July 16, 2025 • 9 mins
“Hey Mike, with all that is going on, is now still a good time to retire?” Discover how to build your plan so you can retire when it makes sense for you, regardless of what is going on elsewhere.
Text your questions to 913-363-1234.
Request Your Wealth Analysis by going to www.retireontime.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mike (00:05):
Welcome to How to Retire On Time, a show that answers
your retirement questions. Myname is Mike Decker. I'm a
licensed financial advisor andfiduciary. And with me in the
studio today is my colleague,David Franson, who will be
reading your retirementquestions. As always, you can
submit those questions to (913)363-1234.
Again, that's (913) 363-1234.David, what do we have for
(00:26):
today?
David (00:28):
Hey, Mike. With all that is going on, is now still a good
time to retire?
Mike (00:34):
I would say so. So there's an expression I love. I forget
it's a Swedish author that cameup with it, and it says there's
no such thing as bad weather,just bad gear. So what does that
mean? Is it a bad time to gocamping?
If you have the wrong gear,then, yeah, you don't wanna just
step out the door and gocamping. If you have the right
(00:55):
gear, you've got the right mealprep, everything's good to go,
then who cares what the weatheris? You're prepared for that
weather. Being a Boy Scout wayback when, some of the most fun
and enjoyable campouts I've everdone were the ones where we
climbed up a side of a mountainin January 2000. In Washington
State, dug a hole into themountain in the snow, built a
(01:16):
snow cave, and slept in there.
Those were actually some of thewarmer campouts I can remember
aside from the summer ones. Veryenjoyable, very fun, but we had
the right gear. We knew how tohandle the terrain and the
situation. There was one timethis is a true story. We were
doing a snow caving camp out,and I put a cooler on my
snowboard, hiked it in with allmy other gear, and we had ribs.
(01:41):
We had ribs on the side of amountain in January. Now I I I
smoked them previously, so wejust had to warm them up there,
but we were all prepared. Andwe're sitting here having a nice
cookout on a ski slope outsideof our cave while everyone else
has warmed up their little tincans of of whatever soup. You
can live the best of times. Youcan enjoy yourself regardless of
(02:03):
market conditions, taxconditions, inflation
conditions, if you have theright plan in place.
But if you don't have the rightgear and you're out in the world
and the storm hits, that's likeWarren Buffett's expression. You
know who's swimming naked whenthe tide washes out. Many people
right now are swimming naked,and they have no idea. Many
(02:24):
people have gotten comfortablewith this just buy the S and P
500, and there you go. Manypeople have gotten comfortable
with this idea that they caninvest on the apps Robinhoods or
does Acorns do invest?
I don't know. There's all thesebrilliant apps, and I don't
wanna speak ill of the apps. Iencourage people to invest. I
encourage people to researchtheir stocks to get acquainted
(02:46):
with this. What I'm saying ismarkets go up until they don't,
and it's not a problem until itis a problem.
And do you have the right gearfor when the markets go down?
Not if, but when. And maybe theygo down this year. Maybe they
don't go down for another fiveyears. No one knows, but no one
can time the market.
Do you have the right gear inplace so that regardless of the
(03:09):
weather, the conditions, you canstill live the life that you
want. And there's so many ways.I actually did a webinar this
last week about this. So it wasthe first five years of
retirement. Here's kind of whatI talked about.
David (03:21):
Okay.
Mike (03:23):
If you know when you're gonna retire, you can protect
those first five years ofretirement, so you're not
worried about taking income outof an account that's lost money.
Let's say you wanna retire inthree years. K? You know for
sure that's when you're gonnaretire, and you're concerned if
the market's crash and all ofyour assets are in the market.
Well, what if you bought atreasury that matures in three
years, and that's your incomefor the first year?
And then you bought anothertreasury that matures in four
(03:44):
years, and that's your incomefor the second year. You've now
given yourself a principalguaranteed account that allows
you to retire at that time. Andif the markets do crash, that's
okay. You've given your assettime to recover, because you're
not taking income out of anaccount that has accentuated
losses. That's called sequenceof returns risk.
I think most people understandthe concept, though. You don't
(04:05):
lock in your losses. That's howyou hurt yourself really, really
bad Okay. In retirement. There'smore dynamic ways you could do
this.
So you could say, I don't reallyknow when I wanna retire. I
wanna keep up with the markets,but I just know that I I wanna
get there. Maybe you put someassets into buffered ETFs, so
you've got maybe a little bitmore growth potential. It resets
every year. You can't gobackwards with these.
(04:27):
But it's like, okay. Well, maybeit's three years, maybe it's
five years. You're still tryingto outpace inflation. You've got
that flexibility, but maybeyou're like, no. I don't want
one or two years protected.
I want, like, five years. Thereare fixed indexed annuities that
have a clause in their contractscalled a five year period
certain. So what that means iswhen the time is right, you can
(04:50):
turn on a five year payout,annuitization, the original
definition of annuitization, notlifetime income, but let's say
you put in, I don't know,$3,400,000 of your $1,500,000
portfolio, and that $3,400,000,its purpose is to take care of
the first five years ofretirement regardless of market
(05:10):
conditions. So it's got growthpotential. So when the markets
are going up, you're makingmoney.
But when the markets are goingdown, you're not losing money,
so you're you've locked in yourgains, your wins. And then if
the markets were to crash,whatever, you're not going
backwards, and you can turn onthat income, and it gives you
it's kinda like a CD ladder. Itjust gives you payments then for
the next five years.
David (05:30):
So this sounds like you mentioned, like, do you have the
right gear for when you'recamping? This sounds like maybe
one of the pieces of quote,unquote gear that you could use.
Mike (05:37):
It's a tool. Yeah. It's a tool for some people. It's not a
tool for everyone, becauseeveryone seem I shouldn't say
everyone, that's absolutism. Butmany people are just taught,
okay.
Well, hey. Buy these annuities,and then when you're ready,
you'll turn on lifetime income.Well, what if you don't want
lifetime income, but you justwanna guarantee the first five
years of your retirement? Mhmm.And you want the growth and the
flexibility later on.
(05:58):
That's what I like. Yeah. That'sthat's kind of my preference. I
do like some protection in theportfolio. That's why we have
that reservoir strategy that youcan't go backwards for a part of
the portfolio, but I wantgrowth.
I want future flexibility. Iwanna be able to adapt to my
lifestyle to how things changeover time. I don't wanna lock
things into I mean, look at thelegislation that's going through
congress and that has beendiscussed over the past couple
(06:20):
of weeks. There's a lot of taxchanges that if you didn't lock
yourself into a lifetime incomestream, you can utilize. But if
you just sign up for lifetimeincome, you can't optimize much.
It's stuck. It is what it is.You are completely reactive. But
if you wanna guarantee, like,the first five years or maybe
even the first ten years, youcan buy and ladder out these
(06:41):
fixed or period certain timeframes while your other accounts
have time to be optimized togrow and have flexibility.
There's just other tools outthere that I do not hear being
discussed enough.
Buffered ETFs, structured notes,annuitization for period
certain, whether it's five yearsor so on, just for these moments
(07:02):
in time. When you diversify byobjectives, what you're really
doing is you're taking differentparts of your plan, and you're
saying, how do I solve for thatperiod of time? And then take a
part of your portfolio to solvefor that period of time. So the
part of your portfolio you'renot gonna touch for ten years,
no problem if that's in stocks,ETFs, and it's invested for
growth, because you don't needto touch it for ten years. But
(07:23):
the first five years, you'reprobably gonna treat that
differently.
And you might think, well, Idon't know if I wanna retire
this year or next year or inseven years. Let's just see how
it goes. Then maybe that fiveyear period certainly is a more
appropriate tool for you. Maybeit's not. Maybe you've laddered
out buffered ETFs.
Maybe you've got a rolling CDladder. They all have their own
unique benefits and detrimentsassociated with each strategy,
(07:46):
but the point being is youshouldn't time your retirement
based on the market conditions,the inflationary conditions, the
legislative conditions, or thegeopolitical conditions, or
whatever conditions you'relooking at. Time is your most
precious commodity. So to retireon time means it is the right
time emotionally andeconomically for you regardless
(08:09):
of anything else. The trick isyou've just and I can't say this
emphatically enough.
You've got to have the rightgear. That's all the time we've
got for the show today. If youenjoyed the show, consider
subscribing to it wherever youget your podcasts. Just search
for how to retire on time.Discover if your portfolio is
built to weather flat marketcycles or if you're missing tax
(08:32):
minimization opportunities thatyou may not even know.
Explore strategies that may beable to help you lower your
overall risk while potentiallyincreasing your overall growth
and lifestyle flexibility. Thisis not your ordinary financial
analysis. Learn more about YourWealth Analysis and what it
could do for you regardless ofyour age, asset, or target
retirement date, go towww.yourwealthanalysis.com today
(08:57):
to learn more and get started.
Welcome to How to Retire On Time, a show that answers
your retirement questions. Myname is Mike Decker. I'm a
licensed financial advisor andfiduciary. And with me in the
studio today is my colleague,David Franson, who will be
reading your retirementquestions. As always, you can
submit those questions to (913)363-1234.
Again, that's (913) 363-1234.David, what do we have for
(00:26):
today?
David (00:28):
Hey, Mike. With all that is going on, is now still a good
time to retire?
Mike (00:34):
I would say so. So there's an expression I love. I forget
it's a Swedish author that cameup with it, and it says there's
no such thing as bad weather,just bad gear. So what does that
mean? Is it a bad time to gocamping?
If you have the wrong gear,then, yeah, you don't wanna just
step out the door and gocamping. If you have the right
(00:55):
gear, you've got the right mealprep, everything's good to go,
then who cares what the weatheris? You're prepared for that
weather. Being a Boy Scout wayback when, some of the most fun
and enjoyable campouts I've everdone were the ones where we
climbed up a side of a mountainin January 2000. In Washington
State, dug a hole into themountain in the snow, built a
(01:16):
snow cave, and slept in there.
Those were actually some of thewarmer campouts I can remember
aside from the summer ones. Veryenjoyable, very fun, but we had
the right gear. We knew how tohandle the terrain and the
situation. There was one timethis is a true story. We were
doing a snow caving camp out,and I put a cooler on my
snowboard, hiked it in with allmy other gear, and we had ribs.
(01:41):
We had ribs on the side of amountain in January. Now I I I
smoked them previously, so wejust had to warm them up there,
but we were all prepared. Andwe're sitting here having a nice
cookout on a ski slope outsideof our cave while everyone else
has warmed up their little tincans of of whatever soup. You
can live the best of times. Youcan enjoy yourself regardless of
(02:03):
market conditions, taxconditions, inflation
conditions, if you have theright plan in place.
But if you don't have the rightgear and you're out in the world
and the storm hits, that's likeWarren Buffett's expression. You
know who's swimming naked whenthe tide washes out. Many people
right now are swimming naked,and they have no idea. Many
(02:24):
people have gotten comfortablewith this just buy the S and P
500, and there you go. Manypeople have gotten comfortable
with this idea that they caninvest on the apps Robinhoods or
does Acorns do invest?
I don't know. There's all thesebrilliant apps, and I don't
wanna speak ill of the apps. Iencourage people to invest. I
encourage people to researchtheir stocks to get acquainted
(02:46):
with this. What I'm saying ismarkets go up until they don't,
and it's not a problem until itis a problem.
And do you have the right gearfor when the markets go down?
Not if, but when. And maybe theygo down this year. Maybe they
don't go down for another fiveyears. No one knows, but no one
can time the market.
Do you have the right gear inplace so that regardless of the
(03:09):
weather, the conditions, you canstill live the life that you
want. And there's so many ways.I actually did a webinar this
last week about this. So it wasthe first five years of
retirement. Here's kind of whatI talked about.
David (03:21):
Okay.
Mike (03:23):
If you know when you're gonna retire, you can protect
those first five years ofretirement, so you're not
worried about taking income outof an account that's lost money.
Let's say you wanna retire inthree years. K? You know for
sure that's when you're gonnaretire, and you're concerned if
the market's crash and all ofyour assets are in the market.
Well, what if you bought atreasury that matures in three
years, and that's your incomefor the first year?
And then you bought anothertreasury that matures in four
(03:44):
years, and that's your incomefor the second year. You've now
given yourself a principalguaranteed account that allows
you to retire at that time. Andif the markets do crash, that's
okay. You've given your assettime to recover, because you're
not taking income out of anaccount that has accentuated
losses. That's called sequenceof returns risk.
I think most people understandthe concept, though. You don't
(04:05):
lock in your losses. That's howyou hurt yourself really, really
bad Okay. In retirement. There'smore dynamic ways you could do
this.
So you could say, I don't reallyknow when I wanna retire. I
wanna keep up with the markets,but I just know that I I wanna
get there. Maybe you put someassets into buffered ETFs, so
you've got maybe a little bitmore growth potential. It resets
every year. You can't gobackwards with these.
(04:27):
But it's like, okay. Well, maybeit's three years, maybe it's
five years. You're still tryingto outpace inflation. You've got
that flexibility, but maybeyou're like, no. I don't want
one or two years protected.
I want, like, five years. Thereare fixed indexed annuities that
have a clause in their contractscalled a five year period
certain. So what that means iswhen the time is right, you can
(04:50):
turn on a five year payout,annuitization, the original
definition of annuitization, notlifetime income, but let's say
you put in, I don't know,$3,400,000 of your $1,500,000
portfolio, and that $3,400,000,its purpose is to take care of
the first five years ofretirement regardless of market
(05:10):
conditions. So it's got growthpotential. So when the markets
are going up, you're makingmoney.
But when the markets are goingdown, you're not losing money,
so you're you've locked in yourgains, your wins. And then if
the markets were to crash,whatever, you're not going
backwards, and you can turn onthat income, and it gives you
it's kinda like a CD ladder. Itjust gives you payments then for
the next five years.
David (05:30):
So this sounds like you mentioned, like, do you have the
right gear for when you'recamping? This sounds like maybe
one of the pieces of quote,unquote gear that you could use.
Mike (05:37):
It's a tool. Yeah. It's a tool for some people. It's not a
tool for everyone, becauseeveryone seem I shouldn't say
everyone, that's absolutism. Butmany people are just taught,
okay.
Well, hey. Buy these annuities,and then when you're ready,
you'll turn on lifetime income.Well, what if you don't want
lifetime income, but you justwanna guarantee the first five
years of your retirement? Mhmm.And you want the growth and the
flexibility later on.
(05:58):
That's what I like. Yeah. That'sthat's kind of my preference. I
do like some protection in theportfolio. That's why we have
that reservoir strategy that youcan't go backwards for a part of
the portfolio, but I wantgrowth.
I want future flexibility. Iwanna be able to adapt to my
lifestyle to how things changeover time. I don't wanna lock
things into I mean, look at thelegislation that's going through
congress and that has beendiscussed over the past couple
(06:20):
of weeks. There's a lot of taxchanges that if you didn't lock
yourself into a lifetime incomestream, you can utilize. But if
you just sign up for lifetimeincome, you can't optimize much.
It's stuck. It is what it is.You are completely reactive. But
if you wanna guarantee, like,the first five years or maybe
even the first ten years, youcan buy and ladder out these
(06:41):
fixed or period certain timeframes while your other accounts
have time to be optimized togrow and have flexibility.
There's just other tools outthere that I do not hear being
discussed enough.
Buffered ETFs, structured notes,annuitization for period
certain, whether it's five yearsor so on, just for these moments
(07:02):
in time. When you diversify byobjectives, what you're really
doing is you're taking differentparts of your plan, and you're
saying, how do I solve for thatperiod of time? And then take a
part of your portfolio to solvefor that period of time. So the
part of your portfolio you'renot gonna touch for ten years,
no problem if that's in stocks,ETFs, and it's invested for
growth, because you don't needto touch it for ten years. But
(07:23):
the first five years, you'reprobably gonna treat that
differently.
And you might think, well, Idon't know if I wanna retire
this year or next year or inseven years. Let's just see how
it goes. Then maybe that fiveyear period certainly is a more
appropriate tool for you. Maybeit's not. Maybe you've laddered
out buffered ETFs.
Maybe you've got a rolling CDladder. They all have their own
unique benefits and detrimentsassociated with each strategy,
(07:46):
but the point being is youshouldn't time your retirement
based on the market conditions,the inflationary conditions, the
legislative conditions, or thegeopolitical conditions, or
whatever conditions you'relooking at. Time is your most
precious commodity. So to retireon time means it is the right
time emotionally andeconomically for you regardless
(08:09):
of anything else. The trick isyou've just and I can't say this
emphatically enough.
You've got to have the rightgear. That's all the time we've
got for the show today. If youenjoyed the show, consider
subscribing to it wherever youget your podcasts. Just search
for how to retire on time.Discover if your portfolio is
built to weather flat marketcycles or if you're missing tax
(08:32):
minimization opportunities thatyou may not even know.
Explore strategies that may beable to help you lower your
overall risk while potentiallyincreasing your overall growth
and lifestyle flexibility. Thisis not your ordinary financial
analysis. Learn more about YourWealth Analysis and what it
could do for you regardless ofyour age, asset, or target
retirement date, go towww.yourwealthanalysis.com today
(08:57):
to learn more and get started.
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