Simply Money

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Talking about if paternal what they neededto begin with this stuff that matters.
This might not even be a twopoint fifty five car is the talk station
tonight. We are talking about thekey people you really need to have in
your life when it comes to yourmoney. You're listening to simply Money presented

(00:23):
by all Worth Financial. I meanyou Wagner along with Steve Ruby. Steve
we and I are both parents.We learned the humbling lesson probably the day
after those children were born. Ittakes a village right to raise those children.
You can't do it on your own. But I would also say the
same applies when it comes to yourmoney over the course of your lifetime.
Right, the people that you wetin that help you make smart decisions that

(00:44):
affects your money, your wealthy,your ability to retire someday, all of
those things together. Talk about ifyou were building kind of a dream team,
where do you start. Yeah,so a fiduciary financial advisor. Obviously,
this is something that we talk aboutall the time because it's so darn
important. Now this isn't self promotionhere, but what you need to focus
on is finding yourself. A typicallya certified financial planner somebody who is a

(01:07):
fiduciary. Remember that word means thatthey are legally obligated to put their best
interests or your best interests ahead oftheir own. That is, and I
think that's surprising, don't you,for a lot of people, because in
most industries, right, if yougo to a doctor's office, you don't
expect that the doctor's giving you advicethat's in their best interests, not necessarily
yours. You go to an attorney, you expect they're giving you the best

(01:30):
advice. So it sounds probably weirdto a lot of people when we say,
find an advisor that's putting your interestsahead of their own. But this
is a big world out there,and when it comes to money, there
are certain people that have certain angleson things. If fiduciary doesn't have an
angle, they're legally obligated to lookat what's best for you, regardless of

(01:51):
any commissions, any money that theycould make off of you, and make
a recommendation based on solely you.Yeah, that's the key. Don't be
afraid to ask how your advisor ispaid. If you're interviewing multiple advisors that
you might want to work with,ask how the paid a salaried fiduciary financial
advisor will inherently not have conflicts becausethey're not chasing after that commission. Now
that doesn't mean there aren't people outthere that get commissions that can't still help

(02:14):
you, but you need to makesure that you're working with the fiduciary and
if furthermore, if you're working withsomebody who has letters after their names.
The other week, Steve and Ihad a segment about the different letters that
come after the names of advisors.There's CFP, CFA. Find somebody that
has those letters after their name,because that's going to kind of serve as

(02:36):
the quarterback for the relationship for yourwhole financial situation. Again, fiduciary financial
advisor is the first person you knownot have in your court. I would
also say, add to that lineupa tax advisor, right, a good
person. I think about it overthe course of my lifetime. Right when
I first graduated from college started working, I was making so little money.
Financial situation was so very simple.I could file my taxes literally using any

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of the computer software that you use. As I've gotten older, though,
you know, my husband and Irecently bought some businesses. We rely on
our tax advisor. A lot.We rely on our accountant to help us
make a lot of decisions. AndI think also the closer you get to
retirement, making decisions on which accountsto draw from first. Now, a
financial advisor helps with that, buta tax advisor is also part of that

(03:22):
equation. And I don't think thata lot of people truly understand this,
but if you're working with the rightteam of people when it comes to taxes,
this could save you thousands, tensof thousands of dollars over the course
of your lifetime by just making reallysmart tax decisions. I don't know about
you, but in my spare time, I don't read the tax code.

(03:44):
There's a lot to it. Maybea little bit nerd. You're a total
nerd, of course, yeah,because of what I do for everything.
So you know, I'm a bitof an outlier here because you bring up
a good point. Oftentimes, aCFP also serves as as a tax advisor
in that the advice that we provideto the folks we work with, we
need to stay up to speed oncurrent tax laws. The way that I

(04:09):
put it is, I'm always findingways to poke Uncle Sam in the eye
with a stick. Yeah, youknow, I want to find here the
law, just find a way,yes, exactly exactly. But at the
same time, I'm not filing taxesfor the folks that I work with.
That's where a CPA comes into play. And oftentimes I work with clients CPAs
just to make sure that if there'ssomething more complex, they are bringing me

(04:31):
up to speed on some of theseareas. It's okay to know and to
know what I don't know, andsometimes I will work with the CPA myself
to partner with them for helping myclients. Well, I think you use
a great word there, partner.When we talk about a team, you
know, you can't make decisions ina vacuum that are going to help your
investor that you're working with if youdon't know what's going on, what they're

(04:53):
hearing from their accountants, right,the tax advice that they're getting. So
everyone working together, you know,that kind of team approach obviously brings about
them the best outcome. I'm gonnathrow in another one here. This is
who helps to keep you healthy?Right, there's there's doctors in the equation.
We would say, you know,annual checkups and things like that are

(05:13):
incredibly important. What does that haveto do with money, Well, you're
if you're not healthy, you learnthis, you learn this lesson the hard
way. It's incredibly expensive, exactly. Bill's specialists, all the medications and
all of the you know, physicaltherapy, all of those things are incredibly
expensive. The healthy you are,the less you have to pay for those
things. So do you have atrainer that you work out with, do

(05:35):
you take tennis lessons, golf lessons, any of those things. Who do
you have on your team that's helpingmake sure you're not I don't know,
sitting on the couch eating bond bondsall the time. Yeah, that's a
great point. So financial independence,obviously, you want to be as healthy
as you can possibly be because medicalexpenses are off the charts, especially in
retirement. This is why oftentimes you'reyour employer or the health care that you

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see if through your employeer will havesome kind of a wellness program to help
you with these certain areas of fitness, for example, mental health, wellbeing.
Because the healthier you are now,the less costs that's going to bring
for the insurance company and for yourselfwhen you're in retirement. So that's why
we talk about you know, healthhelp. Yes, you're listening to Simply

(06:21):
Money Tonight, presented by all WorthFinancial. I mean you Wagner along with
Steve Ruby, we're talking about thedream team. Who do you need to
have in place in your life whenit comes to making the best possible decisions
about your money. We've talked abouta fiduciary financial advisor that's kind of the
center of it all, some kindof tax advisor making sure that you're you
know, not paying money to UncleSam that isn't necessary, keeping all of

(06:44):
the money that you can possible inyour accounts, and then also making more
smart decisions about your health, whetherit's doctors or trainers or you know,
even if there's a sport that youlike, someone that's getting you into that
sport. I would also say,and this is something I don't think a
lot of people think about lot,but your friends have a huge impact on
your money. And I would saythis is across a variety of ways.

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Think about what kind of cars theyhave, what kind of vacations they take,
how swaet are you by the kindsof decisions they make about their money.
Do you go out to dinner withfriends and they're talking about how they've
invested in crypto recently, right orNFTs. It's on you, exactly,
and it can go either way,exactly. Yeah. And at the same

(07:28):
time, it's just good to staysocial. Honestly. You know a lot
of folks I work with, they'llkeep working in retirement to some capacity part
time, just to get out thereand remain socially active with co workers and
make new friendships, because that's that'spart of your overall mental health too,
And that's that's important. Again.You want to be healthy across the board
in retirement because that's going to becheaper for your medical expenses, exactly,

(07:50):
you know, And I think you'reright. Friends and mental health and laughter
and having something to do before retirementin retirement, it all makes a huge
difference. Speaking of friends, Ihave a friend who always says when I
call and I say, hey,we have an issue with this appliance,
my husband's got a guy, Right, You always need a guy. What

(08:11):
am I talking about? Some kindof a handyman, right, someone who
if you're not super fix it misterfix it yourself, fix it all super
handy, who is it that youcan call that's going to help you make
changes to your house to make updateswith repairs that are needed. Having a
good person that you know that youcan rely on, that's going to give
you solid advice, solid work,and also for a fair price, can

(08:35):
save you when you think about thecourse of a lifetime. If you've got
a guy, you got a girl, whatever it is, it can be
a huge financial benefit. Yeah.I was going to ask if you have
a guy. I have a guyand he's a guy too. Yeah.
It's a fine too because this guyhe retired relatively early. He was in
the corporate world, and now hefinds joy out out of getting his hands
dirty. He has a network ofpeople that he can hire and subcontract to

(09:01):
that can pretty much take care ofanything. Nice. It's really nice having
a guy too, especially as youage when maybe you can't physically do the
things that you used to do,having that person to step in and help
out with some of these things thatmaybe you knew how to do once upon
a time but you just can't takemore. Find a guy. You know
what else I've learned, especially talkingto so many people through the years about

(09:24):
retirement, is your life tends toshrink a little bit when you go from
the working world and all the peoplethat you interact with and all the help
you get and all the things thatyou do on a daily basis to retirement,
and in some cases for some peopleit can be a little isolating.
There's less people there. You thinkabout technology, I'm in my forties.

(09:46):
I don't even begin to scratch thesurface on what my children know right about
technology and their children behind them,it will be the same way. And
so if you are, I don'tknow, in your seventies or eighties,
and you would like to keep upwith old friends, but you're not on
Facebook. Do you have someone inyour life that can help set you up
an account and help you understand thesafe ways to use social media and things

(10:07):
like that, grandkids, children,nieces, nephews, even a younger neighbor.
Yes, if you had to relyon that, because again, you
don't want to be isolated. AndAmy brings up a good point. You
bring up a good point in here, because I you know, my daughter,
she's eight years old. You handher a phone and she's going to
teach me things that I didn't knowexisted on that darn. It's like they're

(10:28):
born knowing these things. It isvery bizarre. So I'm curious to know
what it's going to look like forher children, what's going to be out
there, And make sure that youhave people that can help you kind of
be up with the times, justso that you don't fall into a space
where maybe you're becoming isolated. Yeah, and that is someone to drive you
to appointment, someone to check onyou all those things, Right, who

(10:50):
is that person? If you havechildren and they're close by, that could
be who it is. But ifnot, Before you even get close to
retirement, you almost need to figureout what that network will look like.
Do you need to hire some additionalhelp you know, do you have you
know, a neighbor or someone likethat that you have a close relationship with,
whatever that is, make sure thatyou're developing those relationships earlier in life
so that they're there for you lateron. I also want to just add

(11:13):
a word in here about family,because I think if you're listening to who
are the people you need to havearound you to make smart decisions about your
money and your transition into retirement,you probably think we're missing something here.
We're not talking about your family,and that is a huge, huge deal.
If you have a healthy family unit, right, that's always made solid
decisions about money, that's talked openlyabout money. A lot of people don't

(11:35):
have that. Yeah, it's agood point, and honestly, some of
these other people that we've been talkingabout, they can help take some of
the burden off of your family ifindeed you do need a lot of help
some point later on in life.I think the key is identifying, like
what the needs could be right,what you're lacking in your own circle,

(11:56):
and then finding the best people tohelp fill those voice. You know,
if it's advice on you know,if you're a teenager going into college on
student loans, is it someone inyour family? Is it a guidance counselor
rate? You can take it allthe way through your life. When you're
making major decisions about money. Whoare the best people to help you make
those decisions. Sometimes they're family,sometimes they're not. Here's the all worth

(12:16):
advice, develop and cultivate the teamthat you need to help you achieve those
goals. When it comes to yourmoney, it is a large group,
but everyone working together well makes allthe difference. Next, have an inheritance,
maybe baked into that long term financialplan, money you just know you're
going to get why some may wantto take that out of their plan.
You're listening to Simply Money here onfifty five cares the talk station. All

(12:39):
Worth Financial a registered investment advisory firm. Any ideas presented during this program are
not intended to provide specific financial advice. You should consult your own financial advisor,
tax consultant, or a state planningattorney to conduct your own due diligence.
You're listening to Simply Money because aI all Worth Financial, I mean

(13:01):
you Wagner along with Steve Ruby.If you can't listen to our show every
night, you don't have to missthe thing because we've got a daily podcast
for you. It's called Simply Money. You can find it on the iHeart
app or wherever you get your podcasts. Coming up at six p forty three.
A lot of questions to answer thatyou sent us. We are asking
the advisor that's coming up. Nota lot of people in my life,

(13:22):
Steve, who are kind of like, well it doesn't matter what I do
now, really, because my parentswere smart, they saved a lot,
they were frugal. Whatever it is, I'm going to get a big inheritance
and then I'm going to be set. And I always just depending on how
well I know the person, Ieither kind of giggle in the back of
my head or sometimes I'll say,maybe you actually don't want to plan on

(13:43):
that, because we've seen this backfirefar too many times. Yeah, that's
a really good point. There's actuallya colleague of ours here at all Worth
that was just talking about this.He had a great aunt who was very
frugal, a great saver. Whenshe died, all the family members they
figured that they were going to splita big tounk of money between all of
them equally. She died with fourmillion dollars and what did she do with

(14:03):
it? She donated every penny tocharity, yep, thinking something. All
the family members were shocked and someof them angry. To me, that's
that's not fair really to the greataunt, because it's up to them what
they want to do with their money. And to add to what you said,
the folks I work with, Itell them, do not count on

(14:26):
inheritances. Do not write that intoyour plan until we know that it's something
that you're receiving well. And Iwould say, first and foremost there has
to be communication right around this.If the great aunt had at any point
said, you know, I havefour million dollars and you know, here's
what I'm going to do with it, there might be less shock in all
when she's gone about that ultimate decision, and that might have been an easier

(14:48):
thing for that family to swallow,you know. But on the flip side
of that, I think about myown family, and I was mentioning recently.
My grandpa, you know, workedfor Cincinnti Milicron for years and years
and years. He and my grandma. If you looked up frugal and the
dictionary, it would be Hubert andEvelyn Wagner's pictures next to it. They
were as frugal as it comes.They saved money, they didn't spend a

(15:09):
lot of money. There was acouple of things that they enjoyed doing.
They didn't travel much, they didn'tbuy fancy cars, you know, and
they were just savers. Well,my dad was an only child, and
so there was the thought of atsome point, right they've been very frugal,
when they're gone, there would bean inheritance. The problem was,
though they were super healthy until mygrandpa turned about eighty six, and he

(15:31):
was diagnosed with Parkinson's. He wentdownhill very quickly, went into a skilled
care facility. My grandma wanted tobe down the hall and assisted living.
If anyone has ever dealt with whatthat cost, looks like they were absolutely
going through tens of thousands of dollarsevery month. A couple of years later,
a lot of that money was gone. And to the point is,

(15:52):
you know, before my grandpa wasnce with Parkinson's, there would be no
reason to think, Okay, there'snot going to be an inheritance here yet
a diagnosis like that, and wewanted to make sure you had the best
care possible and we did. There'slittle money left afterwards, so anything can
go wrong, which is why wewould say, if you are planning on
this, let the money if itcomes, be the kind of that cherry

(16:14):
on top, but not the entiresource of income in retirement. Yeah,
longer life expectancy can certainly be inless inheritance for heirs. And the reality
of the situation currently is that there'sa twenty five percent chance that a man
lives till he's ninety two and atwenty five percent chance that a woman lives
till she's ninety four. That's alonger they lived, the more money they

(16:36):
used, right, Yeah, that'sa lot of opportunity for things to go
wrong, for life to throw youunfortunate health curve balls that can derail your
own finances, especially if you don'thave a long term care policy. So
this is one of those things where, just like you're talking about, your
accounts can be drained towards the endof life. So if you're somebody that's

(16:57):
counting on an inheritance, you gotto keep that in mind. Same thing
with the fact that an aging populationmeans older heirs, really, because if
you're counting on maybe not planning tosave for retirement while you're in your working
years and you're just living willy nillybecause you know that inheritance is coming,

(17:18):
and then you reach sixty five andthey're still and they're still like going strong.
You know you're going to Europe orwhatever. Yeah, it could be
a while before that money comes through. So then you're forced with what how
many more years do I have towork? Or is this money coming?
And then what if it doesn't come? It is the worst retirement plan I
think of all plans, is aninheritance it's just never ever given. Anything

(17:44):
could happen. This isn't the samesituation. But I think of another family
that I knew, where grandparents hadpromised to pay for the college education for
all the kids. They put zerothought or savings into savings for college.
Well, that was all well andgood until about a year before the oldest
got to college and there was abig falling out in the family. Grandparents
didn't talk to parents anymore, therewas no money left, and everyone was

(18:06):
left scrambling funding for college. Youjust never know what could happen, which
is why you've got a plan forthese things. And I think a lot
of the statistics that you're throwing outthere about you know, how much longer
people are living, and the longeryou're living, the more expensive it is,
you know, make you think maybethis isn't the best plan if I
have it. By the way,according to the Federal Reserves Survey of Consumer

(18:29):
Finances, the average inheritance in theUS six figures one hundred and ten thousand
dollars. There's a lot of money, but for many people it's not the
amount that's going to carry you throughretirement. No, no, And you
can certainly be surprised. I lostmy dad many years ago and he left
me thirty seven dollars. I foughtseven on principal. I fought tooth and

(18:52):
nail. I fought the bank toget that money on principal because they were
trying to keep it. And Iused it obviously not life changing, but
I use it for an expensive haircutfor my wedding. Oh well, then
that's a lovely thing to do,right, But it's you know, because
then like he's a part of somethingreally important with you moving forward. But
to your point, also, wasn'ta game changer? Yeah, don't crown

(19:15):
on it. Thirty seven dollars atthis point probably won't even pay for a
meal for the family, you know. So yeah, I think it's really
important to have you just be veryvery clear and again communicate. I think
there's so many children out there thatmake assumptions of what about what their parents
are going to be doing. Inparents, First of all, make sure
that your estate planning is done.I mean, you don't have to have

(19:37):
an entire estate to make sure thatyou've got a plan in place. But
also I think one of the keysof that is just communicating it to your
kids. So that they know exactlywhat to expect, that there's not fighting,
that there's not sadness after you're gone, based on what you ultimately ended
up doing. Here's the autum.Sure those beneficiaries in your accounts are up
to date too, because they supersedethe will. If you've gone through any
changes, if there's been deaths,divorced, things like that, update your

(20:00):
account beneficiaries because that supersedes the will. Excellent point, and that catches people
off of guard a lot. Here'sthe all Worth advice. Don't just assume
an inheritance is coming your way.On the flip side, make it clear
why you've made the decision you've made. Communicate. Coming up next, we've
got a warning about what's being calledthe fifty billion dollars scam. You're listening
to Simply Money here on fifty fiveKRC, the talk station. What's happening

(20:23):
is imperative that we get this bridgerebuilt. Kennedy's VP pick Nicole karc An
iHeartRadio station. You're listening to SimplyMoney, presented by all Worth Financial.
I mean you Wagner along with SteveRuby. This show is all about helping
you make smart decisions when it comesto your money, and a lot of

(20:44):
that has to do with protecting youfrom scams. And when a scam reaches
the level that the FBI has awarning out there for you about it,
you know you better be listening.So joining us to night as our tech
expert Dave Hatter from intrust it witha warning about what has now come to
be known as a fifty billion dollarsscam. That's a lot of losses.

(21:04):
How does that happen? Dave?Yeah, Well, as always, thanks
for having me on. And thisbusiness email compromise, often abbreviated BC,
has been around for a long time. The FBI has warned about it for
a long time. And I thinkthis is important because you know, this
is not someone like me just speculatingwhat's happening out there, or some company

(21:26):
that's trying to sell you something youknow that will theoretically address this concern.
It's an actual law enforcement agency andthey get complaints, you know, they
get people reporting this kind of crime. And it's an interesting side note before
I delve into the details. I'veseen a high level FBI agent at a
conference that I happen to watch onlinesay they believe that only about ten to

(21:48):
twelve percent of all cyber crime isreported. Wow, in many laws,
I'm sorry, in many states therearen't a law that requires reporting, or
when it does require and it's youknow, there's all kinds of rules around
it's somebody. Let's face it,a lot of people aren't going to report
this stuff because it's embarrassing and itmakes them look bad. So again,
take that for what it's worth.The FBI says this is a fifty billion

(22:10):
dollar scam over the last few years, and it really boils down to this
amy. And it's the same stuffwe talk about all the time. Small
businesses say I don't have anything we'restealing. You know, why would someone
attack me? And my answer isbecause you make it easy for him.
And it's not like there's some dudein a hoodie in his mom's basement eating
mountain dew, are drinking mountain dewand eating pizza thinking today I'm going to

(22:32):
attack Joe's garage. They have automatedprocesses that just go out and look for
companies that have vulnerabilities. They knowthat employees will use the same bad password
on multiple accounts. They know thatpeople don't like multifacture authentication aka two step
verification or two step validation, andthat makes it easy for them to exploit

(22:55):
folks and take advantage of these kindof scams here where they get into someone's
mail, perhaps multiple employees mail,they lurk around in there until they figure
out a way to steal money.Because at the end of the day,
it's almost always about stealing money.Yet maybe you might have some trade secrets
they want, or some sort ofmilitary secrets, but mostly they're just going
to try to steal your money.And when they can do things like determine

(23:17):
that you have a third party TPA, a third party administrator for your four
oh one K, then given enoughtime, they'll figure out how to request
distributions from it. I've seen thatactually happen. Employees lost five hundred thousand
dollars of their money they planned toretire on because someone you know, infiltrated
their environment and executed a scam likethis to steal their money, or they

(23:41):
send out frauds and invoices. Imean, sadly, this happens all the
time. We see it almost everyday. So what's your advice to our
listeners? What should they be doingto protect themselves? Against a scam like
this, especially when that the FBIis shining light on Well, Steve,
I think the first thing is tobe aware that it's a thing, right,
And again, this isn't just metrying to sell you something. You've
got the FBI and many other threeletter agencies, plus people like Microsoft and

(24:06):
Google warning about this all the time. So it's awareness and this is less
about phishing. Necessary Now you mightget fish so they can steal your credentials
if you're not doing all the thingsI just said before, like you have
a strong password and you are usingmulti factor authentication. But once you're aware
of this, then it's really acombination of making sure you have the right
controls in place, the more technicalstuff like you make you require your employees

(24:30):
to have a strong, unique passwordfor every work account. You have a
policy that says as an employee,you can't use the same password on multiple
accounts. It has to be astrong password, generally twelve or more random
characters, And you can't use thesame password for your personal accounts because you
know, if you're a target customerand your data happened to be in the

(24:51):
target breach. And let's say thatI got your password. From that,
well, I might be able toget into your work accounts. I mean,
that's how these things work, right, And the bad guys know this,
right, they're smart. So it'sit's controls like that, it's requiring
employees, making it table stakes tobe an employee. If you want to
work here, you must do thisto turn on multifacture authentication, right,
that's the additional verification and authentication youneed to log in where you enter your

(25:17):
user name of password, and thengenerally via text or some other mechanism,
you get sent a code that youneed to log in. Bad guys,
unfortunately, are figuring out how toget around that, but it raises the
bar. It makes it much muchmore difficult because then even if you can
guess my password, hack my password, get my password off the dark web
or whatever, you still got toget that past that code. With speaking

(25:37):
of awareness, how are bad guysgetting around that? Well, unfortunately,
a lot of MFA is not phishingresistant, and they use things like man
in the middle of tacks. Thisgets kind of technical, but let's say,
for example, I send you anemail that has a QR code and
it claims to be from your ITdepartment, or your bank or whatever,
and it claims there's some problem andyou need to scan this code log in.

(26:00):
We're seeing this a lot now.It's actually called quishing with a queue,
so you get it. It lookslegit, right, because it's spoofed.
It looks good. They know whatthey're doing. They're using AI to
spoof this stuff. Now you scanthat code, it takes you to a
log in page that looks exactly likethe Google login page or exactly like the
Microsoft log in page, and youget my credentials because I log in,

(26:22):
they pass that on the Microsoft.The code comes back to you. You
enter that code, they intercept it, and now they're in. I know
that probably sounds a little convoluted,and in a short amount of time we
have here to dig into it.It could probably use some further explanation,
but sadly, this is a thingyou have to be on guard all the
time, and I think you cannever ever let your guard down. Earlier

(26:44):
this week, Dave, I wasjust thinking about you. I had been
off for a few days. Igot back into my email. I had
eight gazillion emails that I just wentthrough and flagged all the ones that were
voicemails that he needed to go backand listen to. The next day,
I got back into my email.One of those emails about a voicemail right
where it just sends you like thetranscript of what it was and the information
to call them back, looked alot different than the other ones. And

(27:07):
I look at the email address onit. I realized it's not our company's
software for bringing emails or for beingvoicemails to our computers, and so I
would have just quickly gone through,listened to it, clicked on the link,
and could have easily then opened upour system to anything. And I
thought, I'm pretty smart about thesethings. But I'm telling you, I

(27:27):
flagged the email to respond to it. If I hadn't just waited until the
next day to go back, Iwouldn't have caught it. Yeah, sadly,
Amy, I know it's frustrating forpeople to hear this, but yeah,
you can't trust anything spoofing this ideathat I can make something fraudulent.
It could be an email address,it could be a phone number, it
can be a voicemail, it couldbe an entire website. This is all

(27:49):
unfortunately very easy due to advances andtechnology in general and now AI things like
chat GPT. I can write textthat will sound perfect in any language.
And you know that was one ofthe red flags of the old school fishing
attacks. You get an email andit was full of weird grammar, and
you know, stuff didn't make sense. That's all out the window. I
can clone your voice. People say, how you got a voicemail. Well,

(28:11):
I call your phone number, Iget your voicemail, I record your
voice off of it. I feedit into readily available free voice cloning tools
that you can go to right nowon the web, and with limited experience
and at no cost, I cancome up with something that I guarantee to
most people will sound just like you. And I can type in what I
want you to say, and you'llsay it. I've done it. It's

(28:32):
a real thing as not having ourown voices and our voicemail. Well that's
a good question, Steve. Youknow you know I now in your case,
An Amy's case, you know,people that have a lot of public
exposure, like you guys, it'sprobably too late because I can just go
to the podcast and get your voiceanytime I want. But for people who
don't have that kind of exposure.Yeah, you might want to rethink and

(28:56):
go back to some kind of genericvoicemail where the bad guys can't get your
voice voice. But you know,increasingly social media whatever, it's harder and
harder for people to keep their voiceand other information that bad guys would be
able to use to impersonate you outthere. But yeah, that would be
one defense against it. Steve changedyour voicemail and use some sort of default

(29:17):
thing or some voice you get online, so that's what They can't capture your
voice that way, especially if you'rean executive. I think the key is
just being aware in the of everytime you come on. It's a different
kind of warning. But the moreaware you are, the better you can
protect yourself. And I think bottomline here is trust nothing right. Make
sure that you are doing your researchon any email, on any text,

(29:37):
on any voicemails, anything that's comingthrough your way. Don't do what I
almost did this week right and justclicking on it, because a world of
back can happen from that. Thankyou so much, of course, to
Dave Hatter, our tech expert frominterest It, for this warning. Spread
the word. No wants to bethe latest victim of this fifty billion dollars
scam a warning from the FBI.You're listening to Simply Money here on fifty

(29:59):
five KRC the talk station. Talkstation. You're listening to Simply Money you presented
by all Worth Financial. I meanyou Wagner along with Steve ruby Head.
We've got side gigs that make youmoney right from the comfort of your own
home. Do you have a financialquestion that you'd like for us to talk
about here? It's just been keepingyou up and you'd like an answer.

(30:22):
There's an easy way that you canbring it to us. There's a red
button you can click on while you'relistening to the show on the iHeart app.
Record your question. It's coming straightto ask. We would love to
talk about it. First question tonightcomes from Ted. He's fifty eight,
his wife is fifty two. Twokids have graduated, they're working out on
their own. Congrats to you.That's a huge it's a huge thing in
and of itself. But Ted andhis wife, their combined income is two

(30:45):
hundred and sixty no pension, estimatedSocial Security at seventy about three thousand a
month. Annual expenses one hundred andten thousand. The house is paid for,
no debt, three point one million, and investable assets. They've got
a sixty forty star. I knowI'm reading. I'm looking at this and
I'm like, Okay, you're inpretty good shape. And he says,

(31:06):
so, here's all the things.Are we both ready to retire financially?
Should we spend more during early retirementbased on retirement smile spending pattern? What
do we need to be thinking abouthere? Oh jeez, well, first
of all, again, nice job. You're fifty eight and fifty two years
old. You have over three milliondollars, you're head of like ninety nine
point nine percent of savers. Right, Oh, yeah, for sure.

(31:30):
But it also depends on whether ornot you're living within your means or below
your means, and you know othermajor expenses on the horizon. You know,
certainly, Ted, you need tosit down with a fiduciary financial planner
at some point to flesh out thenumbers. Ideally, we create a situation
where we know your money is goingto last longer than the two of you
combined. You know things that you'renot thinking of. First of all,

(31:55):
if you do some pen to paperback of the napkin planning, you can
generate forty thousand dollars a year offof a million bucks with a balanced portfolio.
So that's enough to meet your yourobligations, your one hundred and ten
thousand. But I would have concernsabout the taxable nature of the accounts.
Yeah, well, where is yourwealth built? Is it in a taxable

(32:16):
account? Do you have do youhave most of it in a four to
one k? Do you have WROTH? I rays early withdrawal penalties could be
a concern depending on which accounts you'repulling from first and foremost WROTH conversions to
bring down future tax liabilities is somethingyou're going to want to calculate and calculate
in at some point. And whatare you guys going to do for medical
assurance? Yeah, I think that'sa great point. When you look at

(32:37):
these ages fifty eight and fifty two, they're young, they're really young,
and well, I think the numberson paper look good if you're going to
look at you know, maybe drawingout four percent a year, which maybe
the little high nowadays, you neverknow that's going to give you more than
you need. And you ad yoursocial security on top of that, And
I want to throw on another thing, too, though, which is if
you are this young, right,fifty two, your wife is fifty two,

(33:00):
when do you say this data istwenty five percent chance you'll live to
be ninety two. That's ninety fourninety four, okay, so that's forty
years plus potentially in retirement. Thinkabout inflation during that time, how much
that is going to go up?And then I don't think any anybody really
understands how much health insurance is untilyou have to pay for it yourself.

(33:24):
I think on average most of uspay about ten percent of the premium that
our bosses pay. Once you takethat on yourself, right, because you
don't get medicare. You are noteligible for Medicare until you're sixty five,
So seven years for you, that'syou know, over ten years for your
wife. Just a lot to thinkthrough there, But I would say healthcare
expenses, inflation have to be amongthose things that you're considering. Yeah,

(33:45):
so adjusting that acid allocation for someof the long term assets. And Ted
didn't bring up the smile spending pattern, which if you map it out that
it's on a graphic kind of lookslike a smile where you're spending more now
less you know, towards the middleof of your retirement and more towards the
end. I'm not sure how realisticthat ends up being. For people sit

(34:07):
down with a financial planner and mapit out, is what I've said.
Yeah, here's the next question iscoming from Pete. While seeking an advisor,
is it appropriate to ask them abouthow they invest in their personal accounts?
Is an analogy I wouldn't take myforward to a Honda dealer for repairs.
Absolutely, your advisor should honestly bean open book. Do not be
shy, do not be afraid,do not be intimidated to ask how are

(34:30):
you paid? How are you investing? Now, I will say that there
could definitely be differences in how they'reinvesting in how you're investing. For risk
tolerance purposes, a lot of thepeople I know in the industry have much
higher risk tolerances than the folks thatwe work with. I am very aggressive.
I also you know, I've hadfive securities licenses over the span of

(34:51):
my career. I'm a certified financialplanner, but I'm busy. I work
a lot. I have an eightyear old daughter. When I'm not working,
I want to hang out with her. My employer manages my investments for
me. Yeah, and I thinkthat's a great joy to make. Yeah.
And to the point of, youknow, and a lot of advisors
do have a lot of take ona lot of risk or whatever, and
so it's an interesting to ask thequestion how do you invest? But you

(35:13):
have to understand more than that.Are they hearing you how you want to
invest? And are they responding tothat accordingly? That's a huge part of
that equation. Coming up next,how to make some extra bucks by simply
logging on to your computer. You'relistening to simply Money here on fifty five
KRC. We are the talk stationjoining the converse and come on, Congress,

(35:35):
stop wasting our money. Talk aboutit here fifty five KRC the talk
station. You're listening to simply moneybecause I buy all Worth Financial. I
mean you Wagner along with Steve Ruby. Are you interested in maybe buying something
that you really want or you needto make a little extra money to achieve

(35:55):
that goal, but you don't wantto necessarily put money, you know,
finchel strain on your situation. Howdo you make that extra money? Well,
one way is put possibly with aside gig. I feel like years
ago, this used to be areally rare thing that people did, and
Noaci, I think it's becoming prettymainstream. Maybe you're an accountant, but
your passion is guitar, and soyou teach guitar lessons to kids on the

(36:21):
side. And I just think thisis becoming more and more common. Yeah,
it absolutely is. And you know, I think part of this could
be a side effect of COVID becausea lot of the stuff we're going to
talk about can be done remotely.I have a buddy that lives in Morocco
in Africa, and he does thefirst thing that we're going to talk about,
freelance specialist writer. He's an author, he's published books. He was

(36:44):
a teacher, he's not a teacheranymore. He writes on the side and
he makes some pretty good money.There's a listing we came across for an
associate editor that pays between twenty twoand twenty eight dollars an hour, requiring
twenty hours per week. And Ithink it's really easy to think that in
your brain everyone has right. Eithereveryone knows this stuff or no one cares

(37:04):
about it. Yeah, And thetruth is, if you are a decent
writer, but you are specialized insomething. I think of a friend of
mine who was in public relations andthen there was a time when it was
hard to get a PR job.But she was an excellent writer and she
was a quick learner, and soshe went to work for a company that
was doing pamphlets on medical devices,and she would learn everything she could about

(37:27):
them, and then she would writeabout them. It ended up being a
really good career choice for her becauseshe was a good writer and she picked
up really quickly on something else.If it had been even the field that
she had been in, where shehad been with medical devices and already had
that background, it would have beenthat much easier. Listen, if you're
artistic, also design jobs, freelancedesigners. My son is thirteen years old,

(37:51):
and you would be shocked by howgood he is at editing. He
takes so he loves basketball, Steve, and he takes basketball videos and he
added them together with music. AndI'm thinking, Okay, I've had a
career in broadcast journalism where people doexactly that, and here's a thirteen year
old who is so adept at it, and it's a skill that he could

(38:13):
use for life. It's just apassion of his right now, but it
could also be maybe he ends upbeing an attorney or something else down the
road. But it also could bea fun passion for his that he could
actually make a little money on theside. So there's just so many options
out there. Yeah, there's aplatform called fiver which has job openings from
individual companies and it went out ofla which, you know, maybe you

(38:35):
could do it remotely, that wouldbe nice. It's paying thirty dollars an
hour for a production artist to workbetween fifteen and twenty hours a week.
Yeah. I also think of whenI was younger, I had some friends'
moms who are really crafty and theymade some of the coolest things ever.
And then they would go to theselike local craft shows and the basements of
churches and things like that, andcell that. Well, now there's Etsy.

(38:58):
There's all these online platforms where ifyou can make something, there's often
a buyer that's really interested in that. Even when I got married, you
know, I'm not good at putting, making invitations and things like that,
I went on Etsy. We weregetting married at the beach. I found
someone that had a beach theme thing, and you know, paid someone to
make our invitations online. It wouldhave been hard to find someone before that

(39:21):
that did exactly what I was lookingfor, so it's just interesting how many
options you have. We also havea teenage daughter who's getting ready to go
off to college and she's looking tomake money. She sells clothes on thread
ups, so there's just all kindsof options out there. Thanks for listening
tonight, even listening to Simply Moneypresented by all Worth Financial here on fifty
five KRC, the talk station weare currently