Ep 151 | The Hidden Perks of Starting Late for Retirement Success

You might think you’re behind, but what if I told you that starting late for retirement actually gives you an advantage? By your 40s and 50s, you’ve built wisdom, clarity, and life experience that your 25-year-old self simply didn’t have. That means the money decisions you make today are smarter, more intentional, and more powerful.

If you’ve been worried that you’re “too late,” this episode will show you how your late start is actually the exact boost you need to create the retirement you’ve always dreamed of.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

✅ Why your late start comes with built-in advantages

✅ The clarity you have now that your younger self did not

✅ How to apply life lessons to your retirement plan

✅ Practical ways to use your experience as leverage

✅ The first step to turning your late start into a retirement win

💜 Book your free Retirement Ready Q&A Call

💰 Join the Retirement Ready Workshop

✨ Connect with me on Instagram

Transcript

 Welcome to the episode and the second episode in the series about your late start getting started late. However, you're thinking about that starting later means you have clarity, resources, and life experience on your side, things that you did not have at the age of 25. So when you focus on what you can do now.

With all of those pieces, and we're gonna gather those pieces in this episode, you'll move further and faster because of those experiences. Let's start with what clarity do you have now? Identifying your advantage here, your late start advantage. What clarity do you have now versus your 25-year-old you?

Now think back to when you were 25. What were you doing? What was a highlight of the day or the week or the month, you may or may not have been a parent. You may or may not have been in college, 25 is a lot. It could be going on in differences for all you listeners, but I want you to think about you, you, yourself, at 25.

What did you know about money? What did you feel about money? And then what clarity do you have now? So to better help you define this, when you were 25 and it was payday, what did you do? Now, I described all sorts of different 25-year-old scenarios. Maybe you were like, I paid my bills, we were scraping by, we were newly married, I was in school, whatever it may be.

Maybe you were like, well, I was out partying with friends and I just was like, oh man, I can go fill up my car with gas. I can head out to this party, or whatever it may be. . That feeling you had. And what you specifically did on a payday with your money. Now, I want you to fast forward to today. When your paydays come, what do you think about, what do you do?

What challenges, what hurdles, and as you think about that, how do you. Handle money different than you would at 25 if you were dealing with the same situation. Okay. It now you're thinking, why is this important? Well, I want you to really see what 15, 20, 25 years has done and reflecting back to that age.

And thinking about now you see the growth, you see all that you've learned, and when you think about it, you are like, well, I'd rather have this than that. Whatever those two things are, you can begin seeing how your values show up. 25-year-old year, you was still trying to really. Blossom, figure out who they were, were are all those things.

But really from then till now, and if you reflect back, which I'm going to help you do that, you can start seeing your specific values with money. Now, if you've been here long enough, you know that I love talking about, you know, putting these values on your money, on your life. Basically on your life so that you can spend your money to support how happy you want to be.

I had a client. She was one of my low income earners, and when I first began working with her and looking at her situation, she was like, I, you know, I buy organic food. I buy, you know, specific specialty foods. I'm like, okay. And she says, and I buy nice clothing, like upper end clothing. I don't buy a lot, you know, and she didn't.

She didn't spend a lot of money, but she already had defined these two areas. This is, and I don't wanna forgive those. I don't wanna give those up. She says, I'm like perfect. Drawing the lines, having those values set helps an individual be able to take action easier. She was in a much better spending than some of my other clients, even earning more money.

She just needed to make sure she had enough money. That was where she needed my support and my help. My other clients who haven't figured this out yet, and I help them, those are exercises I walk them through. I work through them, helping them understand who they are with money better, but they continue to wrestle with thoughts of overspending or I'm bad with money.

Because they have not yet defined these values around their money, around their life, and essentially they're not happy about how they spend their money. As you begin to reflect and gain clarity on the growth you have had from 25 to now, and why do I keep bringing up 25? Typically that's when you're starting a career, you know, give or take, you've really surpassed.

College, all of those things. And you're, you're headed into that career, starting to get a little more serious about life. If you haven't already married, you're committing to something and really starting to feel this sense of I've gotta take care of myself. Recognizing from this starting point to now, you've learned a lot,

money is a part of every day, every week. Every month. The things you have learned are very, very important. Now the struggle is 'cause we are at this age, is to go back and remember. But that is what I plan to do and help you resolve. So how do you take this clarity and apply it to your money situation and retirement planning?

Well, it's time to start inventorying all of the things. Now, if you're somebody who has inventoried for a business, I'm sorry, but that's not what we're doing. Okay? We are going to make lists. I hope I have some list makers out there. It's very similar to like a pros and cons list, and I've taught my daughter from a very young age that this is how you make hard decisions.

When she comes to me with this decision now, she'll say, I've already got my pros and cons list. And so then we can talk through 'em. And so that's what I'm gonna guide you through in a sense to help you inventory your life experience with money. And the reason we are doing this, if you remember last episode, I said, you need to define your starting point.

Now, this is where we've gotta bring all of that knowledge, all of that experience, back to the forefront of our mind so that we truly know our starting point. What do I want you to do? I want you to dive into your past years and explore what you think and believe about money. Ultimately what worked and what didn't work.

I'm gonna walk you through this and I want you to continue this after this episode, but I'm gonna walk you through a couple of areas. Budgeting. Are you currently budgeting using a budget? I and I, again, this is just an inventory. Why or why not have you in the past, what worked, what didn't work? Why didn't it work?

And if something worked, what was it? Maybe you've just forgot, i've done this multiple of times and I'm like, oh my gosh, why do I forget that? That's the easy way of doing this. And so that is why I need you to do this exercise. We're gonna start with budgeting, what worked and what didn't work.

Spend some time going back through the years. And my guess is at a 25. Probably very few of you were budgeting. I know there's going to be some, and then you're like, okay. But yeah, over the years I've attempted budgeting. Well, what was that like? And really start thinking about it. Start there. Think about that exhaust, this category.

Then you're going to move into saving. Am I currently saving? How is that going? Where am I saving? Is that easy? Is it hard? Why haven't I been saving over the past years, because I know life happens. We've bought homes, we've bought cars, we've put kids through college, we've had life happen to us, having to tap into those savings or having those experiences, but I need you to write down what worked and what didn't work.

Okay? I am gonna sum this up with a pretty bow in just a minute. The next area I want you to inventory is debt. Now, debt I want you to think about is debt your best friend? And what do I mean by that? Do you run to debt, meaning your credit cards or a loan when something bad happens? Are you leaning on debt for every waking moment?

Are you constantly looking for that 0% interest For two years? I can go get it. Okay. And if you are, that's fine, but you need to inventory this. Or is that somebody that you really, when you retire, you want to leave behind like some of the coworkers you have, this is where you've got to explore. What have you learned from 25-year-old you, and maybe you did have your first loan before that, but what was that experience like as opposed to now?

What did you learn? What has helped craft a better way or what, and we've all had them, what was probably not the best loan to take out or the best step to take, or whatever it was. Remember, and this is not about judgment in this. This is just inventory, what worked and what didn't work, and the reason you are wanting to do this.

I'm gonna walk you through a few areas in just a minute, but the reason I want you to do this is, this is what I do for clients in my retirement roadmap session, is getting the clarity and understanding. I'm not going to create a budget for them if they already have one. That's just not something to do.

I don't need to recreate something if it's working, but if they're like, well, this is what I have, but, and then they give me, this isn't working, then I can focus on that. That is what I want you to do with this exercise. All right. Another area, well, other areas that are going to make retirement planning easier.

As you're older, as we are mature, as we have a wisdom, all of those things, they are good. You know your health so much better as you're approaching your fifties, your sixties, if you have a health concern, a health issue, and I'm sorry that's not good, but 25-year-old probably did not know about it, but you can plan and prepare for that now.

You also probably have a better idea of if you're gonna stay living where you're at or if you're going to end up following family somewhere else, or who do you even want spending time with you in retirement? We have so much more advantage because we are so much closer and we have learned so much.

I have, I just got off a podcast interview and she the Gen Xer as well, and she says, I am just ready to live life the way I want to, and that is what I'm wanting you to grab and those experiences and sift through and be like, these are the things I want to do. Okay. This is your late start advantage.

Going back, reviewing those areas and starting from what was working or getting rid of what wasn't. Let's not try it again. Let's not waste our time. And as you're going through this, if you're like, I just can't think of that, I'm not sure how to put this together, I'm, I don't know if I remember these experiences, and you want somebody to guide you through that.

And so would be a great subject for the clarity connection call. Let's spend 60 minutes in covering who you were at 25, 35, 45. We'll do it together. I'll walk you through it. I'll help you explore those pieces so that those memories can come back easier. Because I know there's been a lot that I'm like, I don't remember that.

I don't remember that. But hopefully speaking to somebody that will open up the, you know, get the juices flowing, open up the mind and be like, oh yes, I remember that. And Oh yes, I remember that. Just having somebody talk it out with you. If you're interested in that, head over to Elevate Finances us slash connection Schedule 60 minutes and let's dive into that.

If there's something else you wanna discuss, not this, we can do that as well. Be sure to schedule your call today. To recap this episode and what you ultimately need to do, okay, I am just gonna sum it up. I want you to inventory what worked and what didn't work with money in the last, however old you are to 25.

Okay. Budgeting, saving debt, all of the things maybe you've traveled, maybe travel you need to put on there, whatever it is. Anything money related, but I just getting you started with budgeting, saving debt, all of the things. Two columns, what worked and what didn't work. Free flowing thoughts. Let it pan out, and then you can better find your starting point.

Oh yeah. I remember when I was budgeting this way and it worked really well. I just needed to figure out this. And then you start there instead of, well, I gotta make a budget 'cause I don't have one. This is the recall and this is why it's important. And again, if you need help diving into it, be sure to book that call.

But also stay tuned for the next episode as I'm going to help you find quick wins to really put into action your quote, late start. We are not starting late. We have wisdom and we can take action next episode to get ourselves to retirement. I hope you'll tune in and if you missed last week's, it was part one.

Today is part two, and next week will be part three. We'll see you next episode.