Retirement Ready

September 27th, 2025. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
All right, good afternoon. I'm Dave Copek. Good afternoon, I'm
Dave Copek. This is retirement ready. It is Saturday, the

(00:26):
last Saturday in September, the year twenty and twenty five,
which is hard to believe. We're already going into the
last quarter, folks of twenty twenty five. Tell me time
doesn't go by quickly, You're gonna blink your eyes and
Santa Claus will be coming down the chimney. You all

(00:49):
sept for Santa Claus, Christopher.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
William not even close. No, make your list, Nope, not yet.
And we used to make your list, and Daddy used
to say to you, you know, let's go see Santa
and see if he can you go send on his lap? Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Do you remember the time that we went to the
Guinea and Putnam and Santa Claus was in the sled.
Do you remember that?

Speaker 2 (01:16):
No, it was probably too young.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
All your brother kept.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
On saying, is Dad, Dad, is that the real Clause? Yes, David, Dad, Dad,
Is that the real Santa Claus? Yes, David, this has
said it twenty times in the car, Dad, Yes, David,

(01:42):
was that Santa Claus?

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:45):
God, tell him? It goes by quick so, but we're
here on the weekends to edge mkchu on some of
the trials and tribulations that you'll face your are you
he stole a Syracuse Orange fan. I am all right, yep.
College football and basketball or just basketball.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Uh, mainly just basketball. You know, who do you like
in football? College football? I don't know. I just like
I don't really I'm not tied to a team in
college football. I just watching the games they're giving.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Your good friend there Belichick a lot of Razmataz with
his twenty four year old girlfriend, and he got he
got his butt kicked.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yeah, I don't know. It's an interesting setup over there.
You would see.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
There's a forty nine year age difference.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Amazing true love.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
He's I don't know what he's taking. He must be,
you know, jogging and jeritol keeping up with a twenty
four year old. So God bless them, Yeah, bless them.
I guess different strokes for different folks. But we like
to chuckle, you know. I like to have a good time.
We're live in the studio. If you have any questions

(03:05):
or comments, I think it always makes it a little
more interesting to the listener and also for us. So
it's not Babble Radio. It's you know, this is talk
radio today. We're talking about one of the greatest risks.
Uh you've got a topic that you want to Let's
start off with your topic. I'm going to talk about
healthcare and how it's sticker shock for a lot of

(03:26):
future retirees. What do you want to talk about? Seeing
that you're the so you don't know. Chris is a
financial analyst, financial advisor with the Retirement Planning Group. Who's
my son? So I don't know if that's good or bad.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
It's fantastic.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
There you go, the check is in the mail.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
The Uh No, what I wanted to talk about was
just this historical performance in a rate cutting environment. You know,
what sectors of the market, based on where we're at
right now, look favorable and then kind of what we're
seeing currently versus historically, and see what areas of opportunity

(04:07):
are out there as we just had our first rate cut.
You know, so historically the sectors that tend to outperform
in a rate cutting environment is you know, obviously real estate, financials,
small cap companies, technology, growth and innovation, and then could

(04:27):
consumer discretionary, which is just you know, sectors like automobiles, retail, leisure, shopping.
And that's just because when rates get cut, it stimulates
borrowing in consumer spending, so you can go out and
get cheaper loans, whether it's a on a car or
your mortgage or credit. So that should boost you know,

(04:51):
consumer spending. And then how that affects you know, small
cap companies is these companies can go out and borrow
money at a cheaper rate. So if they've been with
you know, for rates to come down to go out
and get take that loan for an expansion on their company,
they can go and do that. Now, same thing with
growth and innovation. You know, it's just it just lower
rates stimulate these companies to go, I guess, rebrand and

(05:18):
continue to grow. And that's what we're seeing right now,
specifically with this huge shift into AI and the amount
of innovation that's going on right now, whether it's in
in both you know, honestly, the in the technology sector
and in the automobile industry. There's a lot going on
with electric cars right now. In hydrogen, it's become a

(05:39):
topic of discussion within the last couple of weeks.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
And then positive or negative hydrogen, that's our friends right
down the road here.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
Plug Power Positive. Yeah, plugs had a pretty good run
in the.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Last a couple of weeks, seventy cents to over three bucks.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
Right, well, yeah it's not at three bucks, probably at
two dollars and forty or something around that neck of
the woods now. But yeah, it went from you know,
seventy eighty cents to when they were doing all their
layoffs to now we've seen this huge upward trend because
the energy, the hydrogen energy space looks pretty favorable. And

(06:16):
another note on the energy space is nuclear energy. If
you look at some of these nuclear energy companies because
of what's going on with the mini reactor sites that
they're trying to implement around the country in all these
data centers, so it's all like intertwined. You know, the
energy has to do with technology now because AI in

(06:37):
these AI development centers and data centers that they're going
to have to have need constant twenty four hour insane
amount of power and that's going to come from nuclear energy.
So they're testing these nuclear many reactor sites around the
country looking to implement them, and we've seen a huge.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
There's a reaction actor, you know, sitting right over in Schenectady.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah right, I know not yeah, small reactor yep, yeah, which.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
I have no idea why it's sitting there, what was
the purpose of it originally?

Speaker 2 (07:12):
But will they say it's the best energy source that
you can have. It's just, you know, Trenobyl is something
that people are a little nervous about, which you think
with technology and the way they're setting it up today.
It's obviously they have a lot of safety precautions with it,
but it's the it's they're getting rid of windmills and
solar panels and on a large scale, especially with these

(07:35):
data centers, that's not really going to be sustainable with
the amount of power that they're going to need to
generate these these centers. But you know, those are historical
UH sectors that you know, have performed well in a
rate cutting environment. What we're seeing now, you know, is
kind of along the same lines. UH technology, AI software

(07:55):
and cloud computing and quantum computing is a sector that
we could see a lot of growth in over the
next twelve to twenty four months because just of how
every company in every sector of the market seems to
be leaning into some sort of AI development and utilizing
it in any category of their work, you know, to

(08:18):
become more efficient or maximize profits, or however they're using it. Next,
you know we're seeing is industrials infrastructure. You know, infrastructure
is being transition, whether you're looking at these nuclear power
plants or these data centers, or you know, however you
want to look at it. There's a lot of things

(08:40):
going on in the infrastructure space that's going to happen
within the next twelve to twenty four months. A lot
of decisions are going to be made on that real estate.
You know, real estate we has skyrocketed so that that
could be stimulated by a couple of rate cuts. People
feel better about getting out of real estate. A lot
of will been holding it waiting to get out. And

(09:02):
then the financial sector, you know, the financial sector has
seen a really good run too well.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
I think financials of course, historically, when you get the
declining interest rates, they allow the banks to get a
little bit more competitive, ready to return. I know that
a lot of people are chasing coupon right now, worried
about lower rates. Lower rates ultimately means that you're going

(09:30):
to get less income off your portfolio if you're a
fixed income person, So it might be a time to
look at some longer duration bonds which we can talk about.
But this is retirement ready. We're in Quebec. After this
quick message. I'm Dave Kopek and I'm here with my son,
christerhor William. We'll see you right after this quick break.

Speaker 4 (09:56):
Time flies and retirement will be here before you know it.
Are you ready? Don't wait until it's two weight to
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Speaker 2 (12:06):
All right, we are back.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
I'm Dave Kopek, President of the Retirement Planning Group. While
a lot of crazy stuff going on right now. Uh,
it's a very I don't know. We're transitioning, folks. I
can't I can't tell you a short term and long
term how the market's going to react to a lot
of the stuff that's going on. You've got the former

(12:31):
head of the Comy was ahead of the FBI. Was
that what he was ahead of? You know what the
hell he was ahead idea? I think he was the
former head of the FBI. He's being you know, prosecuted now.
And it's been a lot of volatility with a lot
of the nonsense coming out of politics. The markets are

(12:51):
uneasy a little bit about it. So all I know
is keep your head down and keep moving forward. Because
it's obvious that, you know, now we're worried about a
shutdown again in Washington. So we'll see what happens over
the next couple of days. They always wait to the

(13:12):
very end. They kick the can as long as they
can kick it, until they can't kick it anymore. So
I think that's you'll see. There'll be a compromise here somewhere.
So my son's talking a little bit about this declining
interest rate environment that we're in now and some of
the asset classes that you might want to participate in.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
And that's just solely on the equity side. Yeah, we
haven't really talked about bonds yet, but.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
Well, there's an article in Baron's this week that talks
about how tax free municipal bonds. They've been saying this
stuff for the last few weeks is a great opportunity. Now,
tax free municipal bonds are basically giving you over four.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
Percent, right, I've been we've been preaching that to like
the higher network folks, Like if you're in the thirty
thirty two percent or above tax bracket, you should and
you're in regular you know, either high yield bonds or
like a multi sector bond or a total bond fund
and you're getting four to seven percent on it, you

(14:08):
should probably look at municipal bonds because your tax equivalent
yield is going to be much higher.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
And if it's states specific, it's all in your pocket.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
Right.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
So yeah, but our listeners in Florida, you're going to
have state income tax, so you can go on a
national basis as other states. I believe Texas, Tennessee, there's
other states that don't have the state income tax, so
it gives you a little more opportunities as far as portfolios.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah, and in general, like the bond environment, whether it's
municipal or you know, traditional bonds, they look very favorable
because they haven't really recovered yet since twenty twenty two.
Is rate heights and if we're going to get into
a cutting cycle here, they just work inversely the bonds.

(14:58):
So when rates but the principal amount, the amount you
invest in that bond will appreciate if you're in a
mutual fund or a bond etf so your your investable
amount will appreciate, But they yield the dividends you're receiving
are going to go down because the new bonds that
are being issued are at a lower coupon. So bonds

(15:21):
look good. You know, forecasting out over the next twelve, eighteen,
twenty four months, if we keep this rate cutting cycle going.
We've been preaching them for the last year year and
a half just because you know, once the Fed said
well we're done hiking, We're not gonna hike anymore now,
we're going to transition into a cutting cycle. Well, that's

(15:42):
when you're collecting these six seven eight percent you know,
in these traditional high yield bonds. It makes all the
sense in the world to collect that coupon while waiting
and getting hopefully some appreciation on the upside as we
continue to cut.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
Well, the bottom I gets down to is that, you know,
taxes for a lot of us who rode a lot
of our wealth. And if you can get into an
asset class that will give you a competitive rate of
return which four percent, say it's a fore handle, you're
basically getting a money market yield that's totally exempt from

(16:20):
state and federal and if you get, like you said,
some capital appreciation in the portfolio. So I'm in the
camp that you've really got to have a lot of
money in order to get a fairly diversified portfolio and
fixed income, I think you're better off going with an
ETF for a professionally managed mutual fund, because you're going
to have the portfolio managers that are monitoring this is

(16:42):
all they do fifty sixty hours a week is work
in the fixed income arena. So I'm in the camp
that you're better off purchasing a well respected, well managed portfolio.
We're going out to Fidelity well five, six, seven, eight days.
We're going to be out and filled out Austin for
a three day conference. We're going to be listening to

(17:03):
some portfolio managers and some future I guess you can
call crystal ball predictions what they think is going to
happen the end of the year going into next year
twenty twenty six. But I you know, I'm in the
camp that I think anytime you're in a declining interest
rate environment, now is the time the lock in these yields,
not only as far as the coupon, but also because

(17:24):
of the ability for you to get some capital appreciation.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
Yeah, and also it's a step out of cash. So
if your money market you love your money market fund
right now because it's giving you four percent, that's going
to come down. So as long as rates keep getting cut,
that money market fund is going to kick off. You know,
who knows, maybe three point seventy five, three and a
half as they continue to drop it. So taking a

(17:50):
step out of cash and then getting into you know,
a diversified bond mutual fund or ETF with a little
bit higher of a of a dividend and you in
the you have the capital appreciation to it as well,
or the benefit of that if we continue to cut year.
But as of when was the twenty four three days ago.

(18:13):
As of three days ago, the total US money market
assets were up to seven point three one trillion dollars YEP,
which was up about thirty one point five billion from
the prior week. So money is still going into well
the reason why it's.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
Going into cash is because there's uncertainty. And the other
thing is is that any time you know, a lot
of gains. I talked about it this morning on the radio,
and there's been a lot of gains in portfolio, substantial gains.
Look at some of these individual stocks, especially the technology
stocks over the last two to three years, and some
people are up three four. Yeah, So it doesn't you're

(18:53):
not going to get hurt by taking some dry powder
and put it on the sidelines, because you're going to
be able to you know, there's always corrections in the market.
You know, we're not market timers and we never will
be market timers. But it doesn't hurt to basically take
little of your profits and put them on the sidelines
and maybe do something fun, take that vacation. You know,

(19:14):
we work with retirees predominantly. Well that's not true as
much as as it was before, because now we're working
with their kids and their grandkids. But the bottle might
gets down to you never get hurt, the old Warren Buffett.
You never get hurt by taking a.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
Profit, right, And that's why with the run that we've
had since twenty twenty four to early you know, well
not early, I guess we're almost almost through twenty twenty five,
which is hard to believe, but until now into twenty
twenty five, a lot of these sectors are very richly valued.
So future upside in these specific sectors that have run really,

(19:53):
you know, far as far as the growth getting into
like a diversified or differentiated you know, ETFs or sectors
of the market, whether it's you know, small caps or
mid caps. Just getting in some broad indexes I think
makes a lot of sense, you know, taking some off
of Well.

Speaker 1 (20:12):
That brings me to that conversation. I don't know if
you were in were you went on the meeting that
we had. The guys fairly successful. He's had a pretty
good run in his portfolio, and he's looking to reposition
some of the gains that he's had into one of
those buffered annuity products.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
Yeah, were you in that meeting, yep. And I think
it makes all the sense in the world, because the
thing is is that you're going to protect your downside,
you're going to capture upside. You know, you're don't get
the full extent of the upside of the market, but
you still get quite a bet. And the bottom line
gets down to is that you basically put suspenders in
the belt on your portfolio. Because you know, we always

(20:52):
have corrections. You know, since April we've only been you know,
our correction has only been about two to three percent.
It's not uncommon to get five ten percent corrections. So
if you're looking to get out the door, if you're
walking into retirement and you're going to need that bucket
of money that's in your four o K in order
to create income streams, you might want to start thinking

(21:12):
about taking some of the profits that you have and
peel off a little bit and basically just reposition some
of it that's going to be a little bit more
conservative rather than the full extent of the market.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
And that's like I think a morning Star article I
was reading what was saying that like a lot of
these some of these sectors are just under owned right
now just because of what you know, these large cap
growth or technology sectors have done, and those being like
small caps and mid gaps, and if you know, rates
keep coming down, those tend to perform well in that environment.

(21:53):
So that's why I was saying, like, hey, maybe it's
time to diversify it up a little bit, maybe rebalance
into a more broad investment portfolio. Because when you see
all time highs versus all time highs and then all
time highs again the next day in these s and
P five hundred or triple ques for example, like these indexes,

(22:14):
it's it's not going to keep going like that forever.
We'd like it to, but you know, it's only a
matter of time. And we saw a little bit of
a selloff towards the end of the week here. I
think the market was down the last couple of days,
but yeah, it was minimal.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
But you know, the thing is that one of the
investment banking firms that we work with this is there.
They've got bullet points on tax free municipal bonds, which
I think are pretty interesting when you look at it,
talks about attractive yields are hard to find in the
bond market, with the exception of municipal bonds. Corporate bonds
of historically narrow spreads to treasuries, but municipal bonds are

(22:48):
historically generous. Right now, investors have been jumping into the
trade over the past month, pouring more than two billion
dollars into text free municipal bond ETFs. So he's flowing
in right.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah, we've been. They've been preaching municipal bonds now for
all year. They've just said that as far as like
a twenty year look like municipal bonds haven't really been
this favorable in the last twenty plus years.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
Bank of America came out and said it's the most
undervalued fixed income asset class at this time. Unie's yeah,
so we're gonna take a break here in about another minute,
so we offer a complementary consultational news. We're opening up
a new office and Sagate's, so for our listeners down
the southern tier, you're not going to have to drive

(23:35):
all the way up here to see us. We're going
to have an office in Sagate's working out the details
on that more specifics next week, next, next week, next,
and of course we have Aubany Malta, Saratoga, Glens falls Oniana, Syracuse, Syracuse.
We're gonna be out there for a couple of days

(23:55):
this week, so we want to come in and have
a chat with us and see if we can be
of assistance working on your prem post retirement years. Whether
it's on your investment side, it's the acid protection, the
legacy that you're trying to create. Believe it or not, folks,
there's a lot of times people come into us and
we say, you know, there's not a lot we can
do for you on the investment side because you look

(24:16):
like you're in pretty good shape. But these are the
things that we see on the other side of the
fence that could cause you problems. We're more of a
total wealth management platform than we are as far as
just asset management for your pre and post retirement years.
So eighty eight five eight zero one nine nine is
our office telephone number. Eighty eight five eight zero one

(24:37):
nine one nine. I'm here with my son, Christopher William.
We'll be back after the break and we'll see on
the other side. All right, we are back. This is retirement

(25:07):
ready topics specific kind of bouncing around here a little bit. Today,
my son wanted to talk about what typically happens when
there's a rate cut. I know one thing for sure,
they're not going to stop. This is a question how
many are they going to have this year and next year?
And that typically means that rates will go down, coupons

(25:30):
will go down, CDs will go down, and your nyga's
multi year guaranteed annuities, anything that has a interest rate
sensitive component to it will go down. And you know,
that's good for a lot of things, but for people
that are in retirement, that's not necessarily a good thing
because a lot of people, one or two percent can

(25:53):
mean a big difference depending on the pool of money
as far as quality of life and the things that
you want to do. So now might be the time
for you to reposition. You said, there's seven point three
trillion dollars in a money market account right now cash equivalents. Yep,
that's a whole hell of a lot of money. So

(26:18):
what should people do. I think they should.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
Well, if they're you know, they want to take a
step out of cash, there the notion that they're pricing
in three rate cuts this year, looking at you know,
a safer bond basket, you know, whether it's a mutual
fund or an ETF, something that gets them a step
out of cash, they can see a little bit more

(26:43):
of a principal appreciation on that money. They can get
a higher dividend yield on it. You know, some of
these multi sector bond funds that we're doing work with,
or total bond funds that we're doing work with, are
either you know, five percent up to six percent. You know,
with more risk than a money market. You know, you

(27:07):
can see it go down obviously, but with where the
current rate environment is at right now, we really like,
you know, these income models that we've built out. You know,
we're still seeing six seven percent around in these bond funds.
So with the notion that that money market's gonna continuously
go down if they if we do end up getting
the three rate cuts this year, you know, you're not

(27:27):
gonna have four percent anymore. You may get three and
a half by the end of the year. Taking a
step out of that, you know, getting into something where
it's favorable. If those rate cuts do happen, you could
see some principal appreciation on these bond funds while collecting
a higher monthly coupon.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
It just realizes that bond funds there's multi sector, there's
long duration, there's medium duration, there's short duration. You can
basically select the one that you have a your sin.
You know a lot of your portfolio managers. Right now
there's a triple A thirty year municipal bonds currently stand

(28:09):
at about seven or not seven four point twenty one percent.
That's an aggregate that amounts to about ninety percent of
the four to seventy three yield on a thirty year
treasure right now, and that's way above the historical average,
which is around eighty five percent. So you can see
there's value out there. It's just a question how you

(28:31):
want to allocate your money. But highly rated use of
blonds offer yields you know that I think right now
pretty attractive. It doesn't necessarily mean that you stay in
them for an extended period of time. You want to
make sure that your portfolio manager or your financial financial
advisor is that's enough expertise has been in this as

(28:56):
far as many bond market or trading bonds. If you're
going to try to do it yourself, because if interest
rates move against you, you can get kicked in the
teeth a little bit, especially with longer duration bonds.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yeah, and duration is just the underlying bonds that these
positions are holding, Like how long do they go out?
So short duration is one to three years, you know,
intermediate duration is anywhere from five to seven years, and
then long duration bonds are ten plus years out. So
those short duration bonds, they're gonna have you know, lower volatility,

(29:31):
typically lower yields, and less of an upside in rate cuts,
whereas those intermediate you know, we're seeing people kind of
shift more into these intermediate duration which is more of
you know, like the middle ground. You gotta balanced yield,
you have some price appreciation potential in those, and then

(29:51):
obviously the long duration bonds they have the most upside
potential in a rate cutting environment, but they also have
the most downside. Yep, what is.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
What generation are you considered to be? Are you the zs.

Speaker 2 (30:09):
Uh? To be honest with you, I don't know, Z.
I was born in ninety nine, so.

Speaker 1 (30:15):
I don't know what bucket you had been in. But
the thing is is that there's an article in Barons
of Sweet that I've been saying it for quite some
time that you know HSA accounts are the option that
you should be utilizing. And there's an article that basically
says that the HSAS for the gen Z generation is
the most underused retirement vehicle for young investors, and a

(30:40):
lot of investment banking firms and financial firms are trying
to get your generation. I think you are the Z
the Z generation. But the thing is is that you know,
high deductible health insurance plans allow you to fund HSA accounts,
and to me, they're the same same apple that you
have like an a ROTH, except you have to use
it for qualified medical expenses throughout your entire lifetime. So

(31:03):
it's not like you put it in a bucket and
you can't use it until you're sixty five. That's not
the case. So if you're in the marketplace and you're
looking for you know, we're gonna we're gonna start talking
more about healthcare and how it fits in not only
to your accumulation years, but also during your retirement years
because it's a hell of an expense for a lot
of people today.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
Yeah, yeah, no. Do we always recommend people to get
into the HSA accounts, especially if they're younger, and they
come in for financial advice and they have a high
deductible plan offered through their work. We'll just say, hey,
you know, if you're not going to the doctor, you
don't have pre existing health issues, and you only go
for your yearly checkup, you should seriously consider looking at

(31:45):
the high deductible plan and funding an HSA account because
that could grow while invested, and you can bring that
with you after you retire, and then you have the
potential to have thousands and if not hundreds of thousands
of dollars in that account by the time you retire.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
Tell me, Ife, this resonates with you. This is a
study that was just recently done by another investment banking firm.
A survey survey Survey Serve servey A survey a survey,
a survey of wealthy parents showed seventy six percent fun

(32:24):
adult children's major expenses and sixty three percent cover ongoing
costs like phone bills, credit cards, et cetera. Agree with that?
Do you see that? What was the number? Seventy six
percent fun adult children's major expenses.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
That's a shocking number.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
Sixty five percent parents feel secure for retirement. Thirty six
percent worry that supporting adult children could jeopardize their retirement plans.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
Yeah, I mean I think so. I think that the
parents are there.

Speaker 1 (33:01):
They ain't gonna happen to me. Brother, you better, you
better get a second or third job. I know that
they're looking right now that the golden arches looking for
a burger flipper.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
Nice pick up, a pick up, a gig there on
the weekends. Here you go, you grow. They're looking for Ronald.
Nothing wrong with that.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
You got Ronald McDonald out fit there out up front
for you, beautiful. You don't have to worry about the
shoes because you got big feet, so you don't have
to worry about you got the You just have to
paint your shoes red.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
Shoes already look like clowns.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
Rising living costs, delayed adult milestones and increase parental wealth
contribute the need for parents to support their adult adult children.
Rising living costs, delayed adult milestones, and increase parental wealth contribute.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
I kind of agree with that. That's that's a fact.
I mean, I think for my generation specifically, it's a
lot like wage. Wage increases haven't gone up that much
historically to what they were twenty thirty years ago to
where you know, minimum wage increased by I don't know
x amount. You know, maybe it was for thirty thousand

(34:17):
dollars a year twenty years ago and now it's fifty
thousand dollars a year or something like that. But and
that's on average, actually that's them or the country average. Well,
this housing has gone through the roof. No, this is
what rent, the.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
Cost of living has been rising rapidly in real terms,
especially in major metropolitan cities like New York City. Of course,
as rents soar and early career job market looks increasingly shaky,
children are turning to their parents for support, right.

Speaker 2 (34:51):
Yeah, I mean we've seen that. The housing market. I
mean it's delayed. I see it with my peers, like
people not buying houses until we're living at home longer
to save up to be able to afford a home.
It's it's something that has drastically risen over the last

(35:11):
twenty thirty forty years.

Speaker 1 (35:14):
So as an example, in twenty and twenty one, thirty
nine percent of twenty one year olds we're working full time,
compared to sixty four percent nineteen eighty. About two thirds
sixty eight percent of twenty five year olds were living
outside their parents' home compared with eighty four percent in

(35:38):
nineteen eighty. So you guys are boomerang. You're the Boomerang generation.
You leave, but you come back. Yeah, Well, here's with
an empty checkbook and you want mama and papa to
you know, take care of things.

Speaker 2 (35:49):
Well, here's some here's some stats for you. And the
reason for this is because our generation is getting hit
with exactly this. So in nineteen ninety, the average wage
was about twenty one thousand dollars. Now it's about fifty
thousand dollars. So you get like a one almost a

(36:10):
two and a half times wag increase right there in
the last since nineteen ninety. And home prices in nineteen
ninety were about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Now
they're about four hundred and fifty thousand dollars on average,
so they've gone over triple.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
So do you think that your generation likes to work?
I think part of my gin.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
I think it's definitely gotten a lot as technology has
ramped up, you know, with video games, because I always
worked too social media.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
For years, I worked two jobs. Yeah, to put bread
and butter on the table when I wasn't working, I
was bartending, or I was waiting on tables or something
to supplement.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
Yeah, so I think it's definitely got I mean the
country as a whole, There's no doubt about it. It's
definitely gotten a lot lazier.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
We're talking a little bit about what's going on out
there in this new world that we live in. I'm
Dave Kopak. I'm here with my son Christopher william this
is Retirement Ready. Talk a little bit more about the
cost of goods and services, healthcare, credit cards, buying a house.
If you got any questions, give us a buzz one
eight hundred talk WGY. We're live in the studio.

Speaker 4 (37:26):
Planning for retirement doesn't have to be overwhelming, especially when
you have the right team by your side. At Retirement
Planning Group, Dave Kopek and his team are here to
help you build a strategy tailored to your goals and lifestyle.
Whether you're nearing retirement or just getting started, now's the
time to take control of your future. Schedule your free
consultation today at RPG retire dot com or call eight

(37:49):
eight eight five eight zero. Nineteen nineteen Retirement Planning group.
Retire with confidence.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
Your retirement future. Are you dreaming of a comfortable, financially
secure retirement. It's closer than you think. The best time
to start planning was yesterday. The second best time is now.
Even small, consistent contributions make a huge difference over time
thanks to the power of compound. Don't let your retirement
dreams just remain dreams. Start setting up your goals today.

(38:16):
Take control of your future. Call eighty eight fit eight
zero one nine one nine. That's eighty eight fight eight
zero nine one nine for a free consultation.

Speaker 5 (38:26):
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serving our country in the United States Army was Stephen's
calling and flying helicopters was his passion. Stephen was killed
in a Blackhawk helicopter crash over the Mediterranean Sea. Thanks
to friends like you, Tunnel to Towers provided his family
with a mortgage free home, giving them security and hope
in their darkest hours. Help more families like the Dwiers.

(38:48):
Donate eleven dollars a month to Tunnel to Towers at
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Speaker 1 (38:55):
We are looking through the greatest Wealth Transfer in the
history of mancong 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
isn't written by chance, It's written by action. Now's the
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(39:17):
favors those that are prepared, call eighty eight five eats
zero one nine one nine. That's eighty eight five eats
zero one nine one nine.

Speaker 5 (39:24):
Portions of the following program will be recorded.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
All right, we are back. I'm Dave Kopak talking a
little bit about how to keep your head above water.
You know, I grew up in Scatty Coke. Most of
the people are in Scatty Coke. I would guess you
could say that we were low to middle class. And

(39:54):
I know a lot of people today, especially in my family,
a lot of hard what I call hard work savers
and uh, you know, it takes a lot today in
order to maintain a middle class lifestyle. You can go
through stagnant wages. What do you have to pay for food? Healthcare?

(40:20):
Put a roof over your head. You know, there's a
lot of people out there that believe that they have
very little economic security. And I don't see it getting better,
do you?

Speaker 2 (40:36):
I don't.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
I really don't see it getting better right now. I
don't think so.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
And while we were at the break, I continued to
dive into how crazy the spread really has gotten. So
this one was this from nineteen eighty to twenty twenty five,
and it's basically saying that the the average income of
twenty thousand, nine and thirty four dollars in nineteen eighty

(40:59):
would be the equivalent now to eighty two, three hundred
dollars and twenty twenty five, purely just to match the
general price inflation over those years.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
So let's let's use it as an example.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
But you get a job out of college, your starting
salary is somewhere around forty fifty, so you're about half
of where you need to be at. So I think
that has a huge component of where salaries and wages
haven't really caught up to how fast inflation has ramped, I.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
Mean, on average, So what do you think you have
to make to be a middle class today?

Speaker 2 (41:37):
Middle class as a single.

Speaker 1 (41:40):
Or married married married with a wife and a couple
of kids.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
Okay, I think I think combined between the husband and
the wife now to live middle class and be fairly comfortable,
will you know, live, I think it's probably somewhere around
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars combined.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
I think you're right. I was gonna say one to twenty.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
I think it's yeah. I think I was about one
fifty because I think.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
You need ten thousand dollars of gross wages in order
because healthcare. If you're working for a company and they're
making you pay for some of your healthcare costs, I
think your uncle right now, use him as an example.
I won't mention his name, but he's paying for his
own healthcare a good portion of it. He's also paying
for a good portion of his retirement savings with his

(42:33):
four one K program, you know, and then you've got
all the cost what a you know what it takes
in order for you to to basically have the day
to day creature comforts in life, like food, electricity, r
gas in the car.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
Gas is surprisingly not the issue. It's everything else. It's
groceries post COVID groceries. It seems like it didn't go
up ten to fifteen percent inflation. It seems groceries went
up forty It's crazy, thirty forty fifty percent in some items.

Speaker 1 (43:08):
I went over the other day and I got a
one bag of groceries, one bag of groceries at market
thirty two and it wasn't, you know, anything crazy.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
Yeah, one hundred bucks.

Speaker 1 (43:18):
It was like, no, it wasn't one hundred. It was
almost one hundred for one bag of groceries. I looked
at the girl and I said, you got to be
kidding me.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
She goes no.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
But you know there's a financial vulnerability out there, folks.
And I can't overemphasize this enough, is that you know
there are jobs out there that are people. They're begging people.
We do a lot of work with the IBW National Grid,

(43:49):
a lot of your plumbers union. I talked to a
client of ours when it plays golf with us. He's
a plumber through the union. They're begging for people to
get into those jobs. So, you know, the declining middle class.

(44:15):
I think some of it has to do. Also is global.
What happened globally caused a lot of economic hardship domestically
here in the United States. A lot of the jobs
that used to be here and all these small towns, municipalities,
they disassembled them, they put them on a boat and
away they went to other foreign lands. And it's had

(44:38):
a significant impact on quality of life, and for some
of us, that situation is not going to get better
in the very near future, especially if you have a
high tax state where people basically are saying, hey, you know,
I can only pay so much here, right.

Speaker 2 (44:55):
I also think a huge component of this, too is
lack of education, lack of financial literacy knowledge. You know,
we learn all this junk in school growing up that
you never used in your life, and take all these
courses that are completely useless as soon as you leave
the door of high school and college, and then people

(45:16):
don't know how to do their taxes. People don't know
how to invest, people don't know what a mutual fund is,
or how to take a lung or go and get
a mortgage and do all these things that are necessary
on a day to day life. That's so financial literacy
and just navigating you know, life in how things are
going to be post college, I think is a huge

(45:38):
drop off for people my age when we're all kind
of figuring this out right now, where you kind of
look back and you're like, well, why wasn't any of
this stuff brought up in school while we were learning?
And that's a huge and also social media and technology,
like keeping up with the Joneses is more relevant now
than it's ever been.

Speaker 1 (45:57):
The pure research says the middle class to be upper
middle class right now, you have to have an income
of one sixty seven for sixty one hundred and sixty
seven thousand. Yes that's and that's for a three person household.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
So yeah, husband, wife and a child.

Speaker 1 (46:15):
Yeah, so depending on your location where you are, I
mean you talk to people that live in major mets
with Politan areas like New York City, you know, Miami
goes through the whole laundry list.

Speaker 2 (46:29):
Yeah. Well, as a direct relation to the birth rates too,
like look, how no one's having kids anymore, or they're
having them later in life and they're only having one
or two instead of four or five. Yeah, so it's
it's kind of it's correlated to really everything. But be.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
Well, the reason why I've touched in base on this, folks,
is because you know what, we have a lot of
people that come into us that have lots of money.
We have multi multi millionaires, and we have people that
have fifty thousand dollars. So we don't pooh pooh any
We don't tell anybody we can't work with them because
you don't have enough money to work with them. And

(47:05):
what we try to do is address how they can
basically put themselves in a better position. But I read
an article this morning about the gen Z generation and
it was kind of shocking to me. What do you
use you the Z?

Speaker 2 (47:22):
I think, so, yeah, I think we just figured that out. Yeah,
well it's the one below me. That must be the
millennials or millennials are behind me, behind you they go
to nineteen ninety.

Speaker 1 (47:32):
Millennials are having a hard time right now. They were
born between nineteen sixty five and nineteen eighty.

Speaker 2 (47:39):
No millennials, millennials, I thought it was that's nineteen eighty
one to ninety six. So who's behind you?

Speaker 1 (47:46):
Well, who's sixty five to nineteen eighty whatever that generation is.
But you know, they're now looking at their balance sheets
and they're starting to see, you know, do we have
enough money set aside in order to give us quality
of life during our retirement years? And a lot of
them saying we don't a lot of them are saying,
you know what we're gonna do is we're going to
probably keep on working til as long as we possibly can.

(48:08):
Because the rising quests have had a huge impact, and
you know, we had these major gyrations in the stock market.
A lot of people got scared and they moved away.
Gen X gen X was so was gen x yep.
So you know, a cost of living has been rising
rapidly and because of that, you know, you got to
start looking at you know, the challenges.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
Well, it's yeah, it's also more important than ever to
set money aside to invest for your future. So like
you can't not utilize a four to one K plan
in the match, you can't not put money aside and
invest it in if you have the raw option or
on the side, because this is just going to help
further get you to the point of outpacing inflation. You know,

(48:54):
if we go on a run again where in the eighties,
I believe inflation went pretty crazy, the you're gonna want
to keep pace with that. You know, you're gonna want
to get into something that's gonna outpace inflation or at
least keep up with it, like the S and P
five hundred or just some broad index.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
See, your generation is lucky because we're gonna leave you guys,
trillions of dollars. Yeah, but we're gonna need the greatest.
It's gonna be the richest generation in the history, the Boomers,
and we're leaving trillions of dollars of wealth to the
next generation, our children and grandchildren. So you will, depending

(49:35):
on your zip code and your genetics, participate in this
unbelievable wealth accumulation that's happened in the last twenty thirty years.
But you ain't gonna get it for a long time,
long time, because I'm gonna live to be one hundred.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
They're gonna put you on ice.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
Want of those chambers, those gas chambers. Go stand in
and they're gonna put me on a chiller, just like
they do wine, chill the wine. They're gonna chill me
with one of those gas chambers. So, uh, listen, folks,
it's it's a different landscape out there. The personal responsibility
is now on you for a retirement, and you're gonna

(50:15):
have to make some difficult choices. Sometimes we're here to help.
We are the Retirement Planning Group. If we can be
of assistants. Our telephone number is eighty eight five eight
zero one nine one nine eighty eighty five eight zero
one nine one nine. Give us a call. We've got
six locations now in New York. You're more than happy
to sit down with you and see if we can

(50:36):
help you out and put you on track.

Speaker 6 (50:45):
The information or services discussed on this show is for
informational purposes only, and it 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 finance TOL advisor.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
Double d G Y A M Skinectady, Double e G
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Use Radio one on three one and eight ten Double
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