Let's Talk Money

June 13th, 2026.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, Hello, Hello, This is Vincenzo Testa. I am one
of the wealth advisors at Bouchet Financial Group. I head
up the tax Planning Strategy team at the firm. I'm
a CPA and CFP, and I'm also joined by my
colleague Samantha Macy, who is a CFP as well.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
I appreciate everyone listening in.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
We have a sort of an unusual day today. Steve
is taking a break from today's show, so we're stepping
in from But he's taking a break because his daughter
is getting married today up in Lake Georgia at four
thirty and I'm sure he has a lot to do.
But we all will be attending. Everyone from the firms
going up and can't wait. It's going to be a
good time.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
But Sam, please feel free to introduce yourself.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Good morning everyone. Very nice to be with you on
this very sunny morning. Hope everyone had the chance to
get outside and enjoy themselves. Like Vinnie said, I am
a CSP and also a wealth advisor at the firm,
and we both work closely with our clients on their
investment and financial planning needs.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Thanks Sam.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Yeah, Sam and I started around the same time about
five years ago. Now, it's pretty crazy to think about.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
And we both actually came in from different industries.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
I was working in public accounting at KPMG, big four
accounting firm. I was a CPA at the time and
that came over and kind of switch industries. It kind
of goes hand in hand taxes and wealth management. And
Sam was working in marketing and came over run the
same time. And that's all she row. I mean, it's
been a quick five years and looking forward to the

(01:28):
next five years and seeing where life takes us. But
love working at the firm, Love working for Steve. He's
a great guy. He's like a second file ouer me.
Love him and can't wait to attend Lawren's wedding this afternoon.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
It's going to be fun.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
So Bichaefinancial Group has been open for thirty six years now.
I've only been here for five of them. Sam as well,
just a small fraction of the lifespan of the firm.
But you know, one of the main things that we
focus on with our clients is communication, right, and I
think that's one of the most important things in any
relationship that you have in your life, whether it's a

(02:02):
romantic relationship, friendship, et cetera, et cetera. If you're communicative,
there's no unknowns, there's no blanks to be filled. So
we're always proactive with our communication. If markets go down,
we don't put our head in the sand, we don't
try to scurry away.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
We're proactive with our communication.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
If we make a trade, we're proactive with our communication
to our clients. And I think that's what separates us
from a lot of other advisors, where if things go south,
you know, we're kind of there to be the person
to alleviate your concerns because behavioral finance is.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
An interesting thing.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
And again I before I go any further, I do
encourage all listeners to call in at eight hundred talk WGY.
That's eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. Again,
that's eight hundred talk WGY eight hundred eight two five
five nine four nine. We also take emailed questions at
ask Bouche at bouche dot com. That's ask bo u

(02:58):
h e Y at u c h Y dot com.
Thank you, And like I.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Said, we are very communicative.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
It's important that your advisor communicates with you and is
there when things go south. Behavioral finance is an interesting
thing because when the market's up, what you want to
do is, you know, kind of buy in, right, and
then if the market goes down, you want to kind
of go to cash, right, But that's kind of the

(03:25):
I mean, and the market goes up more than it
goes down, So when you make these decisions, you know,
it's kind of the you feel the opposite of what
you're supposed to do. When the market goes down and
you want to go to cash, that's probably the worst
thing you could do. If you're talking about your retirement funds. Right,
if we have like a bear market like we did
in o EID or during COVID, if you go to

(03:46):
cash and you try to time it and try and
get back in at the appropriate time, it's rarely zero
point one percent of the time ever going to work
out for you. Especially when you're talking about your retirement funds.
You got to stay invested, You got to think for
the long term, and and you kind of can't panic.
And I think that's one of the things that we
do for our clients more than anything else, and one
of the most important things you could do. I mean,

(04:08):
this is a statistic that I was reading this week.
If you're out of the market in your lifetime. The
ten best days the market has, your returns are completely
cut in half, right, So you got to stay invested,
not go to cash. Don't panic when things going wrong.
The market always goes on to make all time highs,
and if you do that, you will be successful.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
You'll be able to retire on time.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
If you have a plan set in place, and you're contributing,
and you're invested appropriately, and you're working with the advisor
that helps you do these things, you can't panic. It's
the most important thing, and going to cash is one
of the worst things you could do if things go
south again. We encourage all listeners to call in at

(04:53):
eight hundred talk WGY. That's eight hundred eighty two five
five nine four nine. Please call in. We love questions
and we are here to answer them. To continue on,
in less than a month, a new retirement account is
going to be available to the citizens of the US,
and whether you like him or not, the account is

(05:15):
called the Trump Account, and it's pretty interesting and there's
kind of like a life hack associated with this account.
And if you play it the right way and again
work with a financial professional like ourselves to kind of
make sure you're doing the correct strategy. I'm about the
reiterate here, but the Trump account is a retirement account

(05:36):
for children children as young as one day old, So
children born between January one, twenty twenty five December thirty first,
twenty twenty eight can open this account and the IRS
will deposit a free one thousand dollars into this account
as what they call a one time seed contribution during
the life of the account, from when the child is

(06:00):
one day old up until age eighteen. Annual contributions to
this account are maxed out at five thousand dollars per child.
Whether it comes from your grandfather, your aunt, a family friend,
your priest, your pastor, or whatever what have you can
only put five thousand dollars in the account for the child.
Employers contribute can contribute up to twenty five hundred dollars

(06:20):
per year, but that's a part of the five thousand
dollars limit. So really the strategy with this, which is
sort of a life hack that's associated with this, is
the owner of the account owns the account and the
child is a beneficiary. When the child turns eighteen, they
own the account. But what the account actually is it's

(06:42):
called the Trump account, but what it actually is is
a non deductible IRA. Okay, so if you I did
a projection, if you make these five thousand dollars contributions
to the life of the child up until age eighteen,
and you have decent market returns, let's just estimate that
the child will have about two hundred thousand dollars in
that non deductible IRA. So, non deductible IRA is an

(07:03):
individual retirement account. It's usually used to do backdoor ross
or if you over contribute on your regular IRA, which
the limit is about seventy five hundred dollars per year
in twenty twenty six for folks under fifty, then you
contribute to a non deductible IRA. It's really not a
great account because you have when you can contribute, your

(07:27):
contributions are considered cost basis, and any gains on that
money is taxable as ordinary income, so that is much
higher the highest rates are going to pay on your
income for lack of a better term. So when we
think about another non deductible iras you know, really the
best course of action to put extra money is into

(07:48):
a broker's account where you can get long term capital
gain rates which are much lower than ordinary income rates,
and the non deductible IRA has you know, distribution limit.
You can't pull it out until you're a certain age,
et cetera, et cetera. But with this particular scenario, you're
able to open a retirement enough account up for your

(08:10):
child when they're one day old, like you're not gonna
get this anywhere else, and it grows and grows and grows,
let's say, to two hundred thousand dollars by the time
they're eighteen.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
And when they're.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
Eighteen, you strategically work with an advisor. Don't just doing
this aimlessly convert the entire non inductible IRA to a
roth ira depending you know, let's just say that you
pay twenty child pays twenty thirty forty thousand dollars in
tax depending on the situation, and guess what they have
one hundred and sixty thousand to one hundred and eighty

(08:38):
thousand dollars in a roth IRA at age eighteen. If
you do the math, and you have an average return
of eight to ten percent, when it comes time when
they're sixty years old, your child's gonna have six million
dollars seven million dollars eight million dollars and guess what,
it's all tax free because a roth ira is tax free.
So this is the only situation where you could do
something like this. If you plan ahead and do the

(08:58):
correct thing and use this strategy the way it's supposed
to be used, it's like a life hack. Your child's
gonna be set for life for you know, five thousand
dollars a year. It could be a lot to some people.
It couldn't be a lot to some people. But this strategy,
it can change your children's life and set them up.
The only question is right do you trust your children
to have on this account? You know during their working years.

(09:21):
You know, hopefully they don't pull money out, but if
they hold on to it and uh keep it until
age sixty, it could be really a great tool for
retirement and your child. You know, six million dollars forty
fifty sixty years from now is a lot different than
it is now because of inflation, but still you can
set your child up rather nicely. And it's all tax

(09:42):
free funds. That's what's most important. Again, I encourage encourage
all listeners to call in a eight hundred eighty two
five five nine four nine eight hundred talk WGY. That's
eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. Please
call them with any questions. I'm gonna let Sam take
it from here. Now that we're talking about children, I
think that's it's relevant to go into a topic that

(10:05):
I think goes under the nose of a lot of people,
and that's common beneficiary mistakes.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
So Sam please take it from here.

Speaker 3 (10:12):
Thanks Vinny. Yeah, so today I wanted to talk about
common beneficiary mistakes that can create big problems for individuals
later on in life. You know, what I want you
to think about is when was the last time you
actually checked the beneficiaries on your accounts? And you know,
for some people this could have been yesterday, for others

(10:33):
it might have been ten years ago. Generally, it's recommended
you review your beneficiaries every one to three years, so
you know, that's actually a pretty short window, so something
that you should be you know, up to date with
looking at periodically, and if you have any major life events,
you know, sooner than that period of time. You should
also be revisiting your beneficiaries listed on your accounts. At

(10:57):
our firm when we meet with our clients, so we
are reviewing beneficiaries every time we meet because we know
that this is something that's incredibly important to someone's long
term needs, specifically with you know, where you want your
money to go in the future, and that could be
your kids, you know, like then he was just speaking
about and setting them up for success for their retirement

(11:19):
or you know, for whenever they inherit those funds. But
it also could just be making sure that you know
your spouse is set up appropriately and you know, things
don't go a different direction than what you actually want,
whatever your intentions are for the future. So it's just
incredibly important to review these for accuracy, alignment with your
long term wishes, and you know, update as changes the

(11:42):
current your life. So you know why are we talking
about this, Well, the main driver is that beneficiary designations
on your accounts will override what your will states, so
they will supersede what the will says. Beneficiary designations actually
avoid probate altogether, which is when they will review the
will and have assets go to the beneficiaries and designated

(12:06):
parties at that time. So assets with beneficiary designations bypass
probate entirely. They are transferred directly to the person or
entity upon your passing, and you know, that is something
that's great for them because they get the funds immediately

(12:30):
at that point, so they don't have to wait for
the probate process to to finish in you know, for
some people that might be six months, brother that might
be a year, maybe two years, depending on how complicated
the estate is. Now, so something to definitely be, you know,
just looking at making sure that you have Let's talk

(12:51):
about some common mistakes that people make that actually, you know,
will have a large impact on their future. The first
one is gaming beneficiaries on accounts and then never updating them. Now,
this seems like a no brainer, but you would be
surprised how often this actually happens. You know, think about
all the life changes that happen. Let's say you open

(13:13):
up a brokerage account at twenty five and then you
get married at thirty, right, so you know, think about
now you have a significant other in your life that
should probably be the person that receives up money if
you were to pass, So you know, when you get married,
that's a major life change. Also, if you get divorced,

(13:34):
you know, this is a very common mistake that you
know at this point in your life. If if you
are someone that is going through a divorce, this is
the last thing on your mind probably, you know, updating
your beneficiaries on your accounts so it can get missed,
and that is a huge issue if you were to
pass and your ex spouse is still listed on an
account and now gets to receive those sons if you

(13:56):
never wanted that happen, So updating your beneficiaries after divorce. Also,
you know, as your family grows, birth of children or grandchildren,
do you want to add them as primary beneficiaries your kids,
you know, as you get older, or maybe you want
to add them as contingents. And we'll talk about the
power of contingent beneficiaries in a little bit, but that's

(14:19):
definitely something that you should think about as your family grows.
And then the death of a beneficiary who maybe you've
listed your sister as a primary beneficiary of one of
your accounts and she passes before you and you just
don't update it. Well, if there's no one listed on
that account again, it would default to the probate process

(14:39):
for those funds, and you know it would go through
that process to whoever is next in line. It wouldn't
be your selection of who you want to receive those funds,
and you know, lastly, you know, change it or relationships
and families change. There are dynamics at play that are
constantly shifting and evolving. And maybe you want to just

(15:00):
gift more funds to someone else that you think is
a need within your family, or maybe you've had a
falling out with somebody. So another reason to just periodically
be looking at who do I want to receive these funds?
Update your beneficiaries appropriately also another common Oh go ahead,
vin No, I was.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
Gonna say, you know, it sounds like such a simple concept, Sam,
but you know, the last thing you want your family
to deal with if they lose you or anyone losing
a loved one, it's a horrible thing, is you know,
waiting a year two years to get the money they're
entitled to because it's going through probate and et cetera,
et cetera. So I just wanted to comment is extremely important,

(15:38):
even though it sounds like such.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
A simple thing.

Speaker 3 (15:41):
Absolutely by one hundred percent agree. I mean a lot
of people will really focus on, well, I need to
update my will. My will is need is where I
need to put all my effort towards. But at the
end of the day, if you have beneficiaries on your account,
you completely avoid probate. You you know, get the money
immediately to the people that you want them to receive
the funds. So again, so powerful and so easy to

(16:03):
set up something that you really should be doing on
your account. A lot of people, you know, assume that
the will controls everything, like I was just saying, but
you know, on your retirement accounts, life insurance, other accounts
like your brokerage account or even a bank account, you
can have a transfer on death listed also called a
TOD and you know on all these accounts just look,

(16:27):
you know, you can put a beneficiary or a transfer
on death beneficiary on these accounts so that they get
the money immediately. Another mistake that people have made is
naming miners directly. And if this is very important to you,
you know, it's okay to name a minor, but children
generally cannot directly manage your inherited assets until adulthood, so

(16:51):
it creates complications. You know, a guardian or a custodian
trustee that you know you would trust that situation, they
need to act on behalf of the child until he
or she is legally able to do so on their own. Also,
people will often forget to add contingent beneficiaries on their account.

(17:13):
So this is you know, like I was saying, primaries easy,
everyone understands that right you pass, the money immediately goes
to the person listed. Well, a contingent beneficiary is a
beneficiary that you add as a backup plan essentially to
your account. So if for some reason, the primary that
you've listed has already passed when you pass away, then

(17:34):
the money would flow to the contingent beneficiaries or or
you know, maybe just one party, but whoever is listed
at that point. We'll often see this if you know
the primary beneficiary is your spouse, but you know, tragedies happen,
and you know God forbid that happens in your situation.
But what if you pass at the same time, right

(17:56):
then you do want your money to maybe go to
your kids in that situation, So having those set up appropriately.
Another thing that you can do is to add per
sturpees to your beneficiaries, which is a Latin term meaning
by the route, which essentially is a setting that you
can set up that if your beneficiary passes away but

(18:19):
you've selected per surpees. Their share is then passed down
to their children, their descendants in whatever percentage they were
intended to receive. So a great way for you know,
maybe you want it to go to your son, but
then you know, tragically he passes, then it would go
to his two kids in equal shares of whatever you know,

(18:40):
percentage you were giving to him. So also very powerful,
easy to set up. It's just checking a box when
you set up your beneficiaries.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
Yep, very important topic. Again, we encourage all listeners to
call in a eight hundred talk WGY. That's eight hundred
eight two five five nine four nine. We're going to
take a quick little break. You're listening to Let's Talk Money,
brought to you by Bouchet Financial Group, where we help
our clients prioritize their health while we manage their wealth
for life.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
Thank you. Hi.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
This is Vincenzo Tesla. I am a CPA and CFP
and one of the wealth advisors here at the firm,
sitting in for Steve Bouchet, giving a well deserve break.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
His daughter's getting married today. We're all going to the wedding.
It's going to be fun.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
It stuff at the lake George Club, and I'm also
joining by my Coyle league, Samantha Macy, who is a
CFP as well. Sam just went into the importance of
beneficiaries on your accounts and on your house, anything you
could possibly think of, and how important it is to
kind of pay attention to monitor this throughout the course
of your life. And it is so important even though

(19:39):
it sounds so simple. People have the wrong beneficiary sitting
or no beneficiary sitting on their accounts or any other
asset they own for years without even realizing because no
one's there to step in and say, hey, what are
you doing here? And that's what we do before we
meet with every client. Every time we have a client meeting,
reviewer our clients beneficiaries and if there's something that's kind

(20:03):
of sticking out or standing out that looks unusual, like
you know, maybe they have their brother as their primary
beneficiary and they passed away, or anything you could think of,
Because we know our clients really well and we could
look at the beneficiaries and you know, kind of be
able to locate inconsistency. So we're they're monitoring our clients

(20:25):
beneficiaries for them.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
It's extremely important.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
The last thing you want is your loved ones waiting
a year or two and your assets going through probate
in the New York State courts.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
And while they're grieving the loss.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
Of you, they're waiting for the money they're entitled to,
which would make their life easier during the troubling time
and trying time. So it is extremely important. Again, we
encourage all listeners to call in at eight hundred talk WGY.
That's eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine.
We also take emailed questions at ask Boushet at bouchet

(21:00):
dot com. That's ask bou cch e Y at bouchey
dot com. A couple of minutes before the midterm break
of the show. But I just wanted to talk about
a specific client situation this week that is relevant if
you work for a public company you SpaceX went public
this week. The company's worth two trillion dollars. Elon Musk

(21:23):
is the first trillionaire in the world, which is insane.
But the people that work at SpaceX, they all own
equity compensation in the company. My companies like SpaceX, they
give their employees shares of stock or options to purchase
the shares of stock at a specific price, and then
when a company goes public, the price that the employees

(21:45):
were entitled to is now ten times, twenty times, thirty times.
So basically these folks became millionaires overnight.

Speaker 4 (21:53):
And it's not really.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
The same for the public companies in the Aubany area.
What we have companies like Regeneron Length and Pools, folks
that work at Verizon momentev all these public companies in
the area. But the most important thing when it comes
to working for public companies is realizing how exposed you
really are to the company. So you don't want to

(22:17):
have all your eggs in one basket. If you're getting
equity compensation from your company, if you have the company
stock and your far one K, you also work for
the company. If things go south and you're really exposed,
you know your financial future could be deeply, deeply affected,
and you have to pay attention to this and work
with an advisor to kind of figure out what you

(22:38):
could do to alleviate these risks. So we only have
thirty seconds left until the mid term of the show,
and I'll go into how this is important right after
our break. But it's life or death. I mean, you've
had folks that work at companies like Enron. I know
we've had clients that work at GE that lost millions
of dollars when the stock took a dip. You got
to pay attention to how exposed you are to the

(23:00):
company working with because if you're completely tied, your entire
net worth, you're close to your entire net worth is
tied to this company, plus your salary, things go south.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
It's a big problem. We'll be back after the break.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
You're listening to Let's Talk Money, brought to you by
Bouchet Financier Group, where we help our clients prioritize their health,
we manage our wealth for life.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
Hello, you were listening to Let's Talk Money. We are
back after the break. This is Vincenzo Tesla. I'm one
of the wealth advisors here at the firm specialized in
tax planning, head up the tax planning strategy team at
the firm a CPA and CFP, and I am joined
by my colleague Samantha Macy.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
Thank you everyone for listening in. Please call in if.

Speaker 1 (23:36):
You have any questions along the way at eight hundred
Talk WGY that's eight hundred eighty two five five nine
four nine before the break, I was talking about SpaceX's IPO,
and I was talking about how a lot of the
employees at the company had equity compensation in the company
and they became pretty much millionaires overnight because they have

(23:57):
all this equity compensation, stock options, restricted stock units. This
is what companies do when they want to incentivize their
employees that work at their company, because if the employees
have a vested interest in the positive growth of the company,
you know, that's gonna you know, a human being, a
human nature.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
They're gonna, you know, work as if they own the company. Right.
So that's what companies do to kind of incentivize their employees.
It's a great.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
Incentive, is eight incentive incentive to employees to kind of
work harder and take a vested interest in the business.
So when SpaceX went public, it's two trillion dollars raise
seventy five billion dollars on the IPO. It's started in
two thousand and two by Elon Musk. Believe it or not,
it's been a company for that long. But it just

(24:45):
went public the other day. And when we think about SpaceX,
I think the layman just thinks that it's just like
some rocket company, but it really, it really is a
lot more than that. One of the most interesting things
I think at SpaceX does is this concept called Starlink,
and Starlink is internet service that space X provides to everyone,

(25:07):
but it's through satellites.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
And why it's so.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
Important is the low cost and the fact that you
could have access to Internet anywhere.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
In the world.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
Right So, I know we have our iPhones, but you know,
sometimes there's no cell service in a specific area. You know,
if you go to Antarctica, there's probably not cell service, right.
You know, obviously that's a stretch, but there's places in
the world where you can't get internet and cell service,
and the SpaceX has a satellite where you have access
to internet service. It's very important for the military, it's

(25:39):
very important for all these you know, defense contract you know,
that's what SpaceX is, you know, in a big way,
a defense contractor to our government and a lot of
other governments are on the world of military.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
It's a transportation company, you know.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
One of their goals is to kind of bring people
to space in a commercial way. I don't think I
would ever have the heart to do that. I'm way
too scared but that there's some people that would pay
to take a trip around the moon, but I'm gonna.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
Miss out on that, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
But they do a lot, and this is kind of
this company going public. You know, Elon Musk has Tesla,
he has SpaceX. You know, he's he's doing a lot,
whether you like the guy or not. And this is
another large company that could be potentially a market mover.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
And it's one of those things. And I think we.

Speaker 1 (26:31):
Experienced a lot during COVID is this concept of FOMO
and I think SpaceX is a great company. I think
they have a lot of funds funds And it looks.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
Like we lost Vinnie's connection for the moment, so I'll
hop in for a little bit until he rejoins to
talk about SpaceX. You know, I was planning on talking
in a little bit about helping our adult children without
hurting your own retirement. So definitely a little bit of
a pivot here. But I found this to be a
very common theme with our clients as they approach retirement

(27:03):
or you know, their early years in retirement, because the
financial needs of their children are really at an all
time high as they are navigating you know, higher inflation,
rising housing costs, rising demand and housing but low supply.
So you know, all of these are impacting their adult children,

(27:24):
and you know, as parents, you want to help them.
So that's something that you know, as we have conversations
with our clients, we are conscious enough, you know, we
want to know what's important to them. And for most people,
you know, that's their family right. They want to be
as helpful as possible. But we have to also give
them guidance on you can help them, but you also
need to help yourself and you know, protect your retirement,

(27:47):
protect you know, the money that you've saved for this purpose,
for your long term financial health. So you know, again
it's becoming more common to have this conversation. The higher
housing costs. You know, when people are calling it a
housing crisis, it's just you know, it's undeniable at this
point in time. You know, houses are more expensive to

(28:07):
purchase today than they were you know, thirty years ago,
and you know that's outpaced inflation. We're not talking about
just adjusted for inflation. We're talking about you know, it
is actually more expensive to purchase the house when you
compare you know, the average income of you know, the
American household. So you know that that really changes the landscape.

(28:27):
And mortgage rates matter as well. I mean, right now,
when I last checked, the thirty year fixed mortgage rate
was six point five seven percent. You know, that's not terrible,
but definitely not the best that we've seen.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (28:43):
You know, a few years ago you could get an
interest rate that was doing a half three percent, three
to half percent, right, And the people that got those
mortgage rates, you know, they're staying put for the most part.
I think they even if they're out growing those homes,
they they want to keep that low mortgage rate because
they know how good it is, right, they know that

(29:04):
if they can just make it work, they're going to
have that fixed, lower mortgage payment every month. Then compared
to the interest rate that's getting closer to seven percent
for the same amount of home. And you know, maybe
they'd buy a bigger home, of course, but that would
only increase what they would owe on a monthly basis.
So again, and that plays into the low supply, right,

(29:26):
people just aren't putting their homes on the market as much,
are trying to stay with that lower mortgage rate that
they have. Another you know thing that people are worried
about is just gudent loans for their kids just lingering longer.
Who've seen that kinders across the board is the price

(29:47):
of education continues to outpace inflation and is a real
burden on young adults that are graduating and entering the workforce.
And I think, you know, as a parent, I am
a parent of two little girls and they're a very
little nowhere close to college age, but it definitely has
changed my perspective on how much I need to save
for them to really put them ahead and help them

(30:10):
make the right decision on you know, what degree to pursue.
You know, you want them to help them choose something
that is worth the money that they're paying for right
or maybe it's going into the trades instead. I mean,
that is a real viable option for people that you know,
I think a lot of people are maybe worried about
AI and the landscape of the future with that and
how that will impact job availability, But I think a

(30:32):
lot of trades are pretty AI proof, So that is
also an area that you know, definitely would be you know,
having conversations with my kids about, and I'm sure a
lot of people are these days also, you know, when
you think about your adult children, they're probably you know,
mid career, you know, navigating childcare expenses, but also you know,

(30:57):
earning a little bit more in their career and helping
their parents, you know, with just aging in general, whether
that's helping them mowde a lot, or helping someone you know,
get to their doctor's appointments. But you know, there's a
lot of i would say demand on people that are
in that what was called the sandwich generation between you know,

(31:18):
being a child and helping your aging parents. So childcare
expenses is one of the areas that's also a burden
to them at this point if you know, both spouses
are working. That's not everyone's situation, but we've seen the
national average cost of childcare increase to about fifteen thousand
dollars per child per year if you have multiple kids. Obviously,

(31:41):
that feels like it gets out of hand quickly, and
we're seeing grandparents kind of stepping in to fill.

Speaker 4 (31:49):
That gap, right.

Speaker 3 (31:50):
That's that's something that is natural, I think, and an
area where parents, grandparents can really you know, whether that's
their time or their finances, can really pivot and help.
But I just read a stat that said that almost
half of grandparents that been to watch their grandchildren at

(32:12):
least every few months, but twenty percent of grandparents are
providing care once a week at least, So you know,
that's that's huge, and you know that really shows like
the the you know, the need that's there for childcare,
but also just ways that you can give it maybe
aren't as financial, but maybe it's your time too. Teams

(32:33):
that Vinnie is back on, So I'm gonna let Vinnie
jump back into SpaceX at this time.

Speaker 4 (32:39):
Yeah, thanks, Sam's apologize to the technical difficulties there. Again.
We encourage all listeners to call in at eight hundred
talk WGY. That's eight hundred eighty two five five nine
four nine. Before I got cut out, I was talking
about SpaceX and how the employees there have equity comp
and how you know a lot of them became millionaires overnight.
So it's important when you work at a public company
to kind of diverse fire risk.

Speaker 1 (33:01):
Right.

Speaker 4 (33:02):
So if you're worth two million dollars and you have
equity comp stock in your four oh one K, you
work your salaries tied to the company, and half of
your net worth is tied to the stock of that company,
You're exposed. There's no better, no way around it. GE
was a company that's it is a company that's in
the Albany area, and many people made a great career

(33:23):
a living and worked for them. But their stock over
the past couple of years has kind of taken a tumble,
and a lot of folks and we have clients that
were the GE lost millions of dollars of their net
worth because they did not diversify out of GE stock.
GE was one of the top companies of the S
and P five hundred for a long time. And if
you told someone that the stock price would go down

(33:45):
at some point in the future, they probably would have
laughed at yet.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
But now they're not laughing. And when you have all.

Speaker 4 (33:52):
Of your you know, a lot of your net worth
tied up in the company you work for, you got
to diversify. Guys, you all know the thing. Don't pull
your eggs in one basket so that tied to your company.
You gotta take a look at the situation and reassess, right,
you don't you don't want to be exposed. You don't
want your retirement to be affected. When I was accounting major,

(34:14):
they would always talk about Enron and that you know,
I wasn't was a young kid when it took place,
but it was a huge fraud that went on with
Enron's financial statements. There was misappropriation of assets. The financial
statement orders didn't catch it. And there are people that
worked at Enron that were not able to retire and
probably had to work for the rest of their lives

(34:36):
because they're that worth was tied to that company and
the stock plummeted, the company bankrupt. So you know, obviously
it's an extreme situation, but you have to pay attention
where your assets are allocated to. We're going to take
a quick commercial break. You're listening to Let's Talk Money,
brought to you by Bouchet Financial Group, where we help
our clients prioritize their health how we manage your wealth

(34:58):
for life.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (34:59):
You were a lit listening to Let's Talk Money. This
is Vincenzo Tests and one of the wealth advisors here
at the firm. I'm also joined by my colleagues Samantha
Macie and I'm gonna let her take it from here.

Speaker 3 (35:09):
All right, Well, thanks Benny, and thanks for sharing so
much about SpaceX, the IPO and you know what's really
going to that what's happening right now in the market.
It's exciting, you know, it's generated a lot of interest.
We've certainly had a lot of conversations around that with
our clients and helping people navigate that. So I'm going
to pivot back to talking about just some you know,

(35:31):
ways that you can help your adult children without hurting
your retirement. You know, we were talking about you know, maybe
it's giving your time to help your kids rather than
giving finances, and there's of course a time and a
place to also give finances. Right, Gifting during your lifetime
can be so impactful and such a great way to
really instead of leaving a large inheritance to your kids

(35:53):
later when they maybe don't need it, to help them now. Right,
So there's a balance to it, though. You need to
be able to gift with then you know, gift within
a reasonable amount, and we'll talk about some ways you
can do that. I mean, first is you can create
a defined support budget for yourself. You know, that's certainly
one way that you can gift responsibly. But also you know,

(36:16):
maybe have a conversation with your advisor on how much
can I give to my child every year? You maybe
it's five hundred dollars, maybe it's ten thousand dollars. No,
maybe it's a one off gift. But if you wanted
to create some sort of support budget that you don't
have to communicate with anyone, but just so that you know, hey,
I can reasonably gift X amount to my family every year,

(36:36):
I think that's a great place to start. You can
also offer the one time gift instead of you know,
open ended assistance with your kids. And you know that
can look like a lot of things. I've seen clients'
gifts towards down payments to buy homes. I mean we
were just talking about the housing crisis, right, and you
know that's such a great way to help your kids

(36:58):
afford the home that they that they need for their
for their lifestyle, for maybe their growing family. You know,
help with maybe your your wisdom is another way with
finiancial planning rather than through act cash. You know, you've
lived life. You've probably made mistakes that you've learned from
that you can share with your kids so they can
avoid these mistakes. Maybe you've had some big wins. Maybe

(37:21):
you've done a great job saving you fifteen percent into
your four one K year after year and now you're
set up extremely well for retirement, and just passing on
that knowledge that they get that compounding interest from a
young age, or they start saving at a young age,
whatever they can, whatever it is that you know, you
feel like it is worthwhile to share with them. You should.

(37:42):
I think that's, you know, such a great opportunity that
can be missed. I mean, some families just don't talk
about money, you know, and it really should be talked about.
Maybe you could offer some sort of motivating match for
their savings contributions. I've seen some parents do this for
they say, well, maybe it's after college and they're just

(38:03):
learning how to save, and you say, well, if you
save five thousand dollars into this account, I'll also match that,
so that you can help them learn the value of saving,
but also helping them, you know, along the way and
again getting money in early, you know, is really impactful
over the long term. But at the end of the day,
I would just say, you know, workman an advisor to

(38:24):
determine how much you can assist. You might be pleasantly
surprised by how much room you have in your budget
to assist your family, but there are various ways. I mean,
we were talking about home a house down payment, but
maybe it's also contributing to your grandchildren's five twenty nine plans,
or paying for a family vacation, creating lasting memories because

(38:46):
you know, there are some families and as you know,
and when you're young with families, you can't afford to
do as much, right, so being able to pay for that,
you know, family time is I would say priceless. So
you know, there there are a lot of ways, a
lot of creative ways that you can be thinking about
loving on your family with your friends that are maybe

(39:06):
more affordable. I actually work with a client that her
her son has recently become a widow, and she pays
for a cleaning service. You go to his house every
week and they've got kids or he now has kids
and so little parenting, and so she pays with the
cleaning service. And you know, I think it's like three

(39:30):
hundred dollars a month that she pays for this. But
it's such a benefit for him and I'm sure very
much appreciated and it doesn't break the bank, right, it's
just very thoughtful, intentional giving two kids. And I would
just caution know if you are someone that you feel
very responsible for your kids that you need to care
for them. You know, again, just don't put them before

(39:54):
your retirement. You can borrow for college, but you can't
borrow for retirement, and you need to keep that in
mind over the long term. Don't don't get into a
situation where there's this dependency because you've provided support, but
you haven't set expectations or boundaries and there's no end date, right,
So you know, I fully support you know, supporting your children,

(40:19):
helping them through gifting and various avenues that you know,
as you see opportunities, but you definitely want to also
encourage them to stand on their own two feet and
just point them in the right direction with how they
can save her retirement. And you know, I was sharing,
I'm a parent. Vinny's also a parent. Vinnie, I know
you probably have done your own strategies for saving for

(40:42):
your son. Maybe you can share a little bit about
what you've been doing.

Speaker 4 (40:47):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think earlier in the show,
I talked about the Trump accounts, which are really important,
and those open up on July fourth for the first
time we're able to be able to contribute to those.
But those are really a great tool. But you know,
I think what it's very important is if you're a
wealthy person who could be subject to a state tax

(41:10):
at a certain point, and to make numbers simple, I
think it's your state has to be worth over like
twenty six million. Gifting to your kids throughout your lifetime
is actually very important. So the gifting limit this year
is nineteen thousand dollars per person. So if your kid
is married, you and your spouse, if the situation calls

(41:32):
for it, can give them thirty six or seventy six
thousand dollars each, right, so nineteen times four, each person
gives nineteen to the child and the spouse also gets
nineteen each. So getting that money out of your state
throughout your lifetime is very important. If you did that
or a twenty thirty year period, that could obviously add

(41:55):
up to like one point five million, two million dollars.
And if you're a wealthy person, it's because that two
million dollars that you give to your kids over your
lifetime through gifting would be subject to a state tax
upon your debt, which you know you probably could have
paid five hundred and six hundred seven hundred thousand dollars
in taxes on that money, right, So you're saving money

(42:16):
for the family as a whole when you're planning your
gifts and you're doing it appropriately, especially if you're a
wealthy individual and your net worth is over that estate
tax liman. That gifting amount will increase pretty often over
the course of the next.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
Twenty thirty years.

Speaker 4 (42:32):
So it's not gonna be nineteen thousand dollars every year.
I think it was fifteen thousand dollars like six years ago,
So it's increased a lot to irs, but put an
inflation amount on that exemption, and it is important to
kind of gift your kids that money throughout your lifetime
because why give it to the irs? Give it to
them now. It makes a ton of more sense to

(42:53):
do that. Got about five minutes left in the show.
I'm going to go into a topic that I think
is very relevant for our firm. And then when you're
working with a financial advisor and it's tax planning versus
tax preparation.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
How our firm.

Speaker 4 (43:08):
Differentiates from a lot of other firms in the area
and big brokerage houses is that we do tax planning
for our clients. And I'm a CPA and I head
up the tax strategy team, tax planning team at here
at the firm. And but you know, I'm a CPA,
but a lot of the other advisory were their cfps.
But they still have the same skills that I do

(43:29):
to kind of perform tax planning for our clients. You know,
we do financial planning, of course, but tax planning is
saving you money. Taxes is the number one expense you'll
ever have in your lifetime. If we could limit those
for you, it's really beneficial. So we do a ton
of strategies for our clients, ross conversions, deduction optimization, which
we kind of do through mostly through charitable contributions, and

(43:53):
using something called donor revise funds, tax loss harvesting ten
thirty one exchanges, State and legacy planning. You know, what
I was just talking about earlier is how if you're
a wealthy individual and would be subject to a state
tax upon your desk, gifting to your kids can save
you hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's what I mean
when I say state planning, things of that nature. And

(44:15):
when you're working with an advisor, not every advisor has
the skills to do tax planning. So you'll have a
CPA that you work with. It does your taxes, and
you have your financial advisor. And the most benefit that
you'll get out of that is when those two people coordinate,
and even then you don't get the maximum value. So
when you're working with someone like myself who has those

(44:36):
tax planning skills, there is no coordination needed and you're
going to get the maximum value because I know your
whole situation and I'm going to come up with some
crafty tax strategies for you, and it's going to save
you some serious money. Especially Wrothter versions. That's something that
we're doing as a firm now on a systematic basis
for our clients. And just to give you a real

(44:57):
world example, you a roth conversion is when you move
money out of your IRA. Right, usually folks that four
on one case they stop working and they roll it
over to an IRA, move money out of your IRA,
and the money is taxable to you and then it
goes into a row IRA. It's beneficial for a multitude
of reasons. All the money that comes out of an
IRA is tax deductible. You turn an age seventy three

(45:17):
or seventy five, you have an R and D, which
is when the IRS forces you to take about four
percent out of that IRA year after year, and that's
all taxable to you. If you don't need that money,
that creates tax issues. When you pass away, your beneficiaries
inherit the IRA, they have liquidated in ten years, probably
in the highest working years. So getting money out of
your IRA during your gap years, that's what they call it.

(45:37):
Gap years is the year after retirement up until RM
d AH is the best time to do rockt versions
because you're in those low income years, your tax bracket's
going to be low, and you can get that money
out and suppress the balance of your IRA up until
you get to arm v age and hopefully it doesn't
create serious tax issues for you at that point. So
the tax planning we do with the firm is huge.

(45:59):
You know, our portfolio are doing great. When you put
these two things together, it's really beneficial, especially to our clients.
It really creates an impact and sees you from sending
sending money to Uncle Stam. Tax planning is very important.
It's not on a lot of people's radar, but we
show our clients the benefit that it has and our
clients really appreciate the work that we do for them,

(46:21):
and I appreciate everyone listening in. We're gonna head up
the Lawren's wedding and a bit beautiful day out there.
Everyone enjoy the weekend. Again, I appreciate you all listening in.
You were listening to Let's Talk Money, brought to you
by Bouchet Financial Group, where we help our clients prioritize
their health while we manage their wealth for life.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
Thank you.