Mobile Bay Financial Solutions 4.29.2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
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

(00:30):
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

(00:50):
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 LLC 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

(01:14):
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

(01:36):
to suit any individual. John McNeil, Virginia O'Brian, How are
thanks going this week at Mobile Bay Financial Solutions?

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, Uncle Henry, we are just plugging along here. It's
hard to as we record this show today, it's hard
to believe that it is. We are almost to the
month of May. Is It is just crazy to me.
I don't know why. It feels like it's flown by.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Well, it is, it is flying by.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
It.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
It feels like summer before or may have started.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
I received a text from my husband yesterday while I
was at the office. He had run home at lunch
to eat some lunch at home, and he went and
looked at the thermostat, the inside thermostat in our house. Yeah,
and it has a little spot where it shows you
what the outside temperature was. And we're in April still
and it's a ninety two degrees Okay, So I was

(02:23):
not excited for that. It must be. Well, let's hope
that it was just in the sun. But anyway, it
is it is still feeling toasty, starting to feel toasty
out there, which you know what that means for mobili
We're about to start getting those summer showers and just
the summer blazing heat. So anyway, but we do have
an exciting event coming up. I am one of the

(02:45):
co chairs for the University of South Alabama Children's and
Women's Hospital Local Goodness Fundraiser this year, which is on
May the fourth, Sunday, May the fourth, from four to seven.
So if you are interested in going or supporting local goodness,
there are several different ways you can do that. We

(03:07):
have several different game of chance uh opportunities uh that
that can be purchased, and you can go to us
A HealthSystem dot com forward slash Local Goodness and learn
all about it there.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
Now in the event, and this event is Sunday.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Yep, so four May the fourth, from four to.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Seven, four to seven. Where is it going to be.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
It is going to be at Magnolia Manor, which is
the white the big white house right there past the
entrance to Children's and Women's Hospital on Avenue, uh huh.
And what happens well, it's a it's a Sunday afternoon
cocktail hour and supper. Morizette and Co. Is doing the
food so that there's a wonderful menu of it's all
locally sourced ingredients, hence the name local Goodness will have.

(03:54):
I know you're familiar with Doc Rock, Uncle Henry. Did
you attend this past year? Are you promoted some?

Speaker 1 (03:59):
I think I've talked about it. I don't. I've not
been to Doc Rock. I don't rock.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Don't rock.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
No, I don't.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
You go to the doc but you don't rock exactly exactly. Well,
we're excited because this year's musical entertainment is the winner
of Doc Rock, the twenty twenty five Doc Rock so
or twenty twenty four whenever dock Rock was anyway, So
it's a team or it's a band comprised of several
different doctors in the area. So okay, I've listened to

(04:29):
their demo tape. They're very good. So anyway, I've got
some local entertainment, some locally source food, some excellent game
of chance prizes with the opportunity to buy some of
those chances online, and you do not have to be
present to win. So if you want to go. Maybe
you're you've got plans on Sunday, but still want to
go support Children's and women's. Of course it is an excellent,

(04:51):
excellent hospital. This year's all the fundraisers are all the
fundraising for this event are going to support the Pediatric
Interventional Radiology Department Coasting but which is an extremely important
integral part of of the hospital and it will be
something it's something that we can't perform a lot of

(05:11):
the procedures that well, a lot of the procedures that
we can't perform at the hospital now are having to
be sent to New Orleans or Birmingham to get those
things done. So of course, you know, when you have
somebody a family member that you know is in need
of different procedures, having to travel with that with that
patients is hard, especially when they're kids. But it's something

(05:35):
that's that's really hard. The other one of the other
Game of Chance opportunities to win is a John Deere Gator.
It's about yes, there is also uh there's three different packages,
so that the John Deere Gator is a big one
and then one of the other ones is if you're

(05:55):
a big hunter or you maybe have a big hunter
a special hunter in your line. There is the Ultimate
Outdoorsman package from Massy Oak and they are one. One
of the things included in there is actually a British
lab puppy from Masioak Kennels, so very very excited. Lots

(06:17):
of different hunting gear on that So anyway, go to
the website to check it out. Against USA Health System
dot com forward slash local goodness.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Very very good. All right, we're here with John mcneiland
Virginia O'Brian of Mobile Bay Financial Solutions. You can call
their office at two five to one sixty sixty six
five thousand. That's two five to one six sixty six
five thousand. Their website is mb financial Solutions dot com.
So let's talk about questions to ask during difficult markets.
There's a CNBC commentator named Josh Brown. He usually has

(06:52):
good things to say about how you should react during
difficult times in the market. He says that when you're
dealing with a difficult stock market, the answer sure is
rarely try harder. Instead, the answeres usually do less type ay.
People usually have a tough time dealing with that concept
of doing less. So let's explore some questions that he

(07:14):
says you should be considering during difficult markets, and I'd
like to know how you help people find the answers
to these questions. First question is am I taking the
right type of risks? How do I know?

Speaker 3 (07:26):
You know, that's an interesting question. The right types of
risk and so many different types of risk. People think, well,
should I get in the stock market or not? That's
the risk you know, don't know, But you have a
number of other different types of risk, like interest rate risk.
If you have a bond portfolio and interest rates go up,

(07:47):
your bond values go down. They work conversely with interest rates.
Very interesting. In two thousand and three, was it Virginia
was only the third time in history where equities and
twenty two, twenty twenty two when bonds and equities stocks

(08:07):
we're both down double digits because the interest rate. Twenty
twenty two instruction's going crazy, so everything lost in twenty
twenty two bad year. You also have longevity risks, the
risk of living too long. You know, this question doesn't
say am I taking the right types of risk? But
you've got this risk of equities, You've got the risk
of bonds, You've got the risk of being too conservative,

(08:30):
You've got the risk of being too aggressive. They are
all kinds of risks that we analyze when people bring
in their portfolio. We just got our second opinion, and
we still do. I mean, if somebody has a portfolio
and maybe even has an advisor, but just not sure
if they're in the right place, we analyze and talk
about where they are compared to where they answer on

(08:51):
a test that we give them. So those are the
different types of risk, and there are others.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
And a related question is the question, am I taking
the right amount of risk? And based on what Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
Taking the right amount of risk is something we concentrate
a lot on a lot of times people come in
and they really don't realize how much of their assets
are at risk. When they don't score us HI, they're
not as comfortable with having that much risk, and so
there's lots of different things to base it on. It

(09:24):
really depends again case by case. Situation also depends on
upcoming expenses that we know we're gonna have. For instance,
we have a client that is that was in this week,
that's going to retire in the next two months, and
he for the last one years has driven a company
car and the company car has been allowed to be
their personal car as well. And so you think about that,

(09:45):
he doesn't have a car, he doesn't have a car
to trade in to, you know, he doesn't have it.
So he's gonna have to come up with and I'm
going to read I don't know if you've looked at
car prices lately, but they are not cheap. That's a
big purchase these days. So that's something that going into
retirement that can really kind of wreck a plan. So
we've built We've been working with this client for five
years now, I think, so we've known that all along.

(10:06):
You know, something like that coming up, So making sure
we have the right amount of you know, cash chucked
away for something like that. When we know that purchase
is coming up that way, we know that it's in
an investment, whether it's cash, whether it's money market, something
like that, a fixed, something that's fixed that's earning a
good amount of interest until that time is needed to come.
Otherwise people say, well you could put it in the

(10:27):
market and make more. You could, but what if the
market is way down like it was a couple of
weeks ago, as we as you know, this first quarter
has been crazy in the market. You don't want to
have to sell securities when they're down and then you know,
realize that loss. So different things like that might not
make sense until you think about it, but there's lots
of different things that we base it on, and you

(10:47):
know that's something that's really important when retirement is coming up.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
Here's another difficult market question. If the bear market ends tomorrow,
will I be positioned to benefit?

Speaker 2 (10:58):
Okay, so let's just review the bear the difference in
a bear and bull market. Most people do know the difference.
But the bear market meaning that it is going on
the way down. Bull market meeting, it's gone the way up.
So if the bear market ends tomorrow, will I be
positioned to benefit? You know, this is something that it
depends on where you are. You know, what are what is?
What is a situation? Are you currently participating in a

(11:20):
four to one k where you're putting money in every
two weeks? That would be a good thing if the
bear if the bear market is tomorrow, because you've been
buying at a lower price so to speak, right, so
now that value is going to grow. Same with other
different types of investments too, But it just depends on
what you're invested in and how that works. For instance,
and you're if you're in a fixed index product, then

(11:42):
we're going and the bear market ends tomorrow, that could
be a good thing because you haven't lost anything and
now you're resetting to get to a higher amount. So
it just kind of depends on on that. But when
we look at where the bear market when the bear
market ends in tomorrow versus that in the are not,
you know, ending till the end of the year, That

(12:02):
could have a really big effect if all of your
money is at risk in the market. Right, So, and
that's probably the next question is what if it doesn't
until the end of the year, Well, how far down
is it going to go? And what assets do you
have invested in the market.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
Okay, here's another question to answer during a difficult market.
If the bear market continues all year, is that a
knockout punch for my current portfolio?

Speaker 3 (12:25):
Well, good question, but we don't know what your portfolio is.
That's so what we do in our first meeting when
people come in to meet with is they bring all
their paperwork, all their statements and whatnot, and then Virginia
and I take about ten days to two weeks before
we get together for the second meeting, and during that
particular time, we're running the risk analysis what if scenarios?

(12:48):
What if that question? What if the bear market continues
all year? Has that going to affect my portfolio? Should
I get out now? Well, we don't know if the
bear markets can continue all year, so we need to
be able to position, but we can. We can run
it through our analytics and come up with an idea
of if we have another two thousand and eight, for example,

(13:12):
we can show you, with the current holdings in your portfolio,
this is what your portfolio is going to look like,
and that may trigger us making some recommendations to reposition
some of the some of the assets in there so
that we can have a portfolio that's not decimated by
down a long term bear market, but in some cases

(13:35):
can even make money in a bear market. So there
are ways that we design portfolios to base based on
what they tell us. Like those first two questions, what
types of risk and how much risk? We will design
it to meet those demands.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
One more question to ask during a difficult market, has
anyone else been looking at what I'm doing? Am I
talking to the right people?

Speaker 2 (13:59):
Yeah? This is something that's a big question. You know,
making sure that the advisors that you're talking to are
not just looking at things like where to put your
like what to invest your money in, but what what
are all of the different assets that are going to be
producing income? You know, where does the social Security switch
get turned on and at what time? And if you're
a married couple, how does that work for you, know,

(14:23):
you and your spouse turning it on, and what kind
of pension options to take and all the other things
and how to do all of that. It's not just
where to invest your money on those accounts, but is
everything coordinated? Is your four to one K that's still
at your place of employment coordinating with everything else? So
looking at all the different factors of retirement income and

(14:43):
retirement planning is something that's really important.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
You're listening to John mcneilan Virginia O'Brien of Mobile Bay
Financial Solutions. You can call their office at two five
to one six six six five thousand. That's two five
to one six six six five thousand for Mobile Bank
Financial Solutions. Many times clients don't even realize all the
services that you can provide them, So explain how you
can help in some of these areas like for example,

(15:08):
preparing tax returns.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
Right, we are not CPAs. We do not prepare tax returns.
We review tax returns with our clients and Virginia and
I spend many, many hours meeting with our clients CPAs,
whether it's zoom or in person, to let the CPA
know where they are and what may be able to

(15:31):
what we can take advantage of to reduce our taxes.
But we do not prepare taxes, but we're very familiar
with the tax system and what we can do depending
on your age, depending on your assets, depending on your employment,
if you're still employed, So making sure that you're maximizing
your deductions therefore minimizing your taxes is very important. Taxes

(15:56):
are one of the biggest things that affect retirees.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
Okay, so you don't you don't do tax returns, but
you will review them. What about tax planning?

Speaker 3 (16:04):
Tax planning is one of the things that a lot
of people do not do. I will just guess eighty
percent of the people out there, other than small business owners,
but eighty percent of the individuals or couples, all they
do is tax preparation. They gather up all their stuff
and either file their taxes themselves online or they take

(16:26):
it to a CPA, and CPA just says, this is
what you owe, this is what you made, this is
what you owe. Well, that's not tax planning. Tax planning
allows us to sit down and figure out they sit
down with us first, we can say let's talk about
these things, and then they can go review with their CPA.
This is a great time of year to go meet

(16:46):
with your CPA and do tax planning because they're in
between having to file returns. You know, April fifteenth is
the big day for individuals or couples failing their returns,
but all during the year there are other headlines, like
for trust they have a different tax filing date, corporations
they have a different tax filing date. So right now

(17:08):
they kind of in between, and now is the time
to sit down and do the tax planning.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
What about helping with four oh one K allocation.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yes, we do look at this, you know, when we
look at the equity side of things, and we look at, okay,
what is exposed in the market. Most of the time,
almost all the time, the four to one K is
exposed to the market, and so that's something where we
look at, Okay, this is in the market, you know,
and a lot of times in a four to one
K you're giving you're given fifteen, twenty, maybe twenty five
options of different funds that you can invest in. And

(17:42):
so we look at that and you know, collaboration with
all of your other assets and say, okay, given everything else,
this is where the four to one K should be allocated.
So looking at that and making sure that that is
when that that is all coordinated is extremely important. Most
of the time, people that are under the age of
fifty nine and nurs half their four one K is
one of their biggest assets.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
Talk about deciding when to start social security.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
This is a big one. SOB scurity is very complicated.
You know, you've been to some of our meetings before
where we talk about the different options in sub security.
There are hundreds of different combinations of options. For a
married couple with children, I want to say, there's one
hundred and eighty four different options when you should turn
on SOB security. We had some clients in this week

(18:32):
and the wife was saying, should I go ahead and
turn on my sub security at age sixty two? The
husband's a little bit older, Should I turn on mine?
Let and they're both working to turn on mine and
let my husbands keep growing. That's the strategy that I'm
doing personally. My wife turned on hers. She works, but
when she reached full retirement age last year, she turned

(18:53):
on her sub security. And then when I turned seventy,
which unfortunately, Uncle Henry is only about six months from now,
six or seven. I know I don't look it, but
when I turned seventy, you have to turn it on
a day seventy. So when I turn on my sub
security day seventy hers, she'll stop taking her subsecurity and
she'll take the spousal benefit. So the purpose was for

(19:14):
me to grow mine because I was the higher earner
during our married life, So her income from sub security
will double when she stops taking hers and starts taking
the spousal benefit. One of the reasons we turned her
zone we didn't need the income, but if she doesn't
take her benefit, it's gone. So she worked all she

(19:35):
worked enough to have a nice little benefit eleven or
twelve hundred dollars. But she'll be when I when i'd
not retire, but when I turn on my sub security
at seventy, her benefit or spousal benefit will be about
twenty six hundred dollars a month, a big increase, So
we look at how to maximize the potential for collecting

(19:57):
sobial security and making sure we don't leave any money
on the table.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
What about picking the right Medicare options? Do you do that?

Speaker 2 (20:06):
We personally do not do that. Medicare is a is
a its own monster, we like to call it. It
is it is a lot of different combinations of different
choices you can use, and it's all dependent upon your
own situation. In fact, most of the time a lot
of married couples do are not on the same plan,
and so it's it's very dependent upon what your exact

(20:28):
situation is. But we have Medicare people that we can
refer you to, and we highly recommend getting a Medicare
specialist to help you pick that out.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
Okay, what about making the best pension choice?

Speaker 3 (20:40):
That can be confusing too, not quite as confusing as
deciding on social security. But if you are fortunate enough
to be participating in a pension, see somebody's already calling
Uncle Henry. Get out the number they call. But the
best pension choice? Do you have a lump some If
you have a lump sum usually ninety five percent times.
Best to take the lump some so you have control.

(21:03):
But if you don't have a lump some, you got
to decide do you want to pension for the rest
of your life or a pension for the rest of
you and your spouse's life if you're if you're married.
There are all kinds of choices like that. We want
to just like sell security, we want to maximize the pension,
get as much out of the pension as we possibly
can by making the right choices.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
And what about estate planning?

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Estate planning is something we are not attorneys. We are
not tax attorneys. We do not draw up a state
documents as far as wills, power, attorneys, trust, things like that.
We have different services that we refer to different there's
some online services we can refer to. There are different
state planning attorneys locally that we refer to depending on

(21:47):
the situation. But we we will encourage almost everybody that
comes in to make sure they have all those documents
in place because it's extremely important to have that in
place for sure.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
All right, we are out of time. John McNeil and
Virginia O'Brien are Mobile Bay Financial Solutions. You can call
their office at two five one six six six five thousand.
That's two five one sixty six six five thousand. The
website MB financial Solutions dot com. John and Virginia thank
you for having me here and roll toide Roll Todd