Retirement Ready

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
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 Copet.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Hello, welcome back. It is noon o'clock on Saturday, May thirty. First,
it's your Retirement Planning show, Retirement Ready Show. My name's
Nicholas Dumas, certified financial planner with the Retirement Planning Group.
I have alongside me today Christopher Kopek, This afternoon, Good afternoon.

(01:06):
How are you today?

Speaker 3 (01:07):
Doing pretty good? Be doing a lot better if it
was the sun was out there somewhere, if it.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Was seventy five and sunny. Yep, it's supposed to be
Monday through Wednesday. While we're sitting at our desk. Yeah,
so funny saw that someone was saying, it's been like
twenty twenty something weekends straight with rain, yep or snow.
So hoping we break that the street continues. Yeah, rain today.

(01:37):
It's miserable out Yeah, it's pretty ugly out there. Got
a new plans.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
None, No, just this, just this, then go sit on
my couch.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
It's funny. It was Kendra and I. It's our fourth
anniversary last week, this past week. So on Thursday she
told me, we're going to Foxwoods tonight. Oh so I'm
taking off after the show, so I'm unavailable tonight. I'm
going to Hell's Kitchen. Oh wow, that's the closest Hell's kitchen.

(02:07):
I guess to us. We're gonna go over there. I'm
gonna get the beef Wellington. There you go, I'm gonna go.
It's beautifully cooked. It's beautifully cooked. I was watching the
show before I went home after the seven and nine,
get some dishes to watch Hell's Kitchen, and we're gonna
go out there tonight and get beef Wellington. I'm gonna
get the risotto, lobster risotta. You got the mindset down.

(02:31):
I'm ready to I'm gonna spend one hundred, one hundred
and fifty bucks. It's all expensive too, but we'll see.
All right, So a lot's going on a lot in
the markets. Tariff talk again, No tariffs came up. I
guess uh. It was brought to court the way that
Trump implemented that tariffs was through ipa international emergency, and

(02:57):
there were a couple different ways that he could have
brought them in effect that he did not sow as
it brought. It went through the court system. It's in
the appeals court right now. But I think everything's you know,
gonna settle out here. I don't think there's gonna be
a major swing. If anything, he can use different sections

(03:17):
of law. So again, the tariffs are here, they're on,
they're paused right now. But again it's it's having a
major effect on the market. I think once this starts
to settle down with the tariff talk, it's going to
be more interest rate focused again like it's been, you know,
and that's how the markets kind of reacted as well.
The big, you know, elephant in the market is the

(03:41):
interest rate that the thirty year So the thirty year
treasury passed five percent again earlier this week and then
it came back down a little bit. But again it's
showing investors that, hey, you can get a risk free
rate of five percent for thirty years. So is it
worth absorbing the risk of the stock market to try

(04:01):
to capture a higher rate of return? Right If your
risk free rates higher, you know, you need to be
rewarded more for taking on risk. So again it kind
of brings you to the fact, are are we going
to start seeing more dollars shift over to the bond market,
shift over to more stability versus taking on risk to
try to obtain ten percent returns when you know, hey,
I can get four percent in a money market, I

(04:22):
can give five percent in a risk free treasury thirty year.
You know, you put ten thousand dollars into a thirty
year at five percent, you're looking at about forty three
thousand bucks in thirty years from now. So again it's
a long time. It's a risk free rate of five percent,
and some people are happy with that. So again, there's
a lot to discuss in the markets. There's a lot

(04:43):
going on. Year to date, we've bounced back. April ninth
was our low and now we're in the SMP. Anyways,
we're back to about flat, up one percent on the year.
The last month, we've had a lot of positive momentum.
Technology specifically, you look at tech funds, you know, Triple
Q's QQQ in Vesco that's up about what ten percent

(05:05):
in the last month. So we're seeing some positive momentum
on the tech side of it. So NASDEK, y're to
date still down a little bit, but this past week
we had a good week. SMP five hundred was up
about two NASDEK was up about two and a half.
And then you start looking at the Dow up about
one point eight percent, and the aggregate bond in decks
actually rallied a little bit as well, even with the

(05:27):
five percent thirty years. So again, I think a lot
of folks out there are investors or our clients specifically,
haven't really been calling. I think they were able to
stomach the downswing over the last couple of months and
now hey, here we are back to where we were again.
We build cash in portfolios for times like this.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
Right and yet a lot of the meetings that we've
been sitting on and having with people too over the
last year year and a half has been at least
showing them like an income type model that we utilize
and just saying, hey, you know, this is out there
where rates are at right now. It makes a lot
of sense to some people who are taking income to

(06:12):
rebalance the account a little bit, get more safety while
yields are high. You know, the income models kicking off six, seven,
eight percent yields at different you know times, so we'll
see it probably come down in June. June eighteenth is
going to be a big day with the FED meeting,

(06:33):
so we'll see in that FOMC meeting what happens. You know,
they're pricing in the first rate cut to be June eighteenth,
so like you were saying, you know, if getting into
that rate while it's at five, it may not be
a bad thing to look at, you know, lock yourself
into a higher rate so that if June eighteenth they
do cut, you're not gonna you know.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
You're not gonna get hurt. Hurt. And a lot of
people out there might have went through the downstow and
now we're back, portfolios are back. This might be a
time to reevaluate. You know, maybe you're feeling nauseous over
those couple of months there because you're one hundred percent SMP,
five hundred percent tech focused, and now you're getting closer
to retirement, so maybe it's time to reevaluate where you are,

(07:17):
maybe trim some of those gains we've seen over the
last you know, ten fifteen years we have We've had
a very long bowl market. You know, a few swings.
You know, you saw COVID pop up. Twenty twenty two
was a tough year, and then just earlier this year
with that that downswing in uh March and April. But
again we're back to where we were, you know, the
beginning of the year. Maybe we take some of those
gains from the last ten or fifteen years, lock it

(07:39):
into something at a higher rate. Now that rates are
where they are now, you can still do a multi
year guaranteed annuity contracts, so myga's or what we refer
to those, as you know, it's a locked in rate
for a certain timeframe, three years, five years. You know,
they give you a better rate because you've got to
leave the money there. Some of these companies allow you
to access ten percent of what you put in year

(08:00):
over year, but we don't want that to be the case.
You know, we want to have this money there collecting
interest while it's high and h and have a game
plan for those dollars. So if you could put a
little bit of a hedge or a parachute on the account,
I think it's a good time to do it. With
the current interest rate environment we're in. You don't have
to look at alternative investments or you know, private credit

(08:20):
some of these difficult us or structured investments. At this point,
you know you can get it in the MYGA fixed
income space. So so again, you know, if you're someone
that's getting closer to retirement wants to reevaluate your portfolio
and really come up with a you know, an income plan,
some sort of stability, you know, riskalized Nitrogen. Chris does

(08:42):
a lot of work with with that software program that
we have available, and we're really able to gauge portfolios.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yeah, no, it does a great job. We build all
of our portfolios through Nitrogen, which was previously riskalized, and
it's great at you know, giving you a hypothetical. You
get a risk score associated with your your portfolio, so
you know exactly where you stand as far as how
much risk you're taking on and then as far as

(09:12):
you know potential upsides, the history of the funds itself,
how they've performed in up markets, down markets. You know,
it'll reference them to like the eight crash or like
the twenty thirteen bull market, and just show you where
you'd be at and something like taking less risk than
being one hundred percent equity. You know, what does it

(09:32):
look like if I did carve off thirty percent of
my equity exposure and put it into bonds. So it
it it's visually because I'm a visual learner. Is most people,
I feel like are. You got to see it to
understand it. It makes a lot of sense when you
put it up on the board and you can show
them how it all works behind the scenes.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
It's like the chart, Yeah, the five year Yeah, great
showing that. To me, it shows compared to the SMP
you know, five hundred index, your basic market index, and
then also compared to the aggregate bond index, kind of
how your portfolio would have what would have withstood the

(10:14):
last five years. You know, we show you from twenty twenty,
this is what it would have done since COVID began,
and I think it gives you a really good idea
of how your portfolio will react to different market conditions,
you know, and just recently in the two month drawback
we had there, it kind of shows the SMP five
hundred was down this much, you know, and your account

(10:34):
was only down this much, right, So it shows the
it's a little less volatile but more narrow band of
returns over time, which we're trying to target for a
lot of our retirees. So this is a call in show,
I believe. So if you want to call in, it's
one eight hundred and eight two five five nine four nine.
Be happy to talk to you. You know, if you

(10:57):
have any questions, we're here to try to answer them.
And again, if you're want to call our office, it's
eight eight eight five eight zero nine one nine. We're
gonna take our first break. We back right after.

Speaker 4 (11:08):
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Speaker 2 (14:02):
And we are back live from iHeart Studios w G
I one on three point one. Name is Nicholas Dumas,
certified Financial Planner with the Retirement Planning Group, Professional Plank
Assault and here with Chris Kopek, financial analyst with the firm.
Chris has been doing it for what four or five years.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
Now, yep, four going on four or yeah, four. I
started in May of twenty twenty one.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
He's in the thick of it getting his securities licenses.
You just got the sixty five.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
Yeah, just passed the series sixty five a month ago.
Got the SIE and then My Life Accident in Health.
Currently the next one is the Series six, and then
The Big Guy and then The Big FP.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
That'll be a good one. Pass you my books. I
think they're all e books now. Yeah, everything was e
books and I did a some sort It's like a session.
You'd go online and there'd be an instructor going through everything.
You can watch it whenever you want, yeah, versus going
to live.

Speaker 3 (15:09):
That's exactly what I did through Kaplan and they had
like the they give you a textbook, so I got
it mailed to me. Yeah, but I read the thing
six hundred pages cover to cover, just online. It makes
it easier because it's like a slide show. You get
to click around, but it's a lot of reading.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
I like having a professor or someone discussing the topics too,
not just you know, book right right, because then it
kind of sticks a little more for me and I
can read something, I highlight a bunch, you know. But yeah, CFP,
it's a it's a very long exam. I think I
was there all day when I took it. And a

(15:46):
lot of questions and a lot of questions that have
multiple right answers, which cats you's the best? So again,
it really you know, attorneys take the bar, financial professionals
take the CFP. You know, so it's very important that
you keep on that road. You're doing good. Yeah, I

(16:06):
remember when I was going through all that stuff. You know,
there's times where kind of pushes you is really what
I want to do? And then and then you come
back and you know, you get that passing score and
it's just a huge you know, not not only confidence booster,
but also you know, just you come to realization that

(16:26):
you're in the right spot. Yeah. But but again, uh, markets,
you know, we've ben talk about the markets a little bit.
Now I want to talk about retirement ages. And I
got an article here a new retirement age in Denmark
is seventy.

Speaker 3 (16:42):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
You know, I hope that doesn't turn into the United States. Yeah, no,
thank you. You know, a lot of times we see
people working well into their sixties. You know, I would
say the typical retirement age somewhere early sixties for the
most part from what I see. You know, some people
retire in their mid fifties if they've done well and

(17:04):
they've have strong pensions, they've been working for like a
state maybe they're a state employee, and they have a
strong pension right at fifty five and they have access
to retirement funds at that point, might make sense, they've
got health insurance covered, you know, But for a majority
of folks, it's probably early early to mid sixties. I
would say, you know, maybe they're waiting until sixty five

(17:24):
for that Medicare premium of one hundred and seventy five
bucks a month versus going on the private exchange at
you know, one thousand a month. So right, again, there's
there's multiple factors that go into your retirement date. You know,
I think the major one are the income sources that
are going to be available to you. Some people might

(17:46):
be delaying for Social Security at a higher age, you know,
whether that's you can start taking right at sixty two,
but if you delay until sixty five or sixty seven,
you know, most people's full retirement age at this point
in sixty seven, and then you can delay it as
long as seventy it'll continue to grow, and then at
that point it stops growing. So the three magical numbers

(18:09):
you see are sixty two, sixty seven, and seventy. Especially
when I'm looking at those social Security statements that people
bring in, you know, those are the three ages that
I really relate back to and and really figure out
where the income is gonna come from when we're going
to turn it on. Does your spouse have a strong
social security as well? And you know, also your retirement accounts.

(18:32):
You know, how much of you accumulated so far. If
you got a million bucks million five, you know, and
you're looking at turning social Security on at sixty two,
most of the time I tell you to go ahead
and do it, you know, because we could probably solve
your income needs with the retirement assets at that point.
If you only have you know, maybe one hundred two
hundred thousand, year four one k. Maybe we delay that
social Security to generate a higher income stream for the

(18:54):
rest of your life. And every year you delay that
it increases by eight percent. You know, even though you
might be given up a monthly income of fifteen hundred
or two thousand a month. Over those that year or
two that you delay, you know, You're social security still
increase by eight percent. I can't guarantee you that in
the market. So again, a lot of conversations, a lot

(19:15):
of discussions surrounding social security selection and also pension election.

Speaker 3 (19:20):
So yeah, we we you know, break it down to
all this information through e money and just lay all
the options on the table. And the way we do
that is just say, you know, if you're making fifteen
hundred bucks a month through social Security at sixty two,
if you delay it to sixty five or sixty seven,

(19:40):
you're looking at you know, twenty two hundred a month
or whatever it may jump to. You're forfeiting those first
from sixty two to sixty seven or sixty five, you're
just forfeiting you know, three to five years of income.
So if you do like the break even calculation on,
you know, if I were to pay myself for these

(20:02):
three to five years, I'm giving up this amount of
annual income to lock in this higher amount, you know,
for the rest of my life. And it comes down
to like a personal choice and a comfort decision. Sometimes
we'll tell husband and wives that it may make sense
for one of them to delay their social Security and

(20:23):
lock in the higher amount, and then the other just
turn it right on at sixty two, and then we'll
supplement their income through the retirement accounts that we rolled
over until they get to whatever it is, sixty five
sixty seven. So there's a lot of different strategies that
you can toss out there when it comes to social
security planning, and you know, most of them just come

(20:46):
down to a comfort decision on what the client ends
up wanting to do.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
And you also got a factor in whether or not
they're going to continue working. Right, the soci security income
limit for twenty twenty five is twenty three thousand, four
hundred dollars, So the most you can make if you
start collecting before your full retirement age. So if you
start taking social Security at sixty two through sixty six,

(21:12):
most you can make is twenty three four hundred dollars
without your social Security being deducted. Right, So they're gonna
take a dollar for every two that you make above
the twenty three four hundred dollars. So again, if you're
still working, maybe you started working part time, you know
you're retired from your full time job at sixty and
then you start collecting you know, part time income from

(21:35):
sixty to sixty five. You know, maybe we delay your
social Security until you fully retire at sixty five. So
again that that factors in as well. And like Chris said,
your spouse, you know, you need to factor in your
spouse's social security. If you're the primary wage earner and
you start collecting your social Security early, that's going to

(21:55):
affect your spouse is social security as well. A lot
of people don't know that if they're gonna go on
to the spousal benefit. So maybe you know the husband
or the wife stayed home and took care of the
children and then they never went back to work. You know,
they're most likely going to receive social Security based off
of your social security. So again, you want to make

(22:15):
sure you understand everything before you make that election. You're
only allowed to go back once and you also have
to pay back all the Social Security if you did so. Again,
it's a it's a crucial decision for retirees. And you know,
I've been in the camp a lot of times. I
tell people just go ahead and start taking you know,
I think they work it out in their head too.
Much to where hey, they're gonna pay me more, I'm
gonna delay another month. I'm gonna delay another month and

(22:37):
it turns into years. You know, where they could have
been receiving this income and you know, potentially they didn't
need it. You know, who knows. Maybe a life event comes,
go to the doctors and they tell you, hey, I
don't like this bump, and then you know, six months
later you're gone. Right.

Speaker 3 (22:52):
That's the other thing too that we hit on is
do you want take it younger? You know, if do
you want to travel, do things and you have stuff
that you got planned, figure out your baseline income needs.
I guess that would be the first step, you know,
figure out how much money is going out the door
and what your comfort spend level would be in how

(23:13):
you're currently living your day to day life. And if
we can satisfy that by taking the income at sixty
two and turning on social Security, you might as well,
you know, because then you have that money to go
and travel and do things. And while you're more active
then you know, oh, I waited till sixty seven to
lock in this higher amount, but I'm sixty seven, you know,

(23:35):
I'm five years older. I had five years, I could
have enjoyed this income on a monthly basis while I
was younger, healthier, could travel and do the things I've
wanted to do in retirement.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
And you could have taken left less off your retirement
accounts as well, you know, to supplement your income if
you were retired at that point. Right when you retire,
you do not have to turn your Social Security right on.
You know a lot of people think that that's the case.
But you can still delay even if you're not working.
So uh so again, uh, if you want to go
through your Social Security statement or a pension election form,

(24:06):
we'd be happy to sit down see what makes the
most sense for you. Just give us a call. Numbers
eighty eight, eight five, eight zero, one nine one nine.
Got several office locations. Our main office is in Malta, Malta,
New York two sixty nine one State Route nine. It's
right in Malta, right next to the Albany Saratoga Speedway,
which I believe this is their last season. So we

(24:27):
might be able to start going to the drive ins
on Fridays again. But uh, but again we're gonna miss it.
I think that's a great you know, racing spot and
been going there for years. So again I think this
is their last year. But you know who knows fingers crossed,
hope not. But but again, if you want to call
us numbers eight eight eight five, eight zero one nine
one nine at the office. This is also a live show.

(24:49):
If you want to call in, the number is one
eight eight two five fifty nine forty nine right here
on w G y one oh three point one. You
can visit our website as well. It's www dot rpg
retire dot com on the web. And everyone, we're gonna
take a break here for the half hour. Are we
good to go? Guys? Thirty more seconds? Oh, got thirty

(25:10):
more seconds, So I'll do one more promo here. We've
got a seminar coming up, so if you guys want
to come to a seminar, it's gonna be June twenty fifth.
We'll talk about on the other side of this half hour,
June twenty fifth. Clear your calendars, everyone, this is a
retirement ready show. We're gonna take a break and we'll
be back right after this.

Speaker 4 (25:30):
We've seen what's happening here here, here, what is happening here.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Happening and we are back so right before the break
there I mentioned we do have a seminar coming up.

(25:55):
We just had one with Lou and Dave spoke down
at the Desmond, the Old Desmond, and it was really good.
A lot of people showed up and I think it
was very informative educational. We've got a lot of questions
after and we stayed late and spoke to a lot
of individuals, you know, one on one and they were

(26:16):
able to kind of talk about their situations a little
bit and you know, give them a couple of pointers.
But again, we've got another one coming up. This one's
going to be with us and then a partnering investment firm.
We're gonna be discussing the pros and cons of annuities.
You know, you hear us talk about it on the
radio every now and then. You know, sometimes annuities get

(26:39):
a bad reputation just from maybe some of those other
advisors out there that don't know, you know, a whole
lot about the annuity landscape, so they focus more on
the investment management side of it through a custodian. But again,
we we we do like bringing them to the table
just so you understand them and see if they make

(26:59):
sense or not. You know, for a lot of folks,
maybe it doesn't if you have strong pensions sold security,
but for those people that it does make sense. We
do have some an educational seminar coming Wednesday, June twenty fifth,
if you want to, if you want to attend that,
you know this one's gonna be limited seating. I don't
think we're gonna be able to squeeze many people as
we did to the last one. Make sure you get

(27:19):
your name on the list. The number to call is
our office eight eight eight five eight zero one nine nine.
Just leave your name number and then the the number
of attendees and then we'll make sure to mark it
down and make sure you're on the list. So again,
it's gonna be at the Century House right in Latham.
Registration is gonna be at five thirty pm and then

(27:42):
we'll start presenting around six and I think there's gonna
be some appetizers and should be very informative. Again, it's
gonna be more focused on income and some of the
options that these annuity companies have.

Speaker 3 (27:57):
Yeah, it's gonna be good for a lot of people
who are are like the idea of self funding their
own pension so that's an option through these annuities that
we're going to go over as well as the partner
that we're bringing. But yeah, there's it just opens up

(28:18):
another door of planning, you know, like Niko was saying earlier,
not a lot of annuities get bad reps. But now
with the new ones that have come out, you can
charge your fee just as if we're doing it in
a managed to count through fidelity through the annuities. So
it's not the it's it's a different landscape and there's

(28:38):
new products out there that are very interesting at least
to learn about because they make sense for a lot
of people in certain situations.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, I think, you know, a discussion is definitely needed
before jumping into any of these products. You need to
understand what you're getting involved with. You need to know
what you own. You know, we're here doing not pressure, right,
We're not gonna you know, force you to do anything.
The only thing that we want to do is sit
down with you and make sure you understand what you

(29:09):
have and then start outlining some potentially better strategies, right depending,
But again, you know, it doesn't hurt to have that
complimentary consultation with us sit down, have a cup of coffee,
see what you got, and then see if we could
be of any assistance. You know, we're here to facilitate
what you're looking for. You know, a lot of other

(29:30):
advisors pump, fiduciary, fiduciary. I'm a fiduciary, you know, we are.
We act in a fiduciary capacity. So again we are
also a fiduciary. So I'm actually held to a double
standard because the CFP, you're forced to act in a
fiduciary capacity, and they hold me by that and then
also through our firms. So again, we're here to help you.

(29:53):
We're gonna put ourselves in your shoes, act in your
best interest, and you know, try to facilitate what you're
looking for. Everyone's got different goals objectives. You know, some
people move out to Tennessee because there's no state income tax,
down to Florida, over to the Carolinas.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
You know, I haven't heard many people go out to California,
but we're running out of there like they're on fire. Yeah,
that country's or that state is losing a lot of people.
They're moving to places like Texas. Tennessee is blowing up.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
Texas Florida, Texas is a big landing spot for a
lot of people now too. Yeah, Austin.

Speaker 3 (30:34):
Austin, Texas has grown immensely, especially for people around our age. Yeah,
it's a really young city.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yeah. I went there a couple of years ago. It
was it was a good time, great food. I love barbecue.
Got great barber down there, Terry Blacks I got. I
still have their hat. I bought one of their hats.
But oh, I should we need some nice weather? Yep,
I gotta get the smoker out. What did they do?
I smoked some what is it? Smoked? Some pork? Oh? Yeah,

(31:05):
I was gonna do a crown roast. It's when all
the porks and like a crown shape. But so I
go up to the caro on your head. Well, no,
I've always want to do a crown roast. And I
go to Fred's. I like Fred's, Fred the Butcher, Yeah
the best. I walk up to the counter and I go, yeah,
I think we're gonna do a crown roast today. He goes,
how many people are you having? Like there's just three
of us, And he's like, you're gonna be eating until Christmas?

Speaker 3 (31:29):
Is it really that much meat? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (31:31):
I think it's like it's for fort he said, for
fourteen people. Maybe, Oh wow, So then I ended up
just getting a few you know, individual pork. Yeah. But uh,
but it was funny. So we need some good weather.
I'm tirely there's rain. It's looks miserable out. But but again,
if if you want to come to the seminar that's
gonna be June twenty fifth, just give us a call

(31:52):
at the office eight eight eight five eight zero one
nine one nine. Be happy to have you. So, I
wanted to talk a little bit more about the pensions
you mentioned, you know, creating your own pension for annuities.
You know, a lot of times we see individuals who

(32:14):
have worked for a company their whole life. You know,
they've created this nice sized pension, and then the company
undergoes some issues and those pensions get altered, right, so
they might get frozen, they might get reduced. You know,
the company has control over those dollars, you know, managed

(32:37):
through their pension fund. What we can do, as your partner,
we could sit down with you and see what that
lump sum number would be. Right, So if you have
the option to take a lump sum from your pension.
You might be able to take those dollars and get

(32:57):
it into an annuity or some sort of of income
generating vehicle that's going to provide you with a monthly
income stream that's backed by the New York State Insurance Fund. Right,
a lot of these annuity companies, well they are insurance
companies at the end of the day. So you would
get New York State insurance up to five hundred thousand
dollars per individual. So taking that pension lump some let's

(33:21):
say it's three hundred and fifty thousand dollars and getting
it into some sort of guaranteed payout or guaranteed income
stream might not be a bad idea. Right, you're insured.
You're going to have a guaranteed income stream for the
rest of your life, potentially your spouses as well, depending
on the type of payout you elect, and it allows

(33:41):
you to sleep at night. Right, you don't have to
stare at the market. You're not tossing and turning about.
You know what Trump said today, You've got a guaranteed
paycheck coming in every single month. You're not worried about
the the Federal Reserve is doing. You know, you've locked
into a rate. So again, this might be an option
for a lot of people out there. You don't even

(34:01):
know that, you know, some people don't even know that
those are available. You know, they just think, hey, this
is what the company's gonna give me, that's what I'm
gonna take. You know, start exploring your options. You know,
knowledge is power, as Chris McCarthy would say, Yeah, I
like that, saying so again, know what you own, know

(34:23):
the options that are available to you before you make
a decision. You know, and informed decisions better than just
going with the flow. No plan is a plan, it's
a bad plan. So again, if if you want us
to take a look at what you have, start coming
up with some different strategies, we'd be happy to do that.
You know, if you have an advisor and maybe he
or she isn't taking care of you as much as

(34:45):
you'd like, we'd be more than happy to be a
second pair of eyes. Numbers eight eight, eight, five, eight
zero one nine one nine. Again, we're the retirement Planning Group.
We're small, you know, privately owned and investment firm located
right at Malta. We use a team approach, right, so

(35:06):
we've got a team mentality. You know there's myself, Dave,
Chris and Chris that are primary you know advisors. We
meet with individuals and explore their finances with them and
come up with different strategies to help solve their needs.
We also have some excellent support staff as far as

(35:27):
Lisa Stepano, Jim Corcoran, Jared Yost and Julie. So again,
if if you need, you know, someone to help review
where you're at in life and where you're trying to
get to, we'd be happy to do that.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
Yeah, we're just a phone call away. But like Nico
was saying too, with these with these annuities, you know,
to learn more about them, a scenario where they make
a lot of senses. If you're working for a company,
I know National Grid does this. I just met with
another guy last week and he had the same setup

(36:03):
where they have a cash balance plan on top of
your four oh one K or investment account. The company
you know gives them the option to pay it out
as an annuity. And what we're doing with this guy
is he liked the idea of taking that cash balance
plan you know, as a lump sum and then just

(36:25):
shopping around for his own annuity and seeing you know
what the benefits are for himself. He's actually coming to
the seminar. But it makes all the sense in the world.
You know, it's not for one hundred percent of your
assets to be thrown into a annuity to generate yourself
a self funded pension. It's for a portion of your assets,
and it's for people who want to sleep comfortable at

(36:50):
night knowing that no matter what, they got money coming
in the door on a monthly basis. It's a it's
an addition to their social security and then you know,
through the market fluctuations swings, they can handle them because
you know, they got to check coming in the door
every month, and we'll supplement additional income from the rollover
IRA or whatever retirement assets you have. You know, if

(37:12):
you've got a million bucks in your four to one
k a two hundred and fifty thousand dollars cash balance plan,
and you roll that cash balance plan out self fund
yourself a pension, then you take that million bucks and
then you know, put it into some type of like
income model investment strategy like we've been utilizing, and then
just kick interest and dividends off to you in retirement,

(37:34):
maybe some vacation money here and there.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
I mean every asset allocation needs three things, right, liquidity, growth,
and guarantees. You know, this is a good piece for
the guaranteed portion. Myga's are also another idea. You know,
if you just want to park that money somewhere and
get a guaranteed growth rate. Sometimes pension funds aren't guaranteeing

(37:59):
as high as a growth rate on those dollars like
cash balance plans, and they might be getting you know,
three four percent interest. You know, you can get a
five year, multi year guaranteed anuity contract right now at
about five percent I think is just shi a five percent,
So it's not a bad option to park some money.
No tax liability either. You know, it's a pre tax

(38:19):
you know, cash balance accumulation plan. You can convert that
or transfer it, roll it over into an IRA, right,
so pre tax IRA. It's a like to like transfer,
so you're not going to pay a tax bill there
and then allow that to continue to grow in one
of these vehicles, and then you know, after the three
years or five years are up, you could pull it

(38:41):
right back out getting into a self directed IRA account
if you want to. So again, you could do all
this without a tax liability. A lot of people ask
me how much am I going to own tax? How
much am I going to own tax? The answer is
a goose egg in this situation. So it's when you
start pulling off these pre tax assets, that's when you
start recognizing those tax liabilities. So if you want to
call us numbers eight eight eight, five, eight zero one

(39:02):
nine one nine, this is a call in show as well.
It's one eight hundred and eight two five fifty nine
forty nine. We're here live in iHeart Studios. This is
WGY one three point one. We're gonna take quick break
with backra after this.

Speaker 4 (39:15):
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 during the
most critical years of your lifetime. Nobel Prize winning economist
William Sharp has called retirement income distribution the nastiest, hardest

(39:36):
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
a retirement income distribution plan. After forty one years of
being in the financial services business, you need to start
taking action to start building your own personal retirement income

(39:57):
distribution plan. How do you do that? To take action?
Five one eight, five eight zero one nine nine. That's
five one eight, five eight zero one nine one nine
or RPG retire on the web. Don't procrastinate, motivate to
start building your retirement income distribution plan five eight, five
eight zero one nine one nine Your partner for success.
David kopikair WG WISE retirement planning specialists the Retirement Planning Group.

(40:22):
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 healthcare costs. Most of our clients like the time,
the desire, or the experience to manage their own investment portfolios.

(40:45):
We consider it to be an honor and a privilege
to help our clients make sound investment decisions that will
contribute to a secure financial future for them. Because 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. Give us a call today at
five one eight five eight zero one nine one nine

(41:07):
five one eight five eight zero one nine one nine
or RPG retire on the web. We are living through
the greatest wealth transfer in the history of mankind. Trillions
of dollars of wealth will change hands from one generation
to the next. Your money to our beloved children and grandchildren.
Are you ready? Your future is written by chance, it's
written by action. Now's the time to build your plan,

(41:28):
protect your assets, and position yourself for the opportunity. Don't wait,
take action. If future favors those that are prepared. Call
eighty eight five eight zero one nine one nine. That's
eight eight eight five eight zero one nine one nine.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
I know you deceived me.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
Now a sub.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
And we are are back twelve forty eight on Saturday,
May thirty. First. Tomorrow is June, so close your eyes.
Before you know it, the weather's gonna turn. I am
very optimistic about it. It's supposed to be nice Monday
through Wednesday. Yeah, we'll get out of the house and
do something we'll get some of that sunlight. I think

(42:23):
it's a it's a good therapy for a lot of
people out there just to see the sun feeling on
their skin. Wednesday, we're gonna get scorched. Eighty eight eighty
eight sweating. All right, maybe stay inside Wednesday. But Monday,
Tuesday is supposed to be nice. I think the sun
is supposed to be out. So get out on the

(42:45):
golf course. Hit a couple of balls. I went on
the pool uncovered it wasn't that bad. Last night we
went to uh we can. I drove over to Mechanics
forel real quick you golf? No? We We went on
the Zim Smith Trail walking trail, biking trail. It was nice.
We walked about three and a half miles. It's like
a nice nature walk. It's a nice walk. Got the

(43:07):
legs moving, did a couple of lunges.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
I like going to the there's a couple of mountains
up in Lake George. There's a short trail and you
actually get a pretty good.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
View Black Mountain Point. Oh man. I was not prepared
for Black Mountain. When I went.

Speaker 3 (43:25):
My buddy said it was a short walk. We I
didn't even bring a water bottle and uh yeah, that
was a long day.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
You were you're just putting water from some nearby James.

Speaker 3 (43:40):
Oh yeah, my one buddy showed up in khaki shorts.
Oh god, we had no idea what we were getting into.

Speaker 2 (43:45):
Another one. There's sleeping beauty up there. Also, I was
gonna do no. I think there's a cat cat mountain
or something. I was playing on going to that one.
But again it was one of those weekends. It was raining,
so I couldn't hit that one unless we're you get
all muddy and down the hill. But again it's it's
almost June, so you know, take charge here. You know

(44:09):
your retirement accounts. You might just be sitting there waiting
for things to transpire. But I think it's important you
start looking at your asset allocation, especially while the market's
jumping around. You know which sectors do you have exposure to?
How heavily invested in stocks are you versus bonds or

(44:30):
fixed rate securities? Know what your own right. You need
to sit down and reevaluate every now and then. You
can't be invested the same way as you were in
your twenties as you are in your fifties. You need
to start taking your foot off the pedal for a
lot of people. You know, some people are one hundred
percent risky. You know that they enjoy the market exposure,

(44:53):
and that's completely fine. You know, we can facilitate that
as well. But for others that are kind of just
throwing money into target date fund and saying, all right,
it aligns with when I'm retiring, it might not get
you there. You know, you need to start creating bucks
of cash. You don't want to go through a fifteen
to twenty percent correction a year before retirement, especially if
you have you know, five hundred thousand, even a million bucks,

(45:15):
got a million bucks fifteen percent down swings one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars. Yeah, not to mention, you're also
going to start taking distributions off that. So maybe you
took five percent the first year, there's another fifty thousand
dollars down. So now you're from a million to eight
hundred thousand after one year in retirement. Oh my god,
I have to go back to work. Right. People start

(45:36):
getting those thoughts. We don't want that to be the
case with you, So sit down with us. We'll go
through the money. We're not gonna hurt you.

Speaker 3 (45:45):
Yeah, if the least you'll get out of it is
a complimentary consultation, will review what you got. And if
you're invested, you know, and your advisor's doing a good job,
well we'll tell you that.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
You know.

Speaker 3 (45:55):
We we review a lot of statements and investments, even
with four oh one K plans and current allocations with
other advisors, and you know, we have no cookie cutter approach.
We're not going to slap you in something that just
goes across the board for everyone. And that reminds me

(46:16):
of a guy who came in last week too. He
I feel like the number one reason why people leave
their advisors is they feel like they're not being listened to.
That's like the reoccurring theme I've heard from people who
aren't happy and end up in our office. The guy
was just basically saying, while I was talking to my

(46:36):
advisor and I wanted less tech exposure and start of
the year, he got smoked, you know when the tech
went down twenty percent, Like he got hit because he
was mostly tech. He was probably ninety percent invested in
tech and the guy just wasn't listening to him. So
at the end, we'll give our opinions. You know, we'll
show you all of the models that we build out

(46:59):
by sitting down with our investment representatives and wholesalers we
meet with in the office. It's just a conglomerate of
our best ideas that we hear from these guys. And
if you don't like, you know, it's not one size
fits all, so you can mix and match, you know,
between different allocations and different funds. If you have a
position you like already in your account, you want to

(47:19):
keep it, keep it. We're not going to sell out
of it. But it's just figuring out. You know, everyone's different,
so figuring out how you want to allocate your money
and what you're comfortable with as far as risk.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
Yeah, I think through the years one of the biggest
tools that I've found are my ears. They're getting bigger
as they get older, they're growing. You need you need
to listen, right if you're sitting down in an appointment
an advisor and you know he or she is, they're
just doing all the talk and you know you need
to do this, you need to do that, you know,

(47:54):
not asking questions. I would say that's concerning first appointment.
I probably do a quarter of the talking right, I'm
asking you questions to try to get to know you.
Try to figure out who you are. If you have kids,
legacies important to you. What the estate plan is right now?
Is Jimmy getting the house? Is Susan getting the tool shed?

(48:18):
You know who's getting the classic car.

Speaker 3 (48:22):
The tool shed? I don't know, but we need Jimmy
got the house and Susan got the tool shed.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
She's gonna be pissed. Oh maybe she's a mechanic. So again,
it's more listening, right, and I want to try to
understand who you are before I or or Chris or
Dave actually sit down and start coming up with some strategies,
some recommendations. You know, the estate side of it's huge
about I would say seventy percent of people that walk

(48:51):
in need a state planning done. You know, they don't
have their basics, will healthcare, proxy, power of attorney. They
don't have transfers on deaths, they don't have TODs on
their accounts, they don't have payable on debts at the bank.
You know, they don't have beneficiaries. They have their mom
as the beneficiary is still on their life insurance policy
that was taken out when they were fifteen. You know,

(49:13):
you need to reevaluate your portfolio, but you also need
to reevaluate your state planning side of it. People have children,
children develop problems, you know, some individuals have kids with disabilities,
some individuals have kids with drug problems, gambling issues. I

(49:34):
think gambling is very prevalent in today's world. Oh yeah,
a lot of people have, you know, these apps on
their phones where they're throwing money around like it's you
know nothing. So again, if you want to try to
control that from six feet under, you could do that
through some very strategic estate planning tools. And we have
attorneys that we can get you set up with to

(49:56):
help review that.

Speaker 3 (49:57):
So yeah, I like when they say manage your ass
that's from the grave. When they use their that's like
their pitch for the setting up a trust. And it
makes a lot of sense, you know, Like you're saying,
if you got to put guidelines on something, you can
there's tools out there the way you can do it.
June is also a good month to reassess. Six months

(50:17):
already in the twenty twenty five is actually pretty crazy.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
We're flying.

Speaker 3 (50:22):
But I saw an article yesterday that said more than
two thirds of Americans aren't reviewing their budgets, and here's
why you should. So six months in and like you
were saying, it's as easy now to spend money and
gamble it with these apps and stuff, it's just as
easy to spend money and throw it on a credit
card or swipe your card here, swipe your card there.

(50:44):
You have no idea how much money you're actually spending.
It might not be a bad time to reassess your
budget and see how much money's going out the door
versus coming in and then figuring out whatever that annual
spend level is, so that when we sit down and
review it. You know, some people know and some people
have no idea, Like I don't know.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
Yeah, sit down and the map that out right. They
have apps that do that as well. The money tracks
are spending for you too. We can give you access
to the money. You can link your credit cards and
really start mapping out, you know, your budget. I think
that's a great idea, Chris. And you know, some clients
come in with little pieces of paper with other monthly expenses,
but it doesn't account for you know, groceries are going

(51:24):
out for a movie and an entertainment, going to Hell's
Kitchen and Foxwood's Casinos. So again, you want to incorporate
all that into your budget and really start coming up
with a plan for retirement, especially if you're a year
or two out. So so we know what we need
as far as cash flow off of accounts, you know
that's going to dictate how we invest the asset as well.
So if you want to sit down and have a chat.

(51:46):
Numbers eight eight eight, five eight zero nine one nine. Everyone,
Thanks for tuning in for the Retirement Planning Show today
and we will be back next week.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
Thank you for listening to the Retiement Planning Show hosted
by Dave Kobec. If you would like to talk with
Dave or someone at the Retirement Planning Group, called five
one eight five eight zero one nine one nine. That's
five one eight