January 9, 2026 • 38 mins
On this episode of Simply Money presented by Allworth Financial, Bob and Brian dig into a critical question: What does real financial success look like in 2026? It's not just about the size of your portfolio—it's about liquidity, confidence in your cash flow, simplicity, and the freedom to live on your own terms. They explore why being "rich on paper" might not mean flexibility in real life and how to prepare for future uncertainty without stress. Plus, a stark reminder of why organizing your financial life is a gift to your family, not just yourself. Also in this episode: why many retirees spend more, not less, in the early years of retirement—and how to plan for it. And the latest scams you need to watch for, from fantasy football betting to passport rip-offs. Bob and Brian wrap things up by answering your questions about concentrated tech stocks, charitable trusts, and how to avoid family battles over your estate.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Tonight, how to actually measure financial success in twenty twenty six.
You're listening to Simply Money, presented by all Worth Financial
Lawn Bob Sponsller along with Brian James Well Tonight, we're
talking about something that doesn't get asked about nearly enough.
What does real financial success actually look like? Because let's
(00:25):
face it, having a big account, having a big net
worth is great, but it doesn't always equal confidence or
more importantly, happiness or simplicity or freedom or all the
things that we really want. And we want to break
down what financial success really looks like in twenty twenty six, Brian,
(00:45):
because at the end of the day, it's not just
about your investment account balance or your net worth. Let's
let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Well, let's start with a Let's start with an example.
Somebody who had seven million dollars worth of net worth,
four million of it tied up in busines equity, another
two million in in liquid real estate, some of that
side to the business too. Only about a million dollars
was truly accessible. See, these are truly people who don't
who are millionaires on paper but don't feel like they
can cover you know anything, you know, just about anything
(01:14):
comes down the pipe. So that's we're not calling that failure,
but it does mean that liquidity really is the measure
of flexibility.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
So if somebody they truly wanted to start doing things
for their family making longer term uh, you know, charitable
donations or buying some other other vacation properties or whatever,
they can't really do that right now, despite the fact
that it looks like on paper that they should be
able to. So the question is, you know, if you
find yourself, you know this sounds familiar to you, the
question ask yourself is can you get to your money
(01:40):
in a downturn without triggering huge taxes or penalties.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Or or fire sale of assets.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
That kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Financial success these days in twenty twenty six, Bob, means
not just how much you have, but how accessible it
actually is.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, and this doesn't just mean, you know, taking a
look at ill equal ill liquid assets. Brian, you and
I have talked about this over the last few weeks
as we have have had another great year in the
stock market. You know, we talk about that bucket strategy,
your bucket approach all the time. At some point it
makes sense to just carve out a little bit of
these gains, don't get too greedy and make sure perhaps
(02:16):
that you have that emergency fund filled up and ready
to go with you know, one two to three years
worth of cash flow needs and wants so you don't
have to you know, forget about ill liquid real estate,
so you don't have to go sell stock, ets and
other things in a temporarily down market. It's something that
we're talking about with clients more and more. It makes
(02:38):
a lot of sense because again, this recency bias can
creep in. You know, when you get fifteen, sixteen, twenty
percent returns three years in a row, people just think
that's going to continue on forever. And you know, you
and I have been doing this long enough Brian to
know that's not always the case. The reversion to the
mean is real. It's not a matter of if, it's when.
(02:58):
So you know, take a look at your liquidity and
make sure you got your house in order.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
There.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Let's talk about you know, consideration number two, and that's
just cash flow confidence. This goes down to your income
plan and inflation assumptions and making sure you've got a good,
you know, reliable cash flow in place.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Do you know how much you can spend and can
you feel good about that? Can you take that trip
or fund that wedding without having to open up a
spreadsheet and move things around and sell this and you know,
change things around drastically. So again, success today means that
plan is set so that it can handle at least
three percent inflation and a few flat market years. You
need to stress test these things. If you're still using
that four percent rule from twenty fifteen, it's time to
(03:40):
at least re evaluate and make sure you can still
your plan still supports that. And again, mathematically it probably
will because of what the market's done over the next
three years. But to Bob's point, we really need to
be stress testing this. Don't simply run a simple spreadsheet
of you know, that four percent withdrawal rate and a
six percent rate of return. You know, make sure you
stress tested, not off twenty percent of your assets right
(04:01):
now and then run the numbers again. That simulates a
bad timing outcome, which basically means the market punches me
in the mouth right now and let's see if I
can stand up again. So yeah, very important to make
sure you understand first of all, what your cash flow is,
what do you need to make the ship float and
then can your portfolio support it including a black Swan
type event where we lose twenty percent for no reason,
kind of like what we did in twenty twenty two.
(04:23):
So the third marker of financial success here, we're going
to move on to simplicity. Right, We just made things
really complicated by making you do math again, but simplicity
is not to be overlooked. This is something we see
with our most organized and frankly happiest and content clients.
They don't have nineteen different accounts at seven financial institutions.
They've cleaned it up because they got sick of tracking
all those ten ninety nine's, talking to all those different
(04:45):
people and keeping things, you know, to manage it across
all of it. You know, these people have realized that
if they have seven financial advisors, then they are their
own financial advisor because somebody has to coordinate all of
that information and decide what the actual plan is going
to be. So, you know, well, you need to know
where things are, what's in the trust. Spouse and kids
maybe can step up and you know, handle these things
(05:05):
without needing a forensic accountant. Should something happen to the
primary financial manager of the of the family.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Well, I'll put it in either simpler terms speaking of simplicity,
you know, and it's never a pleasant thing to say
or talk about. But you know, the question is this,
if you die this afternoon, what happens? Who is managing
all this stuff that you've worked thirty forty fifty years
to accumulate. How is it all going to work? Do
people know where everything is? Do they know your passwords?
(05:32):
Do they know how the trust work? All that kind
of stuff? And Brian, for too many people, they can't
answer that question. They think they got it all organized.
But you know, especially for men, men like control, we
hate to turn over the reins. And this leads to
my you know story that has been embedded in my
mind ever since nineteen ninety two where I got a
(05:55):
phone call from a widow client of mine at four
point thirty in the morning and said, my husband just died.
Do I have enough money, Bob to go to UDF
and buy milk and eggs? And this was a family
that was worth three or four million dollars back in
nineteen ninety two. It was a sad story that really
(06:15):
embedded in my mind and I've never forgotten about it.
You got to communicate this stuff with your spouse, with
your kids, and know how all the levers are going
to be pulled and where everything is, you know, because again,
if you've built a five million dollar net worth and
then you die and you just leave nothing but stress
for your heirs, what have you really accomplished here? So
(06:38):
there's there's my rant and soapbox for you.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah, we all have those stories, right that that and
that was formative in your career. And I've got similar
stories too of you know, learning really really quickly and
hard the way people think about money and the value
that we can provide as a financial advisor, help dragging
them back from the tree so they can see the
entire forest. I understand that.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
So let's talk. Let's talk about a fourth thing. This
is the fun part, Brian, and I know you and
I have a ton of fun doing this with clients.
Are we using this capital? Are we using the assets
to benefit causes that we care deeply about. Or taking
that trip with your kids and grandkids that you've thought
about talked about at family dinners but you never pulled
(07:21):
the trigger on and actually book the trip and done it. Uh.
These are the things that make memories you know, create
legacy for your kids and grandkids. But it takes some planning,
and it takes pulling the trigger and getting some of
these things done. You know, to say nothing about things
like donor advise fun. I know you've got stories you
could tell about all this, you know, share a couple
(07:42):
with us, Brian. Where where can we make meaning out
of all this if we take the time to plan.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yeah, and like you said, this purpose part of the
of the financial planning engagement. This, this is the fun part,
but people need permission to think about it. These are
this is the list of stuff that people always said,
you know, maybe a sort of I'm going to think
about this doing this someday. Here's my list of ten
things they would really like to do, except I assume
I can't afford it, so let's just not think about
it right now. Lots of people have those lists, and
(08:10):
most of those people have not taken the time to
figure out whether it's even on the table. So eventually
we get to the point in the planning process where
we figure out what is and is not on the table.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
And for people who.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Are sort of financial worry warts, and I don't mean
that in a negative manner. Most of the people who
are choosing to listen to this show right now are
worried about something because they're looking for information. You people
are doing fine. Probably you're doing better than you give
yourselves credit for. So I would bet that there is something,
there's a little bit of surplus you can do something with.
So at that point, yeah, Bob, we'll use this example.
Bob mentioned donor advice funds. Well, we talk about those
(08:42):
at the end of every year because they are they
are a financial planning, tax planning tool in addition to
being a charitable donation, of course, but the whole point
of a donor advice fund you can throw a big
pile of money into. You can, first of all, don't
think about the charity. You can simply think what kind
of tax benefit do I need this year? What would
be good for me based on all the other income
(09:02):
and capital gains and whatever else I generated this year?
What kind of deduction could I use this year? And
then you can figure out what what that would calculate
into in terms of a one time donation into a
donor advised fund. Now, there's nothing stopping you from giving
that same amount right now.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Write this.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
You know right at this time to any old any
old church or charity or whatever. But a donor advice
fund allows you to put a whole bunch in at once,
maybe five, six, seven years worth of donations and then
dole it out in a manner that that that whatever
that charity is is already used to from you, so
they don't see a difference. They don't see a giant check.
They're not trying to name a wing after you.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Uh. And the nice thing.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
About this too, and it's almost that behaves like a foundation.
You can bring your family together and have have those
kids come in and help make the grant decisions, have
everybody vote on what charities they want to support. Now
you've got purpose beyond just paying the bills and going
on vacations and that kind of retirement. That can bring
some joy back into people for whom that retirement life
has kind of become a little too routine.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
R And I've actually had a few clients act do this,
and that's create the donor advice fund and then use
a targeted and planned out meeting at the end of
the year. And it doesn't have to be at the
end of the year, but it's just whether it's the
summer vacation or pulling the family together during the holidays
where you're literally sitting at a table with your kids
(10:17):
and your grandkids and you're letting them all have a voice. Hey,
what causes mean something to you and why? And it's
a great way to let everybody in the family kind
of have a vote or a say on how the
family is going to deploy their strategic giving capital charitable capital,
(10:38):
and then learn about the values and the passions of
family members. You want to talk about passing down a legacy.
That is very meaningful time to have grandkids listen to
grandma and Grandpa talk about how they were raised, some
of the causes or charities that impacted their life, why
they feel so passionate about it, maybe some mission trips
(10:58):
that they've been on. I mean, it's a powerful tool
to get your whole family together and talk about benefiting
someone other than yourself, and those are meaningful times. It's
not that difficult to do. You and I have both
done this with clients. It's some of the most rewarding
time I've ever had as a financial advisor. But like
(11:19):
a lot of things, it does take a little bit
of planning for sure. For sure.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah, So let's move on to the final the the
thing here we want to deal with, which is control
of risk. A lot of people think that risk is
just investment volatility, stuff moving up and down, and that's true.
But the real risk is over concentration and it's tax exposure.
It's not knowing what your spouse would do if something
happened to you. Right, these are the real things. The
market's going to do what it does. The market is
(11:44):
predictable in its unpredictability. We know it's coming, but these
other things aren't necessarily you know, can sneak up from
around the corner on you. So success in this area, Bob,
that means having the right insurance, the right estate plan,
and the right level diversification. Of course in your portfolio,
it's knowing that your plan concern the unexpected. So make
sure you've looked in every corner of your financial situation
(12:04):
and you've rooted out all the different things that could
possibly cause, you know, come out of the blue and
cause all kinds of unnecessary stress. You know, there's a
lot of people out there who have no idea that
they're forty percent over concentrated in technology stocks. For that
for example, or maybe haven't reviewed an umbrella policy in
a decade.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Be in control of those risks and you'll be successful.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Here's the all Worth advice. True financial success isn't just
a number. It's confidence, simplicity and the freedom to live
life on your terms. There's a big lie about retirement
that most people are still clinging to, and we'll tell
you what that is. Coming up next. You're listening to
Simply Money, presented by all Worth Financial on fifty five KRC,
(12:43):
the talk station. You're listening to Simply Money presented by
all Worth Financial on Bob Sponsler along with Brian James.
If you can't listen to Simply Money every night, subscribe
and get our daily podcasts. Just search Simple Money on
the iHeart app or wherever you find your podcast. Straight
(13:04):
ahead of six forty three, we are diving into more
of your questions, everything from smart investing moves to protecting
your retirement. One of the most common assumptions we hear
from people approaching retirement is this, Oh, I know I'm
gonna spend way less money when I'm retired, less commuting,
less need for work clothes. The mortgage might be paid off,
(13:26):
so naturally, expenses are gonna go down, right, But the reality,
and Brian, we see this all the time. Research shows
that many retirees actually spend more in the early years
of retirement, not less. Let's dig into this because this
happens a lot and it's an important topic to cover.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
This research comes from the ebri I Employee Benefit Research Institute.
We get a lot of good information out of them.
They've been tracking and they found for the first five
to ten years of retirement, spending often rises.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Well, this is the reason behind this kind of makes sense.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
This is when we're healthiest, most energetic, and finally ready
to do the things they've been putting off. This is
bucket list time, right for those of us who kept
a bucket list all those years. Here's all the awesome
things that I'm going to do, but when I have
the time to do it. Well, that's really the first
five to ten years worth of retirement, and when we
have time, we tend to fill it. When there's a
(14:18):
vacuum of time, we tend to fill that vacuum with spending.
So that's not necessarily a bad thing, but for sure
we have to get our sea legs when it comes
to being actually retired and understanding what our.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Lifestyle is going to be like.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
So this can include vacations, home remodels, maybe even an
entire second home. And you know, let's be honest, a
lot of people just want to spike the football and
celebrate the fact that they don't have to clock in
on a Monday morning anymore.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Yeah, spike the football and write a half million dollar
checked for whatever, an RV or a second home. I
think the point we're trying to make here is and
we talk about this in reverse, telling people not just
just hoard all their money and not spend it and
not have any fun and leave a whole boatload of
money to their airs, you know, when they're in their
eighties and nineties. But you know this point, you have
(15:03):
to plan for this stuff. If you're thinking about doing
these major big ticket items, the crews, the second home,
the home remodel, the RV, talk about it in advance
of retirement and make sure that's factored in to your
retirement plan, because you only want to retire once, and
you don't want to come up, you know, in your
late seventies and eighties and say, shoot, I'm about to
(15:24):
run out of money.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, so we want to make sure that we're on
top of things. And this all starts with sit down
with your spouse if you're married, or even if you
just need to go sit on the porch and stare
off into the sunset and think about what you want
as an individual. It hasn't It just has everything to
do with what is it going to be like when
I don't have to adhere to someone else's schedule?
Speaker 3 (15:43):
So the big thing to Paytastic Day.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
You just brought up an excellent point here, and that's
it is so critical to have both spouses in the
room talking about financial goals, especially in retirement because let's
face it, whether one spouse is working in a job
and the other is stay at home, or if both
spouses are working, everyone has in their mind what retirement
(16:08):
looks like to them, and oftentimes, when you're raising kids
and working hard and you're busy and you're in the
office all day, you're not communicating with your spouse on
what he or she thinks retirement should look like. So
it's really important to when you're talking about goals, have
both spouses in the room to talk about this stuff
so you know when you start attaching dollars and cents
(16:32):
to these goals. You've got to make sure the plan's
going to work, and do that in advance so one
or both spouses aren't disappointed in the end.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
That's really important. And this all comes through. We have
some data to support this too, So a twenty two
JP Morgan studies showed that about six and ten retirees
spent the same or more in the first decade of retirement.
So there's a kind of exclamation point to this whole
topic here of making sure we understand you know what's coming.
And by the way, we're not talking about medical cost
I'm not talking about the unfund stuff that comes later.
(17:02):
We're talking about people just living their lives than once
they finally accomplish that some level of freedom.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Yeah, and for those that do have a good amount
of wealth, the risk isn't necessarily running out of money,
but misaligning your wealth with your lifestyle. You don't want
to live the first ten years in retirement way under budget,
only to pass away with more money than you ever
intended to leave behind, or worse, live it up early
and then find yourself tightening the belt when you're eighty again.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
It's good to.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Get take advantage of those go go years as you
called them, the first few years of retirement. But talk
about it, talk about it with both spouses, and plan ahead.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
And talk about it with an advisor.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
I mean, this is where this is something where the
common question that I bring up when I'm in when
I can see that I'm in a situation where these
folks are going to be okay, this is you know,
I really feel after thirty years of doing this, Bob,
I feel like my job every meeting is going to
be one of two outcomes. It's me pushing someone to
be more responsible because they're about to run their train
off a cliff, or pushing them to go out and
enjoy what they've built. Every meeting fits in one of
(18:03):
those two categories. So one of the first things that
I ask people is when we're building a financial plan,
is you know, we need to know your goals. What
do you have in mind? What is it that you
want to do? And they'll say, well, we really want
to kind of make sure it works. So we're just
going to keep it simple, and we're going to build
a garden, and we're going to eat vegetables out of
the garden and we're just not going to leave the house,
and that sounds like a terrible way to exist for
(18:23):
the rest of someone's life. So I kind of try
to turn them around the other way. If you ever
kind of sort of thought maybe you wanted to do
something that's going in the plan, Let's throw every last
goal in here, remodel the house, the second house, the
around the world, retirement trip, do all of those things.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Let's run the math. Assuming we've done that.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
If it works, cool, Now you've got to get out
of your own way and decide which of these things
you're really going to pull the trigger and write a
check for. If it doesn't work, that's okay, because we
were throwing the kitchen sink into it. Now we prioritize
what are the things that are most important, what are
the things we can live without. That way, when we
do those extra fun things that maybe aren't necessary to retirement,
but sure are a heck of a lot of fun,
you don't have to feel guilty about it because we
(19:02):
planned ahead exactly.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
And what you just talked about there is being proactive
and communicating clearly. I love it. That's what good financial
planning is all about. Here's the all Worth Advice plan
for a retirement that matches your lifestyle, not just a formula.
All right, scams, The scammers out there are getting smarter,
and we'll show you the latest tricks con artists are
(19:25):
using and how to spot them before they spot you.
Coming up next, you're listening to Simply Money presented by
Allworth Financial on fifty five KRC the talk station. You're
listening to Simply Money presented by Allworth Financial on Bob
Sponseller along with Brian James, joined tonight by our good
(19:45):
friend Josio Erlick, President of the Cincinnati Better Business Bureau,
Joe Soo, Thanks as always for spending some time with
us tonight. Hope you're doing well and I know you
want to talk. There's a whole bunch of scams out there.
We're always on the lookout on these latest scams and
preventing our clients from getting exposed to them.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
I know you've got a lot to talk about.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Walk us through some of this latest stuff we need
to be aware of.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
Well, let's start out with fantasy football. There are so
many people that play fantasy football. It's very popular. We
have seen a spike in online gaming scams as a
result of that, you know, it's really easy to end
up on an illegal betting site, especially if you're scrolling
through social media. If you're somebody who relates to betting influencers,
(20:34):
and that's a lot of young people. You can find
gambling influencers all over TikTok and Instagram. They pose as
betting gurus, but their goal is more to go viral
than to give genuine betting advice. They hype themselves big
time by claiming things like I made ten thousand dollars
in a day, and they post things like guaranteed Sunday
(20:57):
Football wins or NFL lock picks, and you know, these
claims are how they're going to lure your into clicking
the link in their post. This link is supposedly going
to direct you to some secret betting site, but it's
really a fake site, or it's a cloned version of
a legitimate betting site. Think a URL that's spelled slightly
(21:18):
different than the real site is spelled. The games on
these sites are usually rigs, so you have no chance
of winning, and even if you do win, the site
won't allow you to withdraw your winnings. Not only are
you going to lose the money you deposited into the site,
but the scammers now have your personal financial information to
either use themselves or they'll sell it on the dark web. Now,
(21:41):
if you want to try your luck, make sure you're
using a legitimate betting website and check it out first
at BBB dot org.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
That's great that you track those types of sites.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
I didn't know that that was the gambling sites with
something that's has that always been there?
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Has BBB always tracked that.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
Wherever the scams are, we're tracking it, and we track
legitimate businesses across all industries and the ones that are
causing people headache and heartache.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
All right, Josia, You've also got some updates on passport
scams and timeshare scams.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
Right, So you got this big trip trip next month,
and you just realized that your passport is going to expire.
So you go online to find a solution and you
come across a website that promises to expedite your renewal
passport for a fee. Unfortunately, this is not your solution.
It's going to be your nightmare because this scam can
(22:35):
cost you hundreds of dollars, not to mention possibly having
to cancel your trip. These fake passport sites are designed
to look exactly like the official US Department of State site,
which is travel dot state dot govgov. That's important, and
these guys are counting on your desperation to keep you
(22:55):
from thinking clearly. You could end up paying for forms
that you can get for free on the government site,
and in the process you'll also be giving up sensitive
information like your Social Security number. If you need an
expedited passport, there are steps you can take that you
can only do it through official channels. You can pay
(23:15):
for expedited processing by mailing in your paperwork and fees,
or if this is a really close window, you can
go to a passport agency. And the closest ones to
us right now are Chicago and Detroit, although there is
will be one opening up in Cincinnati next year, so
that's good news. And the timeshare scams you mentioned, you
(23:35):
know people have gotten involved in time shares. Many of
them are just fine and they are enjoying them, but
there are a lot of people that are just over
their time shares. The fees are piling up. You don't
use it, you just want out. Then you get a
call or you see an ad online for timeshare legal
consulting or an exit company, and they say they have
(23:58):
a team of lawyers on staff and they've helped thousands
of people exit their timeshare. That's all part of the scam.
To get you to trust them. They'll demand a huge
upfront fee, claiming it's for legal services, filing fees, or
even to guarantee your exit, and they'll use high pressure tactics,
of course, claiming you have to sign up right now
because of a limited time deal or maybe there's an
(24:21):
upcoming change in the law. According to them, after you
pay up, they're going to stop returning your calls and
all those lawyers you were told about are nowhere to
be found. They've got your money and probably pass your
timeshare onto a broker. You are still the owner of
that time share, You're still responsible for all the fees,
(24:41):
and now you're stuck waiting to see if the broker
finds a buyer, which could be years if they ever do.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
All right, Josio, I'm sure you and your team monitor
reputable companies versus questionable companies, and I hear these timeshare
ads quite often on the radio. Are you able to
name specific companies? Maybe they don't advert are there specific
companies out there that you already know, Hey, watch out
for that company, do not contact them.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
There are specific companies that BBB is aware of, but
you as the consumer, need to go to our website
and check the company that you are considering doing business with,
and the report will be there that this is either
a company that you can trust or it's a company
that you should stay away from.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
So they want to change the subjects here a little bit.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
You also have mentioned in the past social media account
takeovers in the ways that your life can be dominated
if somebody gets ahold of your password or hacks into
your account. How does this work and how can we
protect ourselves from these kinds of things.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
Well, one of the prime targets of a scammer is
to get access to your social media account log in information.
If they have that information, they can log into your
social media account and impersonate you. Once they're in, they
could message your family and friends, usually asking for money
in some fashion. Maybe they will claim that you've had
(26:06):
an emergency. In one case, a man reported that he
saw his friend listed his car for sale on Facebook.
He then went to message his friend about what how
much is it going to cost for your car, and
the scammer who had taken over the account said he
would only accept cryptocurrency, so the man got suspicious and
(26:27):
called his friend, who knew nothing about it, didn't have
a car for sale, and he realized that he couldn't
log into his Facebook account. His account had been hijacked.
So losing access to your account, all your pictures, and
your contacts is bad enough, but it's even worse if
somebody you know falls for the scam and sends these
(26:48):
crooks money. To protect yourself and your family and friends,
make sure you use a strong password. I cannot emphasize
that enough, and turn on multi factor authentication. And if
a friend suddenly messages you on social media asking for money,
either directly or indirectly, be careful because it might not
(27:09):
be your friend at all.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Joe Cill, this, this impersonation scam actually happened. You know,
My wife and I didn't get scammed, but somebody thought
they were renting our condo and actually sent money to someone,
only to find out that the whole thing was faked.
They didn't impersonate our account, but they created an account
to try to rent our condo out to somebody and Thankfully,
(27:31):
a neighbor, you know, discovered what was going on. So
this is a real thing out there, and we really
appreciate you coming on tonight to share some of this
stuff with us. You're listening to Simply Money presented by
Allworth Financial on fifty five KRC, the talk station. You're
listening to Simply Money presented by Allworth Financial. I'm Bob
(27:53):
Sponsorer along with Brian James. Do you have a financial
question you'd like for us to answer. There's a big
fat button you can click while you're listening to the
show right on the iHeart app. Simply record your question
and it will and always comes straight to us. All right, Brian,
Let's lead things off tonight with Tom and Hyde Park,
who says, I know my portfolio is too concentrated in tech,
(28:18):
especially Navidias stock. Should I be looking at hedging strategies
or just start selling now even if the tax bill
is painful.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Well, congratulations Tom that you put yourself in a good
solid position with some of these strong technology positions that
have been driving the market for the better part of
several decades. But also glad to hear you're willing to
maybe step outside the casino with some coins left in
you and your little bucket. So let's talk about how
you can get out of this. First thing would be,
obviously you can simply sell it, and you can spread
it over time. Maybe maybe it's a situation where you
(28:48):
could you buy enough time to sell a little bit
in the current tax year and move some into the
second tax year.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
That's one option just to think about.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Another would be you can you can potentially look at
it using something called an exchange traded fund. If this
position you mentioned in video, if that position is over
a million dollars, then you may very well be able
to put that into an exchange fund and in response
receive a diversified portfolio of other people's stocks who have
the same problem. So you're basically committing your overly large
position in exchange for a portion of everyone else's overly
(29:19):
large position. That is not a taxable event. Lots of
moving parts to that, though. You can also hedge with options.
You can do something called callers or protective puts, which
is basically putting a floor and a ceiling above your
position so that it can't hurt you too much if
it goes the wrong direction. And then finally, something else
to look for is if there are any positions elsewhere
in your portfolio that are sitting at losses, you might
(29:39):
sell those. At the same time, those losses will net
out against the big gain you have in your technology portfolio.
Perhaps there's some out there that you can take advantage of.
Rachel in Fort Mitchell says she's invested an interested in
Charitable Remainder trust, but she's wondering whether they really provide
an income as well as a benefit for charity, or
is this just a tax gimmick that CPAs and lawyers
try to sell us.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Bobby think, well, it's definitely not a tax gimmick, Rachel.
I mean, these things are real. They've been used for
years and years and years, and in the right situation
they work remarkably well. There's just a lot of options
and a lot of moving parts with these things. So
one thing to keep in mind is when you do
give that stock away, the benefit is you avoid all
(30:21):
the capital gains taxes on the stock that you gifted
into that trust and it leaves your taxable estate. It
is an irrevocable gift to charity, and the charity will
receive what's left in that trust after you and your
husband pass away. The key is figuring out how much
income you want or need to retain and for how long,
(30:41):
and you can dial that period up and down, you know,
based on a period of years or over both lifetimes.
And then the tax deduction for doing all this varies
based on how much income you're going to retain during
your life. So it's definitely a situation where you want
to sit down with a good fiduciary financial advisor in
CPA and map this out to make sure you customize
(31:03):
this if you're going to utilize this strategy for your
and your husband's you know, needs and goals down the road.
But it's not a gimmick. These things are real in
the right situation, they work very very well, all right.
Brian in Blue Ash says, most of our net worth
is an investment real estate. How do we create liquidity
for estate taxes so our heirs don't have to sell
(31:25):
property under pressure, you know, presumably after we pass away.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
You know, this reminds me of a story that comes
up all the time when we talk about a state planning. So, uh,
I don't know if you remember, Bob, you remember Joe
Robbie Stadium where.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
The Dolphins used to play.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Yeah, the Robbie family, Joe passed away without a will
and did not have estate plans in place. That team
and that stadium were worth an awful lot of money.
But you can't carve out a chunk of a team,
you know, or a building or whatever in pay stay taxes.
So they were basically forced to liquidate the team, and
hence there is no Joe.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
I also remember the Jim Carrey movie where they stole
the dolphin.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Remember that that was Yes, that was not related at
all to a state planning. But I'm glad to see
you've had a spark of a memory, Bob. That's something
your advanced age. That's something to be proud of and celebrate.
Big moment for Bob. The reason I brought that up
is because because I.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Wanted to make fun of Bob.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Anyway, No, so this is a family didn't do any
planning and they were forced to sell their famili's big asset.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
And that's problem. Real estate is ill liquid wealth.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
So your heirs might inherit that valuable property, but Uncle
Sam's gonna come knocking for a state taxes within about
nine months, and that money has got to come from somewhere.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
You might be able to borrow against it.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
You might be able to sell off some parcels of it,
who knows, But regardless, the taxes are comeing. Do so
what you might consider, There are solutions out there. Properly
it's structured. A life insurance policy held in an irrevocable
life insurance trust makes money drop out of the sky.
Obviously you have to be insurable and healthy enough to
do this, but that can cause or that can cover
those kind of needs. Entity planning meaning what entity owns
(33:00):
this property. It can be held by an LLC or
a partnership. You can and you can use take advantage
of minority interest discounts to reduce the taxable estate value.
You can also look at gifting strategies during life, using
the annual gift tax exclusion to reduce what's left to
be taxed later. Charitable giving, strategic borrowing. There are a
number of things that you can do in this particular case. Okay,
we're going to hog a bunch of time from our
(33:21):
other questioners, so we're going to move on to Joseph
and Marymont. Joseph has some birds in the nest who
don't get along very well. And he's worried about that
their a state actually could tear the family apart based
on everybody's own perception of what they're going to get
out of this. So how do they build a plan,
Bob that keeps money from becoming a wedge?
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Well, when I think about your question, Joseph, you know
the two things that come to mind is if you
own a business and you're trying to figure out who's
going to take over that business, or you own a
vacation property property that in you know, a perfect world,
we say, well, we're going to leave this to our
kids and they'll enjoy it with the grandkids, you know,
on generation after generation, and if the kids don't get along,
(34:04):
you really got to sit down and figure out how
to divide these assets up ahead of time. So, you know,
in a business situation, let's face it, usually one kid
or the most two is really interested in being involved
in the business and others aren't because they have other interests.
Communication up front, and again it doesn't have to be fair,
(34:25):
but you've got to communicate to try to avoid some
of these this family discord down the road. Same thing
with these vacation properties. Don't just pass it down and
hope it all works out, because oftentimes it creates a
big problem. All Right, coming up next, I've got my
two cents on how to plan ahead for some of
these big ticket items that we all want to spend
(34:47):
during our retirement years. You're listening to Simply Money presented
by all Worth Financial on fifty five KRC the talk station.
You're listening to Simply Money of my all Worth Financial
I Bob Sponseller along with Brian James. All Right, Brian,
we just went through a whole laundry list of lessons
(35:09):
here on how to plan to enter retirement and plan
out spending and all this. So I'm just gonna share
one of my pet peas that comes up from time
to time, and I'm talking about and this is really
as we talked about before, This has nothing to do
with your net worth. It has to do with what
you plan to spend. And here's what I'm talking about.
(35:29):
For folks that have their retirement plan in place and
they have a certain amount of income they want to
you know, have coming in every month, and we've run
the numbers and we know that it's gonna work. But
there's not a ton of margin for air in the plan.
In other words, we got to be disciplined and follow
the plan in order for it to work. What invariably
(35:50):
happens from time to time is I get this email
or phone call that says, well, we've always wanted to
take the kids on a cruise and the grandkids and all,
and Bob, I need you to pull fifty grand sixty
grand and send it to us. And you know, when
people do that, you know, just on a whim, and
they don't factor it into their plan, and they don't
(36:12):
communicate it with their advisor in advance, you leave some opportunities,
you know, on the table. In my opinion, number one,
we want to make sure the plan is going to
work if you do these kind of things. And then second,
you know, especially as the dollar amounts go up. I
gave the example of a cruise, but you know, let's
say a two hundred thousand dollars home remodel. You want
(36:34):
to give your advisor and our team a chance to
get some of this money out of harm's way to
avoid market volatility. So I'm real big on communication when
it comes to these big ticket items. Don't just spring
it on us through an email or a phone call,
because that really can throw the whole plan out of whack,
and not in a good way.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Yeah, sometimes there's no choice with this, right. Life happens
and life intervenes and we just don't get the chance
to plan. But Bobby, I reconize what you're talking about.
These are situations where maybe we've talked about maybe we're
going to do this for years. I don't know, we're
going to decide, maybe it's a low priority goal. We
just got it on the back burner, and then suddenly,
over a weekend it launches itself to the front burner,
and on Monday, we're scrambling to cut a check as
(37:15):
soon as possible because a commitment has been made somewhere.
This is this, This is our client's money, and it's
we can and will and should be spent the way
that they want it. It doesn't matter we're we're simply
pointing out that we lose the chance to be efficient
and as well thought out as possible if there's not
enough time to kind of plan things out.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
You know. Maybe well yeah, but Brian, you gave, in
my opinion, the perfect example of how this is supposed
to work in the earlier segment where you you described
a situation where you were sitting down with your clients
and saying, hey, let's dream a little bit. Let's throw
everything into the plan that we might want to do,
from cruises to vehicles to Homer model to vacations to
(37:54):
r V and let's make sure the plan's going to
work in advance. That's exactly what I'm talking about. Unfortunately,
we run into some people that won't have those kind
of discussions with their advisor. That's really what I'm talking
about here.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
I think you're right, and it's just if you're gonna
have an advisor in the mix and then everything is
on the table. Otherwise you're not getting your money's worth.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
All right, thanks for listening. You've been listening to Simply Money,
presented by all Worth Financial on fifty five KRC, the
Talk station
Tonight, how to actually measure financial success in twenty twenty six.
You're listening to Simply Money, presented by all Worth Financial
Lawn Bob Sponsller along with Brian James Well Tonight, we're
talking about something that doesn't get asked about nearly enough.
What does real financial success actually look like? Because let's
(00:25):
face it, having a big account, having a big net
worth is great, but it doesn't always equal confidence or
more importantly, happiness or simplicity or freedom or all the
things that we really want. And we want to break
down what financial success really looks like in twenty twenty six, Brian,
(00:45):
because at the end of the day, it's not just
about your investment account balance or your net worth. Let's
let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Well, let's start with a Let's start with an example.
Somebody who had seven million dollars worth of net worth,
four million of it tied up in busines equity, another
two million in in liquid real estate, some of that
side to the business too. Only about a million dollars
was truly accessible. See, these are truly people who don't
who are millionaires on paper but don't feel like they
can cover you know anything, you know, just about anything
(01:14):
comes down the pipe. So that's we're not calling that failure,
but it does mean that liquidity really is the measure
of flexibility.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
So if somebody they truly wanted to start doing things
for their family making longer term uh, you know, charitable
donations or buying some other other vacation properties or whatever,
they can't really do that right now, despite the fact
that it looks like on paper that they should be
able to. So the question is, you know, if you
find yourself, you know this sounds familiar to you, the
question ask yourself is can you get to your money
(01:40):
in a downturn without triggering huge taxes or penalties.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Or or fire sale of assets.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
That kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Financial success these days in twenty twenty six, Bob, means
not just how much you have, but how accessible it
actually is.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, and this doesn't just mean, you know, taking a
look at ill equal ill liquid assets. Brian, you and
I have talked about this over the last few weeks
as we have have had another great year in the
stock market. You know, we talk about that bucket strategy,
your bucket approach all the time. At some point it
makes sense to just carve out a little bit of
these gains, don't get too greedy and make sure perhaps
(02:16):
that you have that emergency fund filled up and ready
to go with you know, one two to three years
worth of cash flow needs and wants so you don't
have to you know, forget about ill liquid real estate,
so you don't have to go sell stock, ets and
other things in a temporarily down market. It's something that
we're talking about with clients more and more. It makes
(02:38):
a lot of sense because again, this recency bias can
creep in. You know, when you get fifteen, sixteen, twenty
percent returns three years in a row, people just think
that's going to continue on forever. And you know, you
and I have been doing this long enough Brian to
know that's not always the case. The reversion to the
mean is real. It's not a matter of if, it's when.
(02:58):
So you know, take a look at your liquidity and
make sure you got your house in order.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
There.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Let's talk about you know, consideration number two, and that's
just cash flow confidence. This goes down to your income
plan and inflation assumptions and making sure you've got a good,
you know, reliable cash flow in place.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Do you know how much you can spend and can
you feel good about that? Can you take that trip
or fund that wedding without having to open up a
spreadsheet and move things around and sell this and you know,
change things around drastically. So again, success today means that
plan is set so that it can handle at least
three percent inflation and a few flat market years. You
need to stress test these things. If you're still using
that four percent rule from twenty fifteen, it's time to
(03:40):
at least re evaluate and make sure you can still
your plan still supports that. And again, mathematically it probably
will because of what the market's done over the next
three years. But to Bob's point, we really need to
be stress testing this. Don't simply run a simple spreadsheet
of you know, that four percent withdrawal rate and a
six percent rate of return. You know, make sure you
stress tested, not off twenty percent of your assets right
(04:01):
now and then run the numbers again. That simulates a
bad timing outcome, which basically means the market punches me
in the mouth right now and let's see if I
can stand up again. So yeah, very important to make
sure you understand first of all, what your cash flow is,
what do you need to make the ship float and
then can your portfolio support it including a black Swan
type event where we lose twenty percent for no reason,
kind of like what we did in twenty twenty two.
(04:23):
So the third marker of financial success here, we're going
to move on to simplicity. Right, We just made things
really complicated by making you do math again, but simplicity
is not to be overlooked. This is something we see
with our most organized and frankly happiest and content clients.
They don't have nineteen different accounts at seven financial institutions.
They've cleaned it up because they got sick of tracking
all those ten ninety nine's, talking to all those different
(04:45):
people and keeping things, you know, to manage it across
all of it. You know, these people have realized that
if they have seven financial advisors, then they are their
own financial advisor because somebody has to coordinate all of
that information and decide what the actual plan is going
to be. So, you know, well, you need to know
where things are, what's in the trust. Spouse and kids
maybe can step up and you know, handle these things
(05:05):
without needing a forensic accountant. Should something happen to the
primary financial manager of the of the family.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Well, I'll put it in either simpler terms speaking of simplicity,
you know, and it's never a pleasant thing to say
or talk about. But you know, the question is this,
if you die this afternoon, what happens? Who is managing
all this stuff that you've worked thirty forty fifty years
to accumulate. How is it all going to work? Do
people know where everything is? Do they know your passwords?
(05:32):
Do they know how the trust work? All that kind
of stuff? And Brian, for too many people, they can't
answer that question. They think they got it all organized.
But you know, especially for men, men like control, we
hate to turn over the reins. And this leads to
my you know story that has been embedded in my
mind ever since nineteen ninety two where I got a
(05:55):
phone call from a widow client of mine at four
point thirty in the morning and said, my husband just died.
Do I have enough money, Bob to go to UDF
and buy milk and eggs? And this was a family
that was worth three or four million dollars back in
nineteen ninety two. It was a sad story that really
(06:15):
embedded in my mind and I've never forgotten about it.
You got to communicate this stuff with your spouse, with
your kids, and know how all the levers are going
to be pulled and where everything is, you know, because again,
if you've built a five million dollar net worth and
then you die and you just leave nothing but stress
for your heirs, what have you really accomplished here? So
(06:38):
there's there's my rant and soapbox for you.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah, we all have those stories, right that that and
that was formative in your career. And I've got similar
stories too of you know, learning really really quickly and
hard the way people think about money and the value
that we can provide as a financial advisor, help dragging
them back from the tree so they can see the
entire forest. I understand that.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
So let's talk. Let's talk about a fourth thing. This
is the fun part, Brian, and I know you and
I have a ton of fun doing this with clients.
Are we using this capital? Are we using the assets
to benefit causes that we care deeply about. Or taking
that trip with your kids and grandkids that you've thought
about talked about at family dinners but you never pulled
(07:21):
the trigger on and actually book the trip and done it. Uh.
These are the things that make memories you know, create
legacy for your kids and grandkids. But it takes some planning,
and it takes pulling the trigger and getting some of
these things done. You know, to say nothing about things
like donor advise fun. I know you've got stories you
could tell about all this, you know, share a couple
(07:42):
with us, Brian. Where where can we make meaning out
of all this if we take the time to plan.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yeah, and like you said, this purpose part of the
of the financial planning engagement. This, this is the fun part,
but people need permission to think about it. These are
this is the list of stuff that people always said,
you know, maybe a sort of I'm going to think
about this doing this someday. Here's my list of ten
things they would really like to do, except I assume
I can't afford it, so let's just not think about
it right now. Lots of people have those lists, and
(08:10):
most of those people have not taken the time to
figure out whether it's even on the table. So eventually
we get to the point in the planning process where
we figure out what is and is not on the table.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
And for people who.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Are sort of financial worry warts, and I don't mean
that in a negative manner. Most of the people who
are choosing to listen to this show right now are
worried about something because they're looking for information. You people
are doing fine. Probably you're doing better than you give
yourselves credit for. So I would bet that there is something,
there's a little bit of surplus you can do something with.
So at that point, yeah, Bob, we'll use this example.
Bob mentioned donor advice funds. Well, we talk about those
(08:42):
at the end of every year because they are they
are a financial planning, tax planning tool in addition to
being a charitable donation, of course, but the whole point
of a donor advice fund you can throw a big
pile of money into. You can, first of all, don't
think about the charity. You can simply think what kind
of tax benefit do I need this year? What would
be good for me based on all the other income
(09:02):
and capital gains and whatever else I generated this year?
What kind of deduction could I use this year? And
then you can figure out what what that would calculate
into in terms of a one time donation into a
donor advised fund. Now, there's nothing stopping you from giving
that same amount right now.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Write this.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
You know right at this time to any old any
old church or charity or whatever. But a donor advice
fund allows you to put a whole bunch in at once,
maybe five, six, seven years worth of donations and then
dole it out in a manner that that that whatever
that charity is is already used to from you, so
they don't see a difference. They don't see a giant check.
They're not trying to name a wing after you.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Uh. And the nice thing.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
About this too, and it's almost that behaves like a foundation.
You can bring your family together and have have those
kids come in and help make the grant decisions, have
everybody vote on what charities they want to support. Now
you've got purpose beyond just paying the bills and going
on vacations and that kind of retirement. That can bring
some joy back into people for whom that retirement life
has kind of become a little too routine.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
R And I've actually had a few clients act do this,
and that's create the donor advice fund and then use
a targeted and planned out meeting at the end of
the year. And it doesn't have to be at the
end of the year, but it's just whether it's the
summer vacation or pulling the family together during the holidays
where you're literally sitting at a table with your kids
(10:17):
and your grandkids and you're letting them all have a voice. Hey,
what causes mean something to you and why? And it's
a great way to let everybody in the family kind
of have a vote or a say on how the
family is going to deploy their strategic giving capital charitable capital,
(10:38):
and then learn about the values and the passions of
family members. You want to talk about passing down a legacy.
That is very meaningful time to have grandkids listen to
grandma and Grandpa talk about how they were raised, some
of the causes or charities that impacted their life, why
they feel so passionate about it, maybe some mission trips
(10:58):
that they've been on. I mean, it's a powerful tool
to get your whole family together and talk about benefiting
someone other than yourself, and those are meaningful times. It's
not that difficult to do. You and I have both
done this with clients. It's some of the most rewarding
time I've ever had as a financial advisor. But like
(11:19):
a lot of things, it does take a little bit
of planning for sure. For sure.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah, So let's move on to the final the the
thing here we want to deal with, which is control
of risk. A lot of people think that risk is
just investment volatility, stuff moving up and down, and that's true.
But the real risk is over concentration and it's tax exposure.
It's not knowing what your spouse would do if something
happened to you. Right, these are the real things. The
market's going to do what it does. The market is
(11:44):
predictable in its unpredictability. We know it's coming, but these
other things aren't necessarily you know, can sneak up from
around the corner on you. So success in this area, Bob,
that means having the right insurance, the right estate plan,
and the right level diversification. Of course in your portfolio,
it's knowing that your plan concern the unexpected. So make
sure you've looked in every corner of your financial situation
(12:04):
and you've rooted out all the different things that could
possibly cause, you know, come out of the blue and
cause all kinds of unnecessary stress. You know, there's a
lot of people out there who have no idea that
they're forty percent over concentrated in technology stocks. For that
for example, or maybe haven't reviewed an umbrella policy in
a decade.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Be in control of those risks and you'll be successful.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Here's the all Worth advice. True financial success isn't just
a number. It's confidence, simplicity and the freedom to live
life on your terms. There's a big lie about retirement
that most people are still clinging to, and we'll tell
you what that is. Coming up next. You're listening to
Simply Money, presented by all Worth Financial on fifty five KRC,
(12:43):
the talk station. You're listening to Simply Money presented by
all Worth Financial on Bob Sponsler along with Brian James.
If you can't listen to Simply Money every night, subscribe
and get our daily podcasts. Just search Simple Money on
the iHeart app or wherever you find your podcast. Straight
(13:04):
ahead of six forty three, we are diving into more
of your questions, everything from smart investing moves to protecting
your retirement. One of the most common assumptions we hear
from people approaching retirement is this, Oh, I know I'm
gonna spend way less money when I'm retired, less commuting,
less need for work clothes. The mortgage might be paid off,
(13:26):
so naturally, expenses are gonna go down, right, But the reality,
and Brian, we see this all the time. Research shows
that many retirees actually spend more in the early years
of retirement, not less. Let's dig into this because this
happens a lot and it's an important topic to cover.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
This research comes from the ebri I Employee Benefit Research Institute.
We get a lot of good information out of them.
They've been tracking and they found for the first five
to ten years of retirement, spending often rises.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Well, this is the reason behind this kind of makes sense.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
This is when we're healthiest, most energetic, and finally ready
to do the things they've been putting off. This is
bucket list time, right for those of us who kept
a bucket list all those years. Here's all the awesome
things that I'm going to do, but when I have
the time to do it. Well, that's really the first
five to ten years worth of retirement, and when we
have time, we tend to fill it. When there's a
(14:18):
vacuum of time, we tend to fill that vacuum with spending.
So that's not necessarily a bad thing, but for sure
we have to get our sea legs when it comes
to being actually retired and understanding what our.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Lifestyle is going to be like.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
So this can include vacations, home remodels, maybe even an
entire second home. And you know, let's be honest, a
lot of people just want to spike the football and
celebrate the fact that they don't have to clock in
on a Monday morning anymore.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Yeah, spike the football and write a half million dollar
checked for whatever, an RV or a second home. I
think the point we're trying to make here is and
we talk about this in reverse, telling people not just
just hoard all their money and not spend it and
not have any fun and leave a whole boatload of
money to their airs, you know, when they're in their
eighties and nineties. But you know this point, you have
(15:03):
to plan for this stuff. If you're thinking about doing
these major big ticket items, the crews, the second home,
the home remodel, the RV, talk about it in advance
of retirement and make sure that's factored in to your
retirement plan, because you only want to retire once, and
you don't want to come up, you know, in your
late seventies and eighties and say, shoot, I'm about to
(15:24):
run out of money.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, so we want to make sure that we're on
top of things. And this all starts with sit down
with your spouse if you're married, or even if you
just need to go sit on the porch and stare
off into the sunset and think about what you want
as an individual. It hasn't It just has everything to
do with what is it going to be like when
I don't have to adhere to someone else's schedule?
Speaker 3 (15:43):
So the big thing to Paytastic Day.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
You just brought up an excellent point here, and that's
it is so critical to have both spouses in the
room talking about financial goals, especially in retirement because let's
face it, whether one spouse is working in a job
and the other is stay at home, or if both
spouses are working, everyone has in their mind what retirement
(16:08):
looks like to them, and oftentimes, when you're raising kids
and working hard and you're busy and you're in the
office all day, you're not communicating with your spouse on
what he or she thinks retirement should look like. So
it's really important to when you're talking about goals, have
both spouses in the room to talk about this stuff
so you know when you start attaching dollars and cents
(16:32):
to these goals. You've got to make sure the plan's
going to work, and do that in advance so one
or both spouses aren't disappointed in the end.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
That's really important. And this all comes through. We have
some data to support this too, So a twenty two
JP Morgan studies showed that about six and ten retirees
spent the same or more in the first decade of retirement.
So there's a kind of exclamation point to this whole
topic here of making sure we understand you know what's coming.
And by the way, we're not talking about medical cost
I'm not talking about the unfund stuff that comes later.
(17:02):
We're talking about people just living their lives than once
they finally accomplish that some level of freedom.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Yeah, and for those that do have a good amount
of wealth, the risk isn't necessarily running out of money,
but misaligning your wealth with your lifestyle. You don't want
to live the first ten years in retirement way under budget,
only to pass away with more money than you ever
intended to leave behind, or worse, live it up early
and then find yourself tightening the belt when you're eighty again.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
It's good to.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Get take advantage of those go go years as you
called them, the first few years of retirement. But talk
about it, talk about it with both spouses, and plan ahead.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
And talk about it with an advisor.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
I mean, this is where this is something where the
common question that I bring up when I'm in when
I can see that I'm in a situation where these
folks are going to be okay, this is you know,
I really feel after thirty years of doing this, Bob,
I feel like my job every meeting is going to
be one of two outcomes. It's me pushing someone to
be more responsible because they're about to run their train
off a cliff, or pushing them to go out and
enjoy what they've built. Every meeting fits in one of
(18:03):
those two categories. So one of the first things that
I ask people is when we're building a financial plan,
is you know, we need to know your goals. What
do you have in mind? What is it that you
want to do? And they'll say, well, we really want
to kind of make sure it works. So we're just
going to keep it simple, and we're going to build
a garden, and we're going to eat vegetables out of
the garden and we're just not going to leave the house,
and that sounds like a terrible way to exist for
(18:23):
the rest of someone's life. So I kind of try
to turn them around the other way. If you ever
kind of sort of thought maybe you wanted to do
something that's going in the plan, Let's throw every last
goal in here, remodel the house, the second house, the
around the world, retirement trip, do all of those things.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Let's run the math. Assuming we've done that.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
If it works, cool, Now you've got to get out
of your own way and decide which of these things
you're really going to pull the trigger and write a
check for. If it doesn't work, that's okay, because we
were throwing the kitchen sink into it. Now we prioritize
what are the things that are most important, what are
the things we can live without. That way, when we
do those extra fun things that maybe aren't necessary to retirement,
but sure are a heck of a lot of fun,
you don't have to feel guilty about it because we
(19:02):
planned ahead exactly.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
And what you just talked about there is being proactive
and communicating clearly. I love it. That's what good financial
planning is all about. Here's the all Worth Advice plan
for a retirement that matches your lifestyle, not just a formula.
All right, scams, The scammers out there are getting smarter,
and we'll show you the latest tricks con artists are
(19:25):
using and how to spot them before they spot you.
Coming up next, you're listening to Simply Money presented by
Allworth Financial on fifty five KRC the talk station. You're
listening to Simply Money presented by Allworth Financial on Bob
Sponseller along with Brian James, joined tonight by our good
(19:45):
friend Josio Erlick, President of the Cincinnati Better Business Bureau,
Joe Soo, Thanks as always for spending some time with
us tonight. Hope you're doing well and I know you
want to talk. There's a whole bunch of scams out there.
We're always on the lookout on these latest scams and
preventing our clients from getting exposed to them.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
I know you've got a lot to talk about.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Walk us through some of this latest stuff we need
to be aware of.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
Well, let's start out with fantasy football. There are so
many people that play fantasy football. It's very popular. We
have seen a spike in online gaming scams as a
result of that, you know, it's really easy to end
up on an illegal betting site, especially if you're scrolling
through social media. If you're somebody who relates to betting influencers,
(20:34):
and that's a lot of young people. You can find
gambling influencers all over TikTok and Instagram. They pose as
betting gurus, but their goal is more to go viral
than to give genuine betting advice. They hype themselves big
time by claiming things like I made ten thousand dollars
in a day, and they post things like guaranteed Sunday
(20:57):
Football wins or NFL lock picks, and you know, these
claims are how they're going to lure your into clicking
the link in their post. This link is supposedly going
to direct you to some secret betting site, but it's
really a fake site, or it's a cloned version of
a legitimate betting site. Think a URL that's spelled slightly
(21:18):
different than the real site is spelled. The games on
these sites are usually rigs, so you have no chance
of winning, and even if you do win, the site
won't allow you to withdraw your winnings. Not only are
you going to lose the money you deposited into the site,
but the scammers now have your personal financial information to
either use themselves or they'll sell it on the dark web. Now,
(21:41):
if you want to try your luck, make sure you're
using a legitimate betting website and check it out first
at BBB dot org.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
That's great that you track those types of sites.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
I didn't know that that was the gambling sites with
something that's has that always been there?
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Has BBB always tracked that.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
Wherever the scams are, we're tracking it, and we track
legitimate businesses across all industries and the ones that are
causing people headache and heartache.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
All right, Josia, You've also got some updates on passport
scams and timeshare scams.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
Right, So you got this big trip trip next month,
and you just realized that your passport is going to expire.
So you go online to find a solution and you
come across a website that promises to expedite your renewal
passport for a fee. Unfortunately, this is not your solution.
It's going to be your nightmare because this scam can
(22:35):
cost you hundreds of dollars, not to mention possibly having
to cancel your trip. These fake passport sites are designed
to look exactly like the official US Department of State site,
which is travel dot state dot govgov. That's important, and
these guys are counting on your desperation to keep you
(22:55):
from thinking clearly. You could end up paying for forms
that you can get for free on the government site,
and in the process you'll also be giving up sensitive
information like your Social Security number. If you need an
expedited passport, there are steps you can take that you
can only do it through official channels. You can pay
(23:15):
for expedited processing by mailing in your paperwork and fees,
or if this is a really close window, you can
go to a passport agency. And the closest ones to
us right now are Chicago and Detroit, although there is
will be one opening up in Cincinnati next year, so
that's good news. And the timeshare scams you mentioned, you
(23:35):
know people have gotten involved in time shares. Many of
them are just fine and they are enjoying them, but
there are a lot of people that are just over
their time shares. The fees are piling up. You don't
use it, you just want out. Then you get a
call or you see an ad online for timeshare legal
consulting or an exit company, and they say they have
(23:58):
a team of lawyers on staff and they've helped thousands
of people exit their timeshare. That's all part of the scam.
To get you to trust them. They'll demand a huge
upfront fee, claiming it's for legal services, filing fees, or
even to guarantee your exit, and they'll use high pressure tactics,
of course, claiming you have to sign up right now
because of a limited time deal or maybe there's an
(24:21):
upcoming change in the law. According to them, after you
pay up, they're going to stop returning your calls and
all those lawyers you were told about are nowhere to
be found. They've got your money and probably pass your
timeshare onto a broker. You are still the owner of
that time share, You're still responsible for all the fees,
(24:41):
and now you're stuck waiting to see if the broker
finds a buyer, which could be years if they ever do.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
All right, Josio, I'm sure you and your team monitor
reputable companies versus questionable companies, and I hear these timeshare
ads quite often on the radio. Are you able to
name specific companies? Maybe they don't advert are there specific
companies out there that you already know, Hey, watch out
for that company, do not contact them.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
There are specific companies that BBB is aware of, but
you as the consumer, need to go to our website
and check the company that you are considering doing business with,
and the report will be there that this is either
a company that you can trust or it's a company
that you should stay away from.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
So they want to change the subjects here a little bit.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
You also have mentioned in the past social media account
takeovers in the ways that your life can be dominated
if somebody gets ahold of your password or hacks into
your account. How does this work and how can we
protect ourselves from these kinds of things.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
Well, one of the prime targets of a scammer is
to get access to your social media account log in information.
If they have that information, they can log into your
social media account and impersonate you. Once they're in, they
could message your family and friends, usually asking for money
in some fashion. Maybe they will claim that you've had
(26:06):
an emergency. In one case, a man reported that he
saw his friend listed his car for sale on Facebook.
He then went to message his friend about what how
much is it going to cost for your car, and
the scammer who had taken over the account said he
would only accept cryptocurrency, so the man got suspicious and
(26:27):
called his friend, who knew nothing about it, didn't have
a car for sale, and he realized that he couldn't
log into his Facebook account. His account had been hijacked.
So losing access to your account, all your pictures, and
your contacts is bad enough, but it's even worse if
somebody you know falls for the scam and sends these
(26:48):
crooks money. To protect yourself and your family and friends,
make sure you use a strong password. I cannot emphasize
that enough, and turn on multi factor authentication. And if
a friend suddenly messages you on social media asking for money,
either directly or indirectly, be careful because it might not
(27:09):
be your friend at all.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Joe Cill, this, this impersonation scam actually happened. You know,
My wife and I didn't get scammed, but somebody thought
they were renting our condo and actually sent money to someone,
only to find out that the whole thing was faked.
They didn't impersonate our account, but they created an account
to try to rent our condo out to somebody and Thankfully,
(27:31):
a neighbor, you know, discovered what was going on. So
this is a real thing out there, and we really
appreciate you coming on tonight to share some of this
stuff with us. You're listening to Simply Money presented by
Allworth Financial on fifty five KRC, the talk station. You're
listening to Simply Money presented by Allworth Financial. I'm Bob
(27:53):
Sponsorer along with Brian James. Do you have a financial
question you'd like for us to answer. There's a big
fat button you can click while you're listening to the
show right on the iHeart app. Simply record your question
and it will and always comes straight to us. All right, Brian,
Let's lead things off tonight with Tom and Hyde Park,
who says, I know my portfolio is too concentrated in tech,
(28:18):
especially Navidias stock. Should I be looking at hedging strategies
or just start selling now even if the tax bill
is painful.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Well, congratulations Tom that you put yourself in a good
solid position with some of these strong technology positions that
have been driving the market for the better part of
several decades. But also glad to hear you're willing to
maybe step outside the casino with some coins left in
you and your little bucket. So let's talk about how
you can get out of this. First thing would be,
obviously you can simply sell it, and you can spread
it over time. Maybe maybe it's a situation where you
(28:48):
could you buy enough time to sell a little bit
in the current tax year and move some into the
second tax year.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
That's one option just to think about.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Another would be you can you can potentially look at
it using something called an exchange traded fund. If this
position you mentioned in video, if that position is over
a million dollars, then you may very well be able
to put that into an exchange fund and in response
receive a diversified portfolio of other people's stocks who have
the same problem. So you're basically committing your overly large
position in exchange for a portion of everyone else's overly
(29:19):
large position. That is not a taxable event. Lots of
moving parts to that, though. You can also hedge with options.
You can do something called callers or protective puts, which
is basically putting a floor and a ceiling above your
position so that it can't hurt you too much if
it goes the wrong direction. And then finally, something else
to look for is if there are any positions elsewhere
in your portfolio that are sitting at losses, you might
(29:39):
sell those. At the same time, those losses will net
out against the big gain you have in your technology portfolio.
Perhaps there's some out there that you can take advantage of.
Rachel in Fort Mitchell says she's invested an interested in
Charitable Remainder trust, but she's wondering whether they really provide
an income as well as a benefit for charity, or
is this just a tax gimmick that CPAs and lawyers
try to sell us.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Bobby think, well, it's definitely not a tax gimmick, Rachel.
I mean, these things are real. They've been used for
years and years and years, and in the right situation
they work remarkably well. There's just a lot of options
and a lot of moving parts with these things. So
one thing to keep in mind is when you do
give that stock away, the benefit is you avoid all
(30:21):
the capital gains taxes on the stock that you gifted
into that trust and it leaves your taxable estate. It
is an irrevocable gift to charity, and the charity will
receive what's left in that trust after you and your
husband pass away. The key is figuring out how much
income you want or need to retain and for how long,
(30:41):
and you can dial that period up and down, you know,
based on a period of years or over both lifetimes.
And then the tax deduction for doing all this varies
based on how much income you're going to retain during
your life. So it's definitely a situation where you want
to sit down with a good fiduciary financial advisor in
CPA and map this out to make sure you customize
(31:03):
this if you're going to utilize this strategy for your
and your husband's you know, needs and goals down the road.
But it's not a gimmick. These things are real in
the right situation, they work very very well, all right.
Brian in Blue Ash says, most of our net worth
is an investment real estate. How do we create liquidity
for estate taxes so our heirs don't have to sell
(31:25):
property under pressure, you know, presumably after we pass away.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
You know, this reminds me of a story that comes
up all the time when we talk about a state planning. So, uh,
I don't know if you remember, Bob, you remember Joe
Robbie Stadium where.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
The Dolphins used to play.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Yeah, the Robbie family, Joe passed away without a will
and did not have estate plans in place. That team
and that stadium were worth an awful lot of money.
But you can't carve out a chunk of a team,
you know, or a building or whatever in pay stay taxes.
So they were basically forced to liquidate the team, and
hence there is no Joe.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
I also remember the Jim Carrey movie where they stole
the dolphin.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Remember that that was Yes, that was not related at
all to a state planning. But I'm glad to see
you've had a spark of a memory, Bob. That's something
your advanced age. That's something to be proud of and celebrate.
Big moment for Bob. The reason I brought that up
is because because I.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Wanted to make fun of Bob.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Anyway, No, so this is a family didn't do any
planning and they were forced to sell their famili's big asset.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
And that's problem. Real estate is ill liquid wealth.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
So your heirs might inherit that valuable property, but Uncle
Sam's gonna come knocking for a state taxes within about
nine months, and that money has got to come from somewhere.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
You might be able to borrow against it.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
You might be able to sell off some parcels of it,
who knows, But regardless, the taxes are comeing. Do so
what you might consider, There are solutions out there. Properly
it's structured. A life insurance policy held in an irrevocable
life insurance trust makes money drop out of the sky.
Obviously you have to be insurable and healthy enough to
do this, but that can cause or that can cover
those kind of needs. Entity planning meaning what entity owns
(33:00):
this property. It can be held by an LLC or
a partnership. You can and you can use take advantage
of minority interest discounts to reduce the taxable estate value.
You can also look at gifting strategies during life, using
the annual gift tax exclusion to reduce what's left to
be taxed later. Charitable giving, strategic borrowing. There are a
number of things that you can do in this particular case. Okay,
we're going to hog a bunch of time from our
(33:21):
other questioners, so we're going to move on to Joseph
and Marymont. Joseph has some birds in the nest who
don't get along very well. And he's worried about that
their a state actually could tear the family apart based
on everybody's own perception of what they're going to get
out of this. So how do they build a plan,
Bob that keeps money from becoming a wedge?
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Well, when I think about your question, Joseph, you know
the two things that come to mind is if you
own a business and you're trying to figure out who's
going to take over that business, or you own a
vacation property property that in you know, a perfect world,
we say, well, we're going to leave this to our
kids and they'll enjoy it with the grandkids, you know,
on generation after generation, and if the kids don't get along,
(34:04):
you really got to sit down and figure out how
to divide these assets up ahead of time. So, you know,
in a business situation, let's face it, usually one kid
or the most two is really interested in being involved
in the business and others aren't because they have other interests.
Communication up front, and again it doesn't have to be fair,
(34:25):
but you've got to communicate to try to avoid some
of these this family discord down the road. Same thing
with these vacation properties. Don't just pass it down and
hope it all works out, because oftentimes it creates a
big problem. All Right, coming up next, I've got my
two cents on how to plan ahead for some of
these big ticket items that we all want to spend
(34:47):
during our retirement years. You're listening to Simply Money presented
by all Worth Financial on fifty five KRC the talk station.
You're listening to Simply Money of my all Worth Financial
I Bob Sponseller along with Brian James. All Right, Brian,
we just went through a whole laundry list of lessons
(35:09):
here on how to plan to enter retirement and plan
out spending and all this. So I'm just gonna share
one of my pet peas that comes up from time
to time, and I'm talking about and this is really
as we talked about before, This has nothing to do
with your net worth. It has to do with what
you plan to spend. And here's what I'm talking about.
(35:29):
For folks that have their retirement plan in place and
they have a certain amount of income they want to
you know, have coming in every month, and we've run
the numbers and we know that it's gonna work. But
there's not a ton of margin for air in the plan.
In other words, we got to be disciplined and follow
the plan in order for it to work. What invariably
(35:50):
happens from time to time is I get this email
or phone call that says, well, we've always wanted to
take the kids on a cruise and the grandkids and all,
and Bob, I need you to pull fifty grand sixty
grand and send it to us. And you know, when
people do that, you know, just on a whim, and
they don't factor it into their plan, and they don't
(36:12):
communicate it with their advisor in advance, you leave some opportunities,
you know, on the table. In my opinion, number one,
we want to make sure the plan is going to
work if you do these kind of things. And then second,
you know, especially as the dollar amounts go up. I
gave the example of a cruise, but you know, let's
say a two hundred thousand dollars home remodel. You want
(36:34):
to give your advisor and our team a chance to
get some of this money out of harm's way to
avoid market volatility. So I'm real big on communication when
it comes to these big ticket items. Don't just spring
it on us through an email or a phone call,
because that really can throw the whole plan out of whack,
and not in a good way.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Yeah, sometimes there's no choice with this, right. Life happens
and life intervenes and we just don't get the chance
to plan. But Bobby, I reconize what you're talking about.
These are situations where maybe we've talked about maybe we're
going to do this for years. I don't know, we're
going to decide, maybe it's a low priority goal. We
just got it on the back burner, and then suddenly,
over a weekend it launches itself to the front burner,
and on Monday, we're scrambling to cut a check as
(37:15):
soon as possible because a commitment has been made somewhere.
This is this, This is our client's money, and it's
we can and will and should be spent the way
that they want it. It doesn't matter we're we're simply
pointing out that we lose the chance to be efficient
and as well thought out as possible if there's not
enough time to kind of plan things out.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
You know. Maybe well yeah, but Brian, you gave, in
my opinion, the perfect example of how this is supposed
to work in the earlier segment where you you described
a situation where you were sitting down with your clients
and saying, hey, let's dream a little bit. Let's throw
everything into the plan that we might want to do,
from cruises to vehicles to Homer model to vacations to
(37:54):
r V and let's make sure the plan's going to
work in advance. That's exactly what I'm talking about. Unfortunately,
we run into some people that won't have those kind
of discussions with their advisor. That's really what I'm talking
about here.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
I think you're right, and it's just if you're gonna
have an advisor in the mix and then everything is
on the table. Otherwise you're not getting your money's worth.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
All right, thanks for listening. You've been listening to Simply Money,
presented by all Worth Financial on fifty five KRC, the
Talk station
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Two Guys (Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers). Five Rings (you know, from the Olympics logo). One essential podcast for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Bowen Yang (SNL, Wicked) and Matt Rogers (Palm Royale, No Good Deed) of Las Culturistas are back for a second season of Two Guys, Five Rings, a collaboration with NBC Sports and iHeartRadio. In this 15-episode event, Bowen and Matt discuss the top storylines, obsess over Italian culture, and find out what really goes on in the Olympic Village.
iHeartOlympics: The Latest
Listen to the latest news from the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Milan Cortina Winter Olympics
The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina are here and have everyone talking. iHeartPodcasts is buzzing with content in honor of the XXV Winter Olympics We’re bringing you episodes from a variety of iHeartPodcast shows to help you keep up with the action. Follow Milan Cortina Winter Olympics so you don’t miss any coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics, and if you like what you hear, be sure to follow each Podcast in the feed for more great content from iHeartPodcasts.