[smart_track_player url=\”https://soundcloud.com/livewiththrive/reaching-new-heights-at-thrive\” ]

It sure is nice to be back on a Saturday morning, welcoming everyone to Roadmap to Retirement, the Radio Show. As I listened to our broadcast remotely a week ago, and I listened to the lead in, letting the audience know that we were off for the week and we were re-broadcasting one of our previous shows, I was filled with anticipation to get back to the grind and bring our listening audience another show.

We didn\’t get a chance to say it last week, but the June numbers are out for the ratings for the radio show. We continue to do incredibly well in the ratings at the radio station. The Thrive Army continues to grow. I will say David, to you, that this show, Roadmap To Retirement The Radio Show, is becoming a staple in Philadelphia radio. I say that based on the consistency of the numbers over a long period of time. I think that\’s an incredible tribute to Thrive Financial, to you, to Karen, to Bret, and more importantly to what you do when listeners and people come to the workshops.

Joe, that\’s awesome to hear. We love that. Obviously you know we don\’t do this for any celebrity reason. We just feel we\’re on a mission to get a message out to people, and it\’s so needed today, that\’s the whole thing. This past two months have actually, it\’s been record, and I mean blow away the old record of attendance at our workshop. The great part about it is that the airwaves, this radio show being on 1210 AM, has really created a big reason that people are coming out to these workshops. Because we check people in at the workshop, because we\’re just curious, we want to know where people are finding us from.

Absolutely.

Now we\’re starting to see a big percentage of the people coming from radio, or people said, \”A friend of mine heard you on the radio and told me that you had this workshop, and it really resonated with me and i really wanted to get out to it.\” I think that\’s just absolutely awesome. The fact that we\’re seeing record people come to the workshop, that is converting over to record number of people taking us up on that complementary consultation, the Thrive Retirement Roadmap Review.

Why I think the three of us are so excited, so enthusiastic, so passionate, is we see what, and this may sound bad, but we see what a poor job people in general are doing to make sure that their retirement is absolutely secure. We\’re witnessing a lot of people that come in who are self-managed, and they\’re looking for confirmation that what they\’ve done thus far is working. Sometimes we can give that, and I\’m going to just put a disclaimer on that in a second, and sometimes we just can\’t. As fiduciaries, we can\’t be political, diplomatic, we just have to be blunt honest. As fiduciaries, we have that obligation to do that.

I wish more of our competition, I wish more of the people, our competition on these radio stations, were fiduciaries. Because in the past two months the amount of people that we see that have visited with other financial \”planning firms\”, and the work that these other companies have done, shoehorning people into very, very limited beneficial type situations that could potentially put them at harm in the future. We now feel more obligated than ever to right those wrongs.

For me, and for Bret, and for Karen, we kind of feel like we\’re the gatekeepers right now on the security of people\’s financial plans. Even for people who are doing a really good job on the investment side of things, what we see is that they\’re forgetting to look at the other pieces of the financial plan. Taxes, social security, Medicare, long term care, all these things that potentially could be very disruptive. Not that we\’re recommitted, but I can tell you that we\’re probably, on a scale of one to ten, ten being the best, we\’re probably at a level 15 right now in our attentiveness to make sure people listening to us, people visiting with us are getting the best work possible.

Well you guys know that I consume this radio show as a listener. I\’m not an employee of Thrive. I consume it as a listener. One thing that I consumed listening to the replay of the broadcast last week was the conversation that came up about soliciting a second opinion, and your endorsement for that. To me, consuming the show, it kind of hammered home what you believe. I mean, you believe in the value of a second opinion for the listener, even if that second opinion is after they\’ve met with you, you want that. That\’s incredible.

Yeah. Absolutely.

That\’s incredible.

We\’re so, so confident in that what we do is right 100% of the time, because we take that time to get ourselves knowledgeable. We only execute those types of recommendations when they make sense, and that they\’re genuinely in the best interest of the client. We also do it on the flip side.

I\’ll give you a perfect example. Bret\’s office is next to my office at our corporate office, and Bret sat with a woman that came in from the workshop. That woman, she had some questions, she had no money. Because of the way things were set up, she\’s going to make it, because we validated that for her through that second opinion. She said, for the first time, as someone who is not in the radar of most financial advisors, that we were the first firm that took the time and energy to visit with her, give her comfort. She actually walked out and gave Bret a hug, and gave, we have a new associate advisor named Jeff. First day on the job he got a hug. That\’s very rewarding for us. That is, I will tell you, that\’s what makes us tick.

Yeah. Well done. Great example. Well said. Before we get into our first commercial break and then return with the contents of the show, Bret, you\’re covering what today?

We\’re going to talk about what happens psychologically. We always talk about finances, but the psychological side of what happens when the first one of us passes away, and the importance of having an outlet and a network of people.

All right. We\’ll do that with you in the final segment of the show today.

Yes sir.

We\’re changing it up a little bit. David will come back after the commercial break. Karen, what\’s on your agenda for topic of conversation today?

Oddly enough, the psychological readiness of retiring. Are you ready to retire? Questions you should ask yourself beforehand.

Very important, absolutely.

Yes.

Because the answer you give yourself today may not be the right answer, and you have to be willing to accept it as not being the right answer.

Right.

We’re going to change the lineup up a little bit today. Where normally David, we bring you in to close out the show, I\’m going to bring you in coming out of our opening break here on a Saturday morning, and get into your conversation.

Yeah. Joe, we want to spend a little bit of time here on taxes. Taxes is a big element of making sure that your retirement plan is secure, because it\’s a thing people just kind of forget about. Bret\’s terminology that we use a lot of times is the different ticking tax bombs that exist within the retirement planning side of the business.

We\’ve spent a lot of time getting ourselves educated up, working with some tax attorneys, working with CPAs, working with the experts in the industry. I also just want to take a moment and mention that we are in the process right now, because we think it\’s such an amazing topic, and it affects people both on the way to retirement, and then during retirement. There\’s a couple of stages where tax planning can be done to create a really efficient process.

We actually have a tax expert speaker that we\’re going to be lining up a venue. It\’s going to be a local venue, we\’re not sure. It\’ll be one of the hotels in the Delaware Valley, maybe somewhere in Plymouth Meeting or King of Prussia. We\’re looking to make this open to the public. It\’s really focused again for folks that are probably in that maybe eight to ten years out from retirement, and currently in retirement. What we\’re going to be going through, we\’re bringing in a gentleman, his name is Marty Ruby. He is, I won\’t say world renowned, but certainly US renowned as a tax expert. We\’re going to give about two, two and a half hours.

Wow.

Yeah, and it\’s going to be purely educational. No selling, just like all of our other workshops are. Our goal really is to have people walk out of there with a clear understanding, real action items of what they can do on the lead up to retirement, and then how to be much more tax efficient during retirement. I would really encourage our listening audiences to keep an eye, and an ear open, to that announcement.

We\’ll probably have a ton of commercials on it. We\’re going to certainly put out some public information about it. I think it\’s going to be spectacular. I think we should have somewhere between 200 and 300 people show up to it. Again, big venue. We\’re not serving dinner or anything like that, that people always know if that\’s the case there\’s going to be some type of sales hook. We just want to get this information out there. I would say definitely keep an eye out on that.

In that vein of tax savings, we want to talk about a couple of things, some of these ticking tax bombs. One of the things to consider, and I would say this could be a great homework assignment for our listening audience, is to pull out their 1040, their tax return from last year. Depending on whether you did a 1040 EZ, or you did a full 1040, you\’re going to look for the line item where you reported your taxable interest. That\’s either 2b or 8b on the front page of the 1040.

If you\’ve got any dollar amount in there that\’s, I\’d say if it\’s a couple hundred bucks, not that big of a deal. Anywhere of $1000 or higher, what I want people to understand that are listening to us is any money that shows up on that line item is going to be subjected to additional federal, state, and local income tax. That\’s number one. We\’ve got to know that when we report that taxable interest, we\’re going to pay additional taxes, because it\’s income.

[bctt tweet=\”we\’re the gatekeepers right now on the security of people\’s financial plans\” via=\”no\”]

Number two is if it\’s significant enough, and we see it quite often when we review 1040s, it could actually impact your social security taxation. Because we have different levels that once our income goes over a certain threshold, more of our social security benefit gets taxed. That\’s something that no one thinks is fair, right? I mean, we made that. We paid the tax in for it, and now we\’re going to be taxed on that money all again. Again, this what I\’m sharing right now is one way to make sure that you don\’t end up paying more than you should.

If that number is also significant enough, it can actually impact your Medicare part B premiums, because Medicare has a surcharge system that if you\’re over a certain amount of income the government feels you should pay more for your Medicare part B premium, on top of your normal fee.

One of the strategies that we talk about at our workshops, and something that we actually do for our clients, is figure out a way, and this is a concept called capital storage. Now that\’s not really an official title to any financial strategy, but it\’s something that we use to get people to understand it. Capital storage is, where do you have that money that\’s actually causing that interest to be reported? Is there a way that you could move the money from where it\’s currently invested, you might be able to use a same type of an investment, but where that investment is actually housed, can it be tax deferred? Can it be tax sheltered? Can it even be tax eliminated?

When we bring these topics up at our workshop, you really want to see people\’s eyebrows go up. Because again, this is not a typical topic that an average financial advisor is going to talk about. These are things that are CPA approved. These are things that are tax attorney approved. Most importantly, they are IRS approved. These are not some off the cuff, out of the back door type scenario. These are standard practices.

One of the things that I ask audiences is, do you understand, and how do you feel about it, that very wealthy people, big corporations and Wall Street typically pay less in taxes than most people in Main Street? Do you agree with that Joe?

Yeah, I agree.

Yeah. Right. I mean, most people know, from a percentage perspective, that all of those categories that I just mentioned, outside of middle, kind of mass affluent middle America, they don\’t think that\’s a fair situation. What we\’ve been trying to educate people is what the big banks, what Wall Street, what wealthy people, what corporations understand about the tax code, and can afford to get the proper advice, we\’re now bringing that to Main Street. We want to show people that there are ways to defer, shelter, possibly even eliminate those taxes by using some type of a vehicle, some type of capital storage vehicle that will allow them to do that.

If you\’re not telling me this, if you\’re not telling our listening audience what you just stated, we don\’t know.

That\’s exactly right. Again, if we did, we\’d be doing it. Because we see so many people on a monthly basis, hundreds of people come in for that Thrive Complementary Consultation where we review all this, one of the things that we dive very deep into is the tax returns. We see those line items filled up with this stuff, and we bring up the concept and say, \”Have you ever heard of this before?\” They say, \”I\’ve never heard of this before. How come my accountant hasn\’t brought this up?\” Well, no disrespect to any accountant or CPA out there, but they\’re focused on debits and credits, right?

Right.

Not necessarily strategy, but running the numbers to figure out what you owe or what you get refunded back.

Yeah. I\’m not even sure they\’re supposed to pay attention to the strategies.

They might be.

No, it\’s a good point. It\’s just that they\’ve got a business, and their business is somewhat linear most times, because that\’s what they\’re focused on, that\’s what most people want. When you start to enter the realm where it\’s starting to have a negative impact, and there are solutions to that, you\’ve got to, number one, find out it exists. Then number two, you\’ve got to find out the right people to be able to get the job done.

Again Krause, when we do our workshops, and again, talking about here on the show, it\’s a lot of times going against the grain of conventional wisdom. David talked about so many times, so many things that we see during the workshops. We talk about the ticking tax bomb at the age of 70 and a half. It\’s just understanding that there\’s other ways to get the same thing across.

We see a lot of clients who come in, they have a large, long term capital gain position in a particular stock. Their current advisor just says, \”Ah, just keep it, and whenever the market goes up or down, you know when to pay the taxes.\” It may be a small business owner, an accountant, a dentist, a doctor, oh you\’re making a little bit too much money, you can\’t take advantage of those new tax laws or you can get an automatic 20% write off on all your deductions.

Here\’s a big one. We see advisors all the time, people have gigantic 401k\’s, especially here in the Delaware Valley, big Fortune 500 companies, like a Merck, a Johnson & Johnson, a DuPont, et cetera, where advisors are saying, \”Hey, let\’s take your whole 401k and roll it into an IRA.\” There\’s this thing called net unrealized accumulation related to, in a 401k, where if you have company stock, that may be the worst thing in the world that you can do, but conventional wisdom day in and day out is telling people to do things that doesn\’t always make sense Krause.

Boy, it sure doesn\’t. What a great point to hammer home David.

Well, it\’s what you don\’t know that can actually harm you when it comes to your finances. That\’s the big issue. We\’re bringing that to light to the average investor out there today. The information that both Bret and I are just kind of spewing out a little bit of, has been kind of held in court of the wealthy people out there. Kind of that big money concept that we\’ve just decided to bring, again, back down to Main Street. Most financial advisors, again, are not focused on this. They just want to bring assets under management. They want you to invest with them so they can charge you a fee for that.

The other real quick comment is, with that, it\’s so bland it\’s ridiculous. I mean, if we look at one statement, we\’ve probably seen 1000 statements. It\’s always the same investments. It\’s always the same company. It\’s always the same stuff. What Bret talked about with the 401k, and you get an advisor who tells you that you should be selling out of that company\’s stock, you lose so many benefits of tax advantage that could have been reserved or preserved, but that advisor had no clue what the heck they were talking about.

I just really caution people to be careful about what they\’re doing. I understand loyalty. I understand long term relationships and all that, but when it comes time to navigating retirement successfully, you should come out to one of our workshops. You should give us a call at 800-516-5861, or visit our website at thrivefinancialservices.tyl16lnm-liquidwebsites.com. You will start to see the value of getting a second opinion.

As we go to the break, a great example of what the tax expert speaker will provide in terms of a very impactful day, whenever that day is ultimately scheduled. Stay with us, and stay on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT for more details about that. Back in a moment.

Welcome back everyone to Roadmap to Retirement The Radio Show. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening every Saturday morning. We are thrilled to be here and start your weekend. If you\’re out the door this morning and you\’re listening on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, you\’ll find us every Saturday morning right here on the dial. You can also go to thrivefinancialservices.tyl16lnm-liquidwebsites.com to find anything and everything about what we talk about, including the podcast of every broadcast, which gets an incredible amount of traction in terms of those that go to the website and actually listen to the shows.

Let me bring Karen Bezar into the conversation, following David\’s segment. Karen, hello, how are you?

I\’m great this morning. I\’m caffeinated up. I\’m ready to go.

All right, good stuff. You keep me on track, I won\’t keep you on track.

Now you know we\’re not doing this for the celebrity status. Who\’s up at 6:00 AM Krause? Don\’t forget that please.

No, I hear you. We\’re talking what today

I\’m going to talk about the, are you psychologically ready to retire?

That\’s the psychological.

Yes.

That\’s an interesting lead in to the conversation.

Real quick, when you said that you can download the podcasts, I want to say that I love, we love what we do, and we have such a great team of people that work with us, that we actually have clients, they\’re our clients but they like to download. I guess they don\’t get enough of us, so they want to listen to the podcast. A couple times people have had a hard time, they couldn\’t figure out how to download it. I\’m definitely technologically challenged. They come in the office, and someone from our team will sit down with them and just sit there and download, and help them do that. When I say we\’re full service, we are like full service.

I love it.

It doesn\’t matter what age they are. I\’m only 42, they have to do that for me too Krause. I\’m bad.

No, I get it.

My staff calls that job security, when I don\’t know how to do that either. It\’s all good.

It\’s sad, but yeah, that\’s why we have kids right now.

That\’s right.

Your kids are younger than ours.

They are.

I think we\’re good for like the next 20 years.

I hope.

Then after that we\’ve got to start paying people a lot of money to help us out.

Yup, so another thing what I love about what we do is sometimes people come to a seminar or workshop, they come in and I talk to them and they are just, \”I hate my job. I\’m sticking it out for another two years or three years.\” There\’s reasons they do it. One is they don\’t think they have enough money to retire. One of the things I love so much to do is, after our first meeting, they come back for their second complementary consultation, guess what we tell people sometimes? Why are you still working? If you want to retire, you guys are good. Guess what? We have the facts to back it up. We\’re not just saying, \”Oh, you know, if you get this percent growth on your money, then you should be good for the next 20 years.\”

Yeah, that is very, very important.

Right.

To drive home. It\’s the conversation, the facts and the details are there to back it up. It\’s incredible.

Right, and if you become our client, we\’re here for you for the long haul. Any time you have any questions, you come on in, you give us a call, whatever the case may be. It changes year after year. It\’s not the same, but we factor everything into our plans. We include that there\’s going to be inflation. We include that there\’s going to be market corrections. We figure out ways to prevent it affecting you so much that you can\’t live your life out and enjoy retirement. It\’s definitely a pleasure, because there\’s definitely some people that you see that they\’ve had it. Like when you\’re 60 and things change, and also people on the chopping block, people can see the writing on the wall that they\’re going to lose their jobs. It\’s a pleasure to me, I know it\’s a pleasure to David and Bret as well to be able to help people through that.

Yeah. Well done Karen, and it\’s well said. The inevitable reality of something happening tomorrow that we didn\’t expect was going to occur, will happen.

Right. We just kind of, we\’re all about the what ifs. Bret\’s very analytical, and I just had something in my head that I was going to say about … Oh, another area where people say, I\’ve had a husband or wife say, \”I have to work for the next two years because I need the medical benefits, because my wife\’s younger than me. Blah, blah, blah.\” Guess what? We can figure that all out. There\’s ways to go on the healthcare exchange, and Bret\’s really good with that. Not showing your income, but you still have cashflow, you can still survive. Those are things that we always think outside the box.

Not that it has anything to do with my topic, but just we\’re very passionate about what we do. Anybody out there listening, come to a seminar, please give our office a call. It\’s really complementary, and you\’re not going to get any pressure from us. Just check out our website, thrivefinancialservices.tyl16lnm-liquidwebsites.com.

You will leave educated.

Yes.

You will know more after than you did before. In a world where there aren\’t very many guarantees, I can guarantee that you as a listener, just like me, will learn so much more by being in your presence. I think it\’s amazing.

Yes, for sure. Please, just give us a call or come on in, come to a seminar. We\’re here for you.

Here\’s the four, it\’s an article I was reading, Are You Psychologically Ready to Retire? Four Critical Questions You Need To Ask Yourself Before Making This Decision. The four questions are, do you enjoy your job? Does it provide a sense of meaning and purpose in your life? Is your job stressful? Is it retirement you seek, or a change in careers? Number three, does your job provide critical social needs in your life? Number four, are you prepared psychologically to retire?

Along with what we do, helping people financially plan for retirement, these are questions that you need to ask yourself before you actually think about retiring. One of the things we get to do when people come in who are retired, I actually get to ask them, I ask them, are you enjoying retirement? What are you doing with all of your time? There\’s so many different, I\’ve actually had people say, \”I\’m retired and I\’m bored.\” They said, \”I retired before all my friends. They\’re all still working, and now I don\’t have anybody to play with.\” That\’s what one person said to me. Think about things before you retire.

The question number one is, do you enjoy your job? Does it provide a sense of meaning and purpose in your life? If you enjoy what you do, it doesn\’t mean you have to retire fully. You can always work part-time, that\’s what some people do. I\’ve had people in the medical profession, people in the accounting profession, they just do it two days a week or three days a week. Start full time, go part-time, and then at some point you say, \”You know what? Enough is enough.\” Because you enjoy, some people enjoy spending time with their grandchildren. If there\’s a married couple, sometimes they actually enjoy being with each other. I\’ve actually had some, I love it when people come in and the husband\’s like, \”Um, I\’m ready to retire soon.\” The wife\’s like, \”No, you\’re not. No, no. No you\’re not. You need to work for a couple more years.\” Because she\’s like, \”I don\’t want him under my feet.\”

Is your job stressful? Is it retirement you seek or a career change? I love it, we have one gentleman who was a car salesman who ended up being a teacher at a university, because that\’s always something he wanted to do, but he had to get a job to help support his family. Guess what? You can change careers, and there\’s people out there willing to pay you for your life experience.

Yeah, which is priceless. The experience that you have when you reach that point, absolutely priceless.

Right. For sure, and does your job provide critical social needs in your life? If you are not part of a couple, and you don\’t have a big family unit around you, and close friends that aren\’t in your job, it\’s just something to think about before you … Start hobbies or start doing something. Just think about what you want retirement to look like. If you say, \”I want to golf. I want to play tennis.\” Do you do those things now? If you don\’t do them now, why are you going to start doing them in retirement?

It\’s just things to think about. That\’s actually what for, this says, \”Do you have a retirement plan? Do you have hobbies or interests that will fill your time? Have you realistically considered what your life will be like as a retired person?\” I\’m looking forward to retirement, but I know personality wise, if I have nothing to do, and I know David\’s like that, I\’ll drive him crazy and he will drive me crazy. If there\’s no plan, kind of start thinking about a plan.

I know Bret, I can\’t imagine you sitting around the house doing nothing.

Just tune into the next segment, I\’ll tell you what that experience was like.

Okay, good.

Yeah, his family\’s away for a couple days, so yeah. Then if you have any questions about future, we\’re here for you too for financial planning, as far as retirement goes.

All right, well done.

Thank you.

Good stuff from Karen Bezar. Nice job Karen.

Thank you sir.

Thank you very much. We\’ll take a commercial break here on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT. We thank you again for tuning in and listening on this Saturday morning. When we come back, Bret is here. Back in a moment.

[bctt tweet=\”We\’re so, so confident in that what we do is right 100% of the time, because we take that time to get ourselves knowledgeable\” via=\”no\”]

Don\’t forget to go to thrivefinancialservices.tyl16lnm-liquidwebsites.com, as Karen mentioned in the last segment. If you miss any of the broadcast today or any of our previous shows, they\’re on thrivefinancialservices.tyl16lnm-liquidwebsites.com. They\’re itemized by topic, and you can listen to them, and you can continue to keep yourself educated. Bret.

Thanks Krause.

Yes sir.

I\’m going to change pace a little bit, because I just went through a little bit of a reality check. Karen just said it a moment ago, just talking about me having a couple days to myself. I get a lot of people will call me the numbers guy, or like a rational sounding board. Even my wife will tell me sometimes I\’m not emotional enough, but I felt it this past weekend.

The past couple weeks was leading up to my daughter and my mother, dropped them off at the airport a little over a week ago. They were up in Alaska, and so my wife felt compelled, the boys aren\’t going to get to do anything, so she took the two boys down to Houston, Texas. Here I am, got a gorgeous house, great backyard, and I had four days of freedom. Nobody there.

On the surface it sounded phenomenal. Then all of a sudden I woke up and it was 7:00 AM Saturday morning and I\’m like, it\’s quiet. There\’s nothing to pick up after. The kids aren\’t fighting. I didn\’t know what to do with myself. It became a new normal for me, and I think I sent a text, it wasn\’t long after that, to my wife, I was like, \”I thought this was actually going to be a decent time away, where I don\’t like it at all.\”

The reason I share that with you, because I\’m going to talk about it on a couple different contexts here, and I\’m going to talk about some actuarial numbers. Ready for this? I\’m going to start going deep. Here\’s my rationale start, start to come back in again.

Here\’s the analytical part of that.

There we go. Let me get the pen out. Wait a minute.

There you go.

All right.

We\’re going back to 2000, most recent census bureau information estimates that 19.5 million unmarried US residents are of the age 65 and older. Experts estimate that around 23% of the older population nationwide will age alone, and that percentage can be higher, as much as 50%, in a lot of cities. These aging adults are often referred to as, I\’m going to talk about it here this morning, talk about elder orphans, or solo seniors.

Karen said it, we meet a lot of people, they think about, \”Hey, I\’m ready for retirement.\” Especially we talk about people that started off single and they\’re going to remain single. I just talked about from my standpoint, where I\’m used to a group of people, now all of a sudden I\’m alone and it\’s like, whoa, what happened? We talk about the social aspect of going to work, or having lunch. Then you start talking about the impact, we do a lot of life insurance here for a lot of our clients as well. You ready for this Krause? A lot of life insurance companies will give you a better rate of you have companions, somebody you are living with, than you are single. I\’m talking about 10% to 15% cheaper.

I\’m going to read some other statistics for you, here\’s one for you. As it turns out, here\’s another study, as it turns out the opposite may be true. Researchers at University of Chicago found that loneliness in older people may increase to a chance of death by 14%. Psychologists say that loneliness may have twice the impact on early death as obesity and is as damaging as disadvantaged socioeconomic status.

Over the past couple months, the three of us were just talking about it, we probably had about a half dozen clients that have passed away. Every single time it\’s been the male, actuarily it\’s always the male. Typically, you get about a four to six year window that the female outlives the male. That being A. Then when you have it younger, god knows how long that age gap could be. You could have, I mean here\’s a stat for you, 65 year old couple, 50% chance that one of them, not sure which one of you, is going to make it to the age of 95. When we\’re talking about people passing away in their 60s and 70s, you could be talking about 10, 15, 20 year gap that you could have that you\’re talking about being lonely.

We see people struggle from it every day long. Karen talked about when people are retiring, they haven\’t thought about, they haven\’t put that plan together of what\’s coming next. Especially if you are already single, the more psychological thing is having a plan for when the … There\’s only two certainties in life, death and taxes. We do a pretty darn good job week over week talking about the tax conversation, and excited to throw that tax summit that we\’re having on September 25th out there as well.

Yeah, that\’s going to be meaningful.

It\’s exciting, but it\’s really talking about it when it hits the heart. Now that we\’ve been doing this now, we hit month 50 of now doing six, seven, eight workshops a month, that now unfortunately we\’re starting to see a lot of those relationships that life happens, where people are dying. You feel for them, and you start talking about making a rational conversation with a lot of these things, and I hear about it.

What\’s going to happen when your wife goes away? \”Oh, I don\’t know. I don\’t want her next husband to get the money, so I don\’t care what happens with it.\” You hear it all Krause. What happens if I get sick? \”Oh, I don\’t care, I\’m not going to …\” these are all real things. I end my segment at every workshop where I always ask a question, and I said, if the two of you have become accustomed to a quality of life that you both enjoy, is it a fair question to say that when the first one of you passes away is that you would like for that quality of life to continue? Not only does that mean something from our financial decisions, but we need to make sure that we\’re taking care of ourselves from a rational standpoint as well.

I\’m going to start giving some tips to people of things to think about. Maintaining a schedule, that\’s such a big deal. We get a lot of people in here who say, \”I don\’t know how I used to get things done while I was working. I feel like I\’m more busy now, being retired, than when I was working.\”

A special note for people who become single after 65, this is what I was speaking about. Normally you get one or the other. You rarely get two hands in a checkbook, and so many times it\’s typically the male figure, not the female figure, who has their hands in the checkbook. We just saw two people in the past three weeks, both widowed over the last 30 and 60 days, and we\’re all about, stop, we need to make rational decisions, not emotional decisions. I don\’t care who you are, you have a stone face in front of me right now, there\’s no way you\’re over your spouse that you\’ve been with over the last 30 to 40 years. Stop.

That\’s why we just tell people who want a second opinion. We tell people to go get a second opinion from what we shared on you. Not only do we want to do a second opinion from what other people are, but we\’re so passionate about what we do because we know no one out there is doing what we\’re doing, in terms of putting those puzzle pieces together. We\’re not afraid of that. That\’s why we always talk about having a second opinion, of having some kind of a rational sounding board.

Here\’s a big one. David and Karen love this one. Consider adopting a pet. Why? Companionship. That\’s what I\’m speaking about here. Staying social. Those things I just shared with you, being lonely versus being obese. You\’re talking about somebody who weighed twice the amount I weigh right now five years ago. I knew the impact on it back then, but I felt it straight in my face this past week, where I was lonely, and I\’m like, man, the psychological impact of me having no … Now, I did get a nap or two, so that was good, uninterrupted nap, but I don\’t know if I could be doing that 365 days a year.

I could, but that\’s a whole other story.

There you go. Until you get there.

Not to digress. My wife went away for the week with the girls, I cleaned the entire house.

I did too Krause.

Top to bottom.

I did say that to Bret. I said, \”The one good thing …\” Because he\’s got young kids, is you can come home and everything\’s pretty much in the same place that you put it. Like he could come home now and put his work on the table and everything, and no one\’s going to mess with it, but it does get lonely. It gets old after a while.

Yeah. I mean, I was on the floor. Took the board away from where the sink is, and scrubbed underneath that area. That might be a little extreme, but-

Well, was the dog with you?

Dogs weren\’t, I didn\’t have the dogs either.

Oh. You were really alone.

Here\’s some things to think about. Again, if that may be me, whether I\’m already single or maybe I became single, thinking about living abroad, living in a community that\’s walkable, so you get out. My parents are up here in Chester County talking about moving down south. My parents, because my dad\’s feeling the same thing I was, because my mom\’s with my daughter up in Alaska, he\’s like, \”Man, it stinks being alone.\”

He\’s a 72-year-old, and I\’m just like, he\’s coming over to my house for dinner until they get back because I\’m like, \”Yeah, I hear you. Let\’s mourn together about it, like in our own pain, so at least we\’re having some kind of conversation.\” He talked about, \”Hey, if your mother and I move down south, we don\’t have a lot of friends down there. We need to be moving to a community that we get the heck out, otherwise we\’re going to be sitting here staring at each other.\” Talking about moving into a walkable community.

This is a big one, you\’ve got to remember the show Golden Girls. It\’s becoming very popular today talking about finding roommates. Single people finding roommates. Why? You have somebody, number one, from a financial standpoint could help. Not even going to go there. I\’m talking about from the psychological side of things. Again, you have to be healthy to be wealthy.

Here\’s another one from a cardiologist. According to American College of Cardiologists, single adults, ready for this, one variable, single versus married. Single adults are 5% more likely to develop heart disease than simply a married one. One variable, married versus single. That\’s a big deal.

Villages, we met people that are now moving into co-ops for the same exact purpose, that they have some kind of community, that they feel good.

Here\’s other ones. Figure out ways that are going to occupy your time. Volunteer. Can you give back at the school? Can you go down to the hospital? Do you go down to the local church? Is it you\’re going to do English as a second language? Maybe you have a skill that you know foreign language, or maybe you can do English as a second language. For me, I can tell you it\’s a lot better to give than it is to receive.

Trying sometimes to find that purpose in retirement too, to get yourself out of that house. Why? It\’s so hard to avoid loneliness in retirement. Again, finding purpose in life. Reinvent yourself. Just because you\’re retired, and again Karen said it, we talked about it over the past couple months, kind of stepping into retirement. Maybe I went from Monday to Friday, maybe I\’m going to step back. We talked about because of the population, that a lot of these companies can afford for all these smart people, but they just can\’t afford to pay them anymore, they\’re going back and working three days a week. Sometimes that\’s great. Go have off Friday through Monday and go work Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. There\’s nothing wrong with that schedule. Turning the tides that are out there. That\’s why I said, reinvent yourself.

One way to avoid loneliness is to share your gifts with other people, and that\’s what I was talking about. Give back and volunteer in this area. If you donate and give time, a lot of times a public school, your public school libraries, going back and putting the books back on the shelves, a lot of times you can get a tax credit towards your school tax bill. You can accomplish two things at one time. You can go get some communication, conversation out there with people in the community, but at the same time you can actually get a break from a tax standpoint as well.

You know, it\’s really amazing, as I listen to you talk through this segment, and even Karen going back into your segment, it\’s amazing how these things under life will … We didn\’t talk about any numbers with Bret.

Not long.

Right.

Everything he said impacts all the numbers. Less than a minute. I\’m sorry I jumped in there with that.

Krause, that\’s it. I mean, we talked about, David kicked things off with taxes today, and again the summit where we\’re going. Then Karen and then myself hitting really the psychological side of things, of retirement ready or not. I\’m not talking about financially. So many times we can tell people, you\’re great financially, but for a young lady who has nothing, and can walk out hugging Jeff and I for a conversation that she\’s never had before, of nothing that we could help them with, but make them feel good, that\’s what it\’s all about. Again, thrivefinancialservices.tyl16lnm-liquidwebsites.com. Come out to one of our workshops. You can always call us, 1-800-516-5861. That\’s what that complementary Thrive Retirement Roadmap Review is all about.

On that note, I thank all of our listeners for tuning in this morning and continuing to tune in every week, the Thrive Army continues to grow. That\’s going to do it this week on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT. On behalf of Karen Bezar, on behalf of Bret Elam, and on behalf of David Bezar, I\’m Joe Krause, see you next week everybody.