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April 12, 2025 51 mins
April 12th, 2025
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Why from the WS Why iHeart Studios. Welcome to the
Retirement Planning Show with your host Dave Kopak from the
Retirement Planning Group. Every week, Dave Kopak and his team
discussed the ways they can help people make informed decisions
about a wide array of retirement planning information that can
support you in developing a more certain financial future for

(00:25):
you and your family. Now it's time for the Retirement
Planning Show.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
On a warm summer's even on a train bathroom, op
met up with the camp We were both too tax sleep,
so we took turns staring at the window at the darkness.
The Borto overtook us and he began to speaking. He said, son,

(00:55):
I've made a life alright, reading people's face. My favorite
what the cards? Kenny Rodgers Chill.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
So if you don't honestly think Kenny and Dolly might
go down in history is one of the best duets.
What do you guys think? But good afternoon, I'm Dave Kopek,
your host. It's good to be here on w s
y R. Well, my qus friends, and uh this is

(01:27):
talk radio, folks, talk, not babbel. So if you've got
questions or comments, you got to have a lot of
questions this week after what we just went through. It's
pretty easy to get a hold of me. Three one
five four two one ninety seven ninety seven. That's three
one five four to two one W S y R.

(01:51):
Bottom line gets down to these are not fun times
when we go through this.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
No, it's not.

Speaker 3 (01:59):
But after doing this now for forty three years, I'll
give you my thoughts. Okay, I'll give you my thoughts.
But again, if you would like to participate, I've got
some notes here from last week. A gentleman that called in.
I want to answer his question that I was unable
to answer last week. But I did a little research,

(02:20):
so I'm gonna basically edgumucate him. But again, our telephone
number is three one five four to two one ninety
seven ninety seven three one five four to two one
ninety seven ninety seven. Anything that I'm talking about today,
we offer a complimentary consultation. All you have to do
is pick up the phone and dial eight eight eight
five eight zero one nine one nine eight eight eight

(02:43):
five eight zero one nine one nine, or check us
out on the web at rpgretire dot com. Again, that's
rpgretire dot com and whether it's plane, train, vote, hitchhike,
whatever it is, we'll get to you. We'll have a chat,
see if we can help you and point you in

(03:04):
the right direction. But I had a gentleman that called
last week that I knew nothing about this investment platform.
And I'm gonna modestly tell you I did a little
research on it, not a lot.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
What I saw was I think.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
It would cause me a little bit of anxiety. And
the gentleman that called in said, did you hear anything
about NERP and U RP?

Speaker 2 (03:32):
And I had never heard of it.

Speaker 3 (03:34):
But it's you know, it's algorithm, and it says here
on the web that if you're looking to grow your
portfolio four to eight percent monthly in crypto four x
and gold stress free. I turned it off almost immediately
because when I hear crypto four x gold has had

(03:59):
a good year four to eight percent monthly stress free,
it's nothing that I want to touch. I can tell
you that much. It's nothing that I want to touch.
So that might not be your choice. You might want
to pursue it. I wish you all the luck in
the world, but I think if I mean if you
look at some of the information on the web as

(04:22):
far as the reviews, you can make your own decision
on what you feel about it. But I wanted to
get back to you about that, because when we say
we're gonna do a little research, we always hold to
our promise to do that research. But here we are.
Holy Week, Palm Sunday tomorrow, Easter Sunday. Next week. I

(04:46):
will be in Florida. I will not be here in
New York. I will probably still do the show live
from my office in Florida. But the bottom line gets
down to is that please, please, please, have a wonderful,
wonderful holiday. Easter is always a special time. I can

(05:07):
see myself as a kid with my mother wrestling me,
getting me in the shower because I wanted to go
out and play baseball and basketball, so I would get
dressed properly for church.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
So if you were a child of.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
The sixties, you know what I'm talking about, because you
didn't go to church unless you had your Sunday best on.
You remember that. So I have a great, great Holy Week.
I know that I'll be spending a lot of time
in church this week. Palm Sunday is tomorrow, and of
course the big day next Sunday is Easter Sunday, which

(05:44):
I'll be down in Florida celebrating with all my children.
Three of my four children live there, taking my son
that works with me and his girlfriend and we're flying
down to enjoy our Easter Sunday. So hopefully you have
a spectation Easter Holy Week. I've been here before, folks,

(06:08):
and it's not fun. You know, anytime you go through
these gyrations in the stock market, you always want to
make sure that you understand exactly what you have done
in regards to allocating your money in your investment portfolio.
And one of the things that I say over and

(06:30):
over and over again that when you go through a
market gyration like this and you feel anxiety and stress
and you're staring at the fan and it's spinning and
you're counting the revolutions, you probably have the wrong allocation

(06:53):
of stocks, bonds, and cash. And the reason why I
bring this up because nine out of ten of us
now have to create our own pension benefits.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
And when I talk about.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
Sequence of returns and I talk about longevity, all of
that can have a dramatic impact if you set up
your plan improperly on the front end.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
What I call the bucket of money approach.

Speaker 3 (07:26):
And when I talk about the bucket of money approach,
the reason why I talk about it is because as
soon as you can start building it, the better off
you're going to be. Because you've heard a say over
and over again, at the age of fifty nine and
a half, you can do an in service distribution with
your four oh one K and start building out your
own personal retirement plan because there's many more hundreds, if

(07:52):
not thousands of investment options that are probably not being
provided through your current employer with their four oh one K,
four three B whatever it may be program. So I'm
in the camp that three to five years, more like
five than three, we start building out the plan. So

(08:12):
by the time you're ready to say see a later, alligator,
I'm out of here. You're in a position where you
know exactly your baseline income.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
You've heard me.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
Talk about it all the time since I started here
at WSYR.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Base line income.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
How much money do I have coming in on a
monthly basis so I can sleep at night and I
don't have to worry about market fluctuations.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
Right, I want to.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
Have certain amount of money that's going to be coming
in the door on my retirement income plan to ensure
my core expenses are covered and I don't have to
worry about am I going to have to go out
and downsize? So we're going to talk about the three
components that I think are critical, and they're also going

(09:04):
to talk a little bit today about a gentleman that
I have a lot of respect for and he's had
a lot of impact on how we solve what I
consider to be the nastiest, hardest problem in retirement. What
is that retirement income distribution? His name is William Sharp,

(09:28):
otherwise known for his experience and expertise on the Capitol
asset pricing model, which captures risk adjusted return. He's a
Nobel Prize winning economist and he spent his whole career
thinking about that four letter word risk. So if you're

(09:51):
in a situation where you feel uncomfortable, you have angst,
and you're worrying about how I'm allocating my assets currently?

Speaker 2 (10:02):
Am I too risky? Do I have enough?

Speaker 3 (10:05):
Is there a chance that there's gonna be another downturn
and I'm gonna be sitting here basically having more beads
of sweat on my forehead and still unable to sleep.
We'll discuss how we address the nastiest, hardest problem in
finance and what you you can do as a consumer
of financial products in order for you to have comfort
and the ability to know that you're gonna be okay,

(10:28):
because in my opinion, my opinion, this is the tip
of the iceberg. When I say the tip of the iceberg,
that means that we're gonna probably see more of this,
not less of this. I'm Dave Kopek, I'm your host.
This is the Retirement Planning Show again. If you'd like
to participate, three one five four to two one ninety

(10:50):
seven ninety seven three one five four to two one WSYR.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
We'll be right back.

Speaker 3 (10:55):
Will you run out of money in retirement? Will your
investments provide income for possibly decades? How do you navigate
the two greatest risk in retirement, sequence of returns in longevity?
At the Retirement Planning Group, our Bucket of Money approach
addresses these concerns, and we offer a complimentary consultation to
discuss this with you. Call our office today for a
free complimentary consultation to develop your own personal retirement income

(11:18):
distribution plan at five eight five eat zero one nine nine.
That's five eight five eats zero one nine.

Speaker 4 (11:27):
Love.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
It's a burning thing.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
And it makes a fiery ring.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
Bound by wild desire. I fell into a ring of fire,
all right, you're back.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
Five fell in a burning ring on the fire. I
went down down my favorite artist, any Cash.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
Good old country boy.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
A lot of people don't know because you haven't listened
to me long enough. Both my parents were farmers, so
I'm very close to the farming community because they still
have relatives, believe it or not, that are in farming.
My one cousin has a thousand acres of land and
he leases out another thousand does prenominantly just crops now

(12:28):
in cattle, beefers. But it's a tough business. It's a
tough business. I have a very soft spot in my heart.
It's a seven day a week job. So people used
to always say to me, Dave, why didn't you keep
on the farm. Why didn't you keep it up? Because
I wanted a life.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
Of a life.

Speaker 3 (12:49):
This is a tough business to financial services, but I
try to keep it simple, simplistic, right, you know, there's
no easy answers building out a retirement income distribution portfolio.
But one of the things that I try to over
emphasize to individuals is why it's important for it to

(13:10):
be your plan, not someone else's. And in the world
that we live in today, there is I think too
many individuals have their agenda and not the agenda of
the individual that they're working for. What do I mean
by that, Well, I don't believe in this kind of
investment because I just don't like it. I don't like

(13:32):
that investment because they just don't like it. Right, that's
a bias. I don't think biases are good because what
you do not like doesn't necessarily mean that the client
doesn't like. And this whole thing in our business now
is fees, fees, fees, fees, fees, fees, fees, fees. What

(13:57):
do I mean by that, Well, you give me your money,
I charge you a fee on an annual basis, and
whether the portfolio goes up or down, I'm still getting
my fee. And that's just the way it is. It's
more transparent, it's more cost effective. If you want to
take your money and run, you can. There's no deferred

(14:18):
sales charge. And that's really pretty much the business that
we're in today the days of what I used to
call the six shooters. When I started in the business
at Pain Weber many many, many many moons ago, it
was no different than if we had a six shooter
on our head.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
You know.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
Our job was to take your money and make it
our money and get it into the brokerage firm to
buy you whatever the.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
Stock of the day, just the way it was. Now.

Speaker 3 (14:47):
The business that we're in, everybody's a team. It's a
wealth management platform. They got a whole bunch of different names.
You know where I have a home in Lake Georgia
and New York. There's a lot of wealth management firm
in Saratoga Springs now which is right down the road,
and they have the Rockefeller Group. They got Aco which
is part of Goldman Sachs. These are all family offices

(15:10):
for high net worth people. Well, in essence, that's what
the Retirement Planning Group is. What we do is for
Middle America, hard working savers. The people that we work with.
Not only do we handle managing your money, but we
also do a state planning. We also do acid protection
and all ultimately the legacy that you wish to leave

(15:31):
your loved ones. But we really focus in on the
one that I'm talking about today, retirement income distribution. And
the reason why we focus in on it is because
ninety percent of us do not have pension benefits. So
we have to take our life savings and we have
to take all that money that we've accumulated in our

(15:52):
lifetime and we have to develop or create a retirement
income plan that's going to last us a lifetime only
for myself, my spouse, and hopefully there's a few bucks
left over for our children. So we all know, especially
after this week, life will throw us curveballs. The curve

(16:20):
ball this week was tariffs. There'll be many more. That's
only the tip of the iceberg. If you get another
twenty or thirty years to live, there's going to be
more events because I've seen them all. Think about it,
since nineteen eighty two when I got into this business.
I've seen them all flash crash, financial bubble, tech bubble, COVID,

(16:46):
whole laundry list. There's black swan events right around the corner.
We just don't know when they're coming. So you have
to prepare your life savings for are this type of curveable.

Speaker 2 (17:04):
Right?

Speaker 3 (17:05):
You're not going to get a heater down the middle
all the time. Maybe change up. There gonna be some curveballs,
and you got to be able to stand in there
right take the pitch. So what I'm saying to you,
my pitch to you is after doing this for forty
three years, I think I got a pretty good idea
how money needs to be allocated in your retirement years.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
Now.

Speaker 3 (17:28):
There's a lot of great people on iHeartRadio. There's a
lot of great people on this station, but I always
say the same thing over and over again. The difference,
I think between the retirement Planning group and some of
our peers is just the way that we make the sauce.
How do we allocate our money and how do we
structure our portfolios compared to the other individuals. You'll never

(17:54):
ever ever here out of my lips anything bad about
other financial advisors. Ever, there's a particular individual that I
listen to on radio, and he doesn't have anything good
to say about insurance. People talks about him in a

(18:14):
negative way as if they're the basically they're lower than low.
And I think it's horrific, and I think it speaks
volumes about him as an individual about his own insecurities,
So we try to educate you and inform you about

(18:35):
the options that are available to never ever, ever, unless
you tell us that you're ready, we never do business
on the first meeting. Our thing is is that we
want you to sit down, understand it, have a chat,
see what we do. Where our back office is the

(18:56):
people that I have. Our back office is in multi
Saratoga Springs, That's where my team works out it. But
we travel all over the country. I have clients in
twenty eight states now. A lot of time, you know,
I'm on an airplane, a train, car, whatever it is,
traveling to see people. But with technology today, with technology today,

(19:19):
you can be sitting on.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
The moon.

Speaker 3 (19:22):
Because of Zoom all of the components that we have
as far as internet capabilities. You know, we clear all
of our business through Fidelity, which I've mentioned numerous times
on the radio here. Fidelity is our hub. Nine out

(19:45):
of ten meetings that I've had with federally over the
last couple of years have been Zoom meetings Ring Central.
We still see one another, We're face to face, and
I think this will even accelerate, especially in the years
to come, because my children's generation wants things done on

(20:07):
their time. But it is a time right now for
a lot of people to start thinking about where are
we under these current market conditions. And I want you
to understand that it's not about market timing. It's about

(20:28):
setting it up properly on the front end during retirement
income distribution versus what you did during your accumulation years.
There's a keyword. There's a keyword, and it's called time. Time.
I have time for the market to recover. But when

(20:49):
you experience a market drop in your earth when to
over emphasize this because I've seen it. I've seen the
tears in people's eyes when you experience a market drop
in your early years of retirement, it can create problems
that go well beyond the immediate hit that you're looking

(21:12):
at your portfolio, potentially to the point where your portfolio
may not last as long as you thought it should,
and that could be catastrophic if you're embarking what could
be a twenty five or thirty year retirement. I was

(21:32):
just in Hudson, New York, the other day seeing some clients.
Two individuals work for IBM in the southern region of
New York State. Wonderful people well into their nineties, you
would think they're in their sixties. There's a little phenomenon

(21:53):
going on right now, and it's called longevity. We're taking
better care of ourselves. We're eating better health health or exercising.
This gentleman's in his nineties and when I pull in
the driveway, he's out cutting trees. So make sure when
you set up your investment portfolio, you're setting it up

(22:16):
with the thought that I'm going to live to age
one hundred. I just saw a thing on TV the
other day. Jamie Diamond was being interviewed by Maria Bartiromo.
I wanted to see that what his perception of what
was going on with the tariffs and everything. He talked
about how dramatic our world will change in the next

(22:39):
few years with AI, and how you're going to start
seeing unbelievable changes to healthcare because of AI, and expect
to live to age one hundred and twenty.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
Those are his words. I've seen this from.

Speaker 3 (22:54):
Other individuals too, So we are going into a news
stage as retirees. That stages is that when you're retiring
at fifty five, sixty five, seventy, you could have three, four,
five decades.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
Of being retired.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
Which sounds insane when you think about it, but that's
the reality I see it. My oldest client has passed
away last year, which I mentioned on the RAIDO one
hundred and two years old. He skied until he was
one hundred up in the Adirondics. So this is my
shot over the bow. When you create your retirement income

(23:42):
distribution plan, first and foremost, First and foremost, make sure
you're covering your day to day expenses, your non negotiable
cost housing, you like to eat right, need some food, utilities, taxes,

(24:08):
and here's the big one health care, and you can
do it.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
It's essential that you do it.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
But the bottom line is that you need to understand
the foundation that you set up in the beginning. The
front end is as important as the allocation. Get the
buckets of money full and understand how you're structuring it
and how much cash you're going to have in the
bucket one when you walk out the door. So point

(24:37):
of entry and sequence of returns is not going to
kick you in the teeth. But I'm going to break
in a couple of seconds here for our news. If
you have any questions today, this is not Babbel Radio. Folks,
I'm babbling. I'm talking too much. We need some questions.
Three one five four two one ninety seven ninety seven.

(24:57):
That's three one five four one. That's three one five
four seven. Any question at all, even if it's off topic.
I want to talk about Syracuse basketball. It's one of
my favorite topics. You're more than happy to do that too.
But I'm Dave Copek, president of the Retirement Planning Group,

(25:18):
and we're gonna be back after this quick message.

Speaker 5 (25:30):
Tumble out of bed and stumbled to the kitchen for
myself a cup of ambition and yawn and stretch and
try to come to line, jump in and shower, and
the blood starts plumping out on the streets, the traffic
starts stopping. The books like me on the job from
nine to five working. That's a good, a.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
Run killer, very competent engineer. It's good to be here.
It's the weekend.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
A holy week starts tomorrow, so have an absolutely fantastic, beautiful, gorgeous.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
Easter weekend. Don't forget go to church. Go to church.

Speaker 3 (26:25):
Makes you feel good, cleanses the soul, cleanses the soul.
I know I always feel better when I go to church,
as they said. I can remember as a kid growing up,
Easter was a big deal. Everybody'd be polished and shined.

(26:46):
My mother had her best on, my sister, my brother,
and I had her suits on, her little bow ties.
The way we would go come home never our selves,
an unbelievable dinner. And that's what we're doing this coming Sunday.

(27:06):
I'll be in Florida for Easter Sunday with my family.
I look forward to it, having a beautiful dinner. And
I hate to say it, I guarantee it won't be
snowing down there.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
So this is tough.

Speaker 3 (27:20):
This is tough when you're in the middle of April
and you got snow flurries and rain and it's overcast
and it's in the forties. So hopefully you're enjoying your weekend.
Let me tell you a little bit about who we are.
We are the Retirement Planning Group. We have five locations
in New York State. All we do is pre and
post retirement planning. I've been doing it for now for

(27:40):
forty three years. This is the beginning of my forty
third year. Anything that we do we do through Fidelity Investments.
As far as the custodian of our assets. Why do
we go through Fidelity because I think they're the best.
I love them, I love what they offer us. We
are not obligated to work through them in any way
soever the custodian our assets. That doesn't mean that we

(28:02):
have to do anything through their distribution channel as far
as their investment. So we use JP Morgan, we use
Golden Sacks, We use a lot of different and but
we do. We do use some of Fidelities because they
have great products. So if you're looking for an independent
registered and investment advisor, that's what we are. We manage
hundreds of millions of dollars of assets. But not only

(28:25):
do we manage money, we also manage through overall wealth
management plan. I think I got one of the greatest
teams on earth because they have two things that I like.
They're smart and they also have great hearts. And if
you've got a good heart, I can put up with
not as much smarts because the heart is the most

(28:47):
important thing. And we take care of our clients. We
are really concerned about your safety. And as we're all
quite well aware of this new world that we live
in today is daunting, to say the least, as far
as the unthinkable is thinkable, and how this whole thing's

(29:12):
gonna shake out in regards to tariff. But as I
started today's show and we talked about sequence of returns,
we talked about managing money during your retirement years. The
bottom line is is the stock market is going through gyrations.
It's frantic, but you shouldn't be. You shouldn't be. Okay,

(29:35):
you shouldn't be frantic. People that have years to go
before you're going to retire, dance in the street because
this is a buy an opportunity. People that are excited
and anxious because this is happening and there in the
retirement years and they're worried about their pot of gold.
You probably have the wrong allocation, folks. You probably have

(29:58):
the wrong allocation. You're set up wrong because when these
things happen and they're not going away, they're not going away.
You shouldn't be knee knocking and beats a sweat and
staring at the fan at night because you're worried about
the money going away. You've got the wrong allocation. So
let's go to Tim. Tim broke the ice today.

Speaker 4 (30:20):
Hey Tim, Hey, how you doing.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
I'm doing fantastic, Good me too.

Speaker 4 (30:27):
Listen, a simple question. Perhaps hypothetically make one hundred thousand
dollars a year dumping money into four oh one K,
you know, as much as I can, as often as
I can. Yeah, So I'm let's just say I'm going
to retire next year. Besides sold security, I plan on

(30:50):
pulling let's say again, ten or fifteen dollars out of.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
A shoot, that's all right, take your time. I just h.

Speaker 4 (31:07):
Yeah, where was I? Yeah, I'm going to pull ten
or fifteen thousand dollars out of the four oh one K.
So at what bracket would I be taxed on that? So,
now let's say I've got an income for the year
of like twenty two to twenty four thousand, Well, you're

(31:28):
not going to be taxed.

Speaker 3 (31:30):
You have it in an IRA, take it out of
an IRA in New York State. In New York State,
you're not gonna have anything twenty thousand dollars or less.
You're not gonna have any state tax liability. But depending
on you know, your right off your deductions, you're gonna
be in a very low bracket federal. So I don't
think you're gonna have any huge tax consequence whatsoever, especially

(31:54):
especially if Trump gets what he's talking about.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
As far as this new tax bracket.

Speaker 3 (32:00):
I don't think you might not You might be in
a situation you're not going to have any federal federal
tax liability.

Speaker 4 (32:05):
We wouldn't that be nice?

Speaker 2 (32:06):
Amen?

Speaker 3 (32:07):
And he's also talking about remember what he said, no
tax on what social Security?

Speaker 2 (32:12):
Right? Right? I mean there's a you know, go ahead.

Speaker 4 (32:16):
That all remains to be seen. I mean he's not
going to be able to sign a uh trying to
note that that he's that's going to have to go
through Congress.

Speaker 3 (32:25):
Scratch, Well, they just passed the legislation went through this
week on the state, on the House and in the Senate.
Now they're they're going to go to committees. But uh,
I you know, if I was a betting man, I'd
say there's a very good chance that Social Security is
not going to be taxed tips. He's talked about tips
and social Security, and I think it might come.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
My good man, I think it might come.

Speaker 4 (32:48):
So being in a high bracket, as I say, and
you're you're I'm in a high in a high bracket
now right, Yeah, I put that month away without it
being taxed. Yeah, and now I'm going to take it out,
and I'm going to be when I retire, I'm going
to take it out and going to be texted much
less than I would have had I not putting it

(33:10):
in correct.

Speaker 3 (33:11):
Chances are yes, okay, yes, But the other part of
it is the other part of is too. Does your
four oh one K program allow you to do a
ROTH contribution?

Speaker 4 (33:23):
It probably does.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
Why aren't you doing some of that?

Speaker 4 (33:28):
Well, he I trying to put I guess what I
would put in that is kind of going in the
mattress for a rainy day fun. Well, you know you've
got to have cash on hand too, my friend.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
I'm not saying listen, I got cash.

Speaker 3 (33:46):
I'm with you, brother, I'm on the I'm rowing in
the same boat that you're in, but the bottom miket.
But the bottom Mike gets down to this is what
I tell people. You know, if you're a year away
from retirement, you better be working with somebody to get
your plan in place, because you're gonna blink your eyes
and the year is gonna come and you're gonna say, oh, geez,
you know I should have done this. You ought to

(34:07):
come in. We offer a complimentary consultation. It's not gonna
hurt you. You might learn a few things, and if
you like what we do, you know, you make a
decision if you want to work with us.

Speaker 4 (34:16):
Yeah, okay, then.

Speaker 3 (34:20):
If I don't talk to you, if I don't talk
to you, have an absolutely fantastic easter.

Speaker 4 (34:25):
God bless I plan in your two ser okay, God.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
Bless Our mantra has always been, if you're in a
four to one K program, you want to have I
can't overemphasize this enough. This is why I like questions,
because my big old brain here, it rattles it and
things come shaken loose that I haven't talked about for

(34:51):
a while. Take the match in the four oh one K,
and then take some in the after tax and Wroth.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
Why is that?

Speaker 3 (35:03):
Because you want to have some tax preference money in
your retirement.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
The beauty of Wroth four oh one K.

Speaker 3 (35:12):
It's just like the regular Wroth, but there's no income limitations.
Whether you make one hundred thousand or one hundred million,
you can still contribute to the Wroth four oh one K.
And when you retire, when you go into that bucket
of money, it's all tax free. Withdrawals your surviving spouse

(35:33):
gets all tax free withdraws, then ultimately your kids get
the money. Yes, it's subject to required minimum distribution, but
if they take it all out, who cares. It's all
tax free. The other thing is that you have to
be aware of is that in you know, Fidelity came
out right now, a healthy sixty five year old couple,

(35:57):
out of pocket expenses for healthcare is estimated to be
three hundred and thirty thousand dollars in your lifetime, and
that does not include long term care. So I spent
a lot of time at Syracuse now work with a
lot of attorneys there. Now I'm meeting a lot of

(36:17):
attorneys because they listen to this show and I've got
clients out there now that they want me to meet
their attorneys.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
And the common thing that I.

Speaker 3 (36:25):
Hear over and over and over again from very competent
elder law attorneys is the cost of care. It's astronomical
for a long term care facility or assistant living, or
try to find a caregiver to come into your home.
That's the biggest achilles seal for most of us.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
The biggest achilles.

Speaker 3 (36:49):
Healed for most of us is that if we get
sick or ill and we need care and assistance.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
Who's doing it? Who's doing it?

Speaker 3 (36:58):
That's a topic to itself, that's a whole show to itself,
because I've seen caregivers that are family members that have
basically been burnt out in a very short period of time.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
But I'll be right back after this quick message.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
The greatest risk in retirement most of us have no
plan for We're insurance to cover the expense. A long
term care event can impoverish a spouse, drain your life savings,
and cost stress and anxiety on your family. What is
your plan and how will you pay for a long
term care event? Call the Retirement Planning Group today. Discuss
options you should consider to protect your estate and have

(37:35):
choices and independence. Take action Call today five eight five
eight zero one nine or RPG retire on the web.

Speaker 6 (37:44):
A long long time ago. I can still remember how
that music used to make me smile, and I knew,
if I had my chance, that I could make those
people dance and maybe they'd be happy for a while.

(38:07):
All right, we're back, But February made me shiver a.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Little bit of music memory laying there. Huh deliver.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
Weird it all the time? Go, I couldn't take Where
did all the time. Go huh, time goes by so quickly.
When your kids start telling you the time goes by quickly,
you know it goes by quickly.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
But that was a good question. Thank you Tim for
calling in.

Speaker 3 (38:33):
If anybody else has a question, three one five four
two one ninety seven ninety seven, don't be bashful.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
We don't bite.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
Hopefully we can edumacate you give me some additional information
or some thoughts, maybe movie in another direction. Three one
five four two one w s y R. That's three
one five four to two one ws y R. There's
never a foolish question. We like questions because I think
it always makes the show a little more interesting for

(39:01):
you the listener.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
I want to get back to that.

Speaker 3 (39:07):
What I was talking about the markets, because you know
they're gyrating. When I say they're gyrating pretty wild. What's
going on? And that causes a lot of anxiousness to
the consumer. And everybody's got their little spiel news, you know,

(39:33):
Monday morning quarterbacks headlines splashed all over TV radio wherever
it may be. But as I said, if the market
is going through these gyrations.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
And it's causing you to have.

Speaker 3 (39:56):
Heartburn, then it's probably not the right mix of investments
for you. It isn't an easy time to be an investor. Right,
This is, i'd say, in the top ten of what
I've seen since I got into the business in nineteen

(40:17):
eighty two.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
Why is that uncertainty? Wall Street does not like uncertainty.

Speaker 3 (40:26):
And when there's uncertainty, people make stupid decisions sometimes, Right,
Like if you got out this past week, right, I
can't do it. You lost one of the greatest upward
moves in the market that we've ever seen. Give a
little bit back the next day, but then on Friday

(40:46):
we had another positive day. Don't try to time the market.

Speaker 2 (40:52):
All right.

Speaker 3 (40:55):
All these people, they got all these asset allocation models,
and they sit there and babble about financial data. Do
you really care about PCEECPI? And you don't care? And
I'll ask my clients. I don't care about that, Dave.
I just want to know that we're okay.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
Okay. That's nine out of ten people that we work with.
They could give a rats you know what about all
of this blah blah blah blah blah.

Speaker 3 (41:23):
I can read that in a paper. I can read
that in a paper. I don't need to listen to
somebody on radio giving me a regurgitation of statistics and data.
What I need is to know I'm okay. How are
the terriffs going to affect me with my retirement income distribution?

Speaker 2 (41:44):
How will it affect my money? How will it affect
my ability to go to the grocery store?

Speaker 3 (41:51):
How is it going to affect the gentleman that just
called in tim my social security benefits?

Speaker 2 (41:56):
Right?

Speaker 3 (41:58):
Wake up, folks, do you really give that much information
any kind of uh, you know, top of a one
to ten to ten that I really need to know, CPI,
I really needed all the PCEE you need.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
To know you're okay.

Speaker 3 (42:16):
Let's go to Kim Hi, Kim Hi.

Speaker 7 (42:19):
Darre, how are you.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
I'm doing fantastic, that great.

Speaker 7 (42:23):
I'm getting ready to head down to Florida to help
my parents. They're both approaching eighty uh and yeah, they
don't have anything proper in place as far as the
will goes. They have some sort of a generic will.
My stepmother has some early Alzheimer's and my dad's health
isn't doing great, so he made an appointment with an

(42:45):
attorney for me to go with him to that appointment.
When we're down there, yeah, I'm thinking. I'm thinking I
probably should get power of attorneys just in case something
happens to my dad, and any other pointers that I
should be talking with the attorney about when I'm down there.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
What happens to his money that's your stepmother? Does it
go to her or does it go to you?

Speaker 7 (43:10):
I don't think he has any decisions made as far
as that goes at all yet. I do have a
brother here in Syracuse who you know, will need some
help moving forward because he's mentally not great. Yeah, so
I was hoping to help my dad get something in place,
maybe a special needs trust for him.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
Any special reason why at eighty years old he hasn't
addressed this.

Speaker 7 (43:34):
I have no idea. I've been talking to him about
it for five years. I'm I'm to be honest with you,
I'm kind of upset.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
Well I would be. You know.

Speaker 3 (43:45):
The thing is is that I'm going to tell you
right now, Kim. You don't want to hear this. You're
not in a good spot.

Speaker 7 (43:50):
If I know, I'm not.

Speaker 3 (43:51):
If something happens, all hell could break loose, and if
you could, you get the opportunity. Basically what you're doing
if you go do a will You're just putting a
band aid on a huge wound.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
You're not You're not really, you're not fixing the whole Enchilada.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
You got to basically have a fully detailed the state
elder law state plan put into place. And if he
goes into a nursing home or if he needs care
or assistance, is your stepmother going to take care of
him or is she going to ship you ship him
back to Syracuse.

Speaker 7 (44:22):
No, she's got early Alzheimer. She's barely functioning. She doesn't
even wash a mug. Great, this has all happened in
the past six months.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
Yeah, well you're going to have a fun trip.

Speaker 7 (44:33):
Yeah, I know.

Speaker 3 (44:34):
Yeah, I hate I hate to say it, Kim, but
you're really in deep weeds. And hopefully the attorney that
you're meeting with who picked the attorney.

Speaker 7 (44:44):
My dad did, but he is on the list of
elder care attorneys that was given to him by a
social worker that visited him.

Speaker 3 (44:52):
I have over eighty household. Let me ask you a question,
where are you going in Florida?

Speaker 2 (44:57):
Because I have a lot of time.

Speaker 7 (44:58):
I'm going to very b Florida.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
Okay, call my office on Monday and I'll give you
the name. I'll give you the name of an attorney
that I recommend that does a fantastic job down there.
You really need somebody that can really, you know, facilitate Well.
I don't know this guy that your father's talking about,
but I know good people. Somebody you can trust that

(45:22):
can basically button.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
Things up for you.

Speaker 7 (45:25):
Okay, And what is your number, sir?

Speaker 2 (45:28):
Eight eight eight.

Speaker 3 (45:30):
Five eight zero one nine nine, and ask to speak
to me. My name is David.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:37):
And if I don't, if I can't take your phone call,
just leave a message with one of my staff and
I'll call you back. When are you flying? When A
You're flying down.

Speaker 7 (45:46):
To Florida Friday morning, the eighteenth of April.

Speaker 3 (45:51):
Okay, you're flying the same day I'm going. So what
I'll do, I'll talk to you this week and I'll
get you should talk to this attorney ahead of time
to see if they've got some time to sit with
you for a few minutes when you're down there.

Speaker 7 (46:03):
Yeah, that sounds great. So eight eight eight five eight
they are in nineteen nineteen.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
You got it, Kim.

Speaker 7 (46:09):
Okay, thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (46:10):
Luck, good luck, you're in a spot.

Speaker 7 (46:12):
Good luck task your monday. Thank you all right.

Speaker 3 (46:20):
My wife and I were caregivers for six and a
half years. It's not fun. I can tell you right now,
it's not fun, and you should really have a conversation
with your family. If she has a brother, the brother,
it doesn't sound like that's a good spot either. What
the mother's got Alzheimer's, he's getting sick at all, and

(46:43):
the brother has some issues himself. So she's got a
full house. See what happens, folks. One person's got to
take the ball and run with it. Now the question
becomes how complicated it is if the stepmother has her

(47:06):
own kids.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
Get my drift.

Speaker 3 (47:13):
So when people say to me, you know, I'll think
about it. I don't think about it. I'll get back
to you. That's usually saying they can't make a decision,
don't come back.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
I hate to say it. That sounds kind of crude,
of course, but.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
At my age, in the amount of years that I've
been doing this, if people aren't gonna listen, I'm not
gonna waste my time.

Speaker 2 (47:33):
It's just not worth it.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
I've got more people to see and I've got people
that need my assistance. So procrastination is never your friend.
As you age, I just had a woman that just
passed away, client of mine. One of the most beautiful
women you would ever want to see in your life.
She looked like Elizabeth Taylor when she was younger. She
was in a nursing home for seven years with Alzheimer's.

(47:58):
My wife and I went to her funeral this past week. Horrible, horrible,
what that disease can do to families pocketbooks. She was
in a nursing home, thank god, thank god. When they
started working with us, and her daughter said this to.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
Me at the.

Speaker 3 (48:17):
Conference room, we bought them a New York State partnership
policy for long term care. They had total asset protection.
They paid like forty some thousand dollars into it, and
I think it paid over six hundred thousand dollars in benefit.
She exhausted the benefits of the policy, and then ninety
days before she exhausted the benefits on the policy, a

(48:40):
letter was sent to New York State that she's coming
and she went on Medicaid extended benefit and they didn't
go after her assets. They went after income, but they
didn't go after her assets. That policy no longer exists.
The New York State Association for Long Term Care exists,
but she can't.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
Get a policy.

Speaker 3 (49:02):
So, as I said today, as I started off, life
has a lot of curves and bumps in the road
as you age, I beg you to get motivated, whether
it's with the retirement planning group or someone to put

(49:24):
all of the ducks in a row. I always call
it the domino effect. Remember as a kid, you'd do
the dominoes and you would set them up, you'd block
it off so if one drop, they wouldn't all go
falling down.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
But when you do.

Speaker 3 (49:38):
Your overall estate and financial planning, it should be no
different than we were kids and we did our dominoes.
When the first domino drops, you know where all the
rest of them are going to go. Sounds kind of corny,
but you get my drift sitting on the fence playing
tittlee winks. I'm gonna get to it now. The daughter

(49:59):
is gonna run down there, her hair is on fire.
She's gonna have to try to take all of these
things and button them up in a short period of time.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
Is that fair to her? Is that fair to the daughter?

Speaker 7 (50:12):
No?

Speaker 2 (50:13):
It isn't.

Speaker 3 (50:16):
So again, if we can be of assistance, we would
love the opportunity to sit down with you again. We
have the ability to sit down with you in Syracuse.
Our telephone number is eight eight eight five eight zero
one nine one nine. You can check us out on
the web. It's pretty simple. It's just the initials of
the Retirement Planning Group rpgretire dot com. I'm Dave Kopek

(50:38):
and again to all of our listeners, have an absolutely
fantastic Easter. May God bless you all. Kayla who's our
engineer out in Syracuse. I want to say a special
happy holiday to her and her family. But more than
anything else, folks, if we can be of assistance, please
give us a call. God bless I'll see you next week.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
Thank you for listening to the Retirement Planning Show hosted
by Dave Kopek. If you would like to talk with
Dave or someone at the Retirement Planning Group, called eight
eight eight five eight zero one nine one nine. That's
eight eight eight five eight zero one nine one nine
during business hours, or visit rpgretire dot com. The Retirement
Planning Group has five convenient offices located in Syracuse, Audiata, Albany, Malta.

Speaker 2 (51:28):
And Glenn Falls.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
Tune in next week for retirement Planning Strategies with Dave
Kopec right here on WSYRS The Retirement Planning Show. Right
here on WSYRS, The Retirement Planning Show,
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