AI IPOs may often dominate the news, but what matters for your retirement? On the Money Matters Podcast, Wes Moss and Connor Miller connect market headlines with the financial questions that hit home: from household wealth and investing to retirement readiness.
In This Episode
- Explore AI IPO discussions and consider the risks and uncertainties surrounding proposed technology company valuations.
- Scrutinize the assumptions and limitations behind total addressable market projections, including estimates exceeding the size of the U.S. economy.
- Assess corporate earnings results and stock price movements without treating individual company performance as representative of the broader market.
- Trace artificial intelligence’s role in financial market narratives, political discussions, and infrastructure spending.
- Examine the investment trends, local opposition, and political uncertainties surrounding AI data center construction.
- Compare three AI-related IPO valuation scenarios with historical technology IPO data while considering differences in timing, scale, and valuation methods.
- Evaluate historical post-midterm election returns while recognizing that past performance does not guarantee future results.
- Compare historical investment-growth examples across presidential administrations without assuming political leadership alone determines market performance.
- Unpack Federal Reserve household wealth data and explore associations, not necessarily causal relationships, among education, homeownership, age, and net worth.
- Review U.S. net worth by age, percentile, and homeownership status while recognizing that national benchmarks do not determine individual financial readiness.
- Examine wealth differences associated with equity ownership while acknowledging market risk, possible investment losses, and other factors affecting household wealth.
- Clarify the top 25%, top 10%, and top 1% net worth benchmarks alongside the hosts’ retirement-readiness “green zone.”
- Assess how retirement timing, Social Security, mortgage obligations, and spending needs may help influence retirement scenarios for households with modest nest eggs, with feasibility dependent on individual circumstances and planning assumptions.
Listen and subscribe to the Money Matters Podcast for educational conversations with Wes Moss and Connor Miller about financial markets, household wealth, and retirement planning.
Full Episode Transcript
Click here to read the full transcript
Wes Moss [00:00:03]: Your host, Wes Moss, along with host Connor Miller here in studio. So we have the big brain here in studio, which is great because there’s a lot of market to talk about. Earnings season, biggest IPO announcement, real arguably in the history— Could be, yeah. Of the world. Federal Reserve meeting where the Fed— Kevin War spoke this week. They didn’t do anything, but there’s always tons of fodder around what the Fed is doing or not doing. Midterm elections coming up on Tuesday. We’re in the middle of earnings season and we had this, this, it wasn’t a terrible earnings number from, from Google/Alphabet, but that stock was down dramatically on Thursday.
Wes Moss [00:00:46]: And because it’s so big, took the averages really down with it. On the other side of the equation, kind of haves and have-nots, Microsoft on the other end of the spectrum. Wall Street liked their number and that stock held up decidedly well on a relative basis. I think this is interesting. I heard the, the Eli Lilly chairman this week talking about just how absolute momentum of GLP-1s and then talking about the next generation, which maybe we call them GLP-2s or GLP-3s. 3s. And retudetide, which is evidently as good or better than what’s on the market today with way less side effects. Almost— there’s going to be some, but decidedly fewer gastrointestinal side effects.
Wes Moss [00:01:34]: They said they are curing obesity on a planetary scale is what he said, which I literally— I think I was in the car when I was listening to CNBC and I, I immediately pulled over and wrote that down because I don’t think I’ve ever heard— well, we’ve been hearing more and more CEOs talk about total addressable market, $23 Trillion. Then total addressable market for what you wrote about this week and upping the ante. What did Anthropic say on their TAM, total addressable market?
Connor Miller [00:02:05]: $40 trillion. And remember when SpaceX, when their IPO came out just a couple months ago, I think their TAM was like $28 trillion, which we—
Wes Moss [00:02:14]: Everyone laughed at.
Connor Miller [00:02:15]: We laughed at that time. It’s basically the entire size of the US economy. $40 trillion. Now we’re just, we’re way surpassing the overall US economy in terms of GDP.
Wes Moss [00:02:25]: The Wall Street Journal did an interesting breakdown about how, just how wild these numbers are. There’s not even that much revenue in a given year in the entire United States economy. So it’s kind of like, it’s hard to even fathom a company to say $25, $30 trillion, and then Anthropic comes out and says $40+ trillion. They did a chart on where that market could be. It was interesting to me that when you looked at SpaceX and the part of that total addressable market, it was only a tiny little corner chunk that said space on it. So it’s so much more than just what— when we hear SpaceX, I know people laugh and say, we’re not— how are they going to make money? Nobody’s going to Mars. We’re not going to colonize Mars. That can’t be a real business.
Wes Moss [00:03:08]: And they know that. They know that that’s not a giant business, but it is all the other things that they are doing that are cloud-based, which I guess you can include somewhat in space, but it’s not really the space business. business per se. It is the global communication AI infrastructure cloud that should power AI infrastructure around the globe. And then Anthropic is really just at the heart of that.
Connor Miller [00:03:32]: Well, ironically, all the things that you mentioned just a few minutes ago, they’re all connected. They all kind of tie back to this theme of artificial intelligence, whether we’re talking about the Anthropic IPO, whether we’re talking about Google and Microsoft reporting earnings, Whether we’re talking about midterms, as we know, data centers and artificial intelligence are a big factor in the upcoming midterm election. So it all kind of ties back to this AI theme.
Wes Moss [00:03:58]: I still believe very strongly that the narrative that data centers are gonna be stopped in certain places, and that’s a, it’s a very real thing. And if the governor of a state says no more data centers, I guess that argument has some teeth. Not in my backyard. I don’t want my, utility costs going up. I don’t want trucks driving around in my neighborhood. I still think that is absolute— I would call that boulder dash because there is no way in— and it doesn’t happen in the history of the economy. What always wins is capital and money. And if capital and money want to be spent, somebody is going to say, okay, you can build over here.
Wes Moss [00:04:40]: I don’t care what politicians are saying right now. I don’t care how much pushback there is. I don’t care if town halls are rising up and protesting. If a trillion-dollar company wants to spend $5 billion to build a data center, guess what? They’re going to find the land to do it because we live in a massive country. There’s a lot of open space, a lot of states where there’s a lot of empty land, and they’re going to get built.
Connor Miller [00:05:03]: And you’ve already seen the messaging change from the hyperscalers, which are the companies that are building most of the data centers. Whether they’re going to fund schools or help supplement property taxes, I do think they will— they’ll find a way to construct something.
Wes Moss [00:05:17]: They’ll buy off the towns. Hey, before you make a decision, Mr. Town Hall Mayor, I’d like to open up my checkbook just before you say no, and I’m going to write out a number here, and I have a feeling that might change your mind before we even start talking. So biggest IPO in the history of the planet, potentially. The S-1 came out, which is this 400-page document that explained the— you called it the antidote and the poison. What do you mean by that?
Connor Miller [00:05:46]: A lot of good, a lot of bad in there, anywhere from the potential to cure cancer to a potential civilization-ending event in that S-1. So it was probably one of the most unique S-1s we’ve ever seen.
Wes Moss [00:06:00]: Well, I think the question is, What does this mean for the overall market? I mean, there was a lot of digestion. We saw what happened with SpaceX. First couple days it was kind of through the roof, then it corrected very significantly, and then it seems like that particular company has found its footing. But this is something that it’s almost so big and will have to be eventually, or probably very quickly, included in the indices where I think that the just like during SpaceX, hey, should I buy? Should I? And again, we can’t make a recommendation whether to buy or sell these companies because everyone’s financial situation is different. Everyone’s risk tolerance is different. And by the way, these IPOs, even for, quote, trillion-dollar companies, are still absolute roller coasters when it comes to price. I don’t see this being any different. I think it’s gonna be an absolute roller coaster.
Wes Moss [00:06:54]: And if you don’t own it, And you don’t run out and try to buy it in the very beginning, then the consolation is that it’s gonna— this is one of these massive companies that will be included in dozens, if not hundreds of different ETFs and indexes.
Connor Miller [00:07:09]: It’s funny how we’ve seen the indices react to— I mean, really SpaceX is the one that we have on record now. The NASDAQ basically carved out a rule to fast-track these types of companies to get included in the index. The S&P, which is the S&P 500, they’ve kind of held the line there on waiting a year to actually be included because you— company has to be public for a year and then have 4 consecutive quarters of profitability to actually be included in that index.
Wes Moss [00:07:36]: You did some math on this where, again, we’re talking about this upcoming IPO, which is the company Anthropic. If you are an artificial intelligence user, you’ve probably heard of the LLM, the language model Claude. There’s an awful lot it can do. That is the— Anthropic is the company that runs Claude. Just the sheer size, Connor, you went back over the course of history and looked at all the IPOs or technology IPOs and what their value was in that given year relative to really the 2 to 3 that we’re going to be seeing. Yeah. Or one we’ve already seen.
Connor Miller [00:08:12]: So yeah, just, just a mind-blowing stat that going back to 1980, so between 1980 and 2025, there was about 3,300 tech-oriented companies that have gone public, that have issued—
Wes Moss [00:08:27]: 3,300 companies?
Connor Miller [00:08:30]: Yep. Their combined first-day value, and this is what we’re talking about when we talk about Anthropic getting a valuation of $1.5 to $2 trillion, SpaceX getting a valuation of about $1.75 trillion. The combined first-day value for all 3,300 tech companies between 1980 and 2025 was about $4.1 trillion. So just the 2 IPOs, one that we’ve already seen and one that we were expecting to see around mid-November, are basically going to get you there. And then you throw in OpenAI, which is the company that runs ChatGPT, which we’ll probably see next year. We’re easily gonna surpass that.
Wes Moss [00:09:10]: So, okay, 3,300 companies over the course of almost 50 years added up to about $4 trillion. And just these 3 are going to be a larger value than that.
Connor Miller [00:09:21]: Yeah. Prior to this year, the biggest IPO year ever was 2021, only $1.2 trillion in first-day value. And that was every IPO in that year, not just one company.
Wes Moss [00:09:33]: So you don’t run out and necessarily buy this on the first— well, we don’t even need to be talking about that. It’s going to be included in most indices regardless. Again, no buy, sell, or even hold recommendation here on Money Matters. We’re not even allowed to do that.
Connor Miller [00:09:45]: I do think it’s funny. I got this question internally this past week of like, how are we even getting these valuations of $1 $1.5 trillion, $2 trillion. Like, are we just making up trillions of dollars now? I’m sure, I’m sure someone has a model for it. And when you see a company that’s growing their revenue by 1,300% over the course of the year, maybe you can justify it. But it— I don’t know, it— to me, it does just feel like, well, SpaceX was $175 billion, so we’re gonna be in that range of $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion.
Wes Moss [00:10:13]: All right, so this is not, in your opinion— these are very real companies. This is not Pets.com. Like we saw in the late ’90s, companies that had zero revenue. The difference here is these are companies that are largely still spending more money than they’re bringing in, but the amount of revenue that they’re doing and their path to potential profitability is mind-boggling because they are actually doing billions and billions of dollars in business every quarter and growing significantly.
Connor Miller [00:10:42]: Yeah, and, and maybe the most encouraging stat for a company like Anthropic is the fact that they are getting more profitable, if you want to call it that. I think it was about a year ago, basically they were spending $1.50 to bring in $1 revenue. Now that’s down to about $0.50 in terms of gross margin. So revenue minus the cost that it takes to, to get that revenue.
Wes Moss [00:11:06]: And they went from a little over $1 billion in revenue.
Connor Miller [00:11:11]: Yeah, $1.2 billion to $16.3 in the first half of 2026 compared to the first half of 2025.
Wes Moss [00:11:19]: So think about that growth from 1 to 16 in a 6-month period of time. And these are not small numbers. This is not going from $100 to $1,600. It’s going from $1 billion to $16 billion. We will see. Midterm elections right around the corner. Historically, the 12 months following— and Connor, you and the team have done some math on this— The 12 months after, so this is really November to November following midterm elections, they have been— I don’t know of any other historical corollary for any other thing we’ve ever researched that are— that have a track record of 100% of the time we’ve seen a positive result. Regardless of which party comes out on top, it doesn’t matter.
Wes Moss [00:12:05]: If you go all the way back to 1950, Every single midterm election. So we’re looking at 1950, ’54, ’58, ’62, ’66, ’70, etc. Every single one of those periods, if you go out 12 months, is positive. And the rate, Connor Miller, is what on average?
Connor Miller [00:12:27]: On average, 12 months following midterm elections. So we’ll start the clock on Tuesday to November of 2027. On average, return has been 15% when you take all of those positive returns going back to 1950.
Wes Moss [00:12:42]: 19 for 19, relative to, in a normal year, roughly 10% over that same period of time. So it’s historically, it’s been even better. We’ve had, if you look at 1954, after those midterms, the S&P was up 33% over the next 12 months. The ’94 elections, market was up 27%. Following the 1990 elections, up 25%. So yes, we’ve seen some modest years after 2010, after 2014, up single digits, but 19 for 19 positive. And really the question is, why does this happen? And I think that this is a reminder that we get emotional about our politics. They’re personal.
Wes Moss [00:13:26]: You believe what you believe and you think the blue side should win, or you believe it’s crazy for anybody to vote for the blue side and the red side should win. And then that in itself has this great blanketing effect on how you feel the economy and the direction of the country will be. And what does that do? Then that translates back to, hey, maybe I should be really excited about this economy and I should invest more, or maybe I should be super afraid about what’s happening in Washington and I should just get out completely. And the reason we bring that up is I see this and I’ve seen it over and over and over again where families say, I don’t like what I’m seeing in Washington. I don’t like what’s happening in these midterms. I don’t like the result. So I just want to be out. And even though I know that we’ve talked about this over and over again, and in general, I think, I think most Americans would understand that the market history is more powerful than your personal political belief about what the market will do.
Wes Moss [00:14:27]: But the statistic here that I’ll let Connor Miller talk about, which is a really nice reminder of not allowing politics to dictate your investment decisions.
Connor Miller [00:14:39]: Yeah. Like you gotta stay invested regardless of who’s in the White House, who’s controlling Congress. It’s just another mind-blowing stat here. $10,000 invested going back to 1953. If you only invested in Republican presidents, did about, turned into about $400,000. Only under Democratic presidents was about $600,000. But if you invested the entire period—
Wes Moss [00:15:02]: That’s pretty good, $10,000 to $400,000, $10,000 to $600,000, that’s pretty good.
Connor Miller [00:15:05]: Both pale in comparison to investing regardless of who’s in the White House. That $10,000 turns into a whopping $25 million.
Wes Moss [00:15:14]: $25 million. I think that case settled. Stay invested regardless of the political Outcome. More Money Matters straight ahead. You know, retirement is a lot like football. The best teams don’t just show up on game day. They’ve got great coaches and a smart game plan. Without one, things go off the rails quickly.
Wes Moss [00:15:37]: At Capital Investment Advisors, we would act as your retirement coach, building both the big picture strategy and the detailed plays that aim to help you score the retirement you want. Don’t go into retirement with a bad playbook. Visit us at yourwealth.com. That’s yourwealth.com. Finally, after a long 3-year wait, the Fed has released their 2026 SCF report, Survey of Consumer Finances. And when you look at it, it really comes back to 3 forces That I would say appear repeatedly in the data. They break wealth down by age, by decile or quintile or percentage, or they look at demographics, they look at education levels, they look at homeownership. So they look at all these different variables and say, people that are this, in this category, have this much wealth and they have this much income.
Wes Moss [00:16:39]: And They only do it once every 3 years, so it must be a pretty big undertaking. But as I read through it, and we’ll start with the numbers, I think the numbers are a good place to start. I think what maybe is more important from the Survey of Consumer Finance, it’s really a wealth report done by the Federal Reserve in the United States, is to understand which of the variables seem to really move the meter the most. And I’m going to start out with what those variables are right out of the gate to not bury the lead. The one of them is education. And I think that helps. There’s always this debate on whether college is worth it. Should you be spending this money? Should you go into debt for college? But I think if you look at the wealth statistics around education levels, kind of tells you very clearly that education is extraordinarily valuable in wealth creation over time.
Wes Moss [00:17:31]: The second one is homeownership. And this one is a, Not as easy as it used to be. I read an article recently in the Wall Street Journal. It takes, the average person takes 16 years now to save for a down payment on a house. It used to be 3 years when I was a, when I was a kid. And then the third, and this is, I think the good news on this one is that we’ve all got this one. Well, we hope we should all have this one. And it’s the one around patience because we all, you look at the numbers.
Wes Moss [00:18:03]: What is one very clear trend is that from age bracket to age bracket to age bracket, as we age, what happens? Wealth grows. Statistically in America, the older you are, the more money you have is because you’ve had more what? Time. You’ve had more time for your savings and your investments to compound. And that is very clear in this report to me. That’s what screams in this report. It screams out. Hey, education, homeownership, and time. Those are the 3 variables that on average really help to build wealth in the United States.
Wes Moss [00:18:38]: So where do Americans stand? The average net worth of the American family right now, as of this most recent report just released in 2026, is $215,000. That’s the median number. That’s the middle. Again, we line everybody up in a big line. The person right in the middle, that is the median. Now, the average or the mean is pretty different. It’s a, it’s a little over $1.2 million. And we’re looking at net worth here.
Wes Moss [00:19:06]: And the Federal Reserve, when they do this, they’re taking into account all of your bank accounts, your investment accounts, your retirement accounts, the value of your home minus what you owe on the home. So they’re giving you a net value. Right out of the gate, you can see that homeownership clearly is going to be a wealth builder. if you own a home rather than renting. So here’s net worth by age. Now, the other thing too that is important to note, the last time they released this is 2022. So they’ve updated these latest figures for inflation. So these are inflation-adjusted, quote, they call it real purchasing power.
Wes Moss [00:19:43]: So it’s not just changes merely by inflation, but these are, quote, real number, which takes inflation into account. So if you’re under 35, median net worth in America, $33K. 35 to 45, $155,000. 45 to 54, $253,000. And then we get into what I would consider the early retirement age, 55 to 64, is $411,000. And then we get into retirement age, the 65 to age 74 bracket in America, on average. Again, these people have had some time. The median net worth is $430,000.
Wes Moss [00:20:21]: $1,000. And, you know, Connor, I think about the green zones and the books that I’ve written over the years, and you’ve helped with this data. It makes me think, where do the green zones start as far as— this is liquid investment assets. We don’t do just net worth in the Retire Sooner Method. We look at this whole spectrum. And one of the ways we look at it is just good old-fashioned liquid net worth, money you can get your hands on. the green zone. So we have a red zone, we have these 2 neutral zones or yellow, and then green zone starts at $1 million.
Wes Moss [00:20:57]: And that’s where we start to see higher levels of happiness in America in that one particular bracket. Then it goes up even a little bit more in the $3 million. It just makes me think though, if the average American family, $65,000 to $41,000— I’m sorry, not average, the median. is $430,000. There are a lot of people in America that don’t even sniff that green zone. They don’t even get close to that. I think the other piece— so this is more than half of America are— have decidedly less than that. They’re not even close to that money green zone.
Wes Moss [00:21:36]: And I think that’s just important to understand. The other piece that gets listed, they also track the percentage of Americans that participate in the stock market. Now, it’s changed a little bit. It actually went down a little bit, but still, the number is around 56%. And that starts to make sense. About half of America, a little more than half of America owns stocks. A little less than half of America does not have any sort of equity ownership in retirement plans, investment accounts, brokerage accounts. And that’s where we get what is arguably, we’ve called it the E-shaped economy with 3 different legs.
Wes Moss [00:22:17]: That’s why I think so many Americans feel like this is a K-shaped economy where you essentially have half the people going up as the market goes up and homeownership goes up and the other half go down. And it makes sense if that, that one number in this entire report, I think that’s the important number. It’s 56% of Americans have ownership in equities. And that is the big difference here. Here’s another wealth benchmark. To be in the, again, median percentile in America, net worth $215,000. Top 25%. What’s it take to be in the top 25% of net worth in the United States? A little over $800K.
Wes Moss [00:22:58]: Again, reminds me of the green zones. The $800K, that’s still not even at the million. Mm-hmm. So, who is the Retire Sooner Method talking to? Maybe it’s really only about 20% of America that have the most wealth. What a narrow focus, Wes. Why didn’t you, why didn’t we broaden this thing out, Connor Miller? Top 10%, approximate entry point to get to that point, $2.5 million total net worth to be in the top 10%. 100 people or 10 people wealthier than 9 out of 10 if you’re in the $2.5 million range. And then to get to the top 1%, these numbers are getting pretty big.
Wes Moss [00:23:42]: $16 million, a little over $16 million. And we got that. That’s not listed in the report, but they listed them. The Federal Reserve listed public microdata, and we were able to look at those percentiles by using The microdata, those are just approximations, but for the 1%, but I think it’s directionally very close.
Connor Miller [00:24:03]: So, you know, if you’re speaking to, let’s say you’re the 65-year-old range and you’re sitting in the median camp and you want to be in the retirement green zone, and then maybe you’re speaking to someone who’s closer to my age in the 35 bucket, what, what would you recommend as advice to try and get into the, to the green zone?
Wes Moss [00:24:24]: Well, education. So, here are the numbers on education. The median college-educated family has 5 times the wealth of the median family with only a high school diploma. It’s the— if you look at high school diploma, median net worth is a little over $100K. College graduate, a little over $500K. Does that settle the argument? Is college worth it? I don’t know. That seems pretty clear to me. The mean net worth, high school diploma, this is pretty interesting, $470,000.
Wes Moss [00:25:01]: Again, the average. For the mean college, those who have a college degree, goes all the way up to $2.2 million. Whether you look at the median number or you look at the mean number, very clear that on average over time, education Absolutely pays off. Doesn’t mean you have to have a college degree at all. But over the course of the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, it’s not my favorite acronym, the SCF, Survey of Consumer Finances. How about engine number 2? So engine number 1, Connor, that’s, it’s education. Engine number 2, homeownership. Now this one is right out of the gate, I would say is unfair because it’s skewed towards the older you are, the more likely you have been able to buy a home.
Wes Moss [00:25:45]: The younger you are, the more likely you’re a renter. So. That’s a huge— let’s call that— the data is the data, but I would, I would couch it by just saying you’re going to be younger, more likely, if you’re still renting versus older and have homeownership. But here are the numbers. Homeowners in America, median net worth of over $450K. Median net worth of a renter in the United States is about— is less than $11,000. Okay. Almost 4— over $450K homeowners.
Wes Moss [00:26:18]: Renters, $10,000, $11,000. The mean net worth of homeowners in America, $1.8 million. The mean for renters, $153,000. So that’s engine number 2, education, homeownership, knowing that, yes, it takes time and it’s even harder today for our young generation to be able to buy a home because of interest rates and housing costs, etc. And then engine 3 very clearly is just time. Yes, college education may raise your earnings over time. The biggest wealth impact, though, comes from having those earnings grow and compound. And that is the 56% of America that really has been able to harness that, down from, by the way, 58%.
Wes Moss [00:27:04]: So in 2022, last survey that came out was 58%. Interestingly, it’s down a little bit, 56%. Among families who owned stock, the median value increased over that 3-year period by almost 40%. Again, makes sense looking at what the markets have done. The median balance for retirement accounts rose to $106,000. Average retirement accounts rose to $450,000. And that speaks to what I would consider is this tidal wave of compounding. And when you’re in the early stages of it, you think of a, even a tsunami.
Wes Moss [00:27:43]: If you’re the kind of the 2 miles out, it’s a very gentle swell. You don’t really feel it. Time you get to the shore, you know, call that a couple hours later, this, this wave is growing. It becomes a massive, massive thing. And for compounding, In a very good way. Those are the 3 engines: education, homeownership, and something that hopefully we all have plenty of and never enough at the same time, and that is time.
Connor Miller [00:28:11]: Wes, so we just talked about the median net worth of those around retirement age being somewhere around $400,000, $500,000. The question is, can you retire on that amount?
Wes Moss [00:28:22]: Can you retire on $400,000 or $500,000? Obviously, it’s not nearly as easy. I would say, yes, it is possible. But possible is not the same as easy. And I’d look at it a couple of different ways. And let’s just say $500K, even though that’s above the number, we’ll pick it as a round number. If you think about the math around it, $500K, and I’m going to do again round numbers, I’m going to go beyond the 4% rule here and say 5%. 5% of $500K would be $25,000 a year. or a little over $2,000 a month.
Wes Moss [00:28:55]: And if you think about the average Social Security payment, if you’re 62, it’s something more like $1,300. If you’re 67, it’s more like $2,000. So if you think of it this way, if you waited till Social and you had $500K, you’d have around $4K a month. Now, that doesn’t sound like a lot, and I get that. And if you have a mortgage, then you just wouldn’t be able to afford that. It’s just not, Really possible. If you did not have a mortgage, and that’s why there’s another one of the green zones, is to be getting rid of your mortgage or approaching full payoff by the time you stop working and start Social. And there’s a reason why that, I think that is such an important inflection point, is that if you didn’t have a mortgage, then you’re getting pretty darn close, particularly if you’re plus 65 plus and you have Medicare at that point.
Wes Moss [00:29:45]: It’s still really tight, but it’s possible. Now, what makes it more possible would be if you have 2 forces combined. So if you have a, if you have a spouse, now you go from $2,000 in Social, ideally, to $4,000. Now, not everyone’s Social is going to match their spouse’s. But again, round numbers, $500,000 gives you $2,000 a month. Social Security 1, $2,000. Social Security 2, $2,000. Now you’re at $6,000 a month.
Wes Moss [00:30:11]: And again, if you have no mortgage, that starts to get very much in the realm of— Comfortable. Very, very possible. And almost, I would, dare I say, almost comfortable. Again, I’ll probably get some hate mail. How could you say that’s comfortable? That’s, I can’t live on that in America. So it’s, to me, if that is going to be the case longer term, what do you do? The very simple answer is, it’s easier if you’re a couple. And it’s easier if you wait till your FRA, your full retirement age, for Social Security. So that number is more Like $2,000 versus $1,300.
Wes Moss [00:30:46]: And for many families, it’s a lot more than $2,000 a month. I mean, I know people getting over $4,000 a month per person, but they’ve worked for many, many years and had relatively high incomes. But a couple, both 67, with a 5% withdrawal rate, they get into the $70,000-plus a year range. You pair that with no mortgage, Connor Miller, we get back to very possible. But again, not the same as easy. Connor Miller, thanks for being here, man.
Connor Miller [00:31:15]: Absolutely.
Wes Moss [00:31:16]: You can find Connor Miller and you can find me and the whole Money Matters team. It’s easy to do so at yourwealth.com. That’s Y-O-U-R, yourwealth.com. We’re in Atlanta and 4 other markets around the United States. We’d love to hear from you if you need help. Have a wonderful Rest of your day.
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