Protecting Your Retirement from Taxes and Fees

On this week’s show, Erick explains how he helps people prepare for retirement by focusing on two significant headwinds for every retiree – taxes and fees. Do you have a solid plan in place to get you to and through retirement?

Call Erick today at 352-616-0511

Book a free consultation here.

6.23.23: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

6.23.23: 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:
So, hey, everybody, welcome to Take Point on Retirement radio. I'm your host, Erick Arnett. And of course, I have Mister Sam Davis with me today. It's so great to be with you today. Thank you so much for listening to our show and making it one of the top financial shows in the area. We're so pleased and about all the participation and just want to give a shout out to our listeners. Thank you so much. Our folks down there in Punta Gorda, Sarasota, Tampa Bay here in the Nature Coast. We really appreciate you listening to the show and making it the number one show out there. And if you have trouble listening to the whole show, you can certainly get a hold of us anytime you want. And just click on the upper right hand corner at TakePointWealth.com and get right on my calendar. Ask any question you have. We also have a podcast on any of your podcast listening apps. You can certainly get a hold of us and we also have our website there Take Point on Retirement radios, our podcast site, we have a YouTube channel, so you can go there and subscribe to our YouTube channel, TakePointWealth.com and don't hesitate to call us. We love hearing from you, our listeners. We'd be more than happy to answer all your money questions during a complimentary consultation to you or and or your spouse. So just get a hold of us any way you can. We're here for you. This is your show. This is your educational show. And just want to say thanks for listening. And with that being said, I just want to say hi to Mister Sam Davis. Thanks for being on the show today and guiding us. How you doing today?

Producer:
I'm doing fantastic, Erick. We are certainly in the middle of summer now. We are experiencing the longest days of the year. So we appreciate all the retirement warriors spending part of their long summer days with us listening to the show or listening to the podcast on any of their favorite podcast apps and would definitely encourage all of those listeners out there who have started to get a little tired of putting off their retirement. They know they need to do a little bit of planning, just head over to TakePointWealth.com and schedule a 15 minute chat with Erick. It'll be almost like you're part of the show chatting with Erick on the phone and starting to iron out some of your questions. And we're going to get to some some listener questions today and answer some of those questions that you all have written in and called in left voice mails with us at (352) 616-0511 and TakePointWealth.com really excited to be back on the air today And Erick we've got a fantastic quote of the week to get us started.

Producer:
And now wholesome financial wisdom. It's time for the Quote of the Week.

Producer:
This one comes to us from James W Frick, who was involved in philanthropy and the Notre Dame Foundation. And James Frick once said, Don't tell me where your priorities are. Show me where you spend your money and I'll tell you what they are.

Erick Arnett:
There you go. Was that put your money where your mouth is, right? We tend to say our priorities are one thing, but obviously the money trail shows us otherwise. And so, yeah, just like you said, Sam mean, for our listeners out there, you know, you're in that retirement red zone, you're getting close to it thinking about it. It's five years out. Heck, it could be ten years out. Now is the time to put a plan in place. And that's the number one thing we always talk about on our show. And I know people get tired of hearing about it, but that's just as simple as that. Let's keep it simple. Like you have to have a solid plan and that plan is put together for you. Completely complimentary as a caller to our show. And it's you know, it's probably a $1,500 value. There's a lot of time, a lot of effort that goes into it. Our team will customize a plan for you. And I stress the word customization because unfortunately, I think such so much of the public out there is just exposed to just a standard model or standard investment policy from, you know, their current advisor or broker. And it's, you know, people deserve more than that. You know, it's not about just, hey, how old are you? What's your risk tolerance? Okay. Here we're going to put you in this model and hope for the best. You know, we're just going to put you on these mutual funds.

Erick Arnett:
Take point. Wealth management is very different. You know, we set out years ago to be different. We are a fiduciary. We don't make commissions. We're a full service fiduciary. We put your needs first and foremost, and we customize our retirement plans. We customize our investment portfolios. It's very few of our clients have the same exact portfolio, you know. So if you're looking for something a little bit better, something that you deserve is complete customization to your needs and your goals, then you know, we are a tactical management shop. We are the ones that will watch your portfolio on a daily basis. We'll make changes to it on if we need to, and we're constantly looking for new opportunities. We're constantly making allocation shifts in the portfolio. And so it's a hands on approach. It's called active wealth management, not passive wealth management. And 95% of the country is in that passive management mode, You know, and and I think we're going to talk a little bit about 401. K rollovers and, you know, whether to leave your plan at a corporation. Today, we're going to talk a little bit about inflation, Social Security. We've got a great show. So an hour of it. So standby, get your pen and paper out. And we hope to really enlighten some folks and get into some great details and information here today. But I wanted to you know, one of the things that was on my mind, Sam, is, you know, is that I still hear from a lot of folks that things are just dismal and they're so concerned about the markets.

Erick Arnett:
And and, you know, it unfortunately, I think that folks out there are still constantly bombarded by negative media, negative press, and it kind of dampens things and gets people scared, scared. And I still think there's a high fear factor out there. And what's interesting to me is as I'm walking around and even talking to different folks and even people that come in the office, you know, prospective clients that are looking for a change, they have they really have no idea how well the markets have been doing and and things have rebounded substantially. And and I wanted to just share I'm going to run through kind of a market snapshot and a market perspective today. I wanted to share, you know, just how things have been going. And we're already I can't believe it. We're halfway through the year. It's it's hard to believe, man, time flies as an example. I mean, the S&P 500, that's your broad market barometer. It's up 15.7% year to date. You know, the Nasdaq, your your Shqs, your Nasdaq composite index, which is comprised of, you know, a lot of your technology stocks and your large companies like Microsoft and, you know, Google and all those guys, Nvidia, Facebook, you know, your technology type stocks. The Nasdaq is up 32% year to date. Okay. So, you know, so we've had a substantial rebound. So things are not as bad as we think they are.

Erick Arnett:
We've seen the VIX, the measure of volatility has come down. You know, international stocks are up 14%, emerging markets up nine growths growth is up. Just your large cap growth stocks up 20% year to date. So there's been a lot of we talked about this before we came on the show. There's been a lot of. Concentration in the S&P 500 and just 5 to 7 stocks. Some of your top stocks like Nvidia, Tesla, they've really driven the S&P mostly themselves. But what we tend to see is when you have these high growth stocks or these PE stocks push out, they're usually the ones that come out first out of the bear market. And we've actually had some pretty smart market people out there have actually signaled that we have shifted into a bull market. Now, that's not to say you just got to go haphazardly out there and put all your money in the stock market right now. That's not what we're saying. All I'm trying to do is bring light to the fact that things are not that bad, folks. Things are actually pretty good and things are recovered. And so we've got to pay attention to that and we've got to get back in the game. You've got to put a plan together. Sitting on the sidelines in fear is not going to get you to your retirement goals. There's so much has changed in here. It take point. Wealth management.

Erick Arnett:
We're on top of that every day. You know, like the the the we talked about it. We're talking about inflation. Inflation keeps it's still kind of there. It's coming down. We are seeing it come in the right direction, which is great. We've got the the prime rate, which is your borrowing rate has gone up to 8.25% now. So that's pretty high. The ten year treasury is sitting around 3.7%. The you know, the five year Treasury is at 3.98. So even in the bond market, there's some good opportunity now to, you know, to to reinvest and get back in the game. If you had up, you know, just this year, if you had a 60 over 40 strategic portfolio, 60% stocks, 40% bonds, you're up 10% halfway through the year. So, you know, this is exactly why we tell folks you can't make big decisions by jumping market. You've got to stay invested. You've got to stay with a tactical, active manage shop that knows what they're doing. That's going to be shifting in a different asset classes, we call it I call it style rotation. You know, there's multiple styles out there where you have. Small cap stocks. You have mid cap, you have large cap. Then then inside of those, you have large cap value, large cap growth and then mid cap growth in value and and so on and so on. So there's multiple styles out there that are going to perform very differently at different times during the economic cycle.

Erick Arnett:
And so you've got to have a shop or you got to have your money with somebody that knows how to manage these cycles and knows how to allocate properly because it's really not about picking that individual stock, you know, Hey, do I buy Tesla at the right time? You know? Yeah, I know that most people out there think that that's the way you you build wealth, but it's not. It's really about having that well-diversified actively managed portfolio that's properly allocated. So if you're sitting in a portfolio right now of mutual funds and let's say you have a large cap value fund in your portfolio and this fund tilts towards value and doesn't have much growth in it. Well, you know, you've you've lagged the market considerably. So, you know, we started allocating more to growth early on in the year. We started making those shifts because of the changes that we've seen in momentum and, you know, not big wholesale changes, but just small little changes to take advantage of where the momentum is in the markets and where the recovery is. And, you know, and now we may actually now that growth has really taken off and really come back so strong. I mean, the Nasdaq up 32%. We may start shifting a little bit more towards value because we feel as though the broad market, the rest of the market is now poised to recover as well. There's some great stocks out there in these different styles that have not recovered yet.

Erick Arnett:
And they have strong earnings. They're good, solid companies. And you'll see value stocks and dividend paying stocks starting to recover and get much better as well. So there's some great opportunities in those markets. So money's always moving somewhere. So you have to be with a shop that understands this and you have to be with a firm that knows how to make those tactical shifts to take advantage of where the money is and where the money is moving. You know, I'm looking at gold prices. They've gone up a little bit. You know, you're you're commodities like copper and silver have actually gone up a tad. Copper is actually down a little bit. But what's interesting, too, is we're still seeing net outflows in equities versus fixed income. So people are starting to pick up bonds again. You know, but despite the you know, we did experience a little bit of a downtick on Friday and a little bit of a downtick this week. But that was that's okay. You know, the market needs to take a pause every once in a while because it was on such a such a robust upward. You know, we were we were on fire. I mean, let's just face it. The market was on fire. You know, was we were talking about earlier, you know, if you if you're in the shqs this year, you're up almost 37%. So, you know, so those are big returns. You know, so if you if you got fearful and got out of the game in 2022 or even 2021 because you thought this this doomsday scenario was coming, you know, it isn't the case, folks.

Erick Arnett:
You know, there's there's always a delineation between what's going on in the actual markets versus what's going on in the economy and what you're hearing in the news and stuff. So you really need to be with a firm that understands this and can implement these these things for you. So just want to share that perspective with folks. Sam You know, I was kind of concerned. I'm constantly hearing folks that things are so bad and the markets just aren't doing anything. And I'm like, What are you talking about? I mean, the markets are up huge this year. So but getting back to, you know, what's important for our retirees and our retirement warriors and those folks in the red zone, it's it's having a plan. You know, let's get a plan in place that's specifically tailored to your needs and your goals. And that's what we do here at Take Point Wealth Management. So I really encourage you, you know, if you've been thinking about it, if you're listening today, just write down our number (352) 616-0511. I'm standing by. Just give me a call. I'm happy to chat with you and get a general understanding as to what's going on with you and what you've been doing, what's working, what's not working, and let's get on track. Let's build that solid long term retirement plan for you.

Producer:
You talk about people getting a bit scared of the markets last year. That really underlines the importance of working with the fiduciary and working with someone like yourself at Take Point Wealth Management. You know, we talk about taking the emotion out of investing, take the emotion out of preparing for your retirement, focus on what your goals are, and then the team over there at Take Point Wealth can handle the rest. So, you know, what's it like when someone calls you up? Erick and starts the process of putting together a retirement plan and working with you.

Erick Arnett:
It's just a real laid back process. You know, what I want to do is just have a conversation, you know, just reach out and give us a call. Or you can also just go on our website, TakePointWealth.com. If you have your smartphone there, you can just go right on your phone and Google that website TakePointWealth.com and we'll come right up and then you go on our website and in the upper right hand corner you can just click on my calendar and you can get right on my calendar for a 15 30 minute chat. You can share notes with me, concerns with me just to kind of, you know, set me up for the call and really just, you know, the the the beginning of the process is just having a conversation to get to know you and kind of understand where you're at, what your goals and needs are. And then what we're going to do is we're going to the next step is we're going to just help you gather the data and the information that we need in order to go to work for you to build out and put forward what we think is an optimized retirement plan for you. And, you know, these plans include Social Security, timing, you know, income distributions. Where do we take our income? How are we going to produce income IT, Medicare, you know, insurance. You know what what what does that all entail? What are our costs going to be? You know, we can do an actual analysis for you and show you exactly what you can expect to pay in Medicare premiums depending on where you're at.

Erick Arnett:
We have a customized service that does that for you as well. So, you know, where am I? Where are my investments currently and how are they working? Are they meeting my goals or my needs? I mean, I wrote a book called What is Your Financial Speed? And I you know, you can grab that book anytime on my website or just, you know, get a hold of me and I'm happy to send it out to you. But it's really important. Like almost nobody out there really knows or understands what their financial speed is and what I mean by that is how are you invested in what type of returns are you getting and what type of risk are you taking on in order to get those returns. And so we show you and educate you on, hey, this portfolio has this amount of risk and these are the returns that you're getting is, you know, do those correlate? You know, you could be. And typically what I see is, you know, folks have a high standard deviation or a high measure of risk with a low return. And so we need to really evaluate that. And through portfolio composition, we can build a portfolio that has a good reasonable standard deviation or low risk with a with a good return.

Erick Arnett:
So you want your risk to be lower than your average return. You want the goal here to build a solid retirement plan is to make sure that you have a portfolio that can weather all storms. But at the same time it needs to be achieving your goals. So, you know, some people might have a portfolio out there that's targeted at, you know, 100% growth and there's all kinds of volatility. And they're you know, they're looking for 20% returns. And, you know, but they don't need that in order to achieve their goals and needs. So why are they taking that kind of risk? And just the opposite. We might have folks out there that are only getting I've seen portfolios that are averaging two, 3% and they're paying fees. They're in mutual funds, they're in some type of model with some big brokerage firm. I'm not going to name them all, but, you know, and they're not getting any attention. No one's looked at their portfolio and look at their portfolio in 2022 and it was down double digits and there was really no reason for it. There's no communication, you know, So, you know, it's really time to take a look at all of this and build that solid, cohesive plan. And then what we do is we even take it one step further.

Erick Arnett:
We'll take our plan, our ideas. We'll take your plan. And if you have ideas, we'll take your plan as well. And we test it. We do what's called a monte Carlo simulation, and we throw a thousand scenarios at the portfolio. So 1000 scenarios to test it to see how it's going to hold up in good markets, bad markets, inflationary environments like we're going through right now, low rates, high rates, combinations thereof. So a thousand different scenarios. We stress the portfolio out, we test it and we show and we and we pull out and see how is this portfolio going to react in different times. And so that's what we do. And what we're good at is, is building that solid portfolio that's optimized long term with a low risk, hopefully a good standard, you know, a good return to meet your goals. And these, you know, being tax efficient, you know, being fee efficient and then and then managing risk, you know, so many folks out there aren't doing a good job at managing risk. And that's just because they just don't know. And and the majority of the folks out there, they have a 401. K, you know, at a at an employer or they've left a 401. K at a former employer, you know, or they're you know, they've got some kind of brokerage account online with one of the big firms and they just kind of pick these funds and and they look at the historical returns and say, okay, well, this one did good ten years ago.

Erick Arnett:
So I think this is going to be a good fun for me. It's just, you know, it's just not the right way to invest and build a solid plan long term. So, you know, we've been doing this a long time. I think we're close to 25 years now. Let us share with you how we do it and let us share with you that stress free retirement plan, because it truly does exist. You just have to understand it and be educated on it. And there's so many, you know, a good solid portfolio. Can weather all storms now for compliance reasons. You know, we're not allowed to share exact numbers and stuff. But, you know, I can just tell you take point. Wealth management clients last year weathered the storm very nicely and so can't share details because of compliance. But, you know, I just want to share with folks that it does make a difference to be with a tactical manager. You did not have to go down ten, 15, 20% last year. So it's all about having stocks, you know, bonds, structured notes. And if you don't know what structured notes are, you know, please reach out to us so we can get you a white paper on that, educate you on that as well. Utilizing indexed annuities, you know, insurance products, buffered strategies, actual strategies that make money when the market goes up.

Erick Arnett:
But. Hedges The market hedges your money when the markets go down. Having some commodities in there, maybe having a little bit of real estate in there, all of this. But, you know, you you just can't own those equally as well. It's got to be a tactical approach to what percentages you own, each one of those. And that's what we do a good job at. And we've been doing it for a long time. And so, you know, just having that passive strategy, this that basket of mutual funds hoping for the best, it's just not going to work. You know, it's a different environment these days. You know, a lot of things move quickly and are momentum driven. So, you know, just to to to even if you just eked out an extra one, 2% over a ten, 20, 30 year time frame, that's huge for your long term goals and needs. So, you know, to get back to your original question, Sam, I know I went off on a tangent, but it's a three step process. We're just going to chat with you a little bit. Then we're going to gather some data and some information, and then we're going to go to work for you and build a solid retirement plan for you. And then we're going to deliver that to you and show you in a financial plan doesn't have to be difficult.

Erick Arnett:
We actually break it down to about 2 or 3 pages and show it, you know, show you on a on 2 or 3 pages what you need to be doing. You don't need this big, thick booklet. You know that some of these people tout and you pay a bunch of money for. It's just not necessary. So we keep it simple here and we want, you know, we want to build you what's called a smart plan. And that's that's really focusing on smart risk, smart taxes and and smart fees, you know, really focusing on those three key things. And so we found across the board that when we work with folks, we reduce the risk, we reduce the fees and we reduce taxes, boom, right off the bat. And so it's really about engaging. I really do feel like we're different, but you have to engage. And once we deliver that plan, it's about implementing it. If you want to implement our plan, great. We'll take care of all of it for you. If you if you just want to say, Hey, Erick, thanks for all this great information, this great education, then I'm going to take some time and think about it or I'm going to go do something else. That's okay too, because at that point, we're just happy that we're educating the public and getting that information out there, because so many people I just don't think truly understand, you know, what it takes to build that solid retirement plan.

Erick Arnett:
And, you know, if you're if you're still on that 401. K plan, chances are, you know, all you're seeing is mutual funds and all that money into stocks, bonds or cash. And those have options available and your options are very limited. You know, you got stocks, bonds and cash. That's it. And so in most of them are, you know, these mutual funds that are, you know, one particular mutual fund family. So we're not big fans of mutual funds, first and foremost right off the bat. So we you know, we love to. We feel as though you deserve better. And it doesn't matter how much money you have. You know, I know there's a lot of shops out there, wealth management shops, that will say, hey, you've got to have a minimum to work with us. We're really here to help everybody give us a call. That was the focus behind Take Point Wealth was to deliver institutional high net worth level money management to the masses and to all of the retail markets. So you sitting out there as a listener might think, Oh, I'm not a wealthy person, this is a wealth management guy. No, no, that's not the case. Give us a call. You too, deserve the best. And and that's why we do this show. We're so passionate about it.

Producer:
Yeah. Erick and I imagine a lot of people out there listening to the show are actually really good savers because that's what we find most of the time. But one of the big things that they're probably overlooking is they don't know what the fees are. I mean, think about it in any other sort of purchase that you'd make if you're going out this weekend to to look at buying a car, you don't just want to look at the price that's on the windshield. You want to know what that price is going to be. Tax title and fees, everything all include. Did you know if you're making any sort of purchase, you always want to do your due diligence in making sure you're not going to get hammered with any sort of extra fees or something like that. So the only thing it's going to cost you folks is your time. Give Erick a call, find out what your fees are, find out what level of risk you currently have and see if that lines up with what your actual objectives are in retirement. You can get in touch with Erick a couple different ways. TakePointWealth.com that's TakePointWealth.com. You'll find the number on the website (352) 616-0511. Or like Erick said just simply click that button in the upper right hand corner, schedule an appointment at a time that's convenient for you and then you and Erick will be chatting and well on your way to building a winning retirement plan. And a lot of folks out there have been making great regular, consistent contributions to their 401 seconds, Erick But they don't know that they have options. And when we come back, we're going to get into that subject right there. What options do you have with your workplace retirement plan? We'll talk about that when we come back on Take Point on Retirement.

Producer:
You're listening to Take Point on Retirement to schedule your free no obligation consultation visit. TakePointOnRetirement.com.

Man:
I'm here with Erick Arnett of Take Point Wealth Management. Erick, these last few years have been a time of change for a lot of people. Some have left their old jobs and started new ones. What if they still have a 401. K or other retirement plan from their old employer?

Erick Arnett:
That's a great question. If that's you, you've got options. A lot of work based retirement plans come with high fees. We can show you options that are a lot more affordable. And don't eat away at your retirement savings and investments.

Man:
What about if I'm getting close to retirement? Do I still have options? Yes.

Erick Arnett:
And this goes for anybody with an employer based retirement plan. You have more options than you think. Did you know you can roll over some of those funds into an IRA with more favorable investment options and lower fees?

Man:
Did not know that.

Erick Arnett:
Now you do. We can help you navigate it all. Just go to TakePointWealth.com and schedule a free no obligation consultation with me today.

Man:
That's right you heard him folks head on over to TakePointWealth.com today.

Producer:
Welcome back to Take Point on Retirement. Schedule your free financial consultation now at TakePointOnRetirement.com.

Erick Arnett:
Hey everybody welcome back to Take Point on Retirement radio. Once again here Erick Arnett, your investment advisor and my wonderful DJ extraordinaire, Mr. Sam Davis. Great first segment. We got the second segment here. We wanted to talk and get really into, you know what I think one is my biggest concerns are and I've tried to write books about it, I've tried to communicate about it, but it's always in my back of my brain. And so I'm going to try to do my best here on the show. Sam But I lay it sleep. I lay asleep at night because I just don't think it's fair. List all of our listeners out there probably in, you know, in this situation or or have been in this situation. And most of AmEricka is in this situation. They have, you know, the bulk of their savings inside of their 401. K retirement plan. Right. You know, we've been told since, you know, for years now, you know, hey, you know, put as much money away as you can in that 401. Your company is going to match it and, you know, put it into some mutual funds and you're going to grow. And that's how you're going to be set up for retirement. Well, unfortunately, what's crazy about that is there's no help. I don't care what discipline you're in or what you do for work. I mean, most of us out there aren't trained investment managers.

Erick Arnett:
In fact, most people out there are just even skeptical, skeptical of Wall Street and the investment management industry in itself. And so they feel, you know, a lack of trust or whatever. But most of it's a lack of education. And what's crazy to me is, you know, people from all walks of life in all different types of disciplines and jobs are expected to manage their own money in a 401. K, You know, there's no help. It's like, here you go, here's the website, here's the login. Go pick your mutual funds like, are you kidding me? I mean, this is crazy, right? I mean, it's not as easy, folks, as just, you know, picking just a basket of mutual funds and hoping for the best. Yes. You know what? Over a long period of time, a rising tide will float all ships. And, you know, as you're working, you're just putting money away and you're kind of contributing to this and your company's matching it. So you see the money going in, you see the account growing, but how do you really know how you're doing versus the benchmarks? Do you really know how you're doing versus your peers? You know, do you are you on track to reach your goals? Do you do you need $1 million to retire versus 500,000? You know, some everybody's different based on their lifestyle and what their goals are.

Erick Arnett:
You know, like, I may need 2 million to reach my goals by the time I'm 65 or 67. But the guy next to me might only need half a million to reach his goals, you know? So what type of returns are you getting? Are you getting hammered in bear markets? You know, are you are you taking advantage of the bull markets? You know, I see people all the time. I get their statements from their 401 seconds and sometimes you see them sitting in cash or some kind of stable value fund for ten years. And they never even participated in the market because they were fearful and no one helped them. No one guided them, no one educated them. So this is what's crazy to me is that, you know, our government, whoever the powers that may be invented, this 401. K plan, but they never really you don't really get any help, you know, And of course, okay, you'll get A18 hundred number and they'll say, yeah, you can call this number and they'll help you pick your funds. But guess what? When you call that number, all they're going to do is say, Hey, well, how old are you? When do you plan on retiring? Okay, you should be in this model, you know, I mean, or they're going to put you in those target date return funds, which I hate.

Erick Arnett:
I really dislike those. They're totally inappropriate. And the industry's pushed those on, on, on everybody. And oh, just because I'm going to retire in the year, you know 20, 35 put me in this target 2035 fund that might not even be closely aligned to what your needs and goals are. So you need customization. You deserve specialized service that's going to build, monitor and actively manage the right portfolio for you, that's going to reach your goals and your needs. And so if you've looked at the investment options in your workplace 401. Plan, chances are you're only seeing mutual funds that put your money in stocks, bonds or cash. And these have been the options available ever since the 4k plan was introduced in 1978. But there's better out there, actually. There's a new study that came out which is kind of cool. The Center for Retirement Initiatives at Georgetown University found that adding alternative investments to the mix would boost your four 401. K returns by 8% in the long run. That's powerful, folks. That's a lot of money, you know, So we can help you create a financial plan for your retirement goals and needs that customize. And uses alternative investments, uses things other than just mutual funds, which you deserve way more than that. You know, you can utilize alternative investments like ETFs, hedge funds, structured financial products such as structured notes, indexed annuities, you name it.

Erick Arnett:
There's, you know, commodities, real estate. These are types of things that, you know, ETFs, love ETFs. That's that's the way to go, folks. And if you need I don't have enough time on today's show, but please give me a call and we'll talk about it. But ETFs are the way to go and for a lot of reasons. Number one, the expenses are so much lower. And number two, it alludes to what I was talking about earlier. You get your return and you get your success from style rotation in different asset classes. You don't get it from picking the right stock. You know, so many people get get locked into this, you know, kind of Wall Street casino type, you know, mentality where they're just focused on 100% focused on returns and what what a stock is going to do, you know, and that's just the wrong way to go about it. It's really not about that. It's you don't get your return from picking the right stocks. You get your return and your success from picking the right asset allocation. So the study for the Center for Retirement Initiatives at Georgetown says that improved diversification. So don't just take it from me. This comes from really smart people at these Centers for Retirement Initiatives and Education. Georgetown University. Improved diversification offered by including alternative assets in the portfolios of 401. S and similar defined contribution retirement plans could deliver greater returns and improve retirement income for millions of US workers.

Erick Arnett:
So this is my concern that all of our workers out there are just not getting the best that that they deserve. And, you know, you may have already left and you've got some money sitting there in an orphaned 401. K, give us a call or if you maybe you've reached 60 and you're still planning on working a few more years. But guess what? You can add an advisor to your account, your existing 401. K. We do it all the time so you can get the help that you need and it's not going to cost you any more money. So why not bring somebody else to the table, a partner, you know, a manager, a firm that's been around that knows what we're doing to help you out with that. You know, don't try to go it alone. You know, this is a call out to all our listeners. If you're if you're a pre-retiree or a retiree and you're overly concerned about potential rates of return, it's easy to become enthralled with this Wall Street casino casino mentality. You know, what kind of return am I going to get? What we get just so focused on returns and where am I going to find the next best stock or oh, I'm going to I got to pick the next best hot mutual fund, you know, Um.

Erick Arnett:
It's not about just guessing, you know, it's what's more important is having that right plan that balances both safety and risk. And we've talked about it early. It's all about managing the risk. And you can still achieve the returns you need and the goals that you set for yourself if you if you just but you can do it in a risk adjusted portfolio. So go to our website right now TakePointWealth.com, schedule your free consultation and we can help you become more tax efficient, more efficient and more market efficient with your hard earned retirement savings. And that's what we're all about. That's what we want to do. And not only are folks just aren't getting any help, Sam, or any advice, they're having to manage this themselves or just get some kind of one 800 number. It's it's they're really creating and have maybe already created this big tax bubble for themselves. And so that's the concern. You know, as you've been working and you've been accumulating money and you've been putting away in this 401. K and you've been getting the match and yeah, you know what? You might have gotten some lucky with some good market returns, but now you have this big tax bubble. And it's shocking to me how many people I run into that don't realize that. You know what? In retirement, when you do retire and you have to start taking money out of your 401.

Erick Arnett:
Or your IRA. Yes. You got to pay taxes on it. You've got to pay income tax on it. So this is going to create tax on your Social Security. It's going to raise your Medicare premiums. You know, so you've got to understand that you might have somewhat of a tax issue. So creating a tax efficient plan is also a prime focus because there's really three buckets out there where you can put your money. Right. You have your bucket of money that that's taxable. Now. You know, that's your brokerage accounts, your mutual funds, your stocks, your CDs, your savings accounts, you know, your after tax dollars, You're getting taxed on that right now as we speak. You know, that's taxable now money. But most of us, 95% of us have saved up in that tax deferred bucket. You know, the one we just spoke about, the 401 K's, the IRAs, the annuities, your 403 B's, your retirement accounts, your deferred comps. You know, this is before tax money, but this is going to be taxed when you withdraw it. And guess what? At some point in time, when you're 73 now, I believe they changed the age to 73 and they might even bump it up to 75. You're going to be required to take money out of that. So you have a lot of time between now and the time you're 75 to to put this and get this and rotate it and transition it into a tax free retirement.

Erick Arnett:
And so that's what we love to do and we're so passionate about is we need to start converting this 401. K money to Roths or even life insurance. Folks, there's all kinds of people on the radio. I see billboards, I see TV ads touting tax free investments. Give us a call. I'm here to tell you there's only two safe tax free investments out there. It's one is the Roth IRA and one is utilizing life insurance. We call it a life insurance retirement plan. Depending on your assets, depending on your income levels, you need to use life insurance in order to create a tax free life insurance plan. So those are the three buckets, the taxable bucket, the tax deferred bucket and the tax free bucket. And unfortunately, those 401. S out there that are just sitting there that you haven't done anything with, they're just kind of sitting there orphaned. We're missing out. We've we've lost time. We've should have and need to be starting to convert those to Roth so we can get you by the time you're in your 60s and 70s to a tax free income. So imagine that. Imagine now you're in retirement and you've got this nice nest egg that you can pull money out of anytime you want, and it's going to be tax free.

Erick Arnett:
And what's super powerful about that is that you're not required to take distributions from the Roth. It's the most powerful, most underutilized tool. And I know people don't like to talk about taxes, and I know people don't like to pay taxes, but we can show you through our illustrations and through our retirement plans, we'll put together a Roth conversion strategy for your 401. K, and we can show you over time how much of a massive impact this has on the back end of your retirement and your retirement dollars and cash flow. So super, super important. If you're listening today, you owe it to yourself to write my number down. It's (352) 616-0511 and give me a call. I want to get you on track to this tax free, stress free retirement planning that encompasses all the different components that you really need to be aware of Social Security planning, Medicare planning. You know, all of that is encompassed. You know, you have multiple accounts. You might have an IRA, you might have a 401. K, you might have a Roth, you might have an annuity, you might have a regular brokerage account, you might have some deferred comp, you might have a pension. So now guess what? Where do we take the money from? You know, that's going to be the most tax efficient.

Erick Arnett:
How do we transfer this wealth to our next heirs or our next beneficiaries in a tax advantaged way? So these are all things that we do that you're just not going to get with that, you know, that standard big old company that you're just a number with and they just get you sitting in a model portfolio. You're not going to get that type of attention, folks, and you need that. And you and we need time, too. We need time. Time is not on your side. So we've got to motivate. We've got to activate now. We got to get in front of this problem now because we do need time. We need, you know, three years, five years, ten years to to build this plan and to rotate it and to, you know, optimize it for you. There are some people that will say, hey, rip the band aid off right now. I'm going to convert my whole 401. K today and they'll pay all those taxes right up front. Boom. And that's okay, too. That's just getting it done. And pushing through the pain. Because guess what, folks, right now we're pretty lucky. We are at one of the lowest tax time taxable brackets or tax times in our history. We're paying the lowest taxes we have in a very long time, and that could change very soon. So think about it. You know, if they raise taxes in the future, which they probably will, I mean, we've got a massive amount of debt that we need to take care of and that can has just been kicked down the road.

Erick Arnett:
But at some point, we've got to address this. And the only way that they're going to address it is they're going have to raise taxes. And so, I mean, you hear it all the time from the current administration. You know, they're coming after the wealthy. They're coming after 401 K's. They're coming after IRAs. They know that money is sitting there and they need it. And so they're going to tax it. So let's get out in front of that now, folks. Let's build a plan now to beat the IRS and to beat those taxes in the future. You know, we provide these comprehensive consultations at no cost to our listeners. And and there's no obligation. You're only going to work with us. Work with us if it's best for you and you decide that it's best for you, we will discover exactly how much you're paying in fees and help you cut unnecessary costs in your IRA or your 401. K or any other retirement savings account that you might have. We could also help you with the Social Security planning in your Medicare. We will compare your current situation to what's possible if you work with us. Remember, it's your money and if it matters to you, it matters to us.

Erick Arnett:
I know that sounds kind of corny, but it's true. You know, we we treat. We treat your money just like it's ours. And that's the big difference when you're working with a fiduciary, when you're working with a team like Take Point Wealth that's as passionate as about what we do as we are, we treat your portfolio, we treat your retirement plan, your money like it's our own. And guess what? If you do well, we do well, right? So, you know, and we have a lot of we have a stake in the game as a fiduciary. If your account goes up, our revenue and our fees go up, Right. If your account goes down, then we lose fees and revenue. And we don't want to do that. Right. We want to we want to do well as well. So we're in the game with you. We treat this money as if it's our own and we're really constantly focused and work hard every day to grow that portfolio for you. So contact us to learn more. You can go to TakePointWealth.com, or you can just call us on my phone number today it's (352) 616-0511. Just schedule your complimentary consultation today and we can tailor a plan for your specific situation and needs. I'm standing by on the phone. Me personally right now, I'd love to talk to you and I'd love to get get you started.

Producer:
And it's such an important point. Erick building as much tax free retirement income as you can and the picture I like to paint that kind of helps people connect the dots is is a vacation. Imagine you're taking a vacation in retirement and you've set a budget for $10,000 just for easy math. This vacation is going to cost 10,000. Maybe it's a fishing trip down to the Keys. Maybe it's a Hawaiian vacation. Maybe you're going to play golf in Ireland. It could be whatever. It's going to cost $10,000. But if that's coming out of your tax deferred account, when you go to withdraw that $10,000, let's say you're in the 24% tax bracket, what you get back is 7600. So in order to fund that $10,000 vacation, you're going to have to take well in excess of $10,000 to fund it. But by converting more of that money now, while you still have time on your side into that tax free bucket, into a Roth, what you take is what you get. And Uncle Sam has already got their cut. Such an interesting statistic to me, Erick, is that 75 million people, that's 75 million people will be retiring between now and 2030. That's a lot. And I know that the folks up there in Washington, DC are salivating at all that billions of dollars that they will be taxing over the next 5 or 6 years.

Erick Arnett:
It's an astonishing number of money sitting in retirement plans. And so, yeah, the IRS and the government knows that that big, huge nest egg is sitting there. And guess what, folks? If you don't take action and you just continue with what you're doing, the IRS is a partner with you. The IRS also owns your account. You know, if you look at it like that, because some folks will pay upwards of 30, 30% taxation or 3,035% taxation on their hard earned retirement dollars. So now is the time. Let's get out in front of it now. Let's take control of it now. And one thing I just wanted to I wanted to kind of shift gears here real quick. I know we don't have a whole lot of time, but you know what? We talked about alternative strategies, educating yourself on what other things are out there. You know, there's there is more out there than just mutual funds, folks. There is more out there than just stocks. There's so much more. The industry is getting so much more sophisticated and put so many more tools in the hands of advisors to help our clients that it's super exciting. But we've you know, we've got to get the message out there. We've got to get in front of more people, We've got to talk to more folks. We need more radio listeners.

Erick Arnett:
So, you know, utilizing annuities, you know, annuities is a bad word. Everybody's like, oh, annuities, annuities, annuities. Guess what, folks? Indexed annuities are tremendous. And I'm not saying they're for everybody. And we're a fiduciary. We don't just sell insurance. We don't just sell annuities. But one thing that drives me crazy is you have these people, these guys on the radio, you have these advertisers, they'll say just they'll make these blanket statements. And I'm not going to mention any names, but you hear them, folks don't buy annuities, don't buy annuities. Call me first. Well, guess what? Most of these folks that are pitching that to you sell annuities anyways, and they're just full of it. So it's just a marketing ploy. Stop listening to the marketing ploys. This show is not a marketing ploy. This is take point wealth management Take Point on Retirement radio. We're here to educate first and foremost, and if we can help you out, that's great. But you're not. You're getting the real deal here. You're getting real information. You're not getting sales pitches to just try to get you to call us and pick up the phone. So first of all, don't be scared about annuities. Annuities can be fantastic for many reasons. And we love the index annuity. Not a big fan of variable annuities, not a big fan of immediate annuities, but when it comes to index annuities, I think they're a tremendous tool as a part of your portfolio to complement what you're doing.

Erick Arnett:
I don't want to see you putting all money in annuities. Absolutely not. But AmErickans, let's let's let's talk about some statistics, because index annuities is like one of the hottest, most highly sold and fastest growing investment class there is out there. So why is it growing so great and people are so happy with it if it's such a bad thing. Right. So I'm tired of hearing that. That really aggravates me. But AmErickans who already own annuities or other products that provide a guaranteed source of lifetime income, let me say that again. You've got to get income somewhere, folks, that if you want a guaranteed source of income, think about it. Where are you going to get that? Okay. There's not a lot of things out there that are going to give you a guaranteed source of lifetime income. So I love the idea of buying annuities. And guess what? So does AmEricka, because the recent survey showed that people that bought annuities want to buy more. They love they love the idea of buying more annuities. And in fact, a lot of times when I meet with folks, they have three, 4 or 5, six annuities and I'm like, Wow, you've got a lot of annuities here.

Erick Arnett:
What's going on? It's like, Well, we just love them, you know? So they meet our goals, they meet our needs, they're safe, We feel great. And if you're getting the right one, that's great too. And that's why it's important to call us here at Take Point Wealth, because there's so many different types out there. You got to be careful. And that's why we navigate that space for you. And so we only look at index annuities that have good, strong track records, good solid ratings by Moody's, A+ or better and have no fees. Okay. So imagine getting the upside of the markets with no fees compared to what you're paying now. You could be probably paying two, three, four, 5% in fees and not even know it and get good solid performance. And guess what? Your principal's 100% protected. So I don't know what's so bad about that. But folks, you owe it to yourself to not listen to all the noise out there and all these guys with sales pitches in their commercials. You need to you owe it to yourself just to make your own decisions and educate yourself first and foremost. So about 26% of the survey participants said they already owned annuities and 80%, 86% of those survey participants who own annuities said they were somewhat or very interested in investing in additional annuities.

Erick Arnett:
76% of the participants with pension plans and 67% of the participants without annuities said they want to invest in annuities. So guess what? That pension that everybody talks about, guess what? The pension. Companies do. They invested in annuities, folks, you know, to provide that guaranteed income. So just to call out to our listeners, go to our website, give us a call today, talk to us about annuities and stacking annuity income on top of the other income sources that you already have, like a pension and Social Security payments. Many retirees enjoy the peace of mind that comes with being able to plan their golden years with predictable sources of income that they can outlive. This is the power of an annuity. Stop listening to these commercials because guess what? Those folks that are saying don't buy annuities are probably going to sell you one anyways or try to sell you one when you pick up the phone. So visit our website. TakePointWealth.com, schedule a consultation today or call us so we can get started on pulling together some options that might be right for you in your current situation and your current lifestyle. Do what's best for you and for your family, not what the masses are pitching or saying. So if you currently hold or think you hold the variable annuity though, or any other type of annuity other than an indexed annuity, please please give us a call and get your free annuity x ray.

Erick Arnett:
We can help you to understand your annuity and present an alternative that could improve your future income potential. So please, please, please. If you have a variable annuity or some other type of annuity, give us a call. If you don't truly understand what's going on there, we'd love to dive into that for you and show you what show you what you truly have and get you back on track. So I think we're kind of getting close to running out of time here. Sam, you want to wrap this up for us? I just want to say thank you so much for listening. It's been great to be back live here on the on the air today. It's been a while. I've been super busy taking care of clients and and great show unfortunately don't have a lot of time and I know there's a lot out there to talk about. That's why we just want a beer resource for you. Go to our podcast, go to our websites, give us a phone call to talk to us personally. But we're here standing by to help you out and to get you back on track.

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. 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 multiyear 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:
Two years of high inflation could warrant cutting back on entertainment costs. I'm Jim Trabajo with the Retirement.Radio Network Powered by AmeriLife. Inflation is triggered AmErickans in times like these to be more cognizant about their spending habits. A recent survey done by CNBC found AmErickans from all income brackets have cut back on spending. Washington bureau chief Bankrate Mark Hamrick explains. People need to have.

Mark Hamrick:
A sense of hope.When the economy is working for.Them. There's a greater likelihood that people will have hope that they can accomplish their basic personal financial objectives.

Producer:
And despite past recessions and examples of inflation, AmErickans have never been timid about spending money within the entertainment sphere. Sporting events and concert tickets have always been a hot item, but lingering inflation and impacts from the Covid 19 pandemic has shifted consumer priorities. According to Morning Consult Economic intelligence data. Entertainment was among the categories that posted the sharpest year over year spending decline as of March 2023. The purchases of books and movie theater tickets underwent the steepest spending drops at a combined 58%, and about 1 in 4 US adults said they're either spending less on or have stopped paying for media and entertainment expenses altogether. So what are some ways you can cut back on entertainment costs, start sharing or cancel unused streaming subscriptions or research cheaper alternatives to sporting events and concerts in your area? Cutting back on entertainment costs. Part of our 23 cost cutters for 2023 for the Retirement.Radio Network Powered by AmeriLife.

Producer:
Any bonuses mentioned may be subject to additional restrictions and regulations based on the offering annuity company. You may not receive the bonus if the contract is fully surrendered or if traditional annuitization payments are taken and if the policy is partially surrendered, it could result in a partial loss of bonuses. Because these are bonus annuities, they may include higher surrender charges, longer surrender charge periods, lower caps, higher spreads, and other restrictions that are not included in similar annuities that don't offer a bonus feature.