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Video Transcript
Cynthia De Fazio – 00:21
Welcome to retirement you TV. My name is Cynthia de Fazio and I’m joined today by Brian Quaranta. He is president and founder of secure money advisors. Brian, how is that? Good $5 across the state
Brian Quaranta – 00:36
I know I need to know that we’ve been struggling with getting you to say that name correctly. So we’re having a bet of whether or not you could do it. We said, You know what, for every time you get it wrong, we should give $5 to one of our best charities.
Cynthia De Fazio – 00:48
I totally agree. So what you don’t know is that it’s been a week now since I’ve seen you practicing your name over and over. You’re getting closer and closer and closer. I did kind of. I did kind of closer call Quaranta
Brian Quaranta – 01:02
Yeah, that’s perfect.
Cynthia De Fazio – 01:08
Brian, that’s you. Right? Right. Right. Which is so much easier, which is so much easier. It is. And I know that you get called that all the time, just because it is so much
Brian Quaranta – 01:13
of have 20 years that cannot pronounce my name. So it’s been it’s been a name. It’s been butchered all my life. So yeah, when we go with Brian Q, it’s just the easiest for people.
Cynthia De Fazio – 01:27
Absolutely. Absolutely. And you have been extraordinarily busy. So thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show today. Thank you for having me on the show. I know that just everything has been amazing. Since the show’s began, you’ve just really been increasing the amount of people that are coming in wanting to talk about just what’s going on right now with where we are, and also how to properly plan for retirement.
Brian Quaranta – 01:48
Yeah, I think people are just really hungry for good information. Yeah, you know, and my team and I wake up every day to really provide accurate information, information on very complex topics, you know, and we do, we work really hard to try to simplify that the best we can so that when it comes to having to make a very big decision, I mean, this isn’t like we’re going out and picking out new carpet or, you know, you know, a kitchen faucet, I mean, you know, we could return those things when it comes to retirement planning. It’s not a dress rehearsal. No, and we don’t get a second chance. And the problem is, is that, you know, there’s too much information. And a lot of times when we have too much information, or you’re getting multiple opinions, there’s a paralysis by analysis. Sure. And what happens is a confused mind does nothing. Yes. Which is, yeah, you freeze, which is the worst thing that somebody can do approach in retirement is do nothing. Because there’s so many things that need to change as you get into that retirement redzone, five years, you know, 10 to five years from retirement, and the things that got you to where you are today, the things that you’ve been doing in what we call your accumulation phase, are not the same strategies you’re going to use as you move into the retirement phase. Sure, sure. Because the challenge that the majority of people are dealing with today going into retirement, is they’re not getting pensions. Yeah. So a lot of people are now tasked with having to figure out how they’re going to take this sum of money. Yeah, that they’ve accumulated with their employer, right, probably in some type of 401k, or TSP account, or four, three B account, they’ve got to figure out now how they are going to generate additional monthly income on top of what they’re getting in Social Security. Sure. And that really is their pension. Yeah, you know, if you go back 30, 40 years ago, retirement was pretty simple. Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, and already, there was a big part. You got a gold watch? Yeah. Absolutely. You don’t see that anymore. Now. Because you knew, you know, you go back 30, 40 years ago, even longer than that. You knew that if you gave a company a certain amount of time, yeah, that they were going to provide you with a pension. And they would tell you, you can retire at 55. Or you can retire at 62. Or you could, and here’s how much we’ll give you for the rest of your life. So people knew that, hey, when I turned 62, I’m going to get this pension from my company. And I’m also going to get a social security check. And so they would have their retirement date. And they would say I’m retiring next January. I’m retiring next March, and they would have a big party. And any additional money, though, that people had saved. They didn’t have to worry about taking risk with that money in the stock more. No, no, no, because what they did was most people would take that extra money that they saved, they would go down to the local bank, and they would buy a bank CD, of course. Yeah. Get a toaster. Tupperware, something like that, right. Yeah. That’s right. That’s right. And so and because it was so simple, because banks were paying maybe 10 to 15% on a bank CD. Yeah. So if they didn’t need a little additional income and you know, my grandfather did this. My My grandfather had a Kirby vacuum cleaner store,
Cynthia De Fazio – 05:02
Kirby vacuum I do remember my mom and dad talking about the Kirby vacuum cleaner guy.
Brian Quaranta – 05:08
Yeah, my grandfather, my grandfather had a Kirby store in New Jersey. And, you know, I would go to the bank with him, I’d work at the store, you know, he teach me how to polish up these Kirby’s, before we gave him back to the clients, oh, my God, he would always teach me he would always teach me that service is the most important thing that you can provide to people. But he also taught me that, you know, he said, Brian, you’re gonna work very, very hard for your money over your life. Yeah. And make sure that when you invest it, all you have to do is protect the principle and live off the interest. Sure. And what he was really talking about was bank CDs. So him and my grandma would vacation a lot when he was retired. And they would do that off of the supplemental income that he was getting from the bank CDs, how can you think about that he had an extra $200,000 saved, and the bank was going to give you 10% on that CD, that’s incredible. That’s an extra $20,000 a year that they would be getting on top of their pensions and Social Security. Wow. And of course, easier, it’s so much easier. And if you look at it today, it’s just changed so much I know, you know, people are, are getting little or no pensions at all. Yeah, you’ll see that a lot. You know, you’ll see maybe somebody has a small pension, because the contract changed at the company, and, and the company said, You know what, we’re no longer going to do the pension. So we’re going to freeze it, where it’s at, for those of you that participated in it, you’ll still get a little something down the road. But we’re going to move to this 401k plan. And it was a lot cheaper for the employer to provide the 401k plan than it was the pension, of course, and they wanted to release themselves to that liability, and they didn’t want to have the liability of having to provide that income for the rest of somebody’s life. So they created it, you know, they implemented the 401k plan. Sure. And so what we have to realize is that most people today need to look at that 401k as not an account that you can gamble with. But an account that really represents your pension. Oh, absolutely. And the concerning thing is that most people that are invested in 401, K’s Four, Three B’s tsps, most of that money, if not all of it is typically invested directly in the market. Yeah. And so think about it, a lot needs to go right, in order for you to be able to generate income off of that for the rest of your life. And, you know, there’s a there’s a rule of thumb out there that’s been used to determine how much money you can take out of a retirement account. And it’s called the 4% rule. Okay, well, it’s been around for years, and a lot of big firms still recommend it today, there’s been a lot of research shown on it, that there’s over a 50 up to a potentially 56% chance of that strategy failing, meaning that if people are taking out 4% a year, and they get market volatility at the very beginning of the retirement, which is called sequencing risk, that there’s up to a 56% chance of failure. Could you imagine that? Now I could you imagine? I mean, if there was if there was true honesty, when you go in and you sign up to work with a financial planning firm, and they’ve got all of your money at risk. And you sign on the dotted line? You know, could you imagine if the advisor said, Hey, by the way, I want you to know that based on current statistics that there is potentially a 56% chance of failure. That would be like getting on an airplane today. Exactly. And a plane that was headed out for Hawaii. Yeah. And the captain gets on the intercom. And he says, I just want you to know, folks that there’s, you know, up to a 56% chance that we could crash into the ocean before we get to Hawaii, right? How many people would stay on that plane? Probably zero, probably zero. So you have to rethink what we’re doing in retirement. And that’s really what we’re doing at secure money advisors. And we really have taken the time to figure out the five areas that people need to focus on. And we teach them the best practices to maximize their overall wealth, and reduce their risk and reduce the risk of their wealth being eroded by lawsuits, disability taxes and things along those lines. Sure,
Cynthia De Fazio – 08:57
yeah. Well, Brian, this is the perfect time for us to open up the phone lines to the viewing audience for the very first time this week, can you tell them what they can expect to receive by being one of your callers?
Brian Quaranta – 09:07
Sure, folks, for the next 10 callers who call in right now, here’s what we’re going to do, we’re actually going to work with you when you come into the office, and we’re gonna build a plan with you right there when you come into the office. Now, in order to make change, you’ve got to take action, right. And procrastination is something you can’t do when we get close to retirement, we have to take a step four, we can’t kick the can down the road. Don’t be one of those folks that kick the can down the road. Get some peace of mind around this retirement stuff. What we’ve done at secure money advisors, we’ve made it very simple and easy for you to understand. So when you come in, we’re going to guide you and give you turn by turn directions of what to do and how to do it. So we’re going to teach you how to maximize your overall wealth and reduce as much risk as possible. So again, for the next 10 callers who call in right now. The number you can call is 888-382-1298. Again, that’s one eight 8883821298 that’s going to be a complimentary no cost, Financial Review when you come in.
Cynthia De Fazio – 10:08
Thank you, Brian to the viewers at home, the phone lines are now open that number to call once again is 888-382-1298. We realize the phone lines have been busy in the past. So we do have the additional phone line open this week for your convenience. Again, the number to call is 888-382-1298. When we come back from this very short commercial break, I’m going to have more questions and answers for Brian about how to plan your perfect stress free retirement. Please stay tuned.
Commercial Break 1 – 10:35:00 AM
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. We’ll 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 – 12:10
And welcome back to retirement You TV My name is Cynthia de Fazio I’m joined today by Brian Q. He is president and founder of secure money advisors. I went with the safe. So much easier. It is the last person you would find it right. Like I did right the first time. I’m like a little nervous. Brian a great show we’re having and I love all the information that you provide each week to the viewing audience. And I want to ask you your opinion on something. Obviously, we know right now, with where we are taxes are at an all time low. They’re on sale, if you will, right. Oregon shopping at Target. That’s right, it is what it is. Yeah. So but how important is it when you’re factoring someone’s retirement plan to take in what taxes could be in the years to come? Is that something that you usually work on as well?
Brian Quaranta – 12:57
Yeah, I mean, it’s kind of a rhetorical question. But I always ask folks, I mean, do you think taxes are going up or down in the future? Right, right. And most people will agree that they’re probably going to go up in the future, okay, so and that becomes a problem, especially when you think about the fact that most people are probably going to have to take income out of their retirement accounts. And for most people, those retirement accounts that we’re talking about our 401k is 403 B’s tsps, which have never been taxed before. Sure. So every dollar we take out of those accounts are gonna become taxable. But not only is the money coming out of those accounts going to be taxable. But it also is going to impact something called your provisional income formula, which is how they tax your Social Security. So now we’re talking about taking money out of retirement account, that’s going to compound how much taxes that you’re going to have to pay on your social security. And we could pay up to potentially 85%. Now on the social security, or I should say 85% of the Social Security can become taxable, wow, at whatever your ordinary income tax rate is. Okay, so how do we fix that? Yeah, well, we can be smart and start to think about tax strategies that relieve us of those tax burdens in retirement later on something called conversions. So with Roth IRAs, there’s limits of how much we can put into a Roth IRA. But there’s an unlimited amount that we can actually convert. And so we can start to convert taxable money to tax free money, which also will eliminate your Social Security from becoming taxable on later on down the road. But we have a very limited time to do these strategies. Yeah. And the problem is, is too many people kick the can down the road and they don’t take action on it. And if with proper planning, you could have income coming in every single year. That’s tax free. Yeah, right. That’s tax rate. The other thing too, is that when it comes to taxes, the other big thing that’s going to impact folks that they don’t think about is the required minimum distribution, also known as the RMD. Okay, now, this is what the IRS requires. wire’s you to start taking out of your qualified retirement plans. Now at the age of 72, okay, there was a change in the law in 2019, it used to be seven and a half that you had to take money out of your IRA accounts and 401 Ks and four, three B’s, but now it’s 72. Okay, so for example, if somebody had $500,000, sitting in a retirement account, and let’s say they didn’t have to take any money out of it, because they had plenty of money coming in from Social Security’s, and maybe they were fortunate to have a pension, the IRS isn’t going to care, once you turn 72, they’re going to say, you need to start taking money, whether you want to or not. And there’s a formula that they use, okay, there’s a life expectancy formula they use. So, you know, quick calculation, if someone had a half a million dollars, in the first year that they turn 72, they’re gonna have to take out about 18 to $19,000. And that’s going to count as taxable income to them. Wow. Now, this gets really worse for people that don’t understand how to take these rmds. Because if the IRS finds out that you didn’t take your required minimum distribution, which some people forget to do it, right, there’s a 50% penalty. Did you say 50% 50%? Wow, this is staggering, staggering. So if you were required to take out $18,000, and you failed to do that, that would be a $9,000 mistake that you made, that you would have to pay back to the IRS and penalties. So taxes are a big deal. Yeah. And they have to be focused on in retirement. And we have to have tax strategies, geez, to be able to do that. And that’s why it’s secure money advisors, we have aligned ourselves with a team of individuals that specialize in these areas. Yeah. Because when you come to secure money advisors, we provide you with a team, and I act as the financial quarterback. But that would be like you having access to the best neurosurgeon, the best heart doctor, the best knee doctor. And that’s the way we’ve approached that, sir, cure money advisors so that you get the maximum overall amount of growth on your wealth, but we keep the risk down as much as we can by looking at all of these areas and the five key areas, Cynthia our income, okay, we have to focus on how we’re going to generate income, okay, how that income is going to impact taxes, we’re going to focus on investments, we’re going to focus on the fact that we want to bring fees down, we want to get better growth, we want to reduce risk. We also want to focus on taxes, we also want to focus on health care, how are we going to handle a health event? How are we going to handle a situation where maybe you want to retire before the age of 65? And you don’t qualify for Medicare? But once you qualify for Medicare? What if you need some type of supplement? Yeah. And then of course, the big one, is what happens when the good Lord decides to take you home? Yeah, because I’m gonna tell you right now, if you don’t have a plan for your money when you die, I promise you, the IRS will and so will the state of Pennsylvania.
Cynthia De Fazio – 17:53
Sure, absolutely. Absolutely. So Brian, I want to talk again, I know if in case someone is just watching for the very first time tuning in, and they’re getting to know you, I really need to stress how very compassionate you are with each and every one of your clients. And I love the fact that you have such an educating heart because you like to take the time to really sit down with each client that you have your team as well. And to make sure that they understand what you’re saying. And I think that is such a special gift, especially in a day and age where people are being rushed from one thing to the next. You got to get go and go here go there, you really take the time to make sure that they have all the time they need and that they leave understanding what the plan is that you’re putting in place.
Brian Quaranta – 18:35
Well, I think that’s one approach that everybody needs is where we want you, we want to take the time for you to understand now we don’t need you to become an expert on it, right. But we want you to have a good grasp on why you’re doing what you need to do. Because when you understand it to a level to where you get it, right, it’s much easier for you to sleep better at night and have peace of mind because you just understand, you know, the little twists and turns that go into this whole retirement planning thing. Yeah. And so it takes time, and it takes patience. And that’s one thing that I teach my team is that these are big decisions that people need to make. And they need to have, we need to have the patience and helping them educate them along the way, so that they can make good informed decisions. And our job is to be a guide. We’re not there to dictate what they need to do. Our job is to be a guide. Well, how do we be a guide? We help them first understand where they are sure, then we understand help them understand what risks or threats that they have in their current situation. And then we help them understand how they can fix that. And then from there, if they want to move forward, we help them by implementing the entire plan for them and it’s a turnkey service that they get access to.
Cynthia De Fazio – 19:51
And everyone loves you Brian and on that note, we’re gonna open up the phone lines to the viewing audience again this week. Can you tell them what they can expect shortly
Brian Quaranta – 19:57
Brian folks again for the next time callers and there’s not 10 spots left, I think there’s only about three spots left right now. So call in. As I’ve said before, you can’t make change. If you procrastinate, you cannot kick the can down the road here, take advantage of this offer today. Come on into the office, what we’re going to do is we’re going to sit down with you, and we’re going to build a plan right there with you. We’re going to walk through those five key areas that I talked about with Cynthia here, we’re going to talk about income, we’re going to talk about investments, we’re going to talk about taxes, health care, and your legacy. If we have all the i’s dotted and T’s crossed on those five areas, you are going to have a comprehensive plan that everything has been checked off on So again, this is complimentary to you. For you to come in and sit down with a fiduciary and go through your plan from A to Z, all you have to do is call 1883821298. Again, that’s a complimentary Financial Review at no obligation or cost to you,
Cynthia De Fazio – 20:54
Brian, thank you so much to the viewing audience at home. Once again, we only have three spots remaining this week, the number to call is 888-382-1298. Let Brian guide you in the proper direction so you can recall you can you can retire with having peace of mind and security. Again, the number to call is 888-382-1298. We’ll be right back after this very short commercial break.
Commercial Break 2 – 9:17:00 PM
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 – 22:43
And 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 advisors. I like when we get what Jared is getting the $5 I think we can talk about that we’re gonna actually put together some really we will we
Brian Quaranta – 23:01
will have to have a little money jar out here. You know, every time every time we get it wrong. You’re not gonna get it wrong. Wrong. Let’s hope you don’t get my own last name wrong.
Cynthia De Fazio – 23:15
Spelling just do to me, you’re gonna love it. Oh, my gosh, what Brian, I want to talk to you a little bit about what it feels like to be one of your clients. Because I know that I’ve heard such amazing feedback, especially in between the shows when I’ve had the chance to actually receive emails from viewers that have actually called in or scheduled the time with you. But I want to hear it in your words what someone can expect to receive service wise from being one of your clients. And let’s talk a little bit about someone maybe you helped recently. And why did they choose to work with you? Yeah,
Brian Quaranta – 23:48
well, we really do follow a very disciplined process when folks come in. And you know, it’s the secure money advisors retirement roadmap. And what we do for them is the first step really in it is for us to meet with those folks and really understand what challenges they’re dealing with, what their goals are, what threats or obstacles are in the way of trying to achieve those things. And then for us to really look at where they are and understand what those accounts are supposed to be doing for them and whether or not they’re actually going to accomplish those goals. And then we can kind of determine Do we have the tools and ability to be able to help them because we have to know that if we’re going to onboard somebody I want to make a true change and impact in their life. And our goal is to bring a client on and make them a client for life. Yeah. And we do that through truly through transparency and educating them and understanding where they are and then from there when we do the analysis for us for them and we look at all these what if scenarios, you know what if scenarios are things such as what happens if your if your husband dies first what happens if you die first? What happens if taxes go up? What happens if we have a premature death? What happens if we have a health event, and we need to stress test that portfolio to see how it’s going to respond? What happens if we take this much money out every single year? What happens if all of a sudden you have an emergency and we’ve got to take a larger amount of money out each year, and then we stress test that with them. And then we kind of give them turn by turn directions. And then from there, it’s really easy for them to become a client, because we’ve got a team of people that are truly there to make an impact. And they’re very caring of because we, it doesn’t we don’t take it lightly. When somebody decides to be a client. It’s a big decision for somebody to trust somebody else with money. It’s an honor, it’s Yes, it absolutely is. And we look at it that way. But we have a 411 client care process. And what that looks like for them is that, you know, four times a year we get together with our clients, some of those events are educational, some of them are a little bit more fun, where we bring everybody together. And then we also one time a year, we do a kind of the state of a markets address for folks. And then we do an annual review with them. And then they get access to unlimited financial planning appointments per year, anytime they need to sit down with us and go through it. That’s amazing. What they’re going to notice when they come in is a team of people that care, yeah, that are patient and want to guide them through that process. Okay, yeah. Okay, that’s perfect.
Cynthia De Fazio – 26:18
Let’s talk a little bit about someone that has come into the office recently that you’ve been able to help perhaps Did someone have to retire earlier, Brian due to COVID-19. And perhaps a forced layoff.
Brian Quaranta – 26:29
My most recent client that I helped retire is very, it was very special for me, because they were moving to Wyoming. And we had worked together for about a year, really working through a lot of obstacles, there was a lot of things going on in their life at the time. And, you know, we weren’t really sure whether or not that Wyoming thing was really going to work out. We worked really hard, piecing everything together. And they had stopped into the office a couple weeks ago, and they were leaving, they were ready to go. And it’s so so it’s so nice for us to help people’s dreams. And goals come true. It really is. But this is what we do at secure money advisors. And this is why we offer the complimentary reviews. But like I said, you can’t procrastinate and think these things you can’t kick the can down the road. So when you come in for the next 10 callers, which I don’t even know Do we need to open up more spots, I would say let’s open up five more so we can open up five more spots for so five more spots. For anybody that calls in right now you’re going to get a complimentary review. We’re going to sit down we’re going to really build a plan together if you call 188838 to 1298. Again, that’s 1-888-382-1298 we’re going to give you a complimentary Financial Review at no cost and no obligation to you. Brian, thank
Cynthia De Fazio – 27:44
you so much to the viewing audience at home. That number to call once again is 888-382-1298. Brian has added additional spots this week. We’ll see you next week. Be safe, be happy. Be blessed. Take care.