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Video Transcript
Cynthia De Fazio – 00:20
Good morning and welcome to retirement You TV. My name is Cynthia de Fazio. I’m joined today by Brian Co. Ron TA. Yeah, he’s president and founder of secure money advisors. Yes. Show. Next time I’m yeah, I gotta get your five gold stars. For it’s right. That’s right. It’s a record breaking day. Yeah, I know. The whole production team was taking bets on whether or not you’d get it. The pressure and the fact that I know there are writers in the audience, right? Yeah, going to be like did I win $5. Like, I’m like, I’m like a proud parent right now. Great job. Oh, my gosh, well, what a way to start a good show. I know, I love my time with you. Because obviously, you’re just you’re sharing so much information that’s valuable to the viewing audience. People are hungry for that knowledge of how to retire properly, or perhaps they don’t know where to go. They’re not sure what the first step is, yeah. And you’re helping to shed light on that path for them?
Brian Quaranta – 01:30
Well, I want them to know that they have a place that they can come that they’re going to be understood and not judged. Right, and that they’re going to be helped. And, you know, we work together as a team to help really map out what a good retirement should look like for them. And I think that’s, that’s our responsibility as a fiduciary, you know, we work in the clients best interest. And you know, that that’s critical, because we’re there to really help understand where they’re at, help them map out a plan. And then we can look at the marketplace and figure out what are going to be the best financial products in the marketplace to help them solve these problems.
Cynthia De Fazio – 02:03
Absolutely. Yeah. Brian, can we talk a little bit about the foundation of a good retirement plan? What are those components that the plan should be built upon? if you will?
Brian Quaranta – 02:13
Yeah, well, first and most obvious is income, because when you retire, the paychecks gonna stop. But bills, taxes, and all the things that you want to do the bucket list, right, the bucket list that everybody’s supposed to go live out in retirement, all the things you want to do, that’s not going to stop. And we don’t want to look at retirement as a time to put ourselves on a budget, we want to look at retirement as a time to maximize the cash flow that we’re getting. So that we can live the life that we’ve been wanting to live. And we’re no longer having to go to work, we no longer have to trade our time for money, and we have our time back. But we now need to get the money that you’ve accumulated over your working years to replace that paycheck and do it in a way that is going to allow you to continue to do the things you want to do but most importantly, not put you in a position to where you run out of money in retirement. Absolutely. Right. And there’s there’s best practices to make sure that when you build these strategies, you still have peace of mind. Sure you sleep well at night,
Cynthia De Fazio – 03:13
Brian, Is that still the number one fear that most people have is that they’re going to outrun their money if you will outlive their money?
Brian Quaranta – 03:20
Yeah, AARP did a study and they they surveyed 1000 people. And they asked one question, what do you fear most? death or running out of money. Over 85% of the people said they fear running out of money more than they feared death alone. So it is a big concern for people. Because when you look at, you know, for for a person that’s just been, you know, in their working in their unique ability, their entire life, whatever they might do, and they’ve accumulated this pot of money. retirements changed so much, because the decisions that you had to make 30, 40 years ago, when you retired are so different than the decisions you have to make today. 30, 40 years ago, you didn’t have to think about whether or not that pot of money was going to last the rest of your life, because most likely when you retired, you got a social security check. And you got a pension? Sure, right. But both over 85% of people retiring today are not receiving pensions. Yeah. So the big decision is if I need to generate money, from my retirement accounts, what’s the best way to do that? Yeah, because going from an accumulation plan, which we’re all doing while we’re working the accumulation process, we’re putting money away, we’re accumulating this pot of money, and then going to the distribution phase. The techniques and strategies that you’ve been using during the accumulation phase are not the same strategies that you use during the distribution phase. So the things you’ve been doing over the last 25 or 30 years are not the same strategies you can use in the distribution phase. And that’s why working with a firm like secure money advisors who focuses on that distribution of allows you to have that peace of mind security going into retirement, knowing that when that cash flow that you need is generated, we’re doing it in a way to where if the markets go down, you’re, you’re not going to run the risk of running out of money, we help you mathematically figure out how much money you can take out what rate of return the portfolio needs to do in order to generate that cash flow? And most importantly, what rate of return do we need to do to maintain principal? Or what rate of return do we need to do to not only maintain principal, but still grow the money at the same time that we’re taking it? Sure. And, you know, there’s risks that show up when you’re generating cash flow, like something called sequencing risk. Now, this is a risk that nobody talks about, but we talk about it because sequencing risk is what happens when you get an unfavorable order of returns early on a retirement, meaning the market goes down, and you’re taking money out, because what people don’t realize is that if you’re taking money out of a risk portfolio, and the market goes down, right, not only do you have the loss of the market, but then you compound the loss by taking the money out, and you lock into the loss, meaning so maybe you were only down 10%, but you take 4% out for income. Now you’re down 14%, right. So it’s very hard for that portfolio to recover. So you have to create what we call a buffer account, that buffer account allows you to go to that account, versus the stock account if the markets down and we teach you how to do that. It sounds complicated, but it’s really not. It’s pretty simple once we lay it out for you. So the first, the key to a happy retirement is cash flow. And there’s been studies on those that have their income, that their income is high they could get they get it as high as they can, right and retirement as safely as they can. Those are the people that are happiest in retirement, because they have the money to do the things they want to do.
Cynthia De Fazio – 06:43
Sure. Yeah. Well, basically, Brian, when you think about it, you’re retiring. And then all of a sudden, you’re responsible for creating your own income stream your own paycheck, if you will, you’ve been gleaning a paycheck from the company that you’ve worked for, for so many years. Right. But then all of a sudden, that’s gone. I mean, that can be a scary process for someone when they’re thinking through that in that way.
Brian Quaranta – 07:02
Yeah, that would be like you all of a sudden have to perform your own heart surgery. Yeah, exactly. I mean, true. Really? Yeah. I mean, you could probably read about it on Google. on YouTube, the scary part about it is, there’s some people out there that would read about how to do and probably do it themselves. Yeah, and think about the task at hand there. And then it’s not a dress rehearsal. We don’t get a second chance at retirement. So if you screw it up, it’s not a good thing, because we don’t get a redo. Yeah. So we have to get it right from the very start. Have you
Cynthia De Fazio – 07:35
helped someone recently that has retired sooner than they anticipated? due to job loss COVID-19 layoffs? Have you had a situation like that recently,
Brian Quaranta – 07:43
it happens every year, every year, multiple times a year, okay. We see downsizing a lot of companies. COVID was a big one, you know, COVID actually forced the a lot of people to reconsider how much longer they wanted to work. Okay, you know, we had people on three to five year plans that decided they want to retire early. And that’s the great thing, when you have a mapped out plan, when you take the time to map out a plan, and you figure it out mathematically, what happens is, if you want to retire earlier, it can be done, the math changes a little bit. But what we like about helping people, especially if they come in, and they’re maybe 10 years from retirement, or five years from retirement, we love it when they come in and say I think I want to retire this year. Because that’s where we really get the juice out of what we do. Because that retirement day is so special, not only for them, but it’s special for us. Because we had a big part in making that happen. You know, we just recently helped some folks retire and they moved to Wyoming. You know, that was, you know, they stopped at the office to, you know, to say goodbye to me. And it was very emotional for me because we had worked so hard and so long on making that happen. And to see them leaving and starting this new chapter or life and thanking us for everything we’ve done. You realize the impact that you’re having and how many lives you’re changing by helping them understand how to utilize the tools that they already have in their plan, but nobody’s taught them how to use
Cynthia De Fazio – 09:12
That’s incredible. What a happy story to be able to do that. Brian, we’re going to go ahead and open up the phone lines to the viewing audience. I’m going to give you a break from talking so I know you’ve been talking a lot but to the viewers at home, Brian is offering 10 complimentary consultations this week. That number to call is 888-382-1298. We know you might have a lot of questions about how to plan properly for retirement. Brian has the answers for you. And again, this is a limited time offer 10 spots only are available this week. The number to call is 8883821298. We have to take a very short commercial break when we come back. We’re going to have more questions and answers with Brian about planning your perfect retirement. Please stay tuned.
Commercial Break – 9:53:00
How confident are you in your current financial plan? Do you know with certainty how the recent market volatility will affect your future hopes and dreams? How much are you paying in taxes? And how much are you losing to unnecessary high fees? You didn’t work to save this money so that you could spend your time worried in retirement. Now is the time to take charge of your finances so you can feel confident about your future call in during the next 30 minutes of today’s show only to set up an absolutely complimentary no obligation, full blown Financial Review that will result in your own customized written plan. This is a $999 value that we’re giving away complimentary to the first 10 people who respond will start with a full blown analysis of what you already have, by running a report to untangle how much you are currently paying in fees, how you’re allocated for risk, and what it’s costing to work with your current advisor. Next, we’ll identify your goals. Where do you see yourself in the next five years? Where do you want to go? And who do you hope to go there with? Is your current financial plan set up to get you there without mishap? Let’s design a roadmap to create a financial plan you can follow with confidence. Get the piece that so many people are missing from their retirement. Find out how having a written plan can make a difference to your retirement dreams. Call now to schedule your complimentary no obligation full blown Financial Review today.
Cynthia De Fazio – 11:27
And welcome back to retirement You TV My name is Cynthia de Fazio. I’m joined today by Brian Q. He’s president and founder of secure money advisors I got scared to you know.
Brian Quaranta – 11:39
I thought you were going to get nervous. I know you’re like you know what? I’m going to take my win I feel good about that.
Cynthia De Fazio – 11:50
I’m telling to go to Vegas. Not at all. Oh my gosh. So Brian, I want to ask you because there’s been a lot of negative stereotype in the media about annuities. Yeah. What are your thoughts on annuities? Are they a good idea? Are they a bad idea why or why not?
Brian Quaranta – 12:02
Well, every financial product serves a purpose out there. Are there bad annuities? Sure, there are are there good annuities? Sure there are. I think understanding that marketplace is the first step and understanding whether or not that would be right for an individual situation. But the right type of annuity can certainly help reduce quite a bit of risk in a retirement portfolio. And the annuities do something that no other financial product can do. And that is provide the individual with a lifetime stream of income. And there’s no other financial product that can do that. The problem is, is that when we say the word annuity, it’s like saying midsize car or sports car? Well, there’s a lot of different sports cars from a lot of different manufacturers, different types, so on and so forth. And it’s the same thing with annuities, there’s a lot of different makes and models and pros and cons about each one. And you know, there are annuities out there that are very expensive. They charge a lot of fees. There’s not a whole lot of safety or protection built in without buying additional, you know, features on those annuities, which are very expensive to do. That’s typically some type of variable annuity. But then there’s very basic plain vanilla type of annuities like fixed annuities, which are no different than bank CD’s. Right. And most people used to buy bank CDs. Yeah, you know, you go back 30, 40 years ago, when you retired, you got your Social Security check, you got your pension check and the money that you saved. Most people didn’t have to invest that in the market, they would take it down to the local bank, and they would buy a CD and get a toaster. Yeah. Forget it and get a toaster. That’s right. Because CDs were paying probably what 10 15% somewhere around there. Yeah, I’ve heard even higher than that. So if you had $200,000 saved, and you took that down to the local bank, and they were just given you a 10% you’ve got now a an account that’s FDIC protected 100% guaranteed, and they’re giving you a 10% guaranteed interest every single year on that $200,000. That’s generating $20,000 a year in interest, which means that you could get $20,000 a year in extra income without ever touching your principal. Wow. Now, today, you’ve got to take a lot of risk to get a 10% return and who’s who knows if you’re even going to get that every single year. Right? But the CDs of today, I mean, the banks really don’t need our money. I mean, you know, look at what you get paid on a checking account or a savings account virtually zero. It’s next to nothing. So and CD rates are no different. I mean, CD rates are, you know, one 2% somewhere around there, but, you know, a good fixed annuity could pay anywhere between three and 4% a year which isn’t bad. You know, some people that’s all they want to take is maybe three or 4% in additional income off of their investment. And maybe utilizing a strategy like that would allow them to put that money in an account. Never worry about the ups and downs of the market, and generate three to 4% a year and guaranteed income and never touched the principal. So it could be that simple. But you’ve got to know what you’re doing in that marketplace. Because there’s a lot of gotchas in the annuity marketplace. You know, for example, you know, I’ve heard lots of people come in and say, you know, this guy’s, you know, pitching, I buy an annuity, he’s telling me that I can get, you know, an 8% guarantee every single year. And, you know, my, I’m telling you, right now, if I could get my clients an 8% guarantee of something like that really existed out there, I would take all of my money, sure, and put it into an account like that. Yeah. But that’s not a real 8% guarantee, what they’re referring to is something called an income benefit. And what they’re not telling you is that, you know, when I think about an 8% guarantee, that would mean I take $100,000, down to the bank, and the and the bank is going to give me 8% that year, that means that at the end of the year, I should have $108,000, I could walk down to the bank, and they’d say, Okay, here’s your 108,000, I could walk away. Well, that’s not how these work, they say, we’ll guarantee you 8%. But then they say, Oh, well, you can’t have all of that money, you’ve got to take it out over the next 25 years to get that money. And oh, by the way, if you die, your family doesn’t get that money. But if you live long enough, we’ll give it to you. Now, to me, that’s not a real guarantee. That’s a lot of smoke and mirrors. And you’ve got to be careful there. And unfortunately, you know, a lot of people have bought those types. And if you have Don’t worry about it, I mean, sometimes you can escape those types of annuities. There are penalties and stuff like that to get out of them. But you may have to weigh your options of whether or not that would make sense. Sometimes it doesn’t sometimes it does.
Cynthia De Fazio – 16:48
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think there are so many questions about so many different products, Brian, and I love the fact that you’re able to simplify and to make everything seem so easy to the people that come into the office and who have, you know, glean the the consultation with you this week. That’s what we’re hearing the most, the feedback has been just phenomenal that they feel like you explain everything in such simple terms that they leave the office feeling like they are 100% working with someone who’s an advocate for them. Well, that’s
Brian Quaranta – 17:17
exactly right. That’s a great way to put it because we are an advocate for them. And that’s what people need today. Yeah, they need somebody working side by side with them. Right? Sure. I mean, we don’t see our clients as a revenue stream. We see them as human beings, people that we need to help. Do we make money, yes, but it’s a byproduct of helping solve problems for them, and helping put them in better situations, right. But at the end of the day, the way that financial planning needs to go in the whole industry needs to go this way is people need to know that they have an advocate working with them, guiding them in the right direction, finding the best ways to maximize their overall wealth, helping them mitigate all the risks that they’re not thinking about, like lawsuits to disability, the erosion of taxes, planned obsolescence, things along these lines that a lot of people don’t even think about, right. But these are big factors that come into play. And this is why we work side by side with people during these consultations, to help walk them through and map out these plans. And look at all of these what if scenarios. And when we plan from worst case scenario and expect the best. We know what worst case scenario is. And we can mitigate the worst case scenario. Now you sleep well at night. Now you’ve got peace of mind apps. And that’s all we want going into retirement.
Cynthia De Fazio – 18:33
Absolutely. Well, Brian, we’re about ready to open up the phone lines for the second time to the viewing audience this week, can you tell them what they can expect to receive by calling in?
Brian Quaranta – 18:41
That’s right, folks. And for the next 10 callers who call in, we truly want to help you make change. But the only way to make change is to take action. You can’t continue to kick the can down the road. And I know so many people sometimes are very scared about the process of coming in and meeting with an advisor. Don’t be when you come in to secure money advisors, we’re not there to judge you on where you are, we’re there to understand and figure out how we can make improvements so that you can maximize your overall wealth and get the most out of your retirement. You want to be able to live the retirement that you’ve dreamed up, do the things that you want to do. If the stock market’s going crazy, and it’s going up and down. The last thing you want to be doing is worrying and being panicked. So again, for the next 10 callers who call in we’re going to work side by side with you and help you build out this plan. There is no obligation to Okay, so there’s no pressure to do anything. It is going to be so helpful for you just to see what is possible with your planning. So if you call 18883821298, again, that’s 1-888-382-1298 that’s a complimentary, no cost, no obligation review.
Cynthia De Fazio – 19:47
Brian, thank you so much. And to the viewers at home, we have added an additional phone line this week for your convenience we realize in the past the lines were going crazy. So again, the number to call is 888-382-1298 don’t Miss this complimentary consultation with Brian you’re going to really enjoy your time with him. He wants to get to know you and to make you retire with peace of mind and with comfort again, the number to call is 888-382-1298. We’ll be right back momentarily.
Commercial Break – 20:15
As a good saver you’ve been putting away money during your working years. studies find that the biggest fear of retirees is running out of money. market volatility isn’t just a downward movement of stock prices. It’s the size and frequency of change. The more dramatic the ups and downs, the higher the volatility. This can put savers who are newly retired or a few years away from being retired at greater risk. today’s generation of retirees is not receiving traditional pensions as our parents or grandparents did. Instead, we have retirement accounts such as 401, K’s or 403 B’s. These accounts typically exposure money to market risk. The last thing you want right before retirement is to lose a portion of the money you need for income. But how do you turn these accounts into a retirement income? Is it safe to keep all your retirement money sitting in the stock market. The last thing you want is to lose a portion of the money you need for income due to market loss. By working with a financial professional. You can learn how to turn a portion of your savings into an income stream for life and income for the life of your spouse if you’re married. We all have moments in our lives when we wish we had taken action sooner. Don’t let procrastination rain on your retirement parade. Act now before it’s too late. Please call our office to set up your no cost no obligation retirement income review today.
Cynthia De Fazio – 21:42
Welcome back to retirement You TV My name is Cynthia de Fazio. I’m joined today by Brian Quaranta. He is president and founder of secure money and twice Yes. All right, I’m gonna put the fear aside. That’s right. It’s just taken.
Brian Quaranta – 21:58
And that’s how you make change. Right? Exactly. You stepped into you lean into the discomfort and made the and made the decision to move forward. And you did great. Well, thank you did great,
Cynthia De Fazio – 22:07
honestly. And that’s the perfect segue to my next question. Speaking of change, yep. What if someone the viewing audience today has a retirement plan in place? Yeah. How important is it that they have a second opinion and potentially make a change? Brian?
Brian Quaranta – 22:20
Well, it’s very important. And you know, and I can understand people’s hesitations to if they’ve got relationships they’ve had for a long time, you know, we’re not there to step on any toes or sever any ties. But when it comes to your money, you should always make sure that you’re getting the very best for it. And if you’ve been working with somebody for a long time, how do you know, if you’re taking advantage of what’s the very, very best out there, you just don’t know what you don’t know. And you can’t get a second opinion from the person that gave you the first opinion. So it’s important to explore those options and see if there’s ways to improve your current situation, and that you’re maximizing everything you can maximize to mitigate all the risks in retirement, and maximize your overall wealth, cash flow things along those lines, when it comes to good retirement planning.
Cynthia De Fazio – 23:05
Okay, yeah. Okay. We’ve had the conversation in the past. Remember the one caller that called in she actually had her son in law as her financial advisor, she says, Brian, I want to come in and talk with you. But I’m a little nervous. Yeah. And I think your advice was never hire someone that you don’t want to fire.
Brian Quaranta – 23:21
Yeah, that’s true. It’s absolutely true. And it’s because I’ve, you know, over my years, I will tell you that the challenges that people have making change, is breaking up with somebody. Yeah, right, is breaking a relationship. And I understand because, you know, this lady here that you’re talking about, you know, that’s a tough relationship, the break? Oh, absolutely. That’s a tough relationship to break. However, we’ve seen people break those relationships, because, you know, they have to, they have to be honest with themselves, and they have to do what’s right for themselves and what’s right for the money. And it’s not a personal thing. Sure, when they have to break those relationships off, it comes down to, I need the very best advice for the money that I’ve spent my entire time, lifetime working for, but most importantly, is that people also are not getting the advice on how to transition that wealth, right to their family members. And when you think about it, if their advisor is their son in law, or their uncle, or you know, a really good friend, or it was dad’s financial advisor that Dad used for years, we know those are tough situations to break. But when you look at what the advisor left them exposed to, that’s a problem. Oh, yeah. Because, you know, if you were relying on somebody to take care of your health for you, and you find out later that there was a certain issue that could have been handled differently to make you healthier. I don’t know if I would continue to trust that person. I know to take care of me. So I think it’s a matter of really just understanding where you are, could you do better and understanding why you could do better, and then having to make tough decisions. The problem is, too many people are too afraid to lean into that discomfort and make the change. They keep kicking the can down the road. And I would suggest that they stop doing that, and quit kicking the tires and make tough decisions to better their situations.
Cynthia De Fazio – 25:25
That makes sense, that makes sense. Brian, let me ask you a question for the people that were lucky enough to have that consultation be one of theirs that they could take this week? What does it feel like when someone comes into your office? What kind of communication can they expect with you and just kind of give us an overview, if
Brian Quaranta – 25:40
you will? Well, our communication style is very warm and friendly. And that’s how we want it to be because, again, we’re not there to judge anything that they’ve done up to this point, we just want to understand why they’re where they’re at. Right? And we want to understand, have they been doing certain things? Or have they thought about certain things? And if they’re telling us that they haven’t, or they haven’t done things, then we want to know why. And that why is not the criticize that why is just to give us a better understanding, and then help them understand where they could go, right. So at first is us understanding, then we take what they give us, and we help educate them on where they’re at and share with them, what challenges or risks that they’re still have exposed to. And then we can tell them, here’s some suggestions that you could do that could mitigate that risk and put you on a better road that would solve this, this, this and this, and would provide this benefit in this benefit in this benefit. Now it’s up to them if they want to make the decision to move forward. Right. Sometimes people need time to process those things, because it’s a big decision for them. But it’s hard when you know, it’s hard to say no to something when you can see the value and the benefit of making decisions because it makes a big impact on their life. Yes, absolutely.
Cynthia De Fazio – 26:54
Yeah. Brian, we only have about a minute left in the show. Do you want to tell the viewers?
Brian Quaranta – 26:59
I know there’s only a few spots left. So call and like I said don’t procrastinate on this. You can’t make change through procrastination, you have to take action I want to see each and every one of you take action. Take advantage of the complimentary view that we’re getting. Like I said, we’re gonna sit with you side by side and really walk you through a plan. This is a team effort. This isn’t about us dictating to you what you need to do. It’s about helping you understand how to improve yourself situation and maximize your overall well. So this is a complimentary review. Don’t kick the can down the road make change, change can have a big impact on your future call 18883821298 again, that’s 1-888-382-1298 that’s a complimentary no cost review to you.
Cynthia De Fazio – 27:42
Brian, thank you so much for your time again this week to the viewers at home. That number to call once again is 888-382-1298. Thank you for spending time with us again this week. We look forward to seeing you next week. Be safe, be happy, be blessed and retire with ease.