Retirement Planning Show

December 6th, 2025.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The opinions, viewpoints, and promises made during the following program
are not those of wgy it's staff, management or parent company.
iHeartMedia and good morning. Welcome to the Retirement Planning Show.

(00:23):
My name is Nicholas Dumas, certified financial planner with the
Retirement Planning Group. Here every week from seven to nine,
right and early, stark out. Still sun's starting to come up.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
I don't think we're going to see it today though,
you can be hiding behind some clouds. But but yeah,
each week we're here to discuss pre and post retirement
planning for those of you that are listening in the
Capitol District and also down in the Poughkeepsie area. I
believe we're down there now too, So if you want
to call us our office numbers five one eight, five
eight zero nine, you're more than happy to sit down

(00:57):
have a conversation about you and your Pacific goals needs,
you know, baseline income Discussions had a lot of great
appointments this year coming up to the UH that big
ball dropping in New York City. So it's almost the
new year. I hope everyone's staying safe and healthy around
the holiday season and Thanksgiving just pass now. We've got

(01:20):
Christmas and a big guy coming down the chimney soon,
so hopefully you're getting all your holiday shopping done. I've
been using this great tool called Amazon Read Your Mind.
So it's cool. They've got different spots on there, you know,
Top one hundred Holiday Gifts. It's great. They got like

(01:45):
deals of the Holidays. There's different categories you can browse
around on. You don't even have to think anymore. It's
hype in chat GPT. Yeah, hey what should I get? Uh?
Should I get my nephew for Christmas? Give me a
list of ten.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
Christmas present ideas and presenter and there you go, there's
all your ideas. I think this is the first year
I actually utilized some Black Friday deals, and it's because
they're all online now. You don't even have to go
and drop and.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
They're online for five days, yeah, ten days, so you
really can't miss it unless you're you know, really not looking.
It's not Black Friday, it's Black Friday week now, right,
so it's like you get quite a while to get
these deals. And they've got Cyber Monday. So that's why
we did our secret sin in the office on Cyber Monday.
We did I think it was pretty pretty smart moved

(02:38):
smart planning, so we saved some money.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
We drove by. Me and Marissa drove by the Cross
Skates Mall the night or Thanksgiving night, so it was Thursday.
We and it was pretty late. You know, it's probably
say ten thirty eleven o'clock at night. And I aways
remembered growing up that Black Friday Thanksgiving night people were

(03:05):
swamped at Cross Gates. It was like a thing to do.
You know, let's go to Crossgates camp out. Yep, after
we eat and you know, you get a car full
of your buddies, go at you know, eleven thirty and
then wait for midnight.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
Oh, they open all the doors. You run in, you know,
buy whatever. So they would open right at midnight.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
Yeah, they'd open right at midnight and you'd go in
and the deals were fifty to seventy five percent off.
It was actually like you could get a really good deal.
We drove by the Cross Skates Mall and it was
a ghost town at like ten thirty eleven o'clock.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Yeah, so people must not be doing it anymore. Other
stuff too. When I used to buy when I was
doing video games, video games, yeah, just buy them on
the PS five store now or the apps. So everything's
you know online. Yeah, you don't see you know, brick
and mortar stores like Target. You still see a lot
of people at Target. You know, you go there. You
love targeting. I love Target definitely. It's just awesome. You know,

(04:02):
you walk in it smells like.

Speaker 4 (04:03):
Coffee, Starbucks coffee, Yeah, or walking around store, end up
spending one hundred bucks, but I beat it, but no,
it is it is the holiday season, and you know,
we're coming to year's end here, so hopefully everyone had
a wonderful twenty twenty five and you know, wishing all
of our clients out there the best, and just had
a lot of great conversations, some some difficult ones and

(04:27):
some really you know, emotional, emotionally happy conversations as well.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
With a lot of people retiring this year. Now, we've
been in a great environment for retirement the last couple
of years. Just put the interest rate movements in twenty
twenty two, so a lot of yields and coupon and
cash flow has increased over the last few years. And
they've remained kind of consistent on these corporate bond funds.
So I look at it today I was looking at

(04:51):
the income model that we use for people that are
looking for income in retirement, and I was looking at
numbers from September until now, and even some those yields
have increased. Yeah, some are going down. Money market rates
have dropped, right, So if you have some some stagnant cash,
or some people call it dry powder, waiting to invest,

(05:12):
right that money market rates starting to decrease. I've had
conversations around that over the last several weeks. We've got
the FED meeting coming up this week, right, so the
Federal Reserves meeting again, so we'll see what they do
with interest rates. I think we had a weaker than
expected jobs report, so m hm. Again, you know, you

(05:33):
never know what the Fed's going to do, but the
market kind of prices in their thoughts. Maybe they'll stay flat,
maybe they'll decrease again. I think a lot of people
out there saying they should remain consistent for now. You know,
we didn't have a lot of information, a lot of
data that came out during the government shut down, so
and again that's what the Fed's kind of driven on.

(05:54):
So the markets stayed about flat this week. Tech was
up about one percent. The SMP and the Dow. We're
up about point three and zero point five point five
percent respectively. Year to date, we're doing good. Dows up

(06:14):
about thirteen s and p's up about seventeen and then
we're looking at the tech the NASDAC up about twenty
twenty two percent, So again another year of great returns.
You know, how much is enough? You know, a lot
of people have been riding this bowl market for a
long time and their portfolios might have shifted, right, so

(06:34):
it might be a little too much. We'll have a
little too much stock exposure in the portfolio now. So
we're going through and capturing some gains for a lot
of clients and repositioning, just making sure that they're still
on track for their risk tolerance and their suitability as
an investor, to make sure that you know, they could
stomach if there are some some different swings in the

(06:57):
market here.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
Right the the overall market, like you were saying, is good.
The growth we've seen was roughly around two percent real
GDP growth for the year as far as the US economy,
and then for twenty twenty six, estimates are right around
that same number. So one point nine to two point

(07:21):
two percent is the range. They're saying as far as
their baseline scenarios that they're estimating for, and then as
far as like this environment we're in with rates, they're
saying that, you know, inflation and interest rates are going
to remain this central theme of you know what's kind
of shifting the market. You know, these FOMC meetings every

(07:41):
couple months, you know, they're gonna kind of really determine
how we see the market move because of inflation, you know, inflation.
They're they keep using this word sticky as far as
inflation and saying that it's you know, it's kind of
just lingering around and especially around like services, servicing costs,

(08:02):
and housing. So the housing market is very is very
inflated just because of the growth we've seen in this
post COVID area where the last five years, I mean,
if you talk to pretty much anybody about how much
their house is appreciated in the last five years, it's
like unbelievable. They can't believe that their house is worth

(08:22):
this much money now versus what it was worth in
you know, twenty nineteen.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
A lot of people that weren't even thinking about selling
their house or moving or seeing the value in their
homes now, and it's making them have that thought right.
And a lot of people that have moved and maintained
their New York property and are thinking about selling it.
You know, maybe they've been running it out on Airbnb

(08:47):
or one of these you know, property management companies have
been running it for them. But now it's getting to
a point where, you know, they've never expected their house
to be worth as valuable as it is, so it's
putting that thought in their head. You know, you've seen
a lot of people actually leave New York State, not
only in retirement, but for careers and job choices and taxes, yeah,

(09:10):
taxes and tax preferences and a lot of other states
that you do not see in New York State, you know.
So again we're here, it's live. So if you want
to call in, it's one eight hundred eight two five
fifty ninety nine. We'd love to answer your questions today
and or just have a discussion. Tell us how great
we are. Again. That's one eight hundred eight two five

(09:32):
fifty ninety nine. We're live. This a retirement planning show,
and we are going to take our first break. We'll
be back on the other side of.

Speaker 5 (09:40):
This the biggest mistake in retirement planning waiting too long.
The sooner you start, the more options and peace of
mind you'll have. Dave Kopek and the Retirement Planning Group
are here to help you build a smart plan that
grows with you. Whether you're five years out or just

(10:02):
getting serious, now is the time.

Speaker 6 (10:05):
Don't put it off.

Speaker 5 (10:06):
Visit rpgretire dot com or call eight eight eight five
eight zero nineteen nineteen to schedule your consultation today.

Speaker 6 (10:14):
Start early, retire.

Speaker 7 (10:16):
Better your retirement future. Are you dreaming of a comfortable,
financially secure retirement. It's closer than you think. The best
time to start planning was yesterday. The second best time
is now. Even small consistent contributions make a huge difference
over time thanks to the power of compound. Don't let
your retirement dreams just remain dreams. Start setting up your

(10:36):
goals today. Take control of your future. Call eighty eight
fit eight zero one nine one nine. That's eighty eight
fight eight zero nine one nine for a free consultation.

Speaker 8 (10:47):
Ali Dwyer and her three sons lost their hero, Stephen
serving our country in the United States Army was Stephen's
calling and flying helicopters was his passion. Stephen was killed
in a Blackhawk helicopter crash over the Metad training in See.
Thanks to friends like you, Tunnel to Towers provided his
family with a mortgage free home, giving them security and
hope in their darkest hours. Help more families like the Dwires.

(11:10):
Donate eleven dollars a month to Tunnel to Towers at
T two T dot org. That's T the number two
T dot org. Are you ready for retirement or just
hoping it works out? Don't leave your future to chance.

Speaker 7 (11:23):
At the Retirement Planning Group, we hope you create a
personalized retirement plan so you can relax knowing you are prepared.
Take action today called eight eight eight five eight zero
one nine nine. That's eight eight eight five eight zero
one nine one nine or visit us at our website
rpgretire dot com to schedule your complementary consultation. Your future

(11:45):
will say thank.

Speaker 9 (11:46):
You, and we're back Top of the morning.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
Top of the morning to you. We're gonna be busy
over the next few weeks. Yes, we are not going on.
We get the Christmas party coming up. We do.

Speaker 3 (12:09):
I'm excited about that. You're gonna get your ugly sweater ready.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
No, I think I'm gonna I don't know. Maybe we
should wear ugly sweaters. That'd be funny, right, I'll show up.
I'll show up to a nice dinner the Queensberry in
our ugly sweaters. Yeah, staying at the Queensberry.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
Like a one of those ugly sweaters that's got that
pouch in the front for your beer.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
Have you seen one of those? Not doing that. We're
gonna take it easy this year. We can have a
nice Christmas party up in Glenn's Falls, up in Lisa's country.
No more bud lights in a Vodkas bright Nope, So
show us around the town. Maybe the bud light and
the water we'll see. But it should be a good time,

(12:54):
and I hope everyone's getting in the Christmas spirit. We
went around h no Quick Response Route nine. Oh yeah.
So after we went the lights, yeah, the lights, we
went to Noah's what I was telling you about up
in Saratoga and then we I was gonna stop by
the office because I forgot the rum cake oh that
Lisa made me mm hmmm. So I was gonna grab it,

(13:16):
but the office locks, I think at a certain time.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
Oh yeah, the outside door. So I'm gonna have to
figure out that we got those. You don't have that
whitey card the car. It was in my old truck. Yeah,
I lose all my Swepe cards.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
I lost my Swepe card for here too, So now
I've got a text or wave through the window so
that one of these lovely ladies lets me in. But uh,
but no, I stopped by the office. I didn't have
my swipe cart, so I gotta grab that rum rum cake.
So then we went down to a quick response after that,
and we drove through the lights and you put on
the Christmas music station. Oh yeah, it's pretty cool. They really.

(13:51):
I think they did some extra lights this year. So
I was trying to get into the holiday spirit.

Speaker 3 (13:56):
Well we got, you know, twenty days of it left.
They got Elf on repeat already. I think I've seen
Buddy the Elf four or five times already on just TV.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
That's the that is the I guess movie the I
haven't watched that with the Elf yet. You haven't seen it.
I've seen Elf not this year. I've been watching Home Alone.
Oh okay, it's been on repeat too. And National Lampoons.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
I have seen National Lampoons That's probably one of my favorites.
That is my favorite Christmas.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
That is one of the best movies because Kender will
be on her phone. She's not huge into the older movies. Yeah,
and then I'll be like, you gotta watch this part,
gotta watch Oh yeah, this is the best part of
the movie. I know, get off your phone. When he
when they do the sledding part, he's like, yeah, I'm
the fastest slutter and in the United States. He jumps

(14:50):
on the top of the garbage can and all of
a sudden, you just s of a bolt of light
there right, he takes offline. You waxed? Is the whatever
the hell that you know? It goes through one of
those donation boxes. Yep, that's good. That movie's good. I
love that movie. All Right, we're gonna we gotta start
talking about yep, some sort of retirement planning back the business.

(15:11):
All right, So it's your end. There's a lot of
things that need to get done prior to December thirty. First,
if you're someone that's trying to maximize benefits, I've had
numerous calls with individuals about their workplace retirement plans. No
maximum that you could do if you're under the age
of fifties twenty three five hundred dollars for tax year
twenty twenty five. So a lot of people were doing

(15:33):
you know, ten percent, eleven, twelve percent of their income
into their four oh one K trying to hit that
max number, but they may be a little short. So
we've been having conversations with HR departments and clients of
ours to make sure that if we have to increase
that contribution percentage, we do it to make sure they
hit their maximum for the year. You know, we also

(15:56):
have a lot of clients that get bonuses, uh so
their bonus check, making sure you account for that when
putting that contribution amount in. You know, next year you
might be getting a raise, you know, so maybe you're
able to start contributing a little bit more or maybe
increase your four to one K contributions by a percent

(16:17):
or two percent, and with that raise, you're still seeing
an increase in your paycheck on a monthly or on
a bi weekly basis. So again, there's a lot of
conversations about four to one K contributions that we've been
having prior to your end to make sure we maximize that.
There's a special catchup contribution. You know, for those over
the age of fifty, you could do an additional what

(16:38):
eight thousand dollars.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
Chris, Yeah, it's seventy five hundred dollars for the Well,
now there's a there's a super catchup too, which is
I believe, uh, just for a certain it's like sixty
to sixty three, yep, and it's eleven thousand, two hundred
and fifty dollars, and then after sixty three you're out

(17:02):
of lock.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
You go back to seventy five hundred. But for those first.

Speaker 3 (17:07):
For those four years sixty to sixty three, and you
can do that eleven two hundred and fifty and just
add it right on to the twenty three thousand, five hundred.
So it's just an added bonus, you know, if you're
getting if you're in that age demographic, you're coming up
on retirement, you know, you plan on retiring at sixty two,

(17:28):
you're sixty, you know, for the last couple of years here,
you can really beef up that four to one K
plan before you head out.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
That doesn't even include company contributions as well, right, so
if your employer contributes six percent, you know, maybe do
a six percent match or an eight percent match. That's
additional money above that limit that you can do as
an employee. And for a lot of those higher earners
you could do ROTH four to oh one k. You
might not be able to do a roth ira because

(17:57):
you make too much money and there's income limits that
can to that roth Ira. For a lot of those folks,
maybe they've been doing backdoor wroth ira contributions, right, so
you open up a traditional deposit the money in the
traditional and convert to ROTH. Well, not now, but you've
always been able to contribute to a wroth for oh

(18:18):
one k within your workplace plan. And again there's no
income limits for that. So again, if you're someone that's
not contributing to roth or taking advantage of that after
tax contribution in your four to one K accounts, maybe
now is the time to look, especially if you're you know,
quite a ways from retirement and I still have ten, fifteen,
twenty years. A lot of younger folks start contributing to ROTH,

(18:41):
you know. It's one of the main conversations I have
with clients' children when they bring them into the office
as well. So those roth iras and wroth for one
k's are very advantageous. Just make sure that you're wroth
or if you're contributing in the four to one K,
that it's a WROTH and not an after tax. That's
just keeping your contribute tax free. You know, you're also

(19:02):
getting earnings that are tax free if that's available within
your plan. So, wow, I just pulled out my PPC hat.
I haven't pulled that out in a while.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
Your PPC hat Professional plan consultant. Oh yeah, forgot you
had your PPC. Yeah, every now and then, you got
to pull it out.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
Every now and then. For the small business owners, we've
worked with simple IRA plans for small businesses. We can
do sep iras you know, solo ks, so solo for
one k's unique as. But uh, but again I love
the open architecture we have through Fidelity. We're able to, uh,

(19:42):
you know, really structure clients estates how we want and
uh make sure that they have all the products available
to them that they might need or that are suitable
for them. So a lot of year end stuff that
was so that was on four to one K contributions, right,
So make sure you're maximizing if you're someone that wants
to do that or can do that, make sure you're

(20:04):
having that conversation and you get that that that contribution
maxed out for the year. So another thing for non
qualified accounts, a lot of people just might have brokerage
accounts that are floating around really not investing. They're invested
in mutual funds within those non qualified accounts, so non retirement.

(20:25):
They're not tax sheltered, just like a bank account. I
guess you could say that is invested in the market,
and those mutual funds will kick out what are called
capital gains at the end of the year. So what
do we do with those capital gains?

Speaker 3 (20:40):
You can you can reinvest them, you can take them
and you know, you can put them right into your
cash take it as cash if you're take an income.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
But I want we offset them. Well, you can also
set them too, if you just sell them to some
tax planning. Yeah, a lot of position well a lot
of people too, at least in the non qualified accounts.
There's not much that's red. Yeah, there's there's really not
much that's read in the market anymore unless you got
into some crummy bond funds back in twenty twenty two,

(21:12):
and you know, they still haven't really got back to
par yet. But a lot of the conversations are, oh,
you know, we really can't offset that much here because
the market's just been you know, so good within the
last three years. But yes, yeah, that is part of
the year end uh tax loss harvesting, looking at those

(21:32):
individual accounts, seeing where there are losses, if any in
the account and can we you know, strategically go in
there and sell out of one and then you know,
harvest something from your highly appreciated positions. The Uh what
I did want to touch on real quick is that
the Newburg you know, for our Poughkeepsie and Newburg office

(21:54):
or listeners out there, we are not doing face to
face meetings currently. That is via Zoom or Microsoft teams.
So that is a video conference meeting for those listeners
that we now have down in the Poughkeepsie and Newburgh area.
We are currently in the works on something down there,
but as of right now, it is going to be

(22:17):
over the phone or video conference, which I did yesterday.
And it's you know, it is different. You know, you're
not in face to face you know, with someone and
sitting across the table from them.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
But it's it's crazy. I mean, you're just we could
be anywhere and meet with anybody.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
Yeah. I like it too because we can share our
computer screen, right, Yeah, if we're on a video conference
with you and you have your laptop or your tablet,
we could share our screen and start forecasting. So I'll
do that quite a bit. I'll share you money and
kind of show folks the plan as far as where

(22:56):
income is going to come from, and the new my
plan through e money is great. And now that I've
kind of wrapped my brain around it, the year by
year the retirement one is yeah, I like the numbers, right.
The old projections just used to have a you know,
a graph and a bar chart and it's say, all right,
you're going to be successful. But now it breaks it
down of how you're going to be successful and where

(23:18):
the money's going to come from. The inflation on expenses
over time, right every year. You know, twenty years ago,
people weren't making as much as they are now, people
weren't spending as much as they are now, so that
expense needs to be inflated over time, which the system
accounts for. And you know, growth rates. You're able to

(23:41):
play around with different growth rates on the investable assets,
and you know, it's really nice to go through that
on Ring Central and make sure that everybody's comfortable with
a certain spend level in their retirement.

Speaker 3 (23:53):
So yeah, and that's like, it's huge to show someone
that because we've had a lot of meeting as of
recently where people are looking to retire earlier then they
necessarily thought they would be retiring, you know, in your
mid to late fifties or early sixties, and this gives
them a lot of comfort in knowing that if we

(24:14):
can hit their spend level, you know, on these modest
growth rates and overestimated inflation, it allows them to walk
out the door into retirement, you know, without having much
to worry about. Yeah, care free twenty one hundred eighty two,
five fifty nine forty nine. And that's twenty one hundred
eighty two, five fifty.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
Nine forty nine. If you want to call in today,
We're going to take a break and we will be
back on the other side of the half hour and
we are back. Good morning, Good morning. I changed headsets.

(24:56):
Can you can I can you hear me? Can I
hear you? I think so? Can you hear me? Yeah?
I got you right. I put in my old faithful
from the from the office. All right, what we were
talking about before break, you're end year end planning. We're
getting close to December thirty. First, there's a lot of deadlines, right,
so there's some items you do need to get done

(25:17):
before the end of the year. If you want to
get twenty twenty five tax breaks, you know, WROTH and
IRA contributions, you have until April fifteenth, So again there's
some time on those. So if you're someone that's trying
to maximize their WROTH or their traditional IRA for twenty
twenty five tax purposes, you could do a prior year

(25:39):
contribution up to April fifteenth next year. Another big item
that we've been doing is giving so charitable giving. We've
been utilizing appreciated stock just because we've had such a
favorable year in the market and multiple years, a lot

(26:00):
of these stock positions are up quite a bit. Or
maybe you've held these stock positions for ten fifteen years.
You know, plan is not to utilize them for yourself,
maybe give them to your children, get some sort of
step up in basis on the asset for legacy purposes.
But you're just holding these positions and maybe you had
a difficult tax here, maybe you recognize a little too

(26:21):
much money off your IRA R four to oh one k.
You know, there's ways to help with that, and that
would be you know, maybe gift gifting appreciated stock to
a charity. Right. You can also do what are called
qualified charitable contributions or qualified charitable distributions off your IRA
directly to a charity. You know, we've done that. It's

(26:42):
non taxable, right, so you don't get tax on it.
You get the tax benefit of contributing to that charity.
So these are both items that you'd have to get
done prior to years then to get to get the
donation classified as a twenty twenty five contribution if you've
been doing in any of those any of those charitable

(27:03):
contributions donations.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
A few, yeah, there is, I mean there's always clients
every year that have, you know, their list of charities
that they like to donate to, especially if they're you know,
account's doing well. But as far as any highly appreciated
stock as of recently, you know, there's only one or

(27:27):
two instances where that's that's come up so far. But
it's a great way, you know to donate, and if
you have you know, charities in mind or a cause
that you really stand behind. In church to church, people
donate to their church. A lot of churches, uh, And
it's a great way to you know, donate to them

(27:49):
and have it come from something, especially in a non
qualified account that you know you wouldn't necessarily sell. You know,
if you have these highly highly appreciated positions, well selling
them is just going to cost you, you know, all
that tax liability. So what we tend to do is,
you know, advocate for folks if it's a good position

(28:11):
and it's got you know, a long term growth ahead
of it as far as their outlook on like a
you know, five year basis. If the company's not going anywhere,
then then yeah, we'll say, you know, if it's if
it's something that you're interested in, it makes all the
sense in the world to utilize some of that highly
appreciated stock and donate it to whatever cause that you

(28:34):
would like.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
Yeah, and it you know, for every individual it's different, right,
So if you're over seventy and a half, you could
do the qualified charitable distributions, right, So that's when you
can take money from your pre tax I ray and
send it directly to the charity, and maybe you're in
a higher income bracket, so maybe you're in the twenty
two percent or twenty four percent income tax bracket versus

(28:58):
the capital gain tax bracket, which would be fifteen percent
potentially depending on how much you make. So maybe it
would make more sense to do a qualified charitable. But
for a lot of individuals, you know, we tend to
do that appreciated stock just to start shifting some of
that money over to the charity that they want to

(29:20):
donate to, and then also get a tax break in
the year that we do it. So Fidelity offers a
great donor advised fund it's called and you're able to
contribute to the donor advised fund and get the tax
break in the year you do it. But then you
don't have to make any grants, right. You can hold
the money within that account and invest it and then

(29:41):
down the line start giving it when you see fit. Right,
so you don't have to give it directly to the
charity now today, you just have to put it in
that separate account and then you could let it sit
there and start donating as you wish. So again, there's
a lot of different options that you can do to
to contribute to these charities if you're someone that's wanting

(30:02):
to give.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
And there's also some minor tax changes coming up in
the tax law in twenty twenty six that do affect
charitable giving, which makes twenty twenty five a more advantageous
year to gift. So you know, there's just there's a
few things that they're adding where you know, your deductibility

(30:24):
on your taxes becomes a little bit less generous than
what it would have been in or that it is
in twenty twenty five going into twenty twenty six. So
there's something to think about as well if you are
on the fence as far as contributing and looking for that,
you know, tax deducts and deduction.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
So if the Fed cuts rates this week, which is
forecasted now apparently it is. I was in the camp
I thought they were going to stay flat, but they
do cut twenty five basis points, a lot of people have, oh,
just lost my elbow. There a lot of people have
money market on sitting out there that are earning maybe
three and a half to four percent that's going to

(31:05):
continue to come down if the Fed does decrease rates,
And that's one of the shortest term papers, so it
will react relatively quickly. You might have CDs maturing, so
CDs that you've been buying at the bank three months,
six months, nine months, twelve months, you know, this might
be coming to maturity and the new rate's going to
be lower than what you had previously, So what are

(31:27):
you going to do with that cash?

Speaker 10 (31:29):
Right?

Speaker 2 (31:30):
You know, I've had conversations over the last couple of
weeks with individuals who have a lot in cash or
treasury bills that matured, and we've been looking more at
the corporate bond space. You know, those rates have not
been affected as much, right. You know, they have intermediate
to longer term corporate bond mutual funds that are still

(31:52):
yielding you know six is seven percent, some even eight. So, uh,
they will fluctuate based on interest rate movements and you know,
market fluctuation. But again, I think those are a great
option for a lot of people out there that are
looking for yield, for cash flow, for coupon and they
are willing to take a little bit more risk than

(32:13):
treasury bills and cash.

Speaker 3 (32:15):
So even the government in securitized space in the bond market,
it still looks good. You know, you've got your multisector
bond funds. Some that we utilize are like your core
bond fund holding that are still getting around five six percent,
so you're still getting that bump in that yield where
it's more advantageous to take that step out of cash

(32:36):
you are, you know, it's obviously riskier when you step
out of cash, you know, in any investment, but bond
funds tend to be less you know, have less risk
associated with them. So for folks who are used to
these higher yields, they like their dividends that are coming
in from their money markets right now, shifting into something
like a low risk, you know, high quality, high quality,

(33:02):
you know, good credit quality bond fund, it makes you know,
all the sense in the world, especially when the ultimate
goal of the FED is to continue to cut these rates,
which will obviously favor that bond side of the market
as well. You know, you're gonna get a little bit
of an appreciation out of those positions along with that yield.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, which is uh, which is great in which people
are It's something that people are looking for in retirement.
For the younger folks, we go a lot more I
would say equity based and equity focused trying to target
growth in their accounts, right, so you want to start
that compound effect year over year, I'll get your seven
eight nine percent hopefully, and then you know, over the

(33:48):
long term that account should grow and be available to
you in retirement. But for the retirees out there, they're
looking more for cash flow. You know, I would say
seventy five percent of the time there are these that's
more risk that they like, more risk in their portfolio.

(34:09):
So so again you know, it depends on who you
are as an investor and what you're looking to accomplish
and what you need as far as baseline income. So
a lot of people out there have old variable annuities,
so a lot of times they bring in statements on
their old annuity contracts and we're able to look at
those and see what the best course of action is,

(34:30):
see what all the benefits on the policy are and
whether or not they need that guaranteed income for their
life if they do have that ride or attached to
the policy. So if you're someone that wants a year
end review, year end checkup on your financial status, you
know we're here for that, and we're here to be
that second pair of eyes just to give you some
thoughts and ideas.

Speaker 3 (34:50):
So on the equity side, I will say that they
look very favorable as well. So US equities. Although we're
in this area where you know, we're at all time highs,
Nervousness is starting to pick up. People are getting a
little worried. You know, I don't know how much longer
this is gonna go. You know, I don't know if

(35:12):
I should be getting into the market right now. So
is far from the data standpoint, you know, twenty twenty
six is an optimistic year for US equities, and that's
because of you know a few things. If they continue,
If inflation keeps going down towards their two percent target
and rates keep getting cut, you know, that's gonna be

(35:34):
great for the market itself. Along with the fiscal trade
and regulatory developments that have happened through tariffs, spending, any
legislation that goes through you know, Washington. So if that's
the case, you know, there's this huge influx of money
that's now coming into the US through these tariffs. So

(35:58):
that's a great thing for to not only promote US
equities in companies, but there's now this you know, wave
of money that was never or that hasn't been there,
that's inflowing in, you know, helping the economy as well.
So diversification is obviously always overemphasized. But you know, international

(36:19):
stocks have you know, had their year. You know, I
think they're up anywhere from twenty to thirty percent. So
if that's the case, you know, and then looking to
rebalance that portfolio. US equities I think are in a
are expected to outperform you know, their global peers in
twenty twenty six, is what this Morgan Stanley article is saying.

(36:42):
So rebalancing into that if you're younger, I think makes
all the sense in the world.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
So we could take a look. If you do want
us to be that second pair of eyes, we could
put your portfolio into risk alize. That was a good rhyme.
It gives a call to day one hundred and eight
two five fifty nine forty nine. We're going to take
our last break for this hour. We'll be back right
after this.

Speaker 5 (37:08):
Planning for retirement doesn't have to be overwhelming, especially when
you have the right team by your side. At Retirement
Planning Group, Dave Kopik and his team are here to
help you build a strategy tailored to your goals in lifestyle.
Whether you're nearing retirement or just getting started, now's the
time to take control of your future. Schedule your free
consultation today at rpgretire dot com or call eight eight

(37:32):
eight five eight zero nineteen nineteen Retirement Planning Group.

Speaker 6 (37:36):
Retire with confidence.

Speaker 7 (37:38):
You've spent a lifetime saving for retirement. Now it's time
to make that money work for you. Here's the secret
most people miss. You have to create your own retirement
income plant. Social Security is not enough, pensions are rare.
You need a strategy that turns savings into monthly income
that will last a lifetime. At the Retirement Planning Group,
we build customized income distribution plans so you can retire

(37:59):
with confidence, retire smart, Live well. Call eight eight eight
five eight zero nine nine for your complementary consultation.

Speaker 8 (38:07):
When US Navy Chief Petty Officer Michael Thomas Earnst was
killed in the line of duty, Tunnel to Towers provided
his wife and children with a mortgage free home. Since
Tunnel to Towers was founded in the aftermath of nine
to eleven, the Ernst family is one of many the
foundation has helped, but many more heroes and their families
are still in need. Together, we can say thank you

(38:28):
by showing them our support. Now, donate eleven dollars a
month to Tunnel to Towers at T two T dot org.
That's T the number two T dot org.

Speaker 7 (38:38):
Attention, future retirees, A financial threat is putting your retirement
at risk. The cost of long term care can be
well over one hundred thousand dollars a year fidelities. Recent
studies suggest retirees could need hundreds of thousands of dollars
just to cover medical expenses in retirement. You need to
address this risk now. To be prepared, call my office

(38:59):
to fight out your options well eighty eight five eight
zero one nine one nine. Eighty eight five eight zero
one nine one nine for a complementary consultation.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
And we are back seven seven in the am morning,
San Francisco. That's Capitol District and Poughkeepsie, Newburgh. When I
have a conversation, gives a buzz. Our office numbers five
one eight, five eight zero one nine one nine, and
we're here to help you. You know, we've helped a

(39:37):
lot of individuals from W Guy's radio station this year,
and you know, we just love meeting with people. A
lot of great people in the area, you know, not
a lot of bad apples this year that we've run into.
So again, our office numbers five one eight, five eight,
zero one nine one nine. Mind if I talk about

(39:57):
something that I saw this week, would you okay with you?
It was something new. I haven't really seen this in
the past. Let's hear it. You learned something new every day.
So I had a couple their clients of ours and
great folks. We had a really fun time. I would
say like seventy percent of the time we don't even

(40:18):
talk finance.

Speaker 3 (40:19):
There's yeah, there's a lot of conversations that just spiral
into nonfinance talk and then you kind of circle back.
We've been having a long appointments lately, Yay you and McCarthy,
we've been having some long appoint I mean two two
and a half hour long appointments, like just but they
go by quick. You know, you sit there and you're
talking to someone and in time just evaporates away and

(40:43):
then you're like, we've been in here for an hour.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
It's we got to dive into it. Seven pm, Yeah,
right time to go home. But no, I had a
meeting this past week and I thought what they were
doing was was very interesting. So they have long term
care coverage. They purchased it when they were in their
late thirties, so they purchased it before. So the annuity

(41:06):
the long term care company didn't even have quotes for
their age, so they had to create quotes for them.
So they were thinking about this way in advance. So
they bought these long term care policies in their late thirties,
but in order to fund them, they used non qualified
annuity money. So what they were doing each year, and

(41:28):
it took some time to make sure that all of
this was good, and he had to speak to different
people to make sure that it was okay. He was
ten thirty five in his non qualified annuity into his
long term care policy to pay the premium each year,
which I thought was pretty interesting. So what you're doing
theoretically is taking a non qualified annuity which is a

(41:51):
tax liability right because it's tax sheltered. You know, it
grows tax sheltered. But as you take money off of it,
you have to be careful with the cost base is
so what you put into it versus the actual value
of the non qualified annuity contract. A lot of those
are last in first out, so as you take money,
it's all taxable at your income rate too. But what

(42:12):
they were doing was they were taking it a like
to like transfer, so from that non qualified annuity into
the long term care policies each year, and it was
paying for their long term care insurance. Did they inherit
the annuity, No, so it was their own non qualified
They dump money into it and allowed it to grow,

(42:32):
and then they started using it to pay for the
long term care and now each year it's paying for
it because they bought it when they were so young,
so it was very low premium, right, But now they
are starting to get notices that their premiums are increasing.
Oh of course, so is everybody else. So they're more
than doubling. But with the amount of money and the
non qualified annuity. I told them, you know, listen, I

(42:53):
think you're fine. You can still pay this every year.
Current rates are way higher, so yes, they're increasing, but
it's still not the end of the world, right, And
they're you know, they have these long term care policies
that are going to pay out if anything happens to them, right,
So this would be the worst time to do anything

(43:14):
or adjust them, you know, pay the premiums. They can
afford it, and you know, they really are their star clients.
I would say, they've got the long term care coverage.
They have non qualified accounts, they have WROTH accounts. They
have some some pre tax accounts as well, but the
majority of their money is non qualified or wroth. They
have a great legacy set up. They have long term

(43:35):
care coverage. You know, it was a great appointment. And
they're in their thirties, not anymore. Oh that's when they
bought the long term care policies SOW. But yeah, I
just I thought it was really interesting. So think about that, right,
if you have these non qualified annuities that hey, I
was going to use this for income when I retired,
but now you have a pension. You know, maybe you

(43:56):
change jobs, you have a pension available to you. You
have very strong social security, you have a four to
oh one K that's grown, you know, consistently, and you're
gonna pull from that. It's all pre tax. But you
have this non qualified and do it. You don't know
what you're doing with you know, take a look at it.
Maybe you could do a ten thirty five converted to
some sort of long term care policy. And you know,

(44:16):
offer yourself some protection and some some options if something
does happen to you and you have to go into
a nursing home or or long term care facility or
need assisted living. So so again that's a major conversation.
We've been having a lot this year, you know the Yeah,
your dad calls it a crisis. I agree with them.
I think it's a crisis right now between health insurance

(44:37):
and long term care. Yeah, it's expensive. Yeah, and this
is a great opportunity for those folks who have these
old Were they at the seminar? Yep? That was okay. Yeah.
I think he said something about how he was he
got it in his thirties. We have a caller on
the line, not sure who it is. How are you

(44:57):
a caller? Yeah?

Speaker 10 (45:03):
Us? Await you just remember this year? You can't play pool?
No playing pool for you this year?

Speaker 2 (45:10):
Did you just roll out of bed? I want too
much money? Last year?

Speaker 10 (45:15):
You guys are well.

Speaker 4 (45:16):
No.

Speaker 10 (45:16):
I was sick late yesterday afternoon and I don't know
what caught a hold of me, but something got a
hold of me pretty good. But I'm feeling better. But
there must be something going out. But you don't need
to go this thing that you just talked about. I've
been in the business for forty three years. Yeah, I've
never heard of that ever being done in forty three years.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
And being of this business, get that I'm teaching you things.

Speaker 10 (45:43):
Have you, in all honesty, have you ever heard we're
a ten to thirty five exchange is being used to
pay for a premium. I've never heard of it.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
That's why I was. I was when I started talking
about it with them. I asked him three times and
every time He's like, yeah, I had to talk to
like three four different people higher ups with the state
just to make sure everything was good. And I could
do this.

Speaker 10 (46:08):
Because cash cash value can go into of a life
insurance pollably can go into an annuity, but annuity cash
can't go into life insurance as far as the ten
thirty five exchange. So I'm just wondering, how do they
technically do this? Is the insurance that they purchased some

(46:32):
kind of a hybrid type of annuity with the long
term care wrider. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (46:39):
Yeah, I'm looking right now. It's showing that an option
is you can exchange an annuity that includes a life
insurance writer so his non qualified duty must have had
some sort of you know, life insurance writer death benefit
associated with it. So maybe that's the only case where
he could do that. You know, I didn't dig into
the weeds, but I just thought it was a really

(46:59):
cool concept that I've never.

Speaker 10 (47:01):
Know it is. Yeah, it's I honestly, I've never heard
anybody doing it. That's the first I've ever heard of it.
And it's if it's technically it's legally an option that's
a non taxable event.

Speaker 2 (47:14):
Yeah, do you have to it's only under certain IRS rules,
Like I said, so it's not every non qualified annuity.
I think he just found a way to do it. Yeah,
so there is there are options out there.

Speaker 10 (47:26):
So well, as long as it's not kicking out of
ten ninety nine, that's phenomenal. But the other part of it, too,
is is McCarthy coming in at eight o'clock with you guys.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
You guys don't do not know coin flip?

Speaker 10 (47:41):
Would you say it's a coin flip? The reason why
I say that would be something to bring up with
him because he's been doing it almost as long as me.
If he's ever seen that. So but all right, I
just had to say that I'd never heard that. You
guys are doing a great job, and I'm going to
sit back and listen some more. So thank you, gentlemen.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
All Right, you go drink some bone broth and some
chicken noodle.

Speaker 10 (48:05):
Right.

Speaker 2 (48:08):
Look at that.

Speaker 3 (48:10):
Wow, you didn't hear of it either, taught your father's
new concept.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
But again, I mean, it's it's just, you know, we've
never seen that. So that's why I wanted to bring
it up today, just to make people aware that there
are options out there. And if you're someone that has
old accounts that you're planning to utilize for income or
just have been sitting there right, start coming up with
a plan. What's the goal for that account? That's what

(48:39):
I talk about all the time. You know, different accounts
have different goals. We're gonna utilize this for income, or
we're gonna utilize this for some sort of long term
care coverage, or we're gonna utilize this for legacy.

Speaker 10 (48:49):
You know.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
So again, everyone has a different situation. Everyone's unique. Everyone
has different needs, different wants. Some people are gonna leave
New York state, you know. So I've looked into multiple states,
different tax codes, and you know, we do a lot
of planning and in depth work with individuals to make
sure that we're not just putting a cookie cutter approach

(49:12):
out there.

Speaker 3 (49:13):
Yeah, the cookie cutter approach is not i'd say, a
part of our structure at all. I mean, even when
it comes down to everything as far as structuring the investments.
You know, I was just going over this the other
day with a couple of people about their funds in
positions that they brought over, you know, so there, they

(49:34):
rolled them over, We threw them into Riskalized, which is
now Nitrogen, which does all of our you know, model
portfolio building, which is very interesting I think when we
sit down with people like I sat down with this
guy earlier in the week and he he was like,
I've never seen anything like this, And he's like, you
guys are my third financial advisor, and I've never seen

(49:58):
like a behind the scenes, like an in depth breakdown
of how each and every position you know, makes it
fit into the portfolio. And you know, the reason probably
probably why that hasn't happened is we rolled over his
account and it was you know, someone like x y
Z company where his account was at, but he had

(50:21):
all of x y Z's ETFs. You know what I mean,
So like there was he there was clearly some type
of tie to that company's positions to where we have
no we have no handcuffs to anything. So there's the
open architecture allows us to go shop all of these positions,
whether it's an ETF or a mutual fund in the

(50:41):
market and use any financial institution's investments available to build out,
you know, the most advantageous models for you know, each
of our clients to fit whatever they're looking to do.
So when he saw that, I mean, he was just like,
this is something that I've really never seen before and

(51:02):
was asking, you know, like why are we going over this,
And like, we just go over to show you what
goes on behind the scenes. A lot of it's right
over your head as far as like the analysis, but
we feel that it makes a lot of sense just
to show them why each position has its place in
our in our models.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
Yeah, we still want to make sure they have an
understanding of what we're doing, and that's why we go
through it and make sure that they are comfortable with
the positions that we are putting them in. But again,
we designed these portfolios for certain demographics and what you're
trying to accomplish. So if you're someone that wants us
to take a look or sit down and have a
chat with us, you can call our office. It's five

(51:40):
one eight five eight zero one nine one nine. And
that's five one eight five eight zero one nine one nine.
We're here, we're local. We're in Malta, down in Poughkeepsie
now and meet you up in Canada. No, I don't
know about that yet. All right, we're gonna take a break.
We'll be back on the other side of this. And

(52:09):
good morning for those of you just tuning in. Thank
you for turning us on right here, and wgy excuse me,
I need another cup of coffee.

Speaker 3 (52:23):
It's hot, Yeah, it's cold. It's cold outside. Well, coffee's
out one degree.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
It's one degree yesterday, yesterday morning, don't you love it?
On my way in, I'm having the truck. I start
the truck like ten to fifteen minutes before I even
go out there.

Speaker 3 (52:39):
Now, I think my dad's got like a countdown going
to the minute when he gets out of here and
goes to Florida. Yeah, I think every day he's like,
bye bye, Why do we deal with this?

Speaker 2 (52:49):
We're going down to Florida in January. Yes, yes, we
I do a week down there. I think the week
of the nineteenth, So try to get some clients on
the schedule and maybe a couple of golf courses. Wouldn't
mind that I haven't swung a golf Yeah, I would
do three warnable. Did you? Oh you went? You went

(53:12):
golfing when you went down to Florida not too long ago. No,
we didn't end up doing it. You didn't. Oh, you
didn't end up golfing. Didn't end up golfing. We just
went and hung out, went to the beach. I'm gonna
go to the bunker this weekend or going over by.

Speaker 3 (53:27):
Oh I did, I did go. We did go golfing.
I thought it did. We golfed one of the mornings.
But it was awful. I mean, the course was beautiful,
but I'm when you you know, you put five or
six balls in the water.

Speaker 2 (53:39):
The grass is different down there. It's tough. Yeah, it
was North Carolina too. It's a lot softer the rough, Yeah,
so it's tougher to pinch it off the ground.

Speaker 3 (53:48):
You know what's funny is we were walking around and
we're sitting there saying, uh, me and my girlfriend's dad
were golfing and he's like, wow, you know this, this
golf course is in great condition. And I'm like this,
this is like the greenest golf course I've ever seen.
And I'm and we're sitting there saying, you know, they
must keep this, you know, perfectly manicured. So by the

(54:09):
end of the round, we're we're sitting here, you know,
talking about how nice the course is, and it's so
green and beautiful, and then we look down at our
shoes and our shoes are covered in green paint.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
So they're out there spray paint.

Speaker 3 (54:22):
Yeah, they spray painted, and my white shoes turned into
a nice faded green color.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
It's gotta be good for the grass. They probably have
some sort of paint that.

Speaker 3 (54:35):
I bet you when that paint runs out, that grass
is brown as dirt. I don't think it's great for it.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
Got the nicest course I the one in Hilton Head
I went to uh where they do the RBC Heritage.
Oh the white that Lighthouse course, Yeah, yeah, that was
Harbor Town called Harbor Town That that course was gorgeous.
Yeah it was. I wouldn't say it was like overly difficult.

(55:03):
All the pro shoot like minus twenty five over the
course of the four rounds there, which is crazy. Those
are one of those courses where they go extremely low. Yeah,
but even I think I shot like mid eighties and
that was with some mulligans. Right, So even I'm probably
a twelve couple foot wedges out of the woods. Would
you say I'm probably a thirteen handicap.

Speaker 3 (55:23):
Yeah, twel yeah, maybe lower. Yeah, I'd say ten to
ten to thirteen.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
Depends on the time of the year. By the end
of the season, I'm always terrible. I'm about a twenty five. Yeah,
maybe we'll go golf and when we're down in Florida.
But we have clients all over the place, so you know,
typically they start out in New York, but once they retire,
they might travel or they might follow their children. You know,
We've had a couple head over to Cincinnati area. We've

(55:52):
had people down in Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Carolinas. The Carolinas
are huge now migrating to the Charlotte area. I'm more
of a fan of the outer Banks. I love it
out there. It's just quiet. But again, we're registered in
a lot of different states, and if you're listening to
us on the app, the iHeart app. We could probably

(56:17):
facilitate a virtual call or just some sort of conference
call to get to know you and then you know,
if we need to share our screen, then we'll set
up virtual But again, we were a registered investment advisor.
We work through Fidelity Investments. We have a broker dealer
relationship through perch Cap and Sterling, so we're able to

(56:40):
discuss insurance and annuities. So anything you might have, we
just ask you bring in statements. We're able to review
those and make sure they're still in your best interest
and make sure that they're good. And a lot of
policies that come into the office have the potential to lapse.
We've been through some nightmares with some life insurance policies

(57:03):
where you know, the woman or the man was eighty
five years old and the cash value is running out
on their life insurance policy and they were gonna have
to pay extreme premiums to keep it in force. So
you know, don't you don't want that letter saying your
life insurance is at risk or going to lapse, So

(57:23):
let us look at it. If we could decrease the
death benefit and save the policy or extend the policy
for a certain number of years. We can run those
illustrations and make sure we get that to you, and
you know, really try to maximize the benefit that you
have with these accounts. So and we golf too, like
me and Chris. We're talking about so do it Thursday
night golf league. I miss that.

Speaker 3 (57:45):
Yes, this time of the year, you always get nostalgic
about times where there was sun in the sky in
the gray clouds, because right now that's what we got,
you know, twenty degrees, great clouds. But it is skiing season.
It is in snowboarding. I haven't been in a while.
I've got to break out the board. We used to

(58:06):
jump each other's trucks back in high school.

Speaker 2 (58:09):
That sounds safe. Tow much park Mechanicsville and a nice
little hill. Oh yeah, put a little jump at the bottom.
Some of the stories I tell about my child, I'm
surprised I've made it to snapped the leg your arm
or now, well, I've snapped an arm. I was racing
dirt bikes. But I want to talk about an idea,

(58:29):
you know, for long term care coverage. There's a certain
policy that's available in New York as well as Florida.
We've looked at it in Florida. I can do a
dual benefit in Florida, so you can put it on
two individuals' lives and either can use it for long
term care. But we've been looking at the one in
New York as of recent because a lot more of

(58:51):
our clients are located in New York. There's also different
long term care or medicaid laws surrounding New York County
versus Florida, where there's some more protections in Florida. So
the long term care in New York is a lot,
you know, it's needed more than the long term care
in Florida. But there's a policy that's a dual benefit,

(59:15):
so you get a death benefit and then you also
get a long term care rider, so you can access
the policy for long term care coverage. And it's got
an inflation rider on it too, so the amount of
long term care coverage you can receive on a monthly
basis inflates over time. But for these policies, you can't
do a dump in and then premium right, so you

(59:37):
can either do one or the other. So we've been
looking at doing two separate policies for a lot of
people so they'll take their old life insurance. Maybe they
have a whole life policy that has you know, fifty
sixty seventy thousand dollars in cash value, and taking that
and dumping it into one of these policies and it'll
provide a payout at age you know, either eighty eight

(01:00:00):
you want to too, whenever you need it, right, And
then we look at another policy where you pay premiums
on each year. So maybe you had a whole life
policy that has eighty thousand dollars cash value in it,
and you're making an annual payment of let's say five
grand a year to keep that policy enforced. Let's take
that eighty thousand cash value, dump it into one of

(01:00:20):
these policies, and then let's run another illustration with a
five thousand dollars year premium and see what that would buy.
So you have two policies now that will pay out
long term care insurance or they'll pay out a benefit
to you. It's all cash. It's a cash indemnity policy.
So they're going to pay you that maximum long term
care benefit on a monthly basis, even if you don't

(01:00:40):
need the whole thing. So you're gonna get rewarded for it,
and if you don't use it, you still have a
death benefit associated with it, so your children or your
spouse will receive that death benefit tax free. So just
the thought. That's something that we've been looking at over
the last couple of weeks. It's a way to get

(01:01:00):
around that fact that you can't do a dump in
and a premium on the same policy, you know, so
why not set up too right and then use each
But again, just a thought, and we have a lot
of thoughts. So if you want to pick our brains
or ask a question, numbers one eight hundred eight two
five fifty nine forty nine, there's one eight hundred talk WGI.

(01:01:25):
If you want to call in and have a chat today,
feel free to do it. We're gonna take another break
and we'll be back right after.

Speaker 5 (01:01:32):
This time flies and retirement will be here before you
know it.

Speaker 6 (01:01:41):
Are you ready?

Speaker 5 (01:01:43):
Don't wait until it's too late to get your plan
in place. Dave Kopek and the team at Retirement Planning
Group are helping people just like you take control of
their financial future right now. Call eight eight eight five
eight zero nineteen nineteen today or go to RPG retire
dot com to schedule your consultation.

Speaker 6 (01:02:02):
Retirement won't wait. Why should you.

Speaker 7 (01:02:06):
We are living through the greatest wealth transfer in the
history of mankind. Trillions of dollars of wealth will change
hands from one generation to the next. Your money to
our beloved children and grandchildren. Are you ready? Your future
is written by chance, it's written by action. Now's the
time to build your plan, protect your assets, and position
yourself for the opportunity. Don't wait, take action. The future

(01:02:28):
favors those that are prepared. Call eighty eight five eight
zero one nine one nine. That's eighty eight five eat
zero one nine one nine.

Speaker 8 (01:02:36):
Born on America's darkest day of nine to eleven, the
Tunnel to Towers Foundation has been helping America's heroes ever since.
People who put their lives on the line for our
country and our communities need your help now more than ever.
Join Tunnel to Towers on its mission to do good
in their honor. Never forget nine to eleven or the
sacrifices of this country's heroes and their families. Show your

(01:02:59):
support to donate eleven dollars a month at T two
t dot org. That's t The number two t dot org.

Speaker 7 (01:03:07):
Retirement is in a Sunday thing.

Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
It's a now thing.

Speaker 7 (01:03:10):
Whether you're just starting out or nearing the finish line,
the best time to build your retirement plan is today.
Don't wait for the right moment. Let's create a plan
that works for you. Secure your future and the freedom
that comes with it. Call my office today and take action.
Eighty eight five eight zero one nine one nine. That's

(01:03:31):
eighty eight five eid zero one nine nine and your
future will thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
And we're back. College football Championship Saturday, Big games today,
Big twelve Championship, the SEC Championship, Georgia Bama.

Speaker 3 (01:03:57):
Big ten, Ohio State, Indiana, the one and the two.
Oh boy, buckle up.

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
They're all spread out. It's like Georgia Alabama plays at
four Syracuse in any championships. God no, but they're in
the ACC right. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:04:14):
They've had a tough year, to say the least. Let
me getting beat up. Pretty good basketball team's not doing horrible.
We had Carmelo Anthony's kid on the team now, which
is an interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
They just picked up a good recruit. One of my
buddies went to Syracuse. You know he's doing good. Is
Sienna about it? Yeah? Three and two? I was thinking
about going their game tomorrow. I think they play Canisius.
Maybe I will fact check that. It's like an early
afternoon game. Kender and I were gonna go grab brunch
with her brother and then yeahs head down there two pm.

(01:04:51):
But we'll see they've uh, yeah, they've been doing good.
Were they seven to two? Eight and two? They just
won last night? Wow? Or yeah? I was like, it's good.
It's good, they're playing good ball. It's nice to see
because we've had a few tough years. Remember when I
was going there, they'd always lose Iona in the uh
in the mac tournament. But Sienna Alum. I always telp it.

(01:05:16):
We're kind of like the Suits. Everyone, you've never watched Suits.
It seemed like a couple episodes. I haven't. I didn't
really dive into it. I was in between. I was
watching two things at the same time, and yeah, the
other show one. I love Suits. It is good. I do.
Got to get back into it. They do a thing
where they only recruit from Harvard, and I always I

(01:05:38):
always tell people are kind of like Suits. We only
recruit from Sienna.

Speaker 3 (01:05:41):
Yeah, we do have a lot of me. You and
Jared are all and my dad my dad went to
Siena for a little bit. He just didn't graduate from there.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
All the young guys and then you got Jimmy and McCarthy. Yep,
Buffalo and Virginia. Jimmy went to you be no McCarthy.
Did I think Jimmy went down to virgin And Yeah
he was a baseball player. He was really big in baseball. Yeah.
So but anyways, this is a talk show. We are here.

(01:06:15):
You can call in, ask questions, keep the conversation moving
if you want. But we do have a lot of thoughts,
you know, year end tax planning, year end conversations with
your family, A state cleanup, right, A lot of people
are pushing their state off and uh now, you never
know what's coming around the corner, so you want to

(01:06:37):
start getting things cleaned up. You might have a very
top heavyest state that's going to be a problematic inheritance
for your children or loved ones, So start getting in
front of that, especially while you're young. The longer you
push it out, the more it's gonna cost you. So
pick up that phone and call somebody, or call an
advisor and start thinking about how you're going to transfer assets.

(01:06:58):
A lot of people aren't even gonna touch their retirement accounts.
I've seen, you know, people with these pensions of sixty
seventy eighty thousand dollars a year even more, and then
they have social securities at thirty five hundred a month,
four thousand a month, so they got fifty grand coming
in and social security seventy and pension one hundred and

(01:07:19):
twenty thousand dollars of income a year. And then they
also have, you know, a million bucks in a four
toh onin K that they really don't need the government's
going to make them take it once they start hitting
their required minimum distributions, so a forced spend down on
the asset so that you pay tax. So get in
front of that and start taking these withdrawals off your

(01:07:39):
four toWin K, and you shifted over to some sort
of non qualified or tax free inheritance for your children,
or put it into a life insurance policy. That's gonna
get some velocity. So trim off twenty twenty five thousand
dollars a year, get into a life insurance contract, get
it protected by a trust. We get some sort of
long term care insurance. We have all these conversations and

(01:08:01):
we discuss with you what concerns you the most. A
lot of people as of reason it's been long term care. Yeah,
and we did just have I'm glad you brought this
topic up of getting the estate buttoned up in how
to do it in a in people who aren't going
to utilize, you know, their money, because I think yesterday
I literally had a conversation with a guy who was saying,

(01:08:24):
you know, my mom's got this estate where she's got
you know, just we'll say this isn't the number, but
say you have two hundred thousand dollars sitting in a
bank in the bank account, then you have a million
dollar rollover IRA account and it's as the beneficiary, you're

(01:08:45):
how do you settle this the state? How do you
inherit this estate in the most tax preference way where
most of the money is still taxable to you, So
in the tax itself, you know, it's you can you
can do things to help try and mitigate it, but
you know you're gonna the tax has to get paid,
you know, So it's not something where you're going to
mitigate all of it. But our suggestion was, what about

(01:09:10):
this bank money. You know, these non qualified assets that
are just sitting in the bank, why don't we start
shifting those into the market. And because those assets will
get a step up in cost basis at death and
you'll be able to inherit those with pretty much no
tax liability. And while she's in her later rm D

(01:09:30):
years where there's getting large chunks of large chunks of
this you know IRA account coming off to pay the
tax on it. Well, depending on what tax bracket she's in,
just maximize that tax bracket. So whatever you're in, say
you're in the twenty four percent tax bracket, well, let's

(01:09:50):
if there's some you know, a little bit of a
buffer to get you to the top end as far
as your income within that tax bracket without jumping into
the next tax bracket. Let's take that districtbution off that
IRA account, pay the tax on it, and then invest
it in you know, that non qualified account if you
don't meet it outside of your current standard of living.
So for these folks who have high, solid security, high pensions,

(01:10:13):
like Nico is just saying, and you don't really need
this money in order to set up the estate in
a more you know, tax preferenced way. If you don't
have any type of uh life insurance for your beneficiaries
to inherit, and you just have this large IRA account.
You know, if you're going to just maximizing those distributions
within the same tax back that you are in to

(01:10:34):
then reinvest in that individual account, you know that money
in the non qualified is going to get that step up.
So it's more preference for your beneficiaries to inherit something
that is not going to be taxable to them or
has very little tax liability. You know, because the cost
basis becomes the date of death. On those positions, there's
not too many options at that point. If you're in

(01:10:55):
an arm D mode, you're probably not going to qualify
for long or life, right, So if you're taking forced
withdrawals off your IRA, you're probably seventy three seventy five eighty,
she's probably in her eighty, so life insurance probably isn't
an option, right, So you're taking that money and putting
it into the bank. Wroth conversions don't count towards r

(01:11:18):
and ds, so you can't put that money into a wroth.
You've got to allow that money to go into your name,
and you know it's kind of acting like a wroth too,
if she's not going to use the money, right, because
she's gonna get a step up in basis on those
assets for her kids, So there's not going to be
a tax liability. So again that's a good option. You know,

(01:11:40):
a trust maybe versus just an individual tod Maybe get
that money into an irrevocable trust for protection purposes not
only from nursing home, long term care, but also liability. Right,
you get that money out of your name. Let's say
she's still driving and she hits one of these crazy
people that walk around on Route nine at ten Yeah,

(01:12:03):
with no light, flashlight, black hoodie, surprise seat all time. Yeah,
what are these people doing? But again it's just a
liability coverage as well. Right, if you get some sort
of irrevocable trust set up, get those assets into the
trust and then make it past that five year lookback
period for medicaid or long term care purposes. So again

(01:12:25):
there's a lot of planning we do, and a lot
of different ages and a lot of different goals. Right,
Everyone's got a different view of what they want to
do in retirement. I've got an individual that's retiring in
June of next year, and he's gonna take a road trip.
It's gonna go all around the United States and nice
visit all these places.

Speaker 3 (01:12:47):
And states, beautiful entry that we have. There's a lot
of people that do that. A lot of people go
over the pond. There's a lot of it.

Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
Oh, the United States is you know, I'm saying the
United States is a It's got a lot of landmarks
and beautiful places right here within our borders.

Speaker 3 (01:13:06):
Right There's a lot of people, i'd say that are
doing like the cross country, you know, South Dakota. I
just figured this out a month ago. A couple months ago,
we were talking to talking to this person or client
of ours, and they were saying that they're going to
i think, sell their house in New York State and
then they're getting you know, an RV or a something.

Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
Like a camp or r V. They're putting an address
in South Dakota.

Speaker 3 (01:13:32):
You have to be a resident of South Dakota. You
only have to stay there one day. One day. It's
like a state. I guess that a lot of these
people who you know, travel the country or they just
hit it, you know, for one day out of the year,
you're to be South Dakota resident.

Speaker 2 (01:13:50):
Yep, we've got people in North Dakota, in South Dakota, Ohio.
I just went to Montana in July. That's God's coming.
Yeah out there, it's gorgeous. I'd love to go there.
Mountains doesn't matter where you are. And the mountains are like
they're the Adiron Decks times five, yeah, times ten. Some

(01:14:12):
of these mountains are eleven twelve thousand feet elevation. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:14:17):
So I was fortunate enough to go out to Colorado
and that was to go out skiing there, and that
was unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (01:14:24):
I mean, talk about a trip that's like Aspen. Yeah
is that where you went? Yeah? Yeah, and it was.
It was unbelievable.

Speaker 3 (01:14:32):
I mean the mountains itself were just beautiful compared to here.

Speaker 2 (01:14:37):
That's where they do the X Games, right, I don't know,
they must do one.

Speaker 3 (01:14:42):
Well, they did the uh, they used to do the
Olympics right in Lake Placid. You see that big ramp
driving into Lake Placid. Yeah, imagine flying down that thing
on a pair of skis.

Speaker 2 (01:14:52):
Gym was just there a few probably a month ago.
He was watching people hit that ramp. That's got it
looking you can walk up it. Squirrels, Oh my god,
I don't know. I've been to the top of it,
but it's it's scary. You look straight up like you
want to walk up there. Nope, imagine going down that
thing and you catch an edge.

Speaker 3 (01:15:14):
Better have a parachute on. But no, no, thank you,
Oh god. The uh okay. The other thing I wanted
to bring up to from what you we were just
touching on is the pension, the pension conversation. And we
just had an instance too where it's we protected someone's
pension by we're coming up on a break. We're gonna

(01:15:36):
I'll dive into this and after the break. But the
the the mindset is to protect that pension with some
type of term life insurance coverage because they were for
the amount of benefit that they would receive retired yet
or no no, yeah, so they were not retired state
state employee huge pension. So we ran the numbers and said, modestly,

(01:15:58):
if you'd live another ten to fifteen years, you got
you know, a couple million dollars worth of benefit here
or well over a million dollars worth of benefit here
within your pension. So we're protecting it by doing, you know,
just a term life insurance policy for the next ten years.

Speaker 2 (01:16:14):
The pension might be your biggest liability. We'll get back
into that a little bit when we return from the break,
but if you want to call in one eight hundred
eight two five fifty nine forty nine, this is a
call in show again. That's one eight hundred and eighty
two five fifty nine forty nine. It's a retirement planning group,

(01:16:41):
and we're back pensions. Pensions, pensions. A lot of folks
have the option to receive a pension in retirement. A
lot of state employees out there, New York State benefits.
So your pension, there's a there's different options teachers, teachers,

(01:17:06):
there's cash balance pensions. You know, it depends on your
employer whether or not they do offer you a pension,
but you do have choices to make upon retirement, and
you should take your spouse into account, you know, make
sure that they're protected in case something were to happen
to you prematurely, right, but also prior to retirement. And

(01:17:29):
we were talking about it before the break. A lot
of companies won't pay out that pension, especially for New
York State employees. Right, if you don't make it to
your pension, then they're going to pay out a certain
death benefit, which is typically a multiple salary. So we'll
talk about doing some sort of term life insurance, you know,
even if it's a short term and maybe you have

(01:17:51):
five years still retirement. We'll do a ten year policy
and then we can always cancel it or we just
hold it for the ten years because it's going to
be you cheapest form of insurance and it'll protect that
that that pension.

Speaker 3 (01:18:05):
Right, So well, that's yeah, protecting that pension is huge.
And I don't think people really realize how beneficial a
pension really is from a benefit standpoint, because you just
see it as like your monthly amount you know, you've
got you know, for example, if you have five thousand
dollars a month coming in in your pension, and so

(01:18:28):
that's sixty thousand dollars a year. If in all of
our projections, you know, whether it's e money, uh, and
we're planning out retirement, it's always on like a thirty
year timeframe, so we're always projecting out till age, you know,
ninety or ninety five. So if that's the case and
you retire at sixty, well, let's say you make it
to seventy five, So we'll knock that down that life

(01:18:50):
expectancy in half. So modestly, if you make it to
just life expectancy, you know, seventy five around that age,
that's a nine hundred thousand dollars benefit of that you
would have collected from this pension. So if you don't,
if you don't protect it, then you're missing out on
all those years that you would have collected, or your
spouse is missing out on that income over that timeframe.

(01:19:13):
So what we do is say, uh, get to retirement
one point eight million, one point eight sixty five thousand
a month, five thousand month is sixty grand a year?
Well no, yeah, fifteen we're saying, like, modestly, oh, fifteen years,
fifteen years if you if you make it to seventy five,
thirty years, would be one point eight million. Yeah, for

(01:19:33):
the whole to ninety. But we'll say, hey, if you
make it fifteen years, you know that's you'll most likely
make it fifteen years, just based on life expectancy.

Speaker 2 (01:19:42):
It's a cool way to look at it. I always
look at it at a different angle, and I'll look
at the percentage needed to replace the income. MM. So
if you're looking at it like that, then you'd buy
a nine hundred thousand dollars life insurance policy. Is that
what you're saying? Yeah, well, something along those lines. So
it's like bridge at least bridge somewhere around here. Like
if you're going to life expectancy and we're saying like

(01:20:04):
your spouse is going to miss out on you know,
a nine hundred thousand if you've retire at sixty, there's
nine hundred thousand dollars that you would have collected from
this pension that is evaporated gone. You didn't get to
collect it because you predeceased and chose a single life
and chose the.

Speaker 3 (01:20:19):
Single life option to maximize your your monthly payout. So
if that is your option and you do want to
maximize that single life payout, at least get some term
coverage because it's going to be around you know, maybe
one hundred dollars a month, you know, for something to
cover seven eight nine hundred thousand dollars if you're healthy

(01:20:39):
in a non smoker.

Speaker 2 (01:20:41):
Yeah, I was. I mean as far as the pension
numbers though, going back to that, how the percentage wise, right,
if you're looking at sixty thousand dollars a year at
a four percent, So if you look at modern portfolio theory,
you'd be at one point five million that you would
need in death benefit coverage from that term, see right,
So one point five million dollar payout at four percent

(01:21:05):
would give you five thousand dollars a month, right, so
to replace that pension, you know, and theoretically you should
maintain that one point five million unless you take more distributions.
So so yeah, I mean I would be more in
the camp. We typically are closer probably to the five
or six percent withdrawal rate from a lot of our clients.
You know, we want them to spend their money while
they're young. You know, I tell people all the time,

(01:21:27):
I see too many old people with too much money.
You know, they're eighty five, ninety ninety five, one hundred
years old and they've got over a million bucks still,
you know, start spending it now. And I say that
all the time, start taking money. Learned it from your father.
He's a huge advocate of telling people to spend their money.

(01:21:48):
Bend down that ira and it's so true. You know,
you never know it's coming around the corner. We see
it in this business all the time. People dying prematurely
had a lot of clients pass away over the last
few years, you know, and a lot of great clients.
So right, but again, you want to protect your loved ones.

(01:22:09):
I love you planning right, make sure that something were
to happen to you. You know, they're gonna lose one
of the two social securities, so there's an income source gone.
Don't allow them to lose two, right, and your pension
being one of those. So just went over some pension
projections last night or yesterday with a client. You know,
he's gonna be retiring from the state and he's got

(01:22:30):
some pop up options available to him and we're looking
at the seventy five percent pop up for him. The
spouse has a pension as well, right, so she elected
a pop up option on hers, and you know, they're
both covering each other in case something should happen. So
and they're gonna be in great shape.

Speaker 3 (01:22:46):
Yeah, And that's the thing, like you're really you, you
don't have to get Once you get that first pension check,
you can say see you later to your term life
insurance if you really wanted to, Like it's just to
bridge you to that point to take that first distribution
so that in the event that you do predecease that
first distribution. You're getting some benefit out of it because

(01:23:08):
a lot of people are very under insured through their works.
Whatever their work is given them. You know, it's usually
one times or two times your salary. So if you're
making one hundred thousand dollars a year, you have two
hundred thousand dollars in life insurance coverage through work where
you're forfeiting. If they just made it to life expectancy,

(01:23:28):
you know, close to a million dollar benefit.

Speaker 2 (01:23:31):
I think the term policies are huge, Like you were saying, right,
to get you to your pension, but also get convertible term. Yeah, right,
so that at the end of that term you have
the option to convert to whole life at that point
if you need it. Right, So you're able to convert
your term to whole without going through a new examination. Right,

(01:23:51):
So if health factors change or your health status changes, right,
and you get diagnosed, you can still convert that to
whole life, and hey, now you have some life insurance
it's tax free that you wouldn't have qualified for if
you were to go and apply for permanent life insurance

(01:24:11):
after the course of your term policy being up. So
convertible term is another option for people out there that
you want to maintain their health status or the health
qualification for the life insurance. So that's something else to
think about too. So we cover a lot. We're talking
a lot today. What else it is a talk show.

(01:24:33):
We were talking about money market accounts earlier in the show,
those in the first hour. So yes, if people are
just tuning in now, you know, money market rates are
starting to come down once you be aware of that.
Federal Reserve is meeting this week, so I think that's
going to be huge. They do end up cutting rates
again another twenty five basis points, we're gonna be looking
at a three five to three seven five. Is that

(01:24:56):
the spread that they're going to Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:25:01):
They're looking to get down. I think the numbers were
three point twenty five to three and a half within
looking ahead into twenty twenty six. If that's the case,
we're going to see these you know, twenty five basis point.
I think they're going to ease down into this because
they keep saying that this inflation, this sticky inflation is

(01:25:24):
what they keep referring it to it as. But the
goal is to get that down to around two percent
on the inflation side. So if that's the case, if
they keep cutting these rates down to three point two
five to three and a half percent, you know, bonds
are gonna look you know, appealing. The bonds still look appealing.
You know, we've been preaching bonds for two years on

(01:25:44):
this show. Now the uh but that's just because you know,
rates have got hiked so much in twenty twenty two
that bonds are paying and they're still paying. So stepping
out of cash from that money market that's going to
consistently go down in the yield. You know, it's no
longer five percent to sit in cash, it's now three

(01:26:05):
point five to four percent. So starting to shift some
of those assets into these you know, bond funds or
ETFs that look appealing.

Speaker 2 (01:26:14):
High dividend stocks or high dividend kicking ETFs, mutual funds,
depending on your tax qualification, the type of account you have,
whether or not municipal bonds makes sense right now, Yeah,
I'm looking at it's about eighty seven percent probability rate

(01:26:35):
of a twenty five basis point cut, So the fed's
target range would move to three and a half to
three seven five. But like you were, saying that could
potentially that could keep going lower. Yeah, targeting a lot
lower than that too. So we'll see, and I know
I think Powell's term is up in the spring next year,
so we'll see who the new chairman of the Federal
Reserve is at that point. But again, rates are coming down.

(01:26:59):
If you have money market funds that are sitting there
and starting to see less and less come in as
far as interest, might be time to reposition or look
at something that's yielding a little bit higher. The individual
corporate bonds. Still, I wasn't seeing much benefit in the
individual corporate bonds on through fidelities bond trader. Yeah, you know,

(01:27:19):
I was looking at a lot of them that were
trading below par and you're looking at a three seven
to five yield maybe four four percent yield max on
the individual side. But through the mutual funds, these portfolio
managers have access to a lot more bonds, which right
allow them to create a higher yield. So that's where
we've been really focusing on these corporate bond mutual funds

(01:27:42):
for income and cash flow and covered call writing ETFs.
You know, there's covered call writing strategies out there that
are kicking off ten percent eight percent interest. But again
subject to market fluctuations. You need to be able to
withstand the different market swings. But if you're looking for
income cash flow, that's an opportunity for you.

Speaker 3 (01:27:59):
Yeah, and the munis, I mean high net worth folks,
munis look favorable.

Speaker 2 (01:28:04):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:28:04):
We like valuations on municipal bond funds right now, and
the yields are pretty attractive. You know, if you're in
that higher thirty two percent and up tax brackets, we're
seeing four percent, you know, three and a half to
four percent yields on these municipal bond funds, and your
tax equivalent yield on that is, you know, somewhere around

(01:28:26):
the six to seven range, depending on your your tax brackets.

Speaker 2 (01:28:30):
So we like them. We're it is called lanyards. That
would be called the lanyard. Yes, you need new lanyards. Hey,
you leave my lanyard alone a little bit. We're gonna
be right back. Eight hundred and eight two five fifty
nine forty nine one eight hundred talk WG I throing
our car office five one eight five eight zero one

(01:28:54):
nine one nine.

Speaker 5 (01:28:59):
The biggest mistake in retirement planning waiting too long The
sooner you start, the more options and peace of mind
you'll have. Dave Kopeik and the Retirement Planning Group are
here to help you build a smart plan that grows
with you. Whether you're five years out or just getting serious,
now is the time.

Speaker 6 (01:29:16):
Don't put it off.

Speaker 5 (01:29:17):
Visit rpgretire dot com or call eight eight eight five
eight zero nineteen nineteen to schedule your consultation today.

Speaker 6 (01:29:25):
Start early, retire.

Speaker 7 (01:29:27):
Better your retirement future. Are you dreaming of a comfortable,
financially secure retirement. It's closer than you think. The best
time to start planning was yesterday. The second best time
is now. Even small, consistent contributions make a huge difference
over time thanks to the power of compounding. Don't let
your retirement dreams just remain dreams. Start setting up your
goals today. Take control of your future. Call eighty eight

(01:29:51):
fit eight zero one nine one nine. That's eighty eight
fight eight zero nine one nine for a free consultation.

Speaker 8 (01:29:58):
Allie Dwyer and her three sons lost their hero, Stephen.
Serving our country in the United States Army was Stephen's calling,
and flying helicopters was his passion. Stephen was killed in
a Blackhawk helicopter crash over the Mediterranean Sea. Thanks to
friends like you, Tunnel to Towers provided his family with
a mortgage free home, giving them security and hope in
their darkest hours. Help more families like the Dwiers. Donate

(01:30:21):
eleven dollars a month to Tunnel to Towers at T
two T dot org. That's T the number two T
dot org.

Speaker 7 (01:30:29):
Are you ready for retirement or just hoping it works out?
Don't leave your future to chance. At the Retirement Planning Group,
we hope you create a personalized retirement plan so you
can relax knowing you are prepared. Take action today called
eight eight eight five eight zero one nine one nine.
That's eight eight eight five eight zero one nine one nine.
Or visit us at our website rpgretire dot com to

(01:30:51):
schedule your complementary consultation. Your future will say thank you, Adam.

Speaker 2 (01:31:06):
And we're back. Happy Saturday, Happy December, Happy holidays, be happy,
happy happy. I'm getting excited. You know. I've been listening
to the Christmas station, the Holiday station. We've got a caller. Hello, caller,

(01:31:29):
I'm sorry, I don't have your name. Hello, Yes, can
you hear me?

Speaker 10 (01:31:36):
Yes?

Speaker 11 (01:31:37):
How are you sir, they're good, they're good.

Speaker 2 (01:31:41):
And what's your name? I'm sorry, my.

Speaker 10 (01:31:44):
Name is Dad. I have a quick question.

Speaker 11 (01:31:47):
Back when gold was forty or twenty four hundred dollars
an ounce, I put my whole IRA in it, and
I'm just one right now, what I should do is
the next step because it's doubled in value.

Speaker 3 (01:32:06):
I'm gonna say, you look like a genius with the
way gold is skyrocketed in the last couple of years.

Speaker 2 (01:32:15):
He's forty two hundred ounced now right, Yes, yeah, you're
doing good. It's in your IRA, right, it's going forward.
Uh do you have other assets? Is that your only asset?

Speaker 11 (01:32:32):
I have a small bokrage account, but I'm looking at,
of course, the required minimum distributions, even in the gold IRA,
I have to take them, and I I'm at a
losses to where to put it.

Speaker 2 (01:32:45):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, so the required minimums you do
have to take off the account. So if you have
all that money invested in gold within your IRA, they're
going to make yourself some of that gold anyways to
take it off the account, right and then transfer to
a non qualified account. But you know, it depends on
what you're looking to do. You know, if you want

(01:33:06):
more risk, do you want less risk? You kind of
like how things are going.

Speaker 10 (01:33:11):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:33:11):
The issue with gold is that there's really not a dividend.
There's not cash flow, there's not interest, So they're going
to force you to take your R and D no
matter where the price of gold is. You know, next
year it might be lower or next year it might
be good, it might be higher. Right, so forced liquidation
causes problems there with with just gold investments. But I can't,

(01:33:33):
I really can't give you a recommendation. You know, unless
we looked at the whole.

Speaker 3 (01:33:39):
I would say you have concentration risk. So if the
majority of your net worth is tied up into this
gold diarray that's all in gold, and it's doubled in
value over the last couple of years, I mean, I
think it's advantageous for you to diversify a little bit.
You know, you can still keep a portion of gold
in there, but I think think diversifying out of that,

(01:34:01):
And now that gold's at an all time high, you'd
rather get out of that and diversify your money a
little bit when you're at all time highs versus getting
some type of correction in gold and having it go
back to say, you know, three thousand an ounce or
thirty five hundred when you could have done it at
this point in time.

Speaker 2 (01:34:17):
Who knows.

Speaker 3 (01:34:17):
Obviously, if gold keeps running the way it has, But
when it's one hundred percent invested in one thing, and
that's you know, a substantial portion of your net worth,
that's always you know, raises hairs on the back of
your neck. As far as oh boy, you know, I'm
gonna you got to check the price of gold every day.
Whereas if you left a portion of it in the gold,
say twenty twenty five percent, you know, whatever allocation you

(01:34:40):
want to keep, because obviously it got you here to
that point in time. But I think it makes all
the sense in the world to diversify out of that.
Add in some other investments into there. You know, maybe
some some bonds, get some income off the account, some
equity exposure, and you know, some value US equities, you know,
something something, just to get you out as so concentrated.

Speaker 2 (01:35:04):
I still hold some right, I mean, Decreasing interest rates
are a good environment for gold. It typically sparks investments
outside of bonds, which people might look towards gold. And
it also stimulates the economy, causes inflation down the line,
which gold tends to perform well during inflationary times. So yeah,

(01:35:26):
I see. I still see gold as a good investment opportunity,
but you know, like Chris was saying, I would also
recommend diversification a little bit at this point.

Speaker 11 (01:35:36):
All right, Well, thank you very much, guys.

Speaker 2 (01:35:38):
Yeah, it was nice talking about you. I hope you
have a wonderful Saturday, my friend. Yeah, bye, yep, bye,
I have a good one. Eight fifty two. We're approaching here.
What do you got you want to summarize or I
want to I think.

Speaker 3 (01:35:54):
A lot of people, I mean, I think the gold
conversation is more popular now than ever, so he's not.
We've heard it a lot as of recently. So yeah,
there's people that have highly appreciated gold or gold mining
positions that are up one hundred percent you know, year
to date or something along those lines where it looks,

(01:36:15):
you know, like an area that's advantageous. But when you
get a run like this in any sector of the market,
it's always you know, getting into it or diversifying out
of it with caution. You know, you can never you know,
the conversation has always win is enough enough? If it
runs up another fifty percent, are you're going to be
satisfied and rebalanced? If it goes up another one hundred percent,

(01:36:36):
are you going to be satisfied and rebalanced and take
your gains? So it's but if it goes down, you
know you're going to be kicking yourself that you didn't
rebalance after lock in those gains and diversify into something
a little more consistent and uh less concentrated. So the gold,
the gold question is something that you know, we get

(01:36:56):
all the time, whether it's people looking to buy into
like a NETF or if they should go and get
physical gold. You know, it's really up to your discretion
on how you want to invest in, you know, the
precious metals market as an alternative investment. We're advocates of
buying the physical gold and silver if you have a

(01:37:16):
space for it. Obviously you got to you know, buy
as safe and make sure it's in a secure location.
But to get exposure in that area, you know, ETFs
obviously are are great as well. So but something like that, Yeah,
the concentration, I would just say you gotta if you're
one hundred percent, you get your IRA, say he's got
half a million bucks sitting in just gold, and you

(01:37:39):
know it's up one hundred percent in the last couple
of years. I think now would be the great time
to diversify out of that. You can even diversify back
to your cost basis if you still.

Speaker 2 (01:37:49):
Wanted to other metals. What silver did this year? Yeah,
silver's up one hundred percent year to date. Yeah, I
think ninety nine one hundred percent. And uh no, you've
clients that have all sorts of precious metals. You're more
of an advocate of physical I think so.

Speaker 3 (01:38:09):
I mean, if it was me personally buying like precious metals,
I would want the physical stuff just because just to
hold it, just to hold it, look at shiny. No,
it's just it's just an there's alternative investment. Yeah, you
get the coins.

Speaker 2 (01:38:23):
You could gold, silver, I raise now, so even with
qualified assets, and they'll still send you the physical asset,
which is kind of crazy to me. It's how they
see if you're taking distributions, technically you're shaving it off.
But again, there's there's options for gold, silver, precious metals,

(01:38:45):
you know, nickel, copper, so uh So, again, if you
if you're someone that wants to look into that. Or
if you have these old accounts with gold silver in it,
now you're at a different stage in your life. You
want a little bit more cash flow coupon, you know,
or or if you just want to hold them, you know,
and start making sure they're structured properly for legacy and
for inheritance and making sure everything's cleaned up. We could

(01:39:07):
take a look and make sure there's proper beneficiary designations
or transfer on deaths on the account, just to avoid probate,
that big ugly word that nobody wants to go through.
And we've designed the states where you know, nothing should
theoretically go through probate. So gold and silver. I don't
have any gold or silver. I've stayed away from the

(01:39:31):
precious metals. But on the AI bandwagon, yeah me too.

Speaker 3 (01:39:35):
I mean, that's the other conversation going into twenty twenty
six is really how how far do these tech companies
and valuations go with AI and how advanced do we
really become? Is just a society and whole I mean jobs,
the job numbers are always something to watch because if

(01:39:57):
we start going more and more into AI in full
force on the labor side, you know, just like at
that Fidelity conference they said eighty five percent of the
job market is safe dot dot dot for now. Yeah,
it's like, oh, that's that's warm and comforting.

Speaker 2 (01:40:15):
You don't know which industries it's going to make its
way into, you can guess, but I can't believe all
the people that went to college for computer sci Computer science.

Speaker 3 (01:40:26):
Was the number one job demographic. That's like fifteen percent
unemployment rate right now taken over by AI is uh yeah.
Computer programmers program themselves out of their job coding all
that stuff, making the AI too good yep, which is crazy.

Speaker 10 (01:40:44):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:40:44):
I always thought that was a great field to get
into because of the rise of technology, and they.

Speaker 3 (01:40:50):
Were making a ton of money. But in that space,
I mean, it's just it's crazy. Now that's completely taken
over by a computer that can code itself, which is
or code other you know, websites and things like that.

Speaker 2 (01:41:02):
But a lot of people in cybersecurity too, those are
good jobs still, yeah, cybersecurity. But you know, AI is
making its way through the workforce and we'll see. You know,
I've got people with the children who gone to school
for accounting and they're kind of nervous you're seeing TurboTax
H and r Block all these tax planning software companies

(01:41:25):
that are kind of taking over on the accounting side,
so you're really not seeing a lot of people go
to actual accountants.

Speaker 3 (01:41:33):
Interesting story quick. When I was in Florida when we
just went down for a wedding, the Uber driver we
had to go to the hotel he was. We were
just going back and forth having a conversation and he
was foreign. So I asked him like, hey, where are
you from? And he's from Germany. So what he had

(01:41:56):
he was working at a nuclear power plant over there,
and he actually got hired by the US government to
come here and do cybersecurity. And I'm like, man, doing cybersecurity,
that's a pretty good gig. Why why you're drive an Uber?
And he's like, well, with the government shutdown because this
is that was still going on. He's like word, word,
you know, we're out. I don't have a job right

(01:42:17):
now because of this shutdown and they're not pro rating
us for all the time we missed. So here's this guy.
He had to pick up a job at Uber to
make ends, make ends meet.

Speaker 2 (01:42:28):
Yeah, yeah, just uh, crazy world out there, folks. So
if you want to sit down and have a chat
with us. Our number is eight eight eight five eight
zero one nine nine. That's the toll free or reach
out on the web www dot rpg retire dot com. Everyone,

(01:42:49):
thanks for listening, have a great week.

Speaker 3 (01:42:55):
The information or services discussed on this show was for
informational purposes only and not intended to be personal financial advice.
The investments and services offered by US may not be
suitable for all investors.

Speaker 2 (01:43:06):
If you have any doubts as to the merits of
an investment, you should seek advice from an independent financial
apt