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Video Transcript
Rebecca Powers 00:23
Welcome, and thanks so much for joining us for On the Money with Secure Money with Brian Quaranta. He’s the founder and CEO of Secure Money Advisors right here in beautiful Pittsburgh. And I’m Rebecca Powers. So happy to be your host each week. Thank you for having me. Great to see you.
Brian Quaranta 00:38
Great to see you.
Rebecca Powers 00:39
I’m gonna promote your book a little bit, because a lot of people will say, Did he really write it? Here’s the back of it. There’s your picture. It is Right Track Your Retirement. The reason he named it this is because so many clients will come in and say, Am I on the right track? Am I on the right track. So, I love the name it is very simple, short, easy to read. And you can call the number that you see on the screen in a moment. 888-382-1298 you can also go to onthemoneyoffer.com We will send you this book immediately even pay for the postage. I also want to talk about your live radio shows. And you do all this because you want people to be educated. Right? You don’t like how Wall Street has kind of kept us all in the dark.
Brian Quaranta 01:20
Yeah.
Rebecca Powers 01:21
So, let’s talk about some of your shows. When can we hear you on the air?
Brian Quaranta 01:22
Yeah, well, 8am every Saturday morning on KDKA, you can hear me. So that show is live every Saturday with Rob Pratt and I, and we go through everything that we talked about on the TV, but we can get into a lot more depth on the radio time. Yeah. And it’s happening every week. So, we might really dive deep on Social Security or taxes. So, but yeah, eight o’clock every Saturday morning on KDKA,
Rebecca Powers 01:53
And your amazing staff, you also do live events, their education opportunities. So, do you just have people go online each month and kind of look at what’s coming up?
Brian Quaranta 02:03
Yeah, so, our educational events are great. There’ll be at the universities. So, you can, you can call the office. Or even when you call the 800 number, you can even just put a request in that you want to find out about the upcoming educational events. But if you did want to come to one of the coming educational events, you can call 724-382-1298. And they’ll let you know where we’re going to be at. And if you come to one of our college classes, you know, on a Saturday morning, you can learn a lot. It’s a little bit of a long class. But you leave with a good grasp around what to do with retirement and all the things you need to think about as you go into it.
Rebecca Powers 02:44
Now I know your story. But for our new viewers, thank you for joining us. Just touch on briefly how your whole philosophy how you started with a big box retailer and how you became an independent and you’ve never looked back?
Brian Quaranta 02:55
Well, yeah, look, I did not have a good start in this industry. I got started in 90 right at the end of 1999, when the tech bubble had bursted, and a lot of people were losing a lot of money at that time. And I was entering into the financial industry at that point in time. Looking back on it, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Because it really shaped me in thinking about the way that we do retirement planning today. And so, when I was with the big box firms, I saw things that I didn’t like, for example, when people would call in, and they were not happy about their accounts going down, right? Because they’ve lost money in the market. The big box firms would teach you to say things like, well tell them not to worry about it, tell them it’s just a paper loss, tell them just to hang in there. They’re in it for the long haul. And that didn’t sit well with me. Not when I was looking at these people’s portfolios and realizing that this was 100% of the money that they’ve accumulated over the lifetime. And they were gambling with 30-40 years’ worth of work, which made no sense to me, right? I believe in slow steady returns. Consistency is what matters, big wins and big losses. That just doesn’t work. I mean, you hear the stories every once in a while, of somebody hitting a Grand Slam, right? But those stories are not a lot. They’re very rare, but everybody wants to be one. You know, that’s why everybody’s still plays the lottery. Exactly. I mean, nobody, nobody quits playing the lottery, they think they’re going to be the next winner. And it’s the same thing with stocks. People think, Oh, my buddy, Bob, he put $100 in the Game Stop and he made a million dollars. Listen, that’s not going to happen to you. Okay. Yeah, I mean, look, I hope it does happen to you, but the probability is extremely, extremely low. And this is why it’s so important to have a sound approach when it comes to retirement planning and my approach is nothing new. There’s just two different types of philosophies out there. There’s those that think it’s okay to roll the dice and risk people’s money that they’ve worked 30-40 years for, for retirement. And there’s others like myself, that believe in protecting the majority of what those people have accumulated. I’m okay with risk. You know, while you’re accumulating money.
Rebecca Powers 05:23
Sure, but you’ve got the years-
Brian Quaranta 05:24
Yes,
Rebecca Powers 05:25
-To make it out,
Brian Quaranta 05:26
You have time. You have time. And then that’s exactly what the big Wall Street firms tell you anyway, right?
Rebecca Powers 05:31
Exactly.
Brian Quaranta 05:32
Don’t worry about it, we’ll come back over time, well that’s a great message when you’re 25.
Rebecca Powers 05:37
Right.
Brian Quaranta 05:38
But when you’re 65, that’s a terrible message. Because you’re probably at a point where you’re using your money. So, these are the things that we have to be very, very aware of, and realize that find somebody that shares in the same money beliefs that you do. And I just believe that if you’ve spent 30-40 years working for your money, you should be taking a portion of it, and protecting it. And even creating your own private pension with it. Because money that you do keep in the market, I’m okay with it. But that’s gotta be money that you’re willing to watch go up and down in value, right? Because it will. And if there’s one thing for sure, Becca, I can tell you there’s absolutely something I can tell you, without a doubt is that nobody knows anything about the stock market.
Rebecca Powers 06:24
They don’t know what it’s gonna do.
Brian Quaranta 06:25
They don’t know what it’s gonna do. Nobody knows what it’s gonna do.
Rebecca Powers 06:27
And you feel so strongly about preserving, protecting, securing that’s why you put the word secure. Yeah, in the show name and your business name. It’s everywhere. Because like you said, the tortoise and the hare, slow, steady, secure, right? Carve out money. And there are different ways to let’s touch on the bucket strategy before we go to break.
Brian Quaranta 06:47
Yeah, yeah, it was. So, bucket strategy, grouping priority, what you know, however you’d like to call it, right? I mean, really, what we’re talking about is, is making sure that the money that you’ve accumulated, it’s very important as you enter into retirement, that you segregate that money into different groups or different buckets solely for the fact that there’s going to be different priorities with different monies. So, for example, you might have a liquid bucket of money, right, where that’s going to be money that you have at the bank that’s in checking and savings, you’re probably going to pay the bills out of that. And you’re also going to have money there, in case of emergency comes up, okay? Then you’re going to have secure money, what I call secure income money, which is essentially money that you want to protect the principal, but its main priority should also be to provide you income, and if you’re married, also your wife income. And then of course, you’re going to have your growth bucket, which is going to be your market money. But that has to be money. That is at least 15 to 20 your money, because-
Rebecca Powers 07:49
Then you could also stomach or survive if you lost half of it.
Brian Quaranta 07:52
That’s right. So, the first thing you have to ask yourself, Okay, is the money that I’m going to put in this growth account? If I lose half of it? Am I going to be okay, yeah, right. Ask yourself this, folks. The money that you currently have in the market. How much of that can you afford to lose? How much are you willing to lose? Because that’s the question you have to get very clear on. And that’s the real conversation you have to have with yourself, especially if you’re at the point in your life, like our clients are, where if they lose a good portion of their money, they just don’t have time to wait for it to come back. Our clients are using their money, they’re living their retirement, they’re doing the things that they want to do. So, we don’t want to put people in a situation to where you lose 30% of your money. And then the conversation needs to be well, you’re gonna have to stop taking your income because if you keep taking it, you’re going to run out of money. Those are those are not good plans in retirement, that is not a strategy in my opinion. And we are not a great fit for everybody. We really aren’t. We’re not a great fit for everybody. Because if you’re a risk taker, great, be a risk taker, but we’re not. We want to help those people that understand that they’ve worked a very long time for their money. They don’t want the anxieties and worries in retirement, they understand how important it is to protect some of their money, and they only want to risk money that they can afford to risk. So, folks go to onthemoneyoffer.com Take advantage of our Right Track Retirement Review. During that review, we’ll help you get clarity. That’s our whole goal is to help you get clarity around five key areas that your income, your investments, your taxes, your healthcare strategy, your estate planning strategy. And that clarity that you’ll have will give you the confidence to be able to possibly retire sooner than you ever thought or more importantly, when you do retire, have the confidence that you won’t ever have to come out of retirement, no matter what happens with the economic environment. So, onthemoneyoffer.com Go there, schedule your appointment, you’re Right Track Review with us today or call 1-888-382-1298 My team is standing by to take your call and get you scheduled.
Rebecca Powers 09:54
And there’s really no cost no obligation at all for that first appointment. And there’s also this wonderful book We’re gonna send you anyway. So, give us a call during this break, and we’ll get that in the mail for you, Brian will even pay for the postage, we’ll be right back more on how you can secure your money as you head into the right track for retirement.
Brian Quaranta 10:12
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 10:25
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 10:34
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 10:48
Because we’re not just product pickers here, what we do best here as we build retirement plans.
Brian Quaranta 10:53
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 11:04
People, you know, can actually see a vision once we start to really build out their plan.
Brian Quaranta 11:09
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 do come and give you the retirement withdrawal.
Rebecca Powers 11:40
Welcome back. I’m Rebecca Powers here with Brian Quaranta. Of secure money advisors. And we always talk about the plan. And if we can get you to understand and really take in one point it is you must have your retirement plan in writing, and that is the first most important thing. It is not just your portfolio or your statement each month. And I think a lot of people think that oh, I’ve got my plan. It’s my statement. Yeah. So, let’s talk about that statement. Right. Yep. What is the difference between average return and the real return?
Brian Quaranta 12:11
Yeah. Wow. That’s a great question. Let me tell you why. That’s a great question. Because by law, let’s just talk about mutual funds. ETFs mutual funds, it doesn’t matter. Most people know that if you’re looking, you know, at a mutual fund or an ETF. Most people, you know, if they have a company sponsored plan, like a 401k Probably go in, they say, Oh, well look at this, this account has averaged, you know, 10% over the last year, and over the last five years, it’s averaged 8% Over the last 10 years. It’s averaged 15%, whatever the averages are. The question you have to ask yourself is what’s the real rate of return? Because averages are completely different than real rates of return. And this is where people really get sideways, and it’s a smoke and mirror. It’s smoking mirror math. Okay. So, when I say math, I remember, it’s fuzzy math, fuzzy math, it’s fuzzy math. And let me explain. So, if we have $100,000, okay, in our first year’s rate of return is a negative or a minus 50%, we know that that portfolio is going to go from $100,000 minus 50%, is going to go to $50,000. If the very next year, that portfolio returns 50%, but a positive 50%. That portfolio is going to go to 75,000. Because 50% of 50,000 is 25. So, you’re gonna go to 75,000. However, if I take basic math, minus 50 plus 50 is an average of zero Euro. However, the real rate of return on the money is minus 25%. You follow me? Oh, yes. So, but by law, mutual funds, ETFs. Stocks, they all can post their averages.
Rebecca Powers 14:13
They can post their own average, they can post their averages.
Brian Quaranta 14:17
So, if a mutual fund had a minus 50 and a plus 50, right, they would be able to say that our two-year average is zero. In fact, if you would have put money with them, the negative your real rate of return would have been minus 25%. Right. Okay. Yeah. Back up, back up to 75. So, this is the fuzzy math, right. And this is where people think they’re going to get a better rate of return than they actually do in the stock market. And if you’re not in the stock market for a 15-to-20-year time horizon, it can get very, very dangerous in retirement, because if you’re going to need that money, and things aren’t going well, and I can promise you most of the time, the averages are a lot higher. Then the real rates of returns. Yeah,
Rebecca Powers 15:01
You make such a good point because you think, Oh, if something went down 50%, but then it went back 50% Like, I think I’d recover, you would recover all of your money. Right. But that’s not the way right, you would need 100% rate of return right? To recover from that minus 50% loss. Yeah, yeah. And compounding loss. You know, Einstein, I’ve said this before talked about compounding interest, it should be the eighth wonder of the world. Yeah, because it’s so remarkable. But compounding loss, Yes, correct. He’s just as strong. But the other direction well,
Brian Quaranta 15:30
And compound the loss is, is really relevant when it comes to retirement planning. Because typically, what happens when people are retired, is they’re pulling money out of their accounts. So crazy. So So take the example, we’ve been talking about the minus 50%, if the person was relying on that account for income, right, and they needed to pay their bills, which a lot of people do, right, if they lose 50%, they’re not going to say I’m not going to take any money out, they’re going to take their money out, because they gotta pay their bills. So now they’re just going to compound the loss. And they’re also going to lock in the losses. So, this is why having a written plan is so important. It is critical to the success of your overall retirement strategy, and understanding how to build in the strategies that can give you the highest probability of success without rolling the dice. And that’s what I want folks to understand is that you don’t have to roll the dice with your money to have a great retirement, you just have to understand what the alternatives are right. And a lot of people just don’t understand what the alternatives are. And I want you to understand him, I want you to go to onthemoneyoffer.com get a copy of my book, because I talk about the different ways that you can approach retirement planning in here. Okay. I believe every financial product has a purpose, every financial product has a purpose. I’m not against any of them. But what I am against is people owning certain products that they shouldn’t, based on what their goals are. And that’s what I’ll see a lot of where someone’s goals might be x, and the product that they’re using is why and it doesn’t actually get the job done. And they think it’s getting the job done, but it’s not. And I want to give you the clarity that you deserve to make sure that you own the right things, that you’re making the right moves, that you’re on the right track. So, did you have the very best retirement, you can look, we’re not perfect, right? We are not perfect. And certainly, the money that we put at risk, it goes up and down just like everybody else’s does. But the difference between our planning model and most is that we have what I call a war chest or a war bucket to where when things do get bad. We’ve got some things set aside for those tough times. Right. And that makes a difference, it makes a difference in the overall planning numbers. But more importantly, it makes a difference in your emotional state, it makes a difference in how much you’re going to worry how much anxiety you’re going to have. Because our goal is to retire you so that you have peace of mind and security. So go to on the money offer.com Get a copy of the book, schedule your right track review, you won’t regret it, take advantage of it, my team will be there to help you help you identify the five key areas and determine whether or not you’re on the right track. And if you’re not, we will help you get on the right track. But if you aren’t doing the right things, it’ll be our pleasure to shake your hand and tell you you’re doing a great job and keep doing what you’re doing. So go to there now onthemoneyoffer.com schedule or call 1-888-382-1298 and our team is standing by to get you scheduled right now. Absolutely.
Rebecca Powers 18:29
In that first appointment, you’ll identify your risk, and actually what you’ve been paying and all those fees that is very, very eye opening. All right, stay with us. And remember to call us during this break. There’s also the QR code, we’re gonna get that book in the mail to you immediately and we’ll be right back.
Announcer 18:51
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. One 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 19:42
Alright, welcome back. How secure are you? Do you have a retirement plan if you’re gonna go on a trip? You would map it out if you were going to build a house you would get blueprints. So many of us so many of us don’t ever even map out our retirement and you’ve pointed out we insure our cars our homes mortgages. We but we don’t insure our income. If these are things that people have felt they didn’t have for many years, like I used to be one of them. How do you fire your current advisor and hire a team?
Brian Quaranta 20:12
Yeah. So, I want to before I answered, I want to address what you had shared about insuring your income, because I think this is very important for people to understand. In the world that we live in today, just as technology has changed, I mean, think about what our cell phones were, like, 25 years ago, right? I mean, everybody had a flip phone.
Rebecca Powers 20:33
Yeah, although 10 years ago.
Brian Quaranta 20:34
Yeah, actually, I wish I could still have a flip, just like one of the little ones, again, to be nothing big in my pocket, you know, you get a phone call, you get that satisfying click when you know that snap when you hang up with somebody. But, you know, if you just think about the cell phones 25 years ago, I mean, you used to have to press like the number five, like six times to get to the letter C, you know, and now we have keyboards. And just like there’s advances in technology there. There’s also advances in technology in finance. And you know, product designers and companies get better and better at designing product. Look at look at the ETF, the exchange traded fund is replacing the traditional mutual fund, because it’s a cheaper and better way to invest. And most of your professional investors today are not using traditional mutual funds are using ETS, again, advancing in technology, right? Well, the other thing that is advanced is in the area of income protection. Right? So, let’s talk about insuring your income. People don’t realize when I say wait a minute, you can insure your income, yes, you can insure your income. And just as Rebecca said, think about this, you insure your home, you insure your car, you insure your health, there’s lots of things we insure you insure your jewelry, you insure a boat, I mean, I can go on and on and on. But everything valuable to you, you insure. And I can promise you that your income is much more valuable than your car, amen. And you can insure it. And in the world we live in today, with the advances in technology, we have the ability through the use of income annuities to ensure our income. So, I’ll give you a case that I worked on the other day. So, I had some folks come in, and they needed about $40,000 a year in additional income. Okay. So how much money would that take to generate $40,000? Well, if you’re trying to build a plan, where you’re just withdrawing money from a stock market account, the easy way to figure it out, is to take the amount of income that you need. And divide it by 4%. Okay, so why would you divide it by 4%? And, well, it’s because there’s something called the 4% rule. All right, which I write about in the book. But if you take 40,000, and you divide it by 4%, you come up with a million dollars. Okay. So, if you wanted to withdraw money from a stock market account, and you needed $40,000, you’d only need about a million dollars to be able to do that. All right. And that would potentially be enough money to get you through retirement, depending on what the market does, depending on what the market does. So, the great news for these folks is that they had 1.2 million. So, I said, Look, you have more than enough money that if you want to do it this way you can. But you’re gonna need to use 100% of your money to generate 100% of your income. I said, what if we could use 40% of your money to generate 100% of your income. So, through the use of an income annuity, I could take $400,000 of their 1.2 million. And I can turn that into an income stream of over $41,000 a year, every single year for the rest of his life, if he dies the rest of her life, if she dies, any balance is paid out to the family. So, I’ve used 40% of their money now to generate 100% of their income need, which now means that they can have $100,000 of their money in the stock market. And that’s long-term money now. And guess what? If the next year the stock market goes up, 10% and they make 80 grand on that great, great, they could take it as extra income? Yeah, we could put it in a bucket and use it to offset inflation. Right? These are the simple things that you can do with the advances in technology today. And these are the things that I want you to learn about. So, the question was, how do you fire your advisor.
Rebecca Powers 24:28
Boy, you have good memory. I write it down. I didn’t think you’re gonna get back to that, that that was a while ago.
Brian Quaranta 24:33
Yeah. So how do you fire your advisor? Yeah, well, look, I mean, the biggest challenge that people have is, is most people don’t like conflict, right? They don’t like to have to deliver bad news. But I used to never be able to relate to people that had kids. Although I would look at pictures of grandkids and kids at my conference room table for 25 years. I didn’t have any kids of my own, but now I do. And if I think about my money, and I think about my kids, and I think if my money just for this example was my kid, and somebody was treating my kid the way that they’re treating my money, would I let them babysit my kid anymore?
Rebecca Powers 25:13
Absolutely not. That’s a great point. I love that analogy.
Brian Quaranta 25:17
I wouldn’t do it. Yeah, I wouldn’t do it. So, the reason why you would fire somebody is because this is about you, not them. This is your money that you work for. I don’t care if you go to a Christmas party or get a birthday card.
Rebecca Powers 25:33
Because if you run out of money in 20 years, you’re not going to be calling that guy to live with them. He’s not going to take care of you.
Brian Quaranta 25:41
He’s not going to pay your electric bill, your grocery bill. Right? So-
Rebecca Powers 25:45
Meet me at the Giant Eagle, I need some groceries. Yeah, that’ll be one of your kids. It won’t be the advisor that you find. That’s right.
Brian Quaranta 25:50
That’s right. And moving your money is actually pretty simple. People think that, Oh, if I move my money, am I going to incur all these taxes and penalties? No, you’re not, you matter of fact, you can move it from one financial institution to another and not incur any taxable event, if we’re talking about retirement accounts. Now, if you have nonretirement accounts, you can actually transfer that money. In what we call kind, meaning we just take it from here to here, we don’t sell anything. And that triggers no taxable event. And typically, the only thing that somebody would have to pay is maybe an account closing fee of $50. Right? Right. And a lot of times people are very disappointed because we can do all of this electronically. And we’ll just send a request to send the money over. And the advisor doesn’t even know it’s gone.
Rebecca Powers 26:45
Wow. Especially in the big boxes.
Brian Quaranta 26:49
Well, and the clients get a little upset because they’re like, I thought I was a lot more important, and you realize that you weren’t, you weren’t important at all. How many times have I heard gosh, he didn’t even call us.
Rebecca Powers 27:00
Didn’t even notice.
Rebecca Powers 27:02
Didn’t even know we left.
Rebecca Powers 27:03
So, the relationship you thought you had apparently..?
Brian Quaranta 27:08
Isn’t. Yeah, that’s right. That’s exactly right. Great point, Rebecca, the relationship you think you have, you probably don’t have. So, folks go to onthemoneyoffer.com Take advantage of our right track review, you got nothing to lose. My team is there to help you. You’ll get a lot out of the meeting, we’ll walk you through our entire right track process that will give you a lot of clarity. You also get a copy of the book that I’m going to send you or just call 1-888-382-1298. My team standing by to take your call and schedule you for your right track review. We’ll see at the office. And thank you so much for watching.
Rebecca Powers 27:39
Yes, absolutely. Thank you, Brian, and thank you at home for watching. Remember, you can also use the QR code and there is no cost, no obligation at all, no cost for the book, not even shipping and handling and no cost at all for that first diagnostic interview. Thanks so much. We’ll see you next time.