Simply Money

Episode Transcript

(00:06):
Night. Many of you think worryingabout retirement isn't a big deal, and
why we actually think it is.You're listening to simply Money presented by all
Worth Financial I Memi Wagner along withSteve Ruby, case Arras Arrah. Right,
whatever will be will be. Youknow, we're just gonna live our
lives. We're gonna do what weneed to do. We're not going to
plan for retirement and it will allwork out. Now. Actually, like

(00:28):
people who are really laid I'm not, but who are really laid back about
things, I appreciate that about them. I often stress about things that I
don't need to stress about. Butwhen it comes to retirement, I'm not
saying that you need to stress aboutit, but I do think you need
to be serious about it, thatyou need to address it, that you
need to do something about it.In just thinking it'll all work out when

(00:51):
I get there, man, thatreally does stress me out. Yeah,
you can be in for some rudeawakenings if that's the case. And there
was a joint studywe and the EmployeeBenefit Research into Institute in Greenwald Institute where
they looked at a significant portion ofUS workers and their financial planning strategies,
and ultimately what they found is thatit is burying their heads in the sand.

(01:14):
So their strategy is zero strategy.I mean, they don't have one.
It's about a third of the populationtakes that strategy of ay, it'll
just work itself out. The surveygoes gone to say, the two thirds
of workers of sixty eight percent saythey are confident they have enough money to
live comfortably throughout retirement. I thinkit's really interesting because I think if you

(01:38):
ask that same group of people,well, how much do you think you'll
need, they probably have no idea. It's just like, well, I
don't know, I probably have enough, Okay, Well, how much do
you spend on a monthly basis oran annual basis? If you thought about
the fact you might need a newroof in retirement, or how about cars
do you plan on traveling? Right? Once you have that conversation with them,
I wonder how confident they really wouldbe. Yeah, And when the

(02:01):
survey looks at some of these whatI would call pretty basic questions as far
as retirement planning is concerned, thosethat did answer them also had wrong answers
like life expectancy. For example,We've had entire segments on this in the
show before, where about two thirdsof adults are unable to correctly answer the
simple question of how long they mightlive. Most people think it's a lot

(02:25):
the age is a lot lower thanthe reality of the situation, because there's
if you hit sixty five years oldand you are a man, there is
a twenty five percent chance that youare going to live past the age of
ninety two. If you hit sixtyfive years old and you are a woman,
there's a twenty five percent chance thatyou're going to live past the age
of ninety four. When you're buildinga financial plan, it's important to stress

(02:49):
tested for things like longevity because youneed to make sure that your money lasts
longer than you do. And ifyou think you're only going to live till
you're seventy eight, then that's goingto show that you need a lot less
money to support that timeframe than ifyou're going to live until you're ninety five.
What you're talking about is longevity literacy, and many people are completely lacking
in it. You're like, oh, my parents lived X year, so

(03:09):
x age, that's what I'm goingto do, And you just really have
no real factual basis for deciding howlong you think you're going to live.
Just people miss the mark on somany things when it comes to retirement,
and one of those is how muchyou can realistically expect as a return for
your investments. At twenty twenty three, and a Texas survey found US investors

(03:32):
think they're going to outperform inflation bymore than six close to sixteen percent annualized
over the long term. I cannotgive you absolutes, but I can almost
absolutely tell you that is not goingto happen. So you're overestimating how much
you can expect on those returns,and the problem is then you're going to

(03:53):
come up short. I think I'llgive an absolute on that one. I
think you're willing to get that flaglutelyah. I mean, we would need to
have ten percent deflation for that tobe the case. It's just an unreasonable
expectation to the extreme, because ifyou picked what was the best performing asset
class every single year, then sure, yeah, you could hit those return

(04:13):
figures. But that is just sounrealistic. There mean a crystal ball to
do that, Yeah, you do. So there was a professor at Levy
School of Business at Santa Clara Universityin California. Edward mcquarie, he did
a thrilling research. I don't knowhow you could analyze this much data and
have fun with it, but helooks since thrilling, Yeah, since seventeen

(04:35):
ninety three. He looked at stockmarket returns based on an inflation adjusted total
return, and the entire stock marketwas about six point one percent annualized between
present day and seventeen ninety three.So thinking that you're going to beat inflation
by fifteen point six percent is justoutrageous. It is not the case.

(05:00):
So we have people not thinking aboutretirement. I often talk to people who
think you just won't retire and you'lljust keep working, which research shows that
doesn't work out. And then youhave people overestimating how much their investments will
make because you think, if Ican just smudge these numbers, right,
fudge these numbers a little bit,then I can make this all work.

(05:20):
You're listening to Simply Money presented byall Worth Financial. I mean wagna long
with Steve Ruby as we talk aboutthe fact that just so many people are
getting it wrong when they come toretirement. And I'm glad people aren't stressed
out about things. But at thesame time, I think you have to
take a very realistic approach. Youknow, one of the major segments that
we do is retirement fact or fiction. We never run out of things to

(05:45):
talk about in that segment because thereis so much misinformation out there about money
and about retirement, and how doyou make sure that you are not falling
for this misinformation. You have tomake sure that you are actually really well
informed about your money, your finances, how to invest, how to retire.
If you're not partnering with a fiduciaryfinancial planner to help guide you through

(06:11):
I would say to and through retirementto help you understand that maybe you do
have some misconceptions about time frames,how long you're able to work, what
kind of returns you can expense,what kind of returns you can expect,
what kind of expenses you're going tohave in retirement. If you don't have
a planner that's helping you navigate thisand educating you, then doing it on

(06:31):
your own. There are ways toeducate yourself, as you had mentioned,
like a financial newsletters. There's alot of people out there writing financial newsletters
that are educational in nature that cankind of bring you up to speed on
some of these areas where maybe youjust have the wrong idea. We're not
saying you go from zero to onehundred tomorrow and you're reading a twelve hundred

(06:54):
page book by some economist. That'sthem what we're advocating for. You mean
you mentioned newsletters. There's lots ofout there that you can start slowly to
digest. And I know when Ifirst got into this financial field, you
know, if there was something thatI didn't fully understand, then I would
just do research on it. Right, you come across the word that you
don't understand, rather than just gobuy it, you know, google it,

(07:15):
figure out what you don't know,and start to build on that knowledge.
Listening to financial podcasts when you're inthe car, right, I listen
to podcasts all the time and learnso much. It's time that you're already
going to be sitting there, Sothat can be a great thing to do.
You're listening to us right now,right radio shows, you know,
any way that you can spend timedigesting financial information and making yourself smarter.

(07:41):
One of the things that is alwaysnot surprising to me, but a little
bit sad when we are in frontof people talking to people workshops. The
number one thing and the first thingI always ask, is how many of
you grew up in a home whereyour family talked openly about money? Very
few. If there are fifty peoplein a room and two people raise their

(08:03):
hands, it's almost surprising that thatmany people grew up in homes where people
were talking about money. So,you know, and I think there's some
shame around. I don't know things, so I'm just going to stick my
head in this hand, which isn'tthe answer. The answer is okay.
You may have grown up in ahome where no one was talking about this.
Maybe you didn't take high school orcollege personal finance classes, but wherever

(08:26):
you are right now, you canget started, and there's some easy steps
that you can take. One motivatingfactor for me in life is to give
my daughter a better life and upbringingthan I had. And I think if
you're similar to me, where youknow I come from a we'll just say
not your traditional upbringing situation. Andyou know, I didn't have a lot

(08:48):
of guidance for these types of conversationsor role models that could coach me on
financial topics. Probably the most successfulperson in my family was a parking lot
attendant and they ended up getting firedfor and criminal activity. So I'm talking
like not a lot of guidance here. So one of my most motivating factors
is to position my daughter to bemore successful and to have a better life

(09:09):
than I could. So maybe that'sa way that you could motivate yourself to
learn about some of this stuff sothat you can teach your children or your
grandchildren how to be financially literate.Whether that's you know, subscribing to newsletters,
whether that's listening to podcasts, readingdifferent financial books that I'm sure you've
heard about through some means or another. That there are ways to educate yourself

(09:33):
if you're not currently working with afiduciary financial planner that can essentially hold your
hand to and through retirement and keepinga budget, right, that's sort of
the foundation for figuring out, Okay, how are we doing financially and then
sharing the fact that you're living offof a budget and you use that to
make financial decisions with your children sothat they understand, you know, every

(09:54):
penny that goes in is not what'sthe next thing that I want that's fun,
you know, as adults, wedon't get to make the those decisions
in that way. You know,we have to save money, we have
to invest money, we have tomake sure that the bills get covered.
So living off of a budget,educating yourself on the best way to do
that. There's all different kinds ofapproaches that you can use and listen.
If all of this is overwhelming,maybe because you grew up in a home

(10:16):
where no one was talking about money, it's okay to reach out to a
financial professional. We would say,just make sure it's a fiduciary, someone
who's putting your best interest first,and say, I don't exactly know where
to start, but I think Ineed help. I would say it's really
uncomfortable to sort of get financially naked. No one wants to admit like I've
made mistakes and I don't know whatto do. But I'm telling you we

(10:39):
have seen it all from that standpoint, and in most of the people who
are in this industry for the rightreasons, we really just want to be
able to help. Here's the allworth advice. Blowing off your financial future
it is just going to come backto haunt you later. So get yourself
going on the path to financial literacy, and if it does seem overwhelming,
partner with someone who you can trustto help you get started. Coming up

(11:03):
next, millions of cell phone usershave their personal information shared illegally. We've
got details on that. Next,and our mortgage rate's the only reason why
the housing market is so tight,why some lawmakers say no and they're trying
to take action. You're listening toSimply Money, presented by all Worth Financial
here on fifty five KRC, thetalk station. You're listening to Simply Money

(11:28):
percented by all Worth Financial. Imean me Wagnerre along with Steve Ruby.
If you can't listen to our showevery night, you don't have to miss
the thing that we talk about.We have a daily podcast for you.
Just search Simply Money. It's rightthere on the iHeart app or wherever you
get your podcasts. Straight ahead signsthat you might be too heavily invested in
something, we'll tell you what thoseare. There are certain businesses industries that

(11:50):
just really get under my skin.Ruby, I'm telling you, like I
always like tense up when we talkabout them. One of them is like
cell phone carriers. We're talking likeVerizon at and T, T Mobile,
Sprint, And if you are acustomer of any of those businesses, listen
up, because apparently I have areason to be annoyed with them. Yeah,

(12:11):
we sure do. So there's aninvestigation of AT and T again,
T Mobile, and Sprint where it'sbeen determined that these carriers actually sold access
to their customer's location data two differentaggregators, who then went on to sell
that data to third party location basedservice providers. Now by doing so,
the FCC found that each carrier,what they did is they attempted to offload

(12:35):
their obligations to obtain customer consent ontothese third party people that sold the data
from there, which is essentially aloophole that they found for a bad business
practice. This makes my blood boil. First of all, if you look
at your cell phone bill, thereis like a fee for this, and

(12:56):
a fee for that, and afee for this. And these companies have
no issue making revenue like they aredoing really really well. So not only
are they making money off this,you know, just an insane amount that
they're charging you, At the sametime, they are letting other companies track
you, selling the information of howthey track you to other companies that they

(13:18):
can do whatever they want with it. And by the way, you had
no idea they were doing it,and you never gave consent for them to.
I mean, I just really getyou. Amy's turning bread right now.
I really am im so annoyed withthis. And listen, the four
carriers have been fined a grand totalof two hundred million dollars. That sounds
like what it is a drop inthe bucket to them. Yeah, they

(13:43):
know this too. That's the thing. They were warned. They were told
that these carriers were told that thesafeguards that they had in place were ineffective,
and they said, okay, that'sfine, and they continued to sell
the access information for or carry orclient's locations to these third party data aggregators.

(14:03):
They knew they were doing wrong,and they still did it. Because
that fine, apparently is two hundredmillion dollars. It's a drop in the
bucket. It's like swatting at agnat for them. I mean, it's
it's nothing. Yeah, incredibly frustrating. And it's not like they're saying,
you know, there's a class actionlawsuit where people can actually get any sort
of you know, money back forthe fact that they have been sort of

(14:26):
betrayed by their cell phone carriers inthis way. So anyway, I will,
I will step off of my platformhere, but I just okay over
there, you know. And ittakes some deep bress, deep breass as
we talk about the fact that,yes, home prices are higher right now
because of interest rates, but alsosome lawmakers believe that there's another factor here

(14:48):
that's playing into this and they're tryingto do something about it. Yeah,
and this is investors gobbling up hundredsof thousands of homes across the nation for
renting them out. And Democrats inthe US Senate and the House, they
sponsored legislation that would force force largeowners of single family homes to sell houses

(15:11):
to only family buyers. Republican billand Ohio state legislator aims to drive out
institutional owners through heavy taxation. Soboth sides of the aisle are trying to
do something to curb the fact thatinvestors are gobbling up these homes and raising
the prices. I know that weare in fact seeing this as an issue

(15:33):
locally because I actually remember back toduring the pandemic, Michelle Sloane, our
real estate expert, talking about thefact that so much is stacked against first
time home buyers, and she hadsaid several times recently, I have been
working with clients who are first timehome buyers and they got beat out by,
you know, someone who owns hundredsof other properties that are just buying
them for rental properties. You know, many times you have you know,

(15:58):
hoa's homeowners associations who don't want youknow, all of these people that are
you know, coming in for afew months and then leaving again. They
don't want them to be part ofthe neighborhood. And at the same time,
you have been just a first timehome buyers that make it so much
more difficult. So we're going tosee where this one goes if it really
does gain any traction. But Ido think it's an interesting conversation. I'm

(16:18):
glad that they are having it inCongress because it has had an impact locally.
And it has too because at thepeak in twenty twenty two, more
than one in four single family homessold were to institutional purchasers rather than the
individual first time home buyer that wasgetting pushed out because they couldn't compete with
those cash offers. I feel sobad for people who are trying to buy
their first homes right now. Youknow, there's many reasons why I wouldn't

(16:42):
want to go back to my twentiesor early thirtiars thirties, and I think
this is one of them. It'sjust really, really difficult to get that
first home because you've just got somany factors stacked against you. Every Sunday
you're going to find our all WorthAdvice and this it's that Inquirer, but
on Fridays we like to give youa preview. First question come from Paul
from Alexandria. What are your thoughtsabout easing into retirement. I think it

(17:04):
sounds preferable to quitting just cold turkey, but I'm not sure the best way
to go about it. I mean, it can be a great way to
transition into the next chapter in yourlife, which is retirement. But there's
just like a lot of things,there can be challenges or curve balls that
you may not expect. One ofthose is whether or not your company even

(17:25):
allows it. And I'm talking aboutan official, sanctioned transition into retirement through
your employer. It's not very common. Maybe six percent of employers offer some
kind of a formal phased retirement program. Now that doesn't mean that there's not
an informal process to address this byworking with leadership to make that transition,

(17:47):
build that slow transition yourself, buthaving a formal one in place not very
common. You got to make yourcase for this, and if you think
this is something that you would like, I would say you have this conversation
maybe a couple of years out outfor retirement, and you really have to
think it through, do your researchand sort of build out a really good
plan for why you think it's notonly beneficial for you because you're worried about

(18:08):
just quitting Cold Turkey and how you'regoing to deal with that, but also
why is this beneficial for your employer. This is actually something that my dad
did years ago. When he retired. He went from five days a week
down to four, and then tothree and then to two and then he
was done. He was a CFOof an organization and he had interned there,
so he had decades worth of knowledge, institutional knowledge build up in his

(18:30):
head, and you know, therewas just really busy time and there wasn't
enough time to train people before heretired, so he started that process sort
of as he eased into retirement.So I think you can easily build the
case, but you also have toshow why it is beneficial for that employer
to go ahead and do that.And even if you have it as an
option, what will the transition intohealthcare look like? If you're going to

(18:53):
be working part time? Are youable to keep that healthcare or do you
need to go out and purchase iton the market if you're under the age
of sixty five not making the transitionto medicare at that point. Next question
tonight is from Shane, who isa newport. I'm twenty nine starting a
new job soon. What should Ido with my old four oh one K

(19:14):
It only has about twenty thousand dollarsin it? Well, don't cash it
out. That's the first thing,first and foremost, because if you do
your tax and you're penalized at tenpercent for most reasons. Ultimately you need
to sit down and probably talk toan advisor or maybe do some research,
because you can perhaps keep it whereit is. You can roll it into
a new company's four one K planif you're eligible for one, or you
can roll it into an IRA andexplore more investment options. Than your employer,

(19:37):
current or former what will give you. But there's pros and cons to
both of those decisions or to eachof those decisions, So it's something you
need to probably talk to somebody about. Next, we're going to take a
deep dive into the cost and planningfor the end of life from someone who
helps families deal with this every day. You're listening to Simply Money presented by
all Worth Financial here on fifty fiveKRC the tax station. You're listening to

(20:06):
simply Money percent of my all WorthFinancial Immi Wagner along with Steve Ruby.
This is one of those things wherewhen someone comes into our office, they
may have made every smart decision theypossibly could when it comes to their investments,
but more often than not, wefound that they've given very little thought
to estate planning, to what happenswhen something goes wrong with them and their
family members are left to pick upthe pieces. Joining us tonight is someone

(20:30):
who has lots of experience in thisplace. We are talking to Genie Young.
She's actually a family services advisor forthe Gate of Heaven Cemetery. You
know, Genie, I imagine thatso much of what you do has an
emotional component and a financial component ofit. For those who have thought well

(20:51):
ahead and make things as easy aspossible on their family members, what are
the steps that you see that they'vetaken. People that have made it easy
for their family. They have thoughtahead and pre planned. The whole idea
is they have everything set up sowhen that unexpected death happens, your family

(21:14):
has everything in place and they canfocus on each other and start the grieving
process. And they already, youknow, they've spared their family that emotional
and that financial burden. They knowyour wishes and your wishes are going to
become a reality. You've also,you know, given them a peace of
mind that everything is going to beset and you don't have to worry about

(21:38):
it. When the time comes,you know, you focus on each other.
What age you know, when whendo you start working with families to
help guide them through some of theseend of life decisions and the associated costs
with appropriately planning. There's no setage or time of life that people you

(21:59):
know that hey, you hit amagic age that you should come in.
I suggest that people come in assoon as possible and when they you know,
people don't want to talk about deathand they feel like if I don't
talk about it, it's not goingto happen. But the sad part about
it is it's a club we're allgoing to join, and sometimes there may

(22:22):
be an unexpected death. Last weekwe had a husband he lost his wife
and she was only forty two.And the other thing is you never know
what else may be going on whensomebody passes. I had a family come
in. It was three brothers.Their mom had passed away and the family
had everything pre planned, which wasawesome, and our meetings took about fifteen

(22:48):
minutes, and at the end Isaid, boy, I'm so happy your
parents had everything pre planned. Andthen one brother piped up and said,
you have no clue. You haveno clue. Mom went in the hospital
two months ago. She was thecaretaker. We had to take care of
dad for a week and a halfuntil we found somebody where to place him.

(23:10):
And if we had to plan allof these things before then, I
think we would have lost it.So you just don't know what else may
be going on at that time ofdeath, What are the things that you
have seen that people have not doneor they have done. And it still
made things so much harder on theirloved ones. The biggest thing that people

(23:32):
don't do is they don't let theirwishes known. They don't pre plan.
You know, some of the commonthings that mistakes that people have is they
don't realize if I don't let mywishes known, now my family is making
that decision. So I have maybechildren or a wife and they have no

(23:52):
clue. So there's a potential therethat maybe there's a disagreement of what you
wanted, and you know that thosedisagreements can impact your family in the future
if depending on how you know,how intense it may be. So that
that's the biggest thing that people biggestmistake people make. You have to remember

(24:18):
when somebody passes, it's the worstday of your life. Maybe you woke
up and your spouse is not nextto you, your house is strangely quiet,
and now you have to go andmake all these decisions. On average,
there's probably about sixty to seventy fivedecisions you have to make between the
funeral home and the cemetery, andyou're it's the worst day of your life.

(24:45):
This kind of resounded with me whenI had a lady that came in.
She was in her mid eighties.She lost her husband forty years ago,
and she just wanted to see hercontract of, you know, if
she had everything in place, andwe reviewed her kind of and she goes,
I don't remember signing this. Idon't remember what I bought. I
don't even remember who paid for it. I was in such a fog that

(25:10):
day. You know, it justit again. It's just sometimes people come
in here and they're just in afog and just kind of going through those
emotions, those emotions of getting itdone. To that point, I was
just thinking about I lost my momto breast cancer thirteen years ago, and
even though she had a stage fourdiagnosis and we knew for a while,

(25:33):
there was no kind of planning thattook place, and we thought we had
a lot more time with her,so when she did pass. To your
point, every decision was overwhelming.But from a financial standpoint, I also
remember, you know, walking intothis room where all these things are placed
out and you're trying to pick whichof these things, and I remember thinking

(25:53):
the most expensive thing was what sheneeded, because nothing every you know,
it was the nicest thing she needed, that she would have never wanted,
that she would have never wanted awaste in her mind, probably money on
certain things. But when you're insuch an emotional state, and let's face
it, the cost of dying isincredibly expensive anyway, I think we probably

(26:15):
made some decisions that didn't make themost sense financially because we were just were
so emotional. Correct, everybody,when somebody passes, your emotions are very
raw, You're very sensitive. Yoursensitivity is very heightened, and you just
want to give that person the bestof the best, even though that's not

(26:37):
necessarily what they want it. Andit's easy to get very caught up in
that because you're in that raw emotionalstate. So how do you help families
find a balance between the emotional costof going through something like this and the
financial cost? So what I dois, I like to say I kind
of I think the best is forfamilies to pre plan and I kind of

(27:00):
guide them through this journey that helpthem find what is the best fit for
them, and the best fit meaningwhat fits their beliefs, their faith and
their financial situation. Everybody needs tounderstand that every cemetery and funeral home is
different, and you kind of haveto have an idea of what is going

(27:22):
to fit, what your needs areor what is going to give you that
peace of mind. So like justfor example, here at Gay to Heaven,
we're a Catholic cemetery, but wecater to the whole Christian community and
we on our life on sacred ground. But that extends beyond the person who's
buried here. So we have monthlygrief support meetings, We do a remembrance

(27:45):
mass. Every month, we havea memorial Mass, we honor our veterans
every fall, we have an artshow, we do a Christmas celebration.
So we're more than just a cemetery. We're a community, and we feel
like all of those families and friendsof the loved ones here are part of
that. You know. I thinkabout what we do, Genie, you

(28:06):
know, helping people make smart financialdecisions. And many times we have someone
come in and they say, well, I've never retired before, That's why
I'm coming to you. And we'relike, well, we've helped many people
retire, so we have lots oflots of ideas and lots of experience here
for many people. You know,hopefully you don't have to bury so many
people that are close to you,and I know, especially the first time
you lose someone it can be overwhelming. Finding someone like yourself who has helped

(28:32):
many other people kind of make thesedecisions during a very emotional time can be
really helpful. Yeah, I completelyagree with you. You know, and
again the end of life purchase.People need to remember this is a very
personal, person personal purchase. It'snot a widget. It's not like buying
a washing machine or a car.And you want to you only have one

(28:53):
chance to get it right. Yeah, So by pre planning and kind of
talking with your family about your wishesis very important. So pre planning right,
communicating. Of course, no oneever likes to think about this day,
but it will come for all ofus. Great advice, great insights
from Genie Young, Family services advisorfrom Gate of Hemet Cemetery. You're listening

(29:15):
to Simply Money presented by all WorthFinancial here in fifty five krs the talk
station. You're listening to Simply Moneypresented by all Worth Financial. I mean
you Wagner along with Steve Ruby.Do you have a financial question? Maybe
you and your spouse are on thesame page. It's keeping you up at
night, it's bothering you. We'llhelp you out. There's a red button
you can click on while you're listeningto the show. It's right there on

(29:37):
the iHeart app. You just recordyour question. It's coming straight to us
and straight ahead. We would say, hey, there are certain times when
using a credit card is definitely thebest way to go. We'll tell you
what those things are. You know, there are so many options when you
look around, when you check thefinancial headlines of what you can do with
how you can invest your money.So how do you know if maybe you've

(30:00):
gone in too deep on an investmentin one particular place. Yeah, you've
heard a say over the years thatyou don't have more than five, ten,
maybe fifteen percent tops into one individualinvestment because in that situation, you're
putting too many of your eggs inone basket. Obviously, there's situations where
people do find themselves doing so,and we're going to talk about some of

(30:22):
the red flags that maybe will helpyourself realize that that this is the case
for you. So keep in mindmost of these are emotional in nature.
For example, do you find yourselfconstantly checking and how the investment is doing
all day long, that's a redflag you're thinking about it too much rather
than investing for the long term inherently. If you're looking at it NonStop,

(30:45):
then you have expectations that it's goingto go up and down, up and
down, and that's just not healthy. One of the things I pride myself
on is that I talked the talkon to show and then I walk the
walk. I'm not making giving youany advice that I'm not taking myself.
So genersification, you know, notmore than ten percent of your portfolio and
individual stocks. I'm a huge believerat ETFs, the track index funds like

(31:07):
that's and P five hundred, Right, that's what I invest in. But
you know, over the course ofthe last year or two, there's you
know, one particular company that we'vetalked a lot about. I did some
investing into it, some research,some research, and then I decided,
Okay, we're going to put atiny little bit of money. This is
far, far less than ten percentof my total portfolio. Right, This

(31:27):
one company and this tiny, tiny, tiny investment I have made drives me
mad. I read the news aboutit. I check the stock ticker every
day. I don't check my fouro one K anywhere goes to as much
as I check this individual stock.This stock is not going to move the
needle on me retiring or any financialdecisions at all. But I'm actually glad

(31:51):
that I did it because it's reallyproven to me the fact that, yes,
you can make decisions based on fearand greed, and I'll find myself
thinking little bit, maybe maybe Ishould sell, maybe this is the top,
or maybe it can keep growing in. It has been a real life
lesson for me to say, Nope, I'm actually never going to do this
again. I'm glad that you saidthat. It's a very very tiny amount

(32:12):
because you are learning a valuable lessononce upon a time. Because you know,
I have five securities licenses. Iused to do a lot of my
own investing too. I've been there, done that, and I've experienced this
all the same that you have,you know, and you're bringing up another
red flag here. If you findyourself losing your mind that the investment drops
like a rock or screaming for joywhen it pops up in price in a

(32:36):
particular day, that's an overreaction becauseover the long term, a diversified mix
you compare, you know, toETF set track an index, it's going
to go up slowly over time,with some ups and downs if you look
at it over a very long periodof time. But an individual security,
like you've gotten yourself into here that'sgoing to move a heck of a lot
more. And I like this casestudy Amy. Yeah, well, you

(33:00):
know it's funny like I am theperson who and I was just in Vegas
recently for a family event. Idid not gamble a dime, like I
am not a gambler in individual stocksfeel a lot like that to me.
Making the decision about you know,is it red or black? Is there
any in or I out? Youknow, do I I had all the
thoughts should I buy more? ShouldI go in more? On days when

(33:21):
it's doing well? And this isvery normal ways of thinking. There's so
much behavioral finance research behind this,and that's why we would say, oh
my goodness, you have to beso diversified in what we see very often
in this area because we are solucky that we have some large like Fortune

(33:42):
five hundred companies that are headholded righthere in Cincinnati. Is many people who
get their their current existence, sotheir paycheck, their salaries coming from these
companies. But then you also believeso strongly in what you're doing and what
you're building and what you're doing everyday in that company, that when you
invest in the company's stock and youget the stock options and then your four

(34:02):
to one k isn't it And thenmaybe you buy the individual stock and suddenly
you're not diversified at all. Muchof your current and in future financial situation
lives or dies with one company,and that is a really scary place to
be in. Yeah, that's agreat point too, because in your personal
situation, it's just a little tinybit of your network dabbling and an individual

(34:23):
security just to play around and havesome fun. Versus those that have built
their entire financial future on one company'sstock because it came to them through their
employer. That is much more scary. Because yes, some of these big
Cincinnati companies, they've been around fora while, their stock has done well
enough over the long term, butthat doesn't mean that something can't come out

(34:44):
of left field that completely derails thefinancial future of a particular stock. We've
seen that before with Enron, We'veseen it with ge We've seen it with
many others. We all love thatCinderella story, and that's what gets the
coverage right. The person who madethe bet onto Amazon when they were just
selling bo online and know when hadheard of them, and now they have
you know, swimming pool in theirbackyard where they do the backstroke through dollar

(35:06):
bills. You know that's not thenorm. And investing in this way and
trying these get rich quick strategies.We do not ever hear the stories or
read the stories of the people thatthis ruined, the people who made terrible
financial setbacks as a result of itand are struggling to recover from those.
So listen closely. If you're feelingthese red flags in your life, re

(35:28):
evaluate where you're invested in. Here'sthe all Worth advice. Think carefully about
where you are investing your money andalso why coming up next, the purchases
you should make with a credit cardinstead of any other form of payment.
You're listening to Simply Money presented byall Worth Financial. Here in fifty five
KRC the talk station. You're listeningto Simply Money presented by all Worth Financial.

(35:52):
I mean Wagner along with Steve Ruby. See what are the things I
love about our jobs is we doyou know, sort of workshops and we're
talking to people and you know,people come up to me and say,
like Hey, that thing you guystalked about, I open to health savings
account and now I'm fully on board. And you know, they're talking about
all these things that they've done thathave really helped them. There are sometimes,

(36:12):
though, that someone will come upto me and say, you are
going to be really proud of thisfinancial decision I made. I cut up
all of my credit cards. Mymom was like, mm, another show.
We actually don't buy into that.Here. We think that credit cards
might be excellent tools when used responsibly, and we talk about using them responsibly
means you pay them on time everymonth, and you pay them in full,

(36:34):
you don't carry a balance. Andif you are doing that, then
there are sometimes when we would say, you use that credit card over anything
else available to you. Yeah,this is one of those areas where I
do practice what I preach. Ijust have one credit card. I could
probably have more, but I haveone that does cash back and it has
I can change the categories that Iget the cash back for and paid off
at the end of every month.So you don't want to destroy your credit

(36:58):
cards, keeping one to capture someof the benefits. As long as you
have the means and the ability andthe willpower to pay it off every month
can be a huge benefit. There'sother areas that you can tack on to
some of the benefits of credit cards. One is depending on the cards you
have. If you're buying appliances orelectronics on credit, then oftentimes that will
actually extend the warranty on those products. Well. Not only that, you

(37:22):
think about if it's a big ticketitem and you're getting points to fly or
hotel room points, or the creditcard you have cash back, it makes
sense to then get all of thoseextra awards that you would get from just
making kind of that big ticket purchase. But at the same time, I
can't tell you how many times I'vebeen in Best Buy or an appliance store

(37:43):
electronics store making a major purchase andthey'll they really do a really good job
of trying to sell you those extendedwarranties, and I always think, oh,
well, what if you know myluck, something goes wrong with these
tomorrow. Don't do that if you'rebuying it on your credit card. Many
many times, more often than not, there are extra protections on that card
that if something were to go wrongwith that big ticket purchase, your credit

(38:04):
card would actually help you with that, you don't need to lay out the
extra money for these extended warranties notworth your time or your money exactly.
And you mentioned airfare. Some cardsthat offer free trip delay or cancelation,
insurance, baggage claim privileges as longas you're purchasing the tickets using that card.
Lost luggage insurance reimbursing you for bagsthat may have been lost. There's

(38:29):
other benefits that we can receive carrentals. You need to look into what
your credit card offers to capture tomake sure you're capturing some of these benefits
that go above and beyond just thepoints that you might be able to accumulate
anything you think you might return right. There's added protections there and then online
shopping. You know, for thosewho only use debit cards, there's so
much more protection and more recourse thatyou have through your credit card company than

(38:52):
if that money has come directly outof your bank account. Thanks for listening
tonight. You've been listening to SimplyMoney, presented by all Worth Financial Shell
here in fifty five KRC the talkstation