How to Be Truly Wealthy in Your 50s

Let's talk about how to be wealthy in the fifties because in your fifties, you know, we talk about in the thirties, life begins coming at you fast. Well, in your fifties, the next phase begins coming at you fast and retirement is upcoming and empty nesting is upcoming and there's a lot of stuff that's changing. So it's a pivotal decade to make sure that you have dotted all the I's and crossed all the T's. Let's talk about this. I mean, in your twenties and thirties, I think you are in warrior mode. You're trying to conquer the world. It's in your forties. You get somewhat sentimental. You start realizing, Hey, maybe there's more to life than just conquering and building only. And then it's in your fifties. I'm just here to tell you mortality definitely enters the equation where you start realizing, oh my gosh, um, a lot of time has gone by. It seems like it went a lot faster than I thought, but the good news is you're still young enough. You can enjoy it, but it does lead to this, this, this great German proverb that says when wealth is lost, nothing is lost because let's face it. We don't get to take any of this with us, but when health is lost, everything is lost. And guys, that's why you probably noticed. I see it in the comments. People notice that I've lost weight and other things is that y'all know I've lost my father when he was 55 years old. I'm soon. I'm in my early fifties right now. I'm having a blast and I want to make sure that I'm able to make as many memories as possible, continue to create content with you guys for as long as possible. And I realized that just like I've had to practice discipline and deferred gratification with my financial decisions, guys don't sleep on the health is wealth also, because there's no point in having all this money and exercising all this deferred gratification and having all this discipline only to get to the stage and the station of life where you can finally begin enjoying some of the fruits of your and you neglected the one thing that matters in order for you to be able to take advantage of it. So you want to make sure that as you're in this stage, as you're in your fifties, you're making decisions now, just like your 20 year old self was making decisions for your future 50 year old self. You want your 50 year old self to still be making decisions for your future 70 year old self. And if you can begin to do that and begin to frame it that way, you're going to find a lot more enjoyment and a lot more fulfillment in the years that you have ahead of you. And another thing that we recognize, and again, it's not so much this idea of sentimentality like it was in your forties, but it's more this reality that when you think about money, Henry Ford said, money doesn't change men. It doesn't change who you are. It merely unmasks you. It begins to reveal the true things about you. And we talk all the time that when it comes to wealth building, the sort of these three distinct phases, we like the make wealth phase where you're in the early stages beginning to build it. And then you move into kind of the maintain phase where you want to make sure that you are maintaining your wealth. But there is a third stage that we hope most people aspire to. And that's where you get to that stage where you actually get to begin multiplying your wealth. This is the stage where you look, I look at wealth as an amplifier. It's exactly what Henry Ford was talking about as those who are selfish and greedy and doing things poorly when they're broke or probably going to act the same way and be those unfortunate, wealthy people. We're trying to help you get outside of that and be the best version of yourself with this amplifier of what money does for you. And when we talk about multiply your wealth, we want you to be generous. We want you to be focusing on what's legacy, what are your passions, make sure you're not skipping out on estate planning, but also making sure that you're very generous, not only with your time, but also with your resources, because that stuff matters. If you want to know what creates a life well lived, it's not only how big is your net worth statement, but it's also what's the impact of those that are in your life and surrounding you. I think you're going to find out that a lot of times, yes, money can help, but a lot of times who you are as a person is going to be amplified and shown by what your actions and your behaviors are too. Well, because true wealth, actually being wealthy is the freedom to focus on those exact things. What are the things that actually matter to you? What are the things you want your money to be able to allow you to do? How do you put yourself in a position where you get to do what you want, when you want, how you want, with who you want, the way you want, for the reasons that you want. That's what true wealth is, and it's beginning to understand that. I think your 50s is where you begin to get a lot of clarity around those options. Then we put one, I think this is a good exclamation point to close out your 50s. It's also a great time to be completely debt free. You guys know in my own journey, I was pretty debt free on car loans and all that stuff, but paying off that low interest mortgage, it came to the point where it even didn't matter I've had a low interest rate. It was just at the point now where I want to own my life without obligations. Being debt free, and we've often talked about this, post 45, your wealth multiplier is not what it was. That's why there's a time and a place. When you're younger, yeah, get out there and let's make sure that we are working on make the wealth phase. Then in your 40s, you're going to be in the maintain. There's nothing wrong within this multiply wealth. Let's pay off the debt. Let's be generous. Let's let the money be an amplifier of who we are as individuals. So what does it look like by the end of your 50s? If you're doing this right, you've likely got a paid off home, or you at least have the ability to pay off all of your debt. You've begun thinking through the multiply wealth behaviors, how you're going to use your dollars to not just affect your life, but also the lives of others around you. And you've recognized some fun portfolio markers. If you're just sort of thinking about a standard regular retirement, you'd likely want to have a liquid portfolio value equal to about 13.7 times your annual income. Or if you're thinking about leaving the workforce at the end of your 50s, you might want to target a portfolio value somewhere around 22.9 times your annual income in order to have an 80% income replacement ratio.