Actuarially speaking, death these days isn’t really a downer! As Host Josh Bretl highlights with data points on this episode of Retirement Equals Freedom, the average human life span has stretched way out beyond previous generations.

The good news is, that means more years to enjoy! But that positive headline also comes with a word to the wise: You’re going to want to do some planning to ensure you’ve got enough fuel in the tank to enjoy all the days of your life!

Josh and his co-host, Dave Schmidt, are looking at “the hierarchy of dreams, strategies and tools” we can leverage to create a sustainable retirement. Think of it this way: When done right, retirement really does = freedom! It’s a permission slip to stop worrying, start spending and keep on enjoying a wisely invested portfolio that will keep paying dividends to keep you worry-free year after year!

Disclaimer: There are lots of great strategies out there, but please be warned that s’more chocolate chip cookie sundaes are neither correlated with nor a recommended predictor of health and longevity. 

As always, we’re loving our Cometeer Coffee. If you’d like to brew it at home, click here to get $25 off your first order. 

Death is going to happen to all of us, but it's

getting pushed back farther and farther and farther.

And the good news is it's not just life expectancy, but

it's also the quality of life.

If you're going to live longer, healthier, happier, you need to

have the assets there to support you for longer in your life.

Dave Schmidt:

Actuarily speaking.

Dave Schmidt:

Death these days isn't really a downer.

Dave Schmidt:

The average human lifespan, has stretched way beyond

Dave Schmidt:

previous generations.

Dave Schmidt:

The good news?

Dave Schmidt:

More years to enjoy!

Dave Schmidt:

But that positivity also comes with a word to the why.

Dave Schmidt:

You're going to want to do some planning to ensure you've

Dave Schmidt:

got enough fuel in the tank to enjoy all the days of your life.

Dave Schmidt:

And I'm not referring to that soap opera.

Dave Schmidt:

When done right, retirement truly does equal freedom.

Dave Schmidt:

It's a permission slip to stop worrying, start spending,

Dave Schmidt:

and keep on enjoying a wisely invested portfolio that

Dave Schmidt:

will keep paying dividends to keep you worry free.

Dave Schmidt:

Year after year, after year, after year, after

Dave Schmidt:

year, after year after year.

Dave Schmidt:

This is The Retirement Equals Freedom Podcast.

Dave Schmidt:

Your host, Josh Bretl, is the owner of FSR Wealth Strategies.

Dave Schmidt:

For the last two decades, he has been helping fine folks like

Dave Schmidt:

you thrive in their retirement.

Dave Schmidt:

Me?

Dave Schmidt:

Well, I'm Dave.

Dave Schmidt:

Josh's longtime friend, co-host of the podcast, and

Dave Schmidt:

fan of Angry Beaver t-shirts.

Dave Schmidt:

I'm here to keep the show lighthearted and to keep

Dave Schmidt:

Josh from going on long, technical, boring rants.

Dave Schmidt:

So now let me let you let me, end this introduction

Dave Schmidt:

so you can enjoy the show.

Dave Schmidt:

FSR Wealth Management is a registered investment advisor

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located in Elmhurst, Illinois.

Dave Schmidt:

Information and opinions contained in this audio

Dave Schmidt:

have been arrived at by FSR Wealth advisors.

Dave Schmidt:

All information herein is for informational purposes

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and should not be construed as investment advice.

Dave Schmidt:

It does not constitute an offer, a solicitation or recommendation

Dave Schmidt:

to purchase any security.

Dave Schmidt:

FSR is not providing legal, tax, accounting, or financial

Dave Schmidt:

planning advice in this audio.

Dave Schmidt:

These views are as of the date of this publication

Dave Schmidt:

and are subject to change.

Dave Schmidt:

I often wonder what my life would be like as a cowboy.

Dave Schmidt:

Think I'd make it?

I don't think you'd make it one night.

I don't think so either.

I'm looking at you, you're looking me

like we're both tired.

It was a late night last night too.

It was a late night.

Of client events.

Your hair is getting messy, so I can

tell you're getting tired.

My hand's through my hair.

Last night, Josh, there was another

great client event.

We referenced this in the last episode.

It was all about estate planning and all that.

Of course, we've touched on this topic on the podcast

because we highlight all very relevant topics.

And at one point during a Q & A session, one of

your clients asked, " Is this going to be recorded?

I want to re-watch it."

Did you hear my response?

You said, " It better be.

Otherwise, I'm out of a job."

Josh is a good friend of mine.

But if I mess up even once, you'll no longer hear from me.

Same thing with this podcast.

I feel like I have to be on my A game, Josh, or

next episode, you're going to have a new cohost.

I'm a little worried because we had some

funny emails that we talked about before, one from Doug

who was giving you a hard time.

We have my sister's in-laws, Dave, who likes to fast

forward to the content, to the meat of episode.

I thought, "Oh man, maybe Dave and I's back and forth

isn't everyone's cup of tea."

And well, last night actually, both people came up and said,

"Dave really adds a lot.

The show wouldn't be the same without him."

I don't know what you did, what you said, or how you

paid them, whatever it was.

Puddin' Cakes and coffee.

We've acquired the Cometeer.

The Cometeer is in our office.

You've converted me to a Cometeer lover.

We've still not acquired Puddin' Cakes.

I wonder if it's because the

shipping is outrageous.

You have to spend 70 bucks just to get them here for free.

I'm not saying that those Puddin' Cakes go to waste.

We would certainly eat them all.

That's the problem too.

Actually, last night as I was presenting, my cell phone was

blowing up with text messages.

They were from our friends.

It was a text string that you and I are both on.

It was the text string that middle-aged 40 year old

men, apparently, who are all feeling overweight and...

Balding.

Balding, the kids stress, and all that fun stuff.

The conversation turned to being accountability partners

for weight loss and all that stuff, which is not the

conversation that would've happened five years ago.

Or even five months ago.

You can tell where everyone's at mentally

as we go back to school and do all that stuff.

Are you suggesting that maybe Puddin'

Cakes is not the best for us?

I would suggest that we don't bring Puddin'

Cakes into the office.

Here's what I'm going to say.

I think everything in moderation.

Once we get the new studio built, how about we

celebrate with Puddin' Cakes?

The Puddin' Cake studio.

The Puddin' Cake studio.

So Dave, on our last episode, we

went super technical.

I had to go back and research tax code.

Erin actually printed up a tax schedule for me.

That was a lot.

That took a toll.

So today I'm going to go something that is actually

near and dear to my heart, something I care a lot about.

And it's a topic that I think is totally

under-discussed, underutilized.

It's not talked about enough and taken into consideration enough.

Eighties sitcoms?

Eighties sitcoms, no, that is not it.

You were singing something last week too

from an eighties sitcom.

I sing lots of eighties sitcoms.

That is true.

But this actually has to do with the fact that our population

is living longer and healthier.

Dave Schmidt:

That's a good thing.

That's a great thing.

It's fantastic, it changes the mentality of a retiree.

think about their parents and they think about what

they watch, what they know, what their experiences are.

That's in their mind.

They get that, " When I hit X age, I'm not going

to be here anymore."

Death is going to happen to all of us, but it's

getting pushed back farther and farther and farther.

In fact, when I give a social security conversation

with people, I always talk about when social security

first started in 1935, the average life expectancy of

an American male was 62.

The average American didn't live to Social

Security age, which is 65

Right.

It's a scam.

Which is kind of crazy.

Social security is a different spot now, so life expectancy

has drastically changed.

And the good news is it's not just life expectancy, but

it's also the quality of life.

You hear the terms that 60 is the new 50, 70 is the new

60, things along those lines.

People are active, people are doing things with their life.

Now here comes the financial part of that.

If you're going to live longer, healthier, happier, you need to

have the assets there to support you for longer in your life.

That's what I want to dive into a little bit today.

You don't want to be in Josh's position

where I don't plan for enough money, and I have to

move in with you and Missy.

That would just be awful for you.

It would be awful for one of us, that's for sure.

I guess you and I would have lots of fun.

Josh, help me pull up my pants.

I can see Missy now.

I know.

"We're going to have to have a talk.

He's going to have to go."

"He's got to go."

"He's going to have to go."

"But, Missy, he's been here three hours."

"I had enough."

He ate all the s'mores Pop Tarts.

Ooh, s'mores.

Dave and my wife both have a fascination

of all things s'mores.

I forgot to mention this to you.

One night last week, she brought home a dessert

for her and I to share.

And you know those giant chocolate chip

cookies that Jewel has?

Oh yeah.

They took one, cut it into smaller pieces, and

made it into a s'mores topping.

No.

Oh my God.

It had graham crackers and marshmallows over the top and a

little bit of chocolate syrup.

What?

Both her and I were blown away at how good this was.

Jewel?

Jewel.

Jewel Food Stores.

My birthday is June 4th.

June 4th.

Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, I'll

take one at every holiday.

It was out of this world.

Wow.

Did you put down the whole thing?

Not in one night,

But you put down the whole thing.

But in two nights, we did.

It wasn't the whole cookie though whole.

It was just a part of the cookie.

I'm kind of surprised I

didn't get a message.

I am too, actually.

Maybe next time.

But it was delicious.

Do you know what's not going to help me live longer?

S'mores cookies.

And you living in my house.

Let's talk about life expectancy a little bit.

Sure.

There's all sorts of different life

expectancy statistics.

Each "government agency" with an acronym has their own

statistics and round numbers.

A male born today, life expectancy comes

in at 78 years old.

For a female, it's 82.

Life expectancy though includes infant mortality and

all the bad things that can happen to you along the way.

This sounds crazy, but the older you get, the longer

your life expectancy is.

I've heard that.

Every single year you get older, the longer your

life expectancy pushes out.

I don't have the exact numbers on that one, but Erin dug

into for us some of the life insurance actuarial tables.

Actuaries are an interesting breed.

They study statistics and all giant data patterns.

I always tell people a life insurance company is never

going to tell you when you're going to die, but they can

tell you the odds of you dying every single year.

Oh, wow.

That's because they have the statistics

as to what age people die.

What they're saying is, and it's based on health, if you are 65

years old today, a non-smoker with excellent health, the

males they expect to live to 88, the females to age 90.

I think the key word is "excellent health."

That's pretty...

Excellent health is, but they have a

pretty broad spectrum to the definition of excellent health.

That's you don't have cancer, you don't have heart disease.

Dave Schmidt:

Preexisting issues.

But high cholesterol, high blood

pressure, that's normal.

They take that without any issues here.

Winning for us.

Now life insurance companies can't

take this into consideration.

It's against the law.

But the higher income people who have access to better

healthcare live longer.

Naturally.

People who live closer to good hospital

systems live longer.

Actually, there's something goofy because people on the

East and West Coast tend to actually live longer.

A lot of it has to do with access to food and healthcare.

But it's kind of an amazing topic here.

The life expectancy keeps getting pushed out farther

and farther and farther.

If you look at social security statistics...

That's one of my joys in life.

You do, you come in every day and you're going,

"Did you see the latest social security But social security as

a program that's designed to pay out for the rest of your life.

But they look at 65 year olds as their median age.

What they say is that a third of everyone who's 65 today

will live to be 90 years old.

Wow.

That is crazy.

I also love to listen to other podcasts, not just ours.

Believe it or not, I listen to other people.

But you do listen to ours?

I do listen to ours every time it comes out,

sometimes multiple times because my kids want to listen to it.

It's a funny thing, I listen to it and I forget

what we talked about.

Someone will come up to me and be like, "I love that podcast

on this, this, and this."

I'm like, " What did I say?"

And yet our wives have never listened to it.

No.

As my wife says, "I listen to you enough.

I don't need to listen to you more."

But in addition to living longer, people are actually

living healthier too.

The health advances have been so extreme that we have

enough information that you can be 75, 80 years old and

be as active as someone who was 65 a few short years ago.

That's a great thing to be out there.

But as we're doing it, you got to plan for it.

You have to take that into consideration.

We, as a default,, we'll use age 90 for people as we're planning.

Some people will push out to 100.

We do get a few people who say, "No, I'm going to die at 80.

It's just not my cards."

It's kind of sad, but hey, they know it.

That's there.

Why do they say that?

They're just maybe not healthy to begin with.

Usually one of two reasons.

They know they're not healthy, or both parents never made

it past a certain age.

Family history.

Things along those lines.

Sorry, I'm getting back to listening to other podcasts.

Every time we make fun of our wives, I lose my train

of I listen to a gentleman by the name of Peter Diamandis.

Peter Diamandis runs a podcast called Exponential Wisdom.

He's a futurist.

He created the X Prize.

He was big into the future in healthcare.

He talks a lot about the different technologies that

are being developed out there.

He's in the front line of all those new technologies.

A lot of it is in healthcare that's right there.

With data and everything of what they're doing, they now have

systems in place that they can scan your entire body, do this

giant data analysis, and they can catch a cancer that hasn't

even grown yet in your body.

They They can say, "This is their DNA.

This is how everything's working."

They compare it to 10,000 other people and they can say, "The

odds of X, Y, Z are higher.

Watch out for this."

The technology is so good that we will just have to...

It's almost like if we have that choice, we'll

be able to live longer.

That's out there.

Have you seen Big Hero 6?

I have seen it on in my house as my kids watch

it, but I have not seen it.

I wonder if Baymax has sued this Peter Diamandis

as for that technology.

Baymax is the big inflatable robot.

He scanned somebody and knows instantly

what's wrong with them.

He came up with it first.

Or was it Star Trek?

I don't know if you watched Star Trek as a kid, but they

had that little scanner that...

And they went, "Oh, appendicitis."

Really?

Yeah.

Captain Kirk had appendicitis?

I have no idea.

"Beam me up, Scotty.

I got appendicitis."

How about that?

Shout out to Baymax.

Shout out to Baymax.

I'll have to watch that with my children.

But a follow up here, if you're living longer, you're

living healthier, you want to have that money to spend.

The counterpart to this is there's also at the same time

a reduction in income, where social security isn't covering

as much of our income, pensions are all but gone for people,

and people aren't thinking about that guaranteed income

source, that somebody's going to cover you for as

long as humanly possible.

If you think about that pile of money that you've built up,

it's no good for you unless it becomes income to you.

You want to make sure you have that income source

that's going to last you the rest of your life.

It needs to probably last way longer and for more

money than you originally thought and planned for.

Is there a magic number where if a

client comes in and says, "You think I'm going to die

at 80," you'd be like, "Let's plan for 85," or "Let's

plan for Do you over-plan?

Did you say 90 years old earlier?

We use 90 as a default.

That's a good question.

There has to be an end point.

The joke is that you want to spend your last penny

with your last breath, and the last check bounces.

But that's not the reality.

What you really want to do is plan for a few

more years than that.

Most people aren't planning to spend down to zero.

They don't want to see that zero You plan for the longer term.

If it's 80, if it's 90, whatever it might be,

that's the very real thing.

Does that answer your question?

It answered my question.

It was riveting.

I just drew pen all over my arm.

You were so excited.

I was so into it, I didn't realize I was

It's a hard discussion to have with people

because people look at you like you're crazy, " I'm

not going to live longer.

My mom died at 85," whatever it might be.

Right.

I think that's fear that talks a little bit.

They see what an 85 year old looks like, and they

think someone who's in bad shape or can't live the

life that they want to live.

But I think what the bigger risk financially is you are capable

at that age to travel and do the things you want to do.

If you don't have the wherewithal to do it

financially, it hurts.

With a little bit of planning earlier on, it's a much

more feasible thing to do.

Josh, we've talked a lot about

your role as an advisor.

You see the highs and lows in people's lives.

How do you approach this as an advisor if you see that

somebody is on the wrong path or not planning for enough money?

That's a good question.

Of course, you asked it.

Remember a couple episodes we talked about the hierarchy, the

dreams, strategies, and tools?

If I can get somebody or a couple to really dig

into their dreams, and get excited for them, and feel

that big excitement for what's to come into the

future, we can often get them thinking really long term.

When someone retires and loses a purpose, loses

the ability, the health follows quickly thereafter.

But people who have that purpose and those dreams that

are out there, they start focusing more on that than

they do on the finances.

They ask us for our help.

A lot of times, we're looking for more

guaranteed income sources.

We're looking for, how do we maximize social security?

We're looking for, are there other spend down assets

we can find guaranteed?

Is there an annuity that fits in the right spot?

When we can increase that guaranteed income, it

gives them this permission slip to live their life.

We have some wonderful clients.

I'm not going to mention them by name, but they moved out West.

They were from Chicago.

They moved out West to their dream home.

They moved out prior to the pandemic.

All of a sudden, we would have these Zoom calls with them.

You could see the smile on their face just beam

because they moved out there.

They go bike riding every single day.

They will ride 25, 30, 40, 50 miles sometimes.

They always finish at one of the local breweries.

They love to have a beer after they ride a bike, which if

you're riding that far, great.

They will take vacations to Europe.

They'll bike around France or whatever it might be.

They don't spend a ton of money but we were able to give

them enough guarantees built into their system that, and

they said this to us in the call, they felt this relief.

They had this permission that they were allowed to go, live,

and experience their life.

They will have the ability to do that pretty much for

the rest of their lives.

You can see the inner smile as that comes in there.

I think I know who you're talking about because

they said, "Dave, once you fulfill your dream of having

an arcade, they will bike all the way from wherever they

live to where my arcade is."

You'd have a lot of fun with them.

They really like good local beer too.

Yeah.

At your recent workshop where I gave the introduction,

and it was a stellar introduction, by the way.

Stellar.

You talked about the whole

dream strategies tools.

You touched on it.

You were going through and asking for examples of dreams.

I was just hoping you would've called me out for

my dream of having an arcade.

But you didn't, and I felt so sad.

I forgot.

Next time I'll do that for you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Next time I'll do Dave, I think we've

talked about longevity here.

I think it's time for something a little bit different here.

Yeah.

Hey Mr.

Josh, let's take a break.

You've been talking for so long and my ears are sore.

Let's not make them snore.

Listening shouldn't be a chore.

Let's get to know Josh and Dave and watch their ratings soar.

See the bird soaring?

It is your turn, Mr.

Josh.

You picked that card.

This card made me smile.

I want to see what your answer is to this because

you're a pretty modern person.

You like new toys as much as I do.

Here's the question.

What antiquated invention do you still use?

So I'm going to chat a little bit, because

you mentioned I buy shiny new things all the time.

How about shoes and clothes?

Does that count?

It does.

It's an old intervention.

Nothing's changed in it.

My style has not changed at all, ever.

I don't buy new clothes.

I wash them, but I don't buy new ones.

I'm going to do my usual.

Why must you needlessly complicate everything?

I think when you hear my story, you will see

why shoes and clothes are okay.

Watching our kids in school, I love to see what they're

studying and how they're doing it, things like that.

When I was their age, I loved science class

and all things science.

One of my favorite topics was simple machines, the wheel,

the incline plane, the wedge, things along those lines.

I remember having to write this whole thing of how they

take in simple machines and turn them into tools that

we use every single day.

One of my favorite things to do is to cook.

I love...

It's a stress reliever for me.

Sunday afternoons, I'll make a big dinner for

family and stuff like that.

My antiquated invention is simply just a simple machine,

the wedge that is my knife.

Oh, my.

It's my knife because all it is is a

wedge that they've ground down so I can chop things

and do stuff like that.

I try and tell that story to my kids and get them all excited

about simple machines, and they don't care one bit whatsoever.

They will.

Someday.

Wow.

That was such a...

Terrible, horrible story.

No, it was very...

I don't know, elegant and deep.

Deep thoughts by Josh Bretl.

Good for you, good question.

Dave, I'm going to see what you got here.

Dave relates to retirees.

this is a tough one.

I'm curious as to where you're going to go with this.

The episode, the theme of it, you play

it off as it was going to be kind of fluffy, like the

dreams, strategies, and tools.

Not a super uplifting, upbeat topic, so it is a

little bit of a struggle.

But I'm going to say this.

This is how I can relate to retirees.

I talk a lot about high school in the nineties.

We all know that, I talk basketball in my glory days.

Seeing Landon play basketball, he's pretty darn good.

I don't know if I told you, the other day, he dropped

22 points back to back.

I love watching him.

Wow, he's a combination of me and Carla.

I want to live long enough to see him score more than

25 points in a high school game, which is my career high.

That's what I want to do.

Is that okay?

Yeah, that's a goal.

We're assuming, of course, he

chooses to play basketball.

We've talked about this before in a very

early episode, you love to keep stats for games,

and you had ridiculous stats for your own game.

I think even for us, you would keep stats

somehow during the game.

You're already keeping stats for your six year

old, seven year old.

Sorry, Landon, if you're seven now.

He's seven.

Which is funny.

To the point where I corrected his coaches.

They're like, "Landon had 18."

I'm like, "No, he didn't."

I apologize to any of Landon's

coaches in the future.

It was against Glenbard West by the way,

where I dropped 25 at home.

He's seven.

In 10 years, he will be in high school and have the chance

to play varsity basketball.

10 years from now, you'll be in your early fifties.

Yup!

I'm a little curious.

I'm going to encourage our clients to live into their

nineties or their hundreds, this happy, healthy life.

Where I'm going to take this is actually back to the freedom

mentality, where you have the ability to do what you want

to do when you want to do it.

Right now, you are so driven by watching your kid do something

you love, which is awesome.

I totally get that with you.

I love doing that myself.

But there will be a point when you're going to want

to do something else.

Finding that purpose is going to be a key.

After Landon graduates from high school...

At the ripe age of 54.

He blows your record out of the water.

That's not an easy thing to do, coming up with that new

purpose, that new mentality.

But when you have it and combine it with some excellent

planning, you can enjoy living longer, healthier, with enough

money, and have that purpose.

Full House music.

You talking now, I maybe want to revisit my answer

to the card because there is something that is old that I

still love dearly, arcades.

You do.

Good old retro pinball and good

old 8-bit video games.

There you go.

Man, Dave.

But I wouldn't have been able

to do that without your Full House moment, Josh.

I'm glad I could provide some sort of value here.

You always provide value.

You mentioned the episode was a little

Debbie Downer-ish.

I apologize for that.

We're going to have it.

It's going to happen.

But I actually think it's really cool,

it's an important thing, and it's something that,

again, with a little bit of work, it can be the best

thing that happens to you.

Then that ends on a positive note.

I'm also thinking in the future, we're going to have Puddin'

Cakes eventually in the office.

I'm going to hold you to it, new studio, new snacks.

Think we can talk Market Day into lowering

their minimum for shipping?

It's doubling down on the cost of Puddin' Cakes.

Or just get one of our kids' schools to actually

have Market Day there again.

I don't know why they don't do that anymore.

Seriously.

That was the best.

I don't know.

Dave, for this episode, I was going to hope people could go

to Apple Podcast and give us a rating and some comments.

That helps our podcast grow, it helps other people find

our show, and it makes us get inspired to bring more

wonderful episodes like this.

I agree.

Also, I want to let people know you do not have

to type out a review.

You can simply just leave a star review and hit submit.

You do need to have an Apple ID to do it, but most people do.

But yes, please, that helps us out a lot.

Plus more people that review it, Apple's like, "Oh, Josh and

Dave, let's show their podcast's up in the featured list.

More people are going to want to hear this."

who wouldn't want to hear this?

Let's be real, Missy and Carla.

That's our wives.

What?

Oh, man.

So Deb, I hope you're doing well.

We wanted to end this episode with a special note to you.

It goes something like this.

Bye.