Finding an Uncommon Retirement with Jeff Haanen

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Now let's dive into the podcast. Whatever you do, work heartily. Ask for the Lord and not for men. Colossians 3 23.

Hi, I'm Rob West. It's easy to assume this verse applies mainly to our working years, urging us to give our best on the job. But notice it doesn't come with an expiration date. Today, Jeff Hanen joins us to explore a different kind of retirement. And then it's on to your calls and questions at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Well, our guest today is my friend, entrepreneur and author, Jeff Hanen. He's passionate about helping folks transition into fulfilling lives in retirement by staying in service to the Lord.

He is also on the board of directors at Kingdom Advisors. Jeff, great to have you back with us. Yeah, thanks for having me, Rob. Jeff, your book An Uncommon Guide to Retirement is my go-to when people call the program and are transitioning into this season because I think there's such a misunderstanding of really a biblical worldview as it relates to that really critical season of life. I was so thrilled that you wrote a fabulous article called Finding an Uncommon Retirement for our recent quarterly magazine issue, Faithful Steward. And I'd love to start there. Why do you think retirement is proving to be more of a problem than a solution for people in this season? Yeah, that's a good question. I'll start with this.

I think a lot of people are asking the question, what am I going to do with my retirement? Actually, I was recently having a conversation with a woman named Ann Bell, and she came into a nonprofit one day. She's bright and soft-spoken. She was wearing these dark-rimmed glasses and carrying a teacher's bag, and she just had an honest question. She said, I'm really searching for what I'm called to.

I need to know what's next. And I think Ann isn't alone. A lot of people are looking for an answer to that question. The world, Ann, I would say the Christian church, is aging quickly. Roughly 10,000 baby boomers retire per day. And for the first time in American history, we now have more people over age 60 than under age 18. And one of the weird things that you could potentially say is good but strange is people are living a lot longer than when retirement or the idea of retiring at age 65 started. And so with this, some people are thinking retirement is sort of the end, and then you age and die.

But this is actually a whole new season of life. It could be 10 years, 20. Some people, if they retire early, could have 30 years of retirement.

And I think people are asking the question, what am I going to do with all of that time? Yeah, well, and they're ill-prepared. They also really haven't thought deeply, just as Christ followers, about what this season could look like. And you mentioned, obviously, the increasing longevity there.

But what else is causing this angst among people entering this season? Yeah, you know, retirement is an idea with a history. It really began in America around this concept of a never-ending vacation. So back in the 1960s, going back in time, post-World War II America, there was a radio advertising jingle, wake up and live in Sun City for an active way of life. Wake up and live in Sun City, Mr. Senior Citizen's wife. Don't let retirement get you down. Be happy in Sun City.

It's a paradise town. The retirement community started in the 1920s, but it was really Del Webstone City in Arizona that started this popular idea of retirement as this non-stop vacation where you get the happy hours, you get the golf, kind of this idealized vision of retirement. But I think the challenge on this is a few-fold. First, is a lot of people can't really afford this idealized vision of retirement. Second, a lot of Christians don't believe this sort of self-focused leisure vision of retirement squares with their beliefs or will be that satisfying. And I think for some people, after this initial honeymoon period, soon after retirement, boredom, questions of purpose, identity really surfaced. They really come to the surface. And the reality is, it's not just this sort of retirement dream vision that people live into.

Stats say that most people, when they move into retirement, they do two things with the majority of their time, looking at a screen and home maintenance. I wonder, can we do better than that? Oh, boy, we sure can.

Boy, what an important conversation for all of us. I mean, we know there's health benefits to thinking differently about retirement, but as Christ followers, as people who are trying to live out a biblical worldview, boy, there is so much more we can lean into in this season of life where we have the most experience, we have the most wisdom to be able to share with the coming generation and just to stay engaged in community. Well, when we come back, Jeff is going to unpack what that better might look like for believers.

He'll describe it and then give you a plan to actually lean into it. Jeff Hanen's here today. He's the author of the book, An Uncommon Guide to Retirement, finding God's purpose for the next season of life. Much more to come just around the corner.

Stick around. We're grateful for support from Movement Mortgage, who provides residential home loans in all 50 states. Guided by a mission to love and value people and a goal to redefine the mortgage process, Movement seeks to help others achieve their financial goals.

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For licensing information, please visit NMLS Consumer Access dot org. Faith and Finance is grateful for support from Sound Mind Investing. For more than 30 years, they've offered financial wisdom for living well.

SMI provides step by step guidance for do it yourself investors from those just getting started to those getting ready for retirement. More information, including a short video webinar on profit and peace of mind, no matter what's happening in the market, is available at soundmindinvesting.org. So glad to have you with us today on faith and finance. We're talking about retirement, but through the lens of scripture, what should retirement look like for a Christ follower? Should it be different than the world's depiction and vision for retirement? Well, Jeff Hanen, my friend, is here today. Jeff wrote an article for the current edition of our magazine, Faithful Steward, titled Finding an Uncommon Retirement.

And you can be sure that you get each issue of Faithful Steward when you become a FaithFi partner at faithfi.com. But Jeff, you were sharing a little bit of the background of really our culture's view on retirement before the break. And you finished with an idea that we can probably do better than that vision as believers. I'd love for you to unpack that vision for us.

Yeah, I believe we can. So I think we need to think about what might a biblical view of retirement look like. And here's my idea, at least my conviction, of what the Bible believes retirement is. I think it's laying down your past work identities, entering a new season of rest, renewal, and re-engagement as elders filled with wisdom and blessing for a coming generation. So there's a lot there.

Let me briefly unpack it. The Bible doesn't directly talk about retirement. In the book of Numbers, it briefly does. And it talks about the older men were laying down some of the work of the tabernacle, giving it to the young men, because it was physically demanding and it was difficult. So in contrast, either a vision of aging as either a addictive retirement dream, as we were talking about, or a work-til-you-drop scenario, I think Scripture is realistic about aging and the need to lay down past responsibilities, and then entering into a season of what I call becoming an elder, which I think is really precipitated by rest, reflection, and renewal.

Yeah. Boy, that's a compelling vision. I'd love to take that a step further. So begin to lay out for us, if you will, how we get there. Yeah, so I think the way we get there is actually a season of rest. When we talk to people about their retirement, the retirement dream scenario does hold some interest, but what doesn't hold a lot of interest is working forever. People need rest. People need rest. And the Bible talks about this in terms of not only a day of rest, one day out of seven, but a season of rest. In Leviticus 25, it talks about letting the land lay foul for one year out of every seven.

I don't know very many people that can take one year off of work at every seven years during their career. But I do think an intentional three, six, twelve months of rest and renewal can be really helpful to reflect, to give thanks, and consider what God might be calling us to next. And then I think from there, after that season of rest, really embracing this idea of an elder. And I want to do a little bit to redeem that word of elder.

I think the word elderly is an insult in our culture today, but the Hebrew term for elder was an indication of one's nobility. That's what the elder would teach at the city gate, which is the ancient place of public dialogue. And I think today we'd be really wise to recover our older traditions of not only honoring our elders, but also taking a look at honoring the work that they do later in life as community leaders. So I wonder, rather than sort of this conversation about saving for retirement, maximizing financial benefits to sort of get what's coming to us, how could we take a look at creating a community of elders that are community leaders and they're giving generously of their insight, their money, their time, their talent, their prayers to a coming generation?

Oh, wow. Yeah, I love that picture of what this season could look like. You know, it's no longer about just, okay, you're done, step aside, go enjoy life. And again, there's nothing wrong with some of those leisure activities, but as a part of a bigger vision for how you can invest in a coming generation and stay engaged. And I know, Jeff, you've walked alongside a number of people that have really kind of leaned into this vision of retirement. What have you seen come from that?

What can we expect from this? Yeah, you know, I think we can expect what the Bible says in Psalm 92, a vision of human flourishing in retirement rather than sort of becoming irrelevant or the fears of aging, health, and death. The Bible in Psalm 92 says, the righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar of Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord. They flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age.

They are ever full of sap and green. I love that picture of flourishing, particularly this idea of like a faithful stewardship, not only of our finances, absolutely, but a stewardship of our life, of our experiences, our skills. Even the pain that we've experienced in our life, that too can be passed on to another generation and help them live well. And so for Christians, this means that retirement is not only about aging or frailty and death, we live in the hope of the resurrection. So I actually see a biblical picture of retirement as not one of either heroism, I'm going to go and change the world, or hedonism. It's all about my own pleasure, but it's really responding in love as elders, sharing wisdom, blessing, and caring for a future generation.

Jeff, why is this such a new idea? I mean, what do we need to do as the church, kind of capital C, to lean into this and paint this picture that I think is missing from so many people? Yeah, I think the first step is really just talking about it in our churches and in our communities. I think we do a lot of talking about retirement in terms of financially preparing for retirement, and that is very much wise. I think we need to do that work, but we're not really talking about a lot of the non-financial aspects of retirement. What does it mean to be a parent and a grandparent in retirement? What does it mean to rethink work? It could be volunteering, it could be part-time work, it could be a different career. What does it mean for me to mentor?

What does it mean for me to have more flexibility and leisure time, but not make leisure the centrality of my entire life? So I think the conversation just needed to happen is when we're talking about retirement as well as with financial advisors, let's actually get a little bit more clear of what do you want your 60s, your 70s, and then your 80s to look like, and then figuring out how do we shift life to that end. Well, I love that. Jeff, we always love stories, and I think they help to kind of put some meat on the bones of this vision that you're unpacking.

Is there a story that comes to mind of how this can be done well? Yeah. I was actually just thinking about a gentleman I know. His name is Gary Vander Ark. He is a retired doctor. He lives in South Denver. He's now in his late 70s and retired, right?

Not so retired, actually. He still teaches medical students at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center. He still serves on nonprofit boards. He bikes almost 20 miles a day. He was the founder of a nonprofit called Doctor's Care, a nonprofit that sells thousands of Colorado's medically underserved. When I talked to Dr. Gary Vander Ark, I said, you know what?

If anybody has the right to just hang up the cleats and slow down, it's him. But when he actually responded to me about that, he said with a broad grin, he said, well, I believe it's more blessed to give than to receive. I'm enjoying myself too much to stop.

And I think that's it. It can be fun to give and to love and to serve. And if we really believe it's more blessed to give than to receive, we'll wake up each day thinking, what can we give to others? That is a joyful vision of retirement. Oh, boy, it sure is. And Jeff, I think to your point, having financial advisors understand this in such a way that they can come alongside their clients to not just plan for the financial side, but also to paint a picture similar to what you're describing here really is a game changer for these professionals, isn't it?

Yeah. I think there's a lot of good work that we can be doing on both sides of it as well as what life looks like and what the finances look like in retirement. That's so good. Well, folks, if you want to take a deeper dive into this topic, pick up a copy of Jeff's book. It's called An Uncommon Guide to Retirement, Finding God's Purpose for the Next Season of Life. And if you'd like to explore topics like this and others to encourage and equip you in your stewardship journey, be sure to become a FaithFi partner.

So you're getting each edition of Faithful Steward, our magazine, delivered to your mailbox. Jeff, so thankful for you, my friend. Thanks for giving us your time today. Thanks for having me.

That's Jeff Hanen. Again, pick up a copy of his book, An Uncommon Guide to Retirement, wherever you buy books. We're going to take a quick break and then back with your financial questions on any topic.

800-525-7000. This is faith and finance, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Stick around. FaithFi, we're passionate about meeting people where they live and work through our national radio program, app, resources and website to influence widespread positive change in our culture. Please consider becoming a monthly partner at faithfi.com slash give. We're grateful for support from Timothy Plan. For more than 30 years, they've served clients on a biblically responsible journey to invest in a way that honors God and gives dignity to people's lives. More information is at timothyplan.com. The investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses are contained in the prospectus and summary prospectus available at timothyplan.com. Mutual funds distributed by Timothy Partners Ltd and ETFs distributed by Foresight Fund Services LLC. Thanks for joining us today on faith and finance.

I'm Rob West. Hey, we've got room for you. If you have a question today in your financial life, we'd love to tackle it. The number to call 800-525-7000. Again, that number with lines open right now, that won't last long, but we've got room for you. 800-525-7000. Whether that's your spending plan, trying to stay on budget, maybe you want to pay down some debt and you're just wondering the best way to do that.

Maybe it's giving wisely or how do you navigate this market and invest for the future? Any of those topics and more in play today. Again, 800-525-7000. You can call right now. Let's go up to the phones.

We're going to go down to Florida. Hi, Michelle. Go right ahead.

Hi, Rob West. Thank you for having me on your show. Appreciate it. Of course.

Absolutely. So my husband and I own a trucking company and we're downsizing. We sold one of our trucks. We currently owe on the other two trucks. We have approximately $80,000. We just sold one of the trucks and got $50,000 and we're trying to figure out the best way to either invest this money or would it be wiser to put that money towards one of the debt on the other trucks? Yeah, it's a great question, you know, and it's always a matter of priorities and values and then there's the financial considerations as well.

Let's start with the financial side here, Michelle. What is the interest rate? Do you know on the remaining outstanding debt?

Well, on the larger one is 8.6% interest rate and we owe about $57,000 on that truck. Okay, so you wouldn't be able to wipe it out, but you'd be able to get close to it. Is that right?

Pretty close and we could have it wiped out within this year. Okay, excellent. If we put that there.

Yeah, perfect. And then separate from the $50,000, do you have what I call an emergency fund? Do you have some liquid reserves? Yes, it's not a lot. Okay. What do you all spend on a month, a monthly basis, roughly, you know, just round numbers? Our household expenses are around $6,000 a month.

Okay. Yeah, so I would love for you to have, you know, somewhere between $18,000 and $36,000 in liquid savings. What do you think that number is? Again, not counting the $50,000 that you have today. Probably about $10,000.

Okay. Yeah, so I would say let's at least take, you know, another $8,000 from that $50,000 and, you know, shore up that liquid savings. I mean, two months is okay and maybe just add $2,000 to it if you really want to prioritize getting out of debt, but I wouldn't go much lower than that.

Just because we want to be able to have something to fall back on if the unexpected comes. Now, with regard to anything you have left beyond what you use to shore up your emergency savings, I would put toward paying down that car note. You know, you're not going to get 8.6% in the market guaranteed by any means. There is no guaranteed, you know, 8.5% return. And so I think just given where we're at, given the fact that we're probably entering a period after some really high growth years, a period where the market is going to be more, you know, modest in its gains over the next 10 years.

Nobody knows for sure, but that's what many market experts and economists are thinking. I think you all having the guaranteed return equal to, you know, 8.6% of paying off that loan is key. And then I think the next part is, to your point, let's keep your lifestyle spending in check. Let's stay focused on getting it paid off in full. And once you do, then maybe that becomes the source by which you take that monthly payment that you were sending and redirect that over to, you know, a systematic investment of some kind that, you know, could grow in the market. But that's after that debt is paid. Does that make sense?

It does to me. The other part of that question is we had an offer and I wanted to see what your ideas were about annuities, because in 2021 we invested in a whole term policy with $10,000. And that policy, the way it's structured, there's an annuity to it, but it seems like I'm only earning about 2% off the annuity. Yeah, if that's the case and you do want to analyze that and you want to understand the tax consequences, there may not be any if the total amount you have available to pull out is less than the premiums you paid in.

But you just want to know that. But yeah, clearly if the return is anywhere close to that, you could do much better by pulling that out and again, paying off the debt or just repurposing that investment into something that has much more growth potential long term. You know, it's not my favorite option to, you know, use insurance products to build wealth. I mean, they have a place for offsetting risk for death and other risks that exist. They can be an effective means of growing wealth in a certain situation or if you just risk averse. But I think for most people, you know, investing outside of insurance products is probably the better way to go.

Okay. And would you have a kingdom and how would I find a kingdom advisor in our area? Yeah, you can do that certified kingdom advisor on our website, faithfi.com.

Just click find a professional. The only thing I would say, though, is if the total investable assets are below, let's say, 100,000, you know, most of the investment advisors would have that as a minimum and some minimums may be higher. And so unless there's other investable assets, you know, what I would focus on is is paying down the debt. And then if you have something left over, you want to repurpose that $10,000 annuity, you know, that would probably be, you know, not a certified kingdom advisor just because I'm not sure there's enough there for them to be able to serve you. Most business models for advisors require a bit more. And so you could, you know, contact the firm where it's at and just ask for some guidance there.

There's also some other options where, you know, through Fidelity or Schwab, you could get a certified financial planner, you know, who's employed by those brokerage firms that might work on an hourly basis or, you know, help you in that regard. That could be a good option. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much. I appreciate your call today.

Absolutely. Well, hey, before we finish up today, an unexpected treat, our production manager here at Faithfi, Taylor Standrich is in the office today. Hey, we've got, as you know, just a minute left, but you're a radio guy, so that's no sweat for you. You mentioned a gift that your wife gave you of some widow's mites, and I'd love for you to finish today by just telling us quickly about that.

And then just maybe one takeaway for our audience. Yeah, I would just say, as we look at the story in Mark 12 and Luke 21, I look at this small coin. And I just think, wow, this coin represents something that can really rival God.

And if you know what a widow's mite looks like, it's like a third the size of a penny. And we see that this story, the most prominent example of generosity is this woman giving two copper coins out into the temple treasury. It tells us that Jesus cares more about the heart than the size of the gift. And so I just want to encourage anyone who's listening today that whatever you can give, the impact that your gift has is not up to you. It's up to God.

Wow, that is a powerful idea and a great way to finish our broadcast today. What a reminder that it's not about the amount, it's about the heart. He's always been about our hearts and he always will be.

And our financial stewardship is one of the key ways he shapes our spiritual journey. Lean into that, folks. Don't miss it. Taylor, thanks for your thoughts. Absolutely. All right.

That's Taylor Stanrich. And along with everybody here at FaithFi, including Devin Patrick and Sandy Dickinson and Jim Henry, we want to say a big thanks to those folks. We'll look for you next week. Have a wonderful weekend. May God bless you. We'll see you then. Bye bye. Faith and Finance is provided by FaithFi and listeners like you.