Let's Talk Money

July 11th, 2026.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning everyone, Thanks for joining me on this beautiful
summer morning. My name is Harmony Wagner. I'm one of
the wealth advisors here at Bouchet Financial Group and also
our director of Financial Planning, and it is great to
be joining you on this beautiful morning. Thanks for taking
some time out of your weekend to chat with me.
Excited to talk about all things financial today, the markets,

(00:23):
the economies, have financial planning topics, behavioral finance, which is
a personal passion of mine. So it's just great to
have you listening in, whether you're a loyal listener and
don't miss a show, or joining us for the first time,
or somewhere in the middle. Thanks for tuning in. I
hope everyone had a great Fourth of July last weekend,

(00:43):
you know, beautiful weather. And you know, we do have
a colleague at Bouchet. He says that once you hit
the fourth of July that you're halfway through the summer.
I reject that philosophy. You know, my husband's a teacher
and he just you know, got off work for the
summer about two weeks ago. So to me, it feels
like the summer is just starting and we're really in
the middle of the most beautiful time of the year

(01:03):
here in the Northeast and in my humble opinion, so
we soak up these these beautiful days while we've got them. Well,
let's get into the show before we do. Have a
couple just logistic reminders for listeners. Number one. As much
as I could talk on and on about financial topics
all day, if you have a question or a topic
that you'd like to hear here discussed. The phone lines

(01:25):
are open. Please call in if you're thinking it. Chances
are other folks are too, so please take advantage of
this this time to ask any question to an advisor.
That phone number, if you need it, is one eight
hundred talk w G Y one eight hundred eight two
five five nine four nine. And if either you can't
call in or you just prefer to ask by writing

(01:45):
something down, you can send us an email. We have
dedicated email inbox for listener questions, and that is ask
Bouche at Bouchet dot com. That's a s K B
O U, C H E Y at bouchet dot com.
And so I'll watch with that inbox, and if you
feel like asking a question that way, go ahead and
utilize that. I also want to share a little bit

(02:06):
about an exciting event that is coming up that we're
participating in. It's put on by the Shiro Fund. It's
a Woman in a Wealth event and it's coming up
here in Saratoga Springs at the end of August August
twenty fifth. It is an all day event and it's
dedicated to empowering women in their financial lives, whether their career,
their personal finance, portfolio, investment, any of the above and

(02:29):
more so. It's going to be a really inspiring day.
Our firm is very excited to be a part of it,
to participate in some of the panels, and just to
take part in such an important day. Women in Wealth
is so important to our firm, and we have a
lot of female advisors and just our firm in general
is really dedicated to making sure that women feel well

(02:50):
served in their financial lives. They have the education they need,
they have the access and empowerment that they need, and
so we think about it a lot. It's, you know,
how we do in our our client experience. We have
put on several annual events over the last three years,
so this year will be our fourth year kind of
hosting or taking part or both in community events with

(03:13):
this theme. So if you're interested in signing up or
learning more, you can actually just go right to our
website and right at the top of the screen you'll
see a link and then that bright gold bar to
figure out more about the event and to reserve your
seat if you're interested. So, just wanted to share about that.
You know, you probably hear about it more as the
broadcast goes on. But that's something exciting that we're partnering

(03:34):
with next month. Hard to believe it's coming up quick.
All right, Well, let's get into, you know, some some
financial topics here, and we'll start out by talking about
the markets. So looking back over the last week that
we just tached market, the major indexes were a little
bit mixed. We had the S and P five hundred
up point nine to one percent for the week, bringing

(03:55):
the yearly gains to ten and a half percent. The
Nasdaq was up a little over one percent as well,
thirteen point one percent on the year. We had the
Dow was actually down a little less than half a
percent for the week, although it's still up, you know,
almost nine percent for the year. And Russell two thousand
small caps were down as well, about zero point six
four percent, although small caps have been having a great

(04:18):
year and so you know, one down week has not
you know, changed the narrative they are so far for
the year where the Russell two thousand is up eighteen
point seven two percent. So markets came back from the
Independence Day holiday and a good mood, you know. We
last week was a strong week. This week was it
was strong for the SAP and NASDAC. We saw some

(04:38):
you know trading volatility this week, although it wasn't anything major.
We saw, you know, on on Wednesday, we had some
some volatility hearing that the ceasefire with Iran was effectively
over and so there was some more new uncertainties about
the strait of hor moves that settled in. But we
also saw the the Fed had released some some minute

(05:00):
on Wednesday afternoon. That added a little bit to the
anxiety thinking that, hey, there may be some policymakers who
are arguing for a rate increase in response to elevated
inflation worries. That's been some of the ongoing story of
the year. Right if you were to rewind back to
the end of twenty twenty five, even this January, the
odds of a rate hike seems low at that time,

(05:22):
but over the last six or seven months, with war overseas,
geopolitical conflict, and rising oil prices, that has shifted a
little bit and it's made investors a little bit nervous, Right,
how is this rising oil prices going to affect inflation?
And what is the FED going to do about it?
You know, if you were to think back to four

(05:43):
years ago, almost exactly, we were seeing record high inflation
back in twenty twenty two, and at that time, the
FED funds rate have been very low to start and
so they had increased it in response to the real
significant inflation spike. I believe it is over nine percent
at its highest point, so rates increased dramatically. Well, we're

(06:05):
in a little bit of a different spot now where
rates are higher, and so we don't have that historically
rate environment. We're seeing rates still a little bit elevated
from where, you know, what might be considered a stock
positive rate zone. So that's something to keep an eye on,
and I think that markets have been digesting that as
as it comes in. You know, with the new FED

(06:27):
chair at the helm, we're seeing what's his stance going
to be, how is he going to you know, captain
the Federal Reserve as we go forward here, and especially
in light of some of the concerns that may be
facing the economy, and so you know, we'll see some
more about that as we go forward. Now, we had
the June job support come out recently and it wasn't great.

(06:48):
It showed that we added only fifty seven thousand jobs
in June, which was less than half of what forecasts
had predicted, So a cooling job market for June. The
markets actually responded positively to this, which is not totally unusual.
Markets tend to be very focused on what the Fed
is going to do and where rates are going to land.
So when we see a cooling labor market, that can

(07:10):
be assigned pointing to the Fed not having as much
pressure to raise rates. Right, it's a kind of a
counterbalancing effect. So Marcus, they respond positively even though you know,
we didn't. The job report came into well below expectations
because markets, again are so focused on on the cost
of borrowing money. So that was what's going on there.

(07:31):
We'll have some more economic news coming up this next week.
You know, we'll have June CPI report coming out on Tuesday,
and we'll see Kevin Worsh's testimony before Congress. On Thursday,
we'll have the June retail sales data, so a little
more insight into what's going on and consumer spending. Later
this month, we'll have the FED meeting for July. That'll

(07:51):
be the twenty eighth and twenty nine, so a couple
of weeks away still, and we'll have the July interest
rate decision at that point in light of, you know,
some of the things that's going on thinking about bonds.
We've got the ten year treasury yield that's sitting around
four point five four point six percent, which is actually
get a seven week high, so you know, we're seeing
that spike higher as as investors again are focusing on

(08:14):
rising oil prices, possibility of you know, further tightening with
from the from the Fed, and so you know, that's
kind of what's going on in in the bond yield world.
Oil markets had a really violent week. They started the
week by declining, thinking, hey, there may be a cease
fire in the Middle East, but with some you know
changes in that conflict. Midweek, crude oil surge more than

(08:39):
five percent, crossing that seventy eight dollars per barrel marker.
So we saw some volatility within the oil markets this
last week as well, thinking, you know, I thought it
might be nice to talk a little bit about SpaceX, right.
We had a lot of hype about it a couple
of weeks ago, or I guess almost a month ago now,
when it made history as the largest IPO. Uh and

(09:02):
since then haven't heard as much about it. You know,
a lot of clients, of course, are reaching out wanting
to know whether they should get in, whether they could
buy in, you know, how to get access to a
pre IPO, or whether we recommended doing it after you know,
as and even though it was you know, a huge IPO,
very well reported on a lot of hype involved with it,

(09:23):
we saw in many ways a similar IPO story to
what you know historically has been the norm. You know,
when it first entered the public trading, it started out
one hundred and fifty dollars a share. It closed that
first day at one hundred and sixty five, and since
then we've seen a lot of volatility, and so now
it's actually at one hundred and forty five, so it's

(09:45):
actually lower than where it started started out about a
month ago. That's not necessarily unusual or a bad thing.
And even if you were to look back at its peak,
I believe it hit you know, close to two twenty
at inter day trading. I think it closed at two
sixty that day, so it had a real significant spike
a few days after going public. But now things have

(10:06):
kind of settled down and you see that hype kind
of unwind. Now, this does not mean that SpaceX is
not a good company, right if you were to look
at it, there's actually a lot of exciting things where
you just set you were to say, hey, you know,
this could have a lot of upside potential, all right,
you think about some of its really ambitious projects in
the AI space, starlink. There's just a lot to be
excited about when you look at what this company is doing.

(10:28):
But that doesn't always mean that the stock price, especially
right away, is going to reflect that. And that's what
we've seen. Now. If you were to look at you know, forecasts,
you might say, hey, this is still a company I
want to buy. But with any IPO, it's not typically
a way to make some quick cash, right. You want
to really look at the fundamentals and be careful buying
in on that first you know, steep climb up. If
you were to look at the stock price chart for it,

(10:50):
and again it's only been publicly traded for about a
month now, it looks a lot like a roller coaster, right.
You see a real steep climb and then a pretty
quick decline and then it kind of f and out
and there are some ups and downs and as we
go out. Now, you know, over the years going forward,
you know, you may see it continue to you know,
rise back into favor. But buying any time in those
first few whipsaw days can be dramatic. And that was

(11:14):
you know, the story we we were telling clients beforehand,
and it's you know, exactly how it happened to play
out this time. So it is just interesting kind of
to reflect back based off of what people might have
expected it to do, and just looking back at the
past month and see, you know, okay, it followed a
very similar pattern to many other i pos in history.
And that is not a reflection on whether or not
it's it's fundamentally a good company to buy, but just

(11:38):
more so what an IPO means for a company and
for the stock price. So just kind of an interesting
case study there. SpaceX will not be added to the
S and P five hundred for quite some time until
it meets the one year requirement, but it was added
to Nasdaq earlier this week, and so folks who own
qqq qqq M, those exchange traded funds that that are

(12:01):
you know, connected to the Nasdaq that is now added
in there. I believe it's about a one point three
percent waiting in that ETF, So it's not a huge
chunk of it. But you know, if you were wondering
about it or not, and you'll hold one of those
one of those funds, you you now do hold SpaceX.
So something interesting there that you might not have known it.
I think the addition to the ETF was not nearly

(12:23):
as publicized as I thought it might be given the
popularity and the you know how much of a hot
topic it's been, so something interesting just to note there. Well,
we're going to take a quick break here, but we'll
be right back with more. Let's talk money on WGY
don't go anywhere. Thanks everyone, First thing, looking through that
really brief break, This is Harmony Wagner Welth advisor and

(12:44):
director of financial Planning joining you on this beautiful summer morning.
And as you just heard, the phone lines are open,
so if you have a question or a financial topic
that you'd like to ask, please feel free to use that.
That number again is one eight hundred talk WGY one
eight hundred eight two five I have five nine four
not And if you prefer to send your question via email,
you can send that to ask Bouche at Bouchet dot com.

(13:07):
That's a s K B O U C H E
Y dot com. So feel free to utilize either of
those if you have a question or something that you'd
like to discuss. Well, before that that brief break, we
were talking about what's going on in the markets and
the economy and what we might be you know, looking
forward to out the next few weeks as we see
some more economic data come out. But as I always

(13:29):
like to do, you know, this is really the bread
butter of what we do is sitting down with clients.
Right So although our investment committee, you know, five of
our our professionals on our team who are meeting you know,
more than weekly to talk about what's going on on
a macro level. You know, as as a wealth advisor,
I really handle more the micro level and the individuals
and family level and saying, hey, here's what's going on

(13:51):
in the economy, the markets, the world, and this is
what it means for you and your portfolio, and you
know the strategic moves that you can make. You know,
we we see. I had a really great meeting with
someone interviewing with our firm to potentially work with us
as a client, and they had some great questions, uh,
you know, including one that I'd never heard before. And
this this individual asked, you know, it is the the

(14:14):
job of firms. Do you see your job as really
to you know, make clients a lot of money in
the portfolios or is it to add value on the
financial planning side? Uh? And my answer was both, Uh.
You know, we we do take portfolio management very seriously.
It's you know, a really important the reason why our
clients engage us. And you know, as as a firm,

(14:35):
we're we're so proud of our investment committee and all
the great work that they do. You know, nowadays, with
how accessible investing is to anyone, it's pretty easy for
somebody to go buy uh you know, plane, Vanilla s
and P five hundred ETF and for low cost basically
match market performance, so that that's pretty easy for anybody
to do. You don't need to pay an advisor to
do that. And so really where that portfolio value comes

(14:59):
in is with the tactical trading. Of course, we have
some core holdings to you know, get capture some of
that market performance. But if we're going to add value
to our clients on the investment side, you know, we
have to make those tactical trades. We have to be
forward looking, we have to be strategic and get the
timing right, and you know, work really hard to be
to get that tactical edge on the outperformance side. So

(15:22):
that is a huge part of what we do. But
on the flip side, there is an element to the
markets that we just can't control. Of course, we don't
have a crystal ball. We don't know what the future holds.
And no matter how good of a job you know,
any investment manager does, there's going to be weeks, months,
years where the market is down and where portfolios are
down as a result. And so during those times, you know,

(15:43):
we also have the financial planning side that we do
the taking the emotion out so that a client doesn't
lose more money than they need to by selling out
when markets are at a low by working on the
tax side and doing some tax planning to help save
clients dollars that they get to keep instead of, you know,
by being tax efficient as opposed to losing more in

(16:05):
taxes than is necessary. So on the financial planning side,
there's there's a value there too, and and we look
at that as the elements that we can control. Right.
You may not be able to control whether markets are
are down or up, none of us can. But you
can control whether you do a roth conversion and whether
you do it at the right time and in the
right amount. And so those are the kind of things
that we do, and so we see it as really important, right.

(16:28):
You curely can't separate those two from each other. And
so as we think about, you know, more of that
personal finance element and doing the right things you know
in your own life, right, whether you have your own
portfolio that you self manage, or you know you're working
with someone, but you want to make sure that you're
you're being aware of these strategies that you should be
thinking about. What are those things? So you know, one thing,

(16:49):
I would say we're a little over halfway through the
year and not only has this been a great year
in the markets, but it's three and a half years
that we've had really great market performance, and so it's
great time to look at rebalancing, especially if you haven't
done that in a while, you know, especially I think
of a lot of folks with their four oh one
ks where if they set it and forget it, they

(17:09):
picked investments maybe when they first got hired, first came on,
and first opened in their four oh one K account,
and they may not be looking at it too much
since then. Well, if you haven't looked at it in
the past couple of years, you may find that your
equity allocation is very out of tolerance, right They've equities
have grown so much, and you know, bonds have done well,

(17:30):
but not nearly as well as equities, and so you
may find that it's a good time to rebalance. You know,
there are some studies that show that, you know, rebalancing
kind of on more of a systematic basis, meaning every
six months or once a year, you know, every December
you do it is better than not rebalancing at all.
And I think that you know that that's true. It's

(17:51):
hard to argue with that data, but I think that
you can even get more of an edge by rebalancing
strategically and saying, well, I'm going to do it. You know,
when markets are up, that's going to be the time
that I look and say, okay, my equities have have risen.
You know, I was a sixty forty and because equities
have done so well, now I'm pushing us seventy thirty.
And that's a little bit more aggressive than I might

(18:12):
like to be. And so rebalancing now can be a
good time. Within iras four oh one k's roth iras,
you can just rebalance without thinking about taxes. In a
taxable account, you know, a brokerage account that is non retirement,
you are potentially going to have some capital gains. Now,
that's not a reason to shy away from it. It's
just something to be aware of, right especially if you're

(18:33):
going to realize some gains that might create a tax
situation right now. You have to pay in a little
bit more now to avoid underpayment or timing penalties with
the IRS next April. You want to be aware of
that and make sure you have you know, cash to
cover it. But you know, we don't want our clients
ever and I wouldn't want the listening audience either to
you know, not sell something because they're afraid of taxes

(18:56):
when it's the right investment move. You know, you think
about paying capital gains tax many people, that's fifteen percent federal,
and then your your ordinary income are ordinary tax bracket
for New York State purposes, So maybe you pay you know,
twenty percent on gains. But that's better to pay pay
it because you made it. Then you know, to hold

(19:17):
a fun longer than you should and then have it,
you know, lose money in the end. So it is
a balance something to be aware of. But you know,
you really want to make those investment decisions first and
consider the taxes afterwards. So rebalancing it's a it's a
great time of you know, halfway through the year and
so far into a great bull market. You know, it's
a good time to take a look at that and

(19:38):
make sure you're comfortable with it, especially those accounts you
might not be seeing all the time. Right if you're
self managing a brokerage account, you may be really in
the know about how that's invested. But you think about
a four oh one K and think, oh, I haven't
looked at that in a couple of years, it can
be a good time, you know, also thinking about some
saving strategies. You know, so in that same vein as
four o one cave, if you are someone who saves

(19:59):
into your four ro k, and especially someone who maxes
it out, there is an important difference this year that
you might need to be aware of. So for folks
who are over fifty. And also this only applies to
individuals who are earning more than one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars and that earnings is going to be looking at,
you know, your last year's w two. So you know,
think back to last year. If you earned one hundred

(20:20):
and fifty thousand or more, your ketchup into your four
oh one K has to be wroth. Now, so before
you could do pre tax all the way, you know,
you get that initial four oh one K limit that
you're allowed to save into your four oh one K regardless.
But then for folks who are over fifty, you get
to save a little bit more. And so if you

(20:41):
are someone who's maxing out and doing the ketchup, you
need to be aware that your ketchup this year is
going to be wroth. And so that is and just
so you know the the amounts, So the employee salary
to forer alement into it four oh one k is
twenty four thousand, five hundred dollars for twenty twenty six.
But if you're fifty year older, that ketchup can be
an additional eight thousand dollars, so youke it all the

(21:01):
way up to thirty two thousand, five hundred in four
oh one case savings and you can you can say
that as well. But it does have to be WROTH
this year, so that's something to be aware of, and
you know your employer should have communicated that to you. Now,
if your plan does not have a WROTH option, you
will not be able to do the ketchup, so that's

(21:23):
important for you to know as well. But if your
plan does and your again your employers should have communicated
this to you already this year, hopefully they did, but
you're going to need to coordinate to have that ketchup
go in as WROTH. You also may want to consider
the effect that it's going to have on your taxes.
So before, if you were adding that eight thousand dollars
tax free, you know that was less of an impact.
But now because it's going in wroth. You're not getting

(21:45):
a tax deduction, so that's an additional eight thousand dollars
almost an income that's going to be showing on your
tax return. So something important. We're coming to the halfway
point in the show here, but we'll be right back
with more. 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. We'll be right back. Hi, everybody,

(22:05):
thanks for staying with us through that brief break. This
is Harmony Wagner joining you on this beautiful summer morning.
I'm love advisor here at Bouchet and also a director
of Financial Planning, Certified Financial Planner or CFP, and a
Certified Private Wealth Advisor CPWA, and it's an honor to
be chatting with you and talking about all things financial.

(22:26):
Right We talked about the markets and the economy a
little bit, as well as some you know, personal finance,
what you should be aware of in your own portfolios
or with your savings and so you know, we'll talk
a little bit more here in the second half about
some more financial planning topics. But before I get into that,
you know, I want to talk a little bit about
behavioral finance. And you know, I'm a person who, even
in my personal life but also professionally, I'm really interested

(22:49):
in neuroscience and you know, how the brain works and
why it does the things that it does, and it's
so intriguing to me at least, just you know, seeing
some of the reasons why you know, our brains behave
and why things that were wired for our survival as
a human race sometimes and when you look into you know,
different areas of life and and finance being one of those,

(23:10):
how how they affect us and how those things can
actually be maladaptive at times in certain areas of our life. So,
you know, I wanted to talk a little bit about
fear and the effects of fear on investing. Fear is
one of the most powerful emotions, and marketers and news
outlets know this, right. I was thinking about it today.
I was reading a financial article. I couldn't remember what

(23:32):
it was about, or it was earlier this week. But
on the sidebar that of the screen was all these
ads and there so many of them are fear based, right,
It's saying like, oh, you know, here's the one thing
that many Americans are drinking before bed that's you know,
causing their memory to decline, or you know, things like
that where it makes you want to click on it
and instantly you feel this feeling in your gut of

(23:54):
you know, oh, you know that this fear about what's
going on? What do I not know? I'm missing something
about life that now we know and you know, it's
it's a huge, huge issue and a huge problem. And
there's so much of this right. A lot of the
headlines that we see today and in the financial world
are fear based, and we see that in good markets

(24:15):
and in bad markets, right, So it's not really just
a reflection of what might be going on in reality.
For investors, it's about you know, clickbait and making sure
that people stay hooked. And that fear really trickles into
how we manage our finances. A lot of times when
I talk with clients, a lot of people, the first
things that they bring up are their concerns. They're worried

(24:36):
about running out of money in retirement. They're worried about
not having enough, They're worried about what if I have
some catastrophic event in my financial life that you know,
ruins me, and well, those things are all possible. They're
also things that we can plan from, like makes it
give someone a plan that can give them reassurance that

(24:59):
percent the time that it is not going to be
the case for them. And of course you can't predict
the future, but oftentimes for many clients, it is that
one percent, right, it's something that would be catastrophic, and
even though they know it's a very low likelihood and
they've done all the things they can do to plan
to avoid it, and they're making wise decisions, you know,
sometimes that one percent of you know what, if this

(25:20):
worst case scenario happens, can be crippling to a lot
of people. And we see this with investment behavior as well.
And now you know, and it goes against our cognitive reason, right,
This fear really gets down more to the nervous system level.
And I'm not a doctor by any means or a scientist,
just a really interested, you know, person in this, and
I see it a lot when I talk to clients. Right,

(25:40):
each day we sit with clients, we hear what's on
their minds, we hear their concerns, and we also get
to see how they behave over a long period of time. Cognitively,
we all know that the whole point of investing you
need to buy low and sell high, and so you
would think that because everyone knows that, and you know
it's it's common knowledge, that would be more of the case,

(26:01):
but it's still very very hard to do, and especially
for people who are self managing, it becomes a lot
more difficult to take the emotion out when it is
your own wealth. You're the money that you've worked very
hard for, been disciplined in your saving. To do the
most prudent and objective decisions with that is very becomes

(26:22):
very difficult because the emotions, and especially fear, a very
very strong human emotion, is so tied up in it.
You know, if you look back at there's many studies
about how the average investor will underperform the market when
they could just buy a fund that holds the market.
Oftentimes if they're trading in and out, or even if
they do just buy you know, market based ETFs index funds,

(26:43):
a lot of the timing of the moves they make
can be to their detriment, meaning, you know, they buy
more when it's up because things are feeling good at
that time. They feel comfortable because they're seeing the stock
price going a direction they want, and so they buy
more at that time, also known as buying high. And
then when things are going down, that is where the
fear motivates them to say, I need to stop the

(27:06):
pain right now, I need to to sell this so
that even though I'm locking in losses, to me, that
feels more comfortable than thinking about future losses. And you know,
historically we have seen the market recover from so many
different types of events that you know created volatility. And
so we know as investors and as you know, professionals
who are are guiding people, we know that you know

(27:27):
that the best thing to do is to hold the course,
to you know, be disciplined and to you know, choose
to to stay invested. And of course, obviously we're guiding
clients to do the right things all along the way,
right if they need money in the next one to
two years, where we're setting that the side before volatility
hits and ideally and so you know, we're making sure
that those real life events and cash flow needs are covered.

(27:49):
But for mine, that's just supposed to be long term
investment keeping that invested through times of volatility is so
important and also so hard to do. So you know,
next time you're there is volatility or you know you're
feeling kind of those fears, you know, just something to
think about and to realize, Okay, this fear instinct that
I have to run from things that are uncomfortable, you know,

(28:13):
that is not something that may serve me well in
my investing life. And to make sure that you're you know,
making that that prudent decision, taking a deep breath, sleeping
on it, you know, not doing a rash move that
might really hurt you financially down the road by locking
in losses and you know, making it all the harder
to get back in at the right time and to

(28:33):
have your money recover. And so, you know, just something
really really interesting there. There's so much science and research
out there, but you know, because we see it so much,
I thought it would be interesting just to chat a
little bit about today. You know. I was also thinking,
I shared a little bit earlier in this show about
and you know, meeting with clients, with potential clients, people
who are interviewing our firm and and trying to decide, hey,

(28:55):
is this the right firm for me? And so I
thought maybe i'd talk for a few minutes about choosing
an end. I think that, you know, if I were
to imagine myself sitting in that person's chair, and and
the questions that you might have, and just how difficult
of a decision it is. Right, It is a really
big choice. It requires a lot of trust. And when
you're meeting someone for you know, just the first time,
and you know there you're you're listening to them talk

(29:17):
about the firm, that must be a really difficult spot
to begin, and probably a lot of stress around that decision.
But a lot of the folks who who interview us
as there as a potential advisor ask a lot of
really great questions, and a lot of them ask, you know,
we get to the end of our our our discussion,
our conversation, a lot of them ask, hey, what am
I not asking? What am I forgetting to ask? That
I just don't know is important in the advisors selection process.

(29:41):
So here are some of those things that I would
suggest anyone who's thinking, you know, do I need to
work with with an advisor? Do I need to get
a professional involved? And you know, first and foremost, if
you're wondering, when is the right time, I would say
that you're not going to hurt yourself by interviewing with
someone even if you if you don't, you know, make
a choice right now. It's good to kind of get
a feel for what's out there, start to learn what
am I looking for and how will I, you know,

(30:03):
make this decision. For many people that come to us,
there's something that prompted them to right. Maybe it's retirement
or retirement in a few years. Oftentimes that five year
you know, three to five years out from a planned
retirement date is where people really start to think, Okay,
I need to get someone else involved here. Right. I
may have crunched the numbers myself. I know I've been
saving my whole life, but now that it's getting close

(30:26):
and becoming a reality, I need someone else to look
at this and tell me, am I in the right spot?
And also someone to you know, professionally manage my assets right.
Earlier in your career, you may may do fine just
kind of picking some of the options in your four
oh one K or some more, you know, just index funds,
keeping it simple. But as you start to get you know,
a sizable portfolio and you're start to appreciate the impact

(30:47):
that it's going to be when you're no longer saving
into your portfolio but you're actually living off of it.
Getting an advisor involved is great now the farther out
you go, if you are five years out or seven
years out from retirement, or ten years out, and it
may not always be retirement, you know, some folks also
have other big financial goals in their life, maybe a
big second property purchase, starting a business, selling a business.

(31:08):
So there are many things. Although retirement is probably the
most popular for us, but there's a lot of financial
events that could kind of prompt someone to do some planning.
The farther out you are, the more the higher odds
you have of being able to make small adjustments to
get where you want to be instead of dramatic ones. Right,
So if someone comes to us and they maybe are

(31:28):
a little bit undersaved, right, they're saying, this is what
I want to spend in retirement, and we're looking at
what they've got saved, and we're saying, you might you
were going to need a little bit more to support
that level of spending. Well, if you're one two years
out from retirement, that is more painful to try and
really catch up on savings in a short amount of time.
The power of compounding is not going to be on
your side, and you're going to have to make a
lot of sacrifices in the short term to get there. Now.

(31:51):
If you're five years out or seven years out, that
is a different story. You can save less per year,
is less of an impact on your lifestyle now, and
you also are going to have the markets on your side.
Right Over a longer timeframe like that, the odds of
having your savings grow in that time are higher, and
so it tends to be better. You know, the sooner
you can kind of start engaging with someone that you

(32:14):
trusting and getting that ball rolling, the better in terms
of for yourself. If there are adjustments that need to
be made, the less impactful and quote unquote painful they
may be on your life now. But once you've made
that decision and say I think it's the time now
for me to you know, start thinking about working with
an advisor. The first and foremost thing I would suggest
is working with a fiduciary, someone who is going to

(32:35):
be acting in your best interest. You know, I tell
you know all of our clients that you know we
are as an as a Registered Investment Advisor or an
ori A. Our firm is regulated by the SEC, and
so our job as a firm is to act in
our client's best interest. All of our advisors also hold
their own, you know, professional licenses, whether it's CFP you know,
or something else that also compels us to act in

(32:59):
our clients best interest. Right we have an obligation as
an individual professional to do that as well. But add
to that a third layer, which is that for our firm,
And it's the reason why I chose to work here
ten years ago and why I still you know, love
this firm and the culture that we have is because
the culture of our people is really to do what's
in our client's best interest. That is why I came

(33:20):
to Bouchet because I didn't want to be on the
sales side of the financial industry, and no offense to
anybody who is, but for me, working with people and
their their money, their their nest day, their personal wealth,
their financial future, I wanted to feel confident in my
own heart that I'm giving people advice that's in their
best interest. And so that is a really important thing
that I would suggest to anyone looking for an advisor

(33:40):
is to make sure they're a fiduciary. A big part
of that role is making sure that their their fees
are transparent. Right, they're saying exactly how your advisor is
compensated and that you're comfortable with that arrangement. So making
sure that you know your your advisor can explain very
succinctly and transparently how they get paid and that it's
something that aligns with, you know, the model that you're

(34:00):
looking for. Thirdly, i'd say having the trust in the
investment philosophy and asking whatever questions you feel you need
to have answered, no matter how silly you might think
they are, to understand how exactly do you make investment decisions?
And you know, do I feel confident in that That's
something that we want to explain a lot to our clients.

(34:21):
You know, we're very at education focused firm in general,
so we even clients who've been clients for twenty years,
we are communicating a lot. When we make a trade.
We're sending an email within twenty four to forty eight
hours to say this is exactly what we just did
in your accounts and why we're reaching out with information
about you know, the markets, the economy, financial planning changes
and legislative world and all that stuff. So we love

(34:43):
to educate our clients and we want them to feel
totally empowered and in the know about their own financial lives,
and so we're very open about how we make trades
and how we evaluate that and how our investment approach works.
But making sure that when you're meeting with the firm
that you say, hey, I can trust these people even
if markets are down and I'm going into client portal
and I'm seeing you know, negative number for a month,
a year, whatever it might be. I want to make

(35:05):
sure that I still feel the trust that they are
doing the right things, that they are you know, working
hard for me, and that I can trust them to
pull through both bear markets corrections and things like that.
Beyond that, I would encourage people, if you can, if
you're interviewing with someone, to look at client testimonials. For
a long time, SEC regulator firms weren't even allowed to
have client testimonials, but that has changed recently, and so

(35:28):
by reading that you can really get a sense of
what is it like to be a client from you know,
people who have that have that experience, and so that
is a really great thing to either ask for or
see if it's on a website where you can read
about what that client experience is like. So those are
some of the things that I would suggest to anybody
who's thinking. Number one, is it time for me to
seek out an advisor? And if it is, you know,

(35:49):
what do I need to look for for someone who
might feel like I don't, I don't know what I'm
looking for. You know, those are some things that you
could could look into. We're going to go to a
brief break, but we'll be right back with more. Let's
talk money on WGY. Don't go anywhere. Hi, everybody, thanks
for staying with me through that brief break. This is
Harmony Wagner and joining you on this beautiful summer morning,
and thank you for tuning in and spending some time

(36:11):
listening to me talk about financial topics. You know, at
this time of year with summer, if you know, we're
just out of college and high school graduation season, and
so you know, I was thinking about folks who may
be entering the workforce for the first time. Maybe people,
if you are in that spot, maybe you love somebody, right,
your child, your grandchild does graduated college or high school

(36:32):
and is now saying I'm gonna, you know, enter the
workforce down. And so I was thinking about some advice
i'd give someone starting out in their first job, and
it's specifically around savings. How do you save for your future?
And some folks feel, you know, when they're just starting out,
they don't know how to get started, they don't know
what's available to them or what they should prioritize. And
so you know, when you think about kind of a

(36:54):
savings waterfall, right, what is the most advantageous to do first?
And then let's say you have more discretionary cash flow
from there, how do you build on? And for folks
who are you know, really just starting out, of course
you want to think about your retirement, but that also
feels really really far down the road, right, thirty five
forty years maybe, And so number one, it doesn't feel

(37:15):
as pressing now. I do not agree with that approach
necessarily because we all know how powerful compounding can be.
So getting money into a raw ira or even your
four oh one k now is so beneficial for you
down the road. You do not want to wait until
you're forty five, fifty to fifty five to start saving
for retirement. You want to save now. But I also
can appreciate Number one, that money going into a retirement

(37:37):
account is going to be, for many intents and purposes,
locked up where that young person is not going to
be easily able to access those funds for quite a while.
And they may have other goals that are more looming,
you know, on the more near horizon for them, like
buying a home, buying a car, maybe it's you know,
at some point getting married or starting a family. A

(37:57):
lot of things that are going to happen before retirement,
so they, you know, have more of an urgency to them.
And so here's my recommendation for you know, someone just
starting out of how you should start saving. The first
thing you should do is get access to your four
oh one K match, you know, if it's two or
three percent. Make sure you're at least getting that. You know,
it seems obvious, but also I can't tell you how
many folks don't do it, don't even maybe understand what

(38:19):
a four oh one K is, and that's probably a
part of it, is just a lack of knowledge or
education on it. But making sure that you're getting that
free money from your employer, and it will also help
you just start the discipline of saving, right, even if
it's only two or three percent at first, that feels
like a lot to somebody who maybe hasn't been saving
at all so far, and so getting used to Okay,
I'm gonna, you know, be putting some money from my

(38:40):
paycheck before I even see it, tucking it away from
my future, and just starting to build that discipline and
exercise that savings muscle. So four oh one K match first,
but for many young people I suggest they stop at
that point at least until they get a better sense
of their cash flow. Meaning maybe you don't jump in
and start saving fifteen percent into your four oh one
k and that's all the saving that you have when

(39:01):
they're only matching three percent. So start up three percent
or whatever the match is, and then take a pause
and maybe consider some of these other options. The next
thing I'd consider is if you have access to it,
and it's not not something that everyone will at every
firm or every employer, I should say, but is an
employee stock purchase plan or an employee stock option plan.
So if you have the ability and your employer offers

(39:23):
this benefit that says, hey, you can buy company stock
it's typically at a discount, so maybe you can buy
it at fifteen percent off right, So shares of ABC
or trading at one hundred, you get to buy it
at eighty five dollars a share whenever you want, and
you have to check the materials on the plan. But oftentimes,
what I've seen is that you can often have the
ability to turn right around and sell it immediately. You

(39:44):
do not have to hold big chunks of your company
stock long term or at all. So let's say you say, okay,
I'm just going to you know, buy this company's stock
that's trading at one hundred dollars a share. I'm going
to pay eighty five and sell it right away. You
just made fifteen dollars a share. That Again, it is
just like a four to one k match. That is
free money. It's going to be taxable. You need to
be aware of that, the gain or the different the

(40:07):
discount really, but again it's free money. And so if
you have that available to you, your next available dollars
should be going towards that, and really, you know, you
should make prioritize it even if you feel like you
don't have money to save, because you're not really even
having to save anything, you're just making money on that
discount if you don't hold it. So that is the
next thing I would I would suggest after that, maybe

(40:29):
take a setback from savings and look at your debt picture. Right,
if someone is coming out of college and they may
have student loan debt, they may have a vehicle payment
that has high interest, And that's really what I would
hone in on is high interest rate debt. If you're
paying three percent on something, that is good debt to
keep typically, and so you want to plan for it
and your cash flow and your budgeting, making sure that
it's you know, taking care of each month, no payment's missed.

(40:51):
But that's pretty cheap money. So if it's three percent
four percent, that is good money. You do not need
to prioritize paying that off as opposed to saving. If
you think about let's say you're going to save it
and you're going to invest it somewhere, you're gonna most
likely earn more than three and four percent over the
long term. Even if you just buy a you know,
a plane, vanilla index fund tracking the S and P,
you're going to probably beat that historically speaking. So we're

(41:14):
thinking about high interest rate debt something eight percent, or
god forbid, any credit card debt that's twenty something percent.
You want to prioritize that as well. So get your
free money first four oh one K match employee stock
purchase plan if you have it available to you. Beyond that,
you want to really start paying down any high interest
rate debt, and so that can be your next focus
once that's done. Considering a roth ira. This is something

(41:37):
that's not connected to your employer. It is a retirement account,
although you can always access your contributions to it, so
it doesn't have the same locked up feel that a
four oh one K does. It is easier to access
to wroth now hopefully you wouldn't have to. You don't
want to. You want to leave it growing. That growth
is tax free. And if you're twenty five and you
start and you've got forty years before you even retire,
not to mention, you may not pull from your wroth first.

(41:59):
It could be growing for you know, fifty sixty years,
that is a lot of growth. And so you know,
for young people, they can save seven thousand, five hundred
into a rath ira this year as long as they
have at least that much an income earned, and that
is the next place that I would suggest someone starts saving.
The tax freak growth is hard to beat, especially for
a young person who can really let that compound. And also,

(42:20):
you know, for most people starting out, they tend to be,
you know, not earning as much right out the gate
as they will ten, fifteen, twenty years down the road.
So you don't get a tax eduction for saving into
the raw Ira. But it's at a time in your
life where you don't need the tax deduction as much
versus during your higher income year. Is you're gonna want
to prioritize pretax because you're gonna want that tax deduction
at your higher brackets right now. If you start out

(42:42):
and you're not earning you know, as much as you
will be down the road, rath Ira is a great
place to be saving. And again you can access your
contributions to the account anytime. There's there's no five year
rule for that. No taxes or penalty is going to
be due on that. So let's say you put in
you know, seven thousand, five hundred this year, it grows
to ten thousand, God forbid, you have an emergency, you
have to pull from there. You have nowhere else to

(43:03):
pull from. You can always access that seven than five
hundred you put in, but the additional twenty five hundred
in growth you would not want to touch. That would
be penalized and taxed by if you pull it out
too early after the roth ira and we're assuming, hey,
you've got your Furro one k, you've got your you know,
Emplorer stock purchase plan maxed out, you're paying down your debt,

(43:23):
you're standing into your roth ira. You still have money
left over. What a great spot to be in. From there,
I would suggest prioritizing a brokerage account, just a non
retirement investment account, which is going to do two things.
Number One, you have a ton of flexibility in the
brokerage account. You could put in as much as you
want in a given year. You can take it out
without worrying about any penalties or restrictions. You'll just pay

(43:45):
taxes on capital gains that are realized in that account.
But you can access it there. There's not that same
situation of feeling like it's locked up or having to
worry about, oh, do I have an exception where I'm
allowed to pull from here or not? So you know,
that is a great thing to do. The second reason
why it's great to have a brokerage account is that
it gets you used to investing. It gets you used

(44:07):
to going in, you know, setting up the account and
then selecting the funds you want yourself. It's going to
require a little research, talking to people you trust, doing
some online research yourself, learning about how investing works. And
that is so beneficial for a young person, you know.
I think back to myself coming out of college. I
had little to no idea about the investing world. I
just hadn't experienced it, as you know, a young person

(44:28):
up until that point. And if I hadn't gotten into
the field that I did, I would still probably not
know much about it. And so I can imagine that
that's the case for many people, where it's just a
lack of knowledge, and it's it's a shame because it
really is so accessible nowadays to not only information, but
to doing it all yourself, so you know, learning how
to invest. I would suggest to anybody, hey, if this

(44:49):
is money you're really saving for your future, right, it's
not play money to have a diversified ETF approach. Keep
it low cost, keep it diversified. If you want to
buy a couple you know, stocks individually just to see
how they do, or something you're interested in, go for it,
but really to prioritize you know, but diversified low cost
funds overall to protect your individual stock risk. And then

(45:13):
you know, a couple on the side is fine. And
then finally, if you've maxed out your brokerage account, uh,
then you can save any additional dollars into a pre
tax four O one K, so you're going to get
you know, a tax deduction for that. You also may
have row four one K options and that could be
worth considering if you're again, if you're young and not
earning as much, that can be a great way to

(45:33):
save money into a roth. Whereas you're going to want
to prioritize pre tax later in your career, but four
oh one K after that is a great place to
go to to save and it'll just be deducted right
from your paycheck. You're not having to worry so much about,
you know, saving it manually and all that stuff. So
that's kind of what i'd suggest to someone starting out,
is to you know, prioritize things in that order, get

(45:54):
your free money first, and then from there to handle
the rest of it well. Thank you everybody for for
two in for today's show. I hope you got something
valuable or at least interesting from the broadcast. We're on
every weekend at ten am on Saturdays and eight am
on Sundays with 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. Stay safe, everybody,

(46:15):
Thanks again for joining me. I hope you have a
great weekend.