Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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the realtor makes real estate dreams a reality, whether it's
residential or commercial. We've got Charleston to Huntington covered. Your
key to exceptional real estate experience is start here Meeks Realtygroup.
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Speaker 2 (00:15):
The views and opinions expressed on this program do not
necessarily reflect the views and opinions of five eight WCCHS
its employees or WVRC Media. This is retire Right Radio,
a weekly show from John Verdett at Fourth Avenue Financial
that aims to answer your questions about financial planning, investing,
and how to retire right. Fourth Avenue Financial is located
(00:38):
in downtown Charleston at one seventy Court Street. More information
online at Fourth Avenue Financial dot com. Join the conversation
by calling three oh four three four five fifty eight
fifty eight or text three oh four nine three five
fifty oh eight. On retire Right Radio, let's go live
to the studio with host Dale Cooper and John Verdett
(00:59):
from fourth Have any Financial Children?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Now twenty one minutes past eight o'clock. You are listening
to retire Right Radio on a Monday morning. It is
a really nice morning out there. It's not one of
those like super blue sky Sunday mornings or something like that.
It's just a nice, sort of a homeostasis temperature out
I don't know. It's probably somewhere in the upper sixties
or something right now. I haven't checked. A little overcast,
but not rainy. It's just kind of a nice morning, Joumber,
(01:22):
that's with me in studio. Ho you doing this morning, John,
I'm doing wonderful. I like these mornings, these addumn mornings
where it's, uh, you know, there's no real weather thing,
but it's just comfortable outside. You know, it's not human,
it's not hot, it's not cold. It's just like nice
it is. I think it's gonna heat up a little bit,
it is. Yeah, right now it's nice. It's gonna be
hot by it by the midnight today.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Yeah, this is the peak heat of the week and
then then.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
It's mellows out a little bit. Yes, it's that time
of year, you know, it's that time of year. We're
not even in October. We're still not in October. I mean,
everybody's been to talk like I feel like Thanksgiving is
right around the corner because everybody's been in spooky season
for like a month already. It's like we're so messed
up with how we celebrate our holidays. I feel like
we celebrate them way too early. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
Well, I was talking last night with my wife, is like,
we were out at Sam's Club. It's like, wonder how
many trick or treaters we're gonna get at the new house.
That's a good question, right, Yeah, you know, do I
go with Can I go with the full sized candy bars?
Or do I have to go with the little nick name?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
If you want to be popular, If you want to
be popular, you get to like the the bigger ones,
then you'll be very popular. People will want to come
back to your house all the time. You know, you
get the ones now, you know. I don't think you
have to get the real full sized ones to be
popular because those are that's a little overkill, you know,
And frankly, as a parent, I'd be like, what you're
trying to do to my kid? I mean, that's a
lot of candy, But they're like the ones that aren't
the tiny, tiny minis, like the ones that are kind
of in the middle. Those are the sweet spot. I
(02:34):
think those are pretty good. As a matter of fact,
I got a bag of twigs at my house right
now that are that's not for trick or treaters. It's
for me because they're just like the little single, little
single twigs, you know, Like.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
I always use that to teach my kids about taxes,
Like there was always a recy cup tax when I
got back from the from trick or treating.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
I like that one. My daughter is well aware of
the daddy tacks when it comes to peanut butter sandwich especially,
doesn't like the crust, So I just take the crust
off of them and I eat that that he talks.
Not that that's not a great conversation. But if you
have any questions about how you can retire right if
you have any questions about your financial solvency into the future,
you know things are wild right now. If you're listening
to the headlines all the time, good news is is
(03:14):
the market nor your retirement is based on the headlines,
And so you can give us a call this morning
if you have any questions about those things. Threes are
a fourth three four five fifty eight fifty eight three
four five fifty eight fifty You can read along. If
you'd like to find out more about Fourth Avenue Financial online,
spell out the whole thing and put a dot com
behind it, Fourth Avenue Financial dot com, and you can
find out about Fourth Avenue Financial. Do that same search
on Facebook. You can like the page there and find
(03:35):
out even more information. We are on air every Monday
morning at about eight twenty right here on five eight
WCHS with retire Rate Radio. So looking back, it's kind
of things that we've got, man, especially since COVID, We've
gone through a lot of weird stuff talking about on
this show, as far as what the indices are, what
the indicators are, what they should be, how they invert sometimes,
(03:57):
and things like that. You know, it's interesting from from
a intellectual standpoint to follow along, but if you're trying
to make heads or tails of it as a lay person,
it can be kind of confusing.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Well, it can't be, and like you said, there are
so many conflicting things. You think one thing, oh, that
must be good, but it turns out being bad for
the market. And you know, because one thing spills over
to the next, and one thing affects another thing, and
and when you get right down to it, you know,
when you. Maybe you've been on YouTube, maybe you've been
(04:29):
on the Internet, and somebody is saying, I know what's
going to happen. You know, be very very careful because
nobody knows what's going to happen from one day to
the next. There are too many moving parts within the market.
The market is made up of millions of people making
decisions every single day, and that and the conglomerate of
those decisions is what happens into the market. You know,
(04:51):
it's a it's a market of buyers and sellers. If
you're buying, somebody selling and vice versa, and the people
that you're buying from, you know, they do think that
either the market is going to go down or they
have a better opportunity to put their capital. And you're
buying something thinking that's a great deal, and the person
selling it to you think you're wrong. That's just the
(05:13):
nature of it. It is an uncertainty. But what is
certain is the fact that you know, companies are out
there trying to earn money, trying to serve their customers,
trying to innovate, and over time they tend to be
able to do that. And that's what you have to
believe that you have to believe in that process and
almost step away from that day to day news and minutia.
(05:35):
I mean, it's one thing if you were a trader
on the street and your job was to do that,
but you know, most folks, you know, you're just trying to,
you know, go do your job and save a little
bit for retirement or other goals that you might have,
and you know you don't need to, You don't need
to wade into that. Quite often, if you do, it
(06:01):
creates confusion and emotional decision making things of that nature.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
I had kind of epiphany this weekend because I tend
to like I like to read about stuff that's basically
beyond my baseline knowledge and stuff. You know, I read
this all the time, and frankly, with signs and things
like that, it doesn't it doesn't really hurt anything to
try to learn and to apply that to whatever you're doing.
You know, I've been reading, I've been lay reading popular
science stuff for decades now, and that's just one of
(06:26):
the hobbies that I have. But one of the things
that struck me because I got into a particular thread
where people arguing around a very sticky but kind of
a nuanced point, like I could kind of see both
sides of things as I was going down through it,
and suddenly I just realized all these people arguing about
this really nuanced, this really nuanced interpretation of a of
(06:46):
like a law, and I realized that none of these
people were actually experts on it. All of these people
were just googling something, and they were finding something, probably
to confirm their bias. Like they were searching like why
is this right? And instead of steel manning there are
or whatever trying to look for reasons it's wrong and
seeing if they still felt the same way. You know,
they're just looking for confirmation, bias and everything that they're
looking for. And it got me to thinking, like, in
(07:08):
context of what you do, because so much, unfortunately of
the quote unquote market has been captured by the political
talk that we have when those things should be frankly separate,
you know. I mean it doesn't I mean, one affects
the other for sure, but it doesn't drive the pocketbook necessarily.
All of these little lay experts that we have. I
think it makes people create a fictional world that they're
(07:29):
living in that they think that they can c that
they know how to. Like now, I know how this works,
and I can make these changes, and I can control
how my money's going to work. And I have the
secret sauce now because I read a couple of papers
and only I have the true understanding of this. You
can really get yourself upside down into some trouble if
suddenly you read a couple of things and you think
that you're like the expert on it.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Well, and there again with the internet and social media,
the problem is once you read something, you keep getting
fed the same thing.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Yeah, and now it's automatic. You don't even have to
look for your biases. They just feed you your biases right.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Right, and actually read an article, Uh well, it's actually
last night about the loss of uh literacy. Oh yeah, yeah,
I know, because people don't read anymore. They don't read,
and and you know, reading is a whole lot different
than just watching something or watching a short clip on
(08:22):
social media. You know, reading First of all, the writer
that's writing it has to hash out his ideas, has
to support his ideas. You know, he has gone through
a process. He or she has gone through a process
to to write that down, hash it out, support it
so that when other people read it, you know, he
(08:42):
he is uh here or she is making a point
that is well thought out, and then the reader can
get that and and it's a slower process. You're you're
putting it through your mind. You're you're fact checking it
with your own uh mind, you know, critical thinking and
(09:03):
this you know flash social media stuff really is has
I think done damage to that whole process. And and
you know, certainly we're all uh you know, subject to
be put under that spell, but particularly younger folks I
think who grew up with it. The attention spans are
(09:23):
are short.
Speaker 5 (09:24):
You know.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
It used to be that, you know, the only thing
besides a book that would demand your tom you know,
maybe maybe a movie and a movie theater, right, and
that was an event that you went to and escaped
for a little while. Now it's just constant.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
There are people that I could get on this box forever,
so we didn't. If you have your questions about finances,
please give us a call. Just very briefly. The one
thing that I that I've noticed is we're losing. After
reading some stuff about the the alarming amount of bad
history stuff that's on YouTube, I did a little because
I'm always looking for stuff for my daughter. She's a homeschool,
and I always look at these type of things, and
so I went to some really popular accounts and suddenly
(10:03):
this has just happened in the last couple of years.
This wasn't the case a couple of years ago. When
you look for certain types of lessons or anything along
those lines, they're just way more likely to be AI generated.
Now you'll have a quote unquote history lesson that'll be
like twenty minutes long, AI generated, and it just paints
by the numbers man. There's like no depth to the knowledge.
There's no contextual information, there's no chain of knowledges like
(10:26):
this happened because this led to it, because this led
to it, because there's none of that stuff at all.
So what you're happening, even with people that are trying
to learn, they're learning isolated information that has no historical
context to it. There's no depth to the knowledge at all.
And it is alarming how bad that people people misrepresent
things now that happen in my lifetime to such an
alarming degree. I mean, it's a little frightening when people
(10:49):
are confidently wrong about things that are verifiably untrue. That's
a scary place to be in, right, now and there's
a lot of that going on.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Yeah, no doubt about it. So certainly that affects our
entire lives, but even our financial lives.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Yeah, that's the thing you have to be careful about, right.
I know people that have made decisions off of just
made up information about their financial future, and it has
shocked me that I'm like, you don't know that that's fake,
you know, I mean, it's very dangerous. So you have
to be careful about those things. But the thing that
(11:24):
I loved to highlight, and the thing that I think
is it's perfect about the type of business that you do,
is it really should be one of those things where
the client works with you to achieve a goal and
that allows them to create a barrier between all of
this other stuff that goes on and controlling for their future.
Because really, I know that you might be into your politics,
you might be into all these things, and that's fine
to have that as a hobby or whatever it else,
(11:46):
But your retirement is a real life thing and something
that you can't go back and say, oh, my fault,
it's screwed up on that, or oh maybe I was
a little bit over my skis on that, or maybe
I'm misunderstood. It's not worth it for you. Have a
professional help you, and then you can do whatever you
want to in your personal life.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Right, and you have to retire no matter who the
president is, no matter who Congress is. There will be
changes all along that trip to retirement, that path to
retirement in politics. But yet you still have that goal.
So you have to stay focused on your personal goal. Otherwise,
(12:21):
you know, what are you doing If you change your
portfolio and change your plan every time there's an election,
You're giving power to somebody else. You're you're seating your
ability to achieve your own goal to somebody else. And
that's uh, that's not something I'd be into.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
In some ways, it makes you more manipulated, manipulate a
bull in the future as well. Once you start reacting
that way, once you almost have no choice but to
continue doing that or else why did I do it before?
If if if it wasn't true, why did I do it?
You know? I mean, so it's like a sunken cost fallacy.
You know, if you doubt into this, this this ideal
one time, you have to keep going or else I
(13:02):
was wrong all these other times. I mean, that's really
could get tricky to get into when you start really
holding things over like that, and.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
Then the show turns into a psychology show actor.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Which I mean honestly, I mean there is a lot
of that too what you have to do, but from
a very a very gentle on ramping at the very
beginning of when you talk to someone, you have to
know what their risk assessments and things like that are.
I shared this is what I wanted to bring up
to you this morning. I shared in between shows over
this past week, a couple of photos with you from
my daughter. We we bought a we were gifted a
(13:33):
lot of books, and we were we bought a lot
of books for her in in uh hopes that she
would be a big reader and when and when uh
it would age into him. And she has. She loves
to read. She'll pick up a book and read. She's
into her her Kendle now and so I can get
her books on Kendle. And you know, sometimes I'll look
over to you, He's like, what what you're watching, honey,
You're watching something during her downtime. She's like, no, just
reading a book. Love it, man, I absolutely love it
(13:56):
that she's that she's into that stuff, But you really
have to. You have to have some sort of a
I forgot what they point out? What's going for there? Actually?
So we can move forward from that. Hey, what happens
on a Monday morning? There's the morning's about debt? He
gives a call this morning three zero four three four
five fifty eight fifty eight. If you'd like to get
in on the conversation, threes are a four three four
(14:16):
five fifty eight fifty eight. You can also text threes
are four non three five five zers or I haven't
checked the text line this morning. We double check that
real quick. See if anybody's come in with anything. Oh, yeah,
we do have a question. Good thing I checked. Thank
you for texting in for the threes are a four
non non three getting us back on topic this morning.
Thank you so much. Let's see. Okay, there's a multiple
steps to this, so bear with me here a little bit.
Good morning, Dell and John. When we speak personal finance,
(14:39):
if a person has an income of around one hundred
thousand dollars with a mortgage, car payment and two million
in credit and credit card debt, we know, unless there
is a miracle, they will probably die broke. Our country
is thirty trillion dollars in debt. Is it not the
exact same scenario? Is it possible to get out of
this situation? Thanks? And I love the show. I'll wake
up every morning and wait to listen. Thanks U. I
(15:00):
have a second one here too, it's a little bit earlier,
but we can address that one. We can address that
one first.
Speaker 4 (15:05):
Yeah, I think that certainly it is not good for
the country to have the debt, and you know, interest
is accruing on that debt and has to be paid
and serviced on that debt, which takes away from the
other things that the government could fund. For sure, But
(15:27):
it is a little different than an individual going into debt.
When you think about the government, you know, the government
doesn't really produce anything. The people produce something. And when
the government goes into debt, what do they do They
sell a bond. And if they sell a bond, what
also has to be true somebody has to have already
(15:50):
been productive and created that money that they are exchanging
for that bond. So one, it's not really if you
think about it, it's not really deficit spending. It's just
us as a society has allowed the government to allocate
(16:12):
more of our productivity.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
I see, okay, it's an interesting way to put it.
Never thought of it like that.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
And so largely the vast majority of that debt is
owned by all of us that are listening. It's owned
in our for one case, it's owned that the banks
that we have our money in. It's it's you know,
those bonds are largely owned by the United States. You
hear a lot of things about well, China owns US
(16:40):
and China not. That's really not the case. That those
are very small percentages. Really, I mean, you know, trillion
dollars or so I think is roughly what China owns
of our bonds. That, to be honest with you, I
mean we created and printed twice the amount of money
(17:01):
during COVID. You know, that kind of puts into perspective,
you know, and amount to somebody that owns of you, right,
that's right, and and and not only that, we own
other people's bonds. You know, it's not just a one
way streak. So you know, the the deficit is is
(17:24):
I think a negative, but it's probably not a negative
in the way most folks think about it because they're
thinking of it how it would be if it were
an individual.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Right.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
That's why it can go on longer than people think
it should, because it is not the same thing an
individual by now would probably be struggling with their debtload.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
And I also see like people conflate deficit and and uh,
what what it means, like exactly how how it translates
and exactly what deficits meaning, Just like how you explained.
I think that sometimes that we we And again, like
what was that move the American president? Did you you
remember seeing that? I think I.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
Saw it a long time.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
It was about a guy, if I remember correctly, a
guy that looked like the president got to like you
got like brought in to like pretend to be the president,
and he was just like a regular old guy or whatever.
And so he ended up balancing the budget just by
calling his accountant and they worked for like all weekend,
and like, we have balanced the budget. You know, it's
like you would love to think that. Actually it's it's
you know, it's all the red tape that gets in
(18:25):
the way, and we could do this, we just had
the will. It's not really that easy. I mean, the.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
Reality is the government is the way it is because
the people have allowed it to be that way.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
What a great point that is, Right, we're kind of
ultimately responsible this stuff.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
But we're also paying the load, you know, we're paying
for it.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
True enough, let's say we have another question here that's
coming on the text line this morning. Good morning, guys.
I retired in January. I have a I have started
a small business and it's doing very well. But I'm
working for my basement and the business is taking over
my home. I currently rent a storage building from one
hundred and seventy five dollars per month. I found a
warehouse space with an office for sixty five thousand dollars.
(19:00):
I have a pension and about five hundred thousand dollars
in cash stock in a four to one K, would
you consider it foolish to purchase this property and put
around thirty thousand dollars as a down payment? Thank you
so much.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
Well, there are a lot of details there that I'm
not going to know. But you know, the best time
to invest in your business is when you have to, right,
you know, don't don't spend a lot of that precious
capital until you know you need to. And if you're
busting at the seams, that tells you I think that,
(19:33):
you know, you tell me, it would be a signal
for for sure to say, hey, I've got to take
this to the next step and incrementally invest in that business.
So I can't really say for sure what this person
should do, but it sounds like something's going well.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
However, if you need some guidance, you can find that
from Fourth Avenue Financial. You can look them up one
line at Fourth Avenue Financial dot com. You can give
them a call. It's three zeror four seven, four six
seven nine seven seven. Threes are A four seven or
six seven non seven seven. You're welcome to give John
a call to maybe get a little bit more into
the details of those things, to see what's going to
work for you. Let's go out and do this. Let's
take our break. When we come back with sill have
plenty more we're going to talk about. You can help
(20:11):
control the conversation as well. I've given us a call
once again that number three zer A four three four
five fifty eight fifty eight three four five fifty to
fifty eight. You can text threes are four non three
five five zero zero eight. We'll be backraight after this.
You're listening to a retire Right Radio with John bred
Debt from Fourth Avenue Financial. I'm Dell Cooper. This is WCHS,
the voice of Charleston.
Speaker 6 (20:26):
Retire Right Radio was sponsored by Fourth Avenue Financial, which
is solely responsible for its content. Security is offered through
jw CL Financial Member fen Recipic. Investment advice offered through
jw COL Advisors. Fourth Avenue Financial, jw CL Financial and
jw COL Advisors are unaffiliated entities. The opinions expressed by
John Burdet should not be construed as specific investment, legal,
or tax advice. All economic and performance information is historical
(20:48):
and not indicative of future results. Investing may involve risk
of loss of principle. Any types of advice on this
show is not intended to be used by any person
for the purpose of avoiding US federal or state tax
penalties that may be imposed on such a person and
each listeners should seek advice from their tax advisor or
legal console on topics that arise from the show. John
Burdett is not providing legal or tax advice. Nothing should
(21:11):
be construed as solicitation of an offer to buy securities.
This program is sponsored by Fourth Avenue Financial, which is
solely responsible for its content.
Speaker 7 (21:18):
According to Feeding America, over seven million seniors nationwide were
food insecure in twenty twenty two. West Virginia is no different. Hi,
I'm Jason, President and CEO of Union Mission Ministries. For
one hundred and thirteen years, Union Mission has focused on
helping people in need. Right now, our senior citizens need
our help. That is why Union Mission is partnering with
(21:39):
local senior living facilities to get food delivered directly to
those in need. Will you help us reach more seniors?
Visit Union Mission dot com to learn more.
Speaker 8 (21:48):
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(22:08):
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Speaker 5 (22:19):
This is retire RIGHTE Radio with John Burdett from Fourth
Avenue Financial, taking your calls at three oh four three
four five fifty eight fifty eight or texts on three
oh four nine three five fifty oh eight.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
We had a spirited first portion of the program this morning.
You're listening to Retire Right Radio on five EWCHS. The
voice of Charleston, John Burdett is in studio with us
this morning. You're welcome to give us a call or
a text. We got a lot of texts this morning.
You can join in as well at three zero four
non three five fives y r zero eighth zero four
nine three five five zeros or eight and give us
a call until we get off the air. Three zero
(23:03):
four three four five fifty eight fifty eight. Three zero
four three four five fifty eight fifty eight. Probably if
you give us a call in it does go into
an auto Q, so you'll go in the air and
just be prepared to give your name when you bring
you up when we bring you on the air, and
we can proceed from there. Three zero four three four
five fifty eight fifty eight. Three zero four three four
five fifty eight fifty eight and so it's important for folks,
you know, and we have people And this is an
(23:24):
interesting thing too, because you've talked about this on your
program before. To retire right, doesn't mean that that's the
end of your investing life. You may retire and still
need to tap into your investments. Make sure because just
like our caller or our texture that we had last hour,
he's now running a business in his retirement, which means
that you still are in an active situation where you
(23:45):
need to make sure you're managing your money right.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
Right, no doubt about it. I mean, retirement is certainly
a goal. But you know, just because you reach retirement
or have the money to retire, doesn't necessarily mean you
want to retire, but you have they to if.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
You choose to.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
That money gives you an option. That portfolio gives you
the option to live more the way you want to live.
As we've talked before about, you know, what wealth really
is the ability to serve someone. You know, when we're
working in our working gears, we're serving people and we
generate our dollar bills from that. When we invest, what
(24:24):
are we doing. We're investing in companies that serve people,
provide products, services, and goods things of that nature, so
that if you own enough of that one day, you
don't have to serve anymore. You know, when you break
it down that way, you know you have the option
of not actually doing the physical labor anymore because you
own the entities that are doing the service, and that
(24:48):
keeps you current with whatever the value of the dollar
is and all of those things, because those are actively
serving entities that you own. You know a lot of
time if you retire, and you might say, oh, I
need fifty thousand a year to live comfortably. I've got
my Social Security, I've got a little bit of money
(25:10):
in the bank that I'm going to use to supplement,
you know, ten years in If you don't grow that
income stream, that fifty thousand won't buy as much, which
also goes back to that deficit question, right right, yeah, right,
And so if that fifty thousand do doesn't buy as much?
Why as that? Because you're no longer actively keeping up
(25:31):
with inflation as you do when you work, because you're
wage tends to rise, and if you don't own enough
companies that are out there serving, there's nothing there to
get your money growing to keep up with that. And
so it is. It is imperative if you are going
to retire right, you have to think about things like that.
You have to build a portfolio that meets those needs
(25:52):
because those are needs. You'll need a growing income stream
and retirement to deal with things like inflation. And it's
un comfortable to deal with inflation the last few years
for sure. You know, people have really noticed it. It's
uncomfortable when you're working, but it's devastating when you're retired
and don't have the assets that you need to keep
(26:15):
up with it because you can't. You can't just you know,
find a new job. You can't you can't you know,
switch things around in your life as easily when you
don't have that income stream coming in from work.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Yeah, I think that, And I found as I'm getting older,
there's there there just becomes like you find that your
your toolbox is getting a little shorter. I mean, I mean, frankly,
I mean as you get older, you know, you have
less of that bend at the end of your life,
you know, I mean you you frankly have to you know,
tighten ship up a little bit more and make sure
that you're doing things right because you have less uh
(26:48):
time to correct course. You know, just like a ship.
You know, it takes some time to to to change
the rudder and for the steering to take place. You
wait too long, it's a little bit difficult to do that.
You got to make sure you have it right.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
Yeah, yeah, no doubt and uh and like you say,
all those little hidden things you think you know, because
a lot of times I'll get folks coming into the
office and they say, well, I've done some some you know,
basic planning and thinking about what they want to have,
but quite often that inflation factor is what's missing in
(27:19):
the portfolio. You know, a lot of people look at
things as a straight line. It's like, oh, if I
have you know, five hundred thousand dollars, I can take
twenty five thousand a year off of that and it'll
last me twenty years. Yes, and no, your lifestyle certainly
will be different if you do that ten fifteen years
from now, because it's not a growing asset or a
growing income stream.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
From the threes are a four to five five three.
Budgeting is really hard. I understand how what you're saying,
but how do you budget when the price of beef
goes up to eight dollars a pound.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
Well, I mean that's you know, it's all about choices.
Maybe try chicking. I mean that, you know, substitution is
certainly a way to to deal with that. But you know,
when you look at your budget, you know, we've used
that fifty thirty twenty concept before. I think that can
(28:11):
be a good way to see where you may be
over spending. You know, fifty percent of your money should
be spent on necessities, shelter, you know, transportation, food, that
sort of thing. Thirty percent of your money can be
spent on things that you want to do. You know,
(28:32):
going to the grocery store as a need for food.
Going out to eat is an elective thing, you know,
So you can spend some money in that column, but
be sure that you put it in the right column,
because those type of things are not necessarily necessities. And
then that leaves twenty percent for savings and investment. You know,
(28:53):
at some point, if you're going to escape you know,
feeling like you're you're on a treadmill or a t
apped in your finances, you have to get to the
point where you're consistently creating savings and investment, and you
can only do that through budget. You know, anyone that
has started out that has become successful through through you know,
(29:15):
investment had to budget. You know, if you have credit
card debt, that's the canary in the coal mine that says, hey,
my budget drong. If you're carrying credit card debt, you've
overspent somewhere. Clearly, that's the only way you're going to
accumulate that something is wrong in the budget, not something
wrong with the credit card. You know, the credit card
(29:36):
is the symptom of the problem, which is the budget.
So if you're going to be successful long term, it
has to start at that budget. And you know, you've
got two ends there you can work on. You can
work on the expense side, cutting as much as you can,
and if that's not enough, then you have to work
on the income side, right, you know, find a new job,
(29:59):
find a second job, find some kind of a a
side gig or something to generate a little bit of
extra money to make that budget work. And after you
put that. You know, financial planning is tough early and
then it gets easier as you go. You know, after
you build those habits, after you get the money that
(30:20):
that is set aside, and now that starts to grow,
it's like a snowball rolling down a hill. It's hard
to stop after a certain point, but it takes five
to ten years worth of real effort. You're doing most
of the work to get that ball rolling.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
I always talking analogies on the show, but remind but
I'm just struck by recently we were given some tools
in the networking that we have here in the building
to that would make our lives a lot easier with
certain things we're doing, certain types of shows, certain types
of commercials, and stuff we're putting in. Basically things that
would take eight, ten, twelve steps in the past, you
could do it in like two steps now with some
of the but there was a learning process to figuring
(30:59):
out how to on board some of this process and
how to get it and I put it off forever.
I finally set it up a couple couple weeks ago
and got everything exactly the way I want it to.
And there's processes now that literally all I have to
do is drag one file from one place to another
and all of those steps that took a long time before,
that's the only step I have to do now. And
much like if you're financial planning or planning for your future,
(31:19):
it might be. You got to set it all up first,
you got it. You got to build the house. You know,
if you build it, it will come. But once you build
the house, you can kind of you you can fortify
the basement a little bit. You can, you know, you
can change out the walls or whatever. But you have
the you have the structure there, and that makes it
a lot easier to start doing the things you need
to do.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Well at some point, once you get those habits on
that structure in, you know, you don't have to look
for money anymore. Money will come looking for you, you know it.
Money goes to live where it's treated.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Well. That's a great point too.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
And if you treat your body, yeah, if you treat
your money the right way, you'll keep attracting it.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
You know.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
It's like they say, well, if you go to a bank,
uh and and one alone and they and they turned
you down, there's probably a good reason for that, because
they want to give you the money. That's how they
earn their money. So you know, rather than look at that, it'say, okay,
I may have something I need to address internally here,
you know, and I need to fix that. But once
(32:14):
you fix that you won't have that problem anymore, and
and money will will will be attracted. You know, same
thing with investments. You own productive investments, they keep compounding
and working whether you do or not. And you know
that's just the point you have to get yourself to
to accumulate wealth. And and that's the step that you know,
(32:36):
anybody that started from scratch and accumulated wealth. They are
all the folks that come into my office who have
worked for thirty years and retire comfortably. They all went
through that same process.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
And there's and you're right, there are sometimes some hard
decisions you make. I'm certainly no expert when it comes
to funding into my retirement necessarily, but I am a
single income family that's trying to raise a daughter, and
so you know, it's not necessarily all that easy right now.
And the one thing that I've noticed I put things
in spreadsheets and stuff like that, and I have basically
three columns of my groceries. I have the green, which
(33:08):
is stuff I have to get every week. I have
the yelloe, which is stuff that I would like to
get but maybe I can all the time. And I
have the red, which is stuff that like I personally
like but we can't always afford, you know, that sort
of thing. And I can see now if I go
month to month over my spreadsheet over where we were
doing costs. You can just spread by sort by the
collar real easily, And that's a way that I can
kind of tell what I'm spending money on. Like my
reds are gone, like four or five years ago, Like
(33:30):
maybe half of my groceries were reds, like stuff that
I just like, certain things I like for snakes or
certain things I liked or whatever. We hardly buy any
of that stuff anymore, like maybe some yellows and almost
everything's green. I mean, it's like we like everything that
we can budget for groceries are now for stuff we
have to buy on groceries. We don't really have the
money to buy the elective stuff that we used to
even three or four years ago. It's just the prices are.
(33:51):
And it doesn't matter whose fault it is. It doesn't
like the politics of the thing doesn't matter. It is
what it is. You just have to go forward and
figure out the best way to do it right.
Speaker 4 (33:59):
You have to do with it, and and and if
you hadn't made those adjustments, what would happen.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Now I would be you would even less money than
I have an house, right you.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Would you would have a budget problem right now, absolutely
you would have a spending problem that would then create, uh,
you know, the environment where you couldn't save, you couldn't invest,
you couldn't and if you can't do that, you'll never
escape that situation. And and that's that's the tough part.
And and and that's that's where everyone has to get
(34:27):
through that. You know, you got to get through that
rough patch to get to the other side. And but
once you're there, you know, it compounds quicker than you
can imagine.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Another part that and just from being an adult and
being in relationships in my life, I know that this
has to be true. Sometimes planning, you as the financial advisor,
have to kind of combine the needs of the two
partners that could be leading this thing, because not always
are like a husband and wife when the exact same page.
(35:00):
Sometimes there's some middle ground you have to find somewhere.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
Yeah, no doubt, there's Sometimes one is more conservative together,
less willing to take market type risk. And you know,
I really try to set down and say, okay, here's
how this works, here's what I would recommend you doing.
Can you be comfortable with that? Because financial planning is
(35:25):
not just about math. It is about making folks feel
comfortable on the path that they're on. You know, if
I can recommend something to you that I think absolutely
is the right thing, but you can't sleep at night,
then that's the wrong thing because one of the key
ingredients to success is being able to stick to it.
If you're on an emotional roller coaster because you don't
(35:47):
have the temperament for it, then it is the wrong investment.
And the problem is you've got to My job is
to sit down and have that conversation up front, because
the worst time to discover that is when you're in
the middle of the rocky patch, because then you're changing
your strategy at the exact wrong time. You're discovering that
(36:08):
at the exact wrong time. And so you know, that's
why we do spend time upfront trying to determine these
things that are very individual based. You know, you and
I probably have different outlooks and risk tolerances. I'm guessing
everybody does. Yeh, yeah, absolutely, and and if we're going
(36:29):
to work together, I need to understand that because what
I personally would do might not be the right thing.
Even if even if mathematically I can say, hey, this
is the path, if you're not going to stick to it,
it's no good. That's why that relationship is so important
with the advisor.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Well on the couple end of things too, it could
help offset some of the stresses of you know, maybe
two in experts talking about something and trying and you know,
maybe there's some tension in between what they feel like
they should do or whatever. Getting somebody's objective opinion who's
an expert on it could really help dial down the
temperature on that a little bit, and cooler heads could
prevail and say, okay, well this might be our best strategy.
(37:07):
This is the best compromise that we can come up,
whatever it might be. It helps a little bit when
you don't feel like somebody's trying to be domineering over you.
If if that's how you feel.
Speaker 4 (37:15):
Right and there are certain things that you know, aso
the advisor, I say, I guess you really need to
get to this point. And you know, sometimes we don't
get all the way where I think we should be,
but we're moving closer.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
And if you move.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
Closer and then over time have success then you might
move a little closer later, you know. But it's it's
a balancing act. It's it's it's like say, it's a
lot of psychology to be honest with you.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
And John does a great job with that. Encourage you
to give John a call at Fourth Avenue Financial can
help you out with all kinds of things when it
comes to helping you retire right. And this show also
every Monday morning at eight twenty. You can find out
more about Fourth Avenue Financial online. It's fourth Avenue Financial
dot com located once seventy Court Street, Downtown Charleson across
from the Town Center. Maul the phone number three zer
before seven four six seven seven seven three zero four
(38:01):
seven four six seven nine seven seven one more time
three zero four seven four six seven nine seven seven.
You can go to WHS network dot com slash retire
right and that will get you all of our previous episodes.
We have years worth of them up there now if
you like to go back and check out that sort
of thing. John, thanks so much for your time again
this week. We'll see you back here next Monday. All right,
take care, that sounds great. That's John Bredet for Fourth
Avenue Financial. Once again fourth Avenue Financial dot Com seven
(38:24):
four six seven non seven seven. Coming up next is
Dave Allen on The Dave Allen Show, followed by Talkline
with Dave Wilson and TJ. I'll be back this afternoon
at three oh six with Dave Weekly on Hotline. Have
a great day everyone. On five adw CHS Go Reds.
Speaker 5 (38:37):
Fight awhs AM ninety six point five back, then Charleston
one oh four point five Cross Lanes, a WVRC Media station.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
We are proud to live here too,