Bringing Your Retirement Vision to Life

Episode 26: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Episode 26: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Speaker1:
Any examples used are for illustrative purposes only, and do not take into account your particular investment objectives, financial situation or needs and may not be suitable for all investors. It is not intended to predict the performance of any specific investment, and is not a solicitation or recommendation of any investment strategy.

Speaker2:
Welcome to All Things Financial, the show that helps upgrade your financial literacy. Trey Peterson and Yellow Coots are retirement planning specialists here to provide a unique and conservative approach to managing your money. Now here are your hosts, Trey Peterson and Yellow say coots.

Speaker3:
Hello. Welcome to All Things Financial podcast, episode number 26. I'm Trey Peterson and.

Speaker4:
Yellow say coots.

Speaker3:
And today we're talking about bringing your retirement vision to life. One of the things we want to do is help you make sure that you have action on your investments, and that you know how to improve your future, as you're probably making one of the biggest changes that you're ever going to make, going from drawing a paycheck, whether it's a W-2 or a 1099, maybe you own a business and it's a K1, and now all of a sudden it's likely that that's going to stop and you're turning on Social Security and you're taking money out of your investments, and you're trying to decide, where do we pull from, when do we pull? So episode number 26 today, I'm excited for today. A little bit of overview. We're going to talk a little bit about creating your smart vision for retirement. You know one of the things that we talk about is more people, or I should say most people spend more time planning their vacation than they do the retirement. And so have you spent time have you invested time with the retirement planning specialist to make sure that you get things right? Do you know what retirement is going to look like? I'm impressed by how many people we sit down with and they go, you know, we haven't thought about the hobbies, we haven't had time to think about it.

Speaker3:
And one of the things we found is if people have a plan and they know how they're going to spend some of their time, They typically start off retirement a little bit happier. So number two is is it time to have your portfolio inspected. You know, a lot of times as you're preparing for retirement you have a certain risk level. And now as you're coming into retirement we look at sequence of returns. We look at where the market's at. We look at what happens if we have a correction at the beginning of retirement versus starting off with a bull market. And then problem solver. You know, one of the things that we want to talk about is some couples that we've recently helped that had a large gap in fixed income. And one of the things that we talk about is, you know, a lot of times those that are happiest are those that have the most guaranteed income in retirement that depend less on pulling from the market in case there is a dip, and then don't go cheap on these important things. Five things that you should prioritize in your retirement. And then last but not least, seven money moves smart Americans are making and how we can help you make them to yellow. Say quote of the week. What do you have?

Speaker4:
Yeah. Before I say that, you know, hearing you say don't go cheap on these important items. I haven't read those items, but I'm sure that I've probably gone cheap on all of them. All right. What are the week? Um, uh, this week, it's from Henry Kissinger, and it's. If you do not know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.

Speaker3:
Yeah, I think that kind of falls alongside of, you know, if you. What's the saying? If you plan to fail and you fail to plan, or if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. And I think, you know, one of the things that we find is a lot of the people that we meet with, you know, they've done the hard part. A lot of families or individuals, they've done the saving. And as you know, you know, saving really is the hard part and then the accumulation. But what they haven't done is really look to see where do we pull money from and what order, you know, what does that look like? Uh, one of the questions we ask a lot is, you know, what are you doing during your retirement years? Who are you with? What are you taking care of? What are your goals? How do you plan to fund probably 30 plus years of retirement and have you walk through that? I have a lot of people say, well, we've saved we've talked about it, you know, the investments growing, but I haven't retired yet. So we haven't talked about those things. You know, I think personally, you know, if you're 5 to 7 years of retirement, those conversations should have been started. Uh, I recently read that 37% of Americans feel that they need more education on retirement planning. Over 52% of Americans wish they had more education on how to invest in this new season of life. Uh, what are some other things to consider?

Speaker4:
I think that's that's probably why we teach 60 plus classes at various libraries, community centers, colleges. Um, you know, not that the education is lacking. Like, you can find it, right? If you want to be proactive. Um, you know, and I think that some of the things that you brought up, like, who are you going to spend the next 30 years with? Uh, what? What is retirement actually going to look like? And I think sometimes people have maybe like an idea of it, but they don't really plan, you know, and I'm not I'm not really like a big quotes person. But I do remember one quote that Bill gates said, vision without execution is daydreaming. And I think that especially, you know, in our industry, we find that sometimes, you know, people don't I mean, they they might have an idea, like I said, but they don't really know how to execute. And I think that's where you need to partner with somebody who does this. I mean, this is what we do for people. We help them during the transition and we help them all throughout retirement, not only by leading with education, but also just helping to implement a lot of the things that that you want your retirement to look like. We help make that happen.

Speaker3:
I think, too, you know, one of the things that we find is a lot of the couples that we meet with, one of them is really involved in the everyday budgeting. They know where the money is going. They're balancing the checkbook. And then typically the other spouse is the one that's working with an advisor or they're managing the assets. But one of the things that we find a lot is a lot of spouses are not communicating on how much money can we afford to spend in retirement. What does it look like if we start with a positive, uh, you know, with the market being up, what does it look like if things are down? And so one of the things that I think is big is making sure that you get on the same page with your spouse, you know, if something were to happen to you and you're the person leading this whole thing, is your spouse going to be okay? You know, uh, four of the big areas and we can dive into each of them that you should be talking about is Social Security. I think a lot of people think that Social Security is synonymous with retirement, meaning you retire and then you just turn it on and they don't realize there's actually different strategies, advanced strategies depending upon your expenses and your assets and your goals that may determine in itself when you or you and your spouse take your Social Security. Uh, you know, the second big thing is taxes. I mean, how often do we sit down with the couple and we'll say, hey, you're about to retire. You're about to touch some of this money that you've spent your whole life saving, never touched it before. What is your tax strategy? What's what's the answer? We normally get.

Speaker4:
They don't have one.

Speaker3:
They don't have one. But it's.

Speaker4:
It's hard. It's hard to have a tax strategy. You know. And I think that, you know there's some history that I want to go over in just a little bit. But you know, that's why we contribute to a 401 K. That's why we, we, we make, you know, we defer our compensation because the idea is in retirement you're going to be in a lower tax bracket. And, you know, that hasn't always been the case. Um, not only, you know, could your income potentially be higher than when you were working? We see that happen from time to time. But the tax brackets could be different. Right. Um, you know, we're the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that's expected to sunset at the end of 2025. So like we're going to experience a change in our tax brackets. And I don't know too many people. Maybe you do that think it's going down. But more than likely, you know, it's it's going to revert back to the way it was and potentially even higher. Well, I think.

Speaker3:
One of the comments I hear a lot is during all my working years, Trey, my advisor, said that in retirement I'm going to be in a lower tax bracket. Yeah. And while that may be true for some people, I think a lot of the families that we serve because they've got large pensions or because they've got a large IRA and they have higher expenses, or maybe they have multiple income streams, maybe they have some consulting income, maybe they have a pension, maybe they have some real estate that's, you know, producing some some income. A lot of the families we serve are not in a lower tax bracket in retirement. A lot of them are in the same tax bracket. And so what's interesting is, you know, almost every week I have somebody say, well, that won't be us. And then we start turning on income and we find it is them. You know, so do you have a plan if you're 5 to 7 years from retirement, what are some things you can do to potentially stay in a lower tax bracket. What are some of those things that you could do now?

Speaker4:
Yeah. You know, it's it's kind of an interesting shift that happens when you're working years. Everyone's always underpaid right? Everyone's complaining. Hey we don't make enough. They I'm overworked, I'm underpaid. And then in retirement, everyone tries to reduce their income as much as possible. You know, it's just it's it's an interesting thing. But, you know, when you look at the tax brackets, I just wanted to look up, you know, when, when, uh, during I think this was maybe a little bit after World War I, World War two, but the highest tax bracket was like 94%. And anyone who made over $200,000, the marginal tax bracket, highest marginal rate, uh, you know, and I think, you know, $200,000, I'm not sure how many people made $200,000 in today's dollars. That's like 2.5 million. Um, so maybe, you know, it's fair to say that there weren't a lot of people who paid 94%, but just knowing that the highest bracket was 94%, that's kind of crazy. You know, it's considering today's brackets. Um.

Speaker3:
No, I mean, it is for sure. I think two to most people would agree, you know, taxes are not likely to go down. We've doubled our debt in this country just in the last four and a half years. We went from 17.5 trillion to 35 trillion. And I think I said this in the last podcast, but for every dollar that we pay in taxes, $0.30 of that dollar goes just towards the interest on the debt, not even towards the principal. Uh, so anyway, so tax strategy is important. I think what we find is most people have a tax preparer, and a tax preparer is somebody that looks back. And oftentimes we joke, they'll say, well, here's what you should have done last year, which a lot of people have heard. But what a tax advisor is, is it's somebody that looks forward and says, Jim and Jane, here's what you should be doing now to save taxes down the road. And we found that most families do not have a tax advisor. They have a tax preparer. Uh, you know, the third big thing is Medicare. Uh, you know, when when we think about the families that we serve and the individuals that are retiring, most people don't realize that there are things to think about regarding Medicare, and a lot of people don't know there's tax traps around that. There are ways to design your income to keep it lower. Will you touch base on that for a second? Yeah, I'll.

Speaker4:
Touch on Medicare in just a second. The last thing I wanted to say about taxes, you know, it's really difficult to plan for this stuff. And I would say whatever you hear in the media, whatever you hear from the politicians, like, take that with a grain of salt because, you know, in the 1980s, they dropped the tax rate down to 28%. And all the lawmakers promised that this would be the final time that the top tax bracket would ever change. Right. They said that this was this is the last time. This is the highest it'll ever be. It took them three years before that promise was broken. So probably, you know, planning for taxes, that might be a difficult thing to to navigate. More than likely it'll change maybe more than once during your retirement. So I know that some of that is hard to mitigate. But in terms of Medicare, you know, a lot of times people don't consider Medicare to be a tax. It doesn't show up on your 1040, probably your CPA or whoever is helping you with your with your taxes. They're not covering the cost of Medicare, right? It's just not really relevant. But in our office, we often consider taxes to be any cost that increases when your income increases.

Speaker4:
So Medicare is a means tested program. In other words, you know, part A inpatient care that's free. Nobody you don't have to pay for that as long as you qualify. But part B comes at a premium and it's currently 174 174 bucks, 174 70 or something like that. Yeah, 174 70. But that's only if your adjusted gross income as a single person is less than 103,000 and 206,000 if you're married, right. If you're above those income thresholds, then you might be paying 2 or 3 times as much for your Medicare Part B premiums. And you know, that's a difficult thing for some people. We had someone recently who just came in. And for them this year, they're paying an extra $8,000 in Medicare premiums compared to the year before because of an event. Right. And a taxable event that took place two years ago. Medicare looks at your income two years before, and that's what determines your premium for this year. And by the way, according to to the centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, about 7 to 9% of people are affected by this Medicare surcharge every single year. So about 10% of the people have to deal with it. And what we found is a lot of times it comes as a surprise.

Speaker4:
I mean, if you just think about, like whenever you sit down with your CPA to to take care of your taxes for the previous year, how difficult it is to remember everything that happened, we'll just think, you know, Medicare looks at it from two years ago, so you might not even be suspecting that your Medicare premiums are going up, but you're going to get a letter in the mail letting you know, hey, you're no longer paying one 7470. You're paying 2 or 3 times that much. So it's just something to be aware of. And then the last thing I'll say that, you know, maybe not a direct cost, but something that a lot of times that we talk about, you know, we deal with life insurance, long term care, a lot of estate planning. We do a number of things and one thing that people aren't aware of, I feel like sometimes people think that Medicare is going to cover all of their expenses related to long term care, and that's just not the case. Right. So Medicare Part A, that's inpatient care as long as you pay your $1,600 deductible the first 60 days of inpatient care, you don't have to pay anything. Medicare will cover the entire cost. But by the way, there's no there's no limit to the number of times.

Speaker4:
So if you end up getting admitted to the hospital more than once, you'd have to pay that deductible each time. Right. So that could happen more than once per year. But then from day 60 to day 90, you're on the hook for $408 per day of inpatient care. After day 90, you have 60 days, right? And you're on the hook for $816 per day, but the remaining days after age after day 90, those are lifetime usage days. So once those are gone, once those lifetime reserve days are gone, you pay the entire cost and you don't recover those days. So another thing that to be aware of, you know, what is what are you doing to plan for some of those additional costs that come up. And we talk a lot about Medicare. Christine, in our office, who handles Medicare 9 to 5. That's her job. She offices right next to me. Right. And these conversations, they go hand in hand, whether you're talking about Social Security, whether you're talking about Medicare and just the importance of planning for all of the things that that might happen in retirement, and mostly just to mitigate some of the unexpected expenses that could come up. Absolutely.

Speaker3:
I think last one of that is, you know, life expectancy. So I read that life expectancy rates in the US have basically more than doubled over the last 200 years. I kind of laugh because obviously, you know, 200 years is a long time. Um, but who's.

Speaker4:
Tracking it 200 years ago?

Speaker3:
Man, probably nobody. But it sounds good, you know.

Speaker4:
Sounds good. Yeah.

Speaker3:
Uh, but I think the biggest thing is, you know, people outside of Covid probably are living longer than ever before. And one of the things that a lot of people are running into, specifically people in their late 70s and 80s as they're living longer than they anticipated. And due to inflation, you know, due to health costs, their money isn't lasting as long as they need it to. So now they're dependent on kids and grandkids, and maybe they're selling their home to kind of fund the rest of their retirement and moving with a family member. But one of the things that we do for families that we meet with in individuals is we look to say, hey, what happens if inflation does average closer to 4% than 3%? What happens if your health takes a big decline or your spouse is and now all of a sudden you know, your deductible or that coinsurance ends up taking, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars of your retirement. Does the money still last as long as the youngest person or the survivor? And so one of the things that we can help people with is take a look to say, hey, if we do a stress test, meaning if we have inflation problems, if we have market problems early on in your retirement, if one of you lived to be in your mid to late 90s, Is that person going to be okay? Can they still be independent? And so if you've never had that done before and you want to take a good what I would call a conservative look on, am I going to be okay? We'd be happy to do that for you. Feel free to give us a call. Our number is on the screen. Or shoot us an email and we'll do a complimentary consultation on your overall retirement plan. Um, we talk about something called a smart inspection. You want to touch on that?

Speaker4:
Yeah, a smart inspection. And that really what we're talking about is just getting a second opinion. Um, that sounds. I'm sorry.

Speaker3:
That sounds smart.

Speaker4:
Yeah, well, I mean, it'd be smart to get one because I can't tell you how often we've come across people who are they're hesitant to get a second opinion, and mostly because, like, they feel like, uh, they're doing something wrong, right? They're, they're they're trying to be loyal and faithful to their financial advisor. And what we've told many of our clients, like, hey, get a second opinion. If you get a second opinion and you find out something that maybe concerns you or you have questions on. We're happy to address those things. We're happy to go over why we're doing what we're doing, and if anything, it'll give you confidence in our planning. Right? Or maybe our planning needs to change. And I think that, you know, advisors shouldn't feel threatened by that. But I think so many times they do and that and that really is what kind of affects people and their hesitancy in getting a second opinion because they feel like they're doing something wrong. So I think that, you know, doing that, being proactive, um, especially as your needs change in retirement, like the same type of planning that you needed back in your 20s and 30s isn't what you need today. So, yeah, I would say for sure get a second opinion.

Speaker3:
Well, I think you don't get a second opinion from somebody that's the same as what you already have, or you're probably going to get the same opinion. You know, one of the things that we find is a lot of the individuals and a lot of the families that we meet with, they have a financial advisor that's a good person, that's done their job, that's helped them grow their assets. But they're starting to realize that their advisor isn't asking the questions that they need to be asked for their next season of life. And so one of the things I tell people is come and do a second opinion from somebody who works in the retirement space specifically, all we do is help people around Social Security, Medicare, tax credit, investing in your new season of life. And I would say almost every week you'll say, I'll have a couple look at me and they'll say, hey, our advisor's done a good job, and we've been really happy with him. But we can see the difference of being with a generalist or a general advisor versus the retirement planning specialist. They'll say, we've done more planning with you in our last two meetings than we've done in 20 years with Bob, or 20 years with Jill. And so I would just encourage you, you know, nobody cares about your money more than you do if you've never had a second opinion, maybe it's just showing that you're already in the right place and that your guy or your gal is doing everything they should be doing.

Speaker3:
But we do recommend get a second opinion. Make sure that all the investments you have are still working together. You know, one of the, I would say one of the red flags that we see a lot is where an individual or a couple bought an investment 5 or 10 or 15 or 20 years ago, and at that time it looked like it was the right fit. But now as as expenses have changed, as the asset maybe did better than they thought. Now all of a sudden, that investment that was designed for them having lower income or lower investments, all of a sudden it may not be a fit and you're paying additional fees for riders or for investments that no longer best fit your situation. So anyways, it is really nice to get a second opinion from somebody that's in a fee based model that isn't selling high commission products. And so if you like that, feel free to give us a call. We have our Burnsville office and we have an office in Saint Louis Park. Anything you'd like to add to that?

Speaker4:
Another Another thing I would add is it's not always like the actual investment. It's not always a matter of diversification or choosing the right mutual funds. Right? Sometimes it's making sure you have the right funds or the right investments in the right tax classification. Um, I actually talked to somebody yesterday about this, uh, a very high net worth individual who basically said, hey, you know, I've just retired. My wife is just about to retire. We're living we're going to be living off of Social Security and our pensions, and that exceeds what we need. Uh, but on top of that, I have about $100,000 in interest and dividends that are coming in from my my brokerage account. I don't need that money. I don't want to pay taxes on that. And I just said to him like, well, you know, you don't have to have that in your brokerage account. Like, if you're committed or tied to those investments, like you could have those in your IRA and then you have the interest and dividends, but you're not actually actually creating a taxable event. So maybe you move some of the more growth oriented stuff in your brokerage account. Right. And I know that that's not the right strategy for everybody. Some people they absolutely structure their retirement around the interest and dividend payments that they're receiving, and they want those types of investments to help supplement their Social Security and pension. For him, it was the opposite. So it's not necessarily always just picking the right investments, but having the right investments in the right accounts. That also matters too. Absolutely.

Speaker3:
Uh, the next section, I actually like this one. Being frugal is a good thing, but retirees shouldn't go cheap on these five things. Now, one of the things just being transparent is that you and I are kind of in the opposite ditches on this one.

Speaker4:
You're extremely frugal and I just can't stop.

Speaker3:
No, but I think it's great. I mean, I think I can say this, you know, we were talking the other day and you said you said, you know, basically you have an Excel spreadsheet and you can track every penny you've spent since 2012. Uh, I look at that and I'm like, man, there's there's no way the Lord's not like, wow, you say as the stewardship thing under control. And I more of instead of working in like a budget, I more work in margins, you know, like this percentage of savings. This percentage is investment. This percentage is, you know, for kids, whatever. I do.

Speaker4:
That too. I just I love to track every penny.

Speaker3:
Yeah. No, it's not bad. I'm just saying that we have listeners on both sides. But one of the things I noticed is even though you are frugal and some some may say cheap, you also, uh, will spend on things that you value and things that are important and things that are quality. So for somebody coming into retirement, what are a couple of the five things that people shouldn't be cheap on even if they're frugal?

Speaker4:
Um, unfortunately I haven't had to learn this the hard way, but I know a number of people who have, uh, healthcare expenses. You know, when you're choosing between your plans, you know, it might be tempting, like, hey, maybe you're healthy. Maybe you don't go to the doctors very often. Maybe you have no medications. And for you, it's tempting to maybe go with that catastrophic plan or the one that's going to cost you the least amount.

Speaker5:
Uh, but.

Speaker4:
One health care emergency will will really help you change your mind on that. Whether it's, you know, if you have a family, if it's your children or somebody else, like it's almost it's not worth it. Right? It's all it's almost like being self-insured in a number of ways. And then you have one catastrophic event, whether it's, you know, not even your health, but anything. And all of a sudden that person is the biggest believer in insurance, right? Nobody likes to pay for insurance. But when you need it, you're so happy you have it. So I would say that's one area that maybe isn't worth being as frugal as you possibly can, but maybe finding some middle ground there?

Speaker3:
Yeah, absolutely. Uh, so number two is healthy lifestyle choices. You know, I think a lot of people know that, you know, if you spend more time in the gym and you eat clean, you're going to spend less on healthcare. But one of the things that I think is important is being thoughtful of, you know, if you're coming into retirement, be even more intentional on what are you putting in your body. You know, I think even outside of the health piece, it's how you feel. You know, I think one of the mind shifts I had a little over a year ago. So I can't break too much because I still don't have the abs. But over the last year, I lost. Yeah.

Speaker4:
Yours.

Speaker3:
Yeah. Well, the day I have them, I will. No, I probably will. Uh, but I've lost £35. But here's one thing that shifted, and I, I still have a long ways to go, but one thing that shifted is I noticed that, like, when I would get stressed, I'd be like, oh, I could really use an Oreo McFlurry for McDonald's. And I would think about, like, you know, how that would make me? I'd feel better having that. And but one of the things that shifted is when I would think about something like that, instead of thinking about how good it would taste, I would think about how I would feel after. Right. And I think even more than like losing £35. I feel great that when I eat something healthier. So instead I'll go home and I'll put a bunch of fruit and whipped cream in a cup. And not only does it taste good, but actually feel great after. And so, you know, one of those areas to to focus on is healthy lifestyle habits and not just to feel better, which I think is huge, but to also, you know, keep the cost down on, you know, your your medical, which, you know, impacts a lot of things. Uh, yeah. I mean.

Speaker4:
It's it can be expensive to, to have some of those healthy habits. I mean like good food, organic food. Right. That's a really expensive and I actually I don't recommend this for anyone. But what I kind of do is, you know, I look for all the examples of people that have been extremely healthy, like extremely healthy, and, and they ended up dying early or getting some type of disease. And I say, hey, that's why I'm going to continue eating the what did you call it, the McFlurry or.

Speaker3:
Yeah, McFlurry or your morning cookies. Yeah.

Speaker4:
So I rely on those types of examples to help me continue doing what I'm doing.

Speaker3:
Yeah. I think another area, uh, number three is, you know, reliable transportation and home safety. You know, we have we have a handful of clients that man, they've done a great job saving, you know, a couple million. 4 million. 5 million bucks. And they joked that, you know, their vehicles have 300,000 miles, and they duct.

Speaker4:
Tape it.

Speaker3:
And they are not joking, you know, but I would encourage you, you know, you don't have to go buy the BMW, but, you know, invest in a nice Honda or Toyota. Invest in something that is going to keep you safe if something were to happen. You know, when my wife and I, when we met, uh, she was driving this 2001 two door Honda Civic. The painted, like, evenly wore off right down the hood and on the top of the car. And I remember thinking, man, that is an ugly car. But I was also impressed that she had a vehicle that didn't have a car payment. It was paid for, you know, which is walking in wisdom. And a couple years later, uh, we started talking about our car and I said, hey, have you ever thought about getting a new car? And she goes, yeah, especially being that mine came with no airbag. And I said, I said, well, what? She goes, yeah. She said, I bought this vehicle and they never put a new airbag in. It was a salvage car, but it's what I could afford at the time. And I was like, you're not driving that. One more day I said, I'll help you pay for a new car. Let's go find something. And so she went and she bought her first Mazda three. But, uh, you know, for her, like she was being wise with her finances, but as a, you know, 20 year old girl that didn't have a parents that could help her financially, she bought what she could, but didn't really understand how important it was to have a vehicle with an airbag. I mean, I was like, honey, please, we've got to get you something else, you know? So invest in invest in something that has safe. That's safe. You know.

Speaker4:
Um, my, my dad and I, we we actually, we fixed we fixed a few salvage cars over the years, and I gotta say, we we never skimped on the airbags. We always put those in so.

Speaker3:
That that is surprising.

Speaker4:
I mean, save a buck where you can, but. Yikes.

Speaker3:
I guess growing up in America did help you a little. Uh. Number four. Emergency savings. Uh, you know, we we see a lot of people that they never have an emergency savings. And I think outside of just having easy access, there is a level of, like, financial peace that comes with knowing that there's money readily available. And so I agree with Dave Ramsey on this. Like whatever your expenses are, you should have at least 3 to 6 months of expenses in emergency savings. You know, we have clients that they keep $1,000 in emergency savings, which for me, that's uncomfortable. I know for many of them it's because they feel like they would spend it if it's there. So, you know, so know yourself. Uh, I know people that 10,000 is the right number. We have clients that 100,000 or 300,000 is the right number. So I think, you know, I would recommend building up that savings to, you know, at least three months of your expenses. So if your expenses are six grand a month, not your fixed, but your living expenses, you know, you should have 18 or 20,000 in a fund that you have access to. And that's a good point.

Speaker4:
It doesn't necessarily have to be a checking and savings account. It could be a money market fund in your brokerage account where you have access to that pretty quickly. Right, right. So, you know, sometimes people think that, you know, it's just sitting in your checking account not earning any interest. Right. In today's market with interest rates where they are, and I know they're coming down a little bit, but there's a lot of better options and alternatives to them.

Speaker5:
Yeah.

Speaker3:
And then last but not least, you know, seek professional advice. You know, one of the things that we found yellow say is we meet with a lot of DIY ers. So what does that mean? It means that they don't have a financial advisor. Uh, they've chosen to manage the money on their own, you know, and we've seen people that have done a really good job because they'll take, you know, ten, 15 hours a week. All studying the market. They'll read the right articles and they do a decent job that, you know, it's good for them. But I would say a lot of the people that we meet, they think that they're saving money by not having an advisor, and we get into their portfolio and some of the decisions they've made. And not only did they cost themselves every year, some return because they don't have efficient funds, but we a lot of times see that people will make a decision when the market has a downturn that cost them significantly more than the fee they would have been paying to a professional financial advisor. What would you add to that?

Speaker4:
I think like it's more it's a mindset, right. Um, you know, there's and I kind of fall into this trap a little bit too, where I'm trying to save a buck in one area and then just, you know, the, the secondary consequences, the ones that you don't really fully understand until they happen to you. Like, that's what I'm I'm kind of I'm missing out on where you end up taking a hit in a different area, but maybe it's not quite as obvious because, well, the market giveth and the market taketh away, right? Um, but I'm saving a buck in this one area that's measurable that I know for sure. And then, you know, if I take a hit later, it's it's, you know, it's easy to disassociate those two things, but in reality, like, you're really not saving a buck. A lot of times when you don't seek the counsel of a professional, whether it's a financial advisor or a tax advisor or a CPA. Uh, really, that's where the true savings over time will happen, I think.

Speaker5:
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker3:
And I think, too, you know, we have a lot of families that they've never paid an advisor before. They've just, you know, they've managed it in the 401 K, which isn't really managing it. You're just picking it from, you know, your you're picking maybe a target account fund out of the 12 funds they have available to you or 20 funds, whatever that is. Uh, but one of the things that we've done is we've had a lot of families and individuals say, hey, we've never paid an advisor before, and we couldn't see the value in paying 1% for somebody just to pick the funds. And, you know, our cost is anywhere from half a percent up to about one and a quarter. Uh, but we've had, you know, we have dozens of families that have hired us that have never paid anybody. And they say, hey, for the fee that we're paying, not only do we have a professional team picking the investments, rebalancing the investments, we also have access to the tax advisor, to the Medicare specialist, to the social security specialist. And now we've got several appointments each year with a retirement planning specialist that helps us look at how do we bridge the income gap. How do we make changes when we have changes happen and they go? Now we feel like we're not just getting what we what we pay for. We're getting significantly more than what we pay for. And I think the fact that we have a 98% retention rate says that people don't just hire us hoping we can help, they end up finding that we're worth, you know, our weight in gold, as they would say. Anything you want to add to that as the more conservative one out of the two of us.

Speaker4:
Yeah. I mean, on the topic of gold, it's it's doing fantastic. I think it's up 25% over the year. Uh, yeah. I mean, it's true, like, you know, we, you know, it's it's really tough to say some of this stuff without sounding really self-serving, but we had a client that came in yesterday, and I think they've been in like four times at this point. Uh, they're meeting with Christine. They're meeting with our CPA. They're actually in the middle of selling their business. And like, I just, I just I just made it my goal to give them as much good information as I can to absolutely help them. And I forgot that, like, there's still a prospect. They're not even a client. Like they haven't brought their investments over to us. And at the end of the meeting, they're like, when are you going to take over our investments? And I'm like, we we haven't even talked about it, but we provided so much value in the key areas that they needed, partly because there's just a lot of urgency, like they needed help in those areas. And we've always led with education first, being able to help you, showing the value that we can provide, whether it's with us or CPA or estate planning attorney Christine or whoever in our office. And and I think people are just really like they look at that and they say, hey, like I paid the same 1 to 1.25% somewhere else. And all they did was pick the funds. And and I think that the experience here is completely different than that.

Speaker5:
Yeah.

Speaker3:
Well, I think as we wrap up and you can certainly make some final comments here, let's say. But, uh, one of the big things I'd say is, you know, whatever you do, don't let your best years. I really think for a lot of people, your retirement years can be the best of the rest of your life. Don't let them be filled with worry, fear, concern. Sit down with somebody that can help put together a map for you. They can send it home with you so that you can go home and review and take a look at am I going to be okay? Because I think one of the biggest things in life is having a team of experts that can help confirm and make sure that you're going to be in a good position. So if you've never had a second opinion, or maybe you don't have an advisor and you've never had a first opinion on your retirement plan. Feel free to reach out to us. We'd love to do a complimentary analysis for you. And you know, for a lot of people, that leads to a partnership. And for some, it's us confirming you're already doing all the right things. Uh, other than that, thank you for joining us for episode number 26. Feel free to check out the other 25. You'll say anything you want to say in closing.

Speaker5:
No. That's great.

Speaker4:
Looking forward to see you guys next week.

Speaker3:
Good things ahead. Have a great week.

Speaker2:
Thanks for listening to all things financial. You deserve to work with retirement planning specialists who care about your money, and take a unique approach to your financial and retirement needs. Visit all things financial.com and set an appointment today.

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