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Video Transcript
Rebecca Powers 00:26
Welcome to this week’s edition of on the money with secure money brought to you by Brian Quaranta who created secure money advisors. I’m Rebecca Powers, so happy to be with all of you. And we’re gonna keep the number up throughout the show. And you can always go to onthemoneyoffer.com We want to mail you this wonderful book that Brian wrote, right track your retirement. We’re going to talk about a whole bunch of things today, but just touch on the book. Why did you call it right track your retirement? I know the answer. But I want our new viewers to hear as well.
Brian Quaranta 00:55
The number one question we would always get, you know, if someone was listening to our radio show, or they’re watching a TV show, or they’re coming to one of our educational events, when they would come to the office, we would say well, what’s your number one concern? They’d say: Well, we just want to know if we’re on the right track. Yeah, we want to know if we’re doing the right things. And so, through hearing that over and over and over again, year after year after year, we were like, when it came to figuring out what the title of the book needed to be. I always thought, Well, are you on the right track? Are you not on the right track? So that’s how it happened. And I always say, if you’re not on the right track, if you’re not doing the right things, when would be a good time for you to find that out? Now would be a good time, or yesterday. Yes.
Rebecca Powers 01:44
Yeah. Okay, so how let’s talk about advisors, and I can get this personal story when I was much younger, I thought I was going to a financial planner, I think is what it said in his door. But it turns out, he worked for one insurance company, and he sold the products and we you know, rectify that later. But how important is it first of all, to have an advisor? And to understand exactly, are they a fiduciary? Are they an independent? I mean, let’s talk about the advisor role.
Brian Quaranta 02:09
Yeah, well, first off, I mean, advising has changed a lot over the last 20 years. And insurance companies and insurance agents have always played a role in the retirement planning process, by purchasing life insurance for a client or purchasing Long Term Care Insurance for a client report and product, important products. But there was this time when people were acting as if they were financial planners, right. And so financial planning though, how you can determine whether or not you’re really with a planner is whether or not they’re a fiduciary, a CFP, these are the things that you want to look for. Because you’re looking for a comprehensive planning firm. Like we always talk about the five key areas of planning. So, when you become a client of secure money advisors, we’re looking at your income, we’re looking at your taxes, your investment strategy, your healthcare strategy, and your estate planning strategy. So, if you have every one of those areas covered, and you’ve got to plan for each of those areas, and you’ve looked at best case scenario, you’ve looked at worst case scenario, I can confidently then say that you have a plan. But if there’s something I mentioned there, and you say, Wow, we haven’t taken care of our Estate Planning, or we have done no tax planning, or my advisor only talks about performance with me, right, I would tell you to go out and get a second opinion, because what you’re really looking for right now is a planner, right? Someone that’s going to take all those into account.
Rebecca Powers 03:40
And you make a good point, because so many people we find, think that they have a plan and a retirement plan, and it is literally just their portfolios in a statement. Yeah, that is the opposite of Yeah, of the truth. There’s so many different parts to your retirement.
Brian Quaranta 03:53
That’s right. I always say people mostly will come in with their POs that stands for their pile of stuff. And that pile of stuff is usually an unorganized puzzle. And that’s okay. And that’s completely okay. And that’s the one thing I want to share with folks is that coming to a financial advisor’s office can sometimes be an intimidating process for some people. One of the things we’ve done really well at secure money advisors is making the process of meeting with us really, really simple. And nobody at my firm is there to judge you on what you’ve done or where you’re at. We’re just helping determine where you’re at and where you need to go. And hopefully to give you some solutions to get you there faster. And to get your there as safely and as quickly as we can. Absolutely.
Rebecca Powers 04:37
So, let’s just talk quickly about the first meeting the there’s no pressure, there’s no cost, and you pay a lot of money to have these third-party independent software. Right talk about that. That to me was the most important and impressive eye-opening moment, I guess.
Brian Quaranta 04:54
Yeah, we use three type of reporting software’s we use Riskalyze, which is a risk analysis. To software, we use Morningstar. And then we also use something called quantity. And through those reports, we can get ultimately, the data that we need to have a very transparent look into somebody’s situation, I always like to look at it no differently than if you’re going to the doctor and you’re gonna get an MRI on your knee, or an x ray. That’s the way that the doctor can tell exactly what’s going on with your knee. If you walk in and say, Doc, I have knee pain, and the doc all of a sudden starts prescribing, you know, physical therapy or surgery, without first looking at where the problem is, and what might be going on. They’re essentially not creating a solution for you. They’re just, they’re just, you know, essentially prescribing something without knowing what the problem is. And that’s what you don’t want to have happen. And I see too many people go into a financial planner’s office, and they tell their story a little bit. And here we go, here comes the product brochure, right, and they start going through the brochure. And that’s not what you want. You want diagnostic diagnostics, you know, and I had a client recently retired state police officer, military retired from the state police and the military. And he said to me, and it was probably the best, you know, way that I’ve heard our planning process described, he goes, Brian, this reminds me of when we would be sitting around in Iraq, strategizing how we were going to go into a town, and the level of detail that we were going through, because you’ve gotten myself in there at some of these meetings, other team members, and we’re really walking through some heavy stuff. But it’s simple. That’s the thing. It’s, it’s big stuff. But it’s simple. Because what I’ve learned is that if you make things too confusing, a confused mind does nothing. And the worst decision somebody can make is doing nothing, especially if they have problems. And my industry has done a really good job confusing people.
Rebecca Powers 06:57
I was literally going to say to our compliance department: Am I allowed to say that’s exactly what the Wall Street model feels like to a regular American? Yeah, it’s almost like they want us to think that we can’t do it, that it’s confusing, and only they have the power.
Brian Quaranta 07:11
Yes. Yeah. And my, for me, it was all about, could that person explain to a friend in one minute, what the planning approach is, right. And most of my clients will say, this is this is so easy, I get it. I understand I, for the first time, I have clarity around how to actually allocate my money, diversify my money. And I understand what the priority and the job where the money is supposed to be in retirement. And I just have a whole new sense of security and peace of mind.
Rebecca Powers 07:40
Even had a client of one of Neil who works with you told me that one of his clients said once, I’m actually excited about paying taxes for one, because you showed them in black and white, no, I don’t want to pay taxes. But if you wait, this is what you’re going to be paying in five years. You’re like, Come on, sign me up, let’s pay tax, like they are really smart maneuvers that you can do to just empower and you see people get more Oh, yeah. And then and sleep better at night.
Brian Quaranta 08:04
Well, that’s our biggest reward to see. You see that level of confidence, where you see somebody that says, Well, I don’t I don’t know, I don’t want to retire for another five years. And you said, Well, wait, well, let’s, let’s build a plan showing you retiring now. And then let’s look at five years from now. And I will tell you, Rebecca 70% of the time when I build a plan for someone to retire now. And then I build a plan for them retire in five years, they will always come back before the five-year mark saying, Hey, I think I’m ready to go early. You want to know something, that’s the greatest feeling because they have that they had the peace of mind, they already had the plan in place to make that decision. So, if they walk in the work, and they go, you know, I don’t want to deal with this anymore, right? You’ve got a plan to be able to do it. And they’re not reacting. They’re being proactive, with proactive planning. And, folks, this is why I want you to take advantage of the right track retirement review, come into our office, sit down with a team and go through the process with us. It’s a very simple process, we will go through five key areas, we’ll talk about your income, your tax strategy, your investment strategy, your healthcare strategy, and your estate planning strategy, you will get a lot out of the appointment for scheduling your appointment, you’ll also get a copy of my book, right track your retirement. So again, go to onthemoneyoffer.com. You can do all that right there, or the team is standing by right now. All you have to do is call 1-888-382-1298. And they’ll get you scheduled to come to the office.
Rebecca Powers 09:27
And that first meeting is absolutely free. No joke, no cost, no obligation. Don’t even pay for the postage because we really want every single one of you to get this short, easy to read book about your retirement could be the most important call of your life. We’ll be right back more on how you can get on the right track.
Brian Quaranta 09:43
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 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 09:57
The last thing you want to do is have a have a good job, in your 60s retire, and be looking for work again in your late 70s.
Brian Quaranta 10:05
The average person might say, well, a good portfolio would be a good mix of stocks, bonds and mutual funds. A good portfolio is all designed around the five key areas, income, taxes, investments, health care and legacy planning.
Neil Major 10:19
Because we’re not just product pickers here, what we do best here as we build retirement plans.
Brian Quaranta 10:25
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 10:35
People, you know, can actually see a vision once we start to really build out their plan.
Brian Quaranta 10:40
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 of the difference at secure money advisors. As a fiduciary firm, we help you manage the risk, build the income, and give you the retirement.
Rebecca Powers 11:11
Welcome back, we’re talking about how to get your retirement on the right track, no matter what your age, let’s talk about asset allocation. I love your buckets approach. It makes things very simple. You talk about it in your book, how do you know what to allocate for when and when to take what?
Brian Quaranta 11:28
Yeah, well, there’s diversification. And then there’s asset allocation? How do I allocate the assets that I have. And this is where we talk about the different buckets, right? Because you do want to allocate assets to different asset classes so that they’re non correlated, right, this is also known as diversification. What I mean by non-correlated is, if I have money in the stock market, and the stock market’s not doing well, I don’t want all my money there, because that means all my money is not gonna be doing well. So, I want something else that is going to work opposite of the stock market. So, the stock market’s going down, this should be going up or providing me with another type of benefit. And in the book, we write about the bucket approach, so that people can understand how to prioritize their money and allocate it correctly. And that really starts to give people the framework, they need to truly understand what a retirement strategy looks like.
Rebecca Powers 12:19
It’s so much, I think the case that when we think I’m diversified, I should be okay. Diversification does not just mean diversify within your portfolio. That’s right. It means diversification in the big picture. That’s why you do the holistic approach.
Brian Quaranta 12:34
Yeah. And the thing is, is that you could have a well-diversified portfolio, but if it’s all in growth stocks, or it’s all in the stock market in general, I mean, that’s just diversification and asset and an asset class that’s at risk. And the way that we define risk at our offices, if it goes up in value, or down in value, it’s risky, because people like to especially financial planners, they like to look at risk at different levels, right. So, this is low risk, this is moderate risk, this is high risk. But you know, you just go back last year, we had the 20-year treasury bond, 20-year treasury bond lose almost 20%. So, and that was supposed to be a low-risk asset, but at last 20%. So again, if it makes money and loses money, it’s risky period, things that would be risk free would be bank, CDs, Government, Treasury bonds, fixed annuities, those are examples of real, fixed guaranteed assets.
Rebecca Powers 13:42
And I would say that money in your mattress, but inflation is eating now, in a way. Alright, let’s talk about how you get paid. Your two beautiful boys, your beautiful wife, Kate, right? You need to pay your bills and feed your kids like anyone else. How do you get paid? Are you a fee-based firm, who paid you?
Brian Quaranta 13:59
Yeah, we are fee based. And that’s great. Because what that means to the client is that when we make a recommendation, we’re not making a recommendation to transact a commission, we’re making a recommendation to improve the portfolio. So, you know, we monitor our portfolios throughout the year. And the stock market is not a perfect environment, although we’re trying to be perfect in an imperfect environment. So that means that you always have to be vigilant in making changes when changes are necessary. And so, we can make these changes for the client without them incurring a commission because we get paid a fee. So that means that when their account value goes up, we do better right when their account value goes down. We do not as so good, right? So same. We’re all on the same team. And so, we have skin in the game to make sure that things are moving in the right direction.
Rebecca Powers 14:49
And we touched on this. We tried to do it every show there’s a very big difference between a person who is a fiduciary and a person who is not a fiduciary. Let’s talk about the benefits.
Brian Quaranta 14:58
Yeah, well look, I like to believe that anybody out there advising people today are doing what’s in the client’s best interest, right? But the fiduciary is illegally held to that standard, right. So as a fiduciary, you have a legal obligation to do what’s in the best interest of the client where other licensed advisors that might have a series seven, or series six, or just an insurance license has to do what suitable.
Rebecca Powers 15:24
So literally, literally just make up these words. That is what the law says. So that’s what that’s what the law says suitable. But fiduciary is in the best interest,
Brian Quaranta 15:30
In the best interest of the client. That’s right. So, and that’s important, right. But most importantly, most importantly, you really want to work with a firm that shares in the same money beliefs that you have. So, if you’re a high-risk taker, and you love gambling with your money, we’re not going to be a good fit for you. Because we’re not going to take on that liability, because I know that you may hit a grand slam, right. But I also know, you may strike out big, and it’s not in your best interest. And it’s dire. And it’s, that’s right, and it’s not in your best interest. And so, people that like to gamble with their money and take high risk with it just are not our clients, our clients are those that have worked really hard for their money. They understand that they want to go into retirement without anxieties without any worries without stress, they understand the benefit of getting consistent guaranteed cash flow, because remember, in order to retire and be happy, what studies have shown is the people that are happiest in retirement, Rebecca, are those that have the most guaranteed income really, because they have the highest income, and they never have to worry about it running out.
Rebecca Powers 16:39
Yeah. And we’ve said it many times. That is always the number one answer of you know, questionnaires, what is your biggest fear in retirement? 99% say running out of money before they die.
Brian Quaranta 16:49
Yeah, yeah. And the worst day of retirement is not the day you run out the worst day retirements the day you figure out, you’re gonna run out. And there’s nothing you can do to change that. Right, right. Because once you’re on that trajectory, it’s hard to reverse that unless you drastically reduce the amount of money you’re taking. But for most people, they can’t, because they need that money to live off of exact thing. But I make this so clear in the book, right? I make it so clear in laying out the strategy, and I made it a quick read, because, look, I love reading and I’ve read hundreds of retirement books. And by the time I get to like chapter five, I think to myself, My gosh, you could have said all of this in like one chapter, but people just So this to me, I call this the airport read because I travel a lot. And I always like books that I can hop on the airplane and a two-hour flight, I could be done with it. And that’s right track your retirement. That’s what it’s designed to do. It’s designed to give you the facts, lay it out very clear for you. To give you an understanding of what our philosophy and model looks like this way, when you come in and sit down with us, you’re clear on how we might approach things for you. But it all depends. Every one of our plants is custom built for you based on your current situation and what you need. So go to onthemoneyoffer.com, schedule your appointment there, we’ll also send you a copy of this book, we send it absolutely free, I pay for the shipping and handling, pay for the book for you and get it out to your address. So, you have to read, I want to get this in your hands. It’s very valuable. So, take the time to come in. Take advantage of the right track review, come in and see what our process and system is like call 1-888-382-1298 schedule right now with us.
Rebecca Powers 18:27
And if you have any questions about Medicare, do you understand all the plan A’s Plan B’s the changes the confusion, if that is something that’s been on your mind stay with us. We’re going to talk about Medicare benefits when we come back.
Announcer 18:46
The work never seems to end until the day it finally does. After nearly a lifetime on the job. You should be rewarded for all the time you spent working. Whether that’s crossing off items on your bucket list, learning a new passion or rekindling the love of an old one. After all, life isn’t over when you stop working. It’s the start of an all-new chapter, the one where you’re the writer and you get to choose how your story will go. A way to achieve that is by having a clear financial plan to sustain your golden years. The biggest fear most retirees have is if they’ll have enough money to maintain the lifestyle they always enjoy. Having a plan to help protect you against the curveballs life often throws will help to maintain your lifestyle. Call today to get your free written financial plan. See me live every day to the fullest and enjoy the retirement of your dreams.
Rebecca Powers 19:37
Welcome back to On the money with secure money. We’re talking about your retirement and of course there are many pieces to your retirement puzzle, but Medicare is one of those, you know Brian, I’m 55 and I keep getting AARP cards. It makes me mad. And then I’m also getting a million postcards about come to this Medicare thing come to this man. Yeah, it’s very confusing, but you’ve got Lisa. Yep. Tell me the philosophy and how she approaches this.
Brian Quaranta 20:00
Well, first off, let’s talk about the structure of security adviser itself as an organization, because we wanted to create a place that people could come and get all of their major financial planning done. So, when you think about all the main the big rocks that you got to handle in retirement, it’s going to be your strategy for income, your strategy for taxes, your strategy for your Medicare, your strategy for your healthcare and your estate planning, right? So and so what we’ve done is Lisa’s in house at our office, right, so she works does it all complimentary for our clients, helps them figure out, but if they were on a plan prior to coming to us, she evaluates their current plan, looks at their medications, determines whether or not moving to another plan would be in their best interest. If they’re just turning 65, she walks him through the whole process, she helps him sign up for Medicare, it really is a turnkey process for people. And it makes it so simple. And people just want to work with somebody they know like and trust when it comes to deciding their Medicare, because there’s so many people out there today that are bombarding you, if you’re 65. Yeah, calling you from who knows where, and really your Medicare plan should synchronize with your financial plan. And the more you can have other financial professionals like our tax advisers that we work with, that we strategically align our clients with our estate planning attorneys that we strategic, we’re all on the same page, we know what each other is doing. And that really helps you build a comprehensive plan, where every i is dotted, every T is crossed, and nothing is missed.
Rebecca Powers 21:39
And that’s such a good point, Brian, because in your office with the tax plan in writing that you have for your clients, if you do the wrong Medicaid turn, right, or you make too much it can be it can make you pay 10 times the amount of what you’re paying each month for Medicare.
Brian Quaranta 21:52
That’s right, Your Medicare premiums go up if you make too much money. Not only that, but if you don’t sign up for Medicare, let’s say you’re still working at the age of 65, you still have to sign up. If you don’t sign up, do you have a permanent penalty forever on these things? And these are the things that if I don’t want it, I don’t want to sign up for it. I have to sign up I have to sign up for you got to enroll in it. So that doesn’t mean that yeah, so, but in these little, little things. These are the little gotchas. And I say the little mistakes become big headaches, little mistakes become big headaches.
Rebecca Powers 22:28
So many little mistakes that I we talk about that how we’re not really educated growing up,
Brian Quaranta 22:33
Yeah, well, nobody talks about money,
Rebecca Powers 22:35
We have PE every day, but we never had how to save or what Einstein said about compounding loss or interest.
Brian Quaranta 22:40
I’ll tell you, what really upsets me about, you know, our education system is that when you think about the amount of money, it costs a kid to go to college today. Yeah. And you look at 85% of the people retiring, not having pensions, and more and more companies not offering pensions, there is no education, on how to handle your financial situation, when you graduate, they don’t understand that you should be getting involved with a 401k as soon as you can. They don’t understand that. If you have a 401k your employer might also have a Roth 401 K built in and they could be contributing there versus the traditional and make that money tax free for the future. There’s no education around it. And I feel like it’s by design, it has people in the dark. Because think about this, we are responsible for our retirement today, right? This is monumental. I call it the grand experiment, Rebecca because nobody knows how it’s gonna work out. You know, we’re all of a sudden taking doctors, lawyers, engineers, and we’re saying you’re really great in your profession, but when you retire, because that would be like me, retiring. And me going okay, I’ve got a pile of lumber in front of me now a bunch of plumbing material electrical is here and I’ve got to build a house, there’s some nails, are you here’s some nails. Kidding me? You know, I don’t you know, I that would be a disaster. Now, I bet you I might be able to build something that looks like a house. But I can guarantee it’ll eventually fall down. It will not pass code. And that’s what happens with people with retirement, right is that they’re in charge now to build this. And so, what happens is, rather than being proactive with their planning, what do they do? They wait till they retire and they seek somebody out and they take first advice that they hear and sometimes that advice is not the best advice.
Rebecca Powers 24:32
Right. And to your point about a little history, less for you history lesson for our friends at home in 1978. During the Carter administration, they decided to get rid of pensions and all of a sudden it was a do it yourself. But to your point, they never really taught us how to do it.
Brian Quaranta 24:48
Yeah. And you know, look, the person that you might be working with right now is not the person you should be working with in retirement. And when you look, you know, when you look at the way that financial advisors specialized. When you say the word financial advisor, you think everybody does the same work, right? And you think everybody does this, but we actually specialize and retire are people that specialize in helping you invest your money at risk and accumulate your money. Okay? But when you get ready to retire, they don’t pass you along. The as your doctor would pass you along, if you hurt your knee, your primary care physician is not going to say, Okay, well, I’m gonna get you in for surgery tomorrow, he’s gonna say, I want you to go see the knee specialist. Right, I want you to see the cardiologist, the medical community does that the financial planning community does not. That’s why we work with people that are 55 and older. So, if we get somebody younger in, and we feel that they might be a better fit for somebody that actually focuses on younger people, we’re going to refer that person out, we refer to a lot of other professionals, because we know what we do best and we stay in our lane. Because you can’t know everything about everything, you got to specialize in a specific area. And for secure money advisors, we specialize in the retirement planning process where people have to start distributing their money to themselves.
Rebecca Powers 26:05
Alright, just two minutes left in the show. I want to know your philosophy and why you do love the 55 year and older Why do you have a passion for retirement specifically?
Brian Quaranta 26:13
Well, look, you know, my parents, you know, were doing really well. When I was growing up, they had a McDonough rewards catalog store and I watched Montgomery Ward’s file for bankruptcy, my parents go through a really rough time. And so, it took my dad a long time to recover from that and then eventually retire. So, I just fell in love with understanding how to distribute money plus, my character as a person, I am not a risk taker with my own money. Amen. You see, I have figured out that if all I do is get a 5% rate of return consistently, I will be very, very wealthy. You don’t need double digit returns because with double digit returns become comes double digit losses. And it’s the ups and downs, right? That caused the problem over the long haul. Slow, consistent returns over the long term are better. This goes back to the childhood story.
Rebecca Powers 27:08
The tortoise and the hare!
Brian Quaranta 27:09
Yes, thank you. Right the tortoise and the hare it’s the tortoise that when the end because he was consistent over and over and over again and that’s what good financial planning is all about folks could onthemoneyoffer.com Schedule your right track review with us today. Take advantage of it come in, understand your biggest concerns and how you can solve those. You might have concerns about taxes, when to collect social security, how to build yourself your own private pension, how to create tax free income, these are all things that we can help you with. Call 1-888-382-1298 Our team is standing by right now you can schedule with them right now. We’ll see at our office.
Rebecca Powers 27:45
And there is no cost no obligation. We love you. Thank you so much. Make sure you get this book when you call. We’ll see you next time.