Listen and read along as David, Bret, Karen, and Joe Krause discuss The New Rules for Generating Retirement Income! To schedule your complimentary consultation, call (215) 987-2430.

[fusebox_track_player url=\”https://soundcloud.com/livewiththrive/the-new-rules-for-generating-retirement-income-in-a-world-of-low-interest-rates\” social_linkedin=\”true\” social_email=\”true\” ]

Joe Krause:
And welcoming everyone to Roadmap to Retirement, the radio show. If you were forced to retire today, would you be ready? In a new study from MarketWatch, half of Americans say they retired unexpectedly. What does it mean? A one in two chance this could happen to you. Thanks for joining us. I\’m Joe Krause coming to you with Roadmap to Retirement, the radio show along with David Bezar, Karen Bezar and Bret Elan. We thank everybody for tuning in. David, we\’ve got a great show and a great lineup today.

David Bezar:
Good morning, Joe. Glad to be here with all of you. You know, the numbers, it just gets crazier and crazier and crazier. This week was another big hit. 50% of Americans retire unexpectedly due to unforeseen job loss and healthcare issues. Yeah, it\’s really crazy what\’s going on, Joe. I mean, that study, that statistic I just went through was when unemployment was 3.6%.

Joe Krause:
It\’s higher now.

David Bezar:
Yeah. Yesterday, I saw a 14 and a half percent. They\’re expecting it to go over 22%. So what? One in every five Americans potentially, it\’s going to be an issue. Now, today if you\’re listening and you happen to be one of them, I think today\’s show is going to be phenomenal. We\’re to help you prepare for that.

Joe Krause:
Yeah, stay with us and stay for the entire hour. We\’ve got a great lineup coming up on the show today. Four steps you should take now that will ensure that you are ready for retirement, including how you can protect or maximize your safest source of retirement income. A simple step that could minimize your biggest expense in retirement. Stay tuned for that. Plus, how successful retirees from around the Delaware Valley are growing their nest egg while minimizing the risk and with that, Karen, I come to you. You\’re in a feisty mood today while we\’re producing this show. I\’ll toss it right over to you. How are you?

Karen Bezar:
I\’m great. How are you?

Joe Krause:
I\’m good. All good.

David Bezar:
It\’s good if you\’re not a landscaper, Joe.

Karen Bezar:
Feisty is the word. I think I\’m following all the laws, but I\’m calling it quarantine brain. I\’m getting there and I will just say if I have to pick a partner to be quarantined with, I picked wisely. I\’m so glad I chose wisely.

David Bezar:
Joe, why the big surprise?

Joe Krause:
No, that\’s awesome. I\’m so excited to hear that.

Karen Bezar:
Look, everybody out there, I\’m so thankful. We\’re dealing with it the best we can and I just hope everybody is doing the same and I just hope this is over soon, but hang in there, we\’ll make it through. I\’m going to do step one, something to protect your retirement and what I\’m going to talk about today is minimizing your risk with diversification. There\’s definitely one thing that can help protect your investments from a sinking stock market and it\’s having a properly, that\’s the keyword here, properly diverse portfolio.

Karen Bezar:
Diversification and asset allocation are always critical to protecting your wealth, and diversification is the key. When we see people sometimes here for the first time, one of the questions we ask them is are you concerned about market fluctuations? And they say, no, because I\’m pretty well diversified. But if you\’re not properly diversified, you\’re not going to be protected. Just because you\’re properly diversified doesn\’t mean you\’re still not going to be susceptible to market swings and when we meet with people, we do… one of the reports we do or use is called Riskalyze and we look at their assets and they\’re so surprised sometimes. They say I\’m properly diversified and then we do a stress test that shows how they\’re going to fair in market downturns and sometimes it\’s 25, I\’ve seen up to 40 to 50% market loss based on past market corrections. They\’re very shocked about that.

David Bezar:
Yeah. A lot of times people say they\’re properly diversified, but they\’ve never actually looked at the portfolio. They\’d been told they\’re properly diversified and that may not be the case.

Karen Bezar:
Right. Exactly, and they\’re trusting their advisor and that\’s what you should do but that\’s why they\’re visiting us maybe for a second opinion, but diversification basically what it does, it strives to smooth out unsystematic risk events in a portfolio. Basically, positive performance of some investments can neutralize negative performance of others. The benefits of diversification holds only if the securities in the portfolio are not perfectly correlated. They respond differently often in opposing ways to market influences.

Karen Bezar:
I have a great analogy here that is in front of me. I cannot say that I wrote it, but I\’m going to… I saw this and I was like, this is a perfect way to explain diversification. If you were a vendor and you wanted to sell a variety of fruits instead of just one so that if a large unforeseen event like a hurricane wipes out the orange groves in Florida, you also can make money by selling apples from the Northeast or bananas from Hawaii. By the same token, it\’d be wise to use different suppliers of oranges so that if one supplier ran into trouble, you wouldn\’t be left orange less.

Karen Bezar:
Think of this different type of fruit as varying sizes, varying styles and sectors available to investors. By having a range of products, you\’re better protected against the risks that could hit any single one of them. If that makes sense. Hope it does but that\’s-

David Bezar:
Krause, you know what that means? We believe in fruit salad. That\’s diversification for you. It\’s a little bit of this and that. It\’s called just be the orange guy, fruit salad, right?

Karen Bezar:
Yeah. A little bit of everything. You need to rebalance and consistently update your plan. Diversification is not just a one-time task. You just don\’t set it up and just let it run. Once you have the target mix that you\’re comfortable with, you need to keep on track with periodic checkups and you need to rebalance and if you don\’t rebalance, a good run in the stocks could leave your portfolio at risk. You might have too many stocks or you might have too many bonds or whatever the case may be however you set it up, but it\’s a constant fluctuation. The market is never static.

Karen Bezar:
As we know, things definitely are changing quickly in the world so you have to be quick to adapt. Everybody knows that right now, one day market\’s up, one day the market\’s down and this is something you need to keep track of with periodic checkups and rebalancing. Stocks, bonds, interest rates, even life events. Everything is a constant change. You need to have time and you need to you… your advisor needs to be helping you checking your investment statements and your investments need to be, again, rebalanced. Keep an eye on them.

Karen Bezar:
Right now I don\’t see any one opportunity with this downturn in the market and all this craziness, but we see many opportunities. We see an opportunity that could help you save a boatload of taxes when you retire. We look at the opportunity that could dramatically improve your returns by updating and rebalancing your investments and properly diversifying. Have to have a few buckets there and I see an opportunity that could reduce your investment fees and expenses that are needlessly… have a problem saying how [inaudible 00:09:11] today, costing you thousands of dollars every year. That\’s when people come in. We take a look at everything, we give you a second opinion.

Karen Bezar:
What are the opportunities that could help you grow your tax-deferred retirement accounts right now? Find out with our free IRA 401(k) analysis, we can quickly analyze your options in just 15 minutes and it can be done over the phone or video conference if you want. If you\’ve saved more than 250,000 be one of the first 10 callers to get your free 15-minute analysis now. Again, the number is (215) 987-2430, so don\’t waste the window of opportunity right now that could protect and grow your IRA and 401(k) especially in retirement. Just schedule your free 15-minute analysis. Call and leave us a message right now. The number again is (215) 987-2430. (215) 987-2430.

Joe Krause:
All right, good stuff Karen. Thanks for kicking us off here on Roadmap to Retirement. One more time. (215) 987-2430 as we come to you on talk radio 1210 WPHT. On the other side of the break, many tax experts agree. As Karen said, this could be your best opportunity, perhaps the best in the last 40 years to save a bundle on taxes in retirement. Bret Elam on deck after the break.

Speaker 1:
David, Karen, Bret, and Joe will be back with more of this week\’s Roadmap to Retirement, the radio show in just moments, but first on behalf of everyone at Thrive Financial Services, happy mother\’s day.

Joe Krause:
Thank you so much for listening to Roadmap to Retirement radio show, all presented by Thrive Financial Services. What\’s the fastest, safest way to increase your retirement nest egg right now? It\’s probably not what you think it is, Bret. When the word taxes come up, I come to you right away.

Bret Elam:
You gave away my answer Krause. It\’s not just you said my name. I think the word tax [inaudible 00:11:19] went along with that.

Joe Krause:
Yes sir.

Bret Elam:
Something I\’m getting concerned with right now Krause is complacency starting to creep back in. It\’s like, the market came back up. There\’s nothing to worry about. Now, why I love this show, the four steps you must take now. This is all about being proactive, not reactive. Again, the fastest and safest way to increase your nest egg reduces taxes in retirement. Remember, it\’s not what you make. It\’s what you keep.

Joe Krause:
Yeah, keep your money in your pocket and don\’t pay taxes. That\’s what it\’s all about. Thanks very much for tuning in to Roadmap to Retirement, the radio show along with David and Karen Bezar, Bret Elam. I\’m Joe Krause joining you for the full hour today. Bret, back to you sir.

Bret Elam:
Yeah, Krause. I just want to go deep. I\’m going to pull back the layers of the onion about all the reasons why we need to go… again, take taxes looking at it straight in the face. Again, minimizing what we find is going to be the biggest expense that people are going to have budgeting, is your taxes. Again, you\’re working. We see our money from our checks coming out of our paychecks and now all of a sudden we head off into retirement, I got my social security, I got my pension. All of a sudden it\’s like, oh my gosh, I forgot the budget and taxes because it was always taken out of my paycheck, but that\’s something that we need to be relevant.

Bret Elam:
Most people are going into retirement with a fixed income. They know what that game plan looks like and we always ask, are those numbers gross, or are those numbers net? Why? Because that matters, because if you do not plan things right, especially when we head into retirement, the unexpected, am I going to need a roof? What happens if I get sick? What happens… healthcare insurance continues to go up, but the big thing that we have to be conscious with on top of all those are taxes and again, that tax number is going to be… I\’m telling you, we see it day in and day out when we meet people as part of that Thrive Retirement Roadmap, that tax piece is such an eye-opening number of what percentage of the budget it makes up.

Bret Elam:
A lot of what you hear out there, a lot of the publications, I love it and starting to become more relevant. We\’ve been talking about taxes, how long now Krause? A couple of years on this show. I mean you got to navigate that puzzle piece where I\’m all about putting the puzzle pieces together. When you ever look at how long, how big that IRS book is, we can\’t mess it up and it\’s hard to figure out on our own and especially as we graduate to retirement, I\’ll call it Krause. If we don\’t navigate it right, there\’s penalties and things in there of 50 plus percent.

Bret Elam:
I see it often. You get somebody with a million dollars in retirement. I\’m talking about the hidden ones, not the easy tax bracket things that we see, but if we don\’t do things right on average, we\’re seeing almost $61,000 for an average investor with a million dollars. Here are two words that I love Krause. How do we combat it? And this is what today\’s show is all about. You want to be a tax planner, you want to be a tax procrastinator and what happens is we\’re working on our own. You\’re working with so many people. Maybe you have an account, maybe you have a CPA. Here\’s our concern, is those people are simply tax preparers. Simply reporting what just happened last year versus what we are passionate about, forward tax planning.

Bret Elam:
Let me read for you Krause what forward tax planning means. Tax planning is an analysis. I\’ve got to go to the dictionary here, Krause. Is an analysis of the finances from a tax perspective with the purpose of ensuring maximum tax efficiency. Considerations of tax planning include the timing, the size, meaning the magnitude, the timing of when I\’m going to buy something, the timing of when the income\’s going to come in and those expenditures. Tax planning strategies can include saving for retirement in an IRA or engaging in tax gain, loss harvesting. You see it all the time. If people that we meet earlier into the equation before retirement, you got a great game plan, you have time to start preparing to set yourself up for that efficiency long-term.

Bret Elam:
Again, remember people are living longer and longer and longer and poor and haphazard tax planning. I see it all the time, are moving you into the higher tax brackets all of a sudden throwing off Medicare surcharges. Again, it\’s that domino effect. It\’s that domino effect. Again, we need to have that plan of putting it together. Again, what happens if you don\’t have that plan? Let me tell you conventional wisdom. I get a job. Everyone says go put all that money in your 401(k). Again, that\’s conventional wisdom. You get the packet. We\’re sheep. Just go do it. No, no one ever asks those questions and then maybe we\’re getting a match so it becomes a no brainer, right?

Bret Elam:
[inaudible 00:16:00] the icing on the cake is, you\’re never paying taxes on your contributions you\’re putting in, and then what happens? Now we move into retirement because we listen to what everyone told us in every magazine and every radio do it this way, do it this way and do it this way and what did you just create is a gigantic ticking tax bomb which is called required minimum distributions, and where I get passionate about that Krause is I call these 401(k)s and IRAs, profit-sharing plans and guess who controls what percentage of the profits they keep? Uncle Sam. How? They changed the tax rates. I\’m passionate about this.

Bret Elam:
Everything we\’re staring at, the stimulus package. Just, we\’re going backwards every day. I don\’t know how these presses are printing cash as fast as we\’re spending it these days and giving that money away, taxes have to go up at some point in time and we can be proactive today with low tax rates as opposed to kicking the can down the road and being a tax procrastinator. Now we got a couple favors. We\’ve been talking about the SECURE Act. Remember the SECURE Act rose that minimum required distribution age from 70 and a half, now 72 but don\’t forget the three things that the SECURE Act is going against. We\’re losing control of our monies.

Bret Elam:
Number two, inheritances are going down and taxes, taxes, taxes are going up. Again, when we understand required minimum distributions, we have to be proactive and a part of the stimulus plan that came out through this whole pandemic. Remember, no requirement, no required distributions. No required minimum distributions for year 2020 whether it\’s a beneficiary IRA, whether you skipped your requirement minimum distribution because you turned 70 and a half last year, we get to skip it. Why? The government wants to give everybody an opportunity to get that money to come back from a market standpoint but guess what Krause? And this is what I love.

Bret Elam:
Here\’s the opportunity and a good friend of mine, my partner over here always told me the word opportunity, and let me tell you what an opportunity is. Is being at the right place at the right time, right? There\’s actually more to it. You have to take advantage of it. A lot of people were in the right place, the right time, just a little bit ago and they missed the opportunity and let\’s talk about what the opportunity is.

Bret Elam:
Again, you got to be ready for this. You got to be an optimist. You heard the market went down. That doesn\’t mean you put your head in the sand. It means you got to be an optimist. What can I do now to take advantage of the situation? Again, understanding current tax rates, understanding the market did go down 35% in a month and even though it\’s come back, we are still down about 12 to 15% overall in the market.

David Bezar:
Bret, let me just interrupt you. Because I don\’t think people sometimes get this. Every once in a while they have these events called black swan events, right? These are those unique black swan. How often do you see one in nature? Right? It\’s this unique experience opportunity and if you think about what Bret\’s talking about right now, this is an economic tsunami, right? We\’ve got… you\’ve got tax rates that haven\’t been this low in 40 years and a market downturn like we just saw. It sets up an amazing opportunity if people are looking for it. Unfortunately, Joe, a lot of people are out in the backyard kind of looking for four-leaf clovers while opportunity\’s banging on the front door. This is one of those opportunities.

Joe Krause:
Or not even looking.

David Bezar:
Yeah. And with the health crisis, there\’s a bit of paralysis. This opportunity is going to be fleeting for a lot of people.

Bret Elam:
And we\’re starting to see publications starting to say this and we\’ve been passionate about it, talking about it for years because most people, they\’re leaving those IRAs and 401(k)s to the next generation, children, grandchildren and here\’s the opportunity. The market goes down. If you believe that you\’re just going to buy and hold. Think if we have $300,000 and we just lost a third, which happened at the end of March, well, if you think you\’re going to ride it back up, it makes sense. David just said it. There\’s a tax sale, the biggest opportunity over 40 years, low tax rates, and the market coming down. Convert, get to the Roth, pay the tax on the seed, and let the harvest grow back tax-free.

Bret Elam:
This only is going to happen so many times in history Krause and it\’s such an especially attractive opportunity. In case you missed it, the definition of an opportunity, being at the right place at the right time and most importantly Krause taken advantage of it. Krause unfortunately, many people have lost a lot of money during this market. It\’s gone up, it\’s gone down, but are still down overall. This isn\’t a scare tactic. This is just simply the truth. We\’re all about the facts Krause but here it is. It\’s the opportunity. It\’s the silver lining that nobody\’s talking about. The market\’s down the best opportunity in 40 years to save that small fortune in taxes and retirement.

Bret Elam:
We share with people every day how you can save tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars with our free tax reduction analysis. The free analysis can be done over the phone, a short Zoom meeting, and again, it\’s just simple 15-minute conversation. Again, with some basic information from you, we\’ll find the biggest opportunities that could reduce your taxes with your IRAs, 401(k), social security, investments, real estate, everything you have. The 15-minute analysis Krause, here\’s the best, doesn\’t cost you a dime. No strings attached. Nothing to lose.

Bret Elam:
If you have saved, if you\’re listening today and you\’ve saved more than a quarter million dollars, $250,000 in retirement, be one of our first 10 callers and get your free 15 minute analysis now by calling us at (215) 987-2430. Again, take advantage of this window of opportunity. We\’re at the right place at the right time. Let\’s take advantage of it. You could save that small fortune in taxes. Call (215) 987-2430. Once more that\’s (215) 987-2430.

Joe Krause:
Well done. Well said Bret, taxes and opportunity. They go together when you\’re working with the right advocate for you, and that\’s what this radio program is all about.

Bret Elam:
Amen.

Joe Krause:
We\’re going to get to a commercial break. On the other side of the break, David Bezar is going to join us. The question, when you finally do retire and perhaps you\’re right on the doorstep right now, you\’re going to rely I think more on social security benefits, on that social security check perhaps more than ever. On the other side of the break, how do you get every nickel or how do you utilize every nickel out of your social security benefits? [inaudible 00:23:04].

Speaker 1:
We\’re halfway through this week\’s edition of Roadmap to Retirement, the radio show. Lots more great information on the way, including a wish from everyone at Thrive Financial Services for a happy and safe mother\’s day.

Joe Krause:
Welcome back everyone to Roadmap to Retirement, the radio show here on talk radio 1210 WPHT. If you were forced into early retirement because of all of this craziness, social security benefits are going to become more of a priority I think to you. When should you claim your benefits? We\’ve had that conversation so many times. That decision, how it impacts your taxes, your Medicare premiums and some of those benefits are all part of that decision. Welcome back everyone to Roadmap to Retirement, the radio show along with David Bezar, Karen Bezar and Bret Elam. I\’m Joe Krause. We\’re talking to you today about four steps, four things or four categories, David, that are so important for the listeners to know.

David Bezar:
Yeah, it\’s pretty amazing, right? We sometimes think our plans are really put in place, they\’re concrete, rock solid and then you get kind of an event like this that just completely disrupts what people were originally thinking and one of the areas that\’s really being impacted, not fundamentally, but what people think about it is social security. We got together and we thought it\’d be a good idea to address social security once again. Step number three of this four step plan is to maximize your safest source of income, which is your social security benefits. It\’s interesting, I saw an article this week from Forbes that actually said social security benefits function as a $1.5 million annuity and should be considered the foundation of your overall retirement plan. That\’s kind of an interesting, right? And that\’s what we see.

David Bezar:
When we do the social security maximization report, the total lifetime benefits paid out for the people that we have visited with Joe and remember we\’ve probably… Bret, what\’s the number? I mean at this point and we\’ve probably seen over 10,000 people in the past five years easily. I mean just all that complimentary consultations that we do, we see that the total lifetime benefits is over a million bucks for most people, but unfortunately 50% of the American population makes the decision to take that benefit at the earliest possible age and when you poll people about that, they say it\’s, they think the social security fund is going to run out of money or my friend told me to take it, whatever. Right? I mean there\’s so many things and it shouldn\’t really be just such a haphazard approach to it.

David Bezar:
As a matter of fact, I mean, claiming your social security benefits is really more complicated and confusing than ever before. This blows me away Joe. There\’s 2,700 plus rules in the social security handbook, almost as big as the IRS tax code.

Joe Krause:
It\’s unbelievable.

David Bezar:
Just for social security. Right? And most people think age 62 full retirement age or age 70. Why does there need to be 2,700 plus pages to tell you that? It\’s just unbelievable.

Joe Krause:
I don\’t even think people look at the rules.

David Bezar:
Yeah, of course. Right? I mean we… even if we get our paper statement, people kind of already have it and I don\’t say that disrespectfully-

Joe Krause:
Yeah, I [crosstalk 00:26:32].

David Bezar:
…it\’s just that\’s kind of the way it is. There are literally hundreds of thousands of rules there and we kind of geek out on this side of retirement, right? Our specialty is not helping people get to retirement. Our specialty is helping people navigate retirement successfully and it is… I get blown away. We\’ve been doing so many of these virtual appointments and the experience, and again we tell people we are so authentic with this being a complimentary process. Social security maximization reports, what I\’m talking about right now is part of that complimentary process where people say I\’ve had this long, long standing relationship with my existing advisor, I have no intention of becoming your client and we respond. Look, we haven\’t even asked you to become our client. It\’s all good at the end of that virtual meeting.

David Bezar:
Okay, so what\’s the next step? How do I become your client? Because what they see as something as maybe not perceived to be all that critically important as social security but when Forbes says it\’s $1.5 million annuity and should be the fundamental piece of your retirement, and we explain that and we show how to make the adjustments, it becomes a big darn deal. How and when you claim these benefits can impact a lot more than the amount of just your benefit check.

David Bezar:
Here\’s the challenge show. You could also unknowingly trigger an avalanche of taxes. You could double your Medicare premiums and you could actually cause the forfeiture of thousands of dollars in spousal benefits if you don\’t know what you\’re doing. If you\’re just taking that blind approach, I\’m going to take it here, my wife\’s going to take it there. Those are the things that can basically happen. Most Americans like I said earlier, kind of takes social security benefits at face value and they wind up leaving tens of thousands of dollars. I mean literally it\’s just amazing when we see these reports.

David Bezar:
Here\’s the other aspect about social security than just leaving dollars on the table, and in retirement I joke when we do the workshops, but I say every extra hundred thousand dollars in retirement helps and we get a pretty good chuckle out of that but then you see people go, yeah, yeah, right. That\’s not a joke. An extra-

Joe Krause:
That\’s a real number.

David Bezar:
That\’s a real number. Right? Now, the other thing and we\’ve talked a little bit about taxes is if you don\’t take social security properly and you don\’t factor in all the other elements of your retirement income plan, you could end up paying as much as 85% of your social security benefits could end up being taxed.

Joe Krause:
That\’s my favorite slide during our webinar workshop. Is column A, column B, the same amount of income switching IRA versus social security, and all of a sudden an example on the left $4,600 in taxes. Example on the right, $30 in taxes. Again, there\’s a lot of detail beyond what I just said, but oh my gosh, social security is taxed differently. You got to navigate it like an asset, like David\’s talking about.

David Bezar:
Yeah. We had a webinar, online webinar on Thursday night and happy birthday Bret, by the way.

Bret Elam:
Thank you sir.

David Bezar:
We gave him the night.

Bret Elam:
You gave me the night. I had the night office, passed away. There we go man.

Joe Krause:
People love. Well done.

Bret Elam:
I\’m 24 now. 24.

David Bezar:
If you go to Facebook, you\’ll see the dinner that Bret\’s wife, Heather made for him, which was very envious by the way.

Bret Elam:
A braised short ribs did, red wine reduction. It was worth it.

Karen Bezar:
Wow, I would never attempt that.

Bret Elam:
We\’re not going out for dinner anymore. We just figured out the new budget saver right there.

Joe Krause:
Yeah, right.

Karen Bezar:
Come on, what you-

Joe Krause:
Put that money into retirement.

David Bezar:
But my point is, when I did the online webinar, there are a number of real aha moments and what Bret just talked, that column A, column B, do I take social security early and that forces me to take more IRA money. Excuse me. Or do I wait and take social security as late as possible and that way you don\’t have to take a lot from… The tax impact on that is gargantuan and again, most people, especially if you\’re a do it yourselfer, don\’t even think about that and this is where those hundreds of thousands of dollars just by tweaking the plan a little bit can actually become reality.

Joe Krause:
Yeah, and Bret, that\’s what you had mentioned in that previous segment and you talk about so much is understanding how to navigate the tax portion.

Bret Elam:
Think of what I just shared.

Joe Krause:
That slide, I\’m visualizing the slide.

Bret Elam:
$4,600, that\’s one year. That\’s for the rest of your life. Multiply it by 10 you play social security right, you can get a free car at $46,000 in a decade Krause. Navigate it, right? Treat social security like an asset.

Joe Krause:
I want David to give you a few more [crosstalk 00:31:34].

David Bezar:
Here\’s the other thing, Joe, right? I mentioned it earlier, how your social security income if not done properly could impact your Medicare surcharge premiums. Another piece of the puzzle that the consumer, the investor doesn\’t necessarily take into consideration. I mean the rules and guidelines for Medicare changes every single year and if you think you\’ve learned it, next thing they do is they flip it right on you and it changes. The other thing is there\’s additional benefits that this social security maximization report that we do for people, sometimes it comes out and they go, I didn\’t know that I didn\’t… So here\’s some additional benefits, right? Spousal benefits, survivor benefits, disability benefits. These are all things that you may be entitled to that you never even considered looking into or even kind of knew that you could qualify for those.

David Bezar:
Social security benefits can be very complicated and that\’s because you can sometimes claim benefits not only based on your own work record, but also based on the earnings history of a current spouse, a former spouse or a spouse who passed away. There are also different kinds of benefits including retirement and disability benefits. Again, this social security maximization report that we offer complimentary basically illustrates, it kind of brings the light on here\’s what… it\’s not so simple. Here\’s what, when we dissect it, this is what\’s available to you and most times, Joe, nine out of 10 times money that you didn\’t anticipate, an increase in lifetime benefits and an improvement in taxes. Just from a simple report that literally takes us 15 minutes to get done. I mean that\’s pretty amazing, right?

Joe Krause:
Well, and when you put that in the context of if you make the wrong decision on social security, you don\’t get a redo.

David Bezar:
That\’s it. That\’s a big point. That\’s a real big point.

Joe Krause:
My favorite one. How many combinations on social security? 567. They don\’t make it easy.

David Bezar:
Yeah, it\’s a big darn deal. What I try to share with people, Joe, is have you made an average or above average income throughout your working life? If so, here\’s the challenge, right? The traditional rules for claiming social security may not… traditional rules may not apply. You may think that delaying your benefits as long as possible will yield more income. Some might even say it\’s a no brainer, but if you follow this strategy, it could wind up costing you a fortune if you consider the impact, like I said, of taxes and Medicare premiums and so on and so forth.

David Bezar:
I just give a really strong encouragement. Learn how you could get more income from social security by just taking us up on this free customized social security analysis. It\’s going to show you all the things that we talked about. If you\’ve saved more than $250,000 in retirement savings and have not filed for social security yet, I would encourage you to be one of the first 10 callers to get your free analysis. You can do that by calling us at (215) 987-2430. That\’s (215) 987-2430. That analysis will really enlighten you. It\’s easy. It\’s complimentary.

Joe Krause:
Well done. Well said. Another great segment here as we go into our final commercial break on talk radio 1210 WPHT. I send you into the break with the question, how will you generate income in retirement? The options, after the break from David Bezar, Karen Bezar and Bret Elam. Back in a moment.

Speaker 1:
David, Karen, Bret, and Joe will be back with more of this week\’s Roadmap to Retirement, the radio show in just moments, but first on behalf of everyone at Thrive Financial Services, happy mother\’s day.

Joe Krause:
Thanks much for being with us on talk radio 1210 WPHT. How will you pay for your retirement? That\’s a big question. How will you generate income in retirement? Welcome back everyone to the Roadmap to Retirement, the radio show presented by Thrive Financial Services. I\’m Joe Krause along with David Bezar, Karen Bezar and Bret Elam, three people on this radio show who are advocates for you and with that Karen, I turn it back over to you.

Karen Bezar:
Bringing me back again. Okay, here we go. One thing we do when we meet with people, they come in and it is important to have a bulletproof income plan in retirement and we ask people, when you come in, don\’t forget to bring in your income retirement plan and sometimes they\’re like, what are you talking about? And sometimes few people have it, but it\’s so, so important in retirement. It is all about your income. Knowing where your money\’s going to come from every month is so crucial because in effect you\’re creating your own paycheck.

Karen Bezar:
It\’s a little scary when you stop working and that paycheck is no longer coming in. How do you really prepare for retirement? Number one is you have to have an income retirement plan and we meet with people, we do a report, we call it a stress analysis and very important part of that report and something really important to know before your retirement is how much money you need to live off of each month.

Karen Bezar:
I enjoy doing this, especially with couples because sometimes they have the numbers, sometimes they don\’t. I have people that have it down to the penny and then I have some people that don\’t have it and I have a husband and wife sitting there and the husband is blah, blah blah, and they start going over numbers and I think it\’s this number and the wife looks at him like, are you crazy? That\’s not even near the amount that we need to live off every month. Because when you\’re retired, you want to still go to the movies. You still like to eat out. If you have grandchildren, you like to spoil your grandchildren.

Karen Bezar:
A successful retirement is not built on your assets or the amount of money you\’ve saved. They\’re built on your ability to generate income, and you have to remember during your early years you\’re saving money and you\’re putting it in assets that are going to grow but like you, near retirement is kind of the second phase, right? You need to devote your decades of saving into… it has to switch from making more money to really generating income and saving money. Because this is when the market corrections come in and you can\’t recover from it as quickly.

Karen Bezar:
In the olden days people used to have pensions and then they also had easily, you could put money into savings accounts or in CDs. I remember when CDs were paying 6%, 7% maybe even 8% but it\’s not the case anymore. You definitely have to be focused and just look at rising costs nowadays. Bret, I\’m going to hand it over to you, but remember the olden days with the CDs or with the high rates, not the case anymore.

Bret Elam:
I always tell people, and they remember late \’70s, early \’80s double digit CDs, but remember mortgage rates and everything else were crazier. We are not there. Again, a bulletproof income plan. People don\’t plan to fail. They fail to plan. Create the plan. Karen just said it. Rates have gone to oomph guts. Okay, and we talked about diversification today too, Krause. Diversification of your assets. You got to hear diversification of your taxes. Again, understanding the difference part of that, but also Krause you got to diversify your income and that\’s what this is all about.

Bret Elam:
Again, a great article we just saw. Again, rates are low, they\’re rough. Again, when we talk about income, social security, pensions, a thing of the past, if you\’re lucky enough to still have one. Dividend stocks, bonds, real estate, all that stuff. Great article. Helping people recession proof their retirement income. And here\’s the biggest concern I hear right now. We build those bullet proof plans for Krause and David talked about it. We have people coming in, oh my gosh, I got to start my social security early. No you don\’t. You need a plan and we stick with the plan. Get the emotion out of the equation. You\’ve got to stay rational. That\’s what a plan is. Not in your head written down on a piece of paper.

Bret Elam:
It reminds me of probably the most phenomenal article that probably David and I stumbled upon almost five years ago, and it\’s so relative to this. From the Harvard Business Review, people need to worry about income and not net worth. People need to worry about their income and not their net worth. I can tell you, mom and dad, they may have liked to have saved a little bit more money. My parents, but you know what I\’m thankful of? Is they worked for a company that has a pension. They may not have that net worth, but guess what happens every month? The first of the month? It refills back up. They get the pension, they get the social security, and I\’m thankful.

Bret Elam:
You know what they didn\’t worry about? They didn\’t worry about the coronavirus and the market going down because they had a rock solid plan for income. We see people all the time with that. When you say, how do we build those plans? We just had a client, $268,000, okay. Coronavirus, just last week, one year earned 13.3%. A 268,000… this was in an annuity Krause. $268,000 earned 13.3% and their principal and their interests were locked in. That\’s almost three or four years worth of interest in one year. So we banked it for them to be able to pull money from in retirement. We share with people, you can ladder bonds to generate that income. Sometimes you may want to just create your own pension if you don\’t work for an employer [inaudible 00:41:48] pension. Annuities do that.

Bret Elam:
David talked about the best annuity. A million and a half dollar annuity is social security. You got to have a plan to put all those puzzle pieces together. Joe, we talked… today, so we heard diversification, we heard taxes, we heard social security planning, and we\’ve just heard about income planning. Those are the four things that build… I mean, that\’s a four legged stool, right? That\’s really what it takes to navigate retirement successfully. I\’d say… here\’s some things to understand, right? In retirement, it\’s all about income. You can stay invested for growth, but it should be at a smaller percentage. You\’ll want to prepare for future taxes. With this deficit that we\’re building taxes are going up and if legacy is important, don\’t leave it to chance. I mean the SECURE Act has really changed things around related to that.

Bret Elam:
Hopefully we\’ve been able to deliver today. You could hear our passion. We understand the moment that we\’re living in right now and with this economic kind of downturn tax is low, it really does create a wonderful opportunity for retirees and pre-retirees to come in virtually and really get an understanding of what that written retirement income plan could look like. I don\’t want to belabor that Joe, but I do want to spend a minute. We tend not to really promote ourselves in that way, but I feel so passionate right now about these different reports that we can do.

Bret Elam:
A social security maximization report. We can do a Roth conversion tax analysis report. We can run an investment portfolio stress test to make sure that you\’re prepared for any future declines. We can run a retirement analysis stress point where we\’re looking at all the possible conditions that can happen and derail a retirement. That is all done complimentary. Now, the reason we say $250,000 of retirement savings, we\’ll talk to anybody. Joe, you that.

Joe Krause:
Absolutely.

Bret Elam:
We\’ve been doing this for a long time. We\’re not exclusive, we\’re very inclusive but when it comes to tax planning and social security planning, we find that that type of an investor is who we can really help the most. If you\’re interested in this free 15 minute analysis, you\’ll discover the different opportunities that could help you generate more income in retirement while reducing all the risks and… it just all comes together. The simplest way to do that, Joe, is call us at (215) 987-2430. Again, that\’s (215) 987-2430.

Joe Krause:
Great stuff and a great show on this Saturday here on talk radio 1210 WPHT. Do yourself a favor. (215) 987-2430. That\’s going to do it for this week\’s edition of Roadmap to Retirement, the radio show. On behalf of David Bezar, Karen Bezar, and Bret Elam who we say happy birthday. One more time.

Bret Elam:
Thanks Krause.

Joe Krause:
See you next time everybody.