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Natalie Slagle  00:00

The decision behind making a income change in your household and potentially a career change. It's a really big decision. It should come first from just the evaluation of what you need, what your household needs, what you would benefit from. Once you get past that phase, that's when it's time to look at the numbers you

Natalie Slagle  00:24

Welcome to Money Dates, the podcast that makes money conversations with your partner feel a little less taboo. I'm Natalie Slagle, a certified financial planner, and I'm joined by my husband and business partner, Dan Slagle, also a Certified Financial Planner. Say Hi, Dan, hello. In each episode, we'll share honest stories and practical tips to help you and your partner feel more connected and confident on your financial journey. So grab your drink, get comfortable and join us for our money dates. Hello, Dan.

Dan Slagle  00:56

Hey, Natalie, how are you doing

Natalie Slagle  00:58

good? I wanted to give an update to listeners who have been on our podcast journey with us. From the beginning,

Dan Slagle  01:09

you always do this like you don't ever prep me for these, like big announcements that you make until the podcast, until we start recording. So let's, let's hear it. Give the update. It's gonna be an update for me too.

Natalie Slagle  01:23

Well, you're living it. So it's anyways, Dan and I are looking to buy a home, and the reason why I want to bring that up is because A, it's going to have major financial impact on our finances. And B, we were talking to someone who we're actually working with professionally, I would now say he's also our friend. I don't know if he knows that, but hey, if you ever listen, you're our friend and the person we work with professionally. But anyways, we told him. He asked, like, Well, how was your weekend? And we said, oh, we looked at a couple houses. And he said, Wait, wait, wait, I listened to that podcast of home or renting versus buying a home, and you made me feel like, because he lives in Brooklyn, he's like, You made me feel like I could rent forever, and that's financially prudent. And I thought that was interesting that he said that I have more to say, but I want to check in with you. Dan, what thoughts came up for you when he pointed that out to us?

Dan Slagle  02:17

Yeah, I thought that was funny when he had mentioned it to us. I think it just from my perspective. It just goes to show, depending on like, the stage of life you're in, life events, one of the big driving factors into us now wanting to look to buy a home again is the fact that we now have a 16 month old daughter, and we're looking for a little more. I don't know if structure is the right word, but just looking for a little more like continuity day to day and like in a place that we can call our own, and not leave the decision up to potentially someone else to say, hey, you can no longer rent my home, whether it's a person that owns this current home, or if you're at an apartment complex, whatever it may be, I think you and I definitely want to have a little more control in the environment that we raise our daughter in.

Natalie Slagle  03:12

Yes, and I will say at least right now, who knows what will happen long term. It doesn't feel like the financial best choice for us right now, and I shouldn't say best like it's a bad decision. It's not a bad decision, it's just a decision, and seeing all those funds go to a down payment is going to irk me like no other and likely our mortgage, well, not likely. It is. It's almost certain our mortgage will be quite a bit more than our rent. So I want to preface this with saying we're not doing this because we did some analysis and said it actually makes more financial sense. We never did that analysis. The analysis we did was, how much can we afford? But it wasn't what, what's going to be better for us long term, the decision on long term was to your point, Dan, all the things we want to have control over when it comes to raising a family and the home that we raise that family in. So just a little life update for you listeners. Stay tuned as we continue through this journey, and if you're in the Portland area and need a recommendation for a mortgage broker and realtor. We have had excellent experiences with both.

Dan Slagle  04:28

So this is true, and this this life item right now that we're going through of buying a home, switching from renting in going into buying a home, I'm curious what's going to happen over the next few months, because we might be recording an episode in early 2026 and you and I are like, it's cool. We decided to rent I could see that happening. It depends on like the right home needs to come up for us on the right purchase price, and it's also hard when we think. About affording our down payment and home prices on the West Coast, you and I are going to have to liquidate our brokerage account. So when the market is up, at the time of this recording, it's up like seven the s, p5, 100 is up like 17% this year it which is amazing, right? Like you love seeing the gains in the account, but it almost makes it a little more difficult to stomach or and or you make that decision, and the market could be at a high point. But again, we don't have a crystal ball. No one does when it comes to how the market's going to perform. So when you we think about our brokerage account, I believe we've talked about it in previous episodes. Just like knowing the purpose of each account, right? You have your retirement bucket. It's going to be used to fund your lifestyle in retirement, the brokerage account is this nice little middle ground to say, hey, we could potentially use this for shorter term goals and also supplement some additional retirement expenses in the future if there's no identified purpose, right? So yes, the money is like, if you look at our balance sheet, right? And we kind of do this with clients too, the total net worth doesn't change. And net worth is your assets, like,

Natalie Slagle  06:11

minus when you buy a home, your net worth does not change. And that is true,

Dan Slagle  06:16

that's what. Yeah, you didn't even let me finish. That's exactly what I was going to say, but you said it very nicely.

Natalie Slagle  06:23

We talked about this on our episode the renting versus owning. If you haven't listened to it, you should listen to it because I think it's one of our top shows so far. And yes, I wanted to bring it up because I think it's, I think a part of our our offering, is to just be transparent about what's happening in the Dan and Natalie world of finances, but it also has a lot to do specifically for us on today's topic, and it also impacts our clients in that the expenses that you have can dictate the choices that you're making professionally. Dan, what are we talking about today.

Dan Slagle  07:01

Today we're talking about burnout, which is a very real thing, as most of our listeners will be able to relate to. And the conversation goes hand in hand with recent client conversations that I've actually I've been having. And Natalie, I feel like you've been having some of these as well with some of our clients. And the idea comes from, you know, most of our clients have really good careers, some from an individual, not even a household perspective, but some individuals are making over $200,000 right, right? So well over 200,000 so income is warranted, given the things that they're doing at their employers. But what I've really heard quite often over, specifically the past month, is a lot of individuals in that type of income range, you tend to have potentially a higher stress job, and I'm getting the sense of burnout. And the big question is, what happens if I take a lower paying job than the one I currently have? What's the impact on the short term? And then what does this do long term for us, individually and for that, that family unit, right and making sure things are dialed in right now to say you can afford to make that decision today, to take a lower paying job and a less stressful environment potentially, and you'll be okay in the future. So those are a lot of the conversations that that I've been having, that we've been having with with our clients recently, and it it typically, again, tends to stem I at least I see it most when clients are making 200 250,000 or more. But it's not to say people across the board from an income level aren't feeling this way, right, right? So this goes back to I feel like I heard someone in our industry say once, like, if you hear or get the same question three times. You need to write a blog about it

Natalie Slagle  09:07

or have a podcast episode about it, exactly,

Dan Slagle  09:09

and we're just going to have a podcast episode about it and work through it.

Natalie Slagle  09:13

Yes, yes. So what we've experienced is these clients making a lot of money, north of 200,000 per individual, and not all the time, but sometimes there's little ones at home, and it's just it's kind of this question, when is enough enough? I also wonder if a lot of our clients in this professional realm are just a little nervous about what the future means. I've heard from multiple clients, I just don't think I'm going to get paid what I'm getting paid today, whether it's I'm going to get laid off, I'm and I'm not going to be able to find a job to replace my income. And just kind of this, just tired of the chase of climbing the corporate ladder. And you know, think about it. Our clients in their 30s and 40s have been going at this for quite a while, and at what point do they take their foot off the pedal? And if they were to take their foot off the pedal, what are the benefits? Because you would do it, because there's benefits. And then what impact does it have on you and all different facets. You know, specifically, the conversations we're having is, what does this mean for your finances and how? How could we make it work? Because you always could make it work. But what would it take, and is it worth it from that perspective?

Dan Slagle  10:36

Yeah, in summary, there's, there's obviously the financial needs that we need to think about, if this is decision that that is going to be made, and then also from the mental aspect of it too, right? Like your mental health is absolutely worth some weight in this conversation, if not more than the financial needs. So, you know, when you think about potentially taking a new job with lower pay, we need to think about, you know, what's the stability of of that new job going forward? What's the potential for growth benefits and lower salary, like, how does that all equal out to still allowing you to meet one year daily expenses, or your, you know, your monthly expenses, and then also, what impact does that have on your savings goals? Right? I think that that's the big key that a lot of clients are wanting some clarity on, is to say, hey, what if I continue to work at this current company, making the income I am now for the next three years? Some of the conversations I'm having are like, what if I just took a year off of work in between roles, and then try to find something with a lower paying job in the future. So obviously, like prioritizing mental health, physical health throughout this process is very important. And there are considerations, both, again, financial and non financial to this. So I think what we should start to dive into are thinking about those considerations and obviously being financial planners, it probably makes the most sense to talk about it from a financial aspect first.

Natalie Slagle  12:04

Yeah, where do you want to start? Well, I guess

Dan Slagle  12:09

if you were in this situation, right, let's say you were in a high paying job and you wanted to potentially cut back on on work, have better work life, balance, reduce your income within our household. Where would you start first? Like, would you start with, like, analyzing our budget. Like, give the listeners, like the a grasp on where you would take this

Natalie Slagle  12:32

first? Yes, I think the first place is to go to the budget, because knowing what you have to be able to afford from the obligations you've set up as a household is really important. Then taking the analysis of your spending on, well, what's, what's been the fun stuff that we could cut back on, and you might look at your budget and say, we can actually afford a reduction in my income, or only being on the other partner's income, from a budget perspective. And what's actually getting impacted here is the savings rate, because we have some clients who have 25, 30% or more savings rate. And so it could just be, as I don't want to say easy, but the answer could just be that's going to come down, that savings rate is going to come down, and then it goes into the impact. But before I get too ahead of myself, I would absolutely start with looking at your expenses to understand what, is a necessary? You know, we can't escape this unless the biggest expense that comes up is for our parents who have children, whether it's in daycare or private school. Those are very expensive costs that are hard to navigate away from, and then your mortgage or rent payment, the reason why I brought up our situation, Dan is because when I think about the options, I want to make sure we always keep open, especially for myself, I think about what would it look like if Natalie at Fuse financial planning worked less. I love my job. I love what we do. My business partner is pretty sexy, too, anyways, but I like in the back of my head, and I haven't even told this or said this out loud to you, Dan, in the back of my head, I'm thinking, if we go to the top, top of our budget, then I feel like I am taking away from my future self, the ability to go part time at fuse and not even a significant part time. Maybe, instead of working five days a week, I go to four days a week. And so that budget and knowing what your household needs from an expense standpoint is a really important part of this whole evaluation.

Dan Slagle  14:56

Yeah, it sounds like the big question you need. To ask yourself, if you're in this situation, is that, can we maintain our current lifestyle or and if we can't, what changes need to be made or what significant like adjustments need to take place? Yes, you know you could roughly model this right to, like, back into what salary do you need to make in order to maintain your current lifestyle? Is the first place if you have a reduction in income, likely that one of the first places you're going to go to is, as you mentioned, you're you're likely going to take a reduction in your savings rate, or your savings

Natalie Slagle  15:33

contributions, yes, and naturally, the dollar amount will decrease if I go from making 400,000 to 100,000 then even if my savings percentage is the same, the dollar amount will decrease, for obvious reasons. And I think that those are the kind of things that our clients are like, Okay, we've been working on this plan, the trajectory, the long term projections assume I'm going to continue to make 400 grand a year. I just, I don't want to do that anymore, and if I don't do it anymore, like, are we going to still be able to retire in 20 years? Or are we going to still be able to buy that second home that we wanted to do in five to 10 years? Like, those are the types of concerns our clients are coming to us with is almost like, it feels like they know they could make it work in the, you know, next year, if they're like, we're going to start doing this in 2026 it's the what is the long term impact, and how does that impact the financial goals we talked about and having those conversations,

Dan Slagle  16:39

yeah, and The several clients that this has come up for recently, how we've approached this conversation is now is the time of year where we like to do longer term projections, and with clients in our 30s and 40s, there's so many things that can change inevitably, well change over the course of the next 20 plus years until we get to their desired retirement date. How we frame it is always this is just a point in time snapshot of if nothing changed, given what we know today, here's where you stand from, like a success rate. And a lot of times with our clients, they tend to be well within this range that we want them to be in when it comes to looking at retirement projections. So when things tend to look good for clients from a long term perspective, based on what they're doing currently. A lot of times, that's what kick starts the conversation into well, what? What changes do you want to see made? Right? If, if your retirement projections look very, very good, and there's room to dial back. And when I say, dial back, dial back. The success rate. The levers we can pull in these instances are, well, you could spend more, right, meaning you're going to need to draw more out of your portfolio in the future and current day. You can save less. You could retire earlier, like those are the three big options that we always uncover, but the hidden one in that as well that's not included in those groupings is what happens if I want to take a reduction in pay? What happens if I'm in a role and a lot of times we I feel like we hear this a lot, either in in the consultant industry or some form of tech like it is so common to hear this in those two industries, specifically where I'm working my butt off for and I have been for the past 1520, years, and maybe I want to go work for a non profit in like a three year time frame, right? So then, then it's on us. To show here is what the impact would look like from a long term projection standpoint, if you decided to go from a salary of 300,000 to 150,000 and also 150,000 recently has been like the magic number that people have been wanting to reduce to, like I've heard that multiple times in the past few weeks,

Natalie Slagle  18:54

which is, I mean, 150,000 is still a lot of money. It is as a salary. But when you're used to making three, 250 300,000 plus, then it feels like a big reduction, and it is,

Dan Slagle  19:07

yeah, yeah. So then we can model in our projections to say, Well, what happens if income cuts in half starting then, for example, 2027, up until retirement at age 6065, whatever it may be, what happens to that success rate? Right? And if we're still well within a confidence zone that gives a client clarity on, hey, if I make this decision today, it's going to be better for me in my day to day, from a work life balance perspective, a family environment perspective, and I'm also not jeopardizing my future. So that is the clarity I feel like a lot of clients are looking for when it comes to that conversation. If you know, we dial back and dial back income to cut in half and things don't look as good well, we need to figure out a solution to how can we make things look better? And that could be going back to our first point. Understanding what significant changes need to be made in your day to day, mostly likely from an expense standpoint, right?

Natalie Slagle  20:08

This is why I get nervous for us and for our clients when it feels like from an expense and a savings perspective, we don't have much room to change. So typically, with our clients, who folks who are making over 300,000 from a household perspective, we see both spouses are able to max out their 401, K and assuming both are working and there's also extra money to put into their brokerage account. And I see that as you are creating this flexibility, because if there's a time like one of you wants to take a step back from work, whether it's partially or fully, you have already built in this flexibility in your plan, but if you create your finances to kind of stretch everything, meaning you're you're spending kind of at the top, top, top of what you should be spending, and you're saving the bare minimum. You are taking away the ability to make these types of changes. And to be fair, maybe that's fine and you're really satisfied with the life and the job and the setup you have, and so there's no need to create all this flexibility. I'm someone and I'm, well, I'm going to throw you in my camp too, Dan. So we are people who change their minds a lot. We move every two years. It's just what happens. And I just like the idea of setting our finances up in a way that gives us the flexibility to change our minds, and even before this conversation happens, my advocacy for everyone is somehow creating flexibility in your plan, whatever that Looks like for you. How do you

Dan Slagle  22:01

feel like you've done when it comes to building up flexibility for like, hypothetically, if you were to say, hey, I want to reduce my working hours from 40 to 30 in this example, right? And like I don't, I hope you're not planning on going to a different company that's going to pay you lower that would suck. So I'm going to use the example of, let's say you wanted to take a reduction in like, your work hours. How do you feel like you've done setting yourself up for that financially

Natalie Slagle  22:32

in this moment right now, fantastic. We have more than enough in our bank account. We have a brokerage account that we can tap into that what I like to say is, I can recreate my paycheck if we don't even want to reduce our our expenses, but I reduce my income. First will happen is we don't save as much to our brokerage account, assuming we need even more funds, we can actually tap into the brokerage account and just pay ourselves monthly from it. And so in this moment today, I feel we've done excellent creating all of this flexibility for if one of us, maybe it's you, if one of us were to say, let's go part time, let's take on less clients, blah, blah, blah, we would have the opportunity to do. So that is why this whole house discussion, for you, and I specifically Dan, it kind of scares me, because I feel like we're going to lock in these expenses at a higher clip, and we're going to drain a lot of our liquidity from our brokerage account and our savings account, and so I don't love that.

Dan Slagle  23:40

Yeah, you just hit on a point that I was literally about to make, as you were talking about it at first, with the idea of you feel really good about it right now, in terms of having built up a lot of flexibility, the issue that we've been seeing with clients who have been bringing this up is they also have major goals that they want to achieve, right? And to your point, it is exactly the idea of buying a home. It is the idea of, well, we might have another child, right? So those added components make the decision very hard.

Natalie Slagle  24:14

It does buying a home and having kids. Man, not cheap.

Dan Slagle  24:19

I feel like we can have the conversation with clients. They always have the final say in what we recommend. But even for you and I, I wonder, like, what is the tipping point to actually making the decision

Natalie Slagle  24:33

to go to reduce our time and make less? Yeah, I think the tipping point first comes. I'll speak for me specifically. The Tipping Point first is something is happening personally where I'm I'm just not feeling caught up. I'm not feeling caught up on my personal side, and I'm pouring too much of my time, energy and effort. Efforts into my professional side, and it's feeling like my family, which would be you and our daughter, are on the receiving end of that, of me being less energized once, and if I get to that point, that is when I would go into analysis mode on, okay, I want to do this. What do I need to do to make it happen? Yeah,

Dan Slagle  25:24

I think the other like the other things we can do to help get to a decision. It's just continuing to talk to your community, right, talking, talking to people, talking to professionals, mentors who have made similar decisions in the past, who can help guide you to make the right decision for for you in this moment, I think, you know, there's, I don't know what the science is behind what I'm about to say, so take it with a grain of salt. But I feel like there's backing to just trusting your gut and trusting your intuition, yeah,

Natalie Slagle  25:55

and like, if your gut is, if your gut is saying Natalie, and you're doing too much. Just do something to make it less like there's yeah, there's something about that,

Dan Slagle  26:07

yeah, and getting professional guidance, right? It doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be us. But I do think it is important to see some numbers played out in terms of, hey, if I were to take a lower paying job at half of what I'm making today, what is the net impact on my cash flow, on our expenses? What does this do to my savings? And then wrap it all together and ask, what does this do longer term for me, if I make this decision and cut my income in half today in my mid 30s or early 40s, does this mean I have to work longer Right? Like that's a variable you need to consider, right? But again, even when we look at an analysis today, a longer term projection, it's you and I always say this, it's wrong, right? Because we can look at it tomorrow, we can look at it a year from now, and things have completely changed. We're not accounting for additional expenses that might arise. We're not accounting for potential inheritances, right? We've had an episode talking about how the great wealth transfer is going to happen. Well, what's the impact on you when that you potentially receive some sort of windfall? We don't want to, of course, plan for it. We never include that in our projections. But it's it's a reality. It's happening. We're currently in it, right? So again, we just don't know what's going to happen longer term, but get some of the facts around the changes you make and what the impact could be longer term, I think is going to be really helpful, especially for those who want to see the numbers behind

Natalie Slagle  27:36

it. Yes, and I know, Dan, you said it doesn't have to be us, but it should be us, because we're really good at it. We're and we're in it ourselves, personally, and we do this with our clients all the time. And I think having the third party like Dan and Natalie at Fuse financial planning really helps create an environment where a constructive conversation is warranted, and having professionals to kind of guide you through all the financial implications like us is really, really helpful. To wrap this up, the decision behind making an income change in your household and potentially a career change, it's a really big decision. It should come first from just the evaluation of what you need, what your household needs, what you would benefit from. Once you get past that phase, that's when it's time to look at the numbers. What does a reduction in savings look like to you? What does a reduction in income and having enough for your expenses? What does reducing your expenses? Is that possible in this situation, and is it even necessary? And then, when we think about the ways to replace your income, it could be through just working part time, and maybe we're not saving as much. And the other thing is, you could have a brokerage account, and we could start taking distributions from that. There's so many ways to slice and dice this financially, and having people to have these types of conversation with is going to be really, really

Dan Slagle  29:11

helpful. I couldn't say it better myself.

Natalie Slagle  29:15

Awesome. Thanks for the conversation. Dan,

Dan Slagle  29:18

thanks. Natalie, bye, bye. You. Hey, if you've enjoyed this episode and are looking for personalized financial guidance, schedule a free complimentary consultation using the link in the description below, Natalie and Dan Slagle are the founding partners of Fyooz Financial Planning, a registered investment advisor. The information provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any securities. Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. Advisory services are offered to clients or prospective clients, where Fyooz Financial Planning. And its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure. For more information, including our disclosures, please visit our website at WWW dot fyooz financial.com.

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