How Proper Retirement Planning Is About More Than Money with Mike Guthrie – Ep 106

The average person spends most of their life preparing for retirement, only to discover that having enough money is just one piece of the puzzle. Once the paychecks stop and the daily routine disappears, retirees often face a different challenge: finding purpose, fulfillment, and confidence in how they spend their time.

In this episode, Keith Ellis Jr. is joined by Mike Guthrie to explore what a successful retirement success really means by going deeper than portfolios and income planning. They talk about the emotional and lifestyle transitions that come with leaving a career behind, why purpose and structure remain important in retirement, and how retirees can create meaningful experiences with new hobbies, deeper family connections, and charitable work.

They also discuss the role financial planning plays in creating the freedom to pursue the things that matter most, why confidence is essential when transitioning from saving to spending, and how SHP Financial’s Retirement Road Map process helps retirees align their finances with their goals, values, and lifestyle.

In this podcast interview, you’ll learn:

• Why retirement planning should focus on purpose as well as finances.
• How structure and routine contribute to a more fulfilling retirement.
• Why intellectual engagement and lifelong learning can improve retirement satisfaction.
• How health and fitness impact both quality of life and financial well-being.
• Why strong family relationships and social connections are essential in retirement.
• How confidence helps retirees transition from saving money to spending it.
• Why a holistic retirement plan creates greater freedom and flexibility.

Inspiring Quotes

• “Having that fulfilling retirement is a lot more than just about money.” – Mike Guthrie

• “I think a lot of times you think retirement’s going to be this endless vacation, which can be fun for like six months maybe. And then you’re like, ‘Wait a second, I’m in my late sixties. I get another 30 years in front of me. Like, what should I be doing?’” – Mike Guthrie

• “If you’re not in good health, it can permeate through the rest of the things that you’re trying to do and can be a financial burden.” – Mike Guthrie

• “Once you’ve kind of reached that peak and you’re into retirement and thinking about the things you want to do, you’re not going to be by yourself. Or it’s not going to be very fulfilling if you’re by yourself.” – Mike Guthrie

[INTERVIEW]

Keith Ellis, Jr.: Welcome, everybody, to another edition of the Retirement Roadmap Podcast, brought to you by SHP Financial. I’m your host, Keith Ellis. We’re joined here today by an advisor in the office, Mike Guthrie, and Mike and I are excited to talk a little bit about, we talk so much about financial planning around money, taxes, and income. Today, we want to talk about retirement in a non-financial manner and what retirement what we see in the office is what retirement means to certain people, so on and so forth, to certain families that we work with and retirement success beyond just money. So, Mike, thanks for joining us.

Mike Guthrie: Yeah, thanks for having me. Kind of a different topic, I guess, but nonetheless, when we talk about a bunch. I mean, I think, and as you meet with clients, too, Keith, and as I meet with them, most people, when you first sit down with them, obviously, retirement is thought to be a financial decision.

Keith Ellis, Jr.: Yeah. Absolutely.

Mike Guthrie: Like, do I have enough money? Right? Can I? Do I have enough? But really, in your experience and mine too, and working with folks who are in retirement, it’s having that fulfilling retirement is a lot more than just about money. I mean, you have to have the money, or at least enough to make sure that you can do the things you want to do, but it might not necessarily be what fulfills you once you’ve kind of reached that mountaintop and onto the next stage of life.

Keith Ellis, Jr.: Yeah. Well, the question is, can I? Right? Like, people will come in all the time, “Hey, I’ve saved this amount. Can I retire?” And the question is, well, what do you want your retirement to look like? Some folks will come in. They have half a million dollars saved, and they’re going to be perfectly fine in retirement. They’re going to live the life that they want to live because they have a different vision of retirement than maybe someone that has a little bit more. I mean, I have clients that have $8 million, $10 million, $12 million, and they can’t retire yet because the way they spend is just excessive, I guess, for lack of a better way, but that’s the way that they want to live. They want that lifestyle.

So, the ‘can I’ question is different for everyone, but like you said, you need the money to be able to do the things you want in retirement, but at the same time, it’s about kind of sculpting that vision of what you want retirement today.

Mike Guthrie: Many years ago, and when I started my career, I’m not going to say how long ago. It was a while ago.

Keith Ellis Jr.: Are you ready for anything? No, I’m just kidding.

Mike Gunthrie: I mean, a lot closer to it than I was when I heard this little anecdote. And not to be a little bit morbid, but it was an interesting way to put things. This speaker I saw said, when you think of people climbing Mount Everest, when do you think the most kind of fatalities occur in climbing Mount Everest?

Keith Ellis, Jr.: Yeah.

Mike Guthrie: It’s on the way down.

Keith Ellis, Jr.: Okay.

Mike Guthrie: Because everybody focus like getting to the peak, to the top, like, “Hey, I got to get in good shape. I got to get up to the top. And once I reach that mountain top, I’ll see you be at the top of the world. Then I’ll just go catch the cab when you go down.” Yeah. And it was drawing kind of a comparison to retiring, because you’ve worked, you’ve worked, you’ve worked, you’ve put your head down. I just got to get to that mountaintop, and once I get there, then it’s just going to be easy sailing. And I think from a financial standpoint, it’s easy to figure that out. Did I get there, right? Do I have enough to do the things I want to do, like to pay my expenses? I’m not going to run out of money.

But it’s the other stuff where we see, and I’m sure, personally, I’m sure you as well have seen where it’s not, “Hey, I’ve got enough money.” It’s, “Man, I stopped working. It was my whole life.” And now, “Now what? Now what do I do?” I think a lot of times you think retirement’s going to be this endless vacation, which can be fun for like six months maybe. And then you’re like, “Wait a second, I’m in my late sixties. I get another 30 years in front of me. Like, what should I be doing?” So, I think when we think about planning, and Keith, you talk about all the time, as kind of, does your money have a purpose? Like, this bucket of money is to pay my expenses.

This money is to supplement my income, but is this money to do all those other things you want to do, whether it’s intellectual or with your family or community, and all those different things? So, those topics are ones that I think are kind of assumed by a lot of people, “I’ll just figure this out,” but it can be pretty daunting once you’ve figured out the financial side.

Keith Ellis, Jr.: Absolutely. People come in all the time. We’re lucky enough to see them retire. Hey, you’ve hit this point, you’ve stepped away from your career, and you’re right. Like, this is something that they’ve done, or maybe they’ve done multiple jobs, but something that they’ve done for 20, 25, 30 years, and they’ve woken up every day, and they have that routine. And all of a sudden, that hits a wall like it just stops. And some folks will come in six months, a year later, and be like, “I don’t know how I worked. I’m so busy. I’m so much busier now.” And then other folks, you’re absolutely correct. They’re like, “What do I do?”

Mike Guthrie: Yeah.

Keith Ellis, Jr.: You know, and it’s trying to find that fulfillment in beyond because as much as we, a lot of people don’t like work, it can provide fulfillment, can provide like purpose.

Mike Guthrie: Even the structure in your day.

Keith Ellis, Jr.: Exactly.

Mike Guthrie: And from the people that I’ve talked to who’ve kind of gotten past that first kind of six months of, “Oh, this is great. You get to sleep in and do that sort of thing. Like, okay, what’s next?” They’re people who have remained kind of that intellectual engagement. So, they do a lot of reading, or maybe they take a class that they never thought they’d want to take, or they’re learning about something else because, again, it’s that like intellectual curiosity of a pursuit to get up. Like, what am I getting up for today? I’ve got this class, or the group I joined, or I’m doing the things that are constantly helping me to learn because I did my life’s work, but now I want to do something else.

So, how do I keep that engagement going? And typically, the people who are able to kind of structure out their curiosities, if you will, whether it’s, like I said, take a class or coach a team or something like that, that they might not otherwise have done while they were working or couldn’t do that are able to kind of enjoy those retirement years much more.

Keith Ellis, Jr.: Yeah, it’s definitely interesting. You’re absolutely right. It’s not something that I have to do anymore. It’s something that I want to do, right? Like, now I can go, you know, I’ve had this thing in the back of my mind, a hobby or a second career, or a fun job, whatever it is that I couldn’t do before because I needed to save money, make money, raise a family, whatever it is, add to my 401(k) to make sure I could get to this, the top of Mount Everest, this pinnacle called retirement. And now I realize I have enough money so I can pursue those intellectual engagements, pursue those new ideas, pursue that thing that maybe I wanted to venture into throughout my life.

Mike Guthrie: Yeah, I think like some of those, like purposeful activities you think about like, what’s next? It doesn’t have to be something that’s like a part-time paid job. Maybe it is. Maybe it’s selling t-shirts at the beach that just makes you happy.

Keith Ellis, Jr.: Golf course. Friends at the golf course.

Mike Guthrie: Clients do that for sure. I have a friend who coaches football, youth football. His kids are grown. He’s got grandkids, but he comes back every year and coaches a team and stays with that team, and it’s great. And he knows when fall comes, football season starts back up.

Keith Ellis, Jr.: Well, that’s a lot of structure there.

Mike Guthrie: Yeah. So, it’s kind of finding those things to replace that structure that you had of getting up and going to work every day, because otherwise you just end up sitting on the couch watching TV, which can be draining, right?

Keith Ellis, Jr.: Yeah, absolutely. You’re right. I was meeting with a family last week, and the husband had never golfed before, and he is like, “Now, I really want to lean in and learn how to play this sport that has really frustrated me, maybe one of the handful of times that I have played it.” So, you’re right, it’s finding that purposeful activity that fulfills you that, again, maybe provides a little structure, like you said, coaching football or learning how to play golf or tennis or pickleball, whatever it is. So, that leans into also health and fitness.

Mike Guthrie: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think one of those things, too. And, look, I’m not a personal trainer here, but, certainly, keeping that mindful, particularly in the early parts of retirement when you’re up and able and ready to do the things you want to do, and really trying to focus on getting the things that you really want to do, maybe in those first 10 years when we think about bucketing out a potential 30-year retirement when you’re in good health and able. The surest way to not be there is to not pay attention to that sort of stuff. I think it’s, again, when you’re in the thick of things, you’re working, you’re raising your family, like you’re just kind of naturally active, but suddenly when things slow down or stop, you have to make that concerted effort to get out there and do those sorts of things.

Again, it doesn’t have to be pumping iron at the gym, but it’s something that keeps you moving, that keeps your mind sharp because it ties into those other things, right? If you’re not in good health, it can permeate through the rest of the things that you’re trying to do and can be a financial burden, right?

Keith Ellis, Jr.: Yeah, and I think a lot of folks, as they look to retire or make decisions around what they can do, health, fitness, join the club, join the golf club, whatever it is, comes back to having a plan, right? Because if you don’t have a plan in retirement, in my opinion, how do you retire confidently if you don’t know? And the good news is, here, what we do is we build a five-step plan. We call it the Retirement Roadmap. It’s a holistic strategy where it looks at income, where are we getting it from, why are we taking it from these buckets, how do we take social security, investments, are they efficient, are they the right risk tolerance, what are your fees, are you paying too much, so on and so forth?

Taxes, making sure we minimize taxes as much as possible, and try to repurpose assets to make sure they’re more tax efficient for both you, your spouse, if you have a spouse, and your family. Healthcare, which is another part that we, and then legacy, because I always tell the clients that I work with, and I challenge the folks I work with to go enjoy their retirements. I mean, you’ve worked so long to get to this point, you need to enjoy it because you’ll never get time back, and you’ll never get your health back.

Mike Guthrie: And I think what we see a lot of times, too, is people get a little bit nervous about spending, right? When they think about, we ask this question all the time when we’re building that plan, and particularly looking at the income part of the pie, how much do you spend each month? And usually people say, “I spend X,” and you’re like, “Okay. So, you paid your mortgage if you have one. You had something to eat. And is that it? Because the number you just gave me is basically that.” And they say, “Well…” and then they start thinking all the other things you want to do. Oh, and by the way, you’ve got plenty of income, or the plan tells you that you can do all the things that you maybe didn’t think about as your expenditures, of the things you want to enjoy.

Because again, you’re just kind of trained to, “I can’t spend that because I got to save it. I got to save it. I got to save it.” But now, no, you’re in a position where you’re able to do the things confidently because you’re not just throwing darts at the dart board. You’ve built this plan out that can start to figure out exactly what those pursuits are that are passionate for you and the things that you want to do, and you can confidently do it because you know that the financial aspect is taken care of as well.

Keith Ellis, Jr.: It is definitely a mental shift, though, from going saving, saving, saving 25, 30, 35, 40 years of your life to saying, “Okay, I’m no longer getting that paycheck. I’m no longer getting that income. I’m no longer putting money into my 401(k), 403(b), whatever it is. I’m now actually starting to do the reverse. There’s no paycheck. I have to create my own. And I’m starting to pull money out of these accounts.” It is a mental shift. And again, that’s why it goes back to planning. It goes back to planning because if you have a plan and you revisit that plan all the time, it updates literally for you every single day based upon market returns, dividends, and whatever it is that happens throughout a day, week, month.

It’s updating along the way, and then you have an advisor or a team behind you to be able to help you make decisions or model out what it is that you do want to do. “Hey, I want to travel. I want to spend $25,000 a year for the next 10 years on travel.” Okay, let’s build that into your plan to show you how that holds up and do a comparison. You know, like, “Hey, what if you spent 30? What if you spent 15?” You know what I mean? And you can kind of show people. And I think once people see that and see that plan and have that plan that they can revisit all the time, especially in market volatility, and they’re like, “Hey, my plan’s still holding up. I’m doing okay.” That’s where the confidence lies, because a lot of people don’t have the confidence, like you said, to go out and enjoy. And it’s like our job to say, “Hey, no, you can go.”

Mike Guthrie: Yeah, for sure. And I think too, just to tie back a little bit to what we’re talking about here, is that the financial aspect of planning is hugely important, obviously, right? You got to get that buttoned up. But the other aspects need planning too, where it’s something like your close relationships like your family. You got to make the effort, right? Is it a weekly dinner? Is it hey lunch? Or you plan phone call with your grandkids or trips, that scheduled trip. I think one of the things that we run into a lot with clients who are thinking about retiring is like when you say, “Hey, what do you want to do in retirement?” Travel’s always huge. If it’s not number one, it’s number two, but who do you want to travel with and how do you want to finance that? Do you want to take the grandkids to Disney or whatever it might be? If I never go back to Disney, it’s too soon.

Keith Ellis, Jr.: It’s very affordable.

Mike Guthrie: Yeah. I’ve been there enough. But, again, making the effort to say it’s not just about my five-point plan for financial aspect, but maybe I need to do a little bit of digging more because now I’ve got the time to do the things I really want to do. Retired out of work, so I need to make a considered effort to plan out things. It’s not just going to happen organically.

Keith Ellis, Jr.: And I’m seeing a shift right now. A couple of different things that I’ve been seeing with families. I literally just got off the phone with a woman who’s selling her house to go live closer to family. This is the second time in two weeks. So, basically, a couple of folks that live on the Cape now wanting to go live closer to family. They’re aging. They want to be close to their family. So, those are financial decisions that we have to help them with. How do we get the funds to make that… You know what I mean?

Mike Guthrie: Yeah, for sure. Yep. Yep.

Keith Ellis, Jr.: And a lot of folks actually now realize after being and working with our plans for so long, or some of my clients that, “Hey, look, we’re going to be plenty fine. We’re good.” So, like, rather than wait for us to pass 10, 15, 20 years down the road, and our kids are not having the issues maybe that they’re having right now from a financial perspective, let’s start to give money to them now so we could see them enjoy it versus waiting until they’re probably on good feet, have a good career later on in their earning years, so on and so forth. So, I’ve been seeing a lot of that.

Mike Guthrie: Yeah, for sure. And I think the underlying kind of current here is confidence. So, some people might say like, “My passion in retirement is to be charitable not only to family, but to my church or whatever that community group might be.” And again, it all comes down to looking at what’s important to you and then planning around it. Not just what’s my income stream going to be, but if I want to give charitably, can I do it? And how does that work? You know, that sort of stuff. And is that something that’s worthy pursuit that interests me, or whatever it might be.

Keith Ellis, Jr.: Yeah. And there are strategies. There are strategies that can benefit you and the charities that you work with, that could save you quite a bit of money and save you liquidity and save you in different paths to be able to better position yourself through charitable giving. So, talk a little bit about relationships. I mean, I know that’s something that we wanted to talk about as well.

Mike Guthrie: Yeah, for sure. I kind of think of my own dad, necessarily in retirement. Like, he worked. I mean, my dad worked and his kind of social relationships were work relationships. And so, you have plenty of friends, but when I think of where he kind of got his social interaction, it would also happen to be at work, right? So, I think if you are, and I think that’s a generational thing potentially as well. But I think if you’re heading into that retirement and you’re thinking to yourself, “Oh, most of my relationships are the guys I run into and guys I run into at work,” and now you’re not going to see them on Monday morning. And close relationships, but you know how things get. You tend to drift and not see people.

So, making a real effort to find some sort of social interaction outside of what was work, whether it’s the church, community groups, pickleball, I don’t know, whatever, a golf outing once a week, or like a league type of thing. But to make a concerted effort to make those connections because again, once you’ve kind of reached that peak and you’re into retirement and thinking about the things you want to do, you’re not going to be by yourself. Or it’s not going to be very fulfilling if you’re by yourself. Maybe you’re not as happy as you might want to be when you’re able to build those relationships, not only with the social aspect, but with your family as well.

We’ve seen plenty of people that seem to have enough money that they’d want to do whatever they want to do, but they’re just not very happy because they’re not doing the things they want to do because they haven’t thought it out more thoughtfully, and put pen to paper to say, “These are the things I’m interested in that I’m curious about, who I want to spend time with. And then building the retirement around that.

Keith Ellis, Jr.: Yeah. It’s really about fulfillment, right? Like, you’ve worked so hard, like I said, to get to this point. You like keep using the Mount Everest analogy, but like, “Hey. Alright, we’re at the top.” Now, when do the most injuries happen or deaths happen? On the way down. We want to build that plan to help you get down, but then also, like, we want to be able to show all different paths, right, to get down. So, like, do you just want, like you said earlier, enough money to pay your bills? Well, that’s not really a good vision of retirement. So, then you have to layer on top of that travel expenditures, if that’s the goal, gifting, if that’s the goal, charitable, if that’s the goal.

Okay, so you have all these different things, but then where does it come from? So, that’s where efficiency comes into a plan is what buckets, why, what’s going to save you the most money? Because, sadly, the government’s trying to get as much of your money as they can. And from an advisory standpoint, it’s our job to make sure you retain as much money.

Mike Guthrie: Right. Yeah. And I think the financial well-being side of the fence that we’re talking about ties everything else together. We talk a lot about when you’re saving, kind of that, how much should I have in stocks, cash, bonds. Like, what’s my asset allocation? And I think through our planning with Retirement Roadmap, when you’re going into that next stage, it’s not just about your asset allocations, it’s also about location, like asset location. So, those bucket strategies that we think about, where maybe there’s the safety, the income, the growth bucket, but not only that, even deeper down like, “Hey, this is our trip bucket.”

Keith Ellis, Jr.: Yes.

Mike Guthrie: Right? So, when we go to pull money to take a vacation, we know that that money over here that we have positioned, however it’s positioned, is designed specifically to fund this. So, you know that those expenses that most people say, “This is all I spend in a month,” that’s taken care of. So, you’ve got other areas to go into and pull from. And then, to your point as well, how do I pull from it? What’s the most efficient way to do it? So, I’m not killing myself in taxes and keeping more in my pocket to do the things I want to do. And that’s a big shift because most people, it’s at least when they sit down with an advisor in some places, it’s just, “How did my portfolio do? Was it up? Was it down? Great. See you next year.”

Keith Ellis, Jr.: Yep. That’s what we see a lot, sadly.

Mike Guthrie: Yeah, for sure. You pay your fee and call us if you need us. When you’re shifting from that save, save, save mode to, okay, now I need to create my own paycheck, and how do I do that? What’s the most efficient way to do it? And where is my money actually located and what type of bucket? What type of account? What’s the ramifications if I pull from this one versus that one? Is it an emergency? Does it cover all those sorts of things? And I think one of the things that I learned from you, when you’re in a meeting, that essential expenses stuff or your mailbox money, that’s the word, should be taken care of, and then we can bucket out everything else to make sure, okay, you’re doing the things you want to do, the things we’re talking about, whether it’s a passion project or it’s just taking trips or vacations or engaging charitable, that sort of stuff.

Keith Ellis, Jr.: And that’s what I always say to folks, is you’ve done a really good job saving. Most people have done a really good job saving that we’re meeting with. And now you just want to be good stewards of that wealth, right? It’s like, okay, you’ve created this wealth or this money that you now are able to provide a lifestyle that meets your needs, meets your goals, meets your desires, meet your retirement outlook, but then also beyond that, okay, maybe you want to take care of your kids, maybe you want to take care of your grandkids. And I always say Rome wasn’t built in a day. That’s why this Retirement Roadmap process, and it’s an everyday, every month, every year type of thing, where we’re continually meeting with the families that we work with to tweak and enhance that plan.

Because goals change. People’s lives change. Things happen where, hey, now I want to start to do this, or God forbid, Mr. Jones becomes healthy, or Mrs. Jones becomes unhealthy, or something happens with the kids that they need to step in and help with. How do we do that? And that’s really how we serve through this Retirement Roadmap process.

Mike Guthrie: Yeah. I say with clients and potential clients all the time when that question comes up, like, how often do we meet?

Keith Ellis, Jr.: Yeah.

Mike Guthrie: It’s always all the time. At a minimum, we’re going to meet once a year. Like that’s the bare minimum we have to. But most of the conversations that we’re having between those scheduled meetings are around what-ifs.

Keith Ellis, Jr.: Yes.

Mike Guthrie: You know, what if we took the six grandkids to Disney and we pay for the whole thing? What does that look like? Or what if we needed a new roof, or what if I needed to replace my car? So, again, it’s that living, breathing kind of financial plan that changes. It could change daily, never mind yearly, right? So, I mean, we just want to make sure that we’re on top of that with clients to be able to understand what’s going on. Because if we don’t know and we’re not in that communication, the plan could suddenly be in six months. You haven’t talked to anybody, and the plan is not what the client wants anymore because we just haven’t reached out or spoken to them. So, again, that constant communication to build out. And then that breeds confidence, right? “Oh, we can do that,” or, “Hey, the market’s going crazy, but…”

Keith Ellis, Jr.: You’re still holding tight.

Mike Guthrie: Right. And it’s just that one portion. Remember that money we talked about, that’s for the next 30 years, that aggressive bucket. That’s what that’s for. And that’s okay if it’s volatile. But the other stuff here is taking care of the things that you want to do on the front end.

Keith Ellis, Jr.: Absolutely. And so, when we meet with folks, it’s definitely more than just about money. Obviously, when we put together a plan, that’s first and foremost. You have to make sure that you have enough money to answer that question we said in the beginning, “Can I?” Can I retire? And when I do retire, can I have the retirement that I envision, that we want to see? And once we have that plan built, and once we have a client’s plan built throughout through the five buckets, then it’s really leaning into more of the intellectual engagement, the purposeful activities, what are you doing for health and fitness, and really trying to learn to help the clients and really push the families a little bit to go enjoy it because we do have folks that hold back.

Mike Guthrie: Yeah, for sure.

Keith Ellis, Jr.: Even though we’ve showed them the plan, the plan holds up, you should have confidence, but they do hold back. So, again, here at SHP Financial, our process is called the Retirement Roadmap process. It’s a full holistic planning process, looks at your income, where are we pulling from, social security, everything around income. We just want to make sure that you have enough money coming into the house to meet your day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month needs. Your investments, do they meet your risk tolerance? What are the fees that you’re paying? Taxes, how do we keep more in your pockets or better position your assets from a tax perspective, both for you and your family?

Healthcare and then estate planning or legacy. This is what we call our Retirement Roadmap process. So, whether you have a plan, whether you’re looking to start to build a plan, or whether you just want a second opinion or just starting out, we welcome you to come visit us here at SHP Financial, www.shpfinancial.com. Thank you again for your time today, and we look forward to seeing you next time right here on the Retirement Roadmap Podcast.

Mike Gunthrie: Thanks.

[END]