Why Financial Freedom Should Be On Your Wealth Bucket List

Financial Freedom requires a Wealth Bucket List. How else are you going to pass nearly 25 years in retirement? Blog post update for 2024+.

The biggest pushback I receive when I recommend practical approaches to financial literacy is that it restricts you. It’s assumed that you magically disappear into a cave of sorrow if you aren’t spending on credit, waking up confused, and living “your best life.” Only to later complain about the debt, the mounting interest, and an inability to keep up with inflation. It’s all fun and games until you are 45+ with no assets and long-term liabilities.

My wife and I have visited over 27 countries, UNESCO Heritage sites, World Wonders, and so many world cities that I can’t remember. Our experiences led us to horseback riding with gauchos in Argentina, castle stays, a remote waterfall resort, walking on glaciers in Canada, and paragliding off of a mountain in Rio. I can only tell you, that my life is nowhere near boring. Sometimes it’s a bit too exciting. All while earning over half a million in market gains through the stock market (since 2019). Link to our total investment portfolio (updated quarterly).

Accountability, Budgeting, Cash Flow Management, Discipline, and Effort aren’t bad words. They are quite the opposite. The ABCs of personal finance opens up a wealth of possibilities. Hitting financial independence is this generation’s civil rights movement. While not easy, making the right moves with our money, and especially your time, is not difficult.

Moreover, all the efforts of prior generations brought us to this point, it’s only fair that we keep going. Because of that, I want to do something unique and completely unexpected.

Why Do You Need a Wealth Bucket List?

I still remember mornings in Haiti.

The smell of the bakery covers the neighborhood. Black coffee hits the stove. The soft moment just before dawn when you can hear footsteps walking up pavements, just outside the window. These were the days when kids were shaken, showered, and prepped.

Simpler times with irons powered by coal with hand-controlled mist. Mornings when everyone except the toddlers headed out the door. In the Marines, we called it “making yourself scarce.” The time when we captured the power of the sun. For some reason, that’s the life is what I dream of.

Even 36 years later, I still don’t dream of labor. I dream of PURPOSE. That purpose is the genesis of my bucket list. I imagine a future where my wife and I can:

• Travel the world for a Year,
• Support philanthropic endeavors for type 1 Diabetes, IVF, Scholarships, etc,
• Create a local after-school campus,
• Help incubate and fund local small businesses,
• Bless service workers with large tips during busy seasons,
• Create a family book, and
• The list goes on.

The future is unlimited. We want options that are also unlimited.

Funding a Joyful Retirement

My wife and I plan to retire no later than December 2037.

This would put us around 30 years earlier than most when our peers start to take retiring seriously. Millennials truly don’t recognize that they will be working over 70. For context, that’s to 2065. And that’s the best-case scenario. Many will be forced to retire due to obsolesce, bodies failing, or innovations such as AI and robotics.

The old YOLO motto was flawed. And the lack of foresight will be expensive.

Life expectancy is going up and so are retirement expenses.

At this junction, you should start considering how much retirement income is coming in to support your expenses. Here is a hint; it will cost as much as $100,000 per year to sustain the median household’s expenses today. If that sounds like a lot, it is more reason to double down with a financial plan today.

If you doubt this amount, multiply your current annual expenses by 75% to account for expense reduction (post-work) and factor in +3% inflation annually. You will find that the median of $70,000 ramps up to $176,395 annually.

Most would need as much as $1.7 million in retirement savings to weather the storm. This is reason enough to do something about it. My wife and I want to reach a minimum of $3.5 million in investments. See Image #3 below.

Our Hyper Net/Max Financial Plan for Retirement

For our household, the retirement income plan includes the government pension of $44,000 annually with COLA increases, at least $30,000 in dividends from the after-tax account, and $30,000 from Social Security and/or rental income. This is way before our required distributions from our 401ks and ROTH IRAs.

“Life-in-retirement” isn’t so hard with a great financial plan. If you want to get started here are the top 10 best financial books you need to read.

Why plan so much for retirement?

Turns out, we will likely have to take care of our aging parents and our kids. With no inheritances in sight and my wife living with Type-1 Diabetes, we cannot afford a plan B. With all that said, constructively, we are giving ourselves ample room in the budget by living abroad where costs are cheaper. Life (post-mandatory work) comes down to the lifestyle we want and the choices we make today.

Most retirees enter into this space with no real plan beyond work. Many suffer from a lack of purpose and depression because of it. This is why it’s important to create SMART+ER life goals ASAP.

Because there is so much more to learn in retirement

Education is paramount.

With an increase in time fueled by retirement income, I want to learn as much as possible. First, I will double down on Spanish and Portuguese. Language proficiency has long been one of my weaknesses. Next, I might earn a PhD (to say that I did it). Depending on how that goes, I will see if teaching is something that I would like to do for fun.

Additionally, I want to head to culinary school with hospitality training. This might lead me to dabble in curating International travel and Air BnBs at extensive villas. Alternatively, I can jump into Certified Financial planning with a WeWork-style office space for your professionals.

Finally, I will take a nursing course so that I can better care of those around me. Too often, we risk too much and lose for lack of knowledge. For me, this is all about going back to more holistic living where people learned and labored in unison.

You can’t lose with more knowledge. In retirement, I plan to spend the remainder of my life learning and teaching others. Time to dabble in books and public speaking, anything to spread new ideas.

I’ve always been BIG on travel

Travel is likely number one on everyone’s bucket list. I have dreamed of adventures worldwide likely due to Carmen Sandiego and way too much James Bond as a child. Although my wife and I visited over 27 countries, it would be great to see if we could visit them all.

There are so few people granted the opportunity and means to travel the world, while fewer have the passion.

With a knack for languages and great intuition, I have never known a place that home that could not be lived and built somewhere else.

As such, my wife and I have our hearts set on living abroad.

She says Spain, but I am team Brazil and/or Portugal. To be fair, I could see ourselves living in Lisbon (Portugal) and taking quick trips through Spain.

That is the beauty of travel, the ability to live and experience other cultures. I am a big fan of big palisades and lifestyle tweaks that force families to spend more time outdoors than indoors. Do not worry, our kids will have a choice to live abroad or stay stateside with family.

My wife is soft-hearted, so she might travel back and forth. In this case, retirement life is flexible and without restrictions. Craft it in a way that makes sense for you. I can see some summers traveling with the grandkids and loading up their passports.

The rest of my time is All about Service and Business

Across the globe, most people wake up around 5 am and are out by 7 am. There is no such thing as a “not a morning” person. I want to reward that behavior by investing in local entrepreneurs. There is a small space reserved in my heart for the 3rd Space like local cafes.

In South America and the Caribbean, these cafes are the centers of productivity in the morning. I want to be part of that energy. Can’t forget to incorporate bakeries that jump-start the pulse of culture. After that, I would like to modernize spaces such as Barbershops with Loft areas where people can work or network.

To add to this, I would also love to innovate on after-school campuses where kids could learn beyond school and parents can be at ease that progress is being made on their behalf. Beyond making money, I want to help others.

Retirement life can be a life of service.

The goal is to reposition wealth and opportunities for some families so that they can branch out and help others. As you can see I have ideas that include multi-generational real estate construction or tiny home communities.

Financially Freedom Sings

I am retiring because “I never dreamt of labor“.

I live for change and constant improvements while retaining the essence of what works.

My wife and I will be fine in retirement and to be frank, could do nothing and it will still be more than enough. However, I was born to change the world by running my relay faster.

I am here to give the next in line, no excuses to what is and can be possible. This is what being financially independent means to me.

Everyone has his or her Why and maybe it is to retire early and relax. It is your money and you earn what you want to do with your time. I dream of big smiles, morning conversations, and helping others reach their potential.

This is the WHY that energizes me. My retirement life is merely the start of doing way more.

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