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Episode #542 - Retirement Plan Live: The Educator And The Esquire: Meet Mike And Judy
Roger: The show is a proud member of the Retirement Podcast Network.
Welcome to the show that's dedicated to helping you not just survive retirement, but to have the confidence so you can go off and actually rock retirement.
Hey there, Roger Whitney here. By day, I am a practicing retirement planner with over 30 years’ experience, founder of Agile Retirement Management, and over the last 10 years or so on this show, you and I have hung out and focused on how do you actually do this thing called retirement planning? Not so you create a second job, but so you can actually go off and create a great life and not think about this stuff so much.
Excited for this month. We are starting another Retirement Plan Live case study with Mike and Judy, who you're going to meet here in a moment, throughout the month, this is how it's going to work. We're going to meet Mike and Judy today. Get an understanding of their background. Next week, they're going to share what they want their retirement lifestyle to look like. The week after that they're going to share the resources - they have to provide for that lifestyle to start to build out the framework to answer the question. Can we afford the lifestyle that we want? A question we all have.
If you would like to do a little bit of work on your retirement plan along with Mike and Judy sign up for our 6-Shot Saturday email, which is our weekly summary of the show. It's a fantastic summary that will give you worksheets to go through the journey with Mike and Judy. Then in early July, I forget the exact date, we're going to have a live meet up online with Mike and Judy to walk through whether they can achieve the lifestyle they want given the resources they have and if not, how do they start to negotiate? This will be a fun exercise for them for sure, but hopefully for you to gain traction on your retirement planning so you can have that plan of record in place.
In addition, today we're going to have Dr. Bobby Dubois on our Rock Life segment to talk about how to manage sun exposure.
Before we get off to those two things, recently we had our In The News segment related to AT&T's data breach and some tips on what to do about that. I got a lot of emails about how to protect ourselves online and protect against identity theft when I appreciate all the feedback and the questions We are going to have a cyber security expert on the show I believe this month or if not next month who is a member of the club he actually did a meetup in the Rock Retirement Club related to Cybersecurity about a year or two ago, he agreed to come on the show and share some of his tips from someone who actually has done this for a living. This is his circle of competence, it's great to have an expert come on and hang out with us. So, you'll see that a little bit later this month.
With that, let's go meet Mike and Judy.
MEET MIKE AND JUDY
Here we are with Mike and Judy, our subjects, for lack of a better word, for this Retirement Plan Live case study, how are you two doing?
Judy: Doing good. Thanks for having us.
Roger: Thanks for both coming on. Usually, we don't get both spouses participating, so this is nice.
Mike: Oh, well then, I'm out.
[Laughter]
Roger: Judy was the one that spurred all of this, and let's start there. Why? What caused you to reach out to want to do something like this?
Judy: I heard that you might be doing a second Retirement Plan Live this year, and so I've been listening to the podcast for probably about three years, and of course I went, I've gone back and listened to all the Retirement Plan Lives, but you had that survey, and when I was doing, filling out the survey, I thought, I'm just going to send Roger an email and say, you know, that we really like the podcast and that I would like to volunteer. That's what I did.
Mike: She’s been reading books and listening to your podcast and her career doesn't clearly define when retirement should occur, whereas my career does. In fact, most of my colleagues that I graduated college with have already retired and I'm one of the last ones hanging on, so to speak.
My retirement is approaching and she's wanting to reach that goal as well. She's been really trying to get her ducks in a row and just to figure that out.
Roger: She's been tasked either overtly or just naturally of going down this rabbit hole.
Judy: Yeah.
Roger: What did you think Mike about her volunteering for something like this? I don't think you've listened to the podcast or do.
Mike: No, I was fine with it.
Judy: I asked him before I hit send on the email.
Mike: I don't have a problem with it. Any help we can get, for the last 15, 20 years she's been saying we need to get this in order and get that in order and all that kind of stuff. Anything to help her get to her retirement sounds great to me and Judy.
Judy, are you the
Roger: financial manager of the household? Is that more your role?
Judy: I think I am now more so than I was maybe in the past.
Roger: You can't see Mike, but he's nodding yes.
Judy: Yeah, I think he did more of it years ago and then it just fell to me and we're not big budgeters but I don't know I guess when I started listening to the podcast, I heard somewhere that you should Start figuring out how much you spend before you retire. About three or four years ago, I started writing down every penny, not budgeting to limit anything, but just to know what we're spending so we can move forward. That's sort of when I took over.
Roger: Any insights? Was that an uncomfortable experience?
Judy: Well, I learned after the first year that Amazon cannot be its own category.
I had no idea. I had this huge amount at the end of the year on Amazon and no idea was that cat food, was that cleaning products, was it clothes? I didn't know.
Roger: That's hard even with grocery stores. Like if you go to a Kroger, there's so many departments now, if you're trying to categorize it, it gets confusing.
So, let's start with Judy. Judy, now how old are you? I can ask these questions.
Judy: I am 59.
Roger: You're 59. Okay, and what industry do you work in?
Judy: In law.
Roger: Do you have an expected retirement?
Judy: I've been in my employment for 34 years. Same employer we're sort of uh, dinosaurs.
We talked about we've never changed careers. We've never changed employers. We've had the same employers. Forever. Nobody does that anymore.
Roger: Do you like that?
Mike: We're cowards. We tell our children all the time our children are all Graduated college and we tell them all the time always be pursuing more look for other opportunities. Don't be afraid to make changes and that's exactly what we didn't do so. We got in our little comfortable paths and we stuck to it.
Roger: It seems like you've created great life from what I know so far, so.
Mike: Yeah, it's been good, yes, for sure.
Roger: Okay, and then roughly how much do you make a year, Judy?
Judy: 115.
Roger: Okay, just rough numbers, and you're in the Midwest, we'll just say Midwest. Then what about you, Mike?
Mike: I'm an educator. I've been in education for 30 years now getting ready to finish my 30th year. I think I earned like 72 000.
Roger: I think as we'll see you have a pension, but you don't have eligibility for social security, correct?
Mike: That's right. No social security whatsoever people find that hard to believe you try to tell them and They never believe it. It's like, I get no social security whatsoever.
Roger: Which is good or bad, depending on what else you get.
We won't get into that today. How did you two meet?
Judy: We met in school. I was in law school and he was in undergrad at the same school.
Roger: Okay, and who asked who out?
Judy: Well, technically I was in a big sister, little brother program, you know, and with a children's home. I had a little brother who wanted to go fishing and I was like, well, I don't know anything about that, and I knew Mike did. So I said, will you take my little brother fishing? So that means I asked you out.
Mike: She used her little brother to get to me.
Roger: Were you thinking of that as an entree to a date? Or was it just the little brother?
Judy: That was a long time ago. I can't quite remember.
Roger: So, how long have you guys been married?
Judy: Thirty-one.
Mike: Since 91. I can say that. I'm not quick at math.
Judy: Thirty-three years. Thirty-three years.
Roger: So, we're about the same. Because I'm 34 this year. I didn't get your age, Mike. I'm sorry.
Mike: I am 53 now. As of this week. Fifty-three.
Roger: Yeah. How old were you when you got married?
Mike: I was 20. I was a baby. Too young.
Roger: Yeah, so she robs you. I'm married to an older woman as well.
Mike: My parents were not thrilled.
That's not
Judy: true at all. That's absolutely untrue.
Roger: When she asked you to go fishing, you had no clue what was coming. She had it all in her head.
Mike: I was all for it.
Roger: Shauna is 13 months older than me, so I hold that against her.
What I like to do at the beginning So just to map this out for you is today. We're just going to get to know you a little bit And set a benchmark for what we want to accomplish next time we talk is going to be goals What is the projected retirement date? What is it? We want from a base great life wants and wishes.
Let's work on setting a benchmark so when we get done with this entire process, we can look back and say, okay, checkbox, we've got clarity on that. We have that in place. I understand that. What are some things that you want to get accomplished in this exercise?
Judy: I want the four C's. I want clarity because I'm not really sure that I know what I'm doing and that I'm considering everything.
I want confirmation that it's going to work and that I've got a feasible plan.
I want comfort because I feel a lot of responsibility, both for our family finances and also for my father's finances that I'm taking care of.
Then bottom line, I want confidence to walk away from my career because even though Mike's job, he gets a pension on a certain date. People in my office work till they're way too old. I mean, people in my office work in their 80s. I just want to walk away with confidence. So that's what I want.
What do you want? You want me to quit stressing over this? Is that your goal?
Mike: Well, I just want some confirmation because I do feel like she's done a lot of homework and looked at the numbers and everything looks pretty good. We want some confirmation of that.
I hate to say if my retirement, it's just so much more clearly defined than hers, and so, it's, but hers is just not, and so we could get more confirmation and clarity on that so that you can have the assurance that it's going to be fine.
Roger: Okay, so I have those four C's. I like those four C's Those are good.
Let's put a little bit more context to each of the C's. Okay, I have confirmation, our retirement will work. That's pretty straightforward, right?
Confidence, and I put this more for you, Judy, confidence, I can walk away from my career, right?
Judy: Yeah. When can I do it?
Roger: Like a date starting. I'm typing while we're talking, I'm going to put "when" in all caps with an exclamation point. What do you want clarity on?
Judy: I just want like an independent set of eyes on our circumstances because I'm not sure that I'm thinking everything through, that I'm thinking it through correctly.
I mean, I'm a writer. I'm not a math person. So, I'm afraid, you know, what if I'm missing something? I want my partner to be on the same page because. I'm learning stuff since I first talked to you. I'm learning stuff that I didn't know like; I didn't know that we wanted a truck. I thought our 20-year-old truck was fine. I didn't know we needed a truck. I'm learning things and I want to make sure that Mike knows where we stand financially, that I know what we need, his goals are, that he knows what my goals are and that they're the same.
Roger: Oh, I love that. So, clarity from an independent eye, that is me in this case. I want Mike and I to be on the same page so he's not thinking tomato and I’m thinking to-ma-to. That's always a surprise.
Then I put clear the fog on blind spots. It sounds like you've done the numbers but you don't know what you don't know and you want to make sure that you didn't miss some big thing that should have been on it, but just wasn't.
Judy: I have a big master spreadsheet But like I said, I’m a writer and a researcher not a math person. I made it up myself. I was showing it to Mike one time and then I realized that like the year that I’m 84 I just skipped it like I skipped the year but I made it like I cannot live and spend money in the year that I am 84 years old. Things like that. I'm like, oh my gosh, that's a pretty big miss, you know.
Roger: You can just move it down and die a year earlier and it all works out.
Judy: Yeah, that's essentially what I did.
Roger: It's too late to pat it in, but I guess I won't live to 95. It'll just be 94.
I also heard something Judy from, because you're the financial manager You want to have confidence so you don't screw it up for Mike.
Judy: Yeah, or for me, for me. Yeah, I feel a lot of responsibility and I think most of that comes from the fact that I can keep working forever. It will be my decision when I walk away and so that puts a lot of responsibility on me, and then for years, you know, I have no idea what's happening in my 401k. I just throw money at it. So, I feel now maybe that wasn't the best choice. I stepped back from my career, went to part time. Was that the best choice? That was 20 years ago. Now that lowered our income, you know, so I feel a lot of responsibility there. I feel a lot of responsibility with taking care of my dad and planning for the children. It's a lot.
My goal in life is regret avoidance so I’m always trying to think of worst case and how to avoid that.
Roger: I resonate with that approach, avoiding regrets.
You mentioned your dad a couple times. Tell me about that dynamic in your life.
Judy: Well, I'm an only child and my mother passed away a few years ago. My father is 93. He has just recently moved into assisted living, but I'm sort of his, at least financial caretaker.
Roger: Like officially?
Judy: Yeah. I mean, yeah, officially and unofficially from 10 years or so since my mom passed away.
Roger: Does he have the financial resources to sustain himself financially?
Judy: Well, yeah, I mean, he does where he is now. If you move from assisted living to memory care, that's like double. So then maybe he would be running through it a lot quicker if that happens, but that hasn't happened yet. But he has longevity in his family, all his parents and siblings lived to 95 or older. So, I just don't know how that's going to go and he's local there.
Roger: You have very broad things. Clarity, confirmation, comfort, confidence.
What things need to be present for you to have those?
Judy: Numbers on paper. Does that make sense? I don't really worry about the things that maybe I should worry about.
I don't worry about inflation or interest rates I just worry about being able to pivot when needed and knowing when that is.
Roger: Okay, does this all make sense to you Mike?
Mike: For sure we talk about it a lot.
Judy: That's what you want at the end of all this.
Mike: My family's much easier. My pensions are all spelled out, I've got a bunch of brothers, so we're not getting any money when my mom passes, you know, we don't have anything.
Everything's more complicated for her.
Judy: Yeah, but don't worry.
Roger: I couldn't tell if you're saying financially or just psychologically. Yeah, so I’m going to put it down as a target. I don't want to have to talk, think about it so much.
Mike: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. We need Judy to be able to embrace a time like we've jokingly said because she is a little bit older than me, she started her career shortly before I did. I have a pretty definite finite finish line and she's like I am not going to start my career before you and end my career after you. So, she wants to end her career when I end my career. If we can get a situation where that's going to work out, that would be wonderful.
Roger: Well, let me just ask that question Mike.
What is your ideal retirement date? Not the prescribed one, what's your ideal retirement date?
Mike: The ideal one would be yesterday.
Like I said most counterparts at the university. They've already retired because of the way our retirement pension works. Many of them can retire after they've completed 27 years of service, but then there are some incentives to staying till you're 55 Pretty significant incentives. We both agreed that I would stay till I’m 55.
Roger: Okay, ideally you would want to retire today.
Mike: Burnout is a real thing.
Roger: Yes. I'm going to put quotes on that. Burnout is a real thing.
Mike: Yes. Yes. Absolutely. I still really enjoy my job a lot. If I could work at what I'm doing right now, 2 to 3 days a week that I choose, I would still do it, absolutely. But there are many more days than there used to be where I text Judy at lunchtime and say, I can't do this anymore. It's gotten too difficult. There are days were getting up and getting ready to go to work. I almost got emotional. It's like, I can't go. I can't go today, but that's rare. I mean, it really is. It's rare. 67 percent of the time, two out of three days, I'm fine, but it's getting harder and harder for sure.
Roger: What you articulated is very common, just so you know. Right?
In every profession, it's like at this stage, I'm just tired of the grind. I like what I do. I love the people I do it with. I'm just tired of the grind, whether it's travel or committee meetings or picking your flavor depending on your industry. I'm guessing a lot of people resonate with that.
Judy, what is your ideal?
Judy: My ideal would probably be the end of this year, and then my goal would be anywhere from a year from now to two years from now.
Roger: So, 2026-ish? Yeah. You're saying together?
Judy: Yeah, like in June, like the end of the school year. So, the end of next school year or the end of the next school year for me.
Roger: Okay, when the two of you retire, in your mind do you think of retirement as we are never working again?
Mike: No, I don't know what she's going to do but I’ll definitely substitute teach. I spent my entire career in the same school district. I have a lot of connections there. It's a really, really good school district, so I will definitely. Just because I play a lot of golf, for example, I don't even want to play golf every day. I kind of view that as money that helps cover my golf fees and that sort of thing. I'm more than willing to do that in the wintertime. You know, when you can't get outside. I can't sit around. I definitely, okay, I cannot sit ever. I'm always on the go, so I'm sure I'll do something.
I might work in the pro shop at the local course, I might mow lawns. There's a lot of things I've considered. I used to say I was going to be a barber, but I don't want to do that. I don't want to be on my feet that much anymore.
Roger: What about you, Judy? Will you never work again?
Judy: No, I will never work again in my career field. I do a lot of volunteer work, and that takes, well, 10 to 40 hours, 10 to 50 hours a week. So that'll keep me pretty busy, depending on the time of year it is. Then, with my ministry that I volunteer with, that's about it. I have paid opportunities with them for different seasons of the year to work, and I plan to do that.
Roger: Okay, and you have kids. I heard kids somewhere, right?
Judy: Yes. Three children in America.
Roger: In America, three. So, what are the three? You don't have to give me their names. Just give me their ages.
Judy: Yeah.
Mike: 30, 28 and 24.
Judy: Yeah, two sons 30 and 28 and our daughter is 24. Then we have an exchange student that lived with us for five years who's in South Korea and she has an 18-month-old and we spent a lot of money on that too.
Roger: How old is she?
Judy: Our exchange daughter is 34 this year.
Roger: I love that. Exchange daughter. She's a daughter. We've talked about this offline, which is awesome. You have one grandchild.
Judy: One grandchild in Korea.
Roger: Exchange grandchild.
Mike: That's right.
Judy: They're all, all our kids are, like Mike said, they're all launched. The boys are out of graduate school, married, stable. Our daughter is working on her, I don't know, master's or PhD or whatever right now.
Roger: Okay, so I'm going to read something that you wrote, Judy, and then Michael, give me an amen on this one.
Judy says,
"Bottom line, I want to know what is feasible and reasonable so I can stop the daily debates with myself, quit thinking, talking, obsessing about this, and move forward with a workable plan."
Mike: Yes, that's what she does. All right. She watches her 401k daily. I tell her, don't do that. Don't do that. I've told her that for 10 years and she's obsessed with it.
Roger: I know those daily debates.
Well, that's the objective. That statement, I think, gets it. Gets you the Cs. So, our goal is just to follow a process to get clarity, confidence, comfort, and confirmation of whatever the numbers are, right? If it blows up, well, then we will negotiate. How do we get to those and what are little baby steps we can take from there?
Judy: Right. I have no doubt that we can make Pretty much anything work because we've done that like I left my career for a year and went and taught high school and took three fourths pay cut or something. It was crazy the amount of money I left on the table. We didn't have any problem with that one year early in our marriage or not early, early, but we really were living paycheck to paycheck and decided to adopt a child that was going to cost 20, 000 dollars, which seemed like a crazy amount of money at the time, and we did it in six months.
Like we can do anything. We just need to know what we need to do. Not working forever. That's not an example.
Roger: But it is sort of like kids. It's like you do the math and you would freak out, but you figure it out. I think that in our next conversation, what we're going to talk about is what does a base great life look like cost wise and qualitatively as well. What are the discretionary things we want on top of that if we could. All right. So, you too can obsess about those between now and the next conversation and then we'll frame those. A little bit more obsessing like just a little bit more obsessing and we'll build this step by step. Okay?
Judy: Okay.
Roger: Yes, sounds good
ROCK LIFE
Now it's time to go to our Rock Life segment and talk about health with Dr. Bobby Dubois. Bobby. How are you doing, buddy?
Dr. Bobby Dubois: I'm just sunshine happy today.
Roger: Well before we get started because we're going to talk about sunshine, and the good, bad and what we can do about it and managing it. But before we do that, how's your podcast going?
Dr. Bobby Dubois: It's been a lot of fun. It's been up and running for about two weeks. I have five or six episodes now and people seem to be listening to it. I'm excited. I mean, you and I get to chat on a regular basis, but once a month for 15, 20 minutes is different than having the opportunity now to every week or so have a new topic and share it with people and this is my passion and the more people I can reach out and connect to, the happier I am and hopefully they'll like it. If they don't, they won't.
Roger: You get to talk about these subjects without me getting in the way, asking questions.
Dr. Bobby Dubois: Well, I love that because you always ask really good ones and the back and forth is fun. I mean, I'm not doing it with interviews and such. So, it's just me and you know, as the phrase I always use live long and well, which is what I want, and that's the podcast name live long and well with Dr. Bobby. I'm going to stick with it for as long as people seem to be interested in listening to me.
Roger: Love it. So, what are we going to talk about today?
Dr. Bobby Dubois: We are going to talk about sun exposure and sun protection, as we know in Texas, it's sort of always summer or almost summer or still summer or deer season, I guess that's the fourth season that we have here in Texas.
But so, yes, so sun and sun protection are what we're going to talk about, and I guess it's become even more topical because a couple of weeks ago I had a basal cell carcinoma removed from the top of my head and it turned out to be a bigger deal than I expected. Not that the lesion was all that worrisome, but just, you know, they got to sew your scalp back together and all the rest.
So, I thought, Hmm, I should learn a little more about what the science tells us about what works and doesn't and while I'm doing that, I might as well share it with other people because they may get something out of it released. I hope they do.
Roger: So, before we go to that, basal noma carcinoma. Did I say that right?
Dr. Bobby Dubois: Basal cell carcinoma.
Roger: Okay, tell me what that is. Is that like a mole? What exactly is it?
Dr. Bobby Dubois: We'll get into the numbers in a bit, but there are three different types of skin cancer.
Roger: Okay, so it's a type of skin cancer. I just didn't know what the phrase meant.
Dr. Bobby Dubois: It's a type of skin cancer.
Melanoma is the really bad one, which can kill you. Although the treatments have gotten better and better. Then you have these ones that are more just local. They just sit there, they get bigger, they bleed, and that's squamous cell or basal cell carcinoma. Those are the various cells that are in your skin, and any one of those types of cells can go haywire. And that's where cancer comes from.
Roger: You sent me your outline. For those of you, you probably don't know, but when Bobby and I have these chats, he sends me a very detailed outline because that's who Bobby is. He's a scientist. When you sent me this, Bobby, I was very excited about it for a couple of reasons.
One is, I mean, I grew up where We were sunning ourselves nonstop as teenagers and hanging out at the pools. It was just the natural thing to do. We actually used oil, not sunscreen. You want it.
Dr. Bobby Dubois: Yes. Those were the days.
Roger: So, I come from that generation. The other reason is because now that I'm in Colorado, I was telling Shauna just the other day, because I don't like, I keep my hair really short, the hair that I do have. I'm like, I need a lot more hats. So, like, I need a lot more hats. I've switched to the long sleeve. hoodies that you might wear if you're fishing because I'm like, I need to be cognizant of this because I'm at 7, 000 feet now. It was not 700. So, I'm glad we're talking about this today and everybody enjoys being outside, right?
So, what should we think about? Where do we begin this journey?
Dr. Bobby Dubois: Okay, so I think it's always good to begin with a take home message, since people may get bored of listening to me. So, the American Academy of Dermatology, which is the big specialty society for dermatologists, they recommend, their sort of bottom-line recommendation is that everybody should use sun protection when they're outdoors and typically it's the topical stuff with SPF 30 or higher. That's sort of the bottom line is that everybody should put this on ideally a couple times a day if you're out in the sun for quite a while.
The recommendation is pretty straightforward. It's probably what your mom has told you for many, many years, or at least my mom did. The problem is, when you dig into the evidence, and that's my Achilles heel, I always want to dig into the evidence, it's a lot more complicated than that.
Some of the data isn't as convincing as I wish it were. Now, in the end, I do wear sun protection, but that's what we'll get to. There are a few links in the chain that kind of fall apart when you ask for evidence.
Roger: Before we go deeper on that, is it a common theme of a heuristic of, wear 30 SPF?
Is it normal that we're just not really going to know, the evidence is never going to be strong enough, or in very rare cases, when we talk about healthcare stuff?
Dr. Bobby Dubois: So, healthcare in general you're asking about, not specifically this.
Roger: Oh, and this, and this.
Dr. Bobby Dubois: Well, I think that if you really delve deeply into things, you'll find that some areas are pretty obvious.
So, we know what causes heart attacks and strokes and what the risk factors are of being overweight and having high blood pressure and high cholesterol. I think that we pretty well nailed down. But there's a zillion other things like, you know, what causes asthma and what exactly makes it worse? Yeah, this might make it worse for one person, but who knows for the next person? What foods are going to make this problem better or worse? There's just a million of these things, which is why I love having the discussions we have, because it forces me to sort of dive in and see where the holes are and see what we know and what we can feel comfortable about.
Roger: Very similar to retirement planning, as you stated it that way.
Dr. Bobby Dubois: Okay, well, then we've got the right audience.
Roger: What type of health issues does be in the sun create?
Dr. Bobby Dubois: Some things are pretty obvious and we all have lived our lives so we kind of know that sun causes sunburn. It's not true that every time you go out in the sun, you get a sunburn, but certainly we've all experienced it when you had too much sun and not enough protection.
Folks probably know that being around the water or Snow or sand. It's highly reflective and you get a blast of the sun and that sort of the hours of the day, 10 to 2 p. m. or the problem errors and people think, oh, well, it's cloudy. I have to worry about it.
Well, the vast majority of the UV radiation actually goes right through the cloud. So even though it seems a little gloomy out, 80 percent is penetrating the cloud. So still, you might want to protect yourself. Everybody's heard about it. ultraviolet light, there's UVA, UVB, UBC. I don't want to go down the rabbit hole on this, but UVA is the one to worry about because it actually absorbs deeply into the skin and it can cause problems.
What is really not open to question is that being out in the sun too much will age your skin. whether it's age spots or thinning the skin or wrinkles, that's pretty clear. So, if you don't believe any of the rest of the stuff we're going to talk about as we age, and many of the people on this podcast are getting up towards middle age or beyond, you know, we don't want to look like an old person. Protecting your skin, if nothing else will keep us from doing that.
Then of course, you want to avoid skin cancers, and we'll get into that in just a bit, kind of what the evidence is for that.
Roger: My question is, since we all are middle aged or beyond and many of us grew up without really thinking about anything other than sunburn, skin cancer, and UVA's and all that.
Is much of the damage already done or just taking proactive steps now just help mitigate anything further?
Dr. Bobby Dubois: Well, isn't that great? You've asked the fundamental question and we'll get into some other studies in just a little bit, but that's one of the things that's not so clear is there are definite data that if you had a lot of sunburns as a kid, you are at risk.
The magic number is sort of five above five, then there are more problems. But even if you compare people that had one or two, and these are the ones you remember, oh my God, I went to Nantucket and boy, I looked like a lobster, just what we had for dinner. So, people often remember these big, bad episodes as opposed to I, oh, I went out in the sun and my nose is a little rosy. That's probably not what we're talking about, but where the data isn't so clear is. Well, okay, so I had some as a kid, does it really matter what I do now?
Now, it certainly does if you're worried about the aging of your skin, but where the evidence isn't so great is how much of the damage is already done and how much can we protect against it. I think the belief is it's cumulative, so if you do more bad things to your skin now, it's going to be bad, but it's not so clear. That's the problem.
Roger: Well, I imagine it's still a good case not to continue regardless of whether you know or not. Right.
Dr. Bobby Dubois: As I talked to Gail, my wife, about what should I share on this podcast?
She said, well, you need to emphasize looking older. Now she's a woman and she worries about that probably a bit more than I do.
She said, no, look, people don't want to look older.
Roger: Is that because you already look older that you don't worry about it so much?
Dr. Bobby Dubois: That could be. That's a very important observation. You know, I have no hair anymore. Yeah, so I guess I don't care about it anymore.
Actually, we'll come to this later about the difference between men and women and their sun protection. But to bring a sober element to this, skin cancer is the most common cancer that affects humans, and there's about 5 million a year here in the U. S. The bad ones, which are the ones that can kill you, the melanoma, that at any one point in time, there's over a million people in the U. S. with a melanoma. These are the ones that if they're left to their own devices, they metastasize. Up until maybe 20 years ago, there weren’t really any treatments that worked.
Now there's definitely treatments that help, but they don't necessarily solve it for everybody. So, it's an important thing to be concerned about.
Roger: I've heard that phrase and I've known what it means, but I just want to make sure we, I want to get reacquainted. Melanoma means what?
Dr. Bobby Dubois: Okay, so people with dark skin have melanin in their skin, that's what sort of creates the darkness and you have cells that make that. Melanoma is when those cells become cancerous and that's the bad one. The other ones would just grow and whatever, but the melanomas are the ones that you really, really don't want to miss.
Roger: Okay, and who is at risk for skin cancer?
Dr. Bobby Dubois: Yeah, that's an important question. And the people that are at the most risk are people that are fair skinned, and fair haired and the data is pretty clear and that folks with dark skin aren't nearly as at risk for skin cancer. It's fascinating. You do some of these things and you learn, gosh, there's certain societies that have this problem or this approach to life. That's so different from everybody else.
You know, in Finland, they're half as many saunas as there are people, and everybody has a sauna all the time, so you can look and do studies on saunas. Well, Australia seems to be a hotbed of research on skin disease, skin cancer and it's because they get a lot of skin cancer, and there's all sorts of theories.
You know, one of the theories is that the people that moved there, because there were very few people that were aboriginal, They were fair haired, they came from England and such, so that's why they have a problem. Other people say, well, it's because they're near the equator. I didn't quite realize that Australia is near the equator. It looks on the globe like it's pretty far down, but apparently it is. So, they get a lot of sun.
Then you have the people that's like, oh right, they got the hole in the ozone layer so the UV is streaming through, that one's been a bit debunked, but anyhow, Australians seem to be very focused and they do have problems.
Roger: So, but as a general rule, the lighter your skin, the more at risk you are. Darker your skin, likely the less at risk you are.
Dr. Bobby Dubois: That's right, and let's go back to the issue of sunburns. So, you asked about, well, does it matter once you get older? There has been a lot of looking at this and there were 51 studies in a meta-analysis and they divided people into, well, you never really had one of those bad sunburns versus you did, sort of dichotomous, yes, no. Then they tried to stratify it by how many you had. There was a relationship so people that had sunburn versus those that didn't have a much higher risk of melanoma. As we've talked about with observational studies, where you just sort of look at people and see what they do and what they don't do, and you follow them for decades. That's a lot different than a clinical trial where you randomize people.
But one of the things you look for in an observational study that makes you a little more interested in the results is what's called the dose response curve, meaning the more you do or have or experience the worse off or the better off you are. That's a dose response. So, more sauna per week, you do better than fewer saunas. So here with sunburn, there was a dose response. If you had a lot more sunburns, you had a lot more risk.
That makes it a little more believable. But that's the case, and the other cancers, not the melanomas, but the non-melanomas, the basal and squamous cell, also appear to correlate with sun exposure and sunburns.
Then people always ask me, well, Dr. Bobby, what about indoor tanning? They tell me that's totally safe. Well, it turns out that if you look at the literature, there's like 36 studies that were brought together in one article, and regular users of indoor tanning have a 25 to 50 percent increase in melanoma and the other types of skin cancer. The more you do, the worse off you are, and the people that did more than 10 sessions a year were particularly problematic. Those cancers, which also makes it a little more convincing, happen in people that are much younger because a lot of the younger people do those tanning booths. So, I don't see a reason to do it and I think it's probably safe not to.
Roger: So, we've talked a little bit about how the evidence isn't so straightforward. Let's get to the crux of it. Sun protection, lotion is generally what we think of, does it work or what level should we have? What's the guidance there?
Dr. Bobby Dubois: Yes, let me just mention one or two things before we dive into the sun protection part.
The logic chain is pretty clear that sun exposure causes sunburn, and sunburn causes skin cancer, and UV protection, whatever, reduces sunburn. Therefore, one would think That sun protection would reduce cancer, and this is where it kind of falls apart.
So, sun protection, what do we mean by that? It could be sunscreen. It's the topical stuff that people know. It could be wearing clothes. So, right now I'm wearing an SPF 100 shirt, which protects me when I'm out on the ranch, and obviously you could stay in the shade, not get close to the sun. As I mentioned, sunscreens do, and sun protection does, prevent or at least reduce the amount of aging. There were randomized studies where they took people and they gave them this stuff to protect them and others that didn't. And they had significantly less evidence of skin aging on a variety of things. So, that much we do know.
There is data that suggests that sunscreen can reduce melanoma. Not every study shows it, and there's studies that show that it reduces the other risk. There was a recent study, which fascinating, and it's not clear why the results, what they were, but what they found was that the topical stuff, the sunscreen stuff you put on seemed to protect people, but staying in the shade and wearing a long sleeve shirt didn't.
Now, is this a quirky study? Is this telling us something? I don't know. But when you scratch your head and you say, Well, gosh, why don't sunscreens protect people the way we think they should? Because the evidence is pretty clear. Sun's bad, and we do know that sunscreens stop sunburn. So, it should, of course, stop cancer, and here's just an inkling for why you need to kind of lift up the rocks and see what's underneath them in medicine.
It turns out that people who wear sun protection, sunscreens and such, they spend more time in the sun because they think they're protected, so you have this counterintuitive thing that people who are doing the protection are actually beating their skin because they're out there twice as long, three times as long, four times as long. That's why the studies may not be as convincing as we think they are. When they're out for that long, very few people keep reapplying it. They're like, oh, I put it on this morning, I'm fine. So that's why it's quirky and that's why it isn't as obvious as one should think.
Roger: I remember reading a study long time ago when GPS became very prevalent in boating.
The Coast Guard actually saw increases in rescues because people felt secure because they had a GPS.
Dr. Bobby Dubois: Beautiful. I love it. It's a perfect example.
Roger: This is where it gets really hard for someone like me that isn't a scientist is, what do I do with this? Right? Do I wear my long sleeve hoodie? Do I put on sunscreen?
Obviously, I want to avoid burns because burns are connected to what we're talking about in terms of cancer. The hard part is what do I do? That's where I always fall down even in retirement planning when we think of all the complexities that can be like just throwing your hands up because you get too confused and it doesn't feel like there's any facts to go on.
Dr. Bobby Dubois: Well, as. Listeners will know I love the n of one trial. You get to test this out, whether alcohol messes with your sleep, and then you figure out whether you need to change your life. The problem is you can't do this with sun protection because you're talking about decades, and you can't test it and then retest it and retest it.
You have to take it on faith or what you believe the evidence is telling us. So unfortunately, we can't do my favorite thing. I netted out, as I said in the beginning, that I believe the evidence suggests that the protection does protect you against skin cancer. It definitely protects you against the aging of your skin. I'm very careful about sun protection and I'll be even more so now that I've had the skin cancer removed. That's where I net out.
Are there some holes in the logic chain that I scratch my head? Absolutely. But this is where I net out and people can decide for themselves.
Roger: That makes total sense, and that's moderation, coverage, and at best it helps you from an aging perspective, but likely helps you on the cancer end.
Dr. Bobby Dubois: I think that's right.
Roger: After you mentioned your thing, Bobby, one last thing I want to hit on as an addendum.
I talked about how I'd never been to a dermatologist. I mentioned it to you and I don't think you really had a thought about it. It might have been in passing, but I mentioned this to some friends, and they were shocked. Younger people, like in their 30s, that go to a dermatologist every year. I scheduled one. I haven't gone yet. Anything I should do to navigate that interaction?
Dr. Bobby Dubois: Well, the standard, which I assume your dermatologist will do, is basically get you naked and look at you from stem to stern.
Roger: Okay.
Dr. Bobby Dubois: Look inside your mouth and other places that cancers can hide. I think it's very helpful because a lot of people have lots of freckles and this that and the other and it's like, I don't know what's worrisome or not. That's what a dermatologist is really good at. I think it's a wonderful thing to do if you are able to afford it and have the time to go.
Roger: All right. As always, I appreciate you hanging out and going through the science. Live long and well with Dr. Bobby. Check it out on your favorite podcast player.
TODAY’S SMART SPRINT SEGMENT
On your marks, get set,
and we're off to set a little baby step we can take in the next seven days to not just rock retirement, but rock life.
All right, in the next seven days I want you to grab the values worksheet that we share in our 6-Shot Saturday email again If you are not a member of our weekly summary, you can sign up for that at rogerwhitney.com. I want you to complete the values worksheet.
Now for you spreadsheet geek numbers people. This may seem a little soft, but can't I just get to the spreadsheet? Can't we just talk about numbers? I'm going to ask you, please slow down and revisit or establish maybe for the first time who you are, what values do you want to represent in your life?
That is the spring from which goals will come into play to represent those values, which will spring what you do with all your resources to achieve the goals to represent your values. This is the first step in the yellow brick road to living a life that minimizes regret. So, trust me on this one. Okay?
That is your assignment, and then we'll take the next step next week.
CONCLUSION
Also, this week. As an addendum to the show, I'm going to share my journey on purchasing a place in Colorado, which is where I'm at now. I'm in the new studio. We're here for a month or two in our townhome that we just bought.
For those of you that have listened for a while, it's been a long journey and I've had a lot of misstarts and pivots in that journey of potentially or ultimately relocating but now living in between because of family obligations that we want to honor.
I’m going to share that as an addendum to the show. It's a little weird for me to talk about one is talking about my personal life and what we're doing.
Two, to be honest with you and I shouldn't I know I shouldn't but I do I feel a little not embarrassed But weird about all the missteps that we took that were actually necessary steps maybe in the journey, financially that I'm trying to navigate.
I thought that would be a good open experiment because all of us like you may be thinking about relocating and perhaps you can navigate this maybe a little bit more directly than I did. I don't know, but I will share that for those of you that are interested in an addendum at the end of the show, if not next week, the week after.
With that said, go enjoy a beautiful summer day wherever you are at.
The opinions voiced in this podcast are for general information only and not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance references are historical and do not guarantee future results. All indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested in directly. Make sure you consult your legal, tax or financial advisor before making. Any decisions.