As Tax Day on April 15th quickly approaches, David, Karen, Bret, and Joe discuss unique strategies to take that will save money in the long run.

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The February ratings are in for Roadmap to Retirement: The Radio Show. February kicks off the year with incredible numbers, which tells me and tells all of us, that the Thrive Army is out there, they are listening, and they are getting educated.

Well, that\’s absolutely fantastic to hear. You know, Joe, we don\’t do this show for the ratings purposes, but we know that is the litmus test and the benchmark that people are hearing and telling their friends. It really is great, because we have people who come into the office, and, whether they went to our workshop or saw us on Facebook, we appreciate their support.

Then, they hop on the radio show and they\’re kind of hooked. They love it. They say it\’s so different from the typical infomercial that most advisors, people in our industry, do on the radio Saturdays and Sundays typically. Very refreshing, is the comment. Very educational, is the comment. So, we\’re really excited to see that the ratings are growing, because it\’s based on that education.

Yeah, no doubt about that. As Bret and I talked, I think it was either last week or the week before, Bret I think you put a number out there on the number of workshops that are done.

Plans, plans. Yeah.

Also, the absolute number of things for sale in all of those workshops, a big fat zero. There\’s nothing for sale when you come to a workshop. It\’s just pure education, and that\’s what I love so much about even being in the chair that I\’m in.

Yeah, people have commented that they\’d like to buy the cookies, but we give them away for free.

That\’s okay. That\’s good.

Yeah. No if, ands, or buts.

But again, it\’s what we love to do, just take what we feel is conventional wisdom to us, and then just sharing it out there with the community, just preaching education and advocacy.

Let me give the number out for the listening audience, and then I\’ll come to you, David, to set the table.

1-800-516-5861. 1-800-516-5861.

So, Joe, we have new locations. I know you\’re going to mention a couple others. We had another fantastic workshop in Mt. Laurel. That\’s a new area for us, and apparently taxes in retirement, how to be tax efficient during retirement, is obviously a very, very hot topic in that community. It might be that we\’re the first financial organization to that area that\’s bringing this topic up.

It was a packed house, lots of great questions, tons and tons of appointments scheduled for that. We\’re really looking forward to see those folks coming into our office over in Mt. Laurel so we can share some of those ideas with them.

I think we have a great show today, too. I know Karen\’s going to be talking about the five retirement issue couples need to talk about. As a matter of fact, we were watching TV this morning, right?

We were?

Yeah.

You don\’t remember that?

I\’m joking.

 No, but you said, \”I\’m going to talk about this on the radio.\” I can\’t, but it was something about new married couples and what discussions they should have prior to getting married about their finances. So when we\’ve reached retirement, if they haven\’t had those conversations yet-

It could be a problem.

That\’s going to be a little bit of a challenge. So, Karen\’s going to cover a little bit about that. Bret, what are you going to be covering tonight?

I\’m going to be talking about qualified charitable distributions and how and why we should be utilizing them with just a couple of client experiences we\’ve seen over the past week.

That\’s new.

And to your point, David, that subject about taxation in retirement in the state of New Jersey is a fire subject to talk about. That is one that there needs to be discussion about it, for sure.

Yeah. And you see the reactions. As we were going through these, Bret used the word our conventional wisdom, but it\’s not conventional in the normal sense of financial planning

These are questions that retirees have. Like, \”What do I do with my required minimum? I don\’t need it. What can I do to improve the efficiency or the tax ability of my required minimum distribution at age 70 and a half?\” Bret in the workshop asks the question, \”What have we been trained? What have we always heard about when should we start to take money out of our IRA accounts?\” Bret, what\’s the answer that we hear at the workshops?

Always 70 and a half. For everybody.

Everybody. 70 and a half. Delay, delay, wait until 70 and a half, that\’s when I have to take it. But what we share in our education is that there are many times that it makes tax efficient to take money out prior. They have to know how to do that. You have to know when to do it. You have to be very strategic about the process. You will see such a degree of surprise that we bring that up.

But when you think about it logically, one of the goals that we have is to get people to delay Social Security as long as they possibly can, because we want to make sure that we\’ve got the highest guaranteed incomes while they\’re alive, but also we have the highest guaranteed income from Social Security locked in after the first spouse passes away.

So to be able to do that, for most people especially if they don\’t have a pension, is to delay Social Security. The best way we can do that is to start spending money out of some of the other buckets. Sometimes, that\’s non-qualified money, and sometimes most certainly, it is money coming out of IRA’s.

Because we do that, we kind of hit two really positive things. One, we can get money out, let\’s say between age 60 to 70, tax efficiently out of the IRA, very low tax rate. And then number two, at the same time, we\’re reducing the principal balance of the IRA, so when it does come time to start taking those required minimum distributions, it\’s on a lower principal balance, meaning a lower amount has to be distributed, therefore meaning a lower tax bracket.

In doing all of this, what we consider may be conventional, most think unconventional, is we\’re doing this during a time where we know taxes are low. We don\’t know what that\’s going to be in the future, Joe.

Thank you David, great segment today. Taxes in retirement, a subject, Bret, that you know oh so well. So, nice to have you here on a Saturday.

Thanks, Krausey. So today, I want to turn my attention, and I want to speak specifically talking about IRA’s. IRA’s is probably the biggest area of where this country\’s net worth is currently living, and for all intents and purposes, everybody has an IRA at the end of the day. What I want to talk about are some things that, again, we he have the opportunity to see a couple thousand different scenarios on an annual basis, and things that we see that pop up all the time. We also meet a lot of people that are self-prepared when we talk about taxes, Krausey.

So, I want to set the stage. Here\’s a client situation that I see quite often…

Someone is already over the age of 70 and a half. They could be either married and/or joint in terms of their tax status. Sometimes it drives us up a wall when we see, take for example, a married couple coming in, and their income that shows up on the tax return after a couple of Social Security checks, after maybe a pension check or two, and then they have to, remember 70 and a half, required minimum distributions. Again, conventional wisdom teaches us to delay until then.

Their income shows up as $173,000 on their tax return, which, if you\’re a regular listener to the show, what people understand is that makes us subject to where we\’re going to pay a little bit extra what we call our Medicare surcharges. If you show on your tax return greater than $170,000 of modified adjusted gross income, each of you in the house are going to pay a little bit greater for what healthcare costs. Again, those married filing jointly, those numbers are at $170,000, then $214,000 is the next tier, $267,000, $320,000, et cetera. Again, the more we earn that shows up on the tax return, will dictate how much we are going to pay for Medicare. Again, Medicare uses something that\’s called means-based testing.

However, what most people don\’t realize, and this was implemented simply a couple years ago, was this concept that was called a qualified charitable distribution, otherwise known as a QCD. Now, a QCD is eligible for people that are already RMD age, meaning if I\’m 68 years old, you cannot yet take advantage of a qualified charitable distribution. You must be of age of 70 and a half.

What that means is the following. And Krause, we\’ve talked about it over the show. These are things that we talk about during our workshops as well, about how standard deductions have gone up so much over the past couple years since the last regime change. One of the things that we talk about during the workshops, and we talk about when people come in as part of that complimentary Thrive Retirement Roadmap Review, is we see a lot of people are giving money to charities still. Now, as people were starting to see their 2018, 2019 tax returns. We\’re not going to see their 19’s obviously until next year, but as we\’re seeing their 2018’s right now, more and more people are not itemizing anymore. So it doesn\’t necessarily look like that we\’re seeing them giving to charities as often. Again, estimates are only 6% of filers are going to be itemizing moving forward was opposed to 30% in 2017.

Because of standard deduction, married/filing joint couple has now moved to $27,000 if both of us in the house are greater than the age of 65. What it means is a lot of people who were giving money to charities previously are no longer really seeing the tax benefits of that. What we share with people is that once they achieve the age of 70 and a half, the IRS has allowed for you to donate. Here we go. This popular benefit allows retirees 70 and a half or older to donate IRA assets up to $100,000 directly to one or more charities and have the donations count towards, and this is what\’s important, their required annual payout.

So, let me go back to that example, Krausey.

Take us through that in pieces.

So, we\’ve got a husband and wife, joint tax return, $173,000 on the tax return. Here\’s the problem: most people that we meet, a lot of them are self-prepared from a tax return. So, I know TurboTax doesn\’t do this. Or, even when you\’re working with an accountant, they\’re just plugging in the numbers, if you will. They\’re like, \”Oh, we\’re not necessarily itemizing anymore.\”

What we share with people is you can actually call up Vanguard, Fidelity, TD, whoever the case may be, whoever has your IRA. You need to give them a little bit of information. What\’s the name of the charity? Who\’s the person who\’s acting on behalf of it? And then an address of where that check needs to be sent to. Again, it obviously needs to be a real 501c3, which is a nonprofit.

Let\’s just say, for example, Krausey, I need to take out $40,000 between the two of us from our IRA’s, our required minimum distribution this year. Let\’s just say normally we give, between the two of us, let\’s say $15,000 of our income going towards charities, to nonprofits if you will. What I\’m sharing with you and how this qualified charitable distribution works, is that instead of itemizing those distributions like we\’ve done in the past, now we\’re going to take advantage of something called a qualified charitable distribution.

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On the first page of the tax return, instead of showing $40,000 as that IRA distribution, it\’s now only going to show $25,000 of IRA distributions. It\’ll show the 40, but only 25 of it will be taxed, because that other $15,000 is what we call that QCD. Now what that means, the domino effect, is that I gave money just like I\’ve always done, except now, instead of writing a check, I\’m telling my IRA company to send that check directly to the charity.

What the bottom result of it is the following. I\’m still getting my standard deduction, which is now $27,000. In 2017, it was only $15,200. So, it\’s almost doubled, just shy of doubled. And, I\’m also still getting that tax benefit by giving to a charity like I was before. The difference is, I\’m now doing it a little bit differently, in the form of a qualified charitable distribution, where I\’ve taken that $15,000. Again, my normal RMD, let\’s say, is 40. But now I\’ve given $15,000 directly from my IRA. So now my taxable income on my tax return is $15,000 less. Or, instead of $173,000 of income on the tax return I\’m paying taxes on, I\’m now only showing $158,000.

How I started this all off was, we spoke about Medicare surcharges using means-based testing, meaning they look at on the tax return of what that income is will dictate how much you\’re going to pay for Medicare. Now all of a sudden, we\’ve fell under the threshold of $170,000. Again, understanding the conventional wisdom, the conventional way of things, that there may be better, more effective ways to do things, and that\’s what we do every day, Krausey.

We meet these thousands of people who come in as part of the Thrive Retirement Roadmap Review. Whether they meet us, as David said, through Facebook, or maybe they\’re received a mailer. Maybe they visited our website. Maybe they\’re hearing us today on the radio. And they just said, \”That sounds like me. I need to get myself\” And that\’s what we pride ourselves on, these complimentary Thrive Retirement Roadmap Review Sessions.

This example changed nothing about what the couple was doing, except it changed the entire process.

Just how they did it. But just that simple solution right there saved them $1,000. Just by simply changing where the check came from. Where was that money saved from? Now, all of sudden they weren\’t being charged those Medicare surcharges, not only for Mr. but Mrs. as well, again for both people or part of that couple. Both people, part of that couple, are no longer experiencing those surcharges. Again, the more money we make, the more devastating those surcharges are. That becomes a big deal.

That becomes a big deal of trying to figure out, again, putting all those different puzzle pieces together. Tax efficiency and health care. That\’s what we spoke about, right there, is putting those two together to make sure that we\’re not paying any more than we need to. These are items that we talk through people about during that complimentary Thrive Retirement Roadmap Review.

Here\’s another one, Krausey. Life\’s good. Let\’s say I maybe need $6,000 a month to live on, and let\’s say between my pension and Social Security, and maybe my IRA distributions, maybe we show $130,000 of income. So, we\’re more than making up that income that shows up on the tax return for the expenses that I need. There are some times we\’ll look at people, too, Krausey, where they\’re strong. They\’re right there in that 22% tax bracket, and they\’re going to be there forever.

But what we need to remember with IRA’s is this. You\’re like, \”Oh, I have this. It\’s no big deal.\” Number one is every year we get older, we have to pull out more and more and more. In addition to that, there\’s only two inevitable\’s in life: death and taxes. We need to also think about the domino effect of what happens when the first one of us passes away, that our spouse is going to have to continue at that same percentage that they have to take out.

There\’s a lot of times, too, Krausey, that we\’ll recommend to somebody, \”Hey, if you\’re only at $130,000, let\’s go pull out another $30,000 or $35,000 out of your IRA.\” And maybe we\’ll do that partial Roth conversion there, or maybe we\’ll just put the money in your savings account, taking you right up against that next Medicare surcharge limit. Do not be charged anything extra for healthcare.

But what we\’re doing is what David spoke about as he kicked things off. We\’re driving down that principal in that IRA, so that each year we have to take out a greater percentage year over year over year, is that we\’ve been as proactive as we can be. We\’ve been as tax-efficient as we can be.

When the inevitable happens, first one of us passes away, or as I get older, I\’ve got to pull out a greater percentage out of my IRA, is that we\’re doing everything in our power to remain as tax-efficient and as healthcare-efficient for as long as possible.

Great stuff, Bret. Terrific segment. If you want to go back after the broadcast or at any time in the future to re-listen to this show or any show, do tune in to the podcast for Roadmap to Retirement: The Radio Show, here on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT. Also, go to thrivefinancialservices.tyl16lnm-liquidwebsites.com.

Great job, Bret. Terrific example, and a phenomenal example about what this is all about. We will now turn to Karen, how are you doing?

I\’m good. How are you doing this morning?

I\’m doing very well, thank you.

Good.

So, like David said, I was watching TV the other morning, and it dawned on me. Couples need to, before they get married, discuss finance. It\’s an important issue in marriage. Not that we ever had any arguments over finance ever.

I don\’t know what you\’re talking about.

Dave gave up looking at the American Express credit card bill every month. He doesn\’t even want to know what\’s on there. He\’s has two daughters that, you know, they need things.

What you don\’t know can\’t hurt you. But, I don\’t know.

I haven\’t got my card yet.

You only have one daughter, so not as much stress with that, I don\’t think. The two boys might not shop as much.

But it got me thinking when we have the pleasure of meeting with couples for the first time, one question that we ask them is, \”When do you want to retire?\” It\’s actually really funny. We get so many! I get different answers, from each of them. The spouse will say, \”Now,\” and the husband\’s like, \”I\’m never retiring.\” So, it runs the gamut.

Just as you focus on retirement as a goal financially, psychologically, or emotionally, you need to have a goal. What are you going to do once you\’re retired? Are we going to travel, are we going to volunteer, what are we going to do? One important thing to understand is what age do you want to retire. There\’s many reasons for that. It\’s just really funny. I have so many different types of responses to retiring for couples, but one-

I know I\’m one of them. I say I\’m never going to retire.

That\’s okay, and you cannot retire, but just make sure you have a financial advisor that gives you good advice, because … I don\’t know if your wife\’s younger than you, but there\’s tax situations that come up.

We\’re about the same age. My wife\’s gone through some health challenges earlier which has forced us to think now about when she\’s going to retire. We don\’t know. We don\’t know the uncertainty about what\’s out there, but it\’s a perfect example to what you\’re saying.

I\’m just going to read a line here. It says, \”Couples often assume they will retire together. Yet, the majority of couples,\” this was a study done, \”don\’t,\” according to an article. It says, \”Moreover, the couples more likely to retire together were those with a large age gap, just like David and I.\”

But it is a situation that can complicate retirement, so what do we mean by that? Well, a couple things. First, I have a quick question. If we retire, since we work together now, does that mean we don\’t spend as much time with each other in retirement?

I think I pinned down a few, but one area where we see this situation come up is when the gentleman is, let\’s say 10 years older and his wife\’s younger, and he\’s ready to retire at 65 or 66 or 67. If she\’s 10 years younger, and she is not working, what happens with their healthcare? Because she\’s not in Medicare age. So, that is a big concern for people.

Two things happen. They don\’t think about it until it gets too late and they don\’t really plan for it, or we have couples come in and the husband\’s like, \”I have to work. I have to keep working until age 70.\” We say, \”What if we come up with a plan and you don\’t have to keep working until age 70? Will that work for you?\” So, that\’s something to think about in retirement.

That\’s one of the biggest things, Joe, that people think is what prevents them from retiring, because they don\’t understand that there is opportunity outside of COBRA insurance that they can structure things and get on the public exchange and have a wonderful policy. So, once you enlighten them about that, you end up seeing people advance the age to retire, or at least start thinking about it.

Right. They\’re scared to, not to think outside the box, but when they think of going on the exchange, they think, \”Oh, that\’s horrible.\” I\’ve had comments that it was bad insurance and things like that, and I\’m like, \”It\’s Aetna. It\’s Blue Cross. It\’s all the stuff that you\’re used to. You just need help navigating it, and guess what? We can help you out with that.\”

Another thing to think about is to work or not to work in retirement. The reason it\’s important is that if your spouse is a lot younger than you, and she is continuing to work, or he is, it depends on if the roles are reversed, and you start taking Social Security. You\’re going to have to watch your income tax bracket. What\’s going to happen? Are you old enough that you have to start taking required minimum distributions, and your wife still wants to work? So, that\’s something else to think about.

Outside the box is, if you don\’t need the money, just do volunteer work, but there\’s couples that come in here that they said they\’re busier now, retired, than they were when they actually had a job.

I think the one thing to point out, just from my perspective as you, being the listener because I consume the show like the listener does, is when we reach a point where we\’re in this zone of conversation, I always stress it but I think this is a perfect time to stress it. It\’s okay not to know what we\’re supposed to do. It\’s better to start to educate ourselves.

[bctt tweet=\”Don\’t be afraid to think outside of the box, that\’s important\” via=\”no\”]

I always look at our lives as being very compartmentalized up to this point. Or maybe you\’re worried about education, or educating your children, or you\’re on the backside of the education process where you can finally see the end of the tuition payments coming. Okay, now what? Now I\’m in my 50’s, now what do I do? And I\’m going to live much longer today than I thought that I was 20 years ago when I started thinking about this whole thing, if I was. So, a lot of different times to begin.

When you\’re so focused on saving that money for that retirement goal, you\’re not focused on, \”What am I supposed to do once I get there?\”

Another area to think about as you get older is your asset allocation. We meet people who are self-directed. Sometimes we meet people who are advisors where they just have everything in a 401(k). But asset allocation is important. David might be touching on that in the next subject. There are so many things going on with the economy right now. You definitely need help with that, and it\’s something that definitely warrants a further discussion with your spouse and with your advisor. And, guess what? If you go to thrivefinancialservices.tyl16lnm-liquidwebsites.com, and you want to come in, and these are all areas that we will touch on with you when you come in.

Taxes. Again, I just kind of touched on that. If your spouse wants to work, you\’re not working, but you know you have to start taking these required minimum distributions. Then there\’s the other thing to think about is all your money in qualified accounts or IRA’s, if you pass away, if you\’re 10, 15 years older and then your wife gets those assets, and now her tax bracket\’s different because she\’s filing single. It can cause a whole host of problems. And then long-term healthcare is another issue that people are really concerned about, that sometimes they don\’t have it. Guess what? There are ways that we can help you. There are hybrid products out there. There\’s alternative products in long-term healthcare. So, many moving parts.

Here\’s the one thing that I would end with as we go into the break. The conversation at the water cooler with your neighbor, or with your coworker, on their scenario will not apply.

Exactly. Everybody\’s different.

Thank you so much, Karen. Good stuff.

David, I think It\’s a collection of information that is easy to understand, easy to consume, easy to read. It\’s complimentary, and I would suggest that everybody does it. It\’s good stuff.

Yeah, Joe, thanks. As a matter of fact, I want to cover a couple things related to our website, because I think it is a website that is very full of good resources for people. I want to make sure, for those of you who are interested in our complimentary eBook, How to Develop a Worry Free Retirement, it\’s not on the front page of our website. If you go to the top tab, you\’ll see Featured Media. If you hit the Featured Media, you\’ll see on that page we have a number of things.

We\’ve got a complimentary e-copy of our book. We have the Worry Free Retirement eBook. We have all the podcasts and archives of all the radio shows that are on there. And what\’s good, our marketing team actually labels those workshops via topic. So, if you\’re looking for a specific topic, you can go to the search bar there and look that up. As you know, we cover so many different things.

Our biggest challenge is, when we get here to the radio station and start to do the pre-work for the show, I sit here, I listen to Bret. I sit here, I listen to Karen. I just kind of revisit the week and how many people we saw, and how many different things happened during the week, that I wish people could kind of be like a fly on the wall in our office so you can see all these different scenarios that we get the opportunity to work with people on, and go from where there may be some frustration or anxiety to a feeling of just complete certainty and confidence. It\’s really an amazing experience for us, and we always hope that it\’s a great value to the people that we serve. So, I think the website has a lot of good quality information.

Another thing that Karen talked about near the end was trying to figure out if you are properly invested in the market. Do you have your asset allocation models set up well enough so that you can kind of weather the storm if the storm presents itself? When I do these workshops, I ask a couple of questions. One of the questions that I ask, and I\’ve asked this question, no joke, Joe, 300 times, because we\’ve done over 300 workshops. So, I ask people, \”How many of you feel that during your retirement years\” … Now, that could be 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 years. \”that the financial markets will go through a similar financial crisis as to the one that we saw in 2008, 2009?\” What percentage of the hands do you think, Joe, that people raise?

100%?

It\’s always unanimous. You\’ve always have the one person sitting in the audience who maybe they didn\’t use antiperspirant or something, they don\’t want to raise their arm.

So, I ask that question, not matter if I\’m in New Jersey, if I\’m in Chester County, if I\’m in Bucks Country, it doesn\’t matter, whatever the case may be. It\’s always kind of unanimous.

Then, I follow up that question with the next one where I ask, \”Now, those of you who raised your hand. What percentage, big or small, do you think people actually do something about it?\” What do you think there? Big percentage, small percentage?

Small.

Very small. Very few.

I try to keep it light. I say, \”Okay, so we know what the definition of insanity is, right? Doing the same thing over and over, not making any changes but hoping we get different results.\” A lot of people were concerned. A lot of people didn\’t feel good. They had that agita feeling. In the 08/09 period when their 401ks went down to 201ks.

But for most people attending our workshops, as well as probably listening to this show, is that it probably didn\’t mean a lot. Now, we never want to lose, but at the same time, we probably were not using our money during that period. We probably were working. We probably were making contributions to our 401k or 403b or whatever else it was. So, at the end of the day, it actually turned out to be a good thing, because we didn\’t sell out and we held onto that money.

Now, remember. That\’s during the saving period of our lives, when we\’re savers. Now, if people are in retirement and they must utilize that money and we do happen to have a similar financial crisis. And then again, there\’s so many pundits out there that say, \”It won\’t be as bad.\” We have some that say, \”It will be as bad.\” We have some that say it\’ll be worse. Nobody\’s got a crystal ball, so we don\’t know. But why not prepare? Why not just prepare for it?

You have to kind of shift the mindset a little bit from a saver\’s mentality to a spender\’s mentality. If I have to spend this money, I want to make sure I\’m preserving the capital as much as I can. So long story short with that, Joe, is we have a tool on our website that our folks can go to, and it it\’ll give them access to something called Riskalyze, R-I-S-K-A-L-Y-Z-E. They don\’t have to put a ton of information in there, but what it\’ll take them through is a questionnaire. It\’s a behavioral questionnaire where it really tries to identify what people\’s real risk tolerance is. It\’s on a scale from 1 to 100.

We get a numeric value, because the way most financial advisors do it. They give somebody a questionnaire, they answer a couple of questions, they get a certain amount of points assigned. Add up the points, look for the silo of type of investment, whether it\’s aggressive, it\’s growth, it\’s conservative. But, you know, if you say you\’re a conservative investor, is that on the high side? Is that on the low side? I don\’t know, and I need to know. So, if we give it a numeric value on that scale of 1 to 100, we definitively know where your risk tolerance level is.

People can get that done complimentary. They can go on, and that will get emailed to them, and they\’ll find out what their risk tolerance number is. If folks want to take it a little further where they\’re willing to share their accounts with us. We don\’t need your brokerage account statement number and all that, but we need the investments, the holdings, and the percentages, and the dollar amounts. We can run an analysis through Riskalyze that will put that same numeric value, between 1 and 100, on your portfolio based on the underlying holdings, based on the amount that you have invested.

Here is the goal: we want to compare the two numbers. If you have a risk tolerance level of 30, like a lot of our clients do, these are folks who realize that say, \”We probably have enough money to retire the way we want. Why should we be risking it?\” If they rank themselves at a 30 but their portfolio comes in at a 70, which we see quite often, then we\’ve got a challenge, because things are not lining up correctly. What that will account for is it\’s probably now time to start shifting that allocation to a more conservative way of doing things. Instead of when I ask that question, \”How many people do something about it?\”, we should pretty much have every person\’s hand go up.

So, it\’s a great exercise for people. If they go to thrivefinancialservices.tyl16lnm-liquidwebsites.com. One of the tabs on there, I think under Services, you\’ll see a video on Riskalyze and you\’ll see a link to Riskalyze, and you can get that done.

That\’s terrific stuff. Of course, the goal in that scenario when you flush out your 30% on this side and 70% as part of the other exercise, that immediately should be an indicator. Life\’s about indicators. That should be one where, as you said, \”Hey, we need to re-look. We need to rethink. We need to plan.\”

You would think that\’s the typical response, right? So, a lot of times what will happen is, \”Eh, it\’s okay.\” We\’ll get that kind of lackadaisical response. \”Eh, I think it\’s okay. No big deal. It\’s been this way all along.\” That\’s where working with a fiduciary, working with a good quality financial planner, you can go through that exercise and have a dialogue about it. And maybe you are right, but what if you\’re not? Why not hear the other side of the story so that you can make a better evaluation of what is probably better for you?

So, I always tell that to people. I say, \”Look, if you\’re going to make a decision, do you want some of the facts or do you want all the facts?\” People want all the facts.

You want them all.

You want them all. Because especially with your retirement, you don\’t get a do-over.

Do you think people are afraid of having all the facts, David?

I wouldn\’t say no. I think a lot of times, people tend to live by the ostrich theory. You know, stick my head in the sand and hopefully all my problems will go away when I raise my head back up.

I\’ve had people say that to me.

And again, it\’s like with health sometimes. I don\’t go to the doctor, because I don\’t want to know I\’m sick. But as a fiduciary, I just really implore people. Like, \”Come on. Find out. It\’s probably not too late. It\’s better to find out today and come up with a fix versus finding out when it\’s too late and there\’s nothing you can do about it.\”

Really great stuff from David Bezar today, also from Bret Elam and from Karen Bezar, on one of the shows to put a check mark next to if you missed in of the program. If you consumed it all, go back and re-listen to it again on the podcast. As David said, all of the shows are identified or are listed on thrivefinancialservices.tyl16lnm-liquidwebsites.com under the featured media tab.

You can also go there and get registered for the two upcoming workshops. Tuesday, the 26th, at the Upper Dublin Township building in Fort Washington. Thursday, the 28th, at the Monroe Library on Marsha Avenue, across the bridge, over in New Jersey. The Monroe Library is in Williamstown, New Jersey. 1-800-516-5861 was the number, and is the number for you to always keep stored in your phone.

Great stuff today, David. Karen, well done. Bret, nice job on taking everybody through the different segments. That\’s going to do it for today! We hope you learned a thing or two that will benefit your financial wellness going forward, whatever the case may be. If you are interested in our services please do not hesitate to contact us or sign up for a future workshop!