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Video Transcript
Cynthia De Fazio – 00:23
Hello, my name is Cynthia de Fazio and I’m sitting with Brian co entre of secure money advisors. Brian, how impressed Are you that I got you? I know you’re doing you’re doing better in every show you’re doing better and better. I love it. It’s such a pleasure to sit with you and to talk to you because you’re just an amazing, just a wealth of knowledge for retirement. But I also want to talk a little bit about your family today. Yeah, good. Yeah. So for the viewers at home, tell us a little bit about Maddox.
Brian Quaranta – 00:52
Oh, I know, gosh, I know, I got a six month old, right. I started later on in life, you know, I’m 43 years old. And you know, I didn’t know if I was going to have children. I, you know, my baby was my company. And, you know, I love what I do. I really, really love what I do. And it really became a passion because, you know, me remember, remember the store MC comm rewards. My dad used to have them at gum rewards store. And I remember working there in the 80s. And when I worked there in the 80s, there was a doll being sold that everybody wanted was a cabbage patch doll of, and there was a line out the door of people coming in and purchasing this doll. And, you know, but my dad’s store was doing so well, that the execs from GM rewards wanted him to open up a new store. Okay. And, you know, he wasn’t really sure if he wanted to do it. And, you know, he, they’ve told him, they said, Well, you know, think about it. And my dad says, Well, you know, I got three kids, I don’t really know if we have the capital to do that. And they said, Well, you can always take out a second mortgage, and they were trying to get my dad to do anything to open up a new store. Sure. So anyway, after they leave, a couple weeks later, they get a phone call. My dad gets a phone call from a friend of his and he says, Hey, Bob, you should turn on the news. And he says, Why says because we were just filed for bankruptcy. And so my parents went from having this great income coming in all the time, to literally having no income overnight, and my my life changed. Oh, yeah. And you know, if you’ve ever gone through, if anybody’s ever gone through tough times financially, it really changes you, especially as a young kid, it really, really changes you. And that’s really where I can first remember becoming very interested in money because it caused so many problems in my family. And I saw my mom and dad go through some really tough times. I mean, my dad really taught me that through hard work, a good attitude, you can work yourself out of anything. And he did whatever he could to make it happen. But when I graduated, and an opportunity to come to Pittsburgh and play football, and when I graduated from Robert Moore’s, I got right into financial industry. And when I got into the financial industry, I was working for a big firm down in Pittsburgh. And you know, at the time that I was working there, I was so excited to start advising people. And I was studying study study, I got my license. And I was so excited to start advising people and teaching them about money and how to retire and all this kind of stuff. What the big firms, when you get your license, they just call you a junior advisor, which is just a nice way of saying, Hey, kid, can you get me a cup of coffee? Can you make copies, when I got an opportunity to sit in all these meetings and listen to these advisors talk to their clients, and they would say, you know, we’re going to put together a diversified portfolio for you. And it’s going to be more conservative because you’re older. And then what happened, I got in the business right at the end of 1999, going into 2000. And all these diversified portfolios that these advisors put together, when the markets collapse, they all went down. And I thought to myself, wow, they were telling people that their portfolios were conservative, but yet these people are losing 40 50% of their money. And people started calling in the firm, and they were really upset. Well, when when the market loses money, the advisors don’t pick up the phone. So they give it to the junior advisors, right. So we’re, we’re on the front lines taking these calls, because people are very upset that they’ve lost money. And I’ll never forget a call that changed my life forever. And that was a guy that called and he says, Look, I’ve lost a ton of money I want to get out of the market. He says I want to sell today I want to talk to my advisor. So I went to try to find his advisor. The advisor says, Ah, he says, You know what, that guy’s always calling him worried about his money. Do me a favor, Brian, just go back to him and just let them know that it’s a paper loss. Now, some people listening probably have heard that before from somebody right? That it’s just a paper loss. I don’t know about you, but if I ever lose money, it never feels like a paper loss. Right? And then they said, You know what, do me a favor, he says he’s probably not going to like the fact that you tell him it’s a paper loss. So just remind him not to worry about anything. He’s in it for the long haul. So I’m a year into the business. I as a good, I’m being a good employee. So I go back to the phone and I tell the guy, Look, don’t worry about anything. You know, it’s just a paper loss. And remember, you’re in it for a long haul. And the guy says to me, Brian, I’m 75 years old, how much long How do you think I got left? And that hit me. That hit me big and I thought you know what he He’s right. He’s right, because he doesn’t have the time to make that money back. He can’t afford that loss. And see the question is not whether the markets will come back because we know they always will. The question you have to ask yourself go into retirement, if the markets go down, how long can you wait for them to come back? Because most people getting ready to retire, they’re planning on utilizing our money. And that really bothered me that that I saw that happen. And the financial industry just kind of blew it off like, well, that’s just what happens. There’s nothing you can do about and I said, there’s, how can you just say that that’s, that’s, there’s nothing you can do about it? Because I saw my parents go through a hard time. Yeah. So that it reminded me of that. And I said, you know, what we’ve got to, I’ve got to change the way that people are doing things in the way that we’re giving advice in the marketplace. And that got really passionate about it. And I worked really hard to build the company, and I was so passionate about it, that I just I was working, working, working, never thought I would have kids. And, you know, I’m definitely a workaholic, not so much anymore. Because Maddox has really changed my life in so many ways. You know, I come home now. And he’s there. And, you know, I kind of put down the phone and, and I and I, you know, get to sit with him and my wife, and we actually have real family dinners. Not that he really can eat by himself. No, we pretend we pretend that he can actually Converse, you know. So he’s been a real blessing. And, you know, it’s kind of, it’s really helped me a lot even become a better advisor, because, you know, when it when people would tell me about their kids and their grandkids, I could sympathize. But I couldn’t really empathize. Right. And so now I can really empathize. And when people tell me that it’s important to leave money to their kids, I really get it now. Where before I under said, Okay, well, that’s important. We got to make that happen. But I really feel it now, when they say that to me. So thank you for asking about him because he’s just, he’s an amazing little kid. And you know, everybody, I thought I would, you know, everybody would come in, they say, Oh, you got to see the grandkids. And I’m going okay, I’ve got five more minutes left, you know, go ahead, show me the grandkids. Now, I’m the guy pulling out the cell phone. Let me show you the pictures
Cynthia De Fazio – 07:05
That is amazing. So I think we’ve identified your why not only watching your mom and dad with what they went through absolutely this color that you just happened to take that call that day, yeah, really is the why that you are so passionate about helping others get through retirement.
Brian Quaranta – 07:34
yeah, because I just didn’t, I looked at it and go, that’s not a plan, that’s just not a plan for first for you to be in a position, right, and somebody advising you and you lose 40 50 60% of your money. And, you know, for them to say it’s just a paper loss. I mean, I find that insulting. I mean, if I trusted somebody with my money, and I asked them to make that money conservative, and I have a big loss like that. And they tell me, it’s just a paper loss, that’s not going to make me very happy now. And in the world we live in today, the technology in the investment world has changed so much, that there are great things that we can do that we never been able to do before where we can actually limit the losses, people take war, put people in a position where they take no loss at all. And you know, sitting down with a licensed fiduciary to go through your situation, you can uncover these things and really have your eyes opened up to a whole new world that you’re not seeing, because a lot of the big firms are what I call old technology. They’re the big cell phones in the 80s shadow, but they’re still trying to sell that big cell phone, when in fact, we’ve got cell phones now that are computers in our pocket. And that’s the way the world has changed in the investment side. And when you work with somebody like secure money advisors, we can share with you all of the things out there so that you have peace of mind and retirement so that you can build the cash flow that you need. So that you can leave money to your kids that you want to leave money to. So that you can have the income you can travel, do all the things that you want to do. And that’s important, because everybody is going to need a customized plan and retirement.
Cynthia De Fazio – 08:49
Absolutely. And it’s life changing. It truly is to know you have peace of mind.
Brian Quaranta – 08:53
Yeah, it is. And this is why I’m really passionate about about offering these complimentary reviews right now that we’re doing at secure money advisors. And it’s $1,000 value that you’re going to get at absolutely no cost. And when you come in and Matter of fact, for the next 10 callers, we’re going to give away this complimentary view. Again, it’s $1,000 value when you come in, we’re going to walk you through what a customized plan looks like. We’re going to actually ask you questions that you’ve probably never even been asked before. We’re going to ask you things that you’ve probably never even thought of before because retirement planning is a lot different than investment planning again, for the next 10 callers. We’re going to give you a complimentary Financial Review at absolutely no cost you need to call 18883821298. Again, that’s 1-888-382-1298
Cynthia De Fazio – 09:41
and Brian, I believe it’s time for us to take a break viewers, please stay with us. When we come back. We’re going to have questions for Brian about different buckets, meaning Where can you pull assets from for your retirement? Stay tuned, we’ll be right back.
Commercial Break – 9:55
How confident are you in your current financial plan? Do you know with certain How the recent market volatility will affect your future hopes and dreams. How much are you paying in taxes? And how much are you losing to unnecessary high fees? You didn’t work to save this money so that you could spend your time worried in retirement. Now is the time to take charge of your finances so you can feel confident about your future call in during the next 30 minutes of today’s show only to set up an absolutely complimentary no obligation, full blown Financial Review that will result in your own customized written plan. This is a $999 value that we’re giving away complimentary to the first 10 people who respond. We’ll start with a full blown analysis of what you already have, by running a report to untangle how much you are currently paying in fees, how you’re allocated for risk, and what it’s costing to work with your current advisor. Next, we’ll identify your goals. Where do you see yourself in the next five years? Where do you want to go? And who do you hope to go there with is your current financial plan set up to get you there without mishap? Let’s design a roadmap to create a financial plan you can follow with confidence. Get the piece that so many people are missing from their retirement. Find out how having a written plan can make a difference to your retirement dreams. Call now to schedule your complimentary no obligation full blown Financial Review today.
Cynthia De Fazio – 11:30
Welcome back. I am Cynthia de Fazio. I am sitting with Brian Q of security money advisors, advisors. I’m going to go with q for questions. There you go. Fine. We have so much to talk about. But I definitely want to talk about something I think that’s very important with retirement having different revenue streams, different buckets. Yeah, well, yeah, we talk a little bit about what the difference different buckets are for people.
Brian Quaranta – 11:54
Yeah, the magical buckets. All right. Yeah, yeah. And really, I mean, if you think about, I like to think about retirement planning in buckets, okay. Because, again, I mean, most people are taking risk with money, they can’t afford to rescue. And that’s the only money by the way, you should be risking money that you can afford to lose. Because we know that the markets will go down and you will lose money. And that’s just what happens, right? But we can’t be risking, you know, 30 40 years worth of work. Because this isn’t a dress rehearsal, we don’t get a second chance at this. I mean, we either get it right or we get it wrong. That’s it. And so getting it wrong. And we’ve we’ve seen the result of people getting it wrong, I mean, 2007 2008, were a great example of what happens when you get it wrong. I mean, I meet people to this day, that tell me, they would have three times four times the amount of money if they didn’t take the big loss that they did in 2007 2008. So, you know, when you look at the three buckets, really what everybody needs is we need bank money, we always need to have that emergency cash reserve there like that liquid money that we can get access to the recommendation there is anywhere from six to 12 months worth of monthly expenses. So if your monthly expenses, when I talk expenses, what I’m talking about is everything included. So that would be going out to eat, paying for a birthday present, paying for a wedding present going on vacation, that’s how we look at monthly expenses, okay? So that’s everything it takes to live and do and live the lifestyle you want to live. So let’s say that that’s $5,000 a month, right? So we’re just going to take five times 12. And that’s going to give us the amount of money we need. So we need $60,000 sitting in liquid cash right now, that’s just a rule of thumb, don’t panic, if you’re going off target, right? Don’t panic, right? But these are just rules of thumb. And if it doesn’t line up perfectly, it’s okay. If it’s a little bit less, it’s not a big deal. We just we need to know we need bank money for emergency cash reserves, then we need what we call pension money, right? So again, I talk about this all the time, whether it be on the radio show or the TV show, more and more people are not retirement pensions, and what the pension or the 401k has replaced the pension, right. It’s what I call the yo yo retirement plan, you’re on your own if you’re in a 401k you got to figure out what to do. So when we when we retire if you don’t have a pension, we have to create one. So the next bucket is the pension bucket, how do we create that stream of income that’s going to be guaranteed for the rest of your life. And then we need a risk bucket. And that’s for money later on down the road money that we have 10 1520 or 30 years to grow. So And the important thing we have to understand is this when we’re generating income, when we’re generating income from portfolio, the worst thing that you can do is try to generate it from a risk portfolio. And here’s why. Let’s just say that, you know, you plan on taking out $40,000 a year in additional income. Well what happens when the markets go down? Right, and you lose an additional $20,000 so now you took out 40 but the market took away 20 right so now you’re down 60 so now it just compounded your loss. Not only did it compound your loss, it Also locked in your loss, which means that now you’ve got to do so much more to even get back to even very dangerous mathematical situation to be in. And unfortunately, this is the way that we’ve been taught for years by wall street to create income, but it’s changing, people are finally getting the right advice that they need that this is not the way you do it. So you have to have two separate buckets of our three separate buckets of money that the emergency cash reserves, you got to have the pension bucket. And then you can have that risk long term bucket. And the money that we’re taking risk with is the appropriate amount that we can take risk with Meaning, if the market went down 20%, it’s not going to impact your retirement, you’re not going to have to take less, you’re not going to have to spend less, you’re still going to be able to do all the things that we put together in that plan. And remember, coming into secure money advisors, that’s what we’re focused on, we’re focused on building that plan, giving you a true written plan, a roadmap for retirement, that gives you turn by turn directions, no matter what situation comes up.
Cynthia De Fazio – 16:01
And that’s the thing we have to talk about is that every situation is different. And everyone’s risk tolerance is different to when we talk about that a little bit. So you’re able to really sit down with someone one on one ad spend, what does it take Brian 30 minutes? Is it two hours? How do the appointment times flow? and develop that relationship with them? Plus giving them that roadmap that we just spoke of?
Brian Quaranta – 16:22
That’s a great question. I mean, you know, number one, coming into secure money advisors, we’ve made it a very inviting experience, right, we know that the financial planning thing can be very, very intimidating for a lot of people, you’re not going to get that when you come in to secure money advisors. You know, we’re very easy to talk to we talk we talk at, you know, we don’t talk industry lingo, we talk with you, and and we’re on your side, we’re on your team. And that’s important because, you know, people are opening up something that is sometimes can be a very anxious process to go through. So typically, our first meeting is going to last about an hour, maybe a little bit longer, depending on what questions we have put in that hour, we’re going to cover a lot. We’re going to talk about what your current income sources are. If you’re not retired yet, we’re going to talk about what your income sources are going to look like in retirement, then we’re going to talk about where your, you know, expenses are at, then we’re going to talk about what do you have in cash reserves? What do you have in retirement accounts, long term care, life insurance? And then we’re going to see what that whole picture looks like. And then we’re going to find out, what do we need this money to do for us? Right? Are we just trying to grow it and save it? Are we going to need to generate income? And depending on how you answer those questions really depends on how we start to piece together that customized plan for you.
Cynthia De Fazio – 17:44
Sure. And everyone’s plan is different. Like, do you have a lot of people that come in and say, Okay, I just want to go on vacation? Yeah, I want to take care of my grandchildren.
Brian Quaranta – 17:53
Yeah, I just want my time back. Right. It’s different for everybody. So again, I mean, this is why we offer the complimentary reviews. And you know, for the next 10 callers, we’re going to give away a complimentary view, it’s $1,000 value for you to come down, sit down with a licensed fiduciary to walk you through and talk to you exactly what it is that you need your money to do for you. Right. So imagine coming in and sitting with somebody that has no agenda that truly is there to listen to your concerns to talk to you about exactly what you need, and walk you through a process that’s going to be easy for you to understand. So for the next 10 cars, if you call 18883821298. Again, that’s 18883821298, you’ll get a complimentary no cost review, again, $1,000 value for the next 10 callers.
Cynthia De Fazio – 18:44
And Brian, I believe it’s time for us to take a break viewers, please don’t go anywhere. When we come back. We’re going to have questions for Brian about how to plan out for your perfect retirement, whatever that may be. Stay tuned, we’ll be right back.
Commercial Break – 19:01
Retirement Planning is just all about getting to know somebody. I mean, retirement planning is really about just building trust with people. I have a responsibility that when I wake up in the morning to be the very best that I can be because people are relying on me to take care of a lifetime’s worth of work that they’ve worked 30 40 years for. I don’t take that lightly. That’s what drives me. That’s what I’m passionate about. You know, our clients really are our family of clients. We know their grandkids, we know their kids. We see them often throughout the community. We see them at the coffee shop. We see them at lunch. We really enjoy it you know we take pride in the quality of the relationships that we build with our clients. Choosing the right advisors starts with choosing someone that shares the same beliefs about money that you have. It’s secure money advisors. Our focus here is about building plans around principle Action, low risk investments are a great way to approach retirement. You know, when people have low risk investments, they’re not worried. They don’t have anxieties. They don’t have fears, they don’t have to worry about what’s going on in the stock market. There are other options available, other than risk options that people need to know about when it comes to retirement. And that’s what we do at secure money advisors. There’s a lot of responsibility and helping somebody plan for the retirement. And that’s why we take the time to listen, we take the time to understand their concerns, their worries, their needs, so that we can put together a customized plan. You know, we believe in what we do, everybody that works for secure money advisors is on a mission to be the very best that they can be and to serve our clients in the best way that they can possibly serve. You know, we just are a simple company. And it’s the simplicity in what we do that makes everything so powerful. You know, you don’t need to make this thing complicated. Retirement should not be complicated. It should be simple, easy, predictable. And we pride ourselves on providing that to people.
Cynthia De Fazio – 21:22
Welcome back. My name is Cynthia de Fazio. I’m sitting with Brian Q of secure money advisors. And Brian, we’re coming to the favorite part of the show. For me personally, I love viewer questions. The reason I love them so much is because we know that when we’re sitting together doing a show, people are listening, they’re jotting things down. And when those phone lines open, they actually call in with questions. And they’ve been emailing questions as well.
Brian Quaranta – 21:45
Well, this is I mean, the radio show. I mean, we get so many great questions. And it really shows me how much more work we have to do in getting information out to people, especially the right information. But yeah, we love this part of the show.
Cynthia De Fazio – 21:58
Absolutely. So you’re educating people, you’re advising people, and it’s it is life changing. I know I said that in our last segment together, but it truly is life changing. People. Yeah. So I’m gonna jump right into questions. Yeah, go for it. Yeah. Okay. Great question here. This one is, I’m 61 years old, never married. No kids. How much retirement planning do I really need to do since I don’t care if there’s any money left for anyone when I die?
Brian Quaranta – 22:22
Yeah. Wouldn’t it be great? The perfect plan would be the perfect way would be the last check. Your right would be the Undertaker and you’re broke, right? Believe it or not, I mean, we work with a lot of single people. Retirement Plan is just as important for them as it is a married couple. And look, I get it. I mean, if you’re single, and you really don’t care how much money is left? That’s, that’s great. But what happens if you die within two to three years of retirement and there’s this much money left? Do you want the state to have a plan? Or do you want to have a plan with that, because I’m sure that there’s people in your life, whether it be charities of some sore or or, you know, nieces or nephews that you love that you want to see that money do good with. Because the die without a plan would just be absolute failure. Sure. And so you know, but again, I mean, working with single people, we have a high volume of single people that we work with that secure money advisors, and boy, I’ll tell you what, when they get a plan put together, it’s amazing to watch what they do in the community, because they really get to serve big time, and they start to do things with their money they thought they would never do and they start to become part of causes and, and, and do things that, you know, are really meaningful to them, that they never thought they had the power to do. So it’s just as important as a single person to have a great plan as a married couple.
Cynthia De Fazio – 23:45
Great answer, Brian, that was wonderful. The next question is, how do I roll over a simple IRA to a Roth IRA? Yeah, that’s a great, that’s a great question. These are good. I’m
Brian Quaranta – 23:56
telling you, yeah, you know, simple IRAs, Sep IRAs, it’s really like, you know, you know, pre tax money versus after tax money. That’s really what we’re talking about here. So doesn’t matter what type of IRA you have. If it’s a pre tax IRA, meaning you get a tax deduction on it, and you want to go to some type of Roth, you can convert that and you can and you can simply roll it over. Now, you got to pay the taxes on that to do that. But that is a very good thing to look at a very good strategy to look at. And I’ve talked about this many times on the show, and I’ve talked about on the radio is that if you want tax free income and retirement, the best way to do it is to is to start converting that to some type of Roth. Okay, yeah. And then now you’re talking about getting into a 0% tax bracket, which is pretty appealing to a lot of people. Yes, yeah. And then you never have to worry about future tax rates.
Cynthia De Fazio – 24:43
No, you don’t and that would be awesome. So the next question I have is it ever too late to start my retirement planning?
Brian Quaranta – 24:52
Is it ever too late? is ever too late to what Say that again To me? to start my retirement plan? Oh my gosh, no, absolutely not. I mean, you know, I mean, you can only kick the can down the road so far. Yeah. But it’s never too late. And you shouldn’t be embarrassed if if you’ve done no retirement planning, because if you’ve been saving money, you’ve been retirement planning sure whether or not there’s actually a plan in place or not, is another story. But if you’ve been saving money, you’ve been kind of retirement planning, without really a plan. So now what’s really neat, and this is so much joy that myself and my team get when we meet with people is that these are the people that have their head down. And they’ve been going and going and going and going, and they’ve never taken time to look up, even though they’ve been putting money away here and there. And now what they do is they come in, and I always like to, I always like to analogize it to remember Mr. Miyagi, and The Karate Kid, and Danielson, right? All you want to do is learn karate, and Mr. Miyagi, how to wax in the cars on offense and, you know, sand in a deck. And he says, That’s it, I’m done, I quit, I all I want to do is come here at Learn karate, and Mr. Miyagi pulled him over. And he started saying, you know, Danielson paint the house and dance, and he didn’t realize that he was learning karate. And that’s what happens with these folks is they don’t realize that they actually have a plan, we’re just chipping away at it and making it become very clear to them that of what they’ve built and what they’ve accomplished. And these are really emotional meetings in the office, because people, people are so proud of what they’ve done. But it’s the first time somebody’s actually shown them what they’ve done, and really put it in a way that they could understand. And now they get to see the power of their money, and what it can really do for them. I mean, how much peace of mind is that for somebody? Oh, you know, so it’s really a special thing.
Cynthia De Fazio – 26:37
It really truly is. Brian, it’s amazing. Our last question is, this is a tough one. Can I use my 401k to buy whole life insurance? That’s that.
Brian Quaranta – 26:46
That is a good one. Yeah, I mean, and yes, you could, depending on how you do, we could do a whole show on that. But but this is why we offer these complimentary reviews. So and you know, these copyright videos are so great, because, number one, you get to come into an office where it’s a very welcoming and inviting office, you know, you’re coming in not to be sold, we have no agenda when you come in, we’re truly there to help you solve a problem. And if we can’t help, we’re going to be completely upfront with you that we’re just not the right fit. Or if you’re already doing all the right things. If you’re working with a great advisor, we’re going to make that confirmation for you. So and this is why we offer these complimentary reviews at no cost and for the next 10 callers who call in. We’re going to give away a complimentary Financial Review at no cost is $1,000 value that you’re going to get. And if you call 18883821298 call and again 1-888-382-1298
Cynthia De Fazio – 27:50
Brian, I can’t believe it’s time for us to wrap up. Viewers, thank you so much. We will see you next week on secure money advisors.