Simply Money

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Tonight, frightening headlines, so many of them about the state
of your investments, the economy, the markets, our take on
an alternative maybe to the sixty to forty portfolio, and
we've got a whole lot more to get to. You're
listening to Simply Money, presented by all Worth Financial Ammi
Wagner along with Bob Sponseeller. I'm really lucky. I've got
so many clients, investors that I work with that listen

(00:28):
to the show, and they're always when they come in
my office. So how does it work? And how do
you do this? And I just had one yesterday asking
me about this, and I kind of say, hey, we
start where a lot of you start, and that is
kind of just looking at the financial headlines. What's out there,
what are you coming across? And we've been noticing a
trend lately. It doesn't surprise us at all, but it

(00:50):
is like you are being bombarded with negative headlines. You know,
the most worst case scenario is possible about this and
that they could be coming down. And I get it.
As an investor. You're looking at all this stuff, Bob,
it's enough to make you kind of want to crawl
up in the fetal position.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, and we talk about fear and greed all the time.
And you know, let's face it, the market's down so
far for the year, you know, SMP approximately down five
percent for the first quarter, NASDAC down about twice as much.
And that's after two very good years in the stock market.
And we have a new administration, you know, in the
White House, with a lot of uncertainty out there around

(01:29):
tariffs and various policies. So everybody, i think is just
kind of sitting out there saying what's going to happen next?
And you know, while we're waiting, the news hasn't been
very good. So yeah, negative headlines are going to crop up,
I mean, but they do get crazy. To your point,
let me just read a few of them off to you.
You know, Navidia stock drops. Two reasons shares can't break

(01:51):
out of their funk. Goldman Sachs stagnation vibe sees it
cut S and P target again and hike recession risk.
Here's the crucial level for the S and P five
hundred to hold if the market is going to advance
at all in twenty twenty five, says one strategist. So

(02:12):
it's all over the board, and yeah, it's all negative, negative, negative. Historically,
when all the sentiment and all the headline risk and
all that is negative, that oftentimes signals were at least
searching for a bottom, you know, in the short term.
But who knows, you know, pulling back.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
The curtain a little bit here one hundred years ago, right,
My first career was in media, and I remember I
would write a story, I would carefully research it, I
would investigate it, I would get both sides of the story,
and then it would go before someone else who would decide, Okay,
you know, these are the final edits we're going to make,

(02:50):
and they would just tweak certain words to where what
I essentially over all set kind of remained the same.
But the lines, the big talk about it was a
little more slanted, a little more in your face. And
I used to get so frustrated by that. Please understand,

(03:11):
this is one hundred percent going on, because if there
were boring headlines like hideous down today but long term
probably going to be okay. Nobody's clicking on that, right,
nobody's clicking on here's what this economic indicators are saying
and why we think we might be okay long term
here's a reminder of what normal market cycles are, and

(03:33):
this is the cost of admission.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
Right.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Nobody's clicking on any of that because, Bob, back to
your point, fear and greed, right, that's what draws people in,
and they're trying to get you to click on these stories.
My concern is when you see so many of these
headlines and you are just inundated by them many times,
you have this need to do something about them. Right,

(03:55):
If you have this fear that's starting to bloom inside
of you because you're reading all of these things and
all of these economists like they can't all be wrong, right,
this is maybe what's going through your head, and then
suddenly I need to do something about this. I have
some really smart long term investors that I have worked
with for a while. A couple of them in recent

(04:15):
days have started to get nervous, and really it's about
educating them, and Bob, we say this all the time.
It is about making sure that the investors that we
work with do not make a mistake that they cannot
recover from. And headlines like this can point a lot
of people in that direction.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Well, it's great to hear you draw back on your
vast experience, you know, as a media professional, because you know,
you know how the sausage is made, so to speak.
I mean you've been in those rooms, and you've been
with those editors, and you've seen stories that you have
gone out in research to your point, and then watch
what the finished product is and oftentimes, to your point,
it gets skewed.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
So you know, I think where we come in and
where good fiduciar or advice come in is to sit
down and help people cut through these sound bite headlines
and equip people with some actual historical perspective on volatility,
on returns, on how markets have performed with various administrations

(05:16):
in the White House, you know, and on and on
and on. And I think once people know a little
bit of history and could put things in perspective, they're
able to make wiser decisions and to your point, avoid
making a decision that's going to cause them real damage.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
You're listening to Simply Money presented by all Worth Financial.
I Meani Wagner along with Bob Sponseller. Are you tired
of the crazy negative financial headlines? Because we are, And
you know, I believe very strongly Bob that it is
our job to deliver context in the midst of just
the onslaught of negativity. And I think it would be

(05:55):
helpful just to talk through with with our listeners tonight
the kinds of conversations we're having one on one or
with families or couples in our offices, you know. And
the first thing that I say is what money are
we going to need in the next year or the
next couple of years. Are we going to buy a vehicle?

(06:17):
What living expenses do we have? Do we have enough
emergency cash to cover those needs? Any money that you're
going to need in the next year, So it doesn't
need to be in the market, It doesn't belong in
the market. And you know, if you're someone who's constantly
pulling out in retirement for your basic living expenses, I

(06:39):
understand you might be losing some sleep right now with
all of this volatility.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Yeah, it's periods like right now where clients actually benefit
from having a good sound financial plan. Yes, I mean
it's it's very easy to have a quote unquote financial
plan when the stock market's going up twenty four percent
a year. Now's the time, you know, when you have volatility. Yeah,
And you brought up the point now is where we

(07:04):
got to look at when does your money, what does
your money need to do for you? And when and
to the extent that you can have that one to
three years worth of cash flow or lump sum cash
needs completely out of the stock market to begin with,
those clients sleep well at night because you know, we
had a plan for that and it's being executed right now.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
And I think there's some recency bias, right, I mean,
twenty twenty two markets were down. Many investors have forgotten
all about that because twenty three was a great year
in the market. Twenty four was a great year in
the markets, and so we got spoiled. We got used
to checking those four one K balances and seeing, oh,
up from the last time I checked, up from the
last time I checked you know. I mean the people

(07:49):
who write these headlines were scrambling during those years to
find anything to scare you about, because there was nothing
scary going on in the markets. You know. The conversations
that I'm having is a reminder of the cost of
admission for being invested in the markets, is that you know,
a typical market cycle is every three to five years,

(08:09):
you are going to experience a twenty percent downturn. So
how do you plan proactively for what is inevitably coming
so that you can easily weather that storm? Because what
we know on the other side of the downturn is
that a recovery is coming. And the American economy and
markets one hundred percent of the time, one hundred percent
of the time, without exception, have rebounded to new highs.

(08:34):
And for those who get scared when the inevitable downturn comes,
they often then miss the rebound, the recovery. And those
are the people who I feel really sad for.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, when you brought up you know, what are we
talking about with our clients and what are clients calling
in to ask us about. I was thinking about that
as I listened to you talk. And thankfully, you know,
my phone's not ringing a whole lot right now. Yeah,
there's always those three or four clients that I've worked
with for twenty five thirty years, and I usually, you know,
by the time they call me, I know, ninety to

(09:11):
ninety five percent of the time, we're about at a
market bottom. And I think client sentiment tends to be
something like this, Hey, I'm reading all these headlines, headlines headlines,
everything's negative. Should we be doing something? You know, you'll
get that phone call. And then the other topic that
comes up is, well, I think we should get out

(09:31):
and we should wait until things are better. And it's
almost impossible to feel like, hey, the coast is clear,
now's the time to back up the truck and put
everything back in stocks. And the people that wait for
that time to come are usually waiting a long time,
and they miss out on sizable returns that really make

(09:53):
a difference in their long term financial plan.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
Often these conversations when someone reaches out to me and
they hey, listen, you know, I'm just really nervous right
now because these tariffs in you know, market stub markets
are down market stock marketing, and I'm retired. The first
four words that I say are almost the same across
the board, and it is remember, we plan for this,

(10:18):
We plan for this, you know, And then I remind
them here are the steps that we have taken. You
weren't worried about this in twenty twenty four or twenty
twenty three, right tech stocks were up, those growth stocks
were going crazy. Your returns even in a sixty forty
portfolio were fantastic. But we plan for this, so this

(10:39):
may be catching you off guard, but it's really not
catching me off guard. And that's why you work with me.
And then I walk them through here's how we plan
for this, and without exception, when we get off the phone,
it's like, oh, yeah, we shouldn't change anything, because you're right,
we did plan for this. I just forgot about it.
I needed that. I needed you to hold my hand
through this. I needed you to remind me of what

(11:00):
we had already done. I needed that historical perspective to
kind of shake me out of this negative mindset. But again,
without exception, it's like, oh, yep, absolutely, you know. It
took ten minutes and I'm back on solid footing and
I understand what my plan is. Again.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yeah, you said it very well. I mean, the headlines
are never going to provide any historical perspective. Nobody wants
to read the full article and study history. You know,
nobody wants to do that. But what you do for
your clients is exactly what we should be doing. You know,
people want a non emotional other hand on the wheel
to just walk them through it and to your point,

(11:40):
say hey, this is why we built the plan that
we built. Yeah, and if you remind them about the
plan and then talk a little bit about, Hey, we've
been there before, We've done that before. Here's what's happened
in the past. Those are the two things we need
to do and we always do. And that's why you
know what, amy ninety eight ninety nine percent of our clients,

(12:00):
you know, stay with us year after year.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
Yeah, never leave. Here's the all Worth advice. Have a
solid financial plan focused on the future. If you do,
then just let the markets do their thing long term
and live your life right. You have your plan. You
don't need to lose sleep over it. Coming up next
our take on a proposal for an alternative to maybe
the traditional sixty to forty portfolio. You're listening to Simply Money,

(12:24):
presented by all Worth Financial here on fifty five KRC,
the talk station you're listening to you Simply Money. It's
by all Worth Financial, I mean you Wagner along with

(12:45):
Club sponsaler. If you miss our show one night, you
don't have to miss any of our money advice. We've
got a daily podcast for you. Just search Simply Money.
It's right there on the iheartapp or wherever you get
your podcasts. Coming up at six forty three financial mistakes
to avoid if you are facing divorce. I have been
here and done that, and I'm happy to talk you

(13:06):
through that in just a few minutes. Okay. There's certain
big names in our industry that when they talk, people
sit up and kind of take note of what they're
talking about. That and one of them one of the
most influential people in the industry Larry Fink. Right, he's
the chairman and chief executive at Blackhawk, which, by the way,
is the world's largest asset manager. He speaks, people listen,

(13:28):
and Larry Fink recently kind of made a comment about
where he thinks investing is going to go in the future. Typically,
we talk about the sixty forty portfolio as a way
where you can get some growth in retirement but also
some protection. And he kind of threw out there, Bob,
and I really want to get your take on this

(13:50):
is what he thinks the future. Maybe standard portfolio is
no longer sixty forty, but now fifty thirty, twenty fifty stock,
thirty bonds, and twenty alternative assets.

Speaker 2 (14:06):
Well my take is, you know, with all due respect
to mister Fink, he's not the first person to talk
about this asset allocation strategy. In fact, right now here
at All were the Andy Stout, our chief investment officer,
is already running portfolios for our clients that have these
other asset classes mixed in, you know, into the fold

(14:26):
and it's all so this is nothing new. I think
what he's talking about here is he's trying to you know,
maybe index the world of private credit and real estate
and infrastructure and things like that, because when you get
into these alternative investments, the fees can be higher. We've
talked about this before, there can be lock up periods,

(14:47):
So he's trying to kind of standardize this fifty thirty
twenty mix getting into four oh one K plans, which
black Rock desperately wants to grow their market share in
that area. So I think any time you can standardize
some things and bring the fee structure down, you know,
that typically benefits everybody. But the concept in and of
itself is nothing new, and it's something that we're already

(15:10):
doing for our clients here at all Worth as we
speak right now.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
For those though who are listening and saying, oh, like
maybe I should make changes like I am in a
traditional kind of sixty forty portfolio. Maybe that's not enough.
Maybe I need to look into private debt and real
estrate and real estate and private equity. What's your response
to them.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
Well, I think it's it's always a good thing to
sit down with your fiduciary advisor and talk about the
pros and cons of those type of allocations and also
talk about the why. And we talked about this aiming
with Andy Stout I think last week. Where you know,
at the end of the day, this comes down to
trying to find the right asset mix that gives you

(15:54):
the highest rate of return per unit of risk. Right,
So when you get into retirement and taking a cash
flow from your investment portfolio, volatility matters greatly, and to
the extent that you can build an asset allocation strategy
that minimizes volatility yet still gives you that upside total

(16:17):
return potential. Those are things that it makes sense to
talk about because that sequence of return risk meaning volatility
while you're pulling money out every month to live on,
that is real and as advisors we need to help
our clients mitigate that.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
The timing of its comments are interesting to me. Yes,
we are building some portfolios for some of our investors
where this definitely does make sense. But you know, inevitably,
it's like as much as we know market cycles, markets
you know, will go down and then they will come
back up. We also know that when markets start to
head down, investors start to say where else can I go?

(16:57):
Where else can I put my money? And you know,
I think this is just kind of serving up another option.
I think timing might be a little suspect here. You know,
does this make plan? Does this plan make sense for
you all the time? Fifty thirty twenty when markets are up,
when markets are down or are people it's just like
with gold, right, people start talking about gold every time

(17:17):
there's volatility in the markets. Okay, let's step back. Long
term perspective is the stock market over time has grown
at a much faster higher rate than gold the value
of gold over time. You know, So does this make
sense for you? Well, there's a lot of things you
have to think about here, one of them being you know,
additional fees. You know. But before we just jump all

(17:41):
in on, hey, this really smart man who runs this
large company saying that what I've always been doing is
the way of the past, and this is the way
of the future, and so I should jump all in
start asking a lot of questions about this.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
You bring up an excellent point here, Amy, because you know,
and I've been doing this for thirty four years now.
You know, anytime there is any market volatility or things change,
people want to stand up and look like they're the
smartest person in the room and say, hey, if everybody
did it this way, you know, I'm here to solve
all your problems. Fire your current advisor, you know, move

(18:16):
all your money over here, because we've got the new
black box way of investing. And that is just nonsense.
I'm not saying that adding alternative investments to your allocation
doesn't make sense, but I think you're making an excellent point.
You know, just because we've had a little volatility in
the markets this year doesn't mean you throw the baby
out with the bathwater and say, well, the stock market

(18:39):
doesn't work anymore. So I'm going to go over here
and try that. It's it's some short term volatility. I mean,
we're talking about the S and P down five percent
for the year. Again, with some historical perspective, this is
not a big deal. And for folks that do have
a financial plan to your point that you brought up

(18:59):
in the last second. For people that do have a
well diversified portfolio where you know, for example, bonds are
up for the year. Nobody wanted to talk about bonds
for the last three years. Well, now suddenly they're up,
and that's why you have them as part of your portfolio.
So yeah, there's a little bit of you know, look

(19:20):
at me, I've got the new answer here, and unfortunately
a lot of people will flock to that because they
just don't want to They want to live under the
illusion that short term volatility can be eliminated totally from
your life, and that's not the case.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
Here's the all Worth advice. Now listen, this is a
situation where you need to be working with a fiduciary
financial advisor who's putting your best interest first to determine
whether this is a strategy that does align with your
financial goals or maybe your current strategy is actually the
best strategy for you. Coming up next, a question for
you about your will. Is it specific enough what belongs

(20:01):
in your will? And also what doesn't belong in your will.
We'll get to that. You're listening to Simply Money presented
by all Worth financial here in fifty five KRC the
talk station. You know you should have a will. I
know a lot of us tend to put these estate
planning things off. But not only should you have a will,
but what's supposed to be in it? How specific should

(20:21):
your will actually be? Could you be missing something? Joining us?
Is our estate planning expert from the law firm of
Wood and Lamping, Mark Grekman Mark. I think, yeah, most
people have gotten the message by now you need to
have a will. But beyond that, what are the specifics
we need to make sure we're covering in there?

Speaker 3 (20:40):
Well, you know, we are all very aware of the
things we've collected, very proud perhaps of several items in
our health or in our possession. And the truth is
that the law is really less concerned about those details.
And placing details, detailed lists of items in your willvarious consequences.

(21:01):
And sometimes that's worth the effort or worth the extra trouble,
but usually it's not, and so people are often surprised.
Clients of mind are often surprised that I don't ask
them for a list of all their valuable jewelry, for example,
or some you know, give me the name, give me
the type of car you drive, you know, the model

(21:22):
in make of your car. But the truth is, we
don't put that kind of detailed into a will. And
then there's some very good reasons for it.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
Mark, I can remember one example in my own family
where a grandparent passed away and we had come back
to the house from the funeral. And I'm talking about
within an hour of the funeral, I'm watching in laws
walk around the house putting sticky notes on pieces of
furniture and china and other articles within the home. And

(21:55):
these folks had just been buried an hour ago. It
was shot tucking to me and somewhat of a mess,
and it created a little bit of discord within the family.
Talk about how we avoid situations like that.

Speaker 3 (22:09):
Well, unfortunately, Bob, it's hard to avoid situations if there
is already underlying tension of the family. And certainly I
have seen this, and I've heard many stories like the
ones you tell, and there are certainly ways that an executor,
that's the person in charge of administering the estate, or
the administrator we call that. If you if you die

(22:32):
without a will, then your agent is called an administrator.
But in this in this topic, we're talking about people
who have a will. That means the executor runs the show,
and the executor generally, well, the executor is in charge
of dividing up household goods and personal effects, and there's
a lot of different strategies. We've talked about that on
another show, and perhaps that's a topic for another day.

(22:55):
But the point is the executor makes the decision, and
how tasteful they choose to be depends on the individual family.
But certainly you can be specific in your will, but
it really is a trap and it creates a lot
more problems than it's worth. Bob. What I have seen
done which takes a little bit of planning, and that

(23:16):
is I've seen the family that people who are older,
when they do their will, they make a list of
their big stuff. That's not an official list. It's not
in the will, and it's not in the lawyer's file.
Perhaps it's just a list on their computer or perhaps
just in a notebook that lays out who they think
should get each item, and that list goes into the

(23:38):
hands of the executor, and the executor uses the executor's
own discretion about distributing the things that way. But of
course you pick an executor who's going to do what
the list says. If the executor, if you can't trust
your executor to do what your list says, you got
the wrong executor. And this is commonly done to avoid
the dynamics you just describe. So if you've got a

(24:01):
family where that feels like it could happen, I'm a
big fan of making a list of the big stuff. Now,
when I talk about big stuff, I'm talking about major
items or furniture, family heirlooms, automobiles, things of that kind.
Nobody really cares about nice forks and spoons, and if
they do, they don't really care about those things. They're

(24:21):
looking to pick a fight for completely unrelated reasons.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
So from your experience, mark by having mom and dad
or grandma and grandpa actually write out a list and
say here's who i'd like to get. You know, received
this particular article and maybe why do you find that
that diffuses a lot of this potential family discord?

Speaker 3 (24:41):
You know, because I think not, Yeah, I think it does.
But you know the truth is, Bob, if families are
going to fight, they're gonna fight, and the dynamics in
their family are really set outside of this whole process.
And so what I tell people is, don't expect words
on a page to change family dynamics. If you've got

(25:02):
a family that works together and it gets along well,
then you're not going to have a problem. And if
you've got a family with tension in it, there really
is not a very good solution. Now that's not to
say that you should not take steps to minimize that,
but I don't want to give people the impression that
somehow there's a magic bullet to stop family members from fighting.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
When you mark, when you talk about the fact, hey,
the specifics, there can be a place for that, and
it can actually help maybe some drama when you're no
longer here. If those specifics do not belong in your will,
what does What do we need to make sure is
definitely included?

Speaker 3 (25:38):
Well, we generally will a will has two kinds of
gifts in it, what we call specific bequests and then
residual bequests. A specific bequest is what we're talking about
right now, guys. Those are items that are listed that
says I leave my car my automobiles to my oldest grandchild,

(25:59):
or I leave my household goods and personal effects to
my cousin or or a specific bequest can be an
amount of money. I leave five thousand dollars to each
of my grandchildren, for example. That is a specific bequest.
So a specific bequest can be things in other words, items,
or it can be cash. Once all the specific bequests

(26:23):
and will have been met, then there's generally what we
call a residual bequest. And this is the clause that
says everything else that I haven't just listed above. Everything
else goes to When you fill in the blank, you
can say I leave the rest and residue of my
estate and equal shares to my children. Or you might
say I give twenty percent of my residual estate to

(26:44):
the University of Cincinnati or the University of Kentucky. I
give forty percent to my son Brent, and forty percent
to my son Eric. In other words, you can allocate
percentages like that, but of course you better be sure
there's percentages add up to. I have seen a few
examples in my career where they didn't, and it was

(27:05):
really a mess.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
Mark I'm in I'm in the middle of a situation
like the one you just described right now. So there
are specific dollar amount bequest of family members and then
everything else, a lot of it goes to charities, you know,
in a percentage basis, and we don't know what those
dollar amounts are going to be because we don't know
what the value of the estate's going to be at
the end when this individual passes on. But I've got

(27:29):
a situation now where you know, one of the charities
does happen to be a university and they are contacting
the client wanting to finalize or put something in writing
about a specific bequest, and we don't know what that
dollar amount's going to, you know, end up being. So
when we're in a situation where we're on this residual
percentage basis approach, do you ever recommendation on how to

(27:52):
deal with the local you know, plan giving officers at
various charities.

Speaker 3 (27:57):
Well, these plan giving officers are they understand this dynamic
and they're used to dealing with these things, and you
just got to tell them what you're going to do.
They are they are many of these people. Their success
in their job, in other words, how well how good
a job they're doing, is measured by how many specific
bequests they can generate. And so when they go in

(28:20):
for their annual review, they're going to say to their boss,
you know, I was able to get us listed in
you know these twenty three wills. Now, there's no guarantee
those wills won't be changed later on. But the point
is that they're driven to try to get details from
you because that's their job, and that does not compel
you and I to have to meet their goals. You

(28:40):
know I can. I've been in the situation a few
times and where you politely say, you know, we're just
not there yet. We'll get back to you when we are.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Great perspective, as always from our state planning expert from
the law firm of Wood and Lamping, Mark Regman. What
does belong in your will? What doesn't? And on top
of that, I would say, whatever you decide, please communicate
that to your loved ones. 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

(29:13):
all Worth Financial. I mean you wagon you're alone with
Bob spons already have a financial question. You just can't
get it figured out for yourself. We're happy to help
you out. There's a red button you can click on
while you're listening to the show. Right there on the
iHeart app, record your question. It's coming straight to us
straight ahead. Bob spawn Teller's favorite topic eggs. How do
we stack up compared to the rest of the country.

(29:34):
Eat more chicken, eat more something? My goodness, we've talked
about eggs more lately than I think I ever have
in my entire life. But stand by, because at least
you'll know are we paying more or less than everyone else?
There are certain I think best laid plans. Right, best
laid plans, You go into a marriage and you plan

(29:55):
on being with that person forever, and you know, I've
seen this, man, I've seen this in my own life
and the lives of others. It just doesn't work out
that way. The problem from a financial standpoint is, many
times the dynamic within that relationship, long before there was
ever talk of divorce, is that one person kind of
has all the financial information right, they're kind of the

(30:17):
family CFO, and the other person doesn't. And if you're
the person who doesn't and your marriage is currently in
kind of choppy waters, I would say step number one,
you better figure stuff out. You better start asking questions,
you better start looking at statements, you better figure out
what you actually have.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
Great point, Amy, and I you know, this is why
I always I mean, I can never insist on anything,
but I always strongly encourage that both the husband and
wife come to every meeting that we have, because I
want both spouses to be involved in the discussion, in
the planning, in the decision making. And along with all

(31:00):
those discussions and planning and decision making, both spouses become
aware of what the couple even has in the way
of assets, and that can oftentimes eliminate some of this,
some of the surprises and some of the you know,
not so pleasant things that can happen if the marriage
does end up ending at some point.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
Well, and this is why I'm such a huge proponent
of having a financial plan. I'm thinking of a client
of mine who a couple of months ago came in.
It was just a normal annual review. It was just him, uh,
and we sat down and he started crying and had said, listen,
I you know, I been in love with my wife
for years. Something happened in our marriage. We have decided

(31:43):
that we might go our separate ways. And I don't
even know which end is up. By the way, he
was a couple of years away from where he had
when he had planned on retiring. We immediately went to
the plan. We looked at, okay, if we were to
divide assets, what does this look like? And by the
time he left, right, and you're in such an emotional
funk that it's like your brain fog, it's not even

(32:05):
working correctly that at least he had concrete answers on okay,
if we do move forward in this space and divide
our assets at this kind of late stage in the game,
here's the impact that this will have. And so that's
why both of you kind of being part of the
conversation and having that financial plan that we can go
to and say, what's the real impact of this decision,

(32:26):
I think is incredibly critical. Another mistake I often see
is fighting over the home. Right, there's just so much
emotion and memories tied up in that place all the holidays.
Maybe you know Johnny skinned his knee on this step,
and you know Emily lost a front tooth at the

(32:49):
dinner table here her first tooth. Whatever, you can't separate that.
But what you have to keep in mind is many
times we buy our homes and we make our plan
for our families with two incomes involved, and when you're
backing out one of those incomes. Many times I've seen
people fight for that house and then on the other
side of it struggle to even keep up because the

(33:09):
upkeep of the home and the bills for it we're
not ever meant for just one person's income. So many
times it makes the most sense to just say, all right,
we're going to sell this house, We're going to have
some hard conversations with the kids, and we're going to
move forward, both of us kind of with a clean start.
It's a difficult thing to do, I think when there's
so many emotions involved.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah. In other words, winning in the legal proceeding does
it necessarily and can oftentimes mean not winning in terms
of the long term viability of your financial plan. You
can go fight and quote unquote win a home or
an asset that you are really emotionally attached to, only
to find out later that you can't afford to continue

(33:51):
to live in that house. So yeah, it's as difficult
it is as it is sometimes to get a married
couple to go through and figure out what they're actually
spending each month. Yeah, when you're in the middle of
a divorce, getting two separate households to come up with
a budget. That can be difficult, but it needs to
be done. And that's why you know a good financial

(34:14):
advisor is worth their weight in goal during times like this,
to make sure people don't get an emotional win and
then a big financial loss down the road.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
I always remind my clients who are in this situation,
I am your advocate. I am I am here for you.
And so you can be hearing things from your friends
and your family and this person, and it can be
really hard to figure out which end is up. And
so my perspective is always, hey, if you make that decision,

(34:45):
here's the potential negative consequences, here's the potential good that
could come out of it. And so at least you
have the information. And I think it would be really
difficult to go through a situation like this without having
an advocate in your corner, you know, personally. Even and
I went through it with the financial background that I have,
I still had an attorney who was reminding me, you know,

(35:06):
because sometimes it's just like I just want it to
be done. Hey, I'm also thinking of your future self
here and in that here and now this feels like
let's just get let's just rip off this band aid
and do this because it's easier. But I think it
makes more sense to go back to the drawing board
to negotiate more on this. Right, So, just make sure
you have strong advocates in your corner that you can

(35:28):
rely on. Here's the all Worth advice listen protecting yourself,
your children, your money. It's essential when you're in the
process of divorce, and it is an incredibly emotional process
to make sure you've got good people in your corner.
Coming up next, you feel like you're just paying a
ton for your eggs. How do we stack up how
much are other people and other places paying for their eggs?

(35:50):
We'll tell you. You're listening to Simply Money presented by
all Worth Financial. Here on fifty five KRC, the talk station.
You're listening to Simply Money presented by all Worth Financial.
I Memi Wagner along with Bob Sponseller. I do have
to laugh because I've been doing this show for about
a decade now, and there's certain times where I'm like,

(36:11):
I never thought we would be talking about XYZ, and
yet we're talking about it all the time. And I'm
going to put the topic of eggs in that exact
basket right now, because I never thought we would be
spending so much time talking about eggs, but man, I
get it. It's the thing you go to the grocery
store and you're like, how much for a dozen eggs?
And Bob, I know this is your favorite topic.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
H We're going to cover it. So the average price
per dozen was two dollars and ninety nine cents in
February of twenty twenty four versus five dollars and eighty
nine cents in February of twenty twenty five. That's a
ninety seven percent increase. And we know that bird flu
has been a big issue. Amy it just comes down

(36:54):
to supply and demand. And when there's less of a
supply of something and demand doesn't change, guess what's going
to go up the price. And that's what we're seeing.
So talk us, talk us, talk to us about what's
going on in Cincinnati, because I don't think we're paying
quite as anywhere near as you know, the price of

(37:15):
eggs in Cincinnati as folks are, say, in Los Angeles
or some other major cities around the country.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
Yeah, I mean, I think here in Cincinnati depends on
where you shop, right from Trader Joe's, Joe Kloger to
Target to Walmart. But somewhere between four ninety nine and
six fifty nine for a dozen eggs. I eat egg whites.
I can't even find it egg whites right now. I
don't know what's happening. I guess all the egg whites
are going in. They're just keeping them in the actual eggs.

(37:42):
So who knows whether how that will shake out for
those who shop for that. But you know, some perspective here, right,
because Cincinnati is always cheaper than other places. USA Today
did this research and came up with if you live
in la or anywhere on the West coast, you could
be paying almost fourteen dollars for a dozen eggs, more

(38:06):
than double, I mean, in some cases, almost triple what
you would be paying here in Cincinnati. So I don't know,
maybe we don't complain as much. I don't know what
the answer is.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
All right, Well, here's my question, Amy, When you have
your client meetings every day, how many of your clients
are coming into your office and the topic of conversation
is the price of eggs. How many people are doing that?
Because I can give you my answer.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
What's your answer?

Speaker 2 (38:29):
Zero? Yeah, it's never come up anyway, what goes on
in your office.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
With two So funny enough, one person did bring it
up on a call yesterday jokingly. Right, And I think
that's the perspective is, you know, listen, what we should
be worried about, not worried about. We should be paying
attention to how our four oh one k's are invested in,
whether we've got the right asset allocation. It's control what
you can control. We can gripe about egg prices, they

(38:58):
will go back down. Right, there's a reason for this bike.
This is a temporary situation, but all in context here, right,
thanks for listening. Tune in tomorrow. We're talking about how
the pros and cons of getting a monthly checked for
the rest of your life that maybe isn't a pension.
You've been listening to Simply Money, presented by all Worth
Financial here in fifty five KRC, the talk station