Many people would claim that they are all familiar with social security. Yet studies show that people don’t have an accurate sense of how much money they’re going to receive from it. Part of the reason why that’s the case is because of the misconceptions that cloud social security and what it is all about. Learn as the Thrive experts go deep under the layers of those social security misconceptions, from what it covers to the retirement age. They also cover some key points from the book of Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, Richard Thaler, about behavioral economics by aligning the relationship of behavior to planning. They touch on financial planning as well for millionaires that ultimately puts the value of preparation at the forefront of financial education.

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Listen to the podcast here:

[smart_track_player url=\”https://soundcloud.com/livewiththrive/thrive-wpht-10-29\” title=\”Social Security Misconceptions\” ]

Social Security Misconceptions

Bret, you were down at the game, you were prepared for the weather. You had your rain gear and you\’re all set, but it’s a good day down at the park.

Talking about the preparation that went into the tailgate and that\’s where we\’re going to start off here on the show. Talking about a little bit of preparation. We heard all week that Carson Wentz was practicing with wet football, just getting in preparation for the game as well. Much like how we prepared watching that forecast with all the rain gear for the tailgate. Fortunately, we sat up high where we\’re under cover as well, but we compare that to going through the retirement planning process.

We always hear about pilots doing their pre-inspection before a flight takes off or a heart surgeon getting ready for a surgery, all the preparation that goes into that. What\’s crazy is how many people enter retirement without any preparation and the attention that it deserves. When you think about all those different items, whether it\’s a game or a surgery or getting ready for a flight, those are items that simply are a couple of hours, whereas retirement is a lifetime. What\’s funny is so many people we sit down with, they’re putting all that research into the latest golf equipment or their swing, but yet they haven\’t taken that time to rebalance their portfolio or understand their risk assessment, what they do or don\’t need to take.

 

That\’s what we\’re trying to do with the show. We\’re trying to get people to pump the brakes for a moment and absorb the information that we have been providing. David, invite people to absorb the information almost in an educational setting so we can help people to prepare.

We\’re sitting here in a radio studio, so we\’re the least threatening organization you possibly can talk to. We\’re trying to put the information out there so that people can prep for retirement. It is an interesting statistics related to people and how much time they do devote to something that could last decades. Bret was talking about that preparation and that\’s what we\’re trying to get people to do.

We\’ve got a great lineup and a great outline for all our audience. With David and Bret, we\’re going to dive into the different topics and the different conversations and try and clear up some of the Social Security misconceptions that are out there. ThriveFinancialServices.com is the website and the phone number is 1-800-516-5861. David, let\’s start with you under that heading of clearing up what would be or what certainly could be Social Security misconceptions that we don\’t know. Americans just don\’t know, people into Delaware Valley just don’t know. We think we understand the Social Security program, but do we?

Studies have consistently shown that people getting ready for retirement don\’t have an accurate sense of how much money they\’re going to receive from Social Security. If you\’re one of those people who overestimate the program\’s generosity, you could end up with some real problems in your retirement budget. We\’re going to try to help clear up some of those few misconceptions about Social Security.

Also coming up in our second segment, we\’re going to talk about the Noble Prize winning work of economist Richard Thaler. We\’ve got a great outline for all of our readers and we\’re going to take them into a deeper conversation, layer one, layer two and layer three, about some of these misconceptions. One of them being, and this is a personal one for me, Social Security is going to cover all of my expenses, yes or no?

A survey from the Nationwide Retirement Institute found that most people working think that Social Security will cover a little more than half of their living expenses. People who have just retired or even more optimistic about it, they think that Social Security will cover about 60% of their daily costs. In reality, Social Security is designed to make up about 40% of retirees lost income. It\’s not as bad as it sounds. Experts agree that retirees will only need to make up about 80% of their lost income in order to live comfortably. Effectively, Social Security covers half of the living expenses of most retirees. That\’s close to the amount that the public thinks Social Security will provide.

[bctt tweet=\”Planning for retirement is lifetime.\” via=\”no\”]

Bret, what do you say to that? What do you gauge from your clients and from people that call you and raise that question about either the lost income piece of that or the living expenses piece of that?

When we talked about some of those other misconceptions, we hear people coming in with the fear factor of his Social Security running out of money, sitting there in bold print on everyone\’s Social Security statement that says, “We have enough money in the bucket until 2033, 2034 to spend up to about $0.75 on a dollar.” It\’s a big fear. 80% of Americans are worried about that and many think that they\’ll either get a smaller check or if it\’ll even exists at all. What you find true is as baby boomers are spending down that bucket, we\’ve got to remember people are still working as well. The current reserves may be gone by 2034, but you\’ve got to remember that all those incoming payroll taxes are still there to make up a big significant piece of that whole.

We\’ve talked about it many times. David, I remember specifically you saying this because it resonated directly with me. People are going to work longer. They\’re going to live longer than 30 years ago or 25 years ago. That formula or that element or that part of the recipe changes that dynamic about Social Security.

The theme is that whole idea preparation. When we talk about Social Security, we find most people have not even contacted the Social Security Administration yet to find out what their actual benefits are. One of the first exercises that we take people through is we want them to contact Social Security, whether it\’s online or via telephone and we want to get this thing called PIA, Personalized Insurance Amount, which is your Social Security benefit. What we find a lot of times is that it surprises people. They\’re not sure what it was going to be at age 62 or 66 or 70. Some people don\’t even know what their full retirement age is. As a matter of fact, past a certain date of birth, full retirement age starts creeping out. It used to be 66 for a lot of people that we\’re seeing now. It\’s 66 and seven months or eight months, it might even be 67. As people are living longer and relying more on Social Security, you got to make sure it\’s filling that income gap for you.

Do people even know the answer to that question in terms of what is their full retirement age?

Most people don\’t, unless they\’ve been collecting those little green sheets of paper that gets sent by the Social Security Administration. Typically, they get locked in some kitchen drawer or something. Most people don\’t pay attention but we\’re trying to get people to think is as you\’re starting to get out of that three to five years out from retirement, it\’s time to start thinking about. The other thing we want to stress to people is that retirement and Social Security aren\’t always connected 100%. You don\’t have to start taking Social Security. It may make sense to delay so you can get a bigger benefit and you may have other assets that you can tap. We strategize to try to figure out how to get the maximum benefit working for them.

Bret, we want to educate those around the Delaware Valley from the company Thrive Financial Services who lives local, works local, contributes locally to the community well, and provides a local opportunity for you to get connected and answer some of these questions about Social Security.

There are so many misconceptions that are out there as not only doing our workshops, but creating that environment where we\’re not using big jargon and big words that are being used in our industry. Just making people feel comfortable where we\’re in that call it school setting. We\’re promoting that whole education advocacy. You don\’t understand all those different questions that we hear and we\’re sitting down with people and it\’s loosening a tie and it\’s just having real, genuine conversations. A lot of times I\’m not as bad off as I thought it was and sometimes I’m not as good off as I thought it was. It\’s just putting all those puzzle pieces together, taking a deep breath, and going through this preparation process of what I think things are like out there, finding out what reality is for them.

[bctt tweet=\”Retirement and social security aren’t always connected 100%.\” via=\”no\”]

We remind all of our audience to get your retirement and Social Security questions answered from Thrive Financial Services. There\’s a no obligation complimentary financial review to go over your entire financial picture, including what we\’re talking about now, which is Social Security. At Thrive Financial Services, here\’s the unconditional guarantee. They will capitalize on your strengths. They\’ll fill in your weak points with a plan that takes all of your goals into account.

A quick reminder about the right strategy to Social Security is it\’s completely dependent on your individualized situation. We do not want that to get lost in the conversation. At Thrive Financial Services they offer complimentary Social Security maximization reports. We\’ve talked about that and they can walk you through when to claim, how to file, and the strategies that help maximize all of your social security benefits.

We want to keep expanding the amount of information that we\’re providing to our audience. Most people who know me know I\’m a pretty voracious reader. What I read isn\’t necessarily for pleasure, but I want to continue educating myself so that we could always be creating value for the people that we serve. I was reading some stuff from a gentleman named Richard Thaler. He\’s a Nobel Prize winner in economics and he\’s a behavioral economist. What I like about that is it\’s why people do what they do. Like most of our readers, you probably already know that you should be saving for retirement and spending money wisely but it\’s easier said than done. A lot of economic advice is straightforward but following it can be difficult. That\’s because we\’re human beings and we make mistakes. That\’s what it comes down to.

 

One of the things we try to share with people is on your preparation up to retirement is you want to automate your savings plan. That\’s number one. Get an automatic savings plan going. If you happen to be participating in a 401(k), fantastic, but save until it hurts. We get some people come in and go, “Yes, but I don\’t know when I\’m going to pass away so I want to have fun now.” Statistically, most people make it to 65 and then they end up going, “What happened?”

Bret, where\’s the percentage or where\’s your guess on the percentage of the number of people who use that thought of an automated savings plan or follow the other process, “I\’ll worry about it later?”

Success comes from deliberately putting a plan together, whether you\’re having a certain percentage come out of your 401(k) plan and every time you get a pay raise, increasing that little by little. For those of us that may not have a 401(k) plan, making sure that I\’m going to a financial advisor, setting up that systematic investment plan every single month or every paycheck. It\’s automated. It\’s almost like you don\’t even miss it out of your paycheck where it pays dividends ten, twenty, 30 years down the road. Just put the discipline in place and things will happen for you.

The next big bullet point is don\’t get cocky. It\’s one of the big sticking points in Taylor\’s work was he studied that most people got overconfident. His work was shown that we\’re hardwired to think were smarter than everybody else. We think we can tell what the next Uber or Amazon\’s going to be, even if we don\’t even have enough information. I can tell you for 27 years of doing this, when I would ask people why they had a particular holding in their portfolio, they couldn\’t give me a clear answer why. It was typically, “That\’s what my guy or gal told me to do,” or it was emotional, or “My father told me it was a good idea.” A lot of times, the decisions that we make aren\’t backed with facts and figures to figure out whether or not it\’s a good decision.

Do you agree with this statement, David? If you find yourself to be the smartest person in the room, you\’re in the wrong room?

That\’s it. A lot of people also get stuck in the weeds doing over analysis to the point of paralysis. We want to make sure that people don\’t get cocky. One of the ways to avoid bad behavior is to take smaller risks. If you\’re going to invest in the stock market, invest in global stock index funds. There are plenty of guys out here in the audience and people that are in the art industry, at the end of the day, it\’s difficult to beat the indexes. “If you can\’t beat them, join them” is our philosophy. We share with people that and how to invest, which ones make sense, and which are the lowest costs. Sometimes, you can improve your returns and reduce your risk. You can get addition through subtraction. What we mean by that is when we look for index funds, we look for very low cost ones and that way the returns can be a little bit better.

[bctt tweet=\”We’re hardwired to think we’re actually smarter than everybody else.\” via=\”no\”]

Bret, I\’ll get you to weigh in on that last thought from David because as individuals, getting cocky or becoming arrogant instead of staying humble might not be intentional as a behavioral pattern for us but it does happen. It is real.

When we talk about behavioral economics, you\’re riding that fine line of making emotional decisions versus rational decisions. David went deep talking about don\’t get cocky and it\’s the same thing, don\’t read the headlines. There\’s so much press whether you\’re on social media or watching it on TV or listening to the radio. It\’s Chicken Little or “The sky is falling” that\’s out there. The idea is we shouldn\’t be thinking about the stock market going up every single day. As we\’re nearing retirement, we need to be more conscious of it to say the least. We should be more focused on the money that we\’re putting away month over month, paycheck over paycheck, because that\’s inevitably what\’s going to get us there. Everyone\’s got an opinion at the end of the day. The idea is let\’s try and make these most rational decisions as possible.

When we do these workshops, one of the things that I bring up during my segment is I ask the audience how many of you during your retirement years and most of the people who attend our workshops are right at pre-retirement age or in retirement, so early 60s to late 60s is our typical audience. I say, “How many of you feel that during your retirement years, it could be ten years, fifteen years, twenty years, or 25 years that you\’re going to see a market correction like we\’ve seen in the past?” Every single hand in the room goes up without fail. My next question is, “What percentage do you think people who have that feeling do something about it?” It\’s always without fail, a very small percentage of people ever do something to prevent it.

That goes in hand with this behavioral economics and getting overconfident. We\’ve got this rising market every single day and a lot of people say, “Keep going, keep going, keep going.” Sometimes maybe we should be a little bit more humble and recommend if you think the market\’s going to go down 10% or 15%, why not take that percentage of your portfolio and set it aside so that if the market does go down, that principal did not get exposed to that market condition. When you feel that a bottom is starting to present itself, you could take that money off the sideline, go back in and you\’re not harmed. I know this might be controversial but I\’ve coined a phrase where we call people “should heads” meaning they should have done it, they waited too long, the market came down. One of the things we talk about when people come in to sit is that strategy of taking a place holder on the side and wait for markets to correct.

As we get deeper and we start to dig and provide some depth to the conversation, a reminder from Thrive Financial Services, when you need something important, and this is just a question to you doing around the house, you certainly reach out to a professional. Thrive Financial Services, a team of professionals, are standing by. David, Brent, and Karen certainly fall into that category. Get your entire financial picture assessed by and your current financial needs and your situation. Call Thrive Financial Services. Don\’t forget questions from our conversation as we continue to educate you on Social Security and on your retirement.

In this segment, we want to talk about financial planning for millionaires. We\’re going generalize it, whether it\’s Kiplinger or Money Magazine and it\’s something that our practice specializes in is the distribution side of retirement and the tax efficiencies. We\’ve talked about that and starting to dig a little bit deeper into that. Some of the similarities and what makes a great retirement and especially we\’re dealing with people a couple of years away talking about diversification of their different buckets.

Typically, when we see people that going to have a sound retirement, they got a good chunk of money and a 401(k) a retirement plan, they\’ve gotten some money put away into a Roth account, whether it\’s been through contributions or a conversion, but they also have this bucket of money in the checking savings account like readily available cash. Having that good diversification allows for us to have a tax efficient retirement. That\’s one of the things that we go through during our workshop, we dive deep, going through some scenarios as to how you can pull money out in retirement and being very little if not zero taxes, when we talk about retirement.

 

I don\’t know, David, if it quite fits under your reference to the automated savings plan that you talked about when we were talking about behavioral, but one certainly leads to the other, I would think.

The automated plan is the tool that builds up this retirement plans for distribution. Like Bret\’s talking about, most people have a basic theory of how they\’re going to distribute their monies and what buckets of retirement or cash they\’re going to take from. There\’s a lot of theory out there, but what we try to do is take it from a tax efficiency perspective and that\’s where sometimes Social Security comes into play, sometimes pensions come into play. We want to do a cash flow analysis. We want to see what all the sources are and then try to figure out if we strategically pull money out of a certain bucket first. It may optimize the tax strategy that we could utilize where Bret said there are circumstances where we have shown clients that during their early, mid and later 60s before they\’re about to take their required minimum distribution at age 70 and a half. They can distribute money where they\’re not paying taxes. Some of that money can even come out of IRA accounts. Bret illustrates that during our tax efficiency workshops, so it\’s a cool strategy.

Bret, you always talk about a plan, have a plan on the way in and then have an exit plan as well.

It’s getting back to that preparation, it\’s not winging it. This isn\’t horseshoes. Hopefully, we get close. We want to be deliberate about all our actions that we\’re going to have in retirement. We talk about those good diversifications of money and why. Whether somebody wants to have money in a conservative bucket, a cash bucket, call it what you will allow us for a couple of things. Number one, as we\’re entering retirement where so many people come in and meet with David and I and say, “I need, $4,000, $5,000, $8,000 a month,” where they forgot about, “Uh-oh happens in life.” All of a sudden, the budget blows up.

It\’s nice to have some readily available cash sitting on the sideline. As we\’re adjusting to what the new normal is going to be from a budgetary standpoint, just as important, we\’ve been on one heck of a run on the stock market, nine-year bull market to be specific. Is that not if but when we see that next correction, what it\’s going to allow for. David does a great job during our workshop talking about one of the most devastating things that you can do, is withdrawing money from a declining asset. Meaning our money that\’s still in the stock market, we\’re not necessarily having to withdraw from it when things are going down, whether it was like the ‘01, ’02, ‘07, ’08 or ‘09, where if we have those readily available buckets of cash or conservative buckets to draw on is that we\’re going to enable ourselves to watch that market come back.

[bctt tweet=\”Success comes down from deliberately putting a plan together.\” via=\”no\”]

David, when you\’re in the workshops, when you raise the question or ask a general question to an audience that\’s made up of individual people who have different lives, different experiences and different answers to the question, what is the common theme if there is one that you see?

The biggest thing that we see as soon as we\’re done with the workshop, we stick around a lot longer than we anticipated because the questions come at you. A lot of the commentary is, “We’ve never heard this before.” When we first got started, we were very surprised and we were not sure that\’s an accurate statement from the audience. As we start to go through these plans and we literally have sat down with more than a thousand people, it\’s true. We see that most financial advisors are guiding their clients on the accumulation phase of life. They\’re telling them what stock, what bond, what mutual fund, whatever, and they\’re not discussing the end game about how do we distribute this money so that it lasts their entire lifetime.

If it\’s a married couple, it lasts until the second one passes. If they have substantial enough assets that those assets pass onto their heirs and beneficiaries in the most tax efficient way, it\’s interesting to watch that occur. When we start to talk about our plans to solve some of the issues that they have concerns about, you start to see the a-ha moments, the light bulbs start to go off and people go, “This is awesome. I’ve never heard it. It\’s completely logical. It makes all the sense in the world.” We haven\’t had to fight to develop our client base and grow it because we\’re giving people the answers that they need. First of all, they didn\’t know the questions and then we gave them the questions and then we give them the solutions. The solutions are simple math. We try to make one plus one equal two, not four.

I don\’t want to say that because that\’s probably not accurate, but not knowing the question ultimately is part of the problem when they get to you.

A lot of times we\’re starting off when we\’re first meeting someone that\’s coming out of the workshop saying, “Thanks for coming back in. I\’m sure there are some questions you have stemming out of the workshop.” A lot of times you get to shoulder shrug and they\’re like, “I\’m not sure what questions I\’m supposed to ask.” They’ll be like, “I have somebody else but everything that you spoke about at that workshop, I can\’t tell you I\’ve addressed any of those concerns before.” David and I are fortunate enough when we get in front of a lot of people that they\’re retiring in their 50s or 60s, they\’ve done a great job at accumulating and we go deep looking at tax returns. People are able to live off of capital gains and dividends. For those of you who may or may not be too familiar with the taxes, they\’re not paying any taxes while they\’re earning those dividends and capital gains. When we sit down with them, we’re also encourage them to pull a little bit of money from their IRAs. Why? Because you can.

If these people were sitting down with typically $2 million, $3 million, $4 million, $5 million where they\’ve done a great job of accumulating in tax deferred vehicles at age 70 and a half, taxes are going to come back in a big way, but especially during our 50s and 60s when we\’re able to come up with that distribution strategy, I\’m going to take these dividends and capital gains. How great is it I can put money away into a vehicle that\’s pre-taxed coming out of my paycheck? I\’m not paying any taxes on it, but yet I\’m able to pull it out tax free? When we show people that strategy right there, it\’s like that a-ha moment. It\’s like, “I have never seen that.” That\’s what gives us satisfaction of what we do every day. We can see the light through the forest. We can put all those puzzle pieces together when we sit down with somebody. It\’s a little bit of dental pain but it\’s necessary we gather all that information so that we\’re not just winging it, but we can put a sound plan together.

 

We\’ve given you a couple of different ways to communicate and to get in touch with Thrive Financial Services. You can begin to start to educate yourself with no pressure, with no reason to go there other than to start to figure out the question.

We\’ve built all those resources for people to do that. To go out uninhibited, no pressure coming from anybody. You\’re not going to get a chat button that pops up on the website. We\’ve got a wonderful resource library, a bunch of videos, and some training materials. There\’s a lot of good information out there. If the audience has questions, certainly feel free to reach out to Bret, myself or Karen. We\’re happy to have a conversation with you. If you want to come in and visit us, we could sit down, we typically spend about an hour on our first appointment completely complimentary. I tell people it\’s complimentary, but not free. Free is different than complimentary. Free means you\’re going to come in with an attitude, your arms are crossed, you\’re skeptical, you\’re not going to share anything.

We don\’t want to waste our time, you don\’t want to waste your time. Complimentary means we\’re going to work together. We\’re going to sit on the same side of the table. We\’re going go through your material. I tell people, garbage in, garbage out. If you give me good information, I\’m going to be able to generate reports. They\’re going to have unbelievable value for you and then we\’ll review those with you. We\’ll go through them. If you want to come back in for another complimentary, absolutely. We get the question all the time, “Why do you do it and how do you make money?” There\’s got to be a hook. I\’ll cover that in our next segment, Joe. I\’ll cover a little bit about why we do it.

Before we move into our final segment, a special thanks to everybody in the Delaware Valley for continuing to tune in to Sunday Night Live with Thrive Financial Services.

We hope everybody\’s enjoying the show. I finished the last segment talking about why we do what we do. Being in the business for 27 years and watching this evolution of people that I\’ve worked with over those years going from young families with kids and now, sad to say myself, into retirement ages and getting up there. We saw that there were all these questions that we never brought up and that we started the segments on preparation and how professionals spend time preparing before they do the task that they want. That was the concept that we put together that we wanted to prepare people. We wanted to do it in a way where people did not feel threatened because we felt that it was that important for them to get this information.

At the end of the day, we do make money. Our philosophy is if you do good by people, people will ultimately do good by you. We stick to that. We’re completely authentic with it. People come into our office, they come in for complimentary session, one hour long. We review what their goals and objectives are. We gather some data. We talk a little bit. Get to know each other and then we go to work. We typically will put six to eight hours’ worth of work in all these different analyses on taxes in retirement, social security, we stress test portfolios, we do risk management on portfolios. It\’s a lot of work.

[bctt tweet=\”If you find yourself to be the smartest person in the room, then you’re in the wrong room.\” via=\”no\”]

The idea behind it is we\’ll put it out there and some people will take it, shake our hand, wish each other well, and they\’ll be on their way. Some people say, “I\’d like to come back for another conversation with you guys. I like what you\’re saying. It makes sense.” Then, there\’s people who just pulled the trigger and say, “This is what I\’ve been needing all along, will you consider hiring us as clients?” We have that conversation. It\’s worked well for us. That\’s why we can maintain authenticity to it. It\’s why we can maintain being very calm and relaxed about it. No pressure in the situation. It\’s all working out great for everybody involved.

Bret, there was a reference made by David that well over a thousand people come through the workshops and to me, as I absorb all of what we talk about, that means a thousand different stories, that means a thousand different conversations, a thousand different scenarios and a lot of buckets to figure out what goes in the buckets.

One of the biggest satisfactions I can tell you, I\’m speaking for myself personally here, is all those different conversations that we have is understanding the balance in life. There\’s the balance aspect of the finances, but also really is, “I want to go spend time and enjoy it with my grandkids. I want to start volunteering. I\’m stuck in a rat race in life.” One of the biggest satisfactions I can think of is somebody we just met, Social Security\’s done such a good job at that FRA acronym, Full Retirement Age, and so many people that we sit down with, we ask them, “When do you plan to retire?” They\’ll say 66 and four months and it\’s like, “Where did you come up with that number?” They\’re like, “I was born in 1956 and that\’s when Social Security says that\’s what I\’m supposed to retire.” It\’s like, “No. If we can put a plan together for you, it\’s better for you in every single way, would you want to look at retiring a little bit earlier?” She’s like, “Yes, tell me about it.”

There was just one after another. People have these misconceptions about what the “rules of when I retire” are. We\’re able to disrupt those rules because people don\’t know. They didn\’t know what questions. Nobody even asked us, “Can I retire earlier?” We have to tell them this, “You have the opportunity to retire sooner than what you thought you had to work. Are you okay with that?” What\’s nice is our process about handholding. I can think of a person, Bret, we sat down after we were done, who literally came up, hugged and kissed us. Asked for permission first, which was nice. She was a sweet woman and she was single. She handled all her own finances and thought she was never going to be able to retire and we were able to share with her that she was able to retire four years earlier than she anticipated. The smile, the pressure and the weight off her, it\’s absolutely unbelievable.

There are many examples of things that you can point out to individual clients that they\’re not aware of.

The biggest one for right now is people getting to that overconfident level about the market, the exuberance of what\’s happening in the market. A lot of times, we\’ll sit with clients who have done everything right. They now don\’t know how to distribute it, but up to this point, they\’ve done everything right. We say to them, “Risk is for people who don\’t have what you have. Your job now is just not to lose.” If you stay in the market too long, we saw years ago, were those 401(k)s became 201(k)s, but it\’s a whole lot different when you don\’t have the time left, you\’re not making new contributions and you\’re going to have to start withdrawing off a declining asset. That’s a recipe for disaster.

[bctt tweet=\”Over analysis could lead to the point of paralysis.\” via=\”no\”]

We\’ve got a hedging strategy that we use at Thrive, which I talked and alluded a little bit where we can maybe take out that percentage that that client potentially thinks the market may come down, put it on the sidelines, don\’t have exposure so that it\’s part of that loss and then bring that back in at a particular time in the future. As a matter of fact, is Richard Thaler, we talked about earlier the behavior, talked all about that people ride the markets up, they get out, some get out at the right time. You know what the other problem is, Joe? They never get back in. It\’s the flip side as well. It\’s not always about the loss, but it\’s also what the loss of opportunity sometimes. We spend a lot of time talking about that presently. That\’s a big topic for us.

Bret, I\’m going to come to you for closing, but I do want to remind our audience, 1-800-516-5861 or ThriveFinancialServices.com. We’ve talked when we started the show about preparation, about preparing for the process.

If you aren\’t sure about the preparation process you\’ve gone through whether you’re self -managed or working with somebody else, that\’s what we take pride in is again, it\’s that second opinion, no obligation. We throw it out there. Maybe it\’s time for us to meet. During that complimentary, again as David said, “No obligation session.” We want to understand your goals because I always say all the time we want your plan to be your plan, not our plan to be your plan. We\’d love the opportunity to sit down with you and have that dialogue.

On behalf of David Bezar, Bret Elam, and also Karen Bezar, who’s not here, I’m Joe Krause. We’ll see you next time.

Important Links:

• ThriveFinancialServices.com