The Kowal Retirement Clinic 6-6-26

The Kowal team help plan your retirement

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's News Talking eleven thirty WYSNS Retirement Clinic. Welcome to
the program, Saturday Mornings with Creative Plannings. Chauncey wisen Cell
hosting the show. I'm Paul crown Force today. Welcome back
and good morning to Chrancy. Good morning, Paul, you have
the honors of doing the first show of June. Feels
like summer recently, doesn't it.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
It does. It's been so hot lately. We were through
this roller coaster service spring where one day it was
like forty and then it was like seventy and now
it's just like eighty degrees every day.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
It feels like I love it, although one complaint. It's dry.
So if you have a lawn and you'll notice brown
grass unless you've got irrigation. We need some nice summer thunderstorms.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah. I was mowing my lawn last weekend and dealing
with my allergies. That was a lot of fun. And
I noticed as I was getting off the top kind
of green part down as I'm like, it's looking a
little brown.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
It is. It is, and a little chance this weekend,
but who knows. Yeah, we need some rain. Okay, enough
of the weather. We saw them like two old guys
at a coffee shop.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
We do.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Yes, we're gonna talk retirement, but before we get into
the show, Oh, I should tease some great topics you
picked out, how to thrive in retirement. I mean that
sounds how to thrive or do you just sit around
on a rocking chair in the front porch. Everybody's different.
You're going to tackle that topic, truancy active versus passive investing,

(01:18):
and then the big one. I love this five credit
mistakes and how to avoid those mistakes. If you are
listening to have kids, that's something you want to stay
tuned for. It's all coming up before we do that
truncy Creative Planning I mentioned you've got locations all over town.
Formerly the ko Wal Investment Group. Nothing has changed, you

(01:39):
just added a lot more tools to the tool belt.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, it's been a great transition for us from co
All Investment Group to joining with Creative Planning. Just really
expanded our horizons of how we're able to help clients.
Has been the best thing, and it's been kind of
fun over the last years. Well it's over well over
year a year in like four or five months probably
it's been And as I'm meeting with a lot of

(02:04):
my clients and we're looking back kind of, Okay, year ago,
we changed things with your portfolio and we started using
these services and this and that. Just kind of looking
back and seeing how much they've really benefited from it
has been has been a lot of fun. It's been
a great transition as far as you know, we can
help people with the state planning and life insurance and
long term care insurance, taxes, taxes, you name it. Pretty

(02:24):
much creative planning does it. And it's been a lot
of fun for me as well, just to be more involved.
You know, we used to have all of our great
trusted partners, many of them you've heard on the on
the Retirement Clinic over the years. But now to kind
of have those people in house, just a lot cleaner communication.
It's a lot easier for the client because we already
have all your information. If you're going to do your

(02:45):
estate plan and your will and your trust, your power
of attorney, you don't need to gather up all the
stuff that we already have. You can just meet with
our attorney and do it. And then it's nice clean
communication for me with the attorney as well, what do
we need to update with beneficiaries and title and this
and that. And you know, I've had clients before where it's, oh,
the attorney is a third party and they need a

(03:05):
signed letter for me to communicate with them and disclose stuff,
and it's just just a hassle. So it's a lot
easier for us, a lot easier for the client. It's
it's been really great.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah, I mentioned taxes. Some people if you do your
taxes quarterly, how that affects your investments or your retirement plan.
It does in a big way. It's nice to have
everybody under one roof at Creative Planning and the website
Creative Planning dot com or the Retirement Clinic dot com
both will give you information and contact if you have
a question, like always two six two five two two

(03:37):
forty forty, that is the one number for all locations.
Two six two five two two forty forty. Ask for
Chauncy Wise and cell. Yeah. I joke about if you
forget the last name, just Chauncy. Yeah, they're gonna get
you through right to your office truancy or or you
know the locations to visit in Blue on Blue Mountain
in Brookfield, in Port Washington, in Racine, Della Field license

(04:01):
in all fifty states. In addition, you're got an office
in Phoenix, Arizona, Cape coral Ford, literally all over on
this station Dan o'donalds show five days a week, you
do the market updates yourself included.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yeah, you can hear US three and five o'clock just
a quick sixty seconds or so what's happened in the
market that day, you know, the dial then ASDAK, the
S and P, and then usually you try to highlight
just like a quick thing going on in the economy,
and then maybe like a quick popular stock if it's
moving a lot. You're in videos, Apples, Microsoft, whatever, something
something that's been exciting going on in the market over

(04:32):
the day.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
I mean pretty exciting summer so far, not summer, but
just the year with markets going up, setting record highs
in twenty twenty six.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
Yeah, it's been been great. You know, we had a
little bit of a bump in the road there with
the war and Iran, which is is kind of still
going on right now, right but that kind of seems
to see saw back and forth. But the markets are
bent outstanding. You know, Portfolios are up up very nicely
for clients, and it's just it's been a great spring.
Earnings have looked great, which I always tell people is

(05:01):
always a big indicator of what the market should be doing.
If companies are hitting earnings, meeting earnings, you know, usually
that means the markets should be in a pretty good place.
And that's exactly what's going on.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
So there's the background this show since two thousand and one.
Of course, Jeff Kolewald big part of that and still
on the program. Chauncey. Now the next generation guys like you,
Certified Financial Planner. That's your title, right.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, exactly, Yeah, so CFP the credentials after my name,
Certified Financial Planner. Ton of work to get that designation
and very well worth it. The amount of things I
learned over the year plus of kind of studying for that,
preparing for that, and taking that super fun test was
well worth it. So I learned a ton of stuff

(05:46):
to kind of help clients and just really expand my
knowledge base.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
When that you have to pass where you wouldn't be
sitting in that chair during the show, right, that is correct,
So we are pleased to have a certified financial planner.
Chauncy's hosting the Retirement clinic today here in w I said,
I'm Paul kron Force. Let's dive in how to thrive
in retirement?

Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, and it's I just thought it was just a
nice broad topic to kind of discuss today, you know,
as we kind of go through this together, and you
know a lot of people, you know, it's interesting with
all the different clients that work with you, some you
see some thrive in retirement and you see some who
who tend to struggle in retirement. And just to kind
of as I was thinking, as we're going through some

(06:25):
of my clients who really seem to be thriving in
retirement and kind of what helps what seems to be
the reasons why why they really thrive versus why they're
they're kind of struggling in retirement. And I'll just start
with the most obvious one off the bat, right, is
having enough money saved for retirement. Right, It is typically

(06:45):
a pretty good start to thriving in retirement.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yeah. It sounds like a simple question or a simple topic, right, Yeah, Well,
of course I need to know. But for me, truncy
might be different than my neighbor or my my relatives.
Everybody has a different number. Certainly need more than just
your social Security checks coming.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
In, Yeah, exactly, and those that's that's the key, and
thriving retirement looks different for everybody, right, It's not necessarily
always about taking extravagant trips and buying fancy cars and
doing all these things. Right. It's a bunch of different stuff.
We'll kind of talk about here as we go on,
but you know, everybody has has different needs to to
take their retirement and enjoy it and be able to

(07:25):
do the things they want and live the lifestyle they want.
You know, some people maybe have Social Security and maybe
they've got there's still some people out there with pensions, right,
maybe they've got a pension and they've got half million
dollars saved and they can do everything they want to
do and they are just happy as could be in retirement.
And then you have some people on the other end
of things who like to travel and enjoy the finer

(07:46):
things of life and they need a little bit more
money saved. But no matter which which boat you find
yourself in, it's it's important to plan, right, and that's
where you know, we've always talked about putting pen to
paper and running numbers, running financial plan for clients, and
that that's really where it all starts is do you
have enough saved? What's the best strategy for your distributions

(08:06):
and withdrawals, and how do you support, you know, your retirement.
And the funnest ones or the most enjoyable ones is
when people come to you and they're not sure if
they can retire, and you look at a plan, you say,
you have more than enough to retire. Now what do
you want to do right? What are some of your
goals and your aspirations? You know, do you have you
always wanted like a classic car? Do you want to

(08:27):
buy a boat or do you want to maybe you
have a really large surplus. Do you want to buy
a second home somewhere up North or Florida or wherever
it may be. And just kind of working those types
of things in it and helping them figure out what
those goals are and maybe there's something they dreamed of
doing but didn't think oh until they sat down with us. Why,
I just can't write they had no idea.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
Trut when you said you've got more than enough to retire,
I'm sure with your experience some clients will say, yeah,
but I don't want to retire. I like my job.
I'm sixty five. You're saying I've got enough. What if
I want to continue working or scale back?

Speaker 2 (09:00):
And that's that's great, you know, I think a lot
scaling back seems to work really well for a lot
of people and some people. As I was kind of
reading through different articles and things I wanted to discuss today,
one of them was kind of working into retirement. Are
longer than you need to, and sometimes people find a
purpose in their work. It gets them out of the house.
One of the things I was going to mention and
thriving retirement is meaningful social connections, right, And for some

(09:22):
people's that's work right. I mean, we all have our
good work pals and friends who you know, we'll talk
with that work, we'll get drinks with maybe afterwork, we
grab lunch once in a while, a.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
Lot of cooler conversations about the brewers or the packers exactly,
just life sharing, you know, talking abounch of kids. We
do have the station, I mean, my co workers and
I I can I just mention, yeah, might have turned
sixty this last Wednesday, man, and you know that Chauncy,
we talked about it. Kind of a milestone. To me,
age is just a number. I don't feel sixty. But

(09:52):
I have scaled back at WISN. I don't work full time.
I do my weekend shows, which is plenty. It's eight
eight shows, but there's a lot more work. So I'm
guessing maybe comes down to twenty hours a week. I'm
in here two or three days a week and that's plenty.
Would that be weaning myself into retirement? Maybe? But if
you just go cold turkey, yeah, that can be a

(10:12):
shock to one system.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
Yeah, and that works for some people. Everybody's a little different, right,
Some people it works better to feel like, yeah, maybe
I'm not ready to fully retire, but you know, we're
talking about like your young grandkids. You know, I don't
want to spend more time with them, and I want
to help out with them, and you know, maybe I
want to go golfing more and just have a little
bit more free time to do what I want to do.
A lot of times, scaling back can work really well

(10:36):
for people. Some people it's like, no, I want to retire.
I've got all these things I want to do. And
sometimes that's great, But sometimes if you don't really have
something to you know, retire too, you know, having some
type of purpose to your retirement, not just I hate
my job and I can't wait to be done. And
you're done, and now it's you lose those social connections,
maybe a little bit of a sense of purpose and

(10:57):
you're just kind of, what do I do with my
myself now?

Speaker 1 (11:01):
When you may be married, your spouse may play into
these decisions, maybe you're you're not married, whatever the case is.
I mean, things happen that dictate your retirement. Health comes
into play. Maybe there's a divorce. Over fifty percent of
marriages in America end up in divorce, grandkids, your kids,
There's so many moving X factors, and everybody is different.

(11:22):
That's where you come in and customize the retirement plan.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yeah, and everybody's like you said, everybody's plan is a
little bit different and will tailor to you know, maybe
your goal is to travel. Maybe you're just say, hey,
I have plenty of clients where I traveled for work
all over the world, right and it's you know, it
gets tiring, and they're like, I have no desire to
travel in retirement. Maybe I want to go up to
Door County for the a long weekend, or you know,

(11:47):
maybe check out a couple of national parks, but they
have no desire anymore to go to France and Italy
and do African safari and cruise to the Panama Canal. Right,
those types of things.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
They've been in airport lines plenty. I get. I do
get that. Yeah, you know where where you're sick of
traveling and you want to maybe just stay home. But
maybe that's for you. And another guy might say, I've
been waiting my whole life to travel.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, yeah, I see both sides of it oftentimes, and
it's just a matter of, Okay, if you want to travel,
you know, let's let's work that in the plan, you
know how much. Let's kind of build a budget on
top of Hey, these are my regular expenses I need.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
You know.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
Oftentimes I'll put in we call him aspirational goals when
we're running our plan. Let's put in an aspirational goal for
this and maybe your homebody and you want to do remodeling, right, okay,
we need to account for doing some remodeling in the plan.
Or maybe you're gonna need a new vehicle soon when
you put that in the plant, or whatever it may be.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
I think keeping busy is is critical potts ing around
the yard. We called my dad when he was around
a putzer. He would, you know, he cut the grass
and then putts in the garage. He never sat on
the couch and just watch a movie. He was a
little bit too hyperactive. I'm kind of like that myself.
I can't just do that to find something.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, it could be anything, you know, doesn't have to
be golf.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Everybody else is golf.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
Yeah, it's just a popular thing, right, but people like
the golf could be anything. It could be anything, music,
you name it. Yeah, I've got a couple of clients
who you know, play in bands or you know whatever
they like going out like local concerts or whatever it
may be. I mean, you name it a pickleball obviously
we talk about that a lot now, pickleball, golf, fishing, hunting.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
You know.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
I have plenty of clients that just like volunteer at
the church or organization, or there's a cause they really
enjoy and so they help out with that. Maybe that
was maybe somehow related to their profession they used to do, right,
maybe they help organize events or you know, whatever it
may be. But it's it's important to just to stay social,
make sure you find some type of sense of purpose
as well, like whether it's helping out those charitable organizations

(13:45):
or you know, grandkids, or maybe it is to travel
or just spend more time doing the things that you enjoy.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
There's so many organizations, nonprofits, et cetera, churches looking for volunteers.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah, exactly, And I've got plenty of clients. It's oh,
you know, I I'm kind of handy. I do maintenance
at the church now, or you know, I mow the
lawn for our h o A or whatever it may be, right,
just just for something to do, you know, get you
out of the house and and help out and do stuff.
And I have plenty of clients where it's the ones
that seem to enjoy retirement to most of the ones,

(14:18):
I don't know how I ever had time to work, right,
It's like I'm so busy doing stuff and helping out
my kids and watching my grandkids and traveling. And a
lot of clients who also seem to enjoy doing traveling.
It's they have friends and groups of people that like
to travel with. That always seems to be a big
one I see with it.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
Looking forward to yeaheah vacation with. We have a group
of people that not just my own, the Paul kron
Force Stanuel Cruise by the way, cruise dash tour dot
com for more information. We're going in February to u
Spain and Portugal, and.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
Then I've got I've got quite a few clients going
on your cruise ball.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Is that right? Yeah, it's this next one is a
big one. We've got a lot of people saying now
because it's Europe, it's the Mediterranean's smaller ships, something different
than my last three. We's'r Caribbean. But I look forward
to that. These familiar faces, you catch up. We have
a lot in common things to talk about. But going
back to thriving in retirement, what I may consider thriving,

(15:12):
somebody else may not. Right, I just don't see many
people sitting around, Like my grandfather said, he couldn't wait
to retire. He own a dairy farm in Sheboygan County
and he just wanted to sit in the rocking chair,
look at.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
His pond perfectly fine, and he read the newspaper.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
That was his thriving.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, he's okay with that. And it's whatever brings you,
you know, personal joy and satisfaction. And that's why we
always say it's different for everybody.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
You know, what else you look forward to? I see this.
It's a generational thing, waiting for the mail to come
the minute, and they almost like jog out to the mailbox. Yeah,
sometimes the newspaper was included. I get that. Nowadays it's
just drunk.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
Yeah, it's so my neighbor, she's older and she's great.
I love her. But like clockwork, the garbage man comes,
she goes up and gets her garbage immediately from the street.
Her mail comes, she gets immediate. I think I let
my mail pile up for like three days.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
Sometimes it's just a different it's a change in time, right,
everything's email now and everything else. But yeah, he look
forward to getting the mail, and it got him off
the chair and out to the mail box. Maybe talk
to the neighbor. Yeah, because they're all getting their mail too.
I find that funny.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
I agree, I agree, But but yes, I mean, everybody's
got different things that bring them joy. And in retirement,
i'd say the people who who seem to enjoy retirement
the least, probably they watch their retirement accounts all the time.
You know, they're they're they're fixated on you know, the
news and the world around them and things like that,
and that's right, great to be informed, but you know,

(16:44):
it's something where it's you gotta be careful not to
let it, you know, control your life and your mood
and and those types of things. And if you're gonna
sit around and watch the news and stare at your
accounts all the time, it's just not enjoyable. And those
people tend to tend to struggle more, I would say,
and part of that and people who don't have enough
say maybe they retire anyways, and then they come to
us and it's like, hey, I'm retired, and like, ooh,

(17:07):
you spend a lot of money and it's you know,
it's not looking great. And then they tend to be like, oh,
like they try to justify their spending and this, and
I get it, like we have expenses and we all
need to live and we want to do things and
spend some of the money. But our job is to
try to make sure that money lasts right, and so
always always try to point that out to clients, even
though those are obviously difficult.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
The expiration data is unknown, that's just it. What if
you live to ninety eight not seventy eight twenty more
years of spending. And again you've got the Social Security checks.
I don't think that's enough.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
Yeah, no, it's not.

Speaker 1 (17:42):
No.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
And in some people too, we will point out all chance,
you know, tomorrow is not guaranteed, and that's why I
spend some more money. I'm like, that's great. And I
totally understand that. I have had plenty of clients who
have passed away in their early seventies, and it's just like, man,
you only saved all this money and work their whole life,
and they only enjoyed it for a few years. And
it's it's tough to see. But then you have other

(18:03):
clients who have lived into their their nineties and so
you just you never know. And that's why we plan
for you to live a long time. And that's our
job to make sure that the money's there.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
Is that your approach plan that you will live to
beyond seventy five?

Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yeah, you usually usually run plants in ninety nine with clients,
you know. I was actually looking at some like life
expectancy numbers relative to Social Security and this and that,
and it was oh, you know, when social Security first
came out, and people who first collected social security were
born in like it was like eighteen eighty eight or something.
In their expected life expectancy was like forty five years old, right,

(18:39):
and then we're after World War Two? Is sixty five
is your full retire as your retirement age, and then
your life expectancy was probably like sixty five sixty seven
years old, and now it's I mean mid seventies, right.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
I think health care is much better.

Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
You know, obviously you may say, well, we're taking more prescriptions, yes,
but a lot of those necessary for your health to
live a longer, healthier life. There's a awesome special in
the History Channel. Tom Hanks is the narrator and he's
producing it. It's on World War Two. It's twenty episodes
and we are three in right now. It's really good.

(19:16):
I think it puts life in perspective how rough it
was going through the Great Depression, and not just America
but Europeans, and not just Hitler coming into power, but
going to the end of the war. So I highly
recommend that that's number one. Number two, how rough it
was back then, and they weren't living to ninety.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
Now ninety was probably ancient. Back then, it was probably
incredibly rare. Right, we probably have more people that live
to one hundred now than they have people that live
to ninety.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Right.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
Back then, it was just it was a hard life
and disease and just poor healthcare and a lot of
poor financials obviously a great depression, right, financial situation was bad.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
And just the word retirement. A lot of people just worked.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
It didn't exist. You work till you died, pretty much
right until or until your health tells you you can't
work anymore.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah, not to say we're spoiled, definitely, we're living longer. Yeah,
I mean that fluctuates. COVID change it a little bit,
I think, I don't know, but males generally it's a
two year difference. It's always two years different. Yeah, it's
like seventy six and seventy eight, right for women, Yeah,
you know, and see, everybody's different. Everybody's different. But boy,
that guy that told you you'd never know if you're

(20:24):
gonna wake up the next day, there is something to that.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Oh definitely, And I totally understand that. Like I said,
as I've done this longer now, and it used to
be like more cut and dry in my mind, where
it was like, oh, we're playing it to ninety nine.
And that's that. And the amount of clients, like I said,
I was like in the last eighteen months, I probably
had four or five clients pass away. And it's always
the husband and they were all in like the early seventies,
and it's just like man just tough to see for

(20:50):
their widows and for them, I mean to work and
save and I can.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
Win out and then the kids. If those grandkids, they
don't want to see grandma pass so early. Right? Can
I quote Jeff Kowa Su who has said this You're
welcome to since two thousand and one one this show start.
You may screw up and live a long time. You
may so that guy that says, yeah, you never, you
may not wake up from true. So do what you
want to do now while you can. Well, you've got

(21:15):
health and money. But if you do live to be
ninety two ninety five, what you do need a plan.
You need a retirement. You need money, and.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
Our job is always the plan safe.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
Right.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
I'll joke around clients, say, you know, I never recommend
dying as a good retirement strategy. You know, if you're
gonna be run out of money at eighty two you
know it's okay, I'm not gonna you know, it's time.
We've planned for you to go to eighty two, you know,
that's that's it. So you know, we plan for you
to live a long time.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
And if hospice comes into plane assisted living, yeah, they're
saying homes they're not cheap.

Speaker 2 (21:45):
No they're not. And that's the on. When we're planning,
we always try to make sure that there's a good
surplus in the plan to account for market downturns or
things like long term care events, all those those types
of issues that come up. And if it's a real
concern you don't like again we talk about created playing
way to kick it off, but great resources and if
long term care is a concern, you know we can
address that through insurance and we've got great, great solutions

(22:07):
and people have created plan that have helped my clients
through through those discussions and finding something that maybe works
works out well for them. But making sure we address
all those things and take all those variables into into
into a plan is what we do all the time.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
Two six, two five, two to forty forty. You may
have a retirement plan, there might be dust on it.
It may or you might not be happy with where
you're headed, or you might not have any plan. Yeah,
and some people say, I've got a four oh one, K.
I'm just doing what i'm doing. I'm i mean, nose
to the grindstone. I'm just you know, I'm working, I'm working,
I'm working, and when that day comes, I'm sure i'll

(22:45):
have enough. I don't think you want to roll the
dice on this one.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
No, you don't want to do that. I mean, if
you need a second opinion, if you have no plan,
even if, like I said, second ppinion, even if you're
pretty pretty happy, you think you're on track, it doesn't
hurt to come in and meet with us and just
take a quick temperature check and if it's all good,
it's all good. But maybe there's something you're missing currently.
So never hurts to come in and talk to somebody.
No obligation, No, not at all. I always there's no

(23:11):
fee or anything to having a first meeting. And typically
that first meeting is just me getting to know, you know,
whoever's sitting across from me, and what their goals are,
and maybe there's there's some concerns that they have. What
keeps you up at night and then we typically will
set up another meeting after that and kind of dive
a little deeper, put together a plan, you know, and
just give them some stuff. Here's how we would help

(23:31):
you address those concerns and help you achieve those goals.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
So coming up in the retirement clinic is active versus
passive investing? What does that mean? First of all? And
more advice from Shauncey. Then five credit mistakes, how to
avoid those and how to you know. The simple one
is the credit cards. Remember my kid's first credit card.
This does not mean that you can go out by
WHOA but I can, Yes, you can. You could go

(23:56):
out by an eight thousand dollars stereo system. What I
mean you should doesn't mean you should. And again, if
you're not paying those off, the interest rates are sky high.
And once you understand that, boy, that's just such a
waste of money to me, and I know not everybody
can live like that. People go paycheck to paycheck. Things
are more expensive these days, I get it. Everything seems
to be up Droncie. Even more reason to be more

(24:18):
diligent about that. Those credit cards. But credit cards, that's
just one example of credit you know, mortgages. There's so
many things car loans, that's all coming up. Before we
break any more. Advice I'm thriving in retirement.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
No, really, you know, make sure retirement comes up within
the first few maybe when you get about five years
away even already. Then just start to think of what
do I want to do with my free time? And
you know what's going to provide me me meeting, give
me a purpose, you know, make sure you're doing your
planning and kind of nailing that down and your strategy,
and you know, make sure your health is good and

(24:51):
you know what's going to make you happy in retirement.
Let's give it some thought.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
Money is I was gonna say number one, you need money, Clearly,
it's important. Health might be the most important. Without that
or with bad health, you're spending all that money.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
Yeah, certainly.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
So again, every family is different. Everybody's got a unique circumstance.
You customize those plans. Chauncey Wise and Cell hosting today's
retirement Clinic with creative planning. Check out the Retirement Clinic
dot com For questions. Ask for Chauncey at two six
two five two two forty forty. Coming up, we'll talk
about those topics I just mentioned and more on retirement.

(25:30):
That is the focus of the show each week. Johnson,
you mentioned tax as you talk about investing, it all
comes down to the retirement clinic. That's what we focus
on and we've been doing it since two thousand and
one on WIS And we'll take a quick break. I'm
Paul Crown Forest and be right back wy Sents Retirement Clinic.
Welcome back to the program. Chauncey Wise and Cell with
Creative Planning hosting the program, and I'm Paul Krown forst

(25:54):
on every Saturday. In addition, during that week day Daniel
donald Afternoon showree pm, five pm news blocks are the
daily market updates. You've been doing those forever, going back
when Belling did it. Now on Daniel Donald's show, then
the icing on the cake. This show every Saturday at
ten o'clock. We talked about how to thrive in retirement.

(26:15):
Now we talk about five credit mistakes to avoid.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yeah, and that's really just kind of in general, a
lot of people tend to think younger people you're getting
your first credit cards and you're taking out your first
student loans, maybe a car and your first mortgage. But
I mean really these apply to everybody. And a lot
of times you think I hear about credit credit is, oh,
it's a credit card. But really, you know, all of
your different types of debt make up your make up
your credit. You know, whether it's your mortgage and your

(26:41):
student loans and your your car payments. All these things
you know affect your affect your credit and how much
you carry and making your payments. Sometimes all that will
get to some of that stuff. But number one mistake
people make is carrying a balance on your credit card.
I mean you kind of tease it a little bit
before on the last segment, but one of the worst
things you can do is carry a balance, especially on

(27:01):
the credit card. It's the interest rates are just they're
on godly right. It's twenty something percent probably on a
lot of those, and just to carry a balance on
it is just it's tough to come back from. Once
it starts to build up, you get a deep hole
and quickly. I mean, if you're carrying a ten thousand
dollars balance and it's twenty two percent interest, I mean,

(27:24):
even if you're making small payments, most of it just
goes to interest and maybe barely touches the principle.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
That's right, And to complicate it, might you might have
four or five cards with a balance, and I know,
life happens there a thing. Yes, little Johnny needs braces
and all of these things. However, once you get multiple
cards with a huge balance, that's so tough to get
out of.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yeah, it's it's incredibly difficult. And that's where we're doing
some some budgeting and those types of things can really
help out as well. But yeah, that's that's a really
tough one, especially you get multiple credit cards and it's
just kind of almost like snowballs on you, right where
it's so hard to get under control and pay it
down because so much of your payments just go towards
interest and very little towards towards principle. And maybe I

(28:08):
jump right to mistake number four here because it kind
of ties in nicely. But trying to pay down too
many debts at once, you know, oftentimes if you've got
multiple debts, and this is a lot of time to
see with younger people, right, if you have credit cards
and student loans and car payments and a mortgage and
you're like, oh my gosh, where do I start. Maybe
you just have a little extra every month to help

(28:29):
pay down those additional debts. But really two different methods
that people can we recommend people implements, and each one
maybe works differently depending on kind of how your brain works.
But the first one is to pay off your smallest
balance first and then roll that smallest balance into the
next smallest balance and then rinse and repeat.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
Right.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
We call that the snowball method. You know, if if
you have one hundred extra bucks and you have something
that's maybe just a credit card that's three thousand dollars
and that's your highest interest, that, right, you go towards
a three thousand dollars balance whatever it maybe a card,
a student loan, and then you you pay off that
three thousand dollars balance, and then now you take your
extra hundred dollars plus what you were paying on the
three thousand dollars, and then you snowball that towards your

(29:09):
next smallest balance, and it really just kind of helps
you feel like it motivates you because you pay off
that smallest one first and it just kind of it's
snowballs rights as is in there. And then the next
the other method is the avalanche method, is where you
just target your debt with the highest interest rate first,
whatever that may be, if that's a credit card or
a student loan or card payment, whatever, your highest interest

(29:30):
debt is first, you know, pay that off.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
But way of comparison, if you think about the average
thirty year mortgage rate right now Johnson on average and
nationally is about six and a quarter. They've been as
low as six and high fives. I mean back in
the day there were two point six. So when you
look at that and go, but a credit card, let's
say it's twenty three percent, even twenty and if you're

(29:56):
run that up to ten fifteen thousand, that is so
much money an interest.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
Yeah, and usually if you have something like that, that's
where usually I would recommend like this avalanche method where
you just attack the highest interest one first with any money,
and then obviously the next highest interest after that, and
so and so forth, just to save yourself some money.
If you have a lot of debt and it's all
kind of maybe it's like that four to seven percent
interest range, maybe this snowball works better for you just

(30:21):
to pay off those smaller ones first. But you'll certainly
save yourself to money if you can and attack the
highest one first with that method. Mistake number two going
back is just missing a payment or making a late payment. Right.
A lot of places will give you like a little
bit of a grace period fifteen days or thirty days
or whatever. But if you miss those those payments and

(30:42):
you have late fees, and maybe they charge you interest
if you're late, and those types of things that can
obviously affect your credit bring your credit score down, which
will affect your ability to borrow in the future. Right,
if your credit score is worse, you're gonna have a
higher interest rate in the future. So you know, whether
it's setting things up on auto pay seems to be
really popular, right, you know a lot of people do that.

(31:02):
I do that with all my utility bills and things
that it just pulls out of my checking account every
every month, or or my credit card, and then I
just pay my credit card right every month exactly. If
you need to set a reminder or whatever you need
to do, just make sure you make those payments on time.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
Paying the minimum is not advisable unless that's the only
way to do it. I mean, you got to pay
at least pay the minimum. Yeah, but now you're just
pushing and kicking that can down the proverbial road.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
Yeah, if you can afford to pay more than the minimum,
especially like credit cards or he locks things like that,
and do it sowise, you're just you're leaving yourself in
the same situation every month where it's just the same
amount of interest every month and you're just making payments
towards the interest and it grows and you see it,
pay more than the minimum, certainly if you can so
mistake number three closing out long standing credit cards unnecessarily,

(31:51):
right if you have if you have a three year
credit card you've had for three years, and a credit
card you've had for seven years, right, you ever goes out,
it's about a five year credit history. Well, if you
close out your seven year credit card, you've just eliminated
the credit history of that credit card. Right. So you know,
if you have a credit card you've had for a
long time and maybe you're thinking about closing out, even
if you don't carry a balance or you just use

(32:12):
it like once every few months just to keep it open,
it's a good thing to do because having some that
helps reinforce your credit history.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
You know, I'm glad you brought this up. You know
when I told my kids to pay it off every month.
When when new people usually get the first credit card
college or that age, Yeah, you know when nineteen twenty,
whether you go to college, it's.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
Like college your first job. That's when you kind of
look at it in your first card.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
Well, here's the retort. Well, then why get one at all?
You know, because you want to establish credit. When you
go for your first house, the bank is going to
look at your credit history. So it's advisable to at
least get one credit card, right.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah, definitely, I mean get up even if you use
it once a month to pay for a dinner or gas,
right or whatever. Just to keep it open and establish
a payment history is always a good thing.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
And there's perks with many like my Southwest miles and.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
I got the same credit card. You know, hey, this
trip is free, exactly, it doest flight. Yeah, it does work.

Speaker 1 (33:11):
It's worth it. Look for that.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
Stuff, definitely. And that's even where I'll tell some people.
You know, a lot of times our clients try to
help their kids or grandkids out with like school student
loans aren't a bad thing. I mean, if they've got
some small student loans ten twenty thousand dollars that they
can just you know, when they graduate, pay a few
hundred bucks a month from you know, that's really helpful
as well. So establishing their credit is important. And certainly, last,

(33:34):
but not least here is just flat out ignoring your
missing your credit card statements just always a bad idea, right,
It's it's good to look at those statements and every
once in while just to make sure no one stolen
your credit card, verify the purchases, and just so you
kind of have a good idea of what's going on.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
Because your heart ever beat skip a beat when you
open up your wallet and you can't find that one
credit cards missing?

Speaker 2 (33:55):
Oh no, yeah, oh I leave it at home. They
leave it at a restaurant a quick trip. Yeah huh,
that's happened more than once. You cancel it, right, and
they'll get you new one. I just lost my HSA card.
I have no idea where it is. I called, I checked,
where was the last time I used it? When it
was all accurate?

Speaker 1 (34:12):
Good? Now send me new one. Cancel the old one.
They get these calls all the time.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
Yeah, and that's where it's important. You'll make sure you
keeping track of that stuff. And just looking at your statements,
making sure you're the one making all the purchases, not
that somebody else is and you're unnecessarily paying. So just
five quick things there just to help maybe improve your
credit and manage it going forward.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
Talk to your kids too. By kids, I meaning you
know that college kid, because boy, you can be drunk
spending like a drunken sailor when you get that first card,
it's like your freedom. You're that age. I can get anything.
This is awesome, including gas. Gas can be expensive when
you're a younger kid. And back in my day, I
just had cash. I had my checking account and I

(34:53):
wrote checks out or I just you know. And then
ATM machines rolled around. Get those they were called time machines.
I remember that. Yeah, people still say time machine.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yeah I don't really remember that. I'm a little too
young for that maybe, but I'm familiar with the time machine.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
Well that was a fantastic innovation. Oh my goodness. I
can just go get cash. This is great. But yeah,
tell you know the lesson of paying it off monthly
to try to zero it out. Good stuff. These are
five credit card or not credit card, just five credit
mistakes to avoid Chauncey Wisensell. Today's retirement Clinic will be
back and we will talk about active versus passive investing?

(35:28):
What does that all mean? Creative Planning dot com the
Retirement Clinic dot com both are great websites and resources
for this show. Or reach out and make a phone
call two six two five two a retirement clinic. We
continue on WYSN Chauncey wisen Cell with Creative Planning your
host today. Check out the Retirement Clinic dot com and

(35:51):
we've given out the number. We'll do it before we
close shop today. This is important though, active versus passive
investment investing and what are those words? Do even mean?

Speaker 2 (36:01):
Yeah? So typically passive you don't want to think of, Hey,
just put money in and set in your hands and
do absolutely nothing with it. Right. That's that's not that
can work, but not necessarily the ideal approach. Passive means
the funds themselves use tend to be more passive, or
even if use individual stocks more passively. Right, You're you're
investing in we like to use a lot of ETFs

(36:22):
are exchange traded fonds. A lot of times they track
an index, right, and so you're just kind of riding
the index. And then we like to watch. We watch
our clients' portfolios, and anytime they get drift too far
off kind of our target allocations, we go in and
on the backside and rebalance things for them. And and
so we kind of let the market dictate to us.
When that is, if the market's really high, we go

(36:43):
in and you're getting more too aggressive for our targets.
We go in and sell some of those gains and
move you to bonds. And if the market's getting too low, right,
the market will dictate, Hey, client's getting kind of low
on their allocation of stocks and getting heavier in bonds,
we go in and we sell different bonds, we buy
stocks back and so but the funds themselves tend to
be more passive, and that we were able to help

(37:04):
keep fees a lot lower for clients as well. On
the active side of things, you know a lot of
times is you're just frequently trading the account. Right You're
you're going from investing to invest it in the S
and P and now you're moving to cash. Or maybe
you have like an individual stock portfolio and every day
you're buying a video and selling Google and you're doing
all these things. Maybe maybe you're a day trader, but

(37:25):
maybe it's not quite that bad, but you do you
frequently trade in the accounts, and a lot of times
we see what that does is number one, the fees
are gonna be higher for something like that, right if
you use your mutual fund, the internal costs and mutual
fund is gonna be higher. If you're paying somebody to
do it. Oftentimes your fees are gonna be higher. And
then number two, what that does. A lot of times
active active management does more harm than good. And maybe

(37:45):
sometimes you're gonna outperform, you're gonna beat the market, maybe
even especially in a good market, but maybe you invest
a lot in like US stocks and you really active
US Stocks International has done really well the last twelve
to eighteen months, and so you're missing out there. And
and so sometimes active management, more times it does more
harm than good, and you're gonna pay higher fees for it.
And that's just what the research shows and what the

(38:07):
numbers show. And so you know, great information out there
on the internet to kind of read about some of
that stuff. And Peter Miluke, president Creative Planning, has written
a book and talking about some of the benefits of that.
It's a great read. But so you know something you
just kind of watch out for if you're looking at advisor.
Even if you're working on your own and you're just
running your four O one K, if you're trading it
all the time, a lot of times you're you're doing

(38:28):
more harm than good. And if you're with an advisor,
if if they're doing that, they could be generating commissions
and higher fees. You just need to be really careful
about about the investments and that.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
That's really good vice Johncy. And some people just don't
want to do their investing at all. You almost like
cutting grass. Some people like cutting the grass you talked about.
I do enjoy it. There might be a point in
my life where I want to hire somebody. Same as investing.
If you don't want to, you don't like it, and
you just don't think you can get the performance sad.

(38:59):
A professional can reach out to creative planning, talk to
I like Chancey Chauncey. At least have that no obligation
first sit down to see what you can do. We'll
give you that information when we come back. The Retirement
Clinic dot com is a great resource at a good
start two six, two five two two More coming up
on WYSN before we wrap up today's retirement clinic. We

(39:22):
are back next Saturday ten o'clock with Creative Planning of
course formerly the Cowal Investment Group. Great show with information
today on how to thrive in retirement. I like that
one because it's just different for everybody, or maybe you're
weaning yourself into retirement act versus passive investment. We talked
about five credit mistakes to avoid. Off the air, Chauncey

(39:43):
wisenstalls here. If I want to reach out to you
and just start that process, what is that first up?
A phone call?

Speaker 2 (39:48):
Yeah, just give us a call two six. You know
a lot of times Kim will answer the phone. Kim's amazing.
Shout out to Kim. But she'll put you through to
me if you want to talk with me. So that's
human not AI, correct. Yeah, Kim's Kim's the best. She's
definitely a human. I see you every day in the
office in Brookfield. But yeah, she'll She'll put you through
to me and we can, you know, just have a
have a quick conversation, maybe hopefully get something set up,

(40:10):
get you that second opinion and help you make sure
you're on track for whatever your unique goals are so
you can thrive in retirement as well.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
That you know, good show two six two five two
two forty forty. You mentioned Brookfield, Is that where you
typically work.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
Out of I travel all over the place. I spend
most of my time in Brookfield. I go to our
Delafield office, I drive up to Port Washington, I go
down on a scene and I'll do zoom as well.
If if you even if you live ten minutes down
the road, but you don't want to drive in one
of the offices, we can we can meet over zoom.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
Well, those locations are Brookfield, right on Blue Mountain, big sign,
you can't miss it, Delafield. We're scene. We talked about
Cape Corra, Florida, Phoenix, Arizona, Port Washington, Wisconsin, up in
Osaka County. A zoom call, a phone call, whatever takes
a get you started with your retirement plan back next Saturday.
Thanks for joining us on the Retirement Planet Clinic. Did
I say retirement Planet. That's a good name too for

(40:58):
a show.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
Yeah, she'd talk to Jeff Bell rename.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
We'd have to get permission to change the planet. Okay,
retirement Clinic talking fast because I've got to finish up.
Have a good weekend, chohnciyep, everybody have a good weekend
and those market reports. Dan o'donald show Monday through Friday,
then we are back Saturdays for the Retirement Clinic on WYSN.
The preceding program is furnished by Creative Planning and SEC
registered investment advisory firm. Creative Planning, along with its affiliate

(41:23):
United Capital Financial Advisors, currently manages or advises on a
combined three hundred and twenty five billion dollars in assets
as of June thirtieth, twenty twenty four. The host works
for Creative Planning, and all opinions expressed by the host
and or their guests are solely their own and do
not necessarily represent the opinion of Creative Planning. The show
is designed to be informational in nature and does not

(41:43):
constitute investment, tax or legal advice. Different types of investments
involve varying degrees of risk, and there can be no
assurance that the.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
Future performance of any specific investment or investment strategy, including
those discussed on the show, will be profitable or equal
any historical performance levels.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
The information contained herein has been obtained from sources deemed
reliable but is not guaranteed. If you would like our help,
request to speak to an advisor by going to creative
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entities that must be engaged independently.