9 Financial Goals You Must Hit By 60

Hey there, real quick, before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience. Live it is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, Grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Are you in your 60s and feeling like you're behind on your financial journey? Now, if you're not in your 60s, before you turn this off, I want to make sure that you stay with me, because some of the things that I'm going to talk about will apply to you no matter age, stage, or circumstances. Listen, maybe you didn't start saving early enough or life just threw you some sort of curveball that was unexpected. Now you're wondering, is it too late to catch up. Well, if that's you, this episode is exactly what you need, because I'm gonna break down the nine financial goals you need to hit by your 60s to create security, to create freedom and a life that you deserve. Whether you're ahead, whether you're on track, or you're just starting right now, you're gonna learn how to make the most out of your time, the time that you have, and to take control of your financial future. So no matter where you're starting from, you have a chance. All right? It may not be easy, but it doesn't mean it's impossible.

All right? So if you're in your 60s, I'm in my 60s, I'm 63, going to be 64. But no matter where you are, if you're feeling like you're not where you want to be financially, you're not alone. Maybe. Maybe it's because you didn't start early enough. Maybe it's because you don't even know where you need to go or life threw you some curveballs. So I want you to know that no matter where you are, whether you're ahead, whether you're on track, whether you're starting late, I'm going to give you the nine actionable financial goals that you need to hit and focus on as you head into your 60s, okay? Now, if you're not in your 60s, these goals and things are still things that you need to focus on as you move towards it. So whether you're in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, take these to heart, find the ones that, that, that you are not doing, and get in the game. Because the sooner that you get yourself dialed in on a, from a financial standpoint, the easier it's going to be later in life. And then for those of you that maybe haven't done it, we're going to get you on the horse. We're going to get you going. We're going to give you the process that I think you need to focus on. So listen here. The key is this. The goal isn't perfection, okay? It's progress. I'm gonna share strategies that work whether you're saving a lot, not saving a lot, saving a little, or nothing at all. Okay? So let's do this. We're gonna, we're gonna jump right in and I'm gonna talk about the first thing. First thing I think that you need is liquidity. Especially when we start to move into the later years of our life. You need the liquidity to carry you if something happens. I. And we're going to start off, and if you've got my book building your money machine, I talk about it in the book. We start off with one month's expenses. We start off with what I call a comfort fund. Fifteen hundred dollars or one month's expenses. That's where I want you to start. Now, that is not where I want you to end because it is nowhere near enough, especially when you start to head into those years that maybe your income is going to decline or you decide that you want to slow down. We need the liquidity to carry us if something happens, whether it's a health issue, whether it's a, a location issue, whatever it is. And so, so at some point, I want you to build anywhere between six and 18 months of living expenses in what I call a peace of mind fund. This is liquidity to carry you for those unexpected situations, but it is also.

Liquidity to take advantage of those unexpected opportunities. And now that you might say, well, but Mel, six to 18 months is a huge range. In fact, in the book, I say nine to 18 months. Where should I be in that range? Well, it depends on your situation. It depends on, do you have additional income, do you have a pension, do you have a second household income, do you have anything saved? All, all those things can lend itself to saying, I can be on the lower side or I can be on the higher side. It's really about keeping you safe so you don't end up in the ditch, so you don't end up in debt. So you don't end up struggling in a time where you shouldn't be struggling. You should be enjoying those golden years of your life. And so, so if you're not there yet, I get it. Don't, don't beat yourself up. Start small. Start small. Even, even when you, when you're just starting, just start with one month. And if you're not sure how to jump start it. Okay, this is going to sound crazy, but to jumpstart this journey, you might have to take on a side gig. Okay. Or an additional hours, or even just look around your house. Are there things around the house that maybe you're not using? If I just went to my tech closet, there are cameras, there are things that I'm not using. I'll sell them on the marketplace and bring in some cash to just give me some oxygen, to give me some breathing room to make that happen. Okay. The other thing at this stage that we need is I want you to start looking at it and saying, is there a way to get control of my spending? You know, is there windfalls coming in? Do I have non essential expenses that I can cut to use towards this? Now, I'm also one of those people that isn't of the mindset of you need to be completely out of debt before you start building something. I think that you're in a place where we need to exercise the debt payment muscle. We'll talk about debt in the next segment, but at the same time, I want to build the saving and investing muscle. And so I want you to do them both at the same time, right, right now and see what we can make happen. When you start to look at the data, it's scary. 28% of retirees.

Feel confident about covering their unexpected expenses. 28%. That means, that means 70, 72% do not. That's scary. Okay, so the first thing is I want you to get some oxygen, some, some breathing room, some liquidity, some cash on hand. Put it in a high yield savings account so you're getting some money on it. High yield savings account must be 100% liquid.

100% without fees, so they can't charge you any fees. And 100% insured. It needs to be safe. You can get 4 to 5% depending on, on where you are at as of the time of filming. So you're going to get something on the money. Okay. Put it in a high yield savings account and use it from there. That's number one. Number two, I want you to focus on tackling your debt strategically. Okay? Your Debt is a big black hole of your wealth. Now I'm talking primarily about destructive debt. At some point I'm going to want you to get out of your mortgage and be completely debt free. But that's down the road. If you have destructive debt, if you have consumer debt, if you have stuff on credit cards, high interest loans, things that are really draining you, we can't survive when we have debt at 22, 23, 28, 29% like we see today with it. It is absolutely a wealth destroyer and it stresses you out. It's going to be a problem. So I want to start eliminating destructive debt now. Let me give you some tough love here. Okay?

The first step to this is to make sure that we are no longer using the debt. Now I use credit cards and I'm okay with you using credits. I'm not saying not to use credit cards. What I am saying is I don't carry credit card balances. I do not want you carrying credit card balances. That's damaging. Okay? Using the credit card and paying it off each month is fine as long as you have control of your spending. So the first step in this debt issue is to make sure that I'm not going deeper in debt. So in other words, it doesn't help me to pay some debt off and then go into debt further. So the first step is to make sure I've stopped digging. Okay? So I stopped the bleeding, I stopped it leaking, I stop all of that and I make sure that my debt will no go, go no higher. And now I can set up a debt payment plan using either a snowball method or an avalanche method to get it paid down. And you are strategically paying that debt down systematically over time. It may take a year, it may take two years, it may take five or seven years. But you are on a payment plan that is going to put you completely out of debt. And if you're not sure how to do this, I want you to go to melabraham.com no debt. I have a short free training for you. I have a spreadsheet for you that you can download, an Excel spreadsheet that you can download. You can put your debt stuff in there and you can get it dialed in and set up properly. Now for those of you that, that I've done and I do money machine master plans, the big plans, the financial plans for you, we could, we can build that debt structure in there. And if you have debt, that's one of the things that we'll do. So listen, we are in a Society that has normalized debt. So if you're in debt, I don't want you to feel ashamed. There's no reason for you to feel ashamed because it happens to all of us, and there's plenty of us carrying it. The average credit card balance right now is over $7,000. The key is to get a plan in place to get it down, and to have the discipline in place to not go any deeper. Okay? And so that's how I would look at it. Now, that leads me to number three, and number three is to define your target. I was just sitting with a dear friend of mine who's approaching 60 years old, and I asked the question, well, what do you need? What do you want? What does that life look like for you? And he couldn't answer it. And I said, have you had these conversations with your wife? He says, no. See, the challenge is that if we don't know what the finish line looks like, we don't know if we've gotten there already. We don't know if we're miles away from it or we don't know if we're right on the edge of it. We have to define the target. What kind of life do you want? What does it look like for you? Now, the key word in there is you, because we have all these lives that. That are being paraded in front of us on social media, on media, on marketing, advertising, on expectations of society, expectations of our profession, expectations of. Of our degree, expectations of parents and upbringing and religious upbringing, all those things that are expected of us. And I want you to. To put that aside and just say, what do you want? Like. Like, without judgment, without filtering, what is it you want? And if you're married, what is it that you and your spouse want? See, Stephanie, I. We sit down every year and we talk about our vision. We talk about what that is. We talk about what we want to live, where we wanted to go, what that looks like. And we define the lifestyle so we can feel it, so it's tangible. Then we take that and we say, well, what's it going to cost to get us there? What does that look like? And now we can put a price tag on it. Now, that price tag is probably wrong. It's an estimate, but it's certainly better than not knowing at all. And so when you do this, now you've defined what the finish line looks like, you know, what success looks like. You're not just running and running and running and running. Like, you know, you can't just keep running. At some point you go, oh, there's the finish line. We're good. And when you do that, you take that pressure off. So knowing your target will get you to stop.

Overspending. It'll get you to stop underspending. It will give you a balanced approach, because now you make choices and decisions based on the target you're going to.

And not the expectations or, or the influences outside of you. Now, one of the ways to do it is, is to create.

A plan based on something called the 4% rule. Now, there are plenty of calculators out there for Social Security and all that stuff. The 4% rule was something that was created by the Trinity study years ago, and it is a ballpark. Now, absent anything else you're doing, it is a good ballpark measurement. Now, is it precise? No, it's not. Are there limitations? Absolutely there is. It's assuming a 30, 30 year retirement. It's assuming that you're in a very simple portfolio of equities and bonds. It's, it's assuming a lot of things. But if we don't have any other way to do it, it's a better way than nothing. So I would start with what we call the 4% rule. If you, if you know that how this works is that, that if you know that it's going to cost you, oh, let's say.

$100,000 a year to.

To have the life that you want, okay, what you're going to do is divide it by 4 by 0.04, which is 4%. That's going to give you a number. That's going to give you a number. If I'm doing, now I'm doing public math. I better not do public math. Let me, let me actually do the math and, and get the right number. Otherwise it's going to be a problem. 100,000.

Divide by 0.04. All right, I had it right. 2.5 million. Okay? Now what that says is that, that I need 2.5 million where I can take 4% out a year, which would give me $100,000, which should pay for my living and that target. So that's one way to do it. Now, granted, this doesn't take in consideration things like taxes and other nuances. And do we need the 100,000 every year or is there going to be a year that I need 80 and a year that I need 120? Those things.

Those things are not factored in here. So the better way to go when you, especially as you get closer, is to create a dynamic, detailed financial plan. That's what we do with our, our money machine master plans where you literally are, are going line by line, figuring it out year by year where, you know, I'm going to get a car every seven years, we're going to do a vacation every, every year. When you do a remodel on the house in, in year three, we're going to, and we're going to put some nuanced goals in there and make sure that we build a plan that's dynamic, that's detailed and, and takes into consideration all of the uniqueness that you, you want in your life. That's the better way to go. But not everyone can do that. No one, not everyone has access to that. In the, in the interim, use the 4% rule. Find a target and use that as the trajectory you want to go, go towards. All right, that leads me to number four. Number four is about creating and strengthening your income streams. Listen, like it or not, having multiple streams of income is no longer a luxury, it is a necessity. The more streams of income you have, the better off you will be. If wanting income stream goes away. Okay, It's a case in point. When I got diagnosed with my cancer, I shut my whole businesses down. I shut anything down that took a tremendous amount of energy and effort from me so I could put that energy and effort and time into beating the demon called cancer. So what that meant is that income stream went away and now I had to rely on something else. I talk about in my book, something called the five incomes. I had incomes that didn't require my efforts that were coming in. And so when we start to build that and we have multiple income streams, it gives us a better safety factor, that and assurance and probability of success. So I want you to start to look at things and say, how can I build more reliable income streams?

And don't count Social Security. Now Social Security may be there, but it is never a replacement. It's only a supplement. So if it happens, it happens and if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. That's fine. But I do not want you being dependent on it at this stage. But the question is, is there, are there other things you can do to bring in additional income? You have talents, you have skills, you have strengths. Can we market those and, and use those to tutor, to consult, to get a side gig, to create a product or a training that we can put out there and get paid on it? Okay. Create those kinds of things. Part time work, rental income, investment income, and, and some of that stuff's going to take time because you got to build the assets to get it. But your expertise, your skills and everything, we can start that right now. And it may not be forever. It may be just doing side hustles, part time gigs and, and gig work to get us jump started and get things rolling. And once we start to build the other income streams, we can slow those down. But it is important for us to create or strengthen the income streams that we have, especially at this stage, to maximize and optimize the cash flows that's coming in. The bigger shovel you have of income to put at, at your, your financial future, the easier it's going to be. Okay, so think about, can I monetize hobbies, can I monetize passions? You know, whether it's crafts, whether it's writing, whether it's tutoring, those kinds of things will help with that. Okay, that leads me to number five. Number five is to align your investments with your situation. Okay. In other words, the portfolio that my son at 34 years old has built is not the same as the portfolio at 63 years old that I have built. They're very different because our situations are different. He's got two young kids and a wife and he's got decades ahead of him as far as time. I, I have my son and the grandkids and all that stuff is pretty much just my wife and my two dogs. So we don't have the same situation and we don't have the same time. I'm 63. Okay, let's say I, I live another two, three decades. My son's got six decades ahead of him. So we need to look at it through those different eyes and the kinds of investments we might get into would be different. I would be a more typically more conservative, less aggressive investments because my slant and focus is on preservation and income generation, which is where we should be at this stage of our life, is how do we preserve what we created and create the income we need to live, especially as we're going into our 60s. And it helps us to know what that target number is that we just talked about to understand where we need to be on that. I don't necessarily want to be overly aggressive during these years of my life. Okay. But you might be looking at it and say, I need to have faster growth or a bit of growth. Now, I do not want you to think about, I'm gonna, I'm going to hit for the fences every time because that's how you're going to lose. We need to be patient. We can go A little more aggressive on the portfolio based on your situation. But we don't want to take the chance or the risk of destroying it if we have a downturn. Okay, so, so I want you to look at it from that perspective. And even if you haven't invested much yet, you did. It's not something you stop. We got to get started. And we start small and we start investing. It doesn't need to be complicated, but we're going to put it in some index funds, ETFs, low cost, simplicity, get you in the game, allow it to grow. Okay. I know that you're sitting back saying, God, I wish I could have $1 million in a year. Unless you have a big shovel of income, it's probably not going to happen. But is it possible to build $1 million in a decade? Yes, it is. Okay. And so I think we need to be aware of that. The other thing that we need to be aware of at this stage is where our investments are held. You know, in other words, you have the ability to invest in after tax investments. In other words, your regular brokerage account, whether it's at Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard or, or, or any of those types of brokers. So that is, you take your income, you had pay tax on it, you make investments. If you, if you sell any investments or any dividends come out, you'll pay tax on it. You also have a tax deferred account, which is your typical 401k, your.

IRA, those kinds of things where you put money into that account and you get a tax deduction for it. But when you take it out down the road, it's going to be taxable. Okay? Then you have the accounts that are tax free. That's your Roth IRA or your Roth 401K, where you put money into the account, you don't get a tax deduction for it, it grows. And when you take the money out at some point in the Future, it is 100% tax free. Okay? And the reason there's those three locations for those accounts is so you can play the tax juggle game. Because now you can engineer your tax structure to reduce your taxes. Whether you're taking out of Roth, where you don't pay taxes, where you take it out of after tax, where you can control whether you're paying taxes at a capital gains rate, which is a lower rate, or you take it out of the IRA, or the 401k where you pay ordinary income taxes, you, you have the ability to do that. And this is the time frame to say I'm going to align my investing with my situation and I'm also going to align the location of that investing with my situation. So this is where I think we need to look at. That leads me to number six and that is it's time to make sure that you're protecting what you built. Okay? So number six is about protecting what you built. That means that I want you at this stage to. And even earlier, I was just having a conversation with a, with a couple that do not have this in place. And I told them to get it in place is to make sure that you have a up to date will and trust in place. Okay. You may not have a ton of assets, but there's a difference between a will and a trust. I did a whole episode on this previously. A will is something that happens upon your death. Okay. It is public record and it is subject to what's called probate in probate states. Okay. Which means that, that you got to go through a court process for the, for your heirs to get the assets. Whereas a trust is something you create during your life. It avoids the probate fees and all the probate and it defines where all your assets go.

And it keeps everything private so it's not in a court record. You don't need to go through a court process and that type of thing. So I want you to protect what you've created. And part of that is wills and trusts. The other part of it is insurance, Making sure that you have the proper health insurance. Because health insurance for a retired couple has been estimated to be as much as $315,000. Okay. That's a lot of money. Okay. Making sure that you have the right liability insurance, homeowners insurance, things like that, to protect the assets that you've, you've created. So, so you don't get exposed to unnecessary losses if something happens. You might even want to look at long term care insurance. I know my mom was ill for many years. She was on dialysis for six and a half years. We just unfortunately lost her this past September.

But that six years of her illness and treatment and care and all that cost over $850,000. Okay. So insurance can be expensive. And I, and they, and I'm not a fan of insurance companies. Okay. I'm not a fan of insurance companies, but there are certain insurances that I think we need to have in place and properly structured to protect the things that we have to protect our loved ones, to protect our assets, to protect the wealth. Okay? So that's number six. Number seven. Is prioritize your health. You might think, well, this has nothing to do with wealth. Yes, it does. It does. I mean, I look at my mother and she didn't have her health for at least six and a half, seven years. I mean, she was going three days a week to dialysis. The quality of her life. Remember, the reason we want the money isn't to have a big bank account, is to have a rich life account.

And so in order to have that rich life account, I got to be able to experience life, I got to be able to feel it. I'd be able to be out and create the memories and, and if my health, physical or mental well being is impaired because I didn't take care of myself or I'm not taking care of myself, then even with all the money in the world, you're not living that rich life. If you think about Steve Jobs in his last days, he was by most arguments one of the richest men in the world. But it didn't help him in the end. It didn't help him experience his life in a good way with the richness, it didn't solve the health problems. And so, so I think that it's really important for us to start to look at things and say, how do we do this? How do we become proactive? I'm extremely proactive with my, with my health and my wellness. So I get regular checkups. I was doing labs. I am always making sure to try and prevent, have some preventative care and making sure I work out six days a week and just stay on top of it all the time. I keep telling my wife she hasn't served enough time for me to let her out on probation. So I'm not going anywhere. So number seven really is to prioritize your health as an investment. Invest in that, the quality of your life, to be able to share it with the people you love, the things you love, to do the things in those golden years for as long as you can. Okay, number eight, strengthen the communication with your family. Listen, it's a hard conversation to have, but I think that it is an important conversation to have. What is it that you want towards the end of your life? Okay, what are your end of life wishes? What are your financial plans? What's going to happen with the inheritance? They don't have to know numbers. My son and his wife do not know numbers, but they know that everything is taken care of and what's going to happen? Okay, my wife knows what my end of life wishes are. Do you have things dialed in okay, do you know? Do they know? Do you want to be cremated? Do you want to be buried? Do you want this? Do you want all those things? And have an open line of communication of these kinds of conversations, which may be uncomfortable at the beginning because we're talking about uncomfortable things. We're talking about death and everything. And a lot of people don't want to do that. But we watched both my wife and I watched both our mothers when our fathers passed away. My dad passed away 14 years ago. Her dad passed away 10 years ago. And in both situations, we watched both our mothers panic. And they panicked because they didn't know if they could stay in the house because they weren't aware of things. Now, they came from a generation where. Where one was more focused on the money than the other. But I think that that generation and that concept is gone. We need to have open communication. One of the things I did very early on when I got diagnosed with cancer, is to completely update the trust and everything. Not necessarily because of me, because of my wife, because of my son, because of my brother, to be able to say, hey, I have things set up the way I want them set up to take care of the people I love. And then I went and communicated it with them and said, here's what it is. And now Stephanie doesn't have to go through the panic of, can she stay in the house? What's her life going to be like? She knows exactly what to do, the phone calls to make, the things to do that. I think that what you do here in this stage is to create what I call a legacy binder, a place where you keep the key documents, the key things, whether it's the trust, whether it's the bank accounts, these things like that. We, when you do the money machine master plan, we have a private, codified vault where they can upload their documents and have it securely held and all that stuff, but have a legacy binder so everyone knows what is expected, what needs to be done. Because trust me, when someone passes away, all of a sudden, all these people will start coming out of the woodworks and say, oh, they said this, and they said that, and they said this. Have it in writing, have it recorded, and you just follow it, because now you're adhering to the wishes that they had, not the wishes that you thought they had. All right, leads me to number nine, the last one. And that is to leave a legacy that goes beyond money. I hear this all the time. I want to leave a legacy. And they. They reduce this concept of legacy to a dollar amount. And I think it's a mistake. We're not here to leave a legacy of stuff, stuff that we have to go through, you know, we're not here to leave a legacy of money. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. It's not about a name on a building, it's not about any of that stuff. We're here to leave a legacy of memories, a legacy of values, a legacy of lessons that you have passed down by the way you lived your life, not the way you left your life. And I think that when we start to look at through those eyes and say, what do I want to leave inside.

My son? What do I want to leave inside my two granddaughters, my daughter in law, my wife, the people I serve, my audience? What do I want to leave for them and make that a reality during my life?

Being a good friend, being a good brother, being a good son, being a good husband, a big father, grandfather, whatever it is. Because it's not really the financial wealth that is the legacy. It is the story, it is the love, it is the wisdom, it is the lessons that become the priceless gifts.

That I think are called legacy. I would sit back, I would write letters.

To loved ones. I've seen this with law enforcement, I've seen this with military, where if God forbid, the worst happens, they've written a letter to their spouse, to their children, to their grandchildren. Write letters, record videos, record your voice, do that. Volunteer and mentor and bring your impact into people's lives, into the community. That's what true legacy is. All right. I hope that this helps to realize that no matter where you are today, small steps can bring a huge difference over time. We need to start wherever you're at, without blame, without beating yourself up, without fault, and say, here's where I'm at. Let's take the steps. Let me get myself dialed in on my income. Let me get myself dialed in on my debt. Let me make sure I have control of my expenses. Let me make sure I know what the target is. Get it dialed in and start the process. I've got plenty of training that can help you on each of those elements that you can get access to for free. Okay, Stay on this channel. If you're not subscribed to this channel, you need to subscribe to the channel. Because I have a lot of stuff that I keep putting out there that'll help you with this. If you don't have my book, building your money machine, get the book because it walks you through all of this. Okay. And starts to Break it down for you. Make sure that you use these nine goals as a checklist and ask yourself, do I have them in place? If I don't, what's my next step? What's my next step? To start getting in place. All right? And if you know people that are in this stage or on their path, share this episode with them so they can take these nine things. Get it in their life. All right? Remember this financial freedom, it isn't about perfection. It's about progress. Start where you are. Use what you have. Build the future you deserve and live it each and every day. I hope that this helps. I hope you found it of value, and I can't wait to see you on the road to your financial freedom. Till I do, always, always strive to live a life without losing. See you in the next one. Thank you for listening to the affluent entrepreneur with me, your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the affluent entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to melabraham.com group and I'll see you there.

And that's it for this episode of Building your money Machine, where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress, and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple Podcast, or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people, because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthright and I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.