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June 29, 2025 12 mins
We spoke with Founder and Advisor of Fuchs Financial, Ben Fuchs about the importance of planning sooner rather than later for retirement, because there are steps people can take through the years to set themselves up for a financially sound retirement… and particularly as retirement approaches, there are decisions that can be made that can make a difference – in reducing the anxiety about retirement years, so people can truly enjoy what they’ve worked so hard for. 
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, Thank you for listening to Community Access. My
guest today is Ben Fuchs. He is owner and chief
investment officer of Fuchs Financial. Good morning, good morning, Thank
you for having me my pleasure for people who don't
know about Fuchs Financial. How did it all begin? How
did you originate?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Oh? Well, the short story is that I got into
an argument with my old boss and I said, screw it,
I can do this myself. And then I did. And
it was just me by myself at first. And our
first first employee was our babysitter. We have three kids,
and so she asked if we knew anybody that we
needed that entry, and I'm like, oh me, I'm that person.
I need that that entry. And she was with us

(00:39):
for about a year. Then she rudely left after she
got her doctorate. Apparently she didn't want to be a
secretary anymore after, you know, doing all that work. Sure, sure, yeah,
we've we've been lucky in the last six years to
grow to eleven full time people, including myself and a
couple of interns here and there. When my friends say
that their kids need a job, it's a good time.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
That's wonderful. Where your office is located.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
We have four offices. We have West Hartford which was
the first one, and then Middletown, Middlebury and then Mystic
as of last year.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
So retirement planning is one of the things that you do.
What are some of the others.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
There's so many, Yeah, there's a lot. So when it
comes to retirement planning, I get frustrated because people like
to look at each part of retirement planning as if
it's its own separate vacuum, right, its own separate piece,
And to us, everything has to work together. And I
liken it too. I used to, you know, compare it
to a jigsaw puzzle, but now I compare it more

(01:35):
to legos because I have an eight year old and
that's what we do. When when you put a lego
down in the wrong place and it's one of those
thin ones, you have to like break a nail trying
to get it back up to move it in the
right spot. So, and that's especially important when it comes
to taxes and income. Right, So how you structure your
taxes for retirement is the same way that you structure

(01:56):
your income from retirement. And knowing where to get what
from what place will determine how much you keep. There
are examples that we use as a webinar that we
put on about once a month that you know from
our website you can go to. But in that we
talk about how you can have the exact same amount
of income money from Social Security and from IRA withdrawals,

(02:16):
and it could be ninety thousand dollars, but determining where
you get how much from each. In one scenario, you
could be paying almost five thousand dollars a year of
income and another you're only paying two hundred dollars a
year of income. So you have the same gross income right,
same income, but depending on where you take it from
will determine how much you're actually taxed on that money.
And so for us, we want people to be able

(02:37):
to navigate that and the investment they choose are very important.
It's not just what am I going to do to
generate this month the income, it's do I also want
to pass money on to the next generation. So I
think annuities are fine. They can be used correctly as
a good tool. But if your goal is to leave
as much money as you possibly can to your three kids,

(02:57):
which you know I have, which is not for me,
by the way, I like my kids. But you know,
I've been paying for like ten years of daycare. I'm
sure i'll pay for twelve.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Oh wait right, wait, yeah, it's wonderful. You're gonna be
getting botox because you're gonna look like the crypto by
the time they're sixteen, or.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
They're going to have to go through masonry or figure
something out of us, like you get a job. But
if we're talking about leaving money to the next generation,
estate planning is very important when you combine that with
you know how you're getting your income and how you
structure that. So if you set something up incorrectly, it
can be a bit of a pain to help correct
that scenario, but to make sure that it aligns with

(03:32):
what your goals are. And so for us, we want
to make sure that we're getting people aligned and then
even if they feel like they've made some mistakes, given
them that second opinion to help them get back on track.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
That's wonderful. Going somewhere where people know what they're doing
and you can trust them. It's so important.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Well, I'd like to think that we know what we're doing,
but I could admit to not knowing everything. So one
of the things that we've done is that we've hired
people to cover the gaps. So I have somebody on
our staff that does medicare purely Medicare, because that's a
world that honestly, I don't want any part of for
me personally. It's like you have to things change all

(04:08):
the time, the carriers change all the time what they cover,
and so it's really important. And also that industry is
typically one where people make money off of commissions. And
don't get me wrong, we get as a company a
commission anytime he sells a policy, but I made him
salary and he doesn't get any bonuses based on what
he brings in. That's not the goal. We get the

(04:30):
salary regardless, and we just want to make sure that
we're finding the right policy for the right person. I
think there were four or five times last year where
our clients got policies that we can get paid on
at all, But that was what was in their best interests.
And so for us being fiduciaries and all aspects of
what we do are extremely important, extremely important. So that's
the Medicare piece, and then the tax piece. We recently

(04:52):
hired an accountant, Jeff to do the taxes for a
lot of our clients, to be a resource for a
lot of our clients on tax question, to make sure
again that we're doing things correctly. I know ninety nine
percent of the time the impact of every financial decision,
every investment decision that we make, how that's going to
impact their taxes. But there are pieces where I want

(05:15):
a second opinion. I want someone else to understand how
that works. And if you're asking me on what page,
on what line that's written on the tax code? No, no, no,
no no, you go talk to Jeff, don't talk to me.
He's the guy. And so we offer that as a
free service for our clients, and so for us, it's
important to be able to bring everything together and make
it easier for them to retire and don't have to
go all over the place looking for different pieces that

(05:35):
aren't working together for them.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
So why is it so important to plan sooner than
later for retirements?

Speaker 2 (05:42):
In any scenario, no matter how old you are, it's
always better to have a direction. And I think a
lot of people talk about goals athletes, Right, what is
my goal? What am I trying to get to? What
am I trying to accomplish? If I'm forty years old
and I'm trying to retire at fifty five? Okay, great?
What do I need to get there? How much money
do I need? What am I spending what accounts to?

(06:02):
What amount of money has to be in each account
in order for that to work? And if I'm seventy
five years old and I want to pay less some
taxes next year than I did, you know, than I
did this year, how do I do that? And so,
wherever you are, the sooner that you get started on that,
the better. And it doesn't matter how old you are,
but it's just starting from where you are at this
moment to going forward. What can we do to improve

(06:24):
a situation? And so the goal for us, and the
goal for all of our staff is simple. On a
daily basis, our goal is just to improve the day
of anybody that we come in contact with. How can
we make their days just a little bit better? Right?
We can't change their life. We can't make everything you
know better, We don't, there's no magic want. People are
dealing with grief and everything else. But how can we
just make their day a little bit better? And that's us.

(06:46):
It's to improve the lives of anyone We become in
contact with.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
On your website, you have how to retire blueprints? What
steps can people take throughout the years to set them
up for a financially sound retirement.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
A lot of people are fearful of financial advisors and
so they don't want to ask for help. But I
think most people do. You know, I I know a
lot of people don't like doctors, but that doesn't mean
that they don't understand the medicine. Right. There's a certain
amount of understanding that happens when you've been in these

(07:20):
situations over and over again. I met some people with
some very very high networks that have done very well
for themselves, and then when they come in, ninety nine
percent of the time there are things that we can
do to improve where they are. So if we're talking
about what can you do to improve your situation, the
number one thing people need to understand is how much
they're spending. And you know, people talk about budgets. I

(07:42):
think that most people as they're retired don't want to
live on a budget. And I don't blame them. I
don't want to live on a budget, and I don't
like I'm not here to force anybody to do anything
but I think it's you want to have a basic
understanding of what you can spend if you can live
for the rest of your life. If we're spending ten
thousand dollars a month and then you spend fifteen, we've
got a problem. Right. Your money is going to run

(08:02):
out quicker. You should know that, or you should plan
around it. Or if you're going to plan to take
bigger vacations every year, every other year, again, that should
be part of a plan. You don't want to have
the anxiety about taking your family to Disney and then
thinking that you're gonna run out of money in ten
years because of that, Right, you don't want that chain reaction.
So for us, a lot of it is putting people's minds.

(08:22):
It is, yes, you can do that, here's what you
can do, here's what you're comfortable with. You can do
whatever you want. It's your money. But these are the
numbers behind that decision. Again, going back to the question,
it's understanding what you're spending, what you're actually spending, not
what your bills are, not you know, here's my mortgage year,
but why don't you look at the credit card statement,
look at what you paid and add that on top

(08:44):
of all the things that are recurring, because it's not
just your mortgage and your electricity. There's coffee in between,
there's vacations, there's dinners, there's life, there's things that you
and we want people to do that stuff. So many
people come in thinking that we're some strict people from
the depression area, that you can't spend anything, and that's
not the case. You know, if you don't spend your
money or your kids will, So you better.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
Enjoy it, well said. Well said, it must be very
gratifying for you to help people and you serve in
the community. So, without naming names, are there any personal
stories that you'd like to share about how your business
positively impacted people's lives.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Sure. Again, I think a lot of people are uncomfortable
talking to financial abasas, and especially when you need help.
We work with a lot of people pro bono where
we don't charge anything, and there are instances and we

(09:44):
don't do it for everyone, and it's not you know,
we'd get overloaded. We are still a business. We still
want to make money, let's be clear. But there are
a lot of scenarios where people come in and they
have credit card debt, where they've got someone that passed
away and all of a sudden bills came in that
they didn't even know they had, or there are accounts
that are all over the place and they don't even
know where to find them. That was somebody earlier this

(10:06):
week where their husband passed away around eighty years old,
and trying to find all these different accounts that he
had was like a scavenger hump. And no, it's also
terrifying because she never managed any of the money. He
did all of that. And so for the last year,
as things came do, as papers came in, come into

(10:28):
the office, go through it, help them consolidate things, and
we you know, have not charged them a dime in
terms of any kind of fear there. So for us
it's again, how can we help? What can we do
to put any better scenario? There are scenarios where people
have significant that thirty forty fifty one hundred thousand dollars
in credit card debt. You know a lot of people say, oh,

(10:50):
get a consolidation loan. Listen, I dealt with debt. I
was an idiot in my twenty so I'm happy to
admit that I learned my lessons or at least most
of them still intend to learn some more. But you know,
there's no like holier than now, right, there's no like,
oh we're smart with money, we're a better than if.
There's none of that like we can help you, we

(11:11):
can help you, and we've dealt with debt too, and
you're not the only one. And you know, everybody has
to deal with things that are unexpected, and sometimes we
spend more money than we think we are an Oh, man,
I can't believe I you know, we have that bill,
there's you know, there's it's life. And I think people
think that, you know, they're going to be looked down upon,
Like you go to a doctor and the doctors just say, oh,
you should eat healthier and exercise. Thanks doc. I appreciate that.

(11:33):
That's really helpful information. No, I know this, and a
lot of people think they're going to come to an
advisor and we're going to say, oh, you should spend less. Well,
I think our goal is to show you what you
can spend, but also help you figure out ways to
get rid of that debt. How can we remove that
credit card debt? What kind of a plan can we
put you on? And so there are people that we
work with for years and haven't charged anything for to

(11:54):
help them create these debt plans and understand how they
can get out of them. And you know, sometimes that
does mean cutting back, but you have to want to
do it. We're not going to pay off your debt
for you, but we can certainly show you how you
can do it yourself, and you decide if it's worth
it or not.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
But you're changing lives for the better by reducing that anxiety.
And they're allowed to bring that money back in again
or share it however they will. I'm speaking with Ben Fuchs.
He is owner and chief investment officer over at Fuchs Financial.
There's so many different services and programs that they offer.
Retirement planning, which we mentioned, investment advising, income planning. Go

(12:29):
to taxes and income dot com to find out more
about it. It's non judgmental. They're empathetic and they're authentic.
They tell you how it is because they really really
do get it. They really really walk the walk. Thank
you so much for being here today and for serving
the community.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
Thank you honored to be here.
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