#67 – Are We Having Fun Yet? Market Volatility, Trade Wars, the VIX, Bond Risks, And Real-Life Happy Retirees With The Power Of Purpose

Connor Miller [00:00:27]:
Bigger.

Wes Moss [00:00:27]:
Based on the long running WSB radio show, this Money Matters podcast is tailor made for both modern retirees and those still in the planning stages. Join us in this exciting new chapter and let’s journey toward a financially secure and joyful retirement together. Wes Moss along with the great Connor Miller here in studio. Connor, are we having fun yet? We which was a presentation you did this week. Are we having fun yet?

Connor Miller [00:00:58]:
It really depends on the day at this point. We are in such a tweet or post driven world and so it really just depends on what.

Wes Moss [00:01:08]:
If you were to give this some sort of people mover analogy, what would you equate? It’s funny, by the way, Ryan Doolittle was in town, one of the Money Matters team, one of the producers. He did a, he was walking through, I don’t know what airport it was. To me it reminded me of Detroit airport. And he’s probably la, because he’s one of these LA guys and he was coming down the people mover and he goes, it’s so hard to get away from the news. So hard to get away from the news. Which I immediately was like, yeah, so you can’t get away from the news. And then as he’s going down the people mover, right to the right of him is this newscaster live in the Detroit airport. He goes, literally impossible to get away from the news.

Wes Moss [00:01:54]:
And this is a lot how I feel this week and I think we all feel if we’re tuning in or paying attention to tariff news, Fed news, policy news, earnings news, stock market news, bond market news, because it changes by the hour. I mean, you and I, we were in a meeting with one of our strategy groups and we’re talking about tariffs. And I think during that meeting one of the folks brought up, oh, auto tariffs. Trump just excluded some auto tariffs. I mean, literally to the hour.

Connor Miller [00:02:26]:
Well, you can see it in the markets. You’ll go into a meeting and the market will be flat or down and you’ll get out and you’ll check and the market’s up 1%. And you go to Twitter because you’re like, well, there must have been something that broke in the last hour that caused the market to move the way.

Wes Moss [00:02:41]:
Or broke down because it could be down 1%.

Connor Miller [00:02:44]:
So trying to take a positive spin on this.

Wes Moss [00:02:47]:
The. If 2023 was an escalator for the market, what. What’s your analogy for the market this year? 2025.

Connor Miller [00:02:53]:
I mean, it’s, it’s too easy, but it’s. It’s a roller coaster.

Wes Moss [00:02:57]:
Roller coaster.

Connor Miller [00:02:58]:
Up and down.

Wes Moss [00:02:58]:
Yeah, I would say it’s even. Right now we’re in the bungee cord phase is almost the way I look at it, because it’s not even rolling as much as it’s spiking lower and spiking higher. And we saw that this week.

Connor Miller [00:03:11]:
Have you ever been to Disney World?

Wes Moss [00:03:13]:
Sure.

Connor Miller [00:03:13]:
You know the ride, Tower of Terror? Great ride, by the way. The elevator. It’s your up and down and it’s unpredictable. It’s like they change it every time you’re on it. So that’s. That’s kind of what it feels like.

Wes Moss [00:03:25]:
I don’t know if I recall the elevator. It’s an elevator of terror. Yeah.

Connor Miller [00:03:28]:
It’s been there for 30, I think, like 30 years now.

Wes Moss [00:03:32]:
Yeah, always. You know what you love is longevity with a ride. It’s like, oh, it’s been here for a hundred years. So that sounds safe. My little guy went. My wife and. And the grandparents and little guy went to Disney just a couple of weeks ago. So there’s been a lot of Disney fanfare in the house.

Wes Moss [00:03:48]:
The. So you did a presentation called Having Fun yet, which was essentially about how we’re getting whipsawed bungee corded, roller coaster, elevator of terror, whatever you want to call it. But we’ve also seen a little bit of stability to the upside this week, but we’re still in a dense fog when it comes to China. One of the updates this past week was that we were having great talks with China. The next day, China said, no, we’re not having great talks. What are you talking about? And then I think Besson or Besson said, no, we are having talk. So we just don’t. We’re still in the.

Wes Moss [00:04:25]:
I would equate this to we’ve had an earthquake. And it may be when the VIX spiked to its highest level. And again, vix, just as a measure of fear, the higher the VIX goes, typically the more the market’s selling off. And a placid VIX would. A calm, nice, easy, late day would be. VIX is at what, 15? Yeah, even lower.

Connor Miller [00:04:47]:
No, a little higher. Like in the 20s.

Wes Moss [00:04:48]:
15 to 20. We got way below 20, though, for a little while in the escalator years. The escalator higher years. But I think of it as well, the Vix did hit over 60. So if placid is 20, this is 3x placid. So 30 is, is getting nerve wracking. 40 is hairs on fire. 50, 60 is.

Wes Moss [00:05:12]:
Wait, that’s. We’re kind of in a semi panic and we saw that. And I don’t know if that was the peak fear a couple call that what a couple weeks ago, but right now we’re having these aftershock tremors and that’s kind of, I think we’re in the aftershock tremors, Trevor.

Connor Miller [00:05:26]:
And the goal of at least our presentation that we gave was really to highlight the fact that we haven’t had much news come in. You’ve had like these little rumors of we may have a trade deal or at least a framework of a trade deal with Japan or India. But in what the market really needs to see to kind of take this next leg higher, we haven’t really had anything of substance. So it really comes down to as an investor, how do you view the glass that is half filled with water? Do you view it as half full or half empty?

Wes Moss [00:05:58]:
Couple of headlines. Was this on a. Oh, these are just by day. These are just kind of, I don’t know if you’d call them fun to revisit, but they moved markets. President Trump ratchets up pressure campaign on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. Trump on Truth Social called Powell a quote, major loser and warned that the US Economy could slow down unless interest rates fall.

Connor Miller [00:06:18]:
And.

Wes Moss [00:06:18]:
And then what? The next day he said, here’s another headline. President Trump said he has, quote, no intention of firing Federal Reserve Jerome Powell before his term leading of the US Central Bank. So it’s literally day to day to day. One day the market’s down a ton, the next day the market’s up a bunch. It’s bungee cording all around and you.

Connor Miller [00:06:42]:
See the same thing going on in the bond market. So we’re used to stock market volatility. But I think what’s different about this bout of volatility really has come from bonds, which, I mean yields have just moved all over the place. Usually when you get these stock sell offs, people tend to flock to safety. Yields come down, prices go up on.

Wes Moss [00:07:02]:
Bonds because more people are trying to flood into bonds for safety. Yeah, seesaw effect.

Connor Miller [00:07:07]:
And now you’re just seeing, you’re seeing yields move all over the place. The one constant really has been gold. And so I think that’s where the market at least has Viewed safety to this point in the cycle.

Wes Moss [00:07:18]:
And again we were again going back to that strategy meeting that is really around fixed income. So bonds. One of my questions was how safe are safe assets right now? Where we saw this mini it was really call it a day but it was almost a few hours where the bond market whipsaw dramatically. Yields went higher and there’s great speculation. Why did that happen? Was one of the foreign central banks that owns a bunch of treasury are they dumping? Prices go down? If a bunch of people are dumping and trying to sell bonds and yields go up, that’s what we saw. Was it hedge funds trying to deleverage and get rid of their extra margin exposure and they didn’t want to sell stocks because stocks were selling off. So they go to their safety assets and they dump a bunch of those again, prices down, yields up. But we have seen I would say some stability on a relative basis lately.

Wes Moss [00:08:09]:
And fixed income, if you look back over this year, it’s still largely positive and over the past year is largely positive. And I think one of my takeaways this week when we’re diving into fixed income was hey, are our safe assets still safe? And I came away saying to myself absolutely they are. And the US financial system, the plumbing is fine, there are not dislocations. Even if the Fed’s fighting with the White House, they’re going to eventually come together if they need to come together. And I so I still very much feel, I feel good let’s say as a balanced investor having the safety asset portion of my portfolio still pretty darn safe does it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t move. It just means that it’s still a much less volatile asset. Now even better would be an asset that moves in a different direction. So if you want to just keep not necessarily a hedge but something that’s going to stay stable short term Treasuries, I still have a high degree of confidence to get something that maybe moves counter meaning stock market does a bungee lower part of the portfolio that actually goes up doesn’t just stay flat.

Wes Moss [00:09:28]:
You would have to take on some duration risk and maybe explain that.

Connor Miller [00:09:33]:
Yeah. And so duration is really a measure of interest rate sensitivity due to the, due to the length of that bond. So if you have a bond that matures 10 years from now, it’s going to have a longer duration than a bond that matures a year from now. And really what that is is kind of an opportunity cost that if rates were to rise, well I can take that one year bond a year from now and invest it at higher rates. You don’t have that same benefit in a 10 year bond. And that’s what makes it more sensitive. And so naturally in periods, again usually, generally in periods of stock market volatility, you typically get an investor flight to safety. And what that looks like is going into bonds pushes the price up and the yields down.

Connor Miller [00:10:17]:
And so you usually get this kind of ballast type action where some of.

Wes Moss [00:10:22]:
These are rising while you’ve got some volatility on the downside.

Connor Miller [00:10:25]:
Exactly.

Wes Moss [00:10:26]:
And that’s why we like asset allocation so much. Doesn’t always work there. There have been times when bond prices were going down and stock prices 2022, and that was one of the few examples where we’ve seen that now with rates back to a more normal historical level, 4 to 5%, we certainly seem to have more of that counterbalancing effect, which is a good thing when, when, when equities or stocks go down.

Connor Miller [00:10:51]:
And the difference being from today to 2022 was 2022, you were coming from a basis of zero. And so you had no protection because your bonds were paying virtually no income. Today you’re still getting four to four and a half percent of income, regardless of what happens to the price movement there.

Wes Moss [00:11:08]:
Yield is destiny. Yield is destiny. And we’ve got a little bit of yield to help with our destiny. Have you seen this chart or am I just springing this on you right here?

Connor Miller [00:11:17]:
I’ve seen that one.

Wes Moss [00:11:18]:
Yeah.

Connor Miller [00:11:19]:
This is the number of large down days in the S P500.

Wes Moss [00:11:25]:
Another one of these heat maps. The more red it is, the more bad it is. And so what we explain this.

Connor Miller [00:11:31]:
Yeah. What we’re quantifying as large down days could be, you know, a 1% down day, a 2%, a 3%. And so if you just group all those together, anything beyond a 1% down day.

Wes Moss [00:11:41]:
Hold on, what would you title this chart? What are we looking at here? Remember, our folks can’t see, they’re listening intently, headed to church, leaving church. They’ve just finished praying and they’re now listening to Connor Miller talk about a chart.

Connor Miller [00:11:55]:
It’s kind of like a volatility heat map. And so when you think about the last couple years, 2023, 2024, very little volatility, very few days where the market went down more than 1%, hence very.

Wes Moss [00:12:08]:
Just a little slight bit of rad.

Connor Miller [00:12:11]:
In fact, in, in 2024, we only had 19 days where the market went down more than 1%.

Wes Moss [00:12:16]:
All right, we’ve had all of 2024.

Connor Miller [00:12:18]:
All of 2024.

Wes Moss [00:12:19]:
19 days, remember? Still feels like a lot. It’s a lot of days.

Connor Miller [00:12:22]:
Yeah. But when you put that into context of where we are this year, again, we’re not even done with April, and we’ve already matched that total from last year of 19 days, down more than 1%.

Wes Moss [00:12:34]:
Okay. So it’s. It’s putting it in context. All of last year, we had 19 really rough, negative sessions in the equity market, and we’ve already matched that in 2025. So if it feels like a really roller coaster a year, as you would say, as opposed to an escalator, it’s because it has been with that. Connor Miller, have you ever been to. And this has nothing to do with money matters, even though there’s some money matters behind this. Ever been to Piedmont Park?

Connor Miller [00:13:07]:
Of course.

Wes Moss [00:13:08]:
Yeah. Okay.

Connor Miller [00:13:09]:
It’s an Atlanta staple.

Wes Moss [00:13:10]:
It is a staple.

Connor Miller [00:13:11]:
Even though I don’t live in the city. You’ll still take a trip down there.

Wes Moss [00:13:14]:
Will you guys just hang out during the day or more like a festival, like the Dogwood Festival or the more.

Connor Miller [00:13:20]:
Likely to go down for some type of occasion. Again, it’s less likely now, but I used to spend some time down there.

Wes Moss [00:13:26]:
Now that you have seven kids, hard to do it.

Connor Miller [00:13:28]:
There’s two.

Wes Moss [00:13:29]:
So we had this. There was a Piedmont Park Conservancy lunch, I think it was. What was it called? Landmark or something this week. And I was supposed to. I got a text from a good friend of mine, and Lynn is good friends with the wife, too. So I get this text and, hey, we’re. I got a table, and I’m excited about Piedmont park, and I’m excited about Piedmont park because I live in a neighborhood right around there. It’s a little bit of a walk, but it’s almost.

Wes Moss [00:13:56]:
Let’s call it, walkable, certainly joggable. And it was, hey, do you want to go to this luncheon? And we had just been talking and talking about business, and it was kind of like, oh, yeah, sure, I’ll go. It sounds like a. It’s a guy’s luncheon. We’ll go. I will go. And there’ll be a bunch of business people, and we’ll be at the table together supporting the park. And I get there, and his wife says, where’s.

Wes Moss [00:14:22]:
Where’s Lynn? And I was like, wait a minute. Lynn was invited as well. He thought this was like a guy’s lunch. And she could. Nobody. Of course. I go back and I check my text messages, and it’s this Long. It’s a really long text.

Wes Moss [00:14:38]:
And at the bottom after it says, hey, do you want to come to this lunch? It did say, I’d love to. It’d be great to have you and Lynn. So it was my fault. And I texted Lynn from. I was like, oh my God, I’m so sorry. You were supposed to be at this lunch. By the way. She’s gone to this lunch like eight years in a row.

Wes Moss [00:14:55]:
And the email went to the. An email that she never checked. So she actually did get the invite as well.

Connor Miller [00:15:01]:
And I’m proud of you for at least owning up to it.

Wes Moss [00:15:05]:
It was my, it was totally my fault. I did donate in the name of Lynn Moss to the cause.

Connor Miller [00:15:11]:
She was there in spirit because what.

Wes Moss [00:15:13]:
They are trying to do and it, it really is. I mean, it is dear to my heart. I mean, I can’t. It’s countless times I’ve been there over the years. I’ve gone through different phases using that active oval, running, exercising, biking with my kids, going to the farmer’s market. There’s just so much at that place and it is the heart of the city. And they make such a great case. The, the Piedmont Park Conservancy makes such a great case that a park is emblematic of the civilization that you live in.

Wes Moss [00:15:42]:
And if you have a great park and the ecosystem of the park and it’s great, it’s a, it is a wonderful grounding centerpiece, cornerstone of your city. And Piedmont park is that and what they’re trying to do. And it looks like this is like a 10 year plan. It’s a. There’s so much they’re trying to do with making that lake in the middle clear and deeper and cleaner, making it a better ecosystem. Having a walkway that goes around the lake and over the lake, it’s. It’s incredible what they’re trying to do and I don’t know why I brought it up, except for. Just read your full text messages.

Wes Moss [00:16:17]:
Next time, get an invite. More money matters straight ahead. Are you facing a fork in the road and deciding between continuing your career and retirement? I’m Wes Moss, host of Money Matters and this massive life decision shouldn’t be taken lightly. Talk with my team if you’d like help reviewing your retirement accounts and building a financial plan. We can help you review options and offer an opinion based on your best interests. You can find us@yourwealth.com that’s y o u r wealth.com we have talked so much about headlines in the last month. Month and a Half so much about the yo yo stock market. Yo yo.

Wes Moss [00:17:03]:
We didn’t use that analogy. We used bungee corn.

Connor Miller [00:17:05]:
This is another good one. I still like the tower of terror 1. Tower of terror, mainly because it’s one of my favorite Disney rides.

Wes Moss [00:17:11]:
But sometimes, and we’re always in the heat of it, right, we do a current events money education show. We’re trying to take what is in the news today and related back over to history to try to help guide investors to make better decisions over time. Your presentation this week was having fun yet. And while you were talking about having fun and all these headlines about Powell in pow out, Fed tariff on, tariff off, stock market down, stock market up, I was getting a letter from a listener and a book reader that was just such a good real life example of how the journey of getting to the retire sooner journey, meaning that you’re able to stop working when you would like to stop working, doesn’t mean you retired super young or early. It just means you’re able to in this case. This is a real early retiree. And I wanted to just read some of this letter. Maybe not all of it, because that saves.

Wes Moss [00:18:11]:
I would call it a letter just because it’s longer, but it was an email and it came in and I wanted to share it with our audience because it says just forget the tariffs, forget the market volatility, just forget all of that and focus in on what really matters. Because what we’re doing over the next 15 years and 20 years, when it comes to being able to be one of those happy early retirees, that’s what matters. So forget all this tariff stuff. Connor Miller. Forget the headlines and let’s listen to what Joe and Cindy wrote from Indio. Is it Indio? Indio, California. Is that right? Indio, California. One of our producers, Cali guys, he’s shaking his head west.

Wes Moss [00:18:56]:
Wanted to drop you a note. Thank you for your books teachings over the last 10 years. Plus, I’ve been listening to the weekly radio show at least 15 years ago and that led me to your books that were published in podcasts. My wife and I both retired sooner than we planned. So right out of the gate I’m like this, this guy, whoever this is, is awesome. We both retired last May, age 57. That was Cindy, 60. Joe, by the way, I got permission to say names.

Wes Moss [00:19:21]:
I’m not gonna do last names here, but respectively, following your discipline advice we’ve heard over many years. Born, raised in the same town. Me and Cindy. Sounds like sweethearts. High school, met in oh, middle school and were married in 1998 1988. Both college educated few with a few post secondary educations. Raised our three children in the town we grew up in. Both retired last May.

Wes Moss [00:19:48]:
Like many couples, we worked hard during our career. Cindy was a nurse. She worked nights most of her career. She was a nurse leader in the ICU during the pandemic just an hour north of New York City. Initially he Joe him worked as a software engineer. They end his career as an SVP in information tech. I don’t know exactly what he did but that’s what it says. When our kids were young, Cindy would go into work at 7pm getting home at 8am which again I can relate to.

Wes Moss [00:20:20]:
I think a lot of this. I can relate to a lot of this. Lynn was, was a nurse for over a decade and she did these night shifts and even, even when we had kids. This is, that’s a, this is hard work to be able to do this. We would hand our kids off and I guess they do yeah the exchange in the morning and then he drive 90 minutes to work and get home prior to her having to go into her next 12 hour shift. We did this to avoid daycare. So they’re frugal, saving money over time. As we grew older, I spent some of my free time building my financial retirement models and researching where not stocks but where we’d eventually retire.

Wes Moss [00:21:01]:
As we traveled annually, we’d visit different places on our list and eventually we settled on the greater Palm Springs area of California as our future retirement location. We have talked now again I don’t think I ever talked about this. So Joe figured that out on his own. But I’ve seen a lot of retirees, Connor Miller that do do that where they’re, they’re scouting. It’s like a little gives you a little purpose to your trip. You’re going around the country. Maybe you want to live here. Maybe we want to live here.

Wes Moss [00:21:30]:
So that’s what Joe and Cindy did. They’re kind of scouting. They went from I guess yes the New York to could couldn’t be a more opposite place of the country. From New York all the way to Palm Springs area, California, India, California. Fortunately, Covid allowed me to work for full time remotely starting in April of 2020. That allowed us to accelerate our plan. Moving from Fairfield county. Oh this I’m sorry, Connecticut.

Wes Moss [00:21:58]:
To our new home in Indio, California from summer of 2023 to the spring of 2022. By relocating across the country prior to retirement that allowed us to get a bunch of our big Expenses, moving new cars, furnishing the home out of the way. At the start of 2024, I was lucky enough to get a package. So it sounds like one of these early retirement packages to get bought out of my prior role due to some requirement of bringing people back into the office starting in Q1, 2022 for my planned resignation in May. As we were expecting our retirement plan, I guess that this, this is all expected. I guess this early buyout was icing on the cake. So sometimes these buyouts. Connor, we’ve talked about this throughout 2025, all the government potential buyouts.

Wes Moss [00:22:50]:
Sometimes it helps you retire maybe six months early, maybe a year early. That sounds like what happened with Joe. The package provided a nice start to retirement, allowing us to not tap our financial resources for the remainder of 2024. And they’re debt free as of mid 2024. Six streams of income. I’m not going to go into all the numbers. Small pension for Cindy, small pension for him. Both have Social Security, will have Social Security and, and have essentially a 60% ETF stock ETFs, 30% fixed income or bond ETFs and 10% alternatives, etc.

Wes Moss [00:23:29]:
The model has us living off our dividends. So they’re living off their income. Connor Miller. Plus they’ve got these other income sources. And by 2029 Cindy will be able to collect her Social Security, making the annual income. As I go through these numbers, plenty.

Connor Miller [00:23:47]:
Now how many happy retiree lights have gone off as you’re reading this?

Wes Moss [00:23:54]:
Oh, it’s bing, bing, bing. It’s like a New York City street lights, traffic lights are all going green. They’re green, green, green. They’re going green. So they’ve got called a million to three in real estate. They’ve got an RV storage condo, they’ve got IRAs worth several million bucks here. They’ve saved a bunch, taxable account, et cetera. This is cool.

Wes Moss [00:24:20]:
And this is I think what gets. If you’re 25 right now in your listening or 30, you’re thinking how can somebody save 4 million bucks and have a million dollar house without any debt? Well, guess what? Joe and Cindy were just where you were 1986, Cindy was making as an RN, that’s a registered nurse, $9.93 an hour. This is back in the day where your paycheck actually had your per hourly rate actually had cents to the next decimal. Nobody makes 993 anymore. Back then it mattered. I guess it still matters. Every penny matters. He was his software engineer making how much 27k, 27 grand a year over the years.

Wes Moss [00:25:10]:
What did they do? They saved aggressively in their 401s, et cetera, et cetera. This is so long I’m going to have to truncate it. Kids went to school, by the way. They started at zero and they have no inheritances. They started at zero and have no inheritances. Again, the thought of getting there. It’s not as though this is something that is easy to do. It’s not that a lot of people even really get to this point, but this is a real life example of two people that started with nothing, not earning a lot and now they’re exactly where a happy retiree would want to be financially.

Wes Moss [00:25:49]:
Income streams, plenty of savings. A paid for house. They paid for their kids to go through college so they didn’t have debt. Here’s one. They love to travel. They have a Newmar Dutch star class A motorhome. A newmar. Is that right? Yeah, Newmar Dutch Star class A motorhome.

Wes Moss [00:26:08]:
In addition to that, live in an active 55 + desert community where the weather is always great. A little hot in the summer, but better than the northeast snow in the winter. Here’s my favorite part. Core pursuits. I don’t know. Could you listen? Fifteen core pursuits.

Connor Miller [00:26:25]:
Connor Miller I don’t, I don’t think so. I mean we say you need 3.6 core pursuits to be a happy retiree. These, they went above and beyond.

Wes Moss [00:26:36]:
So Joe goes on says, yeah, we have more than 3.6. Corporate Cindy loves pickleball, hiking, games with friends, volunteering, doing street medicine for the homeless, biking, exercise at club, book club, puzzles. Just keeps going. Travel, camping and then he likes pickleball, golfing. She. So evidently Cindy’s a lot better than his wife.

Connor Miller [00:26:54]:
Credit.

Wes Moss [00:26:55]:
She’s a lot better than me. Hiking, exercise, HOA committees, home improvement projects, biking, travel, travel, camping and wine club all on the list. Put them all together, it’s like 15 plus. Some are together, some are independent. Again, more green lights. Kids are off the payroll. And guess what? Two of the three, two and a half hours away by drive, they’re in California. One is a short plane ride to San Brand.

Wes Moss [00:27:22]:
No grandkids yet, but hopefully they are on the way. More green lights. Now, top it all off, Cindy has a Lexus. That’s a happy retiree car, it’s 350NX and he is a Jeep wrangler. I don’t know if that sounds like a happy retiree car to me, but just put it all together. Look, it wasn’t and this is cool. He go he says I know it sounds like a really rosy picture but we worked really hard over our careers and it wasn’t easy. We saved our money, we spent wisely.

Wes Moss [00:27:55]:
He references 911 that event. Remember they’re up there in the northeast so they were close to that hit us all in America. But the closer you were, the harder that was caused them to just have more appreciation for family experiences and travel annually. Then they got into camping with they had their first travel trailer, then a fifth wheel and now they’re on their third motorhome.

Connor Miller [00:28:20]:
You missed the best part. The Jeep wrangler they tow behind the motorhome so they can take it off roading in the desert. How awesome is that?

Wes Moss [00:28:28]:
How great. Now again, it’s not like this just fell into their lap. This is a 30 plus year journey. But they did it from zero. That means we can do it from zero, all of us, even if we start out at 993 an hour. Joe and Cindy did it. They’re happy retirees and they’re living their best life. Happy retiree H Rob.

Wes Moss [00:28:52]:
Happiest retirees on the block life. And who cares about tariffs when you read something like this? And one thing I wanted to mention, Connor Miller is they’ve got this long list of hiking, exercise, biking, travel, wine, club improvements, Pickleball. By the way, are you a pickleball fan? Do you love it? Where do you stand? You think it’s a real sport?

Connor Miller [00:29:11]:
I’d call it more of a game at this point than a sport. You know, not to pick a fight.

Wes Moss [00:29:15]:
Monopoly.

Connor Miller [00:29:17]:
We’ve gotten into tennis more recently and I used to be more lukewarm towards pickleball. But the more I get into this tennis community, like there’s a big riff going on there. So I think I’ve got to, I’ve got to take the side of you’re.

Wes Moss [00:29:30]:
All tennis and would you say, well.

Connor Miller [00:29:32]:
Because they’re taking over all of our.

Wes Moss [00:29:33]:
Courts and so you don’t like pickleball.

Connor Miller [00:29:36]:
I do not like pickleball.

Wes Moss [00:29:39]:
Is it because. Does the sound annoy you? You feel like you’re just too young?

Connor Miller [00:29:45]:
I guess. Our house is right across from the tennis courts and now pickleball courts.

Wes Moss [00:29:50]:
Oh, that’s why you don’t like it.

Connor Miller [00:29:52]:
So much louder than tennis.

Wes Moss [00:29:53]:
Oh, it is loud. The only people in America that don’t like pickleball are people that live near pickleball courts. That’s. We did a whole. There’s like fights in New York City, people in apartments near parks that they put pickleball in. It’s the popping, like, drives people crazy. No wonder. Okay, well, Joe and Cindy, their pickleball courts, far, far away from you.

Wes Moss [00:30:14]:
Here’s the thing I love about what embodies the happy retiree is that sure, they have all these corporate. It’s like 15 of them. It doesn’t matter what they are, but it’s 15 cool things that they love. And one of them is like, so. And their purpose and meaning, volunteering, helping, doing a medical treatment for street medicine for homeless folks. I mean, it’s just like a moving story, all of this. But you think about how they articulated that and the move to California and using their RV and towing the jeep behind the RV so they can go jeeping while they’re on traveling. You put it all together and you leave the working world, which is so much of our life and our time and our structure.

Wes Moss [00:30:58]:
And then you go to this life. And now instead of working for 40 hours, you’re doing 10 different core pursuits for four hours. And you have an entirely. You’ve created a completely new life rhythm. You’ve curated your own new life rhythm, which to me is the creation of a new life purpose. And these aren’t just little hobbies and oh, it’s just pickleball. Connor Miller doesn’t love. I don’t blame it.

Wes Moss [00:31:30]:
I get it. It’s just tennis. It’s new, it’s pickleball and it’s tennis and it’s RVing and it’s Jeeping and it’s doing all those things and creates this whole new structure and it’s a whole new purpose. And I don’t know of a better example that I’ve seen or read about in a very long time than this note. So I thank the huge thank you to Joe and Cindy in Indio, California for sharing their story. It’s an inspiration to us all and it’s perfect for today here on Money Matters. With that, it’s very easy to find the pickleball loving connor miller@yourwealth.com I’m there too. It’s y o u r your wealth.com.

Wes Moss [00:32:13]:
we’re happy to answer your questions and happy to help. Have a wonderful rest of your day.

Disclaimer [00:32:25]:
This is provided as a resource for informational purposes and is not to be viewed as investment advice or recommendations. This information is being presented without consideration of the investment objectives, risk tolerance or financial circumstances of any specific investor and might not be suitable for all investors. The mention of any company is provided to you for informational purposes and as an example only, and is not to be considered investment advice or recommendation or an endorsement of any particular company. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal. There is no guarantee offered that investment, return, yield, or performance will be achieved. The information provided is strictly an opinion and for informational purposes only, and it is not known whether the strategies will be successful. There are many aspects and criteria that must be examined and considered before investing.

Disclaimer [00:33:13]:
This information is not intended to, and should not form a primary basis for, any investment decision that you may make. Always consult your own legal tax or investment advisor before making any investment tax, estate or financial planning considerations or decisions. Investment decisions should not be made solely based on information contained herein.

Disclaimer [00:30:09]:
This is provided as a resource for informational purposes and is not to be viewed as investment advice or recommendations. This information is being presented without consideration of the investment objectives, risk tolerance, or financial circumstances of any specific investor and might not be suitable for all investors. The mention of any company is provided to you for informational purposes and as an example only, and is not to be considered investment advice or recommendation or an endorsement of any particular company. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal. There is no guarantee offered that investment return, yield, or performance will be achieved. The information provided is strictly an opinion and for informational purposes only, and it is not known whether the strategies will be successful. There are many aspects and criteria that must be examined and considered before investing.

Disclaimer [00:30:57]:
This information is not intended to and should not form a primary basis for any investment decision that you may make. Always consult your own legal, tax or investment advisor before making any investment, tax, estate or financial planning considerations or decisions. Investment decisions should not be made solely based on information contained herein.