We\’re going to spotlight our good friends from Del-Val Insurance who are saving all of the members of the Thrive army up to 40% on their auto insurance right now. As we join and listen to this previous program, I also remind everybody to get registered for one of the four upcoming workshops next week. You can do that by going to thrivefinancialservices.tyl16lnm-liquidwebsites.com.

Well, we\’re excited about the show today. We\’ve got a lot of information. We\’ve got Jim Muehlbronner in from Del-Val, so we\’re going to talk a little bit about auto and homeowner\’s insurance.

I\’m going to ask Jim point blank today, I had somebody ask me, can you really save 40% on your auto insurance? Because in one of the commercial spots that runs for Del-Val, as part of being a partner with Roadmap to Retirement, that\’s the bold line in the story. When we bring Jim into the conversation, we\’ll ask him that question. Didn\’t mean to cut you off, but wanted to let the audience know.

That was a quick cutoff too Joe.

Yes it was.

That was good. Yeah, so we do. We\’re excited to have Jim on the show. It\’s always great, because it\’s an important part of a financial strategy, make sure that you\’ve got the proper coverage, especially for people who have accumulated assets. Not against anybody, but you have some assets, nicer cars, bigger houses, things like that, it really starts to become much more important what type of coverage you have, not always just the price issue. These guys do a wonderful job because it\’s about value as well as price for them. Good situation. We look forward to hearing from Jim.

I know Bret\’s going to be talking a little bit about second opinions, we find that to be such an amazing topic. Because like we, at our workshops sometimes we do have people come up and I think I covered this last week, \”Hey, you know, I\’d really to come in and visit with you guys. I see that you have a lot of value. But I don\’t want to upset or offend my financial advisor.\”

I find that to be so interesting, because I understand loyalty, I think it\’s a wonderful quality to have loyalty. At the same time, this is somebody that\’s working for you. You\’re not working for them, and you want to really make sure at this particular stage in life that that person, first of all should be a fiduciary, and if they are, they want to operate in your best interest, so they shouldn\’t have any concerns. They certainly shouldn\’t be at all offended if you go out to get a second opinion on something.

We really encourage people to continue with that path of becoming their own wealth advocate, and doing the research. Maybe they hear a new idea or something like that, that they can bring to their financial advisor and assess whether that advisor knows what they\’re talking about or maybe doesn\’t. It\’s better to find out earlier versus it being too late. Does that make sense Joe?

It makes sense to me, and here\’s what I would say, because I live in that world, or I live in that space. If I\’m delivering the goods, if I\’m doing what I profess to do, I want a potential client to get a second opinion. Because after the second opinion, I\’m back in the game.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean? I respect it, appreciate it, and certainly encourage.

Yeah, and you are absolutely speaking our language, because we are so comfortable, so confident in what we present as solutions for people, we want them to go hear the other stories. Because once they hear the other stories, they\’ll see most times how they pale in comparison. We love it. As a former hockey player, I really love it. I love the competition.

Especially this time of the year.

That\’s it. I just go look like they\’re standing in the corner of the boards and they\’re just lined up perfectly for me. I think it\’s a good situation.

Let me bring Bret Elam into the conversation. We actually had on our show last week, right here on 1210, you talked about a scenario from the competition. You were able to break down in pretty good detail some of the differences, or some of what the story was versus what the story is.

Yeah. Again, we talk about education advocacy, again, fiduciaries, who\’s doing what in my best interest? It\’s just being that steward for not only yourself but your family, and just you don\’t know what you don\’t know. Again, part of that second opinion is just identifying \”risks\” that we face out there in retirement. Do we choose to fix them? Do we choose to ignore them? It doesn\’t mean the ostrich approach is all right, that they\’re never going to exist. It\’s just uncovering them at the end of the day.

Tell the audience Bret, when we come back after our opening break, you\’re going to lead the audience and have a conversation with the audience about what?

David said it, it\’s really talking about the second opinion. We talk about it during our workshops. We talk about it here when we have people come in as part of that Thrive Retirement Roadmap Review, and just really going to drive it in again today here on the radio. Just talking about all the different ways where a second opinion really counts. Just the different ways of how people have had really great results by simply you don\’t know what you don\’t know, and just seeking out more information.

Del-Val Insurance, you\’ve heard the name so many times on this program, on Saturday mornings and during the week, as being a proud partner and being a part of Roadmap to Retirement, The Radio Show. Jim Muehlbronner is with us for the entire hour today. Jimmy, nice to have you with us, joining us again. It doesn\’t happen as much as we would like, but appreciate having you in there. I won\’t ask you before the break, but I will ask you that question as the show rolls on, can you really save 40%? I think the answer is, yes, you can.

You can Krause. I appreciate you all having me here. It\’s always great to be here. Believe it or not, I\’m looking at my notes, I wrote a couple things down to discuss, and I have the numbers 20% to 50% written here.

Nice.

50% is greater than 40%.

I\’ll describe how that happens later.

All right. We\’ll find out that from Jim Muehlbronner from Del-Val Insurance, who will be with us as well. David, I\’ll come back to you, just to lead us into the break in terms of conversation. When you collect all of your thoughts in prep, and I know you have something specific that you\’re going to talk about, each week you always do, but when you collect all of your thoughts, what are the top three areas of consistency, no matter who\’s sitting in front of you, that you identify as the most important?

Well I think people want to get clarity on that ultimate question of, do I have enough money to retire the way that I want to retire? Then it\’s the sub question of that is, and will it last my lifetime? I think that\’s a big confirmation that people are looking for. That gives them a sense of certainty, if they can. Our goal is to just tell them the reality. We don\’t try to be diplomatic, we just want to be brutally honest and tell people what the deal is. What\’s interesting, with very minor tweaks most times we can give that confirmation.

The other area, and this is the area, this is where we\’re very, very excited about, because Thrive has recently brought on some additional resources in the tax strategy space. I think we\’ve become very popular and pretty well known that we\’re not just plain old vanilla financial advisors, that we really understand how all the puzzle pieces do fit together.

The second big thing that we hear is about taxation. How do I save on taxes? These RMD\’s, these required minimum distributions. My wealth, how do I get this … We at Thrive have really brought on some wonderful additional resources that I think we will become the preeminent tax planning financial advisory firm in the Delaware Valley.

All right. Good stuff. Well said. Thank you so much to the Thrive army for tuning in this morning, this the second Saturday of the month of May. Again, our entire broadcast today is dedicated to all of the moms around the Delaware Valley who will share, enjoy and appreciate a day of being catered to, a well-deserved day of being catered to tomorrow, on Sunday. We\’ll get to our first commercial break.

 Don\’t forget to go to thrivefinancialservices.tyl16lnm-liquidwebsites.com and get registered for one of four workshops next week. Busy week for the crew at Thrive Financial Services.

I can give everyone one unconditional guarantee, and the guarantee is based on what everybody says, David, who leaves the workshop, who attends and leaves the workshop. They left the workshop more educated than before they walked in the door, which is an amazing thing when you think about it. It\’s part of the reason why we do this show, why you do this show, why you\’re here, why you\’re part of our partnership Jim. We want to educate the listening audience so they can make a better decision.

The very first venue we went to was that Wissahickon Bluebell Library. Four years later, and how many workshops David? We\’re probably counting-

350.

Plus. Yeah, so again, we love and a little place in our heart for that venue there just being the place that our very first workshop was conducted at. Today\’s show, Krause, I want to talk about the importance of second opinions. Again, when we talk about second opinions we always love having our partner Jim here as well, because definitely property and casualty insurance, your auto and homeowners, is a big spot of where second opinions definitely play into it.

Something that David and I really have a passion for, for those listening in the audience who have been to our workshops, typically you hear David close them up talking about a personal story for him as he\’s gone through the battle of cancer and has beaten it. I talk about the story about my son under the age of two went through a brain tumor, got misdiagnosed, and the importance of a second opinion being able to diagnose that. I\’m sure many people of our listening audience too can talk about where a second opinion definitely mattered in their life.

Now, while we talk about health and health is very important, we always say wealth is shortly there behind it. Your health and wealth are probably the two most important things that we have going for us, and all the other things kind of fall into place, if you will.

When we talk about those no obligation second opinions, Krause, it\’s an opportunity for people to say, \”I\’ve already done this. Am I doing a good job or not?\” Then it\’s us being a fiduciary with full transparency saying, \”Yeah, you look good there. You may be a little weak there.\” Again, it\’s those things that I just mentioned a little bit ago, it\’s our job to bring them up and identify them.

Again, your plan is your plan, not our plan is your plan. We say, these are the risks that we\’re going to face in retirement. Is it living too long? Is it I\’m going to get sick? Is it one of us lives too short? Is it going into a long term care facility? Is it I\’m going to run out of money too early? I don\’t know. Again, any of those things sound like, and that could be people that are listening to the show today, and all those things are possible. Again, it\’s just getting that second opinion because I believe I have my plan here, but it\’s always needing to be adaptable because life can sometimes change as well.

When we identify those risks, Krause, again it gives people that opportunity to say, \”You know what? I understand it\’s there. I\’m going to ignore it. I can fix it.\” Sometimes people say, \”Hey the Thrive army, can you guys help me fix this issue?\” I may end up fixing on your own. The worst thing you can do is take that ostrich approach and think everything is great and indeed something is not. We\’re sitting with a professional, sitting with a fiduciary to identify what\’s out there, and especially complimentary, again no obligation second opinion. I don\’t understand, for me, again, there are so many arenas. While we\’re very good here, that I love to get second opinions when I go out to the doctor, it\’s why I do a physical every single year, getting a second opinion. I feel good, that second opinion, is it validating that as well?

Yeah. I think David was spot on with his statement about people looking for validation or looking for the answer to the question, will I have enough? Will I be able to get through? Will my retirement last? With each passing day it seems that that question is challenged by a news story, or it\’s challenged by a thought that supports us living longer. Whatever the case may be. It\’s out there, it\’s an answer that you need to work to get, for sure.

That\’s it. I mean, you said it right there.

There are so many times people that we\’re meeting in these workshops, I\’m going to start giving some examples. Again, we had a couple just come in this past week, 72 and 74 years old. Both people already collecting social security. We talked about the importance of second opinions. Typically, you have somebody coming in like that, already collecting, like ah, there\’s nothing I should do. No. It\’s the importance of us understanding the numbers that somebody had.

What we had found out when we sat with that couple was that one spouse was actually entitled to a benefit, $300 more than what they were receiving, five years ago. Now unfortunately, you can\’t go back five years in time, but again, conventional wisdom says, ah, I\’ve been on social security forever, the social security system would have gotten it. They definitely pay me everything that I should be getting. I\’m telling you flat on this radio that everybody can hear us, it\’s not right.

Everybody tries their best to do the best, but I can promise you they\’re not making sure that you\’re getting the absolute best benefit that you\’re entitled to unless you ask.

Then it\’s validating, making sure that what the answer you got was absolutely correct as well. It\’s a big deal. We start talking about $300 a month, there are a lot of things that you can do with an extra $300 a month. That\’s an example of again going through, am I getting every benefit?

Is that $300 deficiency an example of the individual, respectfully, not knowing?

That\’s it, and that\’s what it always is, is people coming in here saying, \”Hey, I\’ve done my best. Everything I\’ve done, everything to the best of my ability to date and the guidance and the advice that I\’ve gotten. And now I\’m coming in.\” That\’s the second opinion, no obligation. Did I do it right? It\’s like, well, we start asking them some questions like, \”Why are you asking all these questions?\” Because we\’re trying to back into, indeed, are you getting the right benefit that you have?

It\’s the importance, we don\’t just ask questions to ask questions. We have plenty of time that we can do other things, but if you\’re coming in with your own time, and we\’re spending our own time on a no obligation second opinion, we want to make sure everyone\’s getting the most value of it at the end of the day. I mean, that\’s one way of just looking at social security, $300 a month, $3600 a year. That\’s a big deal, money coming in.

We talk about it when Jim gets to the next segment, of the importance of people doing second opinions just related to home owners and property insurance. Again, it\’s like squeezing a balloon. Do I want less benefits where it could be cheaper, or do I want to make sure that I\’m protected? Many times people come in throwing that Thrive Retirement Roadmap. You\’ve got all these investment properties, someone slips there, you\’re held out there, do you have the right coverage? It\’s like way, you\’re way over covered over here, does it make sense, can we save money? That\’s why we partner with great companies like Del-Val, because we\’re not the experts.

We know a lot.

David, Karen, the rest of the army, myself here at Thrive, but it\’s aligning ourselves with experts like Jim and Del-Val so that they can go deep on solutions that we don\’t want to get, we don\’t need to know everything, we need to have partners that know everything. It\’s the importance on us knowing a lot, and then when there are areas that are outside our expertise, we bring in people like Jim.

We meet a lot of people during the workshop that come in they\’re like, \”Bret, this is called taxes and retirement and I\’m only 59 years old. I\’ve got five or six years left till retirement. I\’m not coming in.\” Whoa, we love you. The chance that we get an opportunity to speak five or six years before you hang up the cleats is a lot better than two months before you hang up the cleats. People never plan to fail, they fail to plan. We love it, and we invite all those people to come into the office as well as part of that complimentary Thrive Retirement Roadmap. Because you have the time to make changes if we\’re not on the right track, Krause.

I want to just use the example you just used. For the last five years

Five years.

The individual was missing out on $300 a month.

$18,000, five years Krause.

That\’s a lot of money.

Just because they didn\’t know.

Just doing it right. Again, so many times you meet with people in our world, all they ever talk to you about is what Krause? We talk about it, the investments, the investments, the investments. It\’s important, but it needs to fit hand in hand with everything else that\’s out there. We meet a lot of people, taxes, people, a lot of our listening audience just wrapped up your first year of taxes, 2018. Statistics were only 6% of people are now itemizing because of all the changes. We\’ve been talking about that. With those you\’re like, \”Bret, I\’m in the standard deduction now. There\’s nothing I can do.\”

Yeah, it\’s important that we still see that full tax return, because even if you\’re showing last year if both of you were over the age of 65, your standard deduction was $26,600. That doesn\’t mean if you gave money to a nonprofit, or a church, or one of those organizations, \”Well Bret, I\’m now way above it. I can\’t write that off anymore.\” Well yes you can. That\’s the second opinion. We dive deep. We ask you questions during that Thrive Retirement Roadmap Review because everyone\’s circumstances are different.

[bctt tweet=\”In my business, man is it competitive\” via=\”no\”]

Before, it was very easy to identify what somebody was giving money to a nonprofit. Here, especially when we get people into retirement, well Bret, are you still giving money? Yeah, I\’m just not writing off anywhere. There\’s a better way to do it. Can I still get that write off? It\’s one of the biggest things that David and I speak about, and again the rest of the team here at Thrive, get that second opinion as it relates to taxes.

David shared with you how we\’re going to go a little bit deeper into that tax conversation that we\’re excited about.

Again, our passion is there in completely always putting those puzzle pieces together. Things like legacy, estate planning, these are all things that we do a second opinion on. Why? No obligation, you\’re spending money to get these things all put into place, and isn\’t it nice to get another professional set of eyes to be put on it?

To me one of the most critical things, and David\’s going to talk about it in the last segment, is get a second opinion on that income/distribution strategy, how the heck am I not getting a paycheck anymore in retirement that I can replicate that same thing? That\’s such a big deal, and something that people don\’t have. Sometimes people need that first opinion because they don\’t even get that written plan as it relates to that income plan as well. We can\’t stress the importance, I\’ve talked about kicking off the segment on the health side of it, but my gosh, that wealth side of it is just as important.

I mentioned when the segment started, the workshop on the 16th of May. If you don\’t have the ability to make that workshop, go to thrivefinancialservices.tyl16lnm-liquidwebsites.com and get on the calendar, Bret, for an upcoming workshop.

It\’s no obligation. Again, you don\’t know what you don\’t know. Again, we\’re all trying to grow as human beings. Just a little bit more education, whether it\’s the workshop, hearing us here on the radio or coming in during one of the sessions. It\’s what we love to do, and I hope you hear it in the passion that\’s coming out of here on the radio.

It\’s real and it is true. I tell everybody listening right now on the radio, here on talk radio 1210 WPHT, to do just that, get a second opinion. 1-800-516-5861. 1-800-516-5861.

For those of you who are planning to go down to the Jersey Shore, we certainly hope you\’ll take Roadmap to Retirement with you. Saturday mornings are a big time when people will begin to travel early, so keep us on, talk radio 1210 WPHT. I\’m going to bring Jim Muehlbronner into the conversation. David, before I bring Jim into the conversation, I want you to give me, for the audience to hear it, the quote on second opinion.

You can\’t get a second opinion from the same person who gave you the first one.

That\’s it. Good stuff. You didn\’t know I was going to ask you that.

I was completely not prepared.

It rolled right off your tongue. Well done. Good stuff. I think that\’s kind of a theme for today\’s show. With that we\’ll transition into a long time partner of the show, Del-Val Insurance. One of the managing partners, Jim Muehlbronner, is with us, and joins us. Jim, we welcome you into the conversation. You\’ve been savvy enough, or you\’ve been around us long enough to know that this is all about trying to be smarter about the decisions that you make, accumulate dollars in your buckets, and then understand where to go with those buckets of money. That\’s why you\’re one of the partners. You have an interesting scenario in that you can help every single listener on this radio station, I think that\’s pretty powerful.

I believe I can Krause. They just have to all call, that\’s all, or visit our website.

That\’s it, we\’ll give them the number after, but let\’s talk about it. 40%, that\’s a lot. That\’s a big. You\’ll see a national insurance company say, \”Hey, I can save you $300. I can save you $400.\” I don\’t know what that means in terms of percentage, but I know what you do, and I\’ll start right there.

Real simply, the savings can be, we have people come paying $6000 premiums for their auto/homeowners umbrella policies, and they walk out of our office paying $3500. I think that\’s close to 40%, right Krause? It\’s certainly doable, and it happens every week, with plenty of examples.

Bret, one of the things you were talking about that I felt the need to touch on is second opinion. In my business, man is it competitive. All you\’ve got to do is listen to the radio, Krause, watch TV, watch a football game, I bet you half the commercials you hear are insurance, get quotes, get quotes, get quotes. I work on the assumption that clients already have a second opinion or are going to get a second opinion when they call me.

Here\’s one thing, if you don\’t mind me weighing in on that, here\’s one thing I don\’t like about those offers. I\’m not dealing with anybody.

Right.

I\’m not connecting with the individual. All I\’m doing is inputting information online, into a website, and I\’m going to get a quote automatically, it\’s going to generate. I don\’t even know if what I\’m putting in there is the right information.

Well that\’s one of the values of dealing with an independent agent especially, but any person in general, is that you\’re getting somebody\’s human eyes looking at your policies, deciding whether you need to adjust coverages, whether you have adequate coverages, and finding you great coverages at a better price than you\’re currently paying. That\’s the benefit that we as humans have over a computer, I guess is the way I would say.

Well, and when you\’re looking at, should I have limited torte or full torte? For example, boom, that factors in-

To each his own.

Yes.

Correct. One of the things that struck me when Bret and David were talking earlier is that, yes, we\’re in different businesses, you guys are in the financial business, I\’m in the insurance business. Closely related, but different businesses. One of the big things that we both bring to the table however is that we\’re not employees, for instance you\’re not an employee of a bank. You\’re not an employee of a mutual fund. I\’m not an employee of an insurance company. We\’re independent agents. You\’re independent financial planners. By nature, you\’re not beholden to any one company, so when somebody goes to you, or somebody comes to me, I shop you with all the companies I represent.

Can you imagine everybody that came to you for advice David, you said, \”We\’re going to put you in this mutual fund.\” If you put everybody in the same mutual fund, or even the same family of funds, that wouldn\’t be unbiased advice you\’re giving that person. You\’re selling that fund because that\’s the only one you represent. A lot of times when you go to a bank, or you go directly to an insurance company, all you\’re going to get is that insurance company\’s choice, you get one choice. Where we represent 15 to 20 different companies, depending on the line of business, and we\’re going to give you the best price and the best coverages for your particular situation.

Yeah. I mean, that\’s the ideal situation. You don\’t want somebody that has kind of a ulterior motive by offering what they\’re told to offer by the company that they work for.

Right.

We\’re fiercely independent as well as you are. That way we don\’t look at the name of the company. We do validate it, we want to make sure it\’s a top quality company, it\’s well capitalized and all of that, but if they\’ve got the best performance, if they\’ve got the best pricing, that\’s what we want for our clients.

That\’s right. I\’ve been both sides of it. I mean, I was a captive agent, my partner and I, for 20 years. Then 15 years ago we went independent because we realized that\’s going to be the most value to our clients. We\’re giving them choices, we have options. No one insurance company is the best for every situation or every person. It can\’t be, and it\’s not.

Jim, what are some of the samples? Some of the things that you\’ve seen maybe over the past couple of weeks?

Fortunately with our relationship with you guys, and being on your show, we\’ve gotten a lot of calls and emails from people. I think by our count we have an 80% success rate.

Of all the people that call in, 80% become clients because you\’re-

They\’re becoming clients of ours because of the rates and the services we offer.

That\’s fantastic.

I would venture to say that the other 20% it\’s generally because of a driving record issue, or extensive claims, or something like that where they kind of have to stay where they\’re at. If you\’re a good client with a fairly decent clean record, we\’re going to write 80% of those with the companies we represent.

Transfer that into Major League baseball terms my friend and that\’s a-

Here comes your 40% Krause.

Okay.

It\’s a $40 million career.

That\’s a big contract. A year.

I\’ve just got to get in front of people, is the idea, and that\’s what I\’m trying to do here today, is get in front of people and have them reach out to me so that I can help them. Krause, here\’s your 40%. The 80% that we do write, the savings are generally 20% to 50%. If you\’re paying a decent sized premium, if you have kids driving, a nice house, you have some kids driving, four cars, something like that, that translates into thousands of dollars you\’re saving. Just with a simple phone call or a visit to our website at dvigi.com.

Let\’s do the math. If there are 10,000 people listening to this segment of the show right now, 8,000 individuals, eight of the 10,000 people we can help, you can help with their insurance right now. Doesn\’t mean that they need to change their insurance, but the whole theme of second opinion. Get out your declaration page, call Del-Val Insurance, and check and balance what you\’re paying. Now, if you\’re saving $2500 and you\’re on the doorstep of retirement, or you\’re on the road to retirement, that is significant Jim.

[bctt tweet=\”No one insurance company is the best for every situation or every person\” via=\”no\”]

It certainly is. You remember, you\’re getting, we\’re giving as good or a better of a product. All the companies we represent you would have heard of. They\’re all top A rated carriers with A.M. Best. We\’re giving the same coverage. We\’re going to review your coverage, which is extremely important, because a lot of people out there driving around haven\’t had their insurances looked at for coverages. There are a lot of coverage changes, especially on the homeowner\’s side of things. There are a lot of additional coverages now, service line coverage, water backup coverages that weren\’t available in policies years ago. Those kind of things need to be reviewed. At the same time you get a review you can get a huge savings.

Let me hop in here real quick, because I\’m a client of Del-Val. I have a 22 year old daughter, about to be 23 years old. When can she come off my policy?

She can come off anytime David. Typically, we like to wait, I think it makes sense financially, because when she goes to get her own rates it\’s going to be credit is an issue, so you want to make sure they\’re established credit.

She has established credit. That was one of the things that we obviously gave her some planning on.

I know your daughter went to college, so usually the time you would look at that is once she graduates college, she\’s established some credit, and especially if she\’s ready to move out and to an apartment on her own, would be the time to fly the coop and spin her off your policy.

Okay, so that\’s something we\’re going to consider. Yeah, so we\’re going to consider that. My youngest is off to college in August. She\’s going to Florida, we live in Pennsylvania. What would we do with her coverage? How do we modify that?

She\’s in Florida?

She\’s going to live in Florida.

If she\’s going to live in Florida, then she would, we\’re not licensed in Florida, but I would put her in touch with a qualified independent agent.

No, but she\’s going to stay on our policy, but she doesn\’t have to have full coverage at that point, right?

No. Our clients we tell them just to wait till they\’re established wherever they\’re at. If they\’re leaving to find a job somewhere, or they just graduated college and they want to stay where they\’re at in college and try and find a job there, they\’re fine on your policy for a finite period of time. You don\’t want to be on 10 years.

Can they be done in some reduced coverage on her?

If she has a car down there.

She\’s not going to have a car.

Yeah, then she can, if she\’s not a resident, if she\’s got a legal residence down there then you can remove her from your policy.

Okay. Right Joe, those are just examples. That\’s a live, on the radio, some questions to Jim about some modifications. That\’s a second opinion right there, right?

Yeah, right there, absolutely.

That\’s what I just wanted to know. That\’s actual questions that we\’re going to have for Jim and Fran is, all these changes are happening for us, and I\’ve got to imagine doing that is going to put some savings back in Karen\’s pocket and my pocket, or Karen\’s pocket at least.

Absolutely.

That was good.

For the listener, how many listeners have children away at college? We\’ll continue-

Real quick.

Go ahead Jimmy. One quick thought.

The college thing is something a lot of people forget about. You have a child go up to Penn State, or out to Pitt or somewhere, you can get a vastly reduced rate by just letting your agent know that that child is away. It\’s a whole different rating than if they\’re living in your house.

Good stuff from Jim Muehlbronner.

A special thanks to him for joining us for the full hour today. Del-Val Insurance, save up to now 50%, dvigi.com. As David mentioned with Jim, in terms of their dialogue right before we went into our last commercial break, those scenarios, those real life examples of getting a second opinion hold true with insurance, certainly hold true with the Roadmap to Retirement as well. Go ahead Jim.

One quick thing I wanted to mention.

I\’ve lost control of the entire show today. I mean, I don\’t know, Bret\’s giving me hand cues.

You have Joe. That\’s a first.

Jimmy\’s giving me hand cues. Go ahead Jimmy.

If you do reach out to us through the website or through the telephone, please remember to mention that you heard us on radio 1210. We have a little giveaway pool that we keep.

There we go.

Back to you Joe.

You sure Joe? Is this a good time for me?

Frank, can I go back to David? Yes I can. Go ahead David.

No. It\’s been a good show, and I hope our listening audience kind of appreciates the time that we put in because we want to put out a great product. We really want to make sure that our listeners are walking away after the hour with a lot of value. That\’s something we always ask at our workshops. I go up for about 15 minutes in our workshop and just kind of tell people the purpose of our workshop, what\’s going on, the agenda, a little insight to the topics we\’re going to be discussing. Then Bret goes on for about 45 minutes, and it\’s really some of the nuts and bolts of tax planning, and social security planning, and all of that.

Then I come up after Bret, the first thing I say is, how many of you thought it was worthwhile to come out tonight? What\’s a really good feeling for the two of us is that 99% of the hands go up and say it was worth getting in my car, coming over to a public library, sitting here for a period of time and walking out with more than I came in with. I think that\’s the goal of the show as well, and certainly of the second opinions. We really want people walking out either clearing up their uncertainty or confirming their certainty. I think that\’s important.

I really encourage our listening audience to get to our website at thrivefinancialservices.tyl16lnm-liquidwebsites.com, because it\’s not one of those websites that talks all about us. I visit a lot of different websites out there, and one of the first things you see on typical websites is everything about the owners of the company. We did this, and we did that, and we\’re this good, and we\’re the …

We just try to put a lot of good quality content, because we think a more educated client, and it doesn\’t mean they\’re completely financially educated when they come to us, but if we can prep them, if we can get them up to speed on the topics, kind of that conversation we\’re going to have, it really makes for a much more productive situation when we\’re sitting face to face. Because people then come in with the right questions, they know what questions to even ask. That\’s a really important aspect as well, because sometimes we don\’t even know what we don\’t know. We want to instigate people to go to our website and see that content that\’s on there Joe. I think that\’ll be really helpful for people.

Yeah, and I think the individuals will feel better about asking the questions. They\’ll feel more comfortable, even if they don\’t have the answer, that\’s okay. They\’ll feel more comfortable about engaging in a conversation.

Yeah, and that\’s it. It\’s the biggest frustration that I\’ve had for 30 years, because this is what I do every single day.

Literally when I say every single day, that\’s seven days a week, 365 days a year for the past 30 years. I am my business. I love it, I always have. I have tons of passion for it. What I get my personal reward is knowing that I had some impact on somebody financially, that when they leave me, they leave me in a better situation. That\’s a big goal. It\’s maybe validation, maybe I\’ve got to see a therapist over that, I\’m not really sure, but you get what I\’m saying. By visiting the website, I think that\’s going to have a lot of value for people.

The other thing that I really want to encourage people to do, in addition to visiting the website, is to email us, or text message us. Next week we\’ll put out a text number that right during our live shows, if people want to give us a text, we\’ll be able to respond to some questions. No question is stupid. Sometimes by asking that question that you may think is stupid, you may now just have solved a couple thousand people\’s questions that were in their mind that were too afraid to ask.

We want to start getting some dialogue going back and forth, whether it\’s during the show or pre-show, that we can cover some of these topics on the radio. We think it\’ll be good. We try to always come up with content that we think is relevant, that\’s current, that we think will have good impact. If there\’s other stuff that people in our audience, the thrive army want to hear, let us know about it.

Absolutely.

Right. You can go to [email protected], that\’s our general mailbox for the show. Just jot down some questions. You don\’t even have to tell us who you are. Just send us an email. We will respond on the show, answer that question live for you. Like I said, we\’ll get a text message, we\’re working with a company right now to figure out how we can do that from a logistical standpoint, but we\’ll get that accomplished.

What I wanted to cover just quickly Joe is the idea, for those people who may not end up coming out and seeing us, whether it\’s through the workshop or through one of the consultations, that just because you don\’t come out to see us doesn\’t mean we don\’t want you to get the value of what we know. I want to talk a little bit about how to create a retirement income plan.

Now what\’s unique about that previous statement that I just made is that most people think, I want to put together a retirement plan. The Harvard Business Review actually did an article, it was like a 10 or 12 page article about the concept of retirement income planning. Big difference than just retirement planning.

When people think about retirement planning, what they typically default to is, what\’s my net worth? People judge their retirement plan on how much money they have saved. What\’s my net worth? That\’s a huge mistake, because what you should really be focusing on is, what is my guaranteed monthly income for the rest of my life and my wife\’s life, or my husband\’s life? Whatever the situation may be. It\’s a big difference Joe.

You think you can repeat that? That\’s an amazing statement.

Probably not, because it\’s too early in the morning, but I will certainly try. A lot of people base, whether it\’s success or whatever, on a retirement plan being what their net worth is, just this number. Just this number, the more millions, the better. What\’s interesting, and this is what Harvard Business said, is that\’s all wrong way of thinking.

Your way of thinking should be, how much guaranteed monthly income do I have for the rest of my life and my partner\’s life?

Because that number\’s a great number, but like we\’ve seen recently, the volatility in the market, like on Monday of this past week the market took a huge dip real quickly in the morning because President Trump came out and said that he\’s going to continue the trade war and maybe put more sanctions on China, and so on and so forth.

Now, things always play out, but again, if we\’re starting to see some fundamental cracks in the financial system, and we go back to a 2008, 2009 situation, probably most of our audience were still working during that period of time, but if that happened while you were retired, you may have $3 million or $4 million socked away that now becomes $2 million. Then all of a sudden if you based your withdrawals off of $4 million and now it\’s $2 million, there has to be some consequence to that, right? Either we\’re going to have to revision our spending habits, or we\’re just going to flat out run out of money.

A retirement income plan is very different than a retirement plan. Just like anything, in my opinion, that you\’re going to try to tackle, is you should have it written out. I ask that question quite frequently at our workshops, how many of you sitting in our audience tonight have a written retirement income plan? Just the opposite of what most people do, raise their hands on a lot of the questions, nobody raises their hand. Some people even ask, what is that?

As part of the Thrive Retirement Roadmap Review, which is complimentary, we provide a written retirement income plan. It\’s that map. It\’s literally, what do I do year one? Where do I take my money from? What bucket? I have four buckets of money, I have a cash bucket, I have an equity bucket, I have a bond bucket, and I have a non-correlated asset bucket. Where do I take that money from? Because I want to base that decision on longevity of the money and tax efficiency of the money. Because if I just randomly do it, like 99.9% of the people do, there\’s going to be some consequence to that. I may run out of money too early. I may pay too much in taxes. Those are two things we don\’t want to certainly have happen.

Let me put this in context for the listening audience, off of Bret\’s example or reference to four year anniversary of doing workshops. I did a quick calculation. Approximately 26,000 people have come through those workshops, all answering they don\’t have a retirement plan. Pretty amazing. Staggering number.

Staggering, I think that\’s exactly it.

One side of that, we\’re so excited and proud that we\’ve been able to at least instigate. People can\’t walk out now and say, \”I don\’t know.\” We\’ve divulged it all. Whether they take action or not is their responsibility, but 26,000, and we\’re just getting warmed up Joe. Next week I\’ll hopefully be able to get to this and talk about a list of things that you actually have to do to get that retirement income plan.

I promise I\’ll produce the show next week, all right?

Perfect.

We\’ll definitely get to it. That\’s going to do it this week for Roadmap to Retirement The Radio Show. Special thanks to Jim Muehlbronner from Del-Val Insurance, for joining us, and on behalf of Karen Bezar, who was not with us today, on behalf of Bret Elam, David Bezar, Jim Muehlbronner, see you next time everybody.