(audience applauding) Our next guest is a good friend of mine, previous business partner of mine, and somebody that I think one of the best things I can say about him is that in him there is no guile, okay? What I love about Leif Dahlin, who is the founder of the Physician on Fire website, blog, if you've seen that, what I love about him is that he is so genuine.

He tells you what he is and what he wants, and you know him for years, and that's truly what he wants. And it's very admirable in that he figured out what he wanted at a time when many of us aren't sure what we wanted, and actually retired from medicine at the age of 43, right?

And has pursued the retired life since then. So he's gonna be talking to us today about the decision to retire, number one, and number two, creating a meaningful life after retirement, including an early retirement. Leif, come on up. - We're good, we're good. All right, awesome, thank you, Jim.

Wonderful introduction. It's definitely an honor to be here at the Bogleheads Conference speaking to you all. I've wanted to come to one of these conferences for years. I think I've been a lurker and an occasional contributor at Bogleheads for close to a decade, not two decades like Jim, but for a pretty good long while.

And it's also an honor to be back home in Minnesota. Like Jonathan, I'm a native Minnesotan. I spent my first 26 years here, and I came back and finished up my anesthesia career up in Brainerd, Minnesota. And tonight, right after this talk, in fact, I'll be heading south to my high school reunion.

It's 30 years, so you can do the math and surmise that I'm 48. And you might be wondering why I'm up here talking about retirement. You know, 48-year-old kid compared to some of you. But yeah, like Jim said, I retired not only once from anesthesia in 2019, but again from the physician on fire online website, online business, about a year and a half ago when I sold it to a couple of physicians.

So deciding to retire is something that I have done two times now. It's something that I contemplated and considered quite a lot. And so I'm gonna spend about 30 minutes on these two topics, which doesn't give us a lot of time, but I still want to have a little bit of fun with you all before we get started.

And so I want to quickly, as a native Minnesotan, teach you how to speak Minnesotan, okay? So this is going to be a repeat-after-me exercise, and I want you to focus not only on the words, but on the pronunciation, okay? So, I want to hear you repeat after me.

Go gophers. (audience laughing) Row the boat. (audience laughing) Yeah, sure, you betcha. (audience laughing) Oof-da. All right, very good. You're all honorary Minnesotans. Give yourself a hand. (audience applauding) All right, so it would be remiss to talk about retirement without mentioning the money part. Now, other speakers here can talk circles around me on the withdrawal rates, variable withdrawal rates, but I like to refer back to the 4% rule as a rule of thumb.

Maybe you like 3.5%. Maybe you are willing to take a little more risk and go with 4%, but the gist of it is to know that you have saved up about 25 times the money you need to make up for any shortfall in income that you might have to cover your expenses in retirement.

And I think the difficult thing that maybe isn't discussed as much when we're talking about percentages and finite dollar amounts is how much variation there's going to be, not only from year to year, but also the difference between before you retire and after you retire. The difference between having younger kids and teenagers or adult kids, et cetera.

So your expenses can be all over the place. And obviously you want to account for things like social security. If you're fortunate enough to have a pension and, well, health insurance, healthcare coverage, that's something that many of us have provided by our employers, but when you retire, you may have to purchase by yourself for the first time.

You know, in my budget that I created five years ago, not really a budget, but it was more for a blog post. I just wrote up, like, here's what 80 grand would buy, and I think that would be a decent retirement spending amount for myself. Now, that was five years ago.

That might be 100 grand now, and that's probably about where we're at. But 20 grand of that was healthcare, and my premium is now a loan of about 15 grand, and that's for a bronze HSA plan, which is not top of the line by any means. So there are going to be new expenses.

You're going to have some expenses that go away. You may not have to commute anymore. That can be a significant expense, not to mention a source of stress. Professional attire, if you have a job where you wear a suit and tie often, well, you won't have to buy too many more of those, unless you go to speak at Bogleheads.

But this is a tie that I probably picked up at a garage sale. It says Metrodome, Minnesota. You may know the Metrodome collapsed in a very Minnesotan way by being weighed down by too much snow, so they replaced it with US Bank Stadium, which is a great place, and I was there on Sunday for the Vikings victory.

Go Vikes. All right. Other things that change. When I retired from anesthesia, I started traveling with my family, and the goal was to spend six to eight months traveling, four to six months home in northern Michigan. That didn't work out once that virus started circulating around, right around the time of Jim's WC icon in Las Vegas, but we did get to travel quite a lot, and when you maintain a home at home, and are traveling, of course, your expenses are higher.

And then the quote-unquote one-time expenses, well, they don't just happen one time, they happen once or twice a year, I've found, and I think that you need to factor in those things. So tracking your expenses for a year is a good idea, but it is just a starting point.

All right. One more year syndrome, right? Anyone suffer from this in the past or presently? Yeah. So it's the idea that, well, I think I have enough, but if I were just to work one more year, and let's say I can set aside 100 grand, that's $4,000 a year for life, that's a lot of money, right?

Make, you know, set aside twice as much, working maybe a few years, or having a really good job that pays really well, well, that's $8,000 a year for life, right? So you could buy season tickets, maybe it's an extra vacation, first class for most if not all of your flights, maybe just a really nice bicycle, you know?

And I did work one more year, four or five times, but, you know, it worked out. I do have season tickets to the Gophers, even though I live in Michigan. It's a 10-hour drive, but I usually come over for a week or two every fall, get in a couple, maybe three games, and, you know, for me, it was worth it.

You know, the counterpoint to this is that when you determine how much you wanna spend, it should include things like the really nice bicycle, the first class flights, if that's what you want, your season tickets, et cetera. And in terms of having money, you know, with the safe withdrawal rates, we often focus on a dollar figure, but there is an asset location component that is very important because we all know that $3 million in an IRA is different than 3 million in a Roth IRA is different than a combination of 2 million in a 401(k) with a million in taxable.

And so I like to break it down and think of it in terms of different epochs or timeframes in which you will be potentially spending money as a retiree. Before age 59 and a half, that's when you have somewhat more limited access to your retirement funds, of course. A taxable brokerage account, non-qualified account, well, that is really easy to take money from when you want to at any age.

There are tax implications, of course. Passive income, in big, fat quotations. That's, you know, rental income from rental properties you own, might be small business. There are some not-so-passive passive incomes. There is truly passive income, like dividends from your Vanguard account. But that will all come to you at any age.

SEPP, I feel like that should be a repeat after me. Say substantially equal periodic payments. Yeah, it's tough. Yeah, but that's Rule 72(t) that allows you to set up withdrawals from tax-deferred account, like an IRA, and get equal amounts every year until you do reach the age of 59 1/2.

There are rules, and it's kind of like the RMD rules, where if you screw up and take too much or too little, it could be problematic, and the fines can be quite severe. But it is a kind of a neat way to access your IRA early. Roth ladder is not a favorite technique of mine, but it is a way, if all of your money is tax-deferred and you don't have a lot of other places to draw income from, if you start five years in advance, start converting your money to a Roth IRA from tax-deferred.

Five years later, that money has seasoned, and the amount that was converted can be withdrawn and used to fund your retirement. So it's a ladder, just like a bond ladder, where you do it each year, and then starting in year five, you have rolling ability to take out the amount converted.

I don't like to take money out of a Roth IRA because it's very valuable money. It will grow tax-free. But if you are in a situation where almost all of your funds are tax-deferred, it can be useful. The next epoch is age 59 1/2, to the age at which you can take RMDs.

Currently, that's around 72, 73. This is also the epoch in which you will decide when to take Social Security. That's an entire 'nother talk. But in general, if you are in good health and you have longevity on your side, it is usually a pretty good idea to delay as long as you can, perhaps to age 70.

Mike Piper right there is an expert on that. He has a great calculator online that can help you determine when you, and if you have one, your spouse, should take Social Security. Once you reach RMD age, there may be a role for QCDs. That was mentioned earlier. And I didn't mention that Roth conversions.

So RMDs, obviously the Required Minimum Distribution, they can get to be problematic in a way that they might push you into a tax bracket you don't want to be in, and you might be receiving more money than you plan to spend. And so what's great about the Qualified Charitable Distribution is that it effectively acts as an above-the-line tax deduction.

So you take money from your 401(k), IRA, give it directly to charity. It does not pass through you. It does not go on to your 1040. And so it effectively lowers your AGI or MAGI, which is used to determine things like IRMA, the income, yeah. Again, this is the 501 track, right?

Yeah, monthly adjustment amount. But anyway, so it's a really useful way to satisfy a portion of your RMD, up to $100,000 per year per person. So if you're married, you could do $200,000 between the two of you and be charitable if that is what you are inclined to be.

Speaking of charitable, I've done a little bit of charity work. This is my younger son and I in the operating room at a small facility in Honduras. And it was really cool to let him see what I do for a living. Now, in this picture, you can't tell, but the monitor is blank.

There's no patient hooked up, so we're not goofing around during surgery. But he did get to see a little bit of what it's like to be in there and what I do or what I did for a living. And of course, I had to decide if I would be okay just not doing that anymore because, of course, I was a doctor.

It was a part of my identity. And I think for some people and for some other people, it's an even larger part of the identity so when you decide to retire, know that you're leaving behind that identity. You're leaving behind a purpose. And I made that two words, on purpose, because hopefully work isn't your sole purpose.

But it may be a primary one and replacing it can be challenging. Social life, a lot of people have a lot of work friends, a lot of close friends at work, satisfy, and maybe don't even realize it, but a lot of their needs of having connections and relationships through work.

And that disappears really quickly when you leave, especially if you move away from where you were working as I did when we went back to Michigan where my wife's family was. All right, so you're leaving behind a paycheck. Now we've already said you got the money part figured out, you saved enough money, but there is a psychological aspect of behavioral finance piece of not having regular cash flow and not having extra so you can hit buy on VTSAX instead of sell.

And so making that transition can be painful. Leaving behind an alarm clock, not painful. Love it, love it. I'm a sleep enthusiast and I enjoy the fact that, well, I mean, we have kids going to school, we do use the alarm clock maybe more than I thought I would.

But not having it, especially for a few years where my kids were not going to school, well, it was wonderful. Commuting, obviously, if you are someone who actually goes to work, when you go to work, you can stop doing that. And jobs can be stressful, the commute itself, and you can leave that all behind.

You also gain some things when you retire. We gain time freedom, right? You might have 40 hours a week that you get to replace with whatever you want to do. I found that location independence was key for me. When I left my anesthesia job, took that opportunity to take our kids out of school and we timed it so that they would be finishing grade school, maybe skip part of junior high.

And so for four years, we did all that traveling. And we were able to kind of recreate a honeymoon photo with this sign in Talkeetna, Alaska. I know a place that Jim Dolley has been to a number of times when he was a tour guide on the train that we took up there.

And the ability to be wherever you want, whenever you want is amazing. Now our kids are back in high school, so we've lost some of that. My older son is, my younger son is in eighth grade, so he'll be in high school next year. You gain other people's envy, right?

And that's not such a good thing, you know, when someone says, "Must be nice." Not a compliment. (audience laughing) I don't know if this will give gold watches. I like my Garmin, so I'm good with this. But to summarize this first part of our two-part talk, figure out the money part, make sure you've got enough money.

Have a withdrawal strategy that is based upon your asset location. Think about tax optimization, because that is a huge component of the most optimal withdrawal strategy. Make sure you've got healthcare figured out. It's expensive. I'm sorry. Not really my fault, but I was part of that. Make sure you're okay mentally, physically, psychologically, without working a job.

That can be something that, well, people fail, they fail retirement because they don't think about that beforehand, and then they just don't know what to do with their newfound free time. So have plans for the free time. We went to Peru, the four of us, that's my family there, dune buggy riding at a place called Huacachina, which is a desert oasis just outside of Ica, Peru.

Of course, we went to Machu Picchu and a bunch of other places. Awesome time. As you can tell, I love my freedom. I am bragging a little bit, not gonna lie. It's been good. Optimal timing. Timing for us was based upon a couple of things. My kid's age, also my replacement, he finished residency at the end of June, and wanted to start work in August, so I worked until about mid-August, so I was able to help train him in.

I also timed the year to the time where he would be able to join us, because he actually interviewed two and a half years before he was done with his anesthesia residency, so I knew long in advance when I'd be retiring. Another factor might be the time of year.

You might wanna make sure you have enough time to max out a 401(k) or a 403(b), enough time to max out a 457(b), HSA, whatever it might be, and so that might mean working into March, April, May, June. Maybe you want to retire right when summer vacation starts if you have children.

You obviously are going to confer with your spouse, and it may not make a ton of sense to not work if your spouse is working, so lots to think about there. So that's part one. We'll jump to part two. Still working on this one, but creating a meaningful life after retirement.

That is my mother and father. My dad, 53 years ago, enlisted in the Army right out of dental school because he knew that he might have a little more control over what happens to him in Vietnam if he is going as a volunteer rather than as a draftee, and he went over for a tour of duty in a med-dent unit, was there nearly a year, and obviously, Vietnam has changed a lot in the last 50 years, and it's become a place that tourists go, and my dad really wanted to return and see what that was looking like.

It would be meaningful for him, and we actually had plans to go in 2020. We didn't go in 2020, but last year, I saw a really good airfare, and I sent it to him, and I said, "You should go. "It's like 800 bucks round trip," and he said, "Oh, can you come with?" And I said, "Well, no, we got the kids in school.

"We can't just, you hop over to Vietnam "for two or three weeks." They said, "No, can you go?" "Oh, I never thought about traveling without my family, "but you are my family, aren't you? "Okay." So we went to Vietnam, traveled around for two, two and a half weeks, and it was wonderful, and it was meaningful for him, for me, to be able to spend that time with them, and yeah, so that's just one of those things, that time freedom, the location independence, an understanding wife who lets you go to one of her dream spots without her, all very key.

This is a poem. I hope you can see it. It's a portion of a poem, and I found this through a letter from T. Boone Pickens, a billionaire who passed away fairly recently, and he shared this in a letter that is online at, I think it's Oklahoma State. He was a big benefactor to them, and I won't read the whole thing 'cause I get choked up when I do, but hopefully you can see it.

Go ahead and read it. But the gist is that while you're here, you make an impact, you affect people. He says, "Put your hand in the water. "When you're gone, pull the hand out of the water. "What's left is what's left, "and what's left is still water," right? So I take away that you should make a splash while you can, impact people while you're here, and realize that when you're gone, life goes on without you.

Sticking with a bit of a somber tone, part of our kids' four years of what we called world schooling was education, and you can't really see them in the lower right, and that's my wife and two kids. I'm taking the picture, but this is the Plaschow concentration camp. We also visited Auschwitz, the Anne Frank House, Holocaust Museum in D.C.

to help just understand the past, and that's what meaning is, right? It's understanding the past about others, but also about yourself. You know, it's defined by what you've done and where you've been, and purpose is more about who you are and what you're doing now, and what your plans are for the future, and of course, what matters?

Well, you know, it's up to you. You get to define that. You know, one thing that I've found that's really helpful in retirement is to focus a bit on self-improvement, and when I say that, it conjures up images, I think of like self-help books and gurus and Tony Robbins up here with, you know, seven feet tall and the white teeth, but I don't think you need any of that.

I think to me, self-improvement is just focusing on your physical health, your mental health. I did a tough mudder race, dislocated my shoulder three times. By the end, it was just kind of dragging behind me, so that was more like self-injury and self-harm, but not intentional. But now I'm training for a marathon.

I'll be running the Twin Cities next Sunday, so pray for cool weather for me and clouds. And my roommate here, Jordan, can attest, Jordan Grumet, he's the one that taught me about meaning and purpose. I meant to say that on the last slide, but I had a hard time getting through it.

You know, he can attest to the fact that I woke up and did my push-ups and sit-ups and squats and do a lingo Spanish lesson. It's something I do every day. I consider that to be self-improvement. Strength in relationships, all right? I went to that Gophers game last weekend, Blue Hawks, with a med school classmate.

Went to a Twins game the other day with a college friend. Gonna see a bunch of high school friends tonight. Relationships are very important, and there are reasons beyond just having a good time. The American Heart Association published a study showing that if you suffer from social isolation, if you are alone, you have a 28% risk of cardiovascular disease, 32% increased risk of a stroke.

And, you know, it maybe doesn't impact your lungs as much, but in some ways, it's almost as bad as smoking, all right? So you want to have friends. You want to have people you can confide in that you trust, that trust you, that you're close to. The Harvard Study of Adult Development, it's been going on for 85 plus years.

They've found that relationships are the most important factor for happiness. It's not money. So we're here to talk, you know, primarily about money, but it's the people that you know, that know you, and the relationships you have with them that are really the ultimate key to living longer, being happier, and it's important to cultivate those relationships and maintain them.

So finding meaning in retirement, it's about how you spend your time too, right? When I moved to Brainerd, I was asked to join a curling club and I had seen it in the Olympics, but I had never done it before, but I said, sure, that sounds like fun because that's how I'm going to meet people.

I'll be part of a different community. You know, like the Bogleheads here, this is a community. Right? It's something that I can do with my kids. There they are, once again, they are prominently featured today. And again, you're picking up new skills, new achievements. Volunteering is a great way to find purpose in retirement.

And we're getting, yeah, we're getting towards the end here. Also understand that there will be questions that go unanswered, right? Meaning is up to you to define. Choosing your purpose, it's something that, well, you know, you make plans and God laughs, right? So I try not to make plans more than about three to five years in advance.

And those are just tentative plans because I know that the circumstances will change. How I want to live my life may change. You don't know how much time you're going to have. And so again, referring back to that poem, make a splash while you have that opportunity. And you know, you may choose to work again when you retire at 43 or 47, you know?

I mean, maybe there's a third act. I don't know for myself. And if you are contemplating retirement, understand that it may be temporary. I don't know yet what it will look like to have an empty nest. On one hand, I am excited for the return of, you know, freedom and freedom to be where we want to be when we want to be there.

But on the other hand, I know I will miss the kids and it'll be an interesting transition that I can try to predict, but won't know. So that is what I had for you today. Thank you all for your attention. And I've got a question. Wow, that was quick.

(audience applauding) Ah, all right. Even better than a question, it is a definition of happiness. Thank you. Oh, Lady Geek, wonderful. Good to meet you. Sue. All right. Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life is to give life purpose and meaning. That's a head spinner, but I like it.

Thank you, Lady Geek. I think we don't have any other questions. Am I correct, right? Question collectors? Okay, let's give Leif a great big round of applause. (audience applauding) Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jim. Thank you.