Transitions: Redesigning Your Financial Life

One of my favorite parts of running the Millionaire Money Mentors forums is the people I get to meet. Every day, I’m inspired by members who have built wealth, made intentional life choices, and are generous enough to share their hard-earned lessons with others.

Today’s guest is one of those people. Elizabeth is a valued member of our community who brings not just financial success, but also a refreshing honesty about what it really takes to get there. Retiring at an impressively young age with a solid net worth, she’s lived the kind of story many of us dream about—and she’s done it with purpose and perspective.

What I appreciate most about Elizabeth is how her experiences challenge us to think differently. She offers insights you won’t find in a textbook—because they come from actually living it. This is a topic she has navigated personally, faced the ups and downs, and emerged stronger than before.

I’m confident you’ll not only learn something from her today, but also enjoy the way she tells it.

With that, let’s turn things over to Elizabeth…

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Retirement – The Ultimate Financial Transition

Retirement has traditionally been considered the ultimate financial transition in a person’s life. It’s the primary goal that most of the financial planning industry and online personal finance space focuses on. 

Most financial calculators and software projections are really retirement planning tools. They revolve around a few key questions which require very specific answers:

• How much do you make?
• How much do you spend?
• What is your asset allocation?

With the answers to those questions, we can back into the following:

• What is your savings rate?
• What is your expected investment return?
• What is your number, or the amount of wealth you need to have in order to retire?

The assumed goals are to get to this number as quickly as possible and to be able to spend as much as safely possible in retirement. So most financial advice revolves around the variables required to reach those goals: how to maximize your income, minimize your expenses (including taxes and investment fees), and invest as efficiently as possible.

This basic planning process relies on a complicated array of calculations behind the scenes, and money nerds can endlessly tinker with and debate the formulas. This is comforting because specificity provides a sense of control, though none of us has a clue what future inflation rates, investment returns, or taxes will actually look like – and slight deviations in those assumptions change the projections dramatically. 

Still, the planning process provides a reliable framework for making what is traditionally one of the largest financial transitions of our lives – to stop working for money. When that happens, everything in our financial lives changes. We stop saving for the future, start living off our investments, shift our asset allocation, reconsider our tax bracket and strategy, and overhaul the budget. 

Retirement – The Ultimate Life Transition

Beyond the tectonic financial shifts, at retirement we welcome the opportunity to reevaluate everything else in our lives, from our hobbies and daily routine to where we want to live and our purpose.  

Over the last decade there has been a noteworthy shift in the financial planning community away from the purely financial aspects of retirement and toward personal considerations. Whether you’re working with an advisor or reading financial publications, you’ll likely be asked not just about your financial readiness, but also about how you will allocate your time, maintain relationships, keep mentally stimulated, and invest in your health. 

And not only that, it’s officially time to realize all your dreams! Splurging on an expensive car or trip when you’re still working can feel irresponsible to many goal-oriented savers. But once you’ve finally reached The Ultimate Goal of retirement after decades of dutiful saving? It’s time to tackle that bucket list guilt-free!  

No wonder we all eagerly obsess about and anticipate retirement. We are finally free to stop focusing on saving and start focusing on living. 

A Race To the End

Growing up, my father regularly accused me of trying to jump to the next life stage too quickly. I never understood why that might be a bad thing until I was in my early 30s, having eagerly acquired most of the expected milestones: a good education, a successful career, a husband, a house, a solid financial plan with nothing left to do but wait for compounding to work its magic. 

It began to dawn on me that the only obvious milestones I had left were retirement – followed with much less anticipation by death. I began to question my rush toward those finish lines. 

Life is full of other transitions though, as it turns out, and many of them are just as significant as retiring: getting married or divorced, getting promoted or laid off, having a child, moving, receiving an inheritance, a health crisis. 

These and other big life transitions are inevitably tied to big financial shifts in both resources and needs. Moreover, they can come with enormous changes in our priorities and perhaps even our values. And yet we often resist changing our financial plans when we encounter them. 

Why We Resist

Well, we are type A nerds. If you are reading this, I count you cordially in our ranks. It can be comforting in uncertain times to cling to our budgets and savings targets. It’s how many of us maintain our identity and a sense of control. 

I wish I was as rigid about working out or nutrition as some of my friends, but my security blanket is my spreadsheets. I consciously spend time with them when I get anxious. It may not be the ideal coping mechanism, but hey, at least it helped me get rich.

Financial goals and plans are important of course. But the planning process contains default assumptions such as steadily rising household income and relatively flat expenses over years if not decades.

We may acknowledge in theory that a good financial plan must be dynamic and not static, but in practice raising our expenses or reducing our income even temporarily can feel like a huge step backwards. 

Transitions as Gifts

If life unfolded exactly according to our projections at age 20, it would be pretty boring – arguably even pointless. Transitions of all types, especially challenging ones, are opportunities for growth. This basic truth is demonstrated in the Bible and other religious traditions, in the classic Hero’s journey throughout literature, and in modern psychological research. 

When things fall apart and the unexpected happens, we are called to step up. Illusions and false beliefs are stripped away, priorities become clear, we tune inward or turn to God and other teachers for guidance, and we grow and change and mature. Challenges are good for humans, generally speaking.

It’s hard to welcome transitions though, especially painful ones like getting laid off or divorced. We naturally resist and fear change as humans. But it’s helpful to notice that most people don’t wish away the tragedies in their lives when looking back. They often say those transitions are what made them who they are and gave life meaning. 

The Risks of Rigidity

“Stay the course” can be a helpful mantra, but it can also be detrimental. Refusing to adapt your finances as your life evolves can keep you stuck in jobs, relationships and communities that no longer serve you. Striving to maintain or grow a certain income or sticking stubbornly to frugal spending rules in the face of growing resources can also cause relational conflict and regret. 

You may spend mindlessly in ways that don’t fulfil you because that’s what your peers are doing, or on the flip side you might miss out on life experiences and opportunities that you can easily afford. “I’m not that kind of person who spends that” is often said like a badge of honor, but sometimes clinging to a frugal identity is simply resisting growth and change – and the power that your wealth gives you to make a difference in your community.

If you are financially on track, you don’t need to scrimp to save a few extra % or get to the finish line a few years earlier. The average American focuses too little on the future, but the average person reading this may have the opposite problem. Don’t live your life in the spreadsheets – if you do you may never be able to pull your head up and learn how to spend and enjoy your wealth, even once you reach your target (and the next ones after you move the goal posts). 

Financial goals are inherently meaningless; they exist to be in service to our LIFE goals. Your financial plans should be dictated by your life plans – not the other way around. 

When life changes, your financial plan should change too. Increasing spending doesn’t indicate weakness, and reducing your savings rate isn’t inherently irresponsible. And delaying retirement – or even failing at retirement – isn’t an actual failure. 

The Death of Retirement

Our capacity for working, saving, and risk-taking fluctuates throughout life; these variables are not linear, despite what a typical financial plan suggests. This is increasingly true in today’s society when most people look a little bit different from the standard client the financial industry based its models on. For a brief moment in history, many (male) workers were steadily employed with gradually increasing earnings from college graduation until the day they turned 60 or 65 and retired with a pension and a gold watch. Those days are all but gone. 

Today, few people stay in the same career – much less the same job, home and marriage – for decades on end. Technology and social norms are changing rapidly and will continue to impact how we spend and earn over the coming years. Already many people are questioning the need to buy a home, have a dedicated office or workplace, be married, have children, or send their kids to college – basic traditional tenants of the American Dream. On the flip side, inventions we have yet to imagine may become commonplace in just a decade or two. Household personal robot anyone? 

As a result, those basic retirement planning variables – what will I earn and what will my expenses be? – will be increasingly difficult to project over the long term. 

Retirement as we know it may turn out to be a short-lived concept anyway, reducing the usefulness of designing financial plans around it. Due to a combination of longer and healthier lifespans, technological advances and reduced stigma, it has become common for people of all ages to take breaks from traditional employment – or even avoid it altogether. You might see a 25-year-old alongside a 60-year-old on a weekday playing with their toddlers in a park, studying in a university classroom, relaxing with a drink in an expat community abroad, or launching an online business.

Depending on your perspective you might call it retirement, early retirement, a sabbatical, a midlife crisis, or failure to launch. Regardless, “work,” “leisure” and “retirement” are increasingly blurry concepts.

The bottom line is that we don’t have to wait until we achieve a traditional definition of retirement to pursue our passions and purpose, to move where we want to live, or even to stop contributing to our retirement accounts. We should welcome the opportunity to redesign our financial plans continually throughout our lives.

My Transition Story

I skidded through two major unplanned life transitions last year – finalizing a divorce and retiring from my private banking career at age 40.  

A money-nerd from childhood when I opened my first brokerage account at 13, I’ve been tracking my net worth and maxing my Roth IRA since I was 18. I started a corporate career and bought my first home straight out of college, and for twenty years I steadily increased my income and savings rate, gleefully optimizing every financial decision.

I lived in Dallas, helping some of the wealthiest families in the country manage their money. I got married, got promoted, got into real estate investing, and generally lived the DINK dream, traveling freely and spoiling my pets. All according to the color-coded life plan that, yes, I actually had in writing.

But no matter how many goals I reached, the target kept moving. I was always focused on what was next. I was successful by any external measure, but I felt like I was still waiting for my real life to begin. It turns out that when your goals aren’t in alignment with your purpose, especially when they become arbitrary figures on a spreadsheet, achieving them is not fulfilling. 

Then everything changed. My husband decided he wanted a divorce, my beloved corgi and first pet died of old age, I turned 40, my dissatisfaction with my job escalated into full burnout, and I pulled the trigger on FIRE and quit. My cherished spreadsheets were rendered pointless in a matter of months – net worth slashed, future spending uncertain, income plummeted. As a cherry on top, Mint, the website I’d used to track my spending for over 15 years, closed. My slate was wiped clean in more ways than one.

After years of preparing for someday, I suddenly had no roadmap to cling to. I had no choice but to tune in to what I really want and choose intentionally how to spend my time and money. It was a painful process, but I’m grateful for the opportunity to redesign my life. Despite giving up a high income and high-status career, I feel more abundant than ever. 

Part of my purpose is showing others how to do it too, so after taking nearly a year off I started a financial consulting practice focusing on helping women navigate marital transitions. Working with clients with generational wealth, I realized that a big net worth and well-designed portfolio are not the most important objectives of good financial planning. The real mission is identifying your true values, overcoming biases, and using your money effectively to create a life and legacy that aligns with your purpose. Which is a lot harder than optimizing asset allocation.  

Here is the process I use. It applies in any transition including retirement, but it’s especially useful to consider when newly married, divorced, or widowed.

• Reevaluate priorities and goals 

What’s your purpose? Who do you want to be? What matters most right now? The answers will evolve over time, but try to keep the lens focused on the short term.

1. • Examples include getting support (therapy, attorney, child care), making a career change, keeping your kids in their school, getting in shape, moving, taking time off work, traveling, getting plastic surgery, or starting to date again. 
   • Note: Maximizing retirement contributions is not a value. Think about your actual life. And if you tend to obsess about money, try obsessing about who you want to be instead. (New spreadsheet opportunity!) 

• Get organized and rebuild your financial foundation 

• • Create/review your personal balance sheet and immediate income projections. A simple Excel file is best for this in my opinion. 
  • Re-evaluate your estate plan and insurance needs. A big transition often comes with the need for an updated will and possibly the creation of trusts. Double check your beneficiaries and update insurance policies (health, disability, life, property).
  • Establish or boost savings – A large cash reserve provides peace of mind and flexibility during a transition. I generally recommend 2 years of expenses in cash.
    • It’s worth the investment cost of the cash drag, especially temporarily. Rather than maximizing returns, we are maximizing for options.
    • On any given day there is no excuse to panic about the immediate future. This is helpful to remember at 3am.

• Create a new spending plan 

Consider your money and your time. Are your expenses worth working more hours or years for? Use a tracking tool like Monarch to get clarity on new spending patterns.

• • Fixed Costs – It’s OK to violate rules of thumb temporarily, but calculate tradeoffs. Remember these will likely change over time. 
    • Can I afford to keep/buy this house (and do I really want to?). 
    • Would trading down in car or paying off debt free up needed cash flow?
    • Are there things my kids don’t need – or just can’t do right now?
    • Are there new expenses I need to ADD? Consider insurance premiums, therapy, new hobbies or activities.
  • Savings rate – it’s ok to reduce it. Transitions don’t last forever, and when you’re in one it may be OK to reduce savings to make room for temporary expenses or while you establish a new income stream. 
    • Many transitions constitute emergencies, so it’s ok to tap your emergency fund or even spend down your investments to some degree. Saving for the future is wonderful, but at some point the future becomes today.
  • Giving: How much can and should you help others? 
    • Are you a tightwad? If you are objectively wealthy but struggle to spend, I suggest adding a budget line item for giving. Make it mandatory, and try to make it personal. It will do more for your sense of abundance than any savings cushion.
    • Are you enabling, an over-giver, or trying to buy your kids’ love? Many parents struggle with overspending on their kids while sacrificing their own financial well-being. A transition is a good excuse to announce a change and quit subsidizing adult kids and other relatives. People can handle a lot, especially if boundaries are clear. To be clear is to be kind. 
  • Be Flexible: It’s very difficult to let spending be dynamic, but give yourself grace during your transition. You may feel extra flush or newly broke or something in between (and your feelings may not reflect reality). It’s normal to do some emotional or unusual spending, but set up guardrails and seek help if you feel out of control.

• Investments Review

• • Asset allocation – stay the course isn’t always best. Your asset allocation may need to be more or less aggressive if your time horizon or risk tolerance have changed.
  • Tax optimization is overrated and can warp decision making. As retirement contribution limits have increased, many investors sacrifice liquidity for the sake of maxing those accounts out. And many retirees resist withdrawing from traditional IRAs due to the tax “hit.” Save what you need to for the short- and mid-term in taxable accounts, even if it means trimming retirement contributions. You’ll feel wealthier when you have more liquidity.
  • Use planning software that can adjust spending by life stage. Most retirees reduce spending through retirement if they are lucky enough to live for decades afterward, contrary to most retirement calculators’ assumptions. But also, trust your future self to adjust to whatever happens, just as you are doing now. 

• Streamline your cash flow 

Choose simplicity over optimization. The fewer logins, tax forms and transfers you have in your life, the happier you will be. Transitions are stressful. Make everything else easier so you can spend less time thinking about money and more time building a new life.

• • Have all your income and expenses flow through one primary checking account. And keep a decent cushion here so you aren’t having to constantly monitor it and transfer from reserves. 
  • Close your savings account(s). You don’t need 8 different sub-savings accounts, and you’ll feel more flush with a higher balance in fewer accounts. The money market fund at your investment company offers a higher yield anyway. 
  • Close (or stop using) all but a couple of good credit cards. There are several free cards that give you 2% cash back. That plus one good travel/dining card is all you need and makes managing your cash flow a lot simpler. 

Women’s financial journeys have always deviated from the “traditional” work > retirement path since they are more likely to spend years outside of the formal workforce throughout life caring for children, parents and spouses. You might spend your 30s raising kids then get your masters and start a career in your 40s like my mom did. Or maybe you’ll spend your youth working and have the option to retire at 40 and start a family or a new creative life. There is no right path. 

Money really helps during transitions, but resources aren’t only financial – ultimate security comes from family, community, health, and a spiritual practice. Once you have a financial foundation in place, it’s arguably a better investment to focus your efforts in those areas. This may mean taking your foot off the gas on the race to retirement, but it will make the journey much sweeter. Don’t hesitate to redesign your financial life over and over again. 

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Elizabeth George is a Certified Financial Planner® who is passionate about helping people use their money to feel secure, empowered, and in alignment with their values. She steers her clients through complex legal transitions, helping them navigate the impacts of family dynamics and identity changes while adding value at every stage of wealth management. She gravitates toward working with women, often as they achieve financial independence for the first time.

Elizabeth spent nearly twenty years as a Private Banker in Dallas, Texas, advising multi-generational families with institutional-sized wealth. She specialized in real estate lending for part of her career and enjoys investing in real estate personally. Elizabeth graduated with honors from Southern Methodist University, earning a B.B.A. in Finance with minors in Philosophy, Psychology and Spanish. She lives in Dallas with two cats and enjoys practicing yoga, travel, and writing.

To learn more about Elizabeth and her business, you can visit her website or her blog.