Hey John, great to see you. As always, I have a question that everybody wants to know. Can I retire early? A recent survey of 2000 Retired Americans found that most expected to retire at 63.2 years old, but most instead retired at 61 and a half, and one and three, so they said they would have retired earlier if they'd had the chance, of course. So let's just start with that question. Everybody asked how much money do I need to retire early?

Well, the first thing you have to understand is retirement is very, very specific to your individual circumstances. Too many people are relying on that 401k calculator that knows nothing about your lifestyle, nothing about life and say listen, you have a million dollars, you can retire. It all really depends on how much income you have and how much your expenses are. So we look at it here under the income goals. We in our office, we use software that specifies and answers this specific question. And you see here you see, three numbers, essential desire to propose. The essential is how much you're spending. And that is your basic living expenses, groceries, water and mortgage. Then you have your desired and this is your lifestyle. And as we talked last week, when we wanted you to be a spender, not a saver in retirement, we want you to enjoy your retirement; this goes into golf, and spa days. And then the last number here, you obviously see we have a surplus but we'll say whether we have a surplus or a shortfall. Now once we establish your spending, because that's very important. Then we're going to look at your assets, and then we're going to come up with an income stream that will get you to it through retirement. So in this example, the clients $2 million, we're saying listen, you can take out $14,300 a month, factoring in tax taxes, which will give you $12,200 a month and you know we discussed this again in past videos. We do not say hey, listen, you have a 90% success rate, we are going to give you established guidelines on how much money you can take and whether or not the markets are good if you have to make some adjustments. So our clients have clarity as to how much they can spend, and how we will get them to improve retirement. And of course you are doing strategic tax planning which has to be a part of any retirement plan that makes a lot of sense, John. Next question I want to talk about though, is Social Security. Because of course, if we retire early, we're no longer getting a paycheck. So a lot of us would be tempted to claim Social Security early but that can lead to a lifetime of reduced benefits.

Yeah, and eighty one plus percent of people claim their detriment. Whether they got bad advice from their friends, maybe even an advisor or they were just they wanted to collect that paycheck as early as possible. Understand that if you take retirement for your full retirement age, you aren't going to take reduction in benefits. So using the basics if you're taking 30% reduction in benefits, not only that benefit, not only goes over a short lifetime, but can also affect the spousal survivorship benefits so it has long lasting effects. And a lot of people that retire early, they get bored, they lose that purpose. They want to start supplementing income or getting medical benefits. Now they start working again, they exceed the current income credits and they start forfeiting 50% of their benefit, which makes it even worse.

There's so much that goes into that calculation, John was that so now I want to chat about healthcare that because of course a lot of us rely on our employer for health insurance and Medicare doesn't start until you're 65. So let's say I want to retire early at 60. What do I do with those five gap years?

Well you know, Erin, healthcare It's really one of the biggest challenges for any retiree. I have retirees that are overfunded. They have plenty of assets to pay for retirement. But man they're getting that bill for 1213 $1,400 a month for their medical they are and they are counting down the days to become older, till they reach 65 And they get Medicare. We understand that if you retire early, you're gonna have that health care gap. And you need to understand what that cost is because it can easily be between one to $2,000 and that is a lot of money that is going to affect your withdrawal rate, which is an important calculation in retirement income.

There's so much that goes into this question and answer versus just that headline. I can't tell you John, how many times I've read, well you just need a million dollars in the bank but that is just not accurate. It's crazy. But when we talk to somebody like you it makes much more sense. So if somebody wants to talk through finding out their specific and uniqueness, what's the best way to reach you?

Well, first, I always tell people to visit our website. www.irs.com. Aaron, I am your retirement management advisor. I have an accreditation in advance retirement planning. This is what I do. We are very good at determining that income stream maximizing your Social Security benefits and efficiently optimizing your future tax. So we have a lot of resources on the website that can do that. And while you're on the website, you can go to the contact us tab. You can schedule an appointment right there on the website, or you can give us a call at the office 858-935-6210 And we can either schedule a 15 minute phone call to answer any questions or a complimentary vision and clarity consultation.

Those are incredibly helpful, John thank you very much for your time today.