Are you wealthier than you think? In this episode, John, Tommy, and Mike will explore how you can activate your millionaire powers and start making decisions based on what you can afford, rather than what you think you can’t. They’ll discuss the importance of having a proactive approach to financial planning, so you’re prepared to make well-informed decisions before it’s too late.
Listen in to learn how to create a plan that outlines your spending capabilities, the value of being prepared for financial risks, and the benefits Mason & Associates’ clients experience by activating their millionaire powers. From having disability insurance to a solid retirement plan, this episode will show you how to eliminate a scarcity mindset and adopt a mindset where your family can truly thrive.
Listen to the full episode here:
What you will learn:
- The importance of taking care of the things you can take care of while you can take care of them. (4:00)
- Why having the right insurance in place is always a good idea. (7:00)
- Why you might be wealthier than you think you are. (10:00)
- How to activate millionaire powers. (15:30)
- The value in having a plan. (19:30)
- How Mason & Associates’ clients are able to activate their millionaire powers. (26:20)
- The benefit in listing and understanding your priorities. (35:30)
Ideas worth sharing:
- “When you recognize there is a problem in life, sometimes you just need to go and fix that problem. You never know when you will be thrown a curveball.” - Mason & Associates
- “Chances are, you are more wealthy than you think you are.” - Mason & Associates
- “Eliminate your scarcity mindset and get into a mindset where your family can thrive.” - Mason & Associates
Resources from this episode:
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Read the Transcript Below:
Congratulations for taking ownership of your financial plan by tuning into the Federal Employee Financial Planning Podcast, hosted by Mason & Associates, financial advisors with over three decades of experience serving you.
John Mason: Welcome to the Federal Employee Financial Planning Podcast. I'm John Mason, Certified Financial Planner and President at Mason & Associates. And today we have Tommy Blackburn and Mike Mason, both Certified Financial Planners. Tommy's a CPA, Mike's a CLU, ChFC. Tommy also has his PFS designation and folks, we are so excited to be with you on another episode of the Federal Employee Financial Planning Podcast.
So before we dive in, I want to tell you—audience—what day it is. Today is July 1. We are recording our second episode of today. And for those of you watching on YouTube, you'll notice that I'm in a t-shirt today. And I just felt like Tommy, Mike, that I had to explain to the audience a little bit why I'm in a t-shirt.
That way, when they see the other interview that we did with our social security expert, everybody knows why I'm in a t-shirt instead of dressed well. What do you think?
Mike Mason:Probably a good idea.
John Mason:So for the audience, for those who can see us on YouTube, I enjoy biking. I enjoy my electric scooter. I enjoy running. I like to do a lot outside. Well, the long and short of it is I ate it hard on the electric scooter the other day, flipped right over the handlebars. Luckily, I have a supportive spouse and parents who taught me that I should wear a helmet when I'm doing these things. And other than some road rash and a big bruise, I'm doing okay, but I didn't want to get a shirt all bloody, so I'm in a t-shirt today.
I'm trying to recover. Why is this important in a financial planning podcast? I will let you know that the day before this happened, I did increase my disability insurance. So I'm just saying that when you recognize there's a problem in life, sometimes you just need to go fix that problem because you never know when you'll be thrown a curve ball.
A little bit, another example of somebody not fixing a problem: Tommy got stuck in his garage last weekend.
Tommy Blackburn: I figured that was going to come up. Yeah, this very past weekend, so I'll tell the story, John, and my mind was going the same place I think yours is, which is the garage motor or chain, something with that mechanics has been loud for some time.
When I'm in other people's garages, I can hear it, and I'm like, well, that's what it should sound like, so clearly, I should get this looked at, and it was on the to-do list, and I was hoping this summer to-do list. Well we've been traveling, and you have different excuses, anyway, as we were going to a birthday party, had the kids in the car, sure enough, it stopped working, and as I was telling John, without getting into too many details, I believe I probably made it even worse when I started to mess with it.
So anyway, we were able to exit the garage, get the cars out, and carry on with life, but now that is being forced upon us, and we'll see how much worse it is because I wasn't more proactive.
Mike Mason: So a lesson learned here, you're both still alive, right? So you can fix the garage door even after it broke, and you can patch yourself up, John, because you had a helmet on. But some things if you don't do timely, like we've said at Mason & Associates before, it's hard to have an advanced medical directive done while you're in a coma. It's hard to write a will from the grave, and it's impossible to buy life insurance once you have a cancerous diagnosis.
So learn to take care of the things that you know you need to take care of while you can take care of them. The minor inconveniences, it's July 1 and it's 90-some degrees, making sure that air conditioner's gonna work when it becomes June 15th in 90-some degrees. That's another positive thought process.
So get it done when you know you need to get it done because sometimes you can't do it from the grave or from a hospital room.
John Mason: And maybe this is just a public service announcement, Mike, like you've said. We have clients who we meet in their late 50s, early 60s who didn't have life insurance, who never created their first will or estate plan, and many people—it ended up okay.
I can think of almost all of the clients that we've met who didn't have a will before they met us, who didn't have a trust, who didn't have life insurance, and chances are 99% of those ended up okay. We don't hear from the 1% where it didn't end up okay. And everything we do in the world—I'm not trying to give our listeners anxiety or cause them to turn the show off and go think happy thoughts somewhere else.
But like everything we do carries a certain amount of risk. Every time we get on a plane, train, automobile, every time we walk, ride a bike, anything, everything we do has risk. And the whole idea of a really solid financial plan, the base of that pyramid is always like savings checking, risk mitigation.
These things typically occur at the bottom of your base, and it's just important to know that we don't have forever. And I remember like it was yesterday sitting on a black diamond, icy at Wisp Ski Resort without a helmet on snowboarding, thinking, “This is going to be the day that I end up disabled,” and I don't have any disability insurance.
And I remember it like it was yesterday. And I think both of you know, and our audience might know this about me as well. Once I've identified a problem, it really irritates me and I just fix it quickly. So that's part of my personality. I'd like to do that. Other people, maybe, I'm not saying you guys, but for our audience, maybe you've identified a problem and you're a procrastinator.
How are you going to fix that? How are you going to go from procrastinator to an action-maker? How are you going to make things happen now? So maybe that's just a good way to do this public service announcement right from the beginning.
Mike Mason: Well, in many people, the best reason to have a financial planner, a real financial planner, not a money manager, is that we help you get over that hump to do things.
You need somebody to kick you in the butt and get it done, right? You need somebody to tell you those stories about not getting it done, and a week later you wish you had. Or we've got one where we got it done, got the life insurance app in, got it approved, and the day we got the notice that it was approved preferred nonsmoker, the gentleman called us on his way to the hospital with a heart attack.
So you just never know. And it's not meant to be a negative story. I think an easier one is your car tires. Maybe you get 150,000 miles out of your vehicle. If you get 40,000 miles on your tires, do you really need to try to stretch that into 42,000? I mean, you're going to get three sets of tires—the original and two more.
Getting another 2,000 isn't getting you anything but an unsafe situation.
John Mason: Well, Mike, you mentioned a couple of good things. So for our audience, if this is your first time listening to the Federal Employee Financial Planning Podcast, we are fee-only financial planners, which means the only people that can pay us are our clients.
We weren't always that way. We used to be able to help clients acquire life insurance or annuities or investment products that came off the shelf with a commission. So when you hear us say things like we help somebody get—we did, and we still do—help people get life insurance. Right now, we just don't earn a commission for doing so where we would have previously.
And that's a very good point, guys, because we need to be as passionate about helping people fix those problems today. And I know we are, just as we were when we were getting X dollars in commissions for helping somebody buy a term or a permanent insurance policy. So that's number one. And then number two, you mentioned the tires.
And I spoke with a gentleman the other day who was with his family in his big rig, RV, and had a double blowout going down a mountain. Terrified. Grandkids, spouse, him, everybody terrified. And maybe I know more about this than I should, but we're talking, we're having this conversation, and ultimately it gets down to, “Can you believe it? These tires only had 16,000 miles on it, but they were five years old.”
And before I could say it, he already knew the answer. He was like, “But I just learned you're supposed to basically replace them every four years, regardless of how many miles they have.” And it's just one of those things where maybe he knew that, but he was thinking, “Oh, it was climate controlled, there was no dry rot, I'll be fine.”
He put his family's life in danger either, A, because he didn't know the rules, or B, because he was trying to be sneaky or cheap or what have you. And I think this is going to take us perfectly into our title of this episode. Let's just assume for a second that he was trying to be cheap or he was trying to defer the cost.
And I'm not saying that to be mean; it just sets up better for our show. The title of this episode is Activate Millionaire Powers. And what that means is, if you are a federal employee, if you're retired military, or you're retired from any place with a pension, chances are you are more wealthy than what you think you are.
For every $30k or $40k that you have in a pension, guys, that's like having another million dollars in a TSP or a 401k or an outside brokerage account. So $30k or $40k pensions, like having a million dollars somewhere else. So if you're the 40-year-old fed listening to this podcast, maybe you don't have a million-dollar TSP yet, but you probably have a million-dollar pension that you've already earned or close to earning.
Maybe you're 60 and you have both. And here's what we mean by activate millionaire powers. Stop doing things, and I'm going to be mean now, don't defer the cost of upgrading your tires because you think you can't afford it. It's time to activate the millionaire powers and replace those tires every three years instead of the ever-recommended four, just because you can, and just because it's that much safer.
And this extends to so many aspects of how we can help our clients feel supported, empowered, educated, and motivated to just have a really good financial plan and a really good quality of life by making sure that we activate those millionaire powers.
Mike Mason: Yeah, we've seen it so many times, and the audience feels it, our audience more than likely is going to be like our client base, 50 to 55 and older.
In your head, in your physical body, you're 55 or 60 years old in your head. You're still that 25-year-old or 30-year-old spry, you know, man or woman. But unfortunately, sometimes you're still that 25 or 30-year-old thinking you're struggling because you've gotten yourself into that mode.
And we've had people with six-figure pensions ask, “Should we do this estate plan this year? It's going to be $4,000. Should we do it this year, or should we wait till we turn on social security and we start getting that income?” Because they don't want for anything, but they're still in that mode of not wanting to pull money out of the vault.
So it's a great point. Activate millionaire powers really activate your brain to where your body and your finance has become. And that's not a negative statement. It's easy. Physically in that confrontation to think, yeah, I could take on those 25-year-olds at 60, cause you still have that belief and it's easy to fall in the trap of frugal and that mindset that you've been in for the last 20 years while you're trying to save and become that millionaire.
Tommy Blackburn: I think they call it a penny wise and pound foolish is one of the analogies there. And as I was thinking about it, I think a lot of times we discount our future selves. It's almost like an inherent thing we deal with in financial planning, right? Is plan for the future, be patient, save, do these things to set your future self up for a better. But I think naturally, as human beings, we gravitate towards today.
So, spending the money today is painful. Turning on social security today sounds awesome because I get income in. So, trying to reframe like your future self will thank you for delaying social security, which sounds painful, because that gets us to a better, and I'm only speaking about social security because we just recorded a podcast episode on it, so it's fresh on my mind, and the same thing with ultimately though realizing where we are today and that we don't have to stretch that expense out or defer it so long.
We can be intentional, and I was thinking about that too, John, so it's not even like we can act now. But it doesn't mean necessarily that you gotta go pull the trigger right now, but you can be proactive and intentional about it. So like shopping for a vehicle or shopping for anything, when we're in a rush, when it's an emergency, you don't have as many choices is where I'm going with this.
Whereas it's, hey, we've identified the garage needs to be fixed or we need insurance, we need the estate plan. But maybe now, as long as we make it a priority, we can be intentional and make a well-informed decision.
John Mason: So guys, for the audience, I think maybe we can elaborate a little bit on where these activate millionaire powers comes from.
So there's a show on PBS. I don't know, Tommy, if your kids have started watching it yet, but it's called Wild Kratts. And the premise of the show is that these two brothers, they save the planet by activating creature powers. So they can turn into a cheetah, run really fast, or they can turn into these different animals and use those powers to save the world.
So this whole idea of activating millionaire powers means like, just because you're a millionaire doesn't mean you make all the right decisions, but maybe it changes our mindset on what we can do or can't afford, and maybe that enables you to make different decisions going forward. So, how do we activate millionaire powers?
Well, in the show Wild Kratts, they have this scientific suit and a creature power disc that they put in. And then bam, they turn into a cheetah. And it looks really easy. And there was a lot of work, I'm sure, that went in behind the scenes on whoever designed those, whatever inventor and whoever programmed the discs.
But when they activate creature powers, it's so fast and it's instantaneous. What's interesting about activating millionaire powers. is we have created the suit. We have created the creature power disc. We know how to do those things, but we just can't give it to everybody, right? We serve a limited number of families.
The clients we work with, we try to activate those millionaire powers. And how do we do that? How do we—it's not easy for somebody to just start spending their own money. It's not easy to just voluntarily spend $4,000 on a trust-based estate plan. It's not easy to do all of these things. Like we say they are.
Like just do it or how come you don't, or of course you can go on that vacation. Right? These things pop into our mind for our audience. We have much delicate ways of having these conversations with clients. They're not mean, but what I'm getting at is it's not easy for clients just to activate those powers.
Mike Mason: Yeah. Sometimes it is a little mean. When you say to 'em, “Hey, if you don't spend your money, somebody else is gonna spend it.” Right? And I don't know that that's mean, but it's an accurate statement. And we've said this many a time, if a trip's worth going on, it's worth taking out the negative—what's most negative.
If you're flying, you don't want to be in coach in today's world. And you just need somebody to help you understand that somebody is going to fly first class. It's either you or it's the people that inherit what you leave behind. And you can do it and from experience on some of the high-level vacations I've been on a cruise, and then I guess the cruise is the most prevalent and ended up doing kind of a mini survey and most of the people on this cruise were either successful business people or retired folks with a pension, federal state, and what not.
So they realized they were the secret millionaires, activate the millionaire powers, and they were going on high level cruises and vacations because they knew they could.
John Mason: When we meet people, Mike and Tommy, and they're new clients or they're prospective clients, and they're thinking about, “One day I hope I can retire,” or “One day I hope I have enough,” getting from that place to activating millionaire powers isn't easy.
We spend 20, 30, 40 years thinking that what happens in the stock market is going to impact my life every day or that I'm not going to be able to get there or I need to make these decisions instead of buying $4—maybe I'm out of touch—I don't know what broccoli costs—$4 organic broccoli or $2 non-organic broccoli.
I'm going to buy the $2, right? So we've been told our entire lives that things need to be a good deal, and that we should save money where we can, so that we can get to where we want to get to. How do we, one, help people eliminate the fear, Tommy? How do we help them eliminate the fear, know they can retire, then kind of get rid of what was once a strength and has now become a weakness so we can activate these powers?
Tommy Blackburn: Yeah, that's what I love. What was once a strength can now become a weakness. And so your whole life, your working life, you're saving to get somewhere and then when you get there, you just want to continue saving. Well, that's now a weakness. So we've got to learn how to change it. I think the way—there's many ways we do it, the way we typically gravitate to in the beginning is, well, let's put a plan together.
Let me try to illustrate and show to you that this is your lifestyle currently and what you spend and what you save. And we can do that through modified adjusted income. We can do that through, or I forget if it was MC, MCI, what we used to call it.
Mike Mason: Modified Current Income.
Tommy Blackburn: Modified Current Income.
Another way we do it is we just say, “Here's clearly what's hitting your checking account. This is what you're living off of, unless you tell me otherwise. So this is our goal.” Let's put together a plan and we can show you that all the income minus taxes, minus new things like health insurance or bills and so forth, illustrate you can continue—like this is sustainable, so you don't need to worry about this anymore.
And then we can take it further and say, “Let's dream bigger.” Let's allocate some money to some costs that you don't think you can enjoy. Like that first class or the trip around the world or doing something special with the grandkids or etc. Let's start to show you from a stress test perspective, this works.
And then to drive it even further home, we can do what Mike and John were saying, which is somebody's going to spend it because we can show you even through all these trials, you're dying with X millions of dollars. So how many ways can we show you? So I think that's how we start off. Then I really think most people need time to process.
So that's that kind of, “Okay, you've convinced me, I'm going to retire. And I don't believe you, John. So, I'm going to do it, but I don't believe you.” And then they just have to live it. And I think there's a period of time, six months to a year, maybe two years, where it's like, “You know, you're right. Okay, things are working. I actually see my bank account balance is growing. This is going to work like you said it would.”
And then now for most people, not all, but for most, I think now our minds open up to, “Well, what are some of those other possibilities you were talking about?” And that's just anecdotally what I think I see.
John Mason: So you mentioned, and essentially it's education, right? Through a financial planning process. “Here's what you're living on now. Here's what we project you can live on in the future.” And the immediate hump is making sure that we can satisfy all the have-tos in life. So, we have to clear that barrier before we can talk about anything fun.
If we can't clear that barrier, if we can't make people know that they're never living under a bridge and eating cat food, then we can never progress to the next part, which is enhancing your quality of life or spending money in different ways or living more lavishly or living and giving more.
There are so many things that you can do once you get over that initial hump of, “Will I even be able to make it?” And for our audience, I think it's important for you to understand that after 14 years of doing this—Tommy, 14, Mike, over three decades now—it's not like people come into our office and just immediately change, right?
We meet with these folks. And it takes people time for this to sink in. It may take five years before somebody decides they really want to “live the lifestyle that they could live” or “use the money in ways that they could” to get over this fear or scarcity mindset. So I guess what I just want to say to the audience is like, don't feel a lot of pressure.
If you don't feel supported, empowered, educated, and motivated in your financial plan, if you don't know whether or not you can satisfy all the have-tos in life, then you should probably hire somebody to help you get over that initial hump. From there, you should never feel pressure. And I almost know this, but I'll say it.
I hope our clients never feel like we are shooting—I'm not saying a bad word— shooting all over them by telling them what they should do more just sharing with them what they could be doing in their retirement. So there's no pressure here other than we have a limited time on this planet, and we have a limited time with the people we're close to so we can't defer feeling empowered forever.
Mike Mason: Tommy talked about folks needing to be retired for a year or two or three before they believe what we tell them. And you also talked about MCI—Modified Current Income. And we can understand why no matter how much we tell the client, show the client they're going to be okay, they still wonder, and let's just think about it based on a hundred thousand dollar High-3 because that's easy math. With 40 years your pension is 44%.
It's $44,000. So you're thinking, “I was making $100k and I'm replacing 44%. How can I make as much money?” And then here's another bad decision process. “You want me to take survivor benefits, which 44 is going to turn into 34.” Well, that's bad math. You know, because it's 10% of $44,000—it's $4,400. So it really cost you 4% of your High-3, not 10% of your retirement, if that makes sense.
And they just need to see that between Social Security and the fact that they were never really making $100,000 in the first place, because 10% was going to FERS and Social Security and you were putting 15% to 20% into your TSP. So you really never replace in the $100,000.
But no matter how much, that is a direct imbalance in their head. How does $44,000 equal $100,000? It's just a direct imbalance that sometimes they need to live with.
John Mason: So what are some ways, guys—and Mike, I love your examples—what are some ways once we have gotten folks over their initial hump of “Can I even make it in retirement, will I be okay?”
When we activate these millionaire powers, just like really concrete examples, like we've said travel, great. You can go on as many vacations as you want to go on. What are other ways that we can activate millionaire powers. What are other ways, once we know, yes, it's acceptable to spend my TSP. Yes, I've delayed my social security. Yes, I'm not going to outlive my money. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I've checked all of these boxes. “What does that empower our clients to do? Maybe we can share with the audience some examples of how, how our clients are activating those millionaire powers.
Mike Mason: Well, I've got a great one. Most of our clients become friends. Some we spend more time with than others, but a highly successful retired engineer—retired from the federal government, loves what he does—so he's doing it private, still. But it's been about four years ago where we smoked a cigar looking out over the James River in September, and then introducing him to a country club lifestyle.
Two weeks later, we did the same thing under a beautiful star-lit night and a cool breeze. And he's like, “Why am I not a member here?” And I said, “You're not a member here because you haven't activated your millionaire powers. You can do this and still accomplish everything you want. You can do this.”
And he's thanked me for that two nights of cigar smoking to get him convinced multiple times over the last four years.
Tommy Blackburn: So for me, I think there's so many examples. John, I think you even threw out, hopefully not to steal, from things you were thinking of. Some of the maybe less common evolutions that some people may think of is just eating more expensive, which is hopefully not to say, being decadent, but eating organic, if that's something that they've become educated on, and it is important to them.
I'm not trying to catch judgment anywhere there, but just saying. I'm going to spend more money on, on how I eat, or I'm going to spend more money on exercise and having a personal trainer. So these are additional expenses. This isn't like just covering the needs to this is, “Hey, I think this will enhance my So here's some additional.”
Some common ones I think of is of course, traveling. People taking mini vacations and maybe even trying to take their family with them, whether it's traveling internationally or across the U.S. Been a big RV movement. I don't know if it's always been this way or just the past five years or so, but it seems like RV-ing has become far more common, and a number of clients have taken that on.
But all of these are certainly financial expenses in some form, right? And their finances helps empower them to do these things. And so that's some of the ways that come to my mind.
John Mason: I love the health one. I love the retirement. I love the vacations. Health extends far past food.
It can go into, like, concierge medicine where there are actually doctors out there that'll sit down with you for 30 minutes to an hour instead of 7 minutes. But guess what? They're not covered by your insurance, maybe. So we can either not go to the doctor that's gonna provide value, or we can go to the doctor that may not provide value.
And I'm not slamming all doctors out there. I'm just saying it's really hard to provide massive value in seven minutes, once a year. If I'm seeing my concierge medicine provider four times a year, we're doing all this advanced blood work, and we're doing all this cool stuff, I think I'm going to get a lot more from that in my longevity, but it's going to cost something.
So that's one place. Continuous care retirement communities. We were talking about this at lunch. So continuing care retirement communities, that's a place where once you get into your 70s and 80s, you can move and thrive, right? Where we've got social, we've got chef, we've got activities, we've got all sorts of things.
But if we're not moving to those because we think we have to stay in our paid-for house, maybe that's a mistake. So, thinking about that. Helping grandkids with college. That's another opportunity where if we don't know, if we're not empowered, we're just hoarding this money for ourselves, right?
Maybe we're retired with a long-term care policy, but we're not paying for the grandkids' college because we think we're going to have a long-term care event. And it's like, “Well, I thought we had that covered already.” So that's another one. And then a lot of people tithe or donate based on like 10% of their income.
I have seen over 14 years so many clients scale up their charitable giving as a percentage of their total income when they retire because they've realized that they can. So now they're helping create scholarship funds or contributing special to the building project at the local church or community.
So your ability to not only give back to yourself but ability to give back to your family and your community in ways that that maybe you wouldn't have done had you not been empowered.
Tommy Blackburn: I have another story that's coming to mind here. These are all great points. It's just the one that's happening in front of me, I have another one of our secret multi-millionaires-need-to-activate-their-millionaire, and they've done a good job for the most part. They travel, they see cool things, but anyway they shared they wanted, they were thinking about buying a new house.
And they share that all the financial reasons as to why it doesn't make sense in this market, which, I'm inclined to agree with them. Probably not the best time, but put that aside for a second. And then it was, we've kind of looked, but we keep getting beat out by all these other offers, all these cash offers.
And that's where I'm just sitting back myself. I understand your financial situation and there's no reason you should be losing out to other offers. And so that's, again, where it's like, well, let me help you get out of your own way here and let's talk about, one, just because somebody says it's a cash offer doesn't mean it's actually cash out of their pocket versus a mortgage still didn't come into play, but that's one piece of knowledge for them to know.
But the other is you can make a cash offer, and here's how we can make it. So if that's what empowers you to go get the house you need to, even though I fully believe we're going to find another way to do this, that's what it took. I'm just explaining to them. “Here's how you can do that. You shouldn't be held back right now.”
Mike Mason: All great points. All great points. Remember who we're talking to. You're secret millionaires and you're also non-secret millionaires because most folks are retiring with a million. Most of our federal employees are retiring with a million dollars or more of cash assets and then the equivalent of a couple of million in pensions So just understand this is the Federal Employee Financial Planning podcast, and we're not talking about some private sector equity winners and whatever NVIDIA or Microsoft. We're talking the secret millionaire in a $40,000, $80,000, $120,000 a year pension that's cost of living adjusted, right?
And then the folks should understand that many of our clients never take money out of their IRAs until they have to at 73 or 75. So what that should tell you is that all your needs are being met and all the fun you wanted to have, you were having on your guaranteed income. So even if you got wild and crazy at 70 and just took five or six around the world $100,000 vacations, when you're 95, if you spend all that cash, you're going to be right back to where you were from 60 to 65, just living off that great pension and social security.
So, you never really fail as a federal employee or a pensioner in retirement.
Tommy Blackburn: That's a great point, Mike. Just drive home. I forget sometimes, it sounds like we're talking about people. You wouldn't think this could be the retired federal employee, but that's absolutely the scenario.
John Mason: I guess said another way for both of you guys. And I know you say it too. I love saying that like the first 10 years of retirement, you are in theory going to spend more money than you ever have because you're in the go-go phase. And then you have the slow-go and the no-go. And what ends up happening for a lot of our clients is they become net accumulators again in retirement.
At whatever decade that is, at whatever time that is, when things start to slow down a bit, The CPI, the cost of living adjustments, the bumps on your social security and your pensions, and the actual reduction in your spending, which most software models that you will increase your spending over time, but in practice, we see that spending tends to go down in those second and third phases, you become net accumulators again.
So then we're just talking about maximizing those first 10 or 15 years to the best of our ability, to not jeopardize the next 15 to 20 years. So, I don't mind sharing this with the audience. You guys know me. I'm reading all kinds of books, I'm having so much fun with this stuff. On the Michael Kitces’ summer reading was The 80/80 Marriage, and we don't have time to talk about the whole premise behind the book, but what I love about The 80/80 Marriage is it's not based on this 50-50, it has to be fair, whatever I do, you do.
We have the same time with your family and the same time with my family. It's based on radical generosity, and it's based on doing what's best for Team Mason or Team Blackburn or Team fill-in-the-blank. And one of the things that I've taken away from this book is thinking of our family as a team, which we always did, but then starting to make decisions that benefit not the individual, but benefit the team.
Whether that's relocating your family, okay. So Tommy, your example, we want to move and we want to be closer to our grandkids, for example, but it's not the right time. Well, what's the best for team insert client's name ? Probably to go ahead and make a higher-than-normal offer to get that done because it benefits the team.
So one of the other things that I thought was interesting guys is almost creating like a family mission statement, family vision statement, where you start listing your three to five priorities, that your decisions and your family are based on achieving those. So for instance, if giving is one of your top five priorities, how do we make decisions around being able to do as much or more than you're doing tomorrow?
If adventure is a priority, how do we make decisions in our family that help us achieve that? So I just thought it was such an interesting way of thinking about being intentional with all the decisions that you're making, operating your family a little bit like a business, and thinking about how what's best for the team and how one person's success or both people's success is really shared success.
And I just thought, I think it's appropriate as we think about activating millionaire powers because we need to think about the collective benefit of the decisions we're making for the whole team.
Mike Mason: It's just such great points and it drives home. Every statement we make, we can find a client that it's appropriate to, but one that lives in Denver, that decided they've had enough of Denver, and they wanted to be closer to their family members, sold their house. Now they're in South Carolina/North Carolina looking for the next house, and they just needed that confirmation from their financial planner that, “Yes, you may be buying a house at the top of the market.”
It's not a mistake you cannot rebound from. You've bought houses in the top of the market before. You're retired. How long are you going to be in this house? You made the choice that's appropriate for your family. You'll be in the house long enough for whatever dip in the market to rebound. So sometimes you do need—and that's the beauty of having somebody like us that doesn't have the emotions tied up in it to, one, say, “Yes, you can do it, too You can do it even if you need to have a little bit of a mortgage. And if you buy in the top of the market, it's not going to be a game changer for your retirement.”
John Mason: Well, as I think about, as we wrap up this episode, guys, activate millionaire powers, getting to this new mindset is really what we're asking our clients to do and perspective clients is to eliminate the scarcity mindset and go into a mindset where our family can thrive and hit all of our top three or top five goals on our mission or vision board for our family.
And in order to do that, every time we say yes to something, we're saying no to something else. Or every time you say no to something, you're saying yes to the things that are important to you. And knowing that you have the ability to say no and yes is empowering.
And exchanging your money for additional time is okay. Exchanging your money for things that don't make you happy is okay. Getting more of what makes you happy in exchange for saving you time and costing you money is also okay. And really that's where we want to get to is, “Are you receiving a benefit? And what is that benefit to you for the money that you're spending?”
And however you see that benefit, we just want to help you use your resources to the best of your ability so that your team, your family team can have all the success that you've always wanted to have. Guys, before we wrap up with some closing comments, any final thoughts that you wanted to share with the audience today?
Mike Mason: Well, I'll take it. John, you and I had a great, uh, introductory meeting the other day, the first Zoom meeting with the client and/or soon-to-be client. And sometimes we can get all wrapped up in the details of how somebody—this is how we built your plan or sometimes we can just say with almost 40 years of experience, all the things you want to do, you can do tomorrow. You can retire. You can buy that camper. You can travel. You'll make as much money for the rest of your life as you're making now. And we didn't even need a proof statement when the female spouse was visibly crying with happy tears, which—I don't know how it ties into this.
They did have pensions, they are secret millionaires. Sometimes you just need that expertise, and sometimes it can just be as easy as you've got the experience. Remember, we don't tell bedtime stories. If they weren't prepared, we obviously wouldn't fib to them. But when they are, say that with confidence, and 40 years of experience.
And it can be a game-changer. Who knows how much time that family's going to have going forward? But they're going to start enjoying that camper right away.
Tommy Blackburn: So much of it, John, to me, is we kind of got towards the end of this is it was almost somewhat funny as I think about it because it's what we've been doing all along, which is goals-based planning.
So you just establish goals, whether it's for your family, your business, or your financial plan, and that's what you're working towards. Money is merely the means to get there. Just like success is not the destination, it's the journey, right? So, getting to some number—financial number—should never be the goal.
The number helps you do those goals. It's all goals-based planning. So, it's great to hear and just kind of amazing how things always come full circle when you think about it. And you also hit on time, which I think, that can't be driven home anymore of that we all have a limited amount of time.
We don't know how much it is, but we all have a finite amount. So prioritizing time, I think, I think it's pretty powerful, and particularly the more you go through life, right? Like, when you're younger—and I know you and I are still pretty young—but when you're younger, you have an excess of time and not enough resources.
But as you accumulate financial resources, you're running out of time and health. And so realizing how does money help you stretch those and just take more advantage of it? And hopefully you can either do that yourself or for many people it's having partners in your world, and for us that would be of course being a financial advisor—somebody who can help show some clarity, empower you, and also help you be accountable and hopefully have creative ways to think about things as well.
John Mason: Thank you, guys. Both those are awesome comments. And I guess one other thought I had from, I don't know which book it was that I read, but maybe it was the same one, but we have all of these activities that we have to do in our life, whether it's business owner, father, spouse, son, “Yeah, I've got to pay the bills. I've got to do the finances.”
You have all of these administrative burdensome tasks, and then you have the loving tasks. And at the end of the day, you can only get an A in so many of them, right? Like you can't get straight A's in life. It's impossible. There's only three or four things that you can get an A in and everything else is going to be a C or D.
And it's the C or D's that we want to outsource, right? It's the C or D's that we want to figure out ways that those don't occupy our time so we can continue to get A's in the things that matter. And I think if we can activate those millionaire powers, that'll help us do that more. Please do not take this as a podcast episode.
This is not financial planning advice to you specifically. We are not your financial planners and you cannot use this show to go take a trip around the world or anything else until you have a qualified financial planner. Basically let you know that that's acceptable. Hopefully, this is empowering and thought-provoking.
If you would like a second opinion on your financial plan, if you want to feel empowered, if you want to activate those millionaire powers with us, we'd be honored to help you in that process. We are taking new clients. Remember, we have five advisors and we're trying to cap that capacity at basically a hundred families per.
Which means that we have capacity. We won't forever. So if you're interested in working with a team of professionals like Mason & Associates, you can start that process at https://www.masonllc.net/ . Our phone number is 757-223-9898, 757-223-9898. And you can schedule an introductory phone call or a Zoom with one of our advisors here at Mason—15 to 30 minutes, no obligation, no fee, just to see if we're a good fit for each other.
So new clients, yes, we're accepting initial meeting—no charge. Asset minimum, $700,000 or more for clients who are looking to hire us. And for those of you who are interested in more of how we do what we do, I think it's our special release Episode around 20, Episode 20 that talks about the new client process and experience.
We'll try to link that in the show notes and description here as well. So yes, if you're not feeling empowered, if you're not feeling educated and motivated, and you're ready to activate those millionaire powers, keep listening to this podcast. Give us a call at https://www.masonllc.net/ and continue to stay curious.
Continue to try to hit that optimize button. And remember, we can only get A's in so many things. And if we can activate those millionaire powers, we can get A's in the things that matter for team insert your family name here. Folks, this has been another episode of the Federal Employee Financial Planning Podcast.
Thanks for being with us on this journey and we will see you right back here on the next episode hopefully with one of my physical therapists who I'm really excited to share that with you. So this podcast is going to continue to get more fun. John Mason, Mike Mason, Tommy Blackburn. Thanks everybody for being on this journey with us.
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