Simply Money

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
With fall in the air for yourself, a cup of conversation. Thanks for
taking my call. I got alot to say. Fifty five KR see
the talk station tonight. We arein the home stretch of twenty twenty three,

(00:21):
right the final weeks of this year, so we're going to challenge you
tonight to take a step back,right reset, think about what you did
right this year with your money,maybe what you want to do differently next
year in twenty twenty four. You'relistening to Simply Money present of all Worth
Financial I Memi Wagner along with SteveSproback. If you are like me,
you are in the midst of holidayshopping. I have four teenagers who I'm

(00:43):
not sure that they've done any workin school because they have very beautiful Christmas
lists on PowerPoint presentations all They're verygood at knowing what they want. They
know exactly what they want with linksand everything. So yeah, this is
a mom's job easy in some cases, I guess it does do that.
It does make me think, Okay, if anyone's failing tests right now,

(01:04):
I know exactly why, they'll beginningexactly what they want for Christmas. But
mom will beginning the grade that she'swinning. But I do think that this
time of the year, beyond justall of the holiday craziness that that comes
along with this Deason, is agood time to kind of reflect. Like,
we're coming up on the end oftwenty twenty three, What did you
do right this year when it cameto your money? What are you proud
of? What do you say,like, I'm really glad we took that

(01:26):
step as a family or as acouple, or I took that step,
But also what are the things thatI didn't do so great about that I
want to do differently? Coming upon twenty twenty four. I mean,
when you think about New Year's resolutions, it's not something that you should decide.
I don't think the night before.I think it's something that you come
to over weeks of time of figuringout, Okay, if I'm really going
to be serious about making some changes, what is that going to look like?

(01:48):
How am I going to do that? Well? This time of year,
you know, we usually talk about, you know, end of the
year, what can we do tohelp save taxes? This, that and
the other thing. And it's it'sI agree with the one hundred percent just
having an honest assessment of where Iam right now. I wanted to be
here and I'm not quite there.Where did I go wrong? I think
this is true, and just aboutanything in life is if you're honest with

(02:10):
yourself, just just an assessment ofOkay, I didn't get there, why
didn't I get there? And whatdo I need to change so I can
get there? I mean, inmy case, I had a goal of
I'm going to lose this much weight. Well I got about two thirds of
the way there and just solved out. You know, it happens same with
investing. You know, I wantedto have this much money, didn't quite

(02:32):
make it. Is it the market'sfault? Or did I not put as
much away as I could have.We can talk about debt, we can
talk about investing, but you knowwhat, if you don't get real specific
on what you're trying to accomplish,give yourself a timeframe that you want to
accomplish it by, you're just spinningyour wheels. You're not going to get
there. Well, Steve, youwere just talking about losing weight, right.

(02:53):
You didn't say I'm just going toI'm going to lose weight in twenty
twenty three. But you set aspecific goal for yourself, maybe make it
all the way there, but yougot a lot further than you would have
had you not been specific and said, this is my goalwait, and this
is how I'm going to do it. The same is true for your money,
right What is your goal? Isyour goal to pay down debt?

(03:13):
Is your goal to save more forretirement? Is your goal to help save
for college or someone's wedding that's comingup that you're going to help with.
Right, you have to be veryspecific about what it is, what your
timeline is, what you're going todo to get there, rather than just
saying like I'm going to be betterabout money next year, it's just too
general and track it. You haveto track it. Let's talk about debt
as an example, because I thinkeverybody at some point in their lives ran

(03:37):
into a time period where, wow, how did that get out of control?
I've been there. I don't knowif you've been there, but you
know most people have. And rightnow we're at record amounts of consumer debt.
People have more on credit cards todaycarrying balances than ever in history,
and we're heading into the holiday season. I don't think it's going to get
a whole lot better. So youknow, if one of your goals has

(04:00):
in we got to cut down oncredit card debt, and you didn't cut
down as much as you did,why not, Well, yeah, this
came up, and that came up. No, no, no, no,
this has to be number one onyour list. You just got your
paycheck deposit it in your bank account. Did you set aside before you started
paying bills that two hundred dollars orwhatever that number was, that you were
going to set aside to pay downthis card because it had the highest interest

(04:21):
rate, or did you just say, yeah, whatever's left over at the
end of the month, that's whatI'm going to use a pay down.
One method works, the other onedoesn't. Well, you know, I
think about all the years that I'vebeen doing the show or the column and
the Inquirer, right, so manypeople have come to us, and I've
heard the same question so many timesabout debt, and it's something some version
of this, Should I pay downthis debt or should I save and invest

(04:45):
money? Yeah, which which oneshould I do first? And it's yes,
yes, both of those things.You should do both of those things.
And maybe depending on certain circumstances andhow much you're paying an interest on
the debt. Maybe some of thethings make sense to prioritize one or the
other, but I would say bothat the same time, starting with an
emergency fund as the absolute foundation ofeverything. But you funnel some money toward

(05:11):
debt, you funnel some money towardsaving. And Steve you said, you
know, we've all kind of beenin a situation where we've gotten ourselves into
a hole. But here's the thing. If you are in a hole,
maybe next year is the year,if you're serious about getting out of it,
that you make changes. And thatmight mean you pull back on some
of the things that you spend moneyon in order to pull yourself out of
that hole. No one likes tohave to, you know, cook at

(05:33):
home a few more nights a weekrather than eating out, or not take
that big family vacation or whatever itis. But but some years that's necessary
in order to put yourself in abetter financial situation. You're listening to Simply
Money on fifty five KRC. I'mSteve Sprovak along with Amy Wagner, and
we're talking about how you can setinvestment goals to either invest money or pay

(05:56):
down debt or a little bit ofboth. That The problem with what we're
talking about, Amy is you know, not everybody has enough money to both
pay down debt and invest money.So I'm going to make a suggestion.
And Number one, Okay, putenough money in your four oh one k
to get the match, because that'sfree money. Okay, that's you have
to do that. Number Two,invest anything left over in something that guarantees

(06:19):
you in eighteen to twenty two percentinterest rate. You want to say what
that is? Yeah, and payoff your credit card balance, because if
you're carrying whatever ten thousand dollars ina credit card balance, I don't know
what your card happens to be,but most of them are not lower than
eighteen percent, and some are actuallyhigher than twenty two. If you pay

(06:41):
down and eventually pay off that creditcard balance, you just gave yourself an
eighteen to twenty two percent rate ofreturn. Money not going out is the
same as money coming in. Soget rid of that credit card debt.
And I will even argue if you'vegot a five thousand dollars emergency fund,
so that you feel good and you'redoing what we ask you to do.
But you have a five thousand dollarsbalance on a credit card, you don't

(07:03):
have an emergency fund. That's zerothose numbers zero out. You've got to
attack the credit card debt. Yeah, so you're trying to get your priority
straight right. The problem I thinkfor some people is maybe your spouse is
just not on the same page andyou're trying to communicate about it, but
they just aren't getting there. Iwould ask you this, have the two
of you ever sat down and calculatedyour net worth? Because I think this

(07:25):
is just a baseline for your basicfinancial health, and this is how much
do I owe versus how much doI have? Nathan Backrack, one of
our founders, used to say,if you were to hang yourself upside down
from a tree and everything were tofall out of your pockets, how much
money is in there versus how muchdo you owe other people? And if

(07:46):
you come out on the green sideof it, then you're in. Then
you're good. Right. You don'twant to be you don't want to be
in the red on this one.And this is literally just like, okay,
how much is that for one K? How much equity do you have
in your house versus how much doyou owe on the house, and how
much do you have in credit carddebt? And what other debts you have?
If you are in the black orin the green on this one,
then you're looking good. But you'vegot that number, and put that number

(08:07):
somewhere where you both can see itpretty often as your twenty twenty three number.
Okay, how can you do betterin twenty twenty four? How can
you bring that number if it's inthe negative to the positive. If you're
just barely in the positive, howdo you make it a little more in
the positive. But I think ifyou can just kind of get that baseline
for yourself, it gives you somethingto work together toward. You know where

(08:31):
the sea change was for me.I'm sixty four years old, and when
I hit fifty, I said,okay, late, start on investing kids
in college, every excuse, likemost people out there, sure, well,
you know what we're getting down infourteen years, fifteen years, sixteen
years. You know. I wasn'tclear when I was going to retire at
that point, but it was lesshypothetical and you know, starting to get

(08:52):
real. And I said, youknow what I need to do what I
preach. I need to sit downand get a handle on spad. Not
budgeting, just find out where it'sgoing and how much actually goes out the
door. And every month I startedtracking how much my wife and I spent
with no excuses. You know,okay, fine, we eat out a
lot, all right, that's whatwe spend. We don't have to cut

(09:15):
down yet, Let's find out wherethe money's going. On top of that,
I did exactly what you just said. Every month, I totalled up
every single dollar I had four tooh one k's iras savings, and every
month I redid it. And thattold me, hey, I'm going backwards,
I'm going forward, and it gaveme every month still do it,

(09:35):
and I do it the old fashionedway on a yellow legal pad, you
know, so you don't need allthese fancy apps. You can do this
if you set your mind to it. And that way I stay on track.
I know where the money goes.And when I realized, wow,
I'm not going to make it tillseventy retirement if I keep spending like this,
I started saying, okay, butwhat do I need to do?

(09:56):
What changes do I need to make? Specifically, put more money in a
four roh one Okay, spend alittle bit less on that, and you
know what. It works. Itworks if you set your mind to do
it and get very specific on here'swhere we're at, here's where I want
to be, What do I needto do to change things so that I
get there as soon as I wantto. You know, you've always said
money is a tool, and Ithink it's just it's really when you think

(10:20):
about it, there's no truer thingthat you can say about money. It
is a tool, but it cando one of two things. You can
control your money or your money cancontrol you. And what I hear you
saying is that, Okay, whenI turn fifty, you decided I am
taking control. And it might soundto people like, gosh, do I
want to sit down every month andmake this calculation? Well yeah, if
you want to take control, ifyou want to see where the trends are,

(10:43):
if you want to know where themoney is going out and how it's
coming in, that's exactly what youdo. Right. You valve that you're
going to take control and you getserious about it. And it for people
who feel like I can never getto retirement, I'm too far behind,
too many kids, I've heard allthe excuses, right, you and I
Over the years, we've heard allthe excuses, and we're here to say
it is absolutely doable. You justhave to get serious about it. You

(11:07):
don't have to be a CFP todo this, You don't have to be
a financial genius. You just haveto set your mind to it. And
by the way, the first timeyou do this, you are gonna just
be an absolute anxious mess because youdon't like the conclusions. Oh, I
know, I take fifty bucks amonth out of the atm Oh no,
you don't. I didn't if there'sa lot bigger number than that. But

(11:31):
once you do it for two orthree months, you're going to start to
feel in control. And when Ifeel like I'm in control of money,
the anxieties go out the window.Here's the all Worth advice. Setting specificals
right that are achievable is like creatingyour own pathway to getting there, whether
it's financial success, retirement, whateverthat looks likes for you. Comya.

(11:52):
Next, we've got to look atthe hot holiday gifts you might be interested
in buying, and can you havean HSA, a health savings account and
beyond medicare at the same time,we're going to answer that for you.
You're listening to Simply Money, presentedby all Worth Financial here on fifty five
KRC, the talk station from theuc BID KRC Cincinnati, available everywhere with

(12:15):
the iHeartRadio app now number one.More podcasting fifty five KRC an iHeartRadio station.
Allworth Financial a registered investment advisory firm. Any ideas presented during this program
are not intended to provide specific financialadvice. You should consult your own financial
advisor, tax consultant, or astate planning attorney to conduct your own due

(12:35):
diligence. You're listening to you SimplyMoney, presented by all Worth Financial.
I Meani Wagner along with Steve Scrovak. If you miss anything on our show,
you don't have to miss a thing. We've got a daily podcast for
you. It's called Simply Money.You can search it on the iHeart app
or wherever you find your podcast.Coming up at six forty three, we're

(12:58):
talking about safe investments, whether tosell company stock, and of course much
more. We are asking the advisorman when it comes to Amazon. I
feel like that company can just doanything, provide anything. I wouldn't want
to be in a business sector thatAmazon says they're coming into, and if
you are in healthcare while they're comingfor you. If you're an Amazon Prime

(13:20):
member, of course, you've gotaccess to streaming content, deals with you
shop online, and now apparently youcan also get medical care. Yeah.
And when I first read this,I'm thinking to myself, this is a
game changer. But you know what, when you dive into the details,
I'm not so sure it is.Amazon announced it's going to offer Prime members
primary care for nine dollars a month. Wow, I'm paying a lot more

(13:43):
than that right now. Nine dollarsa month. How can they do that?
Well? Really, and they callit one medical Really, what they're
doing is giving you unlimited, roundthe clock virtual care nationwide. So in
other words, teledoc okay, whichmy plan already already offers anyway, But
they're going to start moving into clinicsand that's going to be the interesting aspect

(14:07):
of this program because Amazon doesn't tendto do things just halfway. Yeah,
and they're actually not the first onesgetting into this. Costco has also already
started offering members access to healthcare.There's twenty nine dollars virtual primary care visits
you know Walmart has some stuff goingon. I've heard Walgreens as well.
There's an interesting statistic though that Iheard, and I can't remember exactly what

(14:30):
the number is, But in thenext couple of decades we're going to have
a major shortage of primary care physicians. I believe it. And so this
might be one way through telehealth.And there's a couple of things that made
me a little nervous about this.First of all, not everything can be
handled over telehealth, right, Obviously, much more serious things you need to
go see a doctor about. Andsecond, I think about my kids pediatrician.

(14:52):
I'm doctor Chuck Kelly, who has, gosh's been an amazing doctor.
He knows everything about my kids.And if I were to bring kids to
a clinic somewhere where no one hadever seen them, they wouldn't know that
this one had this situation four yearsago. If it might be taken into
account with whatever's going on now,right, So I just say, if
you're turning to these places, thatmight be great if you have a cold

(15:15):
or the flu, but man,if it's something more, you know,
just just kind of keep that inmind. So switching gears now, holiday
shopping, what are the hot holidaygifts this year? Well, just google
it right, google everything, youget the answer. The search engine giant
recently dropped it's holiday one hundred list, outlining the hottest gifts that everyone has
been searching for this year. I'msure. Is that how you do an's

(15:39):
gift giving and your kids? You'rejust like my wife Christmas Google, And
despite rumors, I have never boughther a gift from Speedway the day before
Christmas. And this is interesting becauseyou know there's this year's popular items.
Well, Google did something a littledifferent. They did the most popular searches.
What's one one of their top searchesfor Christmas presents? The human dog

(16:04):
bed. Yes, that's right.You can buy a bed just like you
may have for your dog, that'sbig enough for you to lay down.
And there are nights when Ann's Icould absolutely see and saying go go sleep
in the dog bed, get outof here. But it's like the new
version of the dog house. You'renot in the house, You're on the
floor in the dog bed. Shewants to make me comfortable when I'm in

(16:26):
the dog house. Maybe, butyou know, is that something you're gonna
buy or is that something Wow,I got to check this out. I'm
going to go on Google and seewhat this thing is even looks like,
you know, are people buying it? I don't know, but they're searching
for it. A few other majoroptions that have been standing out on Google.
The cozy Berry candle warmer. Inever heard of it, but I

(16:47):
guess if that comes this year,that's in the more money than Brain's department.
I think you know, yes,you need this. I guess.
I don't know. Okay, youjust take a match and write it.
I don't know other items they willfifty five inch framed Samsung Smart TV.
Of course, you've got an AppleWatch series nine, the Stanley's. All
the kids have them. They're likefifty dollars water bottles. I do not
understand this one bit, but alsomajorly searched on Google for this holiday season.

(17:14):
Every Sunday you're gonna find our allWorth Advice in This and Sunday Inquire,
but we like to give you apreview here on our Friday night show.
First question comes from Chris, whois in Fairfield. She says,
my parents were told they need totake something called an rm D by the
end of this year, but they'renot sure what that means. Can you
help? Turns out, we're prettyfamiliar with that RMD thing. This is
an important one. Yeah, ifthey if they forget to take out there

(17:37):
are MD, they're going to owethe IRS a whole bunch of extra money.
So yeah, let's talk about thata little bit. RMD stands for
required minimum distribution, otherwise known asyou can't take it with you. The
IRS gave us a really nice taxbreak on four oh one ks and iras,
where okay, pre tax never taxedthe money when you earned it,

(17:57):
If you put it in your fouroh one K, haven't taxed it while
it's growing, it's tax toferd.And you know what, if you haven't
taken it out, we're not gettingour piece of the action. So we're
going to set a date where youhave to at least begin taking money out,
and if you don't, we're goingto penalize you twenty five percent additional
tax on top of the tax thatwe're going to charge you anyway for taking

(18:18):
that you should have been charged fortaking it out. So the bottom line
is, and the old number wasseventy and a half, that's been changed
to seventy three, although if youalready had to start taking it out,
you got to keep doing it.But the bottom line is, if your
parents have been told they've got tostart taking money out of their IRA or
four oh one K in the formof a required minimum distribution, please make

(18:38):
sure they take it out so theydon't get penalized. Yeah. I mean,
there's so much, like just nothingclear about r and ds for so
many people. And it's also acrazy penalty twenty five percent if they don't
get this to be fifty percent rule. People were terrified of that. Yeah.
So, but I will say,listen, if you were working with
a financial advisor, they should beall over this. If you have money

(19:00):
invested with a custodian, they shouldbe communicating with you as well about what
you can expect. But if yourparents have to do this by the end
of the year and they have notheard anything about it, I would say
put this at the top of thefinancial list now to make some calls and
get it figured out. It doesn'thave to be something scary. You just
need some clarity and it's a calculationthat comes from the irs. All right,

(19:21):
I've got one right in your wheelhouse. Mike and Bracken County says,
I've been contributing to an HSA fora few years, and I'll be enrolling
in Medicare soon. I've heard itcan't use my HSA on Medicare. Is
that right, Mike, Well,I'm glad you came to me with this
one. We don't have twenty minutes, but go ahead and answer. This
is exactly why I have an HSAis because I plan on using it when

(19:42):
I get on Medicare, because there'sgoing to be so many other medical expenses
that this is going to cover forme. So that's why I do that.
But I think the concern here isonce you're on Medicare, you can
no longer put money into that HSA. You have to start spending it down.
I actually changed. Congress is lookingat that right now, but for

(20:03):
now, yes, you can usethat HSA money, you know, for
years and years and years. Soif you don't want to use it now,
you can save it up, youcan invest it, you can pay
out a pocket and then when youget to that time when you are on
Medicare, you can use that HSAmoney to pay for all of those associated
medical expenses. And many people whoget to retirement, are surprised by just
how expensive healthcare really is. Comingup next, what to do if you

(20:26):
have a bad boss. You're listeningto simply Money presented by all Worth Financial.
Here in fifty five KRC the talkstation, Day one. This is
fifty five KARC and iHeartRadio station.Take this job and chovey. You're listening
to simply Money present of my allWorth Financial. I mean me Wagner along

(20:48):
with Steve Sprovac. There is areason why we are playing the song bad
Bosses. I think that probably everyonehas had a bad boss at some point
in their life. I'm really gratefulI don't have one right now, but
I have a great example, youknow, you know, I come from
the news background. I had aboss in news who I was working for
a station where ratings just weren't great. It was around the holidays, and
he said, no one is evergoing to be off for another holiday and

(21:11):
spend it with your family until webring ratings up. He said, he
literally said, there will be nomore Christmas. It was like it was
like the worst character in a badChristmas movie. And so to join us
tonight to help us handle those badbosses. Of course, our expert on
all things to do with careers andthe job market, Julie Bougie Julie on

(21:32):
the job. I mean, Julie, I think we can all say we've
probably had at least one of thesein our past. And you know what,
bad bosses never know they're bad bosses, of course, right, I
mean, has anybody ever said,yes, I'm a bad boss. Nope?
But we know that, you know, when you look at just the
number of books that are written aboutbeing a better boss, being a better
leader, being a good one being, no one ever admits, yeah,

(21:56):
that's me, I'm a bad boss. And so it just perpetuates because organizations,
unfortunately allow it more often than theyshould. Well, Julie, I
mean, you know, when youhave a bad boss, you've always got
hr and you can always go overthe boss's head. But the problem is
it's going to be your word againsthis, and you know, usually the

(22:17):
boss comes out a little bit ontop. I mean, what do you
do when you've got a boss?Yeah, So first of all, let's
I put bad bosses into three differentcategories that cover most of them. And
the first is someone who's an overmanager, So someone who's a micromanager someone who
gives you no space to breathe orgrow or develop. Then the under manager

(22:40):
is someone who's pretty absent. Noone doesn't doesn't set expectations, doesn't give
feedback, doesn't let you know howyou're doing. And the third is really
kind of bullying or toxic or abusivebosses. And the approach we've all had.
I think we've all had some formmaybe of all three of them them.

(23:00):
And so the question is, youknow which figuring out? And then
also I would say that sometimes theperson is a bad boss just for you,
Like if if I'm an overmanager,if I'm a micromanager, there might
be some people on my team wholike it. And so the first thing
you've got to do is say,Okay, what are the things that what

(23:21):
are the things I need from theperson I'm reporting to that I'm not getting?
And it could be space, Itcould you know, it could be
space to make decisions, you know, not like reading every word of my
email and commenting on my punctuation,or it could be the opposite. I
need better guidance as to you know, what expectations do you have of me?

(23:44):
What am I working towards? Now? The words, how am I
going to know whether I'm being successful? And so in those first two buckets
of overmanaging and undermanaging, it's possible. At least you ought to try to
handle it yourself, because you can. You can have a conversation that says,
you know, look, I'm trying, I really want to be successful
in this role, and there aresome things that I need from you,

(24:07):
like maybe more of or less offrom you that would help me be successful,
and then be prepared with specific examplesin other words, like, for
example, you know, when yousay you need the report by Friday,
don't check up on me every morning. If I say that I'm going to
have it by Friday, you needto trust that I'm going to have it
by friday. Can we try that? And because a lot of times people

(24:30):
that are doing these behaviors, it'stheir own insecurities and they don't even realize
they're doing it. And so forthe first two buckets saying you know,
I need more guidance from you,can we check in the last Friday of
every month. I'll update you whatI'm doing. You can tell me where
I'm falling short, et cetera.So try to adjust behaviors by just giving
really really honest feedback. That's notsaying you're a bad boss, just saying,

(24:55):
here's what I need to be assuccessful as possible in this role so
our department can be successful. Sothe first two buckets, I think you
can handle yourself. It's the thirdone where it starts to get it's tricky.
And when I was in HR,I remember we had a bought we
had. People would come to meand complain about bosses, and I would
hear their stories and I'd be like, yeah, that's a problem. The

(25:18):
problem then is if that person it'sso cynical, but it's so true,
if that person is delivering good results, it's very hard to get the company
to move. Their sales numbers areup, if they're if they're if they're
meeting all the expectations. Companies arehesitant unless they get a you know,

(25:38):
a several complaints. If HR getsseveral complaints, then you have or if
there's a lot of turnover when youstart to see this boss can't keep people
in their department. So it's feedback, complaints, turnover, And it's once
you start to develop that uh,you know, a broader body of information

(26:00):
it's really hard to keep it's reallyhard for senior management not to act.
But in the minute they start tonot deliver, I've seen this happen.
They protected them, they protected them, and then as soon as their numbers
started to go down, they firedthem. And I don't know when to
go to HR right because there's alwaysthat fear of this boss is toxic and

(26:23):
I'm seeing not only myself but otherpeople on this team are really struggling to
work with them. Do you startwith communicating to that person and hey,
I'm struggling with this with you?Is that where you start? And then
do you start maybe keeping track ofsome of the things that are being like,
well, what's the path? Yet? The problem is, you know,
I wish I could say that thatwould work, and maybe it could

(26:45):
sometimes, but the problem is whenyou get that abusive behavior, then it's
honestly really scary to go in andtalk to that person because you don't know
how balable they're going to be andthey're going to turn it around you.
You could start to see a lotof those behaviors. Now if you say,
you know what this is, I'mgoing to quit if this doesn't change,

(27:07):
and you have that in your mind, you're like, this is my
last ditch. I've already complained toHR, and I'm going to talk to
the person directly. You might aswell try it. But if a person
is if their goal is to kindof overcome all of your complaints by blaming
you, by screaming louder, it'sprobably the way the person runs their life,
and so you're probably not. Theyneed a lot more than you giving

(27:30):
them feedback is going to give them, And so I don't give a lot
of hope to that happening. Whatyou have to do and maybe you put
together a team of people who arefed up and you go talk to HR
about it with specific examples and there'ssafety and numbers instead of just you,
well, putting a team together.I mean it sounds great on paper,

(27:51):
but you know, probably you're goingto talk first by yourself to HR or
maybe to the boss. And Imean that you can become labeled, Oh
that Steve's got another another complaint,He's becoming a real problem instead of addressing
the boss. I mean, youcould be labeled, can't you sure?
But you know part of it is, so let's just since you said Steve,

(28:12):
let's just say Steve, if Stevehas a history of complaining about every
boss, Yeah, right, yeah, you already have that label. Yeah,
there's a comment dominator employee who wewant to keep darn right, We're
going to pay attention. And sopart of this that's why I say sometimes
you you it's hard to go toHR and say the team, and I

(28:33):
believe this because you can't really speakfor others. But again, if you
are a highly respected member of theteam and you're well thought of, you
will be they will pay attention toyou more so than somebody who complains about,
you know, the change of thecoffee in the break room. And
so part of that is who complains. Are they a complainer or are they

(28:53):
somebody who really is a great workerand when they speak, we listen,
and so part of the that isyeah, and there is a risk associated
with that. But I feel likeand it's if you have the opportunity to
try to fix it, because generallyyou like the company, you like your
job, you like almost everything aboutit except that boss. You could try

(29:17):
to get moved out of the departmentsto another department, or you might look
at it and say, this wholesituation is keeping me up at night stressing
me out, I can't get workdone, and you might just decide to
leave and then tell HR on yourway out. So there's a lot of
ways to go about it. Butfirst I would say, figure out what's
the crux of the problem. Whatis it the manager's doing that you'd wish

(29:41):
they'd stop doing, and what arethey not doing that you wish they'd do
more of. So start isolate theproblem first, and then figure out how
do we bring this to somebody's attentionand give them a chance to and give
them a chance to fix it,because just everybody leaving without giving without giving
the organization a heads up to fixit doesn't feel right to me either.
Yeah. Great advice from Julie BoukiJulie on the job if you have a

(30:03):
bad boss, the steps to takein order to handle it to hopefully make
things better for yourself and maybe otherson your team. You're listening to Simply
Money presented by all Worth Financial hereon fifty five krs the talk station here
again. I'm all AM Radio hasalways been there and where it's still enders.
I do get the news on theradio, online, on your smart

(30:26):
device and always on AM I listento the radio more often than not.
Fifty five krs. The talk stationyou'll listening to you simply Money presented by
all Worth Financial. I mean youWagner along with Deeves Brovack straight ahead.
How to defeat store layouts that aremeant to trick you into buying more than

(30:48):
you had ever planned on buying.You gotta be smart about how they're trying
to get to your money. Doyou have a financial question you want us
to answer. There's a red buttonyou can click on while you're listening to
the show. It's right there onthe iHeart apps, easy to use.
You record your question and it's comingstraight to usk. We'd love to talk
about it. Like Jeff's question inAmberley Village. If I put fifty thousand
dollars in a three or six monthtreasury, something happens and I need some

(31:11):
of that money. How about arethe penalties? Well, the easy answer
is there are no penalties, butit does go up and down in value
with the market. A treasury billor note or whatever, a government security
like that, they all have adue date. So if you buy a
six month treasury and you invest init, you get that fifty thousand dollars
back at the end of six monthsif you sell it before then. It's

(31:34):
not like a CD where you're guaranteedto have a penalty that eats in your
interest. It just goes up anddown based on what the bond market is
doing. So give you a quickexample, Amy, So, to buy
a fifty thousand dollars six month treasury, it's probably going to cost you about,
I don't know, forty eight fiveforty eight seven, and you get
fifty grand back, and that's theinterest that you earned in the meantime.

(31:56):
Well, it might go in astraight line from forty eight five to fifty
thousand over the course of that sixmonths, or it might go from forty
eight five to forty eight three toforty eight seven to forty eight six to
forty nine Okay, So you justhave to call up your broker or whoever
you bought it from and say,hey, if I cash out, how
much is it worth. But it'snot a pure penalty, it's just market
fluctuation. Yeah, depending on wherethe interest rates go right up or down.

(32:20):
You're just selling it on the secondarymarket, no penalty. But I
also want to bring up another pointhere quickly, which is that if you're
putting fifty thousand dollars into three orsix months treasury and you're worried that something's
going to come up and you needthat, My question for Jeff is do
you not have an emergency fund beforeyou put that money into a treasury?
If you don't have a fully fundedthree to six months of critical expenses on

(32:42):
the sideline where it's liquid, whereyou don't have to worry about do I
have to sell it on the secondmarket when rates are up or down?
And how's that going to work outfor me? I literally keep it in
cash, I mean you can haveit, Yeah, I'll put it in
a money market or savings account,yeah, where it's available anytime. Yes,
So I think I think maybe that'swhere Jeff needs to start four he
starts looking at those treasuries. Nextquestion comes from John and Hyde Park.

(33:04):
I just listened to your segment aboutfour to one k's and iras great.
So why do there have to belimits? It's our money after taxes.
Can't we do what we want withit? I've joked about this for years,
but I do kind of feel John'spain. Why are you telling me
how much I can put into myfour oh one K, and you're also
telling me there's a retirement crisis andI can't put more in. Yeah,
you're not the boss of me,right. You know, here's a general

(33:29):
rule. If the government's going togive you a tax break, there's gonna
be certain restrictions. I mean,that's really what it boils down to,
right, Yeah, you know,if you want to do pre tax where
you don't have to pay tax onthat money when you earn it, okay,
then what are the rules on takingthat money out? That's what you
have to learn. And if youwant to change them, congratulations, run
for Congress, run per cent andwhatever the case is, and get the

(33:49):
laws change. But nah, wheneverthere's a tax break, there's gonna be
restrictions. And on a four tooh one k, that means it's going
to grow tax to ferd, pretax plus tax to ferd, and there's
going to be some penalties if youuse it for any purpose other than the
intended one, which is retirement.Well, think about it. The Steve
Sprovacs of the world will be justtalking away hundreds of thousands of dollars into
their four oh one k every year. I've heard exactly just pointing that out.

(34:15):
Next question comes from gene in DellHigh. About eight percent of my
portfolio is comprised of my wife's companystock. Over the past few years,
the stock price has gone nowhere.I'm thinking about just selling and putting it
in my brokerage account. What doyou recommend, Well, I wonder what
he means by portfolio. If that'sin a four to oh one k,
be careful because you can cash outof the stock in a four to oh

(34:37):
one K. But as soon asyou take that money out of the four
to oh one k, that's ataxable event. It's taxable and maybe even
penalized. Or you know, youjust got to be careful. But let's
say it's just they bought the companystock separately on their own. That's tough
call. You know, individual stocksmore volatile than mutual funds in most cases.

(35:02):
If it's gone nowhere, what arethe prospects? I'm not comfortable saying
it should be sold or bought,or you know, whatever the case is,
without knowing the particular company. Atleast it's not twenty percent of the
portfolio. Yeah, wait, tenless than ten percent is what we would
say needs to be in individual stocks. And you know, in the past
we've always talked about times to sellstock, and we would say if you

(35:23):
actually need the money, that canmake sense. If the company is not
fundamentally sound, or that stock doesn'twork with your overall financial plan for whatever
reason, those are reasons to lookat selling. Coming up next, where
when how to bargain shop and notget fall into the ploys of those stores

(35:44):
that you're walking into. You're listeningto Simply Money here on fifty five KRC,
the talk station. We need onemore. This is the best show,
the best radio personality in the wholebusiness. Your voice on fifty five
KARC. You're listening to Simply Money, presented by all Worth Financial. I

(36:05):
mean you Wagner along with steve's Rovak. You walk into the store, you
know what you go there to get, and then you walk out with ten
other things. What's going on here? Well, they're plucking into the fact
that Steve Skrovac is always going togo into the grocery store. His wife
was banned him from going into thestores. But every once in a while,
you just need the milk or theeggs on your way home from work,

(36:25):
whatever it is you know that he'snot just going to come home with
the milk or the eggs, becausethose last ten feet before you check out
have all the candy bars and allthe other stuff, and it's like a
bad it's intentional, yes, yes, yeah, it's there's a reason that
these things are put at eye levelor at the checkout line. Those are

(36:46):
the high profit items, and Idon't care when I go out. My
wife has learned that, Okay,even if Kroger or whatever the story is
is directly on the path from meleaving work to going home, she will
drive out of our way ten milesjust so I don't go to the store
because I'm going to come home withlots of fun stuff and it's usually bad

(37:07):
for me. It's usually overpriced.Sorry, that's where it goes. But
they know that there are more peoplelike me out there, and if you're
aware of it, you can startsaving yourself a couple of bucks. So
here's a few things to know.This is, if it's a grocery store
or Target or Walmart, wherever you'regoing, they put things at I level
that are going to be the mostexpensive because you're just going to see those.

(37:28):
And they also know, kind ofthe path of most traffic around the
store, and so they put themwhere more people are going to see them.
It's why school supplies are always atthe front of the store when it's
that season, right. They're alwayskind of changing things out seasonally to get
you because it's always going to bein your path and you're going to see
it and think I need that.So I'm a huge fan of it's not
on the list. I'm not buyingit, you know, and doing a

(37:52):
little research, because yes, youcould walk in and say, oh,
actually, you know, I didthink last year that we needed a new
Christmas tree, and they've got theChristmas trees up ready and it's October.
I sh'll probably just go ahead andbuy one. But the first one you
see could actually be fifty bucks morethan what you would have paid otherwise.
So you know, doing your researchand maybe when you see the item,
make a note of it, thengo home, do your research before you're

(38:14):
actually buying it, especially if it'sa bigger ticket item. It's called planning
ahead, which is not my strongsuit. But you know, if you
need a winter jacket, don't buyit in September, you know, buy
it February March April when they're closingthose things out coupons, And again this
is do what I say, notwhat I do, because I laugh when
they asked me, hey, sir, do you have any coupons? Just

(38:36):
start giggling. But my wife,my wife is so good at this stuff.
It's her version of hold my beer, because well, if we are
Kroger together, and that's the onlyway I'm permitted to go to Kroger is
with her. She'll say, okay, watch this, and she plugs in
her card and it starts doing thenegative negative day and I'll see that one
hundred and twenty dollars become sixty dollars. I'm like, wooh, that was

(38:57):
pretty good. Let's go out doneright. But to your point, those
digital coupons that are on that card, they take planning, and so doing
a little research before you head ofthe store can make a lot of sense.
I have always shopped at their bigname grocery stores, and I've always
bought the brand name stuff. Andwith the pandemic and prices are, with
the inflation and prices going up,I've also started shopping at oldies this year.

(39:21):
And it's funny because now my kidsare like, we like the generic
oreos better than the regular ones,or we like and so I think sometimes
it's just you think because you've alwaysbought it, that you have to keep
buying it. But looking at thegenerics, especially when things are so expensive,
can make a big difference. Buyingin bulk. I got a Costo
membership. All of these things Istarted doing once inflation really started hitting our
budget. Yes, it takes alittle more time, it takes a little

(39:44):
more intentionality, but it can makea huge difference. Thank you for listening
tonight. You've been listening to SimplyMoney, presented by all Worth Financial here
on fifty five krs the talk station. Let's take the illegal