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Finish Line Podcast Episode 6

Saving for Retirement with a Finish Line

You may want to prepare wisely for retirement while also wondering whether saving more today means postponing generosity that could matter right now.

How can you balance long-term financial security with present-day giving when a financial finish line changes the usual relationship between your income, lifestyle, and retirement savings?


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Meet your guide

Cody Hobelmann, a financial planner and co-host of The Finish Line Podcast, joins his brother and co-host Kealan Hobelmann to explore how setting a financial finish line changes the way you think about retirement savings. They begin with traditional retirement planning principles, including employer matches, IRAs, Roth IRAs, compound growth, and the importance of starting early.

But a finish line introduces a different question. If your lifestyle is no longer designed to rise with your income, should your retirement savings continue rising with it? Cody and Kealan explain how defining the lifestyle you hope to maintain can help you estimate what retirement may actually require rather than automatically saving a fixed percentage of an increasing income.

They also explore the tension between compound interest and what Cody calls “compound impact,” the good your giving can begin producing today. Rather than choosing between responsible saving and generosity, they encourage intentionality about both.

By the end, you may think differently about how much is truly enough for retirement and what opportunities could be lost by postponing generosity until later in life.

  • How a financial finish line changes traditional retirement planning
  • Why saving a percentage of income may stop making sense
  • How to estimate retirement needs from your actual lifestyle
  • Why giving now can create its own compound impact
  • How to balance wise retirement saving with present generosity
  • Why postponing generosity can create unexpected spiritual opportunity costs

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Try the Game of Life Simulator

Step into a four-minute interactive experience and see what unfolds as you decide how to manage your resources.

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Quotes to Remember

  • “If you can say, this is a lifestyle that I am perfectly happy with, and will be into retirement, then you can get a ballpark estimate for what it will cost to fund that.”
  • “You can make the mistake of putting so much energy into the forward looking mindset of saving for retirement that you miss out on all sorts of opportunities for generosity and the rich life that Paul talks about.”

Links from the Show

Bible References from the Show

1 Timothy 6:17-19 | The Uncertainty of Riches

17 As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. 18 They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, 19 thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.

Luke 12:16-21 | The Parable of the Rich Fool

16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

Matthew 6:19-21 | Where Your Treasure Is, Your Heart Is

19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Use Our
Free Guide

Have you considered the ways you are uniquely called into generosity? We’re not all called into the same adventure.

Enter your information below and we’ll send you our free PDF guide to explore the specific adventure you were called into.

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Use Our
Free Guide

Have you considered the ways you are uniquely called into generosity? We’re not all called into the same adventure.
Generosity Profile Image
Enter your information below and we’ll send you our free PDF guide to explore the specific adventure you were called into.
Generosity Profile Image

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