Can I Afford to Retire? Making Your Money Last with Dan Goldie

Farnoosh Torabi (0:00)

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Welcome to So Money everybody. I'm Farnoosh Torabi. We're talking about retirement today. And when we think about it, what comes to mind? Do we want more freedom, more time, or is there a number in our savings account that we're pretty sure needs another zero?

Especially in midlife, right? Retirement can feel like a moving target. You're trying to save for your future while paying for the very expensive present and beyond the question of will I have enough? There's another question. What do I actually want my life to look like when work no longer sets the schedule? My guest today is Dan Goldie. He's a financial advisor and author of The Retirement Answer, The Six Key Decisions Every Retiree Needs to Make. Before his career in finance, Dan was a professional tennis player and Wimbledon quarterfinalist. An injury, though, ended that career at just age 27, giving him an early experience with the challenge of figuring out what comes next. Today we're talking about how to get beyond the intimidating retirement headlines and focus on your own circumstances. We explore Social Security timing, why Dan favors a more flexible approach to retirement withdrawals, and the adjustment from building your savings to actually using them. Plus, does retirement need a new name? Because wanting to work less and wanting to stop working entirely are two different things. Here's Dan Goldie.

Dan Goldie, welcome to So Money.

Dan Goldie (2:01)

I'm very glad to be here, Farnoosh, and I've enjoyed many of your previous episodes. I'm excited to talk to you.

Farnoosh Torabi (2:08)

Thank you. Well, you hit the nail with your new book. Retirement is such a complex and difficult subject for a lot of people to even think about. A lot of people will say, well, I don't even think I am retiring. To be honest, at this point, life's expensive. I haven't done a really good job of saving. And your book has solutions. In fact, the title is called The Retirement Answer.

And we're going to get into so much of it. But I want to start with your origin story because it is unique. I don't think I've ever had a tennis pro on the show before. We've talked about tennis.

We've talked about tennis and how much I love it and I love to fail at it. I think it's important to find something that you're good at failing.

Dan Goldie (2:51)

It's a much harder sport than people realize.

Farnoosh Torabi (2:56)

It's like golf. It's like how hard to hit a golf ball. It's very hard. So you arrived to this world not initially as a financial advisor. First, your first career was in tennis as a tennis champion, first at Stanford and then a Wimbledon quarter-finalist. Your pro tour in 1991 was the retirement for you. Tell us about, help us make the connection maybe even, about your time with tennis, your career in tennis, and then what you're doing today, teaching Americans how to live fully in retirement.

Dan Goldie (3:29)

Well, the transition that I had actually turned out to be pretty easy for me because I have an economics degree from Stanford. And when I was in school, I actually, when I was a senior at Stanford, I had an internship with a financial planning firm. And that really opened my eyes to the benefits of financial planning in general and investment management, and then how to retire and so forth. I went through one retirement, a very early retirement because of an injury, an athletic injury. So I stopped playing tennis in 1991 I was 27 years old. Most people play quite a bit longer than that, especially nowadays. But I had injuries and to me, I didn't really enjoy the tour so much. I didn't like all the traveling and so forth. So I just transitioned immediately into having my own financial planning firm. That was my transition.

Farnoosh Torabi (4:22)

There was a story too, though, as a child, I was reading that your mom raised you with some financial stress, which is pretty typical in American households. And I'm just curious. We talk a lot about our financial past because it sometimes informs our financial present and future. And I'm just curious how that upbringing influenced your mindset and your relationship with money.