[fusebox_track_player url=\”https://soundcloud.com/livewiththrive/the-psychological-impacts-of-uncertainty-with-money\” social_linkedin=\”true\” social_email=\”true\” ]

 

Speaker:
Welcome to Roadmap to Retirement the Radio Show with David Bezar, Karen Bezar, and Bret Elam from Thrive Financial Services who have been featured on Fox, ABC, NBC, The Wall Street Journal, and more. Saving for retirement is a great start but it\’s what you do with this money that really matters.

Speaker:
What\’s your strategy to reduce taxes? Generate income in retirement? Reduce your risk and get even more from social security? This is where you can count on straight forward and objective advice about how you can make your money go a lot further in retirement. Roadmap to Retirement the Radio Show. Now here are your hosts, David, Karen, and Bret along with Joe Krause.

Joe Krause:
And welcome in everyone to Roadmap to Retirement the Radio Show as we come to you on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT along with David Bezar, Karen Bezar, and Bret Elam. I\’m Joe Krause back for another week of advocacy, another week of providing some great information and we\’re going off the rails today David. We have a great guest lined up that\’s going to join us in the next segment but I want to begin the broadcast today, I heard yesterday with Dom Giordano, a great conversation about the Biden tax plan and some of the implications, really, really good stuff.

David Bezar:
Yeah, thanks, Joe. We enjoyed spending some time with Dom and again we\’re always trying to get out a great message and wanted to talk about what we talked about yesterday was just we have no crystal ball. We have no idea who\’s going to end up as our president but we here at Thrive we\’re looking at it from a perspective of what\’s the impact for retirees? People who are either in retirement or getting ready for retirement how does this impact?

David Bezar:
And a lot of times you know as well as I do, people read the headlines but they don\’t really look at what the consequences basically are. And look, I\’m a patriot, I want to make sure everything that happens, happens for the good of the country but at the same time I would tell you, tax changes really can be very disruptive when you\’ve already gone down this path and you\’re set in your way and then out of left field something comes out there to derail it.

David Bezar:
So I think today\’s going to be an awesome show for our audience. We\’re going to spread a lot of good information. We\’re going to talk about Roth conversions. We actually have a good giveaway that we\’ll talk about throughout the different segments. It\’s a flow chart that we\’ve created here at Thrive that really helps people go down this path in figuring out whether doing a Roth conversion makes sense for their retirement and I\’m really looking forward to our guest speaker.

David Bezar:
Somebody who I know personally, Dr. Baker. Awesome person. She\’s a local psychologist. She\’s got years of experience. What she\’s going to be talking about has a lot to do with the stress and the psychological impact of what\’s going on out there today and I think she\’s going to be incredibly helpful for our audience.

Karen Bezar:
I agree, and along with the psychological aspect of everything, just moving into retirement sometimes for people, going from work life to retirement that\’s a psychological change as well so I\’m happy to hear from her and we had an exciting week as well. We had a webinar and we had awesome attendance at that, so we\’re proud of that, and thank you for everybody for watching.

Bret Elam:
Yeah, always incredible and always excited to have special guests on the show. Maybe it breaks the monotony a little bit. But just giving those experts, again we go back and forth about emotional, rational, emotional, rational talking about behavioral economics and all of those different things that are out there but that successful workshop that we just had this week coupled with that topic and we\’re going to go deep on it again today just talking about Roth conversions, why it makes sense.

Bret Elam:
But it\’s that psychological, our brain is programmed, don\’t pay taxes, defer them, defer them, defer them, defer them and if you\’re a regular listener of this show you know we\’re a big advocate of paying them up-front. I saw something very basic that hit me right in the head just talking about Roth conversions because you hear about it in the words and it\’s logical and we\’re going to talk about the flow chart and stuff like that.

Bret Elam:
But think about this, let\’s just assume that you think rates are going to go up at 7% in the market. Just a growth on your IRA, whatever money that you have but you got to pay 30% in taxes. Okay so traditional IRA of $10,000 and let\’s just assume that my IRA\’s going to grow at 7% for the next 30 years. So if that happens then I have to pay 30% in taxes when it comes out, what\’s your left with is $53,000.

Bret Elam:
What a lot of people don\’t realize is, okay if I\’m going to make that conversion on a Roth where I\’ve got to pay the tax today on that, the 30% on that same $10,000, and then you let it defer for the next 30 years, and now that money is now tax-free, guess what you\’re left with? The same $53,000. Now, where we\’re at from there, guess what? That\’s assuming today\’s tax rates and again with all the stress, no matter what you believe, but the government is printing money at a record pace.

Bret Elam:
Again with the stimulus money that\’s out there and again the talks of continued money that\’s going to be out there. If taxes, if you believe that they\’re going to go up, again multiplication is communicative. It didn\’t matter what order I just said where the 30% is coming out, at the end or in the beginning, you get to the same spot but if you\’re a believer that one of those variables is going to change and the only variable that would change in that equation is the tax rate. It\’s why we want to be that much more proactive up-front.

Karen Bezar:
So some of the things to think about, if you\’re out there listening going, should I do a Roth conversion? Is it worth it? So here\’s some things we look at, at Thrive and we actually will be discussing in a little bit more detail but will your income in retirement actually be higher? Do you have pension income? Are you coupled? Do you both have pension incomes? And then social security? So that\’s something to think about like Bret said, the fairy tale of having lower income in retirement doesn\’t work out. We\’ve seen that.

Karen Bezar:
Will your required minimum distributions be burdensome in the future? I\’ve spoken to many people and when we do the tax analysis and the tax reports looking at retirement they are shocked at what required minimum distributions are going to do to their taxes as they get older. And think about it right now, is the current marginal tax bracket is it low? Is the current marginal tax rate, or I should say current tax rates, are they lower now? Are they going to be higher in the future?

Karen Bezar:
We don\’t know that for sure. Like David says, we don\’t have a crystal ball but how about you start planning that they will be higher so that you\’re not going to be shocked when you retire.

David Bezar:
Yeah, so one of the things we did and it\’s hard to visualize this, that\’s why we tell people, we\’ll give out our phone number and you can call in and get a copy of this flow chart that I\’m talking about right now and we\’ve talked about this on the show all the time, is are you a tax procrastinator or are you a tax planner? So where are we at in the year? It\’s September, we\’re almost at the last quarter of the year.

David Bezar:
We have to start making considerations about what we\’re going to do now so that we can implement them before the end of the year because once we hit 12/31 it basically then it really reduces any options that we have to be tax planners. So this chart, it\’s for 2020. Should I consider doing a Roth conversion?

David Bezar:
The first question that pops up on the flow chart and we\’ve made this as simple as possible for people to go down a path to make a good quality decision based on all of the facts. So the first question is, will you need the distributions from your retirement account? Yes or no?

David Bezar:
Now like Karen just said we meet tons and tons and tons of people who didn\’t really realize how much money they were going to have. How much income, how much cash flow they were going to have in retirement but if you think about it, if you make the right election choices for your social security you could end up having $45, $55, $65,000 a year coming in from social security, two-income household just from social security.

David Bezar:
If you happen to be a fortunate person that either one or two pensions in the house the pensions could be two, three, four-thousand dollars a month each, and then if you\’ve done the right job like a lot of the people that we visit with, you may have accumulated a nice nest egg where your required minimum distributions can be another two, three or four-thousand dollars a year.

David Bezar:
So if we add that up holy smokes right? Now we\’re over $100,000 a year in retirement and with the tax rates today we know where we\’re at but if Bret said, what if they bump up? What if they go from a 22% marginal tax bracket up to a 28 or a 30? Now, you could end up losing tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes.

Joe Krause:
Yeah and I know one thing that was mentioned in that interview with Dom in the appearance, David was the ability for us to not know. The ability for us to not pay attention to that and understand the consequences. You were talking about consequences with Dom yesterday and I thought that was really, really important. Sometimes I think that we don\’t stop to understand that or think about that.

David Bezar:
Well, it\’s self-interest. So when we read something we hear something, we watch something we tend to go, \”How does that impact me directly?\” And again it\’s layers. We look at it on our initial purview, we go, \”Oh my God that doesn\’t impact me or it does.\”

David Bezar:
Well when you think about the trickle-down effect, for example being let\’s take the person I just described and they think taxes are going to go up and they want to do a Roth conversion. Well, let\’s say they\’re already making $100,000 and they want to try to get as much of their money out of their IRAs as quickly as possible because those required minimum distributions are coming in the future.

David Bezar:
Well, let\’s say they want to take out $300,000. Now on the proposed tax plans that we talked about, that puts them over $400,000 of income and that\’s the target zone where you could have dramatically increased taxation. So again maybe you don\’t think you hit those tax problems but as you start to plan out retirement it could happen.

Joe Krause:
Yeah I mean it\’s the tax bomb. It\’s what we\’re talking about, the uncertainty, and all of a sudden you have a plan of where you think you\’re going, and all of a sudden a major variable changes.

Bret Elam:
It\’s like we ask people all the time, \”Hey how much money do you have in your IRA or 401k?\” And they always answer us very quickly, and then the follow-up question is \”Well how much are you keeping?\” And it\’s that awkward pause because you got to take into account, \”Well I don\’t know.\” It\’s the taxes.

Bret Elam:
And again we just talk a lot on today\’s show already just about Roth conversions and I think a lot of people you\’re seeing it on Facebook, you\’re seeing it on TV, you\’re seeing it all over the media, it\’s printed everywhere and it\’s creating, \”Hey should I do it? Shouldn\’t I? Are tax rates going up? Who\’s going to win the election?\” There\’s so many variables that\’s going on in our head.

Bret Elam:
Here\’s our encouragement. It\’s reach out to us to get this flow chart to help you logically come to a decision. Again you can reach out to us at 215-987-2430. Again if you have lots of money, especially unwanted, unneeded money that you\’re going to use in retirement, again between loved ones, charity, and government where do you want your money to go? We know it\’s not number three at the end of the day.

Bret Elam:
So my encouragement is if you have some of those lingering questions that are out there related to Roth conversion, does it make sense to me? Do I wait? Do I do it now? Whatever that case may be, my encouragement is please pick up the phone and call us at 215-987-2430. Again that\’s 215-978-2430.

Joe Krause:
As we go into our first commercial break here on Roadmap to Retirement the Radio Show and we continue to social distance from the offices here at Thrive Financial Services in Fort Washington, our guest is going to bring some perspective to all of this craziness David because I think that craziness knocks us off the rails in terms of our thinking. Just a thought, very excited to Dr. Maggie Baker. We\’ll bring her into the program after the break.

Joe Krause:
And welcome back everyone to Roadmap to Retirement the Radio Show as we come to you on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT. So glad you\’re with us. As we went into the commercial break I referenced Dr. Maggie Baker, here\’s a few of Dr. Maggie Baker\’s credentials. Dr. Baker is a practicing psychologist and financial therapist in private practice.

Joe Krause:
She\’s located in the Philadelphia area. She\’s a member and a past board member of the Financial Therapy Association which was founded in 2009, and she has presented at the Financial Therapy Association annual conference and has co-written an article in the textbook, Financial Therapy: Theory, Research, and Practice. And with that introduction, Dr. Baker I welcome you into Roadmap to Retirement. So nice to have you come on to the radio program.

Dr. Maggie Baker:
Thank you very much, I\’m delighted to be here and I might add one thing to the information you gave about me, I also wrote a book called Crazy About Money: How Emotions Confuse Our Money Choices and What to Do About It. And I\’d like to start with the whole notion about crazy about money that is probably heightened in such uncertain times and creates a lot of churn in all of us in terms of the way we think about it.

Dr. Maggie Baker:
Very, very uncertainly and with a certain degree of pain because we don\’t know where we\’re going in the sense that there\’s so many uncertainties now with the pandemic, with the election, with people out of work on the one hand and the stock market going way up on the other hand. It\’s very, very hard to… What you all emphasize, plan. How do you plan when you don\’t know what\’s going to happen month to month?

Dr. Maggie Baker:
And I think in that uncertainty people end up feeling much more vulnerable and who likes to feel vulnerable? Because it makes you feel as if you\’re really out of control. And when you feel vulnerable you tend to fear. You go into a fear mentality or an anxious mentality rather than a confident pro-active mentality. And when you do that, you tend to hold on to, clutch, and feel a sense of scarcity about practically everything.

Dr. Maggie Baker:
Certainly, money because you don\’t know what\’s going to happen to it, and if you have been unfortunate enough to lose your job you\’re really worried because it\’s so close. And just the fear tends to generalize and then the ways you think about money, which I call money scripts, they\’re kind of shorthand half-truths about what attitudes you have about money.

Dr. Maggie Baker:
So for instance, if you have a sense of scarcity one of your money scripts might be, \”I\’ll never have enough.\” Or \”I\’ll never have enough, I\’ll run out of money before I die and I\’ll end up on the street.\” Or \”People are out to exploit me and take what I have or maybe I\’ll get sick and compromise my earning capacity.\”

Joe Krause:
Well, Doctor Baker let\’s take those one at a time, lets get into some of that because that\’s David what we\’ve talked about a lot on this program. It\’s not how much money Bret you make, it\’s how much money you keep.

David Bezar:
Yeah, and Dr. Baker I would ask, most of the people listening are probably folks that are either just about to retire or have retired, and with the uncertainty of the stock market that\’s a gauge that I guess really can create this fear and anxiety. What advice can you maybe provide to help people quell that anxiety?

Dr. Maggie Baker:
Well, what I try to do is you can\’t get rid of the pain of the uncertainty. It just doesn\’t work because it is painful but what you can do is make sure that the pain doesn\’t turn into suffering. What you have to kind of go against the negativity that\’s brought up by all of this uncertainty and that takes a certain kind of planning.

Dr. Maggie Baker:
You all mention planning a lot and I can\’t think of a better word to use for your psychological state because let\’s say you\’re one of those people that is either thinking about retirement or has retired and that makes you in some ways worry more about your money because you\’re not actively earning. You\’re not having money coming in. So that sets you up for again, more anxiety.

Dr. Maggie Baker:
But if you\’re retired you also have more time and what I would suggest to people is you may not be able to plan four months from now but you can probably plan for your day or you can plan for your week and the best thing in the world is to learn to focus and to engage in positive activities and that\’s going to be a little harder in these circumstances than usual because you have to kind of tune out the negative messages you may be sending yourself and make an effort to focus on, \”Okay let me plan my day.\”

Dr. Maggie Baker:
And I mean let me have a goal for the day. So even if the goal is to make sure that I go out for a walk so I get good exercise or the goal for the day is to reach out to a friend because I\’m feeling pretty isolated and alone these positive things that you can do for yourself are very, very important to employ because it makes you feel at the end of the day as if you\’ve accomplished something.

Dr. Maggie Baker:
You\’ve distanced yourself from all the worry and the negativity and you have something you can kind of pat yourself on the back for and feel grateful for.

Joe Krause:
Talking with Dr. Maggie Baker, Crazy About Money: How Emotions Confuse Our Money Choices and what to do about it, Bret.

Bret Elam:
Yeah, Dr. Baker, one observation that David, Karen, and I see quite a bit is when we have couples come in and they have polar opposite beliefs on risk. One might be a spender, one might be a saver. When you see differences like this what advice can you give to our listeners that may help with that relationship because now they\’re going to have a lot more time together as well which gives them that ultimate peace of mind?

Dr. Maggie Baker:
Yeah, I say oi vey to start with. Because if you\’ve got someone who\’s an amasser, who gets a great deal of satisfaction watching money grow and you have one who\’s a spender who loves the thrill of the moment of spending and the extreme they are in their positions the harder it is.

Dr. Maggie Baker:
But the most important thing is to help people listen to each other. So let\’s say you have an amasser and a spender and they\’re fighting about how their money should be allocated. And I would say, \”Okay first rule, each person gets two minutes to talk but the other person cannot interrupt.\” Because usually when there\’s conflict everybody wants to talk at the same time.

Dr. Maggie Baker:
And then what you do is you say, \”Okay I\’m going to listen to what you say and I may disagree with you but I\’m going to learn to repeat back to you what I heard you say.\” So if the spender says, \”Well you don\’t know what\’s going to happen to yourself in a year so why not have a little fun with the money?\”

Dr. Maggie Baker:
So if I\’m the amasser, I would have to say back, \”Well you\’re telling me I shouldn\’t miss out on this immediate pleasure and that\’s what you like.\” And then the person would say yes, and then they would do the same to me. So that you learn to kind of extend empathy and it doesn\’t mean you end up having to agree but at least you\’re talking about the real problem.

Dr. Maggie Baker:
And then once you get the understanding of the real problem between each other than you can usually find a way to compromise. And another question I love to throw at people if say I\’m an amasser I would ask myself, what do I envy about a spender? And I\’d think about that and say, \”Well I love their confident attitude that there will always be something to spend and wouldn\’t that be great just to have that freedom to just go out and spend and not worry about it?\”

Dr. Maggie Baker:
And then that gets me in touch with another part of myself that maybe I could learn from.

Karen Bezar:
Dr. Baker this is Karen, nice to chat with you. So when we meet with people that say, \”We can\’t wait to retire, we can\’t wait to retire.\” And then sometimes they get to retirement and they\’re bored or things change. So other than planning financially for retirement do you have any tips to plan emotionally for retirement? And the other thing is when I have couples in here it\’s very funny sometimes the wife says, \”Look I\’m retiring first, I need at least a year without him around the house and vice versa.\”

Dr. Maggie Baker:
And do the guys say that about their wives?

Karen Bezar:
No, they just laugh.

David Bezar:
They know better.

Karen Bezar:
Right, yeah.

Dr. Maggie Baker:
Well, I would say that the word plan applies emotionally as well as financially. The people who do the best in retirement are ones who have a strategy and a plan. A strategy is more like what\’s the mission of my retirement which plays into what\’s my legacy? What do I want to leave other people?

Dr. Maggie Baker:
What do I want other people to believe and understand about me as I go through retirement and get older? And I think that if somebody strategically sits down and figures out their life goal, I want to be remembered as a person who was generous, who was fun, who worked hard. I want to be remembered as a person who cared about other people, whatever it is and then from those basic values, you develop a plan of how can I best express what my strategy and legacy want to be?

Dr. Maggie Baker:
And I think the people who come up with, \”Well I\’d like to do more volunteer work.\” Which people find incredibly satisfying or they want to start a new hobby, they want to spend more time with their grandchildren, whatever it is if they plan it and it\’s something they can really sink their teeth into and engage in, those are the people that I think have the best retirement.

Dr. Maggie Baker:
And I hear time and time again people say, \”I don\’t know how I did my job. I\’m so busy retired its unbelievable.\”

Joe Krause:
Dr. Maggie Baker is here with us on Roadmap to Retirement the Radio Show. Dr. Baker we\’re going to ask you to hold on, we\’re going to pay some bills and get into a commercial break. Back on the other side.

Joe Krause:
And back here on Roadmap to Retirement the Radio Show. We thank the audience for tuning in with us this Saturday and every Saturday on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT. Crazy about money and our special guest is Dr. Maggie Baker.

Bret Elam:
Yeah, Dr. Baker, this is Bret again and talk about crazy about money and how emotions confuse our money choices and what to do about it. So when we use that general word money it can mean different things to different people. Investing, spending, giving, sharing, savings and I know in your book you talk about when these emotions and beliefs are balanced and clear we can make wise decisions and if we are confused with that balance we make poor decisions. Can you maybe elaborate just on that right there? Just talking about how money is a very general word and now we need that be in complete balance just in talking about that.

Dr. Maggie Baker:
Right. Well, you are completely right that being balanced means that you can be rational about it which is the goal but when people are at risk for something called loss aversion they tend to panic, and when you panic you tend to do self-sabotaging behavior in relation to money. And the whole concept of loss aversion is that our emotional reaction to loss whether it\’s a people loss or a financial loss is about two and a half times stronger than gains.

Dr. Maggie Baker:
So if you have a stock that goes down and you lose $100 your reaction is much more intense and negative than the euphoria of the stock going up and earning $100. And because of that, you get thrown into an emotional state and you just want to feel safe from the loss and so you might hold onto a dog stock instead of selling it and going with one that is much more productive.

Bret Elam:
So when you talk about that, and I imagine our beliefs of where we\’re at today weren\’t originated a month ago. It was probably something that happened at birth or the way that we were brought up and again just the way that we think about things whether it\’s that scarcity or abundance mentality is if people are stuck in maybe those ways and wanting to change which is a very unnatural word. People want it but don\’t necessarily want to go through the pain of change. What maybe are some words or guidance that you can give related to that?

Dr. Maggie Baker:
The most important thing is by seven you\’ve got a certain attitude of either abundance or scarcity and that if those attitudes persist and your behavior is not what you want as an adult the first thing you have to do is become aware and becoming aware can be a painful process but it\’s also a relief because it puts you in control. You\’re out of control if those beliefs are driving your behavior and you end up doing things that are self-sabotaging. So you may have to go through a little pain but believe me, it\’s worth it because you get to the other side and you have much more personal power and control that you have given up if you just let your old beliefs sway you.

Joe Krause:
Dr. Maggie Baker is our special guest here on Roadmap to Retirement the Radio Show. A little bit of a different approach for the radio program all created by David Bezar, Karen Bezar, and Bret Elam. We are or they are advocates for not only all of our listeners but all of their clients as well. Dr. Baker, I want to get a comment from you, I know we don\’t have a lot of time left in this segment but I\’d love for you to share just kind of a unique story about perhaps somebody or situation that you encountered with that prompted you to write a book Crazy About Money.

Dr. Maggie Baker:
Oh, I\’d be glad to. During the tech bubble of 2000, I lost significant money. Hundreds of thousands because I was with a pretty reckless broker and long story short I interviewed 12 different money people and found one that I really liked and he got very interested in the psychological approach so we kind of became friends and long story short, he encouraged me to write the book because I got very, very depressed for about a year after I lost all of that money. Feeling so much at fault and out of control and my own personal experience was really the origin of the book.

David Bezar:
Yeah and Dr. Baker I could imagine in private practice people who\’ve read the book looking back at March and April of this year, I guess a lot of people probably went through that similar feeling, and what\’s the outcome of that? We still have this volatility, we still have this uncertainty. I\’ve got to imagine that can actually deplete people emotionally.

Dr. Maggie Baker:
Well, you hit the right word, depletion and when people feel depleted they have to do things to try to restore themselves and some suggestions on that is again to reach out to trusted support people, like people at Thrive that know what they\’re doing. Do restorative activities that aren\’t demanding like resting, taking walks, reading, showers, Zoom happy hours. And one thing is really important but maybe hard is laughing.

Dr. Maggie Baker:
If you can get yourself to laugh at something every day it\’s such a relief. And also define what I call holders of hope of people that you admire. You can go to YouTube and find people that you really admire and read about their backgrounds and how they got through hard times. Reading biographies and then the other thing is to try to focus on what you feel grateful for. Even in times of scarcity and uncertainty. There have got to be a few things you feel grateful for and you have to kind of work at pumping those things up because it\’s so easy to be grabbed by the negative.

David Bezar:
Yeah, absolutely. And the advice that your giving seems so simple but it\’s those little things that have such a dramatic impact for people and I would just really encourage people that are being challenged right now that these are the types of things that can really work for them. And I know we\’re running out of time Dr. Baker, I would love to have you back on because I\’d like to talk about the exact opposite. The people who just kind of wander mindlessly thinking that everything\’s going to be right and don\’t plan for that. So we\’ll have you back on. If you could take a minute or two, or just about a minute, and maybe share with us how people can get in touch with you, how they can get a copy of your book, so on and so forth I think that would be awesome for our audience.

Dr. Maggie Baker:
Okay. You can go to my website, it\’s maggiebakerphd.com and you can find all of my contact information on my website. You can buy the book on my website or you can go to Amazon, it\’s on Amazon as well.

Joe Krause:
And the book is also available on electronic format and you\’ll see that when you go to maggiebakerphd.com. Dr. Baker thank you so much for being a part of Roadmap to Retirement the Radio Show. We appreciate you spending some time with us and as David mentioned, look for the invite to look at the other side of the coin and we\’ll deal with that as 2020 rolls on. Thank you so much doctor, appreciate it.

Dr. Maggie Baker:
Your very welcome, glad to be here.

Joe Krause:
All right, good stuff with Dr. Maggie Baker. We\’ll get to a commercial break, we\’ll be back on the other side with David Bezar, Karen Bezar, and Bret Elam. Back in a moment. One segment to go here on Roadmap to Retirement the Radio Show again special thanks to Dr. Maggie Baker. Crazy About Money. Crazy about being an advocate for you. That\’s how I describe you. That\’s what I believe when we do this show on a weekly basis. You and Karen and Bret, you being David are constantly advocating for your clients and I love it.

David Bezar:
Yeah, we love it too Joe and you know it\’s our energy this show. Getting the message out to people, getting people educated up so that they can navigate retirement successfully. It\’s what drives us, it creates the passion in our organization. If people come into the office and visit with us what you hear on the show is what you get in person. Anybody you talk to here at Thrive just really exudes this confidence, this complete commitment to really helping people navigate. As a matter of fact Joe we had an incredibly successful webinar.

David Bezar:
We call them retirement masterclasses that happened this past Thursday and if you\’re listening and you missed that webinar you can go to our website at thrivefinancialservices.tyl16lnm-liquidwebsites.com and there will be a link that you can watch that webinar on-demand. We really jumped into… We had done this kind of a webinar may be six, eight weeks ago and we got tons of requests from people. We had over 400 people attend that one.

David Bezar:
A lot of requests said, \”Hey this was really good can you get a little deeper? Can you go a little bit more granular?\” So what we did is we went into actual case studies of three different families that Thrive was able to help and navigate through not only retirement planning but the tax efficiency planning of retirement. So this past Thursday again we had over 400 people in attendance and one of the things at the end of the workshop, we offered people a complimentary consultation where they could come in and get a 401k retirement tax analysis and see if tax planning, with all of the uncertainty about what\’s going to happen with the election, with taxes going up all those different types of things, we want to make sure people have a map.

David Bezar:
Dr. Maggie Baker said plan right? Without a plan, you don\’t know where you end up. So that\’s what we did. So in continuation of that again we mentioned earlier, I don\’t want to call this really… It\’s a working document. Whether you call it a flow chart, whatever else it is, it\’s got that design of a flow chart. I had mentioned on there the question that I brought up was will you need distributions from your retirement account, yes or no?

David Bezar:
If you answered no the next question is are the beneficiaries of your retirement accounts qualified charitable organizations yes or no? If you answered yes to the previous question, do you expect to be subject to lower income tax rates during most of your retirement either due to income levels or future tax reform, yes or no? So these are the types of really important questions that have to be answered by a prospective retiree to make sure that they\’re plan is bulletproof in retirement.

Bret Elam:
Yeah you know I just love having Dr. Baker on here. It was funny this past week we were relaxing and it was Eagles season kicking things off and here\’s the comment my son made, \”I felt like we just watched the election with football in between. With all the commercials that were being watched. It doesn\’t matter which side of the fence that you\’re on.\” And why we love this flow chart that we have out there and again, week and week out that\’s why I love having Dr. Baker on here is we talk about needing to make rational decisions not emotional decisions. Needing to come up with that plan.

Bret Elam:
In our environment whether it\’s COVID, whether it\’s the economy, whether it\’s the stock market, whether it\’s the kids or the grandkids, when are they going back in school? There\’s so many things as Dr. Baker said, that\’s uncertain out there is again it\’s taking a step back, being careful of your environment, and simply just making sure that we\’re making logical decisions, logical thoughts because a lot of these decisions we have to make you only get one shot to make it work.

Karen Bezar:
And I think it was very apropos to have Dr. Maggie Baker on today because what we do here at Thrive is we understand that your decisions with money are sometimes based on emotion and we kind of take the emotion out of it for you and we look at it logically but we understand the emotional aspect of it and that\’s what\’s really important to remember when you\’re looking at retirement. We understand that the whole switch from going from working to retiring is a whole nother game plan and that\’s what we like to do.

Karen Bezar:
We take a holistic approach and take a look at everything in retirement. So I would just like people if you\’re interested in taking a look at the flow chart you can give us a call at 215-987-2430 and if you want to take a look and understand if a Roth conversion is worth it or not, again that\’s something that\’s very important that we don\’t take a look at willy nilly it\’s something that we plan for.

Bret Elam:
Yeah and again my encouragement is our webinar that we just held this past Thursday, again go to our website, Thrive, T-H-R-I-V-E thrivefinancialservices.tyl16lnm-liquidwebsites.com or again you can get that link direct to that replay that is out there. It\’s a series that you\’re not going to want to miss and it\’s bringing those real live examples to reality and it\’s saying, \”Well how does this apply to me?\”

David Bezar:
Yeah and during that replay, if you didn\’t see it live we\’re going to end… I mean you\’ll see a lot of things that we talked about yesterday on the Dom Giordano Show. Dom asked some amazing questions. I mean you could hear the passion in his voice. We know our audience and a lot of you listening are really, really good people and you have intentions that there\’s potential legacy.

David Bezar:
You may not spend all of your IRA money in retirement and this ultimately ends up going to beneficiaries. Think about the 30, 40, 50 years of hard work that you\’ve put in, and depending on what the outcome of the election is, depending about what the potential tax changes, I mean we\’ve read publication after publication that there are potentially monumental changes. I don\’t know Joe, that word kind of makes me a little nervous.

Joe Krause:
I was just going to say, monumental is a big word.

David Bezar:
That\’s big right? That\’s descriptive of something that\’s huge. Couldn\’t come at a more worse time for people in retirement right? Now I\’m not saying that\’s going to happen but indications are with all of the deficit, the trillions of dollars that\’s being printed, what way could it go right? So on that webinar replay, we talk just like we did with Dom about some of those legacy things that are related to your IRA accounts.

David Bezar:
So one of the rules that got passed previously really kind of changed the complexity of your IRAs and how they\’ll be taxed by your beneficiaries. So again, if you\’re interested in watching and figuring out what you could potentially do, go to thrivefinancialservices.tyl16lnm-liquidwebsites.com, register for the replay. If you\’d like to get the Roth conversion analysis flow chart call us at 215-987-2430.

Joe Krause:
Really, really good show today as always here on Roadmap to Retirement the Radio Show. Bret I\’ll let you finish this sentence. It\’s not how much you have.

Bret Elam:
It\’s how much you keep.

Joe Krause:
That\’s going to do it for Roadmap to Retirement the Radio Show. Special thanks to Dr. Maggie Baker for being with us. On behalf of your advocates, David Bezar, Karen Bezar, and Bret Elam I\’m Joe Krause see you next week everybody.

Speaker:
Thanks for listening to Roadmap to Retirement the Radio Show from Thrive Financial Services. If you\’re like most Americans you have more questions than you do answers about what to do with your retirement savings. If you have a question about your IRA or your 401k, pension, or other tax-deferred accounts, if you have a question about reducing taxes, generating income or filing for social security whatever it is, David, Karen, and Bret are here to help and often your questions can be answered in a simple phone call. Just call 215-987-2430. 215-987-2430.

Speaker:
And so you know, no statements made during Roadmap to Retirement the Radio Show shall constitute tax, legal or accounting advice. You should consult your own legal, or tax professional on any such matters. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investment, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and unless otherwise stated are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial advisor and/or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed here.

Speaker:
David Bezar, Bret Elam, and Karen Bezar of Thrive Financial Services and Thrive Capital Management are licensed to offer investment advisory services through Thrive Capital Management, LLC. A Pennsylvania state registered investment advisor. Office headquarters located in Fort Washington and office of convenience used exclusively for client meetings in Exton, Yardley, and Cherry Hill.