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Video Transcript
Rebecca Powers 00:22
Welcome to this week’s edition of On the Money with Secure Money with Brian Quaranta, of course, everyone knows Brian. He created Secure Money Advisors. And I’m Rebecca Powers, it is my pleasure to be here with you each week. And of course, Brian, I was a longtime news anchor and investigative reporter, and now I get to be a consumer advocate and talk about securing your money. Great to see you!
Brian Quaranta 00:48
That investigative reporter side is so important, right? Because I think it’s so important that people take a deep dive into what they’re doing with retirement planning, and that’s what we’re doing every single week on this show, every single week on this show.
Rebecca Powers 01:01
It’s so true. You know, the Wall Street model we’ve all you know, they took pensions away in the 70s, but never really taught us how to secure our money, so many people don’t even know the importance of income. Right. In your book, Right Track Your Retirement. And by the way, I have a little exciting news. Brian is working on his second book now, but Right Track Your Retirement, you specifically talk about the foundation. One of the biggest mistakes is that people don’t talk about lifetime income. Right? The bills don’t stop, but the paycheck stops. So how do you help people make sure they can pay for the rest of their lives?
Brian Quaranta 01:33
Retirement is not about growth. It’s about cash flow. It’s about income. And that’s where people are getting it wrong. And you know, if people don’t understand that, if they keep doing the same things that they’re doing while they’re accumulating their money through their working years, if they keep doing those things in retirement, they are at high risk of running out of money, period. Bottom line, the studies show it, okay, and the reality is, some people will run out of money. And I will tell you the worst day of retirement Rebecca, is not the day that you run out of money. It’s the day that you figure out you’re going to run out of money, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it, and that’s why it is so important that you get a copy of my book so you can understand the strategies that are used in retirement planning today, because the strategies that we’ve been using for the longest time, that the Wall Street box firms have taught us to use, are Not the ones that you’re going to want to use going into retirement unless, of course, you’re a gambler. So let me first say go to OntheMoneyOffer.com right now and just get a copy of my book. It’s absolutely free. It’s free. All you have to do is go out and fill out the information, and we send it to you in the mail, in a gold envelope, so that you have the information you need to make an informed decision. And I don’t care whether you come to Secure Money Advisors or you go back to your advisors, just find a good, independent firm to work with that is a fiduciary that is willing to work with all investment products to help you solve the number one problem that all of us are going to be challenged with, including myself, and that is, when the paycheck stops, you are going to need a strategy to replace it.
Rebecca Powers 03:34
And since you mentioned that, I’m going to go to my next question. Wall Street, why do so many Americans, do you think, use the big box firms, Brian? Why do so many people just put their money in the investments in Wall Street? Set it and forget it. Get the cookie cutter approach. I think we were maybe conditioned for that.
Brian Quaranta 03:50
Yeah. Look, I mean, if you look at the if you look at the health care industry right now, what’s happened the health care industry is a lot of big conglomerates have come in, and they brought up a lot of private practices, right? So, you see, you don’t see a whole lot of independent primary care physicians around anymore, all right? The opposite has happened in the financial planning world. Oh, wow. We were all working for the big box financial firms, and we said, Enough is enough. You want us to do just these few things for our clients when there’s so many more things that need to be done, and you’re telling me that I need to, and I will use this word, sell this product, this stock, this mutual fund. And I said, Well, wait a second I got into the financial planning industry to help people solve problems, not to sell them financial products. Yeah, the financial products are just the tools to actually solve the main problem, and that is a loss of income and retirement because Social Security is not going to fix it, right? Social Security is not going to be enough money for anybody to live off of. They’re going to need to use money from their 401(k)’s, their IRAs. So, here’s your choice. Let’s look at it like this, if you go to work and you’re choosing a job and you got company A or company B, and Company A says we’re going to pay you a salary every single week. Here’s how much money you’re going to get. Company B says we’re not paying you a salary. We’re going to pay you a commission check. We don’t know what you’re going to get on a week-to-week basis. Maybe you do well, maybe you don’t do well. That’s the difference between working with a company like Secure Money Advisors that focuses on income, where we utilize the use of guaranteed fixed income annuities, versus working with the big box firms where they want to keep your money at risk, because keeping your money at risk pays them a fee. That’s why they’ll say things like, when our clients do better, we do better, yeah, the only way that you can do that is to have somebody in the stock market at risk, because you can’t charge a fee on a life insurance policy, on a homeowner’s policy, on a health insurance policy on an annuity, those are all commission based products, but yet, they’ll sit there and they’ll say, you don’t want to work with a commission based person. Well, whoa, whoa. Time out a second. Does it matter how the companies have decided to pay the advisor, or what? What matters more, the problem being solved with the right financial tool, right? That’s what we’re talking about here, utilizing the right financial tool and as a fiduciary. If you’re calling yourself a fiduciary, you better be working with every financial product out there, including annuities, but all these companies out there that say we’re fee only, the only way Rebecca, you can be fee only is to be a market driven firm, meaning you can only invest your client’s money in the stock market, because that’s the only place that is legal to charge a fee.
Rebecca Powers 07:12
Now we talk about salary versus commission. You’ve often used an analogy. Why is it so important first of all, for us to even know how and what fees we’re paying. Don’t you find that so many people who come into Secure Money Advisors aren’t even sure what fees they’re paying, what commission they’re paying?
Brian Quaranta 07:29
Yeah, first off, the fees, the annual fees, will eat you alive. I don’t think people realize, like, you’re better off actually paying a commission, in some cases, than you are actually paying an ongoing fee. But 2% doesn’t sound like a lot, not until you calculate it over 10 years, you know. And then you look at a commission-based product versus a product that charges a 2% annual fee, and you go, I’ll take the commission product all day long because it’s up front, but let’s talk about, let’s talk about the benefits that we’re receiving. Okay, okay, so if I buy homeowner’s insurance, I’m buying it so that if something happens to my home like it catches on fire and burns to the ground, I can get that home rebuilt without going into my pocket, because the insurance company is going to pay me a check right, to replace my home, right? Let me tell you, working for commissions is having your money in the stock market, right? Working for commissions is having your money in the stock market. You have no idea, on an annual basis, what you’re going to earn, what rate of return you’re going to earn, how much income you can take out. And these are all factors that play into the level of risk. Why in the world would you want to gamble with 30- or 40-years’ worth of work? And that’s why you need to go to OntheMoneyOffer.com and get a copy of my book. Do that right now. This is not the time to procrastinate. We at Secure Money Advisors have information that is so critical for you and your family to know about that, you would be doing your family a disservice by not coming in and having a complimentary appointment with our financial advisors. And all you’ve got to do is take one step OntheMoneyOffer.com get a copy of the book right there. You can also schedule an appointment, or you can call 1-888-382-1298, and somebody standing by to take your call and schedule you for your appointment.
Rebecca Powers 09:25
All right, and when we come back, we’re going to ask Brian, what is the number one mistake that he sees clients just like us, everyday folks making in their retirement planning. Stay with us.
Brian Quaranta 09:34
See 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 09:48
The last thing you want to do is have a really good job in your 60s, retire, be looking for work again in your late 70s.
Brian Quaranta 09:56
The average person might say, well, a good portfolio would be a good mix of stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. No, no. A good portfolio is all designed around the five key areas, income taxes, investments, healthcare and legacy planning.
Neil Major 10:11
We’re not just product pickers here. What we do best here is we build retirement plans.
Brian Quaranta 10:16
Nine 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 10:27
People, you know can actually see a vision once we start to really build out their plan.
Brian Quaranta 10:32
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 opinion. The difference at 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 11:02
Well, welcome back. We’re going to talk about the biggest mistakes that everyday folks make with their retirement money. But I want to go back a little bit more to commission and salary. Like, how does it work? Yeah, we want to know, how do you get paid?
Brian Quaranta 11:16
Well, we do, first off, know that a salary is predictable, right? It’s steady, it’s safe. Commissions, they’re unknown. It’s risky, right? How many people you’ve known in your lifetime? At least for myself, I know lots of friends that went and said, I’m going to go try out a commission job and didn’t work. Right? It’s hard, it’s stressful, it’s hard, it’s stressful. Think about what you just said, right? It’s hard, it’s stressful. Yeah, is that the type of retirement that you really want? No hard, stressful, unknown, or would you rather have something that’s predictable, guaranteed and that provides safety? Look, retirement is all about enjoying your life, yeah, doing what you want, all the things that you want to do, you know, all the books written out there about the bucket list, right? Those are the things you’re supposed to be doing. Imagine sitting down with your advisor, and the meeting ends with you finding out that your investments didn’t perform the way that they projected them to perform, right? Okay, now what? How long is it going to take your accounts to recover? Do you have that time to recover? I mean, we know the markets will come back. That’s the argument the big box firms will always make. What are you worried about? They’ll come back. Okay. Well, would they, will they come back in the time frame that you needed to come back in exactly, you know? I mean, when we really, really think about what they’re telling us, right, with gambling with our money, and you really start to question it, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. And that’s why, back in 2007 when I found out about annuities and the use of guaranteed income annuities with big, strong, safe companies, triple-A rated companies, insurance companies, a contract till the day you die. By the way, you know, your parents probably have told you as a kid, don’t sign anything, right? Don’t sign it. You know, the best darn thing you can sign is a contract, right? Because it takes you, it protects you, it’s a legal binding contract. You know, insurance companies are regulated by every state they do business in.
Rebecca Powers 13:33
Stronger than banks are regulated, right?
Brian Quaranta 13:35
Stronger than banks, that’s right.
Rebecca Powers 13:36
Higher guarantees.
Brian Quaranta 13:37
So, that means that they just can’t run around and do whatever they want with your money,
Rebecca Powers 13:42
Right.
Brian Quaranta 13:43
But Wall Street?
Rebecca Powers 13:44
Yeah, they do.
Brian Quaranta 13:45
And you hear people say, Well, I buy big. You know, blue chip companies, nothing’s going to happen to them. Well, I would have told you, back in 1977 or 1978 that Sears would be out of business.
Rebecca Powers 13:59
Never would have believed it. Your family was in that business, right?
Brian Quaranta 14:03
Montgomery Ward, Montgomery Wards. But yes.
Rebecca Powers 14:06
I’d never believe it. You’re right. Look how strong Enron was and then they went under the next-
Brian Quaranta 14:10
What about Lehman Brothers, right? I mean, we could go on and on with these big companies. Yeah, right. You know, if you look at Warren Buffett’s wealth. Charlie Munger, who I loved to just listen to. He was just incredible man to listen to. And you know Charlie, you know, to the day he died, he just loved talking to entrepreneurs. But he was stated a number of times, saying that the wealth that Warren and him accumulated over their time of working together, came from about 10 different companies, and that’s it, and they bought hundreds over the over the course of their interest in their career. And they can, they can narrow it down to 10 of those companies really making them money and making them the billionaires that they are today. Now the average person. Doesn’t have that kind of money, right? They’re not waking up studying charts and graphs or studying business at all. They’re waking up thinking about their kids, their grandkids, right? Yeah, not, what Wall Street’s doing, but yet, they’re willing to take advice from some young, 26-28 year old kid you know, working from Wall Street that probably has less money in the bank than they do, and I can promise you.
Rebecca Powers 15:26
It’s a good point. You were one of those guys. I was one of those guys. I hated it, right? I hated it. Your conscience hated it.
Brian Quaranta 15:32
My conscience hated it, yeah. My parents actually, you know, gave me something called the conscience, which has turned out to be a terrible thing. But, you know, I mean, you know, we want to build a plan, Rebecca, that we know with certainty that it’s going to work. And if you can’t connect with that, I just can’t help you, right? I mean, if you really are that gutsy to say, Well, I’m just going to take that risk and see what happens. Yeah, good luck.
Rebecca Powers 16:09
Good luck.
Brian Quaranta 16:10
Good luck to you.
Rebecca Powers 16:11
You know, we talk about longevity as a risk. Everybody wants to live, you know, long, healthy lives, but longevity is actually a risk. An annuity is one of those things your book, and you’ve taught us on the show, it hedges against that, because, yes, it does to be guaranteed growing lifetime income until the day you die. And again, it’s a contract. One more point. Pensions were annuities, it’s all they were. Social Security is an annuity, but Wall Street, or whomever did a good job of whitewashing, or-
Brian Quaranta 16:41
There was two really good marketers out there, which I won’t mention their name. One was a lady, and one was a really funny looking guy that coined phrases like, I hate annuities, and you should too. And they did the American public a disservice. And Larry Fink from Blackrock even came out and said, we’ve done the American public a disservice, because we’ve provided them with products that can help them accumulate their money, right, right, accumulate cash over their working years, but we have not built anything for them that will sustain them in replacing their paycheck and retirement. Yeah, it’s true, and you want to know something now, for the first time ever, because of Secure Act 2.0 right? You are now going to see annuities in 401(k)s. Now, what does that tell you?
Rebecca Powers 17:31
That they work.
Rebecca Powers 17:32
That they work. You’re darn right. They work.
Rebecca Powers 17:36
You know, I have an annuity. That’s right, all my TV money I put- but I don’t like to lose, you know? And it’s like you can get most of your money with the gains, but zero loss. Your principal is protected, but you won’t get off. I’m not greedy. No, to me, that sounded like a good deal. So, it really goes on, what you can stomach, how you feel about things.
Brian Quaranta 17:56
Look. I think the responsible way to build your plan is to have a portion of your money that is set aside to solve the number one risk that we all have, and that is the risk of not having enough income. Now, when we retire and 20-30, years into retirement, then once you solve that problem, if there’s more money left over, you go ahead and take all the risks that you want with that. And quite frankly, what studies have shown is that if you actually break your money up into two separate buckets, one being the guaranteed cash flow bucket using an income annuity, right, right? And then having a longer-term bucket that’s invested in the market. This is the way that you have a higher probability of winning, because even if this bucket of stock market money over here goes south on you, you still have your foundation that would be like a company saying we’re going to offer you salary commission. I like that. That’s right. Go to OntheMoneyOffer.com and get a copy of my book. We have information that you and your family need to know about. It truly can change your lives, and you’re doing yourself and your family a disservice by not knowing about it, because you’re afraid to make an appointment. You’re afraid to break a relationship because you’ve been working with your advisor for 15, 20 years, maybe you go to a Christmas party, you get a birthday card, whatever it is, and you can’t break up with that person. That’s why you’re not taking action, or you’re just procrastinating in general. Stop doing that. You don’t have time for that. This is urgent, and you need to fix it now. Go to OntheMoneyOffer.com get a copy of my book, call 1-888-382-1298 again, one, 1-888-382-1298, my team’s standing by to schedule a complimentary meeting with my advisory team, and one thing I will always promise you, when you come to our office, nobody’s ever going to sell you anything. We’re not there to do business when you come in. We’re there to identify what you’re currently doing and see if there’s ways to potentially help you maximize and make what you’re doing safer.
Rebecca Powers 20:24
And not only will Brian mail this to you like, seriously, no shipping or handling comes to you in a gold envelope, and even if you do make an appointment that is also complimentary, I’m Rebecca Powers here with Brian Quaranta, more on how you can secure your money, Pittsburgh. Stay with us.
Speaker 1 20:39
We know the market is going to get worse from here. This is the biggest monthly decline in 10 years. People’s 401 case took a major hit.
Speaker 2 20:48
My investments are tanking. My retirement isn’t going as planned. I can’t believe I let my kid talk me into buying crypto. I mean, what is that anyway?
Speaker 1 20:58
This was the fourth worst contraction in history.
Brian Quaranta 21:01
So how are you two doing? Your financial future doesn’t have to be uncertain. I’m Brian Quaranta with Secure Money Advisors. If you have amassed a nest egg, it’s time for a financial advisor to help you reach your retirement goals. This is one of the greatest tax windows in history. Now is the time to take advantage of this tax discount while you can, we specialize in retirement planning, tax mitigation, estate planning and more. Plan your retirement right, call now for your complimentary portfolio review and tax analysis.
Rebecca Powers 21:32
All right, welcome back. We’re talking about the difference of leaving all of your money in Wall Street, basically rolling the dice. We all know the market can go up as well as it can go down. There are ways to secure your money, and that’s what Brian and his team are so passionate about. You are so fabulous at stories. Tell me some stories about clients that you change their life by giving them that peace when you had it all in a written plan. Yeah?
Brian Quaranta 21:58
Well, first off, I love the fact that you said written plan, right? And I wish I had my binder here, because, you know, every one of our clients gets a real written plan that’s put into a binder. As much as I love technology and saving things on our computers and the cloud, let’s just face it, to have a tangible plan that you can open up and you can read and you can look at and you can understand, and you can show your son or your daughter, and you can show them what you’re doing and the problems that you’re solving and how these tools are solving these problems. That’s a great thing to have. You know, you ever get a little bit of anxiety, you pull it down from your shelf. You review it. Give it a hug. Give it a hug. God forbid anything ever happens to you, right? You know, I mean, look, when I tell you that the organization of your retirement plan is just as important of, like the retirement planning and the financial products that you use, right? It’s just as important. You know, I remember coming out of employment back in 2012, roughly, and I, three of my team members were standing up watching the TV, and one of my longest team members that had been with me for the longest, I saw her crying. I said, what’s happening? She said, Ray and Janet’s house just blew up. I said, what? I said, You got to be kidding me. We just saw them last week. What do you mean the house blew up. They had a new propane tank installed. Went to bed, the house was obliterated.
Rebecca Powers 23:41
And it was on the news, huh?
Brian Quaranta 23:44
It was on the news, and that’s what they were watching when I came out and I said, if we don’t hear from the family in the next 24 to 48 hours, let’s reach out to them. And the next morning, the daughter called, and she said, I was over at my mom and dad’s house picking things up in the yard because things had been splattered everywhere. She said, people from five miles away have been driving things to the house. That’s how far things went. Wow. And she says, as I’m walking through the front yard, there’s your binder, and my mom always talked about you Oh, and she said, if anything ever happens, call Brian. And you know, all those kids are clients of ours to this day, probably one of the toughest things we went through ever as a firm, right? Because, you know, you meet with these people and you sit with them, you know, multiple times a year. In some cases, we really do care, yeah, and we care, and you know, when the kids, because not only are we doing planning for mom and dad, but we’re also thinking about what happens when they die, the legacy, the legacy part and so, that story had already been written in the plan. So, when the kids came in, the first question was, what do we do? And my answer was, Don’t worry, there’s already a plan for it. And I am telling you, if there is one gift that you can give to your family, it is to get your financial house in order. You know, a lot of people think that leaving their most responsible child as the executor of the estate is a
Rebecca Powers 25:35
Is a favor. An honor. It’s not.
Brian Quaranta 25:38
It’s a curse. Yeah, it’s a curse because, you know, we were sitting with a bunch of financial advisors at an event not too long ago, and I was talking to an advisor that had been with a big box firm for a long time, and I said, What made you decide to go independent? He said, Brian, there’s so many things to handle for people in retirement, you know? And I talk about them right? There’s the five most important things, it was the income, there’s the investments, there’s the taxes, there’s the health care component, and there’s the estate planning component. And he said, I was never allowed to talk to them about taxes. I was never allowed to talk to them about their medical and their health, and I was never able to talk to them about their estate planning. And you go and this is the these are the people. These are the advisors that people have sought out because the big box firms dominated the industry for so long. Rebecca, that was the only place a financial advisor could get a start.
Rebecca Powers 26:48
Gotcha.
Brian Quaranta 26:52
And like me, the smart ones, you got out early, started questioning the tactics and the behavior of those firms, you know, this real stock jock mentality, right? Yeah, I remember. I remember working at the big box firm, taking a phone call from a guy that had lost a lot of money.
Rebecca Powers 27:16
We were almost out of time.
Brian Quaranta 27:18
I know, but I’m going to finish this story. I’m gonna finish it. And he had lost a lot of money, and he said to me, Brian, I can’t afford to lose this money. So, I go to an advisor. I said, Look, I said, let’s get him out of the market today. He goes, No, no, Brian, get back on the phone with him. Tell him everything’s gonna be fine, just to just hang in there and not worry about anything. What do I do? I go back and I say it to him. It’s in my book, by the way, the guy says to me, What do you mean? Hang on. He says, I’m 75 years old. How much damn long haul Do you think I’ve got left? OntheMoneyOffer.com, don’t forget to go there right now, I have information that is so urgent for you and your family to know. Call 1-888-382-1298, we’ll see again.
