Retirement Ready

June 7th, 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 (00:43):
Hello and welcome to the Retirement Ready Show. My name
is Nico Dumas, certified financial planner and professional plan consultant
with the Retirement Planning Group. Everyone, thanks for taking some
time out of your day today to tune in and
into what we have to say. The markets did well
this week. Look at the S and P five hundred

(01:06):
up about one point seven percent, just breached six thousand
points again. And then the NASDAK up about two and
a half percent year to date on the NASDAK up
about one one and a half percent, so we had
a nice comeback here over the last couple months, which
has been great. And then the Dow Industrial Average, so

(01:27):
the Dow Jones and the five day was up about
one point three being up about one percent on the year.
Then we take a look back at the AG so
the bonds we've been talking about so much. In the
last five days, they've been flat, but we're completely fine
with that. We've been collecting interest the last several months
in our client's accounts. You know, you can get coupon

(01:50):
in today's world cash flow. With the interest rates that
we have right now, it's a very attractive environment for
the bond market. So again we've been preaching it. Cash
flow is king in retirement. You need to make sure
that next paycheck is coming in. If we can solve
it with dividends and interest, that's the way that we

(02:10):
want to we want to accomplish that. So again, any
questions today, it is a call in show one eight
hundred eight two five fifty nine forty nine and that's
one eight hundred eight two five fifty nine forty nine,
or you can call us at the office at five
one eight five eight zero one nine. I'm just getting

(02:31):
notification I believe Coco goff when the French open, uh
just now. So that's a great accomplishment for the young American,
So very happy about that. But again it's a callin show,
So if you have any questions or if you want
to talk about women's tennis or anything like that, we're
here and we're ready to chat. But uh, but again,

(02:54):
there's a lot that I want to discuss today. Just
went over the dininger we did the morning show, and
that was kind of hanging out reading some articles on
the Wall Street Journal, and I came across one that
was kind of interesting concerning, you know, consumer confidence in
the market, consumer sentiment. So there was actually an article

(03:16):
on consumer sentiment and the index, and it was pretty
informative on you know, what the average Joe is thinking
right now as far as you know, a couple different
survey questions that they're asked for this index. And what
they do is they pull a handful you know, I
don't want to say handful, but a lot more than that.
They get a good group together and they ask them,

(03:38):
you know, some simple questions on, you know, how do
you feel about your current financial situation, you know, compared
to maybe a year ago, And then they ask them
what are your expect expectations for your financial situation in
the next year? You know, they ask them things like
is now a good or a bad time to buy
major household items? You know, and this comes back as

(04:00):
a score from one to one hundred, and the data
is showing a Consumer Sentiment Index rating of about fifty
two right now, slightly higher than the preliminary reading of
fifty point eight it was released two weeks ago. But
again this is one of the lowest ever recorded consumer

(04:22):
Sentiment Index reportings going back to nineteen fifty two. Again,
this is from the University of Michigan. They do this
Consumer Sentiment Index. So I think it's pretty interesting, right,
it's showing you that people aren't too confident, you know,
they're seeing it as a time not to spend, which

(04:46):
is interesting. You know, some of the Personal consumption the PCE,
the Personal Consumption Expenditure came out and it was showing
decent numbers. But again, I mean I think this is
actually in eyed someone's head. You know, their wallet might
act differently, right, so they're actually still spending money. But
how are they spending it? You know, are they leveraging

(05:09):
the the the dollars? You know, are they using credit
to fund their purchases or what are we doing now?

Speaker 3 (05:16):
You know?

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Now on was it door Dash and Uber Eats and
all these you know apps on your phone, you have
the capability to do monthly installments on some of these purchases.
You know, you see it on Amazon. Sometimes instead of
paying full price for something, you can elect to do
a you know, a four month purchase plan or something

(05:38):
like that. So again, people might not have the cash
to fund, you know, what they're buying, but at the
end of the day, people are still spending money.

Speaker 4 (05:46):
So but I just thought that was interesting.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
I came across that at the diner a little earlier,
and that i'd share it with you folks that are
tuning in today's the Belmont, And I don't know how
many people are going up to Saratoga to to experience that.
Hopefully the weather clears up for you. It was running
pretty bad. My shoes are wet. That's the worst when
your shoes are wet, you know, and you still gotta

(06:10):
walk around and he starts smelling. But it is what
it is, right til youa uh anyways.

Speaker 4 (06:18):
So I don't want to chat the whole time. It
is a calling show.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
I want to start taking some callers, so if anyone's
out there, it's getting harder and harder to breathe. It's
one eight hundred eight two five fifty nine forty nine. Again,
that's one eight hundred eight two five fifty nine forty
nine and uh yeah, so we've been in uh in
the studio quite a bit.

Speaker 4 (06:39):
Today we did the.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
Seven to nine am show for WGY, and then we
do this twelve to one one hour segment, little more
topic specific and then uh again, we're we're here every
single week, you know, seven to nine am.

Speaker 4 (06:52):
It's a calling show. We're available to you.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
We do a complimentary consultation for whoever wants to sit
down and review their own financial assets. You know, if
you have four oh one k's, four oh three b's,
deferred comps, iras, roth irays, non qualified joint accounts, annuities,
you know, we review those assets if you have life insurance,
and we make sure that these assets are suitable for

(07:16):
where you are at where you're at in life, and
then also they're suitable for your future self. You know,
if you could start making changes now and get in
front of the curve or even start compounding some interest
over the next several years before retirement, start building those
buckets of money that we talk about cash flow needs.
You know, don't let the market dictate when you can retire.

(07:38):
Get in front of it, especially if you're over the
age of fifty nine and a half and you have
the capability of doing it an in service rollover in
your four to one K plan, you might be able
to take a good chunk of that money that you
have saved up excuse me, and get it over to
a self directed IRA account. And then from there, the

(07:58):
investment horizon is you know lists with us, we have
complete open architecture, we process or we trade through Fidelity Investments.
There are custodian and we love having that bear behind
us to give us a lot of insight on the
market and also, you know, just help with servicing client accounts.

Speaker 4 (08:16):
Their platform is great as well.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
You get a Fidelity dot com, use your name and
password able to view all your accounts in one stop
and then also look at the performance and see how
you've been doing whether it's been tracking indexes or not.
You know, we can compare it to the S and
P five hundred, to the aggregate bond index, and how
our portfolio is holding up. So again, a lot of
our clients have been doing well this year. We have

(08:40):
a lot of bond exposure. But you know, during those
difficult times in the market, when you see technology down
ten fifteen percent, it's kind of tough to stay true
to your asset allocation. But like I was saying, a
lot of our clients were more invested in bonds and
coupon and interest at this point. I dividend paying stocks,

(09:00):
you know, those blue chip companies. We're not here to
buy penny stocks. We're not here to have ultra speculative investments.
We're here to provide consistent cash flow, you know, consistent
cash flow on a monthly basis. I think that's the
most important thing for you know, eighty five percent of

(09:21):
our clients. So we do have younger clients as well,
and we work with children of clients. So if you
have a child who's just starting out in the workforce,
maybe they're just being introduced to workplace retirement plans, We're
more than happy to sit down and have a chat
with them, you know, and talk to them about their
future and start showing them some projections based on hey,

(09:44):
if you take x amount of dollars each paycheck and
put it away for the next twenty twenty five years,
you know, this is what it can compound into, you know,
and really start showing them that snowball effect of hey,
you start putting some money into the account now and
it's just going to continue to roll on top of
itself as as returns flow into the account over.

Speaker 4 (10:05):
The next several years.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
So again it's important to get in front of the
in front of the ball, you know, as soon as
you can, as early as you can start that time.
You know that clock up, that that compound interest is
so you know, it's so important for an individual. So
if you want to call our office and numbers five
one eight, five eight zero one nine one nine, and

(10:28):
that's five one eight five eight zero one nine one nine.
My name is Nicholas Dumas. I'm going to take a
quick break right now, and then when we come back,
we'll get a little bit more into the investment side
of our business.

Speaker 3 (10:41):
Thank you 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 during the
most critical years of your lifetime. No Well Prize winning
economist William Sharp has called retirement income distribution the nastiest

(11:05):
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
years of being in the financial services business, you need
to start taking action to start building your own personal
retirement income distribution plan. How do you do that? To

(11:28):
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
eight five eight zero one nine one nine. Your partner
for success David Kopak here your retirement planning specialists at

(11:48):
WGUI Retirement Planning Group. We understand that retirees face many
important decisions that can affect their long term financial success.
Some of these decisions revolve around making investments that can
help create a hedge against outliving their income, the impact
of deflation, taxation, and rising healthcare cost. Because over ninety
percent of our clients are retired to ease with similar concerns,

(12:10):
we are in the best position to approach such challenges
with experience and skill. Most of our clients lack the time,
the desire, or the experience the manage to their own
investment portfolios. We consider it an honor and a privilege
to help our clients make sound investment decisions that will
contribute to a secure future. We welcome the opportunity to
become your partner and establishing your retirement plan. Give us

(12:33):
a call today for your complementary consultation at five point
eight five eight zero one nine one nine. That's five
eight five eat zero one nine one nine or RPG
retire on the web. You have spent a lifetime saving
for retirement. Now it's time to make that money work
for you. Here's the secret most people miss. You have
to create your own retirement income plant. Social Security is
not enough, pensions are rare. You need a strategy that

(12:55):
turns savings into monthly income that will last a lifetime.
At the Retirement Planning Group, we build customized income distribution
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Call eight eight eight five eight zero one nine one
nine for your complementary consultation.

Speaker 5 (13:26):
We leargers her. The news today serves my life. There's
going to change and we are back.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
My figured a little creed for you guys on this nice,
dreary day. Hope everyone's doing well, you know, focus on
your mental not just your physical and financial aspects of
your life. But sure, you take a second and I'll

(14:02):
go outside when it's nice out. Nothing like those those
rays off the sun. Sometimes I I wish I could
just take off and go to Florida for a week,
But too busy. Got a lot of clients that need servicing.
And who knows. Maybe in July I supposed to head
out west. We'll see Montana, Wyoming. I don't know, never

(14:28):
been to the Yellowstone, so I'd like to go look
at that. But this is the retirement Ready show. I'm
talking today, talking to myself because no one wants to
call in and have a chat.

Speaker 4 (14:41):
Eight hundred and eight two five fifty nine forty nine.
And that's one eight hundred eight two five fifty nine
forty nine. We're seeing a slump home sales.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
They fell, the home sales index saying six point three
in April six. I think it's sharply tied to mortgage rates.
Rates went up the thirty year past five five percent.
So the thirty year borrowing, it came back down, but
mortgage rates are at seven you know, anywhere from six

(15:19):
and three quarters to seven, So I think that's scaring
some buyers away.

Speaker 4 (15:26):
You know.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
So we'll see the Fed's supposed to meet again in
a couple of weeks. I'm not overly optimistic that they're
gonna be cutting rates this time, but you know, they're
generally a little late to the discussion, kind of wait for.

Speaker 4 (15:41):
They they had just rates more on data, actual hard data.
You know.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
I know Trump's pushing them to cut rates, and you know,
it's tweeting at Drome Powell quite a bit. But they're
going to be more concerned with how these tariffs are
gonna affect long term inflation here. And I think you

(16:06):
know a lot of companies are kind of sit and
put you know, they put these forecasts out the beginning
of the year on what they're expected, you know, what
their goals are and everything for the year, and they
they use you know, specific costs to come up with
revenue projections and net profit margins. But now these tariffs

(16:26):
are going to play a factor in these estimate estimates
that these companies have created, right so anywhere from ten
to fifteen percent. And the nice thing is they're becoming
a little more a little less aggressive on the tariff rates,
and we'll see how they directly affect the market the economy.

(16:49):
A lot of companies with heavy supply change supply chains
that are focused internationally might be affected a whole heck
of a lot more than you know, companies that don't
provide services like that, right, so specific areas of the
market might not be affected as much. You know, look

(17:13):
at how you're invested compared to your basic s and
P five hundred breakdown. You know, we have that capability
to look at accounts and see if you're overweight in
technology or overweight in financials or energy.

Speaker 4 (17:27):
You know, healthcare.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
Healthcare has been beat up over the last couple of years,
so a lot of people have probably seen their healthcare
positions not do too well. You know, which areas of
the market do you own? You know, it's not just
I'm invested in the market, it's where, you know, where
do you have your asset allocation focused?

Speaker 4 (17:50):
Right?

Speaker 2 (17:51):
A lot of people have been super heavy in technology,
which has done great for them. Is it time to
trim some of those gains? You know, maybe you've held
positions for fifteen twenty years. Now it's time to sit
down and reposition. Look at your asset allocation and see
if it's consistent.

Speaker 4 (18:09):
You know, if.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
It's if it's where it should be right now at
this point in your life, you know, ten fifteen years ago,
you were a different animal. Now we're getting older, we're
getting closer to your retirement date. Maybe it's time to
start putting a parachute on some of those positions, or
start hedging the account a little bit in case we
do go through some tough waters here. No one likes

(18:32):
seeing their account down twenty percent. Now investors feel a
loss twice as much as they feel a gain, So
they feel the anger of a loss twice as much
as the happiness from a gain. Are you one of
those individuals? Do you want to lessen the ban of
returns in your account? You know, narrow the investment returns

(18:55):
so that they don't jump all over the place. You're
not worried about, you know, opening up your account at
nine thirty every single morning and four pm every afternoon
to see how your account did for the day. Are
you tracking it on an Excel file or a piece
of paper. You know, you don't want to be one
of those individuals. You want to have more fixed securities,

(19:19):
more fixed income, more cash flow in the account to
hedge difficult market environments. So I see people coming to
the office all time, all the time.

Speaker 4 (19:29):
You know, they have.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
Their their journal, right, they have their journal that shows
them all right, five years ago, I was at four
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Now I'm at you know,
six hundred thousand dollars, and five years from now I
should be at you know, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
You know, they have it all mapped out in their head. Now,

(19:50):
what if the last five years doesn't happen again? You know,
what if we don't have you know, two consistent twenty
five percent return year returns in the s and P
five hundred? What if we don't have booming technology stocks?
You know, do you own individual stock positions in your
IRA accounts? What is the percentage?

Speaker 4 (20:10):
You know? How much do you have in technology? How
much do you have in financials?

Speaker 2 (20:14):
These are questions you should be asking yourself, and you
should you know, you should know the answer to you know,
you want to know how your account's going to react
to the market. That's why as you age, as you
get closer to retirement, you know, and if you're going
to need that account for income, you need to start planning.
You can't just let the account sit and say, oh,
the market will take care of it, because you don't

(20:35):
know what's going to happen tomorrow, you know, geopolitical, geopolitically.
You know there's tensions right now with China. You know,
is that gonna get even worse? Right you see what's
going on in the Middle East, you see what's going
on in Gaza. Do you want your account to to
you know, do you want the market to dictate how

(20:58):
your account return and how your account acts over the
next five ten years, Especially if you're sixty sixty five,
you know you're planning on retiring maybe at sixty five.
A lot of people say sixty five because of health,
you know, health insurance, they get to qualify for Medicare
at that point. But if you're retiring at sixty or

(21:20):
sixty five, you should have an income plan in mind
for when you do retire. Right, we typically say three
to five years out from retirement, start generating cash flow
in the account to create a bucket of cash, you know,
start depositing dividends and interest to core. So that's what
they call it, to core in your account, so it
goes to your money market. This way, it's not continuing

(21:43):
to buy more and more of the positions that you hold. Now,
that's great for the accumulation years, but as you get
close to retirement, you want to start creating cash flow
and interest and dividend so you can create a bucket
of cash in your account so that hey, the market's
down ten percent this year, that's fine. You know, I've
got enough cash to satisfy my income needs for that

(22:03):
the next year. And over the course of that next year,
there's going to be more interest and dividends replenishing that
as I take income from it on a monthly basis.
So don't do the set it and forget it. Don't
have the set it and forget it mentality that a
lot of investors have, you know, target date funds. Every

(22:26):
account that comes in, you know, they have a four
to h one K that's invested in a target date fund.
I don't want to say everyone, but ninety nine percent
of the people that come in, they're just sitting in
a target date fund, yep, and I'm going to start
distributions up right when I retire. So they're going to
take the money that you're taking off the account right

(22:47):
from that target date fund every single month, doesn't matter
what the price is, you know, it doesn't matter where
the market is. They're going to take it right from
that fund, even if the market's down.

Speaker 5 (22:56):
Now.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
I don't want them to do that. You know, we're
able to do this for some younger individuals as well.
They have four to one K accounts. They can't roll
them out of their workplace retirement plans. You know, they're
fifty five at this point. You know, they just retired,
so you would have the capability to roll it out
of the four to one K at that point if
you separated. But let's say you did separate, so they're

(23:16):
fifty five, they separated from employment. They want access to
the money. So we're not going to roll it into
an IRA, right because then they'd face a ten percent
early withdraw penalty if they took prior to fifty nine
and a half. So we leave it in the four
to oh one K and then we design a portfolio
within your four oh one K for you so that
we're taking from cash or we're taking from bond funds

(23:37):
that aren't going to be as volatile as the market.
I've done this for some younger individuals, you know, and
we try to leave you know, enough for four and
a half years of distributions in the four to oh
one K. Then we roll the remaining assets into an
IRA and invest those assets for a game plan that
we're going to start taking income off of that account
at sixty, right, So we need to bridge you from

(23:58):
fifty five to sixty so you don't pay the ten
percentarly withdraw penalty on distributions. But over the course of
those five years, I want to still, you know, kind
of actively manage the four to one K with whatever
fund options they have available within the plan, you know. Generally,
I was looking at it earlier. FINRA reported that there's
about eight to twelve positions within four to one K

(24:22):
or workplace plans that you can invest in.

Speaker 4 (24:25):
Now, we could be pretty strategic with those eight to
twelve positions.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
Usually there's a couple bond positions, a couple of large
cap positions, a couple mid cap, a couple small cap,
and then maybe a guaranteed position or a money market
stable income type of fund that we can put some
cash into as well, and then we can call the
four to one K provider together and let them know
how we're going to set up monthly income off the

(24:48):
account and which funds.

Speaker 4 (24:49):
We're going to pull from.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
So, if you're one of those individuals and you want
to call the office, numbers five one eight, five eight
zero one nine one nine again, that's five one eight
five eight zero one nine, Or you can call into
the show today. It's one eight hundred eight two five
fifty nine forty nine. That's one eight hundred eight two
five fifty nine forty nine. Gonna take a break for
the half hour. We'll see you on the other side
of the news. I'm gonna talk to you for another

(25:11):
thirty seconds. I'll tell you where our website is www
dot rpgretire dot com. That's rpgretire dot com on the web.
You can go on see our faces if you want.
You know you listen to us on the radio every weekend.
It's uh, it's important you actually see us too, so
we offer a complimentary consultation. Come into our office five

(25:33):
one eight, five eight zero one nine one nine now
we'll see you on the other side of the news. Everyone,
thanks for tuning in today on this rainy day here
in upstate New York, right here on WGY the Retirement
Ready Show, you know, making sure that you're ready for retirement.
Are you getting closer to retirement? You know every day

(25:55):
you should be getting closer, hopefully, you know, not further away.
So continue to save, and you know, keep your head down.
The market swings, you know, it's healthy for a volatile market.

Speaker 4 (26:08):
You know, some of the volatility is a little aggressive.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
But again, you can't be up all the time because
then the downs would be that much worse. So you
need consistent you know, swings in the market. You know,
are you investing in appropriate mutual funds for yourself? Appropriate
exchange traded funds? You know, we've been doing a lot

(26:32):
of ETFs at the Retirement Planning Group. So exchange traded
funds acts just like a mutual fund, so it has
a bucket of stocks inside of it, but the ETFs
are more passively managed, so the expense ratios on the
funds are generally a lot lower. You know, passive investments

(26:55):
time in the market, not timing the market. I think
that's crucial. You know, you're never gonna know when it's
the absolute bottom or the absolute top of a swing.
So don't try to time the market consistently with your
retirement accounts. You know, if something seems like it's a
good price, you know it might drop ten percent the

(27:17):
next day, you know, So stop beating yourself up over
I should have bought this, I should have bought that,
you know, start reeling it in. So again, time in
the market, not timing the market, I think that's crucial
to a lot of retirees. So when I say ETFs,
exchange traded funds they trade during market hours as well, right,

(27:39):
so they're a little more liquid.

Speaker 4 (27:41):
You're able to.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
Get in and out during trading hours, whereas mutual funds
trade at four pm every day, every every day the
market's open anyways. So again ETFs there lower costs and
more passive. We use them for a lot of our
equity positions in retirement accounts, even brokerage accounts. They are

(28:03):
advantageous in non qualified accounts, so a joint account or
a tod account, an individual account in your name that's
not a retirement account. These ETFs do not kick out
capital gain distributions at the end of the year.

Speaker 4 (28:19):
Right, we're in June. Some funds kick out capital.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
Gains in June as well, right, so be aware, you know,
know your tax situation. Know if you're invested in assets
that are going to kick you out high tax liabilities
in December at the end of each year. You know,
this is why we use ETFs and a lot of
non qualified brokerage accounts because we don't have to worry

(28:43):
about those capital gain distributions. You know, throughout the year,
the portfolio managers in mutual funds are placing a lot
of trades and by the end of the year they
have to kick that out to shareholders. And if you
own mutual funds in a non tax sheltered account like
a non qualified account, you know you're going to pay

(29:03):
that tax liability unless you do some tax loss harvesting
within the account, which we do for you know, all
of our clients at Retirement Planning Group. You know, Christmas
is usually a fun time for a lot of people.
It's one of the most busiest times at the retirement
Planning Group because we're going through and making sure we
could take advantage of any year end tax losce harvesting.

(29:24):
So again, if you want to call our office and
have us take a look at how you're invested. You're
seeing large tax bills each year.

Speaker 4 (29:31):
We help.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
With the tax planning side of your financial situation. We
can't file, so we don't file for you, but I
can help you take a look and give you some
ideas and thoughts on where you might be able to
receive tax preference money, you know, tax free income municipal
bond holdings. You know, unfortunately the yields aren't there like

(29:54):
i'd like them to be with municipal bonds, So probably
get four four and a half, maybe almost five percent
on some municipal bond mutual funds. You know, depending if
they're national or state specific. You know, you'll get federal,
you'll get tax free on the federal side. Potentially the
state side as well if you're New York specific. But again,

(30:17):
municipal bond holdings are a way to avoid paying some
income tax. So once you get that ten ninety nine
at the end of the year and you're someone that
opens it and says, oh my god, what happened here?

Speaker 4 (30:29):
How did that happen?

Speaker 2 (30:30):
You know, if you're one of those individuals I'd be
happy to take a look at that with you and
start giving you some ideas on how to create some
tax free interest rather than taxable. So again, we do
a lot on the investment management side, We do a
lot on the income planning side.

Speaker 4 (30:45):
We do a lot on the estate planning side as well.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
So we have attorneys that we utilize, so we're able
to set you up with an attorney to review your
basic legal documents, whether that's a will, healthcare proxy, power
of attorney, if you have a trust revocable versus irrevocable,
or some sort of life estate. We're able to review
those documents with an attorney and get you set up

(31:09):
in an efficient, you know, wealth transfer way, so that
not only you know your spouse, but also your future
children or future inheritance, whoever's going to receive the assets,
and everything's kind of laid out for them.

Speaker 4 (31:24):
You know, don't leave them a headache.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
It's going to be emotionally devastating on them enough, you know,
from an emotional standpoint, but also financially, don't leave them
with a burden of trying to figure out where all
your assets are. I think that's something we specialize in
at the retirement planning group versus your you know basic
advisor out there. We do a lot of estate planning
and working on estates, and now we know enough to

(31:49):
point you in the right direction. At the end of
the day, we're not attorneys, so we always defer to
the attorneys that we use and make sure that you
have a proper a state plan in order. So again,
trust accounts as well. So that's one of those non
qualified accounts where ETFs might make sense, like I was
talking about earlier, just the tax advantages of those. So again,

(32:14):
know what you're doing and have a purpose, right, don't
just start creating accounts and contributing because you might be
creating a tax burden for yourself and future beneficiaries. You know,
the stretch IRA is gone in the past. If you
had an IRA and you left it to a beneficiary.

(32:34):
So let's say it was your for your kid, So
you had a four to one K at work. Eventually
you retired, you rolled that into an IRA account, and
then you labeled your child as a beneficiary. They used
to be able to stretch out distributions off that IRA
for the rest of their life. Now they're telling you
have to take it out within ten years, so you

(32:55):
have a ten year draw down on those IRA assets.
If a trust is a beneficiary, five years. So if
you label a trust as a beneficiary of an IRA account,
they're going to have five years to liquidate that IRA
and pay the tax liability on it. So a lot
of times when the kids receive the assets, they're in
their high earning years. You know, this might push them

(33:15):
up into a new tax bracket and the government's going
to receive more of those dollars. So start coming up
with a game plan for that four toh one K,
that deferred complan that you've contributed to with the state.
You know, is it going to just sit there or
do you want to start spreading that tax liability out
over the next you know, fifteen twenty years, start pulling

(33:38):
distributions off of it and structuring the estate so that
it's more of a tax free legacy, tax free inheritance
for the next generation. And that's where we talk about
trimming some dollars off of IRA and pre tax you know,
four to oh one ks, any sort of pre tax accounts,
and using those, you know, the trimmings from that to

(34:00):
purchase some sort of second to die or guaranteed universal
life policy on your life or on you and your
spouse's life that's going to be paid out in a
tax free, you know, efficient way. And maybe you have
that asset owned by the trust as well. Right if
you have an irrevocable trust or an irrevocable life insurance

(34:22):
trust and islet set up as the beneficiary and owner
on that life insurance, not only would it be protected
after five years, but also the distribution phase you can
dictate how those how that money's paid out to your beneficiaries.
You know, maybe you have a problem child, he struggles
from addiction or she struggles from gambling. Now you don't

(34:44):
want them to receive five hundred thousand dollars, you know,
because they're just going to take it and blow through it.
You know, you can structure it so that, hey, I'm
going to take you know, five percent of this a
year twenty five thousand. So a five hundred thousand dollars account,
let's take twenty five thousand a year after tax. Say
we do twenty percent tax. You're looking at five grand

(35:07):
right there, So we take twenty thousand, So you take
twenty five thousand total twenty percent tax. Right, So now
you're netting twenty thousand, and then we take that twenty
and see what it would buy for a life insurance policy. Right,
twenty thousand dollars a year. We could do ten pay
or twenty pay, you know, so you pay it for

(35:29):
ten years and you're done paying. Right, So twenty thousand
at ten is two hundred thousand dollars going in. Right,
we'll see what it will buy as far as life insurance,
you might be able to buy you know, five hundred
six hundred thousand dollars tax free. Right, and then you
don't have to worry about leaving that asset for the child.
You can spend that down during your lifetime, you know.

(35:52):
And now you're creating more of a tax efficient estate.
So hey, now we got the estate in order, let's
start focusing on you and spending this money while you're
alive before the government starts forcing you to take required
minimum distributions off that account once you hit seventy three
or seventy five, depending on how.

Speaker 4 (36:09):
Old you are.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
So again, there's a lot of income planning. There's a
lot of a state planning work that we do. You know,
we send you a questionnaire. So the retirement planning questionnaire,
and that questionnaire really illustrates what you have.

Speaker 4 (36:26):
You it helps you get everything together that we need.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
Right, we ask you to bring that questionnaire in with you,
filled out to the best of your ability. We ask
you to bring in statements any outside accounts. If you
have a four toh one K you know, if you
have an IRA, if you have a Robinhood account, you know.
Print out all those statements and bring them in with
you to your first appointment. Then we'll start going through
that questionnaire together, and we'll start, you know, getting a

(36:53):
feel for what you have and start mapping out a
game plan for what we're going to do. You know,
what's the purpose of this. Are you going to be
living in New York for the rest of your life?
Do you plan on moving? Are your kids local? Are
you going to chase your kids around the country? You know,
what's the game plan here? Do you have a second
home in Florida? Do you have a third home in Maine?

(37:15):
You know, everyone's different, Everyone has different goals objectives, and
we need to make sure that we account for those goals.
So a lot of the time in that first appointment,
I'm listening. I'm not doing a whole lot of talking.
You know, I want to hear what you have to say,
what you've accumulated I could see with my eyes right
from that questionair booklet.

Speaker 4 (37:35):
And then what I want to.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
Really know is what are your plans and can we
help facilitate those goals? Can we help facilitate you know,
what you're looking to do? And if we can, then great,
you know we'll probably work together, and if we can't,
you know, we'll go our separate ways. But you know,
what I find is a lot of the times when
people come in from this radio station, you know, people

(37:59):
have been hard working savers, you know, a lot of
times they don't they don't really know the investment side
of it. They've just been contributing to a retirement account
and it's sat there for the last twenty years and
now it's you know, X amount of dollars and they
don't know how to start taking income off this. And
that's you know, majority of our conversations are surrounding that.

(38:21):
All right, I'm running up on a break and I'm
running out air. The number is one eight hundred eight
two five fifty nine forty nine. And this is a
live show. So if you want to call in ask
any questions again. That's one eight hundred eight two five
fifty nine forty nine. They take a quick drink of water.
We'll be back right after this.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
Your partner for success. David Kopik here wg WISE Retirement
Planning Specialists, the Retirement Planning Group. We understand that retirees
face many important decisions that can affect their long term
financial success. Some of these decisions revolve around making investments
that will help create the hedge against outliving their assets,

(39:03):
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. We consider it
to be an honor and a privilege to help our
clients make sound investment decisions they will contribute to a
secure financial future for them. Because over ninety percent of

(39:24):
our clients or retirees with similar concerns, we are in
the best position to approach such challenges with experience and skill.
Give us a call today at five one eight, five
eight zero one nine one nine five 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

(39:46):
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, protect your assets,
and position your self for the opportunity. Don't wake take action.
The future favors those that are prepared. Call eighty eight

(40:07):
five eat zero one nine one nine. That's eighty eight
five eat zero one nine one nine.

Speaker 5 (40:28):
You got it to all the world time and time okay,
and we are back.

Speaker 4 (40:38):
Free. That's so good. They're so good.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
I've got Andy and Valatia. Andy, how you doing this afternoon?

Speaker 6 (40:49):
Oh, we're doing well. Besides his rain, I know.

Speaker 2 (40:52):
Can you believe that you got your arc? You're gonna
put all your animals on the arc?

Speaker 6 (40:57):
Bad for the race. But so I works for a
fortune five hundred company, and and my pay plan changes
next month, and uh, I originally get lifetime residuals off
my accounts. Moving forward, I'm only to get about two
years of residuals and they're putting me on a salary.
So you know, I'm trying to set up to retire

(41:20):
five or ten years. I'm only forty five, but I
have good income, good good residuals and all that type
of stuff, so I probably got to start shifting some
stuff around. And right now I have eight percent going
in four one K with a match, and then I
do three percent into the rock and five percent of
my paycheck into company stock where I buy it eighty

(41:42):
percent discount.

Speaker 4 (41:45):
Yeah that's uh, that's great.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
So it sounds like you got majority of it figured out,
Andy the Uh, so you've got roth contributions.

Speaker 4 (41:53):
Going as how old are you?

Speaker 6 (41:55):
Forty four?

Speaker 2 (41:56):
Oh, so you're young too, so you got quite quite
a while you can retire early.

Speaker 6 (42:00):
You said, yeah, probably, I'd probably actually expatriat or something
like that, looking at South America or something like that,
and enjoy enjoy life a little earlier.

Speaker 4 (42:11):
Wow. Wow, good for you. Good for you travel.

Speaker 3 (42:14):
You know.

Speaker 6 (42:14):
I don't have no kids, know, nothing like that, just
a dog and stuff like that.

Speaker 7 (42:18):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (42:19):
Earlier in the year, I bought a house out here
in Malaysia, and I borrowed up my Fourah one K
for don payment, which I just repaid through my monthly residuals.
But I'm trying to figure out if I should accelerate
that and and separate, like have have one account that
maybe just like my residuals or my salary whatever whatever
whatever one going straight into like a money market or

(42:42):
or something that. Yeah, or or or dividend stocks or
something like that that that I can kind of you know,
rule A seventy two.

Speaker 4 (42:50):
Often, yeah, yeah, rule seventy two. Do you have uh,
do you still have that loan out against your four one?

Speaker 6 (42:59):
Yeah, had probably eight more months of paying that back,
seven more months.

Speaker 4 (43:03):
That was smart.

Speaker 6 (43:04):
But you know, I mean I collect the interest on
my own loans, so yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:07):
You're paying yourself back, so it's a good, good mindset
for the down payment. So but yeah, I mean I
thought it sounds like you're doing everything right, you know,
if you have any specific questions, you know, it sounds like,
so you work for a Fortune five hundred company, you
have an employee stack option plan, and you also got
your four oh one K you're contributing to, you're doing ROTH,
so you're doing all the things we talk about, you know.

Speaker 6 (43:29):
Yeah, I mean I've ROSS for the majority of the
last twenty years, I put into different ROSS and probably
since I was sixteen. But you know, I'm looking, you know,
to try to calculate you know, monthly uh you know,

(43:49):
monthly income off of all that. And it's it's hard
to recalculate all that since I don't have my uh,
you know, lifetime residual. There's going to be about a
two year residual thing. And then the company and they're
taking my signing bonuses away and switching up to to
this forty five thousand dollars a year salary, which my
average signing bonus face more than my monthly salary is

(44:11):
gonna be.

Speaker 4 (44:12):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
Yeah, I mean, if you want to look at it
in more detail, and I'd be happy to sit down
with you, just give us a call at the office,
you know. But uh, unfortunately, I can't dive into all
that right now. I don't want you to leak in
all your personal info.

Speaker 6 (44:25):
On the air, right all right, but well something.

Speaker 4 (44:30):
Yeah, just give us a buzz and then we'll get
you in the calendar. I'll sit down with you. Well,
maybe we'll have a couple of coffee, talk about South America.

Speaker 6 (44:37):
Appreciate it, all right, andy.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
Hey, enjoy the enjoy the rain. Enjoy the rain out
there today. Oh, boy, it looks like it's starting to
get brighter. You know, maybe Belmont, you know, maybe the
weather's saying, hey, we're gonna we're gonna give Saratoga some
good weather.

Speaker 4 (44:56):
Finally, it was nice this week.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
I got out golf and we do our golf league
on Thursday nights with clients, so you know, I had
a had a good time. Thursday and Monday through Wednesday
the weather was gorgeous, and even Thursday it got a
little cloudy towards the end of that round. But again,
if if you're someone that has questions or wants to

(45:20):
discuss your retirement account or your financial assets that you've
accumulated so far throughout your working years, give us a call.
Our office numbers five one eight, five eight zero one
nine one nine, and that's five one eight, five eight
zero one nine one nine.

Speaker 4 (45:38):
It's a live show. Still got about seven minutes left,
So if you.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
Want to call in twenty one hundred eight two five
fifty nine forty nine and it's twenty one hundred eighty
two five fifty nine forty nine, your questions might help
the help the next you know, Joe so uh so
again to call in and ask so again we've seen
good returns in the market here this week, the Dow,
the SMP, the NASDAC, we're all up consistently. So we've

(46:04):
we've seen a comeback over the last two two months
here April, uh it was April ninth. April somewhere in
the first week of April was our low, but we
charged right back. Nasdak's been up about eleven twelve percent
over the last month. So so again we're seeing good
returns and accounts and we're seeing some momentum, but there's still,

(46:25):
you know, major concerns out there. I think your two
main issues are tariffs and interest rates, right, That's what
everyone keeps referring back to the tariffs they paused. Are
they gonna you know, come into effect? What is what
is the overall game plan here?

Speaker 4 (46:43):
You know?

Speaker 2 (46:44):
So a lot of uncertainty surrounding tariffs, a lot of
uncertain d surrounding interest rates. You know, I think as
far as interest rates go, it's going to be dependent
on data. You know, those interest rate movements are very
data driven. Right, So again, if you're someone that's my
turning your account on a daily basis, you're seeing the
fluctuations and you want a little less headache or volatility

(47:07):
in the account. We could do that, right. We also
do what are called covered calls. You know, we've done
covered call writing for a number of clients in the past.
It's an options trading method, right.

Speaker 4 (47:20):
You're able to you know.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
Buy stock, hold the stock, and then sell the right
to somebody else to purchase that stock at a future
date at a future price, you know, and you collect
a premium every time you do that. So it's a
way to own stock but collect premiums against it. So
if the market's down, you know, if that stock's down

(47:43):
ten percent, maybe you're only down six or seven, right,
because we're writing premiums against it, so we're creating interest
off of it. Our goal is for that stock to
just stay flat, right, and then you hold it forever
and we're just collecting covered call writing premiums. So we
do that three tfs as well. There's some good exchange

(48:03):
traded funds out there that do covered call writing to
create income.

Speaker 4 (48:06):
You know, we had to do that a few years
ago the pre.

Speaker 2 (48:11):
Twenty twenty two to eleven rate hikes, right, So twenty
twenty twenty twenty one, we were doing a lot of
covered call writing looking at alternative investments to create income
cash flow. But now we're in an environment where I've
been talking about bonds for quite a while and you
can do it with corporate bonds in today's market environment,
with the current interest rates that we're seeing. So it's
an ever changing environment, right, the economy, the stock market,

(48:38):
interest rate movements, oil prices, gold, silver, you know, should
I buy gold?

Speaker 4 (48:44):
Should I buy silver?

Speaker 2 (48:46):
You know, if you're looking for cash flow, then no, right,
there's no dividend, there's no interest off those type of
precious metals. If you need dividend, you need interest, We
need coupon, we need cash flow. So again, this is
the Retirement Ready Show. We're here every week from twelve

(49:06):
to one pm to field questions. We're also here to
top talk about pre and post retirement planning, accumulation versus distribution.
Life cycles. You know, you have you go through different
stages in life. You want to make sure that you're
adapting to that, not only your yourself, but also your
financial portfolio, your investment portfolio, your asset allocation. Do you

(49:31):
are you overweight in technology? Are you underweight in financials?
You know, do you have dividend interest coupon coming into
the account on a monthly basis, or are you just
grabbing from gains or grabbing from stock positions on a
monthly basis. You want to start building those budgets of
money that we talk about cash flow, you know, number one,
we need interest, we need guarantees, we need cash, we

(49:53):
need flexibility, we need liquidity, we need growth. So again,
there's a lot to review, there's a lot to go over.
Everyone has their own unique situation and we're here to
sit down and listen.

Speaker 4 (50:04):
You know, we're not here to tell you what to do.
We're here to.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
Advise you, to to to educate you and to inform
you on your options. Right, So if you want to
give us a call, it's five one eight five eight
zero one nine one nine. Again that's five one eight,
five eight zero one nine one nine. We're gonna have
a great rest of your weekend.

Speaker 1 (50:26):
Thank you for listening to the Retirement Planning Show posted
by Dave Kopek. 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, five eight 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,

(50:50):
Glens Falls, Syracuse, and Oneata. Tune in again next week
for retirement planning strategies with Dave Coopek right here on WGY.

Speaker 7 (51:05):
The information or services discussed on this show is for
informational purposes only and is not intended to be personal
financial advice. The investments and services offered by us may
not be suitable for all investors. If you have any
doubts as to the merits of an investment, you should
seek advice from an independent financial advisor.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
Are you ready for retirement or just hoping it works out?
Don't leave your future to chance. At the Retirement Planning Group,
we hope you create a personalized retirement plan so you
can relax knowing you are prepared. Take action today called
eight eight eight five eight zero one nine one nine.
That's eight eight eight five eight zero one nine one nine,
or visit us at our website rpgretire dot com to

(51:45):
schedule your complementary consultation. Your future will say thank you.