TPWM 8-14-21 FINAL.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

TPWM 8-14-21 FINAL.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Speaker1:
The following paid program is prerecorded and sponsored by Take Point Wealth Management on the Nature Coast of Florida take point on retirement, a well rounded show from a well-rounded team leading you into retirement. It sounds great. We're glad you're here because we've got an important show for you from a take point of wealth management to find sponsor of this program called Take Point on a retirement. It's all about building your wealth, your retirement. Just Google take point, wealth management, several locations throughout the area to serve you. They'll come to you as well. So, once again, Eric Arnett, welcome back.

Speaker2:
On my left is the taxation guru, Mr. Randy Woodruff. So once again, folks, powerhouse here of information for you, a wealth of knowledge and experience at your fingertips. I know J.W. often reminds you, pick up that phone, go to your computer or write on your phone and just Google us. All the information is there to get a hold of us and contact us. And when you're talking about folks, retirement, folks, health care, taxation, Social Security, all the stuff, you never run out of stuff to talk about getting into issues with Medicare, the Affordable Care Act and how that impacts folks. And basically, it's based on income. The majority of folks that I sit down with in the majority of folks that even call into the show and ask questions is how am I going to afford health care? I have to retire or I want to retire. I'm 61, 62, maybe 60. And I think I've still got five more years until I can get to Medicare. So that's always a big challenge. But we can overcome that challenge and we have the ability to do that. And it's just with proper planning, we can get strategic and bridge that gap and find ways to provide income in order to meet that need to kind of give you a sigh of relief for that period of time. And then it's never too early to start getting educated. And some of the pitfalls and things that we need to look out for. Most of us want to retire sometime in our 60s or close to. And one thing that I think that we do really well as a group, and because we've been around so long as to help folks avoid making the common mistakes that we see all the time.

Speaker2:
And I don't care who you are and how solid you think your plan is, it's probably not a bad idea to have us take a look and see to make sure it's bulletproof. Nine times out of ten, we're going to find some problems or some issues that we can help you out on. And there's a lot of mistakes that people have made in the past. And that's what we do in our practice, is just trying to help folks avoid those mistakes. So I'd like to talk a little bit about some of the most common mistakes that we see. Also get into some taxation issues. One of the major things that we see that kind of jump out at me and the number one thing is most folks don't have a plan we are offering you if you call in or get a hold of us, which has a considerable value, we'll call it a take point blueprint on retirement. You're going to get professionals looking at your plan, building out a plan for you that's going to make it solid and bulletproof. Number one, that's the first thing I see is most folks are working hard, working hard on some retirement, sneaks up on them or hey, let's talk about covid. covid sneaks up on them and boom, they're kind of forced into an early retirement. All of a sudden, they're like, I don't really have a plan. I'm not sure what to do. That's why where we get juiced up and excited is where we can step in and change people's lives.

Speaker2:
A lot of the things that we're seeing, one is folks just don't really understand their taxes. And that's completely understandable because the tax code is so complicated. But now more than ever in retirement or getting close to retirement, you have to really hone in on and pay attention. There's so many rules and rules are constantly changing, R&D and whatnot. I can't tell you how many times every day I get questions. What does a rollover can I roll over this money? Can I set up a Roth? And what does that mean? And how can I save taxes in retirement? Let's keep things in perspective right now, folks. There is a change in administration. There is going to be a significant increase in taxes. Now, I don't say that to scare anybody, and we've had high taxes in the past. But if we could do some planning with Randy and myself, sit down and really do some planning to help avoid taxation, that's the number one silent killer of a retirement. Taxes and fees I've seen a hundred times where we've sat down and OK, we just saved a ten thousand dollars in taxes this year. Well, how did you. Oh, my gosh. You know how to do that. It's just really paying attention to the details because things change quite a bit for you folks in retirement. So we really have to focus on that tax lost harvesting. Right, Randy? Right now, if any time is probably best, get in and see us and have us do a free tax analysis and do some tax loss harvesting. Capital gains taxes are definitely targeted for an increase.

Speaker3:
The dotcom bubble and 9/11. A lot of tax legislation got passed and they dropped capital gains rates down as low as 10 percent. Depending on what your income was, your income had to be below a certain level to get that low capital gains rate.

Speaker2:
If we have some tax increases in the future, it's going to drastically affect folks retirement.

Speaker3:
As I talked to clients, we were doing tax planning. You're talking to a client about a transaction. You're trying to project into the future what the tax side is going to be down the road. I keep telling my clients, hey, and the last twenty years we've seen major tax legislation changes, probably going to see just as much, if not more, into the future. One thing I do tell my clients, though, right now we're twenty something. Trillion dollars in debt and constantly every year we're spending more. They were making Grekov and we were still spending more than we're making every year at the national level. So there's going to have to be some level of tax increase and probably some level of benefit entitlement programs being cut just to keep on the pace that we're at and to maintain some kind of a solvency. It's not going to happen overnight, but over time we're going to see tax rates creep up a little bit. We're going to see this over time. We're talking about Medicare and Social Security. Those programs are going to have to have some kind of change over the next five, 10, 15, 20, 30 years to remain solvent, as well as to your point about tax harvesting, some some losses to offset some gains or maybe go ahead and taking some gains the Democrats and trying to get political.

Speaker3:
But I think it's pretty much an established fact. They want to raise taxes, especially on on the wealthy. And what's wealthy, I think wealthy is is different for different people. But one measurement of that is if you have assets invested in the market and you're making gains on passive income, that's an easier way to tax somebody than going out working every day and making the way you're making a salary. And this is a prediction on my part. That's not fact. But I think in the future, if Congress is looking where they're going to raise taxes, it's going to be easier to raise taxes on people. They might have income from investments as opposed to folks going out, working every day. Regardless, we don't know what's going to happen in the future where these politicians are going to pointis from a tax perspective, it's good to be managing that and all of your other financial needs.

Speaker2:
Well, one thing that I see, the most common problem and the most common fear is just that not understanding your taxes in retirement. I see a ton of folks out there. God bless them. You know, they're like, hey, I'm going to do my own taxes on Turbo Tax. I'm not going to name any names, but some kind of generic walk in, drop your taxes off type places, big firms. And they may have a tax agent that really just started in the business and doesn't have 35 or 30 years experience like you looking at their returns. And that worries me the most because folks just don't truly understand their taxes, especially in retirement. I can think of one example that keeps me up at night all the time is we had a recent situation with a client that we're working with, as happens all the time, because the majority of us all have our money tied up in our retirement plan for one K and IRA or something like that. And conventional wisdom has told us over the years, you know, pump that money in there, pump that money in there, pump that on in there. And that's the only vehicle for retirement. Then all of a sudden, you find yourself age 75, 80 years old. We were just working with a gentleman recently. He had all of his money, just basically kind of four years sitting in like money market and low paying treasuries and things like that. And the interest that he was making on the account wasn't keeping up with the distributions.

Speaker2:
And so he was just draining his retirement account over time. And because he was in a high tax bracket, is paying an exorbitant amount in taxes on those withdrawals with some prior planning. In his 60s, we could have done Roth conversion. One of the biggest mistakes is just because you're in your 60s or 70s doesn't mean sell all your stocks and go all, you know, real save money, because right now treasuries are historically low. So think about this. This is not going to change, folks. Let's just even do a little bit of foreshadowing and maybe some predictions into the future. Let's just even go out two years from now. All of a sudden, we have a higher tax rates across the board. But guess what? Interest rates aren't going up. Interest rates are probably going down. We're going to get lower. So we're looking at interest rates, maybe going to like zero. So you're not going to be making any interest, but at the same time, you're paying a high tax. That is a double whammy that is going to wipe you out quickly. And so this is where if we can get in front of folks now to avoid that head that off at the pass, we have some fantastic strategies to be able to do that. I think that that's just the number one problem I see right now that keeps me up at night. And I just hope that folks will call in and take advantage of what we're offering.

Speaker1:
Yeah, 10 four. And we'll take a look at that little further when we return. But we got to take a quick break here from our sponsor. Take point, a wealth management. You know, we're going to be talking about the future here in our next segment. We can't see the future, but we can plan for it and we need to make that plan would take point. Wealth and management, several locations that serve you. They've got webinars, got information they want to put in your hands. They've got free evaluations, financial analysis, their phone number three five to six one six zero five one one. We'll return with our friends from Point Wealth Management after this. Any comments regarding savings? Secure investments in guaranteed income streams refer only to fixed insurance products. They do not refer in any way the securities or Investment Advisory Products, fixed insurance and annuity product guarantees are subject to the claims paying ability of the issuing company and are not offered by retirement but advice. OK, welcome back. Folks may want to dive right into this next segment of take point on retirement brought to you by your friends, my friends, and yours at Take Point Wealth and management in the studio. We've got a well rounded team of professionals here to take point on your retirement. Lead advisor, retirement planner Eric Arnet, and, of course, a Randy Woodruff working together to make sure that you have a stress free retirement. Speaking of which, they have a free book they want to put in your hands called Stress Free Retirement Contact, Take Point, Wealth Management, email info, info at take point on retirement dotcom. You can always Google take point to wealth and. We'll bring you right to take point wealth dotcom, of course, they're here with a wealth of information about your wealth management. So I'm going to turn it back over to Eric Arnet.

Speaker2:
Thanks, JDub. So last segment, we were really getting in to taxation and retirement. And I just think that we need to continue with that and really hammer home some points. Of course, Medicare number one issue that we always see is people have concerns about taxes and concerns about Medicare and health insurance. So I just think we stay on point. Their tax planning is always important, really, no matter what age you are, but it's even more critical in retirement. So let's just talk about some of the things that we see. Randy, you brought up an interesting scenario in your travels pick up on where we left off about interest rates and how hard it is to earn safe income these days and how I don't really see interest rates going back up. So I think this is going to continue to be a challenge that retirees face. Where do I put my money that I can safely invest it and still earn some income on it? So that's a real challenge for folks. And you had an interesting story in your travels there, I think is important.

Speaker3:
I've got two clients that come to mind. One involved with them. We're working on building a large resort and casino down in the Caribbean, looking for financing for that. And I was shocked to find a bond deal out of Europe. And I was shocked at how low the rates were for a long period of time. And I must say, it was too good to be true when I found out was is that in Europe there's almost a negative interest over. There are basically zero interest of the rates that we were looking at were two and a half, three, three and a half percent locked in for a long period of time. So to our point earlier about interest rates being low and staying low, I think that's going to be the case for a while. So as our clients look and plan for retirement, suggesting they chase rate or chase returns, but we definitely want to keep that in the back of our mind that rates are going to be low for a while. And so if you're going to leave your money in a money market or CD, I'm not going to be the best alternative for you. You have to look at other options to get the return that you're looking for to enjoy a good retirement. There are a lot of options out there. We've talked on our prior shows about annuities and things. And so I think that people need to be open to not just the traditional the CD or money market and let it sit and draw the interest to get return. You're going to have to look for other options.

Speaker2:
Yeah, absolutely. Traditionally, we've been faced with let's build a portfolio for retirement and our only options have been, you know, have a good mix of stocks and bonds. But right now, with bond rates so, so low interest rate risk, if you don't know what that is, give me a call and I'll explain it to you. There is a great deal of interest rate risk right now for sure. There's a lot of risk facing folks that are looking to maybe be more conservative and it's very difficult to do. But there are some really great investment strategies and platforms out there now that can offer kind of a hybrid, but also give you the safety that you need to increase some of that dividend interest. So the most important thing, right, that people are concerned about is running out of income. That's all we do every day is manage folks need for income and coming up with strategies to provide that income. Once we start drawing that income, making sure that in the right tax strategy tool to avoid as many taxes as possible. So one of the things that I think folks are missing and that really need our help with is managing tax brackets and retirement. When I talk to folks, they don't really, truly understand that. And once you turn on your Social Security, that's a big, big factor on how your Social Security is going to be taxed. Why is it important to work with an adviser or a CPA to manage that income and to make sure that we're in a sense, maybe taking advantage of being in that lower bracket and beyond a poem, more income or maybe coming up with a strategy that would eliminate us from jumping up into a new tax bracket? We've talked about that in prior shows. You could say, hey, I'm going to take a distribution for a little Johnny because I want to buy him a new car. But that throws up into this major tax bracket. Now, your Social Security's tax and everything else is taxed at a higher rate, avoiding kind of moving in those tax bracket. How do you avoid that?

Speaker3:
Great question. And, you know, one of the things that I don't think people are familiar with is there are seven tax brackets. And I get this question a lot or as we're doing planning and we have to navigate through this. But right now, there's seven tax bracket. The lowest one right now is 10. The next one's 12. The next one's twenty two, twenty four. And going to say in connections thirty two and then thirty five and thirty seven. I think this is how they go. So let's just give it example. Let's say you have a couple, a married taxable income is going to be let's say one thousand dollars domination of taxable Social Security, R&D, annuity withdrawals, maybe some other income interest income in that part time jobs, your retirement just have something to do. So one hundred twenty thousand dollars of taxable income, part of that's going to be taxed at ten part. It will be taxed at 12 and it's going to be taxed at 22. So all of your income isn't taxed at 22 years to get the benefit of those lower tax brackets. Gotcha. So as your income continues to climb, let's say let's say the following year, that couple makes one sixty and they pull some money out of one of their IRAs or whatever, and that may push them up to where part of the income is taxed at the.

Speaker3:
Four percent bracket, no matter what your income is, always get the benefit of the 10 percent you to make it. One hundred fifty grand part is taxed at ten, part of twelve, part of twenty two in part, maybe at 24, depending on what thresholds are. So that's important for people to understand. And higher income, especially the big jump is from 12 to 22 percent. So if you're on that threshold without taking a big distribution out of an IRA to go on vacation, maybe make a down payment on a house, or give a gift to a family member here right on the cusp, and you take that 15, 20, 40, 50 thousand dollars one time IRA distribution for some special purchase. It really gets hammered hard in taxes. And that's why it's important to realize where you're at in the tax brackets, where your taxable income is at and how close you are to going over into one of the other brackets. Maybe you can manage to stay in the lower bracket. Maybe if you towards the end of the year and you want to take some money out for a big purchase and you're five or ten pounds away from that bracket, maybe take part this year, part the next year, depending on how close you are, what the amount you want to take out is to not have part of that income tax at a higher bracket.

Speaker3:
One of the things to keep in mind that when Congress and the White House passed new tax legislation back into 2017, effective for twenty eighteen, they basically double the standard deduction. Why do people who were itemizing in the past no longer be able to itemize? Because it went from if you're married 12 and change it to twenty four thousand dollars. And so itemized deductions or things like home mortgage interest, real estate taxes, charitable contributions or the other big ones, maybe health care if exceeds a certain threshold, but basically state and local income taxes, we don't have those here. Other states do real estate taxes, charitable contributions, mortgage interest. We even talk to our clients about maybe paying their real estate taxes two years in one year to double up on your property taxes, maybe even bunch up your charitable contributions, maybe go real heavy in one year, like the next year and go heavy in the same year that you that you double up on your real estate taxes so you can itemize, get you over that threshold because you're going to spend the money anyhow. You might as well get a deduction for trying to time it.

Speaker2:
One thing when Randy did such a great job explaining is I think folks need to know about if they don't, because we've done quite a few of these in the past. And I think it's important is that the qualified charitable distributions from folks IRAs are for one case. So folks, they change the law. If you reach the age of 72 now is when you're required to start taking money from your IRA or your four one case, a retirement account. If you already do tithe or you do have some charitable inclinations, then we have redirected folks to say, OK, instead of just writing that, check out of your bank account. We see this year that you have as an example, a five thousand dollar RFD that you're required to take out and check that R&D is going to bump you up in a higher tax bracket. So why don't you send that money directly to the charity now that money is taxable, plus it doesn't elevate all your other money into the higher tax bracket. This is just an easy little tool. Maybe you haven't been contributing to a charity, but, hey, it may make sense for you to do that now, this year, next year. And why not? Right. I'd rather have a portion of my money going to a charity than have a go to the IRA.

Speaker3:
A couple of things on that that's beneficial to certain people that maybe their house has paid off. And so that's usually one of the bigger factors in an itemized deductions calculation is home mortgage interest is going to be really difficult to be able to itemize unless you're giving a lot of money away to charity. So because if you're not itemizing and you give it away, let's say, 15000 dollars a year away to charities, that fifteen thousand dollars is going into your income, you're getting the standard deduction regardless. So you really aren't getting any tax benefit in making that charitable contribution. So to your point, you could take that 15000 dollars, send it right to the charity, not have it come into your income calculation at all. Do you really are, in a sense, getting a tax deduction for making that charitable contribution by giving it directly to the charity?

Speaker2:
That's why we call on the show a double whammy, but a good we had good times back in the old days. Whammies were bad on the way, and that's a good whammy.

Speaker3:
So it's a way to make a fifteen thousand dollar charitable contribution and you don't run it through your income. It's also not entered into the calculation for potentially taxing your Social Security benefits. Boom.

Speaker2:
I think we just uncovered like four whammies. Yeah, exactly. Form boomers. That's exciting stuff, really. Let's break it down. I mean, this really isn't complicated for folks. If you're listening out there, it's not complicated. Come in, make an appointment, get a hold of us. Some laid back guys here it is going to sit down with you and fund to save people money like that. That gives me I just got some goosebumps.

Speaker3:
We to talk back to the whole conversation at tax rate saving taxes. Face it, we all America nobody likes paying taxes. Now we have to pay a dollar we despise, but we're not happy about what we pay the more we begrudge as a general rule so that clients come into my office and spend some money to save money in taxes. My last CPA told me I had to buy a new truck every year or, you know, buy, buy, sell equipment every year to save taxes. I'm like, well, yes, that's something that should be our first go to. What can we spend money on to save money in taxes? But do we really need to buy those items? But if you if you have new equipment, you have new technology and all you're doing is trying to spend money to save money in taxes. Keep in mind, the top tax bracket is thirty seven percent. So for every dollar that you spend on with the business, with vendors or you're making charitable contributions, if you're an individual, every dollar that you spend with a vendor with. Charity, the most you're going to say is 37 cents on the dollar. You're going to give that vendor charity a buck and the most the government can give you back is 37 cents.

Speaker3:
That's if you're in the top tax bracket. And to be in that bracket, if you're married, filing jointly, it's six hundred thousand dollars in taxable income. You're also losing equity because typically if you're buying stuff, you're buying new equipment. As we know, that stuff goes down. You're going to I'm not an advocate of paying more taxes than you have to, of course, at same time. That's what we're talking about planning. It's not just trying to lower your taxes. It's also about lowering your taxes at the same time, building equity, building your personal balance sheet, building your net worth if you're constantly buying new stuff that you don't really need. Basically, you're saving money in taxes, like you're taking away a lot more equity than what you're getting in taxes. There's got to be a balance here. Again, be clear. I'm not an advocate for paying more taxes. And you have to be an advocate of trying to spend the money wisely to save money in taxes. But there comes a point in time when I say we just got to pay the tax because you really don't need to spend the money.

Speaker2:
No one, just to put it out there, we can accommodate anybody anyhow. Anyway, so do you have an email and a computer phone? We got you covered. Real simple process. Fill out a couple of forms, have a short discussion, 15 minute chat, and we can get going on solving and bringing some ideas and some solutions to the table. I've been in the business over 20 something years and I think what happens, listen, is a lot of great advisors out there, a lot of great people out there. I think sometimes the communication breaks down. You get real comfortable with your adviser. You know him, you trust them, you like that relationship. It's just like in a marriage, you know, sometimes all a sudden you find yourself in a divorce and like, how did that happen? We weren't communicating along the line. And all of a sudden some problem reared itself that we didn't address a long, long time ago. You've got to be communicating with our clients. We are reviewing things quarterly if we have to. I love bringing new ideas to the table. That's what Randy and I do with our clients every quarter, every year where we've got to sit down with our clients. It's about bringing new ideas, seeing what's changed in their lives, applying all the changes that we've seen out there with the rules and the laws and applying that to our plan. If you come in and sit down with us and I'm going to try to sell you or say, hey, you know, come into our firm, it's going to be completely laid back objective.

Speaker2:
Let's see if we can find some issues that we could improve on. You may be able to stay at your adviser. That's fine. As long as we're finding a way we matter in the tax business. I don't know. So if you were taking your RFD already prior to the law change because it change at age 72, now you have to stay on that R&D schedule. There's a caveat to that because of the coronavirus and the additional new break that they gave out. I think it's called the Kahrizak. They were allowed to forego an R&D, basically a relief effort to help folks out and kind of adjust to the change in laws and income and stuff like that. But that's important to know, is that you didn't have to take your R&D. And what I would do is I would go and talk to a few advisers, see what they have to say and see who you're most comfortable with this year. If any year, it makes sense to get some advice. Right. I got a question from Kenny in Ocala local area, and he said, I just retired and I have to decide, should I leave my money in my 401k with my previous employer or move it to an IRA. I also need to decide if I should place the funds in a target date fund or allow my portfolio to be actively managed.

Speaker2:
I don't think age really matters. I mean, he just retired. I get this question one hundred and fifty times a year. I really do. It's interesting that this question came in. I'm retiring now. I can stay in the plan with the four one K, which is very low fees, low expenses. When you're in your 401k, we actually manage for one K plans for companies and corporations and everybody is pushing in the forward K arena these target date funds. You know, it's basically a mutual fund of mutual funds that adjust as you age and reduce stock exposure and add bonds. I personally think they are horrible, OK, if I don't have time to go into them. But the biggest reason why I don't think those are good is because think about this for a second. If you're 55, 60 years old and that target date fund is automatically now adjusting you into bonds and selling your stocks, we've already talked about that in the show today. OK, so target date funds make it easy for folks because they're just it's just a simple kind of solution. But I think now more than ever, because we've alluded to this on other shows, all rising tides are not flying ships. So like, for instance, in the S&P 500, if you don't have technology stocks, you didn't do anything. So if you're heavily weighted in bonds and interest rates go up, you're not getting any interest and you can potentially lose in principle.

Speaker2:
So I think now more than ever, you've got to have got to have active portfolio management. I think you've got to have somebody looking at adjusting it, moving with moving with the interest rates, moving with volatility, all that kind of stuff. I think people deserve more than just pay a target date fund. You deserve more than that, folks. And yes, I'm going to be perfectly upfront with you. You may pay a fee for that actively managed service. Tiny, tiny, tiny, bit more expensive than just staying on target date fund. I've always said this. How much do fees really matter if. For instance, your portfolio is down 20 percent in a managed portfolio, might be down 10 percent, well, 10 percent on your money. Let's just say you had five hundred thousand dollars. What's 10 percent of our ten thousand fifty thousand dollars that you just lost? Well, what if you are paying a one percent fee versus a 50 basis point fee and a target date fund? I think you've more than earned. Oh, yeah. And saved your fee. So don't get so caught up on fees if they're not exorbitant, you know, stay in that one percent range. I've always looked at it and said, look, yes, if you stay in your four one K plan and you stay in those mutual funds, your fees are low. I get that. But what is it really, truly costing you long term?

Speaker3:
Something we've all heard over the years that you get what you pay for.

Speaker1:
Yeah, yeah. Folks, we'll be back right after this. Be smart girl, take point wealth today, five to six one six zero five one one or take point wealth dotcom to learn more. And there we go. We've got it started. It's going. And now we appreciate you along with us on this morning. It is a prerecorded program brought to you by the fine folks that take point wealth management, one full hour chock full of the information you're going to need for that stress free retirement. Take point. Wealth management based here locally on the Nature Coast here to serve the residents. That's the team of Take Point Wealth Management, building a sound portfolio through strong relationships. Those relationships start right here. Don't forget that take point blueprint on retirement, a 1500 dollar value. Tell him you heard it here on this show. Let's take a pause for station identification. You're listening to 1999 RFM, WACs Job, Homosassa. They are the well rounded team of professionals. Lead advisor retirement planner Eric Arnet.

Speaker2:
Oh, wow. Thanks, J.W.. Great to be here this morning. Gosh, still lots to talk about, right? As you folks out there are listening, it's time to take point on your retirement. Absolutely. More than ever going forward just because of some of the market conditions and things that we're looking at paying close attention to. You really can't fall asleep at the wheel right now more than ever. You've got to get in and come in and see us. I challenge everybody out there to expand your mind, sit down with us and get a free education on everything that's important to you in retirement.

Speaker3:
I want to touch on that and expand your mind now more than ever. And it's so important, so much going on out there with the financial markets. I think that the uncertainty that we have going forward, I think that things are definitely going to level out. I think there's a lot of anxiety, personal anxiety, a lot of emotion. But regardless, as we've talked on this show time and time again, taxes are going to go up. We're going to have to go. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And that can that can have an impact on the market. So I think it's important to your point that people need to spend more time reading, educating yourself about the market, about the economy, spend less time on social media. You'll be much happier. But you definitely need to to get more involved. All of us need to get more involved in our own personal finances.

Speaker2:
Yeah. Listen, folks, it only takes about ten, fifteen minutes of a chit chat on the phone. I talk to people daily that call in from the radio show and just chat with them. And just that ten, fifteen, twenty minute chat we have tends to be almost invaluable for a lot of folks to get refocused. Maybe there's some aspect of your retirement planning that you're not focused on right now. You may be focused on something else. Meanwhile, something's occurring in the back door over here that you need to really pay attention to. So we've talked about this before in the shows that we like to put a complete circle of risk management around our clients from every aspect. We take a look at the risks that could be facing you going forward, and that's paying close attention to multiple disciplines in your retirement planning. We have had rock bottom, low interest rates fueled by the Fed, fueled by the global world banks and reducing rates. However, the demand for bonds or there's a lot of other things that fuel interest rates, inflation, things like that. So I definitely think printing all this new money that's potentially coming, the stock market is doing great and it's all based on the anticipation that Joe Biden I'm the guy that brings the salvation. Right. But, hey, regardless, he's going to look like the hero, no doubt about it. So that's kind of fueling stocks right now and kind of feeling the economy, vaccines, it's going to increase the economy.

Speaker2:
However, one interesting thing that I want to point out to folks that I think is really important to pay attention to and why we always stress seeing us and getting a portfolio analysis is so important. Folks, I see this 95 percent of the time. So I'm guessing that if you're sitting out there and you're holding a portfolio, you probably have the same thing just by the mechanics of the market this year. Your large cap growth stocks, the S&P 500, a large cap growth have, for the first time in our nation's history, drastically outperformed all other stocks, value stocks, small cap, mid-cap value. So value versus growth is going to be the big theme this year. So when you have growth stocks that have just gone through the roof and value has lagged, what's going to happen, folks? OK, when growth stocks start to get overvalued, there's going to be a massive rotation into value stocks, which is are cyclical stocks. And what does that mean? Cyclical stocks are going to move in tandem with the economy. So if the economy's improving value, stocks are going improve. Your larger value type companies are going to get a lot of attention this year and you're going to see a lot of money rolling out of growth, stocks going into value stocks.

Speaker2:
So that's why we've always talked about we can never predict when this is particularly going to happen. But that's why you have to have a broadly diversified portfolio off the show. Candidly, you and I have talked about Dave Ramsey and his theory. I kind of like his theory in a sense to some standpoint. He says straight up, you have growth. Mutual funds have growth in income, mutual funds, which are value income funds, have some international have some small cap, things like that. Folks, I'm going to guess that just by the mechanics of the market, because your growth stocks and your growth portfolio and your growth mutual funds have grown so much this year, you're heavily overweighted in growth. And it's time to trim that, in my opinion. You know, I've been doing this 22 years and I always show people I have this chart I call the Rainbow. Chart, the Rainbow chart is a multicolored chart of every asset class that exists out there, and in any given year, those asset classes are performing very differently. Some years growth as the winter, some years values the winter, some years international. And so you can't be overweight in growth or you're going to really underperform this year. So more than ever, when the markets just kind of going straight up and we're having this huge surge in growth stocks, candidly, it was really because the covid effect.

Speaker2:
Exactly. You've got to rebalance. And that's why at take point wealth management, we have active management portfolios. We're constantly rebalancing. We're well diversified. We are going to make shifts in your portfolio to take advantage of potential volatility measures that we see coming forward. So you have to have someone actively manage your portfolio more than ever. I don't think the buy and hold is the best strategy right now going forward in this environment. We need higher interest rates, potentially, potentially a weaker U.S. dollar because of the interest rate increases and because of inflation. Be very careful with bonds, folks. If you're holding a lot of bonds in your portfolio, we've got to take a look at how much your portfolio is weighted to bonds, because in periods of higher interest rates, weaker US dollars, your bonds will suffer. We've got to take a look at that as well. Good, positive things happening 100 percent. People, let's still have full faith in America, in the financial system. The markets will be supported financially. Trust me, it doesn't matter whether you have Republicans in office, Democrats in office causing all kinds of commotion. The markets will continue to push higher. And when I say markets, I'm not just talking about the stock market. I'm talking about all the markets, the broad market, small companies, big companies, large companies, international companies, commodities, bonds, all that kind of stuff. And so our theme really this year is asset allocation, paying close attention to how we allocated to growth, paying close attention to how much you have in bonds.

Speaker2:
I know you see this all the time, Randi, when you're sitting down with folks. That's why we always preach this act of wealth management strategy. Most of the people that I'm talking to are really concerned about the change in the administration. Most of the people that are coming in my office are scared. I sit back and I'm like, man, this really stinks. I can't believe all these people that are scared and fearful. Change in itself is very scary, right. Any type of change. But when people feel like they're on loose ground, they really know what's going to happen, what's going to what's going to transpire. They're nervous because they're all they hear is that far left rhetoric. I truly think this is a great opportunity for Biden and our leaders to step up and try to be more moderate and bring the country together. And that's what I'm most hopeful for. Now, some people out there listening might think I'm crazy, but I'm hopeful for that. Regardless, the markets drive on. We're Main Street, right? We're not Wall Street. We're Main Street folks. We're not Wall Street folks. But Wall Street endorsed Biden. I mean, they they got a massive amount of campaigning dollars for the Biden campaign for a lot of different reasons.

Speaker2:
But the markets have been really good. Markets love government spending because that's going to be a lot of dollars flowing into the economy. Typically, the Democratic Party does spend a lot of money, and that's why we're talking about this big stimulus package, a lot of good, positive things. I think that we need to focus on the vaccine. We need to focus back on what's important, getting this vaccine out, you know, helping folks out, focusing on your retirement plan, getting your health care squared away, focus on the fact that the economy is getting better. We're coming out of a hole, all kinds of aspects in manufacturing. I mean, we look at over 300 economic data points that enter into our models, and all those data points are really improving and getting better. So this is positive stuff. So like Randy said earlier, I think it's important for for everybody to just dial it down, turn the social media off. I had a lady there. They call me a wonderful client. I love her to death. She's been with me for a long time. She's literally holed up in her house like she's about 65 years old. She's scared to death. And because she sits there all day and listens to the news and she listens to social media and I said, look, you're going to give yourself a heart attack, turn it off.

Speaker3:
It's amazing how much of an impact on people's perspective in their psyche right now. Their confidence level.

Speaker2:
And what we're talking about here, folks, is this has a direct impact on your retirement plan and your retirement planning, because you got to be ever vigilant. You have to constantly be focused on is your plan working? Does it need to be tweaked? Let's evaluate potential changes in the new administration, like higher taxes. How's that going to impact your portfolio? I think it's important to just kind of dial that down, turn off that rhetoric and take some time and focus on you. I think it's a great time to just focus on yourself, your family, your and your retirement plan, get your finances in order. You know, let us help you with some of those questions that may be lingering and turn that stuff off and just get focused on you. It's going to be OK. Trust me. We're going to get through this. This is America. It's a great country. The markets are extremely strong. We're still the bellwether of the world for the financial markets. So just have full faith in that rally. And I kind of people are always like the cup is half full as opposed to half empty or sometimes

Speaker3:
Bubbling

Speaker2:
Over, sometimes bubbling over. I think that's a really, really important to to get focused up on

Speaker3:
Talking about how both stocks right now across the board has done really well and. Other sectors have lagged behind. I think sometimes people hear active management and try to think that as market timing and really not trying to time the market to where we're not trying to look at your portfolio to squeeze every last nickel out of that particular holding until we shift it as you look back over historically. But also we just understand the markets. You know, not everything can continue to go up. You know, all these stocks have cycles, you know, and the economy has cycles. And so if you understand those cycles and how they all work together, you can have an actively managed portfolio that will allow you to rotate in and out of sectors. You won't always get the highs, but hopefully as things start before they start to fall, you'll get back in when things have dropped back down again. So a mess with active management is all about. And we've seen that here with real estate. If you want to buy a home, it's hard to buy a home. So to bring it home to something that you can relate to and see in your own community there cycliste everything. And the same thing is true with the market. If you understand the cycles, you can actively manage your portfolio. We can actively manage your portfolio to allow you to always be on the upper end of all those cycles.

Speaker2:
Now you make some great points, a couple of things. One, certain markets get really hot. Like right now the real estate market is really hot, really hot, but other times it's not so hot. Right. And so it's going to have its heyday and it's going to have its day where things pull back. And it's the same in the markets. You know, you're going to have growth. Stocks are really hot, but they're going to not be so hot. And the other thing that you alluded to is asset allocation. So there's a study out there. I'd love to show you the chart, folks, if you just email me or go to my website and click set an appointment, that 94 percent of your overall return and success in your returns come from asset allocation, not from selecting individual stocks or individual mutual funds. That's not how you build success. It's not about picking the winners. It's about having that broad asset allocation portfolio. Because think about this. If you're on a roller coaster ride, which is all growth, you're going to be going up really high in and down really fast. We want to get you off the roller coaster and kind of give you a smoother ride, take you through the countryside, nice rolling hills. You're going to have some ups and downs a little bit here and there, but it's going to be nice and comfortable. Rolling ride at great point.

Speaker1:
We're going to take a quick break. A lot of information has been shared. A lot of wisdom has been shared from the fine folks that take point wealth management. So keep your eyes on the horizon, folks. Diversification, allocation, normalization is what we're talking about. And we're going to continue right after a short break from our sponsors are fine friends that take point wealth management. We back out of this take point on retirement, a well rounded show from a well-rounded team leading you into retirement. Now we're of simple retirement advice from your friends at take point wealth management. By the way, I suggest and recommend take point wealth management. I need you to give them a call. Three five to six one six zero five one one. Tell them you heard it here from J.W. in 1999 FM. So we're going to continue with a fine program to professionals in our studio. Once again, just to professionals of that well-rounded team to take point on your retirement. That's a stress free retirement. That's what we all want. Your friends and mine, Randy and Aaron. Thanks, J.W..

Speaker3:
Erik, I wanted to start this segment out with a real story that I experienced about 15, 18 years ago. As we're talking about active trends in the market, it touches on real estate, but it brings this point home, whether it's real estate or the stock markets or whatever, I've never forget just paid forty or forty five thousand dollars for a lot in Spring Hill was a lot back then. Yeah. And I remember him saying, OK, that's the last one. This this party's over. I remember hearing that I'm like, really? The party's over him. How do you know that? And sure enough, a year or two later the party was over. He knew that at forty five thousand dollars for a lot in Spring Hill at that time and the prices that were going on, that was not a sustainable price point for the people moving into this area.

Speaker2:
I love the I love that analogy. The party's over. That analogy is so true in a sense, like think about yourself being a party. When you go to a party, you first walk into the party and everybody's calm and nobody's been drinking in the soft music. Everybody's kind of meeting and get together. And all of a sudden an hour later, the drinks start flowing and things people start going a happier music. Music gets a little louder, music changes, and then by the end of the night, everybody smash drunk and throwing stuff and parties just going nuts in the music super loud. But guess what happens? The cops come and the or or the party is over. And guess what? How do you feel the next morning after that party? Right. Yeah. I mean, it's a great analogy. I mean, the party does and at some point in all asset classes and that's where you don't have all your eggs in one basket and you have a little bit of representation in all those parties, you might not get shut down so fast and abruptly and be like, oh, man, I'm in jail now, or I have a mean hangover. And that was one of the worst parts of the

Speaker3:
Point was is the experience. Yeah. That that this gentleman had when it came to real estate. And so with here take point with Eric and I and our other advisors and our money managers, the experience of knowing him, he did not win the time, the market. But when you just actively manage your portfolio sort of rotations in and out of. Shares that are now starting to either kind of reach their highs for a while. Time to get out and buy in other sectors that are lower. So the buying and hold strategy just isn't what it used to be. We all like to get caught up on these. We hear somebody that like Google when we first went public or Microsoft, their Home Depot or whatever. And that's what everybody focuses on, that one stock. I get to find that one stock. And that usually doesn't happen for most folks. You know, we all we hear about is the success stories. We hear about all the failures. So I just really want to drive home the point that it really is good to actively manage your portfolio to make sure that you aren't timing the market, but you're definitely moving in and out ahead of the cycles there are going to be coming.

Speaker2:
Yeah, I think it's important to expand on that a little bit. 95 percent of us all out there have mutual funds or ETFs in our portfolio. And we have to understand how mutual funds are structured. A mutual fund by design has a specific strategy, and that manager has to adhere to that one strategy, one strategy, folks, they're not going to shift your asset allocation inside of a mutual fund. So, for instance, if you're a growth fund manager, you have to 100 percent stay 100 percent invested in growth stocks no matter what. So growth stocks could be down 30 percent. They have to stay fully invested. You've got to understand the mechanics of those. And same with ETFs, if it's a great

Speaker3:
Point, because the prospectus that goes down to all the right, they require you to stay in there requiring that lane

Speaker2:
To adhere to that specific discipline. So just keep that in mind. Another thing, let's shift gears a little bit here. I know we were talking about this the other day, and I have to come have to come forward with what I call a scam alert scam alert scam, where if we had one of those crazy scam, it's been ad nauseum on the radio, TV, everything is the advertisement of physical gold and silver. I mean, it is unbelievable and it always happens. I notice they ramp up the marketing during times of turmoil or when changes are occurring or they're trying they're trying to prey on fear. And when I have somebody come in or someone call me and say, hey, I'm thinking about buying gold because I'm fearful of what's going on, folks, this is a scam. It's a complete scam. They're preying on your fear. You've got to avoid investing in physical gold or silver. And here's why. No. One, this from a simple standpoint, there's costly fees involved when you buy and sell them. I was listening to a commercial on the way in this morning. The company was adamant we're 20 percent cheaper than other companies when you buy gold from us. Twenty percent. Whoa. So what does that tell you? That might be a little marginal. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, how is this guy? Twenty percent cheaper than everybody else. So what that tells me is, is everybody else marking up their gold. And so I don't know what happened to all the gold. I don't even know if there's gold in Fort Knox anymore.

Speaker2:
I think it was sold or given out to these companies free or at a discount. Now they're trying to sell it, I don't know. But gold and silver, there's a lot of hidden fees, a lot of commissions in there. By the time you get it, it's been marked up. No one. So costly fees. Be careful when you buy and sell gold. OK, think about it. You have physical gold and silver. Now, where are you going to store it? Put it in your house. You're going to put in a safe. About fifteen years ago when we went through the crisis, I actually had this couple come in and tell me I'm pulling all our money out of our portfolio. We're buying gold and we're literally burying the gold under our house. I'm not kidding you, I believe. And that was during the last crisis when everybody was freaking out. And by the way, guess what happened, folks? Everything was fine. Here we are ten years later and we're rocking and rolling. So they would have kept their money in the markets. They would have an astoundingly better. But anyways. But gold is pretty expensive right now. No one. But it's physical gold. Where are you going to store it? And by the way, it can be stolen. Yeah, I had a friend of a friend a couple of years ago, had a bunch of gold and silver in a safe under his floor and his kids and, you know, parties and stuff eventually got out like friends of friends knew that, hey, this guy stores a bunch of gold in his house.

Speaker2:
Guess what? It got broken into and all got stolen by gold. So, OK, where are you going to store it? You know, where are you going to safeguard it so it can be stolen very easily. So it costs money to store your gold insurance costs. You have to insure, you know, versus loss. I mean, so if you invest in ETFs like gold ETFs, like the GLD gold ETF, you can get a multiple on the value of the gold in the U.S. markets. So that might be another way to do it. But even right now, those are pretty highly sellers of gold and silver and other precious metals are not regulated folks. These people can say whatever they want on radio, whatever they want on the TV. I think that one guy that comes on. This guy was like a failed actor. I don't know. And he's on there and I don't even know the guy's name, but he's from Midway or whatever. And he goes on there every day and talks about Beigel. Well, once again, they're preying on your fears. And these they're not regulated. So the securities industry, our industry, Randy and I said we have all kinds of regulations, licenses, ethical things that we can and can't do. I mean, we're so closely scrutinized. You got to be careful of an industry that's not at all regulated. That's kind of interesting to me.

Speaker3:
But you were talking I pulled up the price of gold. Yeah. Over the last five years. And about this time in twenty sixteen, it was around eleven hundred. And basically in then probably like March or April of twenty nineteen. It was around thirteen hundred and it spiked, right, so you figure in 13, 14, 15 months, it went from thirteen hundred to over two thousand seven hundred dollars increase per ounce. That's almost a 50 percent increase right in a in just over a year in terms of assets being overvalued. And when the buy in people are on the radio, on the TV, preying on your fears of the economy and against the administration, whatever else, getting you to buy into a commodity that's probably close to its all time.

Speaker2:
That ship has sailed. If you going to buy gold, you should have done it a year or two ago. And why did gold spike? Because of covid and all the fears that the world was coming to an end. And somehow people think if I put my money in gold and silver, I'm going to be safe because the dollar is going to erode or whatever. But guess what, folks? Let's talk about something very, very basic. We let we kind of laugh about it. But if you're really concerned about a catastrophe of some kind of major event, what are you going to do in the event of that catastrophe? How will you sell your physical gold or silver? Will it be worth anything at that time during a crisis? Think about it. If all of a sudden everybody's got to sell their gold for some reason to buy food or whatever it is, guess what? The value of gold is going to plummet. So be careful on making impulse decisions to buy physical gold. And by the way, I don't think if you show up at Publix or Costco or Wal-Mart or I don't know where we're going to be going if we have this catastrophic event, but I got news for it. They don't accept gold coins. They don't accept silver coins as currency. So it's not even a currency that's used. If we go back to the caveman years or caveman days and you're going to melt your gold down and sell it to another guy across the street for chickens and eggs, come on, people. Think about this. I mean, it's just not going to happen. Well, that's a

Speaker1:
Buy and hold commodity anyway, which you advised against at the beginning of the show.

Speaker2:
Absolutely. Good point. So just a scam alert. I just kind of I was just getting tired of hearing and seeing this stuff on the TV. We have to talk about it by any means. If you have gold and silver, you're thinking about buying gold. So I'm not putting you down. Don't don't take that the wrong way. I'm not putting you down. I'm just trying to bring some awareness. Give us a call. We'll talk about it and discuss it. We tend to hold commodities in our actively managed portfolios in an ETF for temporary purposes or reasons or to hedge against other investments or currencies. So, yeah, there is a need for it, but it's not. Sell all this and go buy a bunch of gold and buy it for the right reasons. Right. It's just going to collect dust and you're probably going to pass it on to your kid or whatever is going to collect dust in his house. You can take it to the pawn shop. Right. But guess what? You're going to get half of what you paid for it. So come on, folks, just relax on the gold to turn that gold and silver noise and scam alert off, OK?

Speaker3:
I agree. Yeah. Because like you said, there is a place for gold and other precious metals in a portfolio that you should be buying those out of an execution of a well thought out financial plan, not out of fear

Speaker2:
Exactly what we think might be some good strategies. And our big focus right now is bond replacement. If you have bonds in your portfolio or a bond mutual fund or growth in income from that holds 50 percent bonds. First, get that analysis to see. We pull out the data and we extract, you know, many times people have come to me. So I don't want any bonds. And we do our Morningstar data analysis and we extract what's actually in their portfolio, in their mutual funds, like, oh, you got twenty three percent holdings in bonds. What I do, I don't know how many bonds. That's a growth and income fund. Well, yeah, it's a growth fund and it has bonds in it because it's an income fund as well. So a lot of people don't know that. So let's get that squared away first. How much exposure do you have to bonds and then. OK, so the question is, where are you going to go with the bond money once you sell off your bond?

Speaker1:
It's all about consultation's financial analysis, evaluations about testing your plan, maybe building a new plan together with the folks that take point wealth management, three five to six one six zero five, a one one protecting Grow Your Money in 2021. VOKES We'll be back after this. Garnette is an investment advisor, representative of Retirement Wealth Advisors LLC, and says registered advisor Decoyed Wealth Management, this station in RWA, you're not affiliated. Exposure to ideals in financial vehicles discussed should not be considered investment advice or recommendation to buy or sell any financial vehicle. This information should not be considered tax or legal advice. Individuals should consult with professionals specialized in fields of tax, legal, accounting or investments regarding the applicability of this information for their situation. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Investments will fluctuate and, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than when originally invested. OK, let's conclude this episode of Take Point on Retirement brought to you from our friends and yours at take point. Wealth Management up and down the Nature Coast, a local to serve you, retirement planner Eric Arnet and certified public accountant Randy Woodruff here to take you into the future to a stress free retirement.

Speaker2:
Let's kind of close up with twenty one strategies in twenty twenty one and think the most important one we're going to harp on here is really taking a look at bonds and bond replacement folks, because interest rates, there's going to be a lot more pressure on interest rates to increase here and that's going to put a lot of stress on on bond valuation. So what do we do? Some of the things we do a bunch of different things. But one of the things that we look at as a bond alternative is something called a structured note. People like we'll just go buy a mutual fund and push about. But you know what, a mutual fund has like a 300 page prospectus that you really should read through before you buy it. There are some of the most complex investments there is, but people think they're simple. Oh, my neighbor said it was a good one, so I'm about it.

Speaker3:
I want to set this conversation up with the fact going back to our last segment of active management. OK, so we were talking about growth funds right now are really, really high. And now's the time to think about getting out of that because other sectors are going to start coming more into favor with Wall Street. Right now, interest rates are at an all time low. There's talk of keeping them low for all of twenty, twenty one and maybe beyond. But here again, it's time to start thinking about getting out of bonds.

Speaker2:
And we're and we're not talking about a fire sale like salary growth thing. Exactly. Exact. So, everybody, we're talking about reallocating a bit, changing those percentages a tad. We still want to have some bond exposure. We still want to have some growth stock exposure. Absolutely. So I appreciate you bringing that up. We're not talking here, folks, about just fire sale in something and jumping from one frypan to the other. No, that's not we're talking about. We're trying to stress having a broad asset allocation and actively managing that in a sense where we can shift the percentages a little bit. We're never going to take big bets, OK, because once again, nobody has a crystal ball. And we don't know when all of a sudden growth stocks are going to start. Well, they already have started selling off a little bit, but

Speaker3:
We're being forward looking here and we're being told we're looking here. We're not saying they pointed out that bonds are going to start going down in terms of value today. But it makes sense that if interest rates are an all time low, they can't stay there. And now's the time to begin considering shifting

Speaker2:
Somewhere in the future. Yeah, we can anticipate that that's going to probably be some type of transition there. So a structured note is simply a debt security issued by financial institutions. Its return is based on equity indexes, maybe a basket of equities based on interest rates, commodities and foreign currencies. So it's kind of a basket of underlying investments that fuel the structured notes. Now, I can't talk about the return specifically that's noncompliant, but these have good returns, really good solid returns and much better opportunity for some interest and some yield than than bonds do going forward. Really good, really good opportunities there. And sorry, folks, based on compliance, I can't yell, oh, you're going to make 20 percent on this or that's not what I'm saying. But it sounds like a great product. It's a great product. I don't think very many folks out there have structured notes as a part of their portfolio. I think they should have some and take point wealth management. We're one of the leaders in that area where we can incorporate some of that in your portfolio. So I think it's important. Go out there, Google it, educate yourself, give me a call.

Speaker2:
I'll give you everything you need to educate yourself. I'll be happy to educate you. And of course, we've talked about fixed indexed annuities. OK, what is a fixed indexed annuity? It's an annuity contract. It's an insurance product. It's not a security. It's technically not even an investment. It's an annuity contract with an insurance company that pays an interest rate based on the performance of a specific market index such as the S&P 500. It differs very much from what a fixed annuity is. A fixed annuity is only going to pay you a fixed rate of interest, very much like a CD at the bank or something like that. We're going to say, OK, for five years when a guaranteed three percent every year, for five years, something like that. And that's a fixed rate that they're just going to give you. So two different mechanisms there, but even a fixed annuity, he's probably going to give you a better yield over the next five years. So let's talk about those. Let's get educated on those. But really look at indexed annuities, structured notes. I think these are great alternatives for bonds going forward in twenty twenty one.

Speaker3:
I just want to make sure our audience understands that Eric and I are independent and we have to really look at all different kinds of assets and asset classes. You know, there are calls and celebrity advisors out there who are on the radio syndicated across the country are going beyond and they're giving out general advice based on that advice. But his general advice, if you want to build a portfolio, you're going to come in and say, I said, take point is we can build a customized portfolio in a customized plan for you. Still, we may incorporate some of the celebrity advice, if you will, from other people in there. They give out great advice, but one size doesn't fit all and you're very specific. Your needs. What you need is very important to ask me why build something that will help you meet those needs?

Speaker2:
Basically, to sum up, be careful about bonds. You're holding your portfolio. You can lose market value with your bonds in 2021 if you do not plan properly. So we invite you to schedule a free, no obligation financial consultation at no cost to you, of course, and understand the fees you're paying. Right. The risks you're taking. And let's show you how we can optimize your portfolio. Here's kind of what you can expect when you meet with us or you call us. It's pretty simple. We're going to have a quick, you know, fifteen, twenty minute chat on the phone or we can do a zoom or you can come into the office, just kind of assess what are the major concerns that you have. And number one, you may not have any concerns. You may think, hey, I'm doing just fine. That's good, too. Like we talk about this all the time. I might think I'm doing just fine in my physical fitness or working out at the gym. But then if I hire a coach and say, hey, here, you're doing that bench press completely wrong by. Way, you know, and I thought I was doing everything perfect or maybe there's something I need to change in my diet or whatever we may think, and it might be working for us. But let's let's look and see if there are any potential ways we can improve things and are there any potential pitfalls that could come ahead.

Speaker2:
Let's avoid those risks that potentially could come in the future. So you're going to meet with us. It's going to be a 15, 20 minute interview. We're going to gather some data, some information, and we're going to go to work for you. We're going to take what you're currently doing. We're going to test it and see how things look. We're going to pull out fees when a part responding to pull out taxation. I guess it's kind of cool and kind of important to mention that we have a CPA on the team, you know, thank you. Thank you for being a CPA in this county, in this area for a very long time, extremely knowledgeable. Come in and meet with us. And then then what we're going to do is once we evaluate your portfolio, we're going to take a look at some alternatives. You may have a plan of your own. You may think, hey, Eric, can you tell us what it would look like if I did this or what do you think about that? And then we're going to also show you, hey, here's what things look like with an actively managed portfolio.

Speaker2:
We call it smart plan. You might have some indexed annuities and there are some structured notes, some diversified stocks, bonds and things like that. Mutual funds so actively managed. So we'll show you what we do. You may like you may not may work for you, may not work for you. And that's fine, because we do have somewhat of a challenge these days with seminars and live events and we coach people live. So be looking for webinars and things like that that we're going to be trying to get out there. No one thing is just you can have your own personal webinar with us. 22 years I've been doing this, been in this county for almost 20 years right here in the Nature Coast. And so I've been around a long time. And we love this community. We love our listeners, and we just really get passionate about helping folks get to and through retirement and in the most stress free way. So that's what we want, retirement to be stress free, leave it up to us, put that baby on autopilot and go enjoy your retirement. Get out and do the things that you love to get back to what you do best. Turn off the TV, turn off the social media, focus on yourself and twenty, twenty one.

Speaker3:
Eric and I don't even actively manage our own stocks, if you will. We have our icey investments in the market with the money managers that we do this every day for a living and we recognize the value that these money managers bring to the table. They're sitting in front of the computers all day. They're actively looking at the stocks in these particular sectors. We trust them with our money. We think that's the best way to go. So we highly recommend the same thing for our clients, our

Speaker2:
Models and our selection committee and the back office. The way that they're managing these portfolios is they're finding the very best managers in each discipline. We do that for you folks. You don't have to sit there and try to figure out what the best fund is or ETFs out there. We're doing all that screening for you. For instance, your portfolio should be growth, income, value international. We're find the very best managers in each one of those disciplines to put it in your portfolio. So I think that's a great point.

Speaker1:
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