Retirement You TV: Episode 23

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Video transcript

Cynthia De Fazio – 00:20

Welcome 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. How are you? I’m doing great. We had a good run the last couple of weeks. It’s amazing. But again, the confetti in the balloons I know, I know. So in the job behind it to the viewing audience, right, it’s taken me about a year and a half to get Brian’s name. Exactly. I can’t promise it’s gonna be the whole show that I’ll do it. But we got it right, that we did. So Brian, I know that you’re extremely busy. We’ve talked about this in the past, but obviously, the shows are doing so well for you. So let’s talk about life in the office. What’s it like for you right now at work? Very busy.

Brian Quaranta – 01:06

Yeah, very busy, which we were actually very surprised by that. Because, you know, with obviously, what we’ve gone through as a country, I didn’t really expect it. But, you know, you got very used to doing video conferences. And but I think March, February and March of 2020, really, you know, reopened everybody’s eyes up to how quickly you can lose money in the stock market. And I think it really motivated people to go out there and really find out, hey, are we really doing the best things that we should be doing right now? Are we really on the right track? You know, are we making the right moves with our investments, and more and more people that, you know, we’d met with and maybe just weren’t ready to make changes really finally decided what we really need to move forward with some of the things that you were recommending. And so we’ve just been really busy, but I think people are also very hungry for good information. Sure. And what I’ve learned is that, you know, all people want today is accurate information. They want unbiased information that they can rely on based around data, facts, math, right. And what I find is that if, if the consumer is just educated with good information, they can make good decisions about their financial planning.

Cynthia De Fazio – 02:18

Okay. Why do you think, Brian, that in the past, so many people were afraid or nervous to talk to a financial adviser?

Brian Quaranta – 02:25

Well, first, I just think the markets one have been really good for a while, right. So you know, kind of when things are going well, there’s not a whole lot of pain to make changes, or you don’t see, you know, the markets are going up, anybody can, can make money, right. But I think the whole process of sitting down with a financial advisor can be very intimidating, right? It can be, you know, you’re opening up your finances, you’re being vulnerable, you’re being you know, you’re afraid, maybe you’re going to be criticized on what you’ve been doing for the last 25, 30 years of your life. But you know, I think people also afraid of being sold, sold, you know, a financial product. And so, but I find that most advisors today that the industry is really changing, even though there’s some some things that need to change in the financial industry. There’s a lot of really great advisors out there today that are really doing what’s in the clients best interest. And I think more and more people are realizing that there’s a safer place to go call the fiduciaries office right? And and working with a financial fiduciary gives the client a little bit more peace of mind knowing that that individual is held to the highest standard that you can be held to in the financial industry to do what’s in the clients best interest and know that when you go in and you see a fiduciary that their job is to provide a plan not to sell you a financial product, so and they’re not beholden to any specific company, they’re independent, which means they can work with any investment company they want to, and they can truly choose what’s best for your situation.

Cynthia De Fazio – 03:55

Absolutely. You’ve come up with something Brian called the right track Retirement System. Let’s talk a little bit about that. And how did that name come about?

Brian Quaranta – 04:03

Well, the number one question we always get is, are we on the right track? So the right track Retirement System was built around that and I was I was surprised of how many people didn’t know whether or not they were on the right track. It is still the number one question we get when people come to our office, or we talked to them over the phone and they say, you know, we just we really just need to know, are we doing the right things? Are we on the right track? Yeah, well, what defines the right track? Where do you even start? How do you know? You know whether or not you should be confident your plan? And well, it all starts with knowing the five key areas. One and most importantly, is income. Sure, because when you retire, the paychecks gonna stop. Yeah, but bills, taxes, and all the things that you want to do in retirement, that’s not going to stop. So you’re going to need money on a monthly basis to be able to do those things. Absolutely. And the fundamental problem is that 85% of the people retiring today are not retire with pensions. So erlan case 401k is you got it. So now we have people moving into retirement and the only guaranteed source of income that they’re going to have is social security. And social security doesn’t cover a whole lot of your salary only cover a very small portion of it. So how are you going to get the rest of the money that you need on a monthly basis? And so understanding the best practices that are involved with generating cash flow on a monthly basis from your portfolio without putting you at risk of potentially running out of money? Sure, right, is is the number one key area of determining whether or not you’re on the right track? How are you going to generate income, because a lot of the strategies that we used to use a long time ago to build an income actually don’t work in the marketplace that we’re in today because of the volatility. So at least people exposed the risks, these are rules. These are old rules, like the 4% rule, and things along those lines that have a lot of risk associated with them. But the other key component is, is investments, making sure that you are maximizing your investments, the returns on your investments, and of course, minimizing the cost of your investments and minimizing the risk also. Now, a lot of times what happens is when we get older, we want to reduce the risk that we’re taking. But a lot of times people will sacrifice, their upside return to reduce that risk. And in the world we live in today because of technology, we have the ability to reduce the risk without dragging down that upside potential too much. And we can do that through sophisticated algorithms today, right? And algorithms are very neat to work with, you know, you probably usually used to use you and I are friends on Facebook, I know you use Facebook, you ever think Facebook’s listening to you? I think probably seven times? How many times have you thought about something, right? And all of a sudden that shows up in your Facebook feed. Why does that work? Well, that’s an algorithm at work. You know, every time you’re scrolling through your Facebook feed, if you just slow down just a little bit, it captures a data point. If you stop, it captures a data point, if you click it captures a data point. So here’s what it starts to do, it starts to understand who you are what you like. And now it starts to give you more of that. And before you know it, you know, if you like cooking, and all of a sudden you get all these things on cooking. If you are, you know like magic, all of a sudden you get all these things magically like fishing, all of a sudden you get all these things on fishing? Well, in the world we live in today with in finance, we have algorithms that look at data points of the markets like volatility, money supply, interest rates, and that algorithm can tell us where those assets should be at any given time, so that we can maximize our returns. Right? Okay. And of course, taxation. Okay, taxation is a big one. And there’s two more which we can talk about at the break. But I really want to talk to people about how they can get the right track Retirement System. Because, you know, folks, what we have to understand is that we can’t continue to kick the can down the road, you have to take action on it work to solve problems here. And when you come in, we’re going to give you a complimentary review, at no cost. So you’re going to sit down with a licensed fiduciary. One of my team members, you might even actually see me because I’m still very active in the office on a day to day basis. And we’re going to sit down, and we’re going to go through these five key areas, which Cindy and I will talk more about these two other key areas when I come back from break. But the right track retirement system is designed to help you determine if you’re on the right track. Now I know it sounds like a mouthful. But there’s a lot that you’re going to learn during this 45 minute to an hour meeting, we’re going to go through your income, we’re going to go through your investments, we’re going to talk about health strategy, we’re talking about legacy strategy, we’re talking about all kinds of different things. When you leave there, you’re really going to have a clear understanding of what a real retirement plan should look like. So again, we’re going to do this at no cost, complimentary to the first 10 callers who call in and Matter of fact, if you call 18883821298. Again, that’s 1-888-382-1298 you can get one of those complimentary views.

Cynthia De Fazio – 09:01

Brian, thank you so much to the viewers at home. as Brian mentioned, the phone lines are now open. And we realized in the past, the phone lines had been busy. So we added the additional phone line for your convenience this week. Again, the number to call is 888-382-1298. Don’t miss the opportunity to have your right track Retirement System put in place for you. Again, we have to take a very short commercial break when we come back. I’m going to dive in to those two queries with Brian so please stay tuned. You don’t want to miss his responses.

Commercial Break – 9:31:00 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 app 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 – 11:05

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.

Brian Quaranta – 11:14

Now just imagine the confetti and balloons coming down and everything because you deserve. We’re on a run, you’re on a winning streak, you are on a winning streak.

Cynthia De Fazio – 11:27

So let’s dive into the two other components that we did not talk about Brian in the retirement plan, if you will.

Brian Quaranta – 11:32

Sure. Health care. Yes. big one. Do you want to retire early? Most people want to retire early. You know, one of our favorite things to do at secure money advisors is really to get you retired earlier than he ever thought was possible. How nice would that be? And through the right track retirement system, you can actually determine whether or not you can retire early. But if you want to retire early, the fundamental problem we have is healthcare right? And how are we going to cover that cost? Now the state of Pennsylvania we have a new marketplace called Penny, which you can go to kind of like the the national database for healthcare but you can or marketplace and you can you can get your your your plan there. But understanding what that cost is going to be. and planning for that until you get to the Medicare age is very important. But the other key component to health care is also a health event. What happens if you have a health event in retirement right? You have a stroke, you’re need some type of care, how are you going to handle that? Most people when you when you ask them how they’re handling that most people don’t have a plan. And a lot of times, the only solution to that is maybe some type of long term care policy, there’s but there’s a lot of better solutions out there other than long term care, there’s programs out there that you can get very cost effective care from. If you’re a veteran, there might be veterans that have benefits available to you. So healthcare is a big component. And of course, the last one is the legacy component. So you do all this great planning. Yeah, you know, you get to retire early, you figure out mathematically how much income you’re going to need, you figure out your expenses, and you realize, hey, with a good plan, I can retire right now. And I’m gonna enjoy retirement Matter of fact, I can get all this income coming in, I don’t have to worry about running out of money. And you have figured it out through math, and you have figured it out through fax and you haven’t done it through opinions or fancy brochures, you’ve taken the time to crunch the numbers and walk through a real retirement plan. So that you know confidently that you’re on the right track. But there’s no point in doing all this great planning. If that when the good Lord decides to take your home, the IRS winds up becoming your largest beneficiaries. Sure. And unfortunately, for a lot of people, that does happen, absolutely. Because that’s a big key component of retirement planning that’s missed. See, what happens a lot of times is people will come in with their POS. Now that’s their pile of stuff out stuff, okay. And a lot of times what we have is we’ve got investments kind of scattered all over the place, we have maybe an old 401k, we have an IRA from maybe an advisor that they bought some, you know, investments from, you know, a while back, maybe they have a few other accounts with the bank. And they haven’t figured out a way to actually get all of this to start working for them, right and how to leverage this and maximize what you’re getting from the money that you’ve accumulated over your lifetime. And so the the key here is making sure that every dollar has a purpose, every dollar has a purpose. And and you know, one thing I want to mention in regards to the legacy, part of things is the fact that, you know, the secure Act was signed into law in at the end of 2019. And most people are not familiar with this, but this was probably the biggest change we’ve seen in financial planning in 20 years, where the IRS now is no longer allowing us to stretch IRAs out over our lifetimes and they’re forcing us to spend these IRAs down at death very quickly, which causes a big taxable event to that family and that has to be part of a good Out of figuring out how to solve that problem, and there are solutions to those problems. Yeah,

Cynthia De Fazio – 15:04

yeah, absolutely. Brian, let me ask you on that vein of tax planning, if you will, how important is it to talk about a Roth conversion, if it’s applicable to someone’s situation?

Brian Quaranta – 15:13

Well, keep in mind, there’s two things that are gonna erode your wealth. There’s gonna be inflation and taxation. Okay. So the reason taxation erodes our wealth is very simple. All you got to do is look at the math. So if you have, you know, let’s say your your, your, you’re retiring. And let’s say you need $10,000 a month from your retirement plan. And let’s say you’re in a 20% tax bracket, okay? Well, after you take the 20% out, because when you withdraw your money from your retirement plan, it’s 100%. Tax, well, you’re gonna get a 1099. Every dollar is taxable. So we withdraw that money, we pay the 20% on it. So we’re netting $8,000. Wow. Well, what happens if tax rates go up? What happens if they go to 30% 40%? They go to 40%. Now that same withdrawal of $10,000, after taxes is only netting $6,000. Yeah. Right. So now we have an erosion of your wealth erosion of your purchasing power, just from taxation alone. Now, if you add inflation there sure, you know, you could be looking at a 40 50% hit on on your income just from taxation and inflation alone. And that might, you know, not sound like a lot right now, although I think it does, absolutely, you know, fast forward 10 1520 years down the road, when the cost of living has gone up. And anything along those lines, you have to think through those things, you have to think through those things on paper, you have to take the time to crunch the numbers. We don’t build plans off of fancy sales brochures, we build plans and sophisticated software that allows us to look at the probability of success of a portfolio. And that’s the whole point of the right track Retirement System is making sure that we’ve gone through the math to make sure that you’re going to be successful, and you have a high probability of success with your portfolio.

Cynthia De Fazio – 16:55

Absolutely. Brian, let me ask you, how long does it take for you to design a retirement plan for someone from beginning to end?

Brian Quaranta – 17:02

It’s quite a bit of time, I mean, a well thought out retirement plan could probably take about 20 hours or more, okay, no, sometimes even more, depending on the complications of the plan and how big we’re talking about here. So and that’s a team approach at our office. I mean, you know, there’s multiple eyes on that plan, looking for the problems. And we also rely on very sophisticated software that allows us to identify certain problems, that’s a really nice thing is that when people come in, when we put them through our software, you know, that software starts to identify where the problems are. And that allows us to have a really good conversation with the client. And what’s nice is, it’s not us coming to them saying they have a problem. This is this is this is real data here, and that data is being aggregated, based around their current portfolio so we can plug in their current portfolio, we can look at the potential probability of success of that portfolio, we could look at, we can look at the cost of the portfolio, we could look at what happens if we have another 2007 2008? You know, what’s the maximum drawdown? Or how much money could you lose during that time period. And then we could also look at what the probability of success would be if you were to take the amount of income out that you need, how long would that money last. And so based on your current portfolio, you can see where you are. And that’s nice, because when you go to a financial advisors office, the goal is not to go in and just start moving money around, the goal is to go in and see if you can go from where you are right now to a new place and be doing better than where you were. And there’s no reason to move your money unless you can actually do better, right? But how do you know whether or not you can do better? Well, you have to understand where you are. But you have to have a third party, unbiased approach to help you understand where you are, right? And so now we can then we can compare and say, Look, if we move this to here, or we tweak this here, we move this lever down and this lever up. Look at the difference that it makes him.

Cynthia De Fazio – 19:05

Absolutely. That’s very, very important. Brian, this is the perfect time for us to reopen the phone lines. Do you agree,

Brian Quaranta – 19:09

folks, and we’re talking about the right track retirement system here? The number one question we always get secure money advisors is, am I doing the right things? Am I on the right track? Have you ever wondered that for yourself? Have you ever wondered when you go into your financial advisors office when you leave? Are they really doing the best? I mean, are we covering all of the areas of financial planning that we should? Are we do we really have a retirement plan right now? Do we even actually have a plan? Are we doing everything we can to save on taxes? Are we doing everything we can to maximize our returns reduce our risk? These are the things that the right track Retirement System is going to help you determine. So for the next 10 callers who call in right now, we’re going to give you a complimentary no cost to you. Not very often that you get to sit down with a licensed fiduciary and go through your portfolio from A to Z. Now you actually have To take action though, you’ve got to get up off the couch, put your cup of coffee down, get up off the couch, and you’ve got to take action and call the number. It’s 1-888-382-1298. Again, that’s 1-888-382-1298. folks don’t kick the can down the road take advantage of this great opportunity. We look forward to seeing at the office.

Cynthia De Fazio – 20:19

Brian, thank you so much to the viewers at home. as Brian mentioned, the phone lines are now open that number to call is 888-382-1298. We have to take a very short commercial break when we come back. I’m going to have some more questions for Brian about how to plan your perfect retirement. Please stay tuned.

Commercial Break – 8:36:00 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 the 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 expose your 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 – 22:02

And welcome back to retirement You TV. My name is Cynthia de Fazio, I’m joined by Brian Quaranta. He is president and founder of secure money advisors. And Brian a great show we’re having today. I know you can’t see the phone lines light up because I’m looking in that direction. You’re looking at other. But it has been so busy today. And I’m not surprised because obviously you’re delivering an important message and also the complimentary consultation to make sure that they’re on the right track is extremely important.

Brian Quaranta – 22:30

Yeah, absolutely. I think I think what I was just gonna say, you know, I think it shows how hungry people are for information. Because not only does this happen on the TV show, but the radio show media that we do every Saturday on 93.5 94.53 3ws, the same thing. I mean, you know, people call in they want good information right now. So it’s not surprising to me that we’re seeing that, because it’s, it’s a desperate need for information right now.

Cynthia De Fazio – 22:55

Really? Absolutely. And I think you mentioned something earlier, that’s so key as well. It’s timely, because of everything that happened last year with COVID 2020. And the market being so volatile, people waking up and maybe had lost money that didn’t expect to be losing money. This is very timely and very needed. So if someone was fortunate enough today, Brian to gain one of the complimentary consultations with you for their review, what can they expect when they come into the office?

Brian Quaranta – 23:21

Well, I would say what, what’s it like when you go to a friend’s house, okay, because it’s, it’s gonna be the same environment. You know, we’re just a very welcoming group of people, and we’re there to truly help. And if we can’t help, we’ll be very upfront with them. But what they can expect is to be educated, what they can expect is to have a nice experience with our team. And going through the process of understanding what being on the right track really looks like, and leaving with things that really are meaningful, that are going to be thought provoking for them to have to think about and how they can better themselves and their families in retirement. So it’s it’s a very gentle approach. And but it’s, it’s, it’s a necessary approach in the way that we work. So you know, we’re just a fun group of people, you know, we have a lot of fun in our work, but we take our work very serious, because we understand that we’re dealing with people’s life savings here, absolutely do not take this lightly. And now we’re dealing with 30, 40, 50 years worth of work. In some cases, we’re dealing with three, four generations worth of wealth. So it’s very important work that we do.

Cynthia De Fazio – 24:34

Absolutely. And I know that people really enjoy the amount of time that you spend with them. So would you say that you carve aside perhaps an hour for your clients by and how does that normally work?

Brian Quaranta – 24:44

Yeah, about an hour is what it takes from start to finish. Now sometimes those meetings can go a little bit longer. You know, as long as we’ve got the time to take it out a little bit longer. We’ll take it out as long as we have to to get their questions addressed. So you know, but Typically, you’re going to be looking at about 45 minutes to an hour and a lot gets accomplished during that time. Because we have a process to bring them through. You know, I think the sometimes it can be intimidating going into a practice, because you might not know what to ask, should you not have to worry about that? Because we’re gonna ask all the questions. Okay. All the questions, you should be asking a financial advisor. All right. So that takes that, that that anxiety out of the equation of what do I even ask this guy? Where do we even start? Yeah, well, we’re gonna bring you through the process, we know where to start. And we know what steps to bring you through so that you can have a clear picture of where you are, and potentially where you might need to go.

Cynthia De Fazio – 25:40

Okay, thank you. Now, is there also a checklist that people would follow for items that need to be brought in with that first consultation meeting?

Brian Quaranta – 25:47

So we sent a letter out just, you know, recommending some some things to bring in, you know, and which helps them, you know, gather up their stuff that they need to there’s a little intake form that we send out, you know, so that people have a little bit of a of a checklist to follow before they come in.

Cynthia De Fazio – 26:02

Yeah. Okay. And how important is it for husbands and wives to come in together their audience today? Well, if you’re married, it’s absolutely critical. Right. You know, I know for myself, I mean, I’m not making any decisions without my wife, right. Sure. So we really encourage a married couple come together. Yeah. Okay. I think it’s very important. Absolutely. And again, we have about a minute and a half left of the show. Brian, do you want to tell the viewers one more time? Yeah.

Brian Quaranta – 26:26

Folks, the whole thing we’ve been talking about here is are you on the right track? Are you on the right track? Have you ever wondered that? Are you on the right track? Well, our right track retirement system really is going to help you determine that and for the next 10 callers who call in right now we’re going to give you a complimentary review of your current situation. Remember, you can’t get a second opinion from somebody, they gave you the first opinion, okay. So if you call 18883821298. Again, that’s 18883821298. Tonight, we’re going to give you a complimentary review of your current situation with our right track retirement system. And this system is going to go through five key areas for you. It’s going to go through your income, it’s going to go through your taxes, it’s going to go through your investments, your legacy planning, your health care, we’re going to cover all of those five key areas, you’re going to find out where you are, where you need to do, where you need to improve, or you’re going to get confirmation that you’re already doing the right thing. So again, take advantage of this, folks. It’s 1-888-382-1298. Remember, you got to do the work, you got to get up and take action. Don’t kick the can down the road with this great offer. Call and we look forward to seeing at the office.

Cynthia De Fazio – 27:33

Brian, thank you so much for another great show this week. Thank you for taking the time to come here. Absolutely. to the viewers at home. Thank you for spending time with us again this week. We know you have a lot of questions and how to plan your perfect retirement Brian has the answers for you. Again, all you have to do is pick up the phone and call 8883821298 be safe, be happy, be blessed and we’ll see you back here next week. Thank you for watching.