Mobile Bay Financial Solutions 3.18.2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
This is News Radio seven to ten WNTM. Uncle Henry
here with John McNeil and Virginia O'Brien of Mobile Bay
Financial Solutions. You can find Mobile Bay Financial Solutions online
at MB financial Solutions dot com. That's MB financial Solutions
dot com. Telephone number two five to one sixty six

(00:28):
six five thousand if you'd like to call and make
an appointment or just call and ask a question. Two
five to one six sixty six five thousand. That is
the number for Mobile Bay Financial Solutions. The commentary presented
herein contains the opinions of Mobile Bay Wealth Management LLC,
a registered investment advisor. This information should not be relied

(00:49):
upon for tax purposes. Is based on sources believed to
be reliable. No guarantee is made to the completeness or
accuracy of this information. Mobile Bay Wealth Management LC shall
not be responsible for any trading decisions, damages, or other
losses resulting from or related to the information, data analysis,
or opinions contained herein or their use which do not

(01:12):
constitute investment advice. Are provided as of the date written,
are provided solely for informational purposes, and therefore are not
an offer to buy or sell a security. Investments and
securities are subject to investment risk, including possible loss of principle.
Prices of securities may fluctuate from time to time and
may even become valueless. This information has not been tailored

(01:34):
to suit any individual. Virginia O'Brien, how are things going
at Mobia Bay Financial Solutions this week?

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Things are great, Uncle Henry.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
You know as we record this in the middle of March,
my car seems to stay yellow with pollen.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
We are in that season, yere.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Yes, yes, and which is great means things are coming
in full bloom. In fact, this morning, my daughter was
looking out the window and she said, Mom, look at
those bushes are just beautiful as pink blooms. And I said,
those are Azilias, honey. Those are all that we are,
the Azalia city and so and they are there there.
I've started noticing them after she mentioned that they are
just fully bloom fully and bloom everywhere. And it's it's uh,

(02:14):
which also means it's you in the middle of tax season,
which is so. Of course we're not CPAs we don't
file tax returns for clients by any means, but we
do a lot of tax planning it's a busy season
for us because people are kind of reviewing what they
did last year perhaps or planning for the future. A
lot of times right after tax season is also busy
because people see what they did have to pay and

(02:37):
they come in and say, Okay, what is there anything
you know? My CPA said we could maybe do this
and to talk to you about this, and so we
do a lot of that.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
So tax season still.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
Is is busy here, but it's uh, it's going great
and we're just plugging right along.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Very very good.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
We've got a lot to talk about and this, uh,
this program we're doing today, I want to start with
a financial advisor survey. This is a recent survech from
Financial Advisor magazine that had it completed by nearly four
hundred financial advisors around the country, the majority of whom
have been in the business for more than twenty years.
So we've got the results of the study. Based on

(03:14):
the survey, Let's see what the other financial advisors are
experiencing with their clients and let's find out if it
lines up with what you're seeing here. Okay, So, first,
advisors in this survey said fifty two percent of their
clients seek out a financial advisor to help with retirement planning,
whereas only thirty four percent are primarily working with someone

(03:37):
just to build wealth. Now, is this similar to your
client base? Are more people here for retirement rather than
to build wealth?

Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yes, I would say that does hold true in our
practice as well. You know, I think it's a common misconception,
but a lot of times people don't think they have
enough money to see a financial advisor.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
I've told you, I've run into people all the time
that I've told me They've heard you for years, but
they don't think think they've got enough.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Right right from here.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
Yeah, And that's that's that's false. And so usually it's
not that we don't take on those younger clients or
clients are in their their wealth building years, which we
call the accumulation period. It's just that most people aren't
seeking help in that area because they don't think they
have enough. They don't think, you know, that whatever it
might be, which is not the case. So that is

(04:23):
that those numbers do hold true in our practice, but
I think it's more because of the the myth kind
of around it, And so I wish that those numbers
weren't true because really you know, those accumulation years are
just as important as the decumulation years. And a lot
of people tend to make really really small I'm not
going to say mistakes, but decisions to do something over

(04:45):
something else, and that they don't realize the impact that
has all the way down the line. And for you know,
if you make a decision that differentiates for twenty five
or thirty years, that's going to that that built you know,
that snowballs. And so it could be something that would
have been something really easy to fix or correct or
ask a question about early on, and then it's kind

(05:06):
of too late sometimes, but as far as you know,
something like that. But I would say, yeah, that that
does hold true here.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Well, and and uh, you mentioned that the small decisions
you showed me years ago where a client ended up
paying many thousands of dollars over the courses of years
in fees that if they had just known, right, they
never would have had to pay that money.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Right right.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
It was a fee, you know, not just a management fee,
but just yeah, it was just it was fees built
inside of different mutual funds and things like that. I
remember that that scenario, Uncle Henriette, that case study and
it was it's just little things like that. And I
think the number was like one hundred and ninety eight thousand.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
It was, Oh my god, it was, it was, it
was big.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Remember that part.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
So that that's a big you know, that's a that's
a that's a big number, and that it's little, it's little,
it's little things like that. And so it's it's something
that we tell people. It's never too early to come
in just to get a second opinion.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yes. Indeed, another thing found in the Financial Advisor survey
for more than half of these financial advisors in the survey,
their average client has seven hundred and sixty thousand dollars
in assets. Now, is that comparable to what you experience
on the Gulf Coast.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah, we see really a big range. We've we've never
had a minimum as you know, Uncle Henry, my great
grandfather started this practice back in nineteen twenty two, and
he's never he never, he didn't think that you should
be you know, discriminated against if you didn't have enough money.
In fact, that my great grandfather, my grandfather, my dad, myself,

(06:43):
we all believe that, you know, if you don't have
as much that those pennies need to stretch further, and those,
you know, mean even more. And so when we look
at that, this is something that you know, these numbers
are comparable. That's seven hundred and sixty, that's a that's
probably a good average. And people clients that have a
lot more than that. We have people that have less
than that, and so it just kind of depends. But

(07:06):
that's that's pretty in tune.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
With it, all right.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
Also in the survey, the advisors reported the following things
as the top concerns for their clients. Thirty eight percent
said outliving their assets, thirty one percent said generating reliable income,
thirteen percent said a future stock market crash, eight percent

(07:30):
set healthcare costs, and the remaining ten percent fall into
other categories. So that's what people are concerned about across
the country. Is that what you think should be the
main concern of clients. Outliving assets, generating income?

Speaker 3 (07:46):
Yeah, you know, outliving their assets is something, you know,
outliving their money, that's something especially when people it's like
when they reach age sixty, people kind of this flip
switches in their brain.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
They're like, oh, do have enough money in our time?

Speaker 3 (08:00):
You know? Am I going to outlive my money? A
lot of times that happens because they're maybe caring for
their parent or they know somebody care for, you know,
having to financially support somebody or whatever that might be,
and so they they're worried about that. Generating reliable income
is a very close second, because wealth is nice to
have in retirement, but income is absolutely necessary. Why do

(08:24):
you think things like pensions and so security were created.
You can't go get some pensions. You can, but a
traditional pension where it just pays you an income for
every month for the rest of your life. And so
security is basically a government pension. You can't go get
that money. You can't say, just send me that money.
Now I get some pensions. They will send you a
lump some option, but then you're they're off the hook

(08:46):
for that monthly income and you have to produce the
income yourself. But so security is a monthly income because
that is what's necessary to live. You have to have
that monthly income to pay for your needs. Wealth is
nice to have in retirement where you have the income
and the wealth to go do things you want, like
go on a trip, or take the kids to Disney World,

(09:07):
or help pay the grandkids college or whatever that might be,
but income is absolutely necessary. So that concern is what
people start figuring out as they get closer and closer
to retirement. Future stock market crash, that's been something that's
on people's mind a lot lately. You know where we

(09:28):
are and on the Gulf Coast in Alabama, you have
people that are a little more physically conservative than the
national average. And so I think that this is this
number would be higher in our practice, this percentage of
a future crash market market stock crash, as far as
what people think, as far as their fear of it,
I think that would probably come up higher than thirteen

(09:48):
percent because people are scared of especially as they get
to sixty and older. I've built up all this money, what.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
If I lose it?

Speaker 3 (10:00):
What if I lose half of it or a third
of it or twenty five percent whatever it might be
that scares them because they don't want to work forever.
And then health care costs, gosh, this is something that
is absolutely enormous.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
I'm sure you know.

Speaker 3 (10:12):
People personally, Uncle Henry, that have to deal with this
in retirement. We go through so many people with our
clients that have, you know, deal with health care costs.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
And what that looks like.

Speaker 3 (10:21):
People say, oh, well, if I have to go to
nursing home, Medicare will cover it. That's a very false
statement as far as what they cover.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
And that's what that looks like.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
You've taught me that I should be thinking more about
health care costs than some of these other things, because
you and your dad have explained that the cost doesn't
go down when you get older, you end up paying more.

Speaker 3 (10:43):
Usually with inflation and the rising costs of health care
costs and how much that goes up compared to like
you know, your regular like groceries and things like that.
Statistics show that the cost of health care actually goes
up more and higher at a faster rate than other
things that are affected by inflation. So, you know, there's
there's a host of things that people worry about, and

(11:05):
there's a lot of unknowns in retirement in retirement planning,
and one of the things we do when we're building
a plan is we try to solve for as many
unknowns as we can and to have a plan that's
flexible and that can weather as many storms as possible.
You know, anything that gets thrown our direction.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
Also in the Financial Advisor Survey, more than one third
of the advisor surveyed mentioned the challenges associated with their
clients supporting adult children or other family members. Now, is
that something that's happening with your clients?

Speaker 3 (11:37):
I wouldn't say a third, oh, I said, I guess
more than when they're the advisor surveyed mentioned the challenges
associated with Yes, So this is something that comes up
a decent amount when we go through, especially somebody's entering
retirement and they say, okay, well we're gonna need you know,
let's say, for example, they don't have any debt, so

(11:58):
they don't have a mortgage on the house. They travel,
they take maybe one or two trips a year that
you know, don't cost a whole lot of money, and
it costs them maybe you know, six thousand dollars to
run their household utilities, bills, eating groceries, gas, all that
kind of stuff. But they say, okay, well we need
to generate ten thousand dollars a month of income. Say really, okay,

(12:19):
what you know, what is costing you ten thousand dollars
every single month? And then we get into the you know,
if we don't have a mortgage and we don't have
this and this and this, and if we add in
some fluff for this and you know all this, that's
still not that.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Oh well yeah, but we usually you.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
Know, if it's if it's if it's if so and
so needs help with groceries or gas or their car brakes,
whatever it might be. Uh, we we're gonna want to
help them, you know, and it's okay. How often does
that happen? Well, it's usually about a thousand and fifteen
hundred dollars a month that we're giving them or oh
we want them to go to this school, so we're
paying for it, that kind of thing. And sometimes they
can afford it, it's no problem. Sometimes we have to,

(12:57):
you know, show them. If they do keep on this path,
they might not you know, they might run out of money.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
So one more thing from the Financial Advisor survey done
by Financial Advisor Magazine. According to their survey of advisors,
sixty three percent of the clients age fifty five and
older intend to work to sixty five and beyond. Now,
do your clients end up working to in past sixty five?

(13:23):
And is that the right approach for most people?

Speaker 2 (13:27):
Really?

Speaker 3 (13:27):
That's a case by case thing. Sixty five is that
magic number because of medicare, you know.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
Health inns. We talked about health care costs. Regular health insurance.

Speaker 3 (13:35):
Medicare does not you know, kick in unless you're on disability,
you know, some other extreme circumstances until sixty five, which
is where you know, you can get that and it's
a set price, and it's a pretty you know, reasonable
price compared to all the you know, if you were
to go on an individual plan usually, so that is
where that sixty five number usually comes into play. Some people, though,

(13:56):
a can afford to have private health care before that.
B They might be retired military and have like track
here for life or whatever it is, so they don't
have to worry about getting to the sixty five number,
or they have some other.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
Retirement benefit from.

Speaker 3 (14:08):
Their career that if they were in a job for
so long, for instance, like RSA, you know, teachers that
usually can go to pe hip if they have a
certain amount of years, and so that's you know, a
little more affordable usually depending on the situation.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
And so that's one of the things.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
But I would say that a lot of people, I
don't know about sixty three percent. A lot of people
do plan to work until sixty five. Now we have
a lot of people that come in and say, you know,
I assumed I was gonna have to work till sixty
five or sixty seven or whatever it is. And we say, okay,
what do you want to work that long? And some
people say, yeah, I don't What am I gonna do if
I don't work? I don't want to sit at home
all day, you know, or whatever. And then some people say, well,

(14:44):
if you told.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
Me I could retire before, I would love to do that.

Speaker 3 (14:46):
And so we love having those meetings where we say, well, yeah,
given this, this and this, you can retire now before that.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
So it really is just a case by case basis.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
But that's why we go into so much detail with
our clients and our first meetings to say, you know, if.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
You have a the ball, when are you going to retire?

Speaker 3 (15:01):
And some people say, oh, I know, I'm gonna have
to work till sixty five and we say, yeah, but
if you wanted to when you when would you retire?
And they say, oh, well sixty two or you know
whatever that might be. So that's a big difference because
some people say, well, I really I don't really want
to retire. I really I really like what I do,
and you know that that comes into play too, So
it really just depends. I think that numbers a little high,
the sixty three percent, but it does come into play.

Speaker 1 (15:23):
All right. But if you just tuned in, you're listening
to Virginia O'Brien of Mobile Bank Financial Solutions. The website
is mbfinancial Solutions dot com. Telephone number two five to
one six sixty six five thousand. That's two five one
sixty six six five thousand. Let's talk a bit about
the planning process. It's important to be able to recognize
the difference between an advisor who actually has a planning

(15:45):
process versus an advisor who just gives sales pitches all day. So, Virginia,
what are some signs that an advisor is more focused
on selling rather than just planning.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
This is a big one, Uncle Henry. Number one.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
If if an advisor is talking about a product or
some magic stock or fund or something right off the bat,
Oh you gotta put your money in this, or oh
this is what we need to do this without really,
you know, knowing too much about the situation that that
could be taken as a sign because they're not really
listening to what your needs are. The other thing is
not gathering information, which kind of goes in with that

(16:24):
about your goals, you know, like I just was talking about,
you know, we asked people.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
When would you like to retire? And then they.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
Say, well, I know, I'm gonna have to work for
sixty five. We say yes, and that's fine, But when
would you like to retire, because that's a difference than
what you think you're going to have to work to.
But not gathering much information about that and focusing on
your goals, like if your goals are to you know,
pay for the grand kids college or whatever those things are,
and they're not you know, providing solutions for that. They're

(16:53):
just more focused on you not taking a lot of
money out of your portfolios.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
That might be a red flag.

Speaker 3 (16:59):
The other thing is is you know, pointing out just
all the only the bad things.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
On a current portfolio.

Speaker 3 (17:05):
Yeah, we see some people that have maybe made mistakes
or maybe done things that we probably wouldn't have done
or recommended given the circumstance. But you don't know what
what circumstances are in at that time, you know, so
it's it's some of one of some of those things
that yes, hindsight, a lot of times is twenty twenty.
But if they're just saying, oh, that's bad and I
would never do that, and this that, and you know
all that, not focusing on okay, well, how are we

(17:27):
gonna make it better? I think that's a really big
red flag. You want to make sure your your advisor
is you know, taking in what you want your future
to look like and how long you want to take
it to get there, and what you want that future
to look like, and then focusing on are there any
things that you know worry you or whatever, you know,

(17:48):
making sure that you're they're asking all those things on
things like that, and then coming up with a plan
that there might be some suggestions to change things, which
is fine, but you know, focusing on there's plenty of
times where we say, you know, this existing account here
or whatever. This you know, this is a really good thing,
and this is a really you know, I don't think
you should change that because it might hurt your position

(18:10):
right now, you know, I think, you know, And so
making sure that their focus on what your goals are
not necessarily somebody's else's mistake. Uh, That's that's not really productive,
you know, in our opinion, looking forward.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
All right, Well, let's we've talked about it before, but
let's describe your planning process from start to finish. When
somebody calls Mobile Bay Financial Solutions at two five one
sixty six six five thousand to make that appointment, what
happens from that point forward in that process?

Speaker 3 (18:40):
Yeah, Courtney in our office gets your just your basic information.
She'll set that first appointment, we call it our discovery visit,
and she'll send you an email and a hard copy
of a list of things that we suggest that you bring.
And when we sit down for that first meeting, a
lot of times it's you know, we're going through you
know what you know, if you're married, how long have

(19:03):
you been married? Do you have any children, any grandchildren?

Speaker 2 (19:06):
Do they live here? Do they all live away?

Speaker 3 (19:08):
And people say, why do you care if you know
one child lives in Seattle and one child lives here,
And we say, well, because most likely when you retire
and that child in Seattle has grandkids, cheeses are you're
gonna want to fly to Seattle a couple of times
a year. Right, So so we just get into those
those details and then we take all that information that
we talk.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
About and we build a full on.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
Plan and get back together about a week and a
half to two weeks later and present what we think
if we made certain changes or did this, that and
the other, how it would look, and take some assumptions
into play and show you what kind of income we
could start at whatever time we talked about turning it on.
And then we send all that information home and meet
for a third meeting to go over it again and
implement if the client wants to implement.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
Is there any obligation when somebody comes.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
In for this, None whatsoever?

Speaker 1 (19:56):
Okay, so no obligation. Now you've been doing this for
a while now at Mobile Bay Financial Solutions. Has the
process stayed about the same since you joined the firm
or any little differences?

Speaker 3 (20:07):
Well, I would say, you know, technology differences and things
like that, of course, but really the process has been
the same. You know, Nick Saban had a process and
he suck to it.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
It worked pretty good, right it did. So yeah, it's
been the same the whole time.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
Do you think there's anything that's unique about the way
you do things here at Mobile Bay Financial Solutions compared
to other advisors? Just unique about your process?

Speaker 3 (20:30):
You know, I think our process is something that really
and truly takes our clients or our prospective clients what
they want into account. For instance, just to give you
an example, we had a client come in and she
she was a widow, and she after the first couple
of meetings with her, you build a plan or whatever,
and she said, you know, my sister and my mom

(20:52):
they both live in Georgia. We've always had the stream
of buying some land and building kind of a retirement cabin.
You know this, this is what it was. And we said,
you can do that. She said, are you sure.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
My other advisor said I could never do that.

Speaker 3 (21:03):
I was like, I don't know why, you know, and
it was one of those things and ever touch she
was like, and it's great, and they've bought this piece
of property, she's building this cabin. We get, we get
pictures from her updates and all this stuff. She's retired
now's it's it's a really great thing. But we really
take what their dreams are and we really try to
accomplish those.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
It's it's not just most people don't care about.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
What their return is. They care about what their return
is because they want to be able to accomplish those things.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
They want to accomplish.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
Now, there are some people that just want to you know,
Ebenezer Scrooge counter coins and see how much money they have.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
That's that brings them joy, that sparks joy for them.

Speaker 3 (21:37):
But they you know, money is so sensitive because it
is what drives all these other things, all these goals
and these dreams and these wishes, and so we really
take to account. We spend a lot of time wondering
and going through you know, what is it that they
want to be able to do and can we provide
enough income for that? And that's something that really brings
us a lot joy because they say, oh my gosh,

(21:57):
yeah you've thought of that. You know, thanks for thinking
of that, you know, whatever that might be. So I
think that's something that's really unique. We don't just tell
you what portfolio we think you should go in, or
what product you should be in, or you know, anything like.
It's not just that, yes, those things matter, but it's
also about what do you want to do, and how
do you want to spend those you know, retirement years,

(22:18):
and how do you want to be remembered if you're
giving to cherities and things like that. That's that's really important.
And and brings us a lot of fulfillment in our job.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
And we are out of time. You the listener. If
you want to get in touch with Mobile Bay Financial Solutions,
call them at two five one six six six five thousand.
That's two five one six six six five thousand for
Mobile Bay Financial Solutions. Virginia O'Brien, thank you, and roll tide,
Roll tide, Uncle Henry