Preview:

In this episode, Ryan delivers a “pilot report,” offering a timely look at today’s economic turbulence. From global conflict and rising interest rates to inflation pressure and a shifting housing market, Ryan explains how these forces are shaping your financial flight path, and what adjustments you might need to stay on course. Ryan also shares practical, down-to-earth financial advice, especially geared toward young adults, recent grads, or anyone feeling a bit behind.

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More About This Episode:

Learn why consistent monthly investing, dollar-cost averaging, and building liquid savings matter more than stock-picking hype. Through real-life examples and candid conversations, we’re going to highlight power of discipline, time, and compounding interest. Want to build serious momentum? Tune in to learn how small, steady contributions can create a big impact over time.

Here’s what we cover in this episode:

📉 How high interest rates are freezing upgrades and first-time buyers

💵 Start small: $50 a month + compound interest can work magic

🔁 Why consistent investing beats stock-picking and market timing

⚠️ What new grads often get wrong and how to avoid it

0:00 – Intro

1:05 – Tariffs quiet, but Iran–Israel heats up

2:39 – Real Estate: What’s really going on?

5:52 – Dollar-cost averaging every month

9:19 – Helping adults build smarter financial habits

13:27 – The magic of compound interest


Resources:

Retire Pilots – https://retirepilots.com

Get your FREE Retirement Toolkit – https://bit.ly/3ZmZsaX

Pilot Tax – https://pilot-tax.com/

The Pilot’s Advisor Podcast is also on video. Watch & Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3EIEBW2

Connect with Pilot-Tax: https://pilot-tax.com/

Episode Transcription:

(Note, this is an automated transcription. Please forgive any errors.)

Ryan Fleming 

So Walter, it’s always good talking to you, having you on the show. And I normally have been sending out a pie rep. Do you know what a pie rep is?

Walter Storholt 

A pie rep, I mean, it sounds tasty, whatever that for that is. I mean, are we talking blueberry or, you know,

Ryan Fleming 

yeah. So it’s, short for pilot report. So like a pie rep is if a pilot’s flying around and they want to let other pilots know what’s going on, or flew in a certain airport, and we had a pie rep of this or that. So basically, just a pilot giving a report on something that’s going on that’s normally a weather

Walter Storholt 

event, unidentified flying object off the left wing, that all of that stuff.

Ryan Fleming 

Yeah, exactly. So anyway, for a while, I was sending out a monthly pi rep for my clients to say, Hey, what’s going on in the market? Here’s what we’re thinking, what have you. And I’ve hesitated doing that recently, just because there’s so much going on right now, and it’s it changes day to day. And I think we finally had it where the tariff talks had finally settled. Things weren’t all about tariffs and tariff deadlines and what was going on in the market reacting to that. And then, of course, what’s happened with Israel and Iran kicked off. I mean, what do you think about all that stuff?

Walter Storholt 

Oh, I mean, you know, right, when you think things are maybe settling down a little bit from some of the tariff conversation and those wars and things are looking, you know, kind of heading off in the right direction. Perhaps, from a market standpoint, we get more uncertainty injected into things. So from a financial standpoint, right? Like, I don’t know if I like seeing those headlines, just from that standpoint, but Yeah, who knows where it’s going to go from here,

Ryan Fleming 

right? We really don’t know. And you know, what the market did was interesting with this war kicking off. I mean, on Friday of last week, it was a drop in the market. But what? It wasn’t substantial. It wasn’t crazy, like you’d see a lot of times when there’s massive unknowns, and the markets, you know, panicking almost,

Walter Storholt 

right? It wasn’t a repeat of the tariffs, absolutely not.

Ryan Fleming 

Yeah, not at all. And then even Monday, it all came back like the markets were up pretty big. And, you know, they’ve been pretty flat the last couple of days, even with all the changes in the war effort. And I think it’s, in my opinion, the market has actually been relatively stable through all of this. I think the big thing that needs to happen for the market to move is just having a little bit of a reduction in interest rates, because, you know, our all the inflation numbers continue to be decreasing, which is a great thing. But, you know, our national debt, what we’re dealing with, with the big, beautiful bill, is, is front and center, and I think that, you know, from a standpoint of people being able to buy houses, rent, you know, finance cars, rates have to come down a little bit because there’s been a massive buildup in the real estate inventory alone. Yeah,

Walter Storholt 

they’re building houses all up around where I am, and they seem to be selling. So the demand is still there, at least in my particular area. But I’ve noticed in other markets where I just have long term searches always sort of up and feeding new, you know, new homes the you know, maybe I’d move there one day, kind of locations. And I’ve noticed a lot of price corrections, a lot of prices coming down in certain areas. So that’s been kind of interesting. Houses are sitting on the market a little bit longer, so getting maybe very regionally dependent in terms of what’s a buyer’s or seller’s market, perhaps, and that I know, is different from the stock market. But all all this still kind of ties together in terms of how people are feeling sentiment, that sort of thing, right? Well,

Ryan Fleming 

it definitely affects it. I mean, there’s been a massive immigration from one state, you know, certain states, to other states, because of taxes or whatever. Yeah, you know, people are fleeing to maybe difference in weather, no different than, you know, you going out to Colorado. Colorado has been a hot market for a long, long time. But like, like places like Austin, where they were, you know, the massive amount of companies leaving California, going to Texas, that market, for the first time in a long time, is actually starting to decrease. Same things happening in Florida. So anyway, just overall, it’s a huge buildup in inventory, simply because as rates went from two 3% all the way up to 8% people’s buying power got cut in half. Yeah, prices didn’t drop. So it’s a really interesting thing that I’ve been watching a lot lately, and then also seeing how much people have in liquid assets, you know, where people are just staying in cash because of all the unknowns?

Walter Storholt 

Yeah, it is a little striking. When you go to look at a house and it’s a million dollars, and you see in the price history that it was $350,000 just a couple of years ago. And it’s at some point that number becomes so ridiculous, you do back off a little bit and say that this doesn’t make sense, like, what? Why am I the sucker buying it at this high?

Ryan Fleming 

No, it hurts. And, you know, with rates, when they were really low, prices were surging, but they tend to not go in reverse. And so it’s a tough market, and I can’t imagine trying to be a first time home buyer right now, where you’re going to get that three bedroom, two bath house? And it’s $500,000

Walter Storholt 

Right, right? And you’re putting, trying to put, just like, you know, 3% down, or something on an FHA loan going up against somebody that can put, you know, half of it down, maybe in cash or something

Ryan Fleming 

like that. Well, and then you check and look at the mortgage payment on that, and if you don’t put that, you know, more down, then you have PMI that you have to pay. And so it’s a struggle for a younger individual to get into a house or even to upgrade right now, and I know there’s quite a few clients we have that are building families, and it’s time to move into a bigger house, but you can’t really do it when you have an interest rate right now that’s at 2.5% right? You know, selling out of that mortgage, and then to try to get a little bit bigger house, you’re going to pay 8%

Walter Storholt 

even if you financially can. It just is almost like it feels like it doesn’t make sense to do that. Yeah, exactly. Almost have to check yourself and be like, Why would I do this? You know?

Ryan Fleming 

Well, what it makes me think about, you know, this is transitioning away from the real estate conversation, but just long term investing and good investment principles is just the ability to dollar cost average and invest every single month. I mean, I think about the people that do that versus those that don’t, you know where they some individuals will kick the can down the street and hey, I’ll invest later, after I pay this off, or after I get this or acquire that, or, you know, whether it’s a toy or or just living life, versus the person that starts out in their 20s. And even though they only have 50 bucks to put away every single month or $100 to put it away every single month, they continuously do it in a very disciplined manner, and with compounding interest over time. Time being the biggest factor. I just see those people that buy into that, that set up an automatic investment no matter what are light years ahead of those that don’t you know 1020, years down the line.

Walter Storholt 

Attention aviators, when you’ve spent years in the cockpit managing the complexities of flight, isn’t it time you navigated your retirement with the same precision? Introducing retirepilots.com right at your touchdown zone on our homepage, there’s a beacon flashing, get my free toolkit. Click that and you’ll be cleared for a direct route to Ryan’s retirement toolkit, tailor made for pilots like you. Inside, you’ll find two of his important works, the pilot’s advisor and pilots retire early. Between these two books, you can decipher the nine critical decisions when retiring before 65 and discover the seven lessons to help pilots land safely in retirement. But that’s not all. This toolkit is packed with altitude high value, including extras to get your retirement plans off the runway and light the afterburners on your 401 k vector on over to retirepilots.com to grab your toolkit and let’s embark on this journey together. Yeah, that’s a great point. I’ve noticed that in our own financial lives, started saving very, very early on in my teens, you know, first job I had, I was immediately starting to save a portion of of those dollars and continued those good habits, you know, all the way through college and all of my working life. And I’ve seen that power, and it’s interesting to compare it to like my fun account Ryan, where I go in and just try to hit home runs and but it’s, you know, if it’s, it’s money that if I did go to zero, like, I wouldn’t affect my lifestyle, I wouldn’t be happy about it, but, and I’m pretty terrible in that portfolio after like, a decade of trying, I’m just flat, like, nothing’s changed. And you compare that to all the other accounts that are dollar cost averaging and just regular contributions from paychecks and consistent savings, and they’re light years ahead of where I am trying to do timing and stock picking and hit those home runs. So I can’t imagine if you were trying to make that your whole plan, your whole strategy

Ryan Fleming 

Well, and that’s where we talk about the stock picking, the market timing, the track record investing. Even people that do this as a profession have issues with doing those things. So it’s the speculating and gambling, and you will hurt yourself. It’s just a matter of time. And I’ve seen, I’ve seen people that think they know what they’re doing because they owned apple in that stock for a long, long time that was supporting the whole rest of the portfolio. But no, I think that that’s the whole discipline starting early. And I think we, I think we need to do a show on that like, what would as parents, you know, what do you tell your kids, whether they’re 12 years old or fresh out of college or, you know, what do you what would you tell new graduates The best advice that you could give them for getting your getting ahead in life, we’ll say So recently, what happened to me that made me start thinking about this is my niece. This is my sister’s daughter. She ended up following on her dad’s footsteps, my footsteps, and went to the Air Force Academy and. So at the academy, as you go into your junior year, USA offers a very, very low percent interest, basically a car loan, but you can use it for anything you want. So these aren’t the exact numbers, but you know, though, they’ll loan you $40,000 you don’t have to pay a dime on it for two years, and then when you start paying it off, your interest rate to pay it back is 2.5%

Walter Storholt 

pretty good deal. That’s like, free money. Yeah, loans, that’s pretty

Ryan Fleming 

good, yeah. And it’s free money for, you know, two years. And then even paying back at 2.5% it’s free money. And then they do this, they it’s an incentive for them to do it, because then they get all these military individuals to be banking clients. And it works, but it made me start to think, you know, because Olivia was asking me, you know, what should I do with my loan? I mean, and she, you know, has a car, you know, what have you, because the mistake that a lot of us made as cadets is we went and blew it on some really, really nice car, or some European vacation or whatever, and just how much different life would be. Or, what would you tell your, your 20 year old self, to do with that money? If, could you go back? And I did a pretty decent job of saving a portion of it, but, man, if I just would have invested that whole loan and then started to save every single month back then. I mean, I probably would have been able to retire. You know, at 35 years old, it

Walter Storholt 

wouldn’t have been a bad deal, right? I mean, a little bit of that sacrifice up front and what it does for you down the line, later in life, I know, but that’s a really hard decision for a lot of people to make. I think that starting early message was one that I heard when I was really young from from my grandparents, especially on my mom’s side, my grandmother and her mom went to school late in life, became the vice president of a bank late in life, and became very interested in fiscal responsibility and saving and really hammered that home to myself and my cousins, and I’m always very grateful for those lessons that she would teach us if I could go back and talk to myself when I was younger, I think I would pick two things to kind of hone in on. One, build a true emergency fund, and don’t keep robbing the emergency fund, because then you’ll avoid taking on future debt, right? Like that. That deal that your niece has is great, but man, if five years from now, she can have cash built up and a buffer and an emergency fund so that on future purchases or future things that pop up in life, she’s not having to then take out more credit to handle those things. That just puts you so much further ahead in life, I think, as well. So if I could tell myself at least one thing that would be the emergency fund, I would make sure that I’ve got that built up and stop stealing from it constantly. Well,

Ryan Fleming 

and that’s where it’s a battle with a young individual in their 20s. You know you want to put so much into a Roth IRA, but of course, that you know that Roth IRA is going to grow tax free forever, but you can’t touch it to your in retirement. You can’t touch your 59 and a half versus how much liquid security Do you want by putting and investing money in a taxable investment account that’s still liquid that you could use for day to day life now. Now keep in mind a Roth IRA, you can pull principle that you put in. You could use it for a first time home purchase. You could use it for school. So there is some flexibility there, but just balancing the difference between retirement accounts and what I call liquid security accounts, building that emergency fund, building that, that fund for day to day life, when it does happen, or there may be a down payment on a house or what have you so, but, uh, but the bigger factor is that forced discipline, that saving every single every single month. And I try with all my clients to set that up. And I tell them, I don’t care if it’s 50 bucks or 5000 set something up, set up the system, set up the process, and you’ll be amazed what happens 510, years down the road. And I don’t think I truly understood the power of compounding interest until time starts going and then the snowball starts being built. And the way I like to think of this is it’s going to take a long time to get to a million dollars, but then 2 million comes really, really fast, because when you start looking at eight to 10% of that larger and larger Snowball or amount of money, it’s a significant amount of money that you can make off. You know that compounding interest each year. And I don’t know if you’ve seen that. I mean, I know you’re not as old as I am, but as you’ve been saving throughout your life, and you’ve gotten to be a little bit older, you’re probably starting to see that in either your retirement accounts or just your savings accounts, how there’s bigger and bigger jumps.

Walter Storholt 

Yeah, yeah. It’s interesting to look at the different accounts that my wife and I have, and there’s some that, you know, we because of a job situation or what have you. They’re relatively small and so to your example, like, even with time, they don’t seem to increase all that much. You’re just not feeling that increase dramatically. But those that had larger balances, even those that aren’t still being contributed to at this point, they’re miles beyond, I mean, like it continues to grow, you know, to kind of even without those continued contributions. So you then start to feel that power over. Time. Okay, this money is just working and growing all on its own. That’s pretty cool

Ryan Fleming 

to see, because you’re actually seeing it happen with those larger balances. Yeah, with the larger

Walter Storholt 

balances, it just rings more true when the stock market’s up one day and that balance goes up $3,000 compared to $3 maybe in a smaller account, where you’re not feeling those fluctuations as

Ryan Fleming 

much well. And the biggest factor with any of this, it’s not actually that interest rate is not how much you put away. It’s the time factor. And that’s where I look at, you know, starting early is such an amazing, amazing thing. And of those clients that have been in their 20s and 30s, and I’ve gotten them to put, you know, being a disciplined approach of putting money away outside of their 401, K, every single month, you look at their liquid security, and it’s off the charts compared to those that didn’t. So I guess the whole point of how we got on this conversation, in this, this whole show where we, we haven’t really gone down a particular topic is set up an automatic investment dollar cost average. Let that work for you, because you don’t want to be that person that’s, you know, in their 50s, late 50s, you’re behind on saving for retirement and you don’t have time, because then you have to put a massive amount away, more than you would have had you started early, and had you been disciplined and let, let all the principles, all the power of investing and compounding interest, work for you, because you know you want to, You want to be that person that’s in their mid 50s going, Man, I’m already set with retirement, and I can pull the throttles back a little bit and work a little bit less. Now, if I don’t, if I want to, or don’t want to,

Walter Storholt 

yeah, or work on those short term goals that maybe you, you know, have wanted to go after. And now you can focus on those because you’re good to go for retirement. Take care of yourself in the long run. Then you can get fancy in the short term, if you need to, but it gives you that flexibility, and that’s ultimately what it’s all about,

Ryan Fleming 

right? Flexibility, and then you can start working on those bucket list items, taking those vacations, buying that car, because you’ve already solidified your retirement. I mean, that’s where you want

Walter Storholt 

to be, yeah. Or you talked about helping new grads, right? That’s where you can then help, help family members and friends and help invest in them, right? Invest in the future and the people that are close to you. Maybe that’s something that’s close to you and part of your goals. So so many cool things that you can then do when you have that increased freedom and flexibility that comes from being financially healthy in the long run. So good principles all around Ryan. Appreciate your guidance on those things. If you ever have any questions about planning for retirement, how to properly do it, maybe you’ve got some bad habits. I know I have bad habits. If I was left to my own to do all of the investing, I’d be terrible. I’ve done that in that experimental account. So I’m happy for wisdom and for proper ways to plan for retirement and the future. And if you need some of that help, some of that coaching, some of that guidance, a great place to start if you’re a pilot, is by picking up Ryan’s retirement toolkit that comes with a free portfolio analysis. So to order the toolkit, you can click the link in the description of today’s show and access that you can also, of course, go to retirepilots.com the toolkit is there for you on the homepage as well to order no cost, to order that toolkit packed with Ryan’s book some other great resources. And again, you also then qualify for that free portfolio analysis where you meet with Ryan and get into the nitty and gritty of your specific financial plan and retirement goals. Ryan, thanks for the help, and we’ll talk to you again

Ryan Fleming 

soon. Absolutely. Walter, I appreciate the conversation. Everyone out there. If you want to have a conversation or let’s set up one of those accounts to be a little bit more disciplined, reach out to me and we’ll help you, get you squared away.

Speaker 1 

Information is for illustrative purposes only and does not constitute tax investment or legal advice. Always consult with a qualified investment legal or tax professional before taking any action.

Ryan Fleming 

All right, Walter, take care. We’ll see you next time.

Speaker 1 

Information is for illustrative purposes only and does not constitute tax investment or legal advice. Always consult with a qualified investment legal or tax professional before taking any action.