Episode 133 – Are You on the Right Track for Retirement?

Radio Show Transcript

Announcer 00:00

Three investment advisory services are offered through foundation investment advisors, LLC. an SEC registered investment advisor Brian Quaranta and his guests provide general information not individually targeted, personalized advice and are not liable for the usage of information discussed. Exposure to ideas and financial vehicles should not be considered investment advice or recommendation to buy or sell any of these financial vehicles. This information should also not be considered tax or legal advice, as performance is not a guarantee of future results, investments will fluctuate and when redeemed may be worth more or less than when originally invested. Any comments regarding safe and secure investments and guaranteed income streams refer only to fixed insurance products, they do not refer in any way to securities or investment advisory products, fixed insurance and annuity product guarantees are subject to the claims paying ability of the issuing company.

Brian Quaranta 00:39

It’s always about getting on the right track. And if you weren’t on the right track, when would you want to note that? Well, when we come back, we’re going to talk a little bit more about that we come right back right here On the Money with Secure Money.

Announcer 00:53

And now On the Money.

Brian Quaranta 00:56

Any good retirement plan starts with the foundation,

Announcer 00:59

asset protection, tax reduction, holistic planning,

Brian Quaranta 01:03

these are the things that start to move you towards having a retirement plan.

Announcer 01:06

Retirement doesn’t have to be complicated.

Brian Quaranta 01:10

You think that’s the difficult part? That’s just getting started!

Announcer 01:14

and now On the Money with Secure Money.

Steve 01:21

Hey, welcome everybody On the Money with Secure Money. That’s what we’re talking about here. Brian Quaranta is here with consumer advocate, Steve’s and Brian, of course, President CEO of secure money advisors, he is a fiduciary is an independent, and so much more. He’s an author to we’re going to talk about that. Plus, this is going to be a fun segment, Brian. Hi, how are you?

Brian Quaranta 01:39

I’m great. Steve, how are you doing? Always good to be with you?

Steve 01:42

Yeah, absolutely. And so we’ve got, you know, it is it’s true, you wake up I think when you turn 50 years old, and you and you have this realization that well wait a minute, I’ve got fewer years in front of me before I retired, then you know what I mean? It’s gonna happen, and we need to be ready. And at 50 years old, it’s a great place to if you haven’t started, it’s a great place to really begin to put that plan together.

Brian Quaranta 02:06

Well, first off, it’s never too late to start, right. I mean, there’s a lot of people that I’ve met that’s in their early 60s that are come in and go, you know, I don’t even know if I’m doing the right things. I don’t know if I have enough to retire how I’m going to retire. And you know, 22 years of doing this, this is why I’ve created the right track Retirement System, which focuses on the five most important areas of financial planning, which is number one, and most importantly as your income. Number two is taxes. Number three is how you’re invested. Number four is your health strategy for your health insurance and health events. And then more importantly, your estate planning strategy, you know, what happens to all the monies when the good Lord decides to take you home? And most people that I’ve met with, over the last 22 years of my career, typically the number one question they have is, Hey, are we on the right track? Are we doing the right things? are we contributing enough money? Are we in the right types of accounts? Are we doing the right type of tax planning at this point in our lives? Is there anything else that we should be thinking about? I think there’s a saying that goes something like this? You know, it’s the things that we don’t know that we don’t know that come to bite us a little bit later on in life? Right?

Steve 03:17

Right, exactly.

Brian Quaranta 03:19

It’s the things we don’t know that we don’t know. We know the things that we don’t know, but we don’t know the things that we don’t know. And that’s what we’re here for secure money advisors, because, you know, it’ll teach you about all the things that you don’t know that you don’t know. So that you can now know, but anyway, you know, you gotta work. You know, a lot of people will say, you know, comes down to focusing on the basics, and I think that’s 100% True. You know, the basics and the fundamentals of planning is where it’s really at. And, you know, that includes just simply, you know, starting to make contributions to some type of employer sponsored plan. And if you don’t have an employer sponsored plan, you know, you should be considering, you know, a traditional IRA or Roth IRA. I personally, like the Roth IRA over the traditional IRA, because I’d rather pay the taxes now, and all of my money gets to grow tax free, and I get to take all my money tax free. But let’s cover some basics. While you may have about 10 years left, let’s say you are 15, you have 10 years left, you’ll need to seriously review your current state of finances and decide, you know the steps to that you need to take So, number one and most importantly, as work with an advisor, it could be that you’ve never enjoyed working with financial times, but a retirement planning financial advisor will quickly become your best friend, when you’re trying to save a plan after the age of 40, an advisor that will also help you create a roadmap to help you get to and through retirement. And that’s really what we’ve done here at secure money advisors. We don’t call it a roadmap. We call it the right track. And we help you do that. A lot of people are intimidated by the process of maybe going in and seeing a financial advisor Azure, where maybe you’re at a point where you’ve been working with an advisor for a long time, it’s now time that you get a second opinion from someone that actually specializes in retirement planning. I’ll hear that a lot. People will say, you know, Brian, my guy just doesn’t do what you do. He doesn’t talk about income planning doesn’t talk about how to tax plan and get me to save on taxes and retirement isn’t talking about my health strategy or my investment strategy in retirement, because the things that you’ve done during your accumulation years are not the same things you’re going to do during your retirement years, which we also call your distribution years. So, there’s a lot that goes into it, Steve, I mean, we you know, that we talked about it every week, right? Well, yeah.

Steve 05:39

Brian, I mean, the point is, is, you know, as we start to go through this process, we have to take into account a lot of other things, and especially if we feel like we’re late, we may want to have more risk than we should.

Brian Quaranta 05:51

Yeah. And I would say don’t go crazy on risk, because you’re behind

Steve 05:55

Isn’t that an old Heart song. Crazy on risk? Oh, no-

Brian Quaranta 05:57

Crazy on Risk, it might be. You know, but depending on your goals, you might feel as though the only way to make up for extra time, is to pile on the risk to crazy levels, like buying Bitcoin and Ripple and Etherium. And, you know, trying to hit grand slams and individual tech stocks, who knows, right? But in fact, you don’t need to do this risk means you might lose as well as gain, it’s better to find middle ground that perhaps is riskier than those who started in their 20s. But isn’t considered overly risky, risky? You know, certainly, you know, wouldn’t wipe you out? I mean, things like cryptocurrency could wipe you out, possibly, right? Sure. Or even an individual tech stock could wipe you out.

Steve 06:44

You know, Brian, I mean, again, it comes down to just working with an advisor with someone you trust someone you know, and that’s what you do. I mean, you’re not out there trying to be everybody’s advisor for everything. No, no, you’ve got, you know, a limited number of clients, and you get to know them, and they get to know you. And that’s how you get from point A to point B. Well, the

Brian Quaranta 07:01

hardest part is the trust part, right. And yet, in a world we live in today, you know, we live in a time where trust is takes time to develop. So, you know, part of our process is having you come in, we sit down with you, we bring you through our right track system. There’s never any obligation or pressure to do anything. But our financial planning process is very thorough. So, we’re gonna take you through five key steps in the retirement planning process, we’re going to take you through income, we’re going to take you through a risk analysis, we literally will give you turn by turn directions of where you are right now, and where you need to go. And we’ll show you the adjustments you can make to improve your portfolio from a return perspective, risk perspective, how to generate more income in retirement than what you might be able to generate under your current situation. And we all do all of this complimentary. Now, if you like what we’ve show you, and you wanted to take the next step and help us helping you implement that. We can talk about what that looks like. But for the next 10 callers who call in. We’re going to give you a complimentary right track retirement analysis. That’s no cost to you. It just takes your time you got to pick up the phone and call us today. This is something you don’t want to kick the can down the road. Don’t procrastinate. Do your part. Come on in, sit down with us and we can show you how to get on the right track.

Steve 08:14

Hey, that sounds fantastic. Folks, take advantage of what he’s offering here today that opportunity to come on in, sit down. Get that financial roadmap put together, find out if you’re on the right track to retirement, Brian is there for you to help others help you understand break things down to make it a lot clearer and easier to understand. It’s a practical financial review starts with that phone call 800-656-8616. You’ll get that comprehensive financial review, and you will see where you are today. But more importantly, you’ll find that you now have a roadmap that can help get you to where you need to be when it comes to retirement. 800-656-8616 again, 800-656-8616 quick break for us. We’re going to come back and continue our conversation right here on the money with Secure Money and Brian Quaranta

Brian Quaranta 08:59

When we come back, we’re going to talk about the return on your investment and in some cases that doesn’t involve money. We’ll be right back with On the Money with Secure Money

Announcer 09:13

do you ever feel like you’re fighting for financial knowledge? Don’t let bad advice be a punch in the gut your retirement and take advantage of a complimentary no cost no obligation consultation with a local trusted financial coach. Call Brian Quaranta host of Retirement You Radio 800-656-8616 or text Brian Q to 800-656-8616 we’ve made it easy for you to take advantage of this fantastic offer. All you have to do is call or text Brian Q to 800-656-8616.

Steve 09:50

We are back on the money with secure money and Brian Quaranta here I’m consumer advocate Steve said Paul Ryan is President CEO of secure money advisors and this is something You know; you’re talking about return on investment. And we hear that all the time, Brian, but in terms of our retirement return on investment, that’s a different approach. It’s, interesting to sort of break this down. So, let’s, let’s do that. Sure.

Brian Quaranta 10:13

Well, the investment industry, which is my industry, which I so dearly love, but there’s lots of things I don’t like about it. But the investment industry itself is famous for focusing on return on investment, your ROI. But when it comes to your retirement nest egg, there’s more to consider than simply saving money and earning a return on investment. So, let’s talk about expenses as a return on investment, okay, so even expenses can be viewed as an investment really, and that heads right. So if that expense saves money in other ways, take energy efficient home upgrades, for example, if it costs $3,000, to insulate a home with new technology, and that saves $50 per month on the power bill, then that $3,000 costs should not be viewed as just as an expense, it should be considered an investment, that $50 savings per month is going to equate to an annual savings of $600, which goes directly back into the homeowners pocket. So, at the end of the day, it’s money back in your pocket, we talk about this a lot when it comes to income planning, Steve, because you see reducing your outflow, okay, increases your cash flow, right?

Steve 11:31

And that’s what really getting into retirements all about, isn’t it? It’s that cash flow.

Brian Quaranta 11:35

Right, reducing your outflow increases your cash flow. Don’t forget that folks, and this is what it’s all about. Its why people will, you know, when we look at paying off a mortgage versus not paying off a mortgage, so you know, I’ll take a couple that came in last month, they’re about three years out from retirement, they got about $80,000, left on the mortgage. And when I looked at the amount of money they have accumulated in their retirement accounts, their 401 K’s, their IRA accounts, they really had won the game, meaning they had saved enough money for them to be able to retire if they never put another dollar into those accounts. Now, we needed to position that money, so they didn’t lose it. But they had won the game, which means they didn’t have to continue to take a large amount of risk with it, they could make the portfolio much safer. But more importantly, when you looked at how much they were spending on their mortgage a month, which was about $1,500 a month, we looked at the difference of putting money into retirement accounts versus paying off the mortgage. And we look at we say, okay, if I put if I continue to put money into my retirement accounts, because they’re at risk, because they’re in their employer accounts, right, now, they run the risk of potentially losing that money, meaning they could put more money into those. But if the market goes down, it’s all gonna be taken away. Whereas if we don’t put any more money into retirement accounts, we protect the retirement accounts. But then we redirect that money, and we pay off the mortgage, we are guaranteed to pick up an extra $1,500 a month in additional cash flow, because we no longer will have the mortgage, it’s a better investment to pay off the mortgage than it is to continue to put it into the retirement accounts. Because we’re guaranteed to pick up the cash flow of $1,500 a month when the mortgage is paid off, we’re not guaranteed to be able to generate $1,500 in additional cash flow by putting money away into retirement accounts because we have no idea if the market is going to cooperate or not. So again, expenses are a return on your investment. And this is what we’re talking about here. And time is returned. How about time as return on invest?

Steve 13:50

Okay, I’ll be here curious to see how you break this one down. It’s, that’s an interesting approach to

Brian Quaranta 13:54

Alright, so let’s look at it like this. So, any return on investment, whether it’s the purchase of a stock or a bond or simply an expense, that results in savings can help investors reach long term financial goals. So, by the same logic, anything that helps you make the most out of your time can also be viewed as an investment. Everyone needs to know what a return on retirement really looks like. So, let’s break it down by the decades rather than days, I guess. So, return on time, how about the gogo years age 65 to 75, the gogo years may cost more because this is a decade that you likely will include dining out traveling social events. Oh, yeah. You know, other expenses. Yeah, right. These are the years that everybody wants to go do anything. However, if you plan it appropriately, these expenses may yield as much greater return on time. So that time will be filled with making more memories and surrounding ourselves with things we enjoy most. So, it’s okay. That it may lead to higher expenses if the planning is done right to support worth that the return on time, while still not completely quantifiable is easier to understand in this context. And then you could say, you know, the slow go years, right? 76 to 85, the slow go years may still involve an active lifestyle, social events, and then pickleball and pickleball, which everybody plays. Right, Larry Lewis, if you’re listening to me and all my clients that play pickleball, I mean, you know, I was a big racquetball player. And then everybody switched to pickleball. Right. So, I used to play racquetball all time with the Oxford club. Now, everybody plays pickleball, which I think is, you know, I have not played it yet. Believe it or not, though. You know, my days are spent here at secure money advisors because you’re a working man, because have a work. But again, the slow go years, right? So right, but this is this is all about quantifying the financial math and retirement and our right track retirement system that we’ve created is all about the math, we truly believe that one of the things people need more than anything is a tangible plan that they can touch, see feel, that is quantifiable with the math, black and white, simple, easy to understand. And that’s what our right track retirement system does. It focuses on five key areas income, taxes, investments, health care and legacy planning. It truly is designed Steve to take the mystery out of financial planning. And this is why for the next 10 callers who call in right now, we’re going to give you a complimentary right track retirement analysis, don’t miss this opportunity to get this analysis. Because just the risk analysis we do alone is so valuable. There’s so many people that come in and said, Brian, I didn’t realize until after you guys did that analysis, I was taking so much risk, I didn’t realize it was taking so much. I was paying so much in fees. And more importantly, a lot of people don’t realize they’re not getting the return for the risk that they’re taking. And our software is so powerful. And this is the great thing about technology is technology can do things that we’ve never been able to do for when we would manually analyze a portfolio. So again, folks are the next 10 callers. That’s a right track retirement review, we’re giving away complimentary no cost to you, all you got to do is pick up the phone, call us scheduled today. It literally will take the mystery out of financial planning, it’s gonna give you turn by turn directions of what to do and how to do it. And again, for the next 10 callers. That’s a complimentary right track retirement review.

Steve 17:19

Hey, that sounds fantastic. Folks, take advantage of the offer and get that financial roadmap put together, Brian is there for you. It’s a true practical financial review. And if you’re listening that give us a call 800-656-8616 You heard Brian 10 callers right now, we’ll get that comprehensive financial review, you’ll see where you are today. But more importantly, you’ll find that you now have a roadmap that can help get you to where you need to be when it comes to retirement 800-656-8616. Again, 800-656-8616. And we are going to take a quick break. But we’ll come right back and continue our conversation on the money with secure money and Brian Quaranta.

Announcer 18:04

He’s letting the clock run out on his social security at age 70 For maximum benefits. And here comes the Roth conversion. He’s got some outstanding coaching with that lifetime income plan. He’s created his own pension as well. And it looks like he’s going to go All! The! Way!

Play your best retirement game call Brian Q 800-656-8616, or text Brian Q to 800-656-8616 Call or text Brian Q to 800-656-8616.

Steve 18:40

And we’re back On the Money with Secure Money. And Brian Quaranta consumer advocate Steve, having a great conversation today covering some ground, Brian, I like it. We were talking about inflation. And then we talk about stress testing your portfolio understanding how to take that stress out of your portfolio and importantly, out of your life when it comes to retirement. What do you think, Brian?

Brian Quaranta 18:59

There’s a lot to it. Isn’t there? I know. Well. I know. We’ve got some quite a few questions.

Steve 19:07

Well, yeah. You were talking about stress test. And we talked about stress in your plan. I used to work for a guy who would say, You know what stress is? Well, yeah. You know what the absence of stress is? What’s that? Death?

Brian Quaranta 19:25

Right. Yeah, as long as we’re, as long as we’re alive, there’s going to be stress.

Steve 19:29

Exactly. I can help ease that a little bit. And yeah, tons of questions. So, Brian, let’s jump in while we still got some time, I guess. And we hear from Ron. He says I just turned 52 been working for the same company but 21 years. I came in at the tail end of pensions and was then converted to a 401k have never met with an advisor think it’s time. What should I be looking for and how should I prepare? I like that question.

Brian Quaranta 19:55

Very common these days, where we’ll see people that have been working for employers. is where they got in on the tail end of the pension, the pension was cut off, they now converted to a 401 K plan. So here you’ve got Ron who’s going to be retiring, he’ll probably get Social Security. On top of that, he’ll probably get a small pension because the pension at some point was stopped to go to the 401 K plan. But he’ll also have the balance of the 401 K plan, that he’ll be able to generate some cash flow from it if he needs it. But you know, Ron is exactly like everybody as they’re shifting to retirement, what Ron should be looking for, and what he should be preparing for. And more importantly, is his income strategy in retirement. Remember, folks, the driving force behind the retirement plan is the income strategy. Because when you stop working, the paycheck is going to stop, but bills, taxes and all the things that you want to do, that’s not going to stop. So, we have to have a way to replace that. You know, and Ron’s probably never sat down with anybody that focuses on the distribution phase, he’s probably, you know, so focused on just accumulating money, he doesn’t know how to actually take the money that he’s been putting away and has an all these different plans and organize it in a way where he can see, hey, if I retire at 62, I’m going to be fine. If I retire at 60, I’ll be fine. And that’s part of our job here at secure money advisors is to show you number one, could you retire earlier than you thought? And what would be the benefits of waiting so but the five key areas is what he should be preparing for income taxes, investments, health care and legacy planning. Folks, I promise you, if you focus on those five key areas, you make sure every i is dotted and every T is crossed, you’re going to have a great retirement.

Steve 21:39

I like the sound of it. Brian 800-656-8616. Ron, if you’d like to go sit down with Brian. Sharon is wondering, she says, I’ve seen a lot of commercials recently for ETFs. But I don’t really understand how they work. Can you explain and then do you find them to be a good or a bad investment? That’s a good question.

Brian Quaranta 21:59

Yeah, well, again, flip phone versus smartphone. Right. So, think of your mutual funds, right? Everybody knows pretty much, you know, what a traditional mutual fund is, it’s a basket of managed stocks. So if you were to look at, let’s say, a growth fund from any specific fund family, you’re gonna see maybe 50 to 100 stocks, within that, within that mutual fund, and those stocks are managed, they’re not very tax efficient, they can generate a lot of turnover, which in turn, could have the client pay more taxes than necessary ETFs have come into the marketplace, which provide a higher level of diversification much, much, much lower and cost, they trade at a real stock value, meaning I can buy an ETF at 1pm, sell it at 130. And I can get a buy price and a sell price. Whereas with my mutual fund, if I want to put a sell in in the morning and the mutual funds up, I don’t get the sale price until the end of the day known as the nav or net asset value. And my that could have gone over and down over time. So, you’re gonna find that mutual funds are slowly started to become kind of the dinosaurs of the industry. I don’t think they’re ever going to go away because there’s trillions of dollars in mutual funds, companies have invested their entire strategy into mutual funds. But moving forward, you’re going to see lots of people moving towards ETFs, a lot more flexibility, lower cost can be managed actively, much better and much more tax efficiently that we’re seeing with any other investments. So, I personally use ETFs. Sharon, if that means anything to you of how I feel about them. But the main difference is the fact that highly diversified lower fees, and you get a real share price.

Steve 23:47

All right. Well, let’s see. We have time for one more. I’m going to go to Ernie. He’s wondering about Social Security benefits being withheld because of excess earnings. He’s wondering if they’re returned to you in monthly installments once you hit full retirement age.

Brian Quaranta 24:00

Gee, Steve, I don’t know the answer that one.

Steve 24:02

It’s right below there. Oh,

Brian Quaranta 24:04

Ah. All right. Let’s ask the question again.

Steve 24:09

Okay, here we go. And we’ve got time for one more. Let’s go to Ernie as he’s wondering about a Social Security benefits being withheld because of excess earnings. What he’s wondering is if those months if those earnings are returned to you in monthly installments when you reach full retirement age?

Brian Quaranta 24:24

Yeah, good question. So, after you reach full retirement age, Ernie, here’s basically what they’re going to do. We will recalculate your benefit amount to give you a credit for any month in which you did not receive a benefit because of your earnings. They’ll send you a letter telling you about it any increase and your benefit amount. Keep in mind it’s actually really divided out over a longer period of time. So, you get it back, but it takes a long time to get it back. So

Steve 24:49

there’s no lump sum deal going on there.

Brian Quaranta 24:51

No lump sum deal. No lump sum deal. But again, Steve, this is why we offer the right track retirement because everybody wants to know if You’re on the right track. And if you are listening to us today, and you want help getting on the right track, reach out to us schedule a time for the next 10 callers. We’re going to give you a complimentary right track retirement review. It’s going to help you go over those five key areas income taxes, investments, health care and legacy planning. It’s truly going to take the mystery out of financial planning. It’ll give you a peace of mind and security that you deserve going into retirement, knowing you have a full written plan and that you’ve executed on everything that you need to execute on. But you got to do your job. You got to pick up the phone and call us today to schedule that time. Hey, that

Steve 25:33

sounds fantastic. Folks, here it is last opportunity today to give us a call 800-656-8616 You heard Brian 10 callers right now get that comprehensive financial review. You’ll see where you stand today. But what’s more important as you’ll find you’ve got a roadmap a guide, it’s going to help get you to where you need to be when it comes to retirement 800-656-8616 Again 800-656-8616 Brian is always a pleasure to be here with you and again such great information for everybody today.

Brian Quaranta 26:03

Thanks a lot Steve. And folks, we will see you again here next week with On the Money with Secure Money have a great week.

Announcer 26:17

Investment Advisory services are offered through foundation investment advisors, LLC, an SEC registered investment advisor Brian Quaranta and his guests provide general information not individually targeted, personalized advice and are not liable for the use of drip information. Discuss exposure to ideas and financial vehicles should not be considered investment advice or recommendations, buy or sell any of these financial vehicles. This information should also not be considered tax or legal advice. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. investments will fluctuate and when redeemed may be worth more or less than when originally invested. Any comments regarding safe and secure investments and guaranteed income stream for only two fixed insurance products did not refer in any way to securities or investment advisory products. Fixed insurance and annuity product guarantees are subject to the claims paying ability of the issuing company