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 waste They
can help people make informed decisions about a wider 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 Copec w g Y's Retirement
Planning Specialist, a rocking around.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
The Christmas tree at the Christmas Spot.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
And this will do highway you go and see evable chas.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Start all right, Happy holidays, Merry Christmas, Christmas. I'm Dave Kopek.
I'm your host w Guy's Retirement Planning Specialists and this
is Retirement Ready, which is a topic specific show which
you always enjoy doing because we can get into some
(01:07):
of the weeds a little bit and talk in particular
about one topic. But I'm live in the studio. If
you want to interject, You're more than happy to do it.
It's one eight talk to be Gy. That's one eight
HUNDW five forty nine. You know a lot of people
are watching football already. Zach is biting at the bit
(01:30):
to get out of here. Penn State's on right now.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Penn State SMU and I got cookie making to do
as soon as I.
Speaker 5 (01:40):
Get out of work. Yeah, he so cook the kids
are coming over.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Yeah, go buy them two boxes. You get two for
one at Fryhofer's with those chocolate chips.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Sorry, guys, I already decorated them without your football time.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
There you go.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
But I'm the president of the Retirement Planning Group. We
have five located in New York State, Syracuse, Sonyanaglen's Falls,
Aubny and of course Multi Slash Saratoga. If anything that
I'm talking about is of interest to you, and give
us a call to a lot of people over the
last year that have come in and had a chat
with us and became clients of the Retirement Planning Group.
(02:16):
We're open architecture, we're independent, we have no bias, no
predetermined destination. We act in a fiduciary capacity, and we
really focus in on three areas investment management, asset protection,
and of course the legacy that you wish to leave
your loved ones. And that's a big deal today because
no matter who you talk to. I heard Lou talk
a little bit about it, on his show this morning,
(02:38):
and you know, eighty five trillion dollars of wealth transfer
eighty five trillion dollars estimated to be that will transfer
from the boomer generation to our children and grandchildren. So
it's a big deal. It's a big deal how you
set it up and how you title your assets.
Speaker 5 (02:56):
But again, if.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
Anything that I'm discussing you want to have a chat,
it's one eight hundred talk WGI one eight eight two
five fifty nine forty nine. We live in a world
today that we're all quite well aware most of us
do not have pension benefits, and we have to kind
of before we get there, imagine what our retirement's going
(03:18):
to look like. And at the Retirement Planning Group, we
don't believe in a cookie cutter approach because every family's different,
everybody's risk tolerance is different, and what we try to
do is to make sure that there's no surprises at
the end of the rainbow, to make sure that you
walk into your retirement and it's filled with joy and happiness,
(03:40):
not with stress and anxiety. So, you know, as we're
all quite well aware, when we cross the bridge and
we go into retirement, you know, for a lot of us.
It's the ultimate achievement. It's a lifetime of working nine
to five, and a lot of people have called it
(04:02):
the golden years, but that's changed for some. That has
changed for some individuals, which we'll get into a little bit.
The mothership Fidelity does a lot of data research, has
a lot of surveys with clients and prospective clients. In
some of this information I'm going to give from a
recent survey, but the one study noted that people after
(04:28):
the COVID event that we just went through, we're going
to retire later older. And factors such as your health,
the amount of money that you've created and wealth, your aide,
your maritial status, your mortality expectations, did you take good
care of yourself, You've got good genes play a pretty
(04:51):
essential role in determining when you retire and if it's
going to be sooner than later. And the big thing
is is that have you done your homework ahead of time?
Have you set aside adequate amounts of savings? We all
(05:14):
know it's challenging to do. And for the people that
were in this survey from age forty five to sixty five,
what's their status? How are they feeling? Well, some of
you that are listening today are still committed to accumulation,
(05:36):
putting money aside for your retirement years. There's been a
lot of bumps in the road over the last few
years as far as volatility downdrafts in the market. If
for some of you, it's been too much. That's why
we're sitting at about six and a half trillion dollars
in cash right now and cash equivalence in the money
market accounts. A lot of you have missed the updraft
(05:58):
in the market because you didn't want to have volatility,
because it had been too much of a roller coaster
ride for your retirement savings. So let's talk a little
bit about what's keeping you up at night. What is
keeping you up at night in regards to your retirement plan,
(06:20):
whether you have one into your retirement years or you're
expecting to go there in the very near future. Well,
almost sixty five percent of the people that were involved
in the survey, one of their main concerns is purchasing
power inflation. Are my dollars going to be adequate enough
(06:46):
in the next ten, fifteen, twenty thirty years in order
for me to have quality of life, to have the
purchasing power that I have today in the future, think
about it. Think about what it costs you ten, fifteen,
twenty years just for basic expenses, housing, healthcare, taxes, go
(07:12):
through the whole laundry list. The one that will shock you,
of course, is what healthcare. What it costs you to
protect your family today? Almost fifty percent of you in
the survey said market volatility causes great worry and it
keeps you up at night. Fifty percent don't like the
(07:37):
swings in the market. If thirty seven percent said they
are apprehensive about being able to keep pace with their
housing expenses. Some of these can be addressed. Some of
these can't be addressed. First and foremost is that you
(07:59):
can have of investments that a lot of you get
stock market rates and returns, and you eliminate market volatility.
The only thing that happens is your portfolio goes up
and never goes down. Those investments exist, they're called buffer
products alternative investments. But how do you expect your standard
(08:26):
living to be? Thirty three percent of retirement plan participants
A third expect their standard of living to be equal
or a little bit better in their retirement years. Fifty
expect their standard living to be somewhat okay. Forty two
(08:49):
percent of retires expect their standard living in retirement to
be a little bit worse than what they are right now.
So if that's the case, what's the answer. How do
people address these concerns? How do they work through them?
(09:10):
And the thing is is that what is the answer
in order to facilitate a retirement that is filled with
happiness and not filled with worry or anxiety like they
just said fifty percent that keeps them up at night,
it's not the retirement that I'm looking for. So for
(09:35):
some of us, we've exited, we've excited, we've exited our
main jobs after COVID, and we've taken a new path
in our lives, some not by choice, some by choice,
some for reasons out of their control, downsizing loss of jobs.
(10:01):
But for some of us, we've elected to go on
a different path because we just said that's it. I
no longer want to be involved in a nine to
five that I'm not happy with, and now I'm going
to go down a path that's going to hopefully give
me more happiness and give me more control in the
ability to basically have more my time. So if you
(10:24):
end up exiting stage right, retiring earlier than you plan
for either unexpected reasons or a decision that was made
by you, you got to consider do I have enough
money in the pot and how I'm going to pay
the bills not only today but in the future. And
(10:47):
the biggest catalyst for most of us if you paid
your house off, you don't have a mortgage is healthcare.
Because healthcare costs today before the age of sixty five,
when you're Medicare eligible, can be a mortgage payment for
a lot of us. Husband and wife, It's not uncommon
for people to come into the retirement planning group that
(11:08):
basically say that they're spending fifteen hundred to nineteen hundred
dollars two thousand dollars a month for healthcare, dental vision.
So we're going to be talking about this new world
that we live in, how the monkey is now on
our back for our quality of life and the type
(11:30):
of retirement that we're trying to achieve in how we
can address it not only during our accumulation years, but
also if we're already in our retirement years. But again,
I'm Dave Kopak, I'm the president of the Retirement Planning Group.
I'm WGY's retirement planning specialists. This is my twenty fifth
year in radio, which is hard to believe, my forty
(11:52):
third year in the financial services business.
Speaker 5 (11:55):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Your partner for success, David Kopak, here, your retirement plan
specialists at WGUI 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 can help create a hedge against outliving their income,
the impact of deflation, taxation, and rising healthcare cost. Because
(12:19):
over ninety percent of our clients are retirees with similar concerns,
we are in the best position to approach such challenges
with experience and skill. Most of our clients lack the time,
the desire, or the experience to manage to their own
investment portfolios. We consider it an honor and a privilege
to help our clients make sound investment decisions that will
(12:40):
contribute to us secure future. We welcome the opportunity become
your partner and establishing your retirement plan. Give us a
call today for your complementary consultation at five one eight
five eat zero one nine one nine. That's five eight
five eat zero one nine one nine or RPG retire
on the web. The greatest risk in retirement. Most of
us have no plan for or insurance to cover the expense.
(13:03):
A long term cara event can impoverish a spouse, drain
your life savings, and cost stress and anxiety on your family.
What is your plan and how will you pay for
a long term caravan? Call the Retirement Planning Group today.
Discuss options you should consider to protect your estate and
have choices and independence. Take action Call today five eight
five eight zero one or RPG retire on the web.
(13:34):
Not of all.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
Rangers, you know you're the mastermind.
Speaker 7 (13:41):
Run Run Rudolf, run off, make you far behind, run
ron rudof c A got to make it to town.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Santral making very tenant.
Speaker 7 (13:55):
He can take the freeway down.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
They do apart.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Be careful out there, folks driving because there's some patches.
It's a little bit snowy slippery, so if you're out
and about, go slow, give yourself some distance. Saw a
couple of fender benders when I left the studio this morning,
so be careful because it is slippery in spots. Talking
(14:29):
today about how do you deal with the new retirement night.
Out of ten of us do not have pension benefits.
Most of us don't go into retirement with health care.
And if you do have healthcare, it's Medicare, and then
we've got to pick up the supplements. But that's only
(14:50):
one spoke of the wheel of all the other things
that you need to address. I just said, I've been
in the business now for forty three years. I've been
doing pre and post retire specifically since nineteen ninety nine.
So there are a lot of things that I haven't seen,
and there's a lot of things that I've seen that
I think need to be addressed today, much more so
(15:13):
than twenty thirty years ago. The big thing, of course,
is our own personal health. We're taking much better care
of ourselves. We're eating better, we're exercising more, we're not
sucking on those terrible things called cigarettes. And the other
(15:39):
good thing is that we're staying busier. What do I
mean by that? According to a Harvard study, one key
to happiness and retirement is maintaining relationships with others and
staying busy. Do what makes you happy? If you enjoy
(16:06):
your job, but you don't want to do it full time,
maybe a phase out, maybe you work part time, Maybe
you find a job that gives you more joy, more compassion,
something that's heartfelt. So being busy is a positive, not
(16:27):
a negative. And by the way, it also helps the checkbook.
It helps your retirement budget. It allows you hopefully to
put some more money away, hopefully pre tax in a
four to oh one k. It helps you in regards
to the day to day expenses that you have. And
I just read an article this morning one of the
(16:48):
trade magazines. One of the largest group of people that
corporations going after now are seniors, people that have retired
that are unhappy with retirement, that are working from home,
through the internet, through technology in order to facilitate what
corporations are looking for. Pretty interesting article. We see it
(17:14):
all the time. It's not uncommon for us to see
individuals that come in to the retirement planning group that
have part time jobs, that are working as a consultant.
A lot of the ge people Lockheed Martin, they go
out into the retirement years, they have the opportunity to
do some work on the side. How much money will
(17:39):
I need if I had a penny for every time
someone said that to me over the last twenty to
twenty five years, I'd have a whole pile of cash
sitting on the table. The traditional rule of thumb says
you need anywhere from seventy to eighty percent of your
current salary. Now I say you need seventy eighty percent
(18:01):
of your current salary minus all the deductions in what
you've been putting into your four onh one K plan,
because that's the cash that you've actually been living on.
So if you are retired, and let's say, just keep
it simple, you were making eighty thousand dollars a year,
(18:23):
and after you paid all your federal and state and
you took your write offs and your deductions, and also
as far as the amount of cash you were setting
aside for your four oh one ken four to one
K or your retirement plan, that's about let's say fifty
thousand dollars. Just to keep it simple, eighty percent of
(18:46):
fifty thousand dollars, just forty thousand dollars. Then you load up,
you stack on top of that your Social Security benefits.
It's probably a pretty good target of what you should
be looking at. You know, we talk about at the
Retirement Planning Group the three stages of retirement go go years,
(19:07):
slogo years, and no go years. You will spend more
money in your go go years, but that's okay because
typically when one of the spouses pass away, or if
there's a healthcare event or something starts happening to you
physically where you can't go, you're going to have this
(19:27):
whole pile of cash and you're not going to really
enjoy it because you don't have the ability to enjoy it. So,
not surprisingly, most retirees spend more during their go go
years of retirement than they did during the slog and
the no go years. But some workers, as I said,
(19:57):
which we've seen at the Retirement Planning Group, gradually transition
into full retirement than choosing a specific dat or time
instead of just moving automatically from full time work to
no time work can be a huge difficult adjustment. We
(20:18):
have seen this consistently with high stress corporate executives that
are basically sitting there playing tittally winks when they walk
out the door. Now, some love it, others find it
very difficult. One in particularly I think of as a
ge executive that worked with us, he had a horrible
(20:39):
time for the first two to three years in order
to transition into his retirement years feeling a boredom, loss
of purpose. But that doesn't mean that you can't find
a new purpose or a new skill that interests you
to help you to adjust. Do that pre not post retirement,
(21:02):
so you get an idea of where you're headed. In
the study, retirees with purpose are often happier and healthier
and live longer. So a lot of times when you're
sitting down, you're saying, O, what, I'm going to exit
stage right in twenty twenty five, I'm going to go
(21:25):
into my retirement years. You've got to define your purpose.
What's going to make you happy? What's going to fulfill
you during your retirement years? Is it travel? Is it
a part time job? Is a woodworking shop? There's a
guard who knows all the above, But I can tell
(21:48):
you this much. It should be done with your significant other.
This is a conversation that both of you should have
as far as the adjustment period. You know, it's not
uncommon that people retire. He looks at her, She looks
at him and says, who are you? Because you haven't
(22:10):
spent an extended period of time together. Yeah, you've had
your time, but not full time. It was part time.
So making sure that you understand these different obstacles that
you could be facing doesn't make you unique or different.
(22:32):
It makes you part of the group here that is
dealing with the same issues on a day to day,
month and month year to year basis. The big thing,
which I'm going to get into greater detail when we
come back, is healthcare. A lot of retirees are basically
(22:56):
shocked by the price of healthcare. Fidelity just did a
study healthy sixty five year old couple going into the retirement.
It's estimated out of pocket expenses for both couples will
be three hundred and thirty thousand dollars and that does
(23:19):
not include long term care. Three hundred and thirty thousand dollars.
Every year over the last five years, that target number
has gone up. You have three hundred and thirty thousand
set aside. Is going to come out of cash flow?
Where is it going to come out of So it's
(23:41):
a good idea before you get that last paycheck to
start building out those buckets of money that we talk
about that are specific for the retirement that you and
your spouse, your loved one, your significant have chosen, whether
(24:05):
it's healthcare, travel, new cars, maintenance on the home, home repairs,
HVA systems, RV, the house in Florida, etc.
Speaker 5 (24:19):
Etc.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
But the big thing, of course is planned for surprises.
Life has a way to hit you with the two
by four right over the forehead, which can surprise you.
It can have a devastating impact not only in your
current retirement but also for your significant other. So if
(24:43):
you need help with any of this, we are here
at the Retirement Planning Group. I say it over and
over again all the time, without a plan any destination
will do We help point you in the direction that
you want to go in.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
Not only do we help you with.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
Attax planning, retirement, income distribution plan, the estate plan, buckets
of money as far as where you're going to go
when you need to tap into a pot of money
in order to facilitate the things that you need. You're
prepared rather than unprepared. So if you want to give
(25:24):
us a call, we have five locations in New York now.
Our telephone number in our corporate offices in Malta Saratoga
County is five one eight five eight zero one nine nine.
That's five one eight five eight zero one nine one nine.
Check us out on the web rpgretire dot com. Again,
(25:44):
that's rpgretire dot com. And again I'm Dave Kopek, WG
WISE Retirement Planning Specialists. This is my twenty fifth year
in radio. It's good to be here. Merry Christmas, Happy
holidays to everybody. We'll be right back after the news.
Speaker 6 (26:10):
Marry Christmas, baby show a treat nice I said, Merry Christmas,
baby show A treat me nice ball me a diamond
(26:31):
ring for Christmas.
Speaker 7 (26:32):
And I feel like I come here pas dies feeling
Loadifie and my music Don Ray, he said, I'll feel alady,
nice shirt.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
All right, comm music, Dave Kopek, It's good to be here,
right Christmas, Happy holidays. Hopefully you're out stimulating the economy.
I know I was out yesterday and it is busy.
Probably be crazy busy out there today. No engineer, my
(27:13):
producer here, he's got to go out and do cookies later.
Do you do it from scratch there, Zach? Or do
you go out and buy the tubes of cookie and
you slice and dice and throw them in the oven.
You do it the easy way of the hard way.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Well, originally I was going to make them from scratch
with flowers and stuff. But I bought the packet to
create the dough to roll it out to cut it.
But I do know how to bake from scratch.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
I just we'll soon find out.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
A texted my wife, I go, we got two NFL games,
three college football games, and yet we're having kids over.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
Well, you know what, Like I said, this is you're
going to the big time Now.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
I joke around, but I love the memories that we
create with the little ones.
Speaker 4 (27:59):
No enjoy it because it's going to go up by fast.
It goes by too fast.
Speaker 5 (28:09):
You know.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
One of the things that we deal with all the
time at the retirement Planning group is individuals that end
up needing care assistance, and for some of us, it
can be a daunting task. And it's one that you know,
most financial advisors talk about the Elibrick road and return
on investment, but a lot of people don't talk about
(28:30):
what could possibly derail your retirement, impoverish your spouse. It
puts you in a position where you basically have gone
through your life savings taking care of a loved one,
and in this survey that just came out. One of
(28:54):
the main concerns is healthcare and long term care planning,
and eighty percent.
Speaker 5 (29:02):
Of the people.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
Believe they need some type of care or assistance as
they age. But most of you have absolutely no idea
where to go, what type of products that are out there,
and how it can facilitate caregiving. Now I can speak
by experience because my wife and I were caregivers for
(29:27):
six and a half years, so I know it can
be challenging. I know what the stress that puts on
the individual that is the caregiver. And I think it's
important for you to understand is that there's a lot
of misconceptions, a lot of misconception about long term care planning.
And the big thing is is that if I don't
(29:48):
use it, I lose it. That is not the case anymore.
That's not the case anymore. The other thing is is
that I don't have to worry about it because Medicare
will take care of it. That's not true. Generally speaking,
long term care personal care needs benefits are paid up
(30:11):
to about one hundred days. Medicaid is the one that
you're probably thinking about. But you have to impoverish yourself
or you have to jump through a lot of hoops
in order to qualify for a Medicaid bed, and sometimes
individuals don't want to do that because it doesn't allow
(30:31):
them to have choice in independence. So what is the answer.
The answer is is that if you have adequate amounts
of money and you've set aside certain dollar amounts in
order to pay for health care during your retirement years,
you should also have a pot of money that's for
(30:52):
long term care that will allow you to have home care,
assisted living, and also also for long term care facilities.
It is almost impossible today, folks, because of the cost
of long term care to buy a policy in your
late fifties sixties unless you have a substantial amount of
money that it's going to be more than adequate enough
(31:13):
in order to facilitate the cost of a long term
care bet here in the Capital District region. Lounomo's more
about it than I do as far as the actual cost,
but it's estimated it's going to be somewhere between fifteen
to twenty thousand dollars per month per month. So what's
(31:37):
the choice? What gives you flexibility? Well, Care Matters is
a product that's unlike most traditional long term care policies. Right,
it's a combination policy. It's a combination policy of long
term care. If you don't use it, there's a death
(31:59):
benefit it's associated with it. But you get to choose
the features, the one that you want, the ones that
are suitable for both you and your loved ones. And
you can use it for home care, assistant living, adult
day care, nursing, home, hospice. Right, So it gives you
(32:25):
a lot of options. If you never need the care,
you receive the death benefit. And oh, by the way,
it remains a liquid asset. That means that if you
want to get to it and take your cash and run,
you can take your cash and run. But the big
thing about this policy, right is the flexibility that gives you.
(32:48):
Some long term care policies require monthly bills and receipts
to be submitted for your long term care services, and
then they reimburse the policy owner for the bills that qualify,
but only up to that benefit, whatever your benefit limit is.
Care matters this is the key, folks. Care Matters is
(33:08):
a cash indemnity policy, meaning there is no need to
go through a monthly process of submitting bills and receipts instead.
Once the claim is approved, there's a ninety day elimination
period that has to be satisfied. Once that's satisfied, the
full available monthly long term care benefit can be taken.
(33:33):
It goes to you and you can use it any
way that you want to use it for. You don't
have to You're not going to have to spend any bills, right,
no receipts, there's no restrictions of the one hundred percent
of the monthly cash benefit that is available to.
Speaker 5 (33:55):
And all.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
By the way, right, some of these policies are what
they call reimbursement policies. Right, They're only going to pay
for the receipts that they get this benefit. If there's excess,
you can use it any way you wish. So why
(34:15):
am I bringing this up? Because we are in a
society today where the solutions for long term care, especially
for the people that are out there that are listening
to this, has a devastating impact on the caregiver. Family
members in the policy that is not taken out will
(34:36):
ultimately be shown with stress anxiety by the caregiver because
they lose their job, they lose pay, they have to
do things that they don't necessarily want to do. And oh,
by the way, I've seen it break up families. So
(34:57):
if you eventually need long term care, personalize it with
a cash benefit plan. And when I say that this
is unique, it is unique. The key to this plan
is if you never use it, you don't lose it
(35:18):
because there's a death benefit. But also it remains a
liquid asset in the form of cash. You can walk
away from it with the surrender value and both spouses
can collect on the policy both. When I can back,
I'm going to tell you a little quick story about
clients of ours in Florida. I'm gonna tell you how
(35:41):
this policy made a huge difference in their lives and
how to ultimately put them in a much better financial
position if they're in a situation if they ever need
long term care. But again, I'm Dave Kopek. This is
a retirement ready show. Again, I'm wg wi's retirement planning specialists.
(36:01):
If anything that I'm discussing is of interest to you,
you can contact us at our office or corporate offices
in Malta slash Saratoga County five one eight five eight
zero one nine one nine. Again, that's five one eight,
five eight zero one nine one nine. Check us out
on the web rpgretire dot com.
Speaker 5 (36:20):
We'll be right back. Your partner for success.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
David Kopik, heir WG Wise 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 against outliving their assets, the impact of inflation, taxation, and.
Speaker 5 (36:47):
Rising healthcare costs.
Speaker 4 (36:49):
Most of our clients like 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 thy will contribute to
a secure financial future for them. Because over ninety percent
of our clients or retirees with similar concerns, we are
(37:09):
in the best position to approach such challenges with experience
and skill. Give us a call today at five one
eight five EID zero one nine one nine five one
eight five eight zero one nine one nine or RPG
retire on the web. We run out of money in
retirement where your investments provide income for possibly decades. How
do you navigate the two greatest risk in retirement, sequence
(37:31):
of returns in longevity At the Retirement Planning Group, Our
Bucket of Money approach addresses these concerns and we offer
a complementary consultation to discuss this with you. Call our
office today for a free complementary consultation to develop your
own personal retirement income distribution plan at five win eight
five EID zero one nine one nine. That's five eight
(37:52):
five eight zero one nine one nine.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Don't want to that for Christmas? There is just one
faith and I don't care about the presence and the
Christmas treet.
Speaker 7 (38:23):
I just wanted you fun mouth.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Wow, then you could have fun No, make my wish country.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
For Chris you said, pretty good sort. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
It's hard to believe, isn't it. Folks that were at
the end of the year. It's just to me, it's
it's I'm blown away. December twenty first, ten more days
and we're in the year twenty and twenty five. Twenty
five years ago we were worried about the year two thousand.
(39:12):
Does it seem possible or am I just getting older?
We're talking about the new world that we live in.
Will you be retirement ready, how you imagine your retirement,
what it looks like. Everybody's different. Everybody has different dreams, ideas,
(39:38):
things that they want to do, assets, they want to
leave your experiences, not someone else's. So after doing this
now for almost twenty five years ninety nine, yeah, twenty
(40:00):
five years, twenty five years on radio, twenty five years
just doing pre and post retirement planning, and I've been
in the financial services business for forty three years, it's
hard to believe.
Speaker 5 (40:12):
It's hard to believe.
Speaker 4 (40:15):
That here we are in our golden years and we're
trying to figure out how we're going to make this
pot of money last possibly for thirty years plus.
Speaker 5 (40:29):
Now.
Speaker 4 (40:29):
My oldest client has passed away. He was a skier
till age ninety nine. He just passed away at age
one hundred and two. I've got a ton of clients
that they're in their nineties and eighties. I said this
morning that I'm shocked when I see some of these individuals,
the kind of shape that they're in, how healthy they look.
(40:51):
It's the old thing. Mark Cuban just said the other
day on TV is that he's sixty some years old.
He feels like he's in forty, he's in his forties.
He says the sixties is now in the new forties.
In some way, I believe that. So we all want
to be dancing in the street, we all want to
have good health, we all want to basically have a
(41:14):
lot of fun. But we also have to be realistic.
Is that eventually the wheels on the bus start falling
off and one of the greatest achilles heel in gideops.
For a lot of you out there is going to
be a long term care event. So that's either going
to be taking in your home, assistant living or in
(41:34):
a long term care facility. I've seen a lot of products.
I've seen a lot of people go through long term
care planning New York State Partnership, individual policies, you go
through the whole laundry list. What I like about this
policy that I'm talking about today is that it's long
term care coverage for two people two, not one two,
(41:58):
and it's locked to a fixed rate. Doesn't you know
it's not going to go up like a lot of
these policies have recently. But if you don't use it,
you get a death benefit. So it provides flexibility to
you and your family when it comes to covering probably
the greatest risk for most of us that have accumulated
assets in our lifetime, a long term care cost. So
(42:24):
it gives you control, flexibility, allows you to meet your
unique needs. And this product offers what I considered to
be some unbelievable benefits. The first and foremost right, this
policy allows you to pay an informal caregiver, family member, friend, neighbor,
(42:45):
where other policies limited to what we call licensed caregivers.
And then guess what. One of the benefit is a
cash benefit, So you get to pay for the caris needed.
Any money left over right spent on other expenses that
you saved for future use, so you keep it. You
(43:11):
keep the cash. Now, here's the situation that I wanted
to tell you about because I always think it's important
to tell you real life situations that you can relate to.
They had a husband and wife. They were both professors
at colleges. They both extremely successful. I met with them
(43:35):
at their home, had a chat and they basically said
that you know, they had a certain amount of money
that was set aside for long term care.
Speaker 5 (43:43):
I said it really, and I go, how did you do? That?
Speaker 4 (43:45):
Was just sitting in a money market, and it wasn't.
It was an annuity product that he had purchased through
TIAA and he had it set aside. It was about
four hundred thousand dollars of assets that he felt like,
if I ever need this, this will be money that
I can utilize in order to pay for long term care.
So we got one problem with that is that you
(44:05):
got forced liquidation. He goes, what do you mean by that?
I said, well, at age seventy three, that pool of money,
because it's pre tax money, is going to have to
get paid out. So I said, the better thing to
do is get ahead of the curve here a little bit.
Let's pay it out over the next ten years. You're
gonna have to pay it out anyway, because the longer
you live, the more money is going to have to
(44:26):
pay out. And then ultimately, if it's being paid out
and one you need care or assistance, depending on the
type of program that you have, you might not have
anything in the pot because either you know, the county
or the state could possibly go after it depending on
your zip code, or or it's inadequate enough in order
to pay the bills. So make a long story short,
(44:49):
what we did is that we went to this policy
to see if they could qualify for it, and they did.
They did, so we took the four hundred thousand dollars
and we gave it to an insurance company and it's
going to pay about forty eight thousand dollars for the
next ten years. We basically separated the money from us
so we could guarantee the payments. So for the next
(45:10):
ten years, forty eight thousand dollars is going to be
paid out once a year of forty eight thousand at
the other ten years it's going but it created about
one point four million dollars in long term care benefit.
And if they don't use it, there's a death benefit.
They'll basically pay them back more than every penny that
(45:32):
they put into it. And oh, by the way, both
the spouses can receive benefit, and it's a substantial amount
of money. And as they age, because there is a
cola associated with it, that pool of money actually gets
greater than what they originally started with. So it's meeting
(45:54):
not only today's expectations of what it's going to cost,
but hopefully be more than enough in the pot in
order for them to pay for whatever they need and
both If both the husband and wife go into the
facility at the same time, they can both utilize this contract.
So to me, there is nothing that I've seen in
(46:16):
all the years that I've been doing this that even
competes with this as far as the ability to have flexibility, choice, independence,
and a cash benefit. A cash benefit. So if you're
scratching your head and you're trying to figure out, you know,
how am I going to address a lot of times
you can do this by carving off a portion of
(46:37):
your qualified assets, or taking a portion of your qualified
assets and separating it and just have it your legacy
bucket for long term care. What we call it carve
out doesn't have to be the full pot. Can be
a small pot. So I you've got a million dollars,
you take two fifty three hundred thousand, you put it
(46:59):
into one of these pollles.
Speaker 5 (47:00):
You haven't paid out over a period.
Speaker 4 (47:01):
Of time, so you're not getting hit with a substantial
tax liability. You know, later in life sometimes it can
be challenging, and later in life can sometimes mean it
(47:23):
could be more challenging for loved ones and family members.
You know, there's a famous phrase once a man twice
a child. It is very true. It's very true, whether
it's the female or the male, one of the spouses
sometimes gets extremely dependent on the other. And I've seen
(47:45):
horror stories with long term care. I have a client
right now that's been a long term care facility for
seven years with dementia. Most beautiful woman on earth that
I've ever met. She's just a great, great lady, her
and her husband. And it's sad situation. So this is
really a gut check on your part whether it makes sense.
(48:07):
I can tell you one thing for sure, sooner is
better than later, because you're never going to be as
healthy as you are today, but you're ever going to
have the amount of what they call velocity that you
can get on these assets. The earlier you do it,
the better off you're going to be. I'm a big
believer that you do it just before you walk out,
or maybe a couple of years, two or three years
before you go out to your retirement. You know, illness,
(48:30):
you get a diagnosis, you can throw it all out
the window, and you're not going to have the ability
so good health and have the ability to basically put
yourself in a position to protect not only yourself, but
quality of life. Choice in independence is huge. Choice in
independence is huge. So, as I said, illness can play
(48:58):
a negative role in determining whether you can get this
or not. So, as I said, you know, this is
something that we've talked about in great detail with a
lot of clients of ours. This product is available in
New York State, so if you want to come in
and have a chat with us. You know, I'm not
a big believer in silos. What do I mean by
(49:19):
silos that you commited to just talk about one particular
item with your overall wealth management plan? You know, we're
big believers that you should have one captain of the ship,
not multiple captains. You get too many people making the
spaghetti sauce, too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the sauce.
So it's really important as you age to consolidate, simplify,
(49:42):
build out a plan that makes all the check boxes checked,
and then do what you're supposed to do. Go live
your life, Go live your life and have fun, do
all the things that you're supposed to be doing. So
I'm go kind of summarize here because this is a
topic specific retirement ready show you know, I said this
(50:12):
about a week or two ago. I've learned from the
experience of others. I've learned from the experience of others
in the different situations that we've been in in the
forty three years that I've been in business, the good
times in the bad times. From current retirees, you can
(50:36):
sidestep a lot of these bumps in the road surprises
in your retirement. You can eliminate a lot of the emotional, physical,
financial strains. But as I said when I started today's show,
no plan any destination will do. You know, a lot
(51:04):
of times when people come in with our confidential questionnaire
will kind of giggle about it, but it's one hundred
percent accurate. My job is when you come in to
sit down and see how many holes that you have
in your boat, and that it's up to you how
many quirks you want to put in the boat. So,
(51:25):
if you're contemplating your retirement, if you're trying to figure
out how do I get to my final destination, how
do I get to the you know, the yellow brick
road to retirement, give us a call. We offer a
complementary consultation and any one of our five offices here
in New York, Syracuse, Oneana, Albany, Glen's Falls, Sarah Tooga, Malta.
(51:53):
Be more than happy to sit down with you, have
a chat. Worst thing that can happen. We should gave
shake hands and become friends. So again, our telephone numbers
five one eight, five eight zero one nine one nine.
Check us out on the web rpgretire dot com. Again,
that's just the initials of the Retirement Planning Group rpgretire
(52:15):
dot com. God bless everybody. Merry Christmas, be healthy and happy.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
Thank you for listening to Retirement Ready, hosted by Dave Kopek,
WG wise retirement planning specialist. If you'd like to talk
with Dave for someone of the Retirement Planning Group, call
five one eight, five eight zero one nine one nine.
That's five one eight, five eight zero one nine one
nine during business hours, or visit rpgbretire dot com. The
(52:42):
Retirement Planning Group has five convenient offices located in Albany, Malta,
Glens Falls, Syracuse.
Speaker 5 (52:49):
And Oneanna.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Tune in again next week for retirement planning strategies with
Dave Kopek right here on WG wise Retirement Ready. The
information or services discussed on This shows for informational purposes
only and is not intended to be personal financial advice.
The investments in services offered bias may not be suitable
for all investors. If you have any doubts as to
(53:12):
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 waste They
can help people make informed decisions about a wider 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 Copec w g Y's Retirement
Planning Specialist, a rocking around.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
The Christmas tree at the Christmas Spot.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
And this will do highway you go and see evable chas.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Start all right, Happy holidays, Merry Christmas, Christmas. I'm Dave Kopek.
I'm your host w Guy's Retirement Planning Specialists and this
is Retirement Ready, which is a topic specific show which
you always enjoy doing because we can get into some
(01:07):
of the weeds a little bit and talk in particular
about one topic. But I'm live in the studio. If
you want to interject, You're more than happy to do it.
It's one eight talk to be Gy. That's one eight
HUNDW five forty nine. You know a lot of people
are watching football already. Zach is biting at the bit
(01:30):
to get out of here. Penn State's on right now.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Penn State SMU and I got cookie making to do
as soon as I.
Speaker 5 (01:40):
Get out of work. Yeah, he so cook the kids
are coming over.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Yeah, go buy them two boxes. You get two for
one at Fryhofer's with those chocolate chips.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Sorry, guys, I already decorated them without your football time.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
There you go.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
But I'm the president of the Retirement Planning Group. We
have five located in New York State, Syracuse, Sonyanaglen's Falls,
Aubny and of course Multi Slash Saratoga. If anything that
I'm talking about is of interest to you, and give
us a call to a lot of people over the
last year that have come in and had a chat
with us and became clients of the Retirement Planning Group.
(02:16):
We're open architecture, we're independent, we have no bias, no
predetermined destination. We act in a fiduciary capacity, and we
really focus in on three areas investment management, asset protection,
and of course the legacy that you wish to leave
your loved ones. And that's a big deal today because
no matter who you talk to. I heard Lou talk
a little bit about it, on his show this morning,
(02:38):
and you know, eighty five trillion dollars of wealth transfer
eighty five trillion dollars estimated to be that will transfer
from the boomer generation to our children and grandchildren. So
it's a big deal. It's a big deal how you
set it up and how you title your assets.
Speaker 5 (02:56):
But again, if.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
Anything that I'm discussing you want to have a chat,
it's one eight hundred talk WGI one eight eight two
five fifty nine forty nine. We live in a world
today that we're all quite well aware most of us
do not have pension benefits, and we have to kind
of before we get there, imagine what our retirement's going
(03:18):
to look like. And at the Retirement Planning Group, we
don't believe in a cookie cutter approach because every family's different,
everybody's risk tolerance is different, and what we try to
do is to make sure that there's no surprises at
the end of the rainbow, to make sure that you
walk into your retirement and it's filled with joy and happiness,
(03:40):
not with stress and anxiety. So, you know, as we're
all quite well aware, when we cross the bridge and
we go into retirement, you know, for a lot of us.
It's the ultimate achievement. It's a lifetime of working nine
to five, and a lot of people have called it
(04:02):
the golden years, but that's changed for some. That has
changed for some individuals, which we'll get into a little bit.
The mothership Fidelity does a lot of data research, has
a lot of surveys with clients and prospective clients. In
some of this information I'm going to give from a
recent survey, but the one study noted that people after
(04:28):
the COVID event that we just went through, we're going
to retire later older. And factors such as your health,
the amount of money that you've created and wealth, your aide,
your maritial status, your mortality expectations, did you take good
care of yourself, You've got good genes play a pretty
(04:51):
essential role in determining when you retire and if it's
going to be sooner than later. And the big thing
is is that have you done your homework ahead of time?
Have you set aside adequate amounts of savings? We all
(05:14):
know it's challenging to do. And for the people that
were in this survey from age forty five to sixty five,
what's their status? How are they feeling? Well, some of
you that are listening today are still committed to accumulation,
(05:36):
putting money aside for your retirement years. There's been a
lot of bumps in the road over the last few
years as far as volatility downdrafts in the market. If
for some of you, it's been too much. That's why
we're sitting at about six and a half trillion dollars
in cash right now and cash equivalence in the money
market accounts. A lot of you have missed the updraft
(05:58):
in the market because you didn't want to have volatility,
because it had been too much of a roller coaster
ride for your retirement savings. So let's talk a little
bit about what's keeping you up at night. What is
keeping you up at night in regards to your retirement plan,
(06:20):
whether you have one into your retirement years or you're
expecting to go there in the very near future. Well,
almost sixty five percent of the people that were involved
in the survey, one of their main concerns is purchasing
power inflation. Are my dollars going to be adequate enough
(06:46):
in the next ten, fifteen, twenty thirty years in order
for me to have quality of life, to have the
purchasing power that I have today in the future, think
about it. Think about what it costs you ten, fifteen,
twenty years just for basic expenses, housing, healthcare, taxes, go
(07:12):
through the whole laundry list. The one that will shock you,
of course, is what healthcare. What it costs you to
protect your family today? Almost fifty percent of you in
the survey said market volatility causes great worry and it
keeps you up at night. Fifty percent don't like the
(07:37):
swings in the market. If thirty seven percent said they
are apprehensive about being able to keep pace with their
housing expenses. Some of these can be addressed. Some of
these can't be addressed. First and foremost is that you
(07:59):
can have of investments that a lot of you get
stock market rates and returns, and you eliminate market volatility.
The only thing that happens is your portfolio goes up
and never goes down. Those investments exist, they're called buffer
products alternative investments. But how do you expect your standard
(08:26):
living to be? Thirty three percent of retirement plan participants
A third expect their standard of living to be equal
or a little bit better in their retirement years. Fifty
expect their standard living to be somewhat okay. Forty two
(08:49):
percent of retires expect their standard living in retirement to
be a little bit worse than what they are right now.
So if that's the case, what's the answer. How do
people address these concerns? How do they work through them?
(09:10):
And the thing is is that what is the answer
in order to facilitate a retirement that is filled with
happiness and not filled with worry or anxiety like they
just said fifty percent that keeps them up at night,
it's not the retirement that I'm looking for. So for
(09:35):
some of us, we've exited, we've excited, we've exited our
main jobs after COVID, and we've taken a new path
in our lives, some not by choice, some by choice,
some for reasons out of their control, downsizing loss of jobs.
(10:01):
But for some of us, we've elected to go on
a different path because we just said that's it. I
no longer want to be involved in a nine to
five that I'm not happy with, and now I'm going
to go down a path that's going to hopefully give
me more happiness and give me more control in the
ability to basically have more my time. So if you
(10:24):
end up exiting stage right, retiring earlier than you plan
for either unexpected reasons or a decision that was made
by you, you got to consider do I have enough
money in the pot and how I'm going to pay
the bills not only today but in the future. And
(10:47):
the biggest catalyst for most of us if you paid
your house off, you don't have a mortgage is healthcare.
Because healthcare costs today before the age of sixty five,
when you're Medicare eligible, can be a mortgage payment for
a lot of us. Husband and wife, It's not uncommon
for people to come into the retirement planning group that
(11:08):
basically say that they're spending fifteen hundred to nineteen hundred
dollars two thousand dollars a month for healthcare, dental vision.
So we're going to be talking about this new world
that we live in, how the monkey is now on
our back for our quality of life and the type
(11:30):
of retirement that we're trying to achieve in how we
can address it not only during our accumulation years, but
also if we're already in our retirement years. But again,
I'm Dave Kopak, I'm the president of the Retirement Planning Group.
I'm WGY's retirement planning specialists. This is my twenty fifth
year in radio, which is hard to believe, my forty
(11:52):
third year in the financial services business.
Speaker 5 (11:55):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Your partner for success, David Kopak, here, your retirement plan
specialists at WGUI 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 can help create a hedge against outliving their income,
the impact of deflation, taxation, and rising healthcare cost. Because
(12:19):
over ninety percent of our clients are retirees with similar concerns,
we are in the best position to approach such challenges
with experience and skill. Most of our clients lack the time,
the desire, or the experience to manage to their own
investment portfolios. We consider it an honor and a privilege
to help our clients make sound investment decisions that will
(12:40):
contribute to us secure future. We welcome the opportunity become
your partner and establishing your retirement plan. Give us a
call today for your complementary consultation at five one eight
five eat zero one nine one nine. That's five eight
five eat zero one nine one nine or RPG retire
on the web. The greatest risk in retirement. Most of
us have no plan for or insurance to cover the expense.
(13:03):
A long term cara event can impoverish a spouse, drain
your life savings, and cost stress and anxiety on your family.
What is your plan and how will you pay for
a long term caravan? Call the Retirement Planning Group today.
Discuss options you should consider to protect your estate and
have choices and independence. Take action Call today five eight
five eight zero one or RPG retire on the web.
(13:34):
Not of all.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
Rangers, you know you're the mastermind.
Speaker 7 (13:41):
Run Run Rudolf, run off, make you far behind, run
ron rudof c A got to make it to town.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Santral making very tenant.
Speaker 7 (13:55):
He can take the freeway down.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
They do apart.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Be careful out there, folks driving because there's some patches.
It's a little bit snowy slippery, so if you're out
and about, go slow, give yourself some distance. Saw a
couple of fender benders when I left the studio this morning,
so be careful because it is slippery in spots. Talking
(14:29):
today about how do you deal with the new retirement night.
Out of ten of us do not have pension benefits.
Most of us don't go into retirement with health care.
And if you do have healthcare, it's Medicare, and then
we've got to pick up the supplements. But that's only
(14:50):
one spoke of the wheel of all the other things
that you need to address. I just said, I've been
in the business now for forty three years. I've been
doing pre and post retire specifically since nineteen ninety nine.
So there are a lot of things that I haven't seen,
and there's a lot of things that I've seen that
I think need to be addressed today, much more so
(15:13):
than twenty thirty years ago. The big thing, of course,
is our own personal health. We're taking much better care
of ourselves. We're eating better, we're exercising more, we're not
sucking on those terrible things called cigarettes. And the other
(15:39):
good thing is that we're staying busier. What do I
mean by that? According to a Harvard study, one key
to happiness and retirement is maintaining relationships with others and
staying busy. Do what makes you happy? If you enjoy
(16:06):
your job, but you don't want to do it full time,
maybe a phase out, maybe you work part time, Maybe
you find a job that gives you more joy, more compassion,
something that's heartfelt. So being busy is a positive, not
(16:27):
a negative. And by the way, it also helps the checkbook.
It helps your retirement budget. It allows you hopefully to
put some more money away, hopefully pre tax in a
four to oh one k. It helps you in regards
to the day to day expenses that you have. And
I just read an article this morning one of the
(16:48):
trade magazines. One of the largest group of people that
corporations going after now are seniors, people that have retired
that are unhappy with retirement, that are working from home,
through the internet, through technology in order to facilitate what
corporations are looking for. Pretty interesting article. We see it
(17:14):
all the time. It's not uncommon for us to see
individuals that come in to the retirement planning group that
have part time jobs, that are working as a consultant.
A lot of the ge people Lockheed Martin, they go
out into the retirement years, they have the opportunity to
do some work on the side. How much money will
(17:39):
I need if I had a penny for every time
someone said that to me over the last twenty to
twenty five years, I'd have a whole pile of cash
sitting on the table. The traditional rule of thumb says
you need anywhere from seventy to eighty percent of your
current salary. Now I say you need seventy eighty percent
(18:01):
of your current salary minus all the deductions in what
you've been putting into your four onh one K plan,
because that's the cash that you've actually been living on.
So if you are retired, and let's say, just keep
it simple, you were making eighty thousand dollars a year,
(18:23):
and after you paid all your federal and state and
you took your write offs and your deductions, and also
as far as the amount of cash you were setting
aside for your four oh one ken four to one
K or your retirement plan, that's about let's say fifty
thousand dollars. Just to keep it simple, eighty percent of
(18:46):
fifty thousand dollars, just forty thousand dollars. Then you load up,
you stack on top of that your Social Security benefits.
It's probably a pretty good target of what you should
be looking at. You know, we talk about at the
Retirement Planning Group the three stages of retirement go go years,
(19:07):
slogo years, and no go years. You will spend more
money in your go go years, but that's okay because
typically when one of the spouses pass away, or if
there's a healthcare event or something starts happening to you
physically where you can't go, you're going to have this
(19:27):
whole pile of cash and you're not going to really
enjoy it because you don't have the ability to enjoy it. So,
not surprisingly, most retirees spend more during their go go
years of retirement than they did during the slog and
the no go years. But some workers, as I said,
(19:57):
which we've seen at the Retirement Planning Group, gradually transition
into full retirement than choosing a specific dat or time
instead of just moving automatically from full time work to
no time work can be a huge difficult adjustment. We
(20:18):
have seen this consistently with high stress corporate executives that
are basically sitting there playing tittally winks when they walk
out the door. Now, some love it, others find it
very difficult. One in particularly I think of as a
ge executive that worked with us, he had a horrible
(20:39):
time for the first two to three years in order
to transition into his retirement years feeling a boredom, loss
of purpose. But that doesn't mean that you can't find
a new purpose or a new skill that interests you
to help you to adjust. Do that pre not post retirement,
(21:02):
so you get an idea of where you're headed. In
the study, retirees with purpose are often happier and healthier
and live longer. So a lot of times when you're
sitting down, you're saying, O, what, I'm going to exit
stage right in twenty twenty five, I'm going to go
(21:25):
into my retirement years. You've got to define your purpose.
What's going to make you happy? What's going to fulfill
you during your retirement years? Is it travel? Is it
a part time job? Is a woodworking shop? There's a
guard who knows all the above, But I can tell
(21:48):
you this much. It should be done with your significant other.
This is a conversation that both of you should have
as far as the adjustment period. You know, it's not
uncommon that people retire. He looks at her, She looks
at him and says, who are you? Because you haven't
(22:10):
spent an extended period of time together. Yeah, you've had
your time, but not full time. It was part time.
So making sure that you understand these different obstacles that
you could be facing doesn't make you unique or different.
(22:32):
It makes you part of the group here that is
dealing with the same issues on a day to day,
month and month year to year basis. The big thing,
which I'm going to get into greater detail when we
come back, is healthcare. A lot of retirees are basically
(22:56):
shocked by the price of healthcare. Fidelity just did a
study healthy sixty five year old couple going into the retirement.
It's estimated out of pocket expenses for both couples will
be three hundred and thirty thousand dollars and that does
(23:19):
not include long term care. Three hundred and thirty thousand dollars.
Every year over the last five years, that target number
has gone up. You have three hundred and thirty thousand
set aside. Is going to come out of cash flow?
Where is it going to come out of So it's
(23:41):
a good idea before you get that last paycheck to
start building out those buckets of money that we talk
about that are specific for the retirement that you and
your spouse, your loved one, your significant have chosen, whether
(24:05):
it's healthcare, travel, new cars, maintenance on the home, home repairs,
HVA systems, RV, the house in Florida, etc.
Speaker 5 (24:19):
Etc.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
But the big thing, of course is planned for surprises.
Life has a way to hit you with the two
by four right over the forehead, which can surprise you.
It can have a devastating impact not only in your
current retirement but also for your significant other. So if
(24:43):
you need help with any of this, we are here
at the Retirement Planning Group. I say it over and
over again all the time, without a plan any destination
will do We help point you in the direction that
you want to go in.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
Not only do we help you with.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
Attax planning, retirement, income distribution plan, the estate plan, buckets
of money as far as where you're going to go
when you need to tap into a pot of money
in order to facilitate the things that you need. You're
prepared rather than unprepared. So if you want to give
(25:24):
us a call, we have five locations in New York now.
Our telephone number in our corporate offices in Malta Saratoga
County is five one eight five eight zero one nine nine.
That's five one eight five eight zero one nine one nine.
Check us out on the web rpgretire dot com. Again,
(25:44):
that's rpgretire dot com. And again I'm Dave Kopek, WG
WISE Retirement Planning Specialists. This is my twenty fifth year
in radio. It's good to be here. Merry Christmas, Happy
holidays to everybody. We'll be right back after the news.
Speaker 6 (26:10):
Marry Christmas, baby show a treat nice I said, Merry Christmas,
baby show A treat me nice ball me a diamond
(26:31):
ring for Christmas.
Speaker 7 (26:32):
And I feel like I come here pas dies feeling
Loadifie and my music Don Ray, he said, I'll feel alady,
nice shirt.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
All right, comm music, Dave Kopek, It's good to be here,
right Christmas, Happy holidays. Hopefully you're out stimulating the economy.
I know I was out yesterday and it is busy.
Probably be crazy busy out there today. No engineer, my
(27:13):
producer here, he's got to go out and do cookies later.
Do you do it from scratch there, Zach? Or do
you go out and buy the tubes of cookie and
you slice and dice and throw them in the oven.
You do it the easy way of the hard way.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Well, originally I was going to make them from scratch
with flowers and stuff. But I bought the packet to
create the dough to roll it out to cut it.
But I do know how to bake from scratch.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
I just we'll soon find out.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
A texted my wife, I go, we got two NFL games,
three college football games, and yet we're having kids over.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
Well, you know what, Like I said, this is you're
going to the big time Now.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
I joke around, but I love the memories that we
create with the little ones.
Speaker 4 (27:59):
No enjoy it because it's going to go up by fast.
It goes by too fast.
Speaker 5 (28:09):
You know.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
One of the things that we deal with all the
time at the retirement Planning group is individuals that end
up needing care assistance, and for some of us, it
can be a daunting task. And it's one that you know,
most financial advisors talk about the Elibrick road and return
on investment, but a lot of people don't talk about
(28:30):
what could possibly derail your retirement, impoverish your spouse. It
puts you in a position where you basically have gone
through your life savings taking care of a loved one,
and in this survey that just came out. One of
(28:54):
the main concerns is healthcare and long term care planning,
and eighty percent.
Speaker 5 (29:02):
Of the people.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
Believe they need some type of care or assistance as
they age. But most of you have absolutely no idea
where to go, what type of products that are out there,
and how it can facilitate caregiving. Now I can speak
by experience because my wife and I were caregivers for
(29:27):
six and a half years, so I know it can
be challenging. I know what the stress that puts on
the individual that is the caregiver. And I think it's
important for you to understand is that there's a lot
of misconceptions, a lot of misconception about long term care planning.
And the big thing is is that if I don't
(29:48):
use it, I lose it. That is not the case anymore.
That's not the case anymore. The other thing is is
that I don't have to worry about it because Medicare
will take care of it. That's not true. Generally speaking,
long term care personal care needs benefits are paid up
(30:11):
to about one hundred days. Medicaid is the one that
you're probably thinking about. But you have to impoverish yourself
or you have to jump through a lot of hoops
in order to qualify for a Medicaid bed, and sometimes
individuals don't want to do that because it doesn't allow
(30:31):
them to have choice in independence. So what is the answer.
The answer is is that if you have adequate amounts
of money and you've set aside certain dollar amounts in
order to pay for health care during your retirement years,
you should also have a pot of money that's for
(30:52):
long term care that will allow you to have home care,
assisted living, and also also for long term care facilities.
It is almost impossible today, folks, because of the cost
of long term care to buy a policy in your
late fifties sixties unless you have a substantial amount of
money that it's going to be more than adequate enough
(31:13):
in order to facilitate the cost of a long term
care bet here in the Capital District region. Lounomo's more
about it than I do as far as the actual cost,
but it's estimated it's going to be somewhere between fifteen
to twenty thousand dollars per month per month. So what's
(31:37):
the choice? What gives you flexibility? Well, Care Matters is
a product that's unlike most traditional long term care policies. Right,
it's a combination policy. It's a combination policy of long
term care. If you don't use it, there's a death
(31:59):
benefit it's associated with it. But you get to choose
the features, the one that you want, the ones that
are suitable for both you and your loved ones. And
you can use it for home care, assistant living, adult
day care, nursing, home, hospice. Right, So it gives you
(32:25):
a lot of options. If you never need the care,
you receive the death benefit. And oh, by the way,
it remains a liquid asset. That means that if you
want to get to it and take your cash and run,
you can take your cash and run. But the big
thing about this policy, right is the flexibility that gives you.
(32:48):
Some long term care policies require monthly bills and receipts
to be submitted for your long term care services, and
then they reimburse the policy owner for the bills that qualify,
but only up to that benefit, whatever your benefit limit is.
Care matters this is the key, folks. Care Matters is
(33:08):
a cash indemnity policy, meaning there is no need to
go through a monthly process of submitting bills and receipts instead.
Once the claim is approved, there's a ninety day elimination
period that has to be satisfied. Once that's satisfied, the
full available monthly long term care benefit can be taken.
(33:33):
It goes to you and you can use it any
way that you want to use it for. You don't
have to You're not going to have to spend any bills, right,
no receipts, there's no restrictions of the one hundred percent
of the monthly cash benefit that is available to.
Speaker 5 (33:55):
And all.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
By the way, right, some of these policies are what
they call reimbursement policies. Right, They're only going to pay
for the receipts that they get this benefit. If there's excess,
you can use it any way you wish. So why
(34:15):
am I bringing this up? Because we are in a
society today where the solutions for long term care, especially
for the people that are out there that are listening
to this, has a devastating impact on the caregiver. Family
members in the policy that is not taken out will
(34:36):
ultimately be shown with stress anxiety by the caregiver because
they lose their job, they lose pay, they have to
do things that they don't necessarily want to do. And oh,
by the way, I've seen it break up families. So
(34:57):
if you eventually need long term care, personalize it with
a cash benefit plan. And when I say that this
is unique, it is unique. The key to this plan
is if you never use it, you don't lose it
(35:18):
because there's a death benefit. But also it remains a
liquid asset in the form of cash. You can walk
away from it with the surrender value and both spouses
can collect on the policy both. When I can back,
I'm going to tell you a little quick story about
clients of ours in Florida. I'm gonna tell you how
(35:41):
this policy made a huge difference in their lives and
how to ultimately put them in a much better financial
position if they're in a situation if they ever need
long term care. But again, I'm Dave Kopek. This is
a retirement ready show. Again, I'm wg wi's retirement planning specialists.
(36:01):
If anything that I'm discussing is of interest to you,
you can contact us at our office or corporate offices
in Malta slash Saratoga County five one eight five eight
zero one nine one nine. Again, that's five one eight,
five eight zero one nine one nine. Check us out
on the web rpgretire dot com.
Speaker 5 (36:20):
We'll be right back. Your partner for success.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
David Kopik, heir WG Wise 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 against outliving their assets, the impact of inflation, taxation, and.
Speaker 5 (36:47):
Rising healthcare costs.
Speaker 4 (36:49):
Most of our clients like 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 thy will contribute to
a secure financial future for them. Because over ninety percent
of our clients or retirees with similar concerns, we are
(37:09):
in the best position to approach such challenges with experience
and skill. Give us a call today at five one
eight five EID zero one nine one nine five one
eight five eight zero one nine one nine or RPG
retire on the web. We run out of money in
retirement where your investments provide income for possibly decades. How
do you navigate the two greatest risk in retirement, sequence
(37:31):
of returns in longevity At the Retirement Planning Group, Our
Bucket of Money approach addresses these concerns and we offer
a complementary consultation to discuss this with you. Call our
office today for a free complementary consultation to develop your
own personal retirement income distribution plan at five win eight
five EID zero one nine one nine. That's five eight
(37:52):
five eight zero one nine one nine.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Don't want to that for Christmas? There is just one
faith and I don't care about the presence and the
Christmas treet.
Speaker 7 (38:23):
I just wanted you fun mouth.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Wow, then you could have fun No, make my wish country.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
For Chris you said, pretty good sort. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
It's hard to believe, isn't it. Folks that were at
the end of the year. It's just to me, it's
it's I'm blown away. December twenty first, ten more days
and we're in the year twenty and twenty five. Twenty
five years ago we were worried about the year two thousand.
(39:12):
Does it seem possible or am I just getting older?
We're talking about the new world that we live in.
Will you be retirement ready, how you imagine your retirement,
what it looks like. Everybody's different. Everybody has different dreams, ideas,
(39:38):
things that they want to do, assets, they want to
leave your experiences, not someone else's. So after doing this
now for almost twenty five years ninety nine, yeah, twenty
(40:00):
five years, twenty five years on radio, twenty five years
just doing pre and post retirement planning, and I've been
in the financial services business for forty three years, it's
hard to believe.
Speaker 5 (40:12):
It's hard to believe.
Speaker 4 (40:15):
That here we are in our golden years and we're
trying to figure out how we're going to make this
pot of money last possibly for thirty years plus.
Speaker 5 (40:29):
Now.
Speaker 4 (40:29):
My oldest client has passed away. He was a skier
till age ninety nine. He just passed away at age
one hundred and two. I've got a ton of clients
that they're in their nineties and eighties. I said this
morning that I'm shocked when I see some of these individuals,
the kind of shape that they're in, how healthy they look.
(40:51):
It's the old thing. Mark Cuban just said the other
day on TV is that he's sixty some years old.
He feels like he's in forty, he's in his forties.
He says the sixties is now in the new forties.
In some way, I believe that. So we all want
to be dancing in the street, we all want to
have good health, we all want to basically have a
(41:14):
lot of fun. But we also have to be realistic.
Is that eventually the wheels on the bus start falling
off and one of the greatest achilles heel in gideops.
For a lot of you out there is going to
be a long term care event. So that's either going
to be taking in your home, assistant living or in
(41:34):
a long term care facility. I've seen a lot of products.
I've seen a lot of people go through long term
care planning New York State Partnership, individual policies, you go
through the whole laundry list. What I like about this
policy that I'm talking about today is that it's long
term care coverage for two people two, not one two,
(41:58):
and it's locked to a fixed rate. Doesn't you know
it's not going to go up like a lot of
these policies have recently. But if you don't use it,
you get a death benefit. So it provides flexibility to
you and your family when it comes to covering probably
the greatest risk for most of us that have accumulated
assets in our lifetime, a long term care cost. So
(42:24):
it gives you control, flexibility, allows you to meet your
unique needs. And this product offers what I considered to
be some unbelievable benefits. The first and foremost right, this
policy allows you to pay an informal caregiver, family member, friend, neighbor,
(42:45):
where other policies limited to what we call licensed caregivers.
And then guess what. One of the benefit is a
cash benefit, So you get to pay for the caris needed.
Any money left over right spent on other expenses that
you saved for future use, so you keep it. You
(43:11):
keep the cash. Now, here's the situation that I wanted
to tell you about because I always think it's important
to tell you real life situations that you can relate to.
They had a husband and wife. They were both professors
at colleges. They both extremely successful. I met with them
(43:35):
at their home, had a chat and they basically said
that you know, they had a certain amount of money
that was set aside for long term care.
Speaker 5 (43:43):
I said it really, and I go, how did you do? That?
Speaker 4 (43:45):
Was just sitting in a money market, and it wasn't.
It was an annuity product that he had purchased through
TIAA and he had it set aside. It was about
four hundred thousand dollars of assets that he felt like,
if I ever need this, this will be money that
I can utilize in order to pay for long term care.
So we got one problem with that is that you
(44:05):
got forced liquidation. He goes, what do you mean by that?
I said, well, at age seventy three, that pool of money,
because it's pre tax money, is going to have to
get paid out. So I said, the better thing to
do is get ahead of the curve here a little bit.
Let's pay it out over the next ten years. You're
gonna have to pay it out anyway, because the longer
you live, the more money is going to have to
(44:26):
pay out. And then ultimately, if it's being paid out
and one you need care or assistance, depending on the
type of program that you have, you might not have
anything in the pot because either you know, the county
or the state could possibly go after it depending on
your zip code, or or it's inadequate enough in order
to pay the bills. So make a long story short,
(44:49):
what we did is that we went to this policy
to see if they could qualify for it, and they did.
They did, so we took the four hundred thousand dollars
and we gave it to an insurance company and it's
going to pay about forty eight thousand dollars for the
next ten years. We basically separated the money from us
so we could guarantee the payments. So for the next
(45:10):
ten years, forty eight thousand dollars is going to be
paid out once a year of forty eight thousand at
the other ten years it's going but it created about
one point four million dollars in long term care benefit.
And if they don't use it, there's a death benefit.
They'll basically pay them back more than every penny that
(45:32):
they put into it. And oh, by the way, both
the spouses can receive benefit, and it's a substantial amount
of money. And as they age, because there is a
cola associated with it, that pool of money actually gets
greater than what they originally started with. So it's meeting
(45:54):
not only today's expectations of what it's going to cost,
but hopefully be more than enough in the pot in
order for them to pay for whatever they need and
both If both the husband and wife go into the
facility at the same time, they can both utilize this contract.
So to me, there is nothing that I've seen in
(46:16):
all the years that I've been doing this that even
competes with this as far as the ability to have flexibility, choice, independence,
and a cash benefit. A cash benefit. So if you're
scratching your head and you're trying to figure out, you know,
how am I going to address a lot of times
you can do this by carving off a portion of
(46:37):
your qualified assets, or taking a portion of your qualified
assets and separating it and just have it your legacy
bucket for long term care. What we call it carve
out doesn't have to be the full pot. Can be
a small pot. So I you've got a million dollars,
you take two fifty three hundred thousand, you put it
(46:59):
into one of these pollles.
Speaker 5 (47:00):
You haven't paid out over a period.
Speaker 4 (47:01):
Of time, so you're not getting hit with a substantial
tax liability. You know, later in life sometimes it can
be challenging, and later in life can sometimes mean it
(47:23):
could be more challenging for loved ones and family members.
You know, there's a famous phrase once a man twice
a child. It is very true. It's very true, whether
it's the female or the male, one of the spouses
sometimes gets extremely dependent on the other. And I've seen
(47:45):
horror stories with long term care. I have a client
right now that's been a long term care facility for
seven years with dementia. Most beautiful woman on earth that
I've ever met. She's just a great, great lady, her
and her husband. And it's sad situation. So this is
really a gut check on your part whether it makes sense.
(48:07):
I can tell you one thing for sure, sooner is
better than later, because you're never going to be as
healthy as you are today, but you're ever going to
have the amount of what they call velocity that you
can get on these assets. The earlier you do it,
the better off you're going to be. I'm a big
believer that you do it just before you walk out,
or maybe a couple of years, two or three years
before you go out to your retirement. You know, illness,
(48:30):
you get a diagnosis, you can throw it all out
the window, and you're not going to have the ability
so good health and have the ability to basically put
yourself in a position to protect not only yourself, but
quality of life. Choice in independence is huge. Choice in
independence is huge. So, as I said, illness can play
(48:58):
a negative role in determining whether you can get this
or not. So, as I said, you know, this is
something that we've talked about in great detail with a
lot of clients of ours. This product is available in
New York State, so if you want to come in
and have a chat with us. You know, I'm not
a big believer in silos. What do I mean by
(49:19):
silos that you commited to just talk about one particular
item with your overall wealth management plan? You know, we're
big believers that you should have one captain of the ship,
not multiple captains. You get too many people making the
spaghetti sauce, too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the sauce.
So it's really important as you age to consolidate, simplify,
(49:42):
build out a plan that makes all the check boxes checked,
and then do what you're supposed to do. Go live
your life, Go live your life and have fun, do
all the things that you're supposed to be doing. So
I'm go kind of summarize here because this is a
topic specific retirement ready show you know, I said this
(50:12):
about a week or two ago. I've learned from the
experience of others. I've learned from the experience of others
in the different situations that we've been in in the
forty three years that I've been in business, the good
times in the bad times. From current retirees, you can
(50:36):
sidestep a lot of these bumps in the road surprises
in your retirement. You can eliminate a lot of the emotional, physical,
financial strains. But as I said when I started today's show,
no plan any destination will do. You know, a lot
(51:04):
of times when people come in with our confidential questionnaire
will kind of giggle about it, but it's one hundred
percent accurate. My job is when you come in to
sit down and see how many holes that you have
in your boat, and that it's up to you how
many quirks you want to put in the boat. So,
(51:25):
if you're contemplating your retirement, if you're trying to figure
out how do I get to my final destination, how
do I get to the you know, the yellow brick
road to retirement, give us a call. We offer a
complementary consultation and any one of our five offices here
in New York, Syracuse, Oneana, Albany, Glen's Falls, Sarah Tooga, Malta.
(51:53):
Be more than happy to sit down with you, have
a chat. Worst thing that can happen. We should gave
shake hands and become friends. So again, our telephone numbers
five one eight, five eight zero one nine one nine.
Check us out on the web rpgretire dot com. Again,
that's just the initials of the Retirement Planning Group rpgretire
(52:15):
dot com. God bless everybody. Merry Christmas, be healthy and happy.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
Thank you for listening to Retirement Ready, hosted by Dave Kopek,
WG wise retirement planning specialist. If you'd like to talk
with Dave for someone of the Retirement Planning Group, call
five one eight, five eight zero one nine one nine.
That's five one eight, five eight zero one nine one
nine during business hours, or visit rpgbretire dot com. The
(52:42):
Retirement Planning Group has five convenient offices located in Albany, Malta,
Glens Falls, Syracuse.
Speaker 5 (52:49):
And Oneanna.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Tune in again next week for retirement planning strategies with
Dave Kopek right here on WG wise Retirement Ready. The
information or services discussed on This shows for informational purposes
only and is not intended to be personal financial advice.
The investments in services offered bias may not be suitable
for all investors. If you have any doubts as to
(53:12):
the merits of an investment, you should seek advice from
an independent financial advisor.
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