What's up! It's episode 38 of Payne Points of Wealth and inflation is officially here! Not that you didn't know (and feel) that already but last week the official numbers came in and they were way higher than expected. Surprising the markets, surprising economists, but not surprising you and me. We knew the cost of everything was already going up. We know inflation is real. We know rotations going on. Companies can't hire fast enough. We've got a labor shortage. It's getting crazy out there! 

On our tipping point segment today we are talking about what's going on with your retirement date, your date of financial independence. Are you planning for it? How do you plan for it? How do you get to a position where you have the freedom to do everything you want to do because you saved enough. You made that big pile of cash. You've invested it right. You grew it and now you have that date where you can live life the way you want to. We're going to tell you how. Check it out. 

• Competing with unemployment [2:11]

We all know raw material costs are going up, that's been very obvious. We've talked about it week after week and now it’s showing up in the numbers. What's interesting is that there were very weak job numbers. Everyone thought they were going to create another million jobs last month but it was only around 266,000. Way less! Part of the problem is that people are getting so much more money in their unemployment stimulus checks at home that they don't want to go back to work. This puts pressure on companies to give bonuses. Like $50 just to show up to a fast-food interview or an $800 starting bonus from a convenience store because they need people that desperately. This is likely going to lead to wage inflation. What's crazy is that right now for a company to compete with unemployment, they'd have to exceed a $32,000 a year paycheck. 

One of the biggest problems we work to solve for the 2000 or so families we advise at Payne Capital Management is the date when it will be safe to be financially independent. Which in a way is all of our dreams, right? We use money so that we can have freedom down the line. That's just a great term. Financial independence.

Sometimes people love what they do and they have worked hard to get where they are and to them, retirement just isn't’ something they ever want to do. So, why would you plan for retirement if you don’t have plans to actually retire? This is why we talk about financial independence. That point when you only work because you want to not because you have to. There is freedom in knowing that come injury, illness, or pandemic shutdown you will be ok, financially. You won’t be relying on a stimmy check to pay the bills. We help people find their way to this magic date. We advise them on how to get there. We talk about it in the episode so go check it out!

Earlier this year on this podcast, we discussed how we were moving back from the virtual world to the real world. We discussed companies like Peloton, the proverbial work from home stock, since that time has lost 53% of its value and could continue to go lower. We're wondering if we could start up a service where we get companies to pay us not to mention how overvalued their stocks are so they can save the value of the company. What do you think guys?

The US's physical infrastructure is ranked only 16th globally by the world economic forum. The proposed spending plan, which would be implemented over eight years would return government investment in the real economy to its highest level since the 1960s. That's great news because here in Philly we have potholes the size of Volkswagens! So a $3 trillion investment in our infrastructure will certainly make driving more pleasurable here in Philly.

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