Brian Quaranta discusses six potential stressors to avoid for a successful retirement.
To see a full schedule of our radio airtimes, please click here.
Radio Show Transcript
Announcer 00:00
Information provided is for illustrative purposes only and does not constitute investment tax or legal advice information has been obtained from sources that are deemed to be reliable, but their accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed. Neither Brian Quaranta nor his guests are liable for the usage of information discussed always consult with a qualified investment legal or tax professional before taking any action.
And now Retirement You Radio
Asset protection, tax reduction, holistic planning
Featuring Pittsburgh’s wealth, financial, and income coach Brian Quaranta
Brian Quaranta 00:38
Does the planning for retirement bring out the stress in you? You’re not alone on today’s show we’re gonna highlight six potential retirement stressors to avoid we come right back on Retirement You Radio.
Steve 00:52
Welcome everybody. This is retirement you radio increasing your financial IQ with BrianQ. Brian Quaranta, of course, is who we’re talking about. He is a president and CEO of Secure Money Advisors. He’s fiduciary, he’s got over 20 years in the business and independent all of the things that make for a good advisor. Hey, Brian, what’s new?
Brian Quaranta 01:10
Hey, Steve, how are you doing?
Steve 01:12
I’m doing well. Thanks, doing well, you know, spring is here, pollen’s in the air. We’re sneezing, all that good stuff?
Brian Quaranta 01:20
All that good stuff. I know. And the stress of retirement, right? Well, although it really shouldn’t be that stressful. I mean, you know, I’ve always said that it’s actually pretty simple. I think my industry has done a really good job in making it more difficult than what it needs to be. And there’s actually a lot of simplicity in it. But for some reason, with all the noise in the marketplace, whether that be you’re trying to get financial advice from Google, or a TV show, or whatever, it can be quite, quite noisy in the marketplace. And sometimes that’s because that does become a stressor. I mean, I was just talking to a lady last week. And, you know, she finally decided to hire us to help her with her retirement, she had been to four different advisors. And she was so confused. And, you know, she said that, you know, four different advisors and four different opinions on how she’s going to take your social security, so I can understand why people can be a little bit stressed about it.
Steve 02:12
Wow. I mean, I know there’s a lot of different claiming strategies, but there’s- certainly it’s not difficult to find the one that’s right for you. I mean, that’s what you do?
Brian Quaranta 02:21
Well, it shouldn’t be difficult, because you know, at the end of the day, the claiming strategies that are still available out there can help you maximize the amount of money that you get from Social Security. But the question is what’s right for you, but I think where the mistake is made is that, you know, in theory, or you know, from a textbook planning standpoint, something may make sense, right, but actually, in practice, it doesn’t. And what I mean by that is, we all know, something as simple as, should I take my Social Security early? Or should I delay it? Well, we know if you delay it, you’re going to get an 8% increase every single year that you wait to collect your Social Security. And at the age of seven, you can collect your maximum amount. But you also, if you don’t collect it early, you miss out on all those years prior to not collecting. So, it takes you up until about age 80, to 83, to break even and depending on what your situation is, like, I mean, whether you know what I mean, by that your health situation, it may or may not make sense for you. And I think, you know, when you’re looking at just something as simple as when should I take my Social Security, and you’re not taking into account everything else, you know, your health, you know, what your potential life expectancy could be for your family, you’re not taking into account other income sources that you might have from investments, or rental properties, or anything along those lines, you really can’t make a decision just based around when should I take my Social Security. What we have found, though, is that for those people that take Social Security earlier than later, it actually helps preserve their investments for a longer period of time, because for every dollar we get in Social Security, it’s less money that we actually have to take out their retirement accounts, so that these people can actually get retired sooner than later.
Steve 04:07
I mean, it makes sense there, Brian, because I mean, I know that there are a number of advisors who just blanketly say, You got to wait till you’re 70 to take Social Security. That’s the only option. And that really isn’t the case. I mean, it just depends on individual situations. And especially if there’s a couple I mean, there’s a lot of different strategies that come into play.
Brian Quaranta 04:25
Yeah. And that’s why we’re having a written plan is so important in actually having a written income plan for life. You know, retirees often say that they’re their biggest worry is running out of money. I mean, you know, 20 years ago, people’s biggest fear was dying. Now, their biggest fear is running out of money before they die. And you know, the most important thing that you can do moving into retirement or if you’re even retired is to have a written income in place, and the written income plan acts like a compass. It helps us look at what direction we need to go based on certain scenarios, so what I mean by that if I have Bob and Mary retiring, and maybe they’re making x amount of dollars together while they’re both retired, what happens if one of them dies? How much income are we going to lose? What happens if one of them has a health event? How are we going to pay for the health event? And by building out a cash flow plan or written income plan, we can make all these what-if scenarios happen on paper, and we can adjust for those improperly plan to mitigate any risks that we see within the cash flow model.
Steve 05:29
I like the sound of that, Brian. And again, folks, if you’d like the sound of that, too, 800-656-8616 is the number that’ll get you in. And so, we’re talking about some stressors that you can help us alleviate and the wrong investment return assumption, based on the income plan that can sort of be a wildcard candidate?
Brian Quaranta 05:50
Well, yeah,I mean, using the wrong investment return assumption, in your income plan prior to retirement is a huge mistake people make I mean, a lot of times they overestimate the returns that they may see. So, if you’re I mean, if you’re counting on a 9% return to make your plan work, for example, and the market doesn’t cooperate. You’re already in trouble there.
Steve 06:11
Well, yeah, well, how is the market gonna cooperate. I mean, I realized the last 10 years have been a good run, but you know, there’s going to be ups and downs,
Brian Quaranta 06:20
well, there always will be ups and downs. And as we all know that the most important thing that you can have on your side when you’re investing in the market is time. Well, what we mean by having time is not touching that money. The problem is, is that there’s two phases to retirement, there’s the accumulation phase and the distribution phase, the distribution phase is when we start to take money out of the retirement accounts that we’ve accumulated over the last 35 years, or 40 years, however long you’ve been accumulating those dollars. And if you’re taking that out of a portfolio that can go up and down. You know, when you pull money out in the markets, now, you’re locking into those losses, you’re compounding those losses, and you’re making it very difficult for that portfolio to do what it needs to do. And this is why people will run the risk of running out of money before they die. And so we want to make sure that we have a very well thought out plan that mitigates the risk of market volatility, because the market is not going to cooperate 100% of the time, I don’t care how good of an investor you are, it’s just not going to cooperate 100% of the time, as a matter of fact, for the next 10 callers who call in right now, we’re going to help create a one-page financial review, that’s going to indicate whether or not you’re in need of a full-blown financial plan. Now, this plan is really going to help you determine whether or not you’re on the right track. And we created the Right Track System, ultimately, because most people that came to the office would always ask, I just want to make sure that I’m on the right track. Well, if you’re not on the right track, when would you want to know that, when would be a good time? Its probably now, would be a better time to know, right? So, Steve, weve seen others charge up to $1,000 or more for similar features or offers. But we do the review at no cost, no obligation if you’re one of the next 10 callers. But you’ve got to do your part, you’ve got to pick up the phone call in and we’re literally going to help you take the mystery out of financial planning, helping you map out where you are right now and where you need to go. We’ll run a free report a tax analysis, I’ll show you how to build a customized income plan, utilizing proven strategies that can literally turbocharged your retirement income and give you much more income than what you thought was possible in retirement. Most importantly, we’re going to take all the guesswork out of it. So again, that’s for the next 10 callers who call in right now. At the Right Track Retirement Meeting. At no cost, no obligation, complimentary to you if you call in right now.
Steve 08:37
800-656-8616 you heard Brian the next 10 callers are going to get that comprehensive financial review. You’re going to see where you are today. But more importantly, you’ll end up with that roadmap that can really help get you to where you need to be when it comes to retirement 800-656-8616 Again 800-656-8616, you can also text Brian directly That’s BrianQ we’ll make it all one-word BrianQ 221000.
Brian Quaranta 09:04
When we come back, we’re going to continue to talk about the stressors to avoid in retirement a lot more we come right back right here on Retirement You Radio.
Announcer 09:15
When should I take my Social Security? How much risk can I tolerate? I’m afraid I’m overpaying my taxes. Did I save enough? I can’t keep up with all these rules. There are a lot of components to your retirement planning, and it can seem overwhelming. It’s time to establish a partnership with a professional who can provide you with a written plan, the proper strategies, and then be there with you along the way. Call BrianQ 800-656-8616 or text BrianQ to 800-656-8616. Call or text BrianQ to 800-656-8616
Steve 09:49
We are back on Retirement You Radio, I’m consumer advocate Steve and of course Retirement You Radio is increasing your financial IQ with BrianQ it’s clever I know. Brian Quaranta, also clever. He’s president and CEO of Secure Money Advisors. You know, he’s an independent, over 20 years in the biz, and you’re clever. I just heard that on the radio. You’re clever. So, it must be true.
Brian Quaranta 10:10
It must be true; it must be true. You know, we’re really trying to educate as much as we can to Steve. I mean, if you, if the listeners haven’t yet checked out our TV show retirement, UTV, you can see us a 12 o’clock on Sundays on KTK. And we do a whole show, just like we do here on the mornings, you know, we go over all this retirement planning stuff that gets people all stressed out. But our job is to make things simple and easy to understand. So, people can have the peace of mind and confidence they want in retirement, and live the life that they deserve to live. Because I think we all deserve that. A lot of times, you know, we gotta have a plan to be able to do that we this is not a dress rehearsal, we do not get a second chance at this thing. So, we’ve got to get it right, right out of the gates. And, and like we were talking about in the last segment, I mean, the remedy really is all about having a written plan. I think that’s probably the number one overlooked thing. You know, you go back 20 years ago in my business, and a lot of a lot of what meeting with a financial advisor was about was buying financial products. And the baby boomers today are more inclined to pay for financial advice than they are to pay for financial products, they can buy financial products on their own. But what’s really missing is, is a well thought out thorough plan. And, you know, at secure money advisors, our focus has always been on the five key areas of retirement, which are so important. And that number one, and most importantly, is income, the replacement of income because when you stop working, your paycheck is going to stop. But bills, taxes, all the things that you want to do, that’s not going to stop. So, we’ve got to find a way that how are we going to replace that replace that paycheck. And some of you out there, you know, may have a pension. But there’s very few that do, about 90% of the people retiring today, do not have pensions. So that only leaves 10% of you out there that do have pensions. So, what do you do when your only sources of income are social security? You know, a lot of people say, Well, I have a 401k. Well, that’s great. But the 401k was not designed to provide you with guaranteed income for the rest of your life. If you start pulling money out of a 401k without a plan, or any type of investment account, you run the risk of that account going to zero and you running out of money. And how does that happen? Well, number one is you take more out than you what you should. Or number two, the market doesn’t cooperate. Well, how are you going to mitigate that risk, and really the remedy for that, Steve, is having a written income plan. And it does, it really acts like a compass that can help guide you through certain life events to make sure that you can continue to get the income that you need.
Steve 12:54
Well, and again, that income plan if you if it’s not a written plan, it’s not really a plan. And that’s what I think is so important for folks to realize is when they leave your office, they’re gonna have that plan in their hand, they’re gonna be able to look at that. And then if they’ve got questions they can call if the if it needs revision, you’re gonna reach out and make that happen.
Brian Quaranta 13:15
Well, you know, and that brings up a good point, because I think the scariest thing that I hear a lot of times is people will say, Well, my guy said that I’m going to be okay. Sure. Yeah. Holy smokes. I mean, you know, really well, how because I don’t see anything other than statements. And I think people need to realize, you don’t have a plan if you just have financial statements, that that’s just not a written plan. A written plan looks like something you would get from a CFO, right? Yeah. Right. We’re looking at-
Steve 13:47
Well, thats what you are for money families is you are the CFO?
Brian Quaranta 13:50
Well, it’s exactly what we act as, as the CFO, right? We’ve got to have a cash flow model where we can see all of our sources of income. And then we can see ultimately, with those sources of income after we take taxes out and we pay expenses, do we have enough leftover? If we don’t have enough leftover? How are we going to generate that additional income? Okay, well, if we need to generate that additional income from some type of retirement account, like a 401 K or an IRA or something along those lines, how much income are we going to have to take from those accounts? Well, if we take a certain amount of income from those accounts, what are those withdrawals going to do to the balance of those accounts? Or better yet? What rate of return? Are we going to need to do in order to maintain principle? Or what rate of return are we going to need to do to not only take the money that we want to take but also to be able to grow the money? And so too many people out there, Steve, I think you see it too, working with as many advisors as you do across the country. I mean, they blindly believe when your financial professional says you’re going to be okay, that they’re going to be okay. And if you don’t have a written plan, or you don’t understand your plan, you aren’t okay, no matter what your advisor says. And the remedy really is if you’re paying for advice, or you’re paying your advisor 1% a year to manager, you should be getting a real written financial plan, you know, and literally something tangible that you can look at that shows you all the income that you have while you’re both living. What happens if tax rates go up? What rate of return do you need to do if you want to take a certain amount of your money out every single year and spend it down to zero or maybe you want to take a certain amount of money out every year and preserve your principal? Or if you even want to grow your money? What happens if your wife dies? First, what happens if your husband dies? First, what happens if the cost of health insurance goes up? What happens if you have a health event, and you have to go into a nursing home? These are the things that a real written financial plan takes into account we take into account five key areas income, taxes, investments, health care, and legacy planning. If you cover all those five key areas in your written plan, you will have the peace of mind and confidence that you want going in and through retirement. And this is why we do the Right Track Retirement Meetings at no cost. And for the next 10 callers who call in we will give you a Right Track Retirement Meeting at no cost, no obligation. I’ve seen a lot of people for the type of work that we do charge up to $1,000 even more to do these types of reviews that we’re going to do complimentary before you. And what you’re going to really get out of it is that number one, it’s going to take the mystery out of financial planning. We’re going to help you map out where you are and where you need to go. We’re also going to see what you’re paying your current advisor. We’ll run a fee report for you to untangle any fees that you’re currently paying to your current advisor. Well also run a tax analysis, reveal maybe how you could possibly reduce taxes retirement, I’ll show you how to build a customized income plan. Utilizing proven strategies and techniques that can literally turbocharge your retirement income, give you more income than what you thought was possible. But you’ve got to do your part. You’ve got to pick up the phone, you’ve got to call schedule the appointment. That’s for the next 10 callers. It’s a Right Track Retirement meeting at no cost for the next 10 callers that’s comprehensive financial review that we’re going to give away complimentary.
Steve 17:02
Hey, that sounds fantastic. Brian, folks take advantage of this offer today. It’s a good one. It’s to be able to come in and sit down and let him map out that financial roadmap, get you on the right track to retirement, Brian’s there for you to take a lot of that complex financial world and it can get pretty complicated pretty quickly. He will smooth it out, make it clear, make it easy to understand. If you need that second opinion, now’s the time to make that call. It’s 800-656-8616. You’re going to get that comprehensive financial review; you’ll see where you are today. But more importantly, you’re going to end up with that roadmap, that guide that can really help get you to where you need to be when it comes to retirement. Give us a call 800-656-8616 That’s 800-656-8616 you can also text Brian directly, BrianQ to 21000 text BrianQ to 21,000.
Brian Quaranta 17:57
Getting to retirement is as much about spending as it is about saving. We’ll explain when we come right back right here on Retirement You Radio
Speaker 1 18:07
How’s the market doing?
Speaker 2 18:08
It’s fine.
Speaker 1 18:10
How’s the market doing now?
Speaker 2 18:11
The same as it was five seconds ago,
Announcer 18:13
Stop worrying about market volatility. A good retirement plan will keep you from panicking when and if there’s ever a panic; even during a correction or a mild recession, get that solid retirement plan with lifetime income and protection from pitfalls. Get in touch with Retirement You Radios BrianQ, 800-656-8616, 800-656-8616
Steve 18:41
We’re back on Retirement You Radio, increasing your financial IQ with Brian Q. And boy, you’ve been doing a great job at doing that today. Brian? I’ll tell you. I mean, again, you just lay it all out there in terms of the bucketing strategy. And you know, just helping folks understand that it doesn’t have to be a big, complicated mess. It can be something very straightforward. And just lay it out on paper. So, you see it. That’s got to be you know, we started the show talking about stressors. I mean, that’s got to be a huge stress relief, just to see it laid out on paper.
Brian Quaranta 19:13
Yeah, it is. I mean, and we see it in 20, you know, 21 years of practicing now. I know because I see it in the conference room. I mean, people come in and say look, you know, we’ve been to three, four different financial advisors. And, you know, we’ve just decided to come with you guys. Because number one, you guys have really broken it down to where we understand it. And you’ve made it very simple and easy for us to understand. But more importantly, it’s because we’re bringing them through what a real written plan should look like. And when people see a real written plan, they go, Oh, this is what retirement planning is. See, I think people are just so used to thinking that the retirement plan is a bunch of statements. And it’s just not how it works. You know, there’s three very important documents we use here that secure money advisors as part of the written plan number one, and most importantly, is the cashflow model. And the cash flow worksheet that we use has all the sources of income each year that you’re getting those sources of income. We take into account taxation, we take into account what your expenses are, whether they’re going up or whether they’re going down. And that’s nice. I mean, a lot of people in three to four years or maybe five years or 10 years, they might have a car that’s paid off or a mortgage is paid off. And so, their scheduled expenses go down over time. So, they pick up more cashflow, as they’re scheduled expenses go down. But what happens if tax rates go up at the same time that their expenses go down? What impact does that have? Are they going to be required to take more money out of their retirement accounts? What happens if their spouse dies, these are all things that we can figure out on the cash flow worksheet. And we can run lots of different scenarios. So that we can make all these things happen on paper so we can be better prepared when they do happen. But we can also put enough pressure on the plant itself to make sure that it’s actually going to work so that when you are retired, you’re not waking up with anxieties or worries of whether or not this thing is going to work, we want to make sure it absolutely is going to work. And we’re looking at the black-and-white math to make sure that we know that we have a plan in place that’s going to work.
Steve 21:11
Well, and you know, not only the math, but you take the emotion out of it, it gets so easy to get caught up with, especially when we’re talking about our money, it can get pretty emotional for the for, you know, for the individual, but you see it differently, you’ve you’re that second set of eyes, that looks at things a little bit differently, people need
Brian Quaranta 21:29
to realize that, you know, we’re human beings too. And yes, I manage money for a living. But at the end of the day, I want to report good news all the time to my clients, of course, and you know, so we, you know, we have a vested interest in making sure that not only do the plants work, but also for the clients to hang around for a long period of time. You know, and we’ve got a very good retention rate, you know, we’ve got a 98% retention rate, you know, we just don’t have people leave, because, you know, the planning that we do, and, and when people have a plan in place, even when you have a pandemic, like we did last year, nobody’s calling into our office panicking, because we’ve already looked at worst case scenarios in the planning model. So, we know that the planning is going to work. And that’s the peace of mind and clarity that people get. I think that people panic when they only have statements coming in. But when you look at a real investment plan, which focuses on five key areas, it focuses on your income, your taxes, your investments, your healthcare and your legacy. And when you have all the i’s dotted, and all the T’s crossed, and those areas, that’s when you experienced that calm peace of mind that everybody’s looking for when they shift into retirement, even if there’s chaos going on in the outside world.
Steve 22:40
I like it 800-656-8616. Let’s jump into a couple of these questions here. While we have time I’m going to start with Tyler, what advantages do exchange-traded funds have over mutual funds?
Brian Quaranta 22:52
Well, exchange-traded funds are simple. I mean, they just trade like a stock.
Steve 22:56
And that’s really as important. I mean, that really is a major difference, isn’t it?
Brian Quaranta 22:58
Yeah. I mean, you know, it is a big difference, actually. I mean, you know, unlike mutual funds, you know, ETFs, you know, they’re also very tax efficient. You know, there’s no investment minimums, you know, many mutual funds, have minimum investment requirements of maybe 2500, or, or $5,000, and ETFs, on the RAS can be purchased, you know, with as little as one share. And that’s, that’s the other thing, too, is that, you know, a, you know, if you were to sell a mutual fund right now, throughout the day, you wouldn’t get the price and until the end of the day, which is called the nav or the net asset value, where with an ETF you’re literally trading it like a stock share. So, if I, if I bought apple right now and sold it, now, I get the price. We if that was a mutual fund, you gotta wait till the end of the day to get the price and a lot can happen from the morning till the end of the whole, of course, it could. And they’re also lower costs. And it really is kind of the future. I mean, if you look at where investing is going, I mean, a lot of big-time money managers are leaning towards ETFs because they’re much more nimble, much more cost-effective. The mutual funds kind of a little bit of a dying animal, if you will. Yeah, terrible analogy. But it really is, I mean, but things change over time, you know, product designers get gets smarter about how things are designed technology allows us to design products that we would normally not be able to create. So, they are very beneficial and a much more cost-effective way to go in investing.
Steve 24:24
I like that. I mean, because I know people will ask me well, I hear about an ETF what is it? Well, I’m not an advisor, but I kind of understand why they might be advantageous to put into a retirement portfolio.
Brian Quaranta 24:37
Oh, yeah, very advantageous, much more nimble, much, much more cost effective and they’re much more accurate in the day to day trading.
Steve 24:44
I like it. And you know what, we’re up against the clock already. Brian, why don’t we go ahead and invite folks to get on the horn and call you one more time one last time today.
Brian Quaranta 24:52
That’s right, folks. And for the next 10 callers who call in, we are going to give away the Right Track Retirement Meeting now it’s again, it’s a no-cost, no obligation to you. The reason I call it the Right Track Retirement Meeting is because that’s the number one question I always would get is Brian, I just want to know if I’m on the right track. Am I doing the right things? Let me ask you, if you’re not on the right track, when would you want to know that? Would it be beneficial for you to know that now versus later? I think it would, but I could be biased, I don’t know. Look, we’ve seen other people charge. I have seen people charge so much money for the work that we do up to $1,000 or more. We do it at no cost. We’re literally going to help you take the mystery out of financial planning, it’s going to be simple, easy to understand. I’ll run a free report for you. We’ll look at a tax analysis we’ll run a customized income plan, utilizing proven strategies that can literally turbocharge your income retirement. More importantly, I want to help you take the guesswork out of financial planning. Let’s make this simple and easy to understand. You’ll have more peace of mind and confidence going into retirement, but you got to do your part. You’ve got to pick up the phone for the next 10 calls. That’s a comprehensive financial review that we’re going to give away complimentary at no obligation
Steve 25:57
800-656-8616 You heard Brian the next 10 callers are going to get that comprehensive financial review plus all the extras that he just talked about. And you will then have a roadmap a guide that can really help get you to where you need to be when it comes to retirement. 800-656-8616, Again 800-656-8616 or text Brian directly. That’s BrianQ to 21000 text BrianQ to 21000. Brian, as always, a pleasure to be here. It’s one of my favorite hours of the week right here.
Brian Quaranta 26:29
Well, thank you Steve. It’s always a pleasure being with you and folks, we will see you again next week right here on Retirement You Radio.
Announcer 26:39
Information provided is for illustrative purposes only and does not constitute investment tax or legal advice. Information has been obtained from sources that are deemed to be reliable, but their accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed. Neither Brian Quaranta nor his guests are liable for the usage of information discussed. Always consult with a qualified investment legal or tax professional before taking any action.
