Retirement Ready

April 26th, 2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Live from the wgy iHeart Studios. Welcome to Retirement Ready
with your host Dave Kopek from the Retirement Planning Group.
Every week, Dave and his team discuss the ways they
can help people make informed decisions about their retirement assets
to maintain, improve, and secure their desired quality of life.
Here's your host, Dave Copek.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Steve Kopeck. This is Retirement Ready. Glad to be here.
Have a little technical difficulty today, so this is Retirement Ready.
I am the president of the Retirement Planning Group and
we look forward to having a chat with you about
a specific topic. Today's topic is how to allocate your

(00:50):
money during your pre and post retirement years. When I
say prey, that's usually three to five years before I retire.
I've got my son, Christopher William here. Good afternoon, William,
Good afternoon. Chris is a financial analyst financial planner with
the Retirement Planning Group, and today we're going to talk
about a topic that a lot of people are very

(01:13):
curious about. How do I allocate my money during my
retirement years. An acid allocation is something that we talk
quite a bit about, especially for people that are three
to five years outside of retirement. Thinking about you know,
I'm going to go into the green pastures of retirement.

(01:33):
What should I do? How should I allocate my money?
So we're going to discuss that. But before we get
into today's show, I just want to let you know
the Retirement Planning Group and the PURO law firm Pier
O'Connor and Strauss, we're doing a special presentation. We did
this last year. We had an unbelievable response May twentieth

(01:53):
at the Crown Plaza hotel that used to be of course,
the Desmond which is located there by the airport. It's
going to be May twentieth. It's going to start at
five thirty where it's a dinner, complimentary dinner presentation. Myself
and Lupiro will be speaking. We'll be going over how

(02:14):
to invest, allocate your money, protect your money, legacy planning
during your pre and post retirement plan. So if you'd
like to attend, got a couple of different ways that
you can do it, but the easiest way to do it,
folks is just go to the web WGY Seminar dot

(02:36):
com wgy seminar dot com. So whether you're pre or
post retired, this is a great presentation last year we
had a waiting list. We had a lot of people
that attended. I think we had about one hundred and
fifty people that attended. So you are invited. It's complimentary,
there's no cost. The only cost to you is time.

(02:57):
And I'll give this out a couple of times today.
But the easiest way for you to register for this,
and if you're not registered, you can't come. You've got
a register it's wgy seminar dot com. Wgy seminar dot com.
If you fill that out and send it in, someone
from my office will contact you to confirm your reservation.

(03:18):
So you coming to Cress. Yeah, I'll be there all right.
My son and I, you know, we were talking before
we started the show today. I was going to talk
about a different topic, but we decided to talk about
how to allocate your money and what is the right
proper allocation. You said, you what you just saw some

(03:39):
data or some research cres Yeah. I read an article.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
Earlier this week that highlighted the sixty forty portfolio and
was saying is it dead or is it being reborn?
And it kind of overviewed how in twenty twenty two,
when both equities and the bond market pulled back that
there was really nowhere to go and there was no
safety net as far as an asset class that didn't
get hit by the pullback in twenty twenty two, whereas

(04:07):
now we're seeing bonds are withholding this volatility that we've
seen pretty well of seeing some appreciation in the bond
side of the market, and you know, yields are anywhere
from four to eight percent depending on what type of
bond allocation you're in, whether it's corporates or you know,
T bills or anything in between. So it's kind of

(04:32):
just reviewed. You know, is this sixty forty portfolio dead
or is it currently being reborn and seeing some potential?

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Well, I think what's you know, the thing is is
that you know, when people talk about allocating money for
the retirement years, almost nine out of ten people now
don't have pension benefits. And because pension benefits are rare
for a lot of people, I mean in the Capital
District region where we're headquartered out of, there's a lot
of pension benits because we're the center of the universe
from regards to New York State government. You know, Albany

(05:03):
is right here. You've got a lot of pensioners. You've
got a lot of state employees, so we've probably seen
more pensions in this area than we do outside the
Capital District region. But because of that, you know, one
of the things that we try to do is to
try to build out a platform not only for individuals
that have pension benefits, but also for individuals that need
to create a pension benefit. And for a lot of us,

(05:25):
that's really kind of a daunting task simply because of
what we've seen over the last few years. You talk
about twenty and twenty two, there's been all sorts of data,
all sorts of research. I heard one the other day
where they're recommending fifty percent stocks, thirty percent bonds, and
twenty percent in alternative investments. Yeah, I saw. You know,
alternatives really took a.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
It was, you know, a trendy topic to talk about
in twenty twenty two, alternative investments because that was really
the only space that didn't get hit as hard as
the equity market in the bond market. But overall, I
think it's more I think everyone jumped in a little
too fast on the alternative market. I think there is
you know, some upside in that area, whether it's you
know private credit rates or private equity. Yeah, the space

(06:12):
itself is, but there's there's hurdles getting into that space.
You know, liquidity issues. You're locking up your money for
a certain period of time depending on some of the funds.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
That's the big thing. Yeah, if you get into alternative investments,
you better be aware that you're not going to be
able to liquidate the assets as quickly sometimes as you
would like. What do I mean by that? The portfolio
manager A lot of times on alternative investments, these are
very liquid investments if they're involved in real estate, or
if their loans or they're guaranteeing, they're backed up, they're

(06:46):
you know, collateral for another type of investment that they
get paid on. You need to understand is that it's
not a liquid investment. So a lot of times when
you try to get an actual valuation, there's a lot
of hypotheticals that go into alternative investments until they actually
sell or somehow materialize the gains that they've had in

(07:10):
the portfolio. So just be aware that you know, that
buzzword doesn't necessarily mean that it's suitable for you simply
because it's the hot topic in the investment banking industry.
It'll personally, this is something that the retirement planning group
that we've talked about considerably. We do not buy any
type of investment that we can't be out of within

(07:32):
a very short period of time. That means if I
buy today and I want to get out of it tomorrow,
I want to get out of it tomorrow. So we
think that there's alternative ways that you can invest money
and still get competitive rates and returns and not worry
about that keyword, which is liquidity.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
There's yeah, and that's you know, the issue that a
lot of people have with it is what if I
need this money, like, am I able to grab it?
And in some cases with these alternative investments, you can't.
You know, they'll have for example, like quarterly lookity where
once a quarter you can go in and access those
funds if you need it. But some of them, yeah, some,
So there's there's different ways around it. You know, there's

(08:10):
good alternative ETFs and mutual funds just like any other
positions out there. So there there's it could have a
weight in the portfolio, it's just you know, there's a
lot of hurdles in that space. Whereas the stock in
the bond side. The equity in the bond side of
the market has kind of proven itself, you know through
the sixty forty maybe a sixty thirty ten or a yeah,

(08:35):
like a sixty thirty ten allocation. If you wanted some
type of alternative, alternative exposure in the account would make
sense with you know, the knowledge that that money could
have some liquidity issues involved. If people like the space
of private credit, you know, private equity reads and want
and wanted to get in there, it's just them understanding

(08:56):
that you know, that space could have some liquidity issues.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
The one of the things that is another product that
we're starting to see more and more of, not only
on the investment banking side, as far as investments that
are on an exchange ETFs are buffered products. Now there's
these buffered ETFs which provide growth of the equity markets
with built in buffers against market losses as well, let's

(09:23):
say ten, fifteen, twenty thirty, or even up to one
hundred percent. So these are complicated investments. They're ones that
you need to seek out advice before you basically say
green light go, and based on the performance of these
assets in the past, you need to understand is that

(09:43):
you know your market rates or returns are going to
be dictated by the amount of buffer that you want
with the products. So we're going to discuss that a
little bit today too. But this is Retirement Ready. It
is a topic specific show. Today we're talking about how
to allocate your asset allocation just before you get into
retirement three to five years, and then how you should

(10:05):
allocate your money, especially if you do not have a
pension benefits anything that we're talking about. We offer a
complementary consultation at any of our offices. We've got five
locations here in New York State now, but again our
corporate headquarters is in Malta. So if you want to
have a chat with us, just give us a call
A five one eight five eight zero one nine one nine.

(10:25):
Check us out on the web rpgretire dot com. We're
going to take our first break and we'll be back
after this quick message 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. How you manage your assets

(10:47):
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 income distribution plan. After forty one

(11:09):
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to start taking action to start building your own personal
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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 your retirement income distribution plan five win

(11:32):
eight five eight zero one nine one nine. Your partner
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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

(11:53):
of the flat taxation and rising healthcare cost. Because over
ninety percent of our clients are retirees with similar concerns,
we are in the best position to approach such challenges
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the desire, or the experience the manage to their own
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(12:13):
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eight five eight zero one nine one nine. That's five
one eight five e zero one nine one nine or
RPG retired on the web. All right, we are back

(12:36):
on Dave Kopek. This is Retirement Ready and I'm here
with my son Christopher William. We are the Retirement Planning Group.
As they said, we've got five locations now in New
York State. Anything that we're discussing and give us a
quality go office five one eight five eight zero one
nine one nine. That's five one eight five eat zero, one, nine,
one nine. We live in a world today where a
lot of people have to create pension benefits. I'm going

(12:59):
to say the problemably, eighty percent of the people that
we work with, eight out of ten, probably do not
have pension benefits. Most of them have accumulated quite a
bit of money in four oh one K four three
b TSPs. You can go through a whole bunch of
different pre tax accounts, and now they're going to have
to roll that money out into a self director a
self directed IRA and start building income streams. And I

(13:23):
think the thing that's most critical is to start thinking
about that way before you actually walk into retirement, because
point of entry is critical. Are you walking into a
bull market or you walking into a bear market? So
our whole messaging to a lot of our clients is
what chris As far as when should they start this?

Speaker 3 (13:42):
Yeah, as far as building out the buckets of money,
we always emphasize to at least come in and have
a consultation appointment when you're three to five years out
from retirement to kind of have us review and look
at how you're currently invested in your four oh one
K plan or whatever your retirement account plan. Is, and
just start discussing a plan for when you know that

(14:05):
exit happens. You know, build out some projection, show you
some numbers, and just make you feel more comfortable about,
you know, the eventual exit into retirement. Reviewing the assets
that you're currently invested in is also very important because
a lot of people will set it and forget it,
you know, whether you're in target date fund or you
self managed your four oh one K plan and when

(14:26):
you know aggressive while you were younger, you know, potentially
looking at that allocation and rebalancing it into something that's
a little less risky makes a lot of sense, or
you know the fifty nine and a half rule. Well,
we'll have people roll assets out, start building out the
buckets of money within you know, fidelity account that we

(14:50):
manage so that by the time you know, people retire,
whether it's sixty two, sixty five, that account is already
established and working for you, so that by the time
you do retire, everything is set up in place in working.
You just roll out the remainder of those assets and
into the account that is you know, fully operating for
you already.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
So you've already started the buckets of money.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
Yep, Yeah, building out the plan and investing in accordingly,
depending on you know, risk tolerance, questionnaires and discussions we
have in the office with you know, perspective clients, just
seeing how they want these assets allocated. It's not necessarily
always income focused, although it can be. You know, some
people are more aggressive, they want to be sixty forty,

(15:32):
you know, more balanced, or even more aggressive, you know,
seventy thirty eighty twenty equity to bond exposure.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
So if I'm sixty years old and I've you know, decided,
you know, I want to be out the door no
later than sixty five, but I might be able to
leave at sixty two, depending you know, if I can
take some of my health care benefits with me, and
I sit down with the retirement planning group and our
software package e Money. Basically we incorporate all that data

(16:00):
and information that they fill out in their questionnaire as
far as social security, the pool of money that they have,
if there is any pension benefits from either spouse. How
how frequently do we have to adjust those numbers or
do they automatically get adjusted once the once the data

(16:21):
gets put into the software package. So, like, let's use
soil security because if I'm still working, my sole security
benefit is going to be adjusted, right, So do we
have to adjust that data manually ourselves?

Speaker 3 (16:35):
So we can adjust it manually or the client can
adjust it on their end. We can grant access send
out like login credentials to prospective clients or clients if
they sign on, you know, we will have login information
for them where they can go in and play around
with numbers and projections on their end, so they can
manually update the numbers. The client website also gives them

(16:56):
the ability to link you know, live feed accounts to
their profile. So whether it's bank accounts or outside four
to one keg. Yeah, or like a raw IRA or
individual brokerage accounts that people may own, you know, you
can set up live feeds to where that updates automatically.
I'd say the vast majority of the times we just
manually update it for them. You know, when we do

(17:16):
like a review appointment, if any numbers have changed, we
can just go in within the appointment and fix them.
See how that changes the projections. But yeah, nine times
out of ten we look at these projections with clients.
It's more so you know, comforting someone wants to someone
who's sixty plans on retiring at sixty five?

Speaker 2 (17:34):
Can I do it? Yeah? What a client like? You know,
I've got all these different accounts, I know what my
Social Security is going to be. They haven't aggregated it.
They have no idea what the big picture looks like.
I call it the dashboard. E money is basically a
dashboard of your financial life. Not only does it take
into consideration the assets of accumulated, it also takes in
your home, any debt, any mortgages that you might have,

(17:56):
any credit card debt. Hopefully you don't have credit card debt,
and you really have a P and L basically a
P and L of exactly where you stand.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
Yeah, it gives you a snapshot. It's like a one
stop shop I call it for everybody's like finances. Everything
can be you know, you can use it to you know,
whatever as full as the fullest extent of the system
is you want. You know, you can just update the
numbers manually, you can live feed link them. You don't
necessarily have to use it. We can use it for
projections solely, or you can use it to the fullest extent.

(18:27):
There's no you know, from from the basic use of
it or to the fullest extent of the system. You know,
we see it used, some clients use it, some clients don't.
But it gives an overview basically of a comfort level,
spend level. That's basically what the projection spit out is.
You know, based on all this information, inflation rate, a
growth rate, and what assets you know are going to

(18:51):
be under management as far as retirement assets, what spend
level also based on you know, your Social Security numbers
and pension numbers. What is your comfort spend level that
this iscking out whether you want to retire at a
certain age, you know, whether it's sixty two, sixty five,
sixty sixty seven, whatever that age is. And we can
always readjust as far as earlier or later. A lot
of times if people feel comfortable with, you know, the

(19:14):
the spend level that you know, the system is kicking off,
we can readjust and look at retiring at sixty two
versus sixty five.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
So it gives people just peace of mind. Yeah, And
the thing is is that there is a comfort to
That bottom line gets down to is that you know,
I think the key word that Chris mentioned here was
at fifty nine and a half a lot of people
need to understand you have the ability to do an
in service distribution. That means that you can take the
assets you've accumulated in your lifetime and your four ohwe

(19:42):
K program and you can roll those assets now into
a self director the IRA with the firm that you're
going to be working with for your retirement years, and
that allows them to basically take control of the wheel.
They can basically control the assets manage them. A lot
of times you're very limited in the offerings that you
might have. I know, one of the major companies that

(20:03):
we work with has a lot of target date funds.
The employees are not big fans of the target date funds.
This way, you have literally thousands of investments rather than
just a handful that's selected by your employer. So one
of the things that I try to overemphasize when we
meet with individuals is to make sure that they understand
is that that three to five year window is critical

(20:25):
in order for you to get to your destination because
you do not you do not want to take the
money when you retire and then roll it out and
put it into a self director IRA. You want to
basically have a game plan understand exactly what is the
assumptions was actual factual, what are the hard numbers that
can actually be achieved, and then you basically have to

(20:47):
make some decisions what we originally talked about, how do
I allocate the money? What is the way that I
want to allocate my money? You know, Chris talked a
little bit about you know the sixty forty is that
a thing of the past. Sixty percent stocks, forty percent bonds.
Some portfolio managers out there and now are talking about
fifty thirty twenty fifty percent of your money is in
stocks thirty percent, of the bond twenty percent and alternative investments.

(21:11):
You really need to understand what these alternative investments are,
how they're allocated, and the liquidity. The liquidity that you
need in order to satisfy the types of income that
you're looking for during your pre and post retirement years.
Sometimes you know there's a nine to one one you

(21:32):
have to get some assets, not necessarily because you want to,
but because you're forced to get it, and you want
to make sure that is the case. Then you have
the proper amount of liquidity available to you. So sometimes
it's actually beneficial to lease some additional money into your
four oin K because you can do what you can
get a loan against it.

Speaker 3 (21:51):
Yep, yeah, you can borrow against it. You know in
times of need, if you do need some quick money,
you don't want to go to the bank.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
You know.

Speaker 3 (22:00):
The benefit of that too is leaving money in the
four one K if you do roll some out at
fifty nine and a half, we roll out a portion
of it, say seventy five percent of whatever's in there
gets rolled out into a managed account, and it's you
have a lot more investment options available available to you
outside of your four on one K plan, not just
target date funds and a few extra funds based on
different sectors of the market. So that gives you an

(22:23):
opportunity to you know, fully invest within different mutual funds
and ETFs that are available to you, but it also
allows you to then transition into different strategies with that money.
So like seventy five percent of that money that gets
pulled out could have more of an income focus, build
out buckets of money for the eventual date that you retire,
and then that twenty five percent that's within that four

(22:46):
one K plan that you're constantly buying into every pay
period can be more aggressive because your dollar cost averaging
into those funds. So those funds you're constantly buying into
every pay period, you can withstand a market pullback because
if the market comes down a little bit, you're still
buying into those shares at a lower cost, averaging that
price down for the eventual you know, comeback of the market.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
So there's different strategies and that's one of the things
that I want to finish up on. Just remember, okay,
for those that are listening, we've had this before. This
is our first time this year that we're doing strategies
for protecting investing your money during your retirement. We're doing
it with Loopiro and his law firm. You'll have different

(23:30):
topics that we're going to discuss. How to manage your
retirement assets, options for long term care, taking the anxiety
away from your estate planning, Understanding the benefits of a trust,
how to set up my overall estate plan, especially if
legacy is a concern for you. Solid security, how to

(23:50):
select the solid security the best way to bridge the
higher social security benefits if it's important to you. And
again that's May twentieth at the Crown Plaza Hotel. This
is a presentation that WGY is sponsoring with the Retirement
Planning Group and the pier O'Connor and Strauss Law Firm.
If you would like to attend, the easiest way to

(24:12):
do it, folks, in this most simplistic way is to
go to the web WGY Seminar dot com. WGY Seminar
dot com. I'm Dave Kopek. This is the Retirement Ready Show.
We'll be back after this quick message. All right, we
are back on Dave Kopek. This is Retirement Ready. It's

(24:34):
a topic specific show. We're talking about allocating your money
during your pre and post retirement years. When I say
pre it's typically three to five years when you start
thinking and contemplating that you want to walk out the
door your age sixty, you're thinking about maybe sixty three
or sixty five. You want to go out and basically
go to the green fields and the metals of retirement.

(24:56):
And it's a complicated process. Sometimes doesn't have to be.
It can be overwhelming, there can be some stress and anxiety.
But after doing this now for forty three years, I
believe that we've got a recipe. We have a kind
of a secret sauce that we utilize in order to
facilitate individuals that are contemplating and want to go into retirement.

(25:21):
Sometimes you're forced into retirement, you don't have the option.
That's okay too. There's different ways that you can prepare
for life's eventual curveballs and build out a retirement plan
that combines the income that you're looking for from hopefully
multiple sources that you have. This morning, I have my son,
Christopher William with me. Chris, of course, is a financial

(25:44):
analyst with the Retirement Planning Group, a Sienna guy. Matter
of fact, talking about Sienna and sports and all that
stuff I just mentioned to You're pretty happy with your
New York Giants picks?

Speaker 3 (25:55):
Huh, yes, I am. I can't say that for the
past couple of years. But yeah, they did good this year.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
So besides the defensive guy from Penn State, who else
did they get picked up?

Speaker 3 (26:08):
A d n Abdul and then they got a QB
they traded up for well, that's right, they got dark
and Dark from Ole Miss.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
Yeah, what's the deal with him? He's good?

Speaker 3 (26:18):
Yeah, you know, he's pretty good. He did really good
in the combine. And isn't that where your boy there
mister Manning came from. So hopefully it's in the blood.
It's going to continue because they won two championships with ELI.
So I used to be a New York Giants fan,
but I my son calls me the trader now because
I went to the Buffalo Bills.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
I just got the pain was too hard. Yeah, well
watch out. The Giants are all right, they're looking good.
All right, Let's talk about some key key things, Chris.
Let's talk about what people need to do when they're,
you know, thinking about going into retirement. There's really kind
of three key key areas that we try to focus

(27:00):
in on.

Speaker 3 (27:01):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
First is that we want to have guarantees with a
good portion of our portfolio to make sure that you're
going to have your core expenses covered. We have growth
potential because we need purchasing power for the next ten
to fifteen, twenty thirty years. And then if it's important
to you, you want a legacy and the flexibility that
you want with your plan. So let's start with the baseline.

(27:25):
People come in, they don't have a pension benefit. What's
our assumptions as far as what we think realistically they
can take off the portfolio.

Speaker 3 (27:33):
We account for five percent, so through you know, market
growth or however they're allocated, you know, from a conservative
investor to a aggressive investor, we're still accounting for five
percent distribution off the account that should be you know,
sustainable throughout their retirement years, so a five percent. And

(27:53):
the thing is is that if we've got the money,
if they came in the door. This is to do
a hypothetically, you've got a million dollars, you roll in
million dollars at age fifty nine and a half and
you're not going to retire until age sixty two. But
we're gonna take that million dollars. We're gonna start building
out the buckets of money. We're gonna build out. Whether
it's a thirty twenty, you know, fifty thirty twenty, or

(28:15):
if it's a sixty forty or ninety ten, whatever it is,
it's going to be based on your your needs. It's
gonna be specific for you and your family. So let's
just say that we get the five percent. The million
dollars is now sitting there for three to five years.
That dividend is now going into bucket number one, which
is the cash bucket, which will facilitate your income, meaning

(28:35):
that when you walk out the door, you have the
ability to have access to those funds immediately. So it's
the biggest mistake that people make when they go into
the retirement years is they don't fill up that bucket
before they walk out into retirement.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:51):
Yeah, getting adequate, adequate cash set up on the sideline,
you know, for the eventual exit of their job, and
having those ounce established and ready, like we were saying
before with the fifty nine and a half ruled, you know,
getting gearing up, you know, for this exit, setting yourself
up so that once retirement does happen, it's pretty seamless

(29:11):
and smooth. You know, you can go into retirement. You
can establish a periodic plan where we send out money
on a monthly basis to you know, your checking account
or bank account, whichever you like. And you know, it
acts as like a you're you're funding yourself through retirement
in a direct deposit way. You know, it's going right
into your bank account. You're still collecting, you know, a paycheck,

(29:32):
it's just now coming from your your IRA account.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
And the other part of it is too, is that
if you're if your social Security and your dividends off
your portfolio. And as to say that your wife has
a small pension benefit, you didn't have a BEDGOM benefit. UH.
The E Money the software package that we utilize in
order for us to basically have the dashboard of exactly
where you stand. Basically, what we're doing is we're building

(29:58):
the foundation. You've got a good foundation your sources of income,
which most people do not do before they walk out
into retirement. What they do is they get the money,
They walk to the financial advisor and they say, I'm retired.
You know, I've got these assets that are sitting in
my four owe K Now I want to try to
decide how I can take distributions. You're already two steps

(30:21):
behind the competition. You should have done it three to
five years before you actually walk down into retirement, because
now your point of entry is critical as far as
are you entering a bull or a bear market? High
interest rates are low interest rates? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (30:35):
For the people that you know just retired the beginning
of twenty twenty five, they bought in at markets all
time highs in that you know scenario that you just
played out, So they just saw it, you know, depending
on how they're allocated anywhere from uh, you know, ten
to fifteen percent draw down in the equity market, so
they could be scrambling or thinking about moving to cash

(30:58):
and you know, trying to figure out how to reassess
you know, their investment needs going down the line, and
it could affect their income distribution. So getting in you know,
three to five years out and starting that plan, you
know at fifty nine and a half if you plan
to retire at sixty two or sixty five, you know,
having that time within the market to build out. Let

(31:20):
you know, the market run its course and get some
either growth in the account or dividends you know that
are piling up in that bucket one that money market
fund that we use. It just makes sense to have.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
Like which is still paying over four percent. Yeah they're
still pretty high, which is still paying over four percent.
So cash is still in some ways king meaning that
you're still getting competitive ready to return on cash that's
sitting there waiting for your exit into your retirement years.
Big thing is what I think is that you need
to understand. One thing is that you should have multiple

(31:53):
sources of income. You need to have a diversified portfolio
that creates the income stream and the key word here
is that safety and guarantees right should really not be
something that you poo poo when you turn your head
and you walk away from. Because we're in the camp
that you should have a certain amount of money that

(32:14):
is going to be baseline. Whether it's a small pension benefit,
whether it's your social security, whether you purchase an annuity,
if you do a ladder bond portfolio, it doesn't make
any difference what it is. It's specific to you, and
it's specific to the plan that you need with your
family and what you're trying to achieve. Every appetite for
risk is different. Everybody does not have the same appetite

(32:38):
for risk. And when you build out a retirement income
distribution plan, the biggest thing you got to start thinking about,
and one that we're seeing more and more is to
manage longevity risk. YEP, longevity risk. You're going to live
a hell a lot longer than you anticipate, and because
of that you need to understand is that this pool
of money if you retire at age sixty. I mean,

(32:59):
there's some articles now that we're reading on artificial intelligence
that says that if you live past the year of
two thousand and thirty, you got a good chance of
living well over to the age of one hundred. We
were just talking about this this morning. If that is
the case, you could have thirty or forty years of
managing assets in order to facilitate the income. One mistake,

(33:20):
two mistakes could be cataclysmic. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:23):
We always project in the e money projections as well,
you know, life expectancies of either ninety or ninety five currently. Yeah,
just to play out scenarios where you know, people do
live longer than they expect it. And you know, some
people chuckle when we show them, oh, you know, your
life expectancy is ninety five and they're like, yeah, right,
I don't expect to live past seventy five, so with
their family history or whatever they got going on. But

(33:45):
it's good to plan for that because then you know
in different cases where and we always overemphasize too, you know,
this goes along with it if you're if you have
longevity risk. You know a lot of people do say
I want to spend more money in retirement early though,
if I want to travel or when I'm younger and
healthier and that it makes more sense.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
That's when they you know, the thing is is that
what people need to understand, and you understand it because
you've been with us long enough. Now the money is
going to come out, whether it's on your terms or
it's on the government's turn. If you have good genes
and you have longevity required minimum distribution is going to
force you to liquidate that account, whether you want to
have it, liquidate it and you're going to be sitting

(34:25):
there later in life and you're going to get large distributions,
not because you need the income, but the government is
forcing you to liquidate the account.

Speaker 3 (34:33):
Yeah, so it's coming out regardless. You might as well
spend it on your terms, travel, do things while you're young,
through the bucket list, items that you've always wanted to
do once you retire in the first couple of years.
That can all be accounted for within the plan itself.
We always say, you know, if we want to go
more in depth into this plan, we can account for,
you know, a higher spend level in the first five
years of retirement while you want to travel and do

(34:54):
all the things that you've always wanted to do, and
then you know that's going to drop down. Obviously, you
can't maintain in a higher spin level for thirty four
years in retirement. But when you're seventy five eighty years old,
you're probably going to be doing a lot less than
you are going to be doing when you're sixty five
seventy years old, and I'm going to travel and enjoy.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
They'll say that to Trump. Yeah, that's true. Guys like
the Energizer Bunny. Everybody that works with them basically says
the guy never stops. So bottom line gets down to
is that here's here's some highlights. Here's some things for
you to consider. Okay, we're talking about asset allocation, how
to manage your assets pre three to five years before

(35:31):
you retire, and then once you get into retirement. The
key number one is first and foremost. We do not
have a cookie cutter approach at the retirement planning group.
We sit down with you and we identify your individual, family,
personal and financial goals. Agreed.

Speaker 3 (35:52):
Yeah, yeah, everything is on an individual approach. You know,
we're not going in and you know, squeezing everybody into
the same models or same portfolios. And there's we build
out models, you know, based on conversations we have with wholesalers,
but they're all associated with different risk scores, different allocations,
it's just you know, the best funds that we are
hearing about and seeing in the market. So as far

(36:14):
as like having a individualized approach, it's completely customized around
the client's needs and what their situation is and what
they're looking to get out of retirement. You know, some people,
legacy isn't that important to them. You know, they want
to spend the money that they've you know, built up
their entire life and working life, and they're basically saying,
you know, whatever's left that can go to the kids.

(36:35):
But I'm not worried about legacy. They're going to be
in there, you know, forties and fifties by the time
we pass. It's not they're going to be grown and
have kids of their own. It's not really our concern.
Whereas some other people say, you know, legacy is a
huge part of what I want to do. I want
to leave my kids with as much as I possibly can.
So it can't be a cookie cod approach. It has
to be more personalized. All right, we got to take

(36:56):
a break. We're going to come back.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
We're talking about allocating money pre three to five years
before you retire, and how your allocation should be able
to facilitate what you're looking for. Again, we're having a
presentation which I'll discuss when we come back from break,
but we'll see on the other side of the break
your partner for success. David Kopek, heir WG WISE retirement

(37:18):
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 rising health care costs.

(37:39):
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 to a
secure financial future for them. Because over ninety percent of
our clients or retirees with similar concerns, we're in the

(38:00):
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.
All right, we are back. I'm Dave Kopek. I'm the
president of the Retirement Planning Group. I got my son,

(38:21):
Christopher William Kopek, who's the financial analyst for the firm,
and uh, we're here talk about allocating money pre three
to five years before retirement and then once you allocate,
and I want to you know, there's trade offs, folks.
I've been doing this now for forty three years. Everyone's
situation is unique and different. So there's not any one

(38:46):
strategy or different strategies that we utilize through the Retirement
Group Planning Group that works for all of our investors.
So when we sit down with you, we try to
determine the importance of growth, the importance of guarantees, the
importance of flexibility, the importance of basically cash flow that

(39:06):
you control. One of the biggest problems that people do
is they build out a retirement income distribution plan with
qualified assets iras four O one ks. They say, pay
me out the dividends, and then what they're doing they're
not using all the money. They're paying the tax on
these assets, not necessarily because they need it, but because
they've got the distribution being paid out of the portfolio.

(39:30):
One of the things we try to overemphasize is that
we try to minimize your tax liabilities and maximize the return.
So taking distributions off your portfolio if you're not spending
it doesn't make a lot of sense. So bucket number one.
A lot of times we will do a minimum amount
of money and if you need additional cash, you have

(39:51):
a debit card or you actually have a checkbook that
you can basically go to the well and get more
money if you need it.

Speaker 3 (39:58):
Yeah, yeah, Fidelity does offer those checkbooks and debit cards.

Speaker 2 (40:03):
For I just got the debit cards for mom and I. Yeah,
they're great, you know, people love them. But the.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
You know, the idea behind that is if you if
you pull all this money out just because you want
it sitting in your bank account, you're actually losing valuation
on that money. It's sitting in with inflation you know,
being high, and if it does stay higher for longer,
those dollars are just becoming less and less valuable. You
might as well let it sit in a money market
fund that has a direct link to your checking or account.

(40:32):
That money can be wired to you within twenty four
hours and it can be within your checking account, but
it doesn't have to necessarily be invested. If you want,
you know, a substantial cash position in one of your accounts,
it can be in a money market fund, but at
least it's getting current interest rate returns, you know, or
getting in the like he said earlier, you're getting over
four percent still in a money market fund, whereas you know,

(40:52):
that's pretty competitive even with banks right now. So I
think it just makes all the sense in the world.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
Four percent is beaten a lot of your dividend portfolios
right now.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
No, I mean our income model right now is getting.

Speaker 2 (41:04):
Well, I don't mean I mean inequity stock equity portfolio.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's pandidivity yeah, pan like three
and a half four percent. Yeah, I mean if we're
getting over four percent in a cash where you've got
liquidity and you get to the money at any time.
So bottom line is is that don't have too many
concentrated positions. Don't get you know, have a love stock
or a love bond portfolio, or you know, any one

(41:25):
particular thing. That's typically when people get hurt. You've got
to have a long term strategy with diversification. And the
key of course is what is your family's history, you know,
I know for a lot of us. You can dike
that my dad died when he was forty four years
old in nineteen sixty eight. Okay, he had some health

(41:46):
issues didn't carry forward to his children. So you've got
to basically look at that and basically say, is this
something that I have to be concerned about because longevity.
I know that we just touched on that briefly. Longevity
with your plan can have a huge impact with RMD
required minimum distribution and also the ability to pay your

(42:07):
bills over a thirty forty year period of time. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:11):
Yeah, covering your expenses over a thirty forty year period
of time, especially you know, adjusting for inflation. If you're
pulling all that money out and just sitting on it
in your bank account, you're going to start wondering why
it's going out the door so fast twenty years down
the line, when everything's a lot more expensive than it
was today.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
Well, if you look at the uniform lifetype table, which
is your devisor for your qualified assets your IRA, as
you age, the divisor gets smaller, meaning that the distributions
have to get much larger. So the thing is is
that for a lot of people. If this is true.
If this is true, what technology is going to do
with AI in the healthcare industry, You're going to see

(42:46):
a lot of people that used to worry about the
legacy of transfer of wealth of these IRA assets. It's
not going to be much left right because it's all
already going to be out the door, and it's either
going to go to you and you're going to have
it in some other account outside of qualify as, or
it's going to go to the long term care facility
or the healthcare because that's really for people that have

(43:06):
more than enough money during the retirement years. Really, Chris,
that's the main obstacle, that's the achilles heel, because most
people that are listening to the show right now have
no long term care coverage zero zero. Well, it's almost
unaffordable in New York State, so well it is. But
there's alternative options that a lot of insurance company has
come out with that people need to be aware of,

(43:29):
and we'll go through that when we do our presentation
with mister Piro again, I'm going to give out one
more highlight strategies for protecting investing your money during retirement.
This is a dinner workshop last year we had it
and it was sold out. It's going to be May
twentieth at the Crown Plaza Hotel, which used to be

(43:52):
the Desmond It's gonna registration starts at five point thirty.
It's going to be on May twentieth. Again, May twentieth,
which is a Tuesday. If you want to attend, I
can tell you better get on either the telephone or
go to the web. The easiest way to do it, folks,
and the one that I'll concentrate on today is to

(44:13):
go to the web. You just go to Wgyseeminar dot
com Wgyseminar dot com and there's a highlight of the presentation.
You just fill out your name, your email, your phone number,
zip code, number of individuals that will be attending. If
you have any gluten free guests, we will facilitate that
the best way that we can, you click the button

(44:34):
in your register. But again that's going to be May twentieth.
We'll be talking about how to manage your IRA mistakes
that we've seen retirees make, how to maximize your Social
Security benefits, taking the anxiety away from estate planning, how
to protect your home your assets from possibly the greatest

(44:54):
risk to most individuals, which is a healthcare and long
term care event. And Loon and his team will definitely
go through trust, legal documents of state planning. He does
a great job. I think lou Piro and his staff
they are excellent. Last year they did a phenomenal job.
So again May twentieth, at five point thirty, if you

(45:14):
want to register, I'm going to give it out one
more time. WGY Seminar dot com register and we look
forward to being there. So I want to highlight one
thing before we say goodbye here. We've seen a lot
of volatility over the last month or so, Yes, we have.

(45:36):
We've had a substantial gain this week in the markets.
I mean we're down route depending on the indiscy, we're down.
We've we've been down about twenty percent. We got back
ten percent. What's your messaging to the radio listeners and
to existing clients and prospective clients about what you've seen

(45:57):
in the markets since the beginning of two thousand twenty five,
seeing that you're our financial analysts.

Speaker 3 (46:03):
Yeah, I guess it's just to the same thing we
discussed a couple of weeks ago on one of the shows.
It's just that the market's trading on the uncertainty of
this tariff war that we're in between with these countries,
specifically China, and a lot of it is based off
of headlines and not necessarily the financial standing of these

(46:23):
companies that it's affecting. You know, stock prices are fluctuating
on the nervousness of what's gonna what's gonna come out,
what policy is gonna if is there anything going to
be changed, or what negotiations are going to happen. So
as far as you know, what people should be looking at,
it's if you want to transition from you know, more

(46:44):
concentrated equity positions, maybe look at equity value positions. You know,
value equity positions are are kind of you know, not
taking the hit as much as these tech growth AI
positions that we saw drawdown in. But overall, drastic changes
I don't think should be made right now in anybody's portfolio,
because you saw the you know, the market drop down

(47:07):
twenty it's already back ten just on the notion that
they're negotiating with these other countries.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
So there's going to be some kind of conversation or resolution.
You know, this is what I would say because after
doing it now for forty three years, and I keep
on saying that over and over again. If you've got
beads of sweat on your forehead and you can't sleep
at night, and this has really been problematic over the
last two, three, four or five weeks, you probably are
in the wrong allocation because the allocation you should have

(47:34):
is to be able to stay put allow of the markets.
Do the gyrations. Because this is not uncommon, folks, this
is common. This happens every year where you're gonna get
pullbacks in the market. Some are more drastic than others.
You've got to be able to with with you know,
withstand these types of volatility in your portfolio, because if
you sell, you've locked in your losses and you've guaranteed them.

(47:57):
That's why when we go through these we try to
over emphasized. We just had a conference call about two
weeks ago where I got on the phone. I basically
said to people, sit tight, don't overreact. We've got you covered,
We've got dry powder, we've got your dividends, your cash
flow set up in your portfolios. So if you are
in a situation right now where you feel uncomfortable, you

(48:17):
feel like you want a second opinion. You don't like
the way that your money's allocated. We have a lot
of people come in for a second opinion. A lot
of times we tell them, hey, listen, your advisor is
doing a great job. Sometimes we say hey, listen, you
know what, we're not too sure why you're allocated the
way you are. You know, come on back for a
second appointment. We'll give you some ideas and suggestions. You
can go home and think about it. So we do

(48:39):
offer a complimentary consultation at our Aubany office. It's pretty easy.
You get ahold of us. How they get ahold of us?

Speaker 3 (48:44):
Chris, Yeah, it can call us at five pine eight
five eight zero or www dot rpgretire dot com on
the internet.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
So again, I don't want to be uh, you know
two negative about this, but make sure, folks, make sure
make sure that uh you don't want to make any
drastic changes when the market is selling off. You want
to basically take your gains when you're dancing in the street. Okay,

(49:20):
that's when you want to go to cash. That's when
you want to build up dry powder. That's what we
do with the Retirement Planning Group. So again, if we
can be of assistance if we can have a chat
with you, We would welcome that. We have five locations
in New York. You can give us a call at
our office five one eight, five eight zero one nine

(49:40):
one nine. That's five one eight, five eight zero one
nine one nine. I'm Dave Kopek. We'll see you next week.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
Thank you for listening to Retirement Ready, hosted by Dave Kopek.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
If you would like to talk with Dave or.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
Someone at the Retirement Planning Group, called five one eight
five eight zero one nine. That's five one eight five
zero one nine one nine during business hours, or visit
RPG retire dot com. The Retirement Planning Group has five
convenient offices located in Albany, Malta, Glens Falls, Pontiata, and Syracuse.

(50:15):
Tune in again next week at noon for Retirement Planning
Strategies with David Kopek, or Saturdays at seven am for
the Retirement Planning Show