Stephanie McCullough (00:00):

This is Take Back Retirement, the show that’s redefining retirement for women. Retirement is an old-fashioned cultural concept. We want to reclaim the word so you can make it your own. I’m Stephanie McCullough, financial planner and founder of Sofia Financial, where our mission is to reduce women’s money stress and empower them to make wise holistic decisions so they can get back to living their best lives.

Stephanie McCullough (00:29):

Kevin Gaines is my longtime colleague with deep knowledge in the technical stuff: investments, taxes, retirement plan rules. He’s a little bit nerdy and quantitative, I’m a little bit touchy-feely and qualitative. Together, through conversations and interviews, we aim to give you the information and motivation you need to move forward with confidence. We’re so glad you’re here.

Stephanie McCullough (00:54):

I was on a plane just a couple of days ago coming back from a conference and I was in the middle seat, of course. The guy on my right side was at the conference too. So, we were talking money nerd type of stuff.

Stephanie McCullough (01:07):

And the woman to my left said, “This sounds like an interesting conversation. What are you all talking about?” So, I told her what I did, and she said, “Oh my goodness, I might need to talk to you. I’m 66, I just got divorced and I’m trying to figure out whether I need to go back to work.”

Stephanie McCullough (01:29):

So, she gave me a little bit of detail that her husband had been, she used the phrase, high maintenance. So, really there was no option to work during the marriage. But now, that the marriage was over, she was trying to figure out both financially and non-financially, if she should go back and get a job.

Stephanie McCullough (01:50):

So, that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

Stephanie McCullough (01:53):

Coming to you semi-live from the beautiful Westlakes Office Park in suburban Philadelphia, this is Stephanie McCullough and Kevin Gaines of Sofia Financial and American Financial Management Group.

Stephanie McCullough (02:07):

Say hello, Kevin.

Kevin Gaines (02:09):

Hello, Kevin

Stephanie McCullough (02:10):

We decided to talk about this because it’s a common question we get since Sofia Financial has a specialty in working with women after divorce or widowhood. Also, women who’ve never been married.

Stephanie McCullough (02:23):

But we’ve had plenty of conversations with women who’ve been out of the workforce for quite a chunk of their lives, and they’re wondering, should I go back to work? Do I need to go back to work?

Kevin Gaines (02:35):

And yes, we’re going to be focusing on life after divorce in this conversation, but pay attention because you can draw a lot of parallels with retirement because we have this conversation with clients who are retiring as well, saying, “Do I want to keep working? Or should I get a second job?”

Kevin Gaines (02:56):

And some of these same thoughts are going to apply to that as well. So, don’t get too focused on the word divorce, but if you are divorced, this is for you.

Stephanie McCullough (03:07):

And if you’re still happily married or coupled. If you have been taking some time out of the workforce to care for kids, or parents, or pets, or yourself, or whomever.

Kevin Gaines (03:19):

High-maintenance spouses.

Stephanie McCullough (03:21):

High-maintenance spouses. I mean, we often get to midlife and think, “Huh, do I want to do something different?” And the, should I go back to work, do I need to go back to work question comes into it.

Stephanie McCullough (03:33):

So, the first point we want to make is that it’s not solely a financial question. It’s certainly a financial question because we’re talking about doing paid labor in addition to the unpaid labor that we all know women do in the household.

Stephanie McCullough (03:48):

But there are other things that come from working, of course. A sense of purpose, fulfillment, social connections, interactions.

Kevin Gaines (04:00):

Adult conversations if you’re living in a house with six or seven kids under the age of 10.

Stephanie McCullough (04:06):

Adult conversation, connections in your community. There’s all kinds of other things that can come from working, from a job, from a career.

Kevin Gaines (04:18):

So, Stephanie, what would you think is the first step to evaluating from a financial perspective, do I need to go to back to work? Should I go back to work? What’s the first thing that you think should be thought of?

Stephanie McCullough (04:33):

Well, if we’re going to look at the financial side, which of course we are, because like it or not, we’re a money podcast.

Kevin Gaines (04:39):

It’s what we do.

Stephanie McCullough (04:40):

It’s what we do even though we try to work in the non-money side of it.

Stephanie McCullough (04:43):

The thing you’ve got to start with, and really, so much of what we do, Kevin, starts with this, is what does life cost you? What does it cost to be you in this world? It really often starts with that.

Stephanie McCullough (04:58):

So many of the questions our clients come to us with, the answer we give is, well, it depends; how much does life cost you? And that’s not necessarily as easy an answer as you might think.

Kevin Gaines (05:10):

Most people think, what does life cost me? Well, what’s my monthly bills? Mortgage, credit cards, utilities.

Stephanie McCullough (05:18):

Cell phone, health insurance.

Kevin Gaines (05:21):

Right. All of these regular monthly checks that you have to write, but your living expenses are more than your every month expenses.

Stephanie McCullough (05:31):

We see people making this kind of — and I don’t want to say it’s a mistake, but it’s almost like a blind spot. Oh, what does life cost you? Here, I’m going to add up the things I pay every month, but there are things we pay less than every month.

Stephanie McCullough (05:45):

Personally, I don’t escrow my real estate taxes. So, I get bills three times a year that are pretty sizable. I can’t forget those. I’ve got some life insurance premiums that come up once a year. I’ve got to pay the lawn guy. He’s only in the summer when the grass is growing. What about holidays, vacations?

Stephanie McCullough (06:06):

There are things that come up that we’ve got to pay for. Pet expenses, right, Kevin? They don’t hit-

Kevin Gaines (06:14):

Oh yeah.

Stephanie McCullough (06:14):

… evenly Every month.

Kevin Gaines (06:15):

Yeah. No, no, no. A dog typically only blows out its knee once a year and rehab and surgery. I’m speculating here, I’m not speaking from experience, of course.

Stephanie McCullough (06:29):

Of course not.

Kevin Gaines (06:31):

But I mean also, especially if you have kids, football season doesn’t go 12 months.

Stephanie McCullough (06:38):

Summer camp.

Kevin Gaines (06:40):

Summer camp. I mean, all of these one-off things, field trips, et cetera.

Stephanie McCullough (06:46):

Yeah. So, one comment I want to make is that it can be very anxiety-inducing to look at one’s spending. There’s a lot of shame and blame and guilt. Self-Blame, I would say that, especially in my experience, women tend to bring to this exercise like, “Oh, I spent how much at Nordstrom, or (if you’re in the Philadelphia area) Wawa? It’s just something that can stand in the way of doing the work.

Stephanie McCullough (07:17):

So, I want to say, please try to be kind to yourself. Suspend your self-judgment. What we’re gathering here is the data. And if along the way you gather some data that’s like, “Hey, I might want to make the change to that.” That’s fine too. But be kind to yourself. No self-judgment. We’re just gathering data.

Kevin Gaines (07:38):

And then here’s the other great thing about spending, it’s not static. Things change. Again, using the kids as an example, you have certain expenses at certain times of the year when the kids are not in school than when they’re in school.

Kevin Gaines (07:55):

And even as they’re going into college, you’re going to have a different set of expenses that happen at different times.

Stephanie McCullough (08:03):

And hopefully someday there will come a time when they are financially independent.

Kevin Gaines (08:08):

It could happen.

Stephanie McCullough (08:10):

That can be a change in what life costs you. Or to pick a more cut-and-dried example. You pay off your car loan and hopefully you don’t need to buy a new car right away. You’ve got a few years where there’s no car payments. That’s going to change your spending.

Stephanie McCullough (08:27):

Some people get to the point where they paid off their mortgage. Hallelujah. That’s a huge change in spending.

Stephanie McCullough (08:32):

So, looking down the road, hey some people, when the kids leave the house, they’re going to move to a different school district because they don’t have to pay those high school taxes and be in that certain school district anymore. Is that a plan? Think about how your cost of living might be changing down the road.

Kevin Gaines (08:52):

And since we’re talking divorce, there are some things that you don’t have to worry about that you may have to worry about after you get divorced. If you’re not working, the benefits that your spouse had.

Kevin Gaines (09:06):

Numero uno on that list is health insurance. Even if your kids are covered under the ex-spouse, you just have to worry about your own health. And that’s not always cheap.

Stephanie McCullough (09:19):

No.

Kevin Gaines (09:20):

So, how are you going to cover that expense?

Stephanie McCullough (09:23):

And that’s another factor where employment comes in. If you find the health insurance is going to be an expense that really sets you over the edge, do you need to try to find a job with health insurance benefits along with it?

Kevin Gaines (09:39):

Right. I mean, if you’re not saying, oh my gosh, I do have to get these health benefits because I need low-cost insurance, what’s the alternative? Alright, well, you can go on the marketplace.

Stephanie McCullough (09:55):

What’s the marketplace mean?

Kevin Gaines (09:57):

The healthcare marketplace, which was set up under the … what was that? ACA, I believe as it’s informally referred to as Obamacare. That’s where you can just go out and say, “Hey, I need health insurance. What’s it going to cost me?”

Kevin Gaines (10:13):

From experience, I can tell you it tends to be cheaper to get it from an employer than it does from the ACA marketplace.

Stephanie McCullough (10:23):

Yep.

Kevin Gaines (10:25):

Yeah. So, you definitely want to understand what you’re going to have to pay before you say, “Oh, I don’t need to go back to work.” Or, “Oh my gosh, I have to go back to work.”

Stephanie McCullough (10:37):

So, really best practice when you’re trying to figure out what life costs you, and I know this is not necessarily fun, but with credit cards and electronic records, it might be easier than you think.

Stephanie McCullough (10:48):

Take 12 months, look at your whole life for 12 months, add up everything you spent, don’t cringe, remember no self-judgment, and then divide by 12. And then maybe if there was something completely extraordinary that you know is not going to be repeated, maybe take that out.

Stephanie McCullough (11:05):

But the little stuff that happens, the little shit that hits the fan, it’s probably going to hit the fan again. It might just be a different type. I was going to say flavor, but that’s like mixing metaphors in a really gross way. But there’s always going to be unexpected expenses of some type. We just don’t know what. So, don’t be too quick to dismiss that.

Kevin Gaines (11:26):

But it also captures the seasonal stuff as we were talking about. So, sports seasons for the kids, holiday season and all the gift giving that comes with that.

Stephanie McCullough (11:35):

Maybe you’re a big Halloween person. Who knows.

Kevin Gaines (11:38):

Yeah. Candy’s not getting cheaper.

Stephanie McCullough (11:40):

Right. Okay. So, we’ve talked expenses, what life costs you. So, if we’re doing the calculation on the, do I need to go back to work, the next piece to look at is, do you have some income coming in now? That might be in the form of alimony or child support.

Stephanie McCullough (11:59):

And if that’s the case, then you want to look at does it end at some point? When does it end? Usually the answer is yes, it’s going to end at some point. So, understanding when that income will stop.

Stephanie McCullough (12:12):

But you might have some other income. Maybe you’ve got some rental income, maybe you’ve got some residuals from a project you did before.

Kevin Gaines (12:21):

It could be lots of things that it could be. But in most cases, you are really going to be looking at the alimony and child support.

Kevin Gaines (12:31):

And to your point, Stephanie, yeah, you definitely want to understand what’s going to happen after those dollars stop coming in.

Stephanie McCullough (12:41):

So, again, in our little calculation, what money is going out the door? What does life cost you? Do you have money coming in? Do you have income? So, then you want to look at the gap between those two things. Ooh, life’s costing me about 4,000 a month. I’ve got 2,000 a month coming in. I’ve got a gap of 2,000 a month, for example. I just picked numbers out of the air.

Stephanie McCullough (13:04):

So, once you’ve identified that there’s a gap between your outflow and your income, the next question is how are you going to fill the gap? And really, Kevin, when I think of it, I think there’s three different ways you could fill the gap. Would you agree?

Kevin Gaines (13:18):

I think so. I mean, the first one that comes to everybody’s minds … well, let me take a step back. The way we’re talking, we’re talking about reducing expenses or generating income. But I think what a lot of people see when they see the divorce settlement is assets.Because depending on how everything goes, of course, all of a sudden you may get these retirement dollars, you may get proceeds from the house if your spouse buys you out of the house.

Kevin Gaines (13:55):

There’s lots of different ways a big check could be coming your way. But Stephanie, that’s almost like false advertising in a way when you’re looking at your finances, wouldn’t you think?

Stephanie McCullough (14:07):

This is true. We’ve seen plenty of women coming out of divorce and they have the divorce settlement. They’re like, “Hey, this is a big number that’s now coming into my name.” Maybe it was in joint name, maybe it was in spouse’s retirement plan. Either way it could be a big chunk of dollars. And it can be tempting to say, “Oh, I’ll just fill in the gap by using some of those dollars.” And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s also not necessarily the way you want to go.

Stephanie McCullough (14:34):

So, Kevin, whenever we’re talking about assets, the first thing that you and I as financial planners think is, well, what kind of assets are we talking about? Let’s do an inventory of different types. And we won’t go into huge detail here. We have different podcasts, we’ll link to the show notes about different types. But you might have retirement plan assets, you might have just an investment account with some mutual funds in it. You might have some bank account assets.

Kevin Gaines (15:00):

To this point, I mean, retirement accounts. Even if you do withdraw the money and you’re able to withdraw without an early withdrawal penalty, which many people cannot, this is considered income by the IRS, which means you’re going to have to pay taxes on it. And depending on how much you take out, we could be talking 22, 24, 32% even. And that’s a huge chunk that’s going to the tax man that’s not going to cover your expenses.

Stephanie McCullough (15:33):

Right. And putting yourself in potentially a higher tax bracket has other implications, which we will not dive into here. Kevin, I’m figuratively kicking you under the table because I know he’s dying to go down that tax rabbit hole, which he loves so much.

Kevin Gaines (15:48):

Did you see the gleam in my eye? Is that what you’re saying?

Stephanie McCullough (15:54):

I did. Even on the Zoom. So, yeah if you’re looking at maybe spending some of the assets, what types are we talking about? How accessible are they? Are there rules about what ages I can take them out? What’s the tax implications of tapping that money? But then I think you want to look at also like what’s the purpose of this pot of money? If you’re getting some 401(k) money through a QDRO, qualified domestic relations order, I think it’s called. This is how you split a retirement plan after a divorce.

Stephanie McCullough (16:25):

The purpose of that money ostensibly is retirement. Which as we know, that doesn’t have a single definition. This the whole point of this podcast Take Back Retirement. We’re reclaiming that word. However, usually it means later in life. And of course, as we’ve talked about, there’s rules about when you’re allowed to take the money out. So, let’s say you get divorced at 45, do you really want to touch the retirement money at that point? Or do you want to leave it for when you’re 70, or 80, or 85 down the road? What’s the purpose of this pot of money?

Kevin Gaines (17:01):

Let me phrase it this way, to put these dollars in context, this is money that needs to last the rest of your life. If, when this money runs out, you’ve got to figure out how to replace that income it was generating for you. And you may not have the options then that you have now. I mean, Stephanie, we have this conversation with people approaching retirement all the time. They look at their 401(k) balance or saying, “Oh, I get the cash out of my pension and I’m going to get this big ass check.”

Kevin Gaines (17:37):

And yes, it’s a big ass check when they hand it to you, but do the math, divide that over 25, 30, 40, maybe even 50 years. And all of a sudden, that number’s a heck of a lot smaller than what it shows on the check and it’s a dose reality then and it should be a dose of reality for people now.

Stephanie McCullough (18:04):

And I like your point about looking at your options today, perhaps when you’re younger and fitter and mentally able and thinking about your options when you’re 88. Like if you’ve tapped out your retirement accounts now, or if you’ve used them now, so that you run out of money when you’re 88, are you really going to go back to work at 88? You hope not. I mean, there’s plenty of single elderly women living in poverty. The numbers are astonishing.

Kevin Gaines (18:34):

It’s staggering.

Stephanie McCullough (18:34):

We don’t want you to be one of those people. So, the impact of tapping the quote-unquote “retirement money” now, can be detrimental down the road. So, Kevin, I think we’ve hit the retirement account. What if someone’s just got a pot of investments or money, how do they figure out how much might be safe to spend in any given year?

Kevin Gaines (18:58):

Well, it works the same, I would say as with retirement accounts, except there’s not as much friction. And by friction, I mean taxes or other things that are going to reduce the size of the check that actually reaches you. The advantage of getting the dollars from the investment accounts or the savings account or the house proceeds is there really isn’t that tax bill associated with drawing on that money mostly.

Kevin Gaines (19:34):

But like retirement accounts, you still want to look at what we call the safe withdrawal rate, which is just our way of saying how much can you take money out and not exhaust the savings? Now, and we’ve covered this before in the previous episodes, there has been a standard among financial advisors for decades called the 4% rule, which based off of a big study that was done back in the ’90s, going back 50 years when the results of this study came back and said, if you take out 4% each year-

Stephanie McCullough (20:24):

4% of the balance of the account, right?

Kevin Gaines (20:26):

4% of the balance of the account each year (and that number’s going to change each year) then there’s a very small chance of you running out of money.

Stephanie McCullough (20:35):

Over a like 25-year period, I think it was.

Kevin Gaines (20:37):

I think it went 35 years.

Stephanie McCullough (20:37):

35? Okay.

Kevin Gaines (20:40):

30 or 35.

Stephanie McCullough (20:43):

But it was-

Kevin Gaines (20:45):

It had a three in it, but yes. But it was also a set period of time, it didn’t say infinity. So, yeah, the study only says 30, 35 years. But think about it, if you’re 45 years old, living to 95 is not an impossibility. In fact, pretty good likelihood in this day and age. And if I’m doing my math correctly, that’s 50.

Kevin Gaines (21:08)

And let me try to do a little bit more math. 50 is more than 35. So, now, the argument is, is 4% still a good number?

Stephanie McCullough (21:21):

Right. And we’re not here to debate the merits of the 4% rule. You can go down a huge Google, spend days and days listening to debates on that, however-

Kevin Gaines (21:33):

Well, or alert, our industry is dominated by this conversation right now, and there is no good answer.

Stephanie McCullough (21:39):

But to me the takeaway is 4% is maybe less than you were thinking.

Kevin Gaines (21:44):

Yes.

Stephanie McCullough (21:44):

When I talk to civilians, people not steeped in all this academic stuff, debate about 4% rule, they’re a little bit surprised at how low the 4% is. So, like, “Wait, I have a $100,000 but the quote-unquote “safe” or maybe “prudent” maximum I can take out per year is only 4,000 a year. That’s not very much money. That’s not going to get me very far.” So, that’s another point on the asset spending.

Stephanie McCullough (22:16):

So, here’s our little calculation again, do I need to go back to work? How much does life cost me? Do I have any income coming in? What’s the gap in between that? How could I fill it? One way to fill it would be to spend some assets which we have talked about. Another way to change that gap perhaps as opposed to fill it is can I cut expenses? Is there a way where I can reduce the amount that life costs me? And some people of course are living super bare bones, ramen noodles, beans, that’s not very easy for them. But a lot of the clients that we work with in theory, they might have some space to cut expenses.

Kevin Gaines (23:02):

Simple thing, can you move to a lower tax area? School district tax rates vary, and you don’t have to move very far to be in a different tax rate. A lot of people will look at something like that. You’re still in the same general area, you’re still going to be able to see your friends go to the same places you’re used to going to that you like going to.

Stephanie McCullough (23:27):

Close to your doctors and all that kind of stuff.

Kevin Gaines (23:30):

But just a small shift.

Stephanie McCullough (23:32):

Or of course there’s downsizing. Going from a house to a condo, house to an apartment, that kind of a thing. That’s one of the bigger expenses. What I think is helpful and honestly, again, the parallels with retirement. We talk to our retired clients about this all the time. If you had to cut expenses, where would you cut? Sometimes that’s an easier exercise to do and it’s certainly easier to do it before it’s a crisis.

Stephanie McCullough (24:00):

So, if you’re thinking through this situation now. Here you are figuring out, do I have to go back to work? As you’re looking at what life costs you, huh, what if I really was forced to cut back, where would I cut? What would I do? Thinking about it when things are calm and less emotional is certainly easier. And having a plan ahead of time, it’s easier than during a crisis.

Kevin Gaines (24:24):

Alright, so Stephanie, we’ve hit assets, we’ve hit expenses. Now, what’s our third option?

Stephanie McCullough (24:35):

Making some money, pulling in some income. So, back again to the crux. And it so often happens in these financial planning questions, we have to ask a lot of questions before we get to the thing that the client actually asked about. The client, “Do I need to go back to work? And if I need to go back to work, how much do I need to make?” Alright, well, first, we’ve got to look at all these other things. So, now, we’re back here.

Stephanie McCullough (25:00):

So, you’re thinking about going back to work. It is helpful to have some kind of a number of how much income would really help. So, you got to look at that gap between the spending and any income you have. Now, don’t forget taxes. If you need an extra 40,000 a year, a 40,000 a year salary is not going to do it because you’re not taking home 40,000 a year. You’ve got to look at actually your take-home pay to be apples to apples from what we’re talking about.

Kevin Gaines (25:30):

And it’s not just the actual dollars as we’ve already touched on, it’s the benefits. So, you go back, you’ve worked for that 40,000, but now, all of a sudden you get benefits possibly. So, you get that health benefit compared to our earlier conversation when we’re saying, oh, if you have to go get insurance yourself, you’re not getting it from your employer. That may actually reduce some of your expenses if the employer is going to cover that, or if they offer certain benefits that allow you to reduce your household expenses. Now, all of a sudden you have a little bit more flexibility in what you’re going to earn.

Stephanie McCullough (26:16):

This is true.

Kevin Gaines (26:16):

Or what you have to earn to cover the gap.

Stephanie McCullough (26:20):

And another benefit might be that there’s a retirement plan that you can put some money into too. So, especially if there’s a match offered by the employer, don’t pass up that opportunity because then you’re building up your assets at the same time. So, yes, there are financial benefits to working. But one of the things you’ve got to ask yourself seriously is could you do a full-time job? Do you want a full-time job? Do you need flexible hours? Do you need to be off certain times of the year? Or are you helping to care for someone? Or you’ve got to be a little bit flexible. That’s going to play a big role in the types of jobs that you look for.

Kevin Gaines (27:00):

No, I mean, and that’s a big thing is how is this job going to fit in your lifestyle? Whether it’s the life you have to live or the life you want to live. And that actually gets us back to expenses as well, Stephanie, that it’s one thing to say, “Oh, I can reduce these expenses.” But do you want to reduce those expenses? Is that the life you want to live or you are willing to live? And if it isn’t, on expense side, then it kind of pushes you more to, yeah, you need to go back to work because you have to fill this gap or a bigger gap.

Stephanie McCullough (27:39):

So, now, I think we’re back to doing a little bit of research. And I think it’s fun to think about like if you could do something that you really love as a job to provide some income, how much might that pay you? And then this is where it’s beneficial to have a network. Tap into your people you know, maybe you worked with folks years and years ago, go on LinkedIn, see if you can find them again, have some conversations.

Stephanie McCullough (28:06):

How much does this pay? Are you going in as an entry level or can you go in kind of mid-level with some experience? What are the types of roles that you might be eligible to get and how much do they pay? So, we’re kind of coming at it from two ends. What do you need? And then what’s out there?

Kevin Gaines (28:28):

To your point, Stephanie, you need to understand where you want to get to. But you also, have to say, well, what’s there?

Stephanie McCullough (28:38):

Yes, what’s available? What’s out there?

Kevin Gaines (28:40):

You can’t just say, “Oh, I’m going to go out and get the job that’s going to give me X, Y, and Z.” It sadly, may not exist.

Stephanie McCullough (28:50):

And I do want to say, I’ve seen quite a few of my friends who’ve taken time off from the workforce to care for children, to raise children. When they go back to the workforce, the only thing they think they’re qualified to do is be a preschool teacher. I literally have like five friends who are doing this.

Stephanie McCullough (29:10):

One of them has done tons of volunteer work and really moved the needle of organizations. So, it’s worthwhile thinking about your skills, not just in the, oh gosh, I haven’t been in an office in 20 years, but what have I been doing in the meantime? And what employers might find that useful? There are organizations out there who help women returning to careers to identify opportunities. We will link to some in the show notes.

Kevin Gaines (29:45):

But Stephanie, your comment about exploring your network is yes, you may say, “Oh, I got a group of friends.” This is your network, so go out and talk with them. They may know of a job opening at their place or they may have a friend that has a job opening. And here’s the thing, if you’re worried about this gap in your resume or a thin resume, whatever term you want to use, having this warm introduction can help you get to overcoming that concern. It’s going to be a warm introduction.

Stephanie McCullough (30:28):

And one of the statistics I’ve heard that’s so interesting is that your next job opportunity doesn’t always come from your first level of connections. They often come from second level. Meaning the people that the people you know know. Meaning, you know your cousin so-and-so, but your cousin knows this other person and then can connect you with that person. So, it’s often that.

Stephanie McCullough (30:40):

And I find LinkedIn is a great tool for this. If you go out in LinkedIn, spend a little time on your profile, connect with people you used to work with years ago. Connect with people you know in the community that you’ve worked with in volunteer stuff. And then see who they know and say, “Hey, Susie, can you connect me with this person over there? I’d love to talk to them about their organization and what it might take to get a job there.”

Stephanie McCullough (31:15):

So, we’re not trying to paint this as a super easy thing that anyone can do. And we don’t want you to give up.

Kevin Gaines (31:24):

So, once again, assuming this was a successful episode, you now have more questions and you’re saying, these two dingbats didn’t help me at all. Well, we’re not going to give you answers because we don’t know you, we don’t know your exact situation. We can’t say what you specifically need to do. But what we can do is help you think about the questions that you need to be asking yourself as this next stage of your life begins. And that’s what a lot of this is, is knowing the questions to ask.

Stephanie McCullough (31:57):

As usual, it’s not about knowing all the answers, it’s about knowing the questions to ask and then having the guts to ask them. They’re questions you’re going to ask of yourself. They’re questions you’re going to ask of members of your network, of your community.

Kevin Gaines (32:15):

And we don’t know what the answers are going to be.

Stephanie McCullough (32:17):

Yeah. It’s all about asking questions, being gentle on yourself, giving yourself grace. If you can find that buddy to help you when you have moments of panic, or imposter syndrome, or just self-bashing, please find a supportive friend who can give you a hug and remind you that we all feel like we don’t have it together, that we’re all in this together. Even though we don’t talk about the money stuff, we’re all going through it. Thanks so much for being with us. We’ll talk to you next time. It’s goodbye from me.

Kevin Gaines (32:51):

And it’s goodbye from her.

Stephanie McCullough (32:55):

Be sure to subscribe to the show and please share it with your friends. Show notes and more information available at takebackretirement.com. Huge thanks for the original music by the one and only Raymond Loewy through New Math in New York. See you next time.

Voiceover (33:09):

Investment advice offered through Private Advisor Group, LLC, a registered Investment Advisor. Private Advisor Group, American Financial Management Group, and Sofia Financial are separate entities. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual security. To determine which investments may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor prior to investing. This information is not intended to be substitute for individualized tax advice. Please consult your tax advisor regarding your specific situation.