reaching it and living it in the standard age and how to, like you said in the title of your book, have wealthy, happy retirement. So I can’t wait to get to that. But first, can you just walk us through your background a bit. What did you go to school for? Did you always know you wanted to be in personal finance? How did you find yourself in this career?

Christine Benz 5:33

Yeah, it’s a circuitous journey, for sure. So I studied Russian language and political science in college, I had been studying Russian for several years leading up to college, so I had like, 10 years Russian language experience and poli sci just I love the political Well, I can’t say I love the US political system. It’s kind of a wreck, but I am still a student of politics and government and international relations like to this day, but I use none of that in my day to day work. I came back to Chicago after college and was looking for jobs, and my dad was actually the one who pointed me to Morningstar. He was using morningstars At that time, very beginning services. He was a mutual fund investor, a stock investor than a mutual fund investor. And so I applied for a job at Morningstar. I got hired as a copy editor. So I was editing the analysts reports, and really not understanding too much about what I was reading. In fact, I remember when I went for my interview at Morningstar, my husband, he had been to business school. He’s like, okay, so you know what a mutual fund is, and I’m like, and so you know beginning from the very beginning. But Morningstar was nice enough to train, really, each and every one of its employees in the substance of what we do. So I went through a training program and was editing the analyst reports, and then applied to be a fund analyst and eventually headed up our US team of people who were analyzing and writing about mutual funds. But along the way, I realized that there were a lot of things, even though we’re helping people make good decisions with their investment selections, I felt like there were so many other really substantive factors about whether investors succeed or fail with their plans that we weren’t really addressing with that security research, like we were setting them on their way in terms of, you know, helping them select good funds, but how they got there we weren’t really helping with And so I went through the Certified Financial Planner program, just because that was sort of in alignment with where my interests were. And then kind of became morning stars in house personal finance expert, because I felt like I had gotten through the CFP program, a good download of information about tax planning and retirement planning and some other dimensions of personal finance. So I remember when our now CEO Kunal Kapoor was heading up morningstar.com at the time, he was like, so I want to hire like, kind of a Suze Orman type person for morningstar.com and I was like, Kunal, it would kill me if you hired anyone but me to do that job. I want to do that job for us. And so that’s been kind of my happy home at Morningstar for gosh, I want to say, like, two decades now. And the thing I love about I love a lot of things about it, but I love that it is so varied, like there’s so much else to talk about that a lot of my colleagues are not really touching, so I felt like it’s wide open. I can talk about all the dimensions of retirement planning and tax planning and portfolio construction. So it’s been a lot of fun. And then I feel like my work puts me in contact with a lot of real people, and so I get to hear from them about what’s working with their plans, what their pain points are. And so it feels it’s kept me engaged, because it feels altruistic. It feels like I’m helping. And I’ve always felt like even, you know, back when I was a Russian language poly sci major, I had this kernel of a sense that I just want to do something that is a helping thing. And so I definitely feel that I had no sense that I’d end up where I am today, but in terms of, like, the substance of my work, but i i That’s important to me to feel like I’m doing a job that’s that’s helpful at the end of the day, I want

Jamila Souffrant 9:35

to go back a little bit as you were a Russian language major, because I find that you know before. So we ask our kids, or in people in their teenage years, like, what do you want to do for the rest of your life? And then we charge them a lot of money to get a degree in that thing. And you know, you know what you know at the moment, but I always say that you really can’t predict where your future is go. Or what it looks like, because depending on what you learn as you go and the opportunities that you take advantage of, that you can end somewhere totally different. So what for you, like, what personality traits or things in your life allowed you to pivot and fall in love with the new journey? Because I know that there’s just a lot of people who are on this pathway that maybe it’s like not ending, or it’s not what they want it to be, and there’s something else for them. But how do they learn to pivot or see opportunities where there might not be any? Yeah, such a good

Christine Benz 10:29

question. I mentioned the helping piece that that was sort of something that was in me, and so being able to pick up on that was really important. But I think communication skills, having communication skills, even though I certainly had had an implied applied them in a finance or investment direction, I felt like I had that I was a pretty good writer, pretty good editor and communicator, even when I was, you know, sort of in college. So I was able to bring that thread forward. One piece of advice I have because I know a lot of younger people are really good communicators and have that skill set. And what has been really helpful for me was becoming a subject matter expert like I have friends from college who have stayed kind of amorphous communications specialists, and frankly, that’s let them left them more vulnerable, I think, than I have been in my career. That having that subject matter expertise from when I was an analyst where, you know, I initially built up some investment expertise that really has carried me through and protected me in a lot of ways, and been kind of a compass. Whereas I feel like some friends of mine who have been in the communications field, they have been more vulnerable. They’ve been sort of generalist communication specialists, and I feel like their career paths have been rockier than mine and less financially stable than mine. So I would say, you know, even if I don’t imagine 25 or 30 years ago or whenever, I guess even longer than that, when, when you would have asked me what I wanted to work on, I would never have said something in the realm of investing or personal finance. But if you can anchor on something that feels semi interesting to you and really build your credentials as a subject matter expert, I think that leaves you much less vulnerable in terms of your career, you can be much more in charge of where you eventually go. So so I don’t know if that’s sort of too specific, but it seems like it applies to an awful lot of young people who emerge from school with kind of a similar skill set to what I had and where they’re looking to put it to work. If you can find some area that that you can hang on to to build your subject matter expertise, I would do that. And

Jamila Souffrant 13:01

what I’m hearing also is that just the baseline or foundation of being a good communicator, you know, being able to read and write. And you know, these are like skill sets I have young children now that I am trying to instill these things in and right, building up their stamina for, you know, reading longer books and books without pictures and writing properly. And, you know, I just, I find that when it’s like readers or leaders and all these things, where if you can do those basic things really well, you’re a critical thinker, you can apply that to almost anything, right? So it’s like, it’s very important to get that foundation set first, and then you have more options for yourself, absolutely.

Christine Benz 13:39

And I always think, you know, if you can communicate something clearly, that means you can think it clearly, which is really the main thing you’re going for. So being able to explain something really well to someone else relies on you thoroughly understanding it. You can’t fake it if you want someone to truly get it. So that’s the other great thing about improving communication skills is that you have to have kind of that critical thinking and comprehension piece covered too. Now

Jamila Souffrant 14:09

it sounds like you like have a really great setup with Morningstar, because you were able to almost start the personal finance vertical and almost operate like an entrepreneur within, like a company. So, I mean, you could correct me if I’m wrong, but being able to have, like, a podcast and still write books and but be in a company that I’m assuming, pays you a paycheck, right? Yeah, on a consistent basis, versus some of your colleagues, or our colleague colleagues who are entrepreneurs, someone like myself, it’s like a more, I’m an independent platform, so it’s a bit, obviously, it’s a lot different. So I’d love to hear your perspective on for someone else who’s like, okay, maybe there’s an opportunity at my job to do something different, like how that would look for them to approach creating a lane for themselves? Yeah,

Christine Benz 14:56

I love that question, and it’s actually one of our um. Sort of, it’s on our mission statement, this entrepreneurial spirit. So our original founder, Joe Mansueto, our founder, was an entrepreneur, and so I feel like that’s always been part of our culture, that we really encourage employees to kind of look around whatever business they’re working on and see if they can’t find some opportunity to do something innovative, and that has been a really lovely place for me to be, to have the sense that I am kind of an entrepreneur, but within the confines of, you know, the creature comforts of a paycheck and an employer provided health insurance and all that stuff. So it’s been a very good balance. Part of it is longevity with a company too, like you get that trust that can be really, really beneficial. And the trust goes both ways, where I feel like it’s it’s just been, been a very virtuous circle. I probably 10 years ago, went through a really difficult period where my parents were aging and receiving long term care in their home, and I was kind of our family’s first responder, and was able to just continue working, but with so much flexibility from my employer, and I think that was partly the result of our very long relationship, and kind of that trust, where I felt like I had really worked very hard at various points in my career, but had that opportunity to kind of make my own hours when I needed to. It was, it was a great thing. And I know it’s I sound like a dinosaur, because not many people have that kind of relationship with their employer, but it’s, it’s been a super good thing for me, and that entrepreneurial piece has been huge. It’s been a lot of fun to kind of build our brand in that space, and build my personal brand in that space too.

Jamila Souffrant 16:55

And how do you, I mean, for the opportunity cost of, you know, for someone thinking, Well, I can, like, go out and do this on my own. My own and maybe have more creative rights and liberty and maybe more money, but then maybe not consistent money, like how, just in general, because I’m sure you touch upon entrepreneurship and career in the work that you do, that people consider those trade offs between working for someone versus starting their own thing. Yeah,

Christine Benz 17:23

it’s definitely hard, and I think a good look inward too is important. I would say that I’m kind of inherently not a risk taker, that I have good ideas about things. You know about how to how to do things, but I do like the idea of being part of a larger entity where if the thing I’m working on fails, there’s some kind of fallback in place for me. So I’m kind of a defensive driver, I guess, in terms of my own career, if people are more truly, you know, entrepreneurial, slash risk taking, they should go for it, and they’d probably be happier outside of the confines of an employer. But employer fit is super important. I think that sometimes gets under discussed is like taking the measure of a prospective employer. Like, are they financially well? Because that is, you know, a huge component of the risks that you take with that employer. Like, what other businesses do they have to help bail you out if you do something entrepreneurial for them? So thinking about how financially well they are, thinking about kind of the culture that that is within the company, thinking about whether they’re an ethical player in the industry in which they operate. I mean, to me, that’s that’s crucial, and probably something that I underrated when I joined Morningstar, but it’s meant everything to be to work for a company that I believe is ethical and objective and has investors interests at heart at the end of the day. And I think sometimes we underplay that when talking to people about finding employers you’re really looking for a lot of you’re looking to take the measure of the employer as well as them, you know, liking what you have to offer.

Jamila Souffrant 19:11

No with that. You know, I want to kind of pivot to retirement, which is what your book is about, and talk about and I know you talk about it more in the traditional sense, right? But I know there’s a lot of things you’ve learned and you’ve researched and great stats in the book about retirement and if people are over saving or under saving, and how to spend in retirement versus save. But I’d love to start there, because a lot of my listeners, they want to be early retired. They would like to do this before the traditional age. And you know, I’m always telling them, like, well, first you need to be on track traditionally and understand, you know what for you, what the trade off is, if you’re trying to accomplish this earlier, like what you have to give up, or how much more aggressive you have to save, and what that looks like, and it’s going to be different for everyone. But I’d love to hear just going to the retirement. Subject for you, like, what were some important things you wanted to share with writing this book that you feel like will help people as they start to plan their retirement? Yeah, we’ve

Christine Benz 20:10

got a lot in the book. I’ve got a lot in the book about retirement spending, and we examine it from a few different angles. One is looking at kind of safe spending rates in retirement, and the under spending problem is actually surprisingly prevalent. I mean, we have so many people in this country who are quite under saved relative to where they should be for retirement. But then you have these other people who have saved a more than adequate amount, but can’t bring themselves to spend appropriately from their portfolios. So I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been out speaking to a group of older adults, and I’ll have you know, some person clearly in their 80s come up and say, I only spend 3% of my portfolio a year. And I, you know, think to myself, gosh, well, I hope that’s enough, and I hope you’re not short shifting your quality of life, because you probably could spend more. But people’s identities oftentimes are intertwined with this whole saving mentality, and I could see that being the case even with early retirees, where if you have gone at saving and investing aggressively for that early retirement, and you’ve got to Make Your Money Last over, you know, maybe a 40 year or longer period, it probably is a little bit terrifying to give yourself permission to spend from that portfolio. So we talk about in the book The beauty of variable spending systems, that if you can plug into your portfolio’s value on an ongoing basis and pay attention to that, you can use that to help inform how you spend. And there are a lot of great resources for this for early retirees. I like Carsten, Jessica’s for work his early retirement now blog where he puts a lot of math around safe spending rates, but we delve into that. But for me, the bottom line takeaway is, if you can be a little bit flexible, if you’re willing to be flexible with your drawdowns, that redounds to the benefit of higher lifetime withdrawals from your portfolio, that if you that, if you’re okay with that trade off, you are able to take more overall from your portfolio. So we wanted to help people understand that. We also wanted people to understand how in traditional retirement we see, spending does tend to change a little bit throughout the life cycle that people oftentimes come into retirement, and those are the heavy spending years, and a lot of that is kind of pent up demand that people maybe have been not traveling as much, or, you know, they haven’t had time for leisure activities. So when we examine the data on how retiree households spend. They do tend to spend the most in those early years of retirement, and then spending trends down throughout the retirement life cycle, and then sometimes it flares up later in life when people have uninsured long term care costs. So it’s just a pattern that has been examined across a number of households. And the interesting thing is, it’s not happening because people are necessarily fearful about running out. In fact, you see this in wealthier households too, where even when there’s more than enough for them to spend, they still spend, tend to spend less. So lot of different dimensions in that retirement spending problem.

Jamila Souffrant 23:45

Hey, journeyers, if you are loving this podcast, then you will love my book, Your journey to financial freedom, a step by step guide to achieving wealth and happiness. I wrote this book for you. This book is for you. If you want a clear and enjoyable path to having more money, options and a rich life, this book is for you. If you hate your commute and the fact that you need to seek approval or permission from a boss, I hated that when I worked. This book is for you. If you weren’t born into wealth, you didn’t marry rich or win the lottery, but you still want freedom. This book is for you. If you’re at a crossroads, a major decision or event is imminent, maybe a career change, marriage, starting a family, pressures are reaching a tipping point, and the discomfort and the desire for more can no longer be ignored. And this book is for you. If you find yourself zoned out at meetings, looking out the window or daydreaming about the life you truly want. So go pick up your journey to financial freedom.com. So I can show you how to map out how to get from where you are today to where you ultimately want to be and enjoy the journey while you’re on the path, head over to your journey to financial freedom.com. To see where you can pick the book. Up. It’s available on Amazon, bookshop.org, Barnes and Noble, your local bookstore everywhere go to your journey to financial freedom.com. To get the book now. Now, what would you say? Because I think, you know, I have a range of ages of listeners, but you know, a lot of them, I would say, are in, you know, 20s, 30s, 40s, so they’re in their working years, and if they’re looking forward to retirement. And when we talk about standard retirement, can you clarify the age of the standard retirement age?

Christine Benz 25:31

Sure. So we typically think of a 25, or 30 year time horizon when, when we think about standard retirement. So you know, the very traditional retirement age in the US is 65 so 65 planning to live to age 95 is kind of the baseline sort of yardstick that a lot of retirement planning research from our team at Morningstar and other entities, that’s kind of how we think about it. So if you’re extending that, you would kind of necessarily have to be operating with a more conservative spending rate than would be the case with that shorter time horizon. And it seems to me that you’d want to be even more attuned to being flexible with your withdrawals, to potentially dramatically pulling back from portfolio withdrawals if we go through a really bad period for the market, because the name of the game is forestalling big withdrawals at a time that your portfolio is simultaneously down. And that’s a that’s it’s a really good thing to bear in mind, really, no matter what your time horizon in retirement is whether you’re a traditionally aged retiree or a younger retiree, right?

Jamila Souffrant 26:45

And then I guess, for the people who have, you know, are working towards that age, right, depending on how long they have until they hit that retirement age and then how much they have, you know, that’s a big factors type of lifestyle they want to live and how much that lifestyle cost. And so in your research, or in the book, I love to hear any insights you have on people in the working years and how to make the most of the money that they’re making. You know, I get asked a lot about, you know, should I have a financial planner helping me to plan this out if I’m in my 30s, but I’m not looking to retire until 50 or, you know, how can I make the most of what I’m doing now? Like, what are some insights you have for people in the working years to get them to have enough for that standard retirement? Yeah,

Christine Benz 27:27

so definitely giving a lot of thought to your spending, obviously, and I love her. Meet Sadie’s work on this topic of how to do kind of mindful spending, just to make sure that you aren’t kind of on that Instagram treadmill where you are spending in line with what your peers neighbors are doing, just to make sure that if you are spending that it is truly on things that give you joy, rather than just kind of ticking the boxes. So that’s a key component of it, taking advantage of tax sheltered retirement savings vehicles is another key component, although in the realm of early retirees, those won’t give you as much flexibility as you might want or need, which is one reason why, if you’re an early retiree, retiree, you would prefer to also be building savings in a taxable account, where you can pull money out without all of those strictures that come along with tax sheltered retirement savings. So you’d want to be kind of doing a bit of both, where you are saving in the traditional retirement savings vehicles, but also using a traditional brokerage account. I do think that this is the great appeal of other income sources. If you are thinking about early retirement, it does make the case for I hesitate to call it passive income sources, because I think real estate oftentimes isn’t really passive, but some non portfolio sources of cash flow, like real estate can make sense in that context as well, but ideally you would be diversifying across those buckets. I sometimes get nervous when I hear people who are in the early retirement zone where the real estate has been the main if or only component of their portfolio. I like the idea of spreading things around, that that concept of diversification holds true and makes a ton of sense for people at all different phases on their retirement journeys.

Jamila Souffrant 29:31

And if you were talking to, you know, the retirees, and I’m sure you have case studies in the book about, like, the regrets, or maybe what they would have done differently in their working years. What were some of those things? Because I think a lot of it is looking forward to, like a retirement date, and then reaching that date, and then you’re like, I’ll live my life then. And I think the same thing can happen with people who are trying to achieve early retirement, because even if it’s a shorter 10 year span, and you’re aggressively saving, you might be depriving them with. Holding a lot until that date, which I felt like I experienced in the beginning of my journey. So what are some insights, or, what are some, you know, tips that someone can think about so they can, like, somewhat, live a happy life, that retirement life they want to live in the future, like, have that state of mind now so they’re not wasting their time or life away.

Christine Benz 30:18

Yeah, Jamila, I have to say I was so inspired by I listened to your podcast about your summer break with your family, and to me, that is like a case study in how to do this, because you put your finger on one of the things that I hate about traditional retirement is that people show up and maybe they’re 65 or even in their late 60s, they’ve thought they’ve done all the right things, and they are so burned out that they can enjoy themselves, that they have all this pent up demand they haven’t been really living their lives in the years leading Up to retirement. So ideally, we would do it more in the way that we’re that you’re doing it. I had a conversation with Laura Carstensen in the book. She is a researcher at Stanford, and she talks about how work is actually good for us from a variety of different angles, in terms of putting us into contact with other human beings. That’s kind of at the top of the heap, actually, but also just something that gives you a sense of purpose, gets you out of your house. There’s a lot to like about work from the standpoint of life, satisfaction, quality of life, but she makes the point that the way we work in this country is all wrong, that people work way too hard. And she has tried to advance this thesis that we need to retire more often, that there may be times in our life, and maybe for me, it was like when my parents were going through their their last years, that probably would have been a good time for me to take a complete pause from work, rather than trying to keep all these plates spinning. But that was the way I did it. But her point is that we have points in our lives, maybe when our kids are little and we are so exhausted, but various points along the way where, if we could take breaks, that’s really the way to do it, versus saving it all up for the time when you’re 65 and then you’re going to finally enjoy life. Because we know some of these people come into retirement, they’re so burned out, all they want to do is just watch TV because they’re exhausted and they haven’t really even had time to make plans for what their retirement vision is because they’re just too tired. So that’s kind of a best case scenario. We know other people who come into retirement and then immediately are diagnosed with some terrible illness that that shortens their life and their ability to enjoy those years. So don’t be one of those people. Don’t just come into retirement with a lot of pent up demand, because you really haven’t had the time or energy to enjoy your life. I think the way that you’re doing it is truly the way to do it.

Jamila Souffrant 33:10

Yeah, and for anyone who didn’t listen to that episode, Christina is referring to, and I will look at in the show notes, is that, you know, for this summer, you know, I definitely took a step back from working, which didn’t impact income, but I was okay with that, and I’ve all and I’ve learned to be okay with the fluctuation of income, first of all, being entrepreneur, and second of all, just with being real about the kind of life I want to live right now. Whereas my kids are pretty young, and, you know, I was just trying to figure out their schedule for the next couple of weeks and all the things that we’re doing, I’m like, I already felt just an hour of that, like I was mentally drained and emotionally drained, but in a good way. Like, I’m excited to do that, but then I realized, oh, there’s a connection to why, maybe I might be a little bit just a more pulled back from the business, right? And that’s okay, like, it’s a season of life that I’m in, but I think it’s also important for people to understand, right? Like, financially, I think everyone would love to do that, you know, take breaks and not have to work. But then, unfortunately, if you’re not set up financially to do that, it’s so hard. It’s so hard if you know you don’t have the emergency fund or fu fund, or you’re not on track for retirement, like if you feel like you’re already behind, to think about taking a break or taking things slow does feel impossible, so I do sympathize with the people listening who say, Well, I don’t feel like I can do that.

Christine Benz 34:28

Yeah, no, absolutely. And your point in your podcast was just that you have built up confidence in yourself and your ability to do this, but it is a leap of faith, right? Taking a break, however long, or, you know, whatever it is, pulling back from earnings is a leap of faith, and being able to do it comes from a point of self confidence. So building up that self confidence, I think, is essential. And

Jamila Souffrant 34:56

a lot of the things I mean you, you said before we press record. Out the book is not like all financial like there are some decisions. You can look at your portfolio, talk to an advisor, and the answer might be yes or no, but it doesn’t mean the person will make the yes or no choice or the best choice, because we’re people where there’s emotions, there’s other people in our family that matter, that has input into what we say. There’s just our ego, or just maybe whatever that is that impacts the decisions we make around our money. So like, when you are looking at, like the retirees that you spoke to in general, for them, like, how did or how are they managing, maybe not working, where a lot of them, because I think there’s this vision that we have when we’re working, maybe in something we don’t like that. Oh, watch when I don’t have to work, I’m not going to work. Gonna work, just gonna go to the beach every day. And then you speak to people who are maybe retired, and they’re like, maybe there’s a small group of people who do enjoy that, doing nothing. But like you said, so many people actually want to work, and that’s not the life they want to live.

Christine Benz 35:55

Yeah, no, exactly. It’s all about balance. I think Michael Finke makes a point in the book he’s a retirement researcher, that you’ve got to relax from something right, that the we can all think about times in our lives we’re working really hard, and then you get a break, and how much better that vacation is, because you feel like you really earned it. And the point is, even in retirement, you want, every day to have a little bit of that balance where you get something done, and maybe it’s something completely mundane, like put your garage in perfect order, but because it’s been bugging you for years, whatever, something mundane and stupid like that, or maybe it’s some community involvement that you Have so some sense of purpose, something that’s, you know, kind of getting you out of the house, putting you in contact with other people, but where you’re getting something done, and then you’re balancing that with leisure activities. Those are the most successful retirees, I think, who strike that balance. I talked to Fritz Gilbert in the book. Fritz is a retired guy who has this retirement manifesto blog, which is a super helpful blog for kind of he was a slightly early retiree, but it’s more sort of around traditional retirement. But he has this great charity that he and his wife put together when he retired, and she had been a caregiver for her mom, who had dementia, and so she retired from that when her mom passed away, and they started this charity. They live in rural Georgia, and they’re building fences for dogs who would otherwise live on chains in their yards. They’re animal lovers, and saw these dogs who were tethered on this short leash in their yards, and so they’re building these dog runs. And so that activity gives them a sense of purpose and helping, but it also puts them into contact. They had moved to this community in retirement. It helped them meet a lot of people who are similarly interested in doing something like that. And it gets them outside, it gets them some physical activity. So it ticks a lot of crucial boxes. So I love people, the idea of people thinking about even, you know, sort of small scale community service projects like that that align with whatever lights you up. And in Fritz’s case, not even sure what his career was. I think he was a manager of some kind at, you know, some sort of sort of executive. It kind of uses that part of his brain where he’s organizing people and projects. If you can find some way to bring some things that you enjoyed about your job, forward into retirement. To me, that seems like a really valuable thing.

Jamila Souffrant 38:45

And you know, you can do some of that now, right? So think about right? This is what I say I want to do when I’m retired. This, you know, these are the things all you know, whether it’s maybe I’ll run a marathon, you know, I’ll get more into plans, I’ll learn a language, I’ll whatever that looks like, do more community service. And I know, again, you know, our time is very limited, especially if you are working and you have kids, and I respect all of that, but I do think there is space, even if it’s five minutes, a day or a week, that you can start to bring what you think you’re going to want to do in retirement or early retirement to your life today and how that can bring so much more joy, right? While you’re on the journey to retirement 100%

Christine Benz 39:29

I have become to be a huge evangelist for what I call micro joys, like, can you find rather than having a bucket list, which is such an overdone term for retirement, and yeah, maybe you have, like, some of these really big aspirational things, like starting a foundation or climbing a mountain or writing a book, whatever. Do have that, but also just make sure that you have things in every day that give you a chance to pursue. Some. Jordan Grumman calls them small p purposes, like things, you know, daily things, daily hobbies, bird watching, running, whatever it is, ideally, you would have some things like that that you can practice every day, even as you are aspiring to some bigger ticket goals.

Jamila Souffrant 40:18

So how are you doing that in your life? Christine, I wonder how, since you are around this, you know all the time you’ve been working in your career for such a long time, a couple things, how do you not get tired of talking about the same thing? And how do you like do different things around the same topic? And then how are you looking at your retirement and how long you want to work and what your little P’s are. And Jordan, by the way, I interviewed him for his book that’s coming out. How are you incorporating that in your life?

Christine Benz 40:46

Yeah, it’s such a great set of questions. So in terms of staying engaged with a topic that I talk about all the time, one of the things that I love is doing doing my own podcast where I can interview people and, you know, it’s just sort of mandatory weekly learning as I prep for the podcast and read someone’s book, like yours, or, you know, read through their blogs or whatever. It just is a way to get that ongoing learning which is super important to me, and also making the personal connections through that podcast. I remember a couple years ago, I was talking to my husband about how busy I was and how I wanted to sort of stop doing certain things. And he was like, Well, what about the podcast? It seems like that’s taking an awful lot of work. And I’m like, No, you are not taking that from me, because it does help keep me engaged. Then in terms of, you know, just sort of a broader project I’ve had going with my actual work is just this stealth project to get Morning Star to pay me to do a job that, to me, feels kind of like community service, like I just want to do, have all my work be for the greater good, kind of like I don’t want to be Having to sell anything, and I never really did, thank goodness. But I just want to be a truth teller about all this stuff. And if Morningstar finds it valuable, that’s all for the better. But mainly, I just want to be out there helping people navigate. And so I’ve been trying to get my work more clearly aligned with that objective. And then in terms of just kind of the small p purposes I have my, what I call my holy trinity of reading. I love, I love to read. Love, have loved, love, love, love to read. Since I was a little girl, reading walking is I’m a retired runner. So walking is my thing. These days, I could walk for hours my by myself, or with my husband or friends, and then I love to cook. So that was something I got from my mom, kind of a way to bring order into life that can feel so uncertain, but just like the idea of making a meal, just if it’s just for my husband and me or for a bigger group, it’s just my my bag. So I love to find recipes on the New York Times website, and that’s just a joy of mine. So trying to practice those things, like every day, if possible, is a good day for me.

Jamila Souffrant 43:14

Yeah. And what you know it sounds like it’s funny how perspective works, because some of the things that you’re talking about that bring you so much joy, like other people may be doing, but they don’t view it as joyful, and that’s fine. Like some people just don’t like to cook, and that’s okay. But there might be some things that you actually are doing in your life that do bring you joy, or that are Contentful to you, and you’re not. You’re not maybe seeing it that way and like, kind of just re looking at your life. I think for everyone, it’s like looking at your day or the things that actually are joyful and that you’re happy about doing so that you can remind yourself, oh, like, not everything’s so bad. Maybe things are hard, but there’s some really nice things or good things about my life right now,

Christine Benz 43:55

exactly. And yeah, I think it just takes a little bit of introspection just think about those things that you you know maybe it’s just your cup of coffee on your patio and turning on the bird app and listening to see what birds are out there, whatever it is. Just find those moments in every day that that feel really special, and just try to do more of them. I think, is a worthy aspiration for living now while you’re still working, as well as when you’re retired. I love

Jamila Souffrant 44:23

that. Christine, can you tell everyone where they can find your book, more about your work and all the things? Yeah. So

Christine Benz 44:29

my book is available through all the major booksellers, the publishers, Harriman house, and then I’m a fixture on morningstar.com I write articles. I have a series of model portfolios. They’re all free, all educational for investors at various life stages. Most of them are pretty minimalist. I’m a big believer in low cost, mainly index fund investing, and we’ve got a podcast called the long view with Morningstar. I work on. It with a couple of my colleagues, and it’s been a really fun side side project.

Jamila Souffrant 45:04

Okay, I will link all of that in the episode show notes so you guys can check out Christine’s work. But thank you so much for coming on the show.

Christine Benz 45:10

Jamila, thank you so much. It’s been my honor. Don’t forget.

Jamila Souffrant 45:14

You can get the episode show notes for this episode by going to journey to launch.com or click the description of wherever you’re listening to this, and you can still grab your jumpstart guide for free to help you on your journey to financial freedom by going to journey to launch.com/jumpstart

if you want to support me and the podcast and love the free content and information that you get here. Here are four ways that you can support me in the show. One, make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast wherever you listen, whether that’s Apple podcast, that purple app on your phone, your Android device, YouTube, Spotify, wherever it is that you happen to listen, just subscribe so you are not missing an episode. And if you’re happening to listen to this in Apple podcast, rate review and subscribe there. I appreciate and read every single review. Number two, follow me on my social media accounts. I’m at journey to launch on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and I love, love, love interacting with journeyers. There three, support and check out the sponsors of this show. If you hear something that interests you, sponsors are the main ways we keep the podcast lights on here, so show them some love for supporting your girl four. And last but not least, share this episode, this podcast, with a friend or family member or co worker so that we can spread the message of Journey to launch. All right, that’s it until next week. Keep on journeying. Journeyers. You

Transcribed by https://otter.ai