Retirement You TV: Episode 19

Video Transcript

Cynthia De Fazio – 00:21

And welcome to retirement UTV My name is Cynthia de Fazio. I’m joined today by Brian Quaranta, I did it again president and founder of secure money advisors. Brian, where’s the jar?

Brian Quaranta – 00:32

I need to have it if we can make some charities very, very well. Brian Q. Good morning. How are you? Good to see you. As always, as always,

Cynthia De Fazio – 00:44

it’s so great to see you. And I know that you’ve been so extremely busy every time we talk in between the shows and between the weeks that we had. It’s been amazing when I hear the amount of appointments that you’re booking. So are How many are you? Are you currently booking like a couple weeks out? Let me ask you.

Brian Quaranta – 00:58

So yeah, we’re about three to four weeks out right now, are you? We’re very, very, very busy. And you know, it’s just been an overwhelming response to the TV show. And you know, of course, we do the radio show, too, every Saturday morning on the three Ws and Pittsburgh 94.9 94.5 93. Point, okay. Terrible. I’m on camera, and I’m under pressure to remember. But you know, what’s your name? Right. But But yes, we’re, we’re so busy. And I feel so grateful, because I think people are just really hungry. For good information. Yeah. And that’s what we’ve been providing, you know, I mean, we’re providing good accurate information that people can make decisions on. And what we’re trying to do is take the noise out of the marketplace for them, sure. And help them narrow this thing down and make them realize that there’s very simple decisions that need to be made. Although when you look at it with no guidance or advice from a firm like ours, the decisions are very complicated, right. And they’re very intimidating for a lot of people. So I think people were just really hungry for good information. And they I think they feel that they, they they need a place that they can go to where they’re not going to feel pressure. Yeah, right. I mean, I think most people are intimidated by the fact if you go to a financial advisors office, that they’re going to be pressured to do something. And as a fiduciary, that’s not our job. Our job is to work in the best interests of our client, we put their interests ahead of ours. And our job is to be a guide. That’s it. Yeah, it we’re there to be a guide. Obviously, we become financial quarterback for them. Yeah. But we’re helping them, you know, by educating them, getting them to understand what challenges they’re going to deal with, what threats they’re going to deal with. And we show them solutions to fix those. And there’s, you know, sometimes there’s two or three different approaches that you can take to a situation. And you know, those situations, you know, that those choices that you have to make are a little bit different for everybody. Oh, sure. And this is why it’s customized to their specific needs, goals, desires and things along those lines.

Cynthia De Fazio – 03:03

Yeah, absolutely. And like you said, it’s very customized. And all of your clients have said that, that they feel that you’re really taking the time you spend one on one time with each client so that they do have the personal attention and the education, because I’ve talked about this in prior weeks, but in case someone’s tuning in for the first time, you have such the heart of an educator, and I love the fact I hope you don’t mind, I’m gonna share this again that you call your mom, when you come up with an idea. Like Mom, can I do this by you? Does it make sense?

Brian Quaranta – 03:31

Does it make sense mom? Because, you know, I look, there are complex things that you have to deal with in retirement planning, right? When should I collect my social security? Should I use a delaying strategy? Should I start converting taxable money to tax free money with Roth conversion strategies? What should I do if there’s a health event? Should I self insure with my own assets? Should I look at some type of policy that would help me pay for that event? How am I going to handle my assets being transferred to my children? Should I get a will? Should I get a trust? What should I do their share? Right? Should I have life insurance? Should I not have life insurance? What would be the benefit of doing this? What would not be the benefit of doing this? So many? So many questions. And so when I have you know when I’m when I’m constructing a does, specifically an educational event, and I’m going to talk about a very complex topic, maybe like Roth conversions, or for the importance of having, you know, buffer accounts built into your portfolio. So if the market goes down, there’s a cushion there. I’ll bring that up to mom and I’ll say, Mom, does this make sense? Yes, she says Of course it does. why doesn’t everybody do that?

Cynthia De Fazio – 04:44

I love that. Right. I think that’s amazing. And honestly, it’s just it’s so appreciated because if you don’t work in the industry, all of this can be like alphabet soup. You had absolutely no idea you very confusing, very overwhelming. In your opinion, Brian is that way a lot of people Do not have a true written comprehensive retirement plan that they just don’t know where to start, or there may be afraid.

Brian Quaranta – 05:06

Yeah, well, I think a lot of if you look at the industry itself, you know, I’ve been practicing for over 20 years, and I’ve worked at the big firms and the big firms are really good at selling financial products. Yeah, but they’re really not good at providing a comprehensive plan, what we want to do is provide a comprehensive plan in five key areas, we want to make sure that we do everything we are supposed to do when it comes to maximizing income. Okay, number two is we want to make sure that when we’re moving from the accumulation phase of retirement, where you’re saving your money, and you’re going into the distribution phase. Now, the distribution phase a little bit different for you, because some people might need to take income immediately from their retirement accounts, because they don’t have enough money, because they’re only going to get social security checks, okay, they don’t have a pension. So they might need to take income immediately. But there’s those that might not need to take any income at all. But what they don’t realize, Cynthia is that they’re going to be forced to take it. And that is required to do at the age of 72. Now, now for the IRS says, Hey, time for you to start taking money out of your accounts, whether you want to or not. And if you don’t, there’s big consequences if you don’t do it. So number three is making sure that if we are taking money out, we’re when we’re forced to take money out that we do this stuff in the most tax efficient way and benefit from the current tax laws, so that we pay the least amount of tax possible, right. And then, of course, health events, nobody wants to talk about it. But it’s an issue that has to be discussed when it comes to planning, because that’s a major impact on on a family. If there’s a health event, if all of a sudden your husband or your wife has a stroke, and they need care, care is expensive. And we have to figure out how are we going to pay for that care? Are we going to pay for it ourselves at our own assets? Are we going to have help and covering it with some type of policy? Is there some type of program? Are you a veteran? What are we going to do there? And then of course, the last thing is the legacy planning part. Right? Should I have a will? Should I have a trust? Should I you know, should I, you know, how much am I going to have to pay the IRS if I leave my money to my beneficiaries? When we focus on all five of those areas. And we thoroughly go through each of those areas and everything that is involved with each of those areas, and we dot every I and cross every t that’s comprehensive planning? Absolutely. If you have a pile of stuff, which at our office, we call the POS bag, which most people do, and if you if you’re if you’re one of those people that do don’t feel embarrassed by it, right, I will tell you that 80% of the people typically have a pile of stuff. Absolutely. You know, they’re busy working, taking care of their families. And they have over the years purchase different things. Yeah, but what our job is, is to get all of this stuff organized, and get it working for you sure, because that’s the whole point of us accumulating money, when you retire, the paychecks gonna stop. But bills, taxes, all the things you want to do, that’s not going to stop. And so how do we take you know, 30, 40 years worth of work? And we start to get that money to work for you and change your life, increase the quality of your retirement, so you can go do all the things that you want to do?

Cynthia De Fazio – 08:22

Absolutely. Well, Brian, this is the perfect time for us to open up the phone lines for the very first time this week. Can you tell the viewing audience what they can expect to receive today?

Brian Quaranta – 08:30

Yeah, folks, for the next 10 callers, what we’re going to be doing is we’re going to actually have you come into the office, you’re going to get an opportunity to sit down with us and we’re going to build a plan right there with you. We’re going to go through those five key areas that I just talked about. And we’re going to get a lot covered in a very short period of time during that meeting. And you can’t procrastinate on these things. You know, in order to make change, you cannot continue to kick the can down the road. We know this process for a lot of folks can be intimidating, but don’t know that you’re going to come in. And we’re going to be there to work together as a team and help you map out a plan that’s going to get you to where you want to go. So again for the next 10 callers who call in right now the number is 888-382-1298. Again, that’s 1-888-382-1298. That’s a complimentary Financial Review at no cost no obligation to you,

Cynthia De Fazio – 09:20

Brian, thank you so much to the viewing audience at home. The phone lines are now open that number to call is 888-382-1298. As Brian mentioned, there are 10 spots available this week and they do go fast. The number to call is 888-382-1298. We’ll be right back after this very short commercial break.

Commercial Break – 9:38:00 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 it’s the time to take charge Have 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 – 11:13

Welcome back to retirement You TV, my name is Cynthia de Fazio. I’m joined today by Brian Quaranta, president and founder of secure money.

Brian Quaranta – 11:23

98%. Right, that was actually good. I’ll give you that. Wow, thank you didn’t get the five stars. Yeah, four and a half, three quarters. That’s like when you’re on Amazon. And there’s a five star review and a four and a half. Which one do you go with? You’re gonna have to up my game is what you’re saying.

Cynthia De Fazio – 11:42

I love it. Well, Brian, I wanted to jump into this segment with you and actually talk to you. There’s so much talk right now about Roth IRA converting to a Roth IRA. Does that work for everyone? What are your thoughts on that? And when do you recommend maybe not converting to a Roth?

Brian Quaranta – 11:58

Yeah, this? Well, this is tax planning. Yeah. And this is a very, very important part of comprehensive planning. So when do we do a conversion? When do we not do a conversion? Well, you know, let’s say that you’re going to be retiring next month, okay, or six months from now. And you’re going to need to start taking income from maybe a retirement plan that you have like a 401k. Well, it may not make sense to start converting that money, because we’re not going to have enough time to make back the taxes that we have to pay on that money. Now, a partial conversion may make sense, right, where we might not convert all of it, we could convert some of it so that later on down the road, we have a bucket of tax free money that we can go into later on. But it really comes through conversions are all about timing. And the more time that you decide to do your planning before retirement, the better strategies you can have access to, right. So this is why we always say once you’re in that retirement Red Zone, which is really about five years out from retirement, if you don’t start planning within five years, you’re going to miss a lot of those strategies that help you build tax free income, or tax free money later on down the road. And, you know, these things have to be done over time, a conversion just can’t be done all at once. Because, you know, for any amount of money that we convert, it all counts as income. Okay. But, you know, with Roth IRAs, there’s limits to how much you can put into Roth IRAs. But there’s no limits on how much you convert. And right now, with tax rates, the way that they’ve been, this is the best time to do it. What people don’t realize is that there’s a very limited time to take access to these things, because we don’t know what tax rates are going to be in the future. Now we do if you ask folks, if you think taxes are going up or down in the future, most will say to you, that I think they’re going to go up. Yeah. If you look at the country’s debt, it’s somebody’s got to pay for it eventually. Sure. So it’s a great question. But again, it’s unique to everybody’s situations, depending on where they’re at.

Cynthia De Fazio – 13:59

Absolutely, absolutely. Brian, much on that note, let me ask you as well. The other hot topic that we’re hearing so much about right now is Social Security. A lot of people are thinking that they should take their benefits now, because it’s not going to be available in the future. What are your thoughts on that? Will it go away?

Brian Quaranta – 14:15

I don’t think it’ll go away. I think there’ll be some changes that are made to the younger generations. But for those that are collecting their social security, or a few years out from collecting Social Security, I don’t think all of a sudden Social Security is going to go away. Okay, if you want to see tanks in the street, take Social Security away. Right. I know, you know, imagine with I mean, be like, you know, for most people, that’s that’s their primary source of income and retirement. I mean, you would put people at the poverty level, if you pull away Social Security. I mean, people just wouldn’t be able to maintain their lifestyle. Exactly. Because again, I mean, most people just aren’t getting pensions. So the only if you take Social Security away, what are they going to have? They might not have anything? Yeah, so I don’t think it’s going to go away. I think you’ll see changes to maybe the full retirement age for younger generations, they might move the early retirement age. From 62 to 63, there might be changes there. But something needs to be done. We can’t continue to kick the can down the road. Because we know security is going to be in the red very soon. And so it’s going to have to be funded somehow, some way. Sure. And the problem is, is there’s not as many workers anymore, you know, paying into the system. Yeah, I think there’s, you know, I forget what the ratio is. But there’s not very many workers to how many people are retired. Right. And that ratios interesting. Very light. So. But the question we always get is, should I take my Social Security now, or should I wait? Well, the question I always like to ask is, tell me a little bit about your health first, yeah. Right. Because you could, you know, we could use all the maximization strategies we want. But if you’re not in great health, yeah, what’s the point of delaying social security? Sure, where if you have a family history of, you know, mom and dad and grandma and grandpa, not living a long time, you may want to think about collecting sooner than later. Yeah. Right. And, and what we also have to recognize is that because a lot of people are not getting pensions, if they delay Social Security, that would mean that in order to delay it, and that they would still want to retire, that would mean that they would have to take a larger amount of money from their investments. Well, that could put so much pressure on the investments that they could run the risk of actually running out of money, with the investments later on in life. And the increase that they would get in Social Security versus depleting the investment accounts would not mathematically make sense. So there’s a lot of things to think through. Sure. But at the end of the day, you know, whether you collect at 62 or 66, the time you hit the age of 78, you would have collected the same amount of money. So the breakeven 78. So every year that you would live beyond the age of 78, it would have benefited you to wait till your full retirement age, okay. And then you know, 66 versus 70 is a breakeven of age 82. So it doesn’t matter whether you collect at 66 or 70. By the time you hit age 82, you collected the same amount of money, right? So for every year that you lived past the age of 82, it would have benefited you to wait till 70. Okay, the problem is the average life expectancy in Allegheny County and in Pennsylvania is 78 for a male. Is it really this? Oh, yeah. I don’t even know what the national average is. But for Pennsylvania, it’s 78. So interesting. Yeah. So you know, Social Security is one of those benefits that, you know, when you die, you don’t get anymore it dies with you. So the longer you collect the better.

Cynthia De Fazio – 17:37

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Brian, let me ask you, is it still the number one fear that most people have approaching retirements that they could outlive their money?

Brian Quaranta – 17:45

Well, AARP did a great study. And they, they interviewed or surveyed about 1000 people. And they asked one question, what do you fear most death or running out of money? And over 85% of the people said that they fear running out of money more than they feared death alone? Yeah. So yeah, it’s a major fear. And if you don’t have a comprehensive plan in place, you’re not going to be able to know whether or not that’s going to happen. If you’re blindly approaching withdrawals in retirement. This is where I’ll see people that are three, five years out from running out of money. And I’ll tell you, Cynthia, the worst day of retirement is not the day you run out of money, the worst day of retirement is the day that you figure out it’s going to happen three to five years from now. And there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Yeah. And what do you do? I know now you’re at a point in your life, where physically mentally emotionally, you might not even be able to go back to work. And now you’re going to be depleted of those assets. And so this is why we want to mathematically figure out how much money can you take from these retirement accounts? And from there, we’ve got to figure out if we’re going to take this much out, what rate of return Do we need to maintain principle? What rate of return? Do we need to maybe even grow the money while we’re taking it out? Okay, right. And then we’ve got to figure out what happens if we’ve got to take a large chunk of money out because there’s a health event, and you don’t have any other way to pay for it, but your assets, or what happens if all of a sudden you say, you know, I want to take all the kids and grandkids to Disney World and I want to take 25,000 out or I want to remodel the kitchen, I want to take 50,000 Now, when we build out a model for our clients, we give them a withdrawal worksheet that allows us to plug in those withdrawals and see what the impact that has on the money based on a certain rate of return that they’re getting. And this allows you to have peace of mind confidence that if you want to take money out, you can Yeah. And if you do take money out, you know what the impact is going to be 10, 20, 30 years down the road. Sure, sure. And that really allows you to kind of see into the future. And that gives you the control and and confidence to be able to do the things you want to do in retirement. So many people are scared to take their money because they’ve never figured out the appropriate way to do it show when you come to secure money advisors. Our job is to do two things. Give you the confidence to do what you want to do with your money. And number two, a light asleep well at night,

Cynthia De Fazio – 20:04

Brian, I can’t think of a better time for us than right now to open up the phone lines again to the viewers at home.

Brian Quaranta – 20:09

Yeah, folks, that’s right for the next 10 callers who call in right now what we’re going to do for you is we’re going to sit down with you and build a plan together. And we’re going to go through five key areas, we’re going to talk about income, we’re going to talk about investments, we’re going to talk about taxes. We’re going to talk about health care, and we’re going to talk about legacy planning, but you can’t procrastinate on these things. You can’t kick the can down the road. We know that coming in and seeing advisor can be an intimidating process. But not when you come to secure money advisors know that we’re there to work with you as a team. And we’re there to help guide you and be your financial quarterback. We’re there to help you solve problems. So if you call 1-888-382-1298. Again, that’s 1-888-382-1298. That’s going to be a complimentary Financial Review at no cost to you.

Cynthia De Fazio -20:56

Brian, thank you so much to the viewers at home. Once again, the phone lines are now open. That number to call is 888-382-1298. Brian is offering you a complimentary consultation. Let’s take a look and see what you definitely have in place right now. Will it fit for you whether it’s five years from now 10 years from now and allow you to weather any storm again, the number to call is 888-382-1298. We’ll be right back momentarily after this very short commercial break.

Commercial Break – 9:22:00 PM

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Cynthia De Fazio – 22:50

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

Brian Quaranta – 22:58

taking the safe way out taking the risk.

Cynthia De Fazio – 23:03

When I think about it, it’s like okay, questions about retirement call Brian q it’s right.

Brian Quaranta – 23:08

To me It just goes hand in hand on the radio we do increasing your financial IQ at Brian Q. That’s really what we want to do. Yeah, we want to increase the financial IQ of those out there so that they have the confidence to be able to make good decisions about their money.

Cynthia De Fazio – 23:21

Absolutely. Because we’ve talked about this in the past, Brian, that with retirement, obviously a person is responsible for creating their own paycheck and so that can be scary for a lot of people. So I wanted to ask you your opinion on something. Obviously, some of the media has kind of given annuities, maybe a negative stereotype. Let me ask you, what are your thoughts on annuities? Do you think that they’re beneficial for folks?

Brian Quaranta – 23:42

Well, annuities, I mean, they’re it’s there’s both sides to it. I mean, they can be negative, you know, because there’s a lot of different types. Sure, you know, there’s a variable annuity, there’s a fixed annuity. There’s an indexed annuity, there’s an immediate annuity again, right. So much information that if you go on Google and you read about annuities, you don’t know what type of annuity they’re talking about. So this guy’s saying annuities bad. This guy’s saying annuities good. Well, what type of annuity are they talking about? And unfortunately, what happens is when the average consumer goes out there to start reading about them, they don’t understand that there’s a specific annuity that they might be reading about. So for example, variable annuities, they typically, you know, are beat up pretty much, you know, by the media, and rightfully so they’re very expensive, the money can be at risk, but there’s things out there like fixed annuities that are no different than bank CD’s. They just pay a fixed interest rate, okay. And then there’s things like indexed annuities where if the market goes up, you make some money, if the market goes down, you don’t lose any money. You know, a lot of people go, Well, how does that work? That sounds too good to be true. Well, not really, because they don’t give you 100% of the growth of the market. So you know, if the market goes up, 10% they might only give you half of it. So market goes up 10 you might get five, but when the market goes down, you don’t lose any money. Matter of fact, you keep the money you made the year before. Okay, so that’s nice. And if you think about it, where can an annuity makes sense? Well, annuities were designed for retirement. And why were they designed for retirement because they do something that no other financial product can do. And that’s provide a lifetime income stream to you for the rest of your life. Okay. And it’s an account that can provide you income, no different than a pension would provide you with income. Okay, so if you think about it, why do cars have bumpers? Right? Well, if there’s an accident, it softens the collision? Well, if you have 100% of your money in the market, you don’t have any bumpers on it. Yeah. And so an annuity can act as a bumper. And it can act as a little bit of a buffer so that if the markets are down, and you’re having to take money out of your accounts, you certainly don’t want to take money out of an account. That’s down in value, because you’re gonna compound the loss. So where do you get the money that year? Well, you could get it from the annuity because the annuity, if you buy a fixed or an indexed annuity, you’re not going to lose any money in those. So if the market goes down, right, you certainly don’t want to take it from the investment accounts. Because again, you’re going to compound the loss lock in at a loss. And this is why people run out of money. It’s called sequencing risk. So you create a buffer account, right. And that buffer account can be some type of annuity that you can go to, and grab that money that you need for that year, when the markets down and allow the market account to recover without further bringing down the value of it by taking the money out.

Cynthia De Fazio – 26:24

I’m so glad I asked you about that. Because a lot of people at home are probably thinking, should I be investing in annuity? Is it a good product for me? Because I don’t know what actor it was. But there was someone who said that they hated annuities. And you should, too. Yeah. And it caused like a lot of just talk and speculation. Right. So thank you so much for answering that question.

Brian Quaranta – 26:42

Yeah, it’s just about getting educated on them. Okay. Once people get educated on them, they can see the benefits because there’s pros and cons to them. Yeah. But again, look at it as putting bumpers on on your retirement, right. But this is why we offer the reviews at secure money advisors, because we can go through these types of things. And again, everybody’s situation is customized when they come in. So maybe somebody coming in could benefit from that. But you don’t know. You don’t want to take anything off the table. Everything’s on the table when it comes to retirement planning. The question is, are you going to benefit from that specific financial product versus somebody else may not right, absolutely. But folks, this is why we offer the consultations when you come in so for the next 10 callers and I believe there’s only a few spots left. There’s only about two spots left. Take advantage of it. You’re going to come in we’re going to sit down with you we’re going to build a plan with you side by side. All you got to do is call 18883821298 to schedule that appointment. Folks. Don’t kick the can down the road on this. Take advantage of it. It’s a complimentary finance review. at no cost to you.

Cynthia De Fazio – 27:42

Brian, thank you so much to our viewers at home. Thank you again for spending time with us again this week. The number to call is 888-382-1298. We look forward to seeing you next week. Be safe, be happy, be blessed and take care of yourselves.