How to Delete Taxes, Fees and Expenses from Your Retirement Plan

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1.13.23: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Producer:
Any examples used are for illustrative purposes only and do not take into account your particular investment objectives, financial situation or needs, and may not be suitable for all investors. It is not intended to predict the performance of any specific investment and is not a solicitation or recommendation of any investment strategy.

Producer:
Welcome to Take Point on Retirement with your host, Erick Arnett. Erick is a fiduciary and licensed financial advisor who always places your needs first. The experienced team at Take point Wealth Management takes pride in knowing they've helped so many pursue the financial future of their dreams. And they can help you too. And now let's start the show. Here's Erick Arnett.

Erick Arnett:
Well, hey, everybody. Welcome back. Welcome to the show. Welcome to Take Point on Retirement Radio. My name is Erick Arnett and I am your lead advisor and retirement planner. I am the man who will lead you to and through retirement. I believe we called our business and our practice Take Point Wealth Management because I want to take the lead and lead you to and through a successful retirement. And of course, we have our deejay extraordinaire here, Mr. Sam Davis, to kind of keep us in line and keep things rolling. Thank you so much for being here today, sir.

Producer:
Yeah, happy to be here. Always happy to be bringing information to the retirement warriors out there listening up and down the Gulf Coast, Nature Coast, Tampa, Punta Gorda, Port Charlotte, wherever you're listening today, we're happy to have you here. And just a reminder, you can visit TakePointWealth.com. To schedule your free consultation today at that website. You can learn more and you can get in touch with Erick. You can also visit TakePointOnRetirement.com and check out all of our past episodes and listen wherever you listen to podcasts. So we're happy that you're here and we've got a lot to talk about today.

Erick Arnett:
Man, we always do. So when it comes to retirement planning, right? I mean, there's so many aspects that we've got to get right or at least attempt to get right. And, you know, I heard I'm not going to take credit for this, Sam, but I heard an awesome analogy that I've got to use on the radio today. And if you're out there listening, thank you so much for listening to our show. It's great to have you here. I think we have a great show today. Tons of stuff to get in. Of course, if you hear something that makes sense to you today, please reach out to us and we're going to try to get as much into it as we can. If not just tune in to next week. And then also, you can always, like Sam said, get a hold of us on our podcast. But with that being said, so much stuff facing our retirees and to put together a solid plan, if you're in that red zone, what we call that retirement red zone, I think it's that 55 to kind of 65 age group. It's time to really sit down and put a plan together. And this plan incorporates everything. We're not just talking about investments. I mean, that's secondary. You know, that's that's maybe even not even secondary. That's maybe third or fourth down the list. You know, we've got to get Social Security right. We've got to get we've got to talk about taxation on your income and the different box buckets of income.

Erick Arnett:
And is there going to be taxes on your Social Security? And then are there ways that we can you know, I don't want to say manipulate, but are there ways that we can adjust your cash flow and your income sources to make sure that your Medicare premiums aren't going through the roof? You know, making sure that Social Security taxes don't increase. So, listen, folks, we know for sure that taxes are going up in the future. And guess what? You know, the government or the IRS? The IRS is sitting there licking their chops. There's probably 36 trillion some odd dollars in IRAs and for one case. And so those baby boomers that are retiring here in the near future, the IRS is licking their chops. And so they know that there's a big amount of money there that they can tax. And so they're going to be coming after you for that. But, you know, more important, it's not just the taxation we have. So we're getting we're going to get into all the silent killers. And today's show is how do we delete fees, how do we delete taxes and how do we delete expenses from our retirement plans? Well, not only do you have to have an all encompassing retirement plan to take into account Social Security, taxation, your investment planning, investing, insurance, life insurance, but health care, health care insurance, Health plans? If you have questions about Medicare, please give us a call.

Erick Arnett:
352 616 0511. We can handle all your Medicare needs, whether it's, you know, what kind of supplemental plan do I use? Do I use an advantage plan? Do I not use any to just do Medicare A or part B? We can help answer those questions. But more importantly, a big part of our retirement planning for you is, is is a solid health plan. We've got to have a solid health plan in place for you. That's the major aspect because of inflation. Right. And costs. Inflation was finally reared its ugly head here in 2022 and is the main disruptor and the cause of the market's being tumultuous because what was the why do we have higher, higher interest rates? Because the Fed was raising interest rates to try to tame inflation. And so everything stems from inflation and it's the silent killer. It's devastating to our retirees long term. And what's the number? One thing we don't want to happen. We don't want you to run out of money in retirement. And unfortunately, a lot of folks out there listening, that's a that's a big potential because we're seeing even the baby boomers, it's a staggering statistic, do not have enough save for retirement or they may not have the proper planning to account for not losing their money throughout retirement and also being able to conquer these health care costs because health care costs are going through the roof.

Erick Arnett:
And so and guess what? Your Medicare premiums, even if you're trying to bridge the gap between 60 and 65 with different health care plans like out in the marketplace, it's all based on your income. And so where is this income coming from? Can we control that in any way, maybe defer it? There's different strategies there in order to where we're not creating a ton of taxation on your Social Security and health and health and your health premiums aren't going through the roof. So I think that most of us, when we're working, even I felt this way, I didn't really know back in the day a whole lot about health care and Medicare plans. And and I just thought, well, once I get to 65, the government's going to take care of me and they're going to pay for all my health care. Guess what, folks? That's not the case at all. You're still going to have premiums, co-pays, deductibles, and it's all based on your income and whether you're single or joint. So these could be the average we're seeing 18000 to 36000. Then the other staggering statistic I saw was almost retire. A couple retirees will a couple will spend close to 250 to $300000 on health care. And so we know that health care is going to continue to go up. Right, with inflation.

Erick Arnett:
In fact, before we even had inflation, health care was rising. The costs are always rising. And so this is a big concern that I and I think it's I think it's maybe some light bulbs are going off here for me because I might not have really paid as much attention to this. But I think this might be another one of the biggest aspects that folks aren't planning for and could be potentially missing. And that's concerning. And so what we're offering here for our listeners today, if you're out there listening, listen, you could you might even already have Medicare going. We can review that for you. We can we can review that and see if you're in the right plan for your for your location. But we'll do a full health care plan for you, which is going to basically take into account your average cost, where you're at geographically, what kind of plans you have, and we can factor in all that and then do some projections and literally show you what your health care costs are going to be and what they're going to be projected over the next ten, 20, 30 years. So we can help you plan for that, because I think that's probably what's missing. You know, if you've got to have somehow 18 to 20, maybe even $30,000 on the side to pay for all your extras and your health care, that's pretty critical, don't you think? Sam?

Producer:
Yeah, absolutely. And Erick, I was just taking a look at medical expenses by age, and it makes sense if you sit down and think about it, that your health care spending is going to go up the older you get. And most of these charts that I'm looking at 0 to 18, it's a little bit more you know, during your working years you're you're working hopefully you're pretty healthy. You're not seeing the doctor much. But once you kind of crest 60, 65 and into your seventies, eighties and older, that's where most of your medical medical expenses are really going to add up. So you do need to be prepared for that and budget that now when you're planning for your retirement.

Erick Arnett:
Know, that's a great point. And exactly what I'm trying to drill home here. You know, I think that people need to see this. You know, they really need to see what's it going to look like five years from now, ten years from now. And we can do these estimates for you and we can help you plan for those costs. And certainly, you know, we've got to factor in inflation in those rising costs, because what's what what's costing us today is certainly probably going to be much higher ten years from now. And it could be we sat down I sat down with a couple last week and it was staggering. I didn't even realize because folks, it's based on your income. So there's there's there's different income tables out there that you have to be aware of. So make sure you're getting with an advisor that's knowledgeable in the stuff and that's works in the Medicare environment or potentially your CPA that knows these tax tables. But depending on where you're at in that tax table is going to determine your premiums. You know, I know we're all thinking, oh, we're going to work and we get to 65 and the government is going to take care of us and we're not going to have to pay for health care anymore. No, you're just getting offered a plan that you've got to pay for and it can get pretty costly and very expensive.

Erick Arnett:
And then if you're not planning properly where you're drawing your income from or higher income structured and how your investments are structured, then you can potentially be driving up your cost even higher, which is totally unnecessary. So. Just a ton of stuff to plan there. But so I wanted to reach out to our listeners today and our retirement warriors and say, Hey, we've got a solution for you. You know, even if you just want a table, the full retirement planning for now, if you want to just do a health care plan and a health care plan cost estimate for your retirement, then we can do that for you. And it's very detailed, very fact finding and very revealing. And that's going to probably open up our eyes a little bit and say, wow, how are we going to plan for this expense? And even from from myself personally really got me thinking about, Och, once I get to 65, how am I going to plan for this? So it's just something that I think we're overlooking and hopefully our retirement warrior is out there listening today and they'll pick up the phone and give us a shout. 352 616 0511. You can also just go right to TakePointWealth.com.

Erick Arnett:
You can on your phone just Google take point it will come up and you can go to my calendar up in the upper right hand corner. Just click there and jump right on my calendar for a 15 minute chat session. All we're going to do is chat for 15 minutes. I'm going to get to know you, find out what your concerns are and where you're at and just, hey, let's take action. Let's do something. Let's let's get one of these, I think, very serious aspects figured out in your retirement. And that's the health care plan that I want to stress today and take Point is also available to help you with all of your Medicare needs. We have we have the agents available to whether you need to talk to them on the phone. Would you like for us to come out to your house? You want to meet for coffee somewhere for Starbucks? Give us a call and we're going to be able to help you get in the right direction and get that health plan together. So super, super important. So let's talk about this week. I think we've got some really cool stuff quotes of the Week. We always like to do Quotes of the week, Sam.

Producer:
And now for some financial wisdom, it's time for the Quote of the.

Producer:
Week. All right, Erick, Here is our first quote of the week. We've got to this week for the Retirement Warriors. The first one comes to us from Nathan W morris, personal finance expert, author, speaker and financial coach who specializes in teaching people how to achieve financial freedom. And Mr. Morris said every time you borrow money, you're robbing your future self. And Erick, I really like this quote because I feel like so many people get into the habit of using credit cards, you know, taking out maybe too big of a loan for a new car purchase or something like that, or a boat. You are really robbing your future self when you decide to go further into debt. What do you think?

Erick Arnett:
No, I mean, great point. And this isn't just for our young listeners. Like, I know, you know, we kind of tried to educate and harp on our younger folks like, Hey, don't get in. I know with my kids, you know, I tell them right off the bat like, don't answer these credit card offers. Like, don't even be tempted to walk down this road of utilizing this credit. And you know, one thing that certainly concerning in our economy right now today, we are seeing rising debt levels. Credit card usage is on the rise. And what's even more concerning is credit card use is on the rise and our debt is for our baby boomers and our retirement warriors is getting higher as well. So that's concerning. What that means is, is potentially that inflation has now really nabbed them. Right. And because we potentially weren't planning properly in the past, you know, not keeping up with inflation, with our investments, our 41k or IRAs or we didn't put enough work in for Social Security or whatever it may be. There's a big concern out there. There's a large portion of our of our retirement wars, our baby boomers, our retirees out there that are really going to be crunched for money and it's going to be difficult for them to meet to meet those obligations. So it's very important. And in fact, I had some some clients last week call me and and they were you know, the husband was on a completely different page.

Erick Arnett:
The wife and the wife, I mean, they're pushing 65 and she wanted to go out and get debt on the house and, you know, at 65, like, so this isn't the time to be looking and racking up debt. You know, you've got to be very careful, especially think about this. Interest rates just went way, way up. So what you could have done with a credit card or a home equity line or, you know, any type of borrowing mechanism a year or two ago might have been okay or made sense. But today, with interest rates as high as they are, it could really get you into trouble. So, of course, of course. Please, please be careful with the borrowing. And it's not just for our young folks. It's our retirees are getting in trouble with this as well. So give us a call if you if you feel like things have kind of gotten out of control here and you're really concerned about, listen, this past year, 2022 has been rough. It's been tumultuous. The headlines you've been faced with all kinds of challenges, rising costs, you know, rising rents, rising insurance costs, rising property and casualty, your car insurance, everything's going through the roof. And so the plan that you put in place a year ago or two years ago might not be the right plan today. And it now's the time to reevaluate it.

Erick Arnett:
We we need to put things in place. We need to put strategies in place to where we can at least eliminate the fear factor, the fear of running out of money. We've got to keep up with these rising costs and we have strategies to where we can put in place for you now today to where it'll go ahead and fill that gap or that bucket and take care of that need in the future. So, you know, because we know for sure that Och, right now the stats are the average couple is going to spend 18,000 a year in health care costs ten years from now. That could be the average couple spending 50,000 a year. So we've got to plan for that folks. We've got to get to plan for that. I know we talk about this all the time on the radio. We as AmErickans tend to be a little bit short, shortsighted. You know, we plan for maybe today, and it's hard for us to really expand our minds and think, what what's this going to look like ten years from now? What's this going to look like 20 years from now? Now really blow your mind. What's things going to look like 30 years from now? And people will sometimes. Well, Erick, I'm not going to live 30 years from now. No, listen, if you're 60, 65, you very easily could live to be 90, 95, folks. You really could. We have plenty of clients that are approaching that that that that age, that age variance.

Erick Arnett:
There are that age gap there. So it's it's definitely possible we have to plan for it make. Worst case scenario is that you pass earlier than 95 but you maybe have some money to leave to your spouse or to your to your beneficiaries and leave a legacy. So or you know what? We can even devise a plan. Say, hey, you've got X number of dollars. And we take into account all these different aspects that we're talking about. And we say to ourselves, Hey, my goal might be by the time I'm 85, I've spent down my money, you know, maybe you don't want to leave any money. That's not a concern for you. You want to spend down your money. So, you know, that's. We need to put a plan in place for that, too. So we really look out ten, 20, 30 years, and then we're going to test that plan for you. We're not just going to, you know, guess that this is going to work and hope that it works. We're going to test it. We're going to throw 1000 scenarios at it. Good markets, bad markets, high rates, low rates, combinations thereof. And see how does this thing hold up over time, You know, thousand different scenarios and combinations thereof to see how this thing is going to hold up over time so we can utilize that as some type of dictionary tool for us.

Erick Arnett:
I don't even know if that's a word. Dictionary, I think I just made that one up. But go ahead. I guess Webster's is making up new words anyway, so we can we can we can put that one in there. But we need to predict, you know, the best that we can how things are going to potentially look like for us ten years, 20 years. And we tend to just think about, can I get through this year, can I get through today? And we've got to expand our brains and really look down the road and and quit being so short mind and short term. What did I make on my portfolio this week or what did I make on my portfolio this year? We need to show you what you need to make and what your financial speed needs to be over the next ten, 20, 30 years. And that's what we do at take point where goals based retirement planning firm for. So for those folks, hell, I don't care if you're 45, Sam, I don't even know how old you are. It's not too early for you to start thinking about retirement and doing a retirement plan. So whoever's listening out there, let's put that plan in place. Let's test it, let's get it going. And at least we have some direction. So how do we delete fees and taxes and expenses in our retirement?

Producer:
Erick, we've got another quote this week, and this one comes from Dave Ramsey. People may be familiar and Dave said a budget is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went. And Erick, I think this is a great time of year to take a look back at your expenses in 2020 to sit down with your your household, your spouse, you know, do the do the part that's not fun to make sure that you're going to have that monthly budget that has you in a surplus and not a deficit.

Erick Arnett:
Boom. And so we know that budget budgeting stinks. We don't like to do it right. And we know that grabbing the spouse. Or the partner or whoever you got living with you or you're sharing expenses with or growing your life together with. And you sit down with them and you say, Hey, let's do our budget. We automatically know that that's just not an exercise anybody wants to do. We get it. It's called discipline, and it's very difficult discipline with our money. And everybody treats money very differently. And there's a lot of emotions around it. And I'm not going to go down that wormhole right now. But but I can I know from experience, right, because I just asked my spouse. Particularly because I was so concerned about the massive amount of inflation. And guess what? Our home expenses, our home budget went way up. But if you don't sit down and really look at those numbers and write them down on a piece of paper, if you don't go back and check your credit card statements over 2022, you don't go back and check your bank and statements and see where do we spend money and what was it costing us? Break it out into buckets. You know, our food expenses, our gas expenses, our home expenses and how to run our our home, our utilities and all that. And of course, we've got to have that little bucket there for fun money, right? We've got to live our life and enjoy things. And so you've got to more than ever. I know we talk about this all the time as financial planners and retirement planners.

Erick Arnett:
You know, we've been doing this show for eight some odd years and we've been talking about this. But this year, man, I tell you what, 20, 22, after 2022, you've got to sit down and you've got to do a budget and you've got to redo your budget and you've got to really evaluate what your expenses are, because they've definitely gone up, I can tell you that. And everybody else and everybody knows that and everybody feels that. But if you're if you don't have a budget and you're just kind of willy nilly going through life and I know how it is, you know, if you're out there and you're making good money and you're like, Hey, I don't really need the budget because I always got plenty of money left over and I do what I want to do and I do. I've heard it all, you know, I've heard everything when it comes to budgeting. But you've got to do it, folks. If you're going to have a good, solid retirement plan in place, you've got to know what you're spending now, even if you're still working and what? Because you've got to know, what am I saving? Am I going to be on target for my goal? And when we say goal, you know, it's like, hey, when do I want to retire? Right? What's my goal? I want to retire at 65 or I want to retire in five years. You know, you might be 45 years old. I don't care. Your goals are retiring five years, whatever it may be. You know, you've got to first set that goal and then you've got to know how do I get to that goal? And then once I'm once I've reached that goal, how do I maintain it? Right? And so if you're going to be retired ten, 20, 30 years, I think it's pretty important that we know what our expenses are going to be.

Erick Arnett:
And that's where I was talking about earlier, about the health care costs. We've got to get those right. We've got to get what your taxes are going to be. We've got to get what your Social Security going to be. We've got to get all that right, because those silent killer that we've talked about, taxes, number one, silent killer. And guess what, folks? You guys out there listening, the baby boomers, you have $36 trillion sitting there in a bucket that the IRS is licking their chops. They want to get at it. And that brings to mind there is a new act passed called the Secure Act. And there's a ton of different rules that have changed that apply to you. So please, if you're listening, Google the Secure Act and go through that. And if you have questions, give me a call. 352 616 0511. Because all of our listeners out there, the Secure Act, has a direct impact on you big time. And there's a lot of things that have changed. And so that's another reason why you've got to do this plan, not only because of all the costs and changes in inflation and health care costs and budgeting, that's super important. But, you know, bottom line is if you're not budgeting, you're just what Mr. Ramsey says.

Erick Arnett:
I mean, your money's going wherever it wants to go. It's not going where you want it to go. And you've got to have you've got to have less going out than is coming in, Right. I mean, it's just the bottom line and it's called any any I tell people all the time, you've got to run your home and your retirement plan, your financial plan, whatever you want to call it. You've got to run that like a business, you know. And how does a good business survive? They they bring in more than than they spend, you know, So it's all about that cash flow. So we'll do a cash flow statement for you as well as look at that balance sheet for you. And you've got to run your household like an efficient business. And guess what? All the businesses are doing this year, they're making massive adjustments because of the change in the economy and inflation. So you've got to do the same thing. You might need to make some adjustments. So we want to help you do that. We want to take a lot of the guessing out of it for you. We're talking about 25 years of experience here that we were ready to help you. So please give us a call. 352 616 0511. Schedule your appointment today or just go to my website. TakePointWealth.com You can Google it in in upper right hand corner. Just click that little chat session and you'll get right on my calendar. We'll just do a 15 minute chat, catch up, get to know each other and get you started here.

Producer:
Sitting to Take Point on Retirement to schedule your free no obligation consultation visit TakePointOnRetirement.com.

Producer:
They say you don't know what you don't know. But a growing number of states are trying to fix that when it comes to finances. I'm Matt McClure with the Retirement dot Radio Network. Powered by AmeriLife. In high school, students are often required to take advanced math courses like algebra and trigonometry. But for years, the basics of budgeting, bank accounts and savings have been neglected in the classroom. But that seems to be quickly changing. 21 states now require at least some form of financial education before students graduate high school. One of those states is Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak recently told CNBC.

Steve Sisolak:
Percentage, I think 50 some odd percent of AmErickans can't cover $1,000 emergency costs. If it comes up without borrowing the money.So it tells us that we need to invest more. We have invested $2.5 million from the state into these programs and to make sure that it gets out, we address access and equity so that everybody gets this education. It's not just reserved for the upper class.

Producer:
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves also told CNBC he knows firsthand how valuable a financial education can be. He graduated with a degree in economics and worked in the financial arena before running for office, which is one.

Tate Reeves:
Of the reasons that I'm so passionate about trying to encourage my fellow Mississippians and really my fellow Americans to to make sure that financial literacy is available to as many people as possible, because I really do think it can help Americans have a better.

Producer:
Life. In New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy says programs there start as early as middle school.

Phil Murphy:
There's a temptation that comes with a lot of different things that you all of a sudden think you can afford and you don't realize the consequences on the back end, whether it's physical items, whether it's meme stocks or whatever it might be. And so getting kids at the earliest age as possible, we think is critical.

Producer:
How well are the programs working? Well, it could be too early to tell. Money rates. Dotcom found mixed results in a recent survey, but its authors note that financial education itself is not a quick fix, so with more time results could improve. So how educated are you when it comes to your personal finances and planning for retirement? And are you going to pass down that knowledge to future generations? Those are key questions to consider as our financial lives become more complicated with the Retirement dot Radio Network powered by AmeriLife. I'm Matt McClure.

Producer:
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Producer:
Welcome back to Take Point on Retirement schedule you're free financial consultation now at TakePointOnRetirement.com.

Erick Arnett:
So hey everybody welcome back to Take Point on Retirement radio so glad you're here with us today. First half of the show tons of stuff to get in there and the second half of the show Sam I don't know We've got a lot of stuff to talk about and we'll try to do our best to get it in. But please come on back next week or go to our podcast. You can go to any podcast provider, Spotify, iTunes, you name it, just type in, take point. You can get our past shows and certainly our future shows, but just tons of stuff to talk about today. Picking up on the first segment, we were promising our listeners that we were going to talk about how to delete some fees and this is, you know, we were talking about inflation, right? So we've got to give some what's something that we can do right now to impact rising costs in our overall financial plan. And during the break, Sam, you and I were talking about how hard it is to budget, right? But just one simple thing that I did, even when I every year I sit down with my wife and we do a budget in January and we do all of our planning where our money is going to go for the year and what the big part of that budgeting, Sam, is reviewing what we did last year, right? And so looking at we just we utilize a system where we we pay for everything on a credit card and that credit card tracks everything.

Erick Arnett:
And then we just pay that credit card out for every month. And that way that card tracks every expense we have where it's going, you know, Did you spend it'll break it out. You spent 2000 in health care, 5000 on auto expenses, 6000 on food, whatever. So that's cool, right? But one thing, just one little thing. Like I realized, let's go through and look at all the subscriptions we have. And when I say subscriptions, I mean software. People that are listening to Spotify, Netflix, everything. We pay like a subscription now, right? And we ended up realizing we're spending like five, $600 a month just in subscriptions, because if we didn't go back and look at that and pay attention to it because they're little like $5 here, $6 there, you know, pay attention to it throughout the year. You're just grinding, you're working, you're paying the bills, you know, So you've got to go back and review. The gist of my story has just got to go back and review where your money was spent in 2022 and you'll and I was like shocked when I found out. I looked at my wife and I'm like, What are you crazy? We actually spent that much in food. We actually spent that much in restaurant and going out to eat.

Erick Arnett:
It was a nuts number. I don't even want to share it because I'm embarrassed. And I was like, That's the end of that. But we basically, you know, we the reason that it was so astronomical because the food costs and restaurant costs went through the roof. And sure, I knew inflation was picking up and I could kind of feel it when you go out to eat and stuff. But man, we had to rein that in to stay on track for our savings goals, right? Because it's all about money. It's not about what you make, it's about what you spend. And you said it is a great a great thing. You said Sam was like, you know, it doesn't matter if you're making $1,000,000 a year, if you're making $100,000, you're making 30,000 a year. That guy making 30,000 a year could potentially be saving more money than the guy making $1,000,000 a year. Right. So we got to be disciplined and we got to budget first and foremost. But one way that we can help you with inflation right now and we can help you with rising costs right now is just one simple little tool, one simple little change. We love to give ideas. We love to give strategies out here on this show. And if you have an investment portfolio, like hopefully most of us out there listening have been able to save some money for retirement and hopefully we have a41k or an IRA or an annuity or something that we've been able to save some money, at least for retirement to help us in retirement.

Erick Arnett:
Well, chances are 95% of AmEricka has if you're approaching that retirement age, you've got 40, 50% of your portfolio right now is sitting in bonds. And it might be in bond mutual funds. It might even be in a growth and income fund where some of it's in bonds and some of it some of it isn't. So chances are, regardless of what type of instrument you have in ETF, mutual fund, you probably have some type of fixed income or bonds in your portfolio and you're being charged a fee on those bonds. Whether you believe it or not, you are being charged something. And it depends on also how you buy those bonds, because there's there's all kinds of costs and middlemen in between. But you're paying a lot of fees for those bonds in your portfolio. And guess what? Bonds have been the worst performing asset class over the last five years. They'll probably continue to be one of the worst performing asset classes. And so you've got this big part of your asset class and yeah, 2022, we really felt it right because in 2022 the bond market was down probably close to 15%, a -15%. Wasn't that supposed to be the anchor in your portfolio? Wasn't that supposed to be the part of your portfolio that counteracted stocks and acted as a hedge against stocks? Well, guess what we saw this year that bonds got hammered.

Erick Arnett:
Bonds were underperformed in 2022 as well, in 2021 as well. So I think that we're in an environment where you're paying fees for these bonds, right. And fixed income in your portfolio. At the same time, they're not giving you the protection that you need, nor are they even yielding the income that you need. Right. Because we've got to beat inflation. So we're offering an opportunity to look at one of the strategies that we've created in order to completely eliminate those fees and expenses on that portion of your portfolio. So let's just say you got a 500,000 portfolio and let's say 50% of that portfolio, 250,000 is is in fixed income. So you're paying $2,500 a year at a minimum, maybe more could be 5000 a year depending on what the fee structure is and the internal costs inside the mutual funds or the ETFs or whatever is that you're holding. But you could be paying as much as 5000 a year to lose money and to not have the potential to make good money. So that's one just little tidbit right there. So if you're listening right now today, take the time to go to your computer or your cell phone. Usually, sometimes you can pull up your portfolios right on your phone or your 41k, and you'll be able to pull it up.

Erick Arnett:
And on that front page, your statement, you'll have a chart and you'll be able to see it should say what percent you have in equities, what percent you have in fixed income. And if you don't know that, I can certainly help you. So give me a call. I'd be happy to help you again on my calendar and I'll help you find that data. I'll pull it for you. It's 352 616 0511. I'll help you learn how to analyze your portfolio properly. But if you don't know, at least you're listening. And this will be a great a great time for you to look at that and understand what you truly do have in fixed income. So we want to we have a strategy right now that we can put in place to basically be able to replace those bonds and to remove those fees from your portfolio. So we've got to remember. Right, bond prices move in the opposite direction of interest rates. So what does that mean when interest rates rise, which interest rates have been rising? Right. And potentially will continue to rise as the Fed continues to fight inflation and want to slow the slow down the economy, Your bond prices are going to fall and vice versa. If interest rates fall, then bond prices will rise. And so we're probably nowhere near the point where the Fed is ready to pivot and start to lower interest rates.

Erick Arnett:
When that time comes, then potentially things will be a little bit different. But right now, and probably over the last year or two, you're looking at your portfolio like, Man, I really don't even have that much in the stock market, so why did I still get pummeled? Why did I still get hammered? Why did I lose so much money in my portfolio? And it's because that investment that you thought was supposed to protect you, didn't we have the tools, we have the solutions to actually protect your money and you've. Och, listen, this is important, folks. I get it. You've been working your whole life. Let's just say you've been out there working 30 years and you've been putting money away. I'm talking to that person out there that's been the responsible and they've been putting money away and they've been saving for retirement. And you've done a great job. You've got a little a nice little nest egg saved up that you want to. It's going to help you augment. It's going to help you subsidize all these rising costs that are coming and you'll be able to take some money out on top of your pension and your Social Security. That's all great. But during those 30 years when you were working, it was okay to kind of be just out there with no real strategy or no real plan. You're just kind of saving money. You're putting money to work in your portfolio, your 401.

Erick Arnett:
K and it didn't matter. The markets were up, the markets were down, were all around. You had time on your side, right? You had a lot of time on your side. And that's a great strategy. You just keep putting money in no matter what. Right? Just keep putting money in because your dollar cost averaging in and that's great. And you really didn't have to have this clear, concise strategy. You really didn't need to because most investment classes, particularly if you're buying mutual funds and stocks, they're just they just they are going to rise over time. Listen, folks, bottom line, equities are the best the best performing asset class in our nation's history. They always will be and they still are. And yeah, but, you know, and that's fine while you're working and you're putting money away, that's fine. And you didn't really have to have a plan. And you could have maybe just been with a brokerage firm and they didn't really have any clear, concise strategies. Had these mutual funds you were pumping money into, you were kind of out there in that sea of investments, that ocean of investments. And, you know, there was some storms out there, but you got through them and you just kind of you didn't really need a whole lot of navigating. Listen, when you're when I'm driving my boat, I can put it on autopilot, drink a beer and relax when I'm out in the middle of the Gulf and just cruise.

Erick Arnett:
But when I'm coming into the harbor, when I'm coming in to the port, which if you're in that retirement red zone and you listen to me right now, you you're that 55, 60, 65 age time frame, you you need what's called the harbor pilot. You need a soldier to take the lead and to guide you into the harbor, because right at this point, it's going to be difficult for you to navigate. Right? You've got boys, you've got other ships you're going to hit, you've got docks, you've got underwater structures you could hit. So why do we have that harbor master that, you know, in in in the US, it's a law. When these big ships come into the harbor, they got to wait 20 miles out before a harbor pilot comes out to greet them and brings them in. Right. Because they don't want these guys navigating these big ships into these harbors. So you've got to have I want to be your harbor pilot. It's time. Retirement planning is complicated, folks. It's not easy stuff. And to get it right, there's a lot of aspects to consider. And so you need a retirement planner. You need that harbor pilot to bring you into the port and to avoid all these all this chaos and these these structures and potential pitfalls, because they didn't mean as much when you were younger and you were working and retired because you could weather all storms and you had time on your hands.

Erick Arnett:
But guess what? That's not the case anymore. We've got to be more accurate. We've got to be careful and we've got to we've got to navigate this thing in. And that's why you need a good harbor pilot and a good someone to take point and take lead. And that's why we called our company take point. We want to take point. We want to be the leader and we want to lead you in to this harbor of chaos, because you are facing chaos. You know, you're your retiree, you're getting close to retiring. And it's like all these things are facing you, all these challenges are facing you. And so hopefully just that one little tidbit there, one little piece of advice is you review your portfolio, find out how much you have in bonds and what are you paying on those bonds. And we can immediately eliminate that right now, just like that. And so that's going to save you some money because think about it, 1%. Okay. Even if it's just 1% on your money over one year, two years, three years, four years, five or six years now, ten, 20, 30 years. That's a lot of money, folks. That is getting drained. So now you got and that's just fees. We don't even talked about the taxes. We haven't even talked about the inflation.

Erick Arnett:
There was a gentleman it was a great analogy. I wish I had a video to show our show our listeners, but it was stunning and it made a lot of sense out. A big impact on me. This gentleman held up a dollar bill. So if you can envision me holding up a dollar bill right now and I'm talking to our retirement and retirement wars and you can see me holding that dollar, you've worked 30 years for that dollar bill. You've worked really hard. That's your nest egg, right? You've busted your butt for that. Now, take that dollar if you want to do it as a visual, as you're listening along, it's pretty impactful. Like grab a dollar and take that dollar and rip it in half. All right. You got a half a dollar left right now, Right? Because guess what? Uncle Sam more than likely is taken half of that in taxes in your retirement. So that half's gone. Now you're sitting there with a half a dollar, Right? Och, let's take inflation now. Yeah. Just peel off maybe a third of that dollar. Throw that away. So now you're holding even less than one half a dollar. Right. You had that inflation. Now, let's add all those fees that are kind of eating up your portfolio. Let's rip that. Now, let's look at and let's look at, well, little Susie, little Johnny. They want to come back and live at home with us and they're going to move in the basement.

Erick Arnett:
Now we've got to rip off that portion. See where I'm going, folks? You know, you keep ripping. Oh, wait a second. Let's talk about health care. They got 400 and $500 premiums, drug costs, co-pays, deductibles. All those are still there and all those are still coming at you. And all those costs are still rising. Let's take that dollar bill and rip it in half again. What are you left with? If you're holding up, you're probably holding up a little smidgen of a dollar bill. That's what you're facing in retirement. It's serious stuff. We've got to get this right and we've got to put strategies in place in order to eliminate that potential. We've got to protect that dollar man. We've got to protect it. The best we can. So just take point. Always trying to give you some ideas and some thoughts to think about here. But let's let's really look at that fixed income. Give me a call. 352 616 0511 or just go to my website TakePointWealth.com and that upper right hand corner there's a little button you can click and just click on it and you're going to get right on my calendar. You can pick your time, your day for 15 minutes, folks, if you're listening, I'm asking for 15 minutes of your time. And guess what? I will guarantee you in that 15 minutes, I will guarantee you that we will have some sort of impact that's going to save you money in retirement.

Erick Arnett:
I just I just know it or we're going to have some kind of tool that you weren't thinking of or we're going to make an impact just cause it's going to take you about 15 minutes. So fees, boom, Big, big, big thing to think about. And, you know, not not even on your index or your fixed your fixed fixed income, are you paying fees? But your stocks, you know, you've got to be looking at what am I paying my advisor? What am I paying that mutual fund company? What am I paying at the 41k? What are the internal costs on, on my mutual funds and my and my ETFs and my equities might be too high. Let's look at it. We can competitively price that for you. So saving money, saving money, we're very, very passionate about that here. It's about us being able to get you two and three retirement and hopefully continue to even grow your retirement. That's what we're passionate about because as a fiduciary, as a fiduciary, we aren't paid commissions. If you chose to work with us, guess what? If you're if you make money, we make money. If you lose money, we lose money. So guess what? We have a vested interest in making sure your retirement stays in place and grows.

Erick Arnett:
And we work hard at it every day. And that's where our passion lies. So please give us a shout. Schedule your appointment now. 352 616 0511. Give us a call. We'll chat right now. So one more. I know we talk about all the time. Randy couldn't be with us on our show today, CPA extraordinaire, but we also have a CPA on staff here, folks. And he's been a CPA for some 30 some odd years. And there's no obligation, there's no cost to you to schedule that chat session or that appointment to go over your tax situation. What are what are your income sources? What are you paying in taxes? What is tax what what are your taxes going to be on your Social Security? When do I take Social Security? Do I take it now or do I take it later? How much money can I make in retirement before my taxes? My Social Security isn't taxed. How much of my Medicare premium is going to be? How much am I? Co-pays, deductibles? All you've got to answer all these questions. You've got to button it up and it takes some time and it takes some planning. It takes some commitment on your part. But we're ready. We're standing by because we want to help you. And that's what we're truly passionate about doing. So just schedule an appointment now. Give us a shout. 352 616 0511. But deleting taxes from your retirement, I mean, we've been talking about it for quite a long time with the national debt is now nearing $32 trillion.

Erick Arnett:
And folks, we don't even know what that looks like. That's such a crazy number that we probably never are going to be able to pay that debt off. And in fact, it's just going to keep increasing. So we strongly believe, like many others, taxes have to go up. They likely have to go up. And guess what? They already are sneaking up now currently with some of the new rule changes for 2023. So get with us. Give us a call and see how that's you're being impacted. But chances are we are going to face higher taxes in the future. And here's another big misconception that's totally false, by the way. A lot of us think or we've even been told by the government or a broker or an advisor or somebody down the road or we just heard it. Or you feel it. You think that, hey, when I get to retirement, I'm probably going to pay a lot less in taxes because I'm going to be making less, Right? You think you're going to retire, your income goes away. So therefore, I'm not going to be paying more in taxes. Guess what? We're finding that our retirees are paying just as much, if not more, in retirement than they were when they were working. And I'm sure some of you realize this, as much as the tax tables have been changed and as much as the tax laws and rules have been changed.

Erick Arnett:
Tax taxation is very different. Write offs are very different, deductions are very different. So there's little silent nuances that they're making in order to gather more tax dollars, because there's only one way out of this problem, folks. There's only one way they're going to have to increase taxes on you, our listeners. They're going to have to increase it. They're going to have to increase it a lot. And they know that you guys are sitting on $36 trillion in retirement assets. So we've got to be mindful of that. And I'll say it again, the Secure Act 2.0 just got passed and it's effective in 2023. There's a ton of changes in there that directly affect you, the listener. So one, either give us a call and we'll give you the bullet points that we've got. We put together a secure act, 2.0 bullet points that we think are going to impact retirees the most. And there's a lot of different rules and there are a lot of things have changed, and it really does impact a lot of our retirement plans. And we have to make adjustments to those. So really, really key, really, really important to get that right. So so just like little things, like a Roth IRA, you know, do you have a Roth IRA? Are you still contributing to a Roth IRA? Have you done a Roth conversion or consider converting your 41k, your or your traditional IRA to a Roth? We can help you go through that whole analysis to see if it makes sense.

Erick Arnett:
So obviously with a Roth IRA, you are taxed on when you contribute. So these are after tax dollars, but your money is protected from increased taxes in the future. So if taxes go out of control in the future, you don't have to worry about it because once your money is in that Roth, it now grows tax free and you can take it out tax free. So super important if taxes go to 70% of of adjusted gross income, you're not going to care because it's going to be 70% is zero for you because the money coming out of your Roth completely tax free. Unfortunately, a lot of us out there listening do not have a whole lot of money in that bucket, that bucket we call the tax free bucket. Most of our money is in the tax deferred bucket, and that's why Uncle Sam is not so worried in their licking their chops, because they know that $36 Trillion sitting there in that tax deferred bucket and they can do whatever they want to the tax laws to change them and grab as much as that as they can. And in fact, the Secure Act 2.0 has made some changes where they can dig into that a little bit more.

Erick Arnett:
And there's so much in that act that we can't share it all on one show. Maybe we'll do a show just about the act in general, but you owe it to yourself to please research that or give us a call and we can show you and talk to you about how we think it's impacting you personally. So a little, little tidbit there. We've got to delete taxes from your retirement the best that we can. So, you know, great reasons to implement that. Roth That that life insurance retirement plan, the LARP, you can actually utilize a life insurance policy just like a Roth account. So that's super cool and super flexible and super exciting. You got to you owe it yourself to to learn about the so tax free growth, tax free withdrawals and flexibility. Here's the the most important part of the Roth IRA that I love, love love. The Roth IRA has more flexibility than a traditional IRA when it comes to withdrawals. So the Roth IRAs don't have required minimum distributions. That's super powerful. Let me say that again. Roth IRAs do not have required minimum distributions. That's one of the things that changed in the Secure Act. The RMD age went up. Okay, so. But you can leave money in the account as long as you want. You don't have to take those distributions. And so no one's got a gun to your head and say, Hey, you got to take out 20, $30,000 out of your IRA so I can tax it at 30, 40%.

Erick Arnett:
So, boom, all that hard earned money, half of it just went out the window. It has worked your whole life. Stress saved road markets up and down. All this kind of stuff, paid for fees, paid for advisers. You built this nest egg and boom, the IRS wants to take half of it. We've got to get a strategy in place to get out from underneath that and give us flexibility. Flexibility is the key. We have to have as much flexibility as possible. Please call us now to schedule an appointment. 352 616 0511. We've got to save taxes. We've got to save expenses. I know we're running out of time, but the main gist of it, folks, is we can we can talk to you right now. We can get on the phone right now and get some of this knocked out for you. Right now. We can delete fees. We can help you lower your taxes and boom, we've got to help you lower overall expenses, taxes, fees and also budget. Let's let's see how we can control those expenses in your budget. This is the only way, folks, we're going to get to and through retirement successfully. So please give us a call. It's our passion. That's all we do every day. And we want to help build you the best, most optimized retirement plan possible. The Freedom Plan. Thank you for listening today.

Producer:
Thanks for listening to Take Point on Retirement, you deserve to work with a private wealth management firm that will strategically work to protect your hard earned assets to schedule your free no obligation consultation visit TakePointOnRetirement.com Or pick up the phone and call 352 616 0511. That's 352 616 0511.

Producer:
Investment Advisory Services offered through Brookstone Capital Management LLC BCM a registered Investment advisor BCM and Take Point Wealth Management are independent of each other. Insurance products and services are not offered through BCM, but are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed agents. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Past performance cannot be used as an indicator to determine future results.

Producer:
Fixed annuities, including multi year guaranteed rate annuities, are not designed for short term investments and may be subject to restrictions, fees and surrender charges as described in the annuity contract. Guarantees are backed by the financial strength and claims paying ability of the issuer.

Producer:
No matter what you do, there's always someone looking to separate you from your hard earned and hard saved cash. I'm Matt McClure with a Retirement dot Radio Network powered by AmeriLife danger. Will Robinson Danger. Online scams are nothing new. Things like fake Craigslist ads or emails from a Nigerian prince offering you his fortune in exchange for a couple thousand of your own money have been around for years. But the scams do keep changing as scammers tactics evolve. Aarp recently released its list of red hot scams in 2022. One of the newest came in at the top of the list, the Google Voice scam. Here's how it works. If you're selling something online and include your phone number for people to reach out, a bad actor could call and say they want to make sure you aren't a scammer. They'll then tell you that you're about to receive a Google verification code. What's really happening is they're opening up a Google Voice account in your name so they can pose as you while cheating others out of their money. Aarp says to avoid this one, don't ever give out verification codes to anyone. Another one on the list involves fake jobs. Scammers will get your information from an online resume and contact you with a fake job offer. Then they'll ask for payment for things like supposed home office setup fees. This one similar to income scams that make big promises for easy money but don't deliver.

Rhonda Perkins:
Here's the reality There's no such thing as a guaranteed way to make money. If you see an offer like that, it's a scam, period. The FTC has sued and shut down lots of companies that have made fake claims like that.

Producer:
Rhonda Perkins is an attorney with the Federal Trade Commission.

Producer:
So before you invest in a program that says you'll make a lot of money, stop, take your time and do your research. Be skeptical about success stories and testimonials. Also, check with your state attorney general's office.

Producer:
Also on the AARP List, rental assistance scams, Fake Amazon Employees, Cryptocurrency ATM Payments, Imposters offering to settle your tax debt, Fake emails that look like they're from a friend asking for a gift card payment and demands through money transfer apps like Venmo or Cash App. With any of these, it's essential that you verify the identity of the person you're speaking to. Never give your personal information to anyone you don't know and if necessary, report it to the authorities. So are you prepared to protect your money from online scams? That's a key question to consider as you try to grow your wealth for retirement with a Retirement dot Radio Network powered by AmeriLife. I'm Matt McClure.