60+ Year-Olds And Their Financial Plans

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, everybody, Welcome to the Greg Hicks Show. We're in
the middle of the weekend where we spring forward or
fall back, I don't know, but don't be late to
church tomorrow morning. You'll walk in when the service is over,
and then on Monday morning as well. But anyway, I'm
Greg Hicks, certified Financial Planner, along with Wanda Cooper financial Advisor,
Bo Nicholson, certified Financial Planner. We are here every weekend

(00:23):
on Saturday and Sunday at the Beach. We're on the
talk station at the Crystal Coast. We have an office
in Atlantic Beach Causeway right there with a great view.
And then in Raleigh, North Carolina, one of the fastest
growing cities in America. We're there on one O six
one FM Talk Saturday and Sunday as well. So thank

(00:43):
you for listening. We have a lot of longtime listeners
and we love updating them. And today we have a
pretty cool show and we'll get to the main topic
of the day after segment one. But it's on people
over sixty and there's a lot of you guys, a
lot of you, and we spend a lot of time
in our office with people sixty seventy there's us two

(01:07):
and then there's Bo. We bring bowl along as our stepchild.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
An he really is so he thinks old.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
He thinks coming in so uh So, guys, I've got
a couple of thoughts to kind of kick off the
discussion this morning. So I'm reading the Wall Street Journal
a week ago and they got a topic. Here's the headline,
Meet the super Billionaires, the super Billionaires. Now, one of
the guy that made the list is Elon Musk, and

(01:35):
he happens to be the richest man. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
but he has been labeled everything from the dumbest billionaire ever,
and that was from a label by one of the
dumbest politicians ever. I mean, you don't get to be
a billionaire about being dumb. I don't think so. But anyway,
I just thought it was fascinating that there and they

(01:56):
have they have the twenty four super billionaires, and I
just thought, well, I'm going to read that. I didn't
find any of us on it, y'all, I'm sorry, but anyway.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
We have.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah, but they had Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates,
Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Bloomberg, and so forth. But it was
fascinating if Elon Musk. Not only is he doing the
Doge reveal with all the waists in government, which I love,

(02:28):
his SpaceX company is going to go public this year.
I think that's what he said. He owns Tesla, he
owns Starlink.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
I think I'd have to get a little bit of that.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
He's a busy man. But anyway, if things work out
over the next years, he could become the first trillion error.
And just to remind people, if you stack one dollar
bills in a stack, a trillion is sixty seven point
seven thousand miles of dollar bills. Anyway, I just thought

(03:01):
it was fascinating how much money is accumulated and most
of them did not inherit what they have. In other words,
good old free enterprise works. Some people get there in
a hurry and it's there. Combined net worth of twenty
four super billionaires are combined net worth is three point

(03:21):
three trillion dollars.

Speaker 4 (03:24):
It would just scratch the surface on national debt.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Well did I read that he his mom did not
help him. He went out on his own and he
actually ate at McDonald's late at night to keep from
paying the high prices or something. It was something that
nature so it's not like he was giving his money.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
No, no, no, no. Yeah. And anyway, I just thought,
you know, it's fun. I mean Cinorion years, I thought
it was fun. They have pictures of their houses. Of course,
all of them have several houses worth three hundred million each.
But anyway, I.

Speaker 4 (03:55):
Would think Elon lives in a modest house. I think
he's in like a three hundred and fifty thousand square
for three hundred and fifty thousand dollars house. Yeah, I
wouldn't that too bad?

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Yeah, that's it's probably true. Yeah, But anyway, I just thought,
and a lot of people, uh politically, you know, poo
poo billionaires. But when they you know, when Bill Gates
was the richest man for about twenty straight years and
I heard people slam him, I'll say, excuse me, do
you use a laptop banage exactly? And they go, oh yeah,

(04:27):
And I say, oh, so you're using the Bad Boys product? Huh,
and shows everybody else how much has has that idea
the laptop changed the whole world? How much does the
iPhone change the whole worldly? I mean, give me a break, y'all.

Speaker 4 (04:41):
At least billionaires have had a rough ride over the
past few weeks. I'm looking at Tesla specifically. It was
up one hundred percent a few weeks after the election,
and from the highs, it's now down almost fifty percent.
And so, yeah, you.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
Down though, don't you think? Well, it's people are punishing him.

Speaker 4 (05:02):
Well, so a lot of I mean the stock market's down, right,
I mean, everybody's been watching the market over the past
couple of weeks go down. And I've got an awesome
chart here that shows S and P five hundred selloffs
from nineteen fifty, so over the past seventy five years,
and there've been over ninety one selloffs of five percent
or more in the S and P five hundred, which
is just large cap stock index since nineteen fifty. But

(05:23):
a third of them have only been a blip on
the radar, drops smaller than ten percent that only lasted
less than a month. And we could be in that
right now. I guess there's if history is a guy,
there's a third of a chance that that's the situation
we're in. We could be at the precipice of a big,
nasty recession nobody knows, or we could be heading into
a ten to twelve percent correction, which again ten to

(05:44):
twelve percent corrections are normal on an annual basis, and
it's healthy for the market to revert back kind of
to the mean a little bit. And we've been saying
on the show for a long time, but the market's
probably a little overvalued. What I'd caution our readers against
is giving in to like want to mention the emotion
and the headlines that are often in all caps, like

(06:05):
you know, this is it. This is that recession that
we've all been waiting on. I remember when Biden was president,
God bless him. Two years ago, there was an article
that said Bloomberg now has chance of a recession at
one hundred percent. That leaves no room for air. One
chance of a recession. Did it happen? No, it didn't.
So anybody who's out there masquerading that they know what

(06:26):
the future holds, whether it's calling a recession or calling
the next economic boom, run the other way. God forbids
you from putting your money with those crooks, because nobody
knows what tomorrow brings. Meet with an advisor who can
sit down with you and help you determine where you
are in your financial journey, what you need to do
to get yourself to where you're trying to go and

(06:46):
create an asset allocation plan. It's diversified and helps you
reduce the risk of any any downside. So if you
look at if you look at a five year rolling period,
This is from JP Morgan's recent Guide to the Markets,
Explain what a five year rolling period? A five year
rolling period, five years in a row, any five years

(07:07):
in a row. For those of you who did not
understand the five.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
Year, they would think it's rolling down a hill.

Speaker 4 (07:11):
Well that year five year rolling period. Also, God bless
you if you don't understand what five year rolling period is.
But anyways, there's one year of five year, of ten
year in a twenty year. So over a five year period,
stocks have been negative two percent of a time, positive
twenty nine percent of the time. Bonds have been negative
two percent of a time, positive eighteen percent of a time.
But the sixty forty portfolio, a diversified mix of stocks

(07:35):
and bonds, has not been negative, never been negative over
that same time period seventy five years since nineteen fifty.
So if you do proper diversification, and again if history
is acting as a guide here, you should be all
right over the long term, So meet with an advisor
who can help you out. Our number nine to one
nine eight five six one nine six eight is a
good place to stay the hell.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
You know.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
He's been on our show, The Money Manager, YEP, and.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
I do run thing with he and I talk a lot,
and I wanted to see if I was feeling the
right thing. So I reached out to him because I
think you're supposed to around yourself with wisdom, and that's
what I try to do. And he said, I think
the markets are overdoing it on the downside, like they
always do.

Speaker 3 (08:18):
He said, I'm.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
Looking to start buying here here in here over the
next few days. The economy is still relatively strong and
rates are heading lower, and he said that could reignite
housing to the upside as market rates to drop. He said,
it's an unpleasant week, for sure, and this was just
this week that he said this. It's an unpleasant week,
but it's a solid setup for eighteen months from now.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
And I thought, that's exactly what I'm feeling.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
And I don't have to look at charts to feel
that I've been at it long enough that it feels,
you know, that we're not. As both said, if we
just stay the course and we position our clients with cash,
which we've done. We've all three done that, so you're
ready to act. And that's what Hall does too. So
I feel good about go heading wherever we're headed with

(09:03):
my with my client base, because I think we've all
done the right thing.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
Well, I'm getting a few calls, but not many, Yeah,
but some people. I mean I got a call from
one person this week that we're a little bit and
angst about how far the account was down. But when
you look at the risk level of that client, they
were highly in Texas exactly. So so Bo talked about

(09:26):
the rolling five years, when you can pick a date
and go five years for it. But I noted to her,
you know, you're down like five percent in the last month,
but you're up forty five percent in the last year,
so all you had to do is go back twelve months. Yeah,
and all of a sudden, the worry just kind of
melts away.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
Done.

Speaker 4 (09:48):
People have a hard time zooming out, don't they.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Oh the perspective problem, Yeah, yeah, you're all caught up
in the emotion, right.

Speaker 4 (09:54):
What I tell people on that note is the market
hits all time highs only seven percent of a time.
So seven percent of the day is the market's going
to be at an all time high. The other ninety
three percent the market's going to be down from where
it was. And so I tell clients, hey, in your situation,
if you're checking your account on a daily basis and
just bird dogging it, there's a ninety three percent chance
it's not going to be as high as the highest watermark.

(10:16):
So calm down. This is all normal.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
And we have clients to check them four times a day.
And I go take a deep breath. Do not call me.
I'm busy. And with that break, we're going to take
a quick one and come back to the show today
on sixty plus year olds and their financial plans. Hello, everybody,
welcome back to the Greg Hicks Show. We have offices
in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Atlantic Beach, North Carolina with

(10:39):
a view. What a beach office there. We thank you
for tuning in. We are here every Saturday and Sunday
on the radio and then all kinds of podcasts. Just
type in the Greg Hicks Show and you'll find us.
We change topics every week and we get a lot
of compliments from radio listeners that they love the idea
that we don't beat a dead horse. We don't pick
one topic and one size fits all and all those

(11:01):
kinds of things. We just go all over the world.
We got a lot of comments from our show last
week on dividends, and we're going to play that show
again in a little bit when we come to a
holiday weekend and we'll play the Best of Great kickshow
and we'll do the Dividends show again. But I would
encourage you to go online. You can go to our

(11:22):
website frm NC. That's Financial Resource Management frm NC is
North Carolina frm NC, and just click on the radio
tab and you can scroll down and pick up some
of the shows we've done in the last months. They're
all labeled by topic. And if you missed the dividend show,
we got a bunch of feedback on that, so tune

(11:44):
that one in right away. And today we're talking about
the focus here is on a demographic group anyone's sixty
or older. They have really unique financial planning needs, particularly
in the sixty to seventy where you have to take
Social Security income at some point in there. Medicare will

(12:05):
kick in at sixty five, there's and then most people
retire in their sixties, to be honest, But and then
how do you navigate that is a big question. We
spend I'm going to bet we spend sixty or seventy
percent of our client appointments on retirement income planning, and
I think all would probably agree that is a huge topic,

(12:28):
particularly with boomers retiring at a rapid rate of ten
thousand a day for the last number of years. One
little red flag and I brought this a little piece
from the Wall Street Journal on the sixth of March.
I just wanted to read something fascinating that the four
oh and K world, which which ends up being sometimes

(12:50):
the client's biggest asset after working for a number of years.
Last year, four point eight percent of people borrowed money
from their four ohin K and that's up from three
point six percent in twenty twenty three. So again, you
can do that. And there are limits of how much
you can pull out for a loan, and you have

(13:10):
to pay it back over five years and all that.

Speaker 4 (13:13):
But I'm just unless you lose your job, then it's
due by the next year's tax day.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
Yeah, yeah, If you don't pay it back, that's right,
it becomes taxable income. And then last year, this is
a little highlight because we're talking about sixty and seventy
year olds. The average four to oh one K last
year in the United States at the end of twenty
twenty four was one hundred and forty eight one hundred
and fifty three dollars.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
That's average.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
That's the average. So that means anybody from zero when
they're first starting young to people that have two million
dollars in their four O one K. But it's it's
lower than I thought it.

Speaker 3 (13:47):
Not a lot. I was going to say, that's a
lot lower than I.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
One hundred and fifty three. But people that work with
advisors it's much higher than that.

Speaker 4 (13:53):
Of course, And think about all the people that we
meet that have five or six different four one ks
that are probably all at one hundred and fIF two
thousand dollars. Yeah, they're queuing the average a little bit,
that's true, but their actual retirement plan looks a little
a little better.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
And they think it's diversified because it's in sevens.

Speaker 4 (14:09):
Can't say how many times I've had that conversation.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
I saw an article recently that said that sixty two
percent of consumers that work with a financial advisor feel
good about their financial wellness. That's so you know, if
you're if you're out there at this age and headed
into retirement within ten years and working with advisor might be.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
Worth your time.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
And they said forty one percent of people lose sleep
of their finance.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
It's an emotional tie. I mean the advisor not only
helps financially but emotionally, just to call. I get those
calls winding, both from female clients that are single. They'll
say to me, I need someone to talk to, and
it's you. So it's not just financial advice. It's emotional.

(14:54):
Like when the market goes wacky like it's been now,
they need to some people. I had a person call
last week and after we talk, she said, I just
feel better, Greg, thanks for talking to me. Given't that interesting.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
I love to hear thanks to you, Wanda. We are
retired and we're doing well. I love it, and I
mean that that to me is worth every day that
I show up at the office.

Speaker 4 (15:17):
But all my stat I'd be interested to see how
many of those respondents were working with financial planners and
how many were working with just investment advisors and so
we'll expand on this a little bit. We meet with
a lot of people who have never worked with any
kind of a financial professional, and then we meet with
probably more people who are making a lateral move or

(15:37):
what someone call a lateral move and moving from you know,
a big wirehouse or some other relationship they have with
a financial advisor over to us. And some of the
feedback that I get more often than not is, yeah,
so my guy always tells me about his investment plan,
and he tries to feel like he tries to impress

(15:58):
me every time that I go into his office and
he pulls up the graphs and the charts, and he
shows me about the portfolio and how he's moving two
percent from small cap to international and he's pulling down
the bond allocation. And then we spend an hour talking
about all that stuff, and my head's kind of spinning,
and I leave and I'm like, well, I guess I'm
doing okay. My account was up. And then I'm like, well,

(16:19):
does he give you the feeling that you're gonna be okay?
And they're like, well, I mean, I guess, but he
doesn't communicate that explicitly. And I said, well, that's what
we try to do like our end goal is for
you to understand where you are financially and feel positive
about it. We're not gonna We're not gonna hit you
with all the semantics and make your head spend because
I find that ninety five percent of my clients do

(16:41):
not care about the behind the scenes stuff. We're happy
to look under the hood and talk to you about
all that kind if you want to, if you're the
analytical type. But what we like to do is the
planning side of things. You know, where does it make
sense to draw your money from in retirement? What kind
of charitable strategies can we use to reduce your tax
burdens so we're not paying uncles Sam too much? You
know what kind of ripple effects do the moves we

(17:02):
make in your account have maybe on your Medicare costs?
What are we doing in terms of social Security? So
there's all these ancillary benefits that working with a true
financial planning team can give you, And I would be
willing to argue that that number one that would be
a lot higher if it was people that were surveyed
who worked with a true financial planning team, who were

(17:24):
talking about them talking to them about all the ancillary benefits.
And so if you're working with an advisor now who
makes your head spin and just hits you with too
many numbers and semantics, will then give us a call
and see how the down to earth retirement planning approach
might benefit you. Nine one nine eight five six one
nine six eight.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
Well, that's a holistic approach. That's what we keep saying.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
We do a holistic approach, not just aiming for one goal,
but all the goals involved. And sixty the journey of
sixty plus, I think you can agree with me, is
the most is one of the most critical because you
are close to not getting a paycheck. So do you
redesign your position now to head that way?

Speaker 3 (18:08):
I think so.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
When I meet with people that have big four to
one K plans and they're all in mutual funds, I think, Greg,
I know you've done this and both I think you
have two is we talk about, especially if you're sixty,
we talk about do you want to consider moving some
of that non taxable to you to an IRA that
can be managed for you, preparing you for the journey

(18:32):
that's coming. That's the bottom line, and sometimes it's worth
looking at that because once you get to sixty year
old sixty plus, you are on a different journey than
a forty year old, for sure.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
I've had several people in the last few months say,
all right, I'm on retiring two years. I'm already retiring
four years and I'm getting nervous. Yeah, there's that emotional
the kind of the headlight comes on and you go,
I'm getting a great paycheck and that's going to stop.
So that's the fear factor involved in retirement, and that

(19:06):
comforting planning process makes a whole lot of difference emotionally
as well, as we have mentioned. So that we'll take
a break, we'll come back for the second half of
the Great Kickshow, and we have a bunch of bullet
points to go over. Sous, stay tuned and welcome back
to the second half of the Great Kick Show. We're
glad you tuned in. We love to talk to you
with your questions. You can reach us at eight hundred

(19:28):
and four eight seven one seven eight six. You can
email us or go to our website perhaps frm NC
dot com and just type in your question or whatever
and we'll be glad to talk to you. We love
talking to people. We love meeting people. All of our
shows are real. We talk about the very same things

(19:51):
we do every day in our business to help people
succeed financially. And we give some illustrations. We don't reveal
confidential stuff, but we give illustrations of real life. But
it doesn't matter if you know all the hypothetical stuff.
What really matters is make it an apply to your life.
That's the big deal. And so we ask you to
call and give us a hello, and we'll meet and

(20:14):
gather data from you and then give you some input
right away. And then if you want a second appointment,
that's more important, even because we'll give you a written
a small written proposal and tell you some things you
need to do. You need some eyes, you need a
different set of eyes. Everybody does, no matter what you're doing.
And we are in the financial planning world now to

(20:35):
go down our bullet points for the sixty year old
and beyond a age group. One of the first things
we have to do, and a lot of advisors don't
do it, is talk about social security. You can take
it at sixty two, you can take it at your
full retirement age, which is now almost up to sixty seven,
or you could wait till seven, and then they're going

(20:56):
to make you take it. And I am a you guys,
and I know you are too. How much you think
it's simple, but how many errors are made and the
misunderstanding if you take it early. They have no idea
how the ramification rules and regulations are going to affect them.
And it's astonishing to me. We and we can tell

(21:19):
you in about a ten minute conversation enough of regulations
to make common sense to you. But a lot of
advisors never do that. It's amazing.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
Well, and then sometimes it's okay to take it early.
But in a lot of cases, if you retire at
sixty two and then you decide, you know what I
like working with plants and things, I'm going back to
work and you know, go to Low's or whatever. If
you make you know, there's a MAXI one that you
can make and not be penalized. That's the problem that
do I agree with all that? In fact, I wrote

(21:50):
a letter to the White House to Vance and Trump
and spelled out plans that I think they should look at.
I know y'all are laughing at me, but I think
you have to get it out there. And I why
penalize anybody for taking Social Security and working.

Speaker 1 (22:04):
Why or or not counting on the fact that Medicare
is not till sixty five. Right, So I'll have a guy,
I'm sick of my job. I'm we'll retirem We'll get
twenty four hundred a month in Social Security at age
sixty two, and I go and your health insurance is
eleven hundred a month, so you're really going to net
thirteen hundred. And they just sit there with their mouth over.
I'm like, I didn't think of that.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
Yeah, so all that has to be factored in. Do
you take it or does your wife take it early
and you take it later? You know, there's okay, And
that's what a financial advisor does. We could talk about
it all day in this show. We'll not have enough time.

Speaker 1 (22:36):
Well, we have a show on social we do.

Speaker 2 (22:38):
But the best thing for you to do is call
nine one nine eight five six nineteen sixty eight for
us to cover it all with you in person, because
your plan is your plan is not everybody's.

Speaker 4 (22:50):
Yeah, and I want you're exactly right about so many
people are excited to get back in the government's pocket
and they're like, you know what they've had their hands
in my pockets for the longest time. Well, I got
news for you. They're going to attack social security too,
so they double dip. They keep those hands in your pocket.
They're never going to let you go. But if you
take it before your full retirement age, which right now
is like sixty seven and some change, you cannot make

(23:13):
over it's like twenty two thousand dollars, twenty two grand
a year. So if you make over twenty two thousand dollars,
every dollar you make they're going to do no. Heck no,
if part time job is going to do that, every
dollar you make, they're going to take fifty cents of
it of your Social Security away. So you make thirty
thousand dollars, that's eight thousand over, they're taking four thousand
dollars of your Social Security away that year. Doesn't make sense.

(23:36):
It's not fair. We totally agree with you, but it's
a rule, and so it's important for you to understand this,
and it's important for your advisor back to you know,
different types of advisors out there. If you're working with
just an investment advisor, you're probably getting good investment advice,
but are they talking to you about this kind of stuff,
these little nuances, they just go to show you don't
know what you don't know, and don't make some of
these mistakes that are oftentimes irreversible just because of negligence,

(24:01):
either from you or your advisor. And so again our
number nine one nine eighty five six one nine six eight.
If you are approaching social security medicarriage.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
By the way, bo you mentioned eighty five percent of
your social Security income as tax. That didn't happen until
nineteen ninety two when Al Gore it was a tie
in the Senate fifty to fifty, and he's VP. He
votes to tax.

Speaker 4 (24:22):
All to fix the climate.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
Guess what the climate? So let me correct the weirdo
media out there. Trump never said he was going to
cut social Security. He said he's going to cut taxes
on social Security. And how about that. If that was
the only thing that changed, how many older people getting
social Security would get a rage? It wouldn't be taxed.

(24:47):
So I'm one hundred percent for that. Go back to
the way it used to be before nineteen ninety.

Speaker 4 (24:51):
Before we move on widows out there, you can take
social Security at age sixty if you were married for
ten years more you're eligible to take your Social Security
benefits too, years before everybody else. So the government is
watching out for the widows out there, so just keep
that in mind.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
Let's talk about taxes a little bit. Pulling money out
of IRA's and four to win ks early are mds
that that laws crazy change the last three or four years,
but you can. You don't have to pull money out
of an IRA or a four to win cauntil age
seventy three now, but most people do pull it out

(25:27):
before that to help supplement income. But I'm just going
to say, in general, let's make sure you understand all
the tax ramifications of everything you do. Taxes are a
big deal and you have to understand. So your advisor
should be alerting you to those facts all through your ages,
no matter what age you are, but especially in retirement.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
Well, you can use IRA dollars or required minimum distribution
whatever age you did at seventy and a half, seventy two,
seventy three, seventy five I think is what they've changed
it to. But you can send some of that to
a charity directly and not have to pay taxes on it.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
If you don't need it.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
If you don't need it, that's right.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
So there's all kinds of ways to reduce that.

Speaker 3 (26:09):
I even use.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
Annuities to help with required minimum distributions because there are
annuities that pay maximum income and it can cover most
and not all of the required distributions sometimes, and then
you can let the IRA grow for a few years.

Speaker 3 (26:25):
Before you have to touch that.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
So you've got the IRA annuity that's covering most of
your required distributions, letting the other piece grow using dividends
to build for later. So it's just it's called strategizing
and that's what we do.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
Absolutely, you can do rm ds to buy long term
care insurance for example, or by a life insurance policy
for the grandkids. There's all kinds of techniques out there,
strategy strategies that are we actually apply to the individual
goal and need. And that's one thing a good advisor do.
They will We do not. We've never had a cookie

(27:01):
cutter plan for one human being. We have a general
sort of model we use because of our experience and
all that, but we specifically target the goals of the individual.
What are your income needs, what are your base income,
what are your fun income needs? Where do you pull
it out first? Which is the least taxable. All of

(27:23):
these decisions go in play. Which do you take first
money from the Social Security benefit or the IRA? All
of that matters, and it's like a big puzzle and
we just sort of go ABC D three, consider these
two things and pick one that you think is best.
And that's what financial planning is all about. Retirement income planning.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
Is all right if people will listen, this is the
thing sometimes you can meet. I met with a gentleman
one time. He was sixty nine and a half, almost seventy.
He had not turned Social Security on. He was married
to a forty year old wife and just had a
two year old. Okay, so I and they had a
mortgage of like three hundred thousand dollars, And I said,

(28:06):
why don't you turn this?

Speaker 3 (28:08):
Why haven't you turned the Social Security on to pay
off the mortgage? Mortgage? The best thing you can do
for her is leave her debt free.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
Yeah, he said, I'm building it so she'll have a
bigger income. I said, but she's still going to have
the mortgage, so why not? So those sometimes, Greg, you'll
have a person that just don't want to listen because
they've got to sit in their mind to do it
the way they want to do it.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
That's right, yeah, and that's okay. Like and by the way,
we offer strategies and suggestions. We can't make anybody do anything.
But what we found over time is people are inherently smart.
If you make sense and it looks okay, then you're
in good shape. So that's the point. So we'll take
a quick break and come back and finish off our

(28:48):
older sixty year old plus retirement and welcome back to
the last segment of the Greg Hicks Show. Thank you
so much for tuning in. Bo Nicholson and Wanda Cooper myself.
We work for a small busines this it's called Financial
Resource Management, headquartered in Raleigh. We're a boutique financial planning
investment firm and we have seven or eight hundred clients.

(29:08):
We were so thrilled to work with people over the years,
and we love the radio show and we love talking
to radio listeners. So call us at nine one, nine
eight five six, nineteen sixty eight to meet with us
and talk about your financial plan and what you need
to do, particularly if you're in that sixty plus age group.
That's our target today. That's the show title today. Next week.

(29:31):
By the way, we have a guest that we have
occasionally hal ed and See's a money manager. He manages portfolios,
but he also is very He's got his ear to
the ground on current events. Next week we'll talk about Trump.
We'll talk about Congress. There's a lot going on out there,
the tariffs, what does a tariff do? The New World

(29:51):
Order with China and Russia, the Ukraine War. All of
these things affect financial markets and changes. And holl is
really good at connecting the dots on what's going on
in the culture and politically and so forth to making money.
That's what it's all about. So how will be here
next week and then the following week kind of following

(30:13):
how we purposely did this, We're going to talk about
government expectations, like what are the things that Donald Trump
is trying to do, like take taxes off social Security
income for example for seniors.

Speaker 3 (30:25):
We want to hit the truth on those things, you.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
Know, oh gosh, yeah, we will not sugarcoat it, will
tell exactly what's going on today. We're just touching on
social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. We're going to talk in detail
about all those types of things. And then at the
end of March, we always do the tax Planning show
because we get close to April four fifteenth. Yes, and
so taxes you got to think about them and talk

(30:48):
about them because taxes are deterrent to your success for
sure in financial planning and growth. Now, Wanda, let's real
quick go over some quick bullet points for people in
their sixties and seventies. The mortgage. Do you pay the
mortgage off? Or what about a reverse? There's a reverse mortgage,
So let's talk about both those ideas.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
Sometimes, you know, I recommend that if there's liquidity in
the cash or CDs or whatever, I'm like, why haven't
you paid that fifty thousand dollars mortgage off? You know,
But then sometimes it makes sense not to. So it
just it just depends. And you might say, well, when
it depends on what's going on in their life. If
they're getting ready to sell the house, there's no need

(31:30):
to pay the mortgage off exactly.

Speaker 3 (31:31):
So you know, there's all kinds of things that factor in.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
Now, reverse mortgage. I do save that for when it
makes sense. I've had people call me because dad went
into a nursing home.

Speaker 3 (31:42):
They're worried about mom.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
If she goes in, he's going to use all the
policy they have, you know, maybe he had a policy
she didn't, you know, whatever the situation. Then we start
talking about, you know, and they're worried about dad running
out of money for care too. We talk about the
reverse mortgage because some some times they have a half
a million to a million dollar home and no debt
on it, but they've got this eight thousand a month

(32:06):
or nine thousand dollars a month fee for the facility,
and they're worried about that. And the reverse mortgages now
have been really scrutinized, I think in fine tune where
you don't have to worry about losing all the equity
in your home because they're not going to lend you
up to one hundred percent. And then when you pass away,

(32:28):
kids are more likely going to sell the home. Anyway,
it's rare that that doesn't happen, right, So all it
is the loans paid off of that time, and they
get the difference. I think all kids will be more
concerned about not using any of their liquidity now for
your care when they've got this home that's paid for well.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
Just even not care. Just I've had two or three
clients you just run out of money. They're eighty years
old and they just run out of income sources. And
the reverse mortgage is a nice way to pull out
about half of your equity. Maybe you have four hundred equity,
you pull out two hundred and you pay yourself an
income stream and then when you die, the kids sell
the house. So again, reverse mortgage is a special area,

(33:06):
but sometimes a really really clever strategy. We do a
lot of emphasis on long term care. Not everybody buys it,
that's okay, But now the long term care industry is
very i would say, progressively coming up with strategies that
are really cool, using IRA money for example, to pay

(33:27):
for long term care policies and things like that. So
that's a whole area. And Wanda, you and I recently
in the last couple of years have done several long
term care policies because people are realizing, if you're going
to spend eight thousand a month for long term care
for your spouse, where's that money coming from. And so

(33:48):
it's just the best use of money. Figure out the
best use of the money, and that's what a good
advisor does. So give us a call if you have
any questions about the long term care insurance area and
how to protect yourself from really traumatic situation. One of
the things we see a lot and we warn against
is family members giving you financial planning and investment strategies.

(34:12):
I know they want to help, but how many times
one that have we seen a mom or a dad
come in with a son and the son's got to
have brained idea mom everything and days and I'm starting
to business, mom, And if you'll loan me one hundred thousand,
the business will grow and I'll pay you back. Yeah.
And so we just alert people if your family member

(34:34):
has suggestions, bring them in to us, sit in the office,
stare us in the face, and tell us your plan,
and we will give you an objective opinion. So that's
very important. Now, the other side of that question is
sometimes mom or dad's getting older and an adult kid
will come in with their dad or mom. That's a
good thing because you want to have another set of

(34:56):
ears and eyes with mom or dad. Who's let's say
a mom's seventy five and her daughter comes in and
she's fifty five. We like that. We actually encourage that
so that everyone is on the same page, you know,
because there is the side of getting older where you
lose track a little bit of what's going on, and
you're a target for hackers. By the way, senior citizens

(35:18):
are targets for hackers.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
If you want some ideas on how to keep that
at bay, give us a call nine one, nine, eight
five six, nineteen sixty eight. I've got a full arsenal
of recommendations.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
Yeah, that's right, that's right. We also in another thing
that's often ignored, seventy percent of North Carolinians and USA
folks as well do not have a will and a
will and a power of attorney. Is it's just important.
It's kind of like you don't need it until you
need it. But when if you have a major illness

(35:52):
situation and you don't have a power of attorney, who's
going to make financial decisions, who's going to pay the bills,
who's going to make investment decisions for you? And a will?
You know, people say, oh, the route a will, But
if you don't have a will, then the court house
that's your county you live in, probate court is going
to find out who will take over the estate. And
you may say, well, I don't have a big estate

(36:14):
but what about your house, what about what about life insurance?
What about your beneficiaries. We see people all the time
with IRA four oh and K insurance annuities. They have
the wrong beneficiary on there, or they haven't updated it
in twenty five years and the X and your son
is no longer married to the woman you left part

(36:35):
of the assets too, and she's gone. So there's a
lot of things like that that need to If you
have a will updated every five years or at least
read it. We just see that that's almost ignored sometimes
and it's critical when you get older to have that
in place.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
Well, the other thing is to.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
I've had this happen where sixty five year olds have
adult is that going to you know, study the market
or study this and that and the other. And they're like,
mom or dad, you could you'd have been better off
in crypto or S and P index or something like that,
And I have to to kindly remind them that mom

(37:18):
or Dad's risk tolerance was moderate, not aggressive, not modern
aggressive and not super aggressive. And those are aggressive things.
So if you your mom wants to change it, then
we have to get a new risk tolerance questionnaire. I mean,
I find that the kids are telling parents more what
to do now. And I think that's sad because you know,

(37:41):
they you know, and the mom is caught in a
rock and a hard place or the dad because they
want to honor the fact their kid has studied this
and done this and you know, so just just be cautious.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
Yes, that's right, And that's why I think. I mean,
when that happens to me, I just say, bring you're
bring your adult son in and let's talk instead of
hearing you know, one idea in this ear and another
idea in the other. Are you know? Bring? You know
we've been we've been doing stuff for quite a long time.
And uh, anyway, we're gonna we're just gonna give you

(38:16):
the number and say tune in next week for the
showing current events call us at nine one, nine, eight
five six, nineteen sixty eight. And with that, remember this,
it's your money, it's your future, don't blow it.

Speaker 4 (38:27):
Advisory services through Capital Investment Advisory Services LLC. Security is
offered through Capital Investment Group bing Remember Finra and SIPIC
one thousand, e six Forks Road, Raleigh, North Carolina, nine
one nine one twenty three seventy host performance is not
indicative of future results.