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Video Transcript
Randy Major – 00:21
Hello, and welcome to On The money with secure money. I’m your host, Randy major. And joining me today is president and founder of secure money advisors, Brian Quaranta. Hi, Brian.
Brian Quaranta – 00:33
Hi, Randy. How are you?
Randy Major – 00:34
I’m doing great. How are you today?
Brian Quaranta – 00:35
I’m doing fantastic. Thanks for having me.
Randy Major – 00:37
I’m excited to get into it to today’s show, we’ve got a lot to discuss, as usual, the viewers at home have a lot of questions, but right out of the gates, I’m curious about inflation, I think it’s something we’re all feeling. Seeing everywhere we shop. Yeah, how can we protect our retirement savings?
Brian Quaranta – 00:57
I’m telling you, it’s a we, this is probably the most real situation of inflation that we’ve seen in a long time. You know, I can remember, few months ago, while probably going back maybe eight or nine months ago, I went I would go to the gas station, it would cost me $50 To fill my truck. And then I remember sometime in June, because it was right around Maddox, his two year old two year birthday. Went to the gas station, and it cost me $77 To fill my tank. So it’s real. And the concern is this when you’re working, it’s different, because you kind of can just absorb it with the salaries that you’re making. It might get a little bit tighter, right, but you’re not going to feel it as much. But think about those that are retired on a fixed income, like Social Security, and a pension. Or like we always talk about if you don’t have a pension, maybe you got to withdraw more money from your retirement accounts. And that has big impacts. And so it has, there’s concerns there that have to be addressed, because inflation is alive and well. It will always be alive and well. Right? There’s too many people going after product right now, which inflates the price. Maybe it comes down, maybe it doesn’t, we don’t know. But we’ve got to be prepared for it. So one of the ways that we can prepare for inflation is the utilization of the stock market. But here’s the problem. If you use the stock market, the biggest fear we all have is what if the market goes down? So here, here’s my, here’s my objection against the way the industry talks about how easily it’s can the the inflation problem can be solved by using the market. So let’s just use the example of somebody that has $500,000. Okay, they’re invested in a stock market, because they want to keep pace with inflation. Now all of a sudden, the market goes down, and they lose 50% of their money. And their 500,000 goes to 250. How does that inflation strategy look, now, you’ve got a bigger problem here, because you’re way behind now from where you should be. And now you’ve got to recover that money. So one of the things that we’ve designed at secure money advisors, and it’s taken me 23 plus years to figure this out, is in retirement, you have to mitigate downside risk. So we have to use the market. But we also have to draw a line in the sand and say, hey, if the markets go down, I can’t lose beyond this amount. See, the biggest anxiety that anybody has invested in the market is if it goes down, they don’t know how much they’re gonna lose. Well, what if there was a way to actually draw a line in the sand that says, hey, let’s try not to go past this number. So let’s just say that number is 10%. So the market drops, and it drops 50%. But you don’t lose more than 10%. In the world we live in today. With technology, we have the ability to do these types of things with investment portfolios, where we can create these downside parameters that help from your money free falling 50% And really being behind on inflation now, but it’s important that we use market investments to keep pace with inflation. But again, the right ones make a big difference. Now
Randy Major – 04:34
do you find most of your clients are coming in and saying hey, I want to make some adjustments. I’m not willing to take this risk now and are you able to go head back in their portfolio and kind of rewrite it a little bit?
Brian Quaranta – 04:47
Well, we use a very powerful software to do an analysis on their current portfolio. And we don’t want to change things that are that are doing well or have good track records and sometimes it might just be taking a little piece from here and making a switch. And you can improve the overall portfolio. And what our portfolio analysis software does, it will actually tell you how much risk you’re taking. And it will also compare that to the return you’re getting. So what do I mean by that? Well, if I’m taking this much risk, but I’m only getting this much return, that’s out of line with one another, right? I want to try to take this much risk, but try to get this much return, right, where we’re actually trying to potentially minimize losses and maximize returns. And through the power of technology, we have the ability to go in just like you would diagnose a car today, right back in the day, you know, you go back to my dad’s and my grandfather’s times, you know, diagnosing a problem in the car, would require all night, sit in the garage and starting it up and listening. And, you know, checking the carburetors, checking the timing belts, checking the distributor cap, there was a lot of troubleshooting that went into trying to figure that out. Now, when you diagnose a problem with a car, you just go and you plug it in. And that’s the same thing with investments. See, investments used to be very complicated to a certain degree, because you know, back in the day, you might pick your stocks, looking through the Wall Street Journal, and looking at the stock section of the mutual fund section, maybe doing some analysis. But today, we can literally plug your portfolio into a diagnostic machine. And it will actually kick back the data and say, hey, here are all the trouble areas, and you can fix these. And that’s how we help people improve what they’re currently doing with the right track, retire with the right system. That’s right, because everybody wants to be on the right track. Of course, everybody wants to be on the right track. Yes.
Randy Major – 06:47
And if you aren’t on the right track, wouldn’t you want to know right now, I mean, it’s never too early to start planning for a peaceful and stress free retirement. And this is a great time, Brian to tell the viewers about the amazing offer you have for them today.
Brian Quaranta – 07:03
Well, the right track Retirement System truly was designed to keep things simple. It covers the five key areas of financial planning, income, taxes, investments, health care, and legacy planning. Those are all five very important areas. When we bring you on our journey, our roadmap that we have with all of our clients and potential clients. The first step in the process really is to listen and understand what you’re currently doing, help you identify your goals and determine where you are, once we know where you are, then we can educate you on what things need to be potentially changed, and give you turn by turn directions to help you improve what you’re currently doing. Now, if you decided you’d want to move forward with us, that’s simple, too. Because we have an entire dedicated team that works with you in onboarding and helping you implement the plan that we just designed. And then we have ongoing monitoring, and ongoing client services. And our firm, we give you unlimited financial planning appointments throughout the course of the year, at no additional cost. So for the next 10 callers, call us right now, for the right track retirement review. It’s complimentary, the phone number is 888-382-1298. Again, 1-888-382-1298, you’ve got to do your part, pick up the phone, call us and schedule today.
Randy Major – 08:37
Folks, the phone lines are now open. If you’re watching at home, and you’ve been on the fence about getting a retirement analysis, I encourage you pick up the phone and call now. 888-382-1298. If you’d like to retire with peace of mind, today is the day to give Brian and team a call. We will be back in 90 seconds we’ll talk more about inflation.
Commercial Break – 09:01
Everybody can tell you how to invest your money. There’s not a lot of people out there and a lot of firms that can teach you how to use your money. Most people also tell you that they’re scared. And the reason they’re scared is because they’re afraid of running out of money. The last thing you want to do is have a really good job and your 60s retire, be looking for work again in their late 70s. The average person might say Well, a good portfolio would be a good mix of stocks, bonds and mutual funds not in a good portfolio is all designed around the five key areas income, taxes, investments, health care and legacy planning. There’s we’re not just product pickers here. What we do best here as we build retirement plans, nine out of 10 people when they walk through the door would ask us we just want to know if we’re on the right track. And I always say if you’re not on the right track, when would be a good time to know it. Probably now, people you know can actually see a vision once we start to really build out their plan. This is about you if you’re not getting what you need, and you feel that when you walk out of the advisors office, it’s time to get a second opinion. And you can’t get a second opinion from the person that gave you the first. The difference at secure money advisors, as a fiduciary firm, we help you manage the risk, build the income, and give you the retirement
Randy Major – 10:31
Welcome back, thank you for staying with us. I’m your host, Randy major, talking with Brian quanta of secure money advisors. Brian, I want to talk about a little more about inflation. I always hear about gold as a hedge against inflation. Yeah. What are your thoughts on this?
Brian Quaranta – 10:47
Well, it’s it’s an interesting debate these days, because, you know, gold used to stand on its own. All metals did, but now we’ve got things like cryptocurrency, you know, I, you know, I have to admit, I do own some gold myself. Every time I look at it in my safe, I think to myself, What in the world that I buy this for? Because I don’t think Randy, I’m ever going to be walking in the giant eagle with a little gold bar and a shaver and a scale to buy a loaf of bread. Now I could potentially see one day transacting a Bitcoin for that. But But now, the golden fuzziness will say, Well, gold is used more than currency. It’s used for manufacturing, for devices like phones and things along those lines. But you know, if gold is one of those things that I just never really seen any good results from it. It doesn’t make me comfortable. I think if you’re going to add gold to a portfolio, you might do it through some type of ETF, where you can actually get in and out of it very quickly. But a lot of the Golden foods, yes, want to own physical gold, right, which is just a completely different animal in itself. But there’s a lot of fear mongering, there’s a lot of fear mongering around the dollar, and the the collapse of the economy. And a lot of these individuals that are doing the fear mongering, push these conversations about gold. And so you know, I think in the world we live in today, if you are adding gold to a portfolio, you could probably do that through a good ETF or even a mutual fund.
Randy Major – 12:29
So right now, inflation is about 6%. You said earlier,
Brian Quaranta – 12:32
5.66, somewhere around the area, let’s talk about low performing funds at a time like this. Yeah, well, it’s a problem. It’s a problem. Remember, we talked about that diagnostic machine, right, you could plug your car, and it tells you everything that’s wrong. And this is when we do a portfolio analysis. That’s exactly what we’re doing. Okay, we’re looking for funds or investments that are not performing compared to their peers. The problem is, you know, there’s over six to 7000 different mutual funds out there. There’s very few top performers, and mutual fund investing, which most people do, you know, through major companies, which I’m not going to name any of them. But everybody knows what a traditional mutual fund is. If you’re invested in your company’s 401k, you probably have some type of mutual fund or something along those lines. But mutual funds are kind of like this old technology, think of mutual funds, almost like the flip phone, remember the flip phone? Or how about how about the cell phone that was like the size of a brick, right? My favorite movie Wall Street with Michael Douglas, he’s talking on the beach, it was, you know, the size of a wreck. But that’s kind of where mutual funds have gone. They’re kind of a little bit of old technology. If you look at the new technology today, you have things that are much more cost effective, like ETFs, right, that that trade daily, that have a second a second stock price, are much more efficient to build diversification with n, we also have the ability to get active professional management with the ETF structures compared to a mutual fund, which is more of a set it and forget it portfolio. See most people don’t realize that when you buy a mutual fund. Typically when you buy that allocation, the advisor is never really going to change it. Okay, one, if the advisor changes that too often, there’s actually a law that could cause him to lose his license for making too many excessive trades in a short period of time. And that’s called churning, especially in the mutual fund world, right? So if he changes too many times, they might be subjected to a churning charge. So they say, Hey, let’s put together a good portfolio and we’ll set it and forget it. And this is where the cookie cutter phrases in my industry have been created. So when the markets go down, the first thing the advisor tells you is don’t worry about it. Hang in there. You’re in in Florida. That’s right. You probably said long haul I know you did. You’re in it for the long haul. If you’ve heard that cookie cutter phrase, I’m telling you it’s time to get a second opinion because The question you have to ask yourself is, how much long haul do you have left? You see, it’s not about the markets not coming back, because they typically do over a period of time. The question you have to ask yourselves, if you’re going into retirement, you’re already retired and the markets go down. And your advisor says, Don’t worry about it hang in there. You’re in it for the long haul. Well, how are you going to be in it for the long haul? If you need to generate income from that portfolio right now, you’re not in it for the long haul anymore? Not only that, but you have to ask yourself, how long is it going to take the market to come back? So would the market actually recover in the time period that you needed to recover in. And this is why we believe in the right track retirement system, because one of the things we teach you, when we get to the investment strategy side is how to build a bucketing strategy. And I like to look at it in three buckets. We have now money, soon, money, and later money. And this helps really separate monies for different time periods in life. And when you separate monies like that for different time periods, it helps with understanding the direction you need to go with the investment strategy for each of those buckets.
Randy Major – 16:13
Brian, there may be viewers at home that just are on the fence they’re hesitant to call, what would you say to them to encourage them to call today?
Brian Quaranta – 16:22
Well, most people are typically hesitant, because they don’t know what to expect, right? Think about how intimidating it could be to walk into an advisors office, you know, and lay out your entire financial life in front of them. People are afraid of being sold something, they’re afraid of being criticized for what they’ve done. And so I think that process is intimidating. And so therefore, they don’t want to put themselves in a situation to go through that. So at secure money advisors, our promise to you is that you won’t be sold anything, you’re not going to be criticized for what you’re doing. It’s a very black and white conversation. What are we doing right now? Where do we need to go? What exactly is the purpose of money? What do we need the money to do for us. And once we identify and get very clear with them on what the goals are with the money, now we can properly help them, give them turn by turn directions of how to approach the strategy itself. But the fear of not coming in, comes from the intimidation of walking through the financial advisors office, and, you know, possibly being sold something or being asked questions that you don’t have answers to. And one thing we’ve done really well, and I’m very proud of my team for doing it is we have taken a very complicated topic, like retirement planning that has a lot of moving parts. And we’ve condensed it down to some basic fundamentals that anybody can understand. And when you have a simple and easy to understand plan, you move forward, and you have confidence and peace of mind in retirement.
Randy Major – 18:02
Now, how long does a first appointment take? And how could someone be prepared when they come and see for the first time?
Brian Quaranta – 18:07
That’s a great question. And when you come in for your right track retirement review, this is what you can expect. First off, we meet for about 45 minutes to an hour. That’s it. I have and my team has some of you may meet directly with me, I still do a few meetings from from time to time. Sometimes I joined my team members for meetings. But we have a series of questions that we’ll go through with you. Now you’re probably going to have your questions. But we’re going to have a lot of questions to you know, just as you’re interviewing us, we want to interview you and determine Hey, are we even the right people for the job? Can we even accomplish what you need to have done with your planning if we can accomplish it for you? We’re very upfront with him. We let you know that. And we’ve got a lot of other strategic partners in place that we may be able to refer you to that may be able to help you also. So 45 minutes to an hour. Randy is about what it takes. We go through a series of questions, we go through the five key areas income, taxes, investments, health care and legacy planning. So complimentary folks, complimentary right track retirement review, no cost to you. You’ve just got to do your part. Pick up the phone call us today. It’s 1-888-382-1298.
Randy Major – 19:23
Folks, you heard him you have nothing to lose today’s the day to get that ball rolling. Today’s the day to get that second opinion and make sure you’re retiring with peace of mind the numbers on your screen 888-382-1298. We’re going to take a very short break and come back with some viewer questions if I
Brian Quaranta – 19:41
could help you increase your income. If I could help you pay less taxes if I could help you potentially maximize the returns of your investments while reducing risk reducing fees if I could help you prepare for a health event or more importantly, when the good Lord decides to take you home to make sure that the money you’ve accumulated over your lifetime goes to your family and to your charities, rather than the IRS, would that be worth the time to come in and get a second opinion?
Randy Major – 20:10
Welcome back. Thanks for staying with us. We are going to get to some viewer questions. Brian, are you ready to answer some questions, the
Brian Quaranta – 20:17
phone lines, like I always am amazed by how many questions we get, of course, you know, and again, this goes back to everything I talked about how people are really hungry for information. So let’s see if I’ve got answers. I don’t know,
Randy Major – 20:31
get to it. So Susan, and cranberry called in and she wants to know, within an IRA, is there a tax advantage to withdrawing from a bond fund versus a stock fund? What do you recommend in minimizing taxes when withdrawing from a tax deferred account? Like an IRA or 401k?
Brian Quaranta – 20:50
Yeah, great question. First off, the investments that you have within the IRA account doesn’t matter whether it’s a stock or bond, right, they’re all going to be treated the same when you withdraw the money. So it doesn’t matter whether I sell a little money out of my bond account, or my stock account when that money comes out of the IRA. Ira being the key phrase here, right? Because the IRA is the account. Right? So when it comes out of there, it’s going to trigger a taxable event period. Bottom line. So and this is what we talk about a lot when it comes to taxation, because what Susan’s really asking there is, what can I expect to happen when I start withdrawing this money. So what Susan’s gonna experience here is, and then, you know, I’m making an assumption, let’s just say Susan needs $1,000 a month in additional income from her investments. And let’s say she’s got a mix between stocks and bonds within her IRA. Well, it doesn’t matter. I mean, she takes doesn’t matter where the money comes from. As soon as she takes out the IRA, she could pay taxes, let’s say she’s in a 20% tax bracket, okay. So she takes $1,000 out in a 20% tax bracket, that means she’s only going to net $800, because she’s got to pay the taxes. Now, this is where the problem comes in with an inflation with inflation and taxation. So think about where inflation is right now. So you just paid 20% in taxes, you gotta roughly close to a 6% inflation rate, think about the dropping of that purchasing power right now. Now, let’s say they raise taxes, let’s say taxes, go to 30%. Now, Susan withdrawals that $1,000. And now she only nets $700, because maybe she’s got to pay 30%. Now in taxes. So this is why tax planning is so important. It’s one of the most overlooked areas in financial planning. There are so many strategies that people can use from charitable remainder trust, charitable partnerships, Roth conversion strategies, mega backdoor Roth IRAs, section 7702, where we’re able to build up cash value in certain types of policies that are tax free. And people are missing these opportunities to create income or money in the future, that’s tax free. What Susan has is the problem that most Americans have. And that is she’s got money in a tax deferred account, which means every dollar she takes out is going to become taxable. And folks, here’s what I would tell you, if you have a 401k plan, if you have a traditional IRA, you need to do tax planning. Because the IRS, just think about your balance. So you have a 401k plan, just envision your balance for a minute. Now, cut it by about 30 to 40%. Because that’s how much of that account the IRS owns, and they’re going to get it from you, they’re going to get it from you. Even if you don’t need to take money out of it, they’re going to get it from you when you start taking required minimum distributions, which right now is at the age of 72. And believe me, with the change in the secure Act, which we didn’t talk about on this episode, they’re going to get it when you die. And a lot of the money in those accounts are going to go to the IRS and not to your families. And with proper tax planning. You can get rid of the IRS, and all the growth of your money and all the income of your money in the future can all be tax free to you with proper tax planning. And that’s why in our five key areas, tax planning is number two, because it makes a big difference when you’re building a retirement portfolio to make sure you have a tax efficient plan.
Randy Major – 24:17
Great answer and great questions. Susan, thank you for calling in. We have time for one more. Jean in green tree wrote in called in. I have two different retirement accounts. One that is in my main account that I’m contributing to an on track for retirement, but I also have another Ira from a previous employee worth about 330,000. I’d like to cash that out and buy investment property but I’m not sure about the taxes and penalties. I don’t want a huge tax bill at the end of the year. I’m currently in the 28% tax bracket with an AGI of $250,000. What should I do to minimize losing money? Okay. That’s a loaded question. Wow. Who is that from? Jean Grey?
Brian Quaranta – 25:00
Gene? That is a big question. So well, first off, again, as a fiduciary, I got to be very careful here because I don’t know her whole situation. But let’s just talk about some basics here. And I’m just talking in general not giving specific advice to her. So but if she wants to buy investment property, okay, she can use a self directed IRA custodian, and she could buy the, the investment properties within her IRA, what she’s talking about is pulling the money out of the IRA, creating a huge taxable event, right, and then using it to buy the investment property. So instead of doing that, with a proper self directed custodian, she could actually buy the investment property within the IRA. There are certain tracking rules that go along with that and everything and there’s record keeping that needs to go, but it would avoid, in this case, a taxable event.
Randy Major – 25:55
Wow, I learned so much from you, Brian, and I hope you all are at home too. Thank you for that question. Jean. We have two minutes left, I’ll ask one more. Okay, we’re Ken and Southpark wants to know, I just retired and have to decide if I should leave my money in my 401k with my previous employer or move it to an IRA. I know the IRA gives me more investment options, but do I really need them? I also need to decide if I should place it in in the funds at a target retirement fund or allow my portfolio to be actively managed.
Brian Quaranta – 26:22
Yeah. Well, I mean, it really depends. I mean, you know, if Ken’s kind of a do it yourselfer, then I would just say go the easy, lazy route, Ken and leave it in your 401k. I just, that’s probably not the best idea. But you got to be motivated to make the changes that are in your best interest. fundamentally speaking, though, all right. We’re just talking textbook planning here. Typically, when you leave your employer, think about this. People leave their employer. They take the pictures of their kids, they take, they clean out their desks, they take their staplers they take all their stationery, but they leave their darn money. Makes no sense to me. You clear everything out of there except for your money. So you’re very limited when it comes to 401k options. And so rolling into a self directed IRA does maximize your ability to get some better investment management. But this is why we offer the right track retirement system for the next 10 callers who call in right now. That’s a complimentary retirement review. Again, the right track retirement system designed to make it simple and easy to understand. It’s our five key areas, income taxes, investments, health care and legacy planning. Do your part though. Pick up the phone call us today. 1-888-382-1298.
Randy Major – 27:37
Brian, thank you so much for another wonderful show viewers at home. Thank you so much for spending time with us. We will see you right here next week.