January 14, 2026 • 38 mins
On this episode of Simply Money presented by Allworth Financial, Bob and Brian unpack a surprisingly low inflation report and what 2.6% core inflation means for your money and the Fed’s next move. They break down JPMorgan’s solid earnings and what it signals for the economy and markets, especially for high-net-worth investors. Plus, the FIRE (Financially Independent Retire Early) movement is evolving—today’s version is less extreme and more realistic for families seeking balance and flexibility. Listener questions cover messy retirement cash flow, how to define real portfolio resilience, and whether an LLC is a smart move for vacation property owners.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Tonight, another inflation report comes in that is well lower
than expected. You're listening to Simply Money, presented by all
Worth Financial on Bob Sponseller along with Brian James. Well,
have you noticed how much more you are paying for
stuff these days? More than you did a year ago?
The December consumer price index numbers came out today, Brian,
(00:27):
and the news seems to be good. I know, no
one likes paying any more than they did last year,
but at least we're paying a little less more than
we did last year.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Less more is a good more, right, that's what we
want so so about right now, it's about two point
seven percent more than we did this time last year.
And that remember what we've always been looking for is
we want the Fed to be the FED really wants
to be inflation at about two percent and wait whether
we'll ever get back down there, who knows, But that's
really kind of the goal.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Well, that's we're shooting for. It goes back to the
dual mandate? Is it the right dual mandate? But that's
the story. That's an argument, whole other discussion for another day.
I agree with you. I think it's going to be
a while before we get to two percent, But two
point seven is a whole lot better than three point
seven or four point seven, So at least we're moving
(01:14):
in the right direction.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
We are we are, So let's focus on the details
of the report here. So core inflation, let's talk about that.
That's really what the FED cares about. It strips out
food and energy prices, and most people look at that
and they go, well, why would we Why would we
strip that out?
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Food and energy? Those theme kind of vital wouldn't we
pay attention? Those are both.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Very volatile, very volatile parts of the inflation calculation. So
it can be good to look at look at the
core inflation without those items to get a real picture
what's going on. Because you know, we get something like
avian flu, bird flu, that kind of thing, all of
a sudden, chicken prices are through the roof. That's not
something the FED can control anyway, so via interest rates,
(01:52):
and so that's why we look at the core inflation
rates to truly get down to what's what is the
true core of where we are. So if you strip
out food and energy and get down to core inflation,
we're paying about two point six percent more for those
things than we did last year. That number is lower
than economists expected. That's a good thing. We like that
only about eleven of these seventy three forecasters predicted two
(02:12):
point six percent, So this is a that means the
other the other eighty two we're wrong or sixty two
for any that is.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Math is going to be a struggle this morning, apparently.
So obviously a.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Lot of economists were a little more, a little more
pessimistic than what the actual results were here.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, and a couple of things drove this number. I mean,
the cost of used cars is still up there, the
shelter index, and that's a topic that we continue to
talk about. I know this administration is trying to deal
with it. Both sides of the aisle recognized the need
to have more affordable housing in this country. The shelter
(02:49):
index went up zero point four percent. That was the
biggest driver of inflation this time around. The food index
rose point seven while energy prices only rows point three percent.
And that's why, you know, in the real world, Brian,
we can't just strip out food and energy. And I'll
just use myself in this example of Brian, because after all,
(03:10):
it's all about me. I like beef, Brian, I like beef.
I like to eat beef while I'm watching football. The
price of you you seem like that kind of guy. Yeah,
the price of beef is up there, it's going up. Meanwhile,
the price of gas has plummeted, so you know, you
got to factor all this stuff in. There's good and
bad things move around at the end of the day.
(03:31):
Two point six, two point seven, it's not a bad number.
I think the important thing is that for folks that
are working out there, I think the good news is
wages are starting to increase at a rate above the
inflation rate. People that are working and are doing a
good job are getting decent pay raises, not sky high
pay raises, but at least pay raises that move above
(03:54):
the rate of inflation. So at least we're seeing some
green shoots here that things are moved in the right
direction in terms of real purchasing power for consumers.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
You know, Bob, you mentioned gas prices, and there's something
I've been This is something I've been really curious about
because I don't pay a ton of attention. I'm not
one of these people that's going to drive an extra
ten miles to go get you know, wherever the gas is,
wherever gas is cheapest. I'm too lazy for stuff like that,
so I just pump it and forget it.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
But you're one of those one percenters, none of this
stuff matters to you.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I would say that I'm lazy and I'm not exactly
a budget conscious with it that way.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
But obviously, yeah, as you mentioned, we're in the low
twos on gas.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I can't remember that when it was this low, and
it's a surprise.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
It's a huge surprise to me that this isn't louder.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Why is the administration not trumpeting that this happened and
taking credit for it, because remember when we were at
the flip side, we kept getting all those stupid stickers
on the gas pump. I did this, I did this,
and it was Joe Biden or you could have even
done it with Trump earlier on. It doesn't really matter.
But at this point gas prices are lower than they've
ever been and nobody's taking credit for it.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
That kind of fascinates people. Well, I try to stay
away from opinions on this show, Brian, but I will
throw one out there right now, and please shoot holds
holes in it if you want to. I think there's
still a lot of these quote unquote economists out there
that are still really upset about these tariffs, and they
just keep waiting for inflation to spike due to the tariffs,
(05:18):
and the data just never shows up. It seems to
have settled in at a one time thing. You know,
the tariffs are in there. We'll see if the Supreme
Court takes them away. I think as soon as tomorrow,
by the way, But the whole tariff thing is settled in.
It's kind of a new paradigm and we're not getting
(05:38):
spiking inflation due to tariffs. I think that's the big
story is, you know, that game is in. It's settled.
People need to get over that, you know, depending on
which side of the aisle or ideology you like to,
you know, hold on to you here. That's that's my
thought and opinion here. I think some of these economists
need to kind of let that go a little bit. Yeah,
(05:58):
I think I think there's there's a good truth.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
And we had Andy Stout on just yesterday talking about
you know we would and I remember asking him the
direct question. I was looking forward to it because we
hadn't talked to him in a few weeks, and I
was wanting to ask him how much longer can the
United States continue to kind of bully its way around
the around the world and put these changes in place.
And his answer was probably a while, because we are
(06:20):
just that much larger of an economy, We're just that
much larger of an engine.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
And you know, ideology aside other.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Countries, if they want to make it, if they want
to survive and compete on the global States, they're going
to have to find a way again, like it or not.
Don't have to be friends to find a way to
work together. But there's probably a good amount of runway,
according to Andy, anyway that we can continue to kind
of impose our will economically speaking, good, bad and different.
I'm not saying this is all wonderful things, but we
have not seen the market really wobble. We haven't seen
(06:47):
inflation spike, as Bob just kind of highlighted there, and
so apparently steady as she goes for the moment.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
All right, in the spirit of avoiding politics and everybody
getting along, let's transition to earning season, Brian, because after
after all, corporate earnings is the mother's milk of stock
market performance. We got some. We got a big announcement
before the open early this morning from JP Morgan, and
(07:13):
we've got some other bank earnings coming later on this week,
but give us a rundown on JP Morgan's quarter.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
JP Morgan kicked off earning season with the the This
is the fourth quarter earning season we're talking about, of
course Q four of twenty five. The they beat the forecast.
Remember that's all we ever care about. We don't care
what the numbers are. We just care about whether they
whether the analysts were right or wrong. So A CEO
Jamie Diamond said, each of their major businesses performed really
well during the quarter, and that's coming from demand for financing.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Robust client activity is.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Just a good a healthy, a healthy ish economy, even
if slowing, still a healthy economy. Businesses and consumers are
borrowing money and that means that's good business for the bank.
Payments revenue, according to Jamie, hit a record and that
came from deposits and and fee growth.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Bank.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Other reports coming this Bank of America, City Group, Wells Fargo,
those are coming out Wednesday tomorrow, and Goldman Sachs, Morgan
Stanley have come out on Thursday. So you know we'll
by the end of the week we'll have a much
clearer picture. But as the banks go, so do the
economy tends to go. So hopefully we'll continue to get
more reports to follow, more good ones to follow.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
JP Morgan, Yeah, this looked like a slight beat, you know,
on both the revenue and the earning side. Nothing to
really scream about either way, and I think this just
good corporate management. Jamie Diamond historically is a wonderful manager
of Wall Street. He knows how to play the game,
he knows how to manage a bank. They're doing a
great job. You know, you mentioned the market matters whether
(08:38):
you beat or not. They're also looking at forward looking
forecast so you know, at least as of earlier this
morning when those numbers came out, the stop was up
on that news. Not by a bunch, but it was up.
And I think it's to your point, it's kind of
steady as you go here. I think a lot of
these banks are still expecting to pick up some spread
(09:00):
from the yield curve, assuming that short term rates continue
to come down the market's pricing in you know, roughly
two more rate cuts here in twenty twenty six and
if short term rates go down and that long end
of the curve stays kind of where it is, that's
spread is good news for bank profits. To say nothing
of IPO markets and other deals. This is expected to
(09:22):
be a big year for deal making, you know, IPOs,
private credit, private equity, all of that, and a lot
of these major banks participate in that. So it looks
like a pretty good time to be invested in financials
at least so far.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yeah, and then that would indicate probably a pretty decent
time to be invested in the rest of it too,
because if the financials are doing okay, it's not like
the rest of the other sectors are going to completely
fall apart, because it's those other sectors largely that are
driving the financial activity. So all these things tend to
move in the same direction. You know, there's a lot
of thought out there. And I talked to clients all
the time, and I've said it myself, just to remind
(09:57):
people that the last three years have been fantastic. We've
had double digit digging ourselves out of the hole that
was twenty twenty two. Let's not be surprised when the
market does eventually inevitably take a step back.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
It will.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
That's going to happen. So this will be a great
time to stress test your financial plan. Figure out what
path you were on, and now take say fifteen twenty
percent of your financial assets away, and run that path again.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Does it still does the ship still float? Or do
you have something you need to worry about.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
This is the time to be thinking about it, because
we all know it's coming and we shouldn't be surprised
when when that inevitable step comes.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Maybe this year, may.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Not, that's not my point, don't know, but it will
be some time in your lifetime.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
We know that. So just to make sure you're prepared
for it now. You want to prepare for that flood
before the proverbial storm surge happens, not after the fact.
And we've talked about this a couple times, Brian. In
mid term election years, the markets tend to be a
bit more volatile at some point in time this year.
On average, in mid term election years, the overall stock market,
(10:55):
the large cap S and P index drops on average
by about nighte teen percent in midterm election years. You know,
in all other years the average is about fourteen percent.
So to your point, at some point in time, something
might cause some investment volatility, whether it's corporate earnings, a
government shutdown, geopolitical events. So yeah, you want to build
(11:17):
the boat now, have that emergency fund in place. Prepare
for market volatility now rather than get caught off guard bike.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
And you mentioned you mentioned tariff's earlier. Well, that was
the last thing that spooked the market. That was last
April when tariffs first became news, and the market and
in the economy was getting used to the idea that
tariffs are going to be an input now to all
of our results.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Market took a I can't remember.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
I think it rather dropped close to twenty percent at
one point at the you know, from peak to trough.
But then we settled down and we recovered and we
ended up with a good kind of year. So those
kind of headlines can drive the ups and downs of
the market. Be prepared, you know, keep your knees bent,
stay flexible, and you'll be okay, but just don't be
surprised when it happens.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
All right, is now the time to consider joining the
fire movement? F I why some say a new version
of it is much cooler. See what I did there, Brian,
not gonna acknowledge what you did there. You're listening to
Ashamed of Yourself and I am I kind of am.
You're listening to Simply Money, presented by all Worth Financial
on fifty five KRC, the talk station. You're listening to
(12:21):
Simply Money presented by all Worth Financial. I'm Bob spond
Seller along with Brian James, multiple custodians, a pile of
different mutual funds, a quote unquote resilient portfolio, but is
it really working for you? We'll break all that down next,
and how to spot true diversification and how to go
into retirement spending with confidence. All of that is coming
(12:44):
up straight ahead at six forty three. Have you ever
heard of the fire movement? It doesn't involve setting fire
to stuff. A couple of years ago, the term was
getting a lot of publicity. Brian, I got to admit
to you, I've never even heard of this, but I
guess that's because I'm old. It's an acronym that stands
for financially independent retire early fire. Well, it's back in
(13:10):
the news, but this time it might not be so
extreme as it once was.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, this was all about this is something I'm familiar with,
but it's been around for a while, and it's just
the general concept of hyper saving in your very early
years in any way that you possibly can, and it
involves budgeting and being super super frugal at the extreme.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
An there's different flavors of it.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
There's one called fat fire, there's one called coast fire,
and there are just different versions. But the whole point
is not simply plowing money into your four oh and
k with a target goal of retiring at fifty nine
and a half.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Because that's how those rules work.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
So there's a lot of steps and processes that they'll
recommend so that you can fund yourself earlier in retirement
without having to only rely on your fourroo again.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
So are these basically these goofy vegetarian type people that
don't eat meat, ride a bike instead of drive a car,
and live in a yurt somewhere in Vermont or Oregon?
Is that what we're talking about, I suppose at the
most extreme end of it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
But otherwise these are people who simply are saving money
and finding ways, you know, house hacking for example, by
a duplex you know, and pay the mortgage with somebody
who's living in the other half of it. Stuff like
that that can allow somebody to retire in their thirty, thirty, five,
forty years old if we've been really, really frugal, and
obviously inflation has been a bit of a challenge to that.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
But I don't poo poo these people.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
I think it's great that they're thinking that far ahead
and they're planning that far ahead. But again, the whole
point is not to live it up now. It's to
a build a financial structure that they can live on again.
Prior to fifty nine and a half. A lot of
people get hung up on the idea that well four
to oh one k is the only way I can
save anything, and that's tied up till fifty nine and
a half. I guess that's how long I have to work. Well,
(14:47):
that's not really the case. There are ways to take
advantage of roth ladders in simply investing in non retirement
type investments so you can access a little bit early.
It takes a lot of money, and it takes a
lot of sacrifice. This is not just a flip a switch,
fill out a formas and way and poof.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I'm a part of the fire movement.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
It takes an awful lot of discipline and sacrifice for
somebody who really wants to do this. I looked at
it early on when I was younger, and I thought,
you know what, I like what I do. I don't
really want you want to have a wife.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Exactly right. You want to have a wife and a
kid's kids, and a job and a career and contribute
to society. You don't just want to live in isolation
and say, look at me, I was able to retire
at forty and then figure out how to live off
my money, right, correct?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
That? Yeah, that's exactly what that. That was my decision.
You know, so other people think of it very differently.
Some people consciously choose we're not going to have children,
We're going to keep things simple and you know, have.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
A little more financial control over our lives. But all right,
so what are some of the challenges these early fire
adopters are running into now? And then let's talk about
how this whole concept has kind of evolved and you know,
kind of smooth thought, smoothed out on the edges, so
to speak.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah, well, I think the big one is healthcare, Bob.
And this is big for anybody there are, anybody who
wants to retire prior to age sixty five. Maybe they
never heard of the fire movement, but they're going to
run into the same problem, right because Medicare doesn't kick
in until we're age sixty five. You have to have
a way to solve for that, and there's a lot
of ways to do that. You can, of course simply
buy health insurance off the shelf, but you have to
be able to cover that expense. For a married couple.
(16:16):
That can be you know, over two thousand dollars, sometimes
more than that. Or you can go the other extreme
and simply get the catastrophic stuff, or the ridiculous irresponsible method,
which is to do absolutely nothing at all and just
incur the risk if it does indeed happen, but that
will definitely sink.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Your fire ship for sure. What does the new modern
version of fire look like? Brian? What are you know?
How are people making adjustments? They're coming up and saying,
maybe maybe retiring at forty wasn't the right answer, but
I still want to retire responsibly at say fifty two
or fifty five or sixty one. How's that all? Yeah,
it's just kind of a mid range.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
So the modern version, let's look back to the beginning.
Back to the beginning, it used to be save about
fifty to seventy percent of your income for a decade
or two and just deprive yourself of lots of things,
and then you can stop working when you're age forty.
Now it's more of a sort of a middle of
the road approach, more like saving twenty five thirty five
percent of your income, investing that consistently, and then slowly
(17:12):
backing off of work while that financial base grows. And
then of course, you know, now they're also talking about
emergency funds. You know, I think there's a little more
experience among the fire movement that you've kind of got
to have. You can't all be invested and just grow
because the market doesn't always cooperate. So we got to
make sure we have emergency cash covering about twelve months
worth of expenses rather than the normal six, which is
kind of the average that we usually recommend.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Nothing wrong with twelve.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Personally, that's where I am, because I just don't want
to have to think about this stuff. But you know,
so there's there's also ways that they're cutting spending, you know,
maybe retiring abroad, people are learning how to retire to
other countries where cost can be a little bit lower.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
That's not as easy as it sounds, of course, for
lots of reasons.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Maybe moving to a cheaper suburb, cheaper region, you know,
which which we happen to live in one We live
in a destination for fire type thinking people here. So
I think we're starting to see a little bit of
that movement as well.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah, I think could it be, Brian, that people they
thought this was going to be a great idea and
then lo and behold, they decided to get married or
maybe found a career that they enjoyed in Their key
priority in life was not just retiring at thirty nine
years of age, having more of a balanced life that
actually cost a little bit of money and that.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
But think about that, Bob, That's that's a sacrifice in
and of itself. If I chose a career that I'm
just you know, some people pick a career because they
can make a lot of money and it burns them
out quickly.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
I know people like that, exactly.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
We know lots of people and that's not a wrong decision.
Maybe it wasn't the best fit, but it was made
for the right reasons. I want to make myself financially stable,
I may as well pick a career you know that
that can put me in that position, but maybe maybe
it doesn't last. Those people are making a huge sacrifice
to get out of that comfort zone and change their lifestyle,
change that what they've become used to in order to
(18:53):
fit a different type of a career. That's a sacrifice
in and of itself, and that takes discipline too, just
like sticking to a a fire type approach.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yeah, and that's what I'm starting to see more and more.
I've never met or worked with one of these fire people,
but I've worked with several people that were in intense,
high pressure jobs and they get into their early to
mid fifties and they want to pivot to something else
that they truly enjoy, a lifelong passion of theirs that
they've not been able to work in vocationally or even
(19:23):
volunteer wise, And so it's not really retiring, it's pivoting
to something that gives them more meaning and purpose in
their life. And like all of this stuff, it takes
some discussion in planning and running numbers and risk management.
And that's really the point I think we're trying to
make with this segment. You're listening to Simply Money presented
by all Worth Financial on fifty five KRC the talk station.
(19:50):
You're listening to Simply Money presided by all Worth Financial
on Bob Sponseller along with Brian James. Let's face it,
social security is a cornerstone of retirement security for millions
of Americans, but it does face long term funding challenges,
and a new analysis shows a sharp generational divide on
(20:11):
how to fix the problem. Brian, And before you get
into these numbers, none of this outcome surprises me whatsoever, because,
let's face it, we all want someone else to pay
to fix the problems that are before us. And I
think these numbers you're about to share bear this out.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
I'm reminded of an old Simpsons episode where Homer ran
for political office under the under the slogan can't someone
else do it? And this is just a survey of
two thousand adults. This is by the Cato Institute. They're
known as a libertarian think tank.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Who did he run against, by the way, was it
Montgomery Burns? Oh? It might have been.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
I'm not sure, but it had everything to do with
I don't want to bring my garbage cans in from
the curb. Why can't somebody bring them and put them
behind my house? And that's now, that's what we're talking
about with Social Security. So more than half of the
man Americans under age thirty say they'd rather cut benefits
for current retirees than pay more taxes to help keep
benefits intact. Hey, go figure, current retirees aren't a fan
of that. Nine and ten seniors age sixty five year
(21:12):
olders say younger workers should pay higher taxes to help
current retirees benefits kind of stay steady. Can't someone else
do it, Bob? So the danger here is and if
they do nothing right, so the math just doesn't work.
The math don't math anymore. There's a hole in the bucket.
So there's simply not enough money flowing into the system
to shore up the benefits that were calculated years ago,
(21:33):
simply because there are fewer workers earning less than there
have been in prior decades. So currently, as we're sitting
here right now, if nothing changes, then we're expecting somewhere
about a twenty to twenty five percent haircut in twenty
thirty three unless Congress actually does something. Now, we could
have fixed this all along, Bob right. I mean, we
could be talking about this in Congress right now. We
(21:53):
choose not to because it is nothing but a sacrifice.
No one will gain anything because because of the way
the math works, we simply have to cut benefits on
current direes or increased taxes on current workers, or possibly
a combination of both. There's a million ways that that
can happen. But what it's gonna take is a politician
to stake their political career on forcing people to sacrifice.
(22:15):
There is no way that anybody can put something together
that is a gain, giving people something they didn't have before.
It's all sacrifice, and that's why we just don't hear
about it. We're gonna kick the can until we have
no choice.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah, for sure. And here's another interesting thought to kick around.
Most people don't even understand how social Security works. Again,
in this survey from the Cato Institute, half don't even know.
Social Security is a pay as you go program in
which current workers payroll taxes fund current retirees benefits, not
(22:48):
the worker's own future retirement. You know, a lot of
people think that this money is getting put into some
type of an account for them, and nearly two thirds
of respondents believe that's what it is. They believe it's
a mandatory savings program that they pay for, you know,
kind of like a mandatory four to one K plan.
One in five people wrongly believe that their payroll taxes
(23:11):
are actually invested in this Social Security trust fund that
gets thrown around all the time until they retire. And
eight percent of folks think their taxes are saved in
a personal account for them. And then here's the funny thing.
Twenty one percent admit they have no idea how any
of this stuff works and really don't want to know.
(23:31):
Forty three percent of people Brian don't even know what
a payroll tax is. That is baffling to me, since everybody,
last time I checked, gets a paycheck stub where you
actually see where all this money disappears every two weeks.
And then finally, only about seventeen percent know that the
tax is split evenly between the employer and the employee.
(23:53):
So I blame a lot of people, you know, for this,
namely Congress. They just simply have not educated the American
public on how this whole system works or doesn't work.
And yet we do to the point you made prior.
We do have a ticking time bomb here that's about
eight years away. This is going to have to get
on somebody's radar here, you know, somewhat smooth or soon
(24:18):
and hopefully we can have an adult conversation, you know,
something new and different for Congress and get some things done.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Let's talk about that paystub for a minute, because I
want to. I very frequently and you probably hear it too,
very frequently, hear comments from just sort of one off
comments from clients about how well I can't plan on
Social Security.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
It's not going to be there in eight years. And
that's not the case. That is simply not how it works.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
The only way that could happen is if is if
we proactively voted the fiight a taxation out of existence
payroll taxes. That's not going to happen. What all it
means is that in twenty thirty three, the amount of
dollars that will be collected via the top of your
pay step it happened, it's happening right now, it'll happen
then is only going to cover about seventy five percent
of what is currently promised. So but that is a
(25:00):
far cry from zero. Social security is not going away
unless we proactively voted out of existence. And again this
is coming from this is coming from demographic changes. So
the reason for this is us population is just continuing
to get older. So in twenty twenty five, just this
past year, a record four point one million people are
expected to hit age sixty five. That's the most we've
(25:21):
ever had reached that milestone. By twenty fifty, the sixty
five an older group is projected to increase forty two
percent to eighty two million from fifty eight million and
twenty two So that means the share of the population
is up to almost a quarter of the population being
that age. That's the problem that we have, and we
have tried to fix this pob so over the years,
(25:42):
policy experts have thrown out ideas. Every single year, some
congress person raises a bill, but it's shot down based
on political lines. Democrats always raised the idea of we
need to increase taxes on current workers to make this work,
and then Republicans will reject that immediately, and Republicans want
to cut benefits on retirees and Democrats shoot that out
(26:04):
of this guy. So it's going to take a you know,
an across the aisle attempt of people who understand math
and are willing to have a rough conversation with the
American public. I don't know that we're there yet, but
that's the only way it ever gets fixed.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Well, And just as a reminder, going back to the
beginning here, Social Security is and was intended to be
a federal anti poverty program that was established in nineteen
thirty five as part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New
Deal after the Great Depression. Again well intentioned. It's like, hey,
let's put some kind of social safety net in here,
(26:39):
not only for retirement retirees, but for widows and orphans
and folks on disability that no one ever talks about.
There is an embedded disability program in Social Security too, that,
by the way, costs money. You know, it's meant to
be an anti poverty program, you know, a social safety net,
but it does cost money. And again, we're gonna have
(27:00):
to have an adult conversation from from Congress and whoever's
president here over the next eight years to fix this thing.
And I sure hope it, sure hope it happens. Hey,
if you were if you were a betting man, going
back to that whole prop bet thing. If you had
to put money down on this thing, what do you
think is going to happen? Brian? How do you think that?
(27:20):
How do you think this thing's gonna get fixed? I
think we're going to fix it at the last minute.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
It's probably gonna involve a government shutdown, because that's how
when when we're painted into a corner, that's what we do.
Everybody takes their ball and goes home, and then we'll
come up with some kind of compromise. I cannot see
one side winning in the other side losing. I think
it's going to have to be a sacrifice among all parties.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
I don't think you're wrong there. Here's the all Worth advice.
It's pretty cut and dry. Don't rely on Social Security
as your main source of your retirement income. You're listening
to Simply Money, presented by all Worth Financial on fifty
five KRC, the talk station. Do you have a question
(28:05):
this financial question? I guess you could ask us other
questions too, but do you have a financial question you'd
like for us to answer. There's a red button you
can click while you're listening to the show. If you're
listening on the iHeart app. Simply record your question there
and it will come straight to us. All right, Brian
Mark and Madeira says, I'm realizing our portfolio returns look fine,
(28:28):
but our cash flow timing is a bit messy. How
do you align investment distributions with real life spending instead
of just annual projections.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yeah, Mark, that's a pretty common problem because we're also
accustomed to, you know, every week, every two weeks or
every month, I get X amount of dollars that drops
into my checking account, and I pay the bills out
of that, and the machine just continues to run infinitely. Well,
now when I switch to I'm spending my own nest
egg down, well, yeah, I have that problem, that exact problem.
Now I am my own payroll department. How often do
(28:57):
I want to be paid and how much and so forth.
So I think the core mistake here is trying to
manage investments off of annual return assumptions.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Real life operates.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Of course, when your bills are due, when they're due,
markets compound annually, but that electric bill comes every single month.
So one good way to think about this maybe separate
into three layers. First off, what's your spending layer? This
is twelve to twenty four months of known expenses. Keep
that in cash money markets, you know, that can kind
of be a combination of an emergency fund and a cushion,
and just spend out of that. Keep it in some
(29:27):
kind of high yield savings account that will still produce
some income for you, but at least that's what you're
spending your bills out of, and then it won't matter
to which a market what the market is doing. So
then the second layer would be something that's producing income.
This is where dividends, bond interest, and these systematic withdrawals
would exist. That's the distribution frequency to your spending frequency,
(29:48):
to the best you can get to it.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Right. Some of these bills are predictable, some of.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Them mark get as close as you can, and that
might mean holding some less efficient assets. If this is
something that's on your mind. Smooth cash flow often matters
more than max yield. You're just when you're just trying
to keep a ship afloat. And then the third layer,
this is the long term layer. This is what you're
what you've been doing for decades, and it's why you
have the ability to live this way in the first place.
You still got long term capital out there. Those are
your equities and other growth types investments. Uh, those are
(30:13):
intentionally insulated from that near term spending. These aren't the
dollars you would touch for that bill that came unexpectedly.
So this is the only this is the one where
you're going to refill the other two buckets. So anyway,
lots to think about there, and the hope that helps.
So we're gonna move on now into we've got a
We've got a question here from Seth and Fort Mitchell
who says that they've accumulated a mix of funds that
(30:33):
have different fiscal year distributions.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
How do you coordinate all this?
Speaker 2 (30:36):
And you how do you manage these surprise capital gain
payouts that don't line up with the calendar year. Somebody
got a nasty gram in December. I'm guessing about a
mutual fund distribution.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Yeah, Brian, and I feel like my answer is going
to be very similar to the answer you just gave
to Mark, worded slightly differently. First of all, Seth, you
know these are these mutual fund companies will announce in
advance when these things are coming, but you do have
to pay attention. You got to read this stuff, or
have an advisor that's going to read it for you
and factor all that into your income strategy. And I
(31:08):
think to the point Brian made you know before in
answering Mark's question, life doesn't tend to work according to
a fixed linear spreadsheet of identical monthly expenses. So you
want to make sure you're not cutting this too close.
In other words, you know it's okay to fill up
that emergency fund or high yield cash savings account a
(31:31):
little bit higher to factor into some of this stuff.
But from a tax management standpoint, know when these distributions
are coming. Again, if you're paying attention to the publications
that these mutual fund companies put out, they're going to
tell you what the capital gain distribution is and when
it's likely to come, So you could at least plan
from an income and tax strategy appropriately. That'd be my
(31:55):
answer without having a full context of the question and
where you're coming at that coming from, all right, Peter
and Anderson says, our advisor says our portfolio is quote
unquote resilient, but I don't know what that actually means.
How do you define resilience in a measurable way? Measure it,
quantify it. Brian, what does resilient mean?
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Yeah, well, I think it's more of the clients who
are resilient than the portfolio, because the portfolio is going
to do what it does. Yeah, resilience is one of
those terms that gets that just kind of gets thrown
around and you're just like, what's being called out here?
My advisor said it's resilient, so I guess it is,
so we'll just leave it at that. But practical, in
real practical terms, a portfolio that is resilient is really
(32:38):
one that allows you to keep making the good decisions
even when the conditions are bad. That's why I said
it's the client who is resilient, not the portfolio. So
there's there's really four ways you can look at this.
First would be draw down depth. This isn't volatility. This
is actual peak to trough loss. We talked earlier in
the show about what happened in April. Peak to trough
loss in the stock mark was about twenty percent, So
you know, if you have a twenty percent dropped and
(33:01):
you need about twenty seven percent to get back to
to get back to normal, it'd be just because of
the way that works.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
So a portfolio that is extremely.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Volatile is going to need to need to be volid
on the upside too to recover that.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Also, you know, the second part here is what is
the duration of a draw down?
Speaker 2 (33:16):
How long will it take this particular portfolio to get
back to prior highs.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
And these are things you can look at history for.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
You can use online tools and plug your your ticker
symbols or whatever it is that you own and get
an idea for what that resilience has been.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
You know what about cash flow survivability too?
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Can it survive twelve to twenty four months of spending
without selling the riskier assets during a bear market? That
this is where that emergency fund comes in, that cushion.
And what Bob and I like to talk about frequently
with is let's figure out what bills are coming to
do in the next twelve months, and let's make sure
those assets are covered. Maybe those need to be carved out.
Now we're sitting at a time where the market is
absolutely at a peak, so maybe this is the time
(33:53):
to carve those out and then finally recovery participation. So
when we see that recovery year after a bad stock
market year, for example, does this portfolio tend to swing
back up during the rebounds, or does it kind of
lag because risk was permanently reduced at the wrong time.
So you got to look at the funds and things
that you own and understand what they're doing under the hood.
Not to mention you yourself, some clients will get spooked and
(34:14):
we'll kind of head for the exits whenever we hit
a bumpy market.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
All right, one more quick one. Jerry in Greenhill's Bob.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
He's got investments across multiple custodians with that all have
different reporting styles, and he's wanting to know, how do
you get a clean apples to Apple's view of performance
and risk.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Well, it can be a little mind boggling, Jerry. If
you're just relying on these statements that custodians put out,
they're generally going to give you rate of return numbers,
not a whole lot on risk adjusted or peer adjusted risk,
as you raised in your questions. So you know there
are tools out there if you want to dial in
to comparing risk versus standard deviation or sharp ratio or
(34:51):
things like that. There are tools out there. We've got
them here. Other good fiduciary advisors have them where you
could put all your holdings, you know, up on the racks,
so to speak, and really compare apples to apples risk
adjusted performance regardless of where those assets are housed. But
you've got to have some tools to use and so
(35:11):
you're not just relying on the custodian to tell you
what that risk adjusted performance really is. Coming up next,
I've got my two cents on why you might want
to have a limited liability company as part of your
whole financial strategy and a state planning strategy. You're listening
to Simply Money presented by all Worth Financial on fifty
(35:32):
five KRC the talk station. You're listening to Simply Money
presented by all Worth Financial. I'm Bob Sponseller along with
Brian James. Let's get into a topic. Brian, I've had
come up or at least raised with clients. A lot
of clients lately coming in that have some vacation properties
(35:54):
or thinking about having them, or have inherited them from
parents or grandparents, and it's a topic we want to
talk about, called a limited liability company and without attempting
to practice law without a law license, which is always
a dangerous thing. Let's talk about why somebody might want
to have one of these things. The number one reason
(36:14):
most people want to get involved or should consider this
is limited liability protection. Let's say you have that cottage
up in Michigan, or that you know rental home down
in Florida, and four or five different family members are
using it. Maybe you're renting it out. In other words,
you got a lot of people flying in there, flowing
through there on a regular basis, and if something bad
(36:36):
should happen, a slip and fall attorney comes after you.
You want to have your liability or your risk limited
to just the assets owned in that ll scene. That's
the number one reason I see people you know that
should consider having these things. They're very simple to set up.
A good attorney can set that up for you, file
(36:57):
it for just hundreds of dollars. The drafting fees can
tend to be pretty low. It's something to definitely talk
about if you're in that vacation property space that you're
sharing with relatives, friends, airs, what have you.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yeah, and I think too, if you are someone who
owns multiple properties, then what you might look into is
one LLC for each one of them. Again, nobody's speaking
right now as a lawyer, So talk to your own
attorney about these things. But one bad incident at the
first property can endanger the whole mess if you stick
them all in one LLC. And again, this isn't about profitability.
This isn't about making the that the property is more
(37:30):
value anything like that. It's about protecting from the terrible
things that can happen in these types of situations.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Another reason to have this and it makes the management
of it more smooth. And you know, somebody's usually in
charge of running the finances, who's going to pay the
property tax bill, who's going to pay the utility bill,
who's going to pay for the repairs and upkeep? And
a lot of times if you have a bank account
set up owned by the LLC and the person managing
(37:55):
the finances can can just go to one account and
track everything it flows through to your personal tax return.
And then from an estate tax standpoint, what I see
all the time, Brian, that people that have trust you
can take your personal shares in an LLC and just
have those titled in the trust, so you're still avoiding probate.
So it's a great strategy to avoid both liability and
(38:18):
still avoid probate in terms of your overall estate plan strategy.
Thanks for listening tonight. You've been listening to Simply Money,
presented by all Worth Financial on fifty five KRC, the
talk station
Tonight, another inflation report comes in that is well lower
than expected. You're listening to Simply Money, presented by all
Worth Financial on Bob Sponseller along with Brian James. Well,
have you noticed how much more you are paying for
stuff these days? More than you did a year ago?
The December consumer price index numbers came out today, Brian,
(00:27):
and the news seems to be good. I know, no
one likes paying any more than they did last year,
but at least we're paying a little less more than
we did last year.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Less more is a good more, right, that's what we
want so so about right now, it's about two point
seven percent more than we did this time last year.
And that remember what we've always been looking for is
we want the Fed to be the FED really wants
to be inflation at about two percent and wait whether
we'll ever get back down there, who knows, But that's
really kind of the goal.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Well, that's we're shooting for. It goes back to the
dual mandate? Is it the right dual mandate? But that's
the story. That's an argument, whole other discussion for another day.
I agree with you. I think it's going to be
a while before we get to two percent, But two
point seven is a whole lot better than three point
seven or four point seven, So at least we're moving
(01:14):
in the right direction.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
We are we are, So let's focus on the details
of the report here. So core inflation, let's talk about that.
That's really what the FED cares about. It strips out
food and energy prices, and most people look at that
and they go, well, why would we Why would we
strip that out?
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Food and energy? Those theme kind of vital wouldn't we
pay attention? Those are both.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Very volatile, very volatile parts of the inflation calculation. So
it can be good to look at look at the
core inflation without those items to get a real picture
what's going on. Because you know, we get something like
avian flu, bird flu, that kind of thing, all of
a sudden, chicken prices are through the roof. That's not
something the FED can control anyway, so via interest rates,
(01:52):
and so that's why we look at the core inflation
rates to truly get down to what's what is the
true core of where we are. So if you strip
out food and energy and get down to core inflation,
we're paying about two point six percent more for those
things than we did last year. That number is lower
than economists expected. That's a good thing. We like that
only about eleven of these seventy three forecasters predicted two
(02:12):
point six percent, So this is a that means the
other the other eighty two we're wrong or sixty two
for any that is.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Math is going to be a struggle this morning, apparently.
So obviously a.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Lot of economists were a little more, a little more
pessimistic than what the actual results were here.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, and a couple of things drove this number. I mean,
the cost of used cars is still up there, the
shelter index, and that's a topic that we continue to
talk about. I know this administration is trying to deal
with it. Both sides of the aisle recognized the need
to have more affordable housing in this country. The shelter
(02:49):
index went up zero point four percent. That was the
biggest driver of inflation this time around. The food index
rose point seven while energy prices only rows point three percent.
And that's why, you know, in the real world, Brian,
we can't just strip out food and energy. And I'll
just use myself in this example of Brian, because after all,
(03:10):
it's all about me. I like beef, Brian, I like beef.
I like to eat beef while I'm watching football. The
price of you you seem like that kind of guy. Yeah,
the price of beef is up there, it's going up. Meanwhile,
the price of gas has plummeted, so you know, you
got to factor all this stuff in. There's good and
bad things move around at the end of the day.
(03:31):
Two point six, two point seven, it's not a bad number.
I think the important thing is that for folks that
are working out there, I think the good news is
wages are starting to increase at a rate above the
inflation rate. People that are working and are doing a
good job are getting decent pay raises, not sky high
pay raises, but at least pay raises that move above
(03:54):
the rate of inflation. So at least we're seeing some
green shoots here that things are moved in the right
direction in terms of real purchasing power for consumers.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
You know, Bob, you mentioned gas prices, and there's something
I've been This is something I've been really curious about
because I don't pay a ton of attention. I'm not
one of these people that's going to drive an extra
ten miles to go get you know, wherever the gas is,
wherever gas is cheapest. I'm too lazy for stuff like that,
so I just pump it and forget it.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
But you're one of those one percenters, none of this
stuff matters to you.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I would say that I'm lazy and I'm not exactly
a budget conscious with it that way.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
But obviously, yeah, as you mentioned, we're in the low
twos on gas.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I can't remember that when it was this low, and
it's a surprise.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
It's a huge surprise to me that this isn't louder.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Why is the administration not trumpeting that this happened and
taking credit for it, because remember when we were at
the flip side, we kept getting all those stupid stickers
on the gas pump. I did this, I did this,
and it was Joe Biden or you could have even
done it with Trump earlier on. It doesn't really matter.
But at this point gas prices are lower than they've
ever been and nobody's taking credit for it.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
That kind of fascinates people. Well, I try to stay
away from opinions on this show, Brian, but I will
throw one out there right now, and please shoot holds
holes in it if you want to. I think there's
still a lot of these quote unquote economists out there
that are still really upset about these tariffs, and they
just keep waiting for inflation to spike due to the tariffs,
(05:18):
and the data just never shows up. It seems to
have settled in at a one time thing. You know,
the tariffs are in there. We'll see if the Supreme
Court takes them away. I think as soon as tomorrow,
by the way, But the whole tariff thing is settled in.
It's kind of a new paradigm and we're not getting
(05:38):
spiking inflation due to tariffs. I think that's the big
story is, you know, that game is in. It's settled.
People need to get over that, you know, depending on
which side of the aisle or ideology you like to,
you know, hold on to you here. That's that's my
thought and opinion here. I think some of these economists
need to kind of let that go a little bit. Yeah,
(05:58):
I think I think there's there's a good truth.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
And we had Andy Stout on just yesterday talking about
you know we would and I remember asking him the
direct question. I was looking forward to it because we
hadn't talked to him in a few weeks, and I
was wanting to ask him how much longer can the
United States continue to kind of bully its way around
the around the world and put these changes in place.
And his answer was probably a while, because we are
(06:20):
just that much larger of an economy, We're just that
much larger of an engine.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
And you know, ideology aside other.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Countries, if they want to make it, if they want
to survive and compete on the global States, they're going
to have to find a way again, like it or not.
Don't have to be friends to find a way to
work together. But there's probably a good amount of runway,
according to Andy, anyway that we can continue to kind
of impose our will economically speaking, good, bad and different.
I'm not saying this is all wonderful things, but we
have not seen the market really wobble. We haven't seen
(06:47):
inflation spike, as Bob just kind of highlighted there, and
so apparently steady as she goes for the moment.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
All right, in the spirit of avoiding politics and everybody
getting along, let's transition to earning season, Brian, because after
after all, corporate earnings is the mother's milk of stock
market performance. We got some. We got a big announcement
before the open early this morning from JP Morgan, and
(07:13):
we've got some other bank earnings coming later on this week,
but give us a rundown on JP Morgan's quarter.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
JP Morgan kicked off earning season with the the This
is the fourth quarter earning season we're talking about, of
course Q four of twenty five. The they beat the forecast.
Remember that's all we ever care about. We don't care
what the numbers are. We just care about whether they
whether the analysts were right or wrong. So A CEO
Jamie Diamond said, each of their major businesses performed really
well during the quarter, and that's coming from demand for financing.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Robust client activity is.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Just a good a healthy, a healthy ish economy, even
if slowing, still a healthy economy. Businesses and consumers are
borrowing money and that means that's good business for the bank.
Payments revenue, according to Jamie, hit a record and that
came from deposits and and fee growth.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Bank.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Other reports coming this Bank of America, City Group, Wells Fargo,
those are coming out Wednesday tomorrow, and Goldman Sachs, Morgan
Stanley have come out on Thursday. So you know we'll
by the end of the week we'll have a much
clearer picture. But as the banks go, so do the
economy tends to go. So hopefully we'll continue to get
more reports to follow, more good ones to follow.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
JP Morgan, Yeah, this looked like a slight beat, you know,
on both the revenue and the earning side. Nothing to
really scream about either way, and I think this just
good corporate management. Jamie Diamond historically is a wonderful manager
of Wall Street. He knows how to play the game,
he knows how to manage a bank. They're doing a
great job. You know, you mentioned the market matters whether
(08:38):
you beat or not. They're also looking at forward looking
forecast so you know, at least as of earlier this
morning when those numbers came out, the stop was up
on that news. Not by a bunch, but it was up.
And I think it's to your point, it's kind of
steady as you go here. I think a lot of
these banks are still expecting to pick up some spread
(09:00):
from the yield curve, assuming that short term rates continue
to come down the market's pricing in you know, roughly
two more rate cuts here in twenty twenty six and
if short term rates go down and that long end
of the curve stays kind of where it is, that's
spread is good news for bank profits. To say nothing
of IPO markets and other deals. This is expected to
(09:22):
be a big year for deal making, you know, IPOs,
private credit, private equity, all of that, and a lot
of these major banks participate in that. So it looks
like a pretty good time to be invested in financials
at least so far.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yeah, and then that would indicate probably a pretty decent
time to be invested in the rest of it too,
because if the financials are doing okay, it's not like
the rest of the other sectors are going to completely
fall apart, because it's those other sectors largely that are
driving the financial activity. So all these things tend to
move in the same direction. You know, there's a lot
of thought out there. And I talked to clients all
the time, and I've said it myself, just to remind
(09:57):
people that the last three years have been fantastic. We've
had double digit digging ourselves out of the hole that
was twenty twenty two. Let's not be surprised when the
market does eventually inevitably take a step back.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
It will.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
That's going to happen. So this will be a great
time to stress test your financial plan. Figure out what
path you were on, and now take say fifteen twenty
percent of your financial assets away, and run that path again.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Does it still does the ship still float? Or do
you have something you need to worry about.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
This is the time to be thinking about it, because
we all know it's coming and we shouldn't be surprised
when when that inevitable step comes.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Maybe this year, may.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Not, that's not my point, don't know, but it will
be some time in your lifetime.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
We know that. So just to make sure you're prepared
for it now. You want to prepare for that flood
before the proverbial storm surge happens, not after the fact.
And we've talked about this a couple times, Brian. In
mid term election years, the markets tend to be a
bit more volatile at some point in time this year.
On average, in mid term election years, the overall stock market,
(10:55):
the large cap S and P index drops on average
by about nighte teen percent in midterm election years. You know,
in all other years the average is about fourteen percent.
So to your point, at some point in time, something
might cause some investment volatility, whether it's corporate earnings, a
government shutdown, geopolitical events. So yeah, you want to build
(11:17):
the boat now, have that emergency fund in place. Prepare
for market volatility now rather than get caught off guard bike.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
And you mentioned you mentioned tariff's earlier. Well, that was
the last thing that spooked the market. That was last
April when tariffs first became news, and the market and
in the economy was getting used to the idea that
tariffs are going to be an input now to all
of our results.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Market took a I can't remember.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
I think it rather dropped close to twenty percent at
one point at the you know, from peak to trough.
But then we settled down and we recovered and we
ended up with a good kind of year. So those
kind of headlines can drive the ups and downs of
the market. Be prepared, you know, keep your knees bent,
stay flexible, and you'll be okay, but just don't be
surprised when it happens.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
All right, is now the time to consider joining the
fire movement? F I why some say a new version
of it is much cooler. See what I did there, Brian,
not gonna acknowledge what you did there. You're listening to
Ashamed of Yourself and I am I kind of am.
You're listening to Simply Money, presented by all Worth Financial
on fifty five KRC, the talk station. You're listening to
(12:21):
Simply Money presented by all Worth Financial. I'm Bob spond
Seller along with Brian James, multiple custodians, a pile of
different mutual funds, a quote unquote resilient portfolio, but is
it really working for you? We'll break all that down next,
and how to spot true diversification and how to go
into retirement spending with confidence. All of that is coming
(12:44):
up straight ahead at six forty three. Have you ever
heard of the fire movement? It doesn't involve setting fire
to stuff. A couple of years ago, the term was
getting a lot of publicity. Brian, I got to admit
to you, I've never even heard of this, but I
guess that's because I'm old. It's an acronym that stands
for financially independent retire early fire. Well, it's back in
(13:10):
the news, but this time it might not be so
extreme as it once was.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, this was all about this is something I'm familiar with,
but it's been around for a while, and it's just
the general concept of hyper saving in your very early
years in any way that you possibly can, and it
involves budgeting and being super super frugal at the extreme.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
An there's different flavors of it.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
There's one called fat fire, there's one called coast fire,
and there are just different versions. But the whole point
is not simply plowing money into your four oh and
k with a target goal of retiring at fifty nine
and a half.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Because that's how those rules work.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
So there's a lot of steps and processes that they'll
recommend so that you can fund yourself earlier in retirement
without having to only rely on your fourroo again.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
So are these basically these goofy vegetarian type people that
don't eat meat, ride a bike instead of drive a car,
and live in a yurt somewhere in Vermont or Oregon?
Is that what we're talking about, I suppose at the
most extreme end of it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
But otherwise these are people who simply are saving money
and finding ways, you know, house hacking for example, by
a duplex you know, and pay the mortgage with somebody
who's living in the other half of it. Stuff like
that that can allow somebody to retire in their thirty, thirty, five,
forty years old if we've been really, really frugal, and
obviously inflation has been a bit of a challenge to that.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
But I don't poo poo these people.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
I think it's great that they're thinking that far ahead
and they're planning that far ahead. But again, the whole
point is not to live it up now. It's to
a build a financial structure that they can live on again.
Prior to fifty nine and a half. A lot of
people get hung up on the idea that well four
to oh one k is the only way I can
save anything, and that's tied up till fifty nine and
a half. I guess that's how long I have to work. Well,
(14:47):
that's not really the case. There are ways to take
advantage of roth ladders in simply investing in non retirement
type investments so you can access a little bit early.
It takes a lot of money, and it takes a
lot of sacrifice. This is not just a flip a switch,
fill out a formas and way and poof.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I'm a part of the fire movement.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
It takes an awful lot of discipline and sacrifice for
somebody who really wants to do this. I looked at
it early on when I was younger, and I thought,
you know what, I like what I do. I don't
really want you want to have a wife.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Exactly right. You want to have a wife and a
kid's kids, and a job and a career and contribute
to society. You don't just want to live in isolation
and say, look at me, I was able to retire
at forty and then figure out how to live off
my money, right, correct?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
That? Yeah, that's exactly what that. That was my decision.
You know, so other people think of it very differently.
Some people consciously choose we're not going to have children,
We're going to keep things simple and you know, have.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
A little more financial control over our lives. But all right,
so what are some of the challenges these early fire
adopters are running into now? And then let's talk about
how this whole concept has kind of evolved and you know,
kind of smooth thought, smoothed out on the edges, so
to speak.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah, well, I think the big one is healthcare, Bob.
And this is big for anybody there are, anybody who
wants to retire prior to age sixty five. Maybe they
never heard of the fire movement, but they're going to
run into the same problem, right because Medicare doesn't kick
in until we're age sixty five. You have to have
a way to solve for that, and there's a lot
of ways to do that. You can, of course simply
buy health insurance off the shelf, but you have to
be able to cover that expense. For a married couple.
(16:16):
That can be you know, over two thousand dollars, sometimes
more than that. Or you can go the other extreme
and simply get the catastrophic stuff, or the ridiculous irresponsible method,
which is to do absolutely nothing at all and just
incur the risk if it does indeed happen, but that
will definitely sink.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Your fire ship for sure. What does the new modern
version of fire look like? Brian? What are you know?
How are people making adjustments? They're coming up and saying,
maybe maybe retiring at forty wasn't the right answer, but
I still want to retire responsibly at say fifty two
or fifty five or sixty one. How's that all? Yeah,
it's just kind of a mid range.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
So the modern version, let's look back to the beginning.
Back to the beginning, it used to be save about
fifty to seventy percent of your income for a decade
or two and just deprive yourself of lots of things,
and then you can stop working when you're age forty.
Now it's more of a sort of a middle of
the road approach, more like saving twenty five thirty five
percent of your income, investing that consistently, and then slowly
(17:12):
backing off of work while that financial base grows. And
then of course, you know, now they're also talking about
emergency funds. You know, I think there's a little more
experience among the fire movement that you've kind of got
to have. You can't all be invested and just grow
because the market doesn't always cooperate. So we got to
make sure we have emergency cash covering about twelve months
worth of expenses rather than the normal six, which is
kind of the average that we usually recommend.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Nothing wrong with twelve.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Personally, that's where I am, because I just don't want
to have to think about this stuff. But you know,
so there's there's also ways that they're cutting spending, you know,
maybe retiring abroad, people are learning how to retire to
other countries where cost can be a little bit lower.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
That's not as easy as it sounds, of course, for
lots of reasons.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Maybe moving to a cheaper suburb, cheaper region, you know,
which which we happen to live in one We live
in a destination for fire type thinking people here. So
I think we're starting to see a little bit of
that movement as well.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah, I think could it be, Brian, that people they
thought this was going to be a great idea and
then lo and behold, they decided to get married or
maybe found a career that they enjoyed in Their key
priority in life was not just retiring at thirty nine
years of age, having more of a balanced life that
actually cost a little bit of money and that.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
But think about that, Bob, That's that's a sacrifice in
and of itself. If I chose a career that I'm
just you know, some people pick a career because they
can make a lot of money and it burns them
out quickly.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
I know people like that, exactly.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
We know lots of people and that's not a wrong decision.
Maybe it wasn't the best fit, but it was made
for the right reasons. I want to make myself financially stable,
I may as well pick a career you know that
that can put me in that position, but maybe maybe
it doesn't last. Those people are making a huge sacrifice
to get out of that comfort zone and change their lifestyle,
change that what they've become used to in order to
(18:53):
fit a different type of a career. That's a sacrifice
in and of itself, and that takes discipline too, just
like sticking to a a fire type approach.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yeah, and that's what I'm starting to see more and more.
I've never met or worked with one of these fire people,
but I've worked with several people that were in intense,
high pressure jobs and they get into their early to
mid fifties and they want to pivot to something else
that they truly enjoy, a lifelong passion of theirs that
they've not been able to work in vocationally or even
(19:23):
volunteer wise, And so it's not really retiring, it's pivoting
to something that gives them more meaning and purpose in
their life. And like all of this stuff, it takes
some discussion in planning and running numbers and risk management.
And that's really the point I think we're trying to
make with this segment. You're listening to Simply Money presented
by all Worth Financial on fifty five KRC the talk station.
(19:50):
You're listening to Simply Money presided by all Worth Financial
on Bob Sponseller along with Brian James. Let's face it,
social security is a cornerstone of retirement security for millions
of Americans, but it does face long term funding challenges,
and a new analysis shows a sharp generational divide on
(20:11):
how to fix the problem. Brian, And before you get
into these numbers, none of this outcome surprises me whatsoever, because,
let's face it, we all want someone else to pay
to fix the problems that are before us. And I
think these numbers you're about to share bear this out.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
I'm reminded of an old Simpsons episode where Homer ran
for political office under the under the slogan can't someone
else do it? And this is just a survey of
two thousand adults. This is by the Cato Institute. They're
known as a libertarian think tank.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Who did he run against, by the way, was it
Montgomery Burns? Oh? It might have been.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
I'm not sure, but it had everything to do with
I don't want to bring my garbage cans in from
the curb. Why can't somebody bring them and put them
behind my house? And that's now, that's what we're talking
about with Social Security. So more than half of the
man Americans under age thirty say they'd rather cut benefits
for current retirees than pay more taxes to help keep
benefits intact. Hey, go figure, current retirees aren't a fan
of that. Nine and ten seniors age sixty five year
(21:12):
olders say younger workers should pay higher taxes to help
current retirees benefits kind of stay steady. Can't someone else
do it, Bob? So the danger here is and if
they do nothing right, so the math just doesn't work.
The math don't math anymore. There's a hole in the bucket.
So there's simply not enough money flowing into the system
to shore up the benefits that were calculated years ago,
(21:33):
simply because there are fewer workers earning less than there
have been in prior decades. So currently, as we're sitting
here right now, if nothing changes, then we're expecting somewhere
about a twenty to twenty five percent haircut in twenty
thirty three unless Congress actually does something. Now, we could
have fixed this all along, Bob right. I mean, we
could be talking about this in Congress right now. We
(21:53):
choose not to because it is nothing but a sacrifice.
No one will gain anything because because of the way
the math works, we simply have to cut benefits on
current direes or increased taxes on current workers, or possibly
a combination of both. There's a million ways that that
can happen. But what it's gonna take is a politician
to stake their political career on forcing people to sacrifice.
(22:15):
There is no way that anybody can put something together
that is a gain, giving people something they didn't have before.
It's all sacrifice, and that's why we just don't hear
about it. We're gonna kick the can until we have
no choice.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah, for sure. And here's another interesting thought to kick around.
Most people don't even understand how social Security works. Again,
in this survey from the Cato Institute, half don't even know.
Social Security is a pay as you go program in
which current workers payroll taxes fund current retirees benefits, not
(22:48):
the worker's own future retirement. You know, a lot of
people think that this money is getting put into some
type of an account for them, and nearly two thirds
of respondents believe that's what it is. They believe it's
a mandatory savings program that they pay for, you know,
kind of like a mandatory four to one K plan.
One in five people wrongly believe that their payroll taxes
(23:11):
are actually invested in this Social Security trust fund that
gets thrown around all the time until they retire. And
eight percent of folks think their taxes are saved in
a personal account for them. And then here's the funny thing.
Twenty one percent admit they have no idea how any
of this stuff works and really don't want to know.
(23:31):
Forty three percent of people Brian don't even know what
a payroll tax is. That is baffling to me, since everybody,
last time I checked, gets a paycheck stub where you
actually see where all this money disappears every two weeks.
And then finally, only about seventeen percent know that the
tax is split evenly between the employer and the employee.
(23:53):
So I blame a lot of people, you know, for this,
namely Congress. They just simply have not educated the American
public on how this whole system works or doesn't work.
And yet we do to the point you made prior.
We do have a ticking time bomb here that's about
eight years away. This is going to have to get
on somebody's radar here, you know, somewhat smooth or soon
(24:18):
and hopefully we can have an adult conversation, you know,
something new and different for Congress and get some things done.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Let's talk about that paystub for a minute, because I
want to. I very frequently and you probably hear it too,
very frequently, hear comments from just sort of one off
comments from clients about how well I can't plan on
Social Security.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
It's not going to be there in eight years. And
that's not the case. That is simply not how it works.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
The only way that could happen is if is if
we proactively voted the fiight a taxation out of existence
payroll taxes. That's not going to happen. What all it
means is that in twenty thirty three, the amount of
dollars that will be collected via the top of your
pay step it happened, it's happening right now, it'll happen
then is only going to cover about seventy five percent
of what is currently promised. So but that is a
(25:00):
far cry from zero. Social security is not going away
unless we proactively voted out of existence. And again this
is coming from this is coming from demographic changes. So
the reason for this is us population is just continuing
to get older. So in twenty twenty five, just this
past year, a record four point one million people are
expected to hit age sixty five. That's the most we've
(25:21):
ever had reached that milestone. By twenty fifty, the sixty
five an older group is projected to increase forty two
percent to eighty two million from fifty eight million and
twenty two So that means the share of the population
is up to almost a quarter of the population being
that age. That's the problem that we have, and we
have tried to fix this pob so over the years,
(25:42):
policy experts have thrown out ideas. Every single year, some
congress person raises a bill, but it's shot down based
on political lines. Democrats always raised the idea of we
need to increase taxes on current workers to make this work,
and then Republicans will reject that immediately, and Republicans want
to cut benefits on retirees and Democrats shoot that out
(26:04):
of this guy. So it's going to take a you know,
an across the aisle attempt of people who understand math
and are willing to have a rough conversation with the
American public. I don't know that we're there yet, but
that's the only way it ever gets fixed.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Well, And just as a reminder, going back to the
beginning here, Social Security is and was intended to be
a federal anti poverty program that was established in nineteen
thirty five as part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New
Deal after the Great Depression. Again well intentioned. It's like, hey,
let's put some kind of social safety net in here,
(26:39):
not only for retirement retirees, but for widows and orphans
and folks on disability that no one ever talks about.
There is an embedded disability program in Social Security too, that,
by the way, costs money. You know, it's meant to
be an anti poverty program, you know, a social safety net,
but it does cost money. And again, we're gonna have
(27:00):
to have an adult conversation from from Congress and whoever's
president here over the next eight years to fix this thing.
And I sure hope it, sure hope it happens. Hey,
if you were if you were a betting man, going
back to that whole prop bet thing. If you had
to put money down on this thing, what do you
think is going to happen? Brian? How do you think that?
(27:20):
How do you think this thing's gonna get fixed? I
think we're going to fix it at the last minute.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
It's probably gonna involve a government shutdown, because that's how
when when we're painted into a corner, that's what we do.
Everybody takes their ball and goes home, and then we'll
come up with some kind of compromise. I cannot see
one side winning in the other side losing. I think
it's going to have to be a sacrifice among all parties.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
I don't think you're wrong there. Here's the all Worth advice.
It's pretty cut and dry. Don't rely on Social Security
as your main source of your retirement income. You're listening
to Simply Money, presented by all Worth Financial on fifty
five KRC, the talk station. Do you have a question
(28:05):
this financial question? I guess you could ask us other
questions too, but do you have a financial question you'd
like for us to answer. There's a red button you
can click while you're listening to the show. If you're
listening on the iHeart app. Simply record your question there
and it will come straight to us. All right, Brian
Mark and Madeira says, I'm realizing our portfolio returns look fine,
(28:28):
but our cash flow timing is a bit messy. How
do you align investment distributions with real life spending instead
of just annual projections.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yeah, Mark, that's a pretty common problem because we're also
accustomed to, you know, every week, every two weeks or
every month, I get X amount of dollars that drops
into my checking account, and I pay the bills out
of that, and the machine just continues to run infinitely. Well,
now when I switch to I'm spending my own nest
egg down, well, yeah, I have that problem, that exact problem.
Now I am my own payroll department. How often do
(28:57):
I want to be paid and how much and so forth.
So I think the core mistake here is trying to
manage investments off of annual return assumptions.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Real life operates.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Of course, when your bills are due, when they're due,
markets compound annually, but that electric bill comes every single month.
So one good way to think about this maybe separate
into three layers. First off, what's your spending layer? This
is twelve to twenty four months of known expenses. Keep
that in cash money markets, you know, that can kind
of be a combination of an emergency fund and a cushion,
and just spend out of that. Keep it in some
(29:27):
kind of high yield savings account that will still produce
some income for you, but at least that's what you're
spending your bills out of, and then it won't matter
to which a market what the market is doing. So
then the second layer would be something that's producing income.
This is where dividends, bond interest, and these systematic withdrawals
would exist. That's the distribution frequency to your spending frequency,
(29:48):
to the best you can get to it.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Right. Some of these bills are predictable, some of.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Them mark get as close as you can, and that
might mean holding some less efficient assets. If this is
something that's on your mind. Smooth cash flow often matters
more than max yield. You're just when you're just trying
to keep a ship afloat. And then the third layer,
this is the long term layer. This is what you're
what you've been doing for decades, and it's why you
have the ability to live this way in the first place.
You still got long term capital out there. Those are
your equities and other growth types investments. Uh, those are
(30:13):
intentionally insulated from that near term spending. These aren't the
dollars you would touch for that bill that came unexpectedly.
So this is the only this is the one where
you're going to refill the other two buckets. So anyway,
lots to think about there, and the hope that helps.
So we're gonna move on now into we've got a
We've got a question here from Seth and Fort Mitchell
who says that they've accumulated a mix of funds that
(30:33):
have different fiscal year distributions.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
How do you coordinate all this?
Speaker 2 (30:36):
And you how do you manage these surprise capital gain
payouts that don't line up with the calendar year. Somebody
got a nasty gram in December. I'm guessing about a
mutual fund distribution.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Yeah, Brian, and I feel like my answer is going
to be very similar to the answer you just gave
to Mark, worded slightly differently. First of all, Seth, you
know these are these mutual fund companies will announce in
advance when these things are coming, but you do have
to pay attention. You got to read this stuff, or
have an advisor that's going to read it for you
and factor all that into your income strategy. And I
(31:08):
think to the point Brian made you know before in
answering Mark's question, life doesn't tend to work according to
a fixed linear spreadsheet of identical monthly expenses. So you
want to make sure you're not cutting this too close.
In other words, you know it's okay to fill up
that emergency fund or high yield cash savings account a
(31:31):
little bit higher to factor into some of this stuff.
But from a tax management standpoint, know when these distributions
are coming. Again, if you're paying attention to the publications
that these mutual fund companies put out, they're going to
tell you what the capital gain distribution is and when
it's likely to come, So you could at least plan
from an income and tax strategy appropriately. That'd be my
(31:55):
answer without having a full context of the question and
where you're coming at that coming from, all right, Peter
and Anderson says, our advisor says our portfolio is quote
unquote resilient, but I don't know what that actually means.
How do you define resilience in a measurable way? Measure it,
quantify it. Brian, what does resilient mean?
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Yeah, well, I think it's more of the clients who
are resilient than the portfolio, because the portfolio is going
to do what it does. Yeah, resilience is one of
those terms that gets that just kind of gets thrown
around and you're just like, what's being called out here?
My advisor said it's resilient, so I guess it is,
so we'll just leave it at that. But practical, in
real practical terms, a portfolio that is resilient is really
(32:38):
one that allows you to keep making the good decisions
even when the conditions are bad. That's why I said
it's the client who is resilient, not the portfolio. So
there's there's really four ways you can look at this.
First would be draw down depth. This isn't volatility. This
is actual peak to trough loss. We talked earlier in
the show about what happened in April. Peak to trough
loss in the stock mark was about twenty percent, So
you know, if you have a twenty percent dropped and
(33:01):
you need about twenty seven percent to get back to
to get back to normal, it'd be just because of
the way that works.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
So a portfolio that is extremely.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Volatile is going to need to need to be volid
on the upside too to recover that.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Also, you know, the second part here is what is
the duration of a draw down?
Speaker 2 (33:16):
How long will it take this particular portfolio to get
back to prior highs.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
And these are things you can look at history for.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
You can use online tools and plug your your ticker
symbols or whatever it is that you own and get
an idea for what that resilience has been.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
You know what about cash flow survivability too?
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Can it survive twelve to twenty four months of spending
without selling the riskier assets during a bear market? That
this is where that emergency fund comes in, that cushion.
And what Bob and I like to talk about frequently
with is let's figure out what bills are coming to
do in the next twelve months, and let's make sure
those assets are covered. Maybe those need to be carved out.
Now we're sitting at a time where the market is
absolutely at a peak, so maybe this is the time
(33:53):
to carve those out and then finally recovery participation. So
when we see that recovery year after a bad stock
market year, for example, does this portfolio tend to swing
back up during the rebounds, or does it kind of
lag because risk was permanently reduced at the wrong time.
So you got to look at the funds and things
that you own and understand what they're doing under the hood.
Not to mention you yourself, some clients will get spooked and
(34:14):
we'll kind of head for the exits whenever we hit
a bumpy market.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
All right, one more quick one. Jerry in Greenhill's Bob.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
He's got investments across multiple custodians with that all have
different reporting styles, and he's wanting to know, how do
you get a clean apples to Apple's view of performance
and risk.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Well, it can be a little mind boggling, Jerry. If
you're just relying on these statements that custodians put out,
they're generally going to give you rate of return numbers,
not a whole lot on risk adjusted or peer adjusted risk,
as you raised in your questions. So you know there
are tools out there if you want to dial in
to comparing risk versus standard deviation or sharp ratio or
(34:51):
things like that. There are tools out there. We've got
them here. Other good fiduciary advisors have them where you
could put all your holdings, you know, up on the racks,
so to speak, and really compare apples to apples risk
adjusted performance regardless of where those assets are housed. But
you've got to have some tools to use and so
(35:11):
you're not just relying on the custodian to tell you
what that risk adjusted performance really is. Coming up next,
I've got my two cents on why you might want
to have a limited liability company as part of your
whole financial strategy and a state planning strategy. You're listening
to Simply Money presented by all Worth Financial on fifty
(35:32):
five KRC the talk station. You're listening to Simply Money
presented by all Worth Financial. I'm Bob Sponseller along with
Brian James. Let's get into a topic. Brian, I've had
come up or at least raised with clients. A lot
of clients lately coming in that have some vacation properties
(35:54):
or thinking about having them, or have inherited them from
parents or grandparents, and it's a topic we want to
talk about, called a limited liability company and without attempting
to practice law without a law license, which is always
a dangerous thing. Let's talk about why somebody might want
to have one of these things. The number one reason
(36:14):
most people want to get involved or should consider this
is limited liability protection. Let's say you have that cottage
up in Michigan, or that you know rental home down
in Florida, and four or five different family members are
using it. Maybe you're renting it out. In other words,
you got a lot of people flying in there, flowing
through there on a regular basis, and if something bad
(36:36):
should happen, a slip and fall attorney comes after you.
You want to have your liability or your risk limited
to just the assets owned in that ll scene. That's
the number one reason I see people you know that
should consider having these things. They're very simple to set up.
A good attorney can set that up for you, file
(36:57):
it for just hundreds of dollars. The drafting fees can
tend to be pretty low. It's something to definitely talk
about if you're in that vacation property space that you're
sharing with relatives, friends, airs, what have you.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yeah, and I think too, if you are someone who
owns multiple properties, then what you might look into is
one LLC for each one of them. Again, nobody's speaking
right now as a lawyer, So talk to your own
attorney about these things. But one bad incident at the
first property can endanger the whole mess if you stick
them all in one LLC. And again, this isn't about profitability.
This isn't about making the that the property is more
(37:30):
value anything like that. It's about protecting from the terrible
things that can happen in these types of situations.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Another reason to have this and it makes the management
of it more smooth. And you know, somebody's usually in
charge of running the finances, who's going to pay the
property tax bill, who's going to pay the utility bill,
who's going to pay for the repairs and upkeep? And
a lot of times if you have a bank account
set up owned by the LLC and the person managing
(37:55):
the finances can can just go to one account and
track everything it flows through to your personal tax return.
And then from an estate tax standpoint, what I see
all the time, Brian, that people that have trust you
can take your personal shares in an LLC and just
have those titled in the trust, so you're still avoiding probate.
So it's a great strategy to avoid both liability and
(38:18):
still avoid probate in terms of your overall estate plan strategy.
Thanks for listening tonight. You've been listening to Simply Money,
presented by all Worth Financial on fifty five KRC, the
talk station
Simply Money News
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