David, Bret, Karen, and Joe discuss the growth and improvements within Thrive Financial Services in 2018, as well as new policies that will be in effect in 2019.

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David, I want to begin by thanking you, by thanking Karen, and by thanking Bret on behalf of all of the people who have participated in this program in any way, shape, or form.

I want to thank you for your education, for your knowledge and for your unconditional commitment to people around the Delaware Valley. I am in awe of the number of people that you see on a weekly basis, of the work schedule that you keep, and of your commitment to educating everyone around the Delaware Valley.

Well, we appreciate that Joe. We\’re excited about it. We\’ve done it. We want to continue with it. Our hope is that we just continue to bring value out to people. Before we go on, on behalf of our team we want to wish everybody an amazing holiday season, a happy, a healthy and future wealthy one for all of our retirees. Want to thank you as well, Joe, for leading this group of people and getting us to understand how to be good communicators and building this format for us, so that we can have an impact with people and we hope we do.

The feedback that we\’re getting, we get a little bit of confirmation that that\’s happening.

This actually is a very critical time. This is a very critical period, end of the year, beginning or start of the new year.

Lots of things to finish up with. A lot of things to get started in the new year as well, and we\’ll go through a bunch of that today. I do want to make a mention since you brought up the workshops, I forget exactly what that saying is, but is it imitation is the greatest form of flattery? We\’ve gotten notice that there\’s other financial advisors in the Delaware Valley that have jumped on the bandwagon, and starting to do these types of workshops.

We\’ve had actually, unknowingly to us, a bunch of financial advisors actually attend our workshops and think that they\’re going to go out and attempt to do things. I don\’t want to say this is a warning by any stretch, but I would just tell our audience that they should have a level of consciousness. We do tax efficiency in retirement. We do social security maximization and Medicare. These are topics that Bret, myself, and Karen have gotten incredibly versed about.

Our intention is about education, advocacy, and empowerment. Some people will probably use the workshops just as a tool to get what they want.

We are completely and utterly authentic with come in, visit with us. Have that first appointment. Share some information and questions. We\’ll put together the Thrive Retirement Roadmap reports that we always talk about. We\’ll deliver that on the second appointment, which is complimentary. At the end of that appointment, with all sincerity, if you want to shake hands and wish each other well, we’re fine with that as well.

As a matter of fact, because of that genuine attitude, last Saturday after we did the show, Karen and I were invited because somebody actually came out to one of our workshops. Turns out that this person was a big deal with AARP. She came in for her first appointment with her husband, who actually happened to be a special agent for the IRS. Guess what they were worried about? Tax efficiency in retirement.

Great stuff.

Great people. Wonderful people and they actually asked us, \”There\’s a segment of the population out there that really, really, really needs help. We do AARP and we go out and we try to be that advocate. We see that you guys are so perfectly synced up with. Would you mind coming out?\” Karen and I did that last Saturday in the afternoon, and it was a great attendance. We went through a bunch of information, and I think we had some pretty good impact with that organization.

Well done. Great stuff and a great story. Bret, we\’ll come to you for an opening remark. Big bold letters on thrivefinancialservices.tyl16lnm-liquidwebsites.com. It\’s never too late to take the first step, or as you say, Karen says, and David has said many times, get a second opinion on your financial strategy. I think that is spot on in terms of a message that we hope will resonate.

The best way I\’ve been phrasing it recently is the average worker spends about 45 years before retiring and on average working 40 hours a week. You do a little bit of math. You work about 90,000 hours before you retire, and we talk about that complimentary Thrive Retirement Roadmap review, which is two or three hours out of your life. These are all things that we go through as part of that Thrive Retirement Roadmap review.

Good stuff and well said. Karen, come to you for your opening remark before we get into our commercial break. Welcome, nice to have you here.

Thank you very much.

It\’s the end of 2018, the start of 2019. That\’s when everything takes place in this. We have to find space for it no matter how much noise is out there.

Exactly. We are coming to year end, and what better time to start thinking about what you\’re going to do for the year 2019. If you didn\’t get your goals lined up for 2018, we have some ideas for you and we\’re here to guide you.

Good stuff. We\’ll look forward to that conversation later on. David, last point from you will be about your affiliation with SOFA. I think it is so important to continue to let our audience know about your affiliation with SOFA. That\’s very special.

It\’s special for us. It certainly is a benefit to the consumer, but SOFA being a national 501(c)(3), not for profit, mandates a commitment to not talk about business, to not talk about products, but to be an educator and be an advocate. That\’s what we do. Where my concern is, is that there are other people within the industry that may utilize those types of tools to have somewhat of an ulterior motive just to get themselves in front of people.

We\’ve been very blessed, very fortunate that because of the sheer volume of people that we talk to over a year span of time that, from a voluntary standpoint, decide they want to work with us. We never feel like we have to be in a position to coerce somebody. We only want to do business with people who want to do business with us. Being in this business for 30 years and doing it the traditional way for a long time, I\’ve never enjoyed myself more than I am right now. It\’s a pleasure to do what I do on a daily basis and get to do it.

Well done. Well said.

Krause, before I kick things off, I just wanted to piggyback real quick off of what David just shared talking about imitation being the biggest form of flattery out there. How we know we\’re doing things right is, number one, we see our Thrive Army continuing to grow here. I think the words of wisdom that we\’ve heard from some of our people is great. What\’s also great is some people from the radio are actually coming to our workshops now too.

Then the next thing that we hear is when people come to the workshop and then they go through the Thrive Retirement Roadmap review process, so many people have been through what they call bait and switch. They go to a workshop, they talk about a topic, and then they come in for that appointment to sit down, like so many people have through the Tri-State Area, and they spend two seconds on what they talked about at the workshop.

The last thing that makes us believe we\’re doing things right is two years ago the Thrive team here, our headquarters here in Fort Washington we were a team of six, where we\’re now number 19. We have a staff of 19 now. We know so many people appreciate and we appreciate them as well, getting the right feedback from people, making sure we\’re doing things the right way. That\’s what it\’s all about. Being educators, be an advocate, and people know when you\’re doing right by them at the same time.

As much as people thank us, we want to thank everybody as well.

That\’s a good way to live, man. That\’s a good way to be. It\’s nice from my chair to be able to sit and just be along for the ride. I\’ve enjoyed it and I\’ve learned a lot.

What typically excites me going from one year to the next are some of the changes that we see in some of the tax code, increases in income limits and some of that. I want to kick today off talking about some of those changes. Again, piggybacking off of what we talk about throughout the year as well. One of the first changes that we see going in from 2018 to 2019, and we\’ve talked about it a little past couple of weeks is, again, the first checks from social security\’s going to be on the second Wednesday. That\’s going to be on the 9th of January.

Everyone that isn’t aware of it, you\’re going to get a nice little surprise, 2.8% increase. Then lastly for those people that are on Medicare, again, we\’ve chatted about it before but we\’re actually seeing almost flat numbers across the board in terms of Medicare not going up. Those are two pretty good changes. My paycheck\’s going up from social security and they\’re taking not as much out from a Medicare standpoint, where it\’s only going up $1.50.

Again, there\’s things that we need to be conscious of, are talking about the introduction now of yet a sixth surcharge level. For those people in the Thrive Army they\’re going to come out be seeing our first workshops here in January, it\’s going to be a new presentation. Some things have changed once again. Again, they\’re making it easier for people to fall into these Medicare surcharge levels. When people come out to the traveling roadshow, we talk about taxes in retirement. Again, we\’re getting ready to complete year one, 2018, of the next eight years of what these tax changes will be.

We believe that people want to educate themselves. Finding out all that’s in there, where we believe that it is an opportune time to do some things that can set yourselves up for tax efficiency heading into the future.

Some big changes that happened from 2018 into 2019 is standard deduction. On an individual basis, standard deduction\’s going to be increasing from $12,000 up to $12,200, and then if you\’re a married, filing joint couple, it\’s going from $24,000 up to $24,400.

When we talk about deductions, deductions are dollar-for-dollar items that we\’re always able to write off against income that is earned. It means that we\’re going to be paying less on taxes. In that scenario right there, a married couple no matter what age, 24,400 is the least amount that you\’re going to be able to write off from your income. For our audience where both members of the household are greater than the age of 65, it\’s going to make your standard deduction almost $27,000. That\’s a good thing.

It\’s a trickle-down effect when we start talking about Roth conversions. We share all these topics during our workshops as well. We share with people how they can pull money out of their stock portfolios, or maybe they\’re selling a house where we talk about long-term capital gains. All these increases to these government limits, these are all things that are going to help us out in being able to get a little bit more out each and every year in a very tax advantaged standpoint.

I think that\’s part of the complimentary reports that are done when you get to that point with a potential client and they come back for a follow up. It\’s amazing to me how deeply detailed the complimentary reports are. Everybody has different buckets and different scenarios. There\’s no one way that works for everyone. That, I think, is important for the listening audience to know.

If you think they\’re generic, I\’ll be more than happy to introduce us to our planning team who spends the hours upon hours in customizing all these reports to everybody. That\’s how passionate we are. Again, you do good by people, people do good by you.

Yes sir.

We put our heart into it, and sometimes it\’s like, \”Wow, I\’m giving you all this information.\” Well, we need it to put all these reports together, because we\’re genuine. It\’s not just throwing something generic like a whitepaper. Again, whitepapers are a great way just like our workshops to meet us and hear about things on a grand scheme, but how does that affect me? That\’s what our team of advisors here does.

It\’s what our planning team here does, and it\’s why our team has grown from six to nineteen over the past couple of years. People are like, \”Whoa. Number one, I can\’t believe they do it. Number two, they do it on a complimentary basis.\” Then we allow for all those questions, and we actually give people a deliverable, give people our book. Again, there\’s so many different ways that people can meet us.

It\’s almost an extension of the workshop, of educating people of changes, things that we need to be conscious of as weeks, months, and the years go on, because maybe it doesn\’t affect me today, but it may affect me at some point in the future.

[bctt tweet=\”As much as people thank us, we want to thank everybody as well.\” username=\”@thrivefinancia1\”]

I always feel, too, as though when we get into a topic or we get into a conversation and we just get started, we run out of time. I always feel as though that is the case. When you\’re trying to drill down on something, there\’s so much information to understand. We don\’t process it all quickly. That\’s why the workshop, I think, is a great option as well.

It\’s a great way to meet us, and then coming in and figuring out how it all applies to me. Again, standard deduction\’s going up. We still have the ability to itemize just like we did before. That coupled with income brackets are going to be going up as well. Those two things are all good things. They got more income and more write offs being able to have things at that 0% bracket. Our listening audience who may be conscious of health care. Do I need to have Obamacare? Again, I didn\’t want to pay any kind of those tax penalties.

2019 is a big change. If you no longer have health care coverage anymore, and, again, one thing we\’re passionate about is working with people, sharing with them how they can get a substantial subsidy. Well, it\’s no longer enforceable.

You no longer have to have health insurance in this nation, and they will not penalize you when you go to do your taxes. We still believe in getting health care coverage, but we want our audience to know that you don\’t necessarily need it where you\’re not going to be penalized from the government any longer.

Remember, these tax cuts and changes that we are speaking will carry us through 2025. We\’ve talked about personal exemptions. Pretty much take that word out of the vocabulary. Continuing into 2019 there are still no exemptions as part of the tax code. One thing that we educate our listening audience about, not only on the radio, but at our workshops as well, is they\’re actually enhancing what they call is a saver\’s credit.

A saver\’s credit is one thing that we\’re passionate about educating people on, where so long as you make a contribution to a 401(k), a Roth 401(k), an IRA, or a Roth IRA, we can receive a credit up to a maximum of $2,000. Again, when we talk about deductions, dollar-for-dollar items directly against income that\’s earned, you talk about credits dollar-for-dollar items against taxes that are due. They\’ve made it a little bit harder to be phased out from being able to participate in a saver\’s credit.

Again, that\’s a good thing. That means more and more people have the ability to participate in it. In addition to that, being able to earn a little bit more income to be able to take advantage of it. Again, our listening audience a credit, when we talk about credits, that saver\’s credit we can earn up to a $2,000 credit.

Sometimes they\’re part of our white papers, but it\’s definitely a big talking point when people come and hear as part of that Thrive Retirement Roadmap to try to find out everything that\’s out there in our world, what applies to you, how can it benefit you.

You could always visit us at thrivefinancialservices.tyl16lnm-liquidwebsites.com. Again, telephone number 1-800-516-5861. Krausey, as you just shared, we have things kicking off the week of January 8th with our first two workshops. We\’ve made an internal commitment to this year that we\’re going to be well over 100 workshops again going into 2019. We’re expanding our territory a little bit further, and just being advocates out there in the community.

Karen Bezar is along. The subject on Karen\’s hit list today is the year-end checklist. Timely as we cross over and end the year here in 2018, and, as Bret mentioned, get ready to begin in 2019.

Thank you Joe.

You\’re very welcome.

Like Joe said, we have a year-end retirement checklist. 15 tips to get ready for a great 2019 and beyond, and if I don\’t get to all 15 today then we\’ll finish it next time. Just want to start off by saying I\’m going to put my women\’s advocacy hat on really quick. I have noticed, and I don\’t know if Bret and Dave have noticed, but a lot of women are coming to this workshop, and some of them are coming who are married, without their husbands.

They make the appointment, and they\’re coming in here for the complimentary consultation and they\’re bringing their husbands with them

I\’m just happy to see more women coming out. They have great information at the workshop and they brought their husbands, and then their husbands are pleasantly surprised at we offer the reports that we talk about. We actually come through and we give some really great information. There\’s information that they never knew existed out there.

By the way, let\’s put an exclamation point on that thought, or on that statement. It\’s okay to come out and leave your spouse at home for the workshop. Why not? Get the information. Get educated on it, and then at the right moment bring your partner or bring your spouse along.

Don\’t wait until it\’s too late.

I met with this very lovely woman, and her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer\’s about 10 years ago. He always took care of everything, but he\’s getting to the point where he can\’t handle it anymore, and she really needs a second set of eyes. That\’s why she came to the workshop and then she did come into the office. We\’re here, again, we\’re just here for education and we\’re here to help you. Please do not hesitate. Go to one of the workshops or give us a call. Check us out on our website meethrivefinancial.com.

We\’re going to talk about 15 tips to get ready for a great 2019. Number one, don\’t guess, figure out exactly what you need for retirement, or the rest of your retirement. What does that mean? Whether you\’re already retired or nearing retirement, you need to know exactly how much money you need to live comfortably for the rest of your life. There was actually a report done on the percentage of people out there. Here are the statistics. 19% of mass affluent Americans, US households that have assets ranging from $50,000 to $250,000 have no idea how much they will need. The guesstimates are wide ranging.

Why do I bring that up? Because that\’s one of the things that we talk about. If you come in for the complimentary consultation, we will drill down on how much money do I really need on a monthly basis to survive in retirement, and then we go into many details on that. That\’s a stress analysis that we offer. There\’s a lot of different moving parts when you are retired ,no longer working, and you have to make your money last as long as you can. We take into consideration health care, how long are you going to live, inflation, all of those things. It\’s hard to come up with that number by yourself.

Again, I just want to emphasize because I believe this, it\’s okay to not know. It\’s okay to be in the percentage that doesn\’t know, because as soon as you become self-aware and understand that you don\’t know, you will take the next step. You will start to get yourself educated, and that\’s what you guys do.

Exactly. That\’s number one. Number two, think you already know what you need? Check again, because why? Things change. Creating a retirement plan is not something you do once and then you never revisit it. Experts recommend that updating all aspects of your plan to be part of your yearly retirement checklist. Doing it quarterly might even be better, but that\’s what we do with our clients as well. Meet as many times as they want, at least an annual basis to make sure you\’re still on track. See if anything\’s changed. Lots of things can change. Your plan needs to stay current with these developments.

Economy changes, all of that. Inflation, like I discussed before. If you already have a plan, it might be a good time to revisit it or come in and we\’ll give you a second opinion if you\’re not our client.

Number three, part of the retirement checklist is if you\’re over 70 and a half there\’s that fun thing called required minimum distributions. Definitely have to take those. There\’s a statistic here I was reading that, let\’s see. 61% of account holders with some firms who are older than 70 and a half have not taken their required minimum distributions yet.

What was that percentage?

61%.

What happens if you don\’t take your RMD at the proper time?

It is a 50% penalty on your amount that you were supposed to take out. If you haven\’t taken it out or you make a mistake, perhaps you have a few different qualified accounts. You rolled over a few 401(k) at previous jobs, you have to take out the right amount or the government\’s not happy about that. Do you believe they-

It\’s 50%.

Your expression is the exact expression we get from everybody, because we talk about this at the workshops.

Yeah. It\’s unbelievable.

f you have a million dollars in assets, that first year that you turn age 70 and a half, they look at that 12/31 previous statement date. They add it up. Let\’s say hypothetically you had a million dollars. You would need to be taking out over $36,000 in those required minimum distributions. If you miss taking out that distribution, that\’s a 50% penalty.

Wow.

We have clients ourselves that say, \”We have to take this money out?\” We say, \”Yes, you do.\” Anybody out there listening, before you turn 70 and a half come on in because we have ways to reduce your taxation pot. What would you call that?

Obligation.

Obligation. Thank you. Before you turn 70 and a half, come on in, have a chat with us. Number four, still working? Max out your retirement savings? If you haven\’t reached the contribution limits on retirement saving plans like 401(k)s and IRAs, then you may want to figure out a way to stash more money into these accounts. If you have a year-end bonus, it might be a good time to put some more money into your retirement savings. If you happen to have any money laying around at the end of the year, start planning for retirement.

401(k)’s are a great way to save money, especially if you work for a company that matches what you put in, or a percentage of what you put in. That\’s free money. Another interesting fact about 401(k)’s is there are people very familiar, you put your money in. You save money on paying taxes, and then when you retire you have to pay taxes. That\’s why people don\’t like those required minimum distributions. Some companies actually have Roth 401(k)’s where you can put your money into the Roth portion of your 401(k).

[bctt tweet=\”but like they say, if work isn\’t work, it\’s what you enjoy doing\” via=\”no\”]

An interesting fact is if you are participating in a 401(k) with a company, that there is no income limitation to the participant, which means if you don\’t have a 401(k) in a job, there\’s limitations. If you make your adjusted gross income of $199,000 for a married couple, or your adjusted gross income of 135,000 for a single person, you can\’t even invest into a Roth IRA.

If you\’re part of a company that offers it, we definitely suggest that because it can control your taxation in retirement.

Give me number five, and I\’m going to stop you after five. We\’re never going to get to the other 10, but I want to at least recap at least the top five.

Another important thing to do is if you\’re still working, boost your savings rate. You need to really focus. If you do number one, and know what your number is that you need in retirement, then you need to really focus on putting more money away. If it\’s skipping the Starbucks coffee in the morning, or whatever it is, definitely do that. Number five, again, boost your monthly savings rate.

Let me recap before

Figure out exactly what you need for retirement, or the rest of retirement.

Number two, things change.

Things change, so review your retirement plan. Number three.

Max out your savings, number four, and then number five.

Boost your monthly savings. You might need to increase your savings.

Go to meetthrivefinancial.com and that\’s where you\’ll get to know more about Karen, more about David, and more about Bret. There\’s a lot of fun stuff there for you to do as well. You\’ll see a bullet point, \”Want to know how to effectively manage RDMs.\”

Thank you so much Karen for giving us five of the fifteen bullet points. We at least got the top five out. I turn now to David Bezar to steer the ship back into the port and bring us home here.

What an incredible year it has been.

Thank you, Joe. It\’s been a blessed year for us and the growth. I really can\’t believe that 2018, the end is here and we\’re about to begin a new year. It\’s unbelievable, but like they say, if work isn\’t work, it\’s what you enjoy doing, it\’s not that big of a deal and we just keep plugging away and having a blast doing it. As we wind up the year, Joe, I just really want to put a personal thank you out to you. You\’ve just been such an integral part of making this show the success it is.

I know here at Thrive we just appreciate the time and the devotion, getting to know you as a friend over these 18 months, it\’s been remarkable. I really appreciate you and wish you the best of holidays. I want to also put a special shout out to the man in the booth, our executive producer Frank who has done an absolute-

He\’s the best.

Frank has done such a wonderful job, and we appreciate him and wish him the best of holidays as well. I thought I\’d spend a couple of minutes winding up 2018, and kind of diving in a little bit to what people experience at these workshops. Not so much the physical, not so much about the education, but what we get out of it. We see these common questions, these common remarks, and it really gives us some guidance on what the people in the public are looking to find out about their future retirement.

We\’ve kind of boiled it down. One question we get a lot of times is why do we do this. Why do we only focus on retirees? Why do we only talk about the areas of the puzzle pieces that are related to retirement process? Yes, we do investment management. We try to teach people how to mitigate their risk in the markets. With the volatility that we\’re experiencing right now, this is where someone who is really understanding what\’s going out there, really knows how to position, doesn\’t just default to the \”don\’t worry about, things will be fine\” quote.

The most important thing during retirement is just not to lose.

BlackRock Asset Management company came out with a report that you actually can increase your performance over a 30-year period of time. This is going to sound remarkable, by just not losing as much as other people do. What that really meant is what they talked about is just participating in the markets, 88% of the upside, 88% of the downside. If you just do that, a return could be significantly more.

We talk a lot about that with people at our workshops and when they come into the markets. Most of the people reading and most of the people who attend our workshops, I said this last week in one of our workshops, reality is you probably have exactly the amount of money that you need to have everything that you want in retirement. Your job from this point forward is just not to lose. I saw a lot of head nods, yes, a lot of eyebrows go up when I made that remark.

People are still in the thick of the game, and sometimes you just stay too long, and that\’s when the markets don\’t treat you. It\’s a little bit of greed that kicks in. I want to keep making those double digit returns, or whatever. When you start to see this type of volatility in the market, it should start to remind you that things don\’t stay good all the time. Depending on what stage of life you are, if you start to experience bear market situations especially if you have to start drawing on those retirement resources, that could be detrimental to your retirement.

I really want to put that message out there that sometimes you may have all that you need, why put it at jeopardy at this particular point? The reason we do this, Joe, is because we have found by the attendance alone. Last week as an example, Joe, we had, I think, almost 175 people attend our workshops, just last week alone. Just last week alone.

Crazy.

That is awesome.

It\’s showing me, number one, the word is definitely spreading because many of the people that were in attendance never even registered. They were brought along by other people.

Wow. That\’s terrific.

That\’s when we know we got this army moving along. It\’s kind of volunteers on volunteers. What we hear is baby boomers are really looking and need a trusted advisor, a trusted resource to navigate retirement successfully. Kind of this repository of all the information, all those little things that don\’t even come up in conversation normally that you do need to know so you don\’t get tripped up during retirement.

We hear the two main questions that people have, number one, do I actually have enough money to retire the way I want in retirement? Then, number two, will that money last my lifetime? Statistically what we know today is if you have a married couple that reaches the age of 65 together, there\’s a 50% chance that one of those spouses is getting out to age 95. You may spend 30 years in retirement, so if you don\’t have the right amount and you can\’t answer the question \”will it last,\” it\’s a real big problem.

We need to make sure those are questions that people are asking, and we want to provide the answers. Second question I ask or another set of questions I ask is \”Why\’d you come out to the workshop?\” If they come in for an appointment, \”Why\’d you come out to the appointment?\”I find 50% to 60% of the people actually are working with financial advisors. The people who are self-managed said, \”I came out because I needed to learn more.\”

The people who work with financial advisors actually give us \”I\’ve asked these questions before and I\’ve never gotten a clear answer. When I ask my financial advisor when I should take social security and what\’s the tax ramifications, they tell me to go talk to social security and my accountant.” There isn\’t a central, empathetic steward guiding the ship for these people. That\’s what we\’ve become for a lot of people.

“Why\’d you schedule a consultation?” “That\’s because I saw the value in what you talked about, and a conversation we\’ve never had before. You guys really know what you\’re talking about, and we wanted to come in and see what value we could pick up from that process.” We have our practice, our business so fine-tuned, so specialized that we\’re not interested in talking to young couples. If they\’re children of our clients, sure, but we\’re so dialed in on really understanding every moving puzzle piece for retirements. That\’s what we want to do.

I had this chronic ear thing going on. I don\’t go to my normal doctor. I\’m seeing an otologist at the University of Penn who specializes in this specific thing. You know what, it\’s chronic. I\’m tired of dealing with it. I want to talk to somebody who can solve it. I hope that makes sense.

It does make sense.

That\’s a big difference. My GP\’s a great guy, but he hasn\’t been able to give me the answers I need to get rid of this earache. That\’s why I go to a specialist and that\’s what we\’ve done. If you\’re working with a general practitioner and you want somebody who really understands the deepest of deep levels when it relates to retirement, that\’s when you come out and start talking to Thrive.

We talk about a couple of things. We talk about taxes in retirement, forward tax planning in retirement. This is one area that gets people\’s big-time attention. We talk about opportunities between the age of 60 and 70, where for the right scenario, doesn\’t mean everybody can do this but certain situations. We can actually start to get money out of traditional IRAs where we can do it in the most tax efficient way. When I say tax efficient way, Joe, I mean possibly at 0% taxation.

That really intrigues people. They want to know. Bret talked about the saver\’s credit. There isn\’t a hand that goes up when we ask the question, \”How many of you have ever heard of the saver\’s credit?\” Nobody knows about it. Then they say, \”Well, is this something new?\”Nope. It\’s been around a long time, but people don\’t educate you about that. We do, and it\’s a tax credit, dollar-for-dollar, up to $2,000, 50% of that. If you owe $2,000 in taxes, you write off $1,000. You only pay taxes on one thou. It\’s unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

And true. True that people don\’t know.

Yeah. Social security\’s big. 567 different types of election choices. Medicare surcharge levels, the required minimum distributions. We talked last week or two weeks ago about charitable RMD deduction. There are so many things that people could do in retirement that could definitely change the game. Most people are going to do okay, but why not do great if you can?

Check out the calendar of the events that we have. Get one on your calendar and come visit with us. If you can\’t make it and you don\’t want to go, come right in. Call the office at 800-516-5861. Tell them you want to schedule a Thrive Retirement Roadmap Review. We\’ll go through the process. We\’ll get you educated. We\’ll give you a deliverable that maps it out. If we happen to be the organization for you, awesome. If not, we\’ll shake hands, wish each other well and know that we\’re always here via phone call.

Well done and well said, David. Thank you to Bret and Karen, as well. As the Thrive Army continues to grow, we would like to thank everyone for reading and tuning  in to our conversations!