The Financial Finish Line: How Much Is Enough?

Show notes

The Financial Finish Line: How Much Money Do You Really Need?

How much money is enough? Dr. John Oberg and Randy Lorensen explain the financial finish line: the point where your assets can fund the lifestyle you actually want, so you can stop chasing more without knowing why.

They start with how each of them grew up with money, from a scarcity mindset at home to first-car stories, and how "head trash" about money held them back. Then they define the financial finish line: picture your peak lifestyle, how it might change in retirement, and back into the asset number that would support it.

They cover why it matters at any age, spending now vs investing for later, renting experiences vs owning things, and legacy, from estate plans to a "family love letter" and how much to leave your kids.

Finally, they talk about gratitude, why "more" never ends, and how inflation, government debt and real assets can change the math. They also explain why the finish line is really about not wanting more without knowing why.

How Much Money Do You Need to Retire? Financial Independence and Lifestyle Inflation

What you'll discover:

What a financial finish line is, and how to find yours
Picture your peak lifestyle, then back into the number
Monthly vs annual expenses
Legacy, estate plans and the family love letter
Why "more" never ends, and the role of gratitude
How inflation can change your finish line

This episode reflects the hosts' personal views and experiences and is not financial advice.

Timestamps

[00:00] Welcome: the financial finish line
[01:09] How we each grew up with money
[02:12] Money talk in the household
[04:17] Early lessons about investing
[05:20] A scarcity mindset
[06:24] First-car stories
[09:32] Different money environments growing up
[10:38] Head trash, and getting comfortable talking about money
[12:46] What is a financial finish line?
[13:49] Your peak lifestyle, and getting out of the rat race
[15:55] Retirement lifestyle, and backing into the asset number
[16:57] Younger generations, and the seasons of a career
[19:05] Trade-offs you don't want to make
[20:08] A spending tool: monthly vs annual expenses
[21:12] Why a financial finish line matters at any age
[22:17] Spend it now or invest in the future?
[23:20] An inheritance story
[24:23] Having choices, and delivering on core values
[25:26] Plans help people make decisions
[26:28] Choosing your level of spending, and letting it shift
[27:31] Renting experiences vs owning things
[28:34] Executives and the glide path
[29:44] Legacy: kids, grandkids and estate plans
[30:47] The family love letter
[31:49] Giving kids everything vs letting them grow
[33:56] A legacy in your work, and Benjamin Franklin
[35:01] Hobbies, boats and what you really want
[36:06] Guilt-free travel and time with people
[38:12] Housing, living expenses and other categories
[39:13] Second homes and other big decisions
[40:17] Setting a number years ago, and the relief it brings
[41:21] Gratitude and spreading abundance
[42:25] Why "more" never ends
[44:37] Inflation in your model
[45:41] Currency collapses around the world
[46:43] Government debt and money printing
[47:46] Real estate as an inflation hedge
[48:52] Measuring a finish line in Bitcoin
[49:54] Not always wanting more
[50:57] Working with professional planners
[51:59] Bucket lists, and choosing your path
[53:01] Flying private, and what really matters
[54:04] Wrap-up

🌿 SPONSORED BY AG1 (Athletic Greens)

Fuel your health and performance from the inside out.

Try AG1: https://shop.drinkag1.com/tales

About the hosts

This is a hosts-only episode with Randy Lorensen and Dr. John Oberg (Anthony Marino isn't on this one). Host bios are on the host pages linked below.

Find us online:

🌐 Website: https://talesofabundance.com/
📺 Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRlamP3xKSc
▶️ YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Tales_of_Abundance
🎧 Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tales-of-abundance/episodes/Ep--8---Financial-Finish-Line-e2tut5l

Hit Subscribe so you never miss an episode of Tales of Abundance. 🔔

Related episodes

Meet the hosts: Randy Lorensen · Dr. John Oberg · Anthony Marino

Transcript

A full transcript is below. It was generated automatically from the episode audio, so expect some spelling errors in names and terms.

[00:06] welcome if it's your first time I'm Dr. John Oberg here as always with my co-host Randy Lorensen Randy welcome back good morning John how are you doing great yourself great hope it's uh morning time for listeners maybe it's afternoon for you morning for us yeah whatever it's afternoon some it's afternoon somewhere it's always Five O'Clock Somewhere today's topic is a fun one it's about financial Finish Lines yeah this is a this is a great topic and I think you were the one that I think I'd heard this but you're the one that really introduced me to this 10 plus years ago and I know it's been beneficial for me so I'm I'm excited to share this with the audience today yeah you know it's funny I had a a view of what a financial Finish Line was pretty early in my career and then it changed pretty radically for me like not what the Finish Line was but how I thought about it how I defined what a financial Finish Line was I probably I don't know 15 years ago um had a mentor or share a different point of view that I really Embrace so I'm excited to get into that because I don't know uh which side of the the coin you fall on and we haven't talked a lot about this since we've talked about it you know in a coaching scenario and I think we intentionally getting ready for the day didn't like dive into that so we could have that uh conversation as we were recording yeah I think we mostly agree but I think there I think there'll be some subtle differences that based on world macro factors yeah you know I I uh I think about like all the books books that I read growing up um I I didn't have a whole lot of financial Acumen coming out of my household I I tell people all the time there's very broadly generally speaking there's three kinds of households you grow up in right one is a household where you don't talk about money it's rude that was the kind of household that I grew up in uh then there's the kind of household that you grow up in where um money doesn't grow on trees and so you talk about it but um every penny is really you know highly thought of and then there's the you can't take it with you households where it's like you know it kind of flows like water and I I don't have any judgments about which one is better or worse uh but you know broadly speaking people grow up in one of those types of environments sometimes a mixture of the two but I remember very clearly when my uh parents were paying bills one month and I was a little kid and I walked into the little room where they were paying the bills I was excused from the room quickly the door was shut and then they had that conversation behind closed doors and I didn't think much of it at the time but it really um was interesting later on I was 14 years old and my mom took me to the bank helped me open a bank account and then helped me sign up for a class in school high school where they taught you how to balance your checkbook which it was cool they had that class by the way I don't know that all schools have that class but but the class taught me how to balance the checkbook not not my mom and then the next real Financial conversations that I had were around um like with people at work you know and and I'm not talking about um I certainly ask my mom for money you know in college but in terms of talking about how to manage money how to handle money it was a real interesting upbringing for me yeah I think uh I think of it slightly different you know you mentioned the money doesn't grow on trees and that's certainly the environment that I grew up in yeah and I think more than even the household I think it was the community that's just that was almost everybody in that Community because but it was a scarcity m is the way I think of it versus an abundance mindset yeah yeah well and and so the you know moving forward then I read a whole bunch of books that were really interesting to me I think um you know I just pulled up I think it was the Wall Street Journal has a bunch of personal finance guides that my sons read this Summer that helped them start to get some vocabulary and get them interested in investing and what that might look like and I just I wanted them to have some some vocabulary around that I learned some of that in a book called The Wealthy Barber which was one of the books that uh one of my mentors early in my career gave me and it helped me to understand the power of compound interest and how you save money and then what you can do to earn money passively using the stock market and and go come to think about it my grandfather helped me buy a stock when I was in Middle School at one point and he tried to get me into investing but he was so distant from my life in the sense that we didn't talk dayto day that you know talking about that once a year didn't really stick I just I just remembered that just now like he helped me buy a stock but I had no idea what I was doing yeah like he showed me the newspaper where you know we used to try to track the stocks but I didn't it didn't land yeah yeah I mean I think uh for me that was stuff that I had to just figure out when I started making a little money I just started buying stocks well you you've talked about this though with your dad and cattle how he used to take paper and figure out all the expenses of raising cattle and I mean you actually saw what a budget looked like and you saw I mean yes for sure yeah yeah that and that was definitely a lesson for me the lesson for that was more about making a plan and why I make spreadsheets and and a model right that that had more to do with modeling I think but there were Financial Basics and growing up in a household where you know the joke I always use my dad threw nickels around like their manhole covers is you know that that scarce mindset it wasn't that you didn't talk about money you talked about it you just talked about how you didn't have anything and everything was expensive and the answer to everything was we can't afford it yeah right which I didn't ever I I really don't remember asking for anything ever maybe Christmas presents but that just wasn't that just wasn't part of the deal you wanted something you worked and you earned it yeah and that's okay I mean I I don't have any hard feelings about that fact probably benefited because of it what was your car it was a 1978 Plymouth Horizon that had over 100,000 miles on it when I bought it which if you remember those cars were not well made 100,000 miles is when you retired those cars not when you bought it yeah right and I think it had 110 120 I mean it was you remember what you paid for it th bucks give or take it was really close to a th000 bucks which I'm pretty sure I got rid so my first car was in so I was born in 1973 my first car was in 1973 Monte Carlo and I joke with people it was three colors it was Primer rust and paint it was just I I you we used to joke the 260 air conditioning you roll down two windows and 60 yeah yeah my my second car was a was a Chevy Monza spider when the Horizon wore out the only thing I could afford was that that mono and I paid two or $300 for it and it was is it had over 200,000 miles it was actually built better than the The Horizon but it was uh it was not great you could it was like it used to be like The Flintstones car where it was so rusted on the bottom that you could see if I move the floor mats you could definitely see the highway going under you as you drove and for probably a year I was so broke in college that the alternator went out and I couldn't afford to replace the alternator so I would either try and park it on a hill so that when I would get in it was a you know it was a standard transmission yeah so I would park it on the hill so I could roll it down the hill and I could push start it that way or if it was on a flat surface I would for a year I would get out run alongside the car pushing it jump in pop the clutch and away I would go I did that I mean in my Vector days when I was selling cutgo I would park down the street from the customer's house because I didn't want them to see me when I left having to push start my car wow yeah okay yeah my car I my car had a great engine man it was a it was a I think it was like a Chevy 350 or something and but I will say that inside the interior I had to like staple using a staple gun I had to staple an army blanket Surplus Army blanket is my upholstery because it was like all the foam was popping out and yeah the speakers were blown didn't work at all so I actually rewired I took one of the speakers out of my mom's stereo system strapped it into the Mac middle seat and then ran speaker wire over the front bench seat than under the dashboard into the stereo system so that I could have speakers and I I left enough speaker wire in there like 30 or 40 feet of speaker wire so if I was out with friends I could actually pull the speaker out put it on the hood and that was my version of a boom box pretty great pretty great country we live in that we could start out with that and be talking about a financial Finish Line today yeah yeah it's uh that's you know that definitely has been yeah for sure I think I you know one of the things I've noticed in traveling is that not every not every country you have the opportunity to move from Station to Station in life you know and uh certainly and I I certainly don't want to um draw a picture that I grew up in like a really super poor neighborhood I grew up in a pretty well-to-do you know middle class um sheltered upbringing but my parents just didn't give give me and I appreciate that that you know um and I wouldn't say that we were wealthy by any stretch of the imagination my mom was single mom raising four kids after my dad passed away so it was it was tight I never I never felt that like so you talked about like Nicholls like manhill covers I never felt that type of energy um and I'm sure it was really tight but yeah just never felt and I think that's the thing it's like every everyone has some kind of relationship with money and you know money is a tool but it's this really emotional tool that um I think people just get really fired up about it for reasons to me that are very understandable and so well and it impacts people you know it was when I started selling that was a detriment to me yeah because everything seemed expensive sure oh yeah for sure and asking for a sale I mean if I think back to our cutgo days and I was starting out a homaker was you know you asked for a sale on a $611 set of knives you know back in this was the80s that was all the money m in the world to like it was I just didn't believe people were going to buy that yeah and and you know I was right right so I mean you know what whether you think you can or you can't you're right now eventually I figured out a lot of that was my head trash and I overcame that yeah but that made it just made it that much harder made it a lot harder and I I working with salespeople over the years I've seen this a lot right is there's a lot of people that really they just God they just put so much on price well and and the flip side of that is that there are people that are so Cavalier about price it can be equally as off putting for people right yeah I I went uh I did this exercise once I don't remember who gave it to me I don't remember the whole exercise but I think I had to go to like four people who I uncomfortable asking them about money and I have the question somewhere El to go find them but the questions were like you know I had to ask people that that I knew personally how much money do you make what's the you know most money you've ever lost what's the most you've ever gained um what you know makes you comfortable uncomfortable and and I went and talked to like my parents were some of them um my father-in-law at the time and then my financial advisors and it was like it was so uncomfortable for me were you allowed to tell them what you were doing that was part of an exercise you weren't allowed to tell them what you were doing uh because I was trying to get comfortable discussing money um and it was um in a sales environment right and so uh it was a it was a really cool exercise and then at that that point I had a I was talking to a psychotherapist as well I was in therapy and so I had that whole discussion inside therapy as well which was a great it was it was it really helped me um have a healthier relationship with money as a tool that just became something I could hold Loosely instead of holding tightly and so um yeah that was a it was a big deal so so early in my career one of the things I was taught to do to kind of find a financial Finish Line was all about assets it was all about like how many assets you had to have like how many you know hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars you wanted to have saved so that you could have Financial Freedom that's the way that I I thought about a financial finish line early days similar yeah and I mean I think for me it for a long time I thought about it in terms of bonds even though bonds have never been my preferred way of investing by any means it was what return can you make on whether it's one year year 30-year treasuries Y and to maintain your lifestyle right and so for me it came the asset was specifically interest bearing assets bonds or savings account money market whatever whatever you prefer yeah I mean if you think about it like Monopoly is a super cool game about real estate investing right like you you learn a lot about real estate investing in Monopoly there's another great game by kosaki called Cash Flow uh which is I is a genius game play with my kids they love it and it really talks a lot about leaving the rap race I want to I want to offer a different um version of a financial Finish Line that one of my mentors pointed out to me and I really think it's genius and it wasn't about the assets it was the financial Finish Line was about the most money you ever wanted to spend in a given year it was like what was your lifestyle Financial Finish Line what was the peak of your lifestyle and and the whole them was that it gives you an opportunity to get out of the Rat Race because once you hit it you don't need to keep pushing war yeah I was I was thinking about this last night and preparing for this and I think part of the reason this financial Finish Line is important it's so I used to go to the gym and have this problem where I would go okay I'm just going to warm up on this elliptical machine or this treadmill for 5 or 10 minutes and the way I'm watch I would get in and I'd go oh I'm at 8/10 of a mile well I might as well finish a mile and then I was like well now I might as well go 15 minutes well now look at how many calories I've burned and and I was and I would there were times that I started out intending to warm up on an elliptical machine for five or 10 minutes and 90 minutes later I was still on a damn machine right that's I mean that's that's the rat race right in nutshell yeah and I couldn't get off it because I just kept I kept I'm so damn competitive even something idiotic like that for myself that I wanted to go to the next five or 10 minutes the next mile or half mile or you know 100 calories burned or whatever it was I would never do that and but but that's something I don't even want to do I I I hate do card Gip yeah I don't enjoy it I don't like it and even there so people earning more money most people like this so I think it's even easier to just keep going for more more and more and never without so I think it's really important to Define how much is enough well that and that's the whole point of the financial Finish Line exercise that I take people through now is like understanding where what you're spending today which for some people they have a really good handle on that and some people don't have a great handle on that and then understanding what you what the peak looks like and taking people through what that lifestyle is like and then and then say okay well in retirement how does it change from the peak then for some people it stays the same for some people it changes U but understanding and then I think backing into the asset numbers are really you know an easier equation at that point if someone chooses to do that for some people it's not about backing into like for me like I think there is an asset number for sure but I know that once I hit my financial Finish Line and I'm ready to retire so that I have some you know passive income in retirement that I don't want to have to work I I still plan to do work right I just won't need to do it for the money right and I think that's that's something that's changed in my mind over the years right is like growing up everybody wanted to retire that was this like I don't know the golden ring that everybody or the mountain everybody was trying to climb was getting to that point where they didn't have to work and now as I get closer and closer and closer to that age I look at it and I think what the hell would I do all like it's it's a big part of my identity but yeah it's being able to to not have to work if I don't want to and be able to work on whatever it is I want to work on well and and younger Generations are taking a different approach to that a little bit in the sense that a lot of uh younger people are doing some of the things while they're active while they're healthy while they're young that they want to do knocking off some of those bucket list items and I think that's there's there's a balance to be found of course I have a little tag on my desk someone gave me it's from Oscar wild it said moderation in all things including moderation which is I think just genius so I think I think there are people that understanding like you know retirement is a it's a political construct right yeah I mean it's but it is still finding Worth or value in the world and something to strive for right but or maybe maybe strive is not the right word but something that people want to do and just being have having the finances to to be able to work not have to work yeah we talk about the four phases of a career right the warrior king Prince Sage you know and or you know and so really it's about how does the s the sage doesn't have to earn in the way that a king does like that's just different and so you do it for reasons and by the way might even be work for pay could be volunteer work could be giv back Community Family whatever the case may be I think there's a lot a lot to be said for understanding how to get ready for that fourth phase so I think we've been kind of beating around the bush of what it is right do you want to kind agree now do you want to put a bow on that did you think it was an asset number or did you think it was a budget because to me the I think it's I I think of it more as cash flow by the way when toward the end of this we're going to get into some things I think are different or I think there's you know some potential issues but this isn't really quite at the time but I think it's cash flow that allows you to live the lifestyle yeah and I think I think choosing the last style deliberately is like there are some things I thought I wanted in my life and then I realized what it would what it would take to get there and realized he there's some trade-offs I don't want to have to make and and that's and by the way I mean I work pretty hard like I I don't know a lot of people who work harder than me um and I I didn't have a business handed to me or anything like I I started you know I built built my own but and and certainly fairly comfortable I I just there's a place where I don't want to have to keep keep working anymore so the and […] but in rough numbers it's your housing or shelter yep right that whether you're paying for it or paying a mortgage y that it maybe so if it's paid for maybe it's just the taxes your utilities your food your travel your vehicle what ever it is in your lifestyle your and this is a pretty comprehensive spreadsheet that has like a row for everything and you don't have to use them all obviously but it's like if you're going to pay for pets if you're going to pay for you know travel all those things are in there and then you can it's cool because you can see like the monthly expenses versus the annual expenses and then you can see how much you're spending now and then next to that you can say okay how much do I want to spend in the future you know and then how much do I think that might be in retirement and you can compare those three things and see what it looks like so to be clear it's it's your desired lifestyle and the income it takes to live that lifestyle right forever yep right and the whole point is that you have enough in fact of the assets you have enough in assets that they throw off the income you move you move from active income to passive income and again just one more one more uh way we should definitely get a link to a cash flow the game on here because cash flow is a it's a it's a little bit more sophisticated than Monopoly you know uh not so easy for younger kids to play but a really great way to get people understanding like my expenses versus my active Cash Flow versus how do I make passive cash flow and so really really fun game to play yeah love it okay it seems like you were going to turn a corner here take us around the corner well let's talk a little bit about why it's important yeah right because some people are listening and we have people of different ages right somebody that's 60 years old is probably pretty obvious that is just getting out of school and starting a career or starting a business I don't know that it was so obvious to me that right so do you want to talk a little bit about why why do people need it well and you know delayed gratification is a tough thing and it's not it's not as easy as it used to be right like there's a lot more instant gratification to be found in our world right now and so delay gratification is a little tougher and and I had a great conversation back to that therapy part of it one of the things that came out of that was he said you know there's no right and wrong about this stuff like if you want to save some percentage of your income 10% and somebody else wants to save none that's not right or wrong those are preferences right and and I think there's a lot of Truth to that right that that that's you know for me I'm just investing in the future because I want to live a long life other people are like hey I'm just going to spend it while I got it and that's like I don't I don't have a value judgment about that but I do think that if people do want to um be able to focus on more time instead of more money one of the ways to do is to have the money to trade the money for the time right yeah so well you know I've witnessed in my life a couple of things I I've told the story before about my my grandma's brother that never spent any money y everybody assumed he was broke and boarded up Windows because he didn't want to pay for glass yeah right and then when he died he had millions of dollars just sitting there yep and no kids no family and that seems less than optimal to say the least unnecessary how about that yeah and I mean he could have probably enjoyed life a little more by by spending some of that whereas I've also witnessed people that well hold on don't you got to tell the rest of the story how did it change because he G he left the money to your grandmother yeah I mean we we talked about this and what is abundance but um in that episode but my grandma got the money and she never had any money yeah kind of lived the same way I mean I don't she had aborted up Windows or anything but she just gave all the money away whether it was giving it to the church giving it to family making you know mittens for kids she gave everything away yeah and was it you know and her sisters I don't know what her sisters did with it but he had enough money that you know it spread around right so that's one extreme and the Other Extreme is we've all seen people that they spend and they spend and they spend and then they get to retirement there's nothing left yeah and they struggle right they're trying to live off Social Security which I guess people do but that's not not the future back to the lifestyle that's not the lifestyle I want and that I I have no desire to have to have that struggle in old age yeah and I I think that you know fixed income just means fixed choices for some people and they don't they don't love that and that's again I don't know value judgment about that just I think that for me I want people to know they have choices ahead of them right and so one of my core values is being deliberate right and so I just want people to know that whether you make a decision or if you decide not to make a decision about that today and you know the I can't remember the the exact numbers in when I was going back 30 years in my brain but someone said like if you were to save you know $22,000 every year from the day you were born until you were 18 and then did it when you were 18 to 64 you know which which one of you would have more money I'm pretty sure it would be the 18 right the power of compound yeah because you get compound interest for all those years and so um The Wealthy Barber is a great book if you haven't read it it's a great read maybe a little dated but uh Dave Chilton is the author I feel like I read it several years ago or I might have read a summary um you know I think of the richest man in Babylon yeah was a good book I read that you know again many years ago along those lines uh but I think having a plan people can make decisions right so if they choose to spend today they just need to know they're either going to have to work until forever or live off Social Security or whatever it is and they want to save and but but there's just there's a lot of value and I freedom in knowing what is gone to the gym back then and been really defiant on all I need is one mile or two mile of warm up yeah I wouldn't have found myself spending 90 minutes getting extra you know extra warm up more than what I intend yeah were you warm after an hour yeah a little bit oh that's great and and so when is nothing that's I think that's a part and and so and that's a rich psychological question for you right but I think one of the ways you can do that is say this is the lifestyle I want to lead this is the level of spending I want to have and it's okay for that to shift over time yeah and it's and it's different for right I think in today's environment you can't help think buyon musk I mean he has I what did they just report Rec 300 billion but he's trying to colonize Mars that's not going to be cheap if most most people are not they do not need the war chest to go colonize Mars or do whatever else it is that he's trying to do if they're just going to live and take care of their yard and you know putts around and he L their yards on Mars yeah yeah you know I I read somewhere I don't know if this and this is not the stratosphere that that I want to play in but I read somewhere that if um if you had if you were a multi-billionaire like Elon Musk and another person had hundred million um invested that the lifestyle itself if you were willing not to buy things if you just rented the experiences you could have essentially exactly the same experiences day to day now I don't know if that's true or not but I'm sure somebody like musk would say like hold my beer like you know watch this but well is your life noticeably better if you have a $10 million house or a $20 million house or a 30 million or even even a million or two I mean it depends on where you live right and there's a lot of parts of the country where a million dollar house is is a mansion yeah sure right um and there's other parts of the country where that's a 800 foot bun yeah I think at the same time what I go back to is just you know helping people to be deliberate about the things they want to have and and how do you get from here to there and there's different you know hears and different theirs and so um the value of having the financial Finish Line to me is taking stress off people so so the we talked about what it is I think maybe we get into the why for a second I think the really powerful why of a fin Finish Line is it reduces stress in in most circumstances I can't tell you the number of Executives I've talked to and said okay let's talk about where you are today let's talk about where you want to go let's talk about what you have and let's look at the Glide path to get and a number of them have been like well I'm on the Glide path like nothing needs change and then I ask what does that do to your stress level I like well that just reduce it a bunch and so you know if if money can be stressful for somebody then having having understand like what you can control and what you don't control oftentimes reduces that anxiety not always and not 100% but I think having a really crystal clear view of it makes it important you know I was um yeah so think talk talking to my son recently he thought we there was there's something we couldn't afford and I was like hey man we we can afford that and I show them the checkbook it's like like that's a lot of money to you but I can help with that so you don't need to worry about that thing I also I also told it was my money not so what about people that want to leave a legacy right like you have kids people have kids some people want to spend it all sure some people want to leave their kids set up or their grandkid set up sure Etc so how does that play I think that's just all part of the planning right again I don't have any value judgment about which one somebody wants to do um I think you just a plan for it so if you want to leave you know generational wealth or a little bit of wealth or help for you know whatever I don't care but I think just being deliberate with it is to me what I think people are you know what I encourage people do is be deliberate it and and that's one of the big questions I have is what will I leave for my children you know what that that's a question as I get into this phase of life that I think through and you know I've got mentors and peers that we talk about then you and I talk about this kind of stuff and so um again I don't think there's a right or wrong answer it's just what what's important to me and so I I filled out you know one of the things that I've given you and that I have started to I've got probably 80% complete is something called the family love letter and it's like a letter of all of my intentions and um it lays out like you know in in case I die like what do I want to have happen and it includes a will and an estate plan and all those things but it also includes like you know all all of the the thinking around how I would hope those ones would be used let's flush that out a little more with leaving kids there's I think maybe there is a writing I mean like the right answer for you and the right answer for me might be two different things I accept that but I do kind of think there's best practices you of all people are best practices I mean maybe we ought to just you know go into this a little bit because some people they they believe they don't want to live leave their kids very much yeah right because they want them to earn it and they don't want to raise little and they want to like like that's their belief system sure and other people give their kids everything because they want to do you know they want to want their kids to have it easy and that is you know sometimes those kids aren't appreciative and I think those kids more likely get into drugs or whatever else um probably the answer is somewhere in the middle you know I think Warren Buffett like is giving away most of his money but he's leaving you know sizable income to his kids as well yeah I mean I don't know this this is a this is a tough question and maybe it's different based on the kid either that's I think that's right and I think some some of those kids become philanthropist I I think for me um it's not a question of money for me it's a question of um my values and so one of my beliefs is that humans are made to work right so you know I'm I'm a pretty about Catholic and and so I tell people like Adam and Eve were working in the Garden of Eden before the fall so I I know that humans are built to work and there's biological you know truth to the fact that we're built to work I think that um you know muscles they either you're growing and strengthening your muscles or the muscles are atrophying and so so my only hope for my children is that they are happy functional members of society that are producing value for society in the way that they feel called to do that and and not in the ways that I necessarily think might be you know or or hope they would be called to society and so um and that's great and so I want to teach them how to open doors for themselves and and that's not just financially by the way that just open doors themselves for their lives and that's and that's so so the money to me is really secondary to all of that and so it's just a tool to be looked at in light of that lens it's not and so my financial Finish Line doesn't contemplate like this massive amount of money that I will leave to the children it also doesn't mean that I won't have you know some money they can s over as something they can do with it but but I I'm not working for look generational wealth as a legacy my Legacy I want to be in the work that I do and so that's how I view that yeah and some people want to leave you know I think reading Walter isaacson's biography of Benjamin Franklin right so good he created you know things that you know he created a university and he created all these things he he had a fund that he set aside for the city of Pennsylvania that they couldn't touch for 200 years something like that so leaving money there me I there's there's a lot of things when it comes to Legacy that may or may not play into a financial Finish Line sure right sure so if it's somebody that just wants enough to be able to hang with her family be comfortable buy food keep the electricity on putts in their backyard that's a very different number than Elon going to Mars and then somewhere in the middle is the person who maybe they want to live in a little bigger house take a little nicer vacations keep jet fuel yeah you jet field whatever right um they want a boat Etc you know whatever it is that they're into yeah they might have expensive Hobbies or they want to leave a legacy for their kids or a city or whatever organization they're passionate about yeah mean I'm not going to give you the number my but my wife and I have a big number for travel like that's we both love traveling and so we want to be able to really um enjoy that when we're not working like we work today right and so we will we'll we'll travel a lot and uh how much is how much is a lot not GNA give the number but uh I'm not saying the dollar amount but how much like you want to travel is is a lot two weeks a year a month a year six months a year it's it's um it I mean weeks or months per year for sure we don't want to be able to like I think we' both agree that it'd be great to spend six months or a year in Sydney because you know she loves it there I've never been to Australia but I'm sure that would be great great um I'd love to be able to pick up and go see the kids wherever they happen to be in the world anytime like without thinking about it and then when I travel long long distances like I've never been able I've traveled First Class A couple times in my life and and so I want to be able to like pay for that without it being a guilty pleasure like I want to be guilt-free when I do that yeah I I love the idea of just being able to go spend a month somewhere yeah and know you know I see people they go they go to Italy and they spend a week and they see six different places and that's great but I like to go somewhere and spend a week yeah so I would like to go spend six weeks in Italy and stay a week in six different places or whatever it is right or three months or and and do the same thing in Germany or Thailand or Australia any any place I think that's a that that's a freedom and people are doing that now with uh working remotely that's right right that's becoming more and more the digital yeah which I think is is great if people can do it I mean I think even the end of my poker career I started going places yeah I wish I would have figured that out sooner yeah so I think again everyone's I see people who love fishing like that or love golf like that or love cars like that or love and I for me I want to be with the people in my life that matter so i' I've got a group of friends that we travel the world so like with my friends I could be doing anything and have fun doing it and so it doesn't cost a tremendous amount from that perspective like we've got I've got this little cube of like 36 dice that I carry with me we play lighter's dice and that could make new friends playing lighter dice anywhere in the world great game by the way John turned me onto this it really is fantastic yeah yes you can take dice with you anywhere and like it's just such a great inexpensive way to enjoy and the craziest things happen so people laugh and I mean you know it's yeah yeah you know it really is fantastic so roughly I mean you don't have to go into every detail but roughly the the big picture buckets your financial Finish Line tell give the listeners an idea what it looks like yeah I mean you've got housing and then you've got kind of your day-to-day living expenses that are all of the like you know stuff you covered already the household stuff and then you know it's like clothing can be really expensive for some people not so much for me but those kinds of things you know travel is the big one for us right right um the big shocker for me I used to really think that I wanted to have like a fancy car and I've had some pretty fancy cars uh over the last several years but now I just we live in urban lifestyle I don't drive that much and so that was a pretty big shift for me and then the big question you know we're having is like um like second home like you know certainly that it's affordable but it's for us in in our lifestyle but not we don't like that's not something we value right now maybe when the kids get older and they have kids maybe that changes so certainly open-minded so that's kind of a big question mark in my financial finish line is that idea of a second property so what do you do so there's uncertainty right so you you've set a goal yep okay and I think we need to come back to how this has changed over time we'll Circle back to that but so you've got a pretty good idea I want to live this way I want to eat at these restaurants I want to take these vacations wear these clothes Etc but you don't know that if you that you want a second home so how do you approach that I just I just kind of budget it in as you know what I can choose this or that and you know I set my financial finish line for the first time in 2006 and inflation adjusted it hasn't really changed like I I set the number you know and it's that number is pretty much the same mine's changed so I've done the exercise three four times and every time I come up with a different number yeah right um and I guess that's not being clear on that I guess that is not being clear enough on uh what is the lifestyle yeah is really the is really the whole event well I think at the end of the day it you know it's it's the stress that it has relieved from me by knowing right because it's like okay all I need is this and and there have been a couple times throughout the I mean so you know so it's 16 years ago that I set that number right and no longer 18 years ago I set that number and so there have been a couple times I've seen you know friends acquaintances people I know kind of like you have some really nice events happen that financi I was like oh I could do that and like but that's not the point the point isn't could I do it the point is what would I do with it if I did and so I just try to mind my knitting you know it's like I'm just I'm I'm on my path it's great um so real quick I'm I'm I'm GNA follow that up with I saw a quote yesterday or a paraphrase from and this guy said it came from a Japanese um actor but I I've I've heard this in lots of places and it's like gratitude is about um appreciating what you do have instead of focusing on what you don't have and we've talked a lot about that I think one of the ways that that we can spread abundance is by spreading gratitude right and so I think that there can be people that have seemingly everything that don't feel like they have abundance and there can be people that feel like that seemingly have nothing that seem to have an overly an over abundant amount of abundance that's a thing and this really ties back into our episode about what is abundance yeah right yeah that's right and and being satisfied with that you know you know there's a time where my ultimate goal was I wanted to have enough money to buy the Minnesota Vikings yeah still still a great goal as long as I can get into the the owner's box yeah but there's there's nothing for me between tens of millions of dollars and that like it's like that is many many billions of dollars and for me I don't have that extravagant of a lifestyle or desire for one and what I can do at 10 million or 100 million is not noticeably different or or even 200 million whereas if you're going to buy the Vikings you have to have I don't know I mean if it was for sale it's probably two3 billion franchise maybe more you probably have to have at least five or 10 billion of net worth to make it even realistic when is the day of recording this particular podcasts are playing really really well right now but it's early in the season they typically don't have troubles until December January thanks John you're sorry sorry really the best um but I mean but think about that so and and you don't just want like a a small stake in the Vikings you actually want to call the shots yeah I would like to them but that's something that I I have also come to the conclusion I'm probably not willing to sacrifice all the things that would need not probably I am not willing to sacrifice all the things yeah that would be necessary to build that Empire yeah right and you know had some things gone a little differently you know earlier in life some things where real wealth disappeared yeah maybe that would be on the table maybe it wouldn't who knows who knows what would happened right I mean probably know I would have died in the Y accident had had things full right who knows I mean I just yeah I just don't know um in the meantime we can watch this season where they're playing fantastic in in in 2024 yes yeah so one of the places where I think you and I so far we've talked about things I think we agree on everything I think one of the areas that we probably disagree or I'm almost guaranteed we is your sheet is inflation adjusted yep and without going too far I mean I this is a little bit of a tough topic to talk about without opening a whole bunch of cans of worms right yeah um but you know my belief that money is broken that the people in charge are printing like drunk you know spending like drunken Sailors yeah and it's my belief that inflation's going to get worse not better sure based on well the history of 450 Fiat currencies over over time which they all end up going to zero right so first thing explain how inflation works in your model that will put on sales with bus.com yeah I think I mean at the end of the day um inflation exists and so I think people have to make assumptions about inflation and so the I'm I'm pretty simple about this like I think that you know I'm looking at how inflation happens and then I'm looking about how um you know income has to shift over time with that inflation so I think you can make whatever assessments you want to make about inflation and and you know in my lifetime there's been you know generally you know the government says 3% inflation there were times in the early 80s where we think we had like 18 or 20% inflation but if you pay attention to the world more broadly like Zimbabwe had like I can't remember how many tens of thousands of percents of inflation I I think I bought like a one trillion dollar bill for $88.95 us or something yeah and now it's probably pennies us I I think we had the peso early in my life and now we have the new peso right yeah I I think this is a lot easier for people in those countries to understand right Venezuela recently has had Mass inflation Argentina turkey Zimbabwe Lebanon I mean there's a lot of places that have gone through you know you hear the stories about the wear Republic Germany was called that back then but the wear Republic where people would take wheelbarrows of money to go buy a local bread or that they would order they would go to the bar and they would order their drinks at the beginning of the night because the prices would be higher at the end of the night yeah right and you know you heard stories of Americans and and English Englishmen in particular buying really really expensive real estate in downtown Berlin for you know 20 pieces of gold or maybe it was even less I mean for for very little gold because people you know the money became worthless right so I am of the belief I'm not saying this is going to happen tomorrow or next week but we are on a collision course where debt is expanding money printing is expanding you Federal Federal that is what you're talking about yeah and but State local city debt well government debt and if people put that so I think it's important that it's assets but I also things really important that's the right assets um one could argue real estate right maybe real estate holds its value there's an argument that stocks may or may not hold their value in that hyperin lating world but that is a again I don't think it's a huge possibility tomorrow but I do think in our lifetimes it's almost inevitable that we're going to have to pay the pipe yeah look I I think the financial finish line for me is about um so you know the level of consumption somebody wants to have and then how they're going to have the resources to provide for their family for that period of time and so I think you know investing is a big topic and and certainly I think people have to pay attention to what's happening in different asset classes for sure I mean you know that I'm I'm pretty long real estate um and I think that real estate is a great inflation hedge if it's levered right that levered real estate is is and so I've said that for a long time and then of course I know you believe a lot in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency and that as a way of having an inflation hedge as well and so hold on bitcoin not cryptocurrency sorry not my world yeah yeah yes very very clearly I believe in Bitcoin um I I believe look I think real estate is infinitely better than deflating government currency that they can print slash counterfeit anytime they want right and but I'm glad you don't have a strong opinion about that though well if you or I do it we call it counter freting they do it I don't see why it's any different they call it the US Mint they call it minting they mint it they frame they frame it very nicely but it's still counterfeiting at is core right there's there's really no way around that so having a truly scarce asset to me protects so my financial Finish Line used to be in dollars right and we've been talking because that's easiest for most people to understand I a few years ago changed my financial Finish Line to number of Bitcoin that and that's because I'm confident that that is going to go up in value because of the ultimate scarcity not down if if you're looking at that in terms of assets I think that's the pl I would disagree with you and here's why um if you're looking at in terms of how much how many Bitcoin I'm going to spend on my mortgage how many Bitcoin I'm going to spend on my clothing how many Bitcoin I spend on travel then I think we're perfectly aligned but if you're like Hey I'm only thinking about Bitcoin as the asset number like because at the end of the day the real power in the financial Finish Line is understanding what the maximum consumption that I want to have in my lifestyle is so that I can get off the rat race get off that that that you know the rat wheel the what do you call it Mouse wheel the wheel yeah treadmill if you want treadmill yeah get off the treadmill get off the elliptical yeah so but so to me that's the power of the financial Finish Line is really about um not always wanting more and not knowing why so I have created a document that's not done […] I'm working on on a document and the the basic concept is that there's enough Bitcoin that you can spend 1% of it a year to survive yeah right and I've got to make it a little more it works for me it's just I don't know that it's intuitive enough to sure with other people again neither one of us are financial planners but I think you know the the the rule of thumb would be that if you um spend like I can't remember if it's 3% or 4% of your asset base and then then you have like a non-depleting principle right 1% non-depleting right so that's more conservative than most um and in my look I would encourage anybody who has this interest to sit down with a skillful financial planner reach out to me or Randy we we have people that we use that we like a lot and they go through this really complex systems of of modeling that is far more sophisticated than than what I've done at the end of the day for me the financial Finish Line though is about being okay with I don't need more past this point like that that's the that's the the real power of it is understanding like when is enough enough would you agree that even before sitting down with finan with the financial planner which I think is great advice I think the first step is really doing some self you know self-searching goal setting to really decide what is that lifestyle that they want right I I think that's the first step would would you agree yeah I mean we've had different different episodes on different things I think one thing you need to do is know where you are so like what are you spending to day and what are you really spending to day and just understand it um and then um another step would be making a list of all the things you might want right and and if you have a list of all the things you might want that starts to create a bucket list that'll tell you more about your financial Finish Line right um and then I think once you have the here and the there then you can start to decide like what's the right path for me all right I I think we could beat this up forever but I think we're uh you know let put a bow on it yeah so I think last words of wisdom yeah I mean I think start with what's the budget today what's the what's the most you ever think you want and you're allowed to change but but like you know plant your anchor and I think and then see what your Glide path is and then for most people that I talk to when they look at the value of time the compounding money over time and and with a financial planner they can help you with this but if you look at where you are today and where you want to go most people uh that I talk to are further along than than they think and they can see a path and that generally reduces the stress of getting from here to there sometimes you know you make some tough decisions like for me I thought that I wanted to make you know billions of dollars when I was early in my career and then I recognized that that wasn't that important to me I I was perfectly happy flying on a plane didn't have to be my own plane um I've had the chance to fly private on a number of occasions and it it's great it's fun but I didn't have to have my own plane and so so I started just asking myself like what are the tra where is time more important and what I really got to was that I'm chasing time not chasing money and money is just a tool and once I got to that place it was a much better place and so it's a set of exercises somebody can go through to get there yeah I I just think people need to figure out where it is they going first step they can't figure out how they're going to get there until they figure out where going and where they are right if where they are and where they're going both I agree I agree good stuff man Financial Finish Line seems like there wasn't as big a disagreement as we thought it's a good we we talked off the air about how big the disagree would be I would have lost the bet if Randy had taken it but uh yeah I I think there's a there's just a on and some of this is probably in my mind because I always thought of financial Finish Line in terms of bonds and things that you know I don't necessarily want to be making 4% interest in a in a melting ice creol right when it starts melting faster than 4% a year well yeah it might if an angel Finish Line is kind of like asset agnostic right it's more about having a path and seeing you're on the Glide path and taking the pressure off yourself for more more more more more so yeah all right thanks until next time uh and we should talk off the air about that whole scarcity thing coming back front and back I want to that that'll be a fun conversation all right sounds good hey listeners Tales of.com check us out make sure that you subscribe that you like and uh and keep listening and if you have ideas about things you want to hear about let us know we can't wait to hear it uh I'm John this is Randy thanks for