Podcasts about disclaimer securities

Are we on the brink of a retirement renaissance or stormy seas ahead? On this episode, we jump into the pressing issues of Social Security, healthcare, taxes, stock market trends, and long-term care. Whether you're an eternal optimist or cautious pessimist, this episode will equip you with perspectives to plan your retirement years with confidence as we ask the longstanding question, “is the glass half full or half empty”.   Important Links:  Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript:  Marc: Are we on the brink of a retirement renaissance or stormy seas ahead? On this episode, we jump into the pressing issues of Social Security, health care, taxes, stock market trends, and long-term care. Whether you're an eternal optimist or cautious pessimist, this episode will equip you with perspectives to plan your retirement years with confidence, as we ask the longstanding question: Is the glass half full or half empty? Welcome this week to the podcast, folks. Thanks for tuning in with Tony Mauro and myself, here on Plan With The Tax Man. As we get into this week's conversation about the future of retirement America, is that glass half full or half empty? So we're going to dive into that with Tony this week. What's going on, my friend? How are you? Tony Mauro: I'm good. How are you? Marc: Doing pretty good. So did you like that little intro tease? That was pretty good, yeah? Tony Mauro: That's a good one. Marc: Yeah. Tony Mauro: Yeah, it's interesting because I tend to be on the more optimistic side, but I need to point out some of the other stuff too, today. Marc: Okay, well, I was getting ready to ask you. So yeah, I was going to say: Do you find yourself more of an optimist or a pessimist? And does it change on the topics? I think some of us can be optimistic about some things in life but pessimistic about others. Tony Mauro: True. Marc: So you never know, so yeah, I think that's a great point. Let's analyze both sides of it a little bit. I'll let you debate with me the pros and the cons or the hows and the whys or however we want to go, but we'll start with a biggie. The big ticket item that people often are concerned about, especially if you're getting near retirement age, and of course, our politicians and our lovely, lovely leaders do not do a whole lot to ease our woes about the stability of the Social Security program, right? Tony Mauro: Yes, as we're taping this, of course, the political season, it's going to be getting under way here in Iowa, I think, in January. Marc: It's under way. Tony Mauro: And so I'm sure this topic will come up, and it always does, and as it should, because the whole issue with Social Security is that it's slated to, depending on how you phrase it, run out of money or start paying more benefits than it's taking in at about, I think, 2033 or 5, somewhere right in there. So people are concerned that when they get to that point, "I keep paying in. Am I going to get any benefit out of this?" Marc: Yeah, for sure. Tony Mauro: And you ask the politicians. They tend to kick the can down the road. Marc: I was going to say, yeah, it's a hot potato they don't want to touch, right? Tony Mauro: No, they don't want to deal with it. Eventually, it will probably end up being like everything else they do, which is last-minute and patching. Marc: Of course. Tony Mauro: The optimistic view, in my view, is I don't see how they could let it fail. They may need to make some changes for the viability, because people are living longer, and we're all putting in the same, yes, but it isn't like there's the same amount that people that are drawing on it. But I believe that somehow they will end up with some kind of fix. Now, whether we're all happy with it or not, that's a different story. Marc: Yeah, of course, we're never going to all be happy with it, right? Tony Mauro: No. Marc: But I'm with you. I think the optimistic view is that they're not going to just let it die. They're going to keep it going in some fashion. I guess the pessimistic view would be that there's going to be changes, and what those changes look like could be different, depending on your age group. I feel fairly optimistic though, Tony, that people over 50, such as you and I, we're over that age group now, probably may not see any changes to it. They may grandfather that in, so to speak, but my daughter, at 25 or 26, the thing's going to change for those folks: 20s, 30s, 40s. Maybe they do something as simple as pushing it back. There's no early retirement at 62; they move it to 65. Who knows? Tony Mauro: Exactly, and there's a lot of studies and math going on out there, and by the way, I do think you're right, yes. My son is 27. It could look vastly different for them. I still don't think they'll take it away, but there's talk of, like you say, moving the retirement age, maybe either getting rid of that upper limit and/or that whole privatizing thing. There's goods and bads to all of that, which is a whole five-hour debate on its own, but I think that they do have options to keep it going. But I think with again, people living as long as they are, to me, I think they need to start working on this now and start coming up with some solutions. We don't want to go down the politics road, but you know how it is. They tend to not do that. Marc: Indeed. Well, Tony, I sat in with a interview with David Walker, who was the former Comptroller of the United States back in the '80s and the early '90s, I believe, and he talked about that issue. He was like, "Look, many people don't know, but there was a really close right there in the late '80s." Somewhere, I don't remember the exact date, but where people weren't going to get Social Security checks. He's like, "We waited until the absolute ninth hour," however that saying goes, before they fixed things. He says, "Because that's just how they operate." And he's like, "So I feel fairly strongly that they'll do something similar again." Now, granted, that was 35 years ago, so who knows how things change? But that points to that historical nature that they have, of the thing that they fear the most, they wait till the absolute last second to touch. Tony Mauro: Yeah, that's something, I mean, look at the debt ceiling talks every what, six months to 12 months? It's just crazy. How about we just figure something out? Marc: Stop spending. Tony Mauro: Again, yeah, stop spending. Do something. Marc: Put down the checkbook, man. Tony Mauro: And yeah, it's unfortunate they do that. It would be, I would think, better politics to tackle some of these problems, even if it takes them 12 years, 15 years. Marc: Just get started, like paying down your mortgage. Sometimes you think, "Boy, I wish I could pay this off sooner," and it's like, "Well, you can if you start applying yourself and putting a little bit more onto the mortgage and get it paid off sooner." But it's the principle of doing it, so it's hard, sometimes, to do that, and clearly, our government doesn't do a good job with that. All right, so that was the first one. Let's go to healthcare affordability in the future. All right, you're an optimist here, Tony, you said. So what's a half-full take on healthcare? Tony Mauro: Well, I think the optimistic view, basically, is as we advance technology and things get better in that respect, I think there's more and more talk these days of people trying to remain healthy into their 80s and beyond. And more people are cognizant of that, with the whole internet thing, as opposed to maybe 20, 30 years ago. Marc: Thinking about that, Tony, let me ask you this question. My wife and I will have on old TV shows, old sitcoms or something like that, and we've been just enjoying watching old reruns of The Golden Girls, for example. And they're in their 50s in that show. They're in their late 50s in that show, but at the time, when I'm in my 20s or whatever, I'm like, "Now, these people are old. They're in their 60s or whatever the case is, and they look old." And I'm 52, which is the age of one of them on the show, and I'm like, "I do not look like that." So what's that saying: 70 is the new 50, that kind of thing? So I think you're right. We are better, I think, societally. As we move through time, we tend to look younger and feel younger for longer. Tony Mauro: I think so, too. Looking at my own parents and my dad, who's now 82, who still is in pretty good shape. Marc: When he was 50, though, you thought he looked old, didn't you? Tony Mauro: Oh, yeah, yeah, he was old. So I think it's perspective. Now, to me, old is 90s, and I have an uncle who's still 92, and he's playing golf. So I think with what we're doing today, especially in the technological fields, we are, which I think is part of the negative, maybe living too long, and people are keeping us alive too long. Marc: That's true, yeah. Tony Mauro: If we can do it comfortably. Marc: Right, and that's definitely the half-empty side, is with living longer comes more healthcare costs. Tony Mauro: More healthcare, yeah. Marc: And it's not cheap. Tony Mauro: It's not cheap, and it seems like, again, pointing to my own father, it seems like he's in at the doctor literally non-stop. He's got to go in for a little hernia operation tomorrow, as a matter of fact, as we're taping this, yeah. It's supposed to be in and out, but it's just every five, six months, he's got some things. Marc: It seems like almost weekly. Yeah, my mom's like, "Well, going to another doctor appointment. Well, going to another doctor appointment." My brother goes, "Good Lord, how often do you go to the doctor?" She's like, "I'm 82. A lot." Tony Mauro: A lot, yeah. But my dad is getting to a point now where he thinks, and there might be a little bit of truth to this, but he is a pessimist, is they constantly just want to do stuff to him to make money. Marc: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's test for this. Let's test for that. Yeah, I'm with you there, too. Tony Mauro: He's definitely a pessimist. Marc: That's okay. I'm with him on that one. I'm with you, Daddy Mauro. So all right, how about tax rates in the next decade? I don't know if we can find an optimistic view here, but maybe we can. The pessimistic view clearly is that the 32-trillion-dollar deficit, that tax rates more than likely have to ... We all feel pretty strongly, I think, that tax rates have to go up at some point, just because we've got to be able to pay for these things. We just talked about Social Security a minute ago, but is there an optimistic view on taxes? Tony Mauro: I tend to lean a little more pessimistic on this. I would say the only thing, potentially, is there could be some reforms, and I think it is occurring more at the state levels, at least it is here in Iowa, to benefit retirees by lowering their state taxes. Marc: Oh, okay. Okay, well, that's good. Tony Mauro: Just to keep people in the states and some different things, but I find it hard to believe that we are not going to have to be taxed in some way, because like I say, we've got a lot of stuff to pay for that we haven't. Marc: A lot of stuff. Tony Mauro: And I don't see how things can continue to go down. There's an argument out there about, "Well, if the economy grows at a certain clip, that it's going to be less reliance on taxation," but I don't know if I totally buy that. Marc: Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm glad you found a positive, though, so that is something to hopefully keep an eye on, especially at the state level, some tax reforms, especially benefiting retirees. That would be fantastic. That would be the silver lining in what is ultimately not a very pretty cloud, right? Tony Mauro: Right. Marc: Okay, long-term care options, excuse me, for Baby Boomers in general. Like the healthcare, definitely technology's got to be on the forefront here of the optimism side, right? Tony Mauro: Yeah, I think with the technology the way it's going and more and more people becoming cognizant of, "Hey, I'm going to need some sort of care, long-term," it doesn't necessarily mean nursing home. The insurance companies and everybody else are coming up with a lot of home healthcare solutions, which people tend to like. A lot of the assisted living facilities are using those progressive types of deals, where you go into assisted living. You're totally on your own, and as you need more care, you could advance along. But I think most people, most seniors, I know my dad's the same way. He wants to age in his home, and I think that with what he's got and what's available out there, a lot of these long-term care policies allow you to do that, as far as that goes. I think a little bit in the half-empty. At least here in Iowa, I had to mention it, is there's a shortage of healthcare pros, if you will. And I'll tell you, a lot of our Iowa nursing homes are in the news a lot for poor care and fines and all kinds of things. And so I think maybe that's because of the shortage for healthcare professionals, especially in that area. Maybe they're just not getting the type of people they need. I don't know. Marc: Unfortunately, needing workers, sometimes you change the criteria, and maybe you don't always get the cream of the crop. Tony Mauro: That could be, but I do think, too, on the negative pessimist side, is I still think there are way too many people that are unprepared and have not talked about this issue with their advisor or anybody else. And I think that's a huge part of a potential problem. Marc: Yeah, a huge disservice to yourself and your loved ones, for sure. All right, let's do the last one here, and we'll wrap it up, and we're doing, again, half-empty, half-full view on some of the big ticket items coming down the pike for us all as we get closer to retirement. The stock market over the next five or 10 years. It's certainly been tough to read it, Tony, because it's been all over the place, and there's historical trends, which I guess you could look at the full side of that, the half-full side of the glass over long periods of time. Again, tech here is probably also helpful, as well, but the market is still going to be what it is, which is volatile, and Lord knows the world is volatile right now. Tony Mauro: World's volatile, yeah, and I think I tend to take a little longer view. I am always an optimist when it comes to the market, long-term, and long-term for me is 10 and beyond. Over the five to 10, it is. It's going to be volatile. I think that this is where, especially as retirees need to have a plan, need to be working with an advisor, and discussing where they need to have their money. So based on whatever plan they have, they can earn a reasonable amount without too much risk and hopefully, tax efficiency, as well. But I think still, the market over all, if it's done right over the long term, is your best bet, especially in retirement and maximizing your income. But there are some, based on their risk assessment and some other things, that they may not be ready for that. And certainly, with all the uncertainty in the world and the negative news, I've actually gone myself to not watching news. I want to read it. Marc: Only when you have to. You have to not watch. Tony Mauro: But even it's so funny. With the negativity in the news, if you go to a search, and we're getting off-topic, and whatever's on there, and you read that article, it's amazing how many other articles start popping up wherever you're at, online, with the same negative news. It's just like everybody's got their slant on it, and you can get overstimulated, maybe, with negativity. Marc: Well, it's not even just watching it on the news now, because it stalks you in your social media things, all this stuff on your phone in general. There's a term for it now. It's called doom scrolling. Tony Mauro: Doom scrolling?. I never heard of that. Marc: Yeah, if you hadn't heard of that, it's doom scrolling, where you basically just go down this spiral of continuously scrolling through stuff. So you can't get out of the spiral, and often, it's negative, which does not do well for the psyche, so not a good place to be. So yeah, I think when it comes to the stock market, there's always going to be those pros and cons there. There's going to be bubbles. There's going to be over-valuations. There's going to be good periods, bad periods. So I think we got to take that with that grain of salt. And to your point, you got to work with a qualified professional to make sure that you're dealing with things as they come or as they're going to come, because there's a lot of things that happen to us all as we age, and we got to have a plan for that. So that's why you need to Plan with The Tax Man, so get on Tony's calendar, if you haven't done so yet, you would like to talk with him. He's a CPA, a CFP, and an EA-enrolled agent for 27-plus years, helping families get to and through retirement and a great resource for you to tap into at Tax Doctor Inc. You can find him online at yourplanningpros.com. That is yourplanningpros.com. Tony, thanks for hanging out, my friend. Tony Mauro: All right, we'll see you next time. Marc: Yeah, appreciate you, and keep that optimistic view, because we need more of that in the world, that's for sure. We'll catch you later here on Plan with the Tax Man with Tony Mauro from Tax Doctor Inc. Disclaimer:  Securities offered through Avantax Investment ServicesSM. Member FINRA, S.I.P.C. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency.

In this episode, we construct a helpful conversation about the role of real estate in a retirement strategy, exploring everything from rental income to reverse mortgages. Whether you're a pre-retiree with a portfolio of properties or just curious about leveraging your home equity, this discussion offers thoughtful insights for anyone navigating the crossroads of real estate and retirement.   Important Links:  Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript:  Intro  0:00   Look Up in the sky. It's a bird. It's a plane. No, it's the tax man. He may not be a superhero. But Tony Morrow has saved many retirement plans with his extreme knowledge of tax planning strategies. It's time for a plan with the tax man. Marc Killian  0:17   Welcome into a another edition of the podcast in the September now here and is starting to cool off a little bit. And we're gonna have a conversation about brick and mortar retirement, some pros and cons of real estate investing for retirement. And, you know, Tony, before we get into this conversation this week, speaking of cooling off, you and the missus went for an Alaskan cruise that had to have been just Tony Mauro  0:40   awesome. It was it was absolutely fantastic. I'd recommend that to anybody to go up there and check that out. Because it's, I don't know, it's just like a different world. You know that I guess they call it the last frontier for a reason. Right? It is rugged, and it's amazing. It just does the wildlife. And the interesting thing about it, besides all of that, I didn't realize when I when I went up there that Alaska is way bigger than Texas as far as landmass. It's huge. And, and they only have 730,000 odd people. Yeah, if you can imagine. I mean, so it's sparsely populated up there. Yeah, you know, but it is so rugged, that it's not easy to live up there. Marc Killian  1:20   Yeah, my in laws live in Wyoming. And you know, it's a pretty big state too. Yeah. And there's like 500,000 people in Wyoming, right, same kind of thing. So it's harder, it's hard to live in. But you know, if you have that kind of temperament, for sure. But yeah, I've wanted to do the Alaskan trip myself, just, you know, love seeing wildlife and things of that nature. Obviously, go up to Wyoming and see the in laws. As I mentioned, I've got some amazing pictures of wildlife up there. But we'd love to do like the whales and things of that nature. So Tony Mauro  1:47   yeah, that I tell you the sights, the wildlife, the glaciers themselves, pictures, don't do them justice. Oh, I bet because they are so blue, you know, the pictures, a lot of times they look white, right, and you get up to them. And they're almost it feels like they're glowing. You know, it's just incredible. We saw a glacier feels about 65 miles deep. And it's interesting how fast they're receiving, you know, they're receiving so fast. I mean, the one a couple of weeks saw ever seen it like 12 miles in the last 30 years. You know, it's like, wow, that that is a lot. But it's cool to see. Yeah, I Marc Killian  2:24   mean, if you really like oh, that kind of stuff. I encourage everybody to get up there. Well, there you go. So I mean, one of the things that if you need to have a conversation with Tony on, on travels, he loves to travel, so Well, yeah, for your, for part of the retirement planning process is, you know, things to do in retirement. So definitely get a great resource to talk about some ideas there as well. So he's seen some very cool stuff over this week, let's go ahead and jump into a conversation about pros and cons of real estate. Tony, some people place more of an emphasis on acquiring real estate, you know, versus maybe funding accounts, like you might see this, especially depending on your type of work, right? A lot of times you'll see this with, you know, realtors or things of that nature. And I mean, it can be a great tool. But have you seen some people successful used rental properties to create the rental income or the retirement income? I should say that they need, Tony Mauro  3:07   by and large? I'd say no. And I say no. And we, as a caveat, have owned real estate for probably 2527 years. And we started out with that dream back. We started before before we started the firm, because we had nothing else to do. We had no clients, and we acquire single family homes, we thought, well, if we can do this, and this will be our retirement. But and we migrated away from those and started building apartment buildings. And we and we still have those and they are a good income stream. But a lot of people aren't going to aren't going to I guess probably own multi, you know, unit 50 buildings, they're more probably into duplexes, single family homes and whatnot. I say no, because I get a lot of a lot of things people will say why I don't really like stock market all invest in real estate. And you know, I think that's, you know, somewhat legitimate, I don't think you should put all your eggs there, though, for sure. Number one, and number two is real estate investing, while it can throw off some income, it's work. And I don't think a lot of people get into it and realize how much work it is. And if you get yourself highly leveraged in real estate, you're not making that much. And so I think you have to amass a large portfolio of homes or units to depending on what your retirement income you want it to be to, you know, to have that. So I think there's goods and Bad's of it. You know, I think it's good to have if you really like to diversify a little bit, but I think you you got to understand all the ins and outs, which is what we like to talk to people about, Marc Killian  4:38   right. So what that kind of said, if somebody came to you as a pre retiree with you know, maybe limited liquid assets, but a ton of real estate, is that something you would want to strategize with them on or maybe kind of paring some of that down so that they can build up that liquid side of the assets? Tony Mauro  4:53   I would you know, depending on we'd have to find out you know if they owned them all outright or if there's loans be paid And then, you know, compare that to the income that they're thrown off versus if you could invest it and say, you know, I don't know, get four or 5% out of it type thing. Or if it was big enough, you know, maybe you could just live off of, you know, off the principal. But, yeah, I would definitely take a look at that. And most of the time, when we've looked at that people aren't netting or the other cash flow coming out of them is not that much, because either have some loans, and then they've got turnover, and they got to put money back into them. And you know, at the end of the year, they didn't really cash flow that much. They do some and depreciation offsets some tax, but I definitely would want to take a look and probably have a conversation about if you're looking for more income, you may want to do something else, or at least partly do something else. Marc Killian  5:46   Yeah, definitely. You know, because you gotta have some liquidity, right? I mean, real estate can be can be a great tool, but I mean, you can't reach in the walls and just pull out some cash. Right, exactly. Tony Mauro  5:53   Right, y'all, you've got the rent income coming in, you know, and that's it. Marc Killian  5:57   Yeah. Do you ever see that? Generally, that TV show Arrested Development? You know, I Tony Mauro  6:01   never did watch that. No, Marc Killian  6:03   I don't I didn't watch much of it. But I know there's a funny scene about that, you know, that concept that works well for the conversation where I guess the father of the family goes to jail or whatever, for I don't know what for, but the sun keeps going and talking to him and saying that the family is struggling and needs money. And he's like, Well, there's always money in the banana Stan, because they have like a banana Stan is a business right? And so of course, the sun takes that is, you know, well, there's always money in you know, going to work and work in the business, right. But he gets so ticked off at the dad for whatever that he says the bananas stand on fire and burned to the ground. Basically, the longest sort of as the father says, you eat it, there was $250,000 stuffed in the walls of the banana Stan. So, you know, it's a funny way to think about it's obviously it's TV shows, it didn't really matter. It's fictional, right? But think about that concept that you just can't reach into your walls and pull money out in. So if you have too much real estate and not enough liquidity, you could be doing yourself a disservice. Right? So you could Yeah, so just kind of bear that in mind a little bit. What do you think about like home equity loans, or he locks in somebody's retirement strategy? Now, again, in the retirement strategy, Tony Mauro  7:06   it could be an option, it should they should they need it, I think most of the time, I'm of the belief, I don't like to, to see my clients having a lot of debt secured by their home. But if they need to, I don't think it's a bad idea to have a line of credit. And maybe, you know, you tap it and you're borrowing pretty low rates get to deduct a little bit of the interest, although I wouldn't do it just for that, and have that just in case, but I wouldn't rely on it for you know, month in month out cash flow type of thing, for sure. So I'm not a huge fan of that. I'm also not a huge fan of the reverse mortgages, which I know, will probably take a look at. But I think reverse mortgages, and maybe some of this makes sense. If you don't have any other sources of income, and it's all tied up in your own home, you know, and you, you have to take it out. Now, for real estate investors, it's not a bad idea if you've got some equity, because you could basically use that equity and maybe maybe help fund a down payment on another one, you know, or maybe use it for repairs, you know, things like that. But again, you got to watch it because it is debt at the end of the day. And even though you may not be saddled with it, you know, it, it could be something that your state has to deal with. Marc Killian  8:15   Yeah. What's your thoughts on REITs? Tony? Is REITs a part of the conversation? What should retirees and pre retirees know about those? Tony Mauro  8:22   Well, the REITs are these real estate investment trusts, you know, so they work similar to kind of a mutual fund, you know, where you put your money in a REIT and it's pooled together with other people and what they do is management company goes out and invests in a bunch of properties that could be shopping malls otherwise, they're probably not the not the thing right now or, you know, apartment complexes, things like that, they run the trust, and you've got more liquidity, and you have shares of that REIT and you can get in and out for the most part and you know, hopefully you're gonna earn you know, a good percentage of return without doing all the work of really investing in the real estate but I find that most people I kind of mentioned it, and they just get this blank stare in their eye they say, No, no, no, I want to I want to just own my own, you know, I want to I want to be on the ground and fixing things and but I think REITs truly have a place in a retirement strategy, especially if you're into real estate. Marc Killian  9:15   Yeah, great point for sure. tax considerations obviously that's something that you're very focused on with your practice how the tax considerations play into the decision Tony Mauro  9:24   well with with real estate you know, obviously you're only paying taxes on the the net rent income that you have every year and that might be enough at least on the books for taxes which make does make real estate appealing. So you're you haven't a positive cash flow but you're not really paying a lot of tax on it because of the depreciation that's a plus but the income is taxed at ordinary income rates. That's kind of a you know, depending on where you're at, maybe a negative I do like real estate in the fact of unlike an investment in a stock were talking losses now for just a minute. You know, if you lose you know money on a stock, you can only deduct up to 3000 bucks a year. You're against other income in real estate, you can deduct up to $25,000 of loss. So if you have a bad year, you know, you can take advantage of tax laws a little more more leniently than if you just sold a stock, but you go over to the investment side, just a stock and you sell it for a gain, you know, the max capital gains right now is 20 percents, a lot of them, depending on your income might be only 15. So you have a little bit of a tax advantage there. So a couple pluses and minuses on both sides. Marc Killian  10:29   Okay. All right. And then the final piece here to consider when we're, again, we're talking pros and cons of real estate, you mentioned earlier reverse mortgages. Now, once upon a time, like this is, you know, just like annuities, or even sometimes insurance, right, or even used cars, right? There's that kind of, oh, there's this kind of negative connotation to the people that maybe sell these types of things and the types of products that they are, but just like annuities in the last 10 years, they've made, you know, major changes. And so this could maybe be a potential, you know, idea for someone to use, depending on their scenario, their option. Like for me, Tony, we only have one child, and she's in the Navy. She says she has no plans to return here where she grew up, she has no plans to live here, you know, so what did we do with the place? Right? So maybe it's maybe it's worthwhile for us to do something like that, you know, and when we're both gone, so be it. So I don't know what your Tony Mauro  11:21   thoughts, I think, just like you said, they do have a place that was kind of like, you know, some of those other back in the day, they were kind of considered shady, you know, the back to back room deals, they have come a long way they are, you know, for the most part on on the up and up, I should say, I think they're more viable. Like you were talking about your situation, I had an aunt who was elderly, and she didn't have a lot of money just living on Social Security. And she did a reverse mortgage, and it worked well for her before she died because it gave her the income that she needed and desperately wanted, right, and that she didn't make those those loan payments, you know, because the reverse mortgage works, you don't have to pay it back until you die, you know, and they sell the house to recoup their their miles right? Now, they don't loan you 100% of the value, you only get a portion and there are some fees. So you want to make sure you look into that and make sure that you understand it all. But in certain cases, I wouldn't frown upon them. Now, I don't think they're right for everybody, you Marc Killian  12:18   know, right? Oh, yeah. Like yours. I mean, I think if you've done a good job saving for retirement, it may not even be something that's on your radar. But for those who maybe haven't, or maybe they even have, but they decided, you know, hey, due to our situation where nobody wants to place, you know, hey, maybe we can get some more equity out of this place and enjoy a little more fun in retirement. I mean, you never know, right? I mean, it's just multiple ways of looking at it. But I think the concept there is just like an annuity or just like possibly having insurance in your 70s when most of us think of it as something we only meet in our 30s 40s or 50s. When we still have growing children. It's don't shut it down until you understand. Is it useful for me or not? If it's not move on, right? But it's a product, you know, that serves a purpose. And if you fall into that, that range, and then it might make a hell of a lot of sense for you. Yeah, there you go. Exactly. Alright, well, that's gonna do it this week. For some pros and cons of real estate, investing for retirement. Again, if you've got some questions on how it's going to relate to your situation, as always, you know, when you listen to our podcasts, or any other kind of program or read some things, you want to see how it's going to translate to your specific situation, all these universal things that affect us all, are all well and good in, you know, in general conversation. But until you really dive in and see how it's going to relate to your unique scenario, you're not going to truly understand how it works. So if you're not working with a professional, and certainly if you're not working with Tony, consider reaching out to him and let him know that you need some help and get yourself on to the calendar for a complimentary review. Go to your planning proz.com Couple things with lots of stuff you can do. There's good tools, tips and resources. You can reach out to them schedule some time get on their calendar, subscribe to us on Apple, Google or Spotify. You can find the podcasting page there as well. Again, that's your planning proz.com You're planning proz.com Or just call him at 844-707-7381 Tony, thanks for hanging out my friend as always, I appreciate you breaking down some of these things for us. Good conversation. Tony Mauro  14:08   All right, we'll talk to you next time. Marc Killian  14:09   Yeah, man and I'm jealous. I want to go to Alaska. Thank you very much. So you gotta get there. I know. Right? So we got to put that on the radar as well. But you have a great week, my friend. We are in the September so hopefully you enjoy the the cooling off. And sports football season is back in if you're into that sort of thing. So folks, enjoy yourself out there be safe and we will see you next time here on playing with the tax man with 21. Disclaimer:  Securities offered through Avantax Investment ServicesSM. Member FINRA, S.I.P.C. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency.

In this episode, we're tackling some common complaints and fears that can arise during the retirement planning process. We'll discuss which concerns are well-founded, which are based on misconceptions, and offer insight on how retirees can best navigate their financial future. Important Links:  Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript:  Speaker 1: Welcome in to another edition of the podcast. It's Plan With The Tax Man with Tony Mauro from Tax Doctor Inc. here to talk with me this week on the show. We're going to dive into exposing some retirement planning complaints, tackle some common complaints and fears people have about their financial situations during retirement, and which of these are kind of well-founded or maybe just full of misconceptions, things of that nature. So we'll have a good conversation with Tony this week on the podcast. Don't forget to subscribe to us at yourplanningpros.com. You can check out Tony's website at yourplanningpros.com, or type in Plan With The Tax Man in the search box of whatever podcasting app you like using like Apple, Google, or Spotify.   Tony, my friend, what's going on buddy? How are you?   Tony Mauro: I'm good. As we're recording this it's state fair time here, which usually signals toward the end of the summer.   Speaker 1: Well, it's-   Tony Mauro: It's the last hurrah.   Speaker 1: It's hot. It has been hot for sure.   Tony Mauro: It's hot. Yeah, it's been hot here too.   Speaker 1: Yeah, it was 98 like the last four days in a row, but they said it felt like 110 or something like that.   Tony Mauro: Wow. Yeah. We got that coming again next week, so it'll be interesting.   Speaker 1: Well drink plenty of water, right?   Tony Mauro: Yeah. That's right.   Speaker 1: So you don't overdo it, especially for a lot of our demographic that we talk to and listens to the show. Making sure that you have plenty of water and stay hydrated is important, that's for sure. My mom, she's 82, and she does these daily PSAs on Facebook. She's like, "Morning y'all, it's going to be real hot. Drink water."   Tony Mauro: Uh-huh. Yeah. That's nice.   Speaker 1: I'm like, "All right, well there you go." But anyway, we're going to talk about some retirement planning complaints this week. So I've got some pretty basic statements here that people say often, Tony. So we'll talk about whether, like I said, these are well-founded or just full of misconceptions and just offer some insight.   Tony Mauro: Mm-hmm.   Speaker 1: So let's start with the first one here. My advisor takes too much risk. Obviously this has been something that people have said for often when things are not going well you go, "Oh well my advisor takes too much risk." But I would challenge the question of why is that? Is that because they're taking the risk without talking to you? Or have you gone through some scenarios? What do you think?   Tony Mauro: I hear this sometimes as well, and these first two couple topics here I can relate back to this last weekend when I was out visiting my son and my new daughter-in-law. And they're very young, 27, but she had made a comment like this, and so I asked her, "Well why? Why do you think that?" And the answer is what I get a lot, and that is, "Well it seems like my account's not going up." So I hear that a lot. I hear the fact that I'm not making as much as my neighbor, things like that. Or, like you say, when things are going down they think there's a lot of risk. And it might be the case, but it's not always. And I think, as I told her, "Well you just need to talk to them and explain what you think." And in her case, she's 27 years old, she's investing for retirement, long timeline.   Speaker 1: She should be taking risks.   Tony Mauro: [inaudible 00:02:58] a lot risk over the last few years. Yeah. And I looked at the funds that she's in and really they're actually very good funds, they just haven't done much the last year and a half. But I told her, I said, "That's not unusual in the market we're in." And she's not real risk averse, so I think that's one thing... I think if you just communicate with your advisor, talk about that kind of stuff. Or if-   Speaker 1: If you're feeling like they're doing it right, you got to first of all find out why.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: Well, actually you mentioned account's not growing, so that's actually on my list, so I'm going to jump down to that one and pair these two together then.   Tony Mauro: Okay. Yeah.   Speaker 1: So they takes too much risk, or my accountant didn't grow much last year, and to me a lot of this seems like the same problem. And that problem is it's the highs and the lows. We all like the risk when it's up and nobody likes it when it's going down. And so last year obviously was a rough year '22, right? 2022 was a down year in the market. So this is probably your risk profile. To me this comes back to how are you allocated, right? So you hear somebody say, let's just make up a number, "The S&P was up 30%." All right?   Tony Mauro: Mm-hmm.   Speaker 1: And then you go, "But I only got 15, so my advisors not doing enough."   Tony Mauro: Right.   Speaker 1: Or then the inverse of that is, "The S&P was down 30%. Well phew, I only lost 15." Well, that's because of your risk portfolio, so you don't get all of it unless you're completely exposed.   Tony Mauro: And that's true. And with the whole "My accountant didn't grow last year", I got the same thing out of her. And I asked her the very same questions is, "Well, which accounts are we talking about here?" And of course it was the retirement accounts, and I quickly pointed out that, "You've got maybe 35, 40 years before you need this money." So it's easy for us as advisors, and I told her to say, "Don't worry about it." But in reality, you got to take a longer time horizon. And with your risk profile, like you said, and hers as being somewhat on the aggressive side, you can't let it be your main focus. She's focused on the wrong things. I think us as advisors got to remind them.   Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say, and like a quarterback on a football team you get all the credit or all the blame. Right?   Tony Mauro: Mm-hmm.   Speaker 1: So it's like, "Oh man, my advisor did a great job. I made a bunch of money this year", or something like that. Well because there was an up year on the market and your portfolio was allocated properly for your risk tolerance.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: Conversely, if that was the case and it was down, you'd also be happy because you didn't lose as much as your neighbor or whatever the case is.   Tony Mauro: Exactly.   Speaker 1: So it's all about that risk profile, making sure that you're taking the right amount for your situation versus the kind of generic common complaints.   All right, so that's two of them. So let's go to my fees are too high. And the statement here to me is always the same kind of thing. Nobody likes fees, we don't want to pay more than we have to. But what are you getting for the fees? Is that worth it?   Tony Mauro: And that's the question you have to ask, and it should be addressed when you start the relationship with your advisor, is understand how he or she's being compensated. Most are going to just be flat out and tell you, "This is how we do it." Some are asset based, which is a fancy term for taking a small percentage of the account value every year. Some are just regular fee based. It's X amount for me to help you every year, like a consulting fee, coaching fee, whatever you'd like to call it. And so as long as you feel like you're getting value for that fee that you're paying, I wouldn't tie it to investment returns. This is the fee, just like you'd pay an attorney, an accountant, anybody else to do things for you and keep you on track.   But on the flip side of that, if you're paying fees and you're not getting anything... Because one of my daughter-in-law's complaints was, "He never calls me." And I said, "Well, what would he call you about all the time? What do he want to talk about? Because you're not a stock picker, what do you want to talk about?" She just felt like, "Well, I think I should be getting talked to all the time." And I said, "Well, have you addressed that with them?" And she hadn't. I said, "Well, then they may not know that you want to do that. So your whole little fee that you're paying might be misaligned."   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony Mauro: So I think it's communication, and I think that you have to understand what you're paying for. And then the services that are provided... I mean we try to list them out in exact number of calls and what you can expect and things like that, because that way there it lessens the chance of miscommunication.   Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the first two to me are definitely misconceptions in how you're probably working with your advisor. And if they're not, they're just straight up taking too much risk or whatever the case is that we covered on that first part and not listening to you when you say you don't want to be that far into it, well then that's obviously a problem.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: With the fees are too high I feel like it's the same thing. It's probably based on misconceptions. It could be a little well-founded as well, but understanding what it is that you have, because certain products are going to have higher fees than others. So just making sure that you have that conversation point.   For the next one, social security won't be enough to cover my expenses. To me, this is totally a legitimate concern, because that's correct. It's not going to be enough to cover everything. It does a great job, but it's not everything.   Tony Mauro: No, it's not everything. And it is, that's a legitimate concern. And the easy answer to that is that's exactly why you A, need to plan, B, save and take the time. Like I said, as I told her, I keep going back to her, "You've got a lot of time, you just need to keep saving. Because a lot of people think that social security, if they haven't looked at it, is going to be enough." And like you said, it's nowhere near enough. It's a good start, good safety net, but you definitely need to plan and save. Otherwise it's going to be pretty paltry by the time you get to the end.   Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And you've got to make sure that you realize that. And I think I've shared before my mom's in this situation where she's living on social security only and it's not the ideal situation that she wanted to find herself in. Through the course of decisions it's what's happened. So avoid that by doing some proper planning ahead of time and having the right pieces in the puzzle, and being aware that while it does a lot of things for you it's not going to cover everything. Now if you strategize right, maybe the social security is that income piece that takes care of the cost of living, let's say, and then you're pulling from your nest egg for the fun stuff. It just depends, right? It depends on how you structure your income strategy, and also depends on what you as a couple might be bringing in from that versus anything else.   Tony Mauro: Right.   Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay. I don't understand my financial plan. This one I think is a fairly well-founded concern because sometimes people just aren't getting it. And maybe they don't do themselves the advocacy service of saying, "Hey, you know what? I'm sorry, I know you explained this, but I'm just not getting it. Can you help me go through it again?"   Tony Mauro: Yeah, I think you need to do that if you truly don't understand your plan. I also think that if you're in a relationship with an advisor and they are charging you fees, you should have a plan. In other words, it may not be on paper, but it should be in your portal or somewhere where you can access it. That's what we do, is we put the plan in the portal and it's all electronic. But the client can actually see, "Here are the major steps you said you wanted to tackle. First, second, third, and on and on and on. And here's what the whole plan looks like based on when we did it." And obviously then we change it over time and move goals around, but you should have that. And then it should be laid out in a way that it's not too complicated so that it's full of graphs and charts and things like that. It really should be more of, "Here are the goals, here's what we're going to do right now to try to achieve those goals", and then the progress towards those goals. And I think if you're having trouble with that then, again, requires a conversation. Ask them to explain it because it's your plan, you're paying for it. And so it's like anything else, you want to know what you've got.   Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. An older gentleman, older advisor taught me this years ago. I thought it was funny, I may have shared it on here before or not. But he was like, "I like to subscribe to the rule of 11." And I was like, "I don't think I'm familiar with that one." The rule of four and rule of 72, all that kind of stuff. And he's like, "Yeah, if you get your financial plan and then you can't turn around and explain that plan to an 11-year-old, it's too complicated."   Tony Mauro: I would agree with that.   Speaker 1: And I love that, right? Because it's like you got to be able to re-talk it to someone else.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. And you should be able to at least know what your major goals are and what you're doing to accomplish them. Do you need to know what the mutual fund and your retirement plan is doing and what investments they have? Maybe not, unless you're really into it. But yeah, you need to know the basics and you need to be able to explain it. Absolutely.   Speaker 1: Yeah. Definitely. So I thought that was a cute saying. I definitely loved that one.   All right, last one here. I only hear from my advisor when they want me to buy or sell something, I don't really get advice on other things. Absolutely a legitimate concern here. But maybe you should ask yourself what kind of professional did you go to? Because they may just be doing what they do, they may not do these other pieces. And that's kind of on us, I think sometimes, by not vetting out or seeing the right kind of professional we should be working with for the time of life we're in.   Tony Mauro: We should. And what that question is to me is saying the old days where everybody was considered a "broker". And you would see that. You'd see TV shows and movies about that kind of stuff too, but a lot of that's been moving away from transactional and more into an advisory role. And you do need to ask that question of if you've just got a broker... And some people want to do that. Although I don't know if it's as prevalent today, simply because there's so many ways to trade securities yourself now that you may or may not need that. But who knows, maybe you've got somebody that's like that. I think that that's, for most, not what you want. I think you might want more of an advisor, but you definitely should know who you're working with. And I think in our case, one of the things we do before we even take a client on is we sit them down and have them go through a questionnaire and they kind of score themselves.   But one of the landmines that I look for before working with a client is... And you can usually tell this by the way they're talking to you. Is if you just want to sit and trade stocks and have me give you recommendations and/or be the facilitator, I'm not your person because that's not what we do. You don't need us for that. You can go do that on your own. All you're going to end up doing is I think spending extra money. And then on top of that you're going to want us to give you recommendations, and then as soon as give them a bad one the blame game comes out.   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony Mauro: So I don't even engage in that. That's not what we do. There might be some advisors that do that, but I'm more focused on the long-term.   Speaker 1: Well yeah, and to your point you're probably working with a broker only. You're working with someone who's a transactional based, commission based person. Now there's nothing wrong with that if you know what it is that you have and if that's what you're looking for. But part of this complaint is I don't get advice on other things, well then you're not probably working with an actual true planner and advisor that is talking about social security and taxation and legacy and so on and so forth. So again, part of that I think is legitimate, but I think it also is a misconception, or could be on our part, for just not finding the right professional to work with. Or not realizing that who we started with is maybe not who we need to end up with kind of thing.   Tony Mauro: That's right. Yeah.   Speaker 1: All right, well there you go. So that's our conversation and podcast this week with Tony Mauro on Plan With The Tax Man. Reach out to Tony if you've got some questions or concerns about your own situation and need to get down to the nitty-gritty and get on the right plan and strategy for yourself. Again, you can find him online at yourplanningpros.com for a consultation and review. Yourplanningpros.com. Tony, thanks for hanging out buddy.   Tony Mauro: All right, well see you next time.   Speaker 1: I'll see you next time right here on the show. This has been Plan With The Tax Man.   Disclaimer: Securities offered through Avantax Investment ServicesSM. Member FINRA, S.I.P.C. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency

Lance Belline, CFP® and author, shares that his purpose in life is to give people financial peace of mind and clarity on how to accomplish their goals. He is passionate about helping people keep more of the money they make by implementing strategies to reduce the income taxes they pay over their lifetime. How great does that sound? In this episode he introduces the 3 categories in which we accumulate wealth, each with their own tax consequences. Connect with Lance:Website: lancebelline.netCompany: Lighthouse FinancialBook: More Wealth, Less Taxes Connect with me:https://www.instagram.com/its_coach_jess/The content in this podcast is for entertainment purposes only.  Consult with a financial professional for questions about your personal situation. Disclaimer: Securities offered through Equitable Advisors, LLC (NY, NY 212-314-4600), member FINRA/SIPC (Equitable Financial Advisors in MI & TN). Investment advisory products and services offered through Equitable Advisors, LLC, an SEC registered investment advisor. Annuity and insurance products offered through Equitable Network, LLC, which conducts business in CA as Equitable Network Insurance Agency of California, LLC, in UT as Equitable Network Insurance Agency of Utah, LLC, in PR as Equitable Network of Puerto Rico, Inc. Lighthouse Financial,Equitable Advisors and its affiliates do not provide tax or legal advice. Please consult your tax and legal advisors regarding your particular circumstance. Individuals may transact business, which includes offering products and services and/or responding to inquiries, only in state(s) in which they are properly registered and/or licensed. The information in this podcast is not investment or securities advice and does not constitute an offer. Lighthouse Financial is not a registered investment advisor and is not owned or operated by Equitable Advisors or Equitable Network. CFP® and CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERTM are certification marks owned by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. These marks are awarded to individuals who successfully complete the CFP Board's initial and ongoing certification requirements. PPG- 5887372.1 (8/23)(Exp. 8/25)

Almost everyone has made investment mistakes at some point. In this episode, we'll talk about how to bounce back from mistakes and avoid making them again in the future.   Important Links:  Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript:  Speaker 1: ... Back here for another edition of Plan With The Tax Man, into the month of August here in 2023. And it's time to talk about overcoming investment setbacks, bouncing back really if we've had some issues in our financial lives. And that's what we're going to get into this episode and how to, hopefully, avoid some of these again in the future. Things happen, we all make missteps and mistakes, but there's no reason we can't try to correct those and course correct and keep ourselves on the right path to get to and through retirement. So we're going to have that chat with Tony this week here on the podcast. What is going on, my friend? How are you? Tony: I am good. Just still enjoying the summer. It's going to be over before we know it here. Speaker 1: Well, we're into August, so yes. Tony: It'll be state fair time. Speaker 1: There you go. Now I got a little weakness for the funnel cakes there, the elephant ears. Tony: For the [inaudible 00:00:48]. Speaker 1: Yes, whatever you want to call them. Some places they call them elephant ears, someplace they call them funnel cakes. It's the same thing, but at least I think it is anyway. Now I'll tell you something though, I've never had one of these before and I didn't even realize it was a thing until I tried it. Have you ever had what they call the walking taco? I believe that's what they call it, where it's basically all the taco stuff inside a like Doritos bag or a Frito bag. Tony: A chip bag. Speaker 1: Yes, a chip bag. Tony: I have had it. I haven't had it at the fair, but I have had them. That's what they are. Speaker 1: I never saw one before until I saw one at the fair and I was like, "Ooh, this is calling my name. This is incredibly not good for me, but I don't care. I'm going to eat it ..." And it was fantastic. Tony: It is good, yes. Our fair is so big. It's a big highlight around here. And every year they put out what's new at the fair for the food list because everybody goes for the junk food. Speaker 1: Sure. Tony: And it's just incredible what we have. Just weird stuff, like everything's on a stick here. Speaker 1: All right. Tony: And it's fried and it's just crazy, the foods. But I don't know if you guys have a big state fair or not?- Speaker 1: Yes. Tony: ... but ours is big and- Speaker 1: Interesting stuff. Tony: ... I'm actually looking online here. I don't even know what some of this stuff is. Speaker 1: Like snicker bar on a stick? Tony: Yes, deep-fried sweet corn nugget. Sweet corn fried?- Speaker 1: The sweet corn and you deep-fry it. We'll- Tony: Deep-fry it. Speaker 1: Humans will deep-fry anything, I think Tony: I know it. We're Americans. Yes, we do a lot. Speaker 1: That's for sure. But anyway, well, hopefully you guys will enjoy and you don't get too crazy, make yourself sick to your stomach, but- Tony: We'll be bouncing back from fair. Speaker 1: You'll be bouncing back. There you go. Nice segue. I like it. I like that. Tony: That'd be a mistake. Speaker 1: That's right. Well, let's get into some of these financial bounce backs we might need to do. First thing you need to do, if you do have a financial misstep, Tony, is just obviously determine the cause, right? Tony: Yes. Speaker 1: So what's some bullet points here to think about how you got there in the first place? Tony: Well, most people are going to look at this and say, "Well, I mistimed some stock or some investment." Speaker 1: True. Tony: And most of the time what we see is the mistakes themselves are really not starting soon enough. And that means saving, and that's the biggest one of all. Yes, you can miss time and do that, but you shouldn't be trying to time anyway. But really what you got to do is, whatever the mistake is, whether it's that or just not starting soon enough or something else, is- Speaker 1: Bad luck, whatever. Tony: ... Just figure out, say what caused it, what kind of spot I was in my life when it happened, what kind of information did I have available to me? Maybe you're one of those people that listened to everybody but the right people about everything. Speaker 1: I always refer to that as the cousin Eddie, if anybody who's ever- Tony: Cousin Eddie. Speaker 1: ... Watched any of the vacation movies, right? Tony: Yes. Speaker 1: The cousin Eddie moments because he's always doing something goofy or wrong or whatever. He tells you advise and it's usually not good. Tony: It's usually not good. No. And we get that out on the tax side. Clients will call and say, "Well, I heard from such and such." And my first question is, "What does such and such do for a living?" And they'll say, "Well, he's a barber." And I say, "Well, I don't know that's really his realm to be giving that kind of advice." Speaker 1: To give you tax advice, right? Tony: Yes. So you get a lot of that and it's proliferated with the internet. You got to watch you listen to. Speaker 1: Oh, of course, yes. And that's usually the number one source of bad advice any more is the internet. Because it's- Tony: It is. Speaker 1: ... Just so much on there. Tony: There is so much on there. It is. And so you got to watch what you're getting. That could be a whole conversation on its own. You Google a topic and you think it's right, and it may or may not be. There are probably elements that are correct. Speaker 1: Exactly. Tony: But it might not be all of that. Speaker 1: There's actually a whole industry, Tony sorry, wrapped around internet ads that are designed to look like news articles or news stories so that you feel like it has a bit more realism to it. "Oh, this is news related or newsworthy." But it really is just an ad. It's just a solicitation or a sales piece. So definitely easy. So determining the cause, I think, great place. You've got to figure that out. Did you get the right information? Did you get enough information? Was it just bad timing? It's okay, you've made the mistake. You mentioned savings, so now we need to make up that difference we've lost. So what are some things to do as far as increasing our savings rates? Tony: Well, once you've identified the mistake, and if you have lost some money, the easy thing is to increase the savings. That's really not really all that complex on how to do that, but it's easy to be able to increase it. Especially as you progress in life, some of your expenses start to decrease, and so you're going to have more disposable income that you can then take and increase the savings rate. Speaker 1: The government gives us some catch up contribution provisions in various different things. So there's some of that, right? Tony: Yes, you can do that. You pay off a car, continue making the payment, but make it to yourself and put it in your retirement account or your savings account. Speaker 1: As my dad used to call us, maybe get the little ankle biters off of your payroll. He used to call us ankle biters. Tony: When you were kids. Yes, you do. You get the kids out of the house and then all of a sudden you've got an instant raise. And so there's a lot of ways to increase the savings rate. I've seen people go get a second job and say they just want to save more [inaudible 00:06:09]. Speaker 1: Depending on the kind of damage that you've had to the setback. And I think most of the time, if we've just made a mistake, Tony, it's usually not super detrimental, but you do want to recalibrate your goals or recalibrate your plan because maybe you did make a bad investment. Well, let's do something recent, maybe you got on the crypto train or something, and you were a crypto millionaire one week and you were crypto broke the next, whatever it might be. But that's when you say, "So now I've identified the problem. I know what I did wrong. Now we're working towards making that shortfall back up by increasing our savings contributions to paying our future self, AKA retirement fund. So now let's recalibrate that plan or recalibrate the goals." Right? Tony: Yes. And it's easy to do because, again, it doesn't take a lot, especially if you're talking through it with somebody who, well, and say, in my case, we visit with this clients all the time. It could be as easy as maybe delaying retirement for a year, could mean, hey, we just change our lifestyle a little bit and reduce our expenses. It's not going to be something drastic, and maybe you're in a giant home that you need to downsize and you could save some money there. Speaker 1: Sure. Tony: Maybe it's just watching things a little bit more until you feel more comfortable. I think- Speaker 1: You don't get the muscle car you've been wanting, or you don't get the- Tony: No. Speaker 1: Maybe you get the muscle car, but you just don't do all the remodel on it just yet. You don't do all the- Tony: Repairs. Speaker 1: ... Repairs just yet, or... Little ways you can do stuff, right? Tony: Yes. I have a retiree client and she calls me, and really a lot of our conversations are based around, for lack of a better word, me talking her off the ledge because she likes to put money in her home, and she really likes to keep it spruced up and remodeled. And I'm there really more for the sounding board of, well... She's got plenty of money and she could do it, but it's like, "Well, do you really need it right now? Maybe you take it a little slower so it doesn't affect the other fun stuff you like to do." And many times listen to that and follow along on those lines. But I think if she was out on her own, she would probably be dipping into and probably taking much more than she needs. Speaker 1: A little more often. Tony: More often. And then I think she would be not happy with that because she does like to balance it and do other things in life. And- Speaker 1: That's a great point. Tony: Again, balance is the key because- Speaker 1: Well, to me, I don't know, Tony, with all the technology we have at our fingertips now, I think a big portion of what you guys do as financial professionals is what they call behavioral management, right? Tony: It is. Speaker 1: Because- Tony: And much more so than investment management, yes. Speaker 1: It can be, right? Because just about everybody's got the same software, just about everybody's got the same access to the various different things out there, depending on what kind of license that you have as a financial professional, but really it's relationship building and that behavioral management. To your point to that story you just told this client's comfortable calling you up and saying, "All right, I'm thinking about doing something silly. What do you think?" And then you talk through it and you go, "Based on where we're at, go ahead and go for it." Or "If you do, maybe we're going to make a change to that vacation that was planned for next year." Or something like that. Tony: Yes. And then that's all it comes down to is just some simple discussion. Speaker 1: And then rework the plan. Tony: And you got to rework the plan a little bit. It's funny because from our standpoint, we take a lot of notes so we can remind the clients like, "Well, last time we talked you said this, but you can change your mind. But that is what you said last time." It's a fun conversation. You can have fun with it. But it is interesting because I think clients, you could survive it, of course, yourself, but you may make bigger mistakes and take longer to recover- Speaker 1: Sure. Tony: ... Without some advice of some kind. Speaker 1: Well, and I think that's when getting a real plan in place certainly comes into play. So maybe if you're in a situation, Tony, where you've made a financial mistake and you haven't started working with a professional yet, now is the time to really do it. And often, it's like going to the dentist, I hate to equate what you do with going to the dentist, but it's the same kind of feeling sometimes where we're like, I just know he's going to say or she's going to tell me something bad and it's going to cost me pain. In this case, the dentist analogy, and then maybe you wind up going and it's not nearly as bad as you thought. And I think that's what happens with advisors a lot. People are like, "Oh no, I'm going to go in there and I'm going to have to tell them what I did, or I have to show them my stuff and it's going to be painful and they're going to tell me I can never retire." All those kinds of things. Tony: Oh, I know it. Speaker 1: And often it's not nearly as bad as we think that it is. I think as humans, we just do that naturally. Tony: We do. I've actually got a client, as you were saying, that in fact we're emailing back and forth this week, he's an accounting client, not a financial planning client. He's got an advisor. And I don't think the advisor's giving him bad advice, but what the client wants to do, and get this, he's about, I don't know 63, 64, he wants to pull a million dollars out of his retirement account because him and his wife found a little place and a little acreage, and they want to build a house on it. It's just south of where we're at. And he's a big outdoors guy. And so he's trying to rationalize this with me and his advisor as his tax account. And I'm saying, "Well, boy, you're going to owe a lot of tax on that. Maybe you want to split it up." The advisor's telling him, "Well, maybe you want to just go borrow because you're going to pull all this out, and then when you start to need this for income, it's tied up in your house." Which she's got a point too. Speaker 1: Well, she does have a point there, but borrowing right now, it is not a borrower's market. Tony: That's what the client's saying is, it's not a borrower's market. So we're trying to put some numbers together and say, well, if you borrowed, here's how much it's going to cost you, if you spread the tax out. And try to get the best scenario for him, and then he'll have to make that decision. But- Speaker 1: Exactly. Tony: And he's got me on the tax side, his advisor on the advisory side, both trying to help him make the right decision and whatnot. Speaker 1: And that's interesting. Tony: But that goes back to really maybe if he didn't have us, he would probably... Because what he wanted to do is just pull out all the money in one year and pay the taxes. And he thought that would be a better deal than spreading it out. And I said, "No. Here, here's the exact numbers because I've got them right off your tax check." Speaker 1: Going to kick you up a tax bracket and all sorts of stuff. Tony: It would've cost him like $75,000. And I said, at least spread it out to save 75,000. But it's just one of those things though, where even though he has a plan in place, he's changing his plan because he wants something in his life and hey, there's nothing wrong with it. But- Speaker 1: Exactly. They're modifying the plan, that's part of the process because they think life's going to happen, we're going to do different things. And me personally, I think kudos to you and him as well for doing that. But oftentimes many advisors, they struggle with that whole split thing where you're the tax person, the CPA, but you're also not doing the financial side because it is hard when you have two different people giving you, maybe, conflicting advice. So as the person in the middle, sometimes you wind up being in a tough spot, but at the same time, at least he does have those sounding boards. So I think- Tony: He's got that. And for me, if we have an accounting or tax relationship, if they've got an advisor- Speaker 1: Sure. Tony: ... Of course that they like, I like to think we're on the same team. Unless the person was completely crazed and- Speaker 1: Bad advice. Tony: ... Offering horrible advice, but try to be on the same team because- Speaker 1: Sure. Tony: ... I don't want to interfere with that relationship and you just don't know. But some accountants don't like it, some advisors don't like it. Speaker 1: I was going to say, it just depends on the relationship and again, kudos to everybody from making that work. But that's a great illustration though of why even if you make a mistake or have a looming mistake, having a financial team to help you out can go a long way towards hopefully staving off a financial mistake or bouncing back from one. So that was a topic this week. Hopefully that helps out a little bit. And if you have made a mistake and you're worried about going and seeing a finance professional, don't. The longer you procrastinate, just like that tooth, that dentist analogy I was going with, it's only going to hurt worse. It's only going to get worse if you ignore it. And when you finally do go to the dentist and then you maybe have to have a root canal and then it's all more expensive and more painful. So go find out what you need. Go get a plan together for where you're at in life, whether you've made any mistakes or not. And that way, even if the news is not great, at least you know what you now need to start doing in order to get yourself into that better spot. Sooner is always better than later. So get yourself onto the calendar. Reach out to Tony and his team at yourplanningpros.com. That's your planningpros.com. He is a CPA, a CFP, an EA of 27 plus years experience. So get onto the calendar today at yourplanningpros.com Tony, thanks for hanging out, buddy. Tony: We'll see you next time. Speaker 1: See you later on this month, in August, we'll be getting closer to football season for all you football bands. So we will catch you next time here on Plan With The Tax Man with Tony Mauro from Tax Doctor Inc. Don't forget to subscribe on Apple, Google, and Spotify.   Disclaimer: Securities offered through Avantax Investment ServicesSM. Member FINRA, S.I.P.C. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency.

Today's episode is all about understanding the crucial role of income analysis in retirement planning. We'll uncover the secrets of guaranteed income versus the uncertain stuff and shed light on the consequences of retiring without a clear income plan. Don't worry if you're feeling lost - we've got your back with practical solutions and expert guidance. Tune in and take charge of your retirement cash flow!   Important Links:  Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript:  Speaker 1  0:00  Welcome into another edition of the podcast. It's playing with the tax man with Tony Mauro and myself here to talk about mastering some retirement cash flow really kind of understanding income is going to be the topic conversation on the podcast this week with Tony. Who is de Moines professional alternative at tax Doctor Inc. And you can find them online at your planning proz.com at your planning proz.com What's going on, buddy? How are you?   Speaker 2  0:25  I'm good enjoying the summer? How about you?   Speaker 1  0:27  Yeah, pretty much the same. It's been a bit of wet one, though. It's been a lot of lot of rain. Yeah, down here where we're at. It's been a lot of rain. So   Speaker 2  0:32  yeah, we have not had a lot of rain. And we just got some scoring well needed. Yeah, it's funny   Speaker 1  0:37  how the country does that Right? Talk to several people all the time every week. And it's, it's always a little something different. And then whatever neck of the woods you happen to be in. So right here lately, it's just been been really wet. So our Fourth of July got kind of rained out. But that's okay. We still had a good time and with family and friends. And so everybody out for everybody else that as well. We are back here. This is for our our later July edition here. So this is our second half of July. So let's get into understanding some income. Because you know, cash is king. We've heard that Tony a million times. But in retirement incomes King right? Income is always King in retirement. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I guess it is all the time. But it's really, it's really more important, or certainly critically important in retirement. So what's kind of some scenarios that some issues that you can be looking at, if you don't really have a good clear picture of your retirement income?   Speaker 2  1:33  If you're, you know, if you're kind of DIY, and you're thinking, well, I'll just figure it out when I get there. What are some of the issues you've seen people bump into, you know, I've seen, I've seen a lot of it up this way. And some of the people that own land, and farms and whatnot can probably relate to this. But I've seen, you know, retirees come in, and they'll say, you know, I'm ready to hang it up. But I've, I've got all this land, you know, but the land itself isn't really producing any income. So while they have a lot of assets, that that asset or assets isn't really throwing off any income? I see that a lot. Yeah, yeah, I see a lot of people trying to work their retirement income from a basket of, or a portfolio of securities that they had when they were younger, and trying to kind of make shift pull money out, you know, as they need it. Because they don't have a real clear picture. In other words, most of the time, it's, you know, not income generating stocks, and they're just going to wait for prices to go up. And, you know, hopefully sell and make gains and use that when that doesn't happen, or, or it takes longer than expected. They're stuck with out income. Well, I'd like to make life app,   Speaker 1  2:36  I guess what we should do is maybe identify some potential sources of income that people might have as a retired person. So what are some examples of different places that you know, you might be able to draw income from depending on obviously your life? Right? Well,   Speaker 2  2:51  I mean, the list is long, but the easy ones are, you know, your 401 K's pensions, if you have one, IRAs, of course, Social Security. Yeah, that's the big one. Everybody knows if you have some annuities, dividends and income and interest income from either investments, or bank accounts, CDs, things like that bonds, some of you could have some other type of income, you know, maybe you're working part time, maybe you are doing a little side hustle. And you've got some income coming from that. Yeah, yeah, sure. All of those things are potentials, but the three or four biggies prior Social Security, IRAs and 401 K's.   Speaker 1  3:29  So you know, we talk often about being diversified Tony in the realm of investments. And I think that's where people's mind goes to, okay, I need to be diversified and not have too much in large cap or, you know, or something like that. But you really also want diversification of income sources. So you're not relying overly heavily on just one. And obviously, the big one here to think about is if you've not done any planning, or you've not done any savings properly, or some things happen in your own social security, either completely, or it's making most of what you need to live on. And I'll throw my mom under the bus with this, because unfortunately, that's where she's at in her life in her 80s. Now, I help her out. But you know, from her own potential standpoint, that's where she got she lost just about everything in the Oh, eight downturn, and in addition to some bad choices and things of that nature. She's on Social Security only. And that is clearly not where we want to be.   Speaker 2  4:23  That's definitely not really where you want to be. And I've seen that too. And I've seen tax clients that get to the end. And that's really it. Because at that point, you are, it's impossible to try to generate other sources of income, you know, because your timetable it's got Yeah, it's just too late, you know, and so most of these sources need to be thought out along the way. And so which, again, begs the question of, you got to you got to get a plan and you got to work the plan, which we're always talking about. And, you know, that   Speaker 1  4:52  importance of saving, you know, paying your future self right, Exactly.   Speaker 2  4:57  Yeah, I mean, that's what it isn't, you know, it's hard for to take Get a 65 year old and even if they've got a large portfolio, say of of stocks or bonds or something like that and say, well, let's, let's let's diversify a little bit and go out and buy for rentals, you know, that might not be the wisest move, because, you know, they take, even though they could throw off some income, for example, well, you know, that's actually work, you know, and they may not be the wisest of choices. But you know, for a guy that's had rentals for a long time and wants to continue to have them in retirement, you know, it's a great another source. But I do think you're right, we're really trying to aim for before we even talk about what types of earnings you're getting on them or what the income is, but the different sources, the I think the more you different sources you have the more potential to really live the retirement you want.   Speaker 1  5:43  Exactly. And that way, you're not overly reliant on any one thing, which again, is that diversification key. So let's talk about the two kinds of income in the way that most advisors, I think, probably categorize this or people have heard it, which is going to be what, what are the two kind of ways we would think about income? Well, a lot of times people think about it as guaranteed versus not guaranteed. Right. And, you know, I like to phrase it a you know, on the guaranteed side is guaranteed for as long as you live. So security first. Yeah, that's the first security.   Speaker 2  6:19  yeah. If you have an annuity and you annuitize it, you know, it kind of becomes like a social security payment. It's annuitize.   Speaker 1  6:26  So security check even say annuity on the top of it, I think. I think it does, yeah, anyway.   Speaker 2  6:31  So those are the two, you know, and if you do and are lucky enough to have an old fashioned pension that works the same way, you know, it's a monthly income stream for life. So if you've got those, those are kind of, you can't make changes to them. You know, I mean, you get x and that's it. It's over when generally,   Speaker 1  6:49  yeah, whatever you like, whenever you turn on your Social Security, you know, that's your that's what you're locked into that kind of, that's what you're like, yeah, and you're not guaranteed is that's going to be the that's gonna be our personal stuff, right?   Speaker 2  7:00  As we all have personal stuff, your IRAs 401 K savings, you know, pretty much everything else that you're kind of hoping to use in retirement, and I say non guaranteed, because it you know, you have to initiate, I mean, even if the IRA or 401 K or your investments, you know, fully invested, you got to initiate Okay, and figure out how much is it going to earn? And how much can I take, and so in that could fluctuate a little bit. And that's why most advisors when they start talking about retirement, you know, and you hear a lot about, well, what's the sustainable rate? You know, is it 4%? Is it 3% 5% That I can take out month in month out every year, you know, and maybe not use my principal, or maybe some of my principal, but because retirees, you know, we're, again, we're thinking about that income of how much do I need every month? And then how much you know, above that? Do I do I want?   Speaker 1  7:52  Well, so if we're thinking about guaranteed versus non guaranteed now, balance was where I was going to go with this, I got ahead of myself. So you know, somebody might say, well, what's the proper balance? Like, I want more of the guaranteed many of us would just say that, because we feel like, okay, great, that means that we're covered. But often if you're thinking about this, okay, so if that's where the strategizing comes in, because let's say you've got your, your assets that you've built up of, let's just keep it an easy number, a million dollars, right? And a 401k, or whatever, you know, various different sources like that. And then you got your Social Security, your polling, and the balance that comes into play, Tony, when you're trying to figure out how much you need to pull from what place at what time to create that difference of that shortfall, but also not cause yourself taxation issues, correct?   Speaker 2  8:36  Correct. Yeah. And that's where the good planning comes in more for retirees. I think that even people, you know, just trying to get to the end, right. They're working because, yeah, yeah, in the working years, but it really comes down to, you know, sitting down and trying to analyze what your expenses are, so you can figure out what is covered what isn't, I think a lot of times, people don't realize that, even on the non guaranteed side, once you get this number, or your shortfall number. And depending on what you have, you know, it's fairly easily to predict, especially with today's software, where you can take a person's, let's say, let's say they had a million dollars, and we were going to assume a 4% withdrawal rate you can easily see based on different investments scenarios, how much predictability or what percentage of the time if they live to say 95 to 100? Would they absolutely run out of money and, and so then they could sit there and say, okay, so you know, there's a, for example, a 95% chance, if I have x amount of my guaranteed side, and I take my Million Dollar Portfolio invested in such a way that it's going to throw off X that I'm never going to run out of money and I I've already got everything covered, plus what I want to do and then they can feel good about that, you know, and that's, that's where the numbers come in.   Speaker 1  9:55  Well, now many of us have heard the term paycheck and play check. And if not, I think that was actually coined by Tom hegner, I believe, financial professional as well, you know, so typically, we might think of, okay, well, I need that guaranteed money. That's my quote unquote, paycheck, right? That's covering my must haves and must haves, or you know, the house, rent, or mortgage or food, right? You know, the things we have to have. And then the paycheck side, often people say, well, that's gonna be the non guaranteed and that's the fun stuff in retirement. Do you see that as kind of accurate? Or is that still a really is there other strategizing to where maybe we want to try to pay for everything out of those paychecks and then let the paychecks grow or be really special.   Speaker 2  10:40  you know, a one off kind of deals, I suggest that to some people that are in in the position where they're guaranteed side can cover everything. Right, you know, I don't have any clients right now that have taken me up on that, you know, that say, I want my my stash my paycheck side to just sit and grow for legacy for right. Yeah,   Unknown Speaker  11:00  I guess it depends on your what you want. Right? Legacy is a great, yeah.   Speaker 2  11:03  Yeah. But it is it is a point to consider. I mean, most of the people that we work with, even their you know, without increasing their, their lifestyle, the guaranteed side, the paycheck side is not generally fully covered by guaranteed stuff. Right. And so we all right, yeah, it's a shortfall. Yeah. And so we're kind of dipping into and then we got to show them. Well, you know, but you know, that shortfall could easily be covered by the other side of things. Yeah, the   Speaker 1  11:31  million bucks put away. Let's say that was the exam. Yeah. And that's I think that's where most of us go right, Tony, I mean, because unless you're lucky enough to have a pension. And so because, like the like the milking stool philosophy, right, the analogy, excuse me, were the three legs of a milking stool, right you so if you've got a pension and Social Security, usually a fairly modest or even or a good, you know, nest egg built of your own, you may not have to touch that nest egg very often, because the Social Security in the pension covers it. But most of us are not in that boat. So Right. So that shortfall is a little bigger, because we don't have that quote unquote, pension leg. That's true. Yes. And even,   Speaker 2  12:06  I mean, it's hard to to find these days, where they've got that, you know, because most people aren't in, you know, a place for 3540 years, most places don't have pensions, like government, right, or stay at, let's say, government. And so there is that shortfall. Now, in my own personal situation, my wife happens to be in a government spot. She's been there for 35 years. And so she has our IPERs, which, even though it's extremely good, you know, it doesn't replace 100% of her salary, but it replaces about 70%. And so the   Speaker 1  12:38  shortfall, you gotta kind of you may have to look at like your own personal nest egg, correct my own   Speaker 2  12:42  personal essay, and then she's gonna have Social Security on top of that. So I think with, like, in her case, about 80% of her pre retirement income is going to be covered. And so that's pretty pretty darn close, you know, and then with the other investments, you know, we have and whatnot that that's our play, check slash, fill in the gap money. And that's what you go with, you know, when you got to get engineering   Speaker 1  13:08  well, so and this is where I guess the strategizing of maximization for your income streams or sources, comes into play, right? So having a good conversation, having a good strategy, put together with an advisor, like yourself, so we can it cuz we hear like terms like, hey, get us Social Security Maximization, right? For example. What's the strategy for doing that? And that's really where working with a Pro comes into place is we talk all the time, Tony about the DIY movement of the last number of years has been very easy. It's in it's been easy for quite a while, let's be honest, to accumulate money, right? So if you do the basics, you can probably save, you know, for your future self. But the retirement aspect, that preservation distribution, and the little funky nuances of how to maximize this, what's the best strategy for that? How's it gonna affect tax aid, you know, taxation by taking this money out at this time, and so on. And so that's where the nitty gritty gets really tough for folks. And that's where, obviously, you know, folks like you come in   Speaker 2  14:05  it is and even with a Social Security, you know, planning for because everybody's got the question, Well, should I take it early? Or? I'm gonna take it a second I, you know, I for retirement benefits they owe me it's mine. Right? Yeah, it's mine, you know, and so I tried to talk to him about well, but if we do this, based on what you have, it might be better to wait, you know, type of thing. And I know, and big money that we're talking to, can be big money, big money. And in my own case, again, back to my wife's pension, you know, the, one of the decisions we'll have to make is, well, do we want to just take the straight pension and then when she dies, if she dies before me, I'm out, or do we want to make sure it takes a little less and so you know, if she dies before me, I've still got it till I die, you know, and then run that it's over. So it's those kinds of little decisions you got to put a pencil to and try to figure out what's best for your own situation.   Speaker 1  14:57  Yeah, and often you definitely want to make sure you're making the right one there. or because, depending again on the strategy, because some people might say, well, we're gonna take the bigger dollar option, which does eliminate the spousal often, right. And so if you do that you better have that backup plan in place to know that the spouse is still covered, once that pension runs out, so or the exactly person passes away prematurely, or, you know, whatever the case might be. So there's a lot of little nuances to that. So understanding your income is really important. So this is kind of a quick rundown of some of some different categories you might find. And, again, the guaranteed versus the non guaranteed and how they kind of all play together. And that's why it's important to get a plan and a strategy. So if you need some help, and you're not already working with Tony, reach out to him and have a conversation, hopefully this kind of sparked some interest for you to start thinking about, Yeah, where is my income sources coming from? Or how do I make my 401 K and income source, things like that? Reach out to Tony and his team at tax Doctor Inc. find them online at your planning proz.com That's you're planning proz.com or call him at 844-707-7381. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast playing with the tax man on Apple, Google or Spotify. Alright, Tony, thanks for hanging out, buddy. I appreciate it.   Unknown Speaker  16:06  All right. We'll see you next time. Yeah,   Speaker 1  16:07  I'll see you in a couple of weeks and we'll be back in August with a new episode here on plan with the tax man   Disclaimer: Securities offered through Avantax Investment ServicesSM. Member FINRA, S.I.P.C. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency.

On this week's show, we'll answer some mailbag questions that have come in. We'll discuss if you should pay off your house, financially support adult children, and how often you should communicate with your advisor.   Important Links:  Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript:  Speaker 1: Back for another edition of Plan With The Tax Man, with Tony Mauro, from Tax Doctor Inc. We're going to talk, well, actually, email questions this week. We haven't done an email show for a while, so we're going to take some questions from folks that have sent stuff into the office, or the website at yourplanningpros.com. That's yourplanningpros.com. You can get your questions asked and answered, and get yourself some time on Tony's calendar to sit down and talk about your retirement situation, or your tax situation. Tony is a CPA, CFP and EA of over 27 years experience, and a great resource for you to tap into here. Well, he's got clients all over the place, but his office is in Des Moines, so reach out to him online at yourplanningpros.com. What's going on, my friend? How are you? Tony : I'm good. Enjoying the summer. How about you? Speaker 1: Doing the same. Hanging in there, rocking and rolling. Well, actually, about the time we're going to drop this, it's going to be probably right after 4th of July, so I hope that you had a good 4th of July. We're taping it ahead of 4th of July, but we're dropping it after, so hopefully you have a good one. Tony : Yeah, yeah. Hopefully everybody out there is going to get out and get a chance to enjoy the summertime. I like the summers the best. Speaker 1: Any 4th of July plans, both since we're ahead of time? Tony : Not much for us this year. Probably just relaxing around home a little bit. Maybe playing a little golf, and watch fireworks. Yeah. Speaker 1: There you go. Sounds like a plan. Yeah, we got some family coming in. We'll be around the pool, hot dogs and burgers, and all that good stuff. Classic 4th of July for us. Anyway, hope everybody has a good one, and had a good one, I should say by the time you're catching this podcast. But let's go ahead and take some email questions, Tony, from around the area, we'll have a fairly short podcast this week, but we'll see if we can help some folks out. We got an email from Tony, and it was not you. Tony : Yep. Speaker 1: But Tony did say, "Hey, Tony, I'm hesitant to pay off my house, because I don't have many other tax deductions at this point, but I do have a hundred grand on the bank, and only owe 45 grand on the house, so I'm really tempted to pay it off. What's your thoughts?" Tony : I'd tell Tony to pay it off. Speaker 1: Yeah? Tony : I'll tell you why. A lot of people get hung up on, "I don't have any other tax deductions," and they don't realize how, especially with only a $45,000 mortgage, how little their tax deduction really is, if even they can use it on the federal side, because they don't have a lot of other deductions. This particular deduction goes on a schedule A, and there's a threshold you have to get over, which is, for singles $12,000 and some change. If you don't have other deductions to get you over that, you won't even be able to use it. I would say that even if, let's say your mortgage interest, for example, is $2,000, $3,000 a year on that, probably even be [inaudible 00:02:37] by now, your tax savings, if you're in a 20% bracket, maybe $600 versus, I don't know how much you're spending on the mortgage, but let's say your mortgage payment's $800 a month, times 12, that's $9,600 a year. I'd rather have that in my cash flow, and build that a hundred thousand back up. Then keep letting that money grow. Speaker 1: Yeah. Tony : That's my philosophy. I'm not a big debt guy. Especially, I like to not have a lot of debt, and I advise people not to carry a lot of debt. Speaker 1: Now, the tax deduction- Tony : Obviously... Oh, go ahead. Speaker 1: Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off there. The tax deduction part of this question is a moot point right now, correct? Tony : It is. Speaker 1: Yeah. Tony : Yeah, it is a moot point. I think that you're better off long-term, is snowballing your cash flow, and it won't take you long to recoup the money, the $45,000. Then it's just all gravy from there, and you're out of that debt. But obviously, you can't do that if you're a young person going out, and just buying their first home, generally. Speaker 1: Right, right. Tony : But you could try to pay it off early. Speaker 1: Well, this is always an interesting question, when we get something like this, Tony, because first of all, okay, he's probably still sitting on a pretty nice rate, right? Tony : Sure. Speaker 1: He's got a $100,000 in the bank, he owes $45,000, he's probably paying like 3%, is my guess. He's probably had this mortgage for a while. It's probably before the rates started going back up. Many people do find themselves wondering, "Well okay, right now, even at in a CD I could get 5%, is it worth doing a short-term CD, or something, and getting more than I'm losing on the house? But to your point, there's the emotional factor, and he's so close that it's like, "Well, all right, maybe this difference is not that massive," that it's not draining you down too much. I think that's always the math. Then you do all the math, and then you add in the tummy factor to go, "Just how much better would I feel not having the mortgage on my head?" Tony : That's right. Speaker 1: Yeah. Tony : That's right, and multiply that out over the number of years. But at the end of the day, yeah, it's the math, and it's pretty easy math to do, you just got to lay it all out. Speaker 1: Yeah, very true. All right, well great question, Tony. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast, and congratulations on being in such great shape as well. $45,000 on the house is, obviously, awfully fantastic. Whatever you do there, certainly kudos for that. Of course the team's going to reach out to you anyway, since you've submitted the email and has. But for other folks who are in a similar situation, that's why we share these emails, because if it's happening for one person, it's probably happening to another somewhere. That way, if you've got a similar question, you can run the numbers specifically for yourself by reaching out to Tony and his team at Tax Doctor Inc. You can find them online at yourplanningpros.com. All right, let's go to David. David says, "Tony, I'm positive that I have more than enough money saved to last the rest of my life. There's just no way I could spend it all. I'm not bragging, I just find myself to be in a blessed position. Is there any advice you'd give to someone like me, or can I just coast, financially speaking?" Tony : Yeah, I would say to David, not knowing any more than what you've submitted, I would say, and this is a little bit of a fun response, but prove it. What I mean by that is, congrats on the fact that you think you've saved enough, but maybe get some advice from your advisor, or someone else, put in some numbers to it just to see. Because one person might say, "I have enough to for the rest of my life," and that could be a million. Another person, it may take 10 million. You just don't know, because it depends on your spending habits, and what some of the things you want to do are. Then of course your longevity, and everything else. I would just maybe double check it. Get an opinion, and then if that verifies it, then I would say work the plan you've got, and then you could be, quote, on Easy Street the rest of your life. But maybe you might find something that you didn't think of, and you might have to rethink a couple of things there. Speaker 1: When it comes to situations like David's, always good just to find out for sure. He says he knows, and he's not bragging. I guess my first question, when I see stuff like this, Tony, is, well, how do you know for sure? Is it because you've done the math, and you've run it out? He may be right. Is it because you've sat down and talked with a professional, and you have a written plan and a strategy that you know you're fine? Or are you back of the napkin this? Now granted, I don't know David. If you're sitting on $40 million, you probably are good. Tony : Absolutely, yeah. Speaker 1: But if it's the age-old question of, "Hey, I've got 2 million bucks," or, "I've got a million bucks," or whatever, "I'm in great shape." Maybe, right? Tony : Maybe. Speaker 1: There's so many variables. I hope that you are in a great shape, and I would say, to find out if you could coast, just sit down and have a complimentary review done, and find out. Run the numbers, make sure. Stress test it for multiple scenarios, whether if you check out our prior podcast, whether something comes up like a medical issue, or something. There's just lots of things that could come up and derail you. Just have them stress test it, Tony. That's one of the things you guys do. You can run various scenarios in case he is incorrect or correct. Tony : We can, yeah. With today's software, on the financial planning side, you can easily take a portfolio, and run run the numbers, ask him a few easy questions on how long would you like to run this for, and your life expectancy type thing. Give me a rate, a good conservative rate, and the software is going to spit out and say, "Your chances of outliving your money are only 5%, or maybe it's 0%." In other words, you've got enough money, based on what you've told it, you are right, or maybe you aren't as as you thought. Speaker 1: Yeah, very true. Especially when it's complimentary, and it's easy to do, no reason not to get a second opinion on the strategy you have in place. Great question. Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. We certainly appreciate it. All right, let's go to Kate. Kate's got a tough one here. She says, "Tony, my son's 27 years old, hasn't landed a legitimate job since he finished college four years ago. We've been supporting him, car insurance, cell phone, that kind of thing. I'm not going to be able to continue to do this much longer; in a couple of years I plan to retire. How do I cut him off without making this a big problem?" That's a tough one, right, Tony? Because there's a fine line between helping and enabling. Tony : There is. That that's a tough one, and it comes a lot down to how you think. My personal opinion would be, well, a couple of things, I guess, is if he's 27, he's been out for four years. I don't know what legitimate job means. Is he working at all? But let's say that he is, or if he isn't, well then that that's a different problem, then you probably are enabling him, and not forcing him to find something. But if he just is working, and maybe not making the money he thought he was going to, or whatnot, then I think by helping him, maybe you're not enabling him, but at some point you have to have a tough conversation. Just explain it to him that we need to start weaning you off, or cutting this back. Maybe you do it in steps to help him out, rather than just pulling the rug out from under him. There are things that people can do. I tell my own son this is, there's easy ways to go make more money. One is just go work more, trade your time for money. If you have to do it to pay your bills, you'll find a way, generally. That's a little bit more of the tough love, I guess you could say. Speaker 1: I agree, Tony, and I think a lot of times, what happens to people in this situation is some people will come in to see you, and sit down for a planning process. They'll say, "Hey, we want to enjoy our retirement. Whatever's left over, the kids get." I think, to me, that's the healthiest approach. Others will say, "We want to leave them a bunch," and others will say, "We're doing something like Kate's doing, and we're doing a ton of helping." But at some point, you start to sacrifice your own retirement, and the success of your retirement plan. Maybe Kate's plan has gone from all this helping, has gone from 100% surety for her own retirement, her and maybe her spouse, down to 80%. Is 80% good enough for you? If you keep helping him, if it goes down to 70% chance that you're going to be okay in retirement, is that acceptable? At some point, we have to not help our kids to the detriment of our own life. Because what's going to happen is, Kate, you're going to end up on his couch at some point. It's going to flip. [inaudible 00:11:18] Right? Tony : Yeah, it's going to flip. Speaker 1: Then neither one of you're going to be happy. It's tough. Tony : It is. I've seen it. That happens, and I don't understand it. I see it with clients, and even some family members, that are still helping their kids, and they're 30 years old and married, and they both have jobs. It isn't like they're destitute. I could see if your child, and I would help my kid as well. Speaker 1: Yeah, we all- Tony : He falls on hard times, everybody's going to help him, but with some constraints, and some, maybe, rules, and whatnot. I don't think you want to let them get to a point where they know that, or maybe they don't know, but they just feel like, "Well, Mom and Dad's always going to be there, no matter what." Which we are, but most of us probably want to stay in the background, only help if you really fall on tough times. I think some of these young people, I don't know, I just feel like they're just freewheeling. I think they need to do a little bit more to help themselves. If, truly, he's in a profession, he's not making the money he wants. He's young enough, he certainly can go out and find something new, and maybe even retrain, go take some classes. Speaker 1: Yeah, and to your point, you started to touch on something there, and we'll move on to the next one. But also, does he know how badly he's affecting your retirement, Kate? If you're not being honest with him either, and you're just helping him, and not saying, "Hey, listen, we need to have a chat, because this is what it's doing to us." He may be, like, "Oh crap, I didn't mean to do that. Let's make some changes." Tony : Absolutely. Speaker 1: It's got to be communication in there, as well. Lots of things to think about. Great question. Tough spot to be in, Kate, but I think you're probably doing yourself, and him, a service by starting to cut this off, in some form or fashion. But anyway, always talk with the professional, make sure, also, again, another reason to run the review, Tony, to make sure that Kate's own retirement is not in bad peril from the help itself. Tony : Exactly. Yeah. Speaker 1: All right, final one this week. Laura says, "Tony, I like my financial advisor. I enjoy the podcast, so I've been listening. It's nice to listen to you guys. I'm reaching out because, well, they're hard to get in touch with. I rarely get phone calls returned, and I just wonder if my account is not large enough for him to pay attention to me. I've got about $350,000 with him, and I believe most of his clients are doing considerably better than I am. Is this a common problem within the industry?" Tony : In some cases it might be, but to dissect it a little bit for Laura, it depends on how much, since I don't know how much you're trying to get ahold of him, because some clients tend to think, in his corner on this, defending him a little bit. But just basically, if a client thinks that they need a call every week, every two weeks, just to discuss market conditions, that might be, and hopefully you're not that way, but generally, then they get mad when the advisor won't call them back. Speaker 1: Sure, that's a little unreasonable, because you've got tons of clients, but- Tony : It's unreasonable, yeah. But at the same time, he or she should, when you decide to work with them, be very upfront about the communication, how much of it is going to happen, and how often, because often that way everybody's on the same page. Speaker 1: How often you [inaudible 00:14:45] meetings and stuff like that, right? Tony : Yeah. You're just setting expectations. Speaker 1: Yup. Tony : If they haven't done that with you, or even if they have, and you're just talking about what I would consider probably once a quarter type of call, when you're getting together and reviewing things, even if it's every other quarter, so twice a year, then I think that they should at least be cordial, and prompt enough to, if not return the call, get your questions answered somehow, whether it be a quick Zoom call or email. Speaker 1: I would think, Tony, in a situation where, maybe the client's being a little unreasonable, and again, we don't know that Laura is, we're just talking speculation, but if a client is being unreasonable, someone on the staff is probably going to be reaching out anyway saying, "Look, we've addressed this conversation, or whatever. We just don't have the manpower, or whatever, to every single time. That's what the plan is for. We got to stick with the plan." If you want to schedule a review, that's a different conversation, I guess. But yeah, I think a lot of people find themselves in this situation with advisors, or they've been with a firm for a while, and unfortunately I think there is some truth to the size of the account. Sometimes it's not a big enough account for them to jump up when, maybe, a random call does come in, versus a scheduled one. Think about the size of the firm, Tony, you guys are what I would call a boutique firm, versus- Tony : I would say we're boutique firm. Speaker 1: Yeah, versus a giant big box with 35 advisors in a building, four story building, or something like that. Because that's what you choose. You want a small boutique firm. Some clients are looking for that, because there they do feel like they're a name, not a number. Maybe Laura's working at a firm where she feels more like a number. I don't know. Tony : She could be. If the financial advisor's doing, what I feel like they should be doing, is that when a client calls in, they may not be able to jump right on the call, but- Speaker 1: Of course not. Right. Yeah. Tony : But they should have a staff in place to say, "Okay, well, let's schedule a call for this date, and then let me know what we're going to be talking about." Then we jump on a call, and we do it. But I think some advisors, it is true out there, where they institute minimums, because it is a business at the end of the day. Some advisors have this stigma of, "I can't really make any legitimate living unless my clients have X with me." Speaker 1: Right. Tony : That, I think, is to the detriment of everybody. But I understand, because there are people out there that, and there's nothing wrong with it, because you got to start somewhere that, I want to open up a $2,000 IRA this year, and I want weekly meetings, and we want to discuss. Most advisors are going to say, "Well, that's just not profitable for me. Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not the right business model for- Tony : ... at the end of the day. Speaker 1: Yeah. Tony : Yeah. Speaker 1: That's the other piece of it too. That's the expectation conversation you brought up. Tony : Yes. Speaker 1: Not only when you go to sit down with someone is the expectations about the meetings, and how often you're getting together and discussing things, and the strategy and the plan, but also, is it a worthwhile business venture for both? I think a lot of times people are auditioning an advisor, they don't realize the advisor is auditioning them right back. It's got to be a good relationship both ways. Tony : It really does. When we interview clients, we basically, we'll sit them down in a room, by themselves, with a sheet of paper. It's got about 10 or 12 questions on it, and they'll just rate themselves, and we say, "We'll be back in 20 minutes." Then we come in, and start discussing, and I'm auditioning them as well. I'm looking for landmines. Speaker 1: Yeah. Tony : I'm looking for, "Do they really have some pain that they need help with, or want help versus I just want somebody to talk to, type of thing?" Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Because at the end of the day, you can't help, literally, every person. Tony : You can't. Speaker 1: You'd love to, but at the same time, your business model is that boutique firm. There's only so many hours in a day that you can see people. Tony : That you can do it, yeah. Speaker 1: But I would say with Laura, $350,000 is not $3,500. Tony : No, not at all. Speaker 1: I would say it's a substantial amount of money, I think, to anybody. They should at least be getting back in touch with you somehow, and scheduling calls. Tony : Yeah. Speaker 1: Because I don't think that would be right. Okay. All right. Well, great questions and of course, obviously, Tony and his team are going to reach out to everyone, and have reached out to folks that sent these emails in. But if you've got similar questions, or you feel like you're in a similar boat, reach out to Tony and his staff, and have a conversation for yourself. Get set up with a time to come in for a complimentary review with the team at Tax Doctor Inc. You can find them online at yourplanningpros.com. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Google, or Spotify, which you can find at the website as well. Again, it's yourplanningpros.com, and you can drop an email if you'd like as well. We take some from time to time, and ask him here on the show. But either way, reach out to a qualified professional, like Tony, he's been helping families for many, many, many years. He's a CPA, CFP, and an EA, and he's here to help. Tony, thanks for hanging out, buddy, and answering these questions. I always appreciate your time. Tony : All right, we'll see you next time. Speaker 1: Yep, absolutely. We'll see you a little later on, in July. In the meantime, enjoy the summer, and we'll catch you later on Plan With The Tax Man.   Disclaimer: Securities offered through Avantax Investment ServicesSM. Member FINRA, S.I.P.C. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency.

Are you ready to take control of your finances during life's most pivotal moments? In this episode, we dive into the complex world of financial decision-making during key life events. From the excitement of marriage and the joy of welcoming a new child to the challenges of divorce and the loss of a loved one, we'll provide practical tips and guidance to help you make informed decisions and maintain financial stability. Important Links Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381   ----more---- Transcript Of Today's Show: Speaker 1: Welcome into this week's edition of the podcast folks. Thanks for tuning in to Plan With The Tax Man. Always glad to have you here as Tony and I talk investing, finance and retirement, and we're going to talk about some key financial decisions during major life events. So I've got several of these. We'll try to get to as many as we can, but it's always important to kind of try to keep a level head through major life events, and we know that's usually not possible in many cases. So that's where I think having an advisor in your corner, having a quality professional there can help you when dealing with some of these things. So we'll have Tony highlight some areas to think about from that financial standpoint during these. Tony, what's going on buddy? How are you?   Tony Mauro: I'm doing well, thank you. Summers in full swing and trying to enjoy it. Weather's good.   Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. Exactly. I know that you've been doing this obviously a long time and you've seen lots of different scenarios and situations, so it'll work pretty well I think for you to kind of give us some things to think about, whether they're positives or negatives, right, some of these life events here, some are positives, some are negative, and just some financial highlights to make sure that we're thinking about should one of these things happen to us, because many of these on this list are going to happen to probably all of us along the way somewhere. And some of them hopefully will not, but it's possible. So let's go through and have you give us some highlights, shall we?   Tony Mauro: Okay. Sounds good.   Speaker 1: All right, let's jump in here. We'll start with me. I know you primarily are listening audiences, retirees, pre-retirees but you do have some younger clients as well, and so maybe it's a first marriage. Right. So let's start with marriage and just say there's definitely things you want to consider and think about when you're younger, even if you got married later in life. I was 33 before I got married, the first, well, I've only been married the one time, but started to say the first time, it's only been the one time, but I was 33. Right. So I was already fairly established. So there's things to think about whenever you're jumping into that.   Tony Mauro: There is. And marriage for a lot of us is, it is eyeopening, like you said, in a lot of ways and some of this financial stuff, nobody really talks to you about. And so I'm glad we starting with this one because my own son got married last year at 26,   Speaker 1: Okay.   Tony Mauro: And so he's had to go through some of the stuff and we had kind of some of the same conversations because there isn't just some book out there, you could just go read and have it all down, and none of this really is necessarily black and white, right or wrong. It's just different ways to do things. But one of the biggest ones, and one of the first ones is, is now you've got generally, especially if you're younger, you've got two people working. So you've got two sources of income. So it's all about the finances and what are you going to do. Now you've got one set of bills, who's going to pay them?   Are we combining our money and paying everything out and then we spend the rest, or that's what I get a lot. Others come to me and say, well, he's going to pay these bills, I'm going to pay these bills, and then the rest we'll decide what we want to do. So I think that's a big thing because that's hard for a lot of people whether you're going to, especially if you've, maybe you are a little older and you used to living on your own and just paying all your own bills.   Speaker 1: Yeah. Yep.   Tony Mauro: And do we have a joint account? Do we have two separate accounts? I think that's key. If you say, well, what's your opinion? If you asking me my opinion,   Speaker 1: Right.   Tony Mauro: I tend to lean towards the joint account because I think now you're one team, you're one. Right. And everybody needs to be involved. It's not like the old days where all the guys paid all the bills and the women stayed home and cooked type of thing. I mean,   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony Mauro: Both people are usually working.   Speaker 1: Yeah. They definitely are. I think the modern era too, though, it's definitely, so my wife an I, Tony, we are completely separate on everything. Now, both of our names are on the house, but I pay the mortgage, but she pays all the utilities and she pays the insurance. So I think you can do the, and again, I was 33. Right. And she was already 30. Right. So we had been paying our own bills and having our own life. So I think it's either scenario, if you're a younger couple, maybe the joint thing is probably the way to go because you're definitely combining, probably not making as much and so on and so forth. But I think as long as you're honest and talk with each other, you can find a balance with either system, but make sure you do find the one that's right for you. Right. So because we all know marriage is the number one, or I mean, money is the number one fight in a marriage, right?   Tony Mauro: It is.   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony Mauro: It is. And I'm not saying one's right or wrong.   Speaker 1: No, no, not at all. Just point counterpoint. Yeah.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. Yeah. And I think with either way you go after the bills are paid, however you're going to pay them, I still think it needs to be a team effort of sitting down saying, okay, hopefully you've got some left at the end of every month,   Speaker 1: Right.   Tony Mauro: You've got some positive cash flow.   Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.   Tony Mauro: And then you both decide what to do with it rather than, and I've had a few couples fighting in my office through at tax time that don't do it that way.   Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.   Tony Mauro: That the guy makes a lot more than his wife and she wants stuff and he's saying, well, I already pay my share of the bills. That's your problem.   Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a tougher, yeah, that's a tougher road. Yeah.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. That's not the team approach. So,   Speaker 1: No.   Tony Mauro: Again, it takes some discussions, some maybe compromise and come up with something for you both because at the end of the day when we get back, because we've been talking a lot about retirement planning lately and decided to mix it up today.   Speaker 1: Sure. Yeah.   Tony Mauro: Hopefully you've got some money left. And so both can save for your goals I think.   Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think even for our strategy, we had those conversations going into it ahead of time, and we both for a while she made more than me. And then in the last 15 years we've pretty much just been right there neck and neck. One will go up a little bit, the next one will go up a little bit. So I think that can certainly lend a hand to that lack of frustration as well. But as long as you have those conversations that are honest with each other ahead of time, then hopefully you can work your way through that. And actually we'll go right into the second one because it's remarriage. Okay. So a lot of our audience is older, maybe retirees or pre-retirees and gray divorces have been a huge thing. So maybe you're getting remarried at a later stage in life. Certainly more challenges here because you do have more things to try to combine.   Tony Mauro: You do. There's a lot of big challenges here, unlike the first marriage with the younger people, so to speak. But just like you're saying, many of these people that are getting remarried have families, they have other concerns, especially the kids. And they've been through this before and now all of a sudden their needs are a little more, what I find with people coming in for remarriage is a little more self-focused, self-centered, if you will. It's like, well, my money's my money. We're getting remarried, but you have kids, maybe I have kids and I need to take care of these guys first and kind of then us. And so I think a lot of discussion needs to be made there about whose valuing what and how. And,   Speaker 1: Yep, great point.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. What kind of things you're bringing into the marriage too. A lot of people bring old tax debts into marriages, and so I think that needs to be discussed because obviously an innocent spouse may not want to be drug into a prior tax situation and have some of their money maybe taken for that.   Speaker 1: Especially if you didn't disclose it. Right.   Tony Mauro: If you didn't disclose it.   Speaker 1: That's not good.   Tony Mauro: That's not good. No. That's never a good recipe.   Speaker 1: That's right.   Tony Mauro: But there's things too, now you've got, again, second marriage, you definitely have to take a look at your own retirement plan. You might have two separate ones, beneficiaries, making sure those are updated, making sure insurance policies are updated properly. And then of course, the last thing is at the end with estate planning, which I've seen a lot of families get into huge fights about estates and whatnot. And potentially, for example, a gentleman that came in a couple years ago, he had remarried. His former wife died, remarried, but he was going to leave all his money to his new wife and the kids were just absolutely out of their minds with that. And,   Speaker 1: Yeah, that's tough.   Tony Mauro: Really caused a lot of animosity.   Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. It'll fractures some things, that's for sure.   Tony Mauro: Yes.   Speaker 1: So.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: There's some definitely good things to consider. Maybe a prenup is something that's worth having a conversation on either situation of those. And again, it's all about having those chats before you go through these major life events. So since we're in this realm, let's just go ahead and go with divorce next. As I mentioned, gray divorces, especially for our demographic is higher and higher on the rise, which is just kind of mind-boggling to me. But people over 50 are getting divorces more. And so what's some things to think of here? You touched on a couple, but give us some things to think about from a financial standpoint.   Tony Mauro: I think the one thing is, is in most states you're going to be dividing up your assets. And so that's a source of real contention in a lot of cases on how that's going to be done. And again, with divorce, I'd say with all of these, you should talk to some advisor. Divorce, obviously,   Speaker 1: You need a lawyer as well.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. You need an attorney,   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony Mauro: To protect your interests and then maybe your financial advisor. But in our realm on the financial side,   Speaker 1: I was going to say Tony, that's a good point though with the financial side too. Right. People might think about a divorce and they think, well, I just need a lawyer, right? Well, no, especially if you're older because now you're talking about dividing possibly retirement accounts, a 401ks, the home. I mean, maybe there's rental property. I mean, there's lots of stuff to have to divide.   Tony Mauro: There is. And on the finance area with us, a lot of people will say, well, since I'm getting the home, I had to give my now ex-spouse half of my retirement. Well, that comes back into our room a little bit. It's like, okay.   Speaker 1: Sure.   Tony Mauro: Well now you just half your retirement left. Yeah, you have a home, but you're going to have to live in that. That's not going to throw off any income. What are we going to do? How's our plan changed now going forward? And so you have to re kind of engineer the financial plan and maybe your goals need to be readjusted as well.   Speaker 1: Indeed. Yeah, I mean, because you're going to have to reset this up, you're going to have to look at, okay, what's the shortfall now that you've lost maybe half or whatever the case is, especially if you're getting closer to retirement so. And you'll want to make sure, just kind of like with the other one, you want to make sure that you've updated any kind of documents and paperwork that you need to do as well. Not leaving off, removing the old spouse or updating all the documents, powers of attorney, all that stuff. Right.   Tony Mauro: All that stuff. Yeah.   Speaker 1: Okay.   Tony Mauro: And again, a good attorney and your advisor's going to be able to help you a lot there.   Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. All right, so let's go to a job change. How about this for a major life event, right, especially if we're getting closer to retirement and whether we are asked to step away, whether the job change is not our doing or it is our doing, give us some big things to think about here. And obviously a lot of this is going to come back to possibly being laid off or downsizing. This is the kind of thing that you guys typically see as financial professionals is in that scenario where someone's on that cusp of retirement and they're maybe looking at being laid off. And now they got to figure out, well, okay, should I just go into retirement early or do I need to find another job?   Tony Mauro: Right. And today, so many people don't stay like the old days, 30, 40 years at the same position. Everybody's moving around and the bigger companies consolidate so much that it's not uncommon. You're here one day and the next day ask you to leave just through cutting or whatever they're doing. But I think that on the financial side, a couple of things. One is if you're departing and getting a severance or some other large sum of money, how is that going to play out for taxes, number one.   And then how is your financial plan going to be affected by that? In other words, if you're out of work for a long time, do you have the necessarily emergency fund or you're going to have to use the severance for that? A lot of times people, and I've just had this with a friend of mine who he was actually asked to leave after many years and they gave him a huge severance, like $800,000, but he is mid 50s and he's scratching his head saying, well, I don't really want to retire, but I don't think I can go make the money I was making in my 50s.   Speaker 1: Right. Yeah.   Tony Mauro: And so he's kind of, well, what am I going to do with myself and what am I going to do for new opportunities type of thing. And so he's struggling a little bit with that and what he wants to do there. And then really too, the next one really is now you've got retirement accounts potentially at the old employer. What are you going to do with those? You're going to leave them. Maybe they'll force you to take them elsewhere. Talk to your advisor about that because you definitely want to explore that. And then I think that the toughest one, and I get this all the time as well, like you were saying earlier, I'll think I'll just call it quits now.   Speaker 1: Right.   Tony Mauro: I just had one of my business owners in last week and he's young, he's 51 and he thinks he can retire. And I said, well, let's look at the numbers because I said, I frankly, I don't think you can. I said, I do your finances. Unless you're thinking of maybe really cutting back, I think you're going to run out of money probably by the age of 75. And I don't think I've convinced him yet.   Speaker 1: Well, but that's a great point though, Tony. And that's what an advisor brings to the table. Right. So this is the guy's wish, this is his wants, he's on this cusp here, and it's your job to be that sounding board to go, okay, let's run these numbers and see. And I'm not going to sugar sugarcoat it. I don't think you're going to make it. So let's look at, we got to make some tweaks.   Tony Mauro: I got to make some tweaks. And I told him, you're going to have make some tweaks to your spending. And he is conservative, so I said, you probably can do it, but you've got to understand what you're going to have to cut and know that you may run out of money, which it doesn't seem to bother him. I like, well, I'll just go do some work. Okay, I'll run out of, if I do I do.   Speaker 1: That's a tough one though. Right. Because it's like, okay, I'm going to cut some things to make these numbers work to get into retirement early, and are you really going to be, like that feels like a shortsighted goal, right?   Tony Mauro: It does, yes.   Speaker 1: The first five years you might be totally like yes, I made the right decision, this is great, but as your quality of life stays diminished or you're not able to do some of the things you want to do, then now you've regretted this decision and you aren't, look like it or not, ageism happens out there in the workforce. Right. It's not supposed to, but it does. And it's going to be harder to get back in and maybe do the same exact thing or whatever. And I think you said he's self-employed. So maybe there's a difference there, but still.   Tony Mauro: Well, I think in his case, because he's self-employed the conversation I had with him is, if you have to go back to work, what are you going to be skilled enough to do at that point?   Speaker 1: Yeah. Unless it's the exact same thing he's doing now, right.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. Which I don't think he could do. And I just said, you got to think about these things.   Speaker 1: That's true.   Tony Mauro: And understand what you're getting yourself into.   Speaker 1: Well, and then medical. I'm 51 as well. I'm with him. I'd like, okay, cool. Let's do it.   Tony Mauro: You would like to retire, right?   Speaker 1: Yeah. But I mean, I've gotten some medical issues and that's 14 years before I can, is that right? 14 years before I can turn on social or,   Tony Mauro: Yeah, or Medicare.   Speaker 1: Medicare. Yeah. Right. So that's a big chunk of change too. Now maybe he's got a spouse that's going to have him covered, which this is my scenario as well. I'm covered by my wife's because I'm self-employed also, but still, that's something to consider. Right. How are you shoring up that gap medically?   Tony Mauro: Yep. Yep.   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony Mauro: I'm trying to talk to him a little bit about just maybe doing something, even if it's just for some mad money and doing something part-time and he's entertaining that.   Speaker 1: Pad the stats, so to speak. Yeah.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. Yeah.   Speaker 1: Well actually, speaking of medical, let's go to our next one then with that, Tony. And that's maybe a major life event, unfortunately, like a big medical issue or a disability. Right. So I had open heart surgery at 41. I mean, that could have gone a different way and I may have not been able to work ever again. Now luckily I've been able to. Right. But you just never know. Something could come back around or you never know what could happen, right? And so what are some things to think about if you get hit with a big medical issue or even a disability?   Tony Mauro: Well, on the financial side, it's one of the hugest issues, is really making sure that you've got to have your situation and enough control I guess I should say that if something major medical happens, number one, how's it going to impact your financial situation and what's your insurance going to pay, what's it not. If it's going to be something long term, how's it going to impact your daily life? Even your life expectancy could be cut well short if, depending on what it is. And you've got to have some plans in case that happens, and even some contingency plans in there in case you start going down a little bit more.   Speaker 1: Right.   Tony Mauro: And then on top of that, you've got the mental side and the fact you've got to update policies and documents. And I think sometimes when people get hit with this, they seem real rushed. And I think there should be some urgency,   Speaker 1: Sure. Yeah.   Tony Mauro: To get some of this done. But make sure that you're methodically going through it. Make sure you get some advice from your advisor and then your significant other or others to come up with the best plan to make your life as good as possible for while you're here.   Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely.   Tony Mauro: Which is hell, what we all want to do, right? I mean, medical issues or no medical issues.   Speaker 1: Right. And we got to definitely plan for this because like you said, there's lots of things. There's deterioration of the condition, there's updating the documents, there's even taking the time to see what kind of benefits or programs or assistance is out there to possibly help you. So lots of points to think about there, should you be going through a major life event is that. And let's do our last one, Tony. We'll wrap it up with just plain old retirement. It's like people sometimes I think forget and depending on how they're viewing it, we're so busy accumulating money to get to retirement. We forget that retirement in and of itself is a major life event. It's a total change.   Tony Mauro: It is. And my sister-in-law's going through it right now, we're helping her. And her last day of teaching was last Friday. And so all of a sudden she's entering this new phase, and when I saw her a couple weeks ago, she happened to say, I'm not going to have any money in June. And I said, you have a lot of money, you just don't have any money coming in from work. So you got to change your mindset a little bit. So she's coming in. We're developing an income plan for her so that she's got to develop this mindset of here's how much income I've got, just like a W2, but it's just coming from different places.   Speaker 1: Right.   Tony Mauro: And we've got to change her strategies a little bit. So it's much more income oriented. And then work with her budget. She's conservative as well. So she knows exactly how much she's spending on everything, but you've got to understand what your monthly bills are so you can make sure you have enough for them. And then she's got some health issues too. She's got lupus fairly badly and her life expectancy probably isn't all that long. And she knows that and she understands that. She wants to make sure everything is taken care of. And we just kind of talked about that in case her health goes bad, but it is a big mental change along with the financial change.   Speaker 1: Yeah. For sure. Yeah, I mean, there's.   Tony Mauro: So I think you got to think about it.   Speaker 1: Yeah, you definitely have to check all those things because it's a big gear shift. Right. So there's tons of stuff that you've got to go through when there's a major life event involved, and that's why having a qualified professional in your corner can certainly help you. So if you have not considered doing so, reach out to Tony and have a conversation about some things and get some stuff, some planning processes going with Your Planning Pros. You can find them online at yourplanningpros.com. It's yourplanningpros.com. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast, Plan With The Tax Man. It's on Apple, Google, Spotify, all that good stuff. So you can simply type that into the search box of those apps, or again, find it at Tony's website, yourplanningpros.com. All right, my friend, thanks for breaking this down for me this week. I appreciate it. As always, have yourself a great week, and I'll see you soon.   Tony Mauro: All right, see you soon. Thanks.   Speaker 1: Thanks folks for listening. We appreciate your time here on the podcast. We'll catch you next time here on Plan With The Tax Man with Tony Mauro.   Disclaimer: Securities offered through Avantax Investment ServicesSM. Member FINRA, S.I.P.C. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency.    

In today's episode, we're going to focus on the three categories that many clients fall into when starting their retirement planning journey: The unsure, the confident, and the certain. Whether you have no idea whether you can retire or if you're positive that you have sufficient funds to retire, we'll cover some critical areas of retirement planning that you need to pay attention to. Important Links Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript Of Today's Show: Speaker 1: Time for another edition of Plan With The Tax Man, with Tony Mauro and myself, to talk about being unsure, confident, or certain in retirement. And really it's retirement planning next steps if you find yourself in one of these three big categories. These are pretty wide, and obviously, you can apply many of the things to all three, but we'll go through and look at some bullet points for items if you find yourself, again, in the unsure category or the confident category. So we're going to break that down a little bit here with Tony this week on the podcast. Tony, what's going on, my friend? How are you?   Tony Mauro: Doing well, how about you?   Speaker 1: Doing pretty good. We are right here at the end of May, very beginning of June, so looking forward to the summer months being upon us and enjoying some sunshine and all that good stuff.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, summer of course, I think, like everybody, it's my favorite time. You get outside and doesn't rain, stops raining, I guess, around here. It gets hot and humid, but most people around here like it.   Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. For sure. So it's that good time of the year. So let's keep this one short and sweet this week on the podcast. I got these three blanket categories, Tony, and just give me some bullet points, give some folks some bullet points to think about. If you find yourself, let's say, in this first category, which is, I have no idea if I can retire category, which probably if you say a hundred people are going to come in and see you, I would say, this is my guess. I'd say probably 35% probably fall into this category. Probably 60% will fall into our middle category, and then probably 5% into our last one. And we'll talk about that in a minute. But we'll see.   Tony Mauro: Interesting.   Speaker 1: How you feel about it. But anyway, the I have no idea?   Tony Mauro: Yeah, so in my practice, at least tax clients, I would say the percentages over a long time that I've seen is probably higher in this first category.   Speaker 1: Really? Okay.   Tony Mauro: I have no idea. I would say for our clients here, I'd say it's probably 50.   Speaker 1: Wow. Okay.   Tony Mauro: Percent. Yeah.   Speaker 1: People come in for the first time, they're just like, hey, I got no clue. Can I?   Tony Mauro: No, they used to come in for taxes. And of course, you could see what they've got and you could eyeball what they have for retirement and things and what's coming in for investment income, if anything.   Speaker 1: Right.   Tony Mauro: But you can very easily look at their W2s and see that they're not putting anything through their 401k. And so we would ask them, is when are you going to retire and start conversations? And they would say, "I have no idea."   Speaker 1: Okay.   Tony Mauro: And so when you fall into this category, obviously, you don't want to be in this category. You've got to get something else, and it's going to take a little work.   Speaker 1: Sure.   Tony Mauro: It's going to take some planning either with an advisor or on your own. But really, you have to start with just a few questions of, one would be, well, when do you want to retire? What do you want to do when you retire? In other words, what's it going to look like to you?   Speaker 1: Right. The lifestyle, right?   Tony Mauro: Yeah, it's just the lifestyle.   Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you want to sit on the porch or do you want to go whale watching? I know you and your wife are going to do some whale watching later this year.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: What kind of lifestyle are you looking at?   Tony Mauro: That kind of stuff, yeah. And then once they start talking about that and you get an idea, even if you're just talking to them about it is, well, with all that you want to do, and if all you have is social security, and of course, you start asking, well, what else do you have? And many times it's, well, I just have social security. And that's a real eye-opener for them when you just say something like, well, do you know how much your social security benefit is going to be because it's not going to be very much.   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony Mauro: And then the light starts to go on a little bit that, hey, maybe I need to start thinking about this because you don't want to be here at 65 or ... You know?   Speaker 1: What are my income streams and is it only social security ... that definitely there's problems. Right? So ...   Tony Mauro: There's problems. Yeah. So hopefully, you can get to this before you get too far or too close to retirement, so you've got time to fix it.   Speaker 1: Okay. All right. How about category number two here? And really, I'm surprised, but I guess every situation or every advisor is a little different depending on where they're at in the country. But I would think that most people fall into this category, which is, I think I have enough, but I'm really not sure because ... I think if most of us, if we go to work and we do the basics of ... If you just do the, it's not that hard to save for retirement, Tony, if you start working when you're in your 20s and you're working at a job and you are putting in the minimum into the 401k, even the two or 3% or whatever it might be, and you get that free money from the company match, and you do that for 40 years, you're probably in better shape than you realize. But again, people hear, well, I need a million dollars, or I need $2 million. And so they think: Do I have enough money to retire?   Tony Mauro: Yeah. And I would say for us, this is probably a close second. I'd say 40% of our clients.   Speaker 1: Okay, okay.   Tony Mauro: Probably are in this. But they think they do. And then we always ask them, "Well, what makes you think that?" Give me some reasons why. And if they can't tell us with any certainty, some of the things you just mentioned, then we start asking them some questions, basically is like, well, okay, what do you have? What are going to be your income sources? Where's this going to come from, type of thing? What rate of return are you going to be able to earn when you're in retirement?   Speaker 1: To make it go, right? To make the whole retirement ...   Tony Mauro: To make it go. And if they can't quite give us any types of answers, then we start to say, "Well, you really don't know if you have enough." You probably are closer than most, but you might need some help with really trying to put a plan together and making sure that you know you have enough with the time you have left.   Speaker 1: Yeah. I think more often than not, people are pleasantly surprised when they come in to see a financial advisor to find out ... Whether you don't have an idea if you can retire or you think you're close or whatever, I think most of the time people are pleasantly surprised to find out that they're in better shape than they realized. We tend to be more negative about it than we give ourselves credit for, I suppose, right? It's like going to the dentist. You don't go to the, you're like, oh, I know he is going to tell me bad news. I just know it. And then you get there and you're like, oh, it wasn't as bad as I thought, kind of thing.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, I think, with a lot of clients for us, they do. They're very negative. And once we run through numbers, we tell them, "Well, it's not that bad." You're going to be able to, for example, live on, you're going to have about 60, 70% of the income you have now. And while that's not a hundred percent, depending on what you want to do and other parts of the plan, you're going to have money to ... worst case scenario, to live the rest of your life and you're not going to have to worry about ...   Speaker 1: Well, and I think the great news about that, so if you say, okay, 60, 70%, you can go, okay, well cool. What tweaks do we need to make while we're still working? Or I'll work a few more years. I'm okay with doing a few more years if we can make some tweaks and get this up to 90, right, or whatever.   Tony Mauro: That's what makes it fun is when they know that and they say, well, gosh, that sounds all right, but I want to be at at a hundred percent.   Speaker 1: Yeah, let's make some changes.   Tony Mauro: We need a little more. What do we need to do?   Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.   Tony Mauro: That's what a plan will help you with.   Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's a great point that you made. What kind of rates of return do you need to make it work? Do you have that emergency fund? Is it proper for the time of life that you're in? Lots of little things that you can start to tweak upon if you're in this category. And then we'll finally, we'll just go to that last broad one, and this is the person that's like, I know I have enough money to retire. Clearly, it's pretty obvious. They're confident. They know that they've got enough, but they're still looking for some extra help. They're still looking for, okay, how can I be even more efficient? Maybe they are already in that 90% category of my lifestyle's funded. I'm lucky enough to have two pensions, the wife and I, plus social security, plus we've saved a decent amount, that kind of thing, Tony, but they're looking for some extra icing on the cake, if you will.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. A lot of things will have them contemplate if they are in this area once we really verify that we think they do. We agree with that.   Speaker 1: Right, you know for certain, right.   Tony Mauro: We know for sure. But then we start if they want help, a lot of it has to do with tax planning as rates.   Speaker 1: That's big one.   Tony Mauro: Might fluctuate.   Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.   Tony Mauro: That's a biggie. Is the returns you're earning now or want to earn in retirement going to keep up or be a little ahead of inflation? And I think the biggest one that most clients would love to do if they're able is can they ... especially if they want to leave money for family, do they have enough to hit their goals and only live on the income sources and maybe not the principle?   Speaker 1: And then that way that's going to the legacy?   Tony Mauro: And that's going to the legacy because then that's the best of both worlds. But I'll get clients say, that's not important to me-   Speaker 1: Sure.   Tony Mauro: And I do want to spend some of my principle and that's fine too.   Speaker 1: I want to buy all the Tonka toys.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, yeah.   Speaker 1: I want the RV and the boat and whatever. Right?   Tony Mauro: Yeah. And really at that point, with any of them, we try to use, again, some modeling software based on what they have now, some reasonable rates of return, and then longevity so that we can give them those percentages of, if you lived to 95, you've got a 90%, a hundred percent, whatever that percentage is, chance of not running out of money. And if you can get that into the 90s, people feel very confident and secure that, okay, I'm all right now. And it's been explained to me, and as long as I keep on the plan and keep doing what I'm doing and make tweaks along the way, I'm going to be set.   Speaker 1: That's a good point. And no matter where you're at from a financial number, whether you are like, I've got 500,000 saved and I don't think that's enough, or I've got a million saved and I wonder if that's enough, or I've got $10 million and I know it's enough. Well, your lifestyle will also ... could put you into any of these categories. So that's why you need a strategy because you might have $10 million and somebody would say, 'Well, there's no way you couldn't enjoy retirement." But if your lifestyle is really extravagant, well, maybe $10 million is a problem.   Tony Mauro: It is. I actually have a client like that.   Speaker 1: Well, there you go.   Tony Mauro: The lifestyle is so extravagant. He's going to end up having about $20 million, but we really have to tone him down because if left to his own devices, he would go through it and then some.   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony Mauro: Which is ... And so yeah, it does depend on lifestyle. Yeah.   Speaker 1: Absolutely.   Tony Mauro: Because most of us, oh boy, you have $10 million, you could get ...   Speaker 1: Oh, if I, yeah, I'd be set, I'd be right as rain.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: But my lifestyle's pretty easy, right? So if ...   Tony Mauro: Yeah, your lifestyle's a lot different.   Speaker 1: Right. And there's nothing wrong with whatever category you find yourself in. It's just a matter of, okay, so once we've identified it, now let's get a good strategy in place to make sure that we lock it in, right? So if you're in the I have no idea, let's find out, let's run the strategy, and then let's get you to the I know I can retire, right? And if you're in the I think I have enough category, then let's just find out, make certain, so that we're putting, tweak and making some tweaks to guarantee that you have the lifestyle that you want through retirement. And then, of course, again, if you're in that I know I have enough, well, then let's just figure out how we can do the icing on the cake.   And maybe that's leaving a bigger legacy or leaving something to your community, charity, whatever the case might be. Lots of different options, whether you're unsure, confident or certain. It's always good to sit down with a qualified professional like the team at Tax Doctor Inc., Tony Mauro and his team, and get started with some of those conversations. So reach out to him. Your planningpros.com. Your planningpros.com. You can subscribe to us on Apple, Google, Spotify, or whatever platform you like using. Just hit the heart button, I believe, on most of those, and that way you catch future episodes as well as you could check out some past episodes. And Tony's been helping families get through retirement for 27-plus years. He's a CPA, a CFP and an EA. Tony, thanks for hanging out with me, buddy. I appreciate it.   Tony Mauro: All right, we'll see you next time.   Speaker 1: Yeah, I always appreciate your time, my friend, and have yourself a great couple of weeks. I'll see you a little later in June, and we'll catch you next time here.   Tony Mauro: Yes.   Speaker 1: On Plan With The Tax Man.   Disclaimer: Securities offered through Avantax Investment ServicesSM. Member FINRA, S.I.P.C. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency.    

From time to time, we like to look at issues faced by people in other professions outside of the financial world and see what kind of retirement planning lessons we can learn from these other professions. Today, we're seeing what we can learn from teachers and the issues they face. Important Links Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript Of Today's Show: Speaker 1: Welcome into another edition of the podcast. It's Plan With The Tax Man with Tony Mauro and myself to talk investing, finance, and retirement, and we're going to retire with honors on this podcast. Basically, I want to do some financial planning lessons from the classroom, and we should probably insert a chorus of boos right here, because no one likes the classroom. I don't think many people do, anyway. But we always take these different analogies and ways to look at finance and retirement, and how we can draw parallels to other things in life, and so we thought why not do this? And school is kind of ending, although I guess it might have made more sense to do this when school is starting, but we're going to do it as school is ending and hang out with Tony a little bit. So, let's get into it. Tony, how are you, my friend?   Speaker 2: I'm fabulous. Early May, the weather's getting good, and like you said, the kids are getting out of school. I got a couple of in-laws that are retiring from teaching, so this is kind of appropriate.   Speaker 1: Oh, fantastic. That works out really well, then. Were you a good student or were you an average student? What kind of student were ... Elementary school, middle school Tony, what was going on there?   Speaker 2: Elementary school, middle school, and even some of high school, I always got good grades, but always wanted to do the minimum possible. I didn't really find out how I should have been doing things until college. And so, I was a good student and never had any problems, but always wanted to work ahead and basically, again, do as little as possible, which-   Speaker 1: Yeah, well, a lot of kids are that way, right? And you and I are, well, we're children of the '70s, I guess, but teenagers of the '80s, right?   Speaker 2: Yeah.   Speaker 1: And it was definitely a back and forth at that time period, for sure. Well, because that's our first one, Tony, is homework. Nobody likes homework, right? I mean, there's always maybe one kid that was like, "Oh, I love homework," but for the most part, nobody really liked homework. And some teachers, I know of several teachers, they don't necessarily enjoy giving it out either, but sometimes, it's a necessary evil. And if you think about what you guys do, you guys try to do most of the work, but sometimes you need the client or the potential client to do a little homework.   Speaker 2: Yeah, we do. And back in school, I mean even to this day, we always still talk, friends and I, of how we really wanted to work hard, so we never had homework. You always try to get it done-   Speaker 1: Just do it at school.   Speaker 2: Right, somewhere. But in the retirement planning area, in all financial planning areas, I mean, really, the people that are going to try to go at it themselves are going to be in for a lot of work, a lot of homework, and they're going to be-   Speaker 1: Oh yeah, especially the DIY, yeah.   Speaker 2: Yeah. The DIYers are going to be in for that, so you better just plan on it. Otherwise it's going to be painful. Or that's what leads, in my opinion, to a lot of people not doing anything, because they feel like it's too much work and they don't know where to start and they just don't do anything. But a good advisor basically is going to do most of the work for you, but you do have to help out some. It can't just be total hands-off, because then it's not your plan, then it's my plan. And so we want to try to make it fun and enjoyable so it's not work, and you have an interest in it, and not try to make it so complex that you feel like ... I mean, I was terrible in science and just didn't want to be there ever, and so we don't want to make it like that either. So you've got to try to think about it in those terms, especially when you're working with a advisor. They are going to take a lot of the work off of you.   Speaker 1: For sure. Yeah. They're going to try to take as much out of there as they can for you, but you've got to have that vested interest too, because let's be honest, if you're not putting in a little effort, are you even inclined to exact the plan, to go through it and follow the steps and do the things that you need to do if you don't have some buy-in? So, while we all hate homework, we certainly want to make sure that we're doing the things that we are being assigned by our financial professional, if you will, for lack of a better term. And usually that's some pretty easy low-hanging fruit, so it's not like it's a real big deal.   All right. Let's do number two here on the financial planning lessons from the classroom. Standardized testing, which has been a big topic of conversation for many years now, isn't always ideal, and I think I agree with that most of ... Overall, I think I agree with that. Not everybody learns the same way, so my wife's very analytical, I'm very visual, or whatever the case might be. And I think that's probably fairly similar in the financial world, when you think about ... To me, I guess my mind goes to the cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all plan strategy in this regard.   Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's another one. I always have to relate it back to my own experiences. I'll tell you, when I was a kid, I was like one of those guys, I hated these standardized tests. Back when I was a kid, it was called Iowa Basic Skills. Everybody had to take this, and I can't remember if it was a day or two, but literally, we were just filling out little bubbles on sheets and we didn't care. Well, if it was standardized, we always thought, "Well, we'll just make little designs and get through this," and not even really try, which is terrible. But I do think, getting back to the financial world, it's the same thing. If you just take some boilerplate financial plan, or you just take, say, one mutual fund, for example, and you're just going to put all your money in it, you're probably going to be okay. But probably, probably. There's really no plan there, and I don't think that people should just take a standard boilerplate type of plan and try to adapt it to what they're trying to do. I think it should be other way around. It should be custom to what you want to do, rather than some standardized thing. And that's where an advisor's going to be able to help you all along the way there, rather than just saying, "Here, do this. Here's a template, and if you do this, you should be fine," and never come back and see me [inaudible 00:05:57]   Speaker 1: And that's the thing, there's the operative term right there. "You should be fine," right?   Speaker 2: Yeah, you should. Yeah. Right.   Speaker 1: And it's like, "Well, I don't want to go with 'should.'" To me, that'd be like my mechanic fixing my car and saying, "Well, I put the tire back on. I think I did a good job. You should be fine."   Speaker 2: Yeah, you should be fine.   Speaker 1: Well, if I'm doing 70 miles an hour, I don't want to know that I should be fine. I want to know I am fine.   Speaker 2: That's right. And I do some flying on my own.   Speaker 1: Okay, there you go.   Speaker 2: I'm a private pilot, and boy, when it comes out of maintenance, it's like, I want to know that this thing, you didn't miss some screw on something or whatever, because I don't get a second chance, and-   Speaker 1: Right. Have you seen that meme, Tony? Well, it's a meme, it's a real picture, but they turned it into a meme where it's a guy on a ... I don't think it was Southwest. I can't remember which airline it was, but he's out there with duct tape, taping, I guess, part of the cover on one of the engines, part of the housing around it.   Speaker 2: Oh, right, yeah.   Speaker 1: And they're like, "Yeah, yeah, it'll be all right. It'll get to the next ..." and the person inside the plane that took that picture had to be terrified. Did they stay on the plane? Did they get off? Right? Be like, "Ah, duct ..." I mean, duct tape's great, but I don't know if I feel like airplane great.   Speaker 2: Yeah. When I was training, in the small plane, I walked out one day and we had duct tape on the wing.   Speaker 1: Okay. I guess it's a thing.   Speaker 2: It was a bird strike, and it cracked. And I went and asked, I said, "Geez, we got duct tape on this wing? I mean, am I going to be okay here?"   Speaker 1: Right.   Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure I would.   Speaker 1: Well, you're a brave man if you did it, but still.   Speaker 2: I did it. I did it. He said, "No, no." He explained it all, but yeah, it is interesting because I don't think we want a lot of shoulds in retirement plan and probabilities. I mean, we want to be able to show people, based if you do this and this over this time period ... I like to use, and I don't like to share it with them, but I like to use a lot of analysis with the computer and say, "If you do this, you've got a 95% chance or 97% chance of never running out of money." That's something people can relate to, not, "Well, we hope you don't run out of money," type of thing. We want to give them some facts and things like that, so anyway, but-   Speaker 1: Yeah, some assurances are certainly ... No, that's a great point, though. It's a great analogy. All right, so number three on my list here is everything has pros and cons. Certainly that is definitely the case when it comes to education, or when it comes to what it is that you do. I mean, look, teaching, hats off to teachers. It's a tough gig. Teens and tweens are annoying, or they can be, right, because you're dealing with the unruliness and all that kind of stuff. And when you think about what it is that you guys do, whether it's a product or whether it's trying to just build a plan for someone, there's pros and cons to everything. Nothing is going to just be perfect. You've got to work your way through the situations.   Speaker 2: Yeah, and after we do a plan for somebody, and then you get to, of course the products area, how we're going to do this plan is, I like to explain that ... Obviously the pros are easy, but I like to say, "Look, everything's got a few downfalls, and here's what this is." I mean, it doesn't matter if it's a 401k, an IRA, a mutual fund, I don't like to spend two hours talking about each particular thing, but I like to point out the cons, so to speak. It's just like in work and everything else in life, there's some things about it you don't like, or may not be all that good. And then the client gets to decide, okay, well there's enough things here that I do like about this that this makes sense in my plan. Same way with our jobs. I mean, when we get kind of sick of them, just like in teaching, and I do give them a lot of credit, I do think it's a tough profession, and it seems like around here they're always cutting budgets and everything else, they just don't want to pay them, right? But that's a whole different story.   Speaker 1: Sure.   Speaker 2: But if you get sick of it, then in your job, you know, tend to leave. And obviously as an advisor, if the particular product portion of things, or the plan changes, it's up to us to advise a client, "Hey, this just doesn't work in your plan."   Speaker 1: It's just not working now. Right, yeah. And oftentimes, that's maybe an investment that's going to be with the dog investments, if you will. It's no longer performing adequately, or there's too much risk, or something like that. And that kind of walks in nicely to the strategy of laying things out ahead of time. Number four here, most teachers plan out, often they plan out, their lesson plans for the whole year. They have the guided curriculum, I suppose, from the school district, but they still kind of plan things out for the whole year. And if you think about your financial plan, that's similar fashion, right? I mean, you guys should be laying out a plan multiple years. Now, granted, you need to be flexible that it's going to change, because life's going to happen, but it's still the point of having a roadmap over, let's say, two to five years before retirement, and then the first couple years of retirement, and so on and so forth.   Speaker 2: Yeah, and today it's a lot easier than it used to be 10, 15, 20 years ago in the financial world. I remember when I was growing up with teachers, I didn't really realize why they stayed after school, and really they were working on their lesson plans and updating and things, and I'm sure they've got better tools now too, like we do. But yeah, these days I technically won't really get into a relationship with a client unless we do a financial plan beforehand. It's very easy. We can do it on the computer. At least we've got a starting point, because otherwise, it's really them just telling us facts and us just off-the-cuff giving advice, and it's like going to the doctor. I mean, there's all kinds of analogies out there, but they're not going to simply sit there and tell you what ... or how to treat you without knowing what's going on.   Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, well, think about this. So for a doctor or even for yourself, kind of looking at the profession, you could probably walk in and say, "I've got a cough and I got this." And they probably have a pretty good idea of what's wrong with you, right?   Speaker 2: Yeah, they're going to give you something, yeah.   Speaker 1: I mean, they probably could tell you what they want you to take or whatever to get better, but to be on the safe side, they test it. They test you, they do some checks, or whatever. Well, I mean, you've been doing this a long time, Tony. When somebody comes in and they first lay out the information that they've got, what they've got saved and what different accounts, you've been doing this long enough, you could probably put together a plan on the spot. But that's not the smart move. That's not the prudent move. Your job is to really dig deep and find out and get the right plan, and I think maybe that goes back to that cookie-cutter thing. You can walk into someplace and get a cookie cutter because they've seen thousand versions of you, but yet at the same time, those are just those universal pieces that affect us all, like when to take social security. I have the 401k. How do I turn it on? That's all universal, but individually, Tony, you're different than I am, and so on and so forth.   Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think at the heart of it, if we as advisors, we're going to do that, I don't think the client's getting the value that they need, number one. And they're paying us to do this, whether it's in a fixed fee, asset-based type of thing, or even some advisors still charge commissions, but it behooves us to get to know the client and figure out really what they're trying to do rather than just blanketly advise them.   Speaker 1: I mean, you have the skillset. You certainly could identify that quickly.   Speaker 2: We could, absolutely.   Speaker 1: But that's not doing service, right, that's not providing good service, so maybe that's [inaudible 00:13:40]   Speaker 2: No. That's more of the dinner party chat. Somebody asks you something and you just throw something off-the-cuff and you're talking general.   Speaker 1: Yeah, okay.   Speaker 2: If you really want a plan, I think it has to go way deeper.   Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay. Well, let's do two more here on our retirement classroom analogy and then we'll wrap up. Age-appropriate instruction is important, certainly for teachers. You're not teaching calculus to first-graders unless they're a genius.   Speaker 2: That's right.   Speaker 1: But same thing, kind of, with you. There's different aspects of what you do where maybe not quite that diverse, but why talk about RMDs? Yes, you could can get into it a little bit and say, "Okay, we're going to put together a strategy for RMDs when you turn 75 based on the new Secure Act rules," let's say for you and I, it's 75. But if I'm only 55 and seeing you, that's probably not the main focus at that time.   Speaker 2: No, and really, a lot of the strategies that we use have to do with your age and where you're at in the whole process, because like you say, the easy part, no sense in talking to a young person about RMDs and like you said, and annuities or anything else like that. And at the same time, you get a little older, I think some of the retirees, you have to keep it basic, and you certainly don't want to be ... There's a lot of regulatory things where we have to go through of making sure that whatever we're recommending is appropriate for the client in their situation. That's on a regulatory aspect. But we should know better as advisors what a client can handle and whatnot. And you usually can tell from talking to them, and sometimes it's to their detriment. They want to be over analytical. But you want to make sure that you are being appropriate, not only for their age, but their investment knowledge, things like that, and it doesn't have to be overly complicated. I think sometimes we as advisors tend to get too much in the weeds with some of that.   Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, I think that's a great point. And again, there's definitely age-related items when it comes to retirement planning, depending on how long you're ... Now, if you're walking in the door at 60 saying, "I want to retire at 62," then obviously you're going to get right into all of the stuff. But again, if you're starting with a financial professional at 45 or 48 or 50, we talked, Tony, often that we kind of ... Memorial Day's coming up, right? We're taping this in about the middle of May. Memorial Day's coming up, and it's not technically the kickoff to summer. It's technically not summer, but we all treat Memorial Day as the unofficial start to summer, right?   Speaker 2: Yeah, I do.   Speaker 1: Yeah. Everybody does, right? Well, 50 is kind of that unofficial start to retirement. We all start to get a little more serious about it when we get over 50, I think. Then our mind starts to go, "Eh, maybe I better start thinking about this stuff a little bit more heavily." So there's going to be age-appropriate instructions involved with working with a financial advisor depending on your age. Does that make sense?   Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it makes total sense. I think for people, especially now that I'm 55, you start really starting to think about, and so are our clients at this age, it's not only retirement, but when to call it quits? What's my monthly income going to be? And that essential question, are we going to be okay? In other words, am I going to have enough money at the end to basically do what I do now, and hopefully a little better?   Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. All right, well, let's do the last one here, and this is just lifelong learning is a great habit to develop. All of my teachers, all the teachers I've ever come across, they're always like, "Hey, never stop learning. Never stop." And I think that's a folly of being young. We all know that. We were that way too. You see a 16 year old or a 17 year old or a 20 year old, and they think they know everything. How many of us have felt that way and said that about our own kids or grandkids or nephews or nieces or just in general? But I think a smart person, a truly smart person, realizes that life is always bringing us something to learn. And if we don't accept that and learn along the way, we probably don't grow very well as a person. And the same thing holds true with what you do. I mean, you continue to go to educational events and things. You've been doing this a long time and you pretty much know all the ins and outs, but there's always something new to learn.   Speaker 2: Always something. It always amazes me. My son has fallen into this group, although I think he's starting to get it now at 26, so hopefully, yeah, I think he listens to these sometimes, so I'll put them on the spot. But a lot of college students, they get out and say, "Well, I've got a four-year degree," or maybe even a master's, "and that's it for me. I've learned all I need to learn. I'm done with school," and they find out very quickly that I need to be learning something, depending on what type of profession you go into and whatnot. So I would say for all the young people listening, don't stop trying to learn, because in this day and age especially, life is just going to pass you by so quickly with technology and whatnot. But in the financial sector, same way. Even us, for me, unfortunately, I have a lot of masters in terms of continuing ed requirements and that kind of thing, so it's kind of forced upon me. But for clients, they need to really, at least not do too much homework on their own, because we were talking about that earlier.   Speaker 1: Sure.   Speaker 2: But if they're interested, they need to at least try to keep abreast of things and what's going on.   Speaker 1: Yeah, that cursory knowledge, for sure.   Speaker 2: Yeah, just some things. And if not, ask your advisor. That's what they're there for and that's what you're paying them for. They're going to have a lot of the answers, and if they don't, they're certainly going to be able to get it for you. We certainly want to be [inaudible 00:19:18]   Speaker 1: Yeah, we preach often here, Tony, know what it is that you have and why you have it, right?   Speaker 2: Yes.   Speaker 1: And that's still that lifelong learning, right? So, if you're thinking about getting into a particular investment, then know a little bit about it. Don't just want to jump into it because it's got a cool logo, right?   Speaker 2: That's right.   Speaker 1: You want to know a little bit about it, or whatever the case is. So that's the podcast this week. That's just kind of taking some analogies there, and I think we did a good job talking about, thinking about how we learn in the classroom, and teachers and applying that too, because really that's what you are as well, Tony. You're a teacher. It might be finance and taxes, but you're still teaching and educating.   Speaker 2: Yeah. That's what we're doing. I mean, we're basically taking the stuff we've learned over the years. It's in between our two years, and advising people, which is [inaudible 00:20:03]   Speaker 1: Yup, which is teaching, yup.   Speaker 2: Yeah, teaching.   Speaker 1: Coaching, teaching, whatever you want to call it, right?   Speaker 2: Yeah.   Speaker 1: Kind of falls in the same category. So, if you got some questions or concerns, get yourself onto the calendar, if you're not already working with Tony and his team at Tax Doctor Inc., and reach out to him, yourplanningpros.com. That's yourplanningpros.com. A lot of good tools, tips, and resources at the website there. You can reach out to them, subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify, all that good stuff. And we will see you next time here on Plan With The Tax Man. For Tony Mauro, I'm your host, Marc Killian. We'll catch you next time.   Disclaimer: Securities offered through Avantax Investment ServicesSM. Member FINRA, S.I.P.C. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency.

Are you preparing for retirement but feeling confident that you have covered all the expenses? Well, think again... It turns out that many retirees overlook some crucial expenses that can leave them financially vulnerable. In this episode, we explore the retirement expenses that most people tend to forget, including skyrocketing medical bills, unexpected travel costs, taxes, and much more. We'll discuss practical tips and strategies to help you plan for these expenses and ensure a secure and comfortable retirement. Important Links Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript Of Today's Show: Speaker 1: Time for another edition of Plan With The Tax Man with Tony Mauro, from Tax Doctor Inc. I started to say Tony Mauro Tax Doctor, like that's your whole name or something, and myself to talk investing, finance, retirement, and retirement expenses, which we might forget to plan for. So we're just going to have a good conversation about some things to keep on the radar. Some of these seem like duh moments, but there's little ways we might think about this or forget about them, so that's going to be the topic of conversation. And Tony, how you doing, my friend? You doing all right?   Tony Mauro: I am well, yeah. Everything is going good.   Speaker 1: Well, good. So you do planning all the time. It's easy to forget stuff, right?   Tony Mauro: It is.   Speaker 1: I mean, you're a human being as well. You plan to take your own trips, you plan to go skiing or golfing or something, and you forget to take something. "Oh, man, I can't believe I forgot my glove," right? My golf glove or whatever it is. So it happens. But from a retirement standpoint, forgetting to do stuff can certainly wind up being a big pain in the you know what, especially depending on how it's affecting you. And it could be a little thing, it's not a big deal, but then there could be some big things. So on this episode, let's explore some of those expenses people tend to forget, and just kind of see if there's some tips or strategies we can talk through to see if that helps. Okay?   Tony Mauro: That sounds good.   Speaker 1: Medical expenses. Obviously, you can say, "Well, I'm not forgetting medical expenses, but how do I know they're going to show up? How do I plan for something that hasn't happened yet?" Well, that's true, and it is kind of hard to do, but that's when you've got to start thinking about where you're going to pull money from for these things. Because Tony, I think Fidelity's most recent number says like $315,000 out of pocket for people for ... that's not what the insurance is covering. That's out of pocket. That's hefty, man.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. And people were living a long time, and I think the biggest takeaway probably from this podcast on the tips area is as we talk about some of these things, is one, you need to develop a budget, and you need to work with your advisor on your own to get a budget, and budgets change, but at least you've got an idea, so you can start setting money site or plan to take it out of one of your pots. But the other thing too is you have to write stuff down too. As we age, I mean, if it's not on my calendar ... I don't try to commit everything to memory, so don't try to remember everything, write it down or get it in a plan of some kind, so it's a lot less burden on you. But yes, medical expenses, as we age, I mean, it's easy ... I mean, they go up. We could sit and talk about that all night long. There's other expenses too with medical. The little things, I think that's what pushes that out-of-pocket up so much. Everything from dental, to over-the-counter stuff, to stuff just for chronic ailments, things like that.   Speaker 1: Dental's is a good one, because that catches people off guard a lot.   Tony Mauro: It does. And a lot of that's not covered by insurance.   Speaker 1: Or Medicare.   Tony Mauro: It's best to track all ... yeah, or Medicare, for that matter. And it doesn't have to be sophisticated tracking. I mean, that's really good if you can go that far, but it's just something you've got to ... I think with medical, because it's so big, and it's going to be at the top of the list, especially as you age, it's one of the biggest things you spend money on.   Speaker 1: I think it's third. I think, if I'm not mistaken, Tony, I think housing is first for expenses, food second, medical's third.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. And so it's got to be tracked and kind of budgeted for. And then like you said, where are we going to take this money from these intended expenses? Obviously, if they don't occur, then you know, don't take the money out, but.   Speaker 1: Right, and then you got some extra money going on. But if you don't at least talk and discuss it, how are you going to have any kind of plan or options to dip into. You said budget earlier, Tony, and people go, "Oh, my God, I hate the B word." Well, fine, call it a spending plan, call it whatever the heck you want, but just some sort of cash flow analysis in and out, whatever the case is. And then that way you could maybe bump up some categories so that you don't have these unexpected expenses coming up like our next one. Unexpected travel, for example. Well, again, someone would go, "Well, how in the world am I supposed to know I'm going to need extra money for travel that it was unexpected," but you know you're going to want to do X number of travel, fine. You're planning for that, so why not ... and I'm asking you, but why not just going to bump that number up a little higher for things that might come up? What do you think there?   Tony Mauro: I think that's a great plan, and that's what we tell people to do. And we try to get them to put little kind of imaginary folders or the old envelope system, the Dave Ramsey stuff, even in retirement, not necessarily moving money there, but come up with our budget, and then bump it up a little bit.   Speaker 1: Pad the stats, so to speak, right?   Tony Mauro: Travel's one. Yeah, pad it, because besides your travel, you've got things like, I don't know, somebody asks you to go somewhere and you really weren't planning on it, but you've got the means, you're going to go do it. My father who now has grandkids getting married, and they don't live here, so he wants to go there, and make sure that he's there for that. You've got people spread out. You've got funerals, you've got maybe going out of state to see an elderly family member, all kinds of things that's not the funnest stuff you might want to do, and so it's not on the plan.   Speaker 1: That's a great point, because it could hit you off guard. You're thinking, "Okay, I'm kind of budgeting for the fact that mom's older, she lives in a different state. I'm going to go see her [inaudible 00:05:20], let's say, four times a year." But what happens if mom has to have a hip replacement that wasn't expected, which goes back to mom not planning for medical expenses. But let's just assume that something like that happens and you got to go stay with her for a month, and help take care of her, because she can't move, right? Well, that's unexpected travel, because you yourself are in retirement. Maybe mom's 85, and you're 60 or 65 or something like that. So I mean, it's easy to see where you can get some of these unexpected travel that takes longer. A, you weren't expecting it, and B, it's maybe a lengthier thing than you thought would even happen, period. And to your point about weddings, I mean, hey, it could be something as simple as you really want to pay for your granddaughter's wedding, and she decides she wants to have that in freaking Acapulco or something.   Tony Mauro: Well, right. Getting down there and dealing with all that.   Speaker 1: Or paying for it, and everything else, because you promised. "Oh, Papi, you promised that you'd pay for it." Oh, man. So again, planning just, I guess, pad the stats. Add a little extra in there for things that could come up so that you're not caught short.   Tony Mauro: That's right. And I'll tell you my own father, and sometimes he listens to these podcasts, but I already tell him that I talk about it. And he's one of those retirees that he's not comfortable if he has less than $80,000 in his checking account, but that's what he uses as his kind of padding besides everything else. And he's fine. He has plenty of money to live on and whatnot, and we budget, but that's what he kind of uses for unexpected, but at least he has it. It's just in his checking. So I kid him about it a little bit, but I understand why he has it, because he doesn't have to fear some of these things we're talking about.   Speaker 1: Well, I've got a couple big ones I want to tackle, so let me keep moving along here. I want to go to taxes, because you're the Tax Doctor, but are we seriously prepared for a tax hike in the future? I think everybody ... I mean we all know it. You have to know it. You cannot be an ostrich and not realize that all the spending we're doing, it's not going to be going up. And even if they do nothing, which Congress is great at doing, it's going to go up in '26. So regardless of whether they make a move, it's going up.   Tony Mauro: It's going up. If they don't do anything, it's going up, because I got to think they'll allow it to go back. Of course, as we're taping this, if there's going to be a showdown again in June about the debt ceiling, and the reason we have all this debt is because just like a business, we as a government or a nation, I should say, they spend more than we take in. So even if it's not just a, "Hey, this is a tax." They come up with things. They usually try to hide them, because they don't like to talk about them, but we have to be prepared for that. While I hate taxes, I got to think somehow they're going to go up some way in the future   Speaker 1: And think about the numbers, Tony. So if you're ... a lot of retirees right now, maybe, find themselves in the 22% tax bracket, right?   Tony Mauro: Yeah. 20, 22.   Speaker 1: Yeah. So let's just say, and I think that the 22 is when it sunsets in 2019, or excuse me, 2026, the 22% tax bracket, I believe goes back to 25. Might be 28.   Tony Mauro: It's 25, and then it goes real quick to 28.   Speaker 1: Okay.   Tony Mauro: That's what it's supposed to be now.   Speaker 1: So it's a more narrow bracket. So going from 22 to 28, that might only sound like ... I mean, 6%. Hello, right? I mean, that's going to get pretty hefty. Think about the interest rates that we've ... [inaudible 00:08:42] the interest rates, but the inflation rates we've been dealing with, and so on, and so forth, so it's going to be a little more costly than we realize, and if they do nothing. And then just what if they go, "Well, we actually need more money, so let's go ahead and make that 30%."   Tony Mauro: Yeah, it is. And even on a hundred thousand dollars of income, I mean, that's still a lot of money, and that's a $6,000 tax increase. And on a fixed income, people are like, "Well, wow, that kind of really cuts into [inaudible 00:09:08]."   Speaker 1: And over time. So again, you got to have that ... you plan for it. And again, tax efficiency and planning right there. This one's one that you maybe shouldn't forget, because right now everybody and their brother is talking about tax efficiency, because of the tax rates we're in, and that Roth conversions, obviously, are a huge topic of conversation, because you can kind of manage your taxes now versus what we expect to happen, let's say, 10 or 12 years from now.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. It's a big, big topic. Taxes.   Speaker 1: Maintenance, and repair on the home. I mentioned earlier that the home is usually the number one expense for people, at least, early on in retirement, as they're either finishing off the mortgage or maybe making some changes so that they can retire-proof it, that kind of stuff. This one I always find interesting. You were talking about your dad a second ago, and having a big chunk of cash there. People say, "Well, I got an emergency fund for if the HVAC dies." Okay, well fine. If the HVAC or the roof gets a hole in it, unexpectedly, that's one thing. Maybe that's where you tap the emergency fund. And tell me if I'm wrong here, Tony, but if not. Let's say you're 60, and you're going to retire in the next five years, and you know your roof is already 30 years old, why are you not strategizing and planning to replace that roof sometime in retirement versus getting caught off guard?   Tony Mauro: I agree. Our pre-retirees, we go over the whole home ownership thing, and if they own the home outright, what kind of condition is it in? Is it important to them that they keep it up, and start strategizing for some of these things even before retirement. Even if we're not going to set money aside for it just yet, but knowing that it's on the list, that a roof, for example. My roof's 30 years old. It's kind of falling apart. It's not leaking, but I'm going to need one at some point. Let's get that down, and try to figure that out in the big scheme of things. I think another one too is ... and most retirees homes are aging, because most of them have lived there for a long time, and most of them drive older cars. I mean, I have a love-hate relationship with cars. I like them, but at the same time, we're always having to buy new ones or do something, and you may need a new car in your retirement days at some point, and the last thing you might want to do is have a payment. And so maybe you want to strategize, and maybe save for it or use some money to buy one that could be maybe the last vehicle you'll need. But these are the questions that you need to tackle under this whole housing slash maintenance repair thing, for sure.   Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. Some really good points there for sure, Tony. Thank you for those. And then, finally, let's talk about everybody's friend.   Tony Mauro: That's their friend.   Speaker 1: Mr. Inflation or Miss Inflation, or whatever you want to call it. Either way, it sucks.   Tony Mauro: It's high. [inaudible 00:11:48] likes it.   Speaker 1: But let's view it at this standpoint, not the current, whatever we're going through inflation, just regular inflation. I said this all the time, and I'll continue to say it, because I think it works well. Inflation is normally thought of like calories. You don't pay attention to it until it's really bothering you.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, that's right. That's right.   Speaker 1: When you're feeling overly pudgy, you pay attention to your calories, right? And when inflation's high, you finally pay attention to it. But when it's normal, you just don't pay attention to it. However, if you don't, let's say, it cost you five grand a month, and that's what your number, you've identified five grand a month for living expenses going into retirement at 65. Okay? Well, 15 years later, that five grand's now 10 grand a month it costs you. So do you have COLAs, cost a living adjustments, built into your plan?   Tony Mauro: Yeah, because that will happen. It will be exceedingly higher than the 5,000 that you just talked about. And people always ask me too, "Well, do you think it's ever going to go down?" I say, "Well, inflation, it bounces around. Of course, we can see that right now, but how many times?" I always ask, "How many times have you gone somewhere, and they say, "Well, our price is lower than it was five years ago." Boy, it's great for you, great for me." I mean, nothing goes down. So even in normal times, things tend to inch up and we aren't paying attention. And good for businesses, because they got to keep up too. But I'm saying, as a retiree, you have to pay attention to that. Because if you're thinking 5,000 today, like you said, it'll be 10,000 or so in 10, 15 years from now, and that will be the new norm. But nevertheless, you may not have the ... if you're not building this in, the same income or the same lifestyle you thought you were going to have.   Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you've got to address it. And it's easy to sneak up on you. Inflation is the thief of tomorrow kind of thing, so it's going to steal some stuff away. So you've got a plan for it. And hopefully, your advisor has strategized like Tony does with his plan, for inflation, even normal inflation rates. And I think that's where people also panic too, Tony, when we're thinking about where our money's at. The market's not doing well. I'm nervous. Let me maybe consider taking it out. Well, that's going to be ... it should be, anyway, your later monies that you need to keep up with inflation. So make sure you're not panicking in just wholesale. When the market does bad, that's what we do. We panic and we go, "Let me go take money out, because I don't want to lose anymore." But it's like that's your now money I think you're thinking about when it's really, truly your later money.   Tony Mauro: Exactly. Yeah. I mean, it is. I mean, you hit it right on the head. I can't even expand on that.   Speaker 1: Well, thanks. It's almost like I talk to you guys all the time.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. I think the important thing is getting back to talk with your advisor, and making sure that you're strategizing for this, because it will sneak up on you and it will get you.   Speaker 1: It will bite you, that's for sure. So hopefully that's some things that you are remembering to do. You're strategizing for retirement and you haven't forgotten these. But if you have and you need some help or you just haven't reached out to someone for help at all, then Tony and his team, of course, are here, yourplanningpros.com. That's yourplanningpros.com. I don't think families get [inaudible 00:14:56] retirement. Tony's been doing this for 27 plus years, so he's a great resource for you to tap into. He's a CPA, a CFP, an EA, all the alphabet soup of good stuff there. So reach out to him, get onto his calendar, have a conversation, and plan with the tax man. Don't forget to subscribe to us on Apple, Google, Spotify, whatever platform you like using. Tony, thanks for hanging out with us. As always, my friend, I appreciate you.   Tony Mauro: All right, we'll see you next time.   Speaker 1: We'll catch you next time right here on the podcast. Again, hit that subscribe button or heart button or whatever it is to catch new episodes, as well as check out past episodes on Plan with the Tax Man with Tony Mauro, from Tax Doctor Inc. Disclaimer: Securities offered through Avantax Investment ServicesSM. Member FINRA, S.I.P.C. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency.

Are you a golfer? Even if you're not, the game of golf can teach us valuable lessons about retirement planning. For example, hitting a hole-in-one might be thrilling, but it won't necessarily guarantee your overall success. And just like you need different clubs in your golf bag to play a round, you need a well-balanced approach to your investments in retirement. But perhaps the most important lesson from golf is the value of having a caddy. In retirement planning, a financial advisor can help you navigate the hazards and make the most of your financial "clubs." Tune in to this episode to learn more about how the game of golf can help you plan for a successful retirement. Important Links Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript Of Today's Show: Speaker 1: It's time to plan with the tax man once again here on the podcast. Tony Mauro from Tax Doctor Inc with me to talk golf. We're going to spend a little time talking what golf can teach us about our financial planning or financial strategy. We're calling this for your retirement, pun intended. F-O-R-E. So there you go. What's going on buddy? How are you?   Tony Mauro: I'm doing good. You're in the throws a tax season and as we were talking about earlier, thinking about golf, thinking about the spring.   Speaker 1: I know, right? It's like, yeah, well, it'd be nice to go play a little bit, but mother nature can't quite make up her mind if she's fully ready for spring or not. So it's like, all right, well while we're waiting, let's talk a little bit goof. And as my daughter and I like to call it, call it some goof. Of course, the way I play is probably is goofing. How about you? Are you a good player? I know you like to play.   Tony Mauro: Well, I like to play a lot. Everybody's got their own version of good, so wherever you're at, you think you should be better. Right?   Speaker 1: Right.   Tony Mauro: But yeah, I mean we play a lot and I've enjoyed it for a long time.   Speaker 1: Well, are you good enough to get a handicap?   Tony Mauro: I have a handicap. My handicap right now is 7.9.   Speaker 1: Well, then I would say that's good.   Tony Mauro: Call it eight.   Speaker 1: I would say that's good then. Yeah.   Tony Mauro: Well, like I say, it depends. Everybody, if you're an eight, you want to be a four. If you're a four, you want to be scratch.   Speaker 1: Right. Well, okay.   Tony Mauro: If you're a 20, you know.   Speaker 1: If I play 18, I'm shooting in the upper nineties, so you're better than me.   Tony Mauro: Well, I mean it's all about getting out there and having fun. And it's picked up a lot of popularity.   Speaker 1: Oh lord, yes. It's massive. Although pickleball is the thing that's took over everybody, I'm like, good lord. Pickleball's everywhere.   Tony Mauro: It really is. I can't believe the interest, even as people are getting a little older, they're wanting to go out and play pickleball just to get a little bit of an exercise in.   Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh yeah. No, they're digging it.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: Well, let's stick with golf for right now and we'll jump into it. And even if you're not a golfer, I think you can still enjoy the lessons. Most people have enough basic golf knowledge and of course, depending on the retirement. And of course it's perfect for retirement because how many retirees like to play golf. A lot. So let's start with just breaking down a couple points here. I got some fun ones. I want to chop them up and have a little fun with the analogies. And I'm going to tell a story along the way, Tony and I encourage you to do the same. I'm sure you've probably got several as well since you like to play. But we're going to start with hitting a hole in one and thinking about this from a financial standpoint. I mean, a hole in one is super exciting. I mean, even in putt putt we get...   Tony Mauro: It is.   Speaker 1: We're like, yeah, I got a hole in one. But here's kind of how I want to go with it. It has an interesting effect on it. So for example, I was playing golf a number of years ago with a couple, me and a friend of mine. We were in our early forties, I guess, maybe late thirties, and they were in their early seventies and we're on this par three. And he knocks the ball, he tees off, and lo and behold, he gets a hole in one. I'd never seen one live. It was awesome. And so I think it was maybe the third hole, it was a par three, something like that. And of course his wife and she was, the whole day, she was like 125 to 145 yards straight down the fairway. Every single shot she made, she'd chip up on one, she'd putt, she'd one putt, so on and so forth. But anyway, he makes this hole in one and for the rest of the day, the rest of the 18 holes, he is just super cocky, super arrogant. And this is a 70 year old guy. He's feeling it, right?   Tony Mauro: Yep.   Speaker 1: Well, my friend and I are terrible. We're all over the map. They're laughing. But at the end of the day, guess who won of the four?   Tony Mauro: One of you guys or his wife?   Speaker 1: His wife.   Tony Mauro: His wife. Yeah.   Speaker 1: Because she was slow and steady and rock solid the entire way, right?   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: So, I thought that was an interesting lesson. And he got the hole in one. He was like, I am feeling it. I have got this game figured out today. And she was like, I'm going to go with the tried and true principles. And she ended up winning. And that made me think of financial planning, the hole in one, or I guess a big hit, I guess some sort of big windfall, picking a stock or something that does really well. It's exciting. But slow and steady or the tried and true principles is what's going to get you where you want to go.   Tony Mauro: No, it is. And I haven't had any hole in ones in my life. I know a lot of people that have, my father's had two, my brother Tim has had two, and I witnessed one of his. And it was the ugliest thing you've ever seen. It was a ground ball hole in one is what it was from tee to green. But it went in. But you ask the PGA players and they have multiple hole in ones, but they're out there playing for a living and doing it all their life. But like you were mentioning, I mean, even for them, most of the time you see it on TV, somebody will have one in one of those rounds on TV, but very seldom are they the winner at the end of the day. But they can control their games much more than the rest of us, obviously. But for us, I think as it pertains to financial planning, it is like that. Everybody's running around saying, I want the next big thing, or I want to really cash in on something. And every once in a while they'll get lucky and they'll make some money. But if they're going to follow that philosophy from start to finish until they retire, most of the time they're not going to end up very well off. And right now, it's even more prevalent. I mean, as we're taping, the Silicon Valley bank just went under and people were a little nervous and the markets haven't been doing very well lately again, and they're asking for the same thing. Now it's, well, what can we do that's safe? And I could still make money. Speaker 1: Yeah. Right. Well, yeah, that's an interesting point because the SVB thing, certainly a one-off and a unique situation I think. Do you see that as something systemic? No one's got a crystal ball. I don't think it will be. And they were not a traditional bank in the normal sense. They had a very select clientele, all tech heavy, tech companies laying off and they got into bond. They got... A lot of the stuff they did, it really burned them. And I think that's, actually, it's almost an interesting lesson in that itself, in still being diversified. They did, as a bank, they did a little too much of the same thing. And it bit them in the hind end. Right.   Tony Mauro: It did. And they did it probably at a bad time.   Speaker 1: Well, the perfect storm. Bad time. Yeah.   Tony Mauro: Scrap the fact that what were they doing and all that. I'm sure it'll all come out. But back to our analogy, I mean it really is the case for diversification and trying to develop an overall plan as we're talking about retirement planning and trying to stay the course and modify along the way, but not relying on hitting that long or in this case, the hole in one.   Speaker 1: Yeah, well I was going to say, yeah, you could jump metaphors here. We could go baseball. Same thing, right? The home run. The home run kings are also usually the strikeout kings.   Tony Mauro: It is. Yeah. So I mean, it's fun to play with. I think the lesson here is make sure that you're developing an overall strategy just like you would... As your golf game improves, you try to strategize your way around the course, not just try to knock it as far as you can. I think that it lends itself to a good plan.   Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah. I mean, they're sexy. A hole in one is sexy, no doubt about it.   Tony Mauro: Oh it is.   Speaker 1: But hard to come by. And again, I love the lesson that I was taught that day. It was like, okay, you young bucks can hit the ball a mile. Of course you hit it in the wrong direction.   Tony Mauro: That's right.   Speaker 1: But she hits it nice and straight 130 yards and whipped our tails. So little fragile, little looking. She's a tiny little thing, little 70 year old lady. And she just beat us into the ground. If we'd have been playing for money, I'd have been broke because she didn't just beat us, she crushed us.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: All right. But so let's go on to number two here and what golf can teach us about financial planning. Unless you're Happy Gilmore, you probably want more than two clubs in your bag. You probably want more than just the driver and the putter because I think that's pretty much all he played with, if you've ever seen that movie.   Tony Mauro: Oh yeah.   Speaker 1: So you need that diversification of a couple of different kinds of clubs. So think about it in that same manner. You're probably not going to use your driver in the fairway, and you're certainly not going to use it in the rough.   Tony Mauro: Right. And I think too, and I've been through a lot of different clubs in my day, and remember when you first started golf, people can probably relate to this is you do only have a few clubs in your bag because you can't hit the other ones. And even now, depending on your handicap, some clubs are hard to hit. But nevertheless, if you're really going to get good, you have to have a full set to really bridge those gaps and distances. That's why we have 14 clubs and you see the really good players. I mean you could get a guy off PGA tour and probably beat me with two clubs. He probably could have two clubs and beat me.   Speaker 1: Oh sure. But he's a pro.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, he's a pro. But for most of us it's the game's not enjoyable, but tying it into the financial planning is, you need some diversification, as we just talked about. You need to make sure you're into different types of investments, generally speaking, not just all cash or all a bond. It serves it itself well with the overall plan, which is what we do with people is once we get all of their financial data, it is saying, okay, based on this and when you want to retire and what you want to do, here's some suggestions. And it's fairly well diversified. I mean, there's some different types of investments because as we see right now in the market, bonds, the rates are up a little bit, more than they ever have been. But that doesn't mean rush out as a 30 year old put all your money into long term bonds. Back to Silicon Valley.   Speaker 1: Back to Silicon Valley. Yeah, exactly.   Tony Mauro: Maybe that's not the best case. But I think that's the main lesson here is you got to have different asset classes, you got to have some different types of things and then monitor those classes because something's always going to be in and out of favor. But by doing that, you really can set yourself up well for a lot less headaches and a lot less tinkering down the road.   Speaker 1: And I've got some interesting stats here on the SVB while we're talking real quick on this. We can, and we'll jump right back in. And these come from bankrate.com and Bloomberg and New York Post. But it basically said, if you're, it's for people that are really worried, a couple of things to just keep in mind, especially with one of the bottom line pieces here, and this is actually from a CFO as well. This is just kind of remember that most large national banks deposits, they diversify their deposits. We were just talking about diversification. And they have kind of a more regulated system and less exposure to investments. And that's really what hurt SVB. They had roughly 56% of their deposits were locked up in securities compared to somebody like Bank of America who only runs it around 28%. So completely different risk profile.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: Right. And you could take that lesson to your individual self. So if you are putting way too much, like if you work for a company and you get your paycheck there and they give you stock options there and you have a bunch of invested in the company, and let's say you've got 70% of your life, your income tied up in this company. Well look, think about Enron from all those years ago. Same thing. You have way too much tied up in there and it goes under, guess what happens to you? You go under too.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. It's no different than us. I remember, this actually happened on the golf course. This was before the collapse of '08, '09. I was out golfing in Arizona and I happened to get paired up with a guy who seemed very high up on the chain at General Motors. I mean, flying in the corporate jet. And you can just tell this guy was high up.   Speaker 1: He was fancy. He was rolling.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. And he was mentioning at the time he had all of his retirement and he was probably in the sixties at the time, invested in General Motors stock. And when we got back, it wasn't a year and a half later, I don't know what ever happened to the guy. General Motors filed for bankruptcy. Maybe he got out and was given some things, but couldn't help but think of that guy that's like, because that happened and who knows what could have happened to him. But that could happen to you in any of these types of different types of investments, especially if you're just concentrated in one particular thing.   Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. So again, clubs in a bag, diversification, SVB, we're trying it all together today.   Tony Mauro: That's right.   Speaker 1: We're bringing it all full circle in here. So let's do the last one. Have you ever had the opportunity to play with a caddy?   Tony Mauro: I have when I've traveled and it's fantastic.   Speaker 1: Everybody I've talked to that's done it said, wow, it's really impressive. So this one's a pretty easy analogy, right? Because you're paired up with a guy or gal who's a pro and knows that course or whatever the case is, and they help you do all these little things, like reading your line and reading the green and how the putts could break and best choices for this, that, and the other. Well, that's what you do in a sense, Tony, right? As a financial professional, you help with the hazards.   Tony Mauro: We help with the hazards, I mean, we are the financial caddy. And when I played golf at some of the, you go to some of these travel resort type courses and some of them make you get a caddy. Obviously most of us don't play with a caddy in our everyday rounds. But it is a ton of fun because like you say, they know the course like the back of their hand, they're going to be able to tell you from watching you hit two swings, what you should hit on this particular thing. And most of the time they are correct. Every time you say, ah, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about, I'm just going to do what I always do. And then you don't turn out so well on the golf course. I think a lot of it is the same way in the financial area is that can you do it yourself? Can you play without a caddy? Sure. But you're generally going to end up much better off and much more at ease with someone helping you, coaching you around a little bit in your financial life, however that may look for you. So not that you can't do it yourself, but I definitely think you're going to be much more efficient. You're going to probably end up, some people equate it, well, can you get me a better return than I can by myself? That's not really the gist of it, because I can't answer that. It's more along the lines, can we maybe do it or do something good for you in a tax advantage status? Can we make sure that you're on track to hit the goals that you set out to get?   Speaker 1: Yeah, how's your income going to play with social security? What's the best social security strategy for you? How are you going to be tax efficient? Right? It's so much more than just, well, like I guess if you were playing with a caddy and you just wind up saying, Hey, what's the best club for me to use on this hole? Well, there's so much more he has to offer you than just that. If you ask him that same question every time, you're not really maximizing what that caddy can do.   Tony Mauro: No, absolutely not. And like I said, on the course, those guys are fantastic. Besides having a lot of fun, they know the game. They're in the game every day just like we are as planners rather than just guy coming out a couple, well, in my case, traveling.   Speaker 1: Yeah. It's not your cousin Eddie walking out with you going, all right, here's what you want to do.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, no, no, these guys know the game. And if you let them hit a ball for you, generally they're really good players. So I think it goes back to the financial case. It's just like everything else, the people that do it every day are probably going to be better at it than you. And it might be wise to listen and come up with a plan and to work with an advisor.   Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. So there you go. There's a little analogy with golf. We even touched on the SVB thing a little bit. And of course folks, if you do have concerns about what's happened this past week, the time we're taping this, we're in the middle of March, we'll be dropping this podcast here this week. With what's going on with these banks, before you take action, don't panic that. That's one thing we don't need to do is people start panicking and running and taking money out of any banks. And that can certainly be what causes issues. So make sure you reach out to your advisor and just make sure that things are okay and have a conversation. As always, there's no crystal ball, no one knows what the future holds, but we want to also not make things worse by creating more panic than it needs to be. I think that was also where they kind of shot themselves in the foot. The minute they reached out to their investors and different tech companies and said, don't panic, that's essentially the time to... That's when they panicked, right?   Tony Mauro: When they panicked. Yeah. And I've been telling all of our tax financial monthly accounting clients and wealth clients that same thing. Don't panic. I mean, yeah, everything's good until it's not. But most of us don't have, I mean, as an accountant, I like to look, but most consumers aren't going to go and review and understand the bank's financial statements. But I'm telling clients, talk to your banker. Just ask them, Hey, what do you think I should be doing to mitigate my risk if I've got over $250,000 or whatever. I don't know if you want to go in and say, explain all your financials to me, they're not going to have the time to do all that.   Speaker 1: Right. Right.   Tony Mauro: And even if they're not in good shape, they're probably not going to be, Hey, we're in real bad shape. But I think proactively, like you say, keep an eye on it, ask your advisor, ask your banker. And I don't think you should be running out and just pulling all your money out. Absolutely not.   Speaker 1: No. And I think based on, I've talked with a bunch of advisors already this week, Tony, and they've all said the same thing. There doesn't seem to be any evidence there that this is a systemic problem.   Tony Mauro: No, no.   Speaker 1: Yes. We've had two at the time we're doing this, one on the west coast, one on the east coast, but they are both very specific banks to very specific things. I think the New York Bank really being hurt by the crypto, being too heavily heavy leveraged in crypto. And of course, SVB wound up being too heavily leveraged in bonds they took out, and then they didn't have the stock assets to cover it. So.   Tony Mauro: Nope.   Speaker 1: Yeah, and bank failures, folks, they happen more often than you realize.   Tony Mauro: They do. They do.   Speaker 1: Yeah. It's an interesting chart. We've actually had like 300 plus since the great financial impact of '09. We've had about 300 plus bank failures, and you don't really hear about all of them. You only hear about a few at a time. Especially the really big... You heard it around the financial crisis, obviously in '08, '09, that's what most of them were.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: But I think there's been 12 since 2019, and I don't think you've heard about any but this one.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, I've only heard of one other one since and well, it's probably been, yeah, four or five years. And that was just a minuscule little thing. I mean, you could ask clients about it. They'd never heard of it.   Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So again, you never know. There's always chance for things to happen. We certainly want to keep our eyes and ears peeled, but we don't want to panic. So if you do have questions, definitely reach out to someone and have a conversation before you take any action. And of course, Tony's here to help, he and his team at Tax Doctor Inc. You can find them online at yourplanningpros.com. That's yourplanningpros.com. He's got 27 plus years of experience as a CPA, CFP, and an EA. And he is, well, he's a tax doctor. Tax Doctor Inc. So check him out online and we will see you next time here on Plan with the Tax Man. Thanks, Tony.   Tony Mauro: All right. We'll talk to you later.   Disclaimer: Securities offered through Avantax Investment ServicesSM. Member FINRA, S.I.P.C. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency.

Are you confident that your financial plan is complete? Many people believe they have a solid plan in place, only to realize later that they've missed important areas. From not accounting for long-term care expenses to overlooking the impact of taxes on retirement income, there are many ways a financial plan can be incomplete. On this episode, we'll be pointing out the most common areas people overlook when planning and provide actionable tips to ensure that your plan is as comprehensive as possible. Important Links Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript Of Today's Show: Speaker 1: Welcome into another edition of Plan With The Tax, with Man Tony Mauro and myself here to talk about the incomplete financial plan. Are you confident that your financial plan is complete? Most people believe that they have a solid plan in place only to realize a little later on that maybe they've missed a few important areas. So that's what we're going to do in this episode. Point out some of the most common areas people overlook when planning and hopefully provide a few actionable tips to ensure that your plan is as comprehensive as possible. What's going on, Tony? How are you buddy?   Tony Mauro: Not too bad. Coming out of the busiest time of tax season. Still got some ways to go, but-   Speaker 1: It's early March, time we're dropping this. So you still got a few weeks, right?   Tony Mauro: We still got a few weeks left and we trickle into the summer months with some extensions and whatnot.   Speaker 1: You're right, and the heavy throes of it right this minute. So as always folks, do your CPA, and your financial professionals, and tax preparers a favor, try to get that stuff to them as early as possible. Don't be like me and wait till April the 12th or something. They don't like that so much. But if you need some help reach out to Tony and his team at yourplanningpros.com. They are obviously Tax Doctor Inc. Is the name of the company. They are a Des Moines professional alternative, and you can find them online yourplanningpros.com. So let's jump into a list here. I've got a few different things to run through, like I said. Maybe you have some of this going on and it might make your financial plan incomplete. So the downturn we've experienced in '22, that was a rough year obviously for the market. And when it's the early stages of retirement, Tony, it's more detrimental and people [inaudible 00:01:38] are aware of that and why that is something called sequence of return. So let's talk a little bit about why it is a bigger problem if you are retiring in a down year, like in the early days of your retirement versus later.   Tony Mauro: And in simple terms really, say you decided to retire at the end of '22. And we did have a down year, although years before, this is different because we've had such a run-up, but if you retire and in the early part of a long prolonged downturn, presumably you've generally got some years left to live and it's going to be very difficult, because you're going to need this money to supplement your living to make that up without taking a lot of risks. And so generally, you don't want to be overly aggressive, I would say. And obviously if you're 90 years old and you have a downturn, it's pretty easy to see. It's a lot different if you're than you're 65 or 70, because you're a little closer to the end. But really you want to make sure that, again, in these early years that you, as you're getting into retirement, even before that, you're switching things up. So number one, hopefully that doesn't happen or if it does not really going to affect you too negatively. But we do see that a lot.   Speaker 1: Oh, for sure. And so basically, because, correct me if I'm wrong on this, Tony, but it's like you're basically, if you're going through a major drop, if you're going through what, I don't know what we were doing, let's say 22% or 20% last year or whatever. In the early days of your retirement, it's really going to scramble up your picture, because you're tapping your portfolio as it's losing or after its lost value. And then you're having to sell more investments to possibly raise money to fund part of your lifestyle, whatever portion of your financial plan that needs to do. So it's this double whammy. So you're draining your savings more quickly, but you're also leaving fewer assets in those set accounts that can also regenerate more growth. So it's almost maybe even a triple whammy.   Tony Mauro: It is a little bit of that because, yes, with that, if you're already down say, I don't know, 15, 20%, then you're taking out 5 or 6% or whatever that might be, really starts to drain the portfolio quickly. And if that's your main source of retirement income, you have to make sure, well obviously the big one is you're not going to run out of money but it's, again, being different. If you're 90 and all of a sudden you have a little downturn that's not as detrimental.   Speaker 1: And downturns do happen. We can ride these out, but just something to be aware of, which again is where the planning comes into place. Because people sometimes will say, "Well, when you're setting up your income strategy, which horse are you going to ride first? The social security horse or your own horse." So some people will say, "Well, I want to wait social security to maximize it at 70," but maybe the strategy looks better depending again on the environment as you're getting close to retirement to maybe take social security a little earlier and right ease off of going into your own accounts until later. Again, it's all timing and it's all strategy.   Tony Mauro: It's all strategy especially with the incomes that you can't outlive, which are few and far between today. Social security and then some of us have pensions that we can't outlive, but most don't now. It's social security and whatever you've accumulated in your 401ks or savings. And so it takes a little more savviness to come up with a good plan.   Speaker 1: So sequence of return risk can certainly be a problem if you don't have that taken care of and you have it in complete financial plan. And then of course we can add to that conversation we just had by saying the lovely inflation effects over time, even normal inflation, Tony, let alone what we're dealing with right now.   Tony Mauro: So I think this is another bad whammy, if you will, especially as we're recording this, we all know what inflation has done for the last year and a half or so.   Speaker 1: I think it actually, if time we're taping this or we're just happened a little bit, I think the January, oh, that's right. It was January's numbers. We don't have March's yet. Oh, excuse me, February's yet. It was back up a half percent so.   Tony Mauro: It was just about, yeah. And it's trickling back down, but again, take the scenario of a retiree, they could be down 15, 20%, they're trying to take money out and by the way, now stuff costs a lot more.   Speaker 1: Yeah. So you're down 15, you're pulling out 4, let's say you're using the 4% rule or whatever, and then you're paying 7% more at the grocery store. It's just not-   Tony Mauro: It hurts you.   Speaker 1: And you wonder why people are stressed, right?   Tony Mauro: Yeah. This is why people are stressed and this is why, although I try to make a case for people that you got to try to outpace inflation a little bit, even when it's low and it's hard to do now and be conservative because it's kind of high.   Speaker 1: Trying to find some vehicles that'll help you do that for sure. So yeah, you've got to have it. So again, if you're putting a plan together, you've got to be working with an advisor who's taken into account normal inflation, just at least nothing else they're planning for. Because if we can go into that simple conversation of, hey, if it costs you $5,000 a month to get by now, and even in normal inflationary times, well in what? 12 years? That's going to double, right? 10, 12 years, that's going to double. So then if you have a 30-year retirement, that's going to triple. So you got to make sure that you've got something in there helping those accounts grow to deal with inflation. And then medical cost is going to be number three on there and that typically outpaces regular inflation. So you certainly got to have that accounted for.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, you do. And it seems like as I'm looking through the list here, nothing's good, but we'll talk about anyway, because I think it's important to people understand some of these potential things that could become quite catastrophic and medical I would think would be one of them. Obviously as you retire generally your medical costs are going to go up. People are living a long time today where they're keeping us alive. And even my own father, his medical costs are up, he takes a lot of pills and things and I still think he's fairly healthy at 81. And so his costs are up. And so that eats again into his disposable income or his monthly income coming in. And again, just pile that on with everything else we just talked about, which we've got more here. It's something that you got to start thinking about because, and that's not even including some of the people that are in poor health and whether it's hereditary or something else, it adds up quickly.   Speaker 1: Well, and then of course number four is the possibility of tax increases. So just like inflation or whatever, we want to be able to try to retire in any environment, because we just never know what's, again, if you live 20 years or 30 years in retirement, you're going to see multiple administrations, which means you may see multiple tax code changes and we all know we're broke, the country's broke and we're spending money like it's water. So the likelihood of tax, even if they do nothing, Tony, the taxes are going up '26. So if you're not addressing future tax increases with your financial strategy, you are leaving an incomplete plan on the table.   Tony Mauro: And I do think it'll be interesting, we're still a few years away from '26, but unlike you, if somebody's just going to ask me, I think that they'll let a lot of these things expire and taxes will be going up in some form or another. And like you say it and as the time we're taping this, they just have been fighting over and delayed till June or, I don't know if they delayed it, I can't remember on the debt ceiling, but I think it comes due again in June or something. And some people want to keep borrowing, some want to cut. Obviously we spend more as a country than we're taking in. And I think we've talked about it a little bit before, the politicians never want to talk about, hey, it's like any other business. We don't take in enough to pay our bills. We either need to stop spending, or we need to increase our cost, or tax us more. So I can't imagine them going down anymore, but I'm usually wrong whenever I say that, I got to think they're going up in the future. And like you say as retirees, or in the rest of us, it's going to hurt you, because again, there's another little piece coming off before you get to spend anything.   Speaker 1: Yep, absolutely. More than likely it's going to be the case probably for quite a while. So we may not see rates this low again for a very long time. So you want to take advantage of it, which leads into number five, because you may want to take advantage of the tax rates now because there are challenges that present themselves with RMDs. Obviously we've talked a little bit about the SECURE Act. We're going to do a bigger, more in depth one later on, but they've pushed the age back again, so now it's 73 for those of born before '59, those born after '59, it's going to be 75. But a lot of people are in good shape and they don't want to take these Tony, they're like, "Well, I don't want to have to take money out." But they require it to require minimum distribution, so maybe taking advantage of the tax rates and doing Roth conversions, which is why that's been a very popular conversation piece for the last two years.   Tony Mauro: It really has. And we're talking about that more and more with people that do have sizable amounts is going a little bit against the grain and saying, well, even though you don't have to do it until 73 or 5 now, maybe we want to, at least filling up the tax bracket you're in, so that you can pay it at a lower rate, because that way it's now already been taxed and we can figure out something else to do with it. But if taxes go up and then all of a sudden you got to start taking money out, well again, that that's less in your pocket. And I think that's a mistake if you just blindly say, well, I'm going to wait because I don't want to do it right now and pay taxes. Sometimes it's actually better to pay a little than more later.   Speaker 1: And the likelihood, number six, that we're going to have a long-term care event just continues to grow. Two out of every three people, seven out of every 10 are going to have some event. It doesn't mean a nursing home, Tony, but it certainly means some sort of an event. It could be a short-lived event, it could be a longer event. It could be someone just coming out to your house for a few weeks. But either way, you may have to look at some sort of coverage on that. And it is expensive. People start looking at different alternative life insurance policies or different kinds of ways to possibly fund this.   Tony Mauro: And this could be a whole topic in and of itself as many of these could. But I would say just off the cuff, the best way to do it is try to protect, depending on where you're at of the income spectrum, with some sort of insurance while you're young enough where it's still relatively affordable. If you're waiting until 70, 75, if you can even get longer term care types of insurance, it's going to be extremely expensive. But a lot of people buy it when they're young and a lot of people now are using it to stay out of the home, the nursing home that is, is assisted living, people coming into your house and at least providing some benefits there where they can at least age in place and hopefully stay there. But yeah, if you don't have this accounted for and you have to go in, even if you're coming out and we're not talking nursing home here, but just for some care, it's like the medical costs, extremely expensive to do. And a lot of times Medicare doesn't cover a lot of this, so they're going to be looking for other insurance policies or your pocket.   Speaker 1: Absolutely. So you got to have all these pieces in there to get that financial plan in a complete status versus having some of these little pockets or holes that can certainly derail things. And Tony, we were talking a little bit about inflation and we were talking about economic times that we're in right now, this is March's episode of '23. There's still a lot of conversation about tons of tech companies, Walmart, a lot of places have laid off, Amazon, I guess that's retail and or tech. They've let a lot of people go already in the first quarter of this year. So the possibility of a job loss and what it could do to your retirement plans, especially if you're a couple of years away, let's say you've got five years or left and you think, "Okay, hey, as long as I can hang on to this job for the next five years, we're [inaudible 00:13:41]. But you never know, something could happen.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, it could. I'm in agreement. The people listening to this from around here will know what I'm talking about. But we have a huge Wells Fargo presence here in Des Moines and I don't know, 18, 20,000 people here total. And they've always been downtown. Well, they just came out and said, "We're moving everybody out to the western suburb campus and we're getting rid of these buildings," but they are laying off a lot of people. And of course, it's like 4 or 500, which doesn't sound like that many if you're talking about these giant companies. But here in Des Moines it's anywhere, it's a lot of people that, like you say, if some of these people were five, eight years from retirement, then thinking they were going to have this, well, it's like, "Okay, now what do I do?" Yeah, 55 60, nobody wants to hire me and I don't have an income. Maybe my skillset newer employers want. And that poses a real, at least, concern. Best way to combat it is obviously keep your skillset up, assuming you still want to work and stay nimble enough where you know can get out and get something else, but I don't think it's easy. The other way to do it too is have the emergency fund. We talk a lot about in planning of three to six months, or maybe even a little more to help you decide, get you through paying the bills until you can at least find something. But...   Speaker 1: Definitely got to have that, you got to have that emergency fund in place. Hopefully, if nothing else, COVID maybe taught, hopefully, many folks that it was going to be important to have some emergency funds sitting there if they unexpectedly lost a job for 2, 3, 4 months. So definitely-   Tony Mauro: I got-   Speaker 1: Go ahead.   Tony Mauro: Sorry for the interruption, but I was going to say the other thing too, how many of us out there, probably a lot of people can resonate. I been on my own for so long, I've forgotten what it was like, but gone are the days that people go to work and can feel like, "Well, if I work hard here, I'm going to be here for 50 years and I'm going to ride off into the sunset," because a lot of times it's companies, they just say, "Well, you know what, we're all about the bottom dollar and well, we're going to cut that department, or we're going to consolidate and do this." It doesn't seem like people have that safety anymore that they used to, and-   Speaker 1: It's definitely more rare. Pensions have been dying since the early '00s, late '90s, early '00s. And I think longevity in corporations, 30 and 40 year jobs have been taking that kind of hit for the last 20 plus years as well. And it's a big jobs market or it has been. Emerging markets and industry and all different kinds of things, but we also like usual, we oversaturate in some areas, other areas get to suffer and then they start to balance out. But it's certainly something to think about. And I think one thing I tell people all the time is, if you're really worried about something and you have any mechanical inclination skills, we sorely are going to be in source or shape for electricians, and carpenters, and plumbers, and things. It may not be the sexiest sounding thing, but I tell young people all the time, "Hey, if you don't think college is right for you, pay attention to in that industry sector, because a good contractor's worth their weight in gold."   Tony Mauro: We have a lot of commercials airing right now. I know we're getting off the subject, but if you can come and work hard, I think it was for heating and air conditioning. You become a journeyman, you can make a good living, a real good living, and you're always going to be in demand. But I think that, yeah, you're right, here, these industries are suffering. They can't find people that want to go do it. Everybody gets-   Speaker 1: They don't want to get their hands dirty. There's a young gentleman here in my area, he's been doing concrete for about seven years and he's only like 27 years old and he is just killing it. He's just making money hand over fist, because he does a great job, he and his, team and they show up and they get the work done and he's like, "Yeah, I don't have student loan debt and I don't have all that stuff." As a matter of fact, he's living in a half a million-dollar house and he's 27 years old while his best friend has got $300,000 in school debt.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, I've always said there's a ton of different ways to make money, make a living. And if you're good at business, if you're good at that kind of stuff, and you can run a good business, you can make as much as, or probably more and have a different type and a great lifestyle than somebody works for corporate.   Speaker 1: But entrepreneurship is not for everybody.   Tony Mauro: Not for everybody.   Speaker 1: You got to know who you are. You got to certainly know who you. And that goes a long way towards a good complete financial plan, whether it's a financial strategy while you're still working or in retirement, knowing who you are and being honest about some of those things can certainly help you and your advisor plan accordingly. We got a little sidetracked, but I think it still brings back in the nature of the beast of just money and how we take care of ourselves and how we strategize for the future, so. Last one, we'll just do it real quick and just that's passing assets as smoothly as possible to future generations. That's really just being tax smart, tax efficient with whatever you've got. So if you're wanting to leave that 401(k) behind to your kids, well the Stretch IRA removal from the first SECURE Act may say that you need to change that strategy a little bit. Things like that.   Tony Mauro: And that area alone should be enough where you should be talking to your advisor, especially if you know want things to happen a certain way. And on top of that, you got taxation and some other things. So to go about that blindly, I think you're really, to make it short, going to be in for real surprise depending on how you do it. So please go out and get some advice on, well on all these, but that one for sure.   Speaker 1: Yeah, tax efficiency in retirement. Some people say, "Well, I'm going to leave my," joke and say, "I'm going to leave my kids a tax bill," or "I'm going to leave them a credit card statement," or something like that. But I think at the end of the day, we all truly just want to, if we're going to leave a legacy, we want to leave it as efficient as we can, because God willing, we lived a long life and by the time we're leaving something to our children, they might be grown adults in their prime earning years. They might be in their 40s or even 50s in their earning years. And so you don't want to hit them with putting them in a higher tax bracket if you can avoid it. So again, efficiency is the name of the game, strategy is the name of the game. So if you want that complete financial plan, make sure that you're checking off some of these items on today's list. And if you need help, as always, stop by Tony's website, get in touch with he and the team at Tax Dr. Inc. You can find them online at yourplanningpros.com. That is yourplanningpros.com. Don't forget to subscribe to the show on Apple, or Google, or Spotify, whatever podcasting platform app you like to use, you can find our show there, Plan with the Tax Man, and that just lets you catch future episodes as well as check out some past ones. Tony's been helping folks for 27 plus years, great resource. He's a CPA, CFP and an EA, so certainly got a lot of good skillset there to help you out. Tony, thanks my friend. As always, I appreciate you. I hope you have a lovely start to March and good luck with those taxes, bud.   Tony Mauro: All right, we'll talk to you next time.   Speaker 1: Yep. We'll see you in late March here on Plan with the Tax Man with Tony Mauro.   Disclaimer: Securities offered through Avantax Investment ServicesSM. Member FINRA, S.I.P.C. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency.

Retirement can come with a lot of tax questions and concerns. From understanding the tax implications of withdrawing from your retirement accounts to minimizing taxes on investment income, it can be overwhelming. On today's episode, we'll break down the top ten tax questions retirees are asking in 2023. Before you file your 2022 taxes and plan ahead for the rest of the year, make sure to listen to this episode as we'll discuss some important tax questions that retirees should ask themselves to ensure they're making the most of their retirement savings and minimizing their tax burden. Important Links Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript Of Today's Show: Speaker 1: Welcome into another edition of Plan With The Tax Man with Tony Mauro and myself, here to talk about the top 10 tax questions for retirees, 10 or so, somewhere in that neighborhood, for 2023. I mean, hey, it makes sense to go ahead and have this conversation with Tony. It's Plan With The Tax Man for Pete's sake. We got to get into that conversation with him. Tony is a CPA and a CFP, an EA of 27 plus years in the industry. We're going to go through this. Right of fact, it's right in the middle of tax time. We're taping this on Valentine's Day. Hopefully everybody has a good Valentine's Day. It is getting ready for tax time, but Tony, let's break down a few of the top questions and just help folks with a few things to think about to get themselves ready for not just the annual tax prep, but also the actual year long tax planning and things as we move further through retirement, not just the history look of that thing. How you doing my friend?   Tony Mauro: I've been doing good. You say Valentine's Day today and-   Speaker 1: That's right.   Tony Mauro: Got a lot of people coming in, dropping off their taxes. Now that everybody's starting to get most of their documents, their focus is-   Speaker 1: Oh yeah.   Tony Mauro: And of course we just had the Super Bowl. With all the ads on the Super Bowl, everybody's thinking about it now all the sudden.   Speaker 1: Yeah. True. Very true.   Tony Mauro: Busy.   Speaker 1: And in what you do, because you have both sides of the coin really, because you are a financial planner as well as a CPA, you look at really this stuff through multiple lenses, which I think is a nice benefit as well. And tax prep is that annual thing, but most CPAs look at, that's history, right? It's like the year-   Tony Mauro: That's right.   Speaker 1: That was. Whereas I think working with someone who does financial planning and the CPA, they're not only taking care of the past year, but they're really looking at how things are going to affect future years. So let's dive in, talk about some of that from that aspect. Let you give us, 'cause there's a lot of them here so we'll see how many we can get through, but tax implications of withdrawing money is number one from different accounts. This is important because we talk about bucket strategies. People are used to hearing that. Well there's also kind of tax bucket strategies if you will.   Tony Mauro: Yeah there is and all of these things we're going to talk about I would caveat right off the bat is to make sure, especially as a retiree, you're talking to your advisor, whether it be your financial advisor, your tax advisor, or both.   Speaker 1: Right.   Tony Mauro: 'Cause all of this really can affect your taxes negatively if done improperly, which I have seen a lot, but taking money out of retirement plans, the IRS doesn't make it easy for us 'cause they have different rules for almost everything.   Speaker 1: Right.   Tony Mauro: And depending on which type of retirement plan you take it out of, for example, say you're starting to pull money out of your 401k and it's just a traditional 401k, that money's never been taxed. So that's going to be added to your taxable income, which you're probably not going to have any penalties on it if you're above 59 and a half, but you want to make sure that you're not just blanketly pulling a bunch of money out and then you've got other money coming in as well and all the sudden you got a huge tax bill. That's the other thing. A lot of this leads to surprises at tax time if not done properly. So you have to pay attention to that 'cause the 401ks are different than the roths. They're different from just pulling money out of a taxable type of investment account, things like that. All of this should be taken into account with some tax planning.   Speaker 1: Well how you, and where you, pull money from is going to affect number two, which is social security benefits being taxed. People still get very confused by this. So can you explain to us some of the rules on this, on how it works because this is a thing. It can happen.   Tony Mauro: It can happen and a lot of people get confused on them reducing your social security versus taxing your social security. And so if you are full retirement age, and it depends on all of us now or depending on when you were born, but once you're full retirement age, they can't reduce your benefits, but they can and will tax it depending on how much other income you have coming in from other sources like we just talked about in number one or maybe you're still working, things like that. So what happens is is in a nutshell, if you make a little too much money from other sources, then all the sudden they have this kind of backdoor tax, they start taxing your social security. They're not taking your social security, it's just like income. They're just taxing it. The tax is not 100%. So it isn't like you're being robbed completely, but it does make a difference because a lot of people aren't withholding anything from their social security benefits. And then if they add it to their income, then all of the sudden, again, they have that surprise tax bill and they're asking us, "Well, hey, what happened?" And then we say, "Well your social security, part of it's being taxed or they can tax all the way up to 85% of it."   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony Mauro: Again, people get confused, "Oh, my God. My tax rate's 85%." No. They're just taxing 85% of the benefit at whatever your tax rate is.   Speaker 1: Right. And so it's based on income. So how you're pulling money out of your other retirement accounts. So there's ways to be strategic so that we're not getting too crazy and not hitting that highest number on social security, right?   Tony Mauro: That's correct. There's different ways to pull money out and then at least fill up certain, well we call them tax brackets or buckets because-   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony Mauro: Unfortunately for us, there isn't just one tax rate. For every filing status there's five to seven. And so it's very easy to jump into the next one and then get a bunch of money taxed at a little higher rate. So-   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony Mauro: That's where the planning comes in is trying to maximize that.   Speaker 1: Yeah. I think most people still get confused by that too. If you're, let's say, in the 22% tax bracket, not every dollar you have coming in is at 22%.   Tony Mauro: It's not.   Speaker 1: It's incremental. Yeah.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. It's incremental. And so you got your marginal tax rate, which is the tax on the next dollar you receive. And then your effective tax rate's kind of the average. But even for somebody that's single, let's say, the top 22% rate's about 89,000 for '22, but anything over that, any dollar over that, then everything's 24 and then it jumps all the way up to 32.   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony Mauro: So it can get taxi in a hurry.   Speaker 1: Yeah. Gets heavy. Yeah. It starts to hurt.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: All right. Number three, taxation of pension. Is that different at all? Is there anything for folks to think about there or know there?   Tony Mauro: Well, again, it's a technical thing depending on what type of pension you have.   Speaker 1: And some states waive this, right? Depending on where you live, yeah.   Tony Mauro: Iowa now on the state level is not taxing pension income for retirees. Yeah. They just passed this, by the way, for '23 and beyond. I think it's a way to, because they always tax retiree income before maybe to try to keep people here in their retired years. But, some of it though is even taxable at the federal level. For a lot of our big pension, which here is IPERS, some of distribution is taxable at the federal level and some of it is exempt. And of course that's up to IPERS. They figure all that out for you, but if some of it's taxable at the federal level, again, you've got that same deal of now all the sudden we got to make sure that we're not getting a tax surprise and we don't have enough withheld from our pension incomes.   Speaker 1: Okay. All right. Number four, the Secure Act, the first time, and also the Secure Act 2.0 passing. Anything there that could affect income and taxes? Obviously they moved the RMD age so it does-   Tony Mauro: RMDs, yeah.   Speaker 1: Give you a little bit of wiggle room for some other strategizing. Anything there you want to enlighten us on?   Tony Mauro: Well, I've been talking to a lot of people about the RMDs with the Secure Act, which I think for a lot of my clients really is going to benefit them 'cause a lot of them don't really need or want to start taking the money out. And so if they can postpone it, I think that's an advantage, truly of course. I think too though, they've changed some things with the Roths and some incentives to participate, but as far as retirees go, I talk to them mostly about possibly deferring some of this and keeping it growing a little bit longer if they can.   Speaker 1: Yeah. I know there's lots of different little things in there. So it's certainly wise to. And since the Secure Act 2.0 is still pretty new and they're still trying to decipher a ton of what they put in there, it's certainly worth making sure that you talk with your financial professional and CPA as to anything that might change for your scenario. Any special tax deductions or credits that are available for retirees at all?   Tony Mauro: Well, they are and backing up to the Secure Act, I think we were talking about last time possibly doing a podcast on that 2.0 Later in March, April, once kind of some of this dust settles.   Speaker 1: Yeah, we can do that.   Tony Mauro: It can get technical, but we don't want to get too far off in the weeds with it, but something to think about, but tax deductions or credits for retirees, there are some. The tax deductions, of course, a lot of retirees, depending on what their other income is, they have a lot of out-of-pocket medical. They are paying for a lot of supplemental health insurance that we see, at least in our client base, is enough to trigger deductibility on some of that. So we always tell them to make sure that they're keeping track of that, where the younger people, they can't get over the thresholds very much. There's those. There's some credits if you're disabled. Oh, of course if you're blind and things like that that you might be able to take advantage of. Again, if you're even remotely asking, I wouldn't be afraid to ask your advisor. It doesn't matter if you think it's kind of ridiculous. There could be some deductibility there. So I would definitely ask if you've got some kind of situation.   Speaker 1: Yeah. And they increased the standard deduction, correct, for '22?   Tony Mauro: They did again based on inflation here, just looking at that. For married filing joint now it's up to 25,900. You do get an additional 1,404 if you're 65 or older. So that kind of bumps it up a little bit for you too.   Speaker 1: Gotcha.   Tony Mauro: It's theirs and same way with being blind, but I think the biggest thing that we see besides that of course would be the medical for most of them. Another one too, I don't even know if it's on our list. Let me look down. Yeah it is. It's actually number eight, but we could talk about it a little bit 'cause a lot of retirees like to make contributions to charity. It seems like moreso than maybe the younger people. And so I always encourage them to keep track of that, both cash and non-cash because-   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony Mauro: They do add up and a lot of them are very, very charitable.   Speaker 1: Yeah. Tax benefits for charitable contributions also. QCDs, which could help you with your RMD, satisfying that goal. So yeah. That was going to be on the list so that's good you touched on that one as well. So that's certainly something you could look at. How about moving? So that's another one to consider. So maybe if you're getting close to retirement or maybe this is the year you were going to retire and you're considering, or maybe it's next year, and you're considering moving, I don't know if I would let the ultimate decision be that I'm moving to, let's say, Florida just because the tax is different. I'd be going because I'm cold and the tax is different.   Tony Mauro: Right. And the tax. It's an added bonus.   Speaker 1: It's an added bonus, but it is something to consider.   Tony Mauro: It is. And again, Iowa is now, of course I've been here all my life, but now all the sudden it's a little more attractive as a retiree, other than the cold, is that you've got this non-taxability of retirement benefits, which for most retirees, it's like a state like Florida. Now the difference is any earned income in Iowa, if you're retired, you're still going to pay taxes on that. Whereas Florida and some of these states with no state income tax don't have that. So again, you got to kind of take a look, weigh all the options there.   Speaker 1: Okay.   Tony Mauro: Because I don't know. A lot of retirees in Iowa, they kind of just work for what I call mad money to have, and here that still is taxable, but without having their retirement income taxable and social security now they're still kind of elated, but it is important.   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: Yeah. Something to factor in there. I think they're going to get their dollars one way or another. You think it's like, "Hey, I'm moving to this state 'cause there's no income tax," but it may have a higher cost of living or it may have different kinds of things. A friend of mine moved to Colorado and he's like, "Wow. I can't believe how expensive it is out here." And it's just some of the little things that he was surprised by like tagging his vehicle and the insurance on the car. There's massive difference versus his prior state. So always little things to consider in there. Let's see. We're talking about charitable contributions. What about gifting money? Any tax considerations there if you want to gift money to kids or grandkids?   Tony Mauro: Yeah. This is an area another, just like social security, I think with a lot of confusion. People always ask, "How much can I gift to my kids without paying income tax?" And I say, "Well, if you really want to know, the threshold's extremely high," because they kind of confuse the gift tax exemption every year, which I believe is like 16,000, but I got to refer to my charts-   Speaker 1: I think it is. Yeah. I think it's either 16 or 17 that you can give per person. Yeah.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. So I tell them, I said, "Well, you can gift that much per person to avoid the have to file a gift tax return." But all the gift tax return really is is a filing of the return telling the government that you used up a little bit of your lifetime exemption, which I believe is for a married filing joint about 22 million.   Speaker 1: Yeah. It's crazy high right now. Yeah.   Tony Mauro: It's very, very high. And considering, yeah. Here it is. I finally found it. So the gift tax for '22 is 16, '23 it's 17,000 that is. So for most, what we tell them is that if you and your wife want to gift your son and his wife say money, you each could gift them, each one of them, 16,000 or 17,000, it's 34 a piece. So you're talking about a lot of money. A lot of people can't gift that much-   Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. That's pretty hefty. Yeah.   Tony Mauro: In one year. But even if you go over that, you've got some farmland or something like that, you want to gift them $200,000, you're not going to pay any gift tax on it. We just have to file a return to keep in the good graces of the government and tell them you used that much, but-   Speaker 1: This could be a nice future strategy though, Tony, if you're looking to bring down your complete total net worth because of, let's say, because of RMDs, because of maybe converting money or just reducing the estate size overall, if that's part of the strategy, this could be a nice way to do a little bit of that too.   Tony Mauro: It is. If you've got somebody with enough of an estate to possibly have estate taxes later on, the gifting and using the annual exclusion amount is a great idea along with some other things 'cause you got to get some of this money out of your estate in order to escape that and a lot of people are very content with just gifting the exemption amount every year.   Speaker 1: Yeah. There you go.   Tony Mauro: At least trying to get it out of there.   Speaker 1: Right. Okay. We talk about individuals a lot. Sometimes we should do probably more for businesses considering you are a business, but any tax things to discuss real fast for small, maybe not even a business, but maybe retirees who go into a small or a side hustle. So they're in a retirement and maybe they're selling paintings or they're selling arts and crafts that they've made. Whatever tax ramifications you'd like to share with us from a small business or side hustle kind of thing.   Tony Mauro: I would say for small business, I would keep it simple. I wouldn't go into incorporating things like that unless all of the sudden really started taking off. A lot of people confuse doing something for a hobby with trying to make money and have a profit motive. In other words, they'll come in and say, "Well I've got this business. Here's all my expenses." And we say, "Well, where's the income?" "Well I don't make any money." And I say, "Well, where's the sales?" "Well I don't even sell anything." "Well that's a hobby. You can't deduct that." So you got to have a profit motive. Not to say you can't lose money.   Speaker 1: Right.   Tony Mauro: And you can deduct that against other income, which is good. So if you are doing a side hustle, keep good records to see if you're making money or losing money. Obviously if you're losing money, it's a great tax deduction, but eventually if you're losing money, that's money going out the door.   Speaker 1: Right.   Tony Mauro: You certainly don't want to do that forever. But on the flip side, income-wise, it's going to be taxed and you will pay into social security, believe it or not, even if you're 75, 80 years old, you got to pay back in, which a lot of retirees don't like. You can escape it though with passive income like rentals.   Speaker 1: Okay. And speaking of, final one here, the number 10, any tax issues to discuss if you are looking, obviously a lot of people, the housing market went kind of crazy definitely last year. There was still a lot of things pretty high. Maybe if you sold your primary residence or something like that. Anything to consider or ponder?   Tony Mauro: Well I think the tax ramifications, here in Iowa for the most part, it may not be the same in some of the higher priced cities, but you can, for married filing joint, if you've lived in the home for the last five years, it's your primary residence, you can exclude up to $500,000 of capital gain before you have to start paying any long-term capital gains, which is still taxed better than income tax rates, but in Iowa, most people aren't making a $500,000 gain. And so they can get out of their home and take that gain and, well they can do whatever they want with it. The problem is now as prices are going up, when they move into something else, they kind of end up rolling the whole thing into something new, but at least you didn't pay tax. But, like you were saying though, if you're downsizing, that's when it's better. I sell my home for 700,000 and I paid 250 way back when-   Speaker 1: Right.   Tony Mauro: And all the sudden I got a $450,000 gain and I can go out, I got 700,000, and I can go out and buy something smaller for 350. Yeah. That extra money could go in my pocket and never pay taxes on it, which is a nice deal. That's been around, I don't know, maybe 10, 15, 20 years now, but that never used to be the case. You always had to pay tax when you sold something.   Speaker 1: Okay. So a lot of little things to think about. Again, it's all part of strategizing for just not only the past year, but also future years into retirement. So as usual, if you've got some questions and you need some help when it comes to how to get a tax strategy, to get a retirement strategy in place, make sure that you're reaching out to a qualified professional like Tony and his team. They are Des Moines Professional Alternative, excuse me, at Tax Dr. Inc. And you can find them online at yourplanningpros.com. That's yourplanningpros.com.   Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast Plan With The Tax Man on Apple, Google, Spotify, all that good stuff. And again, if you need some help, reach out to tony at yourplanningpros.com. Buddy, thanks for your time. Appreciate you.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: I'm going to let you go 'cause it is Valentine's Day, so I hope you guys have a great day.   Tony Mauro: All right. You guys do the same. Let's talk to you soon.   Speaker 1: We'll see you next time right here on Plan With The Tax Man, with Tony Mauro.   Disclaimer: Securities offered through Avantax Investment ServicesSM. Member FINRA, S.I.P.C. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency.

A million dollars is a goal that many people strive to earn for their retirement nest egg, but how far can that lump sum actually carry you? Today we will be looking at an article that breaks down how far a million dollars go in various states. CNBC Article: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/17/states-where-1-million-dollars-retirement-savings-runs-out-fastest.html Important Links Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript Of Today's Show: Speaker 1: Back here for another edition of Plan with the Tax Man with Tony Morrow. We are into early February here on the podcast, and we are going to do a fun little episode here on where a million bucks runs out the fastest. We'll put a link to this article on the show notes, but this will be a fun episode to look at this article that was written just before it was written in 2020, and we'll take a look at how it breaks down different states for how far a million bucks will go. This is kind of a fun little exercise, especially for those folks who think, "Well, I need a million dollars, or if I don't get to the million, I can't retire." Well, a million might not get it done in some places, and it might be just fine in others. So that's the point of the conversation. Tony, what's going on, my friend? How are you?   Tony: I'm doing good. It's tax season here. February, always the coldest month for us, and so it's just kind of work.   Speaker 1: That's true. That is true. I teed up on our previous podcast we were going to get into the Secure Act 2.0 passing there on December the 30th, I believe is when it went through of '22. We still got some more stuff we're breaking down. We're going to talk about that probably on the next episode, next episode or two. So make sure you tune back in for all the changes there. Of course, as always, if you've heard some things about the Secure Act changes and you need to make sure you reach out to Tony and have a conversation with he and his team just to make sure, especially around the concept of RMDs. We'll touch on that. Just real quick, Tony, one of the big takeaways, there was a lot of stuff in the new Secure Act 2.0 changes, but they moved the age for required minimum distributions to 73. The short of it is if you've already started taking RMDs, you're stuck taking them, so just keep doing it. But if you were turning 72 in 2023, sometime early this year, you can now wait until you're 73. So you do have a little reprieve. But again, please double-check with your qualified professional before you take any action, and then we'll break down all the rest because eventually it's going to 75 and so on and so forth.   Tony: Yeah, it's going to be phased in. Yep.   Speaker 1: Yeah, so we'll talk about some more of the stuff on that, but I wanted to kind of share that with folks real quick. All right, so let's talk about this fun article here. This was done by... Who did this?   Tony: Well, CNBC put it out, but yeah.   Speaker 1: Yeah, CNBC put it out, but Go Banking did the analysis. Based off the US Department of Labor Statistics. This is a breakdown of where, and again, we'll put the link in there so you can kind of see the color coding, but how many years would a million dollars get you in retirement savings in certain states? I don't think the top three are really shocking that are the worst for how long it's going to last. I imagine anybody could interchange them and think, well, it's going to be Hawaii, New York, and California, and it is. The top three are those. Hawaii with a whopping 11 years, Tony. So if you got a million bucks and you want to retire in Hawaii, if you got a longevity ahead of you, the million dollars is not going to do it.   Tony: Not going to go very far. And I love Hawaii and I go there every five years, and I would love to retire there, but... Well-   Speaker 1: You're going to need a lot of money.   Tony: I need a lot. It's just not going to last that long. And I'd probably go crazy because I would go...the island. But it is interesting because I think that million dollars we talked about at last episode about that, that's kind of that sweet spot. Everybody always kind of shoots for sure. I'm a millionaire and I'm good now once I have a million. And I think if you read through this article, it really gives some eye-opening things. It depends a lot on where you live and-   Speaker 1: And how you live.   Tony: And how you live.   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony: So I do think that these top three on the highest side don't surprise me. I think some of the other ones that are especially like Alaska and then maybe the eastern [inaudible 00:03:42].   Speaker 1: I expected Alaska to be high too, because you got to import a lot of stuff, right?   Tony: That's true. You do. Yeah. Yeah, you do.   Speaker 1: It does tend to be coastal. So when looking at this map, folks, if those of you decide not to check this out, we'll just kind of talk you through it. Basically, most of the east coast and the west coast fall in that million dollars won't go so far category. I'm sorry, with Vermont being the best of the high side. And 18 years, a million dollars if you're out in Vermont, will last about 18 years according to this. What were you going to say?   Tony: Well, I was just going to say speaking of the coast and then Hawaii, I always kid people saying that that's the fun tax, the sun tax, but that's where people like to flock to.   Speaker 1: Sure.   Tony: And so a lot of population and tends to drive prices up. So there's some reality to that. I do want to jump to the other side because my infamous state, Iowa, is number five on the list of the lowest places or where the money will go the furthest.   Speaker 1: Almost 24 years. Pretty good,   Tony: Pretty good. But notice most of those states you got for those, just listening, you got Oklahoma, Kansas, Midwestern to Southern.   Speaker 1: The Heartland.   Tony: Indiana, the Heartland, Tennessee, Arkansas, I mean the best one of course. But I believe that's Mississippi, right? MS?   Speaker 1: Is that Mississippi or Missouri? I think it is. I think it's Mississippi. MO, that's right. Yeah, it's Mississippi.   Tony: But Mississippi, it's not a place that I would think of going, but I mean it's a pretty good sized state. But I think the point of all this really is that depending on where you decide to retire, it's going to last you a lot longer if you're just taking this million. Cause I think they based this on the state's cost of living expenses for housing. If you're going to take that money and live off of it it's going to last you for quite a while.   Speaker 1: I mean, I was pleasantly surprised to see Georgia so low down, if you will. So 24 years basically for Georgia, which is a hugely popular state. Atlanta is a massive city, obviously. And I imagine that states that are probably interesting, Tony, because Atlanta probably is more expensive than Marietta, right? So the further away from the metropolis as you are in some of these states, probably the more affordable it goes. Michigan was on the lower part at 23 and a half years. Again, a pretty populous state, a lot of heavy metro centers. Then the states that aren't mentioned, they kind of fall into this range of 19 to 23, 22-ish. And that's states, Texas, kind of surprising that Texas falls into that kind of 19, that right around 20 years. That's where my North Carolina, where I'm at, falls into place. The Carolinas both fall around 20 years. So Texas kind of surprised me a little bit because so many people have been moving there. Now granted this is two years old, this survey, and that doesn't probably take into account the inflation obviously that we saw happen in the last year.   Tony: I think Texas, even though it's not the considered the beach towns in the states, but it is so large and there's so much-   Speaker 1: Massive cities. I mean Houston and Dallas are just... San Antonio's not massive, but there's a lot of people and they're really... San Antonio's a great place to visit and live as well. I have some friends there. So when you're looking at this kind of thing, you're kind of saying, okay, I've got this retirement goal in mind. And we talked, I don't know, probably a few months back about does it make it sense to move to a state that's maybe tax advantaged or that the cost of living. If you live in New York, a lot of people moved to Florida. So Florida falls in that mid-category as well, folks around that 19, 20 year mark. There's a huge reason why people moved from New York to Florida. And it's not just the cold.   Tony: No, it's not. Because I was down in Arizona golfing in November, and a guy who's lived there a long time saying they get a lot of Californians selling these massive real estate places and taking a ton of cash and then moving to Arizona, which it's not on the lowest end of the spectrum-   Speaker 1: It's around the 19 years. Yeah,   Tony: Banking a lot of money, the cost to live is less. It's still got the warmth and you don't have the beaches. I think that makes a lot of sense. But I think another thing in this article is for those that click on the link and read down, CNBC's got a good little retirement planning tool and it's highlighted about halfway down that really you can click on it, punch in a few basic things. You don't even need to grab anything. You just right off the cuff, and it's going to tell you how much you're going to need in retirement. Now, there's a lot more to it than that. That's when you need to get with your advisor and figure out, well, I'm going to be well short, what do we do? But it's an interesting little tool that most advisors, I mean, we have more complex things, but those are more inputs and more time. But I'd check that out if I were you, and of course the biggest thing that stands out to me, which we recommend too, is it's right in about the middle of the article. It says most investors are recommended to say between 12 and 15% of their salary, and many do not. It's down around, well, I get the 4% because that's what my employer matches. Well, that's good that that's better than nothing, but you need to keep going. And it gives you some ideas there in the article as well to a couple of tips, because-   Speaker 1: That's a great point, Tony. That 12 to 15%, somebody hears that and goes, there's no way. I can't survive, especially right now with the inflation we've all been dealing with. I can't survive on putting away 15% for retirement. What are you crazy?   Tony: What I tell him, I get a little sassy with him and say, oh, you can do it. You just have to re-engineer what you're spending your money on. And as Dave Ramsey's saying goes, I think in his book he says have to live like no other. So someday you can live like no other, but you got to take that to heart. You have to put this first and then engineer the rest of your life. But I shouldn't say all, but a lot of people do the exact opposite to get their life all engineering. Now I only got this much to say for retirement. So that's all it gets.   Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's some good points because it's certainly interesting to figure out what it is that you need to do, how you need to do it. And a lot of it comes back to, we talk a lot on here, Tony, about X's and O's and you like to make the joke that sometimes it's easy for advisors to say, well, it kind of depends and you don't get super specific because everybody's different. So we try to play devil's advocate and kind of go a little bit each way, but the concept of how much you needed a total nest egg really does play in the factor how you live and where you live. Because even if you're in the same area, so let's just go with a lower state, one of the states that was, let's say 23 years, you're in someplace like Indiana, for example, or whatever. And if you're living in Indianapolis and you're going out and doing a lot of things and you're very active in your lifestyle, it's going to be completely different than if you live in Terre Haute and you do virtually nothing, or you live in the middle of nowhere. Or even in my state here in North Carolina, living in Charlotte and doing a lot versus where I live in the country is completely different costs of living. So how you live and where you live plays a huge factor in how much you're going to need for retirement.   Tony: It sure does. And I'm going through it with really right now with my own son, because he's out in Denver and they're young, got married. Very, very pricey. And they're actually all of a sudden looking... Houses out there, I mean, for what they are making at the time, boy, they just don't get much. And they're looking at them back here in the Midwest where they're both from and they're scratching their heads saying, boy, may, maybe Iowa or South Dakota, somewhere a little closer to home in the Midwest, our dollar's are going to go a lot farther. And they're not even retired. I mean, they're 26, 27, they just turned 27. So it's not about just the retirees, it's about I'm not advocating moving and getting out of your state.   Speaker 1: Sure. Right.   Tony: It's something to think about.   Speaker 1: Yeah, you definitely got to factor all these things in there, and depending on where you live, the snowbird thing certainly plays into a factor, even people in Iowa. Sure. Right?   Tony: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, Carrie'd love to get out of here.   Speaker 1: Right? Oh, it's cold. So think about that. And that's one of the reasons why Texas, Florida, so Texas and Florida are in that kind of the same range on this particular article of around right around 19, 20 years, where Tennessee is around that 23 year mark. Those three states have been very, very popular the last couple of years because of the income tax.   Tony: Yes, correct.   Speaker 1: And of course, the temperature, the weather. And then now this, the million dollars, the length that goes, certainly makes it appealing.   Tony: It does. And what Iowa's done, because we're in retirees moving here, not that appealing, or even the ones that have been here all their lives and want to get out is Iowa's just passed a law saying that the retiree income, which is social security, and then pensions and stuff, is not taxable at the Iowa level.   Speaker 1: Oh, okay.   Tony: And Trying to keep people here a little bit.   Speaker 1: And some enticement. Yeah.   Tony: A little bit of enticement. I mean, the weather is a big one as you get older, to the negative, I might add. But all these states are trying to keep people and attract people for different reasons because as we all know, I mean, Iowa's going to get their money somehow. It's not income tax, it's somewhere else.   Speaker 1: That's the thing of if you were moving someplace like Tennessee just for the tax break, that's probably the wrong decision because they're going to get you. Or Florida even, so you moved to Florida, but just for the taxes, and you're like, okay the sun's a bonus. It's still expensive to live, and it's going to be more expensive to live in Miami than it is to live in Gainesville.   Tony: Right. Exactly.   Speaker 1: They're going to get you one way or the other, local level, salt taxes, as you know they're called. To your point about Colorado, a good friend of mine moved from North Carolina to Colorado, and he is like, oh, some things are really great. And he's like, he couldn't believe what it did to his car insurance and just tagging his vehicle. He was like, holy moley.   Tony: And that's the kind of stuff, I mean, that's direct cost of living stuff there.   Speaker 1: Exactly, and that affects your total income outcome.   Tony: It does. And that's the whole point of this article, and obviously it's a slant a little more to retire there, but it's something to think about. I mean, the retirees have a little more to think about than just like somebody my son's age who's just working there. But it is interesting.   Speaker 1: Well, and that's where a strategy and a plan comes into place. And of course, when you're putting that stuff together, you can strategize for some different things. You can say, you can sit down with your advisor, you can talk with your loved one and say, where do you want to retire? And we say, oh yeah, we don't want to live in Iowa. We do want to live in Florida, or whatever. Well, you can still work with Tony and start strategizing for that, because Tony, you got clients all over the country.   Tony: We do. Yeah.   Speaker 1: So it's possible to go through and start calculating and planning instead of just winging it. You don't want to just wing this kind of thing. So it's fun little article. Again, we'll link it into the show notes if you want to check it out. We covered most of it here, but certainly ask yourself that question, where do you want to tire?Where and how do you want to live in retirement can go a long way towards getting that whatever that total number is or that total goal. And as Tony and I said on the prior podcast, really the million dollars probably shouldn't be the concept. It should really probably be how much income do you need to afford the lifestyle you want? So as always, don't forget, subscribe to us on Apple, Google, Spotify, Plan with the Tax Man. You can type that into the search box at any of those apps, or you can just find all the information you're looking for at yourplanningpros.com. That is yourplanningpros.com, where you can check out the tools, tips, and resources Tony has on the website. Schedule some time to talk with he and his team and get started today. As I mentioned, he's a CFP, CPA and an EA with 27 plus years of experience, so great resource for you to tap into. If you need some help and you're not already working with him, reach out to Tony Morrow today. Tony, my friend, thanks for hanging out, have yourself a great day, and enjoy yourself. I'll talk to you in a couple weeks.   Tony: All right, we'll see you next month.   Speaker 1: All right, we'll talk to you next time here on Plan With the Tax Man, with Tony Morrow.   Disclaimer: Securities offered through Avantax Investment ServicesSM. Member FINRA, S.I.P.C. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency.

Another year is upon us and it's a great time to ask yourself 10 questions to assess how ready you are for retirement to kick off 2023. If you're retiring this year, it's essential to have some concrete answers to these questions. If you're still a few years from the milestone, tune in so you can start thinking about these critical conversations. Important Links Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript Of Today's Show: Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome into another edition of the podcast, it's Plan With the Tax Man time with Tony Morrow and myself here to talk about a 10 point checklist for retirement preparedness, a 2023 edition, if you will, so going to get started. Another year is upon us, so it's a great time to ask ourselves these questions and assess how ready we are as we are rolling into the new year. We're about halfway through the month already, which is crazy fast, and so we're going to bring Tony in and get this thing started. Tony, what's going on buddy? How are you?   Tony Mauro: I'm doing fantastic. Just off the holidays as everybody is and trying to get back into the swing of things and it's going to be tax season before we know it as we record this.   Speaker 1: Right, yeah, exactly. I know we're already halfway through the month as I said, it's like, what in the world?   Tony Mauro: Yeah, it goes quick.   Speaker 1: You and I were just chatting that the holiday break did not seem like it was that long of a break. It was just quick, so lots of things going on and I guess it's just our fast paced world, I guess.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, it really is.   Speaker 1: Next thing you know, something new is going on, but we got 10 on here, Tony, so let's go ahead and start diving in, check to see if we can get these checked off, so we don't go too long with this podcast and talk about some of these. Most of these are pretty major indicators that you need to have on your strategy or plan, and I think that's going to be the overarching theme is, having a plan's going to help you get prepared for these things that are coming fast and furious. Number one, do you know exactly how much income you need every month in retirement? And I think there's two ways of looking at this for things, Tony. When they're coming to see a financial professional like yourself, if they're really anxious to get to retirement sooner than later, they maybe low ball this number because they want to make the math work, so that you'll say good things, "Yeah. You guys can retire." And when you do that, you really hurt yourself in case you're not being accurate or you truly just look at the big ticket items, mortgage, cars, utilities, and you don't truly realize how much... This is a nickel and dime world. We all spend money a lot more than we realize. Do you know how much income you're going to have? Probably not. You're probably wrong. What do you think?   Tony Mauro: Yeah, in general it is, and the whole reason that I even wanted to talk about this topic, this month is, starting a new year. I'm getting a lot of course, and I always do, especially tax clients, whether they're close to retirement or not, start asking some of these questions. Then, when you get in your fifties, you really start asking this.   Speaker 1: For sure. Yeah.   Tony Mauro: I think that most tend to focus on the nest egg and not how much that nest egg may or may not throw off every month and then they have no idea what their bills really are every month. And that's lack of really just trying to, paying attention as to, like you said, all the little nickel and dime stuff we all spend money on throughout the month. If you don't really have a good idea and they're tracking that, you probably should start because I generally like to start with people as to this question, how much are you going to need a month? Rather than, well, you have 500,000 or 700,000, to make this work. We got to start at the end and then work backwards to see if the numbers support that. And I think most planners are going to do this-   Speaker 1: I think that's a good point. I was just having this chat the other day with somebody. It's an interesting point, back in let's say the '50s or even the early '60s when most people had a pension, they weren't focused on a total asset number, it was about the income because you had a pension, you had Social Security, and so if you had a modest savings and somewhere along the way, probably the '80s, we started shifting gears from how much income it is, to how much is our nest egg worth.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, and I think a lot of that's because a lot of these pensions have gone by the wayside-   Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.   Tony Mauro: ... because they're just too expensive-   Speaker 1: And the greed I think. Well, everybody wants to say, "Now, well, I'm a millionaire," because it sounds awesome and I agree and it doesn't take as much as we thought it used to, to be a millionaire. As a matter of fact, we're going to have fun on our next podcast about which dates a million dollars will go the farthest in, so check out that one as we come out. But I think that's what happens and we singularly focus on something, this big ticket number versus what do we need to just make this thing work, so we can be happy in retirement?   Tony Mauro: Yeah and I think sometimes when you sit people down and we say, "Okay, your nest egg is X, let's sit down and go through this," and they're just floored about, "Well, wow, that money, if I want to plan to leave some or all of it to somebody else or if I'm even spending the principle, then it's a crapshoot of when I'm going to die and hopefully I have enough left." So a lot of variables in that.   Speaker 1: Yep.   Tony Mauro: You got to ask the question right off the bat.   Speaker 1: Yeah, you got to focus that income down and you got to get the number by going through that process because again, most of us tend to low ball that figure and then that can bite us in the tush later on in retirement. All right, number two. You've got the collection of stuff, you've got the accounts. Which one do you pull from first and how much? So, that's number two on the checklist.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. And this makes a big difference tax wise because most of us have taxable accounts and then most of us have, if you've got 401ks and then you've even got Roth's and things like that, is the tax man is there with their handout saying, give me some tax. And you've got to decide and plan what's the most efficient way to take this out without increasing the tax bill. Because again, that cuts into the money that's available for you to go out and have fun with. And I think a lot of people don't give this much thought. They just say, "Well, I'll take out of my taxable one first and save the other for later." And then here come the RMDs when you get a little older and all kinds of things that could hit you if you're not at least talking about deciding which is the best and the least tax invasive I should say.   Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And so it is important to figure out which accounts to pull from and when and where because it's going to affect. And these first three really do play all in together, really, they all play together. But number three is Social Security. When do you take it? Well, that's going to maybe depend on how much income you need and which accounts you have and where you're pulling from. It all plays together because maybe it makes sense to delay Social Security and tap into your own buckets or maybe it makes more sense to take Social Security and delay your buckets, everybody's different.   Tony Mauro: Everybody's different. And you know what? I got to say too, people who listen to the podcast probably say, "He never really gives me any straight answers. He always just gives me a lot of options," but it's hard to give a straight answer because this like the other ones, is the same thing. I do a whole webinar on this, taking Social Security and it's about an hour long that I tend to get people on to really go in depth with this because there is some technical things to this, but in the big picture, if you've got money coming in from other sources are still working, it may behoove you to delay taking it, because the monthly benefit does go up. And if you calculate that out as a return, it's not a bad return. But a lot of it depends on longevity in your family, other income sources, just a lot of variables like you said. It's worth, again, spending time there as well. All of these is worth spending time on, but these first three especially.   Speaker 1: Well, and number four is the great multiplier to everything else that's on the list as well. And that's longevity, because unfortunately, it is what it is. Look at inflation right now, we've been dealing with this for the last half year or more, and the longer you live, the more everything gets compounded. And I realize we don't know exactly how long we're going to live, so that's why you've got to stress test your strategy and your plan to go, "Okay, well what if I'm 75? What if I'm 85?" So on and so forth.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. And fortunately now, most planning software has the modeling in it that can do a lot of these calculations extremely quickly to do worst case based on where you're at now and how much you're taking out to give you percentages of, "Well, if I do it this way, I've got an 80% or 90% chance of never outliving my money." And to you, that might make a lot of sense. Well, that covers a lot of scenarios, but if you run some scenarios and it only says 60 or 70% chance of never running out of money, well now it's a little more, well, I may need to adjust some things, but longevity is an important factor. I know with my own father whose now 81, he's concerned about, he's got plenty of money, but I always have to reassure him that his sustainable withdrawal rate, which he's taking, he's never going to run out of money and he could live to be 100 and he'll be totally fine, but a lot of people aren't thinking about this again in the plan. And you sure certainly hate to run out of money and only depend on Social Security for the last part of your life, at least in my opinion.   Speaker 1: Right. Ideally, that's not the situation we want to end up with, so you need to strategize so that you know how to handle that. And longevity, if we all came with an expiration date, it'd be super easy, but we don't.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, it would be super easy. Yeah, absolutely.   Speaker 1: Number five, market volatility. Look, are you prepared for it? Many people found out last year or got reminded, whoops, this happens, it goes both ways.   Tony Mauro: It does go both ways. And I was just on a call today with a wealth client, she's 76 and she's invested pretty conservatively with dividend paying things. But the son was on there with telling me, "Well, maybe we should look at something a little more growth oriented because the market is down." And I said, "Your mom's 76, she needs this money for retirement. The volatility, she may not be prepared for that." And of course she's immediately spoke up, "No, I don't want to do any of that." But I think that people tend to, especially of course the sons and younger people, "Well, let's go ahead and invest a little bit more aggressively," but we're talking more retiree end here, which you do have to pay attention to that, because even dividend paying stocks took a hit last year.   Speaker 1: Right. And of course, bonds didn't do well. Volatility, and as a retiree, you can't just throw volatility to the wind, right, Tony? I mean, you can't go, well, now that I'm 70, I never want to experience volatility again. Unfortunately, that's just not realistic either.   Tony Mauro: I don't think that's realistic in today's market because the next one I know we're talking about here is inflation, because that creeps into this because if inflation, and of course it's high now, we might as well just get into it is, inflation eats away at your purchasing power and you never really think about it as a younger person. But as you get older, you start seeing about, I remember the day when this cost only this, and you can see it. And if you're sitting there-   Speaker 1: We all love to do that little, "Oh God, I remember when a Snickers bar was this," or whatever, as we age. But at the same time, regular inflation, we also typically ignore it, even as we do age. This crazy inflation we've had for the last six, nine months, has certainly reminded everybody as well. It's like, "Oh..."   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: This isn't cool.   Tony Mauro: No, if you don't have enough to outpace inflation on your earnings, that is, you're going backwards and over the course of 20, 25 years, and I always tell tax clients when they complain about taxes and we're in a historically low tax rate, but nothing generally goes down, that I see. If you're going to be in around in retirement for 20, 25 years, you got to think that things are going to cost more, especially health insurance and stuff like that. I think inflation needs to be a big part of the plan.   Speaker 1: It's got to be, and it's going to continue to be there as well, even in normal numbers. You've got to have some exposure to the market or some sort of a growth vehicle, if it's not the market, it's got to be something, that maybe is linked to the market, tied to the market, whatever the case is. You've got to have some growth in your accounts and you've got to have some safety, some liquidity, all these different pieces we need, that make up the retirement puzzle. And number seven is tax increases. Tony, as a tax professional, that's a big part of what you do as well. It doesn't matter what rules they put in place, yes, that affects everything. But you're still going to have to deal with taxes. And there's a good shot that we're going to go up. Even if they do nothing else, they are going to go up. In '26, they return back to the old prior administration.   Tony Mauro: Prior administration, yeah. And I've been preaching for a good 25 years that we're in a historically low tax rate compared to the '60s.   Speaker 1: So take advantage while you can.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. And of course I've been wrong, because I keep saying, "They got to go up," and I have been wrong. But what they do, the politicians are crafty, they engineer, and that's probably not the right thing to say, but they engineer tax increases, so the public doesn't figure them out because it's suicidal to come out and say, "Well, I'm just raising taxes." They'll cut this itemized deduction or put limits on this. And in effect, that's a tax hike. It affects certain people, people don't really realize it because it's buried in their tax return and they're out of sight out of mind. But tax increases, we see it every day, they can hardly fund the government, not even getting into where they spend it all, but it's going to be something that's always there and they tend to creep up over time, whether it's the federal level or the state level. And so I think that's got to be a part of the plan too.   Speaker 1: Yeah, and like I said, in '26, they're going back up to the Obama administration tax code, if they do nothing else. And I agree with you, sometimes you say, "They got to go up," and they do something, but I think we can all pretty much agree that in some form or fashion, which is why the Secure Act, passing, Secure Act 2.0 that just passed at the very, very end of '22, there's some things in there, there's a lot of helpfulness I think for getting prepared for retirement, which is great, but I think the message in that, Tony, and we'll probably do a podcast here probably very soon in the next couple of weeks on the Secure Act 2.0 and some of the changes, but I think the message in that was resoundingly, here's some more tools to get prepared for retirement. You better do it. You know what I mean? Because we're telling you ahead of time, this is going to get tougher, start strategizing and start doing some things. Here's some more tools to help you save for your own retirement because we're not going to be be able to help as much or something. It just seems like the focus is there to tell the American people, start taking this on, your responsibility for yourself because that's where it's going.   Tony Mauro: That's right on. And that was my take from it too, because we all know that I think in the year 2035 that the Social Security fund, it's not going to be totally broke, but they're going to be paying out well more, than they're taking in. They're going to have to try to fix it. I think this is Congress's message saying, "Guys, you're America, you need to start saving more. We're going to help you by trying to change some limits and whatnot because-"   Speaker 1: As we creep up to that number, yeah, to 2034. '25, '35.   Tony Mauro: I agree with that totally, that that's a hidden message.   Speaker 1: And some of the stuff in the Secure Act 2.0, Tony, I think also could pave the way for changes to Social Security. Somebody has to be the, I don't know, the bearer of the bad news or that stands up and says, "Okay, here's what we're going to do. It's political suicide. They're going to kick that can as much as they can.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, absolutely.   Speaker 1: But at some point, they will have to make some changes to Social Security. This could just be another stage of that and again, we'll do an episode coming up pretty soon on some of the breakdowns and some of the different things and how they might affect you. But for now, let's keep going. Number seven was, again, tax increases, future tax increases. You got to be able to retire in whatever economy, whether taxes are high or low or the market's high or low, so that's what a strategy is there to help you do. You also need to address healthcare costs on this 10 point checklist, this is number eight. Again, it's crazy expensive as well, but you got to do something, the longer you put it off, the more expensive it gets.   Tony Mauro: You do. And it's eight in the list, but it's as important as any of them because this is the one that goes up probably the most in your retirement days is this. And I don't see any end in sight for these things going down. And so you definitely, it's going to be part of how much you need every month. This is going to be a big part of it, and I don't think this should be ignored. And you certainly can't afford to go without, so you got to have something and Medicare provides a lot, but you are paying for it out of Social Security, they would withdraw that benefit or that premium, I should say, out of your Social Security. But there's gaps and you're going to need other things, that's not a catchall.   Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's true. And you've got to look at different ways to fund it. Look at different concepts, not just any one particular thing. There's multiple ways to deal with it, but you've got to deal with it, that's the biggest thing is, you can't just keep avoiding it. Number nine, legacy plan. Have you got it nailed down? Do you have one? Do you want one? If you don't, the state will probably do it for you, and that may not be the best one for your heirs. And I get this, some people want to leave virtually nothing, and that's fine. Some people want to leave a ton and some want to leave something in the middle. But either way, address it, get a plan put, it's pretty easy to do.   Tony Mauro: It is easy to do. It just takes some time. And a little bit of advice from, well, the planner, possibly an attorney, just to make sure that even if you are willing or want to spend down everything or close to, you've got a plan at least, hopefully if you've got relatives to handle things when you're gone and make it a little easier for them. But if you are planning to leave some things depending on the size of your estate and whatnot, you want to make sure that that is nailed down. You don't want the state deciding that for you. And it could be as simple as just, I've got a good will and I've went over it and I keep it updated. And two more elaborate things like I want to trust for my son until a certain age or whatever the case may be. But I think this should not be overlooked, for sure. Should definitely be discussed with your planner.   Speaker 1: I agree. Number 10, we have multiple things we could go with. I think I'm going to go in the direction of this one, with this podcast, Tony, it's what do you want to do with your time in retirement? Everything else we did was about the X's and the O's. Number 10 on this retirement checklist for the new year could be, if retirement's coming up within the next year or so, have you sat down and really thought about how you want to spend it? If nothing else, many people, you can attest to this because obviously you do this for day in and day out. A lot of folks really struggle with, "Wow, I don't know what to do with myself. I can't party every day." Whether that retirement party is travel or taking the grandkids someplace fun or whatever the case is, you can't do it every day. You can't golf every single... You might for the first year or two.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. I agree. And when we sit people down and just say, "All right, let's just spend 15 minutes deciding what's going to fill up your day, each day and every day?" And I use myself an example, I like to golf. I said, "Even if I golf every day, okay, that's done by 10, 11 o'clock. Take yourself through a day. Now what? Okay, I go maybe do a little exercising. I'm done by one. Now what?" and all the way through. And then you're not going to do all that every day.   Speaker 1: No, exactly not.   Tony Mauro: I do think it makes some sense to try to figure out maybe what kind of purpose you might want to have, maybe it's getting a little part-time job, maybe it's volunteering, spending time with family. I do think you need to come up with a plan, that's something totally unrelated to money for the most part. But it's something to think about that you want to have some structure and some purpose still in life.   Speaker 1: And it adds some fun back into this checklist because some people may look at the checklist and go, "Ah, I don't want to figure out taxes. I don't want..."   Tony Mauro: That's a lot of work.   Speaker 1: Right and it's like, "But this is the point of it. This is the reason the other nine exists, is to help you enjoy number 10."   Tony Mauro: That's right, because by the end, this is the whole reason for all of this work, is to find something fun to do that maybe you've put off or just spend the last days of your life doing. To me, that's what this whole planning is for, because otherwise, you don't really need any of this, assuming you can pay your bills.   Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. That's our 10 point checklist there. Anything on there that you need some help with or strike your fancy or hits a cord, whatever the case might be, definitely reach out and talk with your financial professional. If you don't have one, of course, Tony is here to help you. You may already be working with him or you may not be, but either way, you can reach out to him for a conversation at yourplanningpros.com. That is yourplanningpros.com. Tony is a COA, a CFP, and an EA with 27 years of experience in the industry, so a great resource for you to tap into. They are Des Moines Professional Alternative at Tax, Dr. Inc. And again, you can find them online at yourplanningpros.com. Don't forget to subscribe to us on Apple, Google, Spotify, all that good stuff. And thanks for hanging out with us here on Plan With the Tax Man. Tony, have yourself a great week. I'll talk to you soon.   Tony Mauro: All right, take care.   Speaker 1: We appreciate your time as always on the podcast, don't forget to hit that subscribe button on Apple, Google, Spotify or whatever platform you like to use, and we'll catch you next time here on Plan With the Tax Man.   Disclaimer: Securities offered through Avantax Investment ServicesSM. Member FINRA, S.I.P.C. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency.

Saving in your 401(k) can be an easy and painless way to build your retirement savings. But because it's so easy and painless, it can also be easy to ignore for long periods of time, which often leads to mistakes. We'll cover at least the top 5 mistakes people make in their 401(k)s. Important Links Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript Of Today's Show: Speaker 1: Welcome into another edition of Plan With The Tax Man, with Tony Mauro, certified financial planner, CPA and EA at Tax Doctor Inc, serving you here in the Iowa area. Of course, he's got clients all over. Thank you so much for hanging out on the podcast with us. As we're going to about today, the top five 401(k) mistakes that you need to avoid. We've got some good tips here for you to consume this go around on the podcast. Tony, welcome in my friend. How are you?   Tony Mauro: I'm good. How are you?   Speaker 1: Doing pretty good. Looking forward to having this conversation with you. We are into a new year. So amazingly enough. So thought this would be a good way to kind of kick things off because hey, the 401(k), it's a great financial vehicle. I mean it's very easy, it's painless, it's a fantastic tool to help build. And I think that's probably going to be the key word, Tony, help build retirement wealth or retirement savings, I should say. But because it's also so easy and painless, it also is easy to forget about it. That can lead us to mistakes. There's other probably ... there's easier ways, I think, to extract money than a 401(k). They have a few hoops sometimes that make it a little bit more complicated. So we're going to just talk about some of the mistakes to keep on the radar to hopefully avoid when dealing with a 401k. I don't want it to sound like we're bashing the 401k, because again I think it's a great vehicle.   Tony Mauro: It is. It's a great vehicle. It's probably for most, the most important retirement vehicle they're going to have.   Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, we don't want to beat it up, but we just want to highlight a few areas to pay attention to. Okay. So that's what we're going to do. So let's just jump right in. The first one is, just don't leave them behind. You often hear things like stray 401(k), just don't leave those behind. Because you give up control by leaving an old 401(k) at an old job.   Tony Mauro: You do. It's ironic because tonight I'm meeting with my sister-in-law, we're talking about this because her husband died a long time ago and so she's been a widow for a while, but she's getting ready to retire. But the company that she left it with is now been taken over by some other company and they're basically saying, get it out of here, or we're going to invest it in this new company's 401(k). And of course she doesn't know anything about the funds or anything. But it's this exact case of she's left it there in the old company for a long time. And the reason why you may not want to do that, I think a lot of times you don't want to do that is because like you were mentioning, if you get into a rollover IRA, you've got much more control, you've got much more options for your particular investments in it. And it's not under that little 10 and 12 funds that the company used to have and fees and everything else. But we see it a lot. I mean, people will ... I call them orphans. They bounce around so much, they get these little balances all over the place and they kind of forget about them.   Speaker 1: Yeah, no, and we do see that. And so you'll have to share the podcast with her after. Be like, "Hey, listen to this." Of course, you're going to talk to her anyway.   Tony Mauro: I don't have to tell her she was on.   Speaker 1: There you go. That's right.   Tony Mauro: I mentioned her.   Speaker 1: But yeah, it's very true. To your point, I mean typically there's not a lot of options in the 401(k). Of course you're no longer there to keep an eye on it. You're no longer putting money into it actively anyway. So it just makes more sense to get rid of that 401(k) and roll that over to an IRA where you do have more control, a bigger smorgasboard of options to go through. So that's the first one. Second one, and '22, we're now into the new year, but 2022 certainly taught us that failing to rebalance often enough could be problematic because '21, you were totally fine with things. Then if you didn't do any rebalancing going into '22, you might have paid for that last year.   Tony Mauro: That's right. And a lot of times people in 401(k)s at these bigger companies, there isn't an advisor in ... sometimes there is, they'll give you a little bit of help. But a lot of times they're not. You're just putting money in from your paychecks, probably not watching very close and all of a sudden, what you used to be invested in, because most people will pick more than one fund. It might be too heavily weighted based on, well number one, maybe your goals. But two is maybe that sector is all of a sudden out of favor and you may need to rebalance. But I suggest to people they should look at it once a year, rebalance one time a year. They kind of look at you look that odd look in their eyes and say, "Well, I don't even know what that is."   Speaker 1: And some of these, they will auto rebalance, right?   Tony Mauro: Yes. Some of them will. They will. If you've got a good one and you check the box, and then I would've recommend that too if they offer it, is to make sure it auto rebalances. Because then you don't have to worry about it while you're there. You still need to take a look and work with your advisor on if it still fits. But the key is, is you're still putting money in, it's just now you got to manage what's in there a little bit.   Speaker 1: Yeah, okay. Yeah, so definitely rebalancing is certainly a good idea, talking with your advisor just about doing that. Here's probably the biggest culprit in the reason why, Tony, which is number three on the list. Which is a target date fund. So it's the easy, low-hanging fruit that most of us wind up checking because we don't know a lot of things. So you go get the job, you've acquired the job, you're all happy, you're filling out the paperwork, it's HR day, they have you go online or whatever to do the 401(k) set up. And I don't know what to pick, say you pick the target date, oh, I'm going to retire in 2040. So I picked the 2040 fund, boom, now I've got me a customized plan. And that's the misnomer, you don't.   Tony Mauro: You really don't, no. And target date funds in them of themselves, I don't think are bad. But I think it's a misnomer to just, like you said, just pick that or have somebody tell you, "Well if you don't know, just pick the target day fund."   Speaker 1: It's better than nothing, but they have issues too.   Tony Mauro: They have issues. Yeah. And to me the biggest issue is I think if you really look inside the target day fund and how they're investing and as you get a little closer to retirement, to me, they get a little too conservative, I think.   Speaker 1: Okay, that's interesting. Yeah.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. I mean I just feel like they kind of do. If that's your investment makeup, then that's great. But if that's not you, then maybe the target fund ... I think it could be part of your 401(k). But I think you should have some other things besides that, for sure.   Speaker 1: Yeah, and typically they do have quite a bit of fees.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. They have fees is another one. You're right. Yeah. I missed the fees.   Speaker 1: They definitely have quite a bit on those ... oh sorry, go ahead.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. No, I was just going to say they do have quite a bit. That's another thing that nobody talks about that when you're going into the target date fund. But something to take a look at, especially if you can find it a lower net cost alternative.   Speaker 1: And it's kind of generalizing again, that customized portion is not really true. You think, well yeah, okay great. Because that's 2040, I'm going to retire in 2040. It's also a general wide smattering of people that are going to retire in 2040 versus just being customized to your specific needs. I find that interesting though that you said about getting conservative, because many will say the other thing with that because as they go down, as you get closer to the target date, they are supposed to get more conservative. I think the misnomer also is that people think that they go way, way down. But most of them don't drop below 50%.   Tony Mauro: No, they don't. They don't.   Speaker 1: So if you're thinking, okay, the risk, I'm at 70 and then I get closer and then it goes to 60 and then 50, 40. Most of them don't drop below 50% from the portfolio stance as far as risk versus safety. So yeah, I mean it's a nice simple idea. Again, we're not going to try to totally bash these. But there could be better options for you to do.   Tony Mauro: Yes, yes. True.   Speaker 1: And I think that's probably the end of the day. So you think about the 401(k), I think a lot of advisors, Tony, would say, "Look, definitely take advantage and get the match." Because that's what you're really after, is that free money. But then anything over and above that, maybe we should talk about something else that we have more control over.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. I know it's going to be one of my little bonus mistakes.   Speaker 1: Oh, okay. Yeah.   Tony Mauro: I guess what I see the most of is ... especially doing taxes, is I see people that they have 401(k)s at their work and they don't participate. I talk to them about it all time, I say, "That's the best deal on the street. You really need to throw some money in." If they start saying, "Well, I really can't afford." I said, "Then you've got a different problem we need to fix." And that's fixable.   Speaker 1: That's a great point. Yeah.   Tony Mauro: You've got to take advantage. But then the second one is they'll say, "Well yeah, I'm doing it." I'm putting in ... they'll just use a percent, "I'm putting in the max, I'm putting in 3%." And I said, "Well, that's not the maximum dollar amount, that's the maximum." I said, "That's for the match." And they said, "Oh yeah, yeah, that's for the match." I said, "And the match is great." But I always tell them, "Did you know you could put so much more in if you want to go past the match?" Because it's still tax deferred or if they're choosing the Roth option, there's all kinds of things. But I tell them, especially if you start doing some math with them, you're a little 3%, let's use a little future value calculator and figure out what that's going to be in 30 years. I show it to them and I say, "Well, is that going to be enough?"   Speaker 1: Or what's 6%? Yeah.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, then they start, "Well what's 6%?" I said, "Forget this percent, let's talk dollars."   Speaker 1: Oh okay.   Tony Mauro: And let's start getting some dollars in there and then we can have some fun with it. Then we just do that for tax clients just to show them. So even if they're not in a planning client, we could say, "You need to go talk to somebody." Or, "Hey, we're here for you, but this is the kind of stuff that we do."   Speaker 1: Yeah, no, those are great extra tips too. So thank you for pointing those out. Because the last two I had were a little bit ... they're not quite as ... well, the one is dramatic, I suppose. But this next one is just kind of not forgetting the fact that ultimately us, as the participant, we're not the client. So the plan administrator or the plan ... their client is your boss, is your employer. Whoever you're working for and getting the 401(k) from, that's really who their client is. So they're making decisions based on that relationship, more so than they are on us as the participant.   Tony Mauro: Well they are. And in most places, unless you have a really good HR, you're not getting the advice and help because the 401(k) itself is not going to help you. They'll defer to your employer, which is their client, like you said. The employer, a lot of times nowadays they don't want any liability either. They're saying, "Well, you need to talk to your financial advisor because we don't want to say anything that could get us into any kind of trouble." Then you're stuck with, well, if I don't have an advisor or-   Speaker 1: What do I do?   Tony Mauro: I just got to go out and do some research.   Speaker 1: And you're [inaudible 00:10:42]-   Tony Mauro: Try to figure this out.   Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So just keeping that one in mind. That's a little lesser mistake. But still something that sometimes people overlook. Then of course, we talk a little about fees, I won't beat it up too much. But just assuming that the fees and costs are minimal, especially when we don't see them. That's kind of the little trick too, is that unfortunately ... I mean, first of all, who reads the prospectus on a regular basis anyway? Most people don't. And some of them, they just don't have to disclose.   Tony Mauro: They don't. And yeah, people will ... from the 401(k)s that we have some people in, they'll call and say, "I got this prospectus, what does it say?" I always tell them, "Read it over, read it from cover to cover tonight, let me know." Most of them would rather set themselves on fire probably than to read through that.   Speaker 1: I made it through two paragraphs and they passed out.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, I'm out. But it's buried in there and it's all disclosed. Like you say, most people don't read that. They count on us to tell them that. We don't beat the fees up too much, but we like to let them know, here's what this is and here's how it's taken from you. Because they don't just send you a bill and have you pay it like your utility bill. So that's why it's kind of invisible, but it's still taken out [inaudible 00:11:52]-   Speaker 1: But it's worthwhile to find out how it's impacting your overall strategy. For sure.   Tony Mauro: It is. For sure.   Speaker 1: And finding out whether there's better options, if there are better things to do. That's really where it kind of comes back to the conversation and especially some of those extra ones that Tony just shared is finding out what's the best way to do. Definitely getting the free money is paramount, you need to do that. But then over and above that, have a conversation. Maybe it's worth doing six or 10% to Tony's point. Or maybe it's worth doing an IRA, getting the match and adding some money over there or a Roth. So just lots of ways to think about it when it comes to just 401(k), some little mistakes that can help us save some money. Okay. Anything else? Did we miss anything or are we good? I think we get it.   Tony Mauro: Well, we could talk about this topic for a long time, but those are the major ones. I think with everybody's New Year, New Year's resolutions, I'd say to everybody, one of them, make sure you take a look at your plan, make it a part of your life to say, this year I'm going to review the plan or I'm going to get a plan.   Speaker 1: There you go.   Tony Mauro: And get something started. Because you're doing it with everything else. The first part of the year, everybody does it. But at the end of the day, unfortunately, especially when we're talking about 401(k)s, nobody's going to do it for you now. The days defined benefit plans are gone for the most part, and it's all up to us.   Speaker 1: It is so easy to set it and forget it, as I kind of led off with. Instead of doing a resolution, make it a goal, folks. Because resolutions get thrown out the window pretty easy. So my goal is to get my finances straight, my goal is to shore up my 401(k) mistakes, whatever that might look like. Put that on your calendar for the beginning of this year. And that'll do it for the podcast. So thanks for hanging out with us. We certainly appreciate it. Hopefully you found this useful. And of course, if you need some help, reach out to Tony and his team at yourplanningpros.com. That's yourplanningpros.com. Again, Tony is a CPA, CFP, and an EA of 27 plus years helping folks get to and through retirement. Des Moines Professional Alternative at Tax Doctor inc is where you can find him. And of course, that's online at yourplanningpros.com. Don't forget to subscribe on Apple, Google, and Spotify, all that good jazz. You can find us on all those major platforms. Tony, thanks for hanging out and shedding some light on this topic with us.   Tony Mauro: All right, thank you. We'll see you next time.   Speaker 1: Yep. We'll catch you next time right here on Plan with the Tax Man with Tony Mauro.   Disclaimer: Securities offered through Avantax Investment ServicesSM. Member FINRA, S.I.P.C. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency.

Getting through retirement can be a lot like running a marathon. Let's talk about some of the similarities of getting to the finish line in racing and retirement. Important Links Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript Of Today's Show: Speaker 1: Welcome to Plan With The Tax Man. Thanks for tuning into the podcast with Tony Mauro and myself. We're going to talk about the retirement marathon on this episode of the podcast, making sure that we finish the race. Many people have heard, Tony, that saying, retirement is a marathon, not a sprint, right?   Tony Mauro: Mm-hmm.   Speaker 1: So thought that made sense, and you and I used to do sports in our younger days, and I think you even did some marathoning. So I thought it'd be kind of fun to visit this as an analogy and maybe laugh at ourselves for, you and I were talking about being older today before we got started and how the body's not being as nice as it once was.   Tony Mauro: No, and I got to caveat this. I did some half marathons and barely made it through those.   Speaker 1: It's tough, yeah.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. And what we're going to talk about is I didn't plan and I didn't prepare.   Speaker 1: And it got you didn't it?   Tony Mauro: It Got me. And when you're young you can do it, but I mean I was never in them to, for any type of competitiveness, just to see if I could do it.   Speaker 1: Yeah, I gotcha. Okay. But you know what, that's a great analogy. It really is because when you're younger you can weather more stuff just like financially. So it's a really great analogy for retirement, strategy, planning, all that kind of stuff. Taxes, all of it fits really well into that kind. Really a lot of sports does. It's easy to use a lot of sports metaphors. My wife did a lot of cross country running when she was in high school and whatnot. She was definitely in the competitive, very competitive, but wound up tearing her, I think tearing one of her... What's the big muscle there in your leg? The thigh muscles there?   Tony Mauro: The...   Speaker 1: Hamstring.   Tony Mauro: Quad?   Speaker 1: Quad. Quad and hamstring. Yeah, both of those. So, but it's an interesting analogy. So we were sitting there talking about the idea of planning and preparing for long races and things of that nature. And it just hit me that it's like, yeah, makes the same amount of sense to talk about this from a retirement standpoint. So let's just jump in and roll. Planning and prep is key. You already admitted that, it's like something that you didn't do when you were younger, it kind of bit in the tush. I used to play football all through high school and so on and so forth. And it was the same thing. If you didn't have a plan, if you didn't prepare, it didn't go as well as you wanted it to. And a good friend of mine, I guess probably about six or seven years ago, Tony, decided he had to lose weight and he was going to do it by jogging and running every day. And he headed out the door and he just made the decision hardcore. I applaud him for it. He went out the door one day, just started running. The problem was, is he was fairly heavy and he didn't really kind of plan or prepare and he wound up fracturing his foot because his body wasn't ready yet. He needed to work himself into a different mode and make sure he was doing it properly and so on and so forth. And that's really pretty darn similar to retirement. You got to have a plan.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, you do. You got to have a plan. And it really comes down to just like we're using our little marathon and my half marathon debacles that we're talking about. And if you just go about it somewhat haphazardly and you're not setting yourself up with a plan, it's easy to just go out, I think, and we've talked about it before, there's so many different investment choices that you know, pick something and you just hope for the best and you don't really have much planning behind it. And that's very similar to what I used to do with these half marathons. When I was young, I thought well how hard could it be? I can do it and I was in it competitively. But when you have to walk some and then your body's killing you for 10 days afterwards, that's not good planning and preparation. And it goes the same way with our retirement planning. And I think that, I was reading an article over the weekend when I was traveling back from a golf thing that this author was talking about having assets in different locations as the same as allocations. And it kind of struck home with me about we need to have in our plan not only good asset allocation but different locations, and I think he's referring to is tax differed, tax free, some things like that. But this plan though, too, has to be monitored. We forget about that. We start investing when we're young and we're not prepared and then next thing you know, you wake up, you're in your fifties and you're like, well, where am I really at? And that may or may not be a good place to be. So I think the moral of my talk here is to, when we're talking about planning is make sure you monitor these plans and make adjustments with your advisors by all means.   Speaker 1: And if you think about the stages or the steps of any kind of sport activity and retirement planning, the same thing. You've got to start building up. And the preparation a lot of times is, for many of us, it's the accumulation phase. You could almost call that prepping for retirement as far as building that part. But that's just one part. You've got to start looking at the other pieces. And that kind of fits to the second piece of this, which is a proper diet. If you're doing any kind of athletics, you can't just eat junk food. Junkie. Another financial advisor I chat with, Tony, he is a marathon or he's written several books about it and he actually runs, he has the Boston and all that kind of stuff. But he's an admitted hardcore junk food addict. He loves candy bars and chips and all that stuff. And he's like, so I think I run as a way to excuse my bad behavior for my diet. But when he is getting ready to train and he is in that mode, obviously he puts his diet in the proper kind of way. And if you think about moving that from that preparation stage of retirement into the next stage, that's that proper allocation, that's the proper, all the diversification, the different things we need. That's that kind of diet idea.   Tony Mauro: It really is. And I think in the retirement area, especially as you get into your fifties, which I'm there now, we need to start thinking about more how our portfolio is structured. Asset allocation, we're just not that far away. And this year has been a crazy year in the markets. And if you just aren't on top of your plan and really working with your advisor, I mean we haven't had it yet because the Marcus had a little bit of a bounce back. But we're going to have a down year. And again it's just one year, but you really can't afford to have huge losses in the 30% - 40% or more because that's really not going to fit in with the diet at all, because you're going to have a tough time making that up in your fifties and or sixties. So it pays to definitely pay attention more to your diet. And even I think as we, getting back to the actual food aspect, as I age, I pay attention more to my real diet now because you know, want to live a long time and be able to enjoy some of these things that you're working so hard and painfully to try to accumulate. But we've spent hours talking about food. I got this crazy theory we as Americans, I mean we tend to eat a little too much and   Speaker 1: Yeah, just a little bit.   Tony Mauro: And we don't really have all that good of a diet for most of us but...   Speaker 1: It's the way we process stuff, right?   Tony Mauro: It is.   Speaker 1: It's crazy.   Tony Mauro: It does go hand in hand with getting back to the financial picture. If you don't have that, you do use analogies, there are heavier people that do live a long time.   Speaker 1: Sure.   Tony Mauro: Without a good diet. And you possibly could have that in your financial situation, but the odds are...   Speaker 1: Right, you could weather some storms, you could like '22. It's funny because some people with the markets have obviously been very volatile this year and you talk to some people and they are taking a beating and then others are not, right? They could be the same age but they are like, why is one... And it's how you're allocated. It's that diet really. It is a financial diet. If you were tech heavy, man, you're taking a pounding this year. So lots of different ways to look at that and talking about the way we don't eat that great. Tony, you've been to Italy, right?   Tony Mauro: I have twice, yeah.   Speaker 1: So I was watching a guy having a chat the other day, this actor who's in ridiculously great shape, he's over 50 as well. And he's Italian and he was over there shooting a movie about Lamborghini and he was talking about, he said I was eating like crazy in Italy the pasta, it's just amazing. The food is amazing. And he said and believe it. So the person interviewed him said, But what does that do? Aren't you paleo, keto, all that kind of stuff for dieting? He's like, honestly, he's like, I ate more food in Italy than I eat here at home and I lost weight. And a lot of it is to our processes. We just put so much stuff in there that we don't need.   Tony Mauro: Yes, I agree.   Speaker 1: I thought that was interesting.   Tony Mauro: It's amazing when I go over to Italy, we're getting off the subject, but...   Speaker 1: That's okay. It's diet.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, it's diet. I've been over there twice and you look at the Italians, of course I'm Italian heritage and you look at them and you say, well, you guys, all you do is eat carbs, you eat bread...   Speaker 1: Right, exactly. You eat carbs and bread like crazy.   Tony Mauro: And I don't see a lot of heavy people. I see a lot of very old Italians walking around, but they're different than us. They go to the market every day, they cook all their own food and they walk a lot.   Speaker 1: Yeah, they walk a lot. And over here I just came back from the heart doctor myself and he is like, lay off the carbs. And I'm like, But what?   Tony Mauro: Right. So, it is weird. But it's interesting, some of the other types of nationalities or ethnic backgrounds are like that. And you just scratch your head saying, how's that possible?   Speaker 1: Well the Mediterranean diet is very, it's totally different, so...   Tony Mauro: Yes, yes.   Speaker 1: Well good stuff. So let's finish back in, I guess jump back into the marathon. I know we're kind of all over the map, but it's still a fun conversation. Get back to just finishing this up. And that's really the idea. If you're going to run a marathon for the first time, or even if you're just, like I said, like my friend who decided he needed to lose weight for our listeners, a lot of our listeners are over 50. Walking's a great idea. Maybe light jogging is a great idea to start losing weight. Any of that stuff. Don't start too fast because you're going to burn yourself out, your energy level, you kind of come out of the gate too quick. And so if you think about running a marathon, if you're a newbie, if you're a novice and you're really excited, you're amped up, your adrenaline's flowing, boom, starting gun goes off, you got to go 13 miles like you were doing the half marathon for example. And you start running, your pace is too fast, you're going to run out, you're going to run out of gas.   Tony Mauro: You're going to run out.   Speaker 1: And that's the same thing with retirement, right? There's something called sequence of returns where if you get out of the gate too fast in retirement and you're spending more and you're not managing some stuff properly, you could mess yourself up for the long run.   Tony Mauro: Absolutely. And my marathon story with this, and I got one I was running at the time, this was like a 10K and it was for breast cancer awareness. And I got to the thing late, I was running late and I was literally running to the start line. Well I didn't have time to get all the way in the back where I belonged. So I wedged myself right in the front with all the real runners. And literally I started out so fast because I was just like, well I got to keep up and I... 200 yards in, I was like, I'm dead, I'm out. I got to almost walk. And it's the same thing really in retirement. Like you said, if you don't have a plan going in and you start out of the gate too fast, it is tempting when you're younger because you always start thinking at least the clients I have that, well I want to enjoy some of this before something happens. They get going too fast, don't plan properly, and now all of a sudden they're in their mid seventies, some in their eighties saying, well, geez, I got out of the gate too fast, I spent too much money. Now I don't have all that much. So it is important at the start not to do that. And that's where I think where us as advisors can really lend some value there in the beginning and during retirement.   Speaker 1: Tony, you made a good point, you said they get to retirement, they want to do some things and they start a little too fast and because maybe time or health or whatever. And there's nothing to say that you can't do that. It goes back to topic one, just plan and prepare, right? So if you want to hit the ground running in retirement, that's great, but talk to your advisor about it so that you can structure that plan accordingly.   Tony Mauro: Exactly. I think the more conversations you have in retirement with your advisor, the better. Because that way you can bounce things off of them. And I have a client that she likes to put a lot of money in her house and she always calls and bounces things off of me, and sometimes I say, well maybe it's a little better to wait on this and because here's where you're at and if you get going too fast, here's going to happen and then let her make the decision. But it is important to do that because there are, and I'm the same way, I've got a list couple pages long already, the stuff I want to do in the beginning of retirement.   Speaker 1: But I love the fact that she bounces it off of you. I love saying this, you're not the money police, it's not your job to just say, well sorry, you can't do it, right? It's your job to say, okay, let's take a look, what's it going to do to the plan if you do that, you're going to be fine. Or okay, we're going to have to make this tweak in order for you to do... It's just a matter of making sure that you're not shorting yourself in the latter years of retirement.   Tony Mauro: Exactly. And I'm not here to be the person too that tells her, well that's a goofy idea. It's her money, you do what you want to do and I'm there to be the voice of reason and then kind of tell her the goods and bads and how it's going to affect her plan.   Speaker 1: Yeah. You're there to be the coach and say, yep, you can do this without causing yourself issues or no, you can't do this without causing issues, but we could do this there's this, this, and that'll kind of fix it later on. And to your point, you, or you could say, well that's a good idea, but let's wait like three months or something, whatever that kind of thing is just based on buckets and when you're pulling, where you're pulling, what levers are dropping, so to speak in the retirement bucket plan. So a lot of different ways to think about that and that's why it's so important to have that professional on your side, a coach. So it could be a track and field coach, it could be a football coach, it could be a golf swing coach, it can be a money coach. All kind of comes back to the same thing. A tax coach, that's what you, I mean, taxes are massively important, which is obviously why we call the show Plan With The Tax Man, because you are at Tax Doctor Inc. And you've been helping families get to and through this thing for a long time. So again, folks, if you got some questions, you need some help. If you want to make sure that you're not starting that retirement marathon on the wrong foot and you want to have that longevity there, even if you don't wind up having a longevity yourself, your spouse could be left behind or leaving things to your heirs. It's all part of that plan that you need to have for yourself. So do yourself a favor, get onto the calendar if you need some help. If you're not already working with Tony and the team at Tax Doctor Inc, stop by the website yourplanningpros.com. That's yourplanningpros.com, subscribe to the podcast, book some time with the team, lots of good tools, tips and resources. Find it all at the website. Tony, thanks for hanging out my friend in sharing your...   Tony Mauro: Embarrassing stories. No problem.   Speaker 1: Your embarrassing stories, me too. I can't even talk right now. So it's good stuff. Yeah, it's always fun to just kind of keep it, just kind of keep life normal things in there, right? Everybody can relate. So have yourself a great week. This is actually going to be our Thanksgiving episode, so this is coming out about a week before Thanksgiving. So happy Thanksgiving to you, Tony, and all the listeners.   Tony Mauro: Yes, you the same. See you later.   Speaker 1: You know what? After we eat all that Turkey, I might need to run a marathon.   Tony Mauro: Me too, yeah.   Speaker 1: We'll see you next time here on Plan With The Tax Man. Enjoy your holiday. We'll be back soon with more episodes with Tony Mauro from Tax Doctor Inc.   Disclaimer: Securities offered through Avantax Investment ServicesSM. Member FINRA, S.I.P.C. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency.

As we approach the end of the year, saving money on taxes becomes a bigger focus for many people. But let's broaden the scope out for this particular episode and focus on some of the most common retirement planning questions about taxes. We'll talk about mistakes to avoid and how a proper plan can make a significant difference in someone's tax savings. Important Links Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript Of Today's Show: Speaker 1: Back here for another episode of Plan with a Tax Man here on the podcast with Tony Mauro and myself. Talking investing, finance, and retirement. We try to bring all sorts of different topics to you. This week it's going to be common questions about taxes and specifically maybe taxes in the retirement planning phase, not necessarily the working years, but we might touch on a little bit of that too. But that's going to be the main approach this week here on the show. And who better to do that with than... Well, a tax guy. Tax doctor himself, what's going on, Tony? How are you?   Tony: Thanks, man. I'm good, thank you. Yes, finished up... Well, officially the '21 tax season. And so, this is a timely topic because it's-   Speaker 1: The '21 tax season?   Tony: Yeah, with extensions just recently-   Speaker 1: Wow.   Tony: Yeah. But still people... And people trickle in all year, but now's the time for the rest of the population to plan for '22. And so, I think there's some good topics, questions here to discuss.   Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I guess that is true. Yeah. When you do extensions, boy, it's easy how you forget that, right? It's like-   Tony: Yeah, you forget it, yes. Yeah.   Speaker 1: I hear you say '21 and I go, "What? There's no way." But it's like, "Oh yeah, that was last year." And then it was... Most of us do it in April, but then if you did extensions then yeah, okay. And you know what? There's two differences here. So you just said most of... We need to start thinking about '22, and that's tax planning.   Tony: Excuse me.   Speaker 1: That's tax prep-   Tony: Excuse-   Speaker 1: ... that's tax preparation for the calendar year. But there's also tax planning and that is year over year, especially for retirees. That's where you can make a real difference in and often a huge difference in how effective your retirement plan's going to be. Because it's not just the annual thing, it's how to be efficient through multiple years in retirement.   Tony: That's right. And you have to think big picture on a lot of these things because it takes multiple years to realize the real savings of a few of these things we're going to talk about. At the end of the day, we always make fun of the government and at some things-   Speaker 1: It's so easy to do, though.   Tony: Yeah, it's easy to do [inaudible 00:02:01] Sam. It's there with his hand out for a part of your retirement money and you want to try to minimize that as much as possible. Because obviously, that means a bigger nest egg for you.   Speaker 1: I was talking with a friend the other day, he's a CPA, he's also a financial specialist now as well. But he was talking about, and he was being very honest, he said for the first half of his careers as a CPA, he was one of those CPAs that would say, "Yeah, defer. Why would you pay taxes now? Just kick it down the road." Absolutely. And he's like, "And you know what? That's our job. As a CPA, we're focused on the current year. It's a historical review of the prior year." But he's like, "But as I got more into the retirement side and the personal financial specialist side, it became more clear that I was wrong for a number of years." It's like, "No, we've got to think about taxes currently, but also into the future and how we're going to be efficient and manage that." So that's kind of the topic today. And I thought that was a great way to hear someone who's been in the industry for 30 years realize that 20 years into it, he's like, "Whoa. I got to make a shift." So let's start with common question number one, deductions. Am I going to have as many deductions in retirement as I did while I'm working? And under the current tax code, that's probably a big no, you're probably not. But if they sunset, Tony, and go back to what they were under the Obama administration, maybe, is that fair?   Tony: Yeah, that's a fair statement. We're getting closer to that. I think it's '25 or '26.   Speaker 1: Starts in '26, yeah.   Tony: Yeah. The sun setting starts coming back. If they don't keep it... Again, you don't know what they're going to do, but I would say for a lot of us, most of the time in your earning years when you've got debt and you have some things you can deduct, those eventually go away by default because you pay everything off and there's just not much there to deduct. And with the IRS's thresholds, you have to get over to itemize and then use medical and all of that kind of thing. You really have to have a lot of it to be able to deduct it. So a lot of times you may not have those deductions, which if everything else being equal means your taxes are higher even... I mean, before the politicians do anything. So you got to pay attention to that. And we'll refer back to that as we answer some of these other ones here.   Speaker 1: Okay. Well, let's talk about the fact that I think our society, the way we're set up, whatever the case, however you want to word that, we assume that our taxes are going to be lower in retirement. Of our generation, for sure, we're in our 50s. It's like, "Hey, you get a job, you go to work. You spend 30, 40 years there, you're not going to have a pension more than likely, but you're pumping into your 401k and when you get to retirement, you'll be in a lower tax bracket." And I've been talking to advisors for years now and that is just not the norm, but yet we still think it is. How often do you see that?   Tony: I see it. It's definitely not the norm anymore. I think that's what... When you're talking about your CPA friend, back in the day, that was the norm. It's like, "Well, the idea was kicked can down the road with the taxes, you'll be in a lower bracket because you won't be working, and then therefore you'll save taxes."   Speaker 1: And tax rates were higher.   Tony: Yeah, and tax rates were much higher. Historically, even though we don't like it, tax rates are very low compared to what they used to be. You look any charts back in the 60s and 70s and they were high even into the 80s. And nowadays, even though we don't have the pensions, people that have done well in the 401ks and are continuing to work, it's very likely that your tax rate could be the same or a little bit higher than when you were working. Depending on if you don't plan right and you have all this money flowing into your income situation that's never been taxed, now all of a sudden your income is a lot higher and boom, you're in a different bracket and you're paying more.   Speaker 1: And Tony, I think what happens here, here's the conversation about being in a lower tax bracket in retirement. I think what also has happened is we've kind of gotten to this mode of, it just happens kind of like retirement itself. I think we've been lulled into this thinking of, "Well, when I get to retirement age, I'm going to be in a lower tax bracket and I don't have to do anything about it. It just will happen naturally." Almost kind of like it's a given. And so, people might be listening and saying, "Well, I know I could get into a lower tax bracket." And I'm not saying you can't and that's where some... But you have to strategize and plan. It doesn't just happen naturally. If you want to be in a lower tax bracket in retirement, you're going to have to do some things to ensure that happens. Is that a fair thing?   Tony: Absolutely.   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony: Yeah, I mean you definitely have to do some things and do some planning or it won't happen. And then it's hard to change once you get that income flown in your retirement.   Speaker 1: Yeah. It's not like social security, like it's this given, right? Oh well, your retirement age, you also get here, here's a free... There's not like there's a bonus social retirement age tax bracket, right?   Tony: Yeah, that's right.   Speaker 1: You have to plan it. You want to be in the lower one, you got to strategize. Are all retirement accounts tax the same, Tony?   Tony: They're not. No. And I think that's where people kind of go arise. They just sometimes assume that. An easy example is you've been putting money into your 401k for 30 years and it's coming out pretax and then you decide to start pulling money out. None of that money plus the earnings has been taxed and you're going to be taxed on all of that. Versus, for example, you take some money out of your Roth IRA that you've been putting money into and none of that money is taxed because that was after tax money. And so, that's not taxable versus you've got maybe... You're at the age where you're taking social security in all this and part of that is taxed because of the way the rules are. So in my mind, three different things. There's no tax, which there's not that much of that. There's some tax, and then there's all of it's taxed. So you have to plan around this so that you can really take advantage of that. Because some of the mistakes I've seen people make and the biggest one is they start taking social security early when they have all this other potential income and they don't need it, they're still working and then they come to find out that up to 85% of it's taxed and on top of that they're reducing it because I'm still working and I'm not a normal retirement age and they're really giving a lot of money back. And so, I would definitely suggest you talk to your advisor or someone about that before you start taking money in retirement.   Speaker 1: Yeah, and you got to think about the types of accounts, the way they're taxed. We talk often about tax buckets, excuse me. About income buckets. Well, they're same thing, right? Tax buckets as well. Where do you want to take from? How are we taking from because what's the tax implications of those? Do we want to do conversions to lower some of our future taxable bill? And if so, how do we do that efficiently without bumping ourselves up in a tax bracket? And that's going to come into, I think, play into my next common question here for you, Tony. Is I have to touch on the fact that we see these ads, we hear these sayings, these slogans, we see these things in the mail we get. Get a tax-free retirement income, get a tax-free income in the retirement and pay no taxes. And how real is it? Is it viable? Is it actually real to think that you can get tax totally tax-free? And just what's to know here?   Tony: Well, I think the first thing is better do a lot of research. There's all kinds of things that people twist words and some of it may not be totally true, that's the first thing. But there are some ways to potentially do it. I mean, a way, and a lot of people don't realize this because they don't generally do it. But this is an area which you talk about tax-free bonds. This is just an easy one. Municipal bonds are not taxable at the federal level. If you get some from your state, they're not taxable at the state level. So theoretically, you can go out and invest all your money and that's municipal bonds, which are generally very safe. Now, they don't pay a whole lot of interest at the moment, but it's tax-free and you never have to put that on your return.   Speaker 1: Interesting. Okay. So-   Tony: That's one way.   Speaker 1: ... I guess there's a way... There's one way to actually make it true. I think where we hear this, Tony, is probably two ways and I want to have you address those. One is something like a universal life policy or something.   Tony: Oh yeah, I knew you're going to... Yeah.   Speaker 1: Yeah, that's usually one. And the other one is, like I just mentioned, so if you've got a million dollars in a 401k, so one might say, well let's convert all of that to a Roth and technically, it's tax-free in retirement. Now, you're paying the taxes now .   Tony: Paying the taxes now, yeah.   Speaker 1: But it is tax free in retirement.   Tony: It is, yeah. I mean, that's one. And that is a good strategy and we've used it before, is to, "Hey, let's start taking some money out now, converting it to a Roth, paying taxes now, but only fill up the bracket that you're in." Let's not go into the next bracket, so you got a huge tax bill. And just over time get it to a totally tax-free area versus again at retirement with Uncle Sam with his hand out there saying, "Give me some money." But you're still paying him but hopefully, we're spreading it out and we're doing it in a lower tax bracket than we think you'll be in. I think if you get into the stuff, especially with some not knocking insurance, because it has its place where you get some of that sophistication of, "Well, let's take all your money and put it into a universal life and then we're going to show you how to take money out of this tax-free." There are some ramifications there and you got to be very careful with the pitfalls and penalties and things like that with that kind of stuff. But it does have its place as long as you know that it's going to work for you.   Speaker 1: So there are some viable strategies, but again, it doesn't happen naturally. You got to work at it, you got to strategize.   Tony: No, you got to work at it, yeah. You really do to get tax-free income in retirement, yeah.   Speaker 1: Okay. And that's really the importance of working with a professional and it's not just a financial professional. So Tony, we know that there's all kinds of levels of financial professionals now. It seems like everybody can call themselves one. There's some that are just brokers only. They're stock brokers only, if you will. There's some that are insurance only. There's some that can do both sides, equities and insurance. And then there's some like yourself who are a CFP but also are a tax professional. Same thing I was talking about with the other person. There are some that are automatically I think... Because many will say, "This is a good strategy, let's do this, this or this." And then consult your tax professional to see how it's going to affect you. I like working with some... I mean, this is just my opinion, but I think there's some real value in working with someone who has all of this under one roof. Maybe it doesn't have to be the same person, for example, but they've got a CPA on staff or something like that. That's just my thought, but what do you think?   Tony: Well, I'm biased, but I do agree. I mean, at the end of the day, taxes is really where it's at. It all comes down to nobody wants to pay any more taxes than they have to.   Speaker 1: Especially in retirement.   Tony: Especially in retirement. And I think a lot of the advisors, when people will call me and say, "Well, my advisor told me to call my tax pro." And say, "Well yeah, because they don't want to... One, maybe take the risk of getting it wrong, but two, maybe they don't know." And so we want to tell you, here's the goods, here's the bads from a tax standpoint and you decide if you want to do that. But yeah, having it all in the same roof with us in that regard, that's what we do. We say, "All right, that all sounds good, but let me tell you about the taxes and how we have to work to do this and the goods and bads." And then you get to say, "Yeah, I still want to do that."   Speaker 1: Okay, and I think that's fair because whatever adage you want to put to it, it's not what you make, it's what you keep, so on and so forth. But in retirement, we're no longer having the paychecks coming in. We're turning everything we've built over the last 40 years or whatever into our money and into our paychecks. And we've got to be as tax efficient as possible because that's what's going to help us hopefully get that longevity out of the money that we're after, right? Because you're not making anymore, so you're not-   Tony: That's right.   Speaker 1: ... I mean, yeah, hopefully, you're making some in the market or whatever the case is and we want to keep up a little inflation and all that kind of stuff, but normal inflation at least anyway. So again, taxes are hugely important to the overall retirement strategy. One more common question, Tony, that I wanted to ask you. And that's the concept around the tax-free state. Well, we'll use California, we've seen this mass exodus from California for a lot of reasons, but one really big one is it's killing people from a tax standpoint, right?   Tony: It really is, the tax states, yeah.   Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, even Elon with all his money's, he's like, "I'm out of here." And he's got tons of money. So how viable, and let me put this in this way for you. How viable is it to say, I'm going to move from a high tax state, let's say California or New Jersey or something like that, to a state like Tennessee or Florida or Texas, where they don't have any income tax. I think if you're wanting to move to that area for other reasons, then-   Tony: That's right.   Speaker 1: ... it could be gravy. Would you move solely on that reason?   Tony: I wouldn't move solely on that reason because you got to take a look at, "Okay, well, how else is this state raising its money?-"   Speaker 1: You're right.   Tony: ... Everybody's got to have money to run the state, so it's-   Speaker 1: It sounds great, right?   Tony: Yeah.   Speaker 1: But they're going get-   Tony: It sounds great, But it could be higher sales tax, could be real high property tax, could be some other types of taxes.   Speaker 1: County tax. So think about Florida, for example. Yeah, but each individual county has different taxes.   Tony: Yeah, there's local taxes and things like that. And so, you want to take a look at that plus the general cost of living in some of those cities. Is it going to cost me more to live? And so, is that really going to maybe negate some of my tax savings type of thing?   Speaker 1: It's a little-   Tony: Iowa. OH, go ahead.   Speaker 1: I'm thinking it's a little more costly to live in Orlando than it is or Miami than it is in Cedar Rapids, right?   Tony: Oh yeah.   Speaker 1: It's just the hair.   Tony: Yeah. I mean, but we've had that in Iowa, not as bad as some of those real high tax days, but Iowa was always in about the top 10 highest tax states and-   Speaker 1: Really? Okay.   Tony: ... what they've done over the years and right later on... I mean, they say that they're making money from other sources, because that's always my thing as well. If you're going to cut taxes, which they've just done. So now starting in '24, retiree's income is completely exempt from Iowa Tax. So we, as a retirees, you don't pay any taxes here. Now, if you're out working and things like that, you do-   Speaker 1: Sure, yeah.   Tony: ... but yoru just retirement income. So that's kind of a break for retirees here from a relatively high tax state down to that.   Speaker 1: That's pretty nice.   Tony: And so, try to keep them here. Because I mean, the weather is not conducive like some of the... I call those, some of those states like Florida, that's your weather tax down there. It's-   Speaker 1: True.   Tony: ... some of those other taxes. But the point is that you need to look at some other things because just the income tax... Maybe [inaudible 00:17:09] of that-   Speaker 1: It's probably not going to make or break your plan, right?   Tony: Yeah, no. But like you said, if you're planning on moving somewhere sunny or I've always wanted to be in Nevada, let's say, and I'm going to move there. Yeah, that's kind of icing on this cake.   Speaker 1: But yeah, then let's go ahead and factor that into the plan for sure. And it might help out along the way. But yeah, I don't know that it's necessarily going to just make your whole plan. It's not the one missing cog in the wheel, if you will, in the machine. And of course, I was just talking with somebody the other day about Florida, and this was obviously even prior to the hurricane, but yeah, they gotten wise too. You can't just say you live in Florida now just because you might have a second residence. They want to see a lot of... They're making you jump through some hoops to make sure that you actually live there-   Tony: Yeah, oh yeah.   Speaker 1: ... to live there and long enough to claim that as your main state. So again, those are just some common questions around taxes and retirement.Again, the biggest one is if you want to have reduced taxes, excuse me, in retirement, you've got to plan for it. You got to strategize for it. It's not going to just happen on its own through a series of... I mean, maybe through a series of the right steps that you just did and didn't realize. Sure, it's possible. But like anything, the world's changed so much that... It just really does require strategizing and planning to be as efficient as possible. And that way you can also be efficient not only for your retirement years but whatever you might leave behind as well when you move on in that legacy section, you want to be as tax efficient to the kids for the most part as that. Of course, some of you do, some of you might say, "Hey, they can pay the tax bill. I don't care."   Tony: Right, yeah.   Speaker 1: So everybody's different. Tony, thanks-   Tony: [inaudible 00:18:47].   Speaker 1: ... for hanging out, my friend, as always. I appreciate it.   Tony: All right, we'll talk to you next time.   Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll catch you next time. Again, if you've got questions, folks, around taxes, who better to talk to than the tax man, reach out to Tony and his team at Tax Doctor. And they are Des Moines' professional alternative. Of course, they have clients all over the country as well. But reach out to them, find them online @yourplanningpros.com. That's yourplanningpros.com. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast, Plan With The Tax Man on Apple, or Google, or Spotify, whatever platform you like to use. You can find it all at Tony's website as well. He's been helping families for 20-plus years, boy, about 25 or so now, right?   Tony: Well, 26-   Speaker 1: 26, okay.   Tony: ... be 26 this year.   Speaker 1: So there you go. So reach out to Tony and get started today. If you got any questions, need some help, and we'll see you next time here on Plan With The Tax Man.   Disclaimer: Securities offered through Avantax Investment Services.  Member FINRA, SIPC, Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services.  Insurance services offered through Avantax Insurance Agency.

Just like the lights on your dashboard can indicate if something is wrong with your car (like low tire pressure or leaking oil), there are indicators in your financial life that might point out that you have a problem that needs to be addressed. Important Links Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript Of Today's Show: Speaker 1: Welcome in to Plan with the Tax Man, with Tony Mauro and myself here to talk about warning signs, how to spot some potential problems in our financial life. Certainly not too hard to probably spot in 2022. You're probably thinking because there's a lot been going on this year, but we're going to talk about a few things to pay attention to outside of the clearly obvious ones that are going on. And think about it like your car engine just, or your vehicle, just like lights on your dashboard can indicate if something is wrong. There's other things that you might not realize that are happening that you want to address as well. So it's not always just the most obvious. And that's the chat this week, Tony, what's going on buddy? How are you?   Speaker 2: I am good. Settling into a late fall and it's getting cooler here so it's always, sun starts setting a little sooner and then it's winter.   Speaker 1: Yep. Let the coolness in.   Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. But weather's been good here and all is good.   Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good. Yeah. I mean it is what it is, right? Some areas don't have all four seasons. Of course you can be like most states, many of the states that I've lived in, it seems like they had summer, winter, and construction.   Speaker 2: Yes.   Speaker 1: That was the only three seasons they had, so. And we'd go from one to the next and that's kind of how it is in North Carolina a little bit. It's hot, hot, hot, hot, cold, back to hot. But let's talk about some of these warning signs, Tony a little bit. And again, think about this from a standpoint of it could be your whole financial life, but also just maybe the retirement side of things too. However you want to take this in your answers, feel free. But when people come in to talk with you or whatever the case is, no matter what their age, let's say if they're even starting early or if they're starting right up to the last minute, whatever the case might be, they often have no idea what it actually costs to fund their lifestyle. I can't tell how many advisors I've talked to that say they go to do, get the preliminary numbers from people. They're starting to help, pull information in and people often way under calculate what they actually spend.   Speaker 2: They do. And I would echo that. That's why I picked this topic was this very one right here, is I would say, I would have to guess, but I mean even on the tax side, I'd say 99% of our clients, our tax clients do not understand how much money they have going out for how much they have coming in. I mean, that's really what it comes down to.   Speaker 1: Yeah. That's massive.   Speaker 2: But in their defense, in people's defense, they don't really teach it in school. I always tell them. And they're not really teaching it in college very much. And so unless you just watched your parents, most of them don't track what their net income is and then every little thing that goes out the door. And that's why at the end of the day there many people say, It feels like I'm working harder than ever, but I just can't get ahead or I can't see.   Speaker 1: And it's interesting, if you think about. In the age that we are in with an app for everything times 50, you'd think that it would be easier. And I don't know if it's the, I'm just don't want another stinking app kind of mindset versus just the manual way of doing things. And you're right our financial education system has been horrible in this country for a very long time. I mean, back when we were in high school, in the 80s, I think we got a one hour class on how to write a check and that was pretty much it.   Speaker 2: That was it?   Speaker 1: That was it. Yeah.   Speaker 2: And I think you're right though. I think there's a lot of apps that make it easy. I think it's not the one more app as well as far as I...   Speaker 1: It can be burnout. Yeah.   Speaker 2: I don't want any more to do, I just want to live. But I think it's so important though, because the apps do make it almost automated now. They can connect to your bank accounts and kind of do everything for you. Even if you're really lazy and don't want to do anything is you can look at a app like Mint or Quicken on the mobile and you can just get a snapshot, even if you don't reconcile your bank statements and do all that, wow, I took in this much and I paid out more. No wonder I don't have anything at the end of the month. And then you can start digging in, well where the hell did it really go?   Speaker 1: Quite exactly. Well I've got another advisor friend like yourself and we were chatting and he's like, well the way I do it is because he's a CPA as well, is he's like, let's just look at your tax returns, right? We're going to look at the tax returns because that's the end all be all at the kind of, here's the data and okay, here's what was left, right? Where is it? If it's not in your savings account, guess what? You spent it.   Speaker 2: You spent it.   Speaker 1: And I have other advisors who say, hey, here's an interesting idea for folks to ponder. Again, you have to know yourself and you have to have the discipline. But what if for one month you put every single thing on one credit card, right? Or one card, right? And then looked at that and said, Okay, this is literally what went out. And then of course you can look at obviously what you brought in based on your income, on your paycheck or whatever. And obviously maybe this is a little, that's more of a setup for people who are still working. And again, got to know yourself for a discipline because don't do that and then not pay off the credit card, because you got to...   Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.   Speaker 1: But I mean people do, they come up, they find these different ways to do it and some people love Excel and some people want to use spreadsheets. But if you are not diligent about it, and most people aren't, you just really kind of, I think our world is so designed now, Tony, that we're getting nickel and dimed and we just don't even realize it. So when someone says, well here's what it costs me to fund my lifestyle. When they come to see you for the first time, they're telling you the car and they're telling you the mortgage and they're telling you the approximation of the electric bill. Well it's roughly $200 a month and you know what I mean? That kind of thing. But how many times, did you tell how many times Amazon comes a week? We know all that kind of little stuff. Or how many times you stop by the burger joint or the coffee shop or whatever?   Speaker 2: Yeah. And one of the... well, with our financial planning clients, one of the first exercises we do after we go over goals and things is we go over this and we use software. So we kind of do the heavy lifting for them. But yeah, they'll do just that. They name off the big stuff. It's like, okay, well you, that's that. But what about how many times did you go out to eat? How many times did you buy clothes, go golfing? Whatever it is you do. And we got to get all that in there. I mean every single dime needs to be accounted for 'cause it's either spent or saved at the end of the day, for most people it's not saved. So we have to go through that exercise. But we do talk a lot about this and once their eyes are kind of opened, a lot of them will say, well how can I track this without going to a lot of trouble? And so we have to be able to offer them some things there. But you got to start here if you're going to improve your financial life.   Speaker 1: And we're not talking about living on a budget, right Tony?   Speaker 2: No.   Speaker 1: We're not trying to say you have to be restricted, but if you're trying to... again, the topic here is how to spot problems in our financial life, not understanding what your lifestyle's costing you is a huge problem. So if you go in and say, my plan, if we make $5,000 a month in retirement, Tony, we're going to be okay. And if that's not the actual real number, you're actually spending seven grand a month, guess what? You're going to run out.   Speaker 2: You're going to run out. And we can't help you if...   Speaker 1: If you run out.   Speaker 2: If that happens. Right? Yeah.   Speaker 1: We got to fix it before you run out. So a gain, that's a huge one to focus on. Another one is that I wanted to talk about is the arbitrary number. People who focus, and again, you could be doing this while you're working, you could be doing this for whatever reason, but the arbitrary number of an account balance or a net worth, right? Well when we get to 30,000 in savings, then we can this. Or when we get to 500,000 in the 401K, then we can that, right? So kind of applying this arbitrary number and often the one we see Tony really is, well I need to get to a million to retire. Once I get to a million I can retire. And it's a big round sexy number and we get to say we're a millionaire and I get it all that. But what if 700,000 would get it done and you got to leave work three years earlier than you wanted to, right?   Speaker 2: I agree. And I think people do, they focus on this number. I think most of our clients focus on too low of a number and they don't realize how fast that number is going to disappear or be spent.   Speaker 1: That's a great point. But that kind of goes back to the first one, right? Because...   Speaker 2: It does.   Speaker 1: ... you're under calculating that, first [inaudible 00:08:32] so anyway, keep going.   Speaker 2: So that's kind of the thing which it does. It ends up going back to the first point. But when you can sit down with them and ask them that and then say, okay, well let's take your number for example and let's start subtracting out some things. How long is that money going to last? And maybe let's not focus on the number so much as to what type of income or how much income do we need to generate every month, let's say in retirement. And then work backwards into whatever that number needs to be. Because for you it might be 700,000 and you can retire earlier. Maybe for somebody else it might be 2 million. And so it's worth it to not focus on the number, at least in the beginning. I like to focus on the monthly income and then back into that number, because...   Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.   Speaker 2: Otherwise, I think again, it could back you into a corner, you get to that number and then if you're at retirement, let's say that might not work depending on your lifestyle.   Speaker 1: Yeah. And I love that you mentioned the underfunding because that is what happens. I also think that what happens was when folks come in, they've finally gotten the nerve up to come see a financial professional like yourself maybe for the first time, they're nervous about it. And I think sometimes we have this thing as humans where we want to be told we did a good job or we want to put on a face, if you will, that we've got our stuff together even though we're turning to someone to help us. And so you may go in under kind of guessing that number. Well, it's only going to take us, technically we can get by with $3,500 a month, right? And so that'll be like, yeah, we need 3,500 to make the plan go. And to your point, you're way under guessing. And then maybe that arbitrary number is, well we could do it on a half million when really it's actually the 750 or the one million or the two million, whatever it might be. So that's a great point. I'm really glad you brought that up in there as well. People often tend to do that. And I think it's just, again, it could be any number of human emotions that kind of causes to do it. And speaking of emotions, this third one here, Tony is kind of an interesting one. I think this is a nice take for people to ponder when it comes to spotting problems in your financial life. It's the conception or the mental image that you've built in your head that you've had forever about what your parents did or did not do. For me, I know my dad never talked about saving for retirement. It was never brought up. He wasn't retired long before he passed away, but it just seemed like, well he didn't do anything and it just kind of worked out, right? And so a lot of people I think do that same thing. They go, well, my parents, especially if you're like, again, you and I we're right around the 50 age, so we're kind of teenagers of the 80s. I think our parents that we saw just before us there, it's kind of like they just didn't do a whole lot and yet they somehow were retired. So I guess I'll be fine too. You know what I mean? Does that make sense?   Speaker 2: Yeah. Makes sense. And I think that's a fallacy if you...   Speaker 1: Oh for sure.   Speaker 2: Let that go too long, because my parents were the same way. My mom didn't work and my dad did and he didn't even ever, ever that I remember talked about, thought about or saved until he was in his 40s. And he kind of got lucky and got into a government job and then started putting a lot of money away. And then of course he got IPARs and some things like that. Otherwise, I don't know where he would've ended up. Now he's pretty well off, but yeah, they did not do that. And I don't think we, and even people younger than me, my own son should have those images. They really need to think about things because one, we're living a lot longer now. The younger people going to live even longer more than likely. Healthcare is really high. And you got to kind of take a peek at again what your lifestyle's like. Because I know my lifestyle, my dad really didn't even quit working until he was 78, but I think he kind of let retirement pass him by a little bit and it's like, boy, I don't know if I want to go that route. And I think a lot of people are the exact opposite. It's like, boy, sometimes I still hear people say, I want to retire at 57. It's like, wow, how are you going to do that because... That you may not have what you think. Back in the day when people retired younger, they weren't living as long. They had pensions, they had all kinds of things that we don't have now. And so a lot of thought needs to go into this. But yeah, I definitely wouldn't base that image on what our parents had for sure.   Speaker 1: Yeah. And the world has definitely changed so much Tony in the last just 30 years. You and I can definitely att... anybody can attest to that, right? And just watching what's happened from the 80s up till now, I guess that's 40 years. I'm showing my age myself. But things are... they're pretty tough and they're pretty interesting on how they look and on some ways it's supposed to be better. But I mean, thinking about what you just said a second ago, your mom didn't work and your dad kind of late start if you will. But somehow you guys were fine. And that's pretty hard to do nowadays. I mean if you don't have two families working or two people working in the family, especially in those, when you're in your 30s, I think it's tough to get by. And of course inflation right now is making that really tough.   Speaker 2: Really tough, you don't see as many, I mean generally women not working like they used to back when I was a kid and it's a two, and my wife and I have always been a two person income.   Speaker 1: Mine too. Yeah.   Speaker 2: It was always, at first it was a necessity and now it's like, well I'm glad we still have that. Now you have more income and getting to a point where you can do more of what you want.   Speaker 1: Right? Yeah. It's all about having that right mindset for sure. All right, so let's see if we could do a one or two more here before we wrap up. This one's easy to do. If you're stressing out on the regular because of the current world events and you're worried about how it's going to affect you. And granted, you're human, we're all dealing with that right this minute, but you've got to moderate that somehow. Otherwise, you are going to send yourself crazy with the... I mean the market has been super volatile obviously in 22. The bond markets down, inflation rates are up. Excuse me, interest rates are up, inflation is... so we are in a heck of a pickle right now. So you got to figure out a way to moderate this.   Speaker 2: You do. Well, if you're prone to getting worked up then you're probably about ready to blow a gasket with all these.   Speaker 1: For sure. It's not good for your ticker, right?   Speaker 2: Yeah. It's not good for your ticker and there's so much coming at us and we've talked about it before with the news. It is easy to get worked up and really have some anxiety about in the short term what's happening and you lose your focus on if you're saving for retirement and you're ways away focusing on the long term. And if you're in retirement and you are properly diversified and invested well yeah, your portfolio might fluctuate some, but the income's not going to change and nothing's going to happen there. But at the end of the day, you just kind of see all this negativity in the news and that's mostly what it is, unfortunately is, yeah, it's hard to keep on your plan and keep positive.   Speaker 1: It really is. Yeah. Well I think that's... so somebody's said, well you kind of said it because somebody listening might go, well great, yeah, it's hard to do. So what do we do? And you mentioned it, the plan is one thing. If you don't have, well I guess we should flip that question. What are you doing? If it's nothing except for watching this stuff and getting weirded out and getting upset, then you're not helping your own situation. Have you talked with someone, have you put together a strategy? Right?   Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah. Because that's really what it comes down to is if you don't have a plan, well then you need, obviously probably need to get one if you have one and we've been talking to our clients and there has been some minor changes we've made but it isn't like we're saying, well the market's been down, let's just go all to cash or...   Speaker 1: Right, wholesale changes.   Speaker 2: Yeah wholesale changes. 'Cause when somebody asks me that, I said, okay, if what you're telling me that's what you want to do is you want to go all to cash. I said, then who's going to make the decision of when to go back in the market? Is it going to be you then the next news that you see? Or because I've stopped trying to do that because I told you before, we don't market time. I mean, who's that? What's going to trigger that? And then they don't know what to say as far as that goes. So I think most prudent investors, you want to stay invested at all times, when times are tough, especially saving for retirement. I always tell my clients, I say, really you should be investing more, that this is the best time. Generally the crowd's running for the exits when bad things happen short term. And if you're investing regularly then it's a moot point. It's easy for me to sit back and say, don't pay attention to the news. But in reality that's hard to do. You do get sucked up in it a little bit.   Speaker 1: Oh for sure. Yeah. And that's saying to not, and that's why I said moderate it, right?   Speaker 2: Yeah you got to moderate it.   Speaker 1: Because if you're freaking out at every single thing that goes on right now, there's a lot and you're really going to make yourself sick. So you got to have a strategy to deal with that. And I think to your point right there, it's like if you're still working, 'cause my wife, she's like, hey, obviously my 401's taken a beating. What should... should I cut back on my, how much is being taken out each paycheck and going in? I'm like, no, because your dollar cost averaging, right?   Speaker 2: ... cost averaging.   Speaker 1: If you're still working, just keep doing what you're doing, because you're right now you've still got some of that time on your side and you're buying while the market's down, it's so funny, Tony, the market is the only place no one wants to buy on sale.   Speaker 2: They don't want to buy on sale, they want to buy high and sell low.   Speaker 1: And that's completely opposite.   Speaker 2: You got to pay attention to the news. But also, you definitely don't want to rush into things. And I sometimes if people push me too far, I say, well, you're still working. Our style of life is so good. And I say, if you're that upset about it, well let's take a philosophical view. Let's go down to the hospital and visit the sick kids that are dying and the homeless. I mean, there's always somebody that's way, way, way worse off and...   Speaker 1: Oh, for sure.   Speaker 2: So you got to step back and say, count your blessings and kind of go from there. Put it in perspective a little bit.   Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah. We all suffer from first world problems, right?   Speaker 2: Yeah. That's what it is.   Speaker 1: And everybody, hey, your problems are understandable. They're stressful to you, not trying to make short of that, but there's always going to be something a little bit worse. And this is something, yes, we can't control the stock market, we can't control the taxes of the inflation, but we can control how we're we react to it and if we're taking any action within those parameters to do something. And so if that's the case, these are some ways to spot some problems in your financial life. Certainly those two big ones right there at the top though are certainly big ones. Do you understand how much it's going to cost to fund your lifestyle now and later? And are you focusing too much on or too little on what that number might be? So get yourself a conversation with someone like Tony. Have a chat. Make sure you're doing something for yourself and your retirement. You can always reach out to him if you've got questions. If you're not working with him already, stop by the website yourplanningpros.com, that's yourplanningpros.com, subscribe to the podcast Plan with the Tax Man on whatever app you like to use, like Apple, Google, Spotify, so on and so forth. Tony, thanks for hanging out and chatting my friend. We'll talk soon.   Speaker 2: All right, sounds good. It was a good conversation.   Speaker 1: Absolutely. I always appreciate your time here on Plan with the Tax Man with Tony Mauro from Tax Doctor Inc.   Disclaimer: Securities offered through Avantax Investment Services.  Member FINRA, SIPC, Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services.  Insurance services offered through Avantax Insurance Agency.

Want to know the secrets to experiencing satisfaction in retirement? We've discovered five key situations to which your financial plan needs to lead you. If you can key in on these five points, you'll have a high chance to achieve retirement satisfaction. Important Links Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript Of Today's Show: Speaker 1: Back for another edition of Plan With The Tax Man. Thanks for tuning into the podcast with Tony Mauro and myself to talk about getting some satisfaction or as Mick Jagger said, "Can't get no satisfaction."   Tony Mauro: Can't get no.   Speaker 1: That's right. Can't get no. Or can we? So, we're going to talk about some secrets to experiencing satisfaction in retirement. If you want to know what those are, we've got five we've identified. They're different for everybody, but these are five to maybe pay a little attention to and see if they might help you improve your chances for retirement satisfaction. What's going on with my friend? How're you doing?   Tony Mauro: I'm doing good. How about you?   Speaker 1: Pretty good. Pretty good. Are you a Stones fan at all? Do you like the Stones?   Tony Mauro: I do like the Rolling Stones. I never did appreciate them when I was young, but I do now.   Speaker 1: Yeah. [inaudible 00:00:40]. Classic song. Right? Can't get no satisfaction. Great, great song from the Stones. So, I think most people... We probably won't play it here on the podcast just for those reasons that we can't. But I think soon as you hear it, most people just kind of already hear that da, da, da, da, da, they kind of already hear that guitar part going in their head. So, no worries there. But listen, we got these five items here, Tony. Let's run them down real fast and see how the process of going through and working with an advisor, maybe can help achieve some of these or at least improve some of these. And they're pretty wide range here, like the first one's peace of mind, certainly something we want to have in retirement, have some satisfaction there with peace of mind. But regardless of what's going on in the stock market or even in the world, the idea is to be able to retire in any economy, in any environment, because you never know what's going to happen. You never know if a pandemic's going to happen or a war's going to break out or the market's going to crash. It's not ideal, but we want to be able to do it regardless. So, peace of mind comes into play. And that's, I think where the planning process can help because you guys can stress test and show scenarios.   Tony Mauro: That's right. And these five we're going to talk about really are the whole basis in my mind of any financial plan, whether we do it or anybody else, it should be the same in my opinion. Because these are the five things that if you have these going for you and you can constantly address them and say yes to, you're going to have a great financial plan and it doesn't have anything to do with the things that make up your portfolio. I think if you just have some investments in your portfolio and you haven't analyzed any of this, I would say you don't have a plan. You may have a lot of money in those portfolios, but may not have these things and you need to get to them to really achieve what I call the financial success.   Speaker 1: Well, if you got $10 million, I mean, you're going to say, "Hey, I'm totally great." But depending on how you live your life, does that $10 million give you peace of mind without a plan? Because maybe the way you live, $10 million doesn't get it done.   Tony Mauro: Exactly. And for me, peace of mind is, like you said, you know that your portfolio and everything else about your plan does not... I mean, somewhat depends on what's [inaudible 00:03:04] going on in the market, but short-term. But long term, you're not really worried about the news of the day, the war of the day, I mean, because it goes on, it's going on right now as we speak, politically, and the war Ukraine and everything else. There's always doom and gloom on the news. So, without getting into that whole conversation, you want to have peace of mind that your portfolio and your plan, you're going to be okay.   Speaker 1: Yeah. We've talked about retirement in various political environments. God willing, if you're walking into retirement, let's say this year or next year, you're going to see multiple administrations. It's not just what's happening with this current one. Sure, it affects a lot of things, but there's always going to be the next administration, then the next one after that, tax changes, rule changes, whatever the case might be. So, if you're looking at a 30 year retirement, which many of us are, bound to be a few things happen, so you got to make sure you got some peace of mind to ride through most of it, as close to peace of mind as you can get. You mentioned diversity, so let's go to that one because that's the second one we talked about income streams. Diversity of those income streams are super important, but we got to be careful not to be too reliant. It used to be just pensions and social security and we called it a day, but that's not the case anymore.   Tony Mauro: No, it's not. And we try to strive for three to five different income sources in our plans, and the more, the better. But if we can get that, then it leads us to what we just talked about, more peace of mind, more of feeling good about I've got money coming in from all these different sources. So, if one source is not particularly en vogue at the moment, it's still producing some income for us, but may not be what it was, but it'll be back. And it is not going to alter our lifestyle at all if we've got that normal and good diversity, I think. I see too many clients come and basically they have two, they have social security and a little bit, and I'm talking a little bit, of just savings or some retirement. And if that's all they have, then that's all they have. And then it's the conversation of you have to do as well as you can with what you have.   Speaker 1: Well, then your options are just more limited, right? [inaudible 00:05:21]. So, the option is to try to save more, spend less, reduce your lifestyle. That kind of brings things into focus there. I like how you brought in en vogue there a little bit. So, you brought in another song reference to our Can't Get No Satisfaction, although it's Madonna, but that's okay. We'll let it roll. How about number three on our list? Confidence. If you're trying to get satisfaction in your retirement journey, confidence goes a long way. As humans, we need it in just about every aspect of life. That's a crucial one. We talked on our prior podcast a couple weeks ago about the psychology of some things, Tony, and I think confidence goes a long way into that conversation too, because even if you've done a great job and have been a diligent saver, if you don't have a good strategy and a good plan, you may not feel confident that you can even enjoy this money you saved.   Tony Mauro: That's right. And this is where the accountant in us comes out with our clients, because we do in this area, sit them down. We do go through the exercise of let's see what you're spending, what your bills are every month in retirement. And you're going to sit down and you're going to help me write them out. And we're going to make sure that we add those up, compare it to the different income sources you've got coming in, so that you'll see that, hey, you've got the confidence, that you're going to be able to pay all your bills. And hopefully you've got extra, so you can take that and go do other things. So, I think that's the most important thing because us as advisors, we could tell them, "Oh yeah, you'll be fine. You'll be fine. But I think we have to show you. Here's your bills, here's your monthly income coming in, you truly are going to be fine." And even we take it a step further, we let the computer software do it, tell them, "Well, even if your income goes down by X amount or you live X number of years, you're still going to be in great shape and not run out of money"   Speaker 1: Most of us are visual, so I think we do need to see something and in black and white. And it kind of helps sink it in. We're like, "Ah." We get that "aha" moment going.   Tony Mauro: I think the key there is for us as advisors is not to throw so much data at the client because they tend to get lost. So, we try to keep it simple, but it's still very powerful. I mean it's based on fact [inaudible 00:07:34].   Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh yeah. Because then your head's spinning and how much do you retain and so on and so forth. Okay. Number four, security. And this could be in any aspect of the plan, but security clearly important. Maybe for some it's the security of that income stream that you just talked about. Maybe it's the security of a long-term care strategy.   Tony Mauro: I think yeah, both four and five are this security and being able to know that whether it's my long-term care plan or my healthcare plan, any other plan that you have is going to be there and cover what you need when you need it. Normally, what we tend to do is review every year or every year and a half, their healthcare coverage, long-term care coverage, see if there's any gaps and if they want to try to change something or fill those, just so again, they can build the security that I know that if something happens to me, that I'm going to be all right and everything's going to be paid for. With long-term care, of course, a lot of them talk about being a burden on their family if something happens.   Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. Nobody wants to be the burden. Right? Having that strategy in place, so having that security goes a long way with getting that satisfaction in retirement. And the last one is independence. You mentioned four and five being probably pretty big ones. And independence could be a number of things. Whatever side of the political spectrum you find yourself on, I think all of us would like to have a certain level of independence from government. We don't want to be more reliant on them than we have to, I think most of the time. But it also could be something as simple as independence from our family, Tony. My mom lived with my wife and I, a number of years early on in her retirement. And she was not happy about it, but it just was a situation she found herself in. And it took a while, but then eventually she was able to get into a senior... She was on a waiting list, she got into a senior apartment complex. And while there's things about that that frustrate her, she does often return to the fact that she feels better having some level of independence. We'll say, "Hey mom, do you want to spend the night?" And she'll come over and spend the day, do some things. Do you want to stay the tonight here? And she's like, "No, no, no. I feel better at home. I feel more comfortable in my own surroundings." So, she likes that independence.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. It's funny because my own father talks about it a lot. It seems like lately here in our own family, we've lost some relatives and whatnot battling Alzheimer's and dementia, things like that over long periods. And of course he says all the time, he does not want to go into some home. That's his biggest fear of losing his independence and having to rely on either family assistance. He has a great long-term care policy, so again, we're back to, he's confident, we've made him confident that he's secure in his plans, but he definitely wants to be independent. [inaudible 00:10:21].   Speaker 1: Doesn't want to give up that independence.   Tony Mauro: No. And we were up at... My son actually got married a couple of weeks ago up in Sioux Falls, and so some of his and our friends come up and their aunts and uncles, they're in their eighties, and you could definitely tell that they're really starting to change some, mentally. It's sad to see and hopefully they've got some of this taken care of because then it becomes a worry for the person that's going through it. And I don't think they should have to worry about that.   Speaker 1: And that's not healthy. Yeah. That adds to the... Reducing our mental stress in any form in any time of life is always a good idea, stress levels, period. It kind of goes a long way towards helping our health, but certainly as we've become seniors. So yeah, independence. That's the fifth one, folks. So, five, pretty wide, but also very crucial pieces to finding satisfaction in retirement, getting peace of mind, having that diversity, understanding you've got confidence in the plan and the strategy, security in the different aspects of it, and just our own personal independence in retirement, so we still feel like we are in control of ourselves, if you will. Those are five crucial components to a good strategy. And if you need some help with that, definitely make sure you're talking with a qualified professional. If not, Tony, certainly someone, but he is available for you. If you'd like to reach out to him, stop by his website at yourplanningpros.com. He's got 25, 26 years of experience helping folks get to and through retirement. So, a great resource, not only in the Des Moines area, but all around. He's got clients all over. So, reach out to him online, yourplanningpros.com. That is yourplanningpros.com. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify, whatever platform you like to use, Plan With The Tax Man is the name of the show. You can find all the information again at Tony's website. My friend, thanks for hanging out with me. Great conversation this week. I think we'll have to go listen to some Stones now.   Tony Mauro: I think so too. Then we have to do it.   Speaker 1: Yeah, we have to crank it up a little bit. Have yourself a good week, my friend. And I will see you next time here on Plan With The Tax Man with Tony Mauro.   Disclaimer: Securities offered through Avantax Investment Services.  Member FINRA, SIPC, Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services.  Insurance services offered through Avantax Insurance Agency.

This is a mailbag edition of the show where we answer some questions that have come in from listeners. Today we will be discussing if it's a good idea to pull money from an IRA for home repairs, some rate of return expectations, and when to hire a financial advisor. Important Links Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript Of Today's Show: Speaker 1: It's time for another edition of Plan With The Tax Man, and it's a mail bag edition where we're going to take some email questions that have come into the podcast and share those a little bit on the show to go through these scenarios that might be similar to something you're going through. Of course, all emails and questions get answered when you reach out to Tony and his team at Tax Doctor inc., but we take some from time to time and put them on to the podcast. So if you'd like to submit your own or have questions, stop by Tony's website, yourplanningpros.com, drop them a line, again at yourplanningpros.com. All the good tools, tips and resources, and information there at the website. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast as well while you're there, Plan With The Tax Man, again at his website, yourplanningpros.com. That's yourplanningpros.com. Tony, what's going on, buddy? How are you?   Tony Mauro: I'm good today. Thank you.   Speaker 1: Yeah, we're into late August.   Tony Mauro: Yes.   Speaker 1: Summer's winding down. We're getting close to Labor Day. I think the time we're going to drop this one, it'll probably be about a week or so before Labor Day. So summer is a-winding down. So hopefully you have-   Tony Mauro: State fair time here.   Speaker 1: Oh, okay. State fair thing.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, hopefully everybody had a good summer. Hot one, that's for sure, all across the country. Man, it's just been blazingly hot all summer. But anyway, let's jump in and take some email questions from folks. I've got a couple of good different types of things here. Interesting situations from folks they've sent in. This question comes in from a listener named Johnny and he starts it with this, Tony.   Speaker 1: He says, "I have a weird situation. I've been very aggressive," he says, "about funding my IRAs and my 401ks over the years, so I do have close to 2 million in these accounts."   Tony Mauro: That's good.   Speaker 1: That's great. He says, "I'm 54 though, and suddenly find myself needing major cash for a major home repair that was not expected. I kind of feel poor because my emergency fund you guys talk about is less than five grand in the bank, because I, again, put all my money tied up into these retirement accounts. I was very aggressive, as I said." So he wants to know, "Should I take money out of the IRA and eat the penalty and the taxes to pay for this home repair?" Because obviously he's well aware of that. Or do you have any other thoughts for Johnny on this situation, Tony?   Tony Mauro: Well, couple things. One, it would be congrats again on the $2 million, right, at age 54. I mean, that's really going to be good if you can let that keep going till you decide to retire.   Speaker 1: Yeah. I wish he would've shared how much the home repair was, but he didn't.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, I know he didn't share that. So, depending on that, I would say, what you need to do, it's easy to say what you should have done, but I think you already know what you should have done is, obviously have a fund for repairs set up in addition to emergency fund. For me, I have a fund for home repairs that just goes into that, because these things pop up from time to time. They never...   Speaker 1: I get the feeling that this is maybe something really unexpected and really outside the norm. So let's touch on a couple things. He knows he's got to eat the penalty and pay the taxes. So based on that, let's just say, he's got to pull out $50,000, Tony, for the sake of the argument. He's got to pay tax on that, right, in an IRA, plus he's got to pay the 10% penalty because he's under 59 and a half.   Tony Mauro: Right. And we don't know what his tax bracket is, but I'm assuming it's... I'm going to use 20%.   Speaker 1: Okay.   Tony Mauro: So there's another $10,000, and that doesn't even include the state. And so-   Speaker 1: [inaudible 00:03:26].   Tony Mauro: ... and cashing out, I guess to a degree in the dip, if the market happens to be down. And what is that 50,000 going to cost you in earning if you left it invested for the next 10 or 15 years? So my advice would be to try to work with him and say, look, do you have any equity at the home? Maybe you could take out a home equity loan. Rates are extremely cheap.   Speaker 1: I mean, they're ticking up, but they're still not bad.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. They're not bad. It's not going to be a 30% tax yet. That 30% what you're going to get hit here-   Speaker 1: With the... Oh, that's a great point. Yeah.   Tony Mauro: So you could spread it out, so it's not going to be a big event, and pay it off quicker if you need to. That would be my first suggestion. Second suggestion would be even just a conventional loan possibly, before I would take this money out, because besides the tax hit, I always look at that 50,000, in this example-   Speaker 1: Like a personal loan or something.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. Is, take that 50,000, use a... What do you call it? Compound interest calculator, and calculate that out. Even at 5%, over 15 years, what that is going to be. And you don't have that anymore. Your two million now is $50,000 lighter. I think that's too big of a hit if at all possible.   Speaker 1: That's a good point. I'm really glad you brought that up because... So it really is like, let's run some numbers and see what it costs you more to pull money. Because a lot of times we look and we go, "Well, I've got it." He's like, "I got the two mil." Again, I made up this 50,000 because I don't know, but, "I got the two mil. So if I pull out 50 grand, I mean, yeah, okay, fine. But I still got 1.95, right." But it may be more like an additional 30 on top of that, to your point. So that's a really interesting way of looking at that, versus maybe just getting a home equity line, with a slightly higher interest rate than it was six months ago, but even at that, it may still be a cheaper option, and that's why it's important to run the numbers and really have an advisor, right, so you can say, let's do some math, and then look at the tax too.   Tony Mauro: Look at the tax. Yeah. At least bounce it off somebody because they're going to be able to give you the numbers on all three sides of that, and then, obviously you can make the decision, but I think by pulling it out, especially when you factor all that in, you're going to see, wow, that's really going to cost me a lot more than 50,000. A little more pain than I want to take maybe, more of a haircut. Well obviously, Tony has reached out to Johnny in this scenario, or is reaching out, because we're talking about this on the show, but I wanted to share this because people do find themselves in these kinds of situations where it's like not thinking through the easiest way to do something. Because often it's like, "Well I've got the money, technically." It's just a matter of how efficient are you with and where do you get it from? Same problem that people face in retirement. Tony. It's what bucket to use at what time.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. And that's why it's important to have the buckets in the first place.   Speaker 1: Yeah. That's true. If you don't have the buckets, can't use them. Yeah. Well, Johnny, obviously a great question. Thanks for submitting it into the podcast. Thanks for letting us use it on the show. We certainly appreciate it. And good luck with the situation as you get it worked out with Tony and the team. All right.   Speaker 1: So let's check out Rowland and see what he's got to say. He says, "Tony, what rate of return should I be getting on my investments these days?" Ah, one of the old, what should I get? "I haven't been pleased with my accounts for several months this year." Well, many people have not been, Rowland.   Tony Mauro: No.   Speaker 1: So, Tony, this is the thing. We get these a lot of times. You hear this, I'm sure, often. "Hey, what rate of return should I be getting?" I think the question is, what rate of return do you need?   Tony Mauro: Yeah. I mean, that's the question, because I mean, I could spout out some number here and every one of them are going to be wrong, really. And so it's hard to say, right? I would say-   Speaker 1: Well, and somebody might say, "Well I need 12." Well, do you really need 12 just because that's what you've been getting the last couple years? I guess, what do you need to make the car go? What do you need to make the retirement plan work? And then anything over that's like gravy, right?   Tony Mauro: It is. I think if Rowland is in retirement or near retirement, I mean a general rule of thumb, I'd say, on average again, and you got to look at your timeframe, is this is not going to happen every year. A five, 6%, you get anything higher than that, I think, depending on your risk tolerance, and it's great, but people have gotten to a point where they think that these great returns are going to happen year in, year out. And we're finding ourselves in a market that's not probably going to happen this year. And you got to take that a little bit and factor that into the average, type of thing. And I think if you're not doing that, if you're chasing returns, you're going to be way worse off.   Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think that's where... And again, not to pick on you, Rowland, that's been easy to want to chase returns. '19, '20, '21, the market made it fairly... I mean the last 12 years really, right.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: Kind of made it easy to want to chase returns, because it's been fairly favorable, especially, I mean, some of the numbers that the market had ended up on in '19, '20, '21, I mean you could throw a dart at an index and you probably did pretty darn good.   Tony Mauro: Pretty darn good. I would say if he's in retirement then he should be talking with his advisor and really not be so concerned about the return. That's an important component, but am I getting the income, like you said, that I need to run my life?   Speaker 1: Yeah. Run the life, make the plan go.   Tony Mauro: Be satisfied. Yeah. If that's 12, 15% and you're in retirement, I think that's unrealistic.   Speaker 1: That's for sure.   Tony Mauro: [inaudible 00:08:54]. That's just hard [inaudible 00:08:55]. You can't sustain it.   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony Mauro: And so you'll be... Like we've talked about on previous podcasts, you will probably run out of money if you're going to do something like that, or portfolio's going to go down the tubes.   Speaker 1: Don't chase the returns, buddy. Don't do it. Get a plan, get a strategy, find out the number that you need, build a plan to guarantee some of that coming in to get those numbers that you need. And then, gravy's gravy, so.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: All right. Great question though, Rowland. Thanks so much. Thanks for letting us pick on you a little bit here on the podcast as well.   Speaker 1: Final one, Rita has one for you. And she says, "Tony I'm 61 years old, never had a financial advisor. I do enjoy the podcast, but I've made it this far on my own, so I feel as though I can make it the rest of the way by reading books and learning things, listening to stuff, so on and so forth." I mean, it's not a bad thought. She's 61, Tony. So she's been a DIYer and she thinks she can make it the rest of the way. And this is the folly, I think, that again, favorable markets of the last 12 years has done to the DIY type of person, right. Because it's been pretty successful. So if we go back 12 years, Rita was 40 what? 48, right? 49? Little different animal, when you're growing money from your late 40s to your early 60s than it is when you now got to live on it for the next 30 years.   Tony Mauro: I would agree. And I picked this question because it's kind of vague, because we don't know enough about her. I would say to her, surely, if you can make it the rest of the way, right. I would say, yeah, hey, absolutely. You certainly can. But if you were in my office and we were discussing working with each other, first thing I'd ask her is, "ell, what are your chances of running out of money?" And just be [inaudible 00:10:37] and ask her some questions. And if she couldn't answer those really well... Let's take it the other way. If she could, I'd say, "You really got this. You do have this figured out. You don't need to pay me to help you."   Tony Mauro: But many, many never can answer those types of questions. And then I say, "Well, so yeah. Will you be all right? Well maybe, depending on how much you have and what you want, but there are a lot of things that maybe you could be doing better. And you'll have to decide if that's worth hiring an advisor for."   Speaker 1: Well, and again, Tony, the accumulation part, the building of the wealth, it's a lot easier.   Tony Mauro: It's a lot easier than the distribution.   Speaker 1: Than the distribution, the tax conversation, the conversions, the... Again, we have a collection of stuff, right, when we get to retirement. We get to Rita. She's 61, she's got stuff. She's doing pretty good, she says. How do you make them all work? But more importantly, how do they all work together? Because this affects that and that affects this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: I mean, it's...   Tony Mauro: It would be worth Rita having a conversation-   Speaker 1: To see what you don't know.   Tony Mauro: To see what you don't know. And then maybe you're going to get that, "You know what, you are right on it and you don't need any help." And I would hope any advisor would be willing to say that to somebody that really got it covered because, I mean-   Speaker 1: Most advisors, yourself included, Tony, you offer complimentary consultations and reviews for just that reason.   Tony Mauro: Right.   Speaker 1: Right. It's like, okay, let's take a look. Let's sit down and chat. There's no cost, there's no obligation. After looking this over, Rita, yeah, you're right. Spot on, right. Shake hands, pat on the back, on your way.   Tony Mauro: Exactly.   Speaker 1: But many people get there and most of them wind up with a... And not a complete overhaul, right, I mean, I'm sure that's a lower number, but you're going through it and you're like, "Hey, you've done a pretty good job. There's a few places where we could make some tweaks." And have you thought about X, Y, or Z? And that's usually when the light bulb comes on and the client goes, "Oh no, I didn't think about that."   Tony Mauro: Exactly. Yep.   Speaker 1: So, strategy, planning.   Tony Mauro: That's what it is. Strategy and planning. There's plenty of advice out there. I think still, I think it's worthwhile, especially you get to the retirement and the distribution stage, to pay an advisor to help you, especially if they're as active as we are in running numbers and making sure not only not do you not run out of money, but other things in your financial life are taken care of as well.   Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, do you want to pay the government the most you can absolutely pay them or would you like to pay them the least that you can pay them, legally, efficiently, right? Those kinds of things. Do you want to leave a legacy? Do you want to have something set up to where you're leaving that legacy tax efficiently or whatever the case might be? I mean, there's just like a ton. Long term care healthcare. Rita, are you by yourself? We don't know. You didn't mention a spouse. I mean, there's about a million variables that go into it. And so when someone says, "Can I do this on my own?" Yeah. Inevitably, technology has made that a lot easier, Tony, but at the same time, it's also, man, it's a lot more convoluted and the tax laws and the retirement thing rules, they're changing all the time.   Tony Mauro: Oh, they are. And I think if you try to cope with that on your own, well, you could do it, but in my mind, it's almost like, well, do I really want to spend all my waking hours doing this?   Speaker 1: There you go. Do I want a second career as my own financial planner? That's true.   Tony Mauro: Or do I just want to pay somebody? I mean, that's what I do, you know?   Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I like to do stuff, but I don't really want to... I know I decided not to build my own deck because I didn't want to spend all my time doing it, so I paid somebody to do it. That's a great point. Rita at 61 getting close to retirement, do you want to do all the things and learn the things that you may not know, probably don't know, and will need to know, to be as efficient as possible in retirement? Or do you just want to spend time with your grandkids and have fun or whatever the case might be?   Tony Mauro: Yeah, exactly.   Speaker 1: Yeah. It comes down to, what's your time worth, right?   Tony Mauro: At the end of the day, yeah, that's it.   Speaker 1: That's true. That's a great point. Well, there you go. Great email questions, guys. Thanks for all of those coming in. We had other ones, obviously. We let Tony pick the ones that he wanted to speak to. So if you'd like to submit your own or just have questions and you just want to talk with a qualified professional, like Tony Mauro, who is an EA and a CFP of almost 25 years, or 25 years getting folks to and through retirement, then reach out to them. Get started with a conversation. As I mentioned earlier, most advisors do, no cost or obligation. So it's worth it to find out where you stand in your retirement journey.   Speaker 1: Stop by the website yourplanningpros.com. That's yourplanningpros.com. If you're already working with Tony, obviously you're enjoying the services, and you haven't subscribed to the podcast, or if you're not, and you're enjoying the podcast, please consider subscribing. No cost or obligation to that, obviously. It's just a podcast. So you can click on a little button, the little heart button or whatever it might be on whatever app you use, like Apple podcast or Google podcast or Spotify. So that way you can catch future episodes as well as past episodes. And I think this one was number 70, Tony.   Tony Mauro: Wow.   Speaker 1: So our podcast can max out its retirement now.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, that's right.   Speaker 1: For social security.   Tony Mauro: Social security. Yeah.   Speaker 1: It can get the full... There's no reason for it to work any longer.   Tony Mauro: Nope.   Speaker 1: It can't add any more to that social security number. So there you go. Well, thanks for hanging out, my friend, and answering some questions. I appreciate you.   Tony Mauro: All right. We'll see you next time.   Speaker 1: We'll catch you next time here on the show. This has been Plan With The Tax Man with Tony Mauro.   Disclaimer: Securities offered through Avantax Investment ServicesSM. Member FINRA, S.I.P.C. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency.

Let's explore how a good financial advisor helps people overcome the additional challenges of today. Our parents and grandparents may not have had to face these things, so just relying on the experiences of family members might not be enough to help us achieve our own financial success. Important Links Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript Of Today's Show: Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. Welcome back in for another edition of the podcast. It's Plan With The Tax Man with Tony Mauro and myself, and we're going to talk about retirement planning isn't what it used to be. And obviously that's pretty common, right? We figured that out. We don't have to be a genius to figure that one out. It's a lot different. But I think when we say that Tony, we tend to think of, yes, our parents and grandparents, it's definitely different than it was 30 or 40 years ago, but retirement plannings different than it was just 10 years ago at this point. Right?   Tony Mauro: Yeah, it is. It's amazing how much it's changed because of some of these things we're going to talk about and,   Speaker 1: And technology has made a huge difference and the lots, I mean, there's just, it's a never evolving thing, right?   Tony Mauro: It is. It really is. And I mean, nowadays with people living longer, like you say, the technology, all this stuff that it really makes it, well, you got to do more planning. At the end of the day that's really what you have to do.   Speaker 1: Right. It's more complex for sure.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: In some ways we think a lot of the technology out there makes our life simpler and nowadays you got all these apps that can help you do a lot of things. Absolutely. But there's also a lot more complexity to the rules, the nuance and the self-funding and yeah, the longevity right in itself is going to make everything more complicated. So we're already touching on these things. So we'll just rock right on along with that and say, it used to be very simple, right? The milking stool analogy, if you will, three legs. Right. You had a pension, because most people had a pension 30 years ago. A lot of people had a pension anyway, 30 years ago and then social security. And then if you saved a little bit, well you're in pretty good shape, right?   Tony Mauro: You're in good shape.   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony Mauro: Absolutely.   Speaker 1: And plus you died at 70, 68, 70, 72, 65. Well now, clearly the life expectancies are in the 80s. Pensions are super rare unless you're probably a government or state employee and you have to self fund a lot more.   Tony Mauro: A lot more. And it's interesting because today when we're recording this, it's my dad's 81st birthday.   Speaker 1: Happy birthday to him.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. He, but I was just thinking about driving in it's like boy, 81 years ago, what was it like in 1941? You had a war and all kinds of different things going on and even his parents. So it is different now because of some of those things you mentioned. I mean, nobody's going to work today and almost nobody I should say, and having the old fashioned pension where you can't outlive it and everything you work for the same, and who works for the same employer for 20, 30 years anymore? Nobody hardly does that.   Speaker 1: Right. Yep.   Tony Mauro: And so those are kind of long gone. Social security is still around, but if you don't do any saving outside of that, that's going to be, I mean, that's just a safety net. That's not going to be a very well off type of retirement.   Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.   Tony Mauro: Or fun retirement by any means. So you've got that, you've got the fact that, like you said, we're living so long now, that we're outliving our bodies really I think.   Speaker 1: Oh no, absolutely. We definitely are.   Tony Mauro: And the government is not just is going to throw us out in the street and just let you just pass off. So,   Speaker 1: Well maybe.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. So, you've got more years you've got to worry about. And obviously as you get older, the health tends to deteriorate some and,   Speaker 1: Right.   Tony Mauro: But you still have to have money to live and pay for things, pay for your healthcare and things like that. So that's a challenge, just those two things right in and of itself are huge challenges that my dad's kind of, he's obviously, statistically closer to the end than I am, but I mean, he didn't have to worry about that quite as much. But his family though, although he's pretty much set, but he's got brothers that are in their 90s, so he's got some longevity there, but he's really thankful that he did plan and saved and did what he needed to do. Because he doesn't have a pension, his social security's mediocre. What he did get, because he was in some government work for a while, so he does have an IPERS type of pension, I guess I should say. And then he was able to save and he put away a nice nest egg. So now he's got so much money he can't really outlive it, but if you're not doing some of that and planning,   Speaker 1: Yep.   Tony Mauro: Obviously you've got some issues there.   Speaker 1: And the longevity was on my list as well. So since we just touched on that, we'll move on. But it is the great multiplier as well because everything about living longer makes everything else go up and so therefore that kind of compounds everything as well to go along with the fact. Yep. So we had on here, this is, we got to update this a little bit, but interest rates were lower. Right. So you weren't really saving much. Although I did see, it's funny with the ticking up, the slow tick up the Fed is doing currently, I saw a bank advertising a CD the other day, Tony, and it was 4%. I was like,   Tony Mauro: Wow.   Speaker 1: I know. I was like, when's the last time you saw that? Like 12 years ago, 10 years ago.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: 15 years ago, like 2005 or six, somewhere in there.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. It's crazy how low rates have been for so long. And a lot of the retirees now they and my dad included, he remembers the days, and I do remember the days in the 70s and 80s where money markets were paying eight, 9% and those days have been gone for so long. Those people that are at the retirement age and well into it, they're always looking for that. They're bouncing around having CDs and moving money around if they can scrounge out an extra 10th of a percent. But if you're young there's, unless rates really went up and stayed up for 35 years, there's almost no way that you are going to be able to have a great retirement by just keeping money in a savings account. Unless you can just throw a ton of money in there, your own principle.   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony Mauro: Because the earnings aren't going to be there. And so that coupled with the fact that everything always goes up, my dad's complaining about that too. We've got prices going up everywhere, gas.   Speaker 1: Going crazy. Yeah.   Tony Mauro: He won't go out and buy, even though he is got the money, he won't go out and buy a new golf club. He's 81 years old. He wants a new golf club, but oh boy, they're too high. But I always tell him, how often do things go down in price? I mean...   Speaker 1: Yeah. Once they get them there, yeah they don't get to, they typically don't remove them. Right.   Tony Mauro: No, they don't remove them. And so that along with us living longer, it takes the retirees more money to live because prices keep going up and rates are low. So you've got to make sure that when you're in retirement, that you're getting what you feel comfortable with as far as your risk tolerance goes, good return on your money.   Speaker 1: Yeah. And I imagine that's an interesting challenge, not only with your dad, but with people in general sometimes. And sometimes it is the principle of the thing. Right. It's like, look, you're 81, you got the money, just get your golf club. Right. Enjoy yourself. But.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, just...   Speaker 1: It could be the principle too. He's like, no, I'm not going to...   Tony Mauro: No, he's not. He refuses to do it.   Speaker 1: Yep.   Tony Mauro: And it is a principle for him.   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. It just comes down to that.   Speaker 1: Yeah. But getting retirees in general sometimes to let loose of the cash, I know that's a big challenge in the industry anyway, even when they have it. Right. Because they've either been conditioned or whatever or they still do have some fear, but a lot of times I think if you're still having that fear about spending your money, then maybe that's a sign that you're not quite comfortable with the plan or the strategy's not resonating with you as good as it could be maybe.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. I think a lot of times that is. And if you could sit down with your advisor and discuss some of that stuff, it would certainly probably ease your mind. Especially if your advisor can let you know, we'll look and here's where we're at and here's what you're taking. And there's no way that you're going to, even if the most dire circumstance comes up, you're covered.   Speaker 1: Yep. Or it could be like my dad who's just plain stubborn. Yeah. So.   Tony Mauro: Well, yeah.   Speaker 1: That happens too.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. You get that way. Speaker 1: That is true. And you earned it, so that's okay.   Tony Mauro: That's right.   Speaker 1: All right. So we're talking about retirement planning being more difficult, not exactly the way it used to be obviously. The technology, we touched on that a little bit and the technology is, it's everywhere and maybe it's helpful, but maybe it's also counterproductive as well because it ends up being a little, I don't know, fearful.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. And with all the technology at are fingertips, you tend to and even somebody like my dad's age, but I, so I'm probably done throwing him under the bus today. So we'll move on to my sister-in-law, who's actually 63 and she is not really very techno, but she tries to read and make informed decisions, but she overdoes it. She analyzes so much that she basically can't make a decision and she's starting to look at maybe getting out and starting to think about retirement and she's overwhelmed. And she was doing it on her own. She's a widow. And she came to me and said, look, I got to have some help. I don't understand any of this. I've researched this. And the further she gets into it, the more confused she gets and she's afraid, everybody's afraid to make the wrong decision. Right.   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony Mauro: Everybody's afraid of that and...   Speaker 1: Yeah. And you kind of have that paralysis moment where you're just like, okay, well, I've read all I can read and now I'm more confused than ever or whatever. And I just don't want to do anything. Yeah.   Tony Mauro: But I think that if you can keep it simple and you can make sure that, well, at least for us, with our clients, talking to them about some of this stuff and letting them know while there also a lot of tools out there and if you come across something, run it by us or ask and we'll tell you. Because the last thing you want to do as you're getting closer to retirement or in retirement is spend all your time agonizing over that, at least in my opinion. You want to get out and have some fun.   Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. And it's okay. Again, it's understandable. So we just have to, as things change and evolve, and I think the pandemic obviously forced us to get more comfortable. I mean, you could even go as simple as saying, initially retirees were like, I don't want to get on Zoom and share my financial information because I'm worried about getting hacked or whatever. Right. But I think we started to learn, we didn't have a choice. So we started to learn and become more adaptable to that technology. So it's got its pros. It's got its cons that's for sure.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: All right. And then the final one, obviously it seems like with each passing year, the volatility of the market is more pronounced. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, maybe it's just the technology that we just mentioned showing it to us every single day, where we just didn't used to pay that much attention to it. Maybe that's part of it.   Tony Mauro: I think yeah, I think that that's it. I mean, it's in front of us, on the TV, on our phones, on our tablets. It's everywhere that you can get this information. And will you just turn on any of the news outlets amongst the eight million channels we all have now.   Speaker 1: Right.   Tony Mauro: That we all pay for. And it's kind of crazy because that it makes you nervous a little bit. And I think the volatility is a little more pronounced. I think it's because more and more people are now actively investing. You've got the cryptocurrencies, you've got all kinds of things going on and then plus just world events and things like that. So to me, it's important to make sure that you're working with your advisor to make sure you're working your plan because if you're working your plan, the volatility while it might be there a little bit, it really shouldn't affect you all that much depending. And you got to try to put that money or those thoughts aside,   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony Mauro: With some of that.   Speaker 1: Yep. Good point for sure. Yeah. And so, I mean, the market's going to do what it's going to do. It's funny. We also get very lulled to sleep. So, we're seeing all this volatility this year and we're seeing, it's not been a fast drop, like we're seeing, it's been dipping for, but it's been dipping fairly slowly. Right. It'll drop a percent and then it'll go up a half a percent and then it'll drop two, then it'll go up a half. Yes. So it's down what? Some markets, some indices are down 20, some down 17, 15, somewhere in that range.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: But that stuff is normal. We get very complacent and we got very addicted to and used to the second longest bull run in history. Right.   Tony Mauro: Yeah.   Speaker 1: So 12, 13 years, you're just like, ah, cool. It's just got to... And especially all the stuff that it had to overcome. Right. The market has been getting back up like I've joked many times like a prize fighter getting knocked down. It's been getting back up over and over through a lot of volatile times like social times in the last five years, but we've also been pumping a lot of money into things too. Right. So,   Tony Mauro: Yes.   Speaker 1: There's some falsities there. There's some false floors if you will, or false ceilings. So it's easy to kind of feel like it's worse than ever, but at the same time the market does what it does. And so we have to be a little bit wary of those things to not let it totally fuel us into like this fear factor of jumping in and out and making more rash decisions. I think I saw something not long ago Tony said that Morningstar had put out a little thing out saying that due to the fear of just something scaring them and feeling like it's not going to work, typical investors lose about two and a half percent annually to just jumping in and out and just trying something new because what they have is not working in their mind.   Tony Mauro: Yes.   Speaker 1: So.   Tony Mauro: Yeah. And there's all kinds of studies on that and which is why we advocate depending on whatever plan that you are trying to implement, is trying to stay invested because you bounce in and out.   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Tony Mauro: And you are going to miss and your returns aren't going to be there. You're going to be not happy. You're going to be just always anxious. So yeah. That's definitely something you don't want to do.   Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Little tweaks. I mean, your plan is not stone, right?   Tony Mauro: No. No.   Speaker 1: So, you're going to definitely, it's going to make some tweaks. You're going to make some changes. That's what those reviews are for. But wholesale big changes in times of turmoil and panics tends to be the wrong choice. And that's why you have that advisor there to help hopefully balance you out. And that's some ways how retirement planning is just not as easy as it used to be. So that's why you need to turn to a professional. You need to work with folks like Tony and his team at Tax Doctor, Inc.   Speaker 1: So make sure you subscribe to the podcast, make sure you stop by Tony's website if you're not already working with him. You can visit the website, schedule some time, a lot of tools, tips, resources, things like that at yourplanningpros.com. That's yourplanningpros.com. As I mentioned earlier, Tony's got many, many years in the industry. He's a CFP and an EA. So a great resource for you to tap into there at Tax Doctor, Inc. Tony, my friend, thanks for hanging out. This is our late June episode. So I will talk to you sometime after the fourth and I hope you have a good holiday.   Tony Mauro: Hope you can do the same. We'll see you later.   Speaker 1: Absolutely. We'll catch you next time here on Plan With The Tax Man with Tony Mauro. Disclaimer: Securities offered through Avantax Investment ServicesSM. Member FINRA, S.I.P.C. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency.

Financial uncertainty can be one of the hardest things to navigate as a business owner. Thats's why we are speaking, this week, with Scott Werdebaugh, Owner of Integrity Financial Planning, Stephen Rogers, Commercial Insurance Producer at Blue Ridge Risk Partners, Sharon Werdebaugh, Owner of Your Talent Team, and Sarah Biller, Executive Director of Vantage Ventures. Disclaimer: Securities offered through Securities America, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Securities America Advisors, Inc. Integrity Financial Planning and Securities America are separate entities. Opinions expressed may not be those of the Securities America companies.

Kent A. Fitzpatrick, AIFA®, GFS®, CBFA is an Accredited Investment Fiduciary Analyst™ from the Center for Fiduciary Studies, a Global Financial Steward and a Certified Behavioral Finance Analyst. In this podcast, Kent discusses Asset Strategy's 2021 Third Quarter Market Review! . . . . . . Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services offered through Asset Strategy Financial Insurance Agency, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of whom are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes.

Certified Investment Management Analyst and Asset Strategy's Director of Research, Rosario “Sal” Salamone discusses 2021 and what we can expect in 2022! *Intro Jingle: Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/* Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services are offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services are offered through Asset Strategy Financial Group, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of which are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes

Certified Investment Management Analyst and Asset Strategy's Director of Research, Rosario “Sal” Salamone discusses S&P new record highs, Dow Jones made another run, and more! *Intro Jingle: Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/* Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services are offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services are offered through Asset Strategy Financial Group, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of which are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes

Certified Investment Management Analyst and Asset Strategy's Director of Research, Rosario “Sal” Salamone discusses S&P 500, the Federal Reserve, and more! *Intro Jingle: Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/* Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services are offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services are offered through Asset Strategy Financial Group, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of which are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes

Certified Investment Management Analyst and Asset Strategy's Director of Research, Rosario “Sal” Salamone discusses S&P 500, the Omicron Covid variant, Christmas and more! *Intro Jingle: Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/* Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services are offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services are offered through Asset Strategy Financial Group, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of which are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes

Certified Investment Management Analyst and Asset Strategy's Director of Research, Rosario “Sal” Salamone discusses S&P 500, banks' positive outlook, retail, and more. *Intro Jingle: Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/* Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services are offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services are offered through Asset Strategy Financial Group, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of which are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes.

Certified Investment Management Analyst and Asset Strategy's Director of Research, Rosario “Sal” Salamone discusses S&P 500, banks' positive outlook, retail, and more. *Intro Jingle: Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/* Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services are offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services are offered through Asset Strategy Financial Group, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of which are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes.

Certified Investment Management Analyst and Asset Strategy's Director of Research, Rosario “Sal” Salamone discusses S&P 500, banks' positive outlook, retail, and more. *Intro Jingle: Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/* Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services are offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services are offered through Asset Strategy Financial Group, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of which are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes.

Certified Investment Management Analyst and Asset Strategy's Director of Research, Rosario “Sal” Salamone discusses S&P 500, banks' positive outlook, retail and more. *Intro Jingle: Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/* Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services are offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services are offered through Asset Strategy Financial Group, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of which are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes.

Certified Investment Management Analyst and Asset Strategy's Director of Research, Rosario “Sal” Salamone discusses S&P 500, banks' positive outlook, retail and more. *Intro Jingle: Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/* Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services are offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services are offered through Asset Strategy Financial Group, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of which are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes.

Certified Investment Management Analyst and Asset Strategy's Director of Research, Rosario “Sal” Salamone discusses S&P 500, banks' positive outlook, retail and more. *Intro Jingle: Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/* Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services are offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services are offered through Asset Strategy Financial Group, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of which are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes.

Certified Investment Management Analyst and Asset Strategy's Director of Research, Rosario “Sal” Salamone discusses S&P 500, banks' positive outlook, retail and more. *Intro Jingle: Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/* Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services are offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services are offered through Asset Strategy Financial Group, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of which are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes.

Certified Investment Management Analyst and Asset Strategy's Director of Research, Rosario “Sal” Salamone discusses S&P 500, banks' positive outlook, retail and more. *Intro Jingle: Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/* Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services are offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services are offered through Asset Strategy Financial Group, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of which are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes.

Kent A. Fitzpatrick, AIFA®, GFS®, CBFA is an Accredited Investment Fiduciary Analyst™ from the Center for Fiduciary Studies, a Global Financial Steward and a Certified Behavioral Finance Analyst. In this podcast, Kent discusses Asset Strategy's 2021 Third Quarter Market Review! . . . . . . Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services offered through Asset Strategy Financial Insurance Agency, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of whom are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes.

Certified Investment Management Analyst and Asset Strategy's Director of Research, Rosario “Sal” Salamone discusses S&P 500, Fed Chair, Employment report, Interest rates. *Intro Jingle: Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/* Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services are offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services are offered through Asset Strategy Financial Group, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of which are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes.

Certified Investment Management Analyst and Asset Strategy's Director of Research, Rosario “Sal” Salamone discusses S&P 500, Fed Chair, Employment report, Interest rates. *Intro Jingle: Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/* Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services are offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services are offered through Asset Strategy Financial Group, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of which are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes.

Certified Investment Management Analyst and Asset Strategy's Director of Research, Rosario “Sal” Salamone discusses S&P 500, Fed Chair, Employment report, Interest rates. *Intro Jingle: Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/* Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services offered through Asset Strategy Financial Group, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of whom are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes.

Certified Investment Management Analyst and Asset Strategy's Director of Research, Rosario “Sal” Salamone discusses S&P 500, Fed Chair, Employment report, Interest rates. *Intro Jingle: Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/* Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services offered through Asset Strategy Financial Group, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of whom are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes.

Certified Investment Management Analyst and Asset Strategy's Director of Research, Rosario “Sal” Salamone discusses S&P 500, Fed Chair, Employment report, Interest rates. *Intro Jingle: Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/* Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services offered through Asset Strategy Financial Group, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of whom are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes. The S&P 500 is currently in its worst losing streak since in close to 7 months as the market seems to be concerned about elevated inflation and slowing growth. These concerns gained traction following the disappointing jobs report for August coupled with the continued supply bottlenecks and supply chain disruptions causing inflation pressures to remain elevated as seen in Friday's producer price index reading.

Certified Investment Management Analyst and Asset Strategy's Director of Research, Rosario “Sal” Salamone discusses S&P 500, Fed Chair, Employment report, Interest rates. *Intro Jingle: Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/* Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services offered through Asset Strategy Financial Group, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of whom are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes. The big data point last week was Friday's jobs report and the 235,000 jobs added was well short of market expectations. Employment continues to be disappointing overall, and we'll see if back to school changes that by allowing more people to enter the workforce. We'll also see what effect the ending of the enhanced unemployment benefits may have as well. This jobs report most likely pushed the Fed's taper into the fourth quarter, taking any announcement this month off the table. Wage growth was north of 4% year-over-year which could explain the move higher in interest rates following this disappointing report.

Certified Investment Management Analyst and Asset Strategy's Director of Research, Rosario “Sal” Salamone discusses S&P 500, Fed Chair, Employment report, Interest rates. *Intro Jingle: Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/* Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services offered through Asset Strategy Financial Group, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of whom are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes.

Certified Investment Management Analyst and Asset Strategy's Director of Research, Rosario “Sal” Salamone discusses stock volatility, options expiration, indexes volatility, bond-buying program. *Intro Jingle: Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/* Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services offered through Asset Strategy Financial Group, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of whom are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes.

Certified Investment Management Analyst and Asset Strategy's Director of Research, Rosario “Sal” Salamone discusses employment, inflation data, job reports and the Fed. ..Prior to August 6th, and for at least a month we had a market environment of tech, growth, low beta, dividend growers, and the quality factor outperforming. Then, last week, again following that jobs report, we got the flip side of that with financials, value, high beta, high dividend payers, and the momentum factor outperforming. *Intro Jingle: Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/* Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services offered through Asset Strategy Financial Group, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of whom are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes.

Certified Investment Management Analyst and Asset Strategy's Director of Research, Rosario “Sal” Salamone discusses employment, inflation data, job reports and the Fed. *Intro Jingle: Jeremy Marsan and link to https://jeremymarsan.com/* Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services offered through Asset Strategy Financial Group, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of whom are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes.

Kent A. Fitzpatrick, AIFA®, GFS®, CBFA is an Accredited Investment Fiduciary Analyst™ from the Center for Fiduciary Studies, a Global Financial Steward and a Certified Behavioral Finance Analyst. In this podcast, Kent discusses Asset Strategy's 2021 Second Quarter Market Review! . . . . . . Disclaimer: Securities offered through Concorde Investment Services, LLC (CIS), member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Asset Strategy Advisors, LLC (ASA), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Insurance services offered through Asset Strategy Financial Insurance Agency, Inc. (ASFG). CIS, ASA, and ASFG are separate companies, all of whom are independent of Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, & iTunes.

Jamestown Invest aims to democratize commercial real estate investing. The firm is doing this by providing everyday investors with access to quality private commercial real estate investments. In this episode, Adam Torres and Michael Phillips, President of Jamestown, explore Jamestown Invest's unique approach to providing institutional quality investments to the masses. Disclaimer: Securities are offered through North Capital Private Securities Corporate Member FINRA/SIPC. Jamestown's portfolio of projects is not representative of Jamestown Invest 1's investment strategy and the scale of investments the fund intends to make. An investment in Jamestown Invest is illiquid, involves substantial risk, and there is a potential for loss of part or ALL of investment capital. Visit www.jamestowninvest.com/OC for more information and the full offering statement.Follow Adam on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/askadamtorres/ for up to date information on book releases and tour schedule.Apply to be interviewed by Adam on our podcast:https://missionmatters.lpages.co/podcastguest/