Mobile Bay Financial Solutions 5.6.2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
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 sixty

(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

(00:48):
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. John McNeil, Virginia O'Brien, How are
things going at Mobile Bay Financial Solutions.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Uncle Henry. Things are great, you know, it is just
we're just plugging along here. It seems crazy that we're
already to this point in the year, but things are,
as usual, very exciting in the financial world.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
So yes, they all.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
It just seems every day it's just like a new
surprise on on the news, you know, depending on which
news channel you watch or listen to. So always lots
to talk about and lots of crazy, really unprecedented things happening.
So it's been a very interesting time to be in finance.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
I can only imagine a lot of Americans are learning
more about finance these days because they have to watch
in the news.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
I know, I know, it's uh, it's kind of crazy.
I did see this, uh fun fact this week. I
thought was just very random, but I thought it was
very interesting. Did you know that it takes a water
A drop of water, so one drop ninety days to
travel the entire Mississippi River.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
How would somebody know that? I know, How did somebody
know that.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
A tracker and a drop of what? I don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
I don't know. I'm gonna I believe it though, Yeah,
I believe it.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
It's true, right exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
If you hear it on the radio, It's true everybody.
But here we are with John mcneilan, Virginia O Brian
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 sixty five. Now as we do
this program, record this at your office. We are getting
right up on Mother's Day. Mother's Day coming up real quick.

(03:08):
In honor of Mother's Day and as a way to
recognize everything moms have done for us, let's take a
few minutes to talk about how you can best make
sure that your mom is financially taking care of So
how about having a financial heart to heart.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, this is something that's really important. A lot of
times we encourage our clients to make sure that they
are talking to that next generation that's going to be
taking care of them. If something were to happen to them,
not if they were to pass away necessarily, but if
they can't make decisions for themselves, and sometimes that's hard.
A lot of times, especially in the South, I've found

(03:46):
talking money is a little bit taboo. You know, your
mom and dad always taught to you know, you don't
talk about money. You don't you don't ask how much money.
I remember growing up, Mom and dad, you say, you
never asked somebody how much money they have in their pocket. Yes,
I mean that was like a thing, you know, growing up.
It's just rude to talk about it. We've always been
taught that. But you don't necessarily have to get into
specific dollar amounts to find out, you know, if your

(04:08):
mom specifically is financially in a good place, interestingly enough,
which it's very I believe this is very true, or
I guess it's a research so we know it's true.
But I can see how this relates where the number
is definitely reflecting on what we see with our clients.
But research shows that seven out of ten men make
the long term financial planning decisions in the relationship. But

(04:30):
it's important that mom be in the know too, since
women often outlive men. Statistically, women outlive men by eight years.
So if your parents are the same age, then your
mom is statistically going to outlive your dad by eight years. Now.
Obviously this doesn't always play out exactly like that, but
more often than not, you've been to a nursing home.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Before, I'm gole ahead, I have yes.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
If you test an amount to kick, hey, you got
to get towers a little bit. But you know, when
we when you go to a nursing home, all jokes aside.
You know, for every what nine women, there's probably one male. Uh,
we always we always joke with our clients. You know,
if you're a male that makes it to a nursing him,
you've got pretty good odds of getting married again or

(05:18):
at least find a new girlfriend. But anyway, so it's
really important to talk to that to your parents and
your mom, especially to make sure she knows what's going on.
I can't tell you how many times clients come into
our conference room and they say, look, as long as
she is taking it. The husband will say, as long
as she is taken care of when I'm gone, And

(05:40):
a lot of times sometimes the wife does not necessarily
want to come in. Oh no, they love y'all. She
trusts y'all, she loves y'all. She doesn't she don't want
to come in here and listen to this and say, no,
please get her to come, because you know, there's going
to come a day when you might not be here
and she needs to know to at least kind of
listen to it, you know. So we have this one

(06:01):
client that comes and she brings her knitting and she doesn't.
She sits in there because she jokes that we make
her come. But she she just says, okay, you know,
I'll just I'm sitting here for moral support, but you know,
y'all just tell me what to do. So there's a
lot of times where we're making sure that, you know,
funny enough, a lot of times when a wife loses
her husband, a lot of times we're the first call

(06:23):
that they make, you know, when something goes wrong after
their husband passes away. You know, we're they might not
even call their kids. We had a client a couple
of weeks ago. Her house flooded. There was a big
rainstorm here in town and the creek behind the house
backed up and her house flooded, the master bedroom, everything.
But she said she woke up and she put her
feet on the ground and it was a little puddle
of water everywhere. She didn't call either of her two

(06:45):
kids now that she doesn't have a good relationship with them,
but she called me at teven to fifteen in the
morning and said, Okay, what do I do? Okay, you know,
I mean, and it's been so it's one of those
things like she does she you know, and so it was.
So it's really important have that heart to heart, make
sure you kind of know what's going on. Don't necessarily
have to talk dollar amounts to make sure you kind
of know what's in place, you know, do they have
long term care and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
So what about providing mom with a list of certain professionals?

Speaker 3 (07:12):
Good idea? You know, a lot of times husband and wife,
dad passes away. He may have had a financial planner,
but just like seven out of ten men take care
of the finances in a house, nine out of ten
women widows shortly after death leave the financial planner that

(07:32):
dad had.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
Huh Okay, just.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
Like what Virginia's saying, the women weren't really involved and
just wants a relationship, and so it's very important for
her to have somebody as well as the kids, to
make sure she connects with the financial planner. Same goes
from a state planner, an insurance broker, we'll talk about
that in a minute, or even a primary care physician.

(07:56):
It's very important to be able to hold the hand
of somebody who going through an emotional circumstance shortly after
losing a spouse, not knowing all the details of where
they are financially. That's scary for a survivor, not knowing
where the accounts are, what the past words are, all
that kind of stuff. So it's very important when you're

(08:19):
having the heart to heart with mom, Mom, do you
have a planner? You know, do you have somebody that
handles the stocks and bonds or I rays or whatever.
If not, get her in touch with somebody, and if
not us, somebody.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
Okay, Now for the younger mom, what about a discussion
with her about life insurance?

Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yeah, you know, the younger mom's out there especially well,
you know, as we're recording this in the year twenty
twenty five, a lot of my much higher percentage of
mom's work outside the home as well. Right when I
was growing up, you know, in the eighties, it was
you know, mom still worked, don't get me wrong, but
not necessarily, not as many, not as high a percentage.

(09:02):
So the thought there was, if something happened to mom,
we didn't lose an income stream, right, we did lose childcare.
Obviously that's some people people don't realize. But even now
people don't realize even if moms uh don't work, you
still the dad would be what are they going to do?
Just get off of work every day at two thirty
and go pick up the kids and run them around

(09:23):
and all that kind of stuff. So having making sure
that mom is uh, you know, not replaceable, but we
have the funds to be able to replace that, to
be able to pay for something to you know, not
make up for it. That doesn't sound right, but you know,
be able to pay for somebody to be able to
take care of the kids and more than likely replace

(09:43):
her income stream. We had a client that she was
in her late thirty she passed away, and she taught
at a private school, so didn't really make a lot
of income, but they had three children and guess what,
they got a fifty percent tuition break on all of

(10:04):
the three children, so that was a huge So she
did make some income, don't get me wrong, but it
wasn't a huge amount. The dad was definitely by far
the bread winner. But then when he lost his wife,
now he lost this. Now the school tuition doubled from
what it was he was, you know, whatever he was
paying now he says a double it. And then he

(10:25):
also lost the extra I think it was like forty
thousand a year or thirty five thousand a year that
the wife brought home. So it was still a huge
adjustment as far as as mney as was concerned. And
she did have life insurance in place, so it was
it was taking care of so to speak. But when
we initially met with them, they were the kids of

(10:47):
some clients. We initially met with them, we said, you know,
she needs to have life insurance too, and we explained
their OG and then you know, unfortunately it did pan
out that way that they did need it. But young
moms sometimes don't think about it, but they do a
lot of times need.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
It, okay, And for the moms that are in the
Sandwich generation Sandwich generation moms, a good idea to talk
to them about a strategy for long term care.

Speaker 3 (11:13):
It's good idea to talk about long term care with
your parents, yes, and make sure that there is something
in place. Some people saying that Sandwich generation, well, that's
where you have Gen xers and now even some older
millennials that are becoming part of the Sandwich generation, meaning
they're taking care of kids and they're having to take

(11:35):
care of their parents. You have a lot of people
who lose the spouse and you know, dad passes away
and mom moves into the mother in law suite at
one of the kids' houses, you know, something like that
because they didn't plan for long term care. It's such
an easy discussion to have because they're probably concerned about
it but just hadn't done anything about it. And if

(11:56):
you don't talk to them about it, then it's going
to fall in your lap. We also have kids that
are paying for long term care insurance because mom and
dad can't pay for it and they don't want to
have the burden in the future, so they buy it
for their parents. So these discussions with mom, especially moms, uh,
make sure they've got things in order so that you
know where everything is and what everything is, and we

(12:18):
can help facilitate that discussion.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
You're listening to John mcneilan, Virginia Brian of Mobile Bay
Financial Solutions. You can call their office at two five
one sixty sixty six five thousand. That's two five to
one sixty sixty six five thousand. Their website is mb
financial Solutions dot com. Now let's talk about retirement planning myths.
There is a long list, maybe an endless list of
retirement planning myths that need to be busted. So I'm

(12:43):
gonna throw some out here for you and let you
bust these myths up. Okay, here's the first one. The
more a financial plan ways, the more valuable it is.

Speaker 3 (12:53):
You'd be you'd be surprised, Uncle Henry. We can show
you clients that bring in these huge binders and they're
full of all kinds of papers and legal paperwork and
financial quote, financial plan, and they pay a lot for it.
You know, it's a fee to get these things done. Actually,

(13:14):
the bigger they are means more border plate fillers that
are in there just for fluff that don't really mean anything,
but they look good, you know, they're big and shiny
and all that kind of stuff. Our financial plan which
does get bigger because you do have to get some
legal work to go along with it. In most cases
but our financial plan, our retirement road map is two pages,

(13:38):
two pages. One's pretty big. You've seen it, yes, how
big it is eighteen by twenty two mines or mass huge.
But it lays out all your buckets of money and
where your income is going to come from and all that.
So just because it's a big, fancy, shiny binder with
a bunch of stuff and it doesn't mean it's a
better plan.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
Okay, how about this retire myth? Retirement planning myth? My
life is simple, So a will is all I'll need
to have my affairs in order. That's all I need
is a will.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
Well, we hear this a lot, and and sometimes that
might be all that you think that you need. And
we're not attorneys, we're not we're we do not draw
up the legal paperwork. But you know, having your affairs
in order, so to speak, is about more than just
having a plan for how your assets will be divided.

(14:31):
For instance, somebody needs to know the instructions for the
funeral plan, cemetery info, final wishes, all that kind of stuff.
It's important to you know, does that person that's gonna
be your executor of your estate or executives of your state.
Do they have all the passwords and bills and to
pay the bills and all that kind of stuff. Because
if you think about it, Uncle Henry, somebody passes away

(14:53):
and let's say they're not married. Somebody passes away and
they have their house, well they through probate, you know,
if it's left and a will to somebody or whatever,
then that's got to go through private. It's got to
be it's got to sit there for you know, roughly
six months. Well, who's going to pay the water bill,
the power bill, the all those kind of things. How

(15:13):
is that going to happen? The insurance on it, all
those things? And then also what if you don't just
pass away randomly. You know, you're in perfectly good health
one day and then the next day you don't wake up.
What happens if you develop dementia or cancer or some
sort of illness and you can't make decisions for yourself.
Somebody's got to have your power of attorney. We think
sometimes when we're explaining to people, people say, why the

(15:36):
power attorney almost sounds more important than the will? And
you know, who's to say, it depends on what your
situation is. But if you're if you're worried about your will,
You're worried about something that's going to be taking place
when you're not here. So you know, arguably it's not
really your problem at that point, right, I mean, what
can you do about it except for maybe haunt the
people that.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
You've got a lift of. Who I'm haunting? Oh?

Speaker 2 (15:56):
Good, am I on it?

Speaker 1 (15:57):
No?

Speaker 2 (15:57):
Of course not okay, good But some Auburn coaches though,
oh yeah, and probably some Auburn fans.

Speaker 1 (16:03):
Well, no, I'm generous to them.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
That's nice. But when we look at when we look
at that, there's lots of things. Sometimes it might be,
you know, your estate planning needs might warrant having a
living trust and that kind of think.

Speaker 3 (16:19):
You know.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
So there's a lot of different things that people don't
think about. People say, well, I don't have anything that's
going to go through prebate, and we say, oh okay,
Well we had some say that when we say, well,
again we're not attorneys, but if your house and your
car are listed in your will, those are your that's
part of your state. It doesn't it doesn't pass by contract.
Then they would go through private well, it would they did,

(16:40):
and that you know, you got to look at those
kind of things. So really really important to make sure
you have an estate planning attorney if you need one.
We've got lots of recommendations that we can give you.
There's some online services sometimes that are that are good
to and we have local attorneys that we work with here.
But there there's almost always a need especially for that.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
Here is another retirement myth. Retirement planning myth. My spouse
will be fine when I'm gone. They'll only need half
as much income. Anyway, it's only going to cost half
as much to live, John McNeill.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
We'll think about it. I'm going, Henry. I mean, statistics
show it usually cost around eighty to eighty five percent
of what a married couple. Oh really, okay, you think
about it. You still have the house. It doesn't cost
any less to keep the house. True, it doesn't really
cost any less for one person to eat than two
people to eat, unless it come out to eat. Everything

(17:36):
pretty much stays the same, but your income goes down.
We talked to our clients all the time and showing well,
you know, when one of y'all passes away. We had
somebody in here that worked for Lucky Martin, and he
had a pretty good pension, but he decided to take
the life only pension payout on his pension plan, and

(17:56):
he did that before he even got married. Then he
got married, so when he dies, his wife is not
going to get anything from the pension, which is about
six thousand dollars a month, and he's getting about thirty
five hundred dollars a month from sub security. So you
lose one of the subsecurities, lose pension, you may have
other income producing things that will stop or be cut

(18:18):
in some way. So it's very important to know that
it doesn't cost any less really for one person to
live than two. So that, guys, we just busted that myth.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yes, indeed, hey, one more retirement planning myth. When I retire,
I need to dramatically shift from stocks to bonds in
my portfolio.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
Now this is not a blanket suggestion, but you know,
every every individual case is different. But if you just
totally shift from stocks to bonds, and it was maybe
January of twenty twenty two, well, at the end of
twenty twenty two, December of twenty twenty two, bonds were
down double digits for the first time, I think for

(19:04):
the third time in the last one hundred years as
well as stock as well as at the equity side.
So bond aggregates were down, equity double digits. Equities were
down double digits. So arguably that wouldn't have been a
great thing to do. So it's not one of those things.
It's a blanket thing. It's not that bonds are bad,
but you don't want to You also don't want to
have putting be putting all of your eggs in one basket.

(19:26):
Having the money managed and planned and you know, thought
out as far as when we're going to be drawing
money from different sources, making sure we have plenty of
room for contingencies, you know, surprises, emergencies, things like that.
Making sure that the plan is put together in a
way that can weather the storms. That's what we need
to have. So just going back to having that plan

(19:48):
put in place, But just shifting dramatically from stocks to
bonds when you retire doesn't necessarily mean that doesn't necessarily
make sense most of the time.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
Okay, hey, we're almost out of time. Before out of time,
I just wanted to mention I hope you don't mind
if I bring this up. John McNeill Virginia, O Brian.
But May, the month of May is the month that
the readers of the land yapp newspaper in mobile vote
for their Nappy awards. That's right, and that is the
month of May.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yes, we have a nappy nominee sitting here.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
Yes you did, John McNeil. John McNeil, you are. You
are up in the financial planning category. I would like
to suggest to the listener that you go to vote
nappies dot com once a day and vote for John McNeil.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
Well, also go to Nappy's Vote nappies dot com or
whatever it was you just said and vote for Uncle
Henry for the most radio show.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
Well, I appreciate that very many time back in the day. Yeah,
but uh this is this is your first time in right, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:49):
I got to notice that I was a finalist and
so here I am.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
Okay, Well we need to get you that Nappy award.
So listenar just remember put him on the list. If
you're going there and voting for your your cousins or
your brother in law or whatever it is, make sure
you add John McNeil in votnappies dot Com.

Speaker 3 (21:03):
I would appreciate. But like someone once said, if nominated,
I will not run. If elected, I will not serve.
But if in this case, I don't need to do
anything other than just receive the reward.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
Well, they do have an awards ceremony that'll be at
the Singer If you win, it will be past your bedtime.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
Okay, Well I can take a five hour energy drink
or something.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
Okay, very very good. But again that's votnappies dot com.
And you've been listening to John McNeill, Virginia Brian of
Mobile Bayfinancial Solutions, the website mbfinancial Solutions dot com and
the phone number to make an appointment two five one
sixty six six five thousand. That's two five one sixty
sixty six five thousand, John McNeil, thank you, and roll tide,
roll Tad, Uncle Henry