Why Big Leaps Can Backfire (and What to Do Instead) | E46
What do whitewater rafting, cross-country moves, and early retirement all have in common? They’re thrilling, intimidating, and full of unknowns. In this episode, Deb Meyer shares a personal (and slightly embarrassing) rafting story to open up a deeper conversation about navigating life’s biggest transitions—without losing your footing.
Whether you’re planning a retirement, taking a sabbatical, switching careers, or moving states, Deb encourages a slower, smarter approach. She walks through emotional and financial readiness, real-life family examples, and why rushing into change often backfires.
As Deb says, “Small steps can be so much better than big leaps. And having the right guide can make all the difference.”
Listen now and learn how to embrace change without financial regret.
Episode Highlights
(02:39) Why emotional planning is just as important as financial planning
(06:04) How to phase into retirement without going all-in too fast
(07:02) Lessons from relocating across states & what Deb would do differently
(12:47) How to rethink your budget when your lifestyle changes
(14:51) What to know about health insurance, especially before Medicare eligibility
(20:19) Options for sabbaticals and career pauses, and how to plan for them
(21:09) When to seek professional guidance before making major transitions
Resources & Mentions
Schedule an Introductory Call with Deb Meyer
Healthcare sharing plans article and podcast episode
Help Us Grow
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Full transcript
Deb Meyer (00:02.104)
My family and I went whitewater rafting this summer. It was a big bucket list item. And here we are 10 minutes into the adventure. First time for all of us and rain is pouring down. It was really bad beginning weather for this whitewater rafting trip in Ohiopyle State Park.
And we're all seeing this raging water ahead of us, and I go overboard. Luckily, Dan, our guide in the boat, knew immediately what to do. He grabbed me by both the straps on my life vest and pulled me back safely into the boat. But it was scary. I let fear take over for a little bit, and I was so glad when he, our guide, came to the rescue and got me back into the boat.
Luckily, I didn't have any other fiascos for the rest of the whitewater rafting trip, but yeah, it was embarrassing; however, it was also kind of scary. So I'm sharing this story with you because I think it's important to understand that navigating change is hard. It was a first time for me, for my family, my husband and three boys.
We did a lot of crazy changes this summer. We went on a six-week extended road trip through several different states, too many to name right now, throughout the Midwest and East Coast. And then we relocated back to Southwest Florida. So it has been a journey. We are luckily settled back in our same neighborhood in Southwest Florida that we lived in previously.
Yeah, it's been a lot of change, a lot of upheaval. And what I've learned through this all is small steps can be so much better than big leaps. And the reason I say that, if you're thinking about a transition, whether it's a planned transition like retirement or maybe a sabbatical, maybe you're interested in changing careers, whatever that transition point is, maybe you're...
Deb Meyer (02:23.778)
thinking of a physical move, just think about it through the lens of small incremental steps and having some kind of guide along the way. I'm so grateful that Dan, our guide, was there to pull me back to safety. And I would hope to be your guide if you're considering a big life transition like this and want to work with an advisor, I'm happy to have a chat and an initial call. So.
I'll share the link for that in the show notes, but really want to talk through some of the emotional and financial considerations before you make a big change. Because I know for a lot of parents, fear can get in the way and it's a very natural response. You know, we have that flight or I'm sorry, fight or flight response embedded in our DNA. But yeah, it doesn't have to be this really rocky road.
So let's talk about emotional considerations. I know this is a finance podcast and I'll get to that after the break, but at least from an emotional standpoint, you need to be thinking before you make the transition, what life will look like after that transition. So let's just take retirement as an example. So your day-to-day involves going to work.
putting in eight, nine, 10 hours, whatever your normal rhythm is for work. And now if you go into a full blown retirement, you're shifting that set number of hours per day that was working time and you're shifting it into free time. So what are your hobbies? What lights you up when you aren't working? Are you golfing? Are you...
going to the beach, you walking, hiking through the mountains? What brings you joy on a day-to-day basis if you're not working? Maybe it's family time, maybe it's...
Deb Meyer (04:26.446)
Dancing I don't know. I don't know what your your particular interests are but you have to be thinking about those in the context of retirement and Even if you're not retiring, let's just say you're going on a sabbatical And you're gonna have more free time in your day. What are you going to do with that extra time? We all have a finite amount of time every day, know, you have 24 hours in the day How are you going to spend that wisely and steward it wisely? so
think about those activities you could be doing. And for a lot of my retired clients, if they transition from the full-time workload to the full-time retiree, it sometimes can be a difficult transition because they're so used to having work as their main activity.
that they don't know how to occupy their time. So maybe the first six months are freeing and great, but then the following six months or the year after that retirement date, reality kind of sets in that this is the new normal. And what a lot of studies have found are like social relationships are gonna be crucial in those years where you're stepping back from paid work.
One of the other things to be considering is volunteer work. If you want to fill your day with helping and serving others through a traditional role, maybe you'd find a lot of enjoyment doing some kind of volunteer unpaid work just to be a buffer and serve others. So those are some things to be thinking about just before you would make any transition.
And I would argue that the emotional aspects of preparing for this type of transition are gonna be more important than even the financial preparedness because what you don't wanna do is be financially ready for it and then be miserable a year or two years into it. So an example of taking the smaller step might be, hey, we're not gonna go from a full-time workload down to zero workload. Maybe let's...
Deb Meyer (06:40.93)
do a scaled retirement where we're doing three days a week of office work and two days where we have as free days. Or in the case of some of my retired clients that are women, a lot of them like staying home with grandbabies for one or two days a week and being a resource to their adult children who have kids. So they're getting more bonding time with the grandkids.
but they're also finding some fulfillment in other activities. They're not the full-time babysitter or full-time childcare provider. So that would be an example again of smaller steps, figuring out, do we go from 100 % workload to 0 % workload or do we find kind of a happy medium and then gradually scale that down? My aunt who is a...
well above what most would consider a traditional retirement age, she's getting to the point now where she's going from a five day a week workload down to a three day a week workload. And that's working out very well for her so far. those kinds of things are really beneficial to consider before making a big transition. And if the transition is more of a physical move, at least for us and what I've kind of learned having.
been in Florida, gone back to Missouri, went back to Florida. We kind of went in, jumped in with all, both feet, metaphorically speaking, when we moved back to Missouri last summer. And we bought the house, we tried to reintegrate into our same community, and a lot had changed in the five years that we hadn't been there. for us, we kind of went all in.
And I wish we maybe had taken more of a gradual step like renting up there for a year, something like that to make sure it was a good long-term fit for the whole family. any of my mistakes you can learn from, but that would have been probably a more feasible option for us, especially financially. was, it was hard to, you know, front those moving costs, but then also the, the transaction costs of buying and selling a home.
Deb Meyer (08:59.746)
were considerable. So again, if you're thinking about a physical move, especially if it's out of town, it's several states away, maybe looking at it through a lens of, okay, what kind of incremental steps we can do. I actually had Robert and Kaylee Fukui on the podcast earlier and they are looking at a move to Lake Norman in North Carolina. So what they did is they spent
a month and like Norman rented an Airbnb there, made sure they enjoyed that. And then next year they're looking to actually do a year long rental, but they still call California home. So for them it's, hey, let's, let's take some smaller gradual steps.
And then if they love their year over in Lake Norman, they're going to be able to potentially sell their house in California and make the transition over to Lake Norman permanently. So I would follow their example, not mine. If you're thinking about a physical move and even with like a sabbatical, if you're blessed enough to be able to take a
break or a pause from your career. Let's say you're in your 40s or your 50s and you've been working for the same company for a long time. This is very popular in academia where tenured professors will have set sabbaticals. But I'm seeing it more and more with some companies, especially if they want to reward long-term employees. They're finding out ways to incorporate sabbaticals. So there's a break or a pause and there's no
concerned that there won't be a position there when they return. So XY Planning Network, which I'm a member of, I believe they give their employees a sabbatical every five years, and that sabbatical is like three months in length. So it's enough of a breakaway to take a pause, but it's not so long that you're just gone out of your element for way too long and you forget all of the institutional knowledge you've had about that role.
Deb Meyer (11:08.962)
There are more more companies offering those or even if they're not offering those, if you're in a financial position where you could consider a sabbatical, maybe, and if you've been working for your company long enough, maybe there's an opportunity there where you could approach them and say, hey, would you consider a three month unpaid sabbatical so I can go and do whatever is your dream during that time.
that could be a good kind of incremental step. Or if you're thinking about changing careers and you're in between roles, maybe saying, hey, rather than starting the search as soon as this current role is over, figuring out, okay, could we financially make it work to stretch that job search out and postpone it a little bit.
So we did a sabbatical of sorts in 2018. My husband quit his role at Centine and we went and did that adventure in Spain. It was a lot of fun. And I was still working, of course, so I was able to bring in income for our family, but that was like a mini sabbatical for my husband. And then he ended up pivoting and finding a different career path after that trip. So.
We didn't call it a sabbatical at the time, but I guess in retrospect it was because he took a pause from work and it was a nice little break. It was a reprieve. And again, we had the financial aspects covered. We just needed to figure out a way for him to kind of unwind that role and really embrace living over in Spain for three months. that was a long-winded way of saying there are multiple pathways.
to explore some of these transitions, but my overarching guidance would be, not guidance, education. I guess my overarching lesson learned is smaller steps are going to be better in the long run than just taking one big leap, trying to find where that balance lies for you and your family. Okay, so let's take a little break.
Deb Meyer (13:22.318)
I will say if you've been listening to the podcast and love it, I appreciate any reviews, ratings, anything that you can give to help more listeners discover it. Even if you left a rating or a review early on when the podcast launched, we still appreciate more recent updated ratings and reviews because they do help with searchability when new listeners are trying to find a top notch podcast.
please leave a rating or review and that can be done on Apple or Spotify, wherever you listen to your podcast. And then if you have already left a rating or review, thank you. I truly appreciate it. And I would love for you if you have a friend or a family member that you know is going through a transition point or thinking about a transition, please forward this episode to them so they could get some.
different perspective on what that looks like. All right, let's switch gears and talk about finances for a little bit. Finances are what I specialize in and depending on what the transition point is, that's what's going to be kind of dictating the considerations. But I think one of the considerations, no matter if it's a retirement or a sabbatical or a physical move, whatever,
is understanding that your budget will change and really outlining how that's going to change. So have your current budget, your current cashflow plan of where, know, dollars in, dollars out, and then think about what could change with this transition. So for someone who's retiring, let's say they're retiring at age 62, they're not yet eligible for Medicare, which is age 65.
So there has to be some kind of medical coverage in those bridge years. Now it might be, if you've been with a company for a really long time, they might allow you to stay on their health plan at a little bit higher cost for those years that you're retired until you're eligible for Medicare. But that's not the norm anymore. That's more of a haphazard benefit if that's offered. So.
Deb Meyer (15:41.518)
some considerations there would be like a marketplace plan that was created through the Affordable Care Act. Now the rules are changing with the one big beautiful act that was passed this summer. So they're premium tax credits that you're used to getting if you've been on an Affordable Care Act plan. Those are going away starting next tax year in the 2026 tax year.
So that won't be as financially beneficial for you if you were used to getting a nice tax break being off or being on a marketplace plan, you're not gonna experience that same level of tax benefit. So that might be more cost prohibitive in 2026 and beyond. One of the other considerations, and I do have a blog post on this that I can link to in the show notes.
are healthcare sharing plans. They are not traditional insurance, but they function very similarly to health insurance. So that would be another consideration. And I list a couple of companies that you can look at through that article, but I would ask that you do your own due diligence, that you explore your own healthcare sharing plan, if that's a consideration. Usually you find that it's not called premium. It's usually called like share, the share amount.
That is usually pretty comparable to what a lot of employers are, if you're employed by a traditional company and paying for insurance that way, it's usually pretty equivalent to that. However, there's typically much more out of pocket costs in those healthcare sharing plans. And there's also, you know, adhering to religious guidelines because it is created for families, either Christians or Catholics, depending on which plan you choose.
And so there are some guidelines there that you need to follow if you're interested in that. So that's one consideration. Just the health insurance, that's a line item that could change. If you are doing a physical move, think about income tax going from one state to the next. So when we were moving from Missouri back to Florida,
Deb Meyer (17:55.072)
we had some nice cost savings on income tax because Missouri has income tax and Florida does not. So based on our income, we were able to save quite a few thousand dollars going back to Florida. Now on that income tax side, there's also a consideration of
mortgage as well. So in our case, we bought a new home in Missouri that was more expensive than the home we had here just because of the year that we bought it in and where mortgage rates were at. So again, by us moving back to Florida, our longer term trajectory is we're going to save more money being here because we're at a home with a lower mortgage rate and bought it for considerably less in 2020. So in our case, I had
This is my Missouri budget. This is what we are living on today. And then I had my future Florida budget that mimicked other items pretty carefully. One of the other expenses that we had in Missouri that we don't have anymore in Florida was private school. We were paying for private grade school for our two younger boys over here in Florida. There's not really any private school options nearby. And we wanted to stick with our neighborhood school. So
we're in a position now where we're saving quite a bit more money by making this move. Hopefully that would be the case for you, but it's not always. Sometimes you're going from a lower cost of living area to a higher cost of living area, and it's always important to think about those numbers before you actually make the switch. really think hard, long and hard, what kind of sacrifices am I going to have to make?
and what additional income might I need to earn in order to make those transition points if you're going from a lower cost of living area to a higher cost of living area. Real estate taxes are another consideration. Homeowners insurance, if you buy, all of those are considerations on that budget if you're doing a physical move. So.
Deb Meyer (20:10.74)
That's one item. Another thing that I want to talk about specifically for retirees would be the retirement income. What are your guaranteed sources of income during those retirement years? So for some people, if they've worked for the same company for a long time, they might have a pension benefit. And those pension elections vary tremendously. You could take lump sum, you can get for your life only. If you're married to a spouse, you can get different levels of spousal benefit.
There's also like 10 year period certain, five year period certain. There's all kinds of different elections on the pensions. So again, walking through a retirement scenario with an advisor can be really helpful before making the transition just to see what would they suggest because they have experience walking through those different scenarios and really understanding what your goals are as a family. I just recently started working with a retiree client. He's worked for several years, he has a pension. Unfortunately, he's in a family situation where his wife has struggled with a lot of health issues, and the likelihood of her outliving him is actually much smaller than in a household where you have both healthy retirees and...
Usually on average, women tend to live longer than men. So in their particular situation, getting that spousal benefit for her isn't quite as important, especially because they have some other assets that she can draw on if he predeceases her. So those are some considerations that again, an advisor is going to be able to kind of look forward and help project what those decisions are gonna look like on your long-term plan. And it's hard to just do it in a vacuum, looking at your own numbers individually. Those points of decision-making are really important to collaborate with someone else and not just look at it in a silo yourself. Okay, on retirement income as well, Social Security is a big decision.
Deb Meyer (22:26.702)
And even though you're eligible to take Social Security as early as age 62, a lot of people have full retirement age closer to 67. So there's a five-year gap there where technically you could take it, but you don't have to take it. And then even once you reach your full retirement age, if it's, let's just say it's 67, you technically could postpone it past age 67 and then take it closer to age 70, which is the absolute latest you can claim Social Security. And you're getting a nice built-in benefit by doing that delayed benefit date. So health is gonna come into consideration. If there are health issues, it might make sense to claim earlier. If there aren't health issues and there are other assets to draw on,
such as a pension or other trust assets, IRAs, things like that, then it can be really advantageous to delay those benefits. So again, in any of these decisions, you're focused specifically on retirement, it's important to talk with an advisor before you make the decision. I did work with a client several years ago who had come to me after she had already retired, and she wasn't financially prepared for it. And unfortunately, I had to tell her, “you're really gonna run out of money in a couple of years if you continue spending at this level and you don't have these other income sources.” And hers was an early retirement, but she just wasn't financially prepared for it. So I don't want you to be in that position where you say, “hey, I'm gonna do this.” And then you don't think about the repercussions long-term, and that financial plan isn't solid.
It's really, really important. And even if that advisor isn't me, there are other advisors who specialize in retirement. Some work on an ongoing basis, like I do with clients. Others do hourly or project engagements. I don't do hourly or project, but there are other advisors you could look to. Garrett Planning Network would be a good starting point. XY Planning Network, depending on your age demographic and how comfortable you feel working with an advisor that caters to Gen X. That could be another solution. Go to xyplanningnetwork.com and look specifically for an advisor who offers hourly or project-based engagements. Those are two good starting points, though, if you're looking for hourly advisors or project-based advisors. If you're looking for more of that ongoing relationship, though, I would love to be a resource if you're interested.
All right, the other thing I want to bring up, and this is just in closing, would be if you're contemplating that sabbatical or let's say you're not financially ready to retire, you're just thinking about a pause, a career change, something like that, it's important to consider what other financial resources are available in the household.
If you're married and your spouse is still planning to work, you could more easily make that transition point than if you're the sole income earner and your kids are still young and you're trying to make some of these changes. Everything comes at a cost. It's just important to understand those trade-offs before you make them and really go into it informed rather than fearful about the unknown.
I hope this episode was helpful as you think about change, navigating change, and just know I'm here to be a resource if you ever need it. Thanks!