#126 Choosing Your Perfect Retirement Date: The Ultimate Checklist

Micah Shilanski 00:00
Welcome back to the Plan Your Federal Retirement podcast. I’m your hoast, Micah Shilanski, and today we wanted to talk about, you know, we talked about so much logistics and getting ready to retire sometimes we forget. To talk about that exciting next chapter of your life and what to do in retirement. So we brought a special guest with us that has a lot of experience on both sides of this equation, none other than my father, Floyd Shilanski. Papa son, what’s going on? Good

Floyd Shilanski 00:23
Morning, son, how you doing? We’re doing great, great, great topic, great subject, and you know, with this major transition of people, my age group, anyway, the boomers and all making this transition into retirement. Great topic right now, getting people ready. Get it on the mindset, get them to think about what is next, the next chapter of your life, if you will.

Micah Shilanski 00:44
Yeah, so much uncertainty, you know, going on, and that’s that is a consistent thing. There’s always a lot of uncertainty kind of taking place, but one of the things that I think is really important is, even though everything is out there, there’s that uncertainty, we need to be able to draw things back to, what can we control? What things can we do, and how do we help best, you know, plan for the future and how to put all those things together, so again, we have a lot of podcasts talking about preparing for retirement, but pops, I’d love to chat and kind of pick on some of your knowledge that you have about after people have retired, what are some pitfalls, what are some traps they fall into, and, you know, the financial stuff is a different pod we could talk about, but what’s some of the emotional stuff, what some of the planning stuff, etc? Because going from working 40, 50 you know, hours a week to all of a sudden being retired can be a hard switch for some people to flip

Floyd Shilanski 01:33
100%, you know, you and I have been seminars together so long, you know, I, as you mentioned that I think in that story that we had up in Eagle River. Oil guy, standing about six, eight, married to this short, petite, little blonde, came to the seminar while wearing stilettos, and when Mike and I do a program, we always ask, when are you going to retire? And the guy raises his hands, and I said, great, and he gave me the date, it says, what are you going to do the day after? He says, Floyd, not a problem, I’m going to be standing on the old course. Now, if you’re not a golfer, you won’t know what that is, but that’s in Scotland. I’m going to be teeing up about the time and launching as all my compatriots are going to work, and his wife rocked back in that chair, crossed her arms and says, the hell you are. We’re not going blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and Micah had to get up and say, hey guys, once you walk outside and finish this conversation. Well, the day he did retire, we did get a postcard from him, and he was teeing off, and it was on a cruise ship, some place where it was a lot warmer than Scotland. Point being, if you’re ready to retire, have you talked to your spouse? When’s the last time such a good one you were together? 24/7, round the clock all the time when, you know, when you go to work and we raise a family and our lives cross. You know, those of you that are hockey moms or soccer moms or soccer dads or hockey you know, how do you balance the schedule? Who’s going here, who’s going to do what? And hopefully on the weekend you’re able to get together, but all of a sudden, that’s gone. All of a sudden, you may be an empty nester, and it’s 24/7 is your spouse ready to retire? And then, you know, depending on your job, you go from there he goes to who was that so reverence, if you will, getting ready, getting your head psyched, and the other thing, son, as you well, know, you know, the first year, I don’t worry a lot about it, honestly, because there’s honeydews and there’s travels, and we’re relocating all these things. But after that first year, things may start to slow down, and then what do you do?

Micah Shilanski 03:39
You know, pulling on the thread pops about, you know, when’s the last time you spent, you spent 24/7 with your wife, and it’s more than just, oh, we went on this vacation last year. Vacation doesn’t count, right? Everyone is in a different mode for for vacation. This is day to day living. What is that going to be like? What things are you going to be doing again that first year? You’re also setting some habits in that, right? So we generally don’t have too many cognitive, mental issues, etc. So there could be some right, when the relevance side of it, right, it says, you know what I used to be, you know, an executive at work, and now I come home and and I’m the dishwasher, right? I is not the standard dishwasher, yeah, yeah, yeah, so sometimes there can be a little bit of that, and that’s not a bad thing, by the way. Not trying to pick on either side of this. It’s this is something you might have to deal with, what’s your plan to deal with it? Because the worst thing you want to do is retire and have this hit you in the head with a two by four, so I like to see the agendas, the plans, the bucket list of items that clients are going to do, so even that first year, right? You could be super excited, there’s a lot of things, but once that first year comes to an end, what habits did we put in place? Now, a little bit on the financial side is bad habits that can be put in place to say, my God, this is, you know, the only opportunity I’m going to have to do this, it’s a once in a lifetime. Anytime I hear that, I’m like, all right, the client is just justifying spending a lot of money, that’s all, that’s all this is right now, maybe true, maybe not, but we’re going to, be spending a lot of money. What I worry about is how many of those once in a lifetime events come up all of the time and now blow our retirement budget. So we got to be looking this reason pops it in here on the same page. We love to start this several years in advance. What does retirement look like? What are the things you’re going to want to do? Let’s start living on those retirement dollars today so we know what it’s going to be like.

Floyd Shilanski 05:21
You know, Micah, as we talk free there, we don’t want to get into the financial side. But, you know, three to five years out, and how do you get ready for that, I agree 200%, but the other side of it is, is the old day timer, if you will. I know you’re digital, we had a conversation about my role at my rolodex, and Micah puts up his Rolex, you know, and different mindsets, different groups, but, but the thing to think about is, I’d like to, here’s what I tell my clients, write it down, I’m going to get up at this time, I’m going to do this, I’m going to write it, see it all right, and plot out the next 345, years. I’m a huge believer in a five year plan, and every year that you finish one, you add one, whether it’s travel or whatever you’re going to do, all right? And then let’s budget into it. Let’s set aside a travel budget, let’s set aside these things, all right? And it’s not just one side. It has to be both, all right. It has to be the husband and the wife, all right, and then you need to put kids in there, because there’s birthdays, there’s anniversaries, there’s holidays, grandkids, grand, great grandkids that change your life.

Micah Shilanski 06:24
I was like, that’s a nice thought that you put kids in there, but the kids are irrelevant, come on, it’s all about the grandkids for you guys, we know better.

Floyd Shilanski 06:30
You have too, so that’s a true statement, all right, it’s family, right? We’ve had clients that their families in Alaska, and they relocate to Phoenix or Galveston or San Antonio or someplace, and they anticipate the kids to keep coming. And then what happens after maybe the first year? What happens when some of the newness wears off, or the kids get high school or go to college, and then they start to deviate, and all of a sudden, grandparents find themselves, perhaps lonely, missing those kids. These are and again, the family issue plays huge in this, you know, and Mike and I aren’t psychologists or clergy people, by all means, but I will tell you though they are those days I’m wearing the cross or the collar or I need my white jacket on because it is psychological, it’s not just money, what are you going to do, where are you going to go, where are you going to live? All these things after work, in 20, 30, 40, years, you’re going to change. You know, when you were talking about, you went from who, who to whatever, you know, we have a mutual friend in DC, and he went to a very high level job, and he had security people pick him up at the house, and the first morning, if you know who I’m talking about, you know, the first morning he walks out of the house feeling really good, you know, and he walks down to the staff car, and they open it up, and his wife opens the door and says, honey, don’t forget to take the trash out. Put things kind of in perspective, if you will, and those are mental things we’ve just got to go through so that three to five years, let’s start talking about it, you’re going to relocate, phenomenal, where you going to go? I don’t know. Well, three to five years out, let’s take a holiday and go look. Let’s go find this area, and when you find a place that you think, this is my retirement heaven, rent a place for a year, rent, make sure.

Micah Shilanski 08:15
Such a good advice.

Floyd Shilanski 08:16
Yes, you got a 30 you got three weeks, five weeks, six weeks. Break it up over the next year or two. Go drop in, stay there, go to church, find out the Elks, the moose, the lodge, the Rotarians, whatever you want to do, how do you fit into it? And why is that so important? Because people retire sometimes in clicks, whether it’s political, whether it’s religious, can you enter that? Can you break into that to become part of it, and that’s all that relevance, again.

Micah Shilanski 08:43
Such a good thing, right there, right about looking forward, right? And where do I want to be, and I love to pull that thread a little bit more, and we talked about it before, in the pod you rent when you move to a place, right? Because vacation, everything will be great, little things don’t bother you, because you’re there for two weeks and you’re in vacation mode, and you know, in in two weeks you’re going home, versus when you live there, it’s a different story, so moving and renting is a great thing to do to really get a sample see, is this where I want to be? Is this not where I want to be? Other thing that’s inside of there is it’s going to give us this aspect of, you know, trying before we buy. Especially we want to move International, there’s a lot of things that go into that. Then also thinking about, if we’re going to move, you need to move before we have to move, so that sometimes we get caught up with that, people like, hey, I don’t need to move just yet, I’m going to wait until I’m older. You know, when is older? The older is not a date, by the way, older is just sometime in the future when I think I’m older, right? That’s what that is, it’s a moving target. When I’m older I’m going to move. okay, great, well, when is that? So we want to stay in Alaska as long as we can, awesome, I love the state as well, but maybe your family’s in lower 48 and says, okay, great, when you decide to move down there, if you wait till your 80s and you have mobility issues, this is a much different life, how are you going to connect, who’s going to be your circle of friends, how are you going to get engaged in the community when you’re starting to have mobility issues, it’s going to be a lot harder. So we’re a big fan of saying, hey, if you wanted to make that move, make it before you have to make it, make it when you want to make it. You know, Micah, I got a new acronym for you, OMY, oh my, that means one more year, and then I’ll make that decision. That’s right, it’s always one more year, it’s not this year, it’s one more year, and, you know, we’re going to do A, B and C, we’re going to get this done. We’re going to going to move on, and I get it, these are big decisions, and I don’t want to make light of it, but the time is going to come, so if we’re thinking about it, we might need to accelerate that a little bit more, and pops, I love your thought about, you know, that travel plan, about saying, hey, maybe we just go rent a place for a good while in that location, see how we can build a community. Whether you are close to retirement or planning for it years out, one of the top questions that I get is Micah, how do I fill out my retirement forms and not make any mistakes? This can feel a bit complex and overwhelming, and I understand that you’re making some pretty serious decisions that’ll affect you for the rest of your retirement, our how to fill out retirement forms series is your ultimate companion to navigating these forms. You are going to learn how to avoid common mistakes. You’re gonna learn how to fill these forms out correctly and even save money in the process, we will walk you through the most important steps so you can safeguard your financial future. Sign up today for this video series at planyourfederalretirement.com/retirementforms, that’s planyourfederalretirement.com/retirementforms. Don’t let the paperwork stand in the way of your retirement. Let us guide you through it, step by step. Until then, happy planning!

Floyd Shilanski 11:39
And here’s what we know, you know, after doing this for 45, 50 years, is just crazy time, but I know this, when my retirees leave or retire, they’re going to go build their dream home, and then they they’re looking for it, they can’t find it, then they’re going to construct it fine, and when I tell them, when you retire, this is your first of the next four moves.

Micah Shilanski 12:00
No way that can’t be the case, right?

Floyd Shilanski 12:02
Well, you’re going to build it too big, you’re going to build it with all the stuff that you didn’t have while the kids are growing up, and 3, 4, 5, years down the road, you’re going to go, why am I bouncing around this 5, 6 thousand square foot home, we need to downsize. So that’ll be that move. All right, so it’s from resort living, whether it’s on the beach or golf course, and then it’s a downsize, all right, so that’s move number two. All right, move number three is, gee, we’re getting older 80, 85 where the kids at? Well, you know, it’s a good, long day’s drive. It’s a two day drive. So what do you do? You move closer to that one child or that family that will you think is going to be around to help you, mow the lawn, clean the house, and so on. And what’s the fourth move, either in the basement with their home or to a nursing home? You know, no one wants to hear that. I’ve lived it with my mom and dad, and Micah, you saw your grandparents go through it, and this is personal, and you know, we’ve helped hundreds and hundreds of hundreds of people retire, and I’m going to tell you we’re 98% accurate when we say that the last house is not the last house. It’s a transition, and we don’t think about that. You know, today we have a friend on the East Coast, and one of the least was at least expensive places for long term care is is it’s in Georgia anyway, and people are moving parents there because the cost of long term care is so expensive, especially on the West Coast, especially in Alaska.

Micah Shilanski 13:24
Now our upper east coast is really expensive.

Floyd Shilanski 13:26
Oh yeah, so they find this place that’s, quote, affordable, all these things. So I know you don’t want to hear this, but Micah and I tell our clients all the time, instead of buying, perhaps instead of buying Long Term Care, insurance, is that we take one or two year premiums and make the house you’re going your retirement home to age in place.

Micah Shilanski 13:46
Pops, I think that’s a that’s a must, right there is, you know what is going to cost a nursing home, 10, $12,000 a month, okay, then a 20, 24,000 bucks. Bring someone in who specializes in aging at home, and have them go through your house, not you, because you’re going to think you did everything and really didn’t do it right, but bring someone else in and actually spend the money. Because what’s one of the leading causes for entering a nursing home is accidents. Okay, where do most accidents happen? At the home, okay, great, how do we just reduce that level of risk? Because with risk, you have all these different things, you can avoid it, you can transfer it, you can retain it, or you could reduce it. Okay, well, if I’m getting older, right, and I know I’m going to have certain things, how do I help reduce my risk? Well, one on one, is strength training. One of the things that comes out again and again, oh yeah, you’re looking at me, pops, I’m talking to you, we’re doing this. Strength training is a really important thing, especially as we get older, and that reduces our risk of having to go into a nursing home, or at least delays that potential. So there’s little things that we can do in our life as we’re aging that makes such a significant impact in the quality of life that we’re going to have.

Floyd Shilanski 14:52
There’s two phases of that, get the camera right, two phases of that right. There’s cognitive and there’s physical. We all know the physical and we think the cognitive just kind of unfolds, if you will. But study after study after study today is talking about excess sugar, all right, and the diabetes side as being a precursor to dementia or Alzheimer’s, all right, so with all these studies, and I don’t know if it’s right or wrong, but you know what I think I’m going to reduce? Well, we already started reducing our sugar content, because even if it’s not right, it’s good for us.

Micah Shilanski 15:22
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. When I was raising my kids and they were young, you gave me so much crap about reducing their sugar intake, like again and again and again and again, I feel I’m just needing to air some grievances on this podcast right here and so, but now you’re moving to reducing the sugar, is that what I’m hearing?

Floyd Shilanski 15:42
I don’t think I said that, did I rewind?

Micah Shilanski 15:46
No, all right, all jokes aside, but yeah, I think these are really good things, right? And pops, I love your point. Do we know this is the one thing? No, but the important part is taking action and moving on these things for the quality of life, money is an important part, and we have so many other pods that talk about this, but this one’s really on the quality of life side of it, what are you going to be doing to maintain that quality of life? Mobility is another really big one with seniors, right? What are you doing for stretching, for strength training, like, how can you make sure boy, I remember class years ago on working with with seniors, and was talking about car accidents, it was like I didn’t even think about this at the time, and it was like, when do most seniors get into car accidents backing up? And the guy was like, Why do you think that is? And then he did a physical motion, and a lot of seniors cannot physically turn their head and look behind them. Now, today we have these amazing cameras in cars, which is another discussion, does your car have that or not, but the mobility side, can you turn your head behind you and see what’s behind you when you’re driving? If you’re not okay, we’re at our increased risk of getting into an accident, so all of these things compound, and it sounds like a lot, but if we start moving on them a little bit at a time, just like the best way to eat elephant, right? One bite at a time, and we want you to have a long, healthy retirement, want you to do the things you want to do, want you to enjoy the life that you save so long to go and enjoy and you got to be able to have some basic physical strength abilities, etc, to be able to go do that.

Floyd Shilanski 17:08
You know, it’s I think about the demographics, for years, I was on dense board as your Harry S,as you know, was on his board, and all built around demographics, and the demographics we talked about four years ago, we’re living today, and I just read an article dealing with Social Security. I guess the last of the baby boomers, the trailing edge of the baby boomers, turned 65 or 66 this year, so the Medicare costs and the social security stuff starts to ratchet up. I mean, all those things 40 years ago, we talked about, but they, you know, yeah, sure, that’s down the road, and all of a sudden, you know, Micah, I was talking to a client yesterday. He said, You know, I started part time with the feds, you know, working for one of the agencies, and now I’m full time, never expected to be here. He says, on the 1st of March, I’ve been here 30 years, yeah, you know, and it’s like, it happens like that, and when we’re young around we yeah, anyway, so we can go on and on and on about that, you know, and in the pods, Micah says there’s, there’s tons of stuff talking about investments and spending and cash flow and all right, but we don’t, sometimes advisors don’t spend enough time about quality of life, what does that truly me, all right, you know, you’re sitting with a clock. I’m sitting with someone that’s got, you know, a couple million dollars equity in a house, you know, you say that’s a lot of money, but fine, they sell it, take the profit, pay the taxes, they’re going to go buy something else, guess what the price tag is going to be? Yeah, a couple million dollars. It’s adjusting that the way that we need to do things that we try to look out over when you’re so close to something, we get our we get our blinders on, we see what we want to see, we don’t see what peripheral out there is affecting us, and that’s the nice part about having a third party advisor, you know that loves you, but not that much, so that they can be a little more perspective.

Speaker 1 17:27
I would phrase it, but okay, but yeah, but really open to that bigger perspective and pops one of the reasons I love the reasons I love having you on the podcast, and you know, we jokingly say my sister and I that you can’t retire. It’s only half joking, all right, because we love keeping you engaged, but one of the things is you also just a phenomenal job working with clients, and so your quote, transition into retirement has been this kind of nice part where, you know you can take and you can still work and do the things you want to do see your clients accept clients, etc, and you and mom still have a lot of time to travel, and so the reason I bring that up to our listeners is saying, hey, there’s more than just one option, the option, you know, isn’t hey, it’s either like full retirement or not at all, whether it’s moving to a second career, moving to part time, ehat is that guy’s name, from strength to strength, Russell, something other Brooks, Russell Brooks wrote, from strength to strength.

Floyd Shilanski 19:41
I know the book, right, yeah.

Micah Shilanski 19:42
But basically, what he talks about is when you move from one phase of your life to the other, and he talks about the way the brain changes, etc, but also staying engaged. So it’s really good things to think about as we’re thinking about retiring, so often, from the feds, we say, hey, I’m retiring and I’m done, and you know what? If that’s your mindset and that’s what makes you happy, and you got finances to do it, then rock on, more power to you, but we also work with people, it says, Micah, I’m not done, like I might want to change, I might want a reduction in work, but I’m not done. Well, if mentally you’re not done, then don’t stop, right? Just because your job may change at the feds, maybe you need to go somewhere else as a second career, but this, you need to go from your strength to your strength to your next thing, but having that cognitive awareness of saying, hey, I still have more to give is really important to keep going.

Floyd Shilanski 20:27
You know, Micah, when you said that this, we had this client that moved to Carolina out of, you know, Alaska, and he was executive both in the feds, and then he took a second job in another executive level position and a fortune 500 company, snd then he retired. They did their travel and, you know, and he did his social thinker community things, snd he called about a year ago and says, you know, I’d like to get involved with startup companies. So my first mental set was, okay, here comes someone wanting to invest in something.

Micah Shilanski 20:53
Yeah, exactly.

Floyd Shilanski 20:55
I got so much knowledge I want to help, so I put him together with someone so that they can do the young YPO, Young Presidents Organization, so he come in, doesn’t get paid, but he can say, look, great idea, here’s how we did it this way. Have you considered X, Y and Z and Chip Conley, he wrote that book on what is it your second phase, or mentoring? And he brings the people together, and that’s what he all talks about is that your next phase of life, you’re 66 you’re 70, you don’t have to quit, someone out there needs that brain power that you’ve got locked up in there, and be willing to share it, don’t you don’t have to get paid for it, be willing to share it, make the world a little better place, help someone along the road, and I think that’s, that’s the biggest calling we could have as retirees.

Micah Shilanski 21:44
I love it. You know, pops, I was having dinner with somebody yesterday, and he’s kind of third career, kind of phasing out and whatnot, but still doing it, but one of the things he told me was his mentor told him long time ago. He says, you know, your job is you kind of get more wisdom and you age and more experience is to always find a younger person, befriend them, learn from them, work with them, etc. They said it’s gonna be a two fold relationship. Number one, they’re gonna keep you in tune with the new things that are happening that you’re gonna miss, but number two, they need your wisdom, because even though things are different, they’re the same. And so, you know, we got 40 years of working in this, you have a lot of wisdom that you can share and help prevent a lot of problems that are out there, and I gotta say it’s 100% true, and so it’s always something to be thinking about, we’re moving to this next career, you got a lot of wisdom, you got a lot of experience, right? Who do you want to partner with, who do you want to mentor, who you want to go through that next level? It’s going to be a beautiful thing. All right, pops, so this podcast is all about action items for our listeners, and things to go and to do, and I want to say number one, regardless of where you’re at, whether you’re pre retirement mode or retired, well, you know, what is your your day look like in retirement, what does your week look like, what does your month look like, what are those big bucket list items, and when are they going to get done? It’s also really easy not to plan things and have life just fly right by.

Floyd Shilanski 22:33
As you talk about that, it conjures up, you know, thoughts and conversations we’ve had over the years with different people, but I remember someone said, you know, just recently, times have changed, you know, and it’s not the same. I go, okay, you may not remember this, but I was around when we had, we didn’t have a PDF transfer, it was called a fax mill machine, and faxes wait 45 minutes and pray that it came through. I remember our first computer, dial up, you know, and you hit the button, and you wait, and you wait, and then, you know, you hit the wheel of death Microsoft back then and all, but it’s still the same today. The difference is, is this technology has taken everything and rapidly exceeded it, right? Whether it’s whether it’s planning, uh, my, my dear wife, after 55 years and Micah’s mom, she spends half a day planning our next holiday, and it used to be with the travel agent, with the travel agent, with the travel agent. Now we use a travel agent, once you said, this is what I want make sure I’ve got it right, and we pay her differently. So travel agents were paid by commissions, wow we pay them by project. Things have changed, but they remain the same, and there’s still certain expertises that we need to have in your life, all right, snd with, you know, YouTube and Google this and Google that, it’s all fantastic, but sometimes we just need that human touch. Have you thought about? Yep, that’s right, I agree 100% but have you thought about this piece of it? And Google may not bring that piece to it. Just be interesting to see what a AI does this whole thing super fast, changes stuff, yeah. Oh, I don’t care. You know, we’ll figure it out tomorrow, until tomorrow comes, and then it’s like, huh? You drink a cup of coffee, you read the newspaper, do the crossword puzzle, what are you going to do today? I don’t know, what do you want to do today? You think your mom and I have had that conversations a couple of times? Of course, we have, right? But it’s that structure, and that’s, you know, we can be loosey goosey, but it’s still the structure, and I like get you know, in the military, we had people retired, ROAD, we call them road guards, retired on active duty. Well, for the next two or three years, that’s kind of what we’re going to be doing, you got your job to do, but you need to plan out the next three, four or five years. Micah and I know this. For the first 18 months, it’s going to go like this, and then you go to overspend, and someplace 12 or 13 months, we need to be trending down, and then that trending down is I want to see the bucket list, I want to see what’s next, my conversations, my clients, where you been, what’s going on, how’s your cash flow? Not and today is, how’s your cash flow, are we saving enough, where you’ve been, how’s your health? Then we’ll talk about cash flow, and then we plot things out, so when it comes time to take that holiday, to go do these things, you go, yeah, we can do that, and you know, I always ask my client or what’s the major expense coming up? I’m gonna buy a new bicycle, a couple 100 bucks, 1000 bucks. Okay, all right, I’m gonna go trip around the world. Okay, now we’ve already budgeted for it, right? Now, this is a win, we just thought about it last night. Okay, now pull the spreadsheets out where we’re gonna find the money for it. Plot it out, right out, this is what I’m gonna do when I retire, this is my day, is how it’s gonna look, these are my holidays, these are the high priority things, these are I really wanna do, but I’m not sure yet, and have conversations with the spouse, make sure you’re talking with the spouse, and if the kids are close by, like in my our family, make sure there’s a conversation so everyone is on tune as we start to do these things.

Micah Shilanski 26:21
Awesome! Pops, thank you very much for joining us, you have a lot of wisdom to share with our audience that I really appreciate it. You know, take control of your retirement, making sure you guys are listeners out there, planning things, taking care of things, you have some phenomenal opportunities and great benefits and until we meet again, Happy Planning!

Floyd Shilanski 26:36
Happy planning, guys. Bye.