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Video Transcript
Rebecca Powers 00:00
You rob, welcome to this week’s edition of On the Money with Secure Money with Brian Quaranta, I’m Rebecca Powers. I was a long-time news anchor and investigative reporter, and now it is my thrill to be here each week with you and Brian, who teaches us all so, so much. Here is his book, we talk about it a lot, Right Track Your Retirement; and be sure to give us a call during this show so we can get you a copy of this book for free. Great to see you.
Brian Quaranta 00:51
Great to see you. Yes, and an announcement to make that we’ve got a new book coming out. Oh, so I would say sometime in the first quarter of 2026 keep your eye out for it, because it is going to be a great book. And if you loved Right Track Your Retirement, you’re going to love the new book, which I’m not going to give away, the name and title of the new book, yeah.
Rebecca Powers 01:13
But it will also be free.
Brian Quaranta 01:15
It will also be free, yes. Look, the bottom line is, when I got into this business 25 years ago, I said to myself, there’s so much information out there. Too much, too much. And, you know, it wasn’t even as bad 25 years ago because we didn’t have access to all of these new sites like, you know, like we do today on the internet, right? So, it’s getting even more and more challenging to really sift through all the noise. And I think we all know that people are smart. They just need good information, and they need information that’s unbiased so that they can make a decision that works for them.
Rebecca Powers 01:56
It’s such a good point about how things have changed so dramatically. Think about just in the past 10 years. It’s the same thing with retirement. Yesterday’s retirement, our grandparents knew on this date, come to my party, get my gold watch. I know what my pension will be. I know what my Social Security will be. It was a no-brainer. Today? Whole different ball game, Brian. 401(k), stock market, you don’t know what it’s going to do, health care costs rising. How do you
Brian Quaranta 02:23
No pensions.
Rebecca Powers 02:23
Yeah, and no- of course, no pensions. How do you simplify it?
Brian Quaranta 02:26
Well, look, I mean, we have a problem in America today, and it’s the problem is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. You’ve got more and more people that don’t have adequate savings. If they have saved, they’re concerned about market risk, because as they get closer to that date of wanting to retire, they know that if the markets are- were to go down, they don’t have the time to recover like they used to. Plus, since they’re not being given a pension, that is their pension, right? So, if all of a sudden, you know you have a 2007 2008 you know, the joke was your 401(k) turned into a 201(k). I mean, we can laugh at that now, but it wasn’t a joke. Then, you know, people were devastated by that. And yet, we tend to see the same things being done over and over again, right? Yeah, it’s the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. And the problem that we have is that most people have not fully understood the magnitude of this retirement problem. It’s huge, because people are living longer, right? It’s not as easy to get good, safe interest rates like we were able to 2530 years ago, where we could go down to the bank and get a CD paying 15% so now we’ve got to take risk with our money, and people will shift portions of their portfolio to bonds to do that, but bonds have just as much risk is stocks. So, it is a major problem. Rebecca, and if people don’t understand what it means to have a true Retirement Plan, they’re in big trouble. And what I mean by that is this, a lot of people think that if they have a 401(k) that’s invested in the stock market and diversified amongst different mutual funds that they have a retirement plan, right? Diversified, yeah, that is not a retirement plan. A 401(k) is not a retirement plan. It’s a retirement savings vehicle, but it is not a retirement plan, right? A retirement plan looks like this, a written retirement plan where you have your entire written strategy for your income, a strategy for your taxes, your investment strategy, right, your healthcare strategy and your estate planning strategy. And the thing that people don’t realize is, if you don’t have those five things handled, you do not have a plan. Exactly. Now most people will have investments. But what do you do with those investments? How do you get them to start working for you?
Rebecca Powers 05:04
And where do you withdraw from? And yes, how do you leave more to your children instead of Uncle Sam, you mentioned income. Let’s start there. Yes. How do you know you’re going to have enough money for the rest of your life, because pensions are gone for most of us. So how do you help someone find out where that money will come from and that they will have income until the day they die.
Brian Quaranta 05:26
Yeah. Well, let me ask you this. How confident are you that your plan is protected and that you are never, ever going to run out of money? And if you cannot say I’m 100% positive that my plan is protected, then you’ve got a major problem. This is so urgent. I mean, you know, this is not something that we get to do over if we get it wrong. It’s not a dress rehearsal. This is serious stuff, and people need to start to realize how serious it is, or what’s going to wind up happening is they’re going to take some advice from somebody that says, Yeah, you got plenty of money. You’ll be fine. Just go ahead and retire. When you need to start taking money, you just let me know, and we’ll start sending you some money. Yeah, okay. Well, those assumptions are based off of the fact that the market cooperates at 100% of the time, which we know is not going to happen, not only that, but typically, when people start to take money out of their retirement accounts to live off of because Social Security is not enough, they’re not going to stop taking money just because the market’s down. They’re going to continue to take the money because they need it, which means they’re going to compound their losses. Yes, and this is where we run into the problem of people running out of money. If you ask most people, Rebecca, what their biggest fear in retirement is, it’ll be the fact that run- they’re going to run out of money,
Rebecca Powers 06:58
Not even death. You know, AARP does that study every year? Forget death. Yeah. What is your number one fear? You think it’d be death? Oh no, it’s running out of money, and rightly so.
Brian Quaranta 07:07
Yeah. And that’s why I wrote Right Track Retirement, because I want people to have a blueprint, a guide that they can it’s a quick read, right? It lays the foundation of what a good retirement plan should look like, and you could read it on a Saturday morning. I’m telling you-
Rebecca Powers 07:24
It’s really short. How many pages?
Brian Quaranta 07:25
86 pages.
Rebecca Powers 07:27
Yeah. Saturday morning.
Brian Quaranta 07:28
86 pages.
Rebecca Powers 07:30
And when we come back, we’re going to talk about, how do you know if you have a plan from 20 years ago, or if you actually have a plan that keeps up with today? But I want you to invite our friends and tell them how. What does that first appointment feel like? And it’s absolutely free. We always say, leave your checkbook at home.
Brian Quaranta 07:44
Yeah. Well, first off, the first place I want you to start. Forget the appointment. Don’t even schedule an appointment. Just order the book. Start there. Call 888-382-1298, you can scan the QR code at the bottom of the screen and just start by getting the book. Now you’ll have an opportunity if you want to come and sit down with us. That’s fine, but start by getting the book. That book, the information that book, is so urgent it truly will change you and your family’s lives, and you’ll truly understand what a real retirement plan should look like. So again, go to onthemoneyoffer.com, you can get the book there. You can call the 800 number or scan the QR code. That’s three options for you.
Rebecca Powers 08:27
We’ll be back. All right, stay with us more with Brian Quaranta, right after this.
Brian Quaranta 08:32
One of the most overlooked areas of retirement planning is risk. I often ask people, do you know how much risk you’re really taking with your investments? And most of the time, the answer is no. Here’s the problem. If you’re five or 10 years away from retirement, or even already retired, the last thing you want is to be caught in a market downturn that wipes out a big portion of your nest egg, you may not have the time to recover. That’s why we created our free risk quiz. It’s designed to give you a clear picture of how much risk you’re currently taking in your portfolio. Are you too aggressive? Are you too conservative? Or are you aligned with your goals and your timeline? What I love about this quiz is it takes all the guesswork out. You’ll answer a few quick questions about your comfort level, your time horizon and your goals, then we’ll match that with your actual portfolio to see if there’s a mismatch. You’d be surprised how many people discover they’re taking way more risk than they thought. Imagine going into retirement knowing that your portfolio actually matches your goals. No surprises, no sleepless nights. That’s the peace of mind this quiz can provide. So, scan the QR code on the screen or visit righttrackrisk.com to take the quiz and find out if your money matches your mindset.
Rebecca Powers 09:59
All right, welcome back. Hopefully during that break you had a chance to get this book, and again, it is absolutely free. We love to take your questions, so we’re just going to jump in. Is that okay, Brian?
Brian Quaranta 10:10
Yeah, you know- and I want to say that book there, yeah, once you read it, you’re going to go from exposed and anxious to protected and confident. That’s truly what you’re going to get from that book. And that’s all I want people to have, is a level of confidence. And whether you work with Secure Money Advisors, you work with another fiduciary firm, I don’t care. What I want is for you to be educated, so that if you are working with another firm that you have the ability to ask the right questions. Because it’s, we don’t know what we don’t know that’s right, right? And your plan is only as good as the people that are advising you exactly.
Rebecca Powers 10:49
And the big thing with a plan, obviously, for those of us who don’t even have a plan, don’t feel alone, because so many Americans don’t. And my dad was a Marine, and he always said a failure to plan is a plan to fail, so this will cure that you will not have a failure to plan. All right, we got a letter. I guess it was an email from Tom in Cranberry Township, and he says, Brian, love your show. I just retired at 63 I am nervous that the market might drop again. Smart man, should I move everything to cash or just hang in there, probably not just all cash, right?
Brian Quaranta 11:23
Well, that’s the question you have to ask yourself, yeah, if the market dropped, will your plan survive? Can you answer that? Yeah? Now I can tell you right now, when, when? When people come to our office and they get a written financial plan, I can tell them with absolute certainty, if the market dropped, their plan will survive. Now, a lot of times, if you’re working with the big box firms, they’re not going to be able to tell you that, because, typically, they’re not putting a foundation or a buffer in place that protects you from market drops and in retirement, it’s not about performance. It’s about protection, right, right? You know, it’s more about I’m more concerned about the return of my money than the return on my money. So, when you think about your working years, you’re accumulating money. You’re putting money away. Well, when you go to retire, what happens now, are you still going to be able to accumulate the answer is no, because the minute you stop getting a paycheck, you’re no longer going to be able to make contributions to your plan. I would tell you that 90% of the people we work with, the minute they retire, they no longer have contributions going to their plan. So now what happens? The market goes down. You can’t offset those losses by buying more when the market is going down. You know, a lot of people will say, Well, my 401(k) did pretty good during the last market downturn. Well, of course it did. You were putting money in as the market was going down, and so was your company. But now that you’re retired and you’re not putting money in, your company’s not putting money in, and you’re probably taking money out, you’re going to see an acceleration on the downside that you’ve never seen before. And you want to talk about being worried, wait till that day starts to happen, and I’ll tell you exactly what you will do. You will sell at the wrong time because you won’t be able to stomach the losses. But you’ll call your advisor, and they’ll probably tell you something like this. Don’t worry about it. It’s just a paper loss. You’re in it for the long haul. Just hang in there, folks, that is not a plan. Go to onthemoneyoffer.com get a copy of my book right now. The book is absolutely free. In that book, I talk about how to protect your money during volatile markets. But I also talk about how to keep pace with inflation, how to generate income, where to withdraw the money from first, how to take care of a health event, how to handle your RMDs. I can go on and on and on, but the bottom line is, when you retire, the first thing you should be thinking about is, how am I going to protect my money from the next market downturn.
Rebecca Powers 14:24
So, when Tom asks, put it in cash, I mean, obviously that would just be victim to inflation, perhaps. So, what would you do? The bucket strategy, where you take part of it, put it in insurance product, yeah. What are some of those strategies that you do to secure our money?
Brian Quaranta 14:41
Well, the most common thing you’ll typically see people do is they’ll rush to cash. Yeah, it’s an emotional decision. It’s an emotional decision. Now they feel good in the moment, right? Because they’re like, Well, I’m not losing money anymore, right? But you are losing money. You are losing money when you go to cash. And the reason is inflation. You’re just losing money safely. That’s all. You’re losing money safely. So yes, we have to have an all-weather strategy. It’s like if you and I were traveling from New York to LA and we map out a game plan on a map, and we say, you know, we’re going to take this road and that road, and that road, and it all looks good on paper, right? We say, what car should we take? And you say, let’s take the sports car. That seems like a good vehicle to take. We’re on all highways. Okay, fine. We take off. We’re on the road now, all of a sudden, we hit a detour. Now that detour, we’ve got to go on these tiny, little side roads, down some dirt roads. How do you think that sport car is doing now? Not, well, no, maybe we get back on the highway and we’re doing well again. But now there’s a snowstorm. How? What do you think that sports car is going to be doing during a snowstorm? You’ve got to have an all-weather vehicle. You got to have an SUV and in Right Track Your Retirement, I talk about how to build that all terrain SUV vehicle, because that’s exactly what you need in retirement. And yes, we utilize a bucketing methodology, right? Because every dollar you have needs to have a job. I love that there’s a portion of your money that needs the job needs to be to replace the paycheck, right? I love annuities to do that with. I purchase them myself because they’re the only product out there that can do something that no other product could do, and that’s guarantee and protect my money and give me a lifetime’s worth of income, not only for me, but if I die, also my spouse. There’s no other product that does that. And by the way, an annuity is not an investment, folks, it’s an insurance policy. You insure your homes, your cars, your health. I can go on and on. Why wouldn’t you insure the most important thing you’re going to need after you retire, and that’s a paycheck. Insure your paycheck. Don’t let all these talking heads out there convince you that annuities are bad and that you’re just going to buy one at a dinner seminar because somebody just wants to make a commission. It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. The reason they don’t want you to buy them is because they can’t charge a fee. And as a fiduciary myself, I would tell you that if you’re a real fiduciary, you should be offering all financial products, but those people that wear that fiduciary badge say, I’m a fiduciary, I don’t make a commission. Well, that means they’re not going to be able to take care of your life insurance, your long-term care insurance, they’re not going to be able to help you with your PNC insurance, your car insurance, your homeowner’s insurance, folks, that’s not the definition of a fiduciary again. Go to onthemoneyoffer.com get a copy of my book. Start right there. Don’t even schedule an appointment. I don’t even want you to schedule an appointment. I just want you to order the book, get it in your hands and educate yourself. Now, if, after reading the book, you like what you read, and you want to come in, there’s always a complimentary meeting for you to come in and take advantage of.
Rebecca Powers 18:11
All right, give us a call during this very short break, and again, there’s the QR code. Brian even pays for the shipping and handling and even comes in a gold envelope like Willy Wonka’s golden ticket. Stay with us more, right after this.
Speaker 1 18:24
We know the market is going to get worse from here. This is the biggest monthly decline in 10 years. People’s 401(k)s took a major hit.
Speaker 2 18:33
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 18:43
This was the fourth worst contraction in history.
Speaker 3 18:46
So how are you two doing?
Brian Quaranta 18:48
Your financial future doesn’t have to be uncertain. I’m Brian Quaranta with Secure Money Advisors. If you have a mast 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 19:19
Thanks for staying with us. We’re talking about retirement today versus what it was yesterday, 2025, years ago, in the late 1970s the Carter administration decided, let’s try this new thing called the 401(k), they actually used the word experiment, which is very interesting to me. Let’s get rid of pensions. It will be the onus is on the citizens now instead of the companies, but they never taught us what to do with the darn thing, right?
Brian Quaranta 18:47
Yeah, look, Larry-
Rebecca Powers 19:48
Talk about confusion.
Brian Quaranta 19:49
Right. Larry Fink from Blackrock even came out and said, Look, we’ve done the American public a disservice, really, because we’ve given them and shown them ways to accumulate their money. But. We’ve never shown them actually how to start using their money. This is why they’re allowing, now, annuities to be inside of 401(k)s, that’s a big day. Okay. I mean, you know, for somebody that’s been talking about them for 25 years, I mean, it was a huge win, but, yeah, if you look at yesterday versus today’s retirement, I mean, it was pretty simple. People worked for 30, 40, years with one company. They knew the date they were going to be able to retire. That’s why we had retirement parties. My parents went to retirement parties all the time. Did yours?
Rebecca Powers 20:34
Yes, and got the cake and the gold watch, right?
Brian Quaranta 20:39
Yeah. But, you know, people knew the day they were going to retire, because the company said, Well, if you give me 30 years, you give me 40 years, here’s how much money I’ll give you for the rest of your life. Easy. And then, of course, at that time, people had some supplemental retirement savings accounts 401(k) were just kind of coming on the scene, but they were smaller because people hadn’t been saving in those most of it was going into their pensions, and then, of course, you got a social security check and any additional money people have. My grandfather, the additional money that he would have, he would just go down to the bank and buy a CD.
Rebecca Powers 21:13
My parents, too, put it in one of our names, and that was like our little Christmas birthday present.
Brian Quaranta 21:19
Yeah, look, I mean, the CDs that my grandfather bought. I mean, I think they paid 14, 15% in interest. That’s how they paid for their vacations, their, you know, their cars, all that extra interest they were earning just off of the safe CDs. And then, of course, he had his pension too. Now what you’re seeing is you’re lucky if people are working for a company for 30 or 40 years, you don’t see that very often at all. No, if we’re sitting down with somebody in our conference room and they tell us that they’ve been with a company for 30 years, I mean, it’s like seeing a unicorn. But you know, so what’s happening now? Well, nobody’s getting a pension, but the biggest asset that people are retiring with is their 401(k), everybody’s still getting Social Security. Now we do have problems with Social Security. I mean, you can read right on your Social Security statement that I believe in 2032, or somewhere around there, that the Social Security Trust Fund will be depleted, so they’re going to have to find ways to fill that bucket back up, yeah,
Rebecca Powers 22:24
Yeah, they’re raising the age too. You have to work longer.
Brian Quaranta 22:28
Well, you’re gonna see them raise the age, but before- if the biggest asset people are retiring with is their 401(k), you can’t keep doing the same things that you were doing when you were working when you retire, the strategy, the philosophy changes. Rebecca, totally different, totally different. Like a football game, offense to defense, there you go. Beautifully said, completely different, completely different. Yeah, you literally are going from offense to defense, right? Because, again, it’s about the protection of your money. It’s about: I want the return of my money. I need my money to be there when I need it. I need it to provide me with monthly income, right? I need it for emergencies. I need it if a health event were to take place. And so that’s where Secure Money Advisors comes in, because when I was working for the big box firms, what bothered me the most was I didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth. I mean, I talk about in the book, my dad had a Montgomery Ward’s catalog store. Montgomery Wards filed for bankruptcy. My parents lost everything. I saw what financial challenges are like growing up, and we’ve got one shot at retirement. That’s it. If you get it wrong, it’s over. And I just want people to think about this for a moment. How easy is it for someone to take your money, invest it make a fee off of the money they’re investing for you, and when the waters get choppy, what do you expect them to say? Oh, we’re in a world of crap today. Bob, no, they’re going to be a beacon of light. And I say beacon of light because that’s what I was told by the big firm I was working with in 2001, 2002 when the markets went down and I was answering the phones and people were pissed off because they were losing money left and right, I didn’t know what to tell people, and the advisors that had been there for 30 years told me, Brian, you got to get a backbone. You got to be positive and let these people know that everything’s going to be just fine. It’s all going to work out. Holy smokes, right? How do I know if it’s going to work out? You don’t. You know, the worst thing my parents ever did was give me morals. Right?
Rebecca Powers 25:00
But look what it led you to.
Brian Quaranta 25:02
Yeah, but, so, you know, so I’m like, I’m thinking to myself, how am I going to say this? Yeah, with good content, with good conscience, right? Yes. And I’ve told you this story before. I took a call from a guy by the name of Sam, and he wanted liquidated. He said, get me out of the market. I can’t afford to lose any more money. And what made me start doing the work that I’m doing today is because of the financial advisor that I went and spoke to when Sam called in, and I go to him and I said, Look, Sam’s on the line. He’s a client of yours. He wants out. You know, what do we do? He goes, Brian, just get back on the phone with him and let him know everything’s going to be fine. He worries about his money all the time, so just let him know that it’s just a paper loss and it’ll come back. How in the world can you say that to somebody, Rebecca, when you have no idea that’s like you and I sitting at the blackjack table?
Rebecca Powers 25:47
Right. Give me $10,000, don’t worry.
Brian Quaranta 25:50
Yeah, I lose three hands in a row, and you go, don’t worry, you’ll win again.
Rebecca Powers 25:59
Well, another thing we’re almost out of time already, but, is risk. You know, when my husband, Ben and I were at the big box for many years, we honestly did not even know the true risk. We were a lot of people don’t. That was so mind blowing when the reports were wrong the third-party report, That’s powerful stuff.
Brian Quaranta 26:15
Yeah, when we when we evaluate someone’s risk position, you know, we use very powerful software that can run a lot of different analysis, and it’ll tell you, you know, if another 2007 2008 were to happen, if interest rates were to change, if the market went down 20% How much could you lose? What would your portfolio look like? And then it projects it into the future. So, if this were to happen today, what do things look like 10 years from now? 20 years from now? That’s the one thing that people don’t realize, is that what happens today might not show up for 15 years, right? Yes, and it’s because of that loss you took today that you’re out of money in 15 years or 20 years. And the interesting thing is, when you run these scenarios, what you’ll find is most people don’t run out of money in their first five or six years of retirement. They usually run out and you’re like 15 when they don’t have the health to even go back to work, exactly. And this is why I want every single one of you to have a plan, and it starts- let me show you what a plan looks like. Okay, this is a real written retirement plan. In here would go your income worksheet, which shows you exactly where to withdraw your money from, your investment strategy, your tax strategy, your healthcare strategy and your estate planning strategy, all here in one binder. This is what’s gonna give you peace of mind. This is what’s going to bring you from being anxious to confident, so, go to onthemoneyoffer.com get a copy of my book. Schedule a time to come in and sit down with us, and we truly will help you build a great retirement.
Rebecca Powers 27:52
And we hope to see you again next time. Thanks so much for joining us.
