Simply Money

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Tonight, we're talking the key moves you should make when
markets are bad, what you should do when they're good,
and should you make any moves at all. You're listening
to Simply Money, presented by all Worth Financial. I'm Ami
Wagner along with Steve Ruby. Here's the quote I want
you to remember, act greedy when others are fearful, fearful
when others are greedy. If you've listened to the show

(00:28):
for any amount of time, you know I am a
Warren Buffett fangirl to my core.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
I think.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
You know what I mean. I think a lot of
though I mean to your point, a lot of advisors,
a lot of people in our industry, especially those who
have been around for a long time, feel exactly this way. Right.
It's like, Hey, when other people are running for the
hills because the market's going down, that's actually a fantastic
opportunity to buy. When people are buying in that means
prices are high, and we would say probably not during

(01:00):
that time. So I think, with this in mind, let's
talk about some practical advice and understanding of how the
markets work, volatility and what we think you should do
about it.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah, So, first of all, let's talk about the differences
between a bear market and a bull market. So a
bear market is when a stock index, whether it's the Dow,
the S and P five hundred, the Nasdaq, whatever it
might be, falls at least twenty percent from recent highs.
This is what we qualify as a bear market. Obviously,

(01:34):
it's a time where people get emotional and they may
react on those emotions. On the flip side, we have
a bull market, which isn't necessarily as easy to define.
You know, some may say a twenty percent increase from
recent highs, but there isn't an exact threshold when it
comes to a bull market, but they certainly are more common.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yeah, you know, I joke about that. I'm a visual person,
which is funny that I do a radio show and
a podcast. But at the same time, if you think
about a bear market, it's like you know, the bear
going to sleep for the summer, right like it is
it is like you know checking out in you know, declining.
At the same time, you think of a bull like
and I think of the Running of the Bulls video

(02:16):
right just like charging forward. It's when companies are doing really,
really well. And so I don't know if that's that
helps you at all, But that's kind of how I
think about them. But it also for me. Thank you,
You're welcome. You're welcome, Steve. I know now you'll always
have that visual in your mind. In a few things
I would say to keep in mind about bull markets

(02:37):
versus bear markets is there have been twenty six of
each since eighteen seventy two, right since we've had essentially markets.
There is a huge difference though. While we've had the
same number of bull and bear markets, bear markets actually
lasted a median of nineteen months, so wait, less than
two years with a median drop of thirty three percent.

(02:58):
So ouch, it hurts. It hurts during that time. It
hurts for you know, on average the less than two
years that it lasts. But bull markets, on the flip side,
have lasted on average a median of forty two months,
so three and a half years, and we're talking a
median spike of close to ninety percent. So yes, our
bear markets hurt when they're happening, but bull markets usually

(03:21):
come back far stronger and also last far longer.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yeah, they sure do. And how do bull and bear
markets relate to the economy. It's important to note that,
and we've said this on the show before, the stock
market is not the same as the economy.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
And that's an important point to note exactly.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
Yeah, the stock market, it's buyers and sellers. They trade
publicly traded companies. That's the stocks that we buy, the
stocks that make up the indexes that we might buy.
It indicates how those companies are performing now and how
they believe these companies will perform in the future, whereas
the economy itself represents the output of goods.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yeah, and I think you know, people often use them interchangeably, like, oh,
the economy is bad, my four to one k's down. Of course,
they're directly correlated a lot of the time, right, I mean,
when companies aren't doing well, when they're not growing, when
they're not you know, investing in growth often right, then
the economy isn't doing so well and your four one

(04:22):
k isn't going to But they don't necessarily have to
move at the same time. So I think that's really
important to understand if you're going to be like a
smart long term investor. And it's kind of like a
chicken in the egg thing, right, like is the economy
driving your investments? Or is your investments driving the economy.
Sometimes that's related and sometimes it's not.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
I mean, they can go hand in hand. Obviously, a
robust economy when when there's low unemployment, when there's increasing wages,
when there's healthy consumer spending, it tends to coincide with
the bull market. But they don't necessarily have to go
hand in hand.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Well, we talk about this too a lot, but three
quarters of the American economy is made up of consumer spending.
How you and I are spending on goods and services.
So when we feel like we're in a good spot
and can spend right, we're not worried about losing our
job tomorrow or taking a major pay cut or anything
along those lines, we tend to spend more, which is

(05:18):
good for the economy, right, But then the individual things
in services that we're buying tend to help the companies
that make up the stock market. So a lot of
times it's kind of comes down to the consumer how
we feel about things, which, you know, over the past
year or so, you know, I think consumer sentiment has
been high, despite the fact that there have been all

(05:39):
kinds of headlines calling for recession that we just haven't
seen yet.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
Yeah, let's go back to Buffett' quote, act greedy when
others are fearful, and fearful when others are greedy. So
obviously there's going to be a correlation behind how people
behave when there's a bull market or when there's a
bear market. The reality of the situation is that more
people tend to invest during bull market periods because it
feels good. We see the green numbers, we see things
going up. But it's it's kind of odd because think

(06:07):
about when you when you're shopping, you know, for gifts
or holidays, whatever that might be a new appliance. You
wait for things to go on sale to make that purchase.
You don't wait for it to get more expensive. But
that's exactly what's happening during a bull market. Things are
getting more expensive. The investments that you held or are
going to purchase have gone up in value. On the

(06:27):
flip side, the bear market, when everybody's afraid, when people
are fearful and sometimes make emotional mistakes and sell at
the bottom, That's what Bob was my mind, because you
think about a sale in the store and you think, Okay,
well everything's at a discount right now, I should buy it,
but that's not oftentimes how people behave.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
Well.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
The problem is nobody looks at this stock market the
way we do any other sort of thing that we're
buying right, and I think maybe we should the point
we absolutely should. You're listening to Simply Money because I'm
all worth financial, I mean, you Wagner along with Steve Ruby,
as we break down bull markets versus bear market and
more importantly than understanding what they are is understanding your

(07:04):
reaction to them and maybe what we would say you
should do instead of some of your instincts. Fear and greed.
Those are two tough, tough emotions that can really drive
a lot of bad money decisions. We've seen this far
too many times during the years. So I think, you know,
trying to time a bull or a bear market saying Okay,

(07:25):
you know, market's going up, I'm getting in or I'm
putting way more in, and then the market's starting to
go down. I'm a little nervous about things. I'm going
to pull it out.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
You know.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Andy Stoutter, chief investment Officer, has done all kinds of
research on this and provided us with some just some
great statistics on it. But it really does show that
over time, staying invested for the long haul, because the
key is to understand that the best days in the
stock market usually come on the heels of the worst
days in the stock market, and there's absolutely nothing to say, hey,

(07:57):
this is going to be a good day, right there's
It's not like you wake up that morning and all
the headlines on all the financial websites and then the papers,
or you know this is going to be a great day. No.
Usually news is still bad as you would expect after
a stock market low, and it just happens that we
have a rebound that day. And those are the days
that if you miss out on, can really make a
huge difference when it comes to long term investing.

Speaker 3 (08:19):
This is why market timing is almost impossible, because you
have to guess it right more than once. You have
to guess before markets go down, and then you have
to guess before they go back up or else you
are making a mistake. That's that's the challenge. And remember,
when you're investing ideally, you're finding a sweet spot between
how much risk you need to take to meet your

(08:41):
financial goals, how much you can afford to take based
on your financial situation, and then there's the risk tolerance.
How much how much risk are you comfortable taking so
that you don't lose sleep? Remember when when when bull
markets last longer than bear markets, if we just ride
it out and make a few changes, maybe rebalancing. We'll
talk about that in a minute, it can help you
more than it hurts you, as opposed to trying to

(09:03):
time the markets, because you don't actually realize losses until
you've sold. When you see those red numbers during a
bear market, you're not realizing those losses and.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
Less just a paper yes until you lock it in right,
unless you lock it in right with selling it. If
you're asking yourself, okay, markets go up, markets go down,
how do I know when and how to put money in?
Because it's going to be up and down all the time.
That makes me incredibly nervous. We recommend something called dollar
cost averaging. And if you put money regularly into your

(09:38):
four oh one K, say you're paid, you know, twice
a month, and every time you're paid, you put X
amount of dollars into your four O one K, that's
dollar cost averaging. You're putting the same amount of money
into the market at the same time. Sometimes when that
money goes in, it's going to buy more shares and
sometimes it's going to buy less shares depending on how
the market is doing on that particular day. But you're

(09:59):
not looking at it and saying, hmm, I have a
feeling that Tuesday is going to be good or something
about this Friday is going to be bad. Right, you're
taking that kind of human behavior out of it and
in just making it automatic, and research shows that's what
really pays off well.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
When you're making four to one K contributions when you're employed,
you're essentially dollar cost averaging into those investments. You can
set up a roth IRA or an after tax brokerage
account and put money into it periodically. But the key
is is that you have to purchase shares during market
ups and downs, because the average price per share over
time for investments typically goes up. It's driving down the

(10:36):
average price per share over the long term as long
as you're buying when they're down. So dollar cost averaging
is a huge opportunity for us. And it's easy enough
just to put money in from our paychecks diversifying so
that this one can be a challenge for some people
because you look at a diversified portfolio. It's going to
have stocks, it's going to have bonds, large cap, mid cap,

(10:56):
small cap, different subasset classes. Sometimes some of those subasset
classes aren't going to look particularly nice. They're going to
go down more than everything else. But that's okay, because
if your dollar cost averaging those same investments, they may
be the winner next year.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
I think it's a great thing to remember, right. It's
almost like a version of market timing. Ooh, like what
or what asset class is doing well right now? That's
what I'm going to invest in. So then you're in
and out of different asset classes, right like, oh, large
caps are doing well or small caps are doing well,
and you can drive yourself crazy trying to invest in
that way. So I like the fact that you're saying, okay,

(11:32):
first of all, put money into the market regularly, but
then also figure out what kind of diversification makes sense
to you, how much you need in stocks, how much
you need in bonds, and then all those subasset classes
that you're talking about, and then you just let it go.

Speaker 3 (11:48):
What I would recommend is is if we have a
period of volatility and it's been a year or so
since you've rebalanced your portfolio. Look at the investments that
have done well, sell them, buy the ones that have
done poorly. This is oftentimes the opposite of what folks
I work with think that they need to do. They say, oh,
some of these have been doing really well. Let's sell
these ones that are down and buy the ones that
are that are doing well. What you're doing is you're

(12:10):
selling low and buying high. Rebalancing is the exact opposite,
the opposite of that, and it can bring you back
to a neutral asset allocation. If you think you need
to be in a seventy percent stock thirty percent pond,
bring it back to that periodically. And that's the way
to capitalize on market fluctuations.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
You know, understanding what diversification is right for you and
when to rebalance. It's like building a boat during a storm, right,
that's not the best time to build the boat. So
you know, if there's a time a period in the
markets where there's not volatility, that's a great time to
check on those things. Make sure that your boat is
built so that when we do get some turbulence, right,

(12:47):
some volatility, you're set right, You've got your long term plan.
You just go with it. Here's the all Worth advice.
Regardless of how the market is doing, acting on emotion
is just not the answer. The advice that we're talking
about here today. That is what is coming up next,
how to bounce back after experiencing a financial shock. You're
listening to Simply Money presented by all Worth Financial. Here

(13:07):
in fifty five KRC the talk station. You're listening to
Simply Money presented by all Worth Financial. I mean me
Wagner along with Steve Ruby. If you can't catch our
show every night, you do not have to miss a thing.
We've got a daily podcast for you. Just search Simply Money.
It's right there on the iHeart app or wherever you
get your podcasts. Trida head at six forty three. You

(13:30):
get a lot of financial statements. Probably we would say
there's one that you need to pay the closest attention to.
We'll tell you what that is. All right, So there's
a number of good quotes right that we could be
talking about right now, Like nothing is guaranteed in this
life except for death and taxes, we meet plans and
God laughs. Right, we've all experienced over and over again

(13:50):
the fact that these are very true it's like you've
got the best plan and then life happens, and that
can be you know, something happens to you inotionally, but
also it can have a huge financial impact. So if
this has happened to you, we're talking to you right now.
This segment tonight is dedicated to you.

Speaker 3 (14:10):
Yeah, So you know, life throws us curveball sometimes. Some
of the events that we're referring to this could be
anything from the unexpected death of a loved one to
a sudden layoff of a long time job. Maybe you're
a part of a reduction and force, a serious illness
or an accidents. These events, these curveballs, they can throw

(14:30):
a wrench in our financial plan. So what do we
need to do to not let things get out of
control and bounce back? I mean, first of all, and
I hate the B word budget, It's kind of boring,
but it's very important. It's so important to get a
handle on your cash flow, to understand a clear snapshot
of the state of your finances, because money that you're

(14:53):
not spending is money being saved.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
Yes, I think education is power, especially when it comes
to your money. And so when you feel like things
are very out of control, as we often do. Right,
we can't control everything. Something comes from out of the blue.
It's like, okay, let's get down to what we can't control.
And one of those things is what we're spending and
what we're spending it on. And so I think understanding
your budget, kind of digging deeper into that gives you

(15:17):
a lot of great information. And then we talk a
lot about having an emergency fund. This is why you
have that emergency fund, right, the unexpected loss of a partner,
the unexpected loss of a job, you know, anything along
those lines, a medical diagnosis that you weren't expecting. Where
do you turn? Well, while you're dealing with those things

(15:37):
on a very emotional level, the good thing is if
you have the emergency fund, it takes at least a
little bit of stress out of that. You're not putting
money on your credit card, you're not pulling money out
of your four one K. You've got money sitting there
on the sidelines that is absolutely earmarked for this. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
So the emergency fund we've talked about kind of targets
for how much you want to have set aside, and
that's typically going to be three months for a double
income household. Six months of liquid cash for a single
income household, and that's exactly the reason why, so we
can buy time in the event that life throws us
a curveball. So focusing on on on income again, spending,

(16:17):
reducing spending as much as possible outside of your housing, utilities, groceries, gas,
your non discretionary spending. Are you using door dash as
much as my household is, for example, But that's a
great opera.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
The time to cut back on DoorDash, right.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
Exactly, Yeah, that's an easy one. My wife stays at
home and what's for dinner, I don't know. We're ordering
something that adds up quick. And that's one of those
non discretionary spending targets that you might be able to
increase the cash flow essentially by not having those dollars
go out the door. Widening your job search, I mean
even part time or temporary employment can help you stay

(16:52):
afloat while you look for a full time job. Incongruent
with your your emergency fund that you're spending.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
And you know, we recently have you know, Julie Bauki
Julie on the Job on the show, and she was
talking about exactly this, right, how to start a job search.
And I think if you if this comes out of
the blue, right that you were not expecting to lose
that job, and all of a sudden, here you are,
you can have the knee jerk reaction of I just
need to do something immediately. I need to, you know,

(17:19):
get my resume out there to eight thousand people within
the first two weeks, and I need to blow up
LinkedIn with every contact that I ever had. And I
think Julie makes a fantastic point. Take a moment, get
your breath together. Maybe this could even be an opportunity
while it wasn't something you expected. Maybe actually that job
that you had before wasn't the best fit for you,

(17:39):
and maybe there's something better out there for you. But
to take a moment and figure out, Okay, if I
were really to look at what I would want to
do next, what aligns with my passions and my talents,
and you know, if I could have control over this,
what it would look like. Giving yourself a moment to
figure out what that is and then say, okay, that
is what I'm going to go after will likely end
you up in a four better job than maybe coming

(18:01):
up with two point zero of what you had before
you know that you got let go from, or that
maybe you didn't love. So I think that's some great
advice there too.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
So what about health insurance. We need to leave room
and our budget to maintain health coverage while we're searching
for a job. For example, Cobra is something that you
can leverage. You can stay on your old company's plan
for eighteen months. The problem there is oftentimes the freemiums. Yes, yeah,
you could end up paying five times what you were
paying out of your paycheck. So if that's not an

(18:32):
option for you, there's you know, the Exchange Affordable Care
Act Obamacare. We can go on to the exchange and
purchase insurance there, which can be very cost effective if
you are unemployed, for example.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
And I would say another thing to do is a
shock proof your state plan. Right, it's one thing when
your state plan was set. And I was talking to
someone recently and I said something, do you have a will?
And she said, yeah, we made it twenty years ago. Okay, okay,
Well a lot has probably changed in the past twenty years,
so you can easily say, well, yeah, we've got that document,
but hey, update that document every five years.

Speaker 3 (19:05):
Yeah, yeah, five years.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yeah, at least check in and say, here's anything major
change in our lives since then? I bet in most
cases something has. And then just make sure you're taking
care of yourself emotionally whatever it does, you're dealing with,
whatever shock it is that you weren't expecting, you know,
making sure that hey, I've got these financial things taken
care of so that i can deal with the emotional
part of it just makes things that much easier. Here's

(19:29):
the all Worth advice. We can't predict which financial shocks
are going to be coming or win, but we can
bounce back a little easier if we do understand and
have a plan in place for our dollars coming up. Next,
any life events when you can maybe delay financial progress
and be okay with it, well closely at that question. Next,

(19:49):
you're listening to Simply Money presented by all Worth Financial.
Here in fifty five KRC the talk station, you're listening
to Simply Money presented by all Worth Financially Memi Wagner
along with Steve Ruby. You know, sometimes, if you think
about it, major life moments can also come at a cost.
Joining us tonight with his perspective on that is, of

(20:11):
course our good friend Al Riddick from Game Time Budgeting,
How you and your wife are actually celebrating a pretty
big milestone this year? Tell us about it.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yes, we are, Amy, So this year, my wife and
I will celebrate a milestone birthday. I won't tell you
the number because my wife might get upset, but it's
a pretty big number in the Riddic household.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
So you're turning thirty, is what you're saying. You're turning thirty.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
We're turning thirty for maybe like the second time. Almost.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
We'll go with that. Okay, So how are you I know,
nothing happens in the Riddic household without major planning. So
how are you planning for the milestone?

Speaker 2 (20:53):
So, first of all, Amy, I have to tell you when.
Of course, my wife and I we plan in advance
for everything. When we started talking about this milestone birthday,
I was asking my wife, so, how do you want
to celebrate now? These were her words. She said, I
don't know yet, but I want to do something big now. Amy.

(21:13):
When I heard those two words put together in the
same sentence, something big, my heart started county because I
knew that that equated to a whole lot of money.
You heard ch exactly exactly. So we started having some discussions,
and what we want to do for this milestone occasion

(21:34):
is take a two week vacation. Now, when you think
about it, Amy, we travel quite a bit, but can
you believe we have never actually gone somewhere for fourteen days.
We've been up to like ten, eleven and twelve days,
but never fourteen. So this year we want to do
the two week vacation. And we haven't decided if we're
going to do two weeks in one country or one

(21:57):
week in one country. They'll fly to another country for
the sad second week, so that should be quite intriguing.
But the cool part is about the planning process. So
luckily I started asking my wife tons of questions about
how she wanted to celebrate months ago, and I have
already begun stashed more money in the vacation account because

(22:19):
of this humongous expense that will be waited for us
in the future.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
All Right, We've got a couple questions about that for you.
Al First of all, how far in advance, right, I
mean everyone knows that's like I'm forty seven. I've kind
of joked with my husband for years. Oh, I want
to do this when I turned fifty, and I want
to do this when I turn with fifty. So at
what point do you actually get down to the brass
tacks of Okay, here's what we think we want to do,
or here's how much we think it's going to cost,

(22:44):
and so we have to budget for it. And then also,
not only how far out are you planning, but if
you are taking money, right, extra money and putting it
into the vacation fund, are you sacrificing elsewhere where is
that money coming from?

Speaker 2 (22:59):
So I'm going to address all of those questions, hopefully
with this one explanation. So my wife and I we
plan one year in advance regarding the amount of money
that we want to use for travel in a specific year.
So usually by December thirty first of every year, we
have all the money that we will need to travel

(23:21):
for the next twelve months. Makes sense so far. So
when I started asking my wife this question about what
she wanted to do, I'm already like nine months out
from the actual event. So then I just figured out
how I could start funneling more money towards the vacation account.
Because it's only two ways to solve a money problem.

(23:43):
Either A increase your income or B decrease your living expenses.
Now you can probably tell Amy, my wife and I
we don't live an extravagant lifestyle, but for this expense,
we decided to go with option A, which was increase
your income. So in addition to my wife getting a
raise on her job, I thought I'd give myself a

(24:04):
raise as well, just so I wouldn't feel left out.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
Yeah, you know, I love that, Alan. I also think
the key here is planning. And you know, for so
many people, you know, major expense is a vacation, and
yet as one is coming up, they'll wait until it
gets there and make the plans or whatever, and then
try to figure out later how to pay for it right,
and then it often ends up being on a credit

(24:28):
card and in costing way more than it should. So
you never wait until you're months ahead and you already
have that money sitting there ready for whatever, which I
imagine then makes it feel like when you're on that trip,
maybe you splurge on the extra drink, or maybe you
you know, go to the nicer restaurant because you have
planned for that.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
That is so true, Amy, And to break it down
even more for your listeners. I'm just gonna use some
fictitious numbers. Let's assume that maybe you spend about, I
don't know, twenty four hundred bucks on your average vacation. Now,
it could be double that, it could be triple, who knows,
but let's just use twenty four hundred as an example. Right, So,

(25:09):
if you are managing money correctly, why not go ahead
and add a line item to your monthly budget and
you could use the title vacation fund. So as you're
making money throughout the year, set up an automatic transfer
from your checking account to this vacation fund, and just
fund that account every month with two hundred bucks so

(25:32):
that by the time you reach your vacation month, you
have the cash to pay for it. Now, if you're
a little bit behind in your planning, you cannot like
divide by twelve, You might just have to divide by
six or eight or nine months. But the goal is
to plan far enough in advance so that you can
break that expense down to a cost per month and

(25:54):
just set up an automatic transfer so that when you're
on that vacation you don't have to worry about that
big credit card deal that might be coming when you
return home because you have the peace of mind of
knowing that the cash is already sitting there to take
care of whatever expenses you incur.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
You're listening to this some pluly money present of it
all worth financial and Ami Wagner, along with Steve Ruby,
and we are joined by our good friend Al Riddick
tonight talking about celebrating a major milestone birthday this year.
You know, we all have those years where something big
is coming and we want to celebrate it. But the
key is to plan for that and to plan in advance.
And you know how you You made the comment earlier

(26:33):
that you and your wife don't live extravagantly, but what
you do spend on and what is a top priority
for you is travel. So talk about how you balance that. Right,
It's not that you're going out for fancy dinners every
night on the weekends when you're home. Right, you figured
out one thing that matters to both of you, and
you prioritize that financially.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
That is so true, Amy, And to further expand upon
what you just said, my wife, for our obviously we
have spent hours and hours and hours talking about personal finance.
So for us as a couple and as a household.
We have discovered that the three things we value most
in no particular order, is travel, philanthropy, and saving for retirement.

(27:19):
So whenever money comes into the household, we sit down
together as a couple and we allocate money to those
three things first before we spend it anywhere else, because
we want to make sure that we keep supporting the
things that we value, and because we know that you know,
we might not spend a ton of money eating out,

(27:39):
but we do spend a ton of money in other ways.
Travel for example. But when you plan for it, even
though it's what I would consider a large amount of money,
it doesn't feel like it because we planned in advance,
and we're spending money on the things that we value,
which is the experience of travel.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
And I think from me marriages right. Getting both of
you on the same page behind whatever those goals are
makes money decisions that much easier. Hour running out of time,
But I want you to really speak to that. You know,
you kind of hold everything up to that lens of
is it one of our major goals exactly?

Speaker 2 (28:17):
So whatever your goalie is as a couple, sit down
and make the money aligned to the goal that you're
trying to achieve. You will have to minimize your emotions
because keep in mind, money is math and math is money,
So let the numbers guide your decisions before you get
too emotional.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
I love that great advice, as always from our good
friend Al Riddick. If you have had a big vacation
or maybe a family wedding, something that you are saving
for coming up, the key is to plan and advance,
to budget for it, to direct extra dollars to it
so that it doesn't catch you off guard. You're listening
to Simply Money. If some of my ah, we'reth financial

(28:57):
here in fifty five KRC the talk station. You're listening
to Simply Money sent I all Worth Financial Immi Wagner
along with Steve Ruby. If you have a financial question
you need a little help with, we'd be happy to help.
There's a red button you can click them while you're
listening to the show. It's right there on the iHeart app.
Record your question and it's coming straight to us straight ahead.

(29:21):
You may have some things in your home right now
that could be worth a lot more money than you
ever had any clue about. We'll tell you what those are,
what to be looking for Well, maybe you get your
financial statements in the mail, still maybe they come via email.
Regardless of how they come, when you look at them,
you probably get about a zillion different ones over the

(29:42):
course of the year, and it can be difficult to
keep them all straight. But we would say there is
one that you should pay maybe even more attention to
than all the others, and that is your Social Security statement.

Speaker 3 (29:54):
Yeah, so the Social Security Administration they send these printed
statements out to pre retirees every year. If you don't
recall receiving one, or you misplaced it, then it's pretty
easy to go on to SSA dot gov to create
a log in. They'll ask you some questions off public
record to verify your identity, and you're in and you
can take a look. The first thing that we encourage

(30:14):
people to look at is obviously their estimated benefit. So
there is a range that you will receive, and as
we've talked about this over the years, between the ages
of sixty two and seventy. Full retirement age for anybody
born nineteen sixty year later is sixty seven years old.
If you collect earlier, you're guaranteeing a lower benefit for

(30:37):
your entire life. If you defer it until seventy, then
you can maximize that benefit and find yourself in a
situation where there's a break even point, but you have
to live a little bit longer to receive it.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
When we talk about social Security statements too, I'm maybe
dating myself here, but I remember back in the day,
you would actually, regardless of how old you were, once
a year get a Social Security statement, right. And then
several years ago. This is the government. They spend a
ton of money, and every once in a while they
just said they're going to cut back, which is amazing,

(31:09):
and so they decided, hey, probably everyone does not need
to get these statements every year, so we're only going
to send them proactively to retirees. So if you're thinking
social Security statement, actually don't even get one of those.
If you aren't getting one in the mail, right, If
you're not, I think it's they start sending them at
the age of sixty, you know, on a regular basis,
if you're not there yet. That's why this account that

(31:33):
Steve was just talking about SSA dot gov is so important.
I don't care if you're thirty two, forty two, fifty two,
sixty two, I would say you need to have this
account set up and be familiar with it, because as
you're talking about, Steve, first of all, the main number
I think that most people focus on is what that
benefit would look like. And that's making the assumption that
if you continue to work right to the age of

(31:56):
full retirement and are getting the same salary that you
are now, this is what you are projected to get.
But there's also another tab on that page that looks
at your earning's history. This is going back thirty five
years worth of work, and I would say most people
might glaze over that, but it's actually a very important

(32:16):
piece of the social security puzzle.

Speaker 3 (32:18):
Don't breeze past that. Yes, this is the other important
part to look at because it's your earnings history that
will determine the Social Security benefit that you actually receive.
And believe it or not, this may come as a surprise.
I've seen mistakes on there before.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
How about that the government making a mistake. Well, and
here's the thing, Steve, can you remember how much money
you made it when you were twenty seven years old?
Like exactly how much? Top of my head? And that's
what I'm saying. I mean, when you are looking back
say you're sixty one and you're looking back on thirty
five years of earnings. What if there was a mistake

(32:56):
seventeen years ago. It's much lower than and it should be.
Would you even know, of course not, which is why
I think regularly checking this to say, I'm looking back
on all the years to see if this makes a
lot of sense. If there is a year that doesn't
make sense or that you haven't checked, well, it's worth
going back and looking at because that can affect how

(33:16):
much money you're getting right in retirement for the rest
of your life. So understanding how this works and double
checking for mistakes is a huge part of it.

Speaker 3 (33:25):
If you think that this is boring or sounds like
a waste your time, to log in the SSA dot gov.
The way that I talk about this with folks that
I work with is it is your own chance to
personally audit the government because I have again seen mistakes
where the earnings history was just zeroed out for five
years at a time, and if that happens, then that

(33:47):
means you are getting a lower Social Security benefit. There's
actually a phone number there that you can call if
there is a mistake to your earnings history. And get
them to fix it.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
Yeah, and understand again once again, it's the government. They're
not going to fix that. Lightning fast is going to
be a process, but you do have control over it,
which is why it's so important. I love how you
put that audit the government who doesn't want the opportunity
to make sure that you're doing that. And at the
same time, there's another takeaway I think from that earning's history,
and that is I think about my own work history.

(34:21):
You know, my daughter is seventeen years old now, but
when she was first born and I was home on
maternity leave, I got a call from my boss at
the time, I was working at Channel five, and he said,
you know, hey, someone else in the newsroom wants to
job share. And they threw out your name as someone
who might be interested in going part time now that
you have a baby at home, and he said, I

(34:41):
know you're not going to want to do this. It
wasn't even fully out of his mouth, and I said absolutely,
because I was having heart palpitations about the fact of
leaving my baby and going back to working full time.
So I worked part time for several years there when
my kids were younger. Well, of course, that's going to
affect my earnings. If you look at my social study
security you know SSA dot gov on there my earnings history,

(35:03):
it's going to be a lot lower for those years.
So if I choose to work a few years extra,
it can knock off those lower earning years and actually
have a huge impact on how much I'm making in
social security. So again knowledge is power, but understanding how
this all works can make a huge difference. Here's the
all Worth advice. A fiduciary financial advisory is a good

(35:26):
person to kind of bring on board here to help
you navigate the world of social security. But even understanding
how this works for yourself can make a huge difference.
Coming up next, maybe you're going through your attic, your garage,
your drawers, your closet. There may be a treasure trove
of stuff in your house that could actually be worth
some money. We'll tell you where to look. You're listening
to Simply Money persent of by all Worth Financial here

(35:47):
in fifty five KRC the talk station you're listening to
you Simply Money percent of by all Worth Financial. I
mean Wagner along with Steve Ruby, who could use a
little bit of extra money, right well, you might actually
have some lying around your house that you didn't know about.
And this is in the form of maybe something you

(36:08):
already have that could be collecting dust that could actually
maybe be a gold mine for you.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
Do you have any idea that vintage Pyres could be
worth money?

Speaker 1 (36:17):
No, no idea.

Speaker 3 (36:18):
I think we have some of this stuff. I need
to look a vintage Pyres pink two court casserole dish
with the cover. That's important. It's got to have the
cover sold on eBay for almost twenty three hundred dollars
dollars that's Rex dish.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
You know.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
It also makes me think like, gosh, maybe I should
stop at some of the yard sales that I see right,
people could be selling for twenty five cents one of
these Pyrex dishes that could actually be worth some money,
you know. I think the key here is this is
when you set aside some time on a weekend where
you don't have a lot going on, right to just
kind of look through things and say, what do I
what am I not using, and what could kind of

(36:53):
be worth some money, And then you just kind of
browse around on eBay and see what people are looking for. Foobies.
It is one of them, and it's kind of one
of those vintage toys. If you've got one of those
talking toys, it could go for anywhere from ninety five
to two hundred dollars, and some of them have actually
sold for more, depending on which one you have. Of course,

(37:14):
if you've got original packaging, that usually makes things worth
that much more. Just kind of stuff that you might
have shoved in the back of your closet or your
playroom that you haven't paid attention to for a while
actually were something.

Speaker 3 (37:24):
Yeah, kids, grandchildren that had Pokemon cards recently, I guess
a nineteen ninety nine Pokemon base set and Charizard. I
don't know, did you play Pokemon? Yeah, it's sold for
six hundred dollars.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
It's amazing.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
Son. I know.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
My son has a Michael Jordan Rookie card and he'll
get on eBay from time to time and say like,
it's in Trey's mind, it's like his ticket to getting rich,
it's his lottery ticket. He's like, you know, I've seen
one on eBay for two thousand dollars. I'm like, okay, well,
is someone actually paying two thousand dollars or just listed

(38:01):
for two thousand dollars, right, And so I think some
of these things is okay. People could be asking, doesn't
matter how much, but are people actually paying for it?
One thing I would have never guessed would be of
any value VHS tapes. Okay. So if you have some
that are like original and unopened, and these are like
some of the classic movies like Star Wars, Goonies, we're

(38:22):
talking people will pay as much as twenty five thousand
dollars for a VHS tape. That's crazy. Vinyl records, vintage newspapers,
old school video games. If you have any of these
things lying around, look into it. It could be worth
some money. Thanks for listening tonight. We hope you're gonna
tune in tomorrow. We are asking the advisor all the

(38:42):
questions you're sending to us. This is simply money presented
by all Worth Financial here on fifty five KRC, the
talk station