Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Live from the wgy iHeart Studios. Welcome to Retirement Ready
with your host Dave Kopek from the Retirement Ready Show.
Every week, Dave and his team discuss the ways they
can help people make informed decisions about a wide array
of retirement planning information that can support you and developing
a more certain financial future for you and your family.
(00:21):
Now it's time for Dave Kopec, WGY's retirement planning specialist.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
All Right, good afternoon. We are in upstate New York,
Sonny in the fifties, I believe, which is good. We'll
take that for November ninth, twenty twenty four, so you
can tell this is a live show. I'm here live today.
(01:29):
Took some time off over the last couple of weeks,
but it's good to be back in the saddle. And
as always, this is a call and show. This morning show.
From seven to nine, we had a lot of phone calls,
which I always think makes it more interesting for you
the listener, and also for us here in the studio
(01:50):
because we get questions that I think are probably top
of mind for a lot of individuals, what people are
thinking about, what they're trying to do with their pre
and post retirement planning. But as you're quite well aware,
this is a topic specific program, and what do I
(02:14):
mean by that. We focus in on one particular item
for the program and we try to stay focused on
that and hopefully it gives you a little bit more
education and makes you a better informed individual when you
go out into the financial services market. Just find the team,
(02:39):
an emphasized team, because the days of the one person
financial team, it's pretty much over with, pretty much over with.
So people have said to me over and over again,
you know the mothership Fidelity that we do all of
our business through the custodium, all of our assets. What
(03:00):
do they bring to the table. And I'm going to
go through that a little bit today as far as
what Fidelity does bring to the table and how you
as the consumer, as the consumer of financial information and products,
can be facilitated for your desires. First and foremost Fidelity.
(03:32):
We were just out there about a month ago for
a three day workshop, and I think that's probably the
most important part of Fidelity that I find as an
independent businessman, as far as what do they bring to
the table as far as education, data, top of mind
information that people need during this unbelievable time, I don't
(03:56):
have to go through what just transpired over this pastlast
week because for some of you, you're either dancing in
the street or others are probably having a snowflake moment.
Schools are letting people out early or taking days off
because they need to deal with the end result of
(04:20):
the election, which I find hilarious personally. But the reality
is that Fidelity does bring a lot of this information.
We had a long discussion at Fidelity. We had one
particular speaker that went over the election and what her
thoughts were would be facilitated to the financial markets now
(04:47):
being independent. And when I say independent, we market ourselves
as having no bias, no predetermined destination. We act in
a fiduciary capacity, and our focus is basically on three
segments of financial services. Investment management speaks for itself, managing
(05:12):
your money. Acid protection that speaks for itself. But some
people say, what do you mean by acid protection? Well,
acid protection is is that if I get into a
difficult situation, how can I protect my estate from either
creditors or predators, or evil son and laws or door
and laws, or from a long term care event. That's
(05:37):
what acid protection is. Very complicated landscape. One of the
best in the business you just listen to the previous
show is Loupiro And when I say he's one of
the best, I put him in the top. He knows
that inside and out. He's been doing it a long time.
That's extremely advantageous for you if you are a listener.
(05:58):
I listen to lou show every week. I make it
a point because I think he brings down on a
good guest. But Lou's been doing it a little bit
less than I have. This is my forty third year
in the financial services industry. I think Lou is around forty.
(06:18):
But to make a long story short, the asset protection
side of the business and also the legacy transferring wealth
to the next generation is probably going to be an
achilles heel for a lot of us. And what do
I mean by that? Eighty five trillion dollars of wealth,
(06:47):
which is estimated, could be more, could be a little
bit less. We'll transfer over the next thirty years to
my children, to my grandchildren, whoever I designate to receive
these assets. So the question you got to ask yourself
is do you have the right horses in the stable
(07:07):
in order to facilitate the greatest wealth transfer in the
history of mankind. Now, I personally don't think anybody's an expert,
but that's my personal opinion. I think certain individuals have
(07:28):
great knowledge, great expertise, But I don't like using the
word expert because like this morning, Nico and I were
here and we get talking a little bit about HSA accounts,
FSA accounts, and then had a gentleman that called in
and talked about MSA accounts, and I had no idea
(07:49):
what is an MSA account? Well, it's a Medicare savings account.
Didn't even know anything about it, didn't even know it
exists for people sixty five and older. But it does.
And I told that gentleman. Next week on the Retirement
Planning Show, not this show, but next week on the
Retirement Planning Show, I'm going to discuss mssays because I
(08:10):
want to research it, find someone that really knows it
inside and out, so we can edumacate you. We can
give you information that you can transfer to your own
personal pre and post retirement plan. So I have the
(08:32):
powerhouse behind me, the mothership Fidelity. I think they're responsible
for somewhere between fourteen to fifteen trillion dollars of assets
that they manage. But they also have an unbelievable amount
of research capabilities as far as questions you may have,
(08:54):
state planning, whatever may be. I'm not going to go
through the whole laundry list, but we are part of
what we call PIWA. What is FIWA. FIWA is Fidelity
Institutional Wealth Advisors. You got to knock on the door
and you got to ask to be let in. They
(09:14):
do all sorts of screening and scrubbing, they do all
sorts of information and then they find out if you're
eligible to be part of FIWA. Well, I'm proud to
say that the Retirement Planning Group is part of FIWA.
So what does that mean for you as a consumer
of financial products? That means for you that you you
(09:36):
have the ability to work with your own professional financial
team at Fidelity to build out your own models portfolios.
We actually have a team of individuals that we work
with PhDs CFAs go through the whole laundry list. So
(09:58):
it's a great, great opportunity for you to get some
additional I guess you could call added value by working
through the Retirement Planning Group. Why do I say this
because right now as they sit here today, there's six
(10:19):
and a half six point five trillion dollars sitting in
cash accounts. And last week, I don't have to tell
you we had a pretty spectacular week in the markets.
Right When I say that we had a pretty spectacular
week in the market, it's kind of an understatement. So
(10:39):
the thing is is that if we had a spectacular
week in the market and people are trying to wait
for their opportunity to get in, did they miss the boat?
Did they miss the boat? Well, as you're quite well aware,
I'm not a big believer in market timing, never have,
never will be. And I figure Warren Buffett doesn't believe
(11:01):
in it, then Dave Kopek shouldn't believe in it either.
And why do I say that, Because the markets on
an average went up about four and a half percent
last week, whether it was the Dial, the S and
P five hundred of the Nasdaq, those people in one
week they missed a huge updraft in the market. So
the thing is is that when we try to talk
(11:23):
about independence, no predetermined destination, no bias, no architecture, we
also try to talk about facts and not fiction. The
fact is it does not work Okay. People that are
out there that say that they can market time, yeah,
they might do it once occasionally. They might be able
(11:45):
to hit the button every once in a while and
hit the bullseye, but statistically it's the old Warren Buffett bet.
He went to a hedge funk guy or the hedge
trunk guy went to him and said, I'm going to
make a million dollar bet with you. And the million
dollar bet was this, I'm going to outperform you. And
Warren Buffett said, well, I'm just going to take my
(12:06):
money and I'll put it into the S and P
five hundred and I'll probably outperform you because your game
that you play, as far as trying to predict the
up through the downs or the future to the stock market,
can't be done consistently. And if you can do it,
then that's great. But I'm just going to get myself
into the S and P five hundred. We'll start at
(12:27):
this time and we finished in ten years, and we'll see,
well after about four or five years. The head funds
guys was so far behind, he said, that's it. Here's
the million bucks. I'm done. You're so far ahead, So
what does that show? It shows you a pretty simple,
simple process. They mean staying fully invested and not trying
to time things, being in the right asset allocation model,
(12:51):
and staying staying fully invested. You will be rewarded for
your patience. You will be rewarded for your patients. So
today we're going to talk a little bit about as
you go from accumulation into distribution and how soon you
(13:11):
should start thinking about this, and how important it is
for you to basically get your ducks in a row
because point of entry, point of entry can be critical
to your overall safety for your retirement years. So this
is Retirement Ready. I'm Dave Kopek, your host. I am
w gwy's retirement planning specialists. It's always great to be
(13:33):
on the air. I'm live in the studio. If you
have any questions or comments of what I'm discussing one
eight hundred talk WGY one eight two five fifty nine
forty nine, and if you want to come in and
have a chat with me or any one of my
team members, it's pretty simple. Just pick up the phone
five one eight five eight zero one nine one nine,
(13:54):
or check us out on the web rpgretire dot com. Again,
that's rpg retire dot com. We'll be right back the
eighty six percenters. Do you know that eighty six percent
of the population has no defined benefit pension plan. For
most of us, we have to take our life savings
and create a paycheck for the rest of our lives
in retirement. What is your plan for retirement income distribution?
(14:16):
How you manage your assets during the most critical years
of your lifetime. Nobel Prize winning economist William Sharp has
called retirement income distribution the nastiest, hardest problem in finance.
He points out that investment, uncertainty, and mortality can derail
the most careful laid out retirement income plan. Call our
offices today to start the process of building your retirement
(14:37):
income distribution plan. After forty one years of being in
the financial services business, you need to start taking action
to start building your own personal retirement income distribution plan.
How do you do that? To take action? Five one
eight five eight zero one nine nine. That's five one
eight five eight zero one nine one nine or RPG
retire on the web. Don't procrastinate, motivate to start building
(14:59):
your retirevironment income distribution plan five eight five eight zero
one nine nine. We run out of money in retirement?
Will your investments provide income for possibly decades? How do
you navigate the two greatest risk in retirement, sequence of
returns in longevity. At the Retirement Planning Group, our bucket
of Money approach addresses these concerns and we offer a
complimentary consultation to discuss this with you. Call our office
(15:22):
today for a free complimentary consultation to develop your own
personal retirement income distribution plan at five eight five eight
zero one nine one nine. That's five eight, five eight
zero one nine one nine. I guess forever another right,
(15:53):
We are back every weekend. It's a Saturday an upstate
New York and it's beautiful, it's sunny. Hopefully you're enjoying
your weekend and you're doing something fun with your family
and friends. As I said, I'm Dave Kopak. I'm the
president of the Retirement Planning Group, my forty third year
(16:14):
in business. WG WISE retirement planning specialists. It's always an
honor to be here and hopefully give you some suggestions
and ideas that you should be thinking about with your
pre and post retirement years. You know, we live in
a different world today, one that I never thought that
(16:35):
there could be possibly the type of wealth that has
been created for particular individuals that I know for a
lot of us, my parents were farmers on both sides
of the fence. I know what hard work is, but
I also know that some people are very fortunate in
(16:56):
life and they basically hit the mother load with either
the company that they're working for, or they've had some
luck and they've worked their tails off and they've accumulated
a lot of money. So if that is the case,
and you have large four oh one k large IRA
(17:20):
New York State deferred compensation, whatever it may be, I
think you realize one thing. Okay, nine out of ten
of us do not have pension benefits. So that means
that you're going to have to create a pension benefit
of some type in order for you to last a lifetime. Now,
if you have an abundance of money, okay, that's pretty
(17:41):
simple to do. You can do ladder bonds, you can
do CDs, you can do vivid in paying stocks, you
can do alternative investments. There's a whole list of things
that you can invest in. But for most of us,
the people that we work with who have anywhere from
let's say four hundred to eight hundred thousand dollars of
assets that they've accumulated. It is critical, It is critical
(18:06):
that they understand point of entry and longevity. What do
I mean by that point of entry is is that
am I entering during my retirement years into a bull
market or am I going into a bear market? Is
it a high interest rate environment or is it a
(18:27):
low interest rate environment? And finally, how many years am
I going to be responsible for managing assets in order
to satisfy my income needs, My purchasing power will stay
where it needs to be. Close your eyes if you're driving,
(18:48):
don't close your eyes. Please don't close your eyes if
you're driving. But if you're sitting there at home you're
listening to this, think about what was the price of
oil years ago, gasoline, the taxes on your home, healthcare groceries.
(19:10):
The average sixty five year old couple today This is
by Fidelity, not Dave Kopek. The average sixty five year
old couple today will live to the age of ninety
five one of you. Fidelity says plan for age one
hundred now, so that means over the next thirty to
thirty five years, you're gonna have to have what income,
(19:34):
You're gonna have to have purchasing power, You're gonna have
to be able to pay the taxes. And the question
a lot of people say is that, you know what,
that's scary. You know what, it is scary. It is scary.
But the thing is is that for the people that
have these large amounts of money that are inside these
(19:54):
four O one k's iras whatever it may be, non
qualified assets, okay, they can probably handle that challenge. But
for the average person, okay, the people that work for
like Bimbo Bakeries, National grid utilities, HVAC construction, guys that
(20:16):
get or gals that get lump sum distributions, how do
I manage this money to last a lifetime not only
for me, but for my spouse and oh, by the way,
I'd like to leave a few bucks for my kids.
So I'll talk about the buckets of money in simplistic terms.
(20:38):
And the reason why I do this is because it
can get complicated in the different chassis or products or
investment selection should really be probably the third or fourth
thing to be concerned about. But what you need to
do immediately as soon as you get to that age
(20:59):
fifty nine and a half. You can do what we
call an in service distribution from your four O one K,
and you can start managing the assets based off of
your risk profile and not have a limited amount of
investment options that have thousands of investment options because you're
in what we call the red zone. The red zone
(21:19):
is the time during your pre retirement years where you
have to start building out the buckets of money in
order to facilitate the type of lifestyle that you want
during your retirement years. Now, if you have a pension benefit,
you're way ahead of everybody. If you've received assets an inheritance,
(21:41):
some can be significant, you're already ahead of the game.
But for a lot of our hard working savers that
isn't the case, and now they're in a situation where
they basically have to take the portfolios, investments that they've
done in their lifetime and create a check rather than
receiving a check. So when we talk to individuals, we
(22:08):
always say one thing over and over again. What we
want to do is we want to focus on ROI. Really,
why do we want to just focus in on the
one thing? Because seven out of ten people want to
have ROI, but a lot of you do not do it.
(22:30):
And why is that? Because you're sold a package, you're
sold an idea or concept. Well, what do I mean
by ROI? Well, most of your thinking that you know,
why is he talking about return on investment. It's not
return on investment that I'm talking about. I'm talking about
(22:53):
reliability of income. Seven out of ten of you that
are out there want to have your investments during your
retirement years adequate enough in order to facilitate quality of life,
paying the bills without the risk of the money going
away before you go away. But most of you will
(23:16):
continue to allocate money in risk assets and not build
out what we call baseline income. Baseline income whether it's
a stormy day, a sunny day, whether it's a day
that you're sitting there and there's huge market volatility, you're
looking at election results. Did anybody think that the stock
(23:37):
market the day after the election was going to go
up over fifteen hundred points in the one of the
greatest moves in the history of the markets. After Trump
won the election, what did a lot of people do?
A lot of people head they went for protection, They
went to cash. There's six and a half trillion dollars
(23:59):
in cash, right, now sitting in cash equivalents and money
market accounts. So if you have reliability of income and
you have baseline, you don't have to worry about do
I have adequate amounts of money in order for me
to facilitate the quality of life that I want. You
(24:21):
don't miss out on these market moves. Five percent on
average last week was the market move of the three indicies.
So if that is the case, a lot of you
did not participate in that because you were either time
in the market, you were afraid of the results, or
your asset allocation didn't allow you to stay fully invested.
(24:43):
And that's what we're going to talk a little bit more,
and we can back for the second half hour, is
to talk about how to allocate money during your retirement
years and the safety that you're looking for and understanding
understanding that there are investments that have been designed specific
for the boomer generation that have now been fine tune adjusted, modified,
(25:06):
that are even bigger and better than they were before
in order to facilitate what we call pension benefits. Pension benefits,
and we'll discuss either the pros or cons. We'll talk
a little bit about the positives and the negatives and
how you, as a consumer of financial products, can make
an educated decision of what you should be doing. I'm
(25:30):
Dave Kopek. I am the president of the Retirement Planning Group.
We have five locations in New York and if you
want to him in for a consultation, or if you
want to do it over the internet zoom, more than
happy to facilitate that. Give us a call at five
one eight, five eight zero one nine nine and we'll
(25:52):
be right back after this quick message.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
You know how love was meant to be kind of
love the last.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
Forever and now haunt you here with me from tonight
until end of time.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Listen everywhere, always own my mind, in my home, in myself,
you call a meeting in my last body.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
All right, we are back. Good to be here. Happy Saturday.
Hopefully everybody's enjoying their weekend. I know I will be
go out to dinner with some friend of mine tonight
which we haven't seen for a while up in the
Lake Georgie area, and it should be fun with my wife.
So we're talking about this new world that we live in.
(27:13):
As far as retirement planning, we're talking a little bit
about the personal responsibility for you to understand the platform
that you're working through. Also, this is all we do
is pre im post retirement planning. Whether you're twenty five,
forty five, sixty five, or eighty five. The retirement planning
groups our destination is always the same, pre and post
(27:36):
retirement planning, an investment management, asset protection and the legacy
that you wish to leave your loved ones. Now, I'm
go give you a little secret here. Okay, I know
that seven out of ten of you, because it has
been consistent over the last five to ten years, are
looking for safety and guarantees with your retirement assets, but
(27:58):
most of you are not doing it. And after doing
this now for beginning of my forty third year, it's
my belief that a retirement income plan should include guaranteed
income right all your money absolutely positively not. You got
to have growth potential and you've got to have flexibility,
(28:18):
but you need to have peace of mind. What Dan Bouchard,
my former partner, used to call pillow planning. Put your
head on the pillow. You're not watching the fans spinning
at night because the market's volatile, and eventually, what you're
trying to do is prepare for life's curb walls with
your own personal retirement plan that combines your income needs
(28:42):
from multiple multiple sources. What do you mean by that, David, Well,
I'll tell you what I mean. We don't know that
one size does not fit all. Everybody has a different
view of what's going to happen during the retirement years.
Some people want to travel. My next door neighbor loves
(29:03):
to garden. My other next door neighbor likes to read
and do puzzles. So we know one thing for sure.
There's no one size that fits all. But you have
to find the right mix for you. For you, you
have to find the right mix for you with the
(29:24):
different types of investments. Right that includes your savings, what
your expenses are going to be, your healthcare costs which
are astronomical. Now I don't have to tell anybody that,
and what your values are, what's your personal values. But
the good news is that whatever your situation, you can
(29:48):
improve your retirement readiness by being proactive. And I'm going
to talk about three essential building blocks for retirement income plants.
After forty two years of doing this, going into my
forty third I don't even blink when I say this. Now,
(30:13):
what are the three building blocks. You got to have growth,
You have to have guaranteed income, and then that flexibility
is necessary because life throws us curveballs and things change,
right premature death, health events. I can go through a
(30:37):
laundry list. The last couple months, I've spent more time
at sunerals and wakes than I probably have done in
the last ten years. Why is that? Because my book
of business is getting older. I have clients that I've
been working with for over thirty years. So when I
talk about guarantees to ensure that core expenses are covered,
(31:00):
I talk about growth potential to meet your long term
needs and legacy goals and the flexibility they want to
have in order to meet them or a nine to
one one. You don't want to be tied to anything
where you're landlocked, where you can't get out of it,
and that's a problem with a lot of investments today.
(31:21):
If you get allocated into a particular type of investment
that you can't leave or the portfolio manager controls the exit,
that's not good. A lot of your alternative investments. You
hear the buzzword out there, right, You want to hear
about private equity. You want to hear about, you know,
(31:43):
all of these exotic ways that people are making substantial
amounts of money, but you don't hear about the other
side of it, when things go bad and people want
to get their money out the door and they can't
get it. So when you create your plan for and foremost,
let's talk about your day to day expenses, your non
(32:08):
negotiable costs. What are those days housing? Now, I've got
a great client. She's been with me now for thirty
some years. She just came into the office and her
(32:28):
husband's been deceased for over twenty years. She's well into
her late eighties, and she made a decision about ten
years ago after her husband passed that she no longer
wanted the responsibility of a house and she wanted to
go out and get an apartment. I said, I think
(32:52):
that's a great idea. You won't have the responsibility maintenance, upkeep,
et cetera, et cetera. Well, her rent is going from
around nine hundred dollars a month at the time that
she originally went into this apartment to now where it's
almost two thousand dollars a month. And she came in
and she wanted to know what can I do in
(33:14):
order to mitigate some of these expenses. Her power bill
was a fraction what it is today, her health care
costs were a fraction, and I basically said to her,
I said, I would love to be able to take
out the magic wand but the reality is is that
there's only a certain amount of money that's in the pot,
(33:35):
and we have to make sure that we're going to
have adequate amounts of money in order to facilitate quality
of life and also the ability for you to do
some of the things that you want to do with
your son and your daughter. The foundation was already set up,
how we allocated the money, the amount of risk that
(33:56):
we thought was suitable for her. So the impact of
what has transpired over the last twenty years for her
is that now she's going to have to downsize. She's
going to have to move at her later ages, and
what we're looking for as senior housing. Right now, she
doesn't want to do it. But the reality is is
(34:18):
that it is tempting. Right when the stock market is
dancing in the street and everybody's making all sorts of
money to go chase it, Well, what happens if the
market goes down twenty or thirty or forty percent. What
happens if we're in a bear market for an extent
period of time? Can she make the adjustment? Can she
(34:43):
psychologically handle it at her late eighties in order for
her to be in that type of an investment program.
My answer to you is no, she can't. She can't.
So the thing is is that when we designed her portfolio,
we had guaranteed money that her husband wanted for her.
(35:05):
We had growth potential money that was growth potential, and
we also had the flexibility that we could move around
in order to make adjustments on her plan. So is
what's going to happen here? How are we going to
be able to facilitate the money that she needs during
her retirement years. No one wants to see their money diminished.
(35:31):
No one wants to see the pot of gold going down.
But the reality is, sometimes you have to decouple yourself
from the assets and think logically, what I need to
do in order for me to have a quality of life. Now,
when she came to us, they had about a little
(35:54):
less than three hundred thousand dollars of assets at that
time when they originally started working with us. That was
a pretty good chunk of change in today's world not
so much. So what did I do? I called the
daughter and I called the son. I said, we got
(36:15):
to have a chat. And the chat that we have
to have here is that I know that your mom
wants to leave a legacy for both you and your sibling.
But the reality is is that she is not going
to be able to have the quality of life that
she wants because she's worried about the transfer of wealth. Dave,
(36:38):
we don't need the money, Dave, we don't want the money.
We've told mom to spend the money. We're fine, and
they are both fine. One's an attorney, the othern works
for the State of New York. They don't need the money.
But the mother, because she grew up Cohos factory workers,
(37:02):
both her and her husband, it's hard for her not
to leave a legacy or a transfer of wealth. So
this is what we're doing. We're going to spend down
some of the money so when she dies, the money dies.
That means that we're going to accelerate the payments to
(37:23):
her so she can have quality of life, so she
can have the income that she needs. But when she's gone,
the money's gone. It's called a spear the single premium
media to noity, it gives her the greatest velocity on
her money, with the greatest amount of safety under these
current market conditions. Is she going to do it with
(37:44):
all ever money? Absolutely positively not, because it's still deep
down in her heart she wants to leave some assets
to her children. So pensions that were a commonplace not
so much anymore. Only about thirteen million currently employed people
(38:09):
have a defined benefit pension here in the United States,
thirteen million a three hundred and semi million individuals that
currently hear. So if you're one of those people, right
that has a pension benefit, you should be high five
and are jumping up and down. That woman called me
this morning. That's a future retiree state in York. Pension healthcare.
(38:35):
Doesn't have to worry about those expenses, doesn't have to
worry about how do I create an income? Right? What's
her concern? Her concern is not do I have enough
income and I'm going to be okay as far as
my health care costs. Her concern is what happens if
something happens to me and I have to go into
a long term care facility. So what did I say
(38:57):
at the beginning of this, there's no cookie cutter. Everybody's different.
Everybody has different families, different objectives, what they're trying to
achieve in their lifetime. And what I would say to
you is that a lot of these organizations where you
dial the number and they start giving you recommendations because
(39:18):
of laws and compliance and liability. If you go in
box A, that's where you go. Box A, they fill
out the form of your in B, you go and B.
There's very little adjustment, there's very little personal touch. So
there are ways to create a pension like stream of income.
(39:44):
You just have to have what we call open architecture
and understand the firm that you're working with that can
facilitate that can facilitate these types of options. Working with
a professional, I don't care it's Fidelity, Vanguard, Schwab, any
(40:04):
your major investment banking firms. They all say the same thing.
It's proven that you'll get farther ahead by having a
successful plan with the financial team. And that's what we
do with the Retirement Planning Group. We build out a
plan that has guaranteed income growth potential and the third
(40:30):
and the most important one flexibility. I'm going to take
my final break. Come into our last segment. If you
have any questions or comments. I'm live in the studio
today if you'd like to participate, Love to hear from you.
One eight hundred Talk WGY. That's one eight hundred and
eight two five fifty nine forty nine. I think we
got all of our phone calls this morning, Zach, Yeah,
(40:52):
all right, I'll be right back. Your partner for success
David Kopek, heir WGY's retirement planning specialists the Retirement Planning Group.
We understand that retirees face many important decisions that can
affect their long term financial success. Some of these decisions
revolve around making investments that will help create a hedge
(41:13):
against outliving their assets, the impact of inflation, taxation, and
rising health care couests. Most of our clients lack the time,
the desire, or the experience to manage their own investment portfolios.
We consider it to be an honor and a privilege
to help our clients make sound investment decisions though contribute
(41:33):
to a secure financial future for them. Because over ninety
percent of our clients or retirees with similar concerns, we
are in the best position to approach such challenges with
experience and skill. Give us a call today at five
one eight, five eight zero one nine one nine five
eight five eight zero one nine one nine or RPG
retire on the web. The greatest risk in retirement most
(41:55):
of us have no plan for We're insurance to cover
the expense. A long term caravent can impoverish a spouse,
drain your life savings, and cast stress and anxiety on
your family. What is your plan and how will you
pay for a long term caravent? Call the Retirement Planning
Group today discuss options you should consider to protect your
estate and have choices and independence. Take action call today
(42:18):
five eight, five eight zero one or RPG retire on
the web.
Speaker 4 (42:44):
Everybody needs a let of time away.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
From meets Other're a good group, Zach love that song Chicago, Chicago. Well,
hopefully everybody is having a great weekend. Enjoy the day.
It's bright and sunny, a little bit nippy, but that's okay.
(43:15):
If you're listening on iHeartRadio, we welcome your phone calls too.
We had caller this morning from Houston, Texas, which is
always nice. It's amazing the reach that we have through
iHeartRadio with the podcast and the app. So remember, if
you missed this show, you can go back and listen
(43:36):
to it on iHeartRadio or you can go to our website.
We also have them linked to our website at rpgretire
dot com. And some of the things that I discuss,
people miss or they can't get it and they want
to go back and listen to it to a second time.
And that's great. But thank you. We've had an unbelievable year.
(43:58):
We have great clients. I'm very fortunate to have a
fantastic team, and I'm very fortunate that it's God has
blessed me with a great wife, a great family, and
the friends and my associates here like my buddy Zach
on the board, who does a fantastic job for me
(44:19):
every week on iHeartRadio. So we try to educate you.
We try to give you information that can lead you
to a more secure and safe retirement. Nobody wants to
go broke in retirement, we all know that. But what
we do want is the ability to participate in these markets,
and there's ways that we can do it. Now. I'm
(44:40):
not going to get into products because I think that,
you know, that's a waste of time, it's too complicated.
A lot of our compliance doesn't allow us to get
into a lot of ideas and concepts on the radio.
We can keep it playing vanilla, which I try to do.
But as I said at the retirement planning group, we
(45:00):
believe guarantees should be part of your core, so your
core expenses are covered. I just talked about growth potential
with a safety net. We can build that into your
portfolio right to meet your long term purchasing power. I
don't have to tell everybody that everything's a hell of
(45:21):
a lot more expensive than it was five years, ten years,
twenty years ago. So if you've got to look out
at a thirty to a thirty five year retirement, you
better have growth potential within your portfolio. And then, finally,
what I talked about is flexibility. You got to have
the flexibility in order to meet your current needs. You
(45:46):
need a roof, there's an event, there's a health, health scare,
whatever it may be. So let's talk a little bit
about the first bucket. Right, you want to create your
plan first and foremost, you want to make sure that
your data expenses are covered, right, housing, food, utilities, taxes, healthcare.
I go through the whole laundry list. Are covered by
(46:07):
what we call lifetime guaranteed income sources, and there's basically
three and I'll go through the three and then I'm
probably going to have to say goodbye for the day.
The first one, which is always for all of us,
the foundation is solid security. And when I say it's
the foundation for most of us, because there's been a
(46:28):
lot of people out there that have undersaved. You got
to decide when you are going to take your sole
security benefit. And I can't overemphasize this enough. Do not
take it simply because you're eligible to take it. There
are different ways and strategies to take your sole security benefit.
Excuse me, it's critical that you understand those, especially if
(46:49):
you've been in a previous marriage. If you're a widow,
there's widow benefits for both a husband and a wife,
but by selecting the wrong benefit it the wrong time,
it can be an extremely costly mistake. So as we're
all quite well aware widow benefits are at sixty you
(47:10):
get your early benefit a Social Security at sixty two FRA,
which we call full retirement age right now, ranges from
sixty six to sixty seven and depending on the year
in which you were born. If you wait until late
seventy to claim, that's the highest possible benefit that you're
going to receive. So we always tell individuals to come
(47:31):
in with their statement as they prepare to build out
their plan, and it gives us the ability to put
it into our software packaging money and we can basically
go through different types of scenarios. When the male, when
the female, when they should select the benefits are they
(47:52):
available or spousal benefits, benefits by their previous marriage. It
is complicated. It is complicated, and you need to really
go through that so you understand exactly the options that
are available through And as I said numerous times this
morning this afternoon, pensions used to be common. They're not anymore.
(48:17):
So if you've got a guaranteed income stream that's coming
in from Social Security, depending on what it is, some
can be substantial for husband and wives, you want to
basically look at what other monies did you want to
have come in that might have guaranteed The word guarantee
associated with it, especially for the surviving spouse. Now, whether
it's the male or a female, there's usually one person
(48:39):
that drives the bus that makes the financial decisions, right,
And if that is the case, you want to make
sure that the person that is left at death is
not there scratching their head trying to figure out how
am I going to do wealth replacement what we call
the retirement Planning group wealth replacement for the surviving spouse
(49:00):
to do it that you can create a pension benefit
for the individual that might not necessarily have the desire
to manage or be responsible for the income stream once
the spouse passes away. So there are a few things
to keep in mind. And I want to overemphasize this
(49:26):
and then I'm going to have to say goodbye. Right,
don't assume anything. Make sure you understand that annuities okay,
And I know I talk about annuities not a lot,
but I am an advocate for annuities for people that
do not have pension benefits. And I don't care if
(49:48):
it's Fidelity, Vanguard, Schwab. You go to their website and
they'll have right on there that you should purchase some
form of an annuity for guaranteed income stream with so
some of your assets in order for you to have
baseline income or what we call peace of mind. Now,
they are as complicated as you can imagine, they're extremely complicated.
(50:13):
That's why we overemphasize independent, open architecture through our platform.
We do not have an AX to grind. We have
hundreds of insurance companies that we can work through, and
basically what we do is we find the product whether
it's here in New York, Florida, Tennessee, Carolinas, or in
Alabama wherever our clients are, that can facilitate what the
(50:37):
client is looking for and the bells and whistles that
are associated with it. Don't believe the pinocchios when they
say that the only reason why the financial advisor is
recommending an annuity is because of the commission. That's a
tall tail. Annuities today are no different than buying a car.
(51:02):
You can go buy the Ferrari or you can buy
the Chevy. It depends on the bells and whistles and
all the things that you want associated with the chassis.
Just exactly the same with annuities. You can buy them
extremely extremely affordable. You can buy them where they don't
have riders on them, you can buy them where they
(51:23):
don't have a lot of expenses or fees. They're liquid.
But there's one key to an annuity because once you
turn on the income, here's the keyword, folks, lifetime, lifetime income.
I can't guarantee that, there's not any other financial advisor.
You can guarantee that. The only person that can guarantee
(51:44):
that is the insurance guy. So, if you're in the
marketplace and you're thinking about getting into retirement, get going.
The earlier, the sooner you do it, the better off
you're going to be. Retirement Planning Group. This is a
very big signal here at WGY. We have five offices.
(52:06):
You have us a call, we'd be more than happy
to sit down with you. Five one eight five eight
zero one nine one nine, God blessed, have a great week.
Speaker 1 (52:14):
Thank you for listening to Retirement Ready, hosted by Dave Kopek,
w G WISE retirement planning specialist. If you'd like to
talk with Dave or someone of the Retirement Planning Group,
called five one eight five eight zero one nine one nine.
That's five twenty five eight zero one nine one nine
during business hours or visit rpgretire dot com. The Retirement
(52:36):
Planning Group has five convenient offices located in Albany, Malta,
Glens Falls, Syracuse, and Oneana. Tune in again next week
for retirement planning strategies with Dave Kopek right here on
WGYS Retirement Ready. The information our services discussed on this
show is for informational purposes only and it is not
(52:59):
intended to be person no financial advice. The investments and
services offered by S may not be suitable for all investors.
If you have any doubts as to the merits of
an investment, you should seek advice from an independent financial advisor.
Live from the wgy iHeart Studios. Welcome to Retirement Ready
with your host Dave Kopek from the Retirement Ready Show.
Every week, Dave and his team discuss the ways they
can help people make informed decisions about a wide array
of retirement planning information that can support you and developing
a more certain financial future for you and your family.
(00:21):
Now it's time for Dave Kopec, WGY's retirement planning specialist.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
All Right, good afternoon. We are in upstate New York,
Sonny in the fifties, I believe, which is good. We'll
take that for November ninth, twenty twenty four, so you
can tell this is a live show. I'm here live today.
(01:29):
Took some time off over the last couple of weeks,
but it's good to be back in the saddle. And
as always, this is a call and show. This morning show.
From seven to nine, we had a lot of phone calls,
which I always think makes it more interesting for you
the listener, and also for us here in the studio
(01:50):
because we get questions that I think are probably top
of mind for a lot of individuals, what people are
thinking about, what they're trying to do with their pre
and post retirement planning. But as you're quite well aware,
this is a topic specific program, and what do I
(02:14):
mean by that. We focus in on one particular item
for the program and we try to stay focused on
that and hopefully it gives you a little bit more
education and makes you a better informed individual when you
go out into the financial services market. Just find the team,
(02:39):
an emphasized team, because the days of the one person
financial team, it's pretty much over with, pretty much over with.
So people have said to me over and over again,
you know the mothership Fidelity that we do all of
our business through the custodium, all of our assets. What
(03:00):
do they bring to the table. And I'm going to
go through that a little bit today as far as
what Fidelity does bring to the table and how you
as the consumer, as the consumer of financial information and products,
can be facilitated for your desires. First and foremost Fidelity.
(03:32):
We were just out there about a month ago for
a three day workshop, and I think that's probably the
most important part of Fidelity that I find as an
independent businessman, as far as what do they bring to
the table as far as education, data, top of mind
information that people need during this unbelievable time, I don't
(03:56):
have to go through what just transpired over this pastlast
week because for some of you, you're either dancing in
the street or others are probably having a snowflake moment.
Schools are letting people out early or taking days off
because they need to deal with the end result of
(04:20):
the election, which I find hilarious personally. But the reality
is that Fidelity does bring a lot of this information.
We had a long discussion at Fidelity. We had one
particular speaker that went over the election and what her
thoughts were would be facilitated to the financial markets now
(04:47):
being independent. And when I say independent, we market ourselves
as having no bias, no predetermined destination. We act in
a fiduciary capacity, and our focus is basically on three
segments of financial services. Investment management speaks for itself, managing
(05:12):
your money. Acid protection that speaks for itself. But some
people say, what do you mean by acid protection? Well,
acid protection is is that if I get into a
difficult situation, how can I protect my estate from either
creditors or predators, or evil son and laws or door
and laws, or from a long term care event. That's
(05:37):
what acid protection is. Very complicated landscape. One of the
best in the business you just listen to the previous
show is Loupiro And when I say he's one of
the best, I put him in the top. He knows
that inside and out. He's been doing it a long time.
That's extremely advantageous for you if you are a listener.
(05:58):
I listen to lou show every week. I make it
a point because I think he brings down on a
good guest. But Lou's been doing it a little bit
less than I have. This is my forty third year
in the financial services industry. I think Lou is around forty.
(06:18):
But to make a long story short, the asset protection
side of the business and also the legacy transferring wealth
to the next generation is probably going to be an
achilles heel for a lot of us. And what do
I mean by that? Eighty five trillion dollars of wealth,
(06:47):
which is estimated, could be more, could be a little
bit less. We'll transfer over the next thirty years to
my children, to my grandchildren, whoever I designate to receive
these assets. So the question you got to ask yourself
is do you have the right horses in the stable
(07:07):
in order to facilitate the greatest wealth transfer in the
history of mankind. Now, I personally don't think anybody's an expert,
but that's my personal opinion. I think certain individuals have
(07:28):
great knowledge, great expertise, But I don't like using the
word expert because like this morning, Nico and I were
here and we get talking a little bit about HSA accounts,
FSA accounts, and then had a gentleman that called in
and talked about MSA accounts, and I had no idea
(07:49):
what is an MSA account? Well, it's a Medicare savings account.
Didn't even know anything about it, didn't even know it
exists for people sixty five and older. But it does.
And I told that gentleman. Next week on the Retirement
Planning Show, not this show, but next week on the
Retirement Planning Show, I'm going to discuss mssays because I
(08:10):
want to research it, find someone that really knows it
inside and out, so we can edumacate you. We can
give you information that you can transfer to your own
personal pre and post retirement plan. So I have the
(08:32):
powerhouse behind me, the mothership Fidelity. I think they're responsible
for somewhere between fourteen to fifteen trillion dollars of assets
that they manage. But they also have an unbelievable amount
of research capabilities as far as questions you may have,
(08:54):
state planning, whatever may be. I'm not going to go
through the whole laundry list, but we are part of
what we call PIWA. What is FIWA. FIWA is Fidelity
Institutional Wealth Advisors. You got to knock on the door
and you got to ask to be let in. They
(09:14):
do all sorts of screening and scrubbing, they do all
sorts of information and then they find out if you're
eligible to be part of FIWA. Well, I'm proud to
say that the Retirement Planning Group is part of FIWA.
So what does that mean for you as a consumer
of financial products? That means for you that you you
(09:36):
have the ability to work with your own professional financial
team at Fidelity to build out your own models portfolios.
We actually have a team of individuals that we work
with PhDs CFAs go through the whole laundry list. So
(09:58):
it's a great, great opportunity for you to get some
additional I guess you could call added value by working
through the Retirement Planning Group. Why do I say this
because right now as they sit here today, there's six
(10:19):
and a half six point five trillion dollars sitting in
cash accounts. And last week, I don't have to tell
you we had a pretty spectacular week in the markets.
Right When I say that we had a pretty spectacular
week in the market, it's kind of an understatement. So
(10:39):
the thing is is that if we had a spectacular
week in the market and people are trying to wait
for their opportunity to get in, did they miss the boat?
Did they miss the boat? Well, as you're quite well aware,
I'm not a big believer in market timing, never have,
never will be. And I figure Warren Buffett doesn't believe
(11:01):
in it, then Dave Kopek shouldn't believe in it either.
And why do I say that, Because the markets on
an average went up about four and a half percent
last week, whether it was the Dial, the S and
P five hundred of the Nasdaq, those people in one
week they missed a huge updraft in the market. So
the thing is is that when we try to talk
(11:23):
about independence, no predetermined destination, no bias, no architecture, we
also try to talk about facts and not fiction. The
fact is it does not work Okay. People that are
out there that say that they can market time, yeah,
they might do it once occasionally. They might be able
(11:45):
to hit the button every once in a while and
hit the bullseye, but statistically it's the old Warren Buffett bet.
He went to a hedge funk guy or the hedge
trunk guy went to him and said, I'm going to
make a million dollar bet with you. And the million
dollar bet was this, I'm going to outperform you. And
Warren Buffett said, well, I'm just going to take my
(12:06):
money and I'll put it into the S and P
five hundred and I'll probably outperform you because your game
that you play, as far as trying to predict the
up through the downs or the future to the stock market,
can't be done consistently. And if you can do it,
then that's great. But I'm just going to get myself
into the S and P five hundred. We'll start at
(12:27):
this time and we finished in ten years, and we'll see,
well after about four or five years. The head funds
guys was so far behind, he said, that's it. Here's
the million bucks. I'm done. You're so far ahead, So
what does that show? It shows you a pretty simple,
simple process. They mean staying fully invested and not trying
to time things, being in the right asset allocation model,
(12:51):
and staying staying fully invested. You will be rewarded for
your patience. You will be rewarded for your patients. So
today we're going to talk a little bit about as
you go from accumulation into distribution and how soon you
(13:11):
should start thinking about this, and how important it is
for you to basically get your ducks in a row
because point of entry, point of entry can be critical
to your overall safety for your retirement years. So this
is Retirement Ready. I'm Dave Kopek, your host. I am
w gwy's retirement planning specialists. It's always great to be
(13:33):
on the air. I'm live in the studio. If you
have any questions or comments of what I'm discussing one
eight hundred talk WGY one eight two five fifty nine
forty nine, and if you want to come in and
have a chat with me or any one of my
team members, it's pretty simple. Just pick up the phone
five one eight five eight zero one nine one nine,
(13:54):
or check us out on the web rpgretire dot com. Again,
that's rpg retire dot com. We'll be right back the
eighty six percenters. Do you know that eighty six percent
of the population has no defined benefit pension plan. For
most of us, we have to take our life savings
and create a paycheck for the rest of our lives
in retirement. What is your plan for retirement income distribution?
(14:16):
How you manage your assets during the most critical years
of your lifetime. Nobel Prize winning economist William Sharp has
called retirement income distribution the nastiest, hardest problem in finance.
He points out that investment, uncertainty, and mortality can derail
the most careful laid out retirement income plan. Call our
offices today to start the process of building your retirement
(14:37):
income distribution plan. After forty one years of being in
the financial services business, you need to start taking action
to start building your own personal retirement income distribution plan.
How do you do that? To take action? Five one
eight five eight zero one nine nine. That's five one
eight five eight zero one nine one nine or RPG
retire on the web. Don't procrastinate, motivate to start building
(14:59):
your retirevironment income distribution plan five eight five eight zero
one nine nine. We run out of money in retirement?
Will your investments provide income for possibly decades? How do
you navigate the two greatest risk in retirement, sequence of
returns in longevity. At the Retirement Planning Group, our bucket
of Money approach addresses these concerns and we offer a
complimentary consultation to discuss this with you. Call our office
(15:22):
today for a free complimentary consultation to develop your own
personal retirement income distribution plan at five eight five eight
zero one nine one nine. That's five eight, five eight
zero one nine one nine. I guess forever another right,
(15:53):
We are back every weekend. It's a Saturday an upstate
New York and it's beautiful, it's sunny. Hopefully you're enjoying
your weekend and you're doing something fun with your family
and friends. As I said, I'm Dave Kopak. I'm the
president of the Retirement Planning Group, my forty third year
(16:14):
in business. WG WISE retirement planning specialists. It's always an
honor to be here and hopefully give you some suggestions
and ideas that you should be thinking about with your
pre and post retirement years. You know, we live in
a different world today, one that I never thought that
(16:35):
there could be possibly the type of wealth that has
been created for particular individuals that I know for a
lot of us, my parents were farmers on both sides
of the fence. I know what hard work is, but
I also know that some people are very fortunate in
(16:56):
life and they basically hit the mother load with either
the company that they're working for, or they've had some
luck and they've worked their tails off and they've accumulated
a lot of money. So if that is the case,
and you have large four oh one k large IRA
(17:20):
New York State deferred compensation, whatever it may be, I
think you realize one thing. Okay, nine out of ten
of us do not have pension benefits. So that means
that you're going to have to create a pension benefit
of some type in order for you to last a lifetime. Now,
if you have an abundance of money, okay, that's pretty
(17:41):
simple to do. You can do ladder bonds, you can
do CDs, you can do vivid in paying stocks, you
can do alternative investments. There's a whole list of things
that you can invest in. But for most of us,
the people that we work with who have anywhere from
let's say four hundred to eight hundred thousand dollars of
assets that they've accumulated. It is critical, It is critical
(18:06):
that they understand point of entry and longevity. What do
I mean by that point of entry is is that
am I entering during my retirement years into a bull
market or am I going into a bear market? Is
it a high interest rate environment or is it a
(18:27):
low interest rate environment? And finally, how many years am
I going to be responsible for managing assets in order
to satisfy my income needs, My purchasing power will stay
where it needs to be. Close your eyes if you're driving,
(18:48):
don't close your eyes. Please don't close your eyes if
you're driving. But if you're sitting there at home you're
listening to this, think about what was the price of
oil years ago, gasoline, the taxes on your home, healthcare groceries.
(19:10):
The average sixty five year old couple today This is
by Fidelity, not Dave Kopek. The average sixty five year
old couple today will live to the age of ninety
five one of you. Fidelity says plan for age one
hundred now, so that means over the next thirty to
thirty five years, you're gonna have to have what income,
(19:34):
You're gonna have to have purchasing power, You're gonna have
to be able to pay the taxes. And the question
a lot of people say is that, you know what,
that's scary. You know what, it is scary. It is scary.
But the thing is is that for the people that
have these large amounts of money that are inside these
(19:54):
four O one k's iras whatever it may be, non
qualified assets, okay, they can probably handle that challenge. But
for the average person, okay, the people that work for
like Bimbo Bakeries, National grid utilities, HVAC construction, guys that
(20:16):
get or gals that get lump sum distributions, how do
I manage this money to last a lifetime not only
for me, but for my spouse and oh, by the way,
I'd like to leave a few bucks for my kids.
So I'll talk about the buckets of money in simplistic terms.
(20:38):
And the reason why I do this is because it
can get complicated in the different chassis or products or
investment selection should really be probably the third or fourth
thing to be concerned about. But what you need to
do immediately as soon as you get to that age
(20:59):
fifty nine and a half. You can do what we
call an in service distribution from your four O one K,
and you can start managing the assets based off of
your risk profile and not have a limited amount of
investment options that have thousands of investment options because you're
in what we call the red zone. The red zone
(21:19):
is the time during your pre retirement years where you
have to start building out the buckets of money in
order to facilitate the type of lifestyle that you want
during your retirement years. Now, if you have a pension benefit,
you're way ahead of everybody. If you've received assets an inheritance,
(21:41):
some can be significant, you're already ahead of the game.
But for a lot of our hard working savers that
isn't the case, and now they're in a situation where
they basically have to take the portfolios, investments that they've
done in their lifetime and create a check rather than
receiving a check. So when we talk to individuals, we
(22:08):
always say one thing over and over again. What we
want to do is we want to focus on ROI. Really,
why do we want to just focus in on the
one thing? Because seven out of ten people want to
have ROI, but a lot of you do not do it.
(22:30):
And why is that? Because you're sold a package, you're
sold an idea or concept. Well, what do I mean
by ROI? Well, most of your thinking that you know,
why is he talking about return on investment. It's not
return on investment that I'm talking about. I'm talking about
(22:53):
reliability of income. Seven out of ten of you that
are out there want to have your investments during your
retirement years adequate enough in order to facilitate quality of life,
paying the bills without the risk of the money going
away before you go away. But most of you will
(23:16):
continue to allocate money in risk assets and not build
out what we call baseline income. Baseline income whether it's
a stormy day, a sunny day, whether it's a day
that you're sitting there and there's huge market volatility, you're
looking at election results. Did anybody think that the stock
(23:37):
market the day after the election was going to go
up over fifteen hundred points in the one of the
greatest moves in the history of the markets. After Trump
won the election, what did a lot of people do?
A lot of people head they went for protection, They
went to cash. There's six and a half trillion dollars
(23:59):
in cash, right, now sitting in cash equivalents and money
market accounts. So if you have reliability of income and
you have baseline, you don't have to worry about do
I have adequate amounts of money in order for me
to facilitate the quality of life that I want. You
(24:21):
don't miss out on these market moves. Five percent on
average last week was the market move of the three indicies.
So if that is the case, a lot of you
did not participate in that because you were either time
in the market, you were afraid of the results, or
your asset allocation didn't allow you to stay fully invested.
(24:43):
And that's what we're going to talk a little bit more,
and we can back for the second half hour, is
to talk about how to allocate money during your retirement
years and the safety that you're looking for and understanding
understanding that there are investments that have been designed specific
for the boomer generation that have now been fine tune adjusted, modified,
(25:06):
that are even bigger and better than they were before
in order to facilitate what we call pension benefits. Pension benefits,
and we'll discuss either the pros or cons. We'll talk
a little bit about the positives and the negatives and
how you, as a consumer of financial products, can make
an educated decision of what you should be doing. I'm
(25:30):
Dave Kopek. I am the president of the Retirement Planning Group.
We have five locations in New York and if you
want to him in for a consultation, or if you
want to do it over the internet zoom, more than
happy to facilitate that. Give us a call at five
one eight, five eight zero one nine nine and we'll
(25:52):
be right back after this quick message.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
You know how love was meant to be kind of
love the last.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
Forever and now haunt you here with me from tonight
until end of time.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Listen everywhere, always own my mind, in my home, in myself,
you call a meeting in my last body.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
All right, we are back. Good to be here. Happy Saturday.
Hopefully everybody's enjoying their weekend. I know I will be
go out to dinner with some friend of mine tonight
which we haven't seen for a while up in the
Lake Georgie area, and it should be fun with my wife.
So we're talking about this new world that we live in.
(27:13):
As far as retirement planning, we're talking a little bit
about the personal responsibility for you to understand the platform
that you're working through. Also, this is all we do
is pre im post retirement planning. Whether you're twenty five,
forty five, sixty five, or eighty five. The retirement planning
groups our destination is always the same, pre and post
(27:36):
retirement planning, an investment management, asset protection and the legacy
that you wish to leave your loved ones. Now, I'm
go give you a little secret here. Okay, I know
that seven out of ten of you, because it has
been consistent over the last five to ten years, are
looking for safety and guarantees with your retirement assets, but
(27:58):
most of you are not doing it. And after doing
this now for beginning of my forty third year, it's
my belief that a retirement income plan should include guaranteed
income right all your money absolutely positively not. You got
to have growth potential and you've got to have flexibility,
(28:18):
but you need to have peace of mind. What Dan Bouchard,
my former partner, used to call pillow planning. Put your
head on the pillow. You're not watching the fans spinning
at night because the market's volatile, and eventually, what you're
trying to do is prepare for life's curb walls with
your own personal retirement plan that combines your income needs
(28:42):
from multiple multiple sources. What do you mean by that, David, Well,
I'll tell you what I mean. We don't know that
one size does not fit all. Everybody has a different
view of what's going to happen during the retirement years.
Some people want to travel. My next door neighbor loves
(29:03):
to garden. My other next door neighbor likes to read
and do puzzles. So we know one thing for sure.
There's no one size that fits all. But you have
to find the right mix for you. For you, you
have to find the right mix for you with the
(29:24):
different types of investments. Right that includes your savings, what
your expenses are going to be, your healthcare costs which
are astronomical. Now I don't have to tell anybody that,
and what your values are, what's your personal values. But
the good news is that whatever your situation, you can
(29:48):
improve your retirement readiness by being proactive. And I'm going
to talk about three essential building blocks for retirement income plants.
After forty two years of doing this, going into my
forty third I don't even blink when I say this. Now,
(30:13):
what are the three building blocks. You got to have growth,
You have to have guaranteed income, and then that flexibility
is necessary because life throws us curveballs and things change,
right premature death, health events. I can go through a
(30:37):
laundry list. The last couple months, I've spent more time
at sunerals and wakes than I probably have done in
the last ten years. Why is that? Because my book
of business is getting older. I have clients that I've
been working with for over thirty years. So when I
talk about guarantees to ensure that core expenses are covered,
(31:00):
I talk about growth potential to meet your long term
needs and legacy goals and the flexibility they want to
have in order to meet them or a nine to
one one. You don't want to be tied to anything
where you're landlocked, where you can't get out of it,
and that's a problem with a lot of investments today.
(31:21):
If you get allocated into a particular type of investment
that you can't leave or the portfolio manager controls the exit,
that's not good. A lot of your alternative investments. You
hear the buzzword out there, right, You want to hear
about private equity. You want to hear about, you know,
(31:43):
all of these exotic ways that people are making substantial
amounts of money, but you don't hear about the other
side of it, when things go bad and people want
to get their money out the door and they can't
get it. So when you create your plan for and foremost,
let's talk about your day to day expenses, your non
(32:08):
negotiable costs. What are those days housing? Now, I've got
a great client. She's been with me now for thirty
some years. She just came into the office and her
(32:28):
husband's been deceased for over twenty years. She's well into
her late eighties, and she made a decision about ten
years ago after her husband passed that she no longer
wanted the responsibility of a house and she wanted to
go out and get an apartment. I said, I think
(32:52):
that's a great idea. You won't have the responsibility maintenance, upkeep,
et cetera, et cetera. Well, her rent is going from
around nine hundred dollars a month at the time that
she originally went into this apartment to now where it's
almost two thousand dollars a month. And she came in
and she wanted to know what can I do in
(33:14):
order to mitigate some of these expenses. Her power bill
was a fraction what it is today, her health care
costs were a fraction, and I basically said to her,
I said, I would love to be able to take
out the magic wand but the reality is is that
there's only a certain amount of money that's in the pot,
(33:35):
and we have to make sure that we're going to
have adequate amounts of money in order to facilitate quality
of life and also the ability for you to do
some of the things that you want to do with
your son and your daughter. The foundation was already set up,
how we allocated the money, the amount of risk that
(33:56):
we thought was suitable for her. So the impact of
what has transpired over the last twenty years for her
is that now she's going to have to downsize. She's
going to have to move at her later ages, and
what we're looking for as senior housing. Right now, she
doesn't want to do it. But the reality is is
(34:18):
that it is tempting. Right when the stock market is
dancing in the street and everybody's making all sorts of
money to go chase it, Well, what happens if the
market goes down twenty or thirty or forty percent. What
happens if we're in a bear market for an extent
period of time? Can she make the adjustment? Can she
(34:43):
psychologically handle it at her late eighties in order for
her to be in that type of an investment program.
My answer to you is no, she can't. She can't.
So the thing is is that when we designed her portfolio,
we had guaranteed money that her husband wanted for her.
(35:05):
We had growth potential money that was growth potential, and
we also had the flexibility that we could move around
in order to make adjustments on her plan. So is
what's going to happen here? How are we going to
be able to facilitate the money that she needs during
her retirement years. No one wants to see their money diminished.
(35:31):
No one wants to see the pot of gold going down.
But the reality is, sometimes you have to decouple yourself
from the assets and think logically, what I need to
do in order for me to have a quality of life. Now,
when she came to us, they had about a little
(35:54):
less than three hundred thousand dollars of assets at that
time when they originally started working with us. That was
a pretty good chunk of change in today's world not
so much. So what did I do? I called the
daughter and I called the son. I said, we got
(36:15):
to have a chat. And the chat that we have
to have here is that I know that your mom
wants to leave a legacy for both you and your sibling.
But the reality is is that she is not going
to be able to have the quality of life that
she wants because she's worried about the transfer of wealth. Dave,
(36:38):
we don't need the money, Dave, we don't want the money.
We've told mom to spend the money. We're fine, and
they are both fine. One's an attorney, the othern works
for the State of New York. They don't need the money.
But the mother, because she grew up Cohos factory workers,
(37:02):
both her and her husband, it's hard for her not
to leave a legacy or a transfer of wealth. So
this is what we're doing. We're going to spend down
some of the money so when she dies, the money dies.
That means that we're going to accelerate the payments to
(37:23):
her so she can have quality of life, so she
can have the income that she needs. But when she's gone,
the money's gone. It's called a spear the single premium
media to noity, it gives her the greatest velocity on
her money, with the greatest amount of safety under these
current market conditions. Is she going to do it with
(37:44):
all ever money? Absolutely positively not, because it's still deep
down in her heart she wants to leave some assets
to her children. So pensions that were a commonplace not
so much anymore. Only about thirteen million currently employed people
(38:09):
have a defined benefit pension here in the United States,
thirteen million a three hundred and semi million individuals that
currently hear. So if you're one of those people, right
that has a pension benefit, you should be high five
and are jumping up and down. That woman called me
this morning. That's a future retiree state in York. Pension healthcare.
(38:35):
Doesn't have to worry about those expenses, doesn't have to
worry about how do I create an income? Right? What's
her concern? Her concern is not do I have enough
income and I'm going to be okay as far as
my health care costs. Her concern is what happens if
something happens to me and I have to go into
a long term care facility. So what did I say
(38:57):
at the beginning of this, there's no cookie cutter. Everybody's different.
Everybody has different families, different objectives, what they're trying to
achieve in their lifetime. And what I would say to
you is that a lot of these organizations where you
dial the number and they start giving you recommendations because
(39:18):
of laws and compliance and liability. If you go in
box A, that's where you go. Box A, they fill
out the form of your in B, you go and B.
There's very little adjustment, there's very little personal touch. So
there are ways to create a pension like stream of income.
(39:44):
You just have to have what we call open architecture
and understand the firm that you're working with that can
facilitate that can facilitate these types of options. Working with
a professional, I don't care it's Fidelity, Vanguard, Schwab, any
(40:04):
your major investment banking firms. They all say the same thing.
It's proven that you'll get farther ahead by having a
successful plan with the financial team. And that's what we
do with the Retirement Planning Group. We build out a
plan that has guaranteed income growth potential and the third
(40:30):
and the most important one flexibility. I'm going to take
my final break. Come into our last segment. If you
have any questions or comments. I'm live in the studio
today if you'd like to participate, Love to hear from you.
One eight hundred Talk WGY. That's one eight hundred and
eight two five fifty nine forty nine. I think we
got all of our phone calls this morning, Zach, Yeah,
(40:52):
all right, I'll be right back. Your partner for success
David Kopek, heir WGY's retirement planning specialists the Retirement Planning Group.
We understand that retirees face many important decisions that can
affect their long term financial success. Some of these decisions
revolve around making investments that will help create a hedge
(41:13):
against outliving their assets, the impact of inflation, taxation, and
rising health care couests. Most of our clients lack the time,
the desire, or the experience to manage their own investment portfolios.
We consider it to be an honor and a privilege
to help our clients make sound investment decisions though contribute
(41:33):
to a secure financial future for them. Because over ninety
percent of our clients or retirees with similar concerns, we
are in the best position to approach such challenges with
experience and skill. Give us a call today at five
one eight, five eight zero one nine one nine five
eight five eight zero one nine one nine or RPG
retire on the web. The greatest risk in retirement most
(41:55):
of us have no plan for We're insurance to cover
the expense. A long term caravent can impoverish a spouse,
drain your life savings, and cast stress and anxiety on
your family. What is your plan and how will you
pay for a long term caravent? Call the Retirement Planning
Group today discuss options you should consider to protect your
estate and have choices and independence. Take action call today
(42:18):
five eight, five eight zero one or RPG retire on
the web.
Speaker 4 (42:44):
Everybody needs a let of time away.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
From meets Other're a good group, Zach love that song Chicago, Chicago. Well,
hopefully everybody is having a great weekend. Enjoy the day.
It's bright and sunny, a little bit nippy, but that's okay.
(43:15):
If you're listening on iHeartRadio, we welcome your phone calls too.
We had caller this morning from Houston, Texas, which is
always nice. It's amazing the reach that we have through
iHeartRadio with the podcast and the app. So remember, if
you missed this show, you can go back and listen
(43:36):
to it on iHeartRadio or you can go to our website.
We also have them linked to our website at rpgretire
dot com. And some of the things that I discuss,
people miss or they can't get it and they want
to go back and listen to it to a second time.
And that's great. But thank you. We've had an unbelievable year.
(43:58):
We have great clients. I'm very fortunate to have a
fantastic team, and I'm very fortunate that it's God has
blessed me with a great wife, a great family, and
the friends and my associates here like my buddy Zach
on the board, who does a fantastic job for me
(44:19):
every week on iHeartRadio. So we try to educate you.
We try to give you information that can lead you
to a more secure and safe retirement. Nobody wants to
go broke in retirement, we all know that. But what
we do want is the ability to participate in these markets,
and there's ways that we can do it. Now. I'm
(44:40):
not going to get into products because I think that,
you know, that's a waste of time, it's too complicated.
A lot of our compliance doesn't allow us to get
into a lot of ideas and concepts on the radio.
We can keep it playing vanilla, which I try to do.
But as I said at the retirement planning group, we
(45:00):
believe guarantees should be part of your core, so your
core expenses are covered. I just talked about growth potential
with a safety net. We can build that into your
portfolio right to meet your long term purchasing power. I
don't have to tell everybody that everything's a hell of
(45:21):
a lot more expensive than it was five years, ten years,
twenty years ago. So if you've got to look out
at a thirty to a thirty five year retirement, you
better have growth potential within your portfolio. And then, finally,
what I talked about is flexibility. You got to have
the flexibility in order to meet your current needs. You
(45:46):
need a roof, there's an event, there's a health, health scare,
whatever it may be. So let's talk a little bit
about the first bucket. Right, you want to create your
plan first and foremost, you want to make sure that
your data expenses are covered, right, housing, food, utilities, taxes, healthcare.
I go through the whole laundry list. Are covered by
(46:07):
what we call lifetime guaranteed income sources, and there's basically
three and I'll go through the three and then I'm
probably going to have to say goodbye for the day.
The first one, which is always for all of us,
the foundation is solid security. And when I say it's
the foundation for most of us, because there's been a
(46:28):
lot of people out there that have undersaved. You got
to decide when you are going to take your sole
security benefit. And I can't overemphasize this enough. Do not
take it simply because you're eligible to take it. There
are different ways and strategies to take your sole security benefit.
Excuse me, it's critical that you understand those, especially if
(46:49):
you've been in a previous marriage. If you're a widow,
there's widow benefits for both a husband and a wife,
but by selecting the wrong benefit it the wrong time,
it can be an extremely costly mistake. So as we're
all quite well aware widow benefits are at sixty you
(47:10):
get your early benefit a Social Security at sixty two FRA,
which we call full retirement age right now, ranges from
sixty six to sixty seven and depending on the year
in which you were born. If you wait until late
seventy to claim, that's the highest possible benefit that you're
going to receive. So we always tell individuals to come
(47:31):
in with their statement as they prepare to build out
their plan, and it gives us the ability to put
it into our software packaging money and we can basically
go through different types of scenarios. When the male, when
the female, when they should select the benefits are they
(47:52):
available or spousal benefits, benefits by their previous marriage. It
is complicated. It is complicated, and you need to really
go through that so you understand exactly the options that
are available through And as I said numerous times this
morning this afternoon, pensions used to be common. They're not anymore.
(48:17):
So if you've got a guaranteed income stream that's coming
in from Social Security, depending on what it is, some
can be substantial for husband and wives, you want to
basically look at what other monies did you want to
have come in that might have guaranteed The word guarantee
associated with it, especially for the surviving spouse. Now, whether
it's the male or a female, there's usually one person
(48:39):
that drives the bus that makes the financial decisions, right,
And if that is the case, you want to make
sure that the person that is left at death is
not there scratching their head trying to figure out how
am I going to do wealth replacement what we call
the retirement Planning group wealth replacement for the surviving spouse
(49:00):
to do it that you can create a pension benefit
for the individual that might not necessarily have the desire
to manage or be responsible for the income stream once
the spouse passes away. So there are a few things
to keep in mind. And I want to overemphasize this
(49:26):
and then I'm going to have to say goodbye. Right,
don't assume anything. Make sure you understand that annuities okay,
And I know I talk about annuities not a lot,
but I am an advocate for annuities for people that
do not have pension benefits. And I don't care if
(49:48):
it's Fidelity, Vanguard, Schwab. You go to their website and
they'll have right on there that you should purchase some
form of an annuity for guaranteed income stream with so
some of your assets in order for you to have
baseline income or what we call peace of mind. Now,
they are as complicated as you can imagine, they're extremely complicated.
(50:13):
That's why we overemphasize independent, open architecture through our platform.
We do not have an AX to grind. We have
hundreds of insurance companies that we can work through, and
basically what we do is we find the product whether
it's here in New York, Florida, Tennessee, Carolinas, or in
Alabama wherever our clients are, that can facilitate what the
(50:37):
client is looking for and the bells and whistles that
are associated with it. Don't believe the pinocchios when they
say that the only reason why the financial advisor is
recommending an annuity is because of the commission. That's a
tall tail. Annuities today are no different than buying a car.
(51:02):
You can go buy the Ferrari or you can buy
the Chevy. It depends on the bells and whistles and
all the things that you want associated with the chassis.
Just exactly the same with annuities. You can buy them
extremely extremely affordable. You can buy them where they don't
have riders on them, you can buy them where they
(51:23):
don't have a lot of expenses or fees. They're liquid.
But there's one key to an annuity because once you
turn on the income, here's the keyword, folks, lifetime, lifetime income.
I can't guarantee that, there's not any other financial advisor.
You can guarantee that. The only person that can guarantee
(51:44):
that is the insurance guy. So, if you're in the
marketplace and you're thinking about getting into retirement, get going.
The earlier, the sooner you do it, the better off
you're going to be. Retirement Planning Group. This is a
very big signal here at WGY. We have five offices.
(52:06):
You have us a call, we'd be more than happy
to sit down with you. Five one eight five eight
zero one nine one nine, God blessed, have a great week.
Speaker 1 (52:14):
Thank you for listening to Retirement Ready, hosted by Dave Kopek,
w G WISE retirement planning specialist. If you'd like to
talk with Dave or someone of the Retirement Planning Group,
called five one eight five eight zero one nine one nine.
That's five twenty five eight zero one nine one nine
during business hours or visit rpgretire dot com. The Retirement
(52:36):
Planning Group has five convenient offices located in Albany, Malta,
Glens Falls, Syracuse, and Oneana. Tune in again next week
for retirement planning strategies with Dave Kopek right here on
WGYS Retirement Ready. The information our services discussed on this
show is for informational purposes only and it is not
(52:59):
intended to be person no financial advice. The investments and
services offered by S may not be suitable for all investors.
If you have any doubts as to the merits of
an investment, you should seek advice from an independent financial advisor.
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