Retirement Planning Show

January 3rd, 2026.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Andy Rob.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
The opinions, viewpoints, and promises made during the following program
are not those of wgy it's staff, management or parent company. iHeartMedia.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
All Right, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning. Up.
What everybody's up and at it? Don't go to sleep
too long because you wake up. I'll tell you what
a lot of stuff going on in this world, folks.

(00:36):
So if you're laying in bed and you just hit
the alarm and you have no idea what's going on.
US forces struck Venezuela last night in Maduro. That wonderful
guy is in custody. I guess they went in there,
locked and loaded, got him and his wife, put him

(00:57):
in a chopper and away he went. And looks like
he's going to stand trial here in the US on
criminal charges. Unbelievable the world that we live in today,
That's all I can say. Unbelievable. So it's like eleven
o'clock this morning is the news conference President Trump. We'll

(01:22):
give an update about what's going on. The woman I
believe that has been duly elected will probably be put
in to the presidency now she's been outside the country,
I believe. Uh So we'll see we'll see how this unravels.
But it's a very wealthy country. They have all sorts

(01:47):
of minerals and reserves, oil, agriculture. So hopefully this will
be resolved, democracy will ring out again, and bottom line,
we'll see a country that will flourish for all, not
for a few. That's my prediction. But I can't believe

(02:13):
that we're in twenty and twenty six, and when you
say the time flies, I think that's kind of an understatement.
So today what I'd like to do is to go
over a little bit of twenty and twenty five changes
that are going to be made in our tax code

(02:37):
effect of January first, and then of course we'll talk
a little bit about the markets and where we see
some opportunities right now for twenty twenty six. But as always,
if you want to participate, you can call the office
for the Studio talk WGI once five fifty nine, forty nine.

(03:07):
I'm still battling this cold, and I apologize, so but
the bottom mine gets down to is that you know,
I got my lozengers, I've got my tea and honey,
so I should be okay. But let's go over twenty
and twenty five because it was really kind of like
any other in a lot of ways. You know, there
was a lot of anxiety, of course, remember in the

(03:28):
beginning of the year. But we have big gains for stocks.
You know, some stocks have skyrocketed in the year two
thousand and twenty five. A look right in your own backyard,
ge and ge Verona, and let's see what they did
for the year two twenty five. The S and P

(03:49):
five hundred touch nearly seven thousand dows or passed forty
eight thousand goal top forty five hundred dollars an ounce,
and coin got his highs over one hundred and twenty thousand.
Right now, it's settled in think this morning, I looked
at it's about eighty nine thousand bitcoin. I'm not a

(04:11):
bitcoin guy, and I think the volatility that's in it
is really not suitable for our type of investor. But
the bottom line is is that I've heard a lot
of presentations recently, one in particular from my son, my
son David, who lives in Florida, in Tampa, it's big

(04:32):
time in the crypto. But bottom line gets down to
is that, you know, we'll see how that whole thing
shakes out. But I heard Donald Trump's son Eric give
a presentation on cryptocurrency. It was pretty powerful, folks, there
really was. And you get a chance. I think that's

(04:53):
on the internet. You can watch it. And that's the
other thing I'm flover gusted by today, the amount of
data an information that's at the top top of your
mouse here, just click it and you can listen to
all sorts of presentations. So you know, the bottom line
is that in twenty twenty five, energy costs, of course

(05:15):
fell throughout the year. We were well over eighty dollars
a barrel, and right now we're below fifty six dollars
a barrel, which is unbelievable. All you have to do
is look at the pump. All you have to do
is look at the pump and you can see what's happening.
What that ultimately means you as the consumer, You're gonna

(05:37):
have more money in your pocket. I know, my own
personal car used to take me about eighty dollars to
fill the damn thing up when I filled it up.
Now it's somewhere in the sixty dollars range. So that's
a twenty dollars savings. And I do it probably two
or three times a week depending on where I am
and where I'm headed for So you know, sixty times

(05:58):
fifty two weeks, that's over three thousand dollars a year
in my pocket. It adds up. You know, that's just
one particular thing. So energy was a positive back at
rates for the second consecutive year, across the borrowing came down.
Interest rates decline from multi year highs, and I think

(06:21):
you're going to see that continue. Why is that poules
out and Trump's a new man at the helm, whoever
that may be, in my opinion, is going to have
a pretty strong agenda as far as declining interest rates.
I mean, that's really been the sentiment with the Trump
administration and a lot of the people that work underneath it.

(06:43):
And I'm assuming that it's rates fall. You're going to
start seeing inflation stabilized. I think inflation has stabilized for
a lot of individuals. The problem is is that once
things go up, it's hard for them to go down, right,
But prices are going down for goods and services. You know,
you can look at their chart. I'm not going to
go over eggs and butter milk and all that stuff,

(07:06):
but you can see it happening. You know, I'm the
shopper sometimes in my house, and you know, I go
to price chopper. When I'm in Florida, I go to
Public's and you get pretty in tune with pricing. And

(07:28):
I've noticed it myself when I go in and buy
stuff now that things are going down. So that's good.
You know, when you're going to the supermarket and trying
to provide food for your family, the more bang for
your buck is going to be powerful. And then, of course,
you know this whole thing with AI that we've been

(07:48):
talking about for the last few months, and you know,
corporate profits hid record highs and largely due to spending
on an AI build out. And I think these factors
that took effect in twenty and twenty five are going
to basically put us in a much stronger position in

(08:12):
twenty and twenty six. AI is here to stay. Where
it takes this, I can't tell you, but I know
what I've seen in our business, the financial services business.
It's having a dramatic, when I say dramatic, unprecedented impact
on our financial services industry. So there's euphoria. I think

(08:33):
most people are going to be happy with the net
result that they had in twenty and twenty five in
their portfolios. You know, tariffs didn't materialize into I think
what a lot of people expected. That dominated the headlines
for a lot of twenty and twenty five. It has subsided.

(08:57):
But bottom line is is is that the mothership Fidelity
Research real vehicles that sixty percent of GDP growth is
being driven by AI buildout. Fidelity Research Research reveal is
that roughly sixty percent of GDP growth is being driven

(09:19):
by AI build out. Un believable in the least. So
we're going to take our first break when we came back,
talk a little bit about twenty twenty five, and then
we'll look forward to twenty twenty six.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
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Speaker 4 (10:11):
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Speaker 1 (10:13):
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(10:33):
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(10:54):
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Call the Retirement Planning Group for a complementary retirement planning
consultation and make twenty twenty six the year your retirement
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(11:16):
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(11:38):
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All right, we are back. I'm deg copec to your host.

(12:01):
Think about that, folks, the last statement. But Lity research
reveals that roughly sixty percent of GDP growth sixty is
being driven by AI build out, and it's just it's
mind blown. And we're at the tip of the iceberg, folks,

(12:25):
the tip of the icebergs. So we'll see you know
what happens. But the sectors that did really well. If
you like to buy ETF sector ETFs, you're happy if
you were in communications services of thirty three percent. Technology
was up twenty four and a half percent. Industrials are

(12:49):
up about nineteen percent, Financials fourteen, utilities thirteen and a half.
Healthcare got a little bit of a run here of
thirteen basic materials nine and a half percent. Consumer discretionary
six point two, energy, five and a half, consumer staples
one point nine, real estate sixty basis points. And as

(13:12):
I said, the S and P five hundred was up
seventeen almost seventeen and a half percent for the year.
So what I like, I like to see participation, right,
market breath is broadening, right, it's not just the mag seven.

(13:34):
So after a long period where mid caps, small caps,
you know, underperform, it's nice to see that they're starting
to get a little bit of a run here. So
you know, twoenty and twenty six, as you know, if
you have listened to the show, this is our twenty
sixth year, twenty six I've been doing it now, believe

(13:56):
it or not, folks, In February it will be forty
three years. I'm not a big believer. I'm trying to
predict the future because I've seen too many horrific events
in my lifetime. In forty three years, in what we
call black swan events. You know, I don't even like

(14:17):
talking about them because they give me, you know, anxiety.
And you know, the thing is is that will we
get a four peat? You know, we've had three years
in a row of positive returns. You know, last year's
winners could not you know, maybe they have the momentum.

(14:39):
What's the rotation going to be to other parts of
the market. You know, I, personally, my my when I
look at opportunities, I always look at opportunities that you know,
have been beaten up, kicked in the teeth, and that's
usually the time that I like to go in and

(14:59):
buy those types of assets because I, you know, my
belly tells me that the only thing that's going to
happen is it can only go up. It can't get
any worse than it is now. You know, that's worked
out for me personally in my own investment portfolio. But
that's not necessarily the theme that we have with our

(15:20):
clients because a lot of our clients are looking for
dividends cash flow right So regardless, US stocks are trading
near record pise right now, and there's reasons to think
that stocks can still you know, sustain this momentum into

(15:41):
twenty and twenty six. I think they can because of
that number that I just said to you, sixty percent
of the GDP growth has been driven by AI, right, So, yes,
there's some negativity out there, some summer sentiment. My personal

(16:03):
feeling on that the checks are gone. Folks, you know,
the free ride's over with. It's time to go to work.
When you have people sit with you and tell you
that it's better for them to stay home then go
to work because they make more money doing nothing than

(16:26):
motivating themselves and having some kind of self worth, it
tells me that we've got a problem in Dodge. You know,
there's also some labor market shortages out there right. AI
will eliminate jobs, but it's not going to eliminate jobs.

(16:47):
You know. I always tell the young people today, nieces
and nephews, you know, there's gonna be a ton of
opportunity out there in the labor market. Plumbers, electricians, carpenters.
They're begging for people. You know, we do a lot
of work with National Grid. They're always looking for people

(17:09):
at National Grid. That's a good paying job. So bottom
line is this twenty twenty five may have leave the
groundwork for in my opinion. This is my opinion. Now
this is nobody else's for a very positive twenty twenty six.

(17:31):
It was unusual year in many circumstances. You know what
I said, the tariff head headwinds, the FED and every
time the FED meets, everybody has anxiety. But you know
by market interest rates are going down. There's going to
be a change at the FED. And I think we're

(17:54):
going to see a resilient market. That's my prediction. I
think you're going to see a resilient market. So every
year brings new opportunities and challenges. Twenty twenty five was
a year of significant change and uncertainty. Whatever twenty and
twenty six brings, And now's a good time to sit
down with your team and reevaluate your strategy to make

(18:17):
sure it's lined up short term, medium, long term, investing
in what you're trying to achieve with your own personal finances.
You know, we're not big believers in the cookie cutter approach.

(18:38):
I would say that probably ninety nine percent of the
people that come into the retirement planning group different models
or asset allocations as far as how we manage their
assets for the retirement years. Why do I say that,
because every family is different as far as their needs,

(18:58):
pension benefits, healthcare costs. That's something that we're going to
talk a little bit in the second hour today. How
do you deal with this health healthcare? I saw a
thing the other day in Barons where they said healthcare
cost in twenty twenty six could go up forty percent.

(19:23):
I know that doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy,
and I know it doesn't make you feel warm and fuzzy.
But bottom line gets down to somewhere down the road here,
we're going to have to try to figure out how
the average guy Joe sixpack, hard working savers who we
work with a lot of can live comfortably and not

(19:46):
only be able to put money away for the retirement,
but also to have adequate healthcare coverage. And I speak
from family experiences here. You shouldn't work fifty sixty hours
a week for a company have health care through them, right,
and then when you go to the doctor, you've got

(20:07):
thousands of dollars of bills simply because the insurance coverage
is you know, you step in it junk. Right. But
that's the world that we live in today. The world
that we live in today is where I talked about.
The people that are not working, that sit at home

(20:28):
play tittaly winks have benefits coming in and they have
health care that's better than the guy that's out there
working fifty sixty hours a week. I don't know, maybe
I'm screwed up, but that doesn't seem right to me.
That seems like the pendulum has gone too far in
the wrong direction. Somewhere the politicians, which I have no

(20:49):
faith in it all anymore, zero, you know, could sit
down and have some type of conversation to make healthcare
affordable for the average working man. You know, my wife
and I just had this conversation the other day. I

(21:11):
look at my taxes, as we're all well aware, right,
we just paid taxes again in January. Doesn't that fun?
I mean, I'm flabbergas that with the amount of taxes
that I pay in the state of New York just
to have the privilege of living there. And I you know,

(21:34):
I hate to say it, but that's I think one
of the excuse me, one of the primary reasons people leave.
You know, if I'm spending X number dollars in New
York and I can come to someplace else and spend
a fraction of that and have a better quality of life,

(21:55):
better weather, and everything else that goes along with it,
why would I day? Well, the reason why most of
us stay is the reason it's called grandkids in family.
But I just think that ultimately, you know, somewhere down
the line, there's going to have to be a discussion

(22:17):
as far as how how someone that's an independent business
man or someone that that's working for XYZ Corporation that
doesn't have a pension benefit but has to make contributions
out of their own pocket for their foreme, ke keep
their fingers crossed that the employer is going to match
in some capacity. And also, what is the benefit for

(22:41):
health care? How much out of pocket do I have
as an individual? I mean, it's crazy, It's crazy. I mean,
I you know, there's state retirees and there's teachers that
are retiring, and I'm not This is not point in
a finger because my wife's a retiree from the school district.

(23:01):
They literally have no out of pocket expenses for health care.
Right if they get a Medicare suff usually the school
district or the state is reimbursing them. Now they'll say, hey, listen,
I earned it, and yeah, you did earn it. You
worked there for all those years, and yes you did
earn it. But on the other side of the coin,

(23:23):
what about all the other people? You know, about all
the other people that are spending thousands and thousands and
thousands of dollars a year in order to basically have
the same type of coverage that you have. Well, most
of them don't because they can't afford to do it.
So I personally think, I personally think that if there's
anything right now, that's the biggest achilles heel for a

(23:46):
lot of retirees, the people that we work with, it's
called healthcare long term care. Those two I'll put them
at the top of the list. Healthcare and not having
a true understanding, well, if I get sick or ill,
what am I going to have to be liable for
out of my pocket? For health care and water care?

(24:08):
Because you can go through all your life savings in
a very short period of time. So all right, doing better?
I think I'll only coft once.

Speaker 5 (24:19):
I think.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
This is Dave Kopek. This is a retirement planning show.
We'll be right back after this quick break. We'll see
on the other side. All right, good morning, good morning,

(24:52):
good morning, Happy New Year. January third, twenty twenty six
seven am. That's a date and time that I want
you to always remember because that's the date and time
that I'm going to wish Ashley great success in her
new job at WTN Ashley. How do you like that?

Speaker 6 (25:15):
Thank you?

Speaker 3 (25:15):
Yeah, I'm pretty excited.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
Yeah, you sound like you're excited. Good for you. Well,
hopefully the wins that you're back in this wonderful world
that we live in. You're going to have a great
future in that area that you went to school and
worked so hard for. So God bless thank you so much,
Dave right well did to say that, because I'll forget.
And today's her last.

Speaker 7 (25:36):
Day, and you know, she's been a pleasure, and we
got Katie coming on board, and I know that she'll
do a great job too. So but you know, what
I want to go over is a couple of things here,
first and foremost, as you get into a new year,
customarily not always come up, you know with new Year's resolutions.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
Right, I'm good at those, you know, I'm good at
doing your's resolutions. My problem is implementing implementation. So here's
a few that I think you should at least consider
for the year two thousand and twenty six. Right, you know,

(26:27):
what's the health of your own personal financial plan? What
is you know, if you looked at right now where
you sit assets that you have accumulated, debt, that you've
accumulated credit card debt, which I think is the greatest

(26:49):
cancer on earth, credit card debt, student loans, et cetera.
You know, how optimistic are you about the future, because
if you sit there and procrastinate, chances are the situation

(27:10):
is going to get much better. I heard my son
the other day. I can't remember if he was talking
to a current or ant or an existing client or
a prospective client, but he was going through e money,

(27:31):
our software package, and he was basically describing where they are,
where they want to be, and what is the percentage,
what's the success rate, what's the chances of success that
they're going to be able to get to their destination?
And I heard the woman when I was walking by,

(27:52):
saying to the husband, this is what I've been looking for.
This is what I've been looking for, you know, a roadmap, right?
And I know that I probably say this too frequently,
but it's one hundred percent true. You know, if you

(28:13):
don't have a plan, you don't have a destination, right,
any destination will do. So to flip the coin and
say I hope that we get to retirement, well let's hope,
but I'd rather implement a plan because your chances of

(28:35):
success are going to be much greater than what you think.
And it has been proven. I say this consistently. Fidelity
says it, Van Guard says it. You know, Schwab says it.
Everybody says it. Working with a team and having a
plan is advantageous to the investor. Problem is a lot
of people don't do it. If they do it, they
wait too long. The other thing is is that there's

(28:58):
still seven trillion dollars of excess cash sitting on the sidelights. Now.
I understand that people have negative feelings about volatility in
the stock in the bond mark, but that's why there

(29:20):
are certain types of investment programs that are out there
that will allow you to participate in the stock market
and have no downside risk. You don't get the full upside.
You get some of the upside, but you have no doubt,
only up I've seen a guy in TV that advertises this.

(29:42):
I can't think of the name of the company. You've
probably seen it too, but they talk about but you know,
with their commercial, you got to have five hundreds them,
which I think is a bunch of nonsense. So the
cash that's sitting on the on the sidelines. Should it

(30:05):
be reallocated based off of your investment time high horizon
in getting a better net return right than what you
were currently getting over the last year or two. You know,
interest rates are down about two percentage points, stocks and bonds,

(30:29):
coupons are going down. Rates are going down. Now's the
time probably to implement some of that cash to reposition it.
The other thing is is that a lot of portfolios
are overly concentrated, sometimes it into any one particular stock.
You know, we had a good client of ours that hey,

(30:52):
I guess he called his sandbox account. Well, it was
over a million dollars in the in the sandbox account,
you know, about forty percent of it was one particular
n vidiot. What he was worried about is that, you know,
how do I get out of this thing? How do
I basically take some of the profit and reposition it?

(31:15):
And we're working on that now with him. So just realize,
is that a well diversified portfolio, whether it's you know, stocks, bonds,
how are you want to do it? Alternative investments? As
you know, I'm not a huge fan of alternative investments
because you hear a lot about the snack crackle and pop,

(31:37):
but you don't hear too much about the bang. And
the bang is is that a lot of these things
are blown up or they're not getting the returns that
they have projected to get and you can't get your
money out. It's not the liquidity that you're looking for.
It's almost like I'm going through the eighties and nineties again,
as far as you know, real estate investment trust. And

(31:59):
then you know, I know that politics plays a role
in everyone's life, and they're already worried about mid terms,
They're already worried about what's going to happen to the
Senate in Congress, and I think, yeah, it matters, right,

(32:22):
But the bottom I gets down to is that despite
all these headlines, you know, you still have to stay
fully invested and don't be afraid when you sit down
with your perspective or your existing financial team to say, hey, listen,
you know it made a good chunk of change here.

(32:46):
Maybe it's time for us to get a little bit
more defensive, right, a little bit more defensive and basically
take some of this these gains that we've made and
put them into some type of product that will allow
us the basic and get a competitive way to return, right,
But I'm not looking to shoot for the moment, And

(33:07):
that's okay. It's okay to say that. Sometimes I think
people are are hesitant to say that. So, you know
you're going for a health checkup, now's the time to
go in to basically get your financial checkup. You know,
blue boil filter, all that nonsense. The same thing in
the financial services to sit down and get a consensus

(33:28):
with your team. Where you're at, did we hit our
target for twenty twenty five? How much money you got working?
Right now? Sit on the sidelines. Interest rates have falling
about one hundred and seventy five basis points were peak
in twenty twenty four, and it's my opinion that they're
going to continue to drop it further this year. Right,

(33:51):
we already know that the FED is looking to cut again. Right,
the Fed's two percent target, that's all you hear, Fed's
two percent target. FEDS two percent target? Right? Excuse me again,
I apologize, but I think they're making meaningful progress. But
I think when whoever gets in the changing of the guard,

(34:12):
it's going to be extremely meaningful. Right. The upshot to
that is that the FED is going to be inclined
to cut more aggressively, right. And the thing is is
that anytime you're getting a cut, meaning bond yields are
going down, getting the coupon, but you're also getting capital
appreciation the bonds that are currently out there. And my

(34:35):
personal feeling is is that that's probably going to be
a good investment for individuals in the year twenty twenty six.
And then focus on diversification in twenty twenty six. As
I said, you're starting to see a broadening of the market.
It's just not the Magnificent seven group of companies. You know.

(34:58):
Over the past three years, the NAGS seven has risen
three hundred and twenty five percent, far far, far, far
far up, pacing the eighty percent gain in the broader
SMP five hundred. So what's the breakthroughs? Where should you

(35:21):
allocate money in twenty twenty six? It's based on your
ability to ride the roller coaster. I've said a million
times over and over again that if you can't stand volatility,
if you can't look at your portfolio and it's down fifteen, eighteen,

(35:43):
twenty thirty percent, you're probably in the wrong asset class.
If you're allocated too heavily into stocks, and it wouldn't
surprise me at all. It wouldn't surprise me at all
because we've had the hell of a run the last
three years that we get to sell off. There's a

(36:05):
lot of ways that there's a lot of ways that
the selloff could possibly happen. As I you know, we
talk about you know, black swan events one of them,
what headline can basically send the markets into financial turmoil.
So make sure contact with your team and have a

(36:25):
chat with them in regards to your own personal situation
and focus on the diversification that you currently have in
your portfolio. Okay, we're going to have to take a
break here and when we come back, we'll talk a
little bit more about what you should be doing getting
ready for twenty and twenty six you, I mean questions

(36:47):
or comments. I'm live WI Dave Kopek and this is
the Retirement Planning Show.

Speaker 3 (37:07):
Planning for retirement doesn't have to be overwhelming, especially when
you have the right team by your side. At Retirement
Planning Group, Dave Kopek and his team are here to
help you build a strategy tailored to your goals and 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 RPG retire dot com or call eight

(37:30):
eight eight five eight zero nineteen nineteen Retirement Planning Group.

Speaker 4 (37:34):
Retire with confidence.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
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 poins so you can retire

(37:57):
with confidence, retire smart, live well. Call eight eight eight
five eight zero nine one nine for your complementary consultation.
Future retirees twenty and twenty five is gone, in twenty
and twenty six is here? Are you still thinking about retiring?
Procrastination will hurt you. Every year you wait to implement
your personal retirement plan is expensive. Stop putting your retirement

(38:19):
future on the back burner. It's time to take action.
Call the Retirement Planning Group for a complementary retirement planning
consultation and make twenty and twenty six the year your
retirement dreams became a reality. Call eighty eight eight five
eight zero nine one nine and take action today. Attention
future retirees, A financial threat is putting your retirement at risk.

(38:42):
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 to find
out your options. Call eight eight five eight zero one
nine eighty eight five eat zero one nine nine for

(39:04):
a complimentary concert. All right, it was a quick break
scrolling through the news here. Cno lost a game at Iona.
It's kind of surprising to me. I thought they would

(39:26):
definitely take that game. But they've got a good team.
They probably just need a little a little more jelling.
Kicks will for guys that haven't played together to kind
of gel. That's the word that I'm looking for.

Speaker 6 (39:44):
Jill.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
Now, for a lot of you, you don't know. Maybe
some of you do know because you've been listening to
the radio for a long time. I played high school
in college basketballall but I coached for a long time
a basketball and you know, I loved it. I loved
the kids. And you know, a horrible, horrible tragedy happened

(40:11):
this year with one of my players who ended up
getting shot and killed and in Saratoga, And uh, it's
just a it's a sad, sad, sad, sad story. There's
no winners, no losers. It's just a just a horrible,
horrible story that has stayed with me for ever since

(40:39):
it happened. It will probably stay with me for the
rest of my life. But I just had dinner with
my daughter and her boyfriend last night, and my wife
and I were having a conversation and Michaelis said to me,

(41:01):
my roommate's brother is dead. And I said what, And
she goes, yeah, he's dead, And I said, what happened?
And he went out New Year's Eve in Atlanta. And
this is a kid that was smart, it was artistic,

(41:22):
he was well spoken and stuff and got jumped, got robbed.
They beat the hell out of him and beat him
so bad that he ended up having a brain bleed
and he died January. January first, he died, and it

(41:43):
brought back the memory of Michael who played for me,
and I just you know, I always say to my
kids and I always say to people. Dan Buchhard, who
was my partner for years, always said to me, you
gotta have balance in your life. You know, you're working

(42:07):
six seven days a week. You got to take a
deep breath. You've got to smell the roses. You got
to go out and do things. Because one doctor's visit,
one phone call your life forever. And the reason why
I'm bringing this up today, in January of twenty twenty six,

(42:31):
all of us, every single person that's listening to this
broadcast right now, has had an event like that in
our lives. You know, you say something, you misspeak, one time,
you do something stupid, foolish, You don't reach out to

(42:51):
the people that you love and have conversations because of
stupid stuff, because of you know, just you know, I'm
a big that if you can't talk about it, then
there's really something major, major want. But you know, in
twenty twenty six are our messaging at the Retirement Planning

(43:12):
Group is going to be a little bit more focused
on what we do and how we do it. You'll
never ever ever hear me talk negative about another financial
advisor ever, because I know how hard this business is,

(43:35):
and I know the precautions and all of the data
and information that you have to put into the system
in order to basically have suitable investments for your clients.
So when you hear advertisements that talk about you know

(43:57):
that they act in the best interest of the alliance,
and we always want to make sure that we're doing
the right thing. I can guarantee you and our business
today with suitability and what has required the paperwork that's
required for clients to be allocated properly. There's no doubt

(44:20):
in my mind that if the investment that you've selected
goes through the approval process, you've selected the right investment.
So we're going to try to be a little bit
more direct. We're going to try to be a little
bit more focused on why we think it's important for

(44:44):
you as a future retiree to go out and enjoy
your life and do all the things that you want
to do, because, like I said, like Dan used to
always say, one phone, call, dot visit, one event can
change your life forever. And I have exceptional people at

(45:09):
the Retirement Plenty group, And when I say exceptional. I
mean it from the bottom of my heart. And I
don't sit here and bang the drama and tell you
how wonderful they are every week. But I do want
you to understand is that this is a tough business, folks.
This is a tough business. You know, sometimes you're the

(45:30):
hero and maybe next year you're the zero. Right, But
you also have to be have what I considered to
be realistic expectations of what it is capable of your
financial team. Right, you need to check in with your
financial team and basically have these conversations as far as

(45:51):
what you're trying to do, and allow your personal views.
Let me over emphasize this, allow for you to have
your own personal views about what needs to be done
to dictate your investment strategies for you, not for me,

(46:13):
not for anybody else. So when you hear this crap
about fiduciary responsibilities, excuse me. I agree with that we
do have to act in a fiduciary capacity. But the
thing is is that when you're acting in a fiduciary capacity,

(46:35):
you should be working in a fiduciary capacity with no bias,
no bias at all, zero you should have That's my
personal feeling is that when people select certain types of
investment strategies, it's based off of conversations. And there's tolerance

(47:02):
questionnaire that we have you fill out at the Retirement
Plenty group. So there's my message. Don't overreact to the
noise screaming monkeys, right, stay focused on your own personal

(47:22):
investment strategies and keep their focus on building well portfolio
that's aligned with your financial goals. Right, your financial goals,
and then you'll get to your destination. And as I've

(47:50):
always said, we offer a complementary consultation at any of
the offices that we have in New York, whether it's
by h ring central, face to face, however you want
to do it, but I'll guarantee you one thing, it

(48:14):
just hurt the process. When it's complete, we're going to
be happy that you did. Without a doubt. Okay, without
a doubt. All right, let Dan get on. I know
who this is. Dan. How you doing, buddy?

Speaker 6 (48:35):
Doing well? Happy new Year to you and Julie.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
Just talking about it.

Speaker 6 (48:40):
Yeah, I heard you gotta turn your radio.

Speaker 1 (48:44):
You gotta turn your radio down because I'm getting the Yeah.

Speaker 6 (48:51):
Now, just happy new Year to you and Julie in
the family.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
Yeah, God, bless you, buddy. How you doing good?

Speaker 6 (48:57):
We're doing We're doing well. Thank you?

Speaker 1 (49:00):
Not how come you're not out on the beach with
an umbrella in the book?

Speaker 6 (49:05):
Next month? Next month? My wife doesn't want to go
out for a full three months. So I just going
down February March.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
So really, yeah, I hate to tell I hate to
tell you. I'm in Florida right now.

Speaker 6 (49:19):
Really, what will if you lead?

Speaker 1 (49:21):
I took. I took your advice.

Speaker 6 (49:24):
Balance Yeah, good, good good.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
Good at my at my ripe old age. You know,
I just turned fifty.

Speaker 6 (49:35):
Yeah, I'm hating seventy six this year. So I can
tell you. I just.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
Listen, my best of your bride. We'll get together soon
for dinner. Where are you going?

Speaker 6 (49:46):
I'd appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
Are you? Are you coming down here?

Speaker 6 (49:50):
Yeah, we're headed into outside the Orlando area. I'll see
it in February.

Speaker 1 (49:57):
All right, Okay, God, bless God, bless you and your bride,
the beautiful family.

Speaker 6 (50:03):
Thank you, thank your hip.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
Okay, good God bless them. One of the most honest
guys I've ever met in my life. Right there, Dan Bouchard,
as honest as the day is long, and it was
a prova. When I say it was a privilege to
work with Dan, it's an understanding. It's always new that

(50:29):
when he was given a recommendation, it was based off
of what he felt was the correct thing to do,
and we had a great working relationship for a long time. Well,
God bless Dan and his family, and I'm going to
be back. I'm going to get some more tea and honey.
And when we come back, we're going to talk a

(50:51):
little bit about the changes that are coming in twenty
twenty six as far as taxes, tax rates, deductions for seniors,
some good stuff, some really good stuff. But always if
you have any questions or comments, it's pretty easy. W

(51:11):
g Y. That's one, eight, eight, two, five, fifty nine,
forty nine. And uh, Katie and Ashley, be more of
the happy forward on your question to me, or you
can go live on the air. Okay, And uh, hopefully
my tea is nice and hot, the honey's good, and

(51:34):
I won't to have this tickling throat for the second hour.
All right, God bless We'll be right back after this
quick top of the hour.

Speaker 5 (51:44):
Dudes, h.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
All right, second hour retirement flight the show. I hope
everybody's having a great morning it watch the news, yet
turn it on a little bit of a shock there.
The US went into Venezuela last night and basically UH

(52:32):
picked up a guy president of the country. Him and
his wife are now headed for New York for indictment,
so his life will changed dramatically from a palace to
a prison cell. So yeah, he likes that. You know,

(52:58):
I've been reading quite a bit recently and frinally get
some information data on income producing investments. And you know,
when you really get into the opportunities that are out

(53:24):
there for people to build out income in the retirement years,
it's pretty broad based, much more so than you probably think.
You know, a lot of people think CDEs, treasuries, corporate bonds,

(53:45):
and bond funds, but when you really get into it,
there's a multitude of investments that you can get into,
right and I'm going to go through some of them,
hopefully without coughing. I don't really have congestion as much
as I have a tickle in my throat, and I

(54:07):
can't get rid of the tickle. I think it has
to do with, yeah, diesel drip care. So I know
that I'm going back between honey cloth drops a bunch
of nonsense. But I've had it a little over a
week and when they say that people are wearing masks

(54:28):
and stuff, it's not fun. I'm down to Florida for
a few days and just so listeners know, and then
our clients that are listening during January, thurvery March in April. Now,
my wife and I go back and forth from Upstate
to hear for a lot of reasons. My wife is
retired now. She had hip surgery and she exercises a lot.

(54:53):
She loves to walk, swim, paddle ball, et cetera. And
that's really not something that you could do in the
winter in upstate New York without you know, maybe some discomfort.
So we will spend combination of Upstate and Florida down
in the Booker A town area, which is beautiful, a

(55:16):
lot of friends down here.

Speaker 6 (55:17):
Now.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
So people think dividends stocks for income, Real estate investment
trust right rates. There's a multitude of different types of
real estate investment trust, some with leverage, some with no leverage,

(55:40):
some with tax benefits, some with no tax benefits. Energy
pipelines MLPs? Are you participating in them? Utilities? Right utilities?
If you want the sector for that exlu the ETF

(56:03):
mortgage backed securities, treasuries, junk bonds, high yield bonds. Remember
when I said, Alliance Bernstein has that report. You get
stock market rates and returns, junk bonds with fifty less volatility,
convertible bonds, municipal bonds, cash preferred stocks, just a name,

(56:24):
is you right? There's a whole multitude a way. I
think bonds substitutes what we called yield enhancers are an
attractive feature for people as a hedge in their portfolio.

(56:47):
It allows you to get a little bit more spending money.
We've been doing this for a considerable amount of time
time now with ETFs High Yield portfolio, and we've had
pretty good success with it. It's kind of it's achieved
what we wanted to do, what we call yield enhancers

(57:09):
to the portfolio dividend pain stocks. In twenty twenty five,
we're kind of mediicorps mediocrity, but you still had some
you know, kind of like a bottom like yield in
some of these portfolios, getting somewhere around four to four

(57:33):
and a half percent. And then you know, if you're
not aware of it, there is what we call the
energy pipelines. Pipeline stocks don't have much exposure to oil prices,
but they returned six percent in twenty twenty five. And

(57:55):
it's a portfolio manager that I have a lot of
respond respect for thinks that the pipeline operators could have
a pretty good total return in the year twenty twenty
six while you're holding onto that coupon of around six percent.
So he thinks that there's some capital appreciation that's coming

(58:15):
with that. But what I'm getting to here is that
the more diversified you are, the better off you are.
You know, you can have a multitude of different types
of asset classes as far as income for your portfolio.
In conjunction with what we call the baseline income, the
assets that we want, they're going to be there consistently

(58:40):
good and bad days that we know that we're going
to have X number of dollars coming in on a
monthly basis, no matter what happens to the stock or
the bond market. So I don't particularly like going overseas,
but if you get into a multi acid class portfolio

(59:01):
and fixed income, some of them will go overseas and
be purchasing, you know, emerging markets. It's you know, you
got to you got to rely on the individuals that
have that expertise that can go out and buy international
stocks and bonds. But we have very very minimal exposure

(59:26):
to that, very minimal exposure to that. So if you're
looking for income, if you're striving for income, because now
all that money that you've accumulated in your lifetime, now
you're gonna have to turn it into an income stream. Uh,
there is a multitude of ways that you can do that.

(59:49):
And at the retirement Planning group, what we do is
we have the chat with you to see exactly what
you have in the cookie cupboard, right what investments do
you have, what stocks, what bonds did currently have? What
are you going to have? As far as pension benefits,
if you're fortunate enough to have a pension, do you
have social Security already turned on? We're big believers to

(01:00:14):
delay social Security as long as possible, simply because of
the higher monthly check that you get the longer you wait.
To be honest with you, folks, we're starting to see
individuals that are coming in that are retiring much later,
even though they anticipated to retire much younger. It basically

(01:00:37):
felt that you know, what I'm not going to retire
because I love what I'm doing, or I'm not going
to retire because you know, I really have no idea.
I have no plan right now as far as what
I'm going to do with my life. So that actually
works advantageous for you because the longer you wait, the
higher your benefit will be in Social Security. And you

(01:00:57):
know that's a good thing because we are living longer lives,
healthier lives. All you got to do is look around.
You see all of these events that are out there
for seniors. It's pretty amazing, especially down here in Florida.
But when we come back, we're gonna be talking about
alternative investments and things that you can think about as
far as your income portfolio for twenty twenty six. And

(01:01:21):
we'll be right back after this quick message.

Speaker 3 (01:01:37):
Time flies and retirement will be here before you know it.

Speaker 4 (01:01:40):
Are you ready?

Speaker 3 (01:01:42):
Don't wait until it's too weight 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 rpgretire dot
com to schedule your consultation.

Speaker 4 (01:02:01):
Retirement won't wait. Why should you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
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 for
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. If future

(01:02:27):
favors those that are prepared, call eighty eight five eights
zero one nine to one nine. That's eight eight eight
five eights zero one nine one nine. Future retirees, twenty
and twenty five is gone. In twenty and twenty six
is here. Are you still thinking about retirement? Procrastination will
hurt you. Every year you wait to implement your personal
retirement plan is expensive. Stop putting your retirement future on

(01:02:50):
the back burner. It's time to take action. Call the
retirement Planning Group for a complementary retirement planning consultation and
make twenty and twenty six the year your retirement dreams
became a reality. Call eighty eight five eid zero one
nine one nine and take action today. Retirement is in
a Sunday thing. It's a now thing. Whether you're just

(01:03:11):
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
AID zero one nine one nine. That's eight eight eight

(01:03:31):
five AID zero one nine nine and your future will
thank you. All Right, good morning, good morning, good morning,
getting better. More tea, more tea, more honey, more honey.

(01:03:56):
You know, we've got a lot of people retiring every
day or turning the age of sixty five eleven, and
a lot of them currently two thirds of those individuals
are not financially prepared for retirement. Two thirds, which is

(01:04:17):
a huge amount of people. So when you retire and
you're looking at different ways in order to facilitate income, right,
you've got to look at all the options that are
available to. When I say everything that's available to, I'm

(01:04:43):
talking about everything. As Chris McCarthy, who has joined US,
who has worked in retirement income distribution now for forty
one years, he basically says that there is a seat
for every investment, meaning that there are certain people that

(01:05:05):
will sit in that seat because they want to be
in a position that they're savings the money that they've
accumulated over all these years. They don't want it to
go away before they go away. So we purposefully want

(01:05:29):
to make sure that when you set up your retirement
income distribution plan, you're informed not only of the positives, right,
but also the negatives. So for a lot of us,

(01:05:50):
approximately ninety percent of the population, you're going to have
to rely on Social Security, the money that you've acu
related in your lifetime, and any money that you have
in iras four oh one k's retirement accounts that you've
accumulated in your lifetime because the pensions for a lot

(01:06:12):
of us are going So there's a lot of different strategies.
There's a lot of different ways that you can allocate money.
Some that will give you guarantees that will last a lifetime,
some that will Basically the financial team that you're working

(01:06:33):
with can build pretty much safety and guarantees with the
type of asset classes that you're looking for, such as CDs,
treasury treasuries, high quality corporate bonds, preferreds, et cetera. You
can build them out, but a lot of the information

(01:06:54):
and a lot of the guarantees that we see right
are pretty unbelievable as far as the benefits to you
as the consumer. And what am I talking about. I'm
talking about insurance products that insurance companies have designed over
the last ten to twelve years. I actually have a

(01:07:17):
conference call this week with Chris McCarthy, with a gentleman
that has a lot of expertise in this arena, and
basically his philosophy is is that you spend a lifetime
accumulating your assets, and then you worry about not spending
your assets, meaning that you get stressed out or you

(01:07:38):
see that your money is being depleted not necessarily because
of your actions, but because of what the government does
to you with required minimum distributions. And he has strategies
that he is specifically designed that allows individuals to stay
fully invested right, have income that is designed specifically for

(01:08:02):
your retirement years, but also automatically has a colon across
the living adjustment associating with it. So I'm kind of
looking forward to that because I know what he's talking about.
I just as I haven't seen the program that he's
designed and how it would be specifically used at the
retirement planning group. But there's all sorts of data and

(01:08:24):
there's all sorts of information. There's a website that you
might want to go to, and it's one that a
lot of financial professionals go to, but you can go
to it too as a consumer of financial products. And
it's called the Alliance or Lifetime Income Alliance for Lifetime Income.

(01:08:51):
It will give you a bunch of information, a bunch
of information on how you can approach retirement security. Right.
And this organization works with some of the top retirement
scholars throughout the United States. They bring what I consider

(01:09:16):
to be fresh, independent perspective. There's nothing for them to
gain on this, right. They're basically taking the data and
the information they're providing it to you excuse me, and
the power behind their research can be seen when it
takes very complex financial concepts, it puts it into simplistic,

(01:09:37):
practical language for your retirement. You know. They say sometimes
that a picture is worth a thousand words. Yeah, that's
who I am. I had learning disabilities when I was
a kid growing up. And the thing is is that
it's not a fun trip, you know, where I would

(01:10:01):
see I was better off visual because I could read
a book ten times. And I still remember Mike de Mottbern,
my fifth grade teacher, saying me, Dave, what's you just read?
And I would look at him and he knew and
he actually, I'll never forget this as long as I live.
He called my father. My father came into the classroom

(01:10:25):
when we had a chat, and he basically said, you know,
Dave's got a problem here, and it's reading comprehension. And
it's not that he's not doing the work, Frank, because
my father was tough when he came to school. He
did your work, right. I think my father thought that
I wasn't doing the work. The problem with me is
that I was doing the work, but I wasn't going
through the brain cells. So this website gives you rule

(01:10:51):
time life stories. It gives you a whole bunch of
information about how the eleven thousand to hundred people that
are hitting the age of sixty five are looking at
different ways to have sufficient protected income and not putting

(01:11:12):
them at risk of out living their savings. And believe
it or not, folks, seven out of ten you want that.
So here's the question. That I have for you. The
people that are on the fence that are thinking about retirement,
Will your retirement income last?

Speaker 6 (01:11:37):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:11:40):
Will your retirement income last? Millions and millions of Americans
are going to retire without knowing whether they will have
enough money to cover their expenses. I don't think that's
a warm and fuzzy place to be. But when we

(01:12:01):
talk about baseline income at the Retirement Plenty Group, we're
talking about it because we want you to stay on
track with your own personal retirement income that will cover
your basic expenses and keep some cash on the sidelines.
That's where we start. That's where we start, and then
we build off of that. We just had a gentleman

(01:12:25):
that just became a client of ours and extremely successful,
multi multi millionaire, and he basically said to me, you know, Dave,
I've been listening to you on radio for a long
time and it's taken me a long time to pick

(01:12:48):
up the telephone. Oh you, but I want to kind
of give you a summary of what my perspective is
as far as what you offer clients. And you tell
me if I'm right or wrong. And he says, you're
you're more involved in the safety and the holistic approach

(01:13:14):
rather than just managing assets. And I said, yep, you're right.
But he said, also, you're a big believer that the team,
meaning my team, my wife, my kids, and everybody else
should be involved in this process. And I said yep.

(01:13:35):
And then he goes on to say, is that you know,
my wife has been trying to push me to do
this quite some time, and I'm at the point in
my life where I no longer want the roller coaster
that you talk about. That we've made our money now
we basically want to make sure that it's adequate enough
in order to have a legacy for our kids and

(01:13:57):
our grandkids, and also to make sure that my wife
is protected. He says, is that is that correct? I said,
by George, you got it. That's what we do. It's

(01:14:18):
no more complicated than that. That's what we do. We
try to build out a plan that everybody's on the
same page. We want to have more than adequate amounts
of money for wealth replacement for a surviving spouse. But
you need to understand is that leading too much money
to a surviving spouse can be complicated. You know, all

(01:14:46):
the advertisement in the financial services industry, a lot of
it right now is about the greatest wealth transfer in
the history of mankind. And they're focusing on the female
in the household because we typically go first the wife
inherits all the money. And we're talking about trillions of

(01:15:07):
dollars trillions, and I think it's like two thousand and
thirty five about sixty percent over sixty percent of the
wealth is going to be controlled by females. So if
that is the case, and there's that kind of a

(01:15:27):
wealth transfer, doesn't it make sense to motivate that everybody's
on the same page and everybody understands exactly what needs
to get done in order to facilitate not only what's
necessary for quality of life, but also what's necessary for
wealth transfer to the next generation. Only makes sense, It

(01:15:54):
only makes sense. So we are aggressively working with this
gentleman right now, and we're working with his team, and uh,
the bottom I gets down to is that you know,
within a very short period of time, we're going to
be able to achieve what he's looking for. And that's
the key word what I call right confidence. Confidence in

(01:16:16):
his retirement. All Right, we're gonna get back for our
last half hour. Almost I'm almost through this with my
coffee and Jack Garrett eight our last half hour questions

(01:16:49):
or comments w G I and it's one and again
ready to get going. We offer a compliment mentary consultation
face to face over the internet, however you want to
do it. We're doing a lot more on the internet

(01:17:10):
Ring Central. My son mentioned another one that he's using
now Microsoft something. I don't know. I'm not a techie,
but Nico Christopher Jared of course, Jared Jared is a
recent graduate of Santa College and doing a phenomenal job

(01:17:31):
for us. And he's just a great, great, great young man.
But he understands technology. Like anytime I got a problem
with technology, I hold Garrett to the rescue. The dinosaur
has got a problem here. But I'm always amazed by technology, folks.
You know a kid that grew up in Scatty Cook,
New York. You know, I'm just amazed by technology today.

(01:17:57):
And I just wondering where this is gonna go with AI.
We've seen so much in my lifetime. I can't imagine
what our kids and our grandkids are going to see.
You know. I saw a thing on the on the
radio or not on the TV the other day where
robots were dancing with one another. Said to my son, there,
you're all set. You're always going to have a date.

(01:18:20):
No matter what. You can take the robot out for
can't get it, can't get a human, take the robot
out for a dance. Oh god, It's just this world
that we live in today is just unbelievable. But you know, uh,
I'm gonna kind of summarize here because it's a new year,

(01:18:41):
new opportunity and uh, you know, there's three things that
we always focus on at the Retirement Planning Group and uh,
you know, we all know anybody that's got gray hair,
we all know that we're going to get some curve
balls right, not only in life relationships, financial planning. But

(01:19:08):
when you do get a curve ball right, you got
to make sure that you don't get two anxiety about it.
Just realizes that that's just one of the pitches. Right. Eventually,
a big fat one is going to come down the
middle and you're going to be able to hit it
out of the ballpark. But what I'm trying to get

(01:19:29):
to here is that there's not one anyone size that
fits all in our program at the Retirement Planning Group
and now at my age, I'm starting to travel more.
I'm starting to do a few more things in my life,
and I'm always amazed, Like when I do travel and

(01:19:54):
I start to see other individuals that are my age
and Julie's age excited. They are about this new opportunity,
this new new world that we live in, as far
as the travel and all these wonderful things that are
out there. So if you want to travel, you know.
I've got one client that has a garden that it's

(01:20:15):
just so spectacular. That's her life. Her life is her garden.
She's I think she's probably doing her seeds in her
basement right now with her lights, getting ready for the
garden in the spring. So there's no one size that
fits all. At the retirement planning group, not too sure
what the right mix is for you. It depends on

(01:20:37):
too many factors for me to sit here and say
this is the portfolio for you. You know, stocks and bonds
and alternative whatever it may be might not be suitable
for you, might not be suitable for you. There's some
individuals that come into the retirement planning group, but we
do nothing in stocks zero. We build out you know,

(01:20:59):
in come portfolios based off of all the selections that
we have available in the cupboard. But like I said,
what I wanted to talk about in this half hour
is health and long term care, the topic that most
of us don't want to talk about, right, And it's

(01:21:23):
a topic that I find that it's the one that's
probably the most stressful right now for people to be
able to get out the door and go into retirement. Right.
So if you're sixty five and older, right, you've got
Medicare and then you're going to go out and get
a supplement, Medicare supplement. Right, that's great. Now you got

(01:21:47):
one of the pillars taking care of the other one
is is if you get sick or ill, what's your plan?
No one likes to think about it. It's not a
fun conversation. When Dan Bouchard first talked to me about
long term care planning, I used to just chuckle and

(01:22:08):
laugh about it, like, you know, what a waste of money?
Until until he'll tell you this too. Until my in
laws were six and a half years of care by
my wife. Huge commitment today with people living all over

(01:22:31):
the country, you know, three out of my four children
live in Florida. Now, so when you create your plan
first and foremost, of course, you want to do the
basics right. We talked about social security selection, We talked
about pensions, the options that are available to We talked
about if you want to have baseline income, does an

(01:22:53):
annuity make sense for you? Right? The guarantees that you
receive an annuity, as far as the income guarantees. Right,
is my money tied up? Did I lose it? You know,
that's one of the things that you have to look
at when you retire. I use National's grid as an example.

(01:23:15):
If you take their annuity option, right, there's no legacy,
there's no transfer of wealth to the next generation. If
you and your spouse die prematurely, what happens They win,
you don't win. So each plan will either allow you
or not to allow you to buy an annuity through them.

(01:23:38):
We're always in the camp that we think that it's
better off for you to have the annuity purchased through
you in your investment portfolio because it allows a legacy,
a transfer of wealth to the next generation. If that's
important to you. If it's important to you, right, and

(01:24:01):
we all know purchasing power is critical, right, It's important
that you have investments that have growth potential right, and
then I'm not going to go through the list of
different ways that we have growth potential with the safety net.
And then of course you want to have flexibility with
your income over your lifetime. But the big thing, okay,
is understanding what happens when there is an event. You know,

(01:24:28):
Loup Piro after this one life happens. And I try
to listen to it, believe in their nap fluolks every
week because it's an abundance of information as far as
what you need to do to protect your assets from
a long term care event. And I don't profess to

(01:24:54):
be an attorney because I'm not an attorney, but by
listening to that show and being in the business now
for forty three years, I know, not having a plan,
or having an inadequate plan, you're putting your whole life
savings at risk. You're putting your whole life savings at risk.

(01:25:18):
I mean, you go into a nursing home today and
you apply for private coverage, You're going to have sticker shock.
You're gonna have sticker shock of what's going to cost
you for that type of care. We had a woman
just recently that I've mentioned numerous times. Why do I

(01:25:38):
do it because I want you to understand is that
this is the reality of what we're going through. She
needed care at times two individuals, two individuals, twenty four
to seven three sixty five. Her monthly expense was almost
forty thousand dollars per month. So I'm not trying to

(01:26:09):
scare you. I'm not trying to say you know, you
know bad things are going to happen to you. Everyone's
situation is unique and different. There's no one particular plan
that will work for all of you. But what you
need to do is to pinpoint what is right for

(01:26:30):
you and think about what are the trade offs. I
always get high anxiety and I get sweat on my
forehead when people say she'll take care of me, and
then I hear her say he'll take care of me. Right,

(01:26:53):
you know, this is the the trade off for that
word that we hear consistently. Longevity. Longevity has brought us
into a space that we haven't seen previously because we're

(01:27:14):
living in a world today where pills and stands, surgeries
and all sorts of stuff are happening that extend our lives.
I don't know if they're making us better lives. But
no matter where you go today in any community, you
see all sorts of facilities that are specific to aging

(01:27:37):
adults right now. As a kid growing up, you know,
not that long ago, but long enough ago, I hardly
remember any of them. I remember a couple of them
in Troy as a kid that was growing up in
Scatty Cooke, but there wasn't a lot of nursing homes.

(01:27:59):
There wasn't a lot of nurses. So to kind of
highlight on the insurance side of it and long term care, right,
we are major opponents of doing something about it. If
you're not going to do something about it, we're going
to get you to Lu and his team or whoever
you prefer to go to. Right. We want to make
sure that you're setting up regular reviews with your professional teams.

(01:28:22):
And you know, when Lou says to you on the radio,
we offer a complimentary consultation. Come on in and see
if we can help you out. It's a pretty good
idea when to have a chat with him, right, what's
the worst thing that can happen? You shake hands and
you walk out the door, and it's either a success
or it's not a successful. Team Some thanks for you

(01:28:43):
to ponder. We'll be back for our last segment. I'm
gonna eat another.

Speaker 5 (01:28:50):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:28:51):
Maybe I'll have some honey next time, but I'll be
right down.

Speaker 3 (01:28:58):
Retirement might feel far off, or maybe it's just around
the corner. Either way, it's never too early to start planning.
The experienced team at Retirement Planning Group makes the process simple, straightforward.

Speaker 4 (01:29:10):
And all about you. No pressure, just smart advice.

Speaker 3 (01:29:13):
To help you feel confident about what's next, Visit rpgretire
dot com or give them a call at eight eight
eight five eight zero nineteen nineteen to schedule your consultation today.
That's rpgretire dot com. Your future self, well, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:29:28):
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 goals today.

(01:29:49):
Take control of your future. Call eighty eight biteate zero
one nine one nine. That's eighty eight bity zero nine
one nine for a free consultation. Suit your retirees to
and twenty five is gone. In twenty and twenty six
is here. Are you still thinking about retiring? Procrastination will
hurt you. Every year you wait to implement your personal
retirement plan is expensive. Stop putting your retirement future on

(01:30:12):
the back burner. It's time to take action. Call the
Retirement Planning Group for a complementary retirement planning consultation and
make twenty and twenty six the year your retirement dreams
became a reality. Call eight eight eight five eight zero
one nine one nine and take action today. Are you
ready for retirement or just hoping it works out? Don't

(01:30:32):
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
schedule your complementary consultation. Your future will say thank you.

(01:31:05):
All Right, we are back for our last segment and
I'm going to kind of highlight the things that we
talked about tonight for two thousand and twenty six, and
as I think consistently, we offer complementary consultation and if

(01:31:30):
you want to have a chat, always say to you,
whatever is the easiest way for us to have that chat,
we'll be more than happy to do it. But there's
a some core steps that they think you should consider,

(01:31:53):
you know, to take action in twenty and twenty six.
You know, no one has a Chris the Wall what
your retirement lifestyle is going to be and how healthy
you're going to be. But you know, having a budget
tracking your current income, your expenses. For a lot of you,

(01:32:17):
your expenses will stay the same. For others it will
go down. You know a lot of times if you
see people that work in metropolitan areas that have to
go back and forth, the travel expense, the fees, the charges,
et cetera. Right, that's going to go down. The ties,

(01:32:38):
the shoes, the coats, right, other individuals, you're going to
see everything pretty much stay constant. You know, we live
in a world today which I'm always flabbergasted by how
many people are working from home, the flexibility that people

(01:33:00):
have far as how where and when they work. My son,
my oldest son has a friend who's in digital programming.
He can work whenever he wants to work. A lot

(01:33:23):
of times he works at night. He enjoys his day.
He does all the things that he wants to do
down to Tampa. But total flexibility works for a company
and has you know, certain things that need to be achieved,
and he does it on his time as long as
it gets done. He told me they leave him alone. Well,

(01:33:47):
they're worried about is here's your timeline, this is when
we want it, and where he goes. So you know,
there's ten steps that we talk about all the time
to prepare for getting out the door right and first
and foremost is that sit down with the spouse and
define your retirement. Folks, a lot of times you sit

(01:34:10):
across the table and say, hey, how you been, you know,
stranger for a lot of us. We live very busy lives,
you know. But it's I think it's extremely important for
both of you have a realistic set of goals and
to see if they're attainable. What you want, what she wants.

(01:34:32):
Then you got to take stock where you are. We're
all the assets, the bank accounts, the retirement accounts, you know,
are you going to be uh, someone that's going to
be part of this wealth transfer that's happening. It's substantial.
It could really be a life changing event for some people.

(01:34:56):
We have clients that are going to leave millions of
dollars to their kidson. Some of them have had the
conversation with the kids. Some of them have it, and
I'm an advocate that they should have the conversation that
you just shouldn't lay this large amount of money on
the kids. Your health, of course, is important, especially what

(01:35:22):
I just talked about. If you're going to need care
and assistance, where will that be? Is a family member
going to do it? A friend? Do you want to
move into a facility that gives you the ability to
have those types of services provided to you. You know,
we talked about the budget that you have to have

(01:35:44):
in your retirement. You know, what do you have as
far as the cash that's coming in now versus what
you anticipate what's going to come in when you actually
walk out the door. If for a lot of retirees,
deciding when you collect the Social Security I think is
probably right now because so many people that undersaved. The
single most important financial decision without a doubt, without a doubt.

(01:36:11):
So I have found in my personal life that the
gentleman that I speak with at Social Security is phenomenal, phenomenal.
So when is your FRA? When is your full retirement age?
This is sixty six, sixty seven. It depends on your birthday,
you know. As I said, for a lot of our clients,

(01:36:35):
some of them are delaying, waiting until age seventy in
order to maximize the benefit. And for a lot of people,
they get bored. You know, what am I going to
do all day long? Part time work. We have a
lot of clients that still do consulting for the corporations

(01:36:55):
that they work for. They're making more money now than
they were marking the company as a consultant all ten
ninety nine. And there's strategies for that too, as far
as how to shelter some of that for both you
and your wife. So if that's your case, if you

(01:37:16):
want to work, it's also a benefit to that, especially
if you're at the age of seventy three and you
don't want to, you know, have that IRA money turned on.
As far as requirement of distributions, there's ways that you
can tactically roll that money into your own personal form
and K and not be subject to R and D

(01:37:39):
one of the biggest things that we're starting to see.
So there's a lot of individuals that are doing online communication,
not only as far as the retirement, but also as
far as just the camaraderie, cultivating connections that you haven't
had for decades with family and friends, schoolmates. And then

(01:38:02):
of course, you know, as I just said, my wife
is involved in pickle ball walking and you know she
loves the activity, the interaction with friends that we've met
that might be in the future for you as far
as taking some of the time off your hands. But

(01:38:24):
as anything that we've talked about, we already Always be
ready for the unexpected, Always be ready for the unexpected,
because you don't want to be caught off guard. What
do I mean by that? Have a cash account on
the sidelines, some money on the side, right they say

(01:38:48):
six to eight months of whatever your gross expenses are,
have that sitting in a money market account. I agree
with that. The roof that's leaking. Someone has illness. You
got to pay for something such as you know, a
bill for a child, but you got to basically take

(01:39:08):
stock of your protection. What am I talking about when
I started today's conversation about in this hour health insurance
and long term care? Is it adequate? To be honest
with you, folks, most people will relocate out of the

(01:39:29):
state because of the protection that is afforded in other
states where they don't go after the IRA in the house.
And then my magic formula to all of you is
this twenty twenty six is here. Create a plan and

(01:39:53):
make sure you're sticking to the retirement plan. It's difficult
and it takes some work, but it's rewarding. Believe me,
it's rewarding. And don't be afraid to ask questions to
your team that's giving you the advice. Right these days,

(01:40:17):
believe me, a lot of people don't realize that the
millionaire is sitting right next door to you in the house,
right next door. There's been an unbelievable amount of wealth
created over the least last three four or five decades,
So make sure you understand what you've created. If you're
worried about legacy, we do a lot of work in

(01:40:41):
legacy planning. It's one area that we have I think
quite a bit of expertise. So if you want to
come in as I said for your consultation, which is complementary,
and this is also available to our friends dot WKP
and Poughkeepsie that are listening out a week clean basis.
Now call my office at eighty eight five eight zero

(01:41:07):
and start defining your retirement, what you want out of it,
the type of quality of income protection and of course
the legal documents and the legacy that you ultimately want
to pass on to the next generation. So set clear goals,

(01:41:31):
inventorI your assets, project your expenses like I just talked about,
and then go live your life and have lots of
fun and enjoy yourself because it's a short trip. It's
a short trip. And last and leastly here I've got
to say goodbye to my good friend Ashley. I did

(01:41:53):
say to her earlier today that we're going to miss her,
but she's onto a new job. So Katie's going to
be with me now in the future as far as
our engineer and I just wish her much success and
happiness and more than anything else, if the Retirement Planning
Group can be of assistance to you, please be an

(01:42:15):
honor to work with you. Give my office a call
at eighty and eight fighting zero nine one Nine either myself,
Chris McCarthy or my son Christopher, then have a chat
and see how we can help you out. Bey back. Eight.
Enjoy today, Thy God bless all of you, and we'll
see you next week for another retirement planning