Relationships and Retirement, What Happens When Work Ends?

If you could have a candid conversation with financial advisors who have decades of experience helping professionals, business owners, and families just like yours plan for their financial future, what questions would you ask? I'm Chip Munn, financial advisor, author, host, and CEO of Signature Wealth Group. For decades, my partners and advisory teams have had the opportunity to answer the tough questions for hundreds of our clients. Now we want to do the same for you. On the Signature Life Show, you'll hear answers to your burning and most perplexing finance, investing, and retirement questions from our Chief Investment Officer, Senior Wealth Advisors, Certified Financial Planners, and more. We aren't just financial advisors. We're parents, children, community leaders, and entrepreneurs with a passion for helping empower our clients to live life intentionally, what we call a Signature Life. John Tate, what's up, man?

Chip Munn, happy Friday to you, sir.

And happy Friday to you. You know, it's particularly a good Friday because as our listeners probably know, or if you're new to the show, John and I don't live in the same town. And so most of our relationship is via video and audio. But earlier this week, we actually got to spend a couple of days together. So it was nice getting to see you in person for a bit.

I agree. And I learned a few new things about you and all the other advisors we were able to be with. But one of the things I learned about Chip is that he cooks his eggs without butter or olive oil or any kind of, you know, grease in the pan.

So yeah, I'm a pretty simple guy. And conversely, Tate, I learned that you're quite the chef, so you know your way around the kitchen. So if anybody needs a private chef, hit me up and I will be glad to send you John's number. He is particularly astute at breakfast. That's his meal of the day, you know. And so, John, it was fun getting to spend time not only with one another but with other advisors. But one of the coolest things about that for me is we get to hear other people's stories, right? You and I have tons of experience, but one of the benefits of being part of a bigger group is you get to hear other people's stories and their clients' stories and things that they have had go on. And for us, that's perfect because it gives us great stuff to talk about.

Chip Munn: It does. And the topic today that we're going to touch on, which is you've got two people in a relationship and they have two different retirement dates. And it might sound uncommon. You might in your mind think, "Well, gosh, my spouse and I, or my significant other, are going to retire on the same time and have the same activities to do." And it's actually not that uncommon for spouses to retire at different times. Although, like I said, in your mind, you can think about it as a singular event. You know me, if we're researching something, I always find a survey to look at data on. But in this particular episode, Fidelity did a 2021 Couples and Money survey, and there were about 3,400 respondents. The things that they agreed and disagreed about had to do with money and their plans for the future. But one of the interesting notes on this particular survey is that almost half, 48%, disagreed on the age that they wanted to retire. So you have one spouse thinking they're going to retire at some age and the other one retiring at another age. And so it just brings about a scenario that can sometimes not fit in with what our mind has already decided might happen. You run into this in your line of work, Chip, or with your clients as well?

Chip Munn: Yeah, absolutely. And it's because it's a big disruption to some extent because Retirement's a major life change, particularly if you're talking about kind of that old school retirement, full stop, went to work on Friday and on Monday I'm on kind of that permanent vacation. It's a different ballgame, particularly if you're in different stages work-wise. And so I think that again, kind of the scenario that we were talking through this week, one of the spouses was a good bit younger, still working, working full-time while the other retired, and it brought about a lot of changes. I'm reminded, David, one of the advisors in our office, talks about his grandparents, and he said, I think his grandmother was either already retired or had worked from home, and his granddad was about to retire, and she said, honey, I love you, and I married you for better or for worse, but not for lunch. Find something to do. And so it's a scenario that we see play out. And so there are lots of different kind of changes that retirement brings. One of the first ones, John, is, I mean, if you just think about the course of the day, is the sleep schedule. Getting up. Yeah, most of us have a particular time during our work life that we go to bed and a particular time that we get up. And so one of the things that I find helpful, and this is true with financials. Again, because we talked about it in this group, that my preference is that we try to keep things as close as possible, at least early on, to the way that we were when we were working. I like to set people up with their retirement income checks or drafts from us at the same time that their paycheck used to be. I think the same thing's true for your sleep schedule, because I don't know about you, John, but I do stay up a little later on vacation, usually sleep a little later. But retirement is different from vacation in that it lasts indefinitely and potentially for the rest of your life. And so it's not the same. And so I think that for a lot of people, you know, sleep schedule is a big thing that you can see kind of change.

You can. And if you think about a relationship, a big part of being in a successful relationship over time is communication. And so the idea of having the same sleep schedule is that you both have the same times of day, so to speak, to communicate, to talk, share stories. Perhaps the person that was at work all day wants to talk about things that happened in the office to kind of get stuff off their chest or complain about one thing or another just to vent a little bit. And then the person that stayed home might want to talk about, "Hey, I did this on the golf course," or, "I did this in the backyard, this project that I'm working on. I had to go to the hardware store 4 times," or whatever it was. But I think it's important to keep those lines of communication open. And if you immediately start on a different sleep schedule, it can cause disruption to those kind of times that you would have normally done that had you both been working. And so that's probably one of the biggest negatives about changing a sleep schedule just because you're doing something different than your spouse. And so that's just something to keep an eye on. And the other thing that we heard some commentary on was household chores. And it's important to renegotiate household chores and not do it unilaterally. It's not as if the person that goes to work is all of a sudden expecting somehow the person that stays home all day to do all the household chores. You know, the working person doesn't get to decide for anyone else, but it is a good starting point to accept the differences in the new schedule. And the person that works just has to understand that because the person staying home It doesn't mean that they have an abundance of free time or that they just laying around on the couch all day, that kind of thing, which would mean that they get to do all the chores. It just doesn't work like that. One of the books I read recently, Agent U by Nicole Lynn, had an interesting story in one of the chapters about this particular thing. Because if you think about sports figures, especially NFL players, I mean, these folks retire from the NFL. Sometimes in their 30s, sometimes if you're like Tom Brady, you might retire in your 40s, but that's an extended period of time. And retiring for them means doing something different, but it probably has a different schedule than their spouse. And the story in the book went something like the working person would come home and her husband, instead of putting the dirty clothes in the basket by the laundry, would just drop the clothes on the floor in front of the washer or what have you and not put them in the basket. And she would come home and put the clothes in and get mad and upset about it. And finally, she just realized, if I just move the basket perhaps closer to the washing machine, would that help him just drop his clothes into the basket and I would stop getting mad about it? And the same thing would happen. And lo and behold, just moving the basket changed the whole situation, and she stopped coming home and being upset about having dirty clothes on the floor, and things worked out. So sometimes the idea is You got to drop your pride. You have to figure out what you can do to make the situation easier, lessen the chances of resentment, and just accept the fact that if you're asking somebody to do something that you would normally do, like load the dishwasher or vacuum the den or whatever it is, you just have to accept the fact that somebody else is going to do it a little differently than you might.

Chip Munn: Yeah. And let's be honest, who retires from work to do Sure. You know, it's not like, hey, I'll tell you what, I'm going to retire so that from now on I'm also going to do the half of the things around the house that you were doing. I mean, I don't think that that's something that somebody would normally just pick up on and expect, in part because the story that we were getting was now he or she is home all day, why can't you just wash the dishes? And I'm not saying that he or she shouldn't wash the dishes. I'm just saying that If it's something that you used to do, I think that you do have to really communicate about those things and just have a conversation. John, I don't think that anybody enters into these situations sometimes, and that's why we're talking about it now. I don't think that you think through some of these things. I talked to a business owner yesterday who had sold his business. I mean, it's only been 3 or 4 months, and he was talking about how he was helping his mom with something. He was keeping his grandkids. He was doing like all these different things. And he said, I don't know what these people did before we retired. And it sounds very similar to the comment that I get, which is, I don't know how I ever worked. So it's not as if most of the time folks are sitting around with nothing to do. And I'm sure in most relationships, people want to share the load. It's just like with a lot of these things that we're talking about, you just have to be deliberate. Intentional is a word I like to use. You have to be intentional about your communication. And just talk about these things. And another one of those things, John, can be just projects. So, it's not necessarily the routine, it's those projects that come up. And so, one of the things that people can do in order to help ease their way into or really just communicate in general better during retirement is to identify some of the projects that can be focused on during the week and just have a conversation about who's going to do what. Right.

You know me, my wife and I decided to buy a home that was built in the 1950s. And so when we moved in, and then the years following, we've had to hire many contractors to come over and do different things to the house. And how many times did you have to leave work or rearrange schedules or whatever it was to meet somebody at the house so that they could do work for you? Lining up, meeting, and working with contractors for a home project It's a full-time job depending on the size of the project. And so those are some of the things that you can do now that you're not working because you are at home. It might be a little easier to get some of those things done. And if you think about some of those projects and doing that, you're getting these things out of the way so that when both of you are retired at the same time, you're not doing those projects then. You can then focus on spending more time together and finding things fun to do with one another versus sitting at home and waiting for somebody to come install a screen door or a window or whatever it is. So those are the kinds of things you can do during the day. And that can also help you avoid what's called the home trap, where, like you said before, you don't know anybody that retires to do chores. And certainly after a life of alarm clocks, meetings, workday stress, there can be a period of time where it might feel comfortable and good to not have a whole lot to do. But settling into a sedentary lifestyle and not making some of those changes close to the beginning can affect you both physically and emotionally. And there's nothing worse than, in my opinion, I haven't experienced it yet, but to me, there would be nothing worse than retiring and having health issues that would keep you from doing the fun things that you would want to do when you and your spouse are retired together. So certainly, we're not here to lecture people. We're not telling you how to spend your time. But most of our clients find it helpful to spend their time with us in our meetings, not just talking about financial goal planning and strategizing and all that, but we work with them to help identify a purpose, a new identity. Your job's not your identity anymore. So let's help you find a new one. Let's identify some things that you're passionate about. Maybe it's a part-time job, or maybe it's a philanthropic effort that you've always wanted to do. One of my clients in the very beginning of my business, He retired from working at a bank and his wife decided to get a part-time job. And she was working at that part-time job and he was home for about 6 months. And he overheard his neighbors talking about him saying, "Oh yeah, he makes her go to work during the day so he can go play golf and do whatever he wants." And within 2 months, he had found a part-time job so that they were both still working and his neighbors couldn't talk about him. So whatever it is, we're here to help. And if we can set out and do those kinds of things with you, it can sometimes help you avoid the home trap and get off on a good foot.

Yeah, and the home trap's a real thing. I mean, there's plenty of research. In fact, I talked about it, John, in The Retirement Remix, my book, about the health issues that can come up as a result of the sedentary lifestyle. It's a real thing, and I think that's important. Now, also important to note, if your neighbors are going to talk about you, they're going to talk about you. So don't run out and get a job just so your neighbors are going to be satisfied. But it's certainly understandable, and it is One of those things that again can just be something else to think about. Again, going back to that situation, John, that you just talked about reminds me of David's grandparents, right? Where it's kind of like, I married you for better or worse, not for lunch. And if you're going to be here, I'm going to need a little bit of me time, even if that's at a job. And so you touched on so many things there in that home trap discussion, John, that it really is. For folks who are listening, um, this is a big part. I know you may not think of the traditional financial advisor as somebody who's going to talk to you about your passions and your purpose and finding these things, but frankly, that's what we're all about. The money is a means to an end. It's not the end. The end is having a good life that you're happy about and that you enjoy. And so while building your signature life plan is certainly going to be financial in nature, it's all designed— the, the whole purpose is for you to be able to live on purpose and to be intentional and to make sure that your money lines up with your life. You know, John, as we wrap up, you know, some of the things I think that are just kind of threads throughout this are the importance of communication. We have a lot of communication that we facilitate around money. But this is just another kind of step in that, is into the practical life. Honestly, patience and the willingness to figure things out along and along, and then kind of also honesty and just being willing to be— one of the new words or phrases that I heard recently was kind candor, and being willing to be kind but also be honest.. And I think that one of the things that we see, and you mentioned, I think resentment early on is that we see that folks who don't do that over long periods of time, whether it's about lifestyle or about money, certainly can cause trouble in relationships. And let's be honest, we didn't work our entire lives to save up a bunch of money to fight. And we'll have a guest on at some point. I've got a good friend. Who is a divorce attorney, not mine, but gray divorce, that's a whole nother topic that we can talk about another time, the growing divorce rate in folks who are kind of of typical retirement age. But being honest, having patience, communicating, John, I think can really alleviate a lot of those concerns.

And let's not forget, change is hard. I mean, change is exciting. I look forward to change. Sometimes it can bust us out of a rut that we might have been stuck in without knowing it or whatever. But it is difficult. It's always easy to remain in the path that we've chosen already. So it requires some planning most of the time. Take time to plan. You won't regret it. And some of these little changes, as long as you know they're coming and if we can help prepare you in any way, it can sometimes make it easier to make those changes before you get kind of set into a certain lifestyle. So that's what we're here to do. And if there's any way that we can help talk you through any of these issues and any others that you might come up with, we're happy to do it. And it's part of the normal strategy session that we go through with our clients every day.

Yeah, and if you know somebody who's recently retired having trouble with the adjustment, share this episode with them. Just send it on. Again, I think a lot of the topics that we talk about when we're less nuts and bolts money focused is intentional in terms of just wanting to facilitate Conversations, and perhaps this gives either you or somebody you care about a good topic starter to be able to have a conversation with somebody they love so that they can live their signature life. John, let's do it again next week.

I can't wait.

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