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Video Transcript
Rebecca Powers 00:24
Welcome to this week’s edition of On the Money with Secure Money brought to you by Brian Quaranta of secure money advisors. I’m Rebecca Powers so good at so glad that you’re with us again this week. We talk often Hello, by the way. It’s been so warm lately. It’s so strange on the weather either. Okay, so we talk about safe money and a lot of people email and call in and we love that. And they say what does he mean? Can you expand, expound more on safe money? How do you feel about annuities? Because that’s one of the many tools that you might consider.
Brian Quaranta 00:58
Yeah, as an income source or even a place for safety. Right? So, I mean, there’s lots of different safe places you can go, you can go a checking account, a money market account, you can go bank CD, you can go treasury bonds, right. And you can do laddering through Treasury bonds. Right. But annuities are very simple products, but the word annuity is thrown around very loosely. And not all annuities are created equal. And this is why we have what I would consider the annuity being kind of the bad word, right, you know, so Oh, gosh, I heard it. These are terrible, stay away from ‘em! I don’t think an annuity that pays a five and a half percent guaranteed that has no fees, and you know, guaranteed lifetime income, that works just like a bank CD- I don’t see that being a bad deal. And as a matter of fact, here in Pittsburgh, we’ve got three of the best companies that you can do that with. And people don’t even know that. So. But what a lot of people don’t know, is, you know, this, this annuity if it was so bad, I will tell you that in 1929, we had the Great Depression. Yes. And Babe Ruth was obviously one of the best baseball players ever, best baseball player of his time. But because of the Great Depression, Major League Baseball attendance was down over 40%. And so, we weren’t really sure they weren’t really sure how things were gonna go. And Babe Ruth’s manager at the time. And I write about this in my book, by the way, it’s all in my book, if you guys want to know more story, good idea. But he’s a manager at the time said, you need to take money, and you need to buy an annuity. So, we went to an insurance agent, and he bought an annuity. And when he retired, he had over $17,000 of guaranteed income a year. Now, in today’s dollars, it’s over $250,000 a year in guaranteed income. So that was great advice, great advice, and it lasted his entire life. So how can you say an account is bad, that’s going to pay you an income for the rest of your life. And by the way, if you die, the money that’s still in the account, pays out to your family. And in today’s world, the new annuities, the income can even go to your spouse, and that’s gonna. So again, they’re a tool, and they can be really great, especially if you’re retiring without a pension, because you can create a private pension.
Rebecca Powers 03:18
So, the variable annuities, I think, is what maybe has soured a lot of people about them, because it varied it had high fees. It’s actually in the market. Yes. Whereas the fixed indexed annuity that I love, yep, is the opposite. It’s not in the market, but it’s tied to get some of the gains. But you protect your principles here, you know, zero is your hero. Yeah,
Brian Quaranta 03:39
Yeah, yeah. And a lot of people go, Well, how do you? How does how does an account allow you to make money when the market go up, but not lose money when the market goes down, it’s really simple, you’re not going to get 100% of the gains when the market goes up. So, a lot of times the way that these annuities work, and they’ll say, we’re only going to give you 70% of the gains. So, what that would mean in a year that the stock market went up 10%. If you’re getting 70% of that you’re only getting a 7% return. But here’s the nice thing. If you have $100,000, and that happens, and you earn 7%, your 100,000 is going to 107,000. So, let’s say next year, next year, the market drops 50%. Well, there’s a very powerful formula in that annuity called an annual lock, which means that once you earn again, it cannot be taken away. So that means that the market dropped the next year 50%. Your account is staying at $107,000. And then there’s another very powerful equation called the annual reset, which means that it resets the lower market value. So as soon as the market comes back, you start making money off of $107,000. Yes, annual lock annual reset. Not every annuity has that. This is why it’s so important that people work with a fiduciary firm because not only do you have to understand the engineering behind the retirement, but you got to understand the nuances of these specific products that provide these solutions because we always need product to provide solutions. That’s right. But some things are better than doing it others. You know, the one thing that amazes me, Rebecca is that we insure everything in life. We insure our house. Yeah, sure. Our cars, jewelry I’ve done that. We insure everything. Yeah. You know, nobody ensures the retirement income. It’s so eye opening when you say it, like, you want to know what an annuity does, and ensures your retirement income. So, you never run out. Anybody that says that that’s a bad account, in my opinion, has a motive.
Rebecca Powers 05:29
Yeah, right? Because they want you to leave it in the stock market for whatever their motives may be.
Brian Quaranta 05:34
See annuities. Don’t pay advisors an annual fee. That’s the problem.
Rebecca Powers 05:38
So how do you get paid you pick the big, wonderful insurance company because you’re an independent, they pay you right? So, it doesn’t come out of your clients pocket.
Brian Quaranta 05:45
That’s right. So, it works exactly like a bank CD. So, when you know, when you put money in there, there’s a term, you know, three-year, five-year or 10-year, whatever. But you know, if you were to buy a bank CD, let’s say you buy a five-year bank CD, you’ve got to wait all five years before you can touch the money. The one advantage with the annuities, you can put money and start taking money out right away. And income right away. You don’t have to pay a penalty. No, well, if you as long as you adhere to a certain limit, so they let you take out up to 10%. But let me tell you something, you were taken out 10% a year. Yeah, money’s gonna go. Your money’s gonna go away. Yeah. So, you know, typically people might take four to five, maybe 6%. From those are
Rebecca Powers 06:24
in case of emergency maybe. So, if someone has a variable annuity, and they just heard what we said, they’re going, Oh, why did I get that? Can you take that variable now? And can you move it into what you liked? If it’s fixed indexed?
Brian Quaranta 06:37
So, about 15 years ago, I created something called the variable annuity escape. Variable Annuity escape was designed to actually call the insurance company with the client on the line, not the person that sold them it, but the insurance company directly. Yeah. And we go through a 15-point checklist with the insurance company finding out what their fees are, what their benefits are, how the annuity works. And the time we’re done with that call, usually, I will ask the client. Had you known all of this prior to purchasing this? Would you have ever sign on the dotted line? They say Absolutely not. Because none of this was disclosed to me and you want to know something, it’s not disclosed on any of the statements either. And in most cases, you can usually roll that over and get out of it, maybe with no penalties or just some small penalties. And there’s some ways to do that. And sometimes it makes sense to do that. So, folks, I want you to take advantage of our right track retirement review. It is an analysis that we do for you where we go over five key areas, we go over your income, your investments, your taxes, your health care strategy in your state planning strategy. During that meeting, it’s about an hour meeting, where we’ll talk to you about what concerns you have everywhere, anywhere from “how do I retire,” or “how do I stay retired,” whether you’re taking too much risk, or you’re not taking enough risk, we’ll be able to uncover what’s really going on and help you maximize what you’re currently doing. All you got to do is pick up the phone today and call 1-888-382-1298. Again, that’s 1-888-382-1298. Or you can scan that QR code down at the bottom of the screen. And that’ll take you to write track your retirement.com. Or you can just type in right track your retirement.com go right to the landing page. And as a bonus for scheduling, I’m going to give you a copy of my book absolutely free, we pay for the shipping and handling. We get it out to you in about a week. But my promise to you is this when you come in, there is no sales pitch, there is no pressure. The meeting that you’ll have with my team is very informative and very eye opening. So, take advantage of again 1-888-382-1298.
Rebecca Powers 08:40
And you might be on the right track. And they’ll tell you that as well. Stay with us more with Brian Quaranta right after this.
Brian Quaranta 08:45
So, everybody can tell you how to invest your money. There’s not a lot of people out there and a lot of firms that can teach you how to use your money. Most people will also tell you that they’re scared. And the reason they’re scared is because they’re afraid of running out of money.
Neil Major 08:59
The last thing you want to do is have a really good job and you’re in your 60s retire and be looking for work again in their late 70s.
Brian Quaranta 09:07
The average person might say, well, a good portfolio would be a good mix of stocks, bonds and mutual funds, kind of a good portfolio is all designed around the five key areas income, taxes, investments, health care and legacy planning.
Neil Major 09:22
Because we’re not just product pickers here, what we do best here is we build retirement plans.
Brian Quaranta 09:27
9 out of 10 people when they walk through the door would ask us, we just want to know if we’re on the right track. And I always say if you’re not on the right track, when would be a good time to know it. Probably now.
Neil Major 09:38
People, you know, can actually see a vision once we start to really build out their plan.
Brian Quaranta 09:42
This is about you. If you’re not getting what you need, and you feel that when you walk out of the advisor’s office, it’s time to get a second opinion. And you can’t get a second opinion from the person that gave you the first the difference it’s secure money advisors, as a fiduciary firm, we help you manage the risk, build the income, and give you the retirement you dreamed of.
Rebecca Powers 10:13
Welcome back to On the money with secure money and the title of the show was actually brought about because that is what you are number one focused on securing people’s money informing them that you don’t have to live in fear every time you open your portfolio. How many times have people come in? Yeah. And prospective clients, you say, Okay, let’s see your plan. And all they have is their portfolio because we weren’t taught that that is just one part of what should be a plan.
Brian Quaranta 10:39
Right. Yeah. And this is where we get confused about an investment strategy and retirement strategy. Because there’s five areas of retirement strategy, there’s the income component, there’s the investment component, taxes, health care strategy, and an estate planning strategy. You have to make sure every i is dotted, every T is crossed. Yeah. Otherwise, you’re leaving things undone. If you have a 401 K or an IRA, that’s great. That’s an investment strategy. But that’s not a retirement strategy. retirement strategy is not so much about the investments, as is the engineering behind getting everything to work together, right? Because when you retire, you’re your money really has one job that’s to support you for the rest of your retirement. Right, right. It’s not to continue to gamble with your money, this whole cookie cutter phrases that Wall Street has, like, you know, don’t worry about it hang in there, you’re in it for the long haul. Look, at the long haul eventually has to end, right, because eventually you win the game, right? And I always say, Look, if you’ve won the game, stop playing our plane, because you know what happens? The house eventually wins, right? The house eventually, look at all these people that, you know, all this stuff we saw with, you know, these trading companies where they’ve got whatever buying Gamestop and GE, AMC and, you know, last year and about, you know, young kids making millions of dollars overnight with a small investment of like, $1,000, right? That’s not the norm. And you want to know what happened to most of those people to house to get back. Tesla, you know, everybody thought they were a hero for buying Tesla until went down 70%. I’m not against the market. What am I against is gambling with 30 to 40 years’ worth of work. And until you protect the most important thing, and that’s your income so that you can live the lifestyle that you want to live and do the things that you want to do your family and your grandkids, whatever. That’s the responsible way of handling it. If you’re just rolling the dice, that’s not a responsible way of handling it. If you’re that hardheaded that you think that I’ll be fine. Good, you know what, it may fall in your favor, but it may not. And there are studies out there that show it that when you retire, the order in which the market performs, right, the ups and downs a sequence in which your portfolio earns interest matters. And if you get the wrong sequencing of returns, you can run out of money. If you get the right sequence of returns, you might not run out of money. So it’s a 50-50 shot, you know, the Wall Street Journal had an article. And they said, depending on the year that you retire, and what the markets doing, especially if the markets down your plan, depending on the rate of return it gets has up to a 57% chance of failing about that. Wow. I mean, just imagine we were about to get on an airplane together. Imagine we were all about to get on an airplane together a really big plane, the big plane, and we’re all taking our seats, and we’re sitting there, and we’re about to back out of the gate. But before we back out of the gate, the Catholic gets on the intercom and he says folks, I just got word for the tower, that there’s a 57% chance we may crash into the ocean before we get to our destination. How many of you are gonna stay on the plane if there’s a 57% chance of crashing into the ocean? Right? Right. So, we, you know, I’m oversimplifying there, but you get it.
Rebecca Powers 13:45
You make a point because I think we’ve all been conditioned to just that double talk, I call it, Oh ride the wave, ride the roller coaster, it’ll come back. If you’ve heard these things over and over. That’s a big red flag. Yes. And so, we’ve been conditioned, because we need to keep we need to keep our money in the stock market for them, whoever they are. Right, whoever they are, whoever they are, or the casino. Same thing. You know, it costs a million dollars a day to keep most casinos open, they have to hedge their bets and the house needs to win.
Brian Quaranta 14:17
That’s right. They need to win. And I could get this number wrong. But I think it was last reported. When on my radio show, we were talking about the casinos. I think they had $94 billion in earnings, you know, just in Pennsylvania alone.
Rebecca Powers 14:31
And it even went up during COVID because they got the stimulus checks and a friend of mine at the casino said It was our busiest day after that first stimulus check came out. So, we do have some bad conditioning habits we do need to help people break.
Brian Quaranta 14:44
Yeah, because people have been conditioned to just put their head in the sand and say, Well, I’m not gonna look at my statements.
Rebecca Powers 14:50
“They say it’s okay, so it’s probably okay.”
Brian Quaranta 14:51
Hey, look, if you’re 30, 40, even 50 That might be okay. But when you start to get to 55-60 That’s not okay anymore. Okay. You shouldn’t buy into that advice anymore, you don’t have the time to recover. Here’s the other thing. You know, I did a lot of research on this when I wrote the book. And I wrote this book because I was so frustrated. Because you know, is great as it been to have access to the internet, you know, and have access to this unlimited amount of information. You and I were just talking about this the other night, it accesses unlimited information. It’s also you gotta be very careful where you’re getting your resources from, right. But the reason I wrote the book is because I wanted people to have a very simple way to understand retirement planning and understand the basic fundamentals that go into building retirement plan. And it’s easier than they think. And one of the things that we’ve done really well as security advisors, is we’ve made it simple, and very easy to understand. And when you understand your plan that provides you with confidence to go out and do the things you want to do. You know, there’s so many people out there today that aren’t doing the things they want to do, because no one’s taught them how to use their money, they once taught them how to get their money to start working for them. So, they never use it. And then they die. And you want to know who uses their money? Their kids.
Rebecca Powers 16:05
Or Uncle Sam, because they didn’t do their legacy and estate planning.
Brian Quaranta 16:09
That’s right. That’s right, exactly right.
Rebecca Powers 16:11
So important. Do you have people that come in and say, Am I ready to retire? I honestly have no idea.
Brian Quaranta 16:17
All the time. Is that the biggest thing there? Yeah, we don’t know if we can retire, we don’t know if we’ve saved enough. And people can retire on a lot less money than they think, okay, you know, if you’ve saved $250,000, or more than a pretty good chance, depending on what your expenses are, you may be able to build a pretty good retirement plan with it. Right? So, people have been conditioned, again, to think that they need millions and millions of dollars to retire successfully. But once you start to piece together the puzzle, it really does start to become very clear that, depending again, on expenses, and debts and things along those lines, but we’ve seen people do it very, very easily with $250,000. And retire, you know, early, you know, 60 to 63 years old on that kind of money.
Rebecca Powers 17:00
So, when we come back, we’re going to talk about the written plan. It’s so wonderful. And I can tell you, you open your binder, and you see these wonderful projections until you’re 90 years old. That is such peace of mind, do you feel like when you hand that to someone, you actually see their body changed.
Brian Quaranta 17:15
It is, and you know, when we hand people the binder, we you know, we do a what we call the investment inventory binder. And that investment inventory binder has the entire written plan in there. And I will tell you right now, that if you call in me if you call 888382129. And you can schedule a complimentary right track meeting, the meeting is free. I don’t know any other way to say it, right? It’s actually free, but it’s loaded with value. It’s loaded with value, because we are going to listen to your concerns. And we’re going to show you some basic fundamentals that you probably not following. So, the one promise I will make to you though is this, when you come to my office, no one will ever sell you anything, no one will ever pressure to do anything. And the meeting will be very informative and very eye opening. And you will walk out of there with a new piece of information that will be helpful to you. But you got to do your part, I need you to pick up the phone call 1-888-382-1298. Again, that’s 1-888-382-1298, our team is standing by to take your call to get your scheduled. When you get scheduled, I’m also going to give you a bonus, which is my book, right track retirement book, where we will send that out to you that again, we will pay for the shipping and handling on that read that before you come in from A to Z. It’s a really simple read. But it’s very, very informative 1-888-382-1298.
Rebecca Powers 18:37
And more about your retirement and how you can secure the money you’ve worked so hard for right after this quick break.
Brian Quaranta 18:44
So, everybody can tell you how to invest your money. There’s not a lot of people out there and a lot of firms that can teach you how to use your money. Most people will also tell you that they’re scared. And the reason they’re scared is because they’re afraid of running out of money.
Neil Major 18:58
The last thing you want to do is have a really good job and you’re in your 60s retire, be looking for work again in your late 70s.
Brian Quaranta 19:06
The average person might say, well, a good portfolio would be a good mix of stocks, bonds and mutual funds, kind of a good portfolio is all designed around the five key areas income, taxes, investments, health care and legacy planning.
Neil Major 19:21
Because we’re not just product pickers here, what we do best here is we build retirement plans.
Brian Quaranta 19:26
9 out of 10 people when they walk through the door would ask us, we just want to know if we’re on the right track. And I always say if you’re not on the right track, when would be a good time to know it. Probably now.
Neil Major 19:36
People you know can actually see a vision once we start to really build out their plan.
Brian Quaranta 19:41
This is about you if you’re not getting what you need. And you feel that when you walk out of the advisor’s office, it’s time to get a second opinion. And you can’t get a second opinion from the person that gave you the first. The difference at secure money advisors, as a fiduciary firm, we help you manage the risk, build the income, and give you the retirement withdrawal.
Rebecca Powers 20:11
Welcome back to On the money with secure money with Brian Quaranta. You were telling me a story during the break about a 60-year-old who bought an annuity and the income that it provides was kind of shocking.
Brian Quaranta 20:22
Yeah. So, I call this the portfolio equivalent value. Right. So, I love your name. Yeah, portfolio value. So, you got to think about this: Where’s my of success higher? So, we took $250,000 of his portfolio, right, which was a small portion of his portfolio. And we purchased an annuity with an income rider. And in five years, I’m sorry, in six years, that annuity generated over $25,000 a year in annual income. Wow. Okay. So that portfolio Had that been off the traditional way of trying to build income, all right, that portfolio would have needed to have grown in the stock market, it would have needed to have grown to almost $400,000. So, ask yourself this, where is my probability of success higher, right? Getting a guarantee right now where I know exactly what my income is going to be, we’re hoping and praying that my portfolio is going to grow to a certain amount by a certain time, right? That’s the portfolio equivalent value, because I can buy a guarantee right now for the future. Or my other choices, I can try to invest my money and get a rate of return and hope that I get it. And if I don’t, I’ll never be able to get that income. So, these are just ways, again, to provide peace of mind and security in retirement. And they’re not the only ways. But these are strategies that people need to know about.
Rebecca Powers 21:46
When I first heard about it, I think, Oh, it sounds too good to be true. How does it work? Yeah. Because it’s really important to understand about the big insurance companies how it is very safe, right? Yep. Talk about when stocks and bonds go down. Insurance companies actually do better.
Brian Quaranta 22:00
Yeah, well not only that, but you’re buying a true guarantee. You know, it’s you know, my brother was asking me one time, you know, he’s, he’s got three kids, and he has an asphalt business in New Jersey. And we had bought him I think, his first million-dollar term policy, you know, going back 10 years ago, and he’s going, how, how do they only charge me 20 hours a month? Well, first off, insurance companies are brilliant. It’s like, well, how do we have all this devastation with hurricanes, and they have to pump out billions of dollars? Because insurance is pooled risk. It’s pooled risk, okay, you pool risk together, right? You can protect each other. And that’s all it’s doing is pooling risk. So, everyone goes, well, how do I only pay 20 dollars, though. Aren’t they- Aren’t they- How are they ever going to make money off of me? I said, The probability of them ever having to pay you this million dollars is very small. As a matter of fact, 90% of all turn policies never pay out. So, think about all that money the insurance companies are collecting and 90% of them never pay out for the 10%. That do. And for the 10% that do receive a check when they earn when they lose a spouse, you know, in a car accident or an untimely death? That is life changing for them to get a tax-free check of $1,000,000, $2 million dollars $3 million? How do insurance companies insure our cars? How can you buy a brand new car today, record tomorrow, and they give you a full price for it? Because insurance companies are amazing at mitigating risk. And if people would just understand that one of the most important things that need to be insured is their income. Right? They would sleep a lot better at night. I always call it sleep insurance.
Rebecca Powers 23:38
It’s sleep insurance. I love the stuff you say I write down so many notes when I’m doing the show with you. Okay, so we insure it’s like you say, you get a license to go fishing you get a license to drive a car, but nobody has to have a license to have a baby or raise a child. It kind of reminds me of the same thing. You insure your stupid car, your stupid jewelry, or you know furniture, is your house of course; and not-
Brian Quaranta 23:57
Your most important thing, which is your retirement income. Yeah, yeah.
Rebecca Powers 24:03
And it’s tragic if you run out of money. That is definitely what everyone needs to avoid. Right.
Brian Quaranta 24:06
But this is why I took the time to write the book.
Rebecca Powers 24:10
Yeah, it’s really good. It’s easy read to and I don’t like to read.
Brian Quaranta 24:12
It is an easy read.
Rebecca Powers 24:13
It really is.
Brian Quaranta 24:14
It was important to me. I love to read. And I’m always reading everything get my hands on. And every time I read a book; I always think of myself this author could have said this in one chapter. But yet they drone on for three chapters. You read a book where you’re like, Okay, come on, get to the point.
Rebecca Powers 24:28
I enjoy it. But it does put me to sleep.
Brian Quaranta 24:30
Especially if you’re reading about money.
Rebecca Powers 24:34
Yeah, you did a good job with that too, because it’s not always a very fascinating subject, right?
Brian Quaranta 24:38
I call it the airport read. That was my goal. We were like, What do you mean an airport read? Well, I want to go to the airport, get on a plane. I want to read the book. Right, so but people can get a copy of that book, when they call. Matter of fact, if you call 1-888-382-1298 You can schedule a complimentary right track retirement review, where we’ll go through the five key areas with your income, investments, taxes, health care strategy, estate planning strategy. And you know, I always say, on every show, my promise is this, no one in my office is ever going to press you to do anything. We’re not, we’re not here to sell you anything. We’re here to help you solve problems. That’s what we do. Our number one goal is a fiduciary firmers to help you solve problems, help you maximize what you currently have. And you will walk out of that meeting very informed. And it’ll be a lot of eye-opening things that you learn. So, if you call 1-888-382-1298, you can schedule that meeting. And as always, as a bonus, I will send you a copy of my book, pay for the shipping and handling. That book is right track your retirement. And it really is it’s a simple guide to building income and reducing risk in retirement, which everybody should consider with some of their money, and are important.
Rebecca Powers 25:47
And to be quite frank, if people are wondering, why does he give this free thing? Why does he give the free book, let’s just be honest, when people come in, and they get that third party report, see it in black and white, and they meet you and your wife, Kate, and Neil and Randy and the whole team. It’s almost a no brainer. I mean, you have very high success of people wanting to have a relationship.
Brian Quaranta 26:07
Yeah, look, we’ve helped, you know, well over 1000+ people retire just like all the listeners, just every single one of y’all watching right now, there are people just like you everyday people, just like you have come in and have solved this problem, and have walked out with a plan that finally gives them peace of mind. And you know, the most rewarding thing that I get to hear these days is I don’t know why anybody hasn’t taught us the way that you’ve taught us. You know, and why people have made it so complicated. Yeah, because it really is not complicated.
Rebecca Powers 26:39
I think it might be on purpose. I mean, really, we’ve had scholars that never thought to put this into public school, when children are in third grade. Yes, we were never talk any of this. No, no. And it’s got to be on purpose. Yes.
Brian Quaranta 26:53
And we got to remember, Wall Street has controlled the message for retirement for a long time. Yeah. And you know, I’m not against Wall Street.
Rebecca Powers 27:00
Sure, it’s necessary but…
Brian Quaranta 27:02
It’s necessary. However, with that being said, the number one priority first, before you gamble on Wall Street, is to protect your retirement. And I can promise you you’re not going to do that on Wall Street rolling the dice. So, folks call 1-888-382-1298 Schedule your right track retirement review. Take advantage of it 1-888-382-1298 our team is standing by to schedule you. And
Rebecca Powers 27:28
of course, as Brian said no cost no obligation no hard sales pitch very wonderful laid-back office. They even have hot coffee and hot cookies, which is the best part ensuring your retirement what a concept. Think of all the money you’ve spent insuring material things and not looking out for yourself. Get that personal pension started. Let’s start changing your life today. Make that call 888-32-1298. We’ll see you again next week.