Retire early in service industry

This week we're sharing another best of from 2023, which just so happens to be another interview with Shaun McGuire. Once again, he's engaging, helpful, and no-nonsense. Read/watch this if you want to retire earlier than you're currently on track for.

Find the original write up and video (From July) below, and we'll be back with new interviews next week.

Last week we talked with bartender extraordinaire and life coach Shaun McGuire about money management for folks in the service industry. This week we're covering a related topic—how people in the service industry can set themselves up for a cushy retirement.

Everybody in the industry knows that saving for retirement is up to them—it's rare for bar, restaurant, and brewery owners to offer retirement plans.

But even though that's common knowledge, a lot of folks in the industry aren't saving. The reasons why vary—some just don't think about the fact that one day they're going to be 55. Some have considered it, but don't know where to start.

But everyone in the industry should start saving immediately, and the good news is starting isn't complicated. Here's the simple approach Shaun recommends:

• First off, a good investor is boring. Stay away from Robinhood and trading individual stocks. This might feel exciting but it's essentially gambling. You don't want to gamble with your retirement.
• Instead, invest in an index fund. IRAs and Roth IRAs are a good place to start (here are the differences between the two), since there are tax benefits and they can auto-adjust your portfolio's risk based on your target retirement date.
• Set up auto invest so that you don't have to remember to save. It just gets automatically withdrawn from your bank account and deposited in your retirement account.
• Where should I set it up? You want a reputable operation with a sub 0.5% management fee, of which there are plenty. Wealthfront (great app), Vanguard (the OGs), and Betterment are all good choices.
• How much should I invest? Whatever you feel comfortable, but know that anything you can contribute—even if it's just $50 or $100 a month—is absolutely worth it. It may feel like you don't have room in your budget for this kind of saving, but you need to treat your retirement like you do rent, groceries, electricity bill, etc.: it's a necessity.
• If you still want to play with individual stocks you can certainly do so, but limit that to 5% or less of your investing. Play it safe with the vast majority of your retirement.

Setting up a retirement account takes just a couple minutes, so if you don't currently have one set up, Shaun urges that you should stop what you're doing right now, go over to Wealthfront, Vanguard, Betterment, or whatever investment site you prefer, and set up an account. Seriously. It's that easy and that important. And your 55-year-old self will thank you for it.

Check out the interview clip for more from Shaun about money management and retirement saving:

For a beer drinker there isn’t much worse than getting excited about a beer you’re going to order, ordering it, then being told it’s no longer available.

You should avoid providing guests this experience. An always-up-to-date menu is the answer.

How?

You could do it manually with an editable menu doc: look up product info online or on keg collars, copy & paste it in, then print.

• Just in time for Dry January, Pew released a bunch of data about Americans' alcohol consumption. Very digestible format and def worth a read, if only for the headlines.
• We've covered issues NJ breweries raise with state regs, but it seems even weirder in Alaska, where breweries aren't allowed to have stools at the bar or even TVs on premises. They recently got one small win—they can stay open til 9 instead of 8—but brewery owners say that's not nearly enough. Bar owners feel differently.
• French politicians are not endorsing Dry January, and addiction activists are accusing them of caving to the wine industry. It's interesting to see a debate like this happening in France, which of course is wine central. One staggering stat from the article: French alcohol consumption is down 70% in the last 50 years, and down 7%-10% in the last year alone.