TPWM 10-16-21 FINAL.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

TPWM 10-16-21 FINAL.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Producer:
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. Listen for an hour of simple retirement advice from your friends at Take Point Wealth Management. And look at the air and you're with us pre-recorded program brought to you by your friends at take point wealth management, it is called take point on retirement. Eric Arnett, lead advisor, retirement planner in the Studio CPA Randy Woodruff. Part of that team that want to take point on your retirement personally. Give them a chance. Give them a try. Of course. Safe, secure investments. That's what we're talking about this morning. They have that financial analysis, evaluation consultation. It's all through. Take Point Wealth Management, their phone number once again (352) 616-0511 And yes, they are still giving out that free book stress free retirement. You got to ask for it, though, and the studio with us once again, Eric Arnett and Randy Woodruff.

Erick Arnett:
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 to 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 that 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 sixty one, sixty two, maybe 60, and I think I've still got five more years until I can get to Medicare. And 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 sixties 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, I don't care who you are on 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 10.

Erick Arnett:
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 practices. Just try 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 the 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 sitting there 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, where we can step in and change people's lives.

Erick Arnett:
A lot of 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 a pay attention. And there's so many rules and rules are constantly changing RMDs 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 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 it a hundred times where we've sat down and OK, we just saved you $10000 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 loss harvesting, right, Randi? 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

Randy Woodruff:
The dot com bubble in nine eleven. 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.

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

Randy Woodruff:
As I talked to clients, when we're doing tax planning, you're talking to a client about a transaction. You're trying to project into the future what the tax liability is going to be down the road. I keep telling my clients, Hey, in the last 20 years, we've seen major tax legislation. She 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 20-Something trillion dollars in debt and constantly every year we're spending more than we're making. Pre-covid, 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 since we're talking about Medicare and Social Security, those programs are going to have to have some kind of change up over the next five, 10, 15, 20, 30 years to remain solvent as well.

Randy Woodruff:
So your point about tax harvesting, some some losses to offset some gains or maybe go ahead and taking some gains in the Democrats? I'm not trying to get political, but I think it's pretty much a established fact. They want to raise taxes, especially on the on the wealthy. And 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 and working every day and making a wage. You're making a salary and this is a prediction on my part. So it'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 that 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 join us. From a tax perspective, it's good to constantly be managing that and all your other financial needs.

Erick Arnett:
Well, one thing that I see the most common problem in 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 TurboTax. 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. This happens all the time because the majority of us all have our money tied up in a retirement plan, 401K 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 and then pump that money 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.

Erick Arnett:
And so he was just draining his retirement account over time. And because he was in a high tax bracket, he's 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 and doesn't mean sell all your stocks and go all, you know, real safe 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 going to be 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 had 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.

Producer:
Yeah, 10. Four And we'll take a look at that little further when we return, but we've got to take a quick break here. Any comments regarding safe and secure investments and guaranteed income streams and refer only to fixed insurance products that 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 wealth advisor. Ok, welcome back, folks. We want to dive right in to this next segment of take point on retirement brought to you by your friends, my friends and yours at Take Point Wealth 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 Arnett and of course, 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. You can always Google take point to wealth, and that'll bring you right to take joint wealth. 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 Arnett.

Erick Arnett:
Thanks, J.W.. So last segment, we were really getting into taxation and retirement, and I just think that. We need to continue with that and really hammer home some points. Of course, the 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. Randi, 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.

Randy Woodruff:
What I found out was is that in Europe, there's almost a negative interest over there or basically zero interest 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, my suggestion they chase rate or chase returns, but we definitely want to want to keep that in the back of her 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, you're 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. And there are a lot of options out there. We've talked on our prior shows about annuities and different things, and so I think that people need to be open to not just the traditional 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.

Erick Arnett:
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 risks 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, but increase some of that dividend and 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 the right tax strategy to 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 in 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 advisor 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 be on a pole 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, avoiding kind of moving into those tax brackets. How do you avoid that?

Randy Woodruff:
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, we have to navigate through this. But right now there are seven tax brackets, the lowest one right now with 10, the next one's 12, the next one's twenty to twenty four. And I want to say in the next four is thirty two and then thirty five and thirty seven, I think is how they go. So let's just give you an example. Let's say you have a couple. The married taxable income is going to be, let's say, $120000 combination of taxable Social Security RMDs annuity withdrawals, maybe some other other income interest income. Maybe they have part time jobs or retirement just to have something to do, so they thousand dollars of taxable income. Part of that is going to be taxed at 10 part are going to be taxed at 12 and parts can be taxed at twenty two. So all of your income isn't taxed at twenty two. You still 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 additional money out of one of their IRAs or whatever, and that may push them up to where part of their income is taxed at the twenty four percent bracket, no matter what your income is. I always get the benefit of the ten percent if you make it one hundred and fifty grand part is taxed at 10 part at 12 part of twenty two and part maybe a twenty four, depending on what the thresholds are.

Randy Woodruff:
So that's important for people to understand the higher income, especially the big jump, is from twelve to twenty two 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 one time IRA distribution for some special purchase, it really gets hammered hard in taxes, so that's 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. And maybe you can manage to stay in the lower bracket, maybe if you're towards the end of the year and you want to take some money out. Or a big purchase, and you're five or ten pounds away from that bracket, maybe take part this year and park 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 taxed at a higher bracket. You can talk to our clients about maybe paying their real estate taxes two years in one year. So double up on your property taxes, maybe even punch up your charitable contributions. Maybe go real heavy in one year, light 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, so he might as well get a deduction for it. Try to time

Erick Arnett:
It. They change the law. If you reach the age of seventy two, now is when you're required to start taking money from your IRA or your for one case or your retirement accounts. 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 of $5000 RMD that you're required to take out, and heck, that RMD is going to bump you up in a higher tax bracket. So why don't you send that money directly to the charity? None of 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 might make sense for you to do that now this year, next year, and why not write? I'd rather have a portion of my money going to a charity than have it go to the IRS.

Randy Woodruff:
Because if you're not itemizing and you're giving away, let's say, $15000 a year away to charities, that $15000 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 contributions. So to your point, you could take that $15000 send it right to the charity, not have it come into your income calculation at all. So you really are in a sense, getting a tax deduction for making that charitable contribution by giving it directly to the charity. So let's say you wanted to make a $15000 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.

Erick Arnett:
I think we just uncovered exciting stuff. 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. We're just going to sit down with you and fund the save people money like that that gives me. I just got some goose bumps.

Randy Woodruff:
We don't want to talk back to the whole conversation of tax rate saving taxes. Face it, we all in America. Nobody likes paying taxes. We had to pay a dollar we despise, but we're not happy about what we pay. The more we begrudge clients come into my office, you know, I need 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, by buying new 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? 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 37 percent. So for every dollar that you spend on with, if you have a business with vendors or you're making charitable contributions, if you're an individual, every dollar that you spend with a vendor with a charity, the most you're going to save is 37 cents on the dollar.

Randy Woodruff:
You're going to give that vendor or charity a buck, and the most the government is going to give you back is 37 cents. That's if you're in the top tax bracket and to be in that bracket if you're married. Filing joint, it's $600000 in taxable income, not an advocate of paying more taxes than you have to, of course. 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. And if you're constantly buying new stuff that you don't really need, you're basically you're saving money in taxes. What you're throwing away a lot more equity than what you're gaining in tax. It's got to be a balance here. Again, to be clear, I'm not an advocate paying more taxes than you have to an advocate of trying to spend the money wisely to save money in taxes. But there comes a point in time when I say which has got to pay the tax because you really don't need need to spend the money.

Erick Arnett:
Number one, just to put it out there, we can accommodate anybody anyhow anyway. So if 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 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, there's 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 advisor. You know them, you trust them. You like that relationship. It's just like in a marriage. You know, sometimes all of 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 change 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, no one's going to try to sell you or say, Hey, you know, come into our firm, it's going to be completely laid back objective. Let's see if we can find some issues that.

Erick Arnett:
We could improve on you may be able to stay at your advisor, that's fine as long as we're finding a way. We might earn a tax business, I don't know. So if you were taking your RMDs already prior to the law change because they change it to age seventy two, now you have to stay on that RMD 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 CARES Act. They were allowed to forego an RMD. What I would do is I would go and talk to a few advisors, 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? Everybody is pushing in the four one 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, 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 fifty five, 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 stars are not flowing ships. So like, for instance, in the S&P 500, if you don't have technology stocks, you didn't do anything.

Erick Arnett:
So if you're heavily weighted in bonds and interest rates go up, you're not getting any interest and you could potentially lose some principal there. So I think now more than ever, you've got to have got to have active portfolio management. I agree. You've got to have somebody constantly 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, hey, 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 in a 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? Let's just say you had five hundred thousand. What's 10 percent of five hundred thousand fifty thousand dollars that you just lost? Well, what if you are paying a one percent fee versus a 50 basis point fee in a target date fund? I think you've more than earned. Oh yeah, 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?

Randy Woodruff:
And it's something we've all heard over the years. You get what you pay for.

Producer:
Yeah, folks, we'll be back right after this. Be smart. I'll take point wealth today three five two six one six zero five one one or take zero point wealth 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 pre-recorded program brought to you by the fine folks at Take Point Wealth Management Juan full hour chunk full of the information you're going to need for a stress free retirement check point wealth management based here locally on the Nature Coast here to serve the residents. That's the team of wealth management building a sound portfolio through strong relationships. Those relationships start right here. They are the well-rounded team of professionals. Lead Advisor Retirement Planner Eric Arnett.

Erick Arnett:
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, 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.

Randy Woodruff:
The uncertainty that we have going forward, I think that things are definitely going to level out. I think there's been 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 up. Absolutely. 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. All of us need to get more involved in our own personal finances.

Erick Arnett:
Just that 10, 15, 20 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're maybe 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 on the show is that we like to put a complete circle of risk management around our clients. From every aspect, we take a look at the risk that could be facing you going forward, and that's paying close attention to multiple disciplines in your retirement planning. 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 in. Getting a portfolio analysis is so important, and folks, I see this ninety five 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, your S&P five hundred, your large cap growth have for the first time in a 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 our cyclical stocks.

Erick Arnett:
And what does that mean? Cyclical stocks are going to move in tandem with the economy. So if the economy is improving, value stocks are going to 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. 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. Well, I kind of like his theory in a sense, to some standpoint, he says. Straight up, you know, have growth. Mutual funds have growth and 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 overweight and 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.

Erick Arnett:
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 a winner, some years values the winner, some years international. And so you can't be overweight and growth, or you're going to really underperform this year. So more than ever when the market's just kind of going straight up and we're having this huge surge in growth stocks. Candidly, it was really because the COVID effect. Exactly. You've got to rebalance. And that's why at take point wealth management, we have active management portfolios. We're constantly rebalancing or 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 managing your portfolio more than ever. I don't think the buy and hold is the best strategy right now going forward in this environment. Why not 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 U.S. dollars, your bonds will suffer. We've got to take a look at that as well.

Producer:
Let's take a pause for station identification. You're listening to ninety nine point nine FM, WICB Homosassa.

Erick Arnett:
Good, positive things happening. One hundred percent people still have full faith in America and 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, mid companies, large companies, international companies, commodities, bonds, all that kind of stuff. And so that's why we always preach this active 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 into my office are scared. Change in itself is very scary, right? Any type of change. But when people do feel like they're on loose ground, they really don't know what's going to happen, what's going to what's going to transpire. They're nervous because 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. But 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. 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.

Randy Woodruff:
So it's amazing how much of an impact on people's perspective and their psyche right now, their confidence level

Erick Arnett:
And what we're talking about here, folks, is this has a direct impact on your retirement plan and your retirement planning because you've 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 this is a great time to just focus on yourself, your family, you're in your retirement plan, get your finances in order, you know, let us help you with some of those questions that may be lingering and 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. Randy and I are kind of people are always like the cup is half full as opposed to half empty and

Randy Woodruff:
Just bubbling

Erick Arnett:
Over. Sometimes it's bubbling over. I think that's just really, really important to to get focused up on that.

Randy Woodruff:
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 and squeeze every last nickel out of that particular holding until we shift it. Historically, 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 to before they start to fall, you'll get back in when things have dropped back down again. So a what active management is all about? 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.

Erick Arnett:
No, you make some great points. A couple of things. One, certain markets get really hot. Like right now, the real estate market in Florida 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 or been 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 ninety four percent of your overall return and success and 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 and then down really fast. We want to get you off the roller coaster because you're going to be some ups and downs a little bit here and there, but it's going to be nice and comfortable rolling ride a great point.

Producer:
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 at 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 sponsor or find friends at Take Point Wealth Management. Eric Arnett is an Investment Advisor Representative of Retirement Wealth Advisors LLC, an SEC registered advisor. Take Point Wealth Management This station and RWA are not affiliated. Exposure to ideas and financial vehicles discuss should not be considered investment advice or recommendation to buy or sell any financial vehicle. This information should not be considered for tax or legal advice. Individuals should consult with their 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.

Randy Woodruff:
Thank you, J.W. We're going to talk more about the smart plan and we talked about the smart risk side of the plan. Eric, talk to us about the smart safe side of the plan.

Erick Arnett:
Yeah. So a smart plan overall, we feel as though some portion needs to be in that smart risk, which is a tactically actively managed portfolio. And then the other side of the equation is utilizing what we call the smart safe side of the plan, and that's really utilizing index annuities. It may be more than one indexed annuity. I mean, it could be a laddered portfolio of annuities. So it just depends on each individual that comes in and how we tailor that for them.

Randy Woodruff:
But let's pause there for a minute, because you mentioned it depends on each individual. And I want to stress at that point out that, you know, when you come in and meet with Eric and I, we don't just have a cookie cutter plan. One plan fits all people. We sit down with you. We spend hours going over the over your, your financials, your investment statements, your tax returns. We put together a custom plan that's going to meet your needs in retirement. I mean, no,

Erick Arnett:
No, no, that's a great point. I mean, you got to you got to point that out because a lot of investment management firms or mutual fund companies or wherever you have your money place, they just have one blanket approach for everybody. They don't know you from Adam. It might be a 20 year old person or 80 year old person in there in between, and they don't know your situation. So it's just a blanket approach. We take sometimes a couple of months with the client developing these customized plans, so there's a lot of time and effort goes into it, and it's perfectly matched for that person's situation or that family. So I'm glad you actually pointed that out.

Randy Woodruff:
So in the plan can actually change over time as the clients, as a client goes through life and as their needs change, the plan is altered to fit their needs at that time.

Erick Arnett:
Absolutely. So the smart, safe side of the equation. Is really utilizing safe investments like index annuities, fixed annuities trying to create that guaranteed pension in the future so we can create a personal pension for you on that side of the equation. And I think it's important to have that as a good backup and also act as a great anchor of your overall portfolio. So yes, it does, and you can generate your own pension income that is guaranteed by the claim paying a bill of of a highly rated annuity company or life insurance company. So we always screen for the top rated. We always screened for the ones that are paying the best rates. There's all kinds of technicalities here to get into, but there's cap rates, there's participation rates. You've got to be careful. I was talking to a guy the other day and he was working with a big brokerage firm, and they only recommended one annuity to him while annuity, because guess what? That company was in bed with that annuity company. That was the only product that they wanted to push, and that's the product that they were getting the highest compensation on, right? Amazing. How amazing how that works. He's like, Wait a second. You know, you just showed me an illustration where this index annuity that you're recommending even has some guarantees on the income roll up and the one they put me in and they told me that was like the best one. I'm like, you know, so a lot of that going on. So that gets into being an independent advisor, being an independent fiduciary. We don't work for anybody. We work for you. Exactly.

Producer:
So you're telling me we should shop around. We shouldn't take just one person's advice.

Erick Arnett:
Absolutely. 100 percent, J.W. Yeah. In fact, we had a guy come in the other day. He's shopping around and he said, Look, I love what you guys are saying, but I'm also going to go interview a couple other folks and I said, Absolutely do it. I encourage you to do it. That's what you should do. Try and encourage it to to move forward and and get some new fresh ideas in there. So we always evaluate the insurance carriers. There's third party evaluators like S&P, Moody's and Best. And so we're looking for the best financial solvency ratio of the annuity companies. You have to be careful of that. They've got to be good. Strong companies, highly rated carriers are considered Triple B or above many A or a minus ratings out there. And so those are really good, strong companies. More important than the rating is the financial solvency ratio.

Randy Woodruff:
You know, I'm glad we're going to touch on this. I think it's like something that people don't really understand when they think about annuities and they don't really understand how safe their money is when they invest into annuities compared to the bank. So, yeah. Walk us through that, please.

Erick Arnett:
Yeah. So we are constantly educating folks. And once again, conventional wisdom is the barrier that we have to break through. But folks have been always sold this for

Randy Woodruff:
Years, for years and years before. I mean, we had good annuity products out there. The the banks with the FDIC guarantee was a great guarantee. But now, with the way insurance companies have evolved, annuities have evolved. They think there's a much better products out there when it comes to annuities. And so I think that I highly recommend that people don't focus on the FDIC guarantee, right? And focus more on, you know, the other, like you say, the financial solvency of the company that they're investing in. Well, yeah, I

Erick Arnett:
Don't know if if folks know this or not, but if you invest in a bank, CD or money market, the FDIC reserve requirement is only three to 10 percent.

Randy Woodruff:
So what's a reserve requirement mean? Yeah.

Erick Arnett:
So basically, when banks have your deposits right, they have to have a certain percent of those deposits in reserve to back that up. But think about it, three to 10 percent of the bank's deposits. Not much. Much, right? So and guess what, FDIC insurance? There's not enough FDIC insurance out there to insure everybody's deposits at the bank. So the banks have us kind of fooled or duped, and there's been a veil over our eyes for years that, oh, if you just put your money in the banks, it's safe. And guess what? Guess what? Why they're telling you this because they're taking your money and they're lending it out on the street at six eight percent. So they're making a massive spread on your money, folks, because they're preying on your fear. Bottom line, they're preying on your fear.

Randy Woodruff:
Oh, sure, a real life example. I had a conversation with a client the other day about this exact topic. I said Apple, where we all know about Apple, and they probably got seventy five or 100 billion or more sitting in the bank or in cash reserves. So Apple is not worried about the FDIC guarantee. You know, so, and most of these large companies can't worry about the they got too much cash to to manage and to have on hand to run their businesses. So I hear you and I'm not saying we shouldn't look for safe investments. I'm not saying the FDIC. The FDIC guarantee is a bad thing, but don't put a lot of confidence in that and don't just use that as your sole decision when you're making a safe investment.

Erick Arnett:
Well, the big difference right now with investing your money in insurance companies in these different products we're talking about is that these insurance companies are actively working with your money to improve your life and improve your lifestyle and add money to your bottom line. They're working for you. They want to make money to put dump into your interest bucket because. That's how they're going to retain you one as a client, but they also want to make money too, right? And the insurance companies are much safer than the banks. So a an insurance company by law has to have one hundred percent, one hundred percent of their annuity deposits on reserve, four percent. They also, by law, have to invest your money in U.S. treasuries, which is the benchmark for the safest investment in the world, right? So the they they put your money into U.S. treasuries, they it spits off interest and then they use that interest to buy options on the different indexes that are out there, stock indexes. So your money? Guess what? Your money's never when you put your money with these insurance companies, it's never invested in the markets. It's never put at risk, OK? And it's also backed one hundred percent with a 100 percent solvency ratio. Ok, so and and then they take that money and they're trying to work it and make money for you. And so when what they do is when they make the money on the markets, they give you a portion and they retain a portion, and it's usually a fair split for their efforts. But the bank isn't doing that for, you know, the banks not working your money other than making money on you.

Producer:
So it sounds like they want to charge interest on your money. Why would you pay interest on your own money?

Randy Woodruff:
Yeah, the banks want to pay you half percent of percent and lend it out at four or five percent right now. So they're not giving you.

Producer:
If you're paying to use your own money or to get access to your own money, why would you want to do that? I want to have control over my money.

Randy Woodruff:
Yeah, that question again. Why would you do that? Anybody do that?

Erick Arnett:
The great thing is is think about this. So inside those index annuities, which we love, right? Mm hmm. Your money's never at risk. The principle is 100 percent protected. And if the markets go up, guess what you win. But if the markets go down, you don't lose a dime. Exactly. And so how is that not better than a bond, you know? Or how is that not even better than taking the risk in the stock market? And that's what in my book, I talk about what is your financial speed? Guess what, folks? If you don't need to earn eight, 10, 12, 14, 15 percent to reach your goals, then why the heck are you taking that risk? And but at the same token, why are you have your money sitting in the bank making nothing? So the happy medium is these type of strategies where you can make five six, seven eight percent on average and not have to take any risk. And if that helps you achieve your goals and you can sleep at night and don't have to worry about it, all this fear that maybe might be out there and you don't want the banks making money on your money. So when's the last time the bank did you any favors? Call us, educate yourself. We're happy to spend as much time as it takes. I'll do 20 Zoom meetings with you. I don't care. I just want you to be educated. I want you to understand it. And I don't want to empower you to be the leader of your own finances and lead your family to and through retirement. You know, get control, folks, as opposed to all these other people controlling your money. The banks are controlling your money. The mutual fund companies are controlling your money. You have no control. Let's teach you how to control it and you make these decisions and learn and you become the expert in the leader. How's that sound? Hmm.

Randy Woodruff:
I said in one of our earlier shows, probably several months ago, that it's amazing how much time people will spend the course of a year planning their vacations where they take two or three or four weeks a year in vacations, when it comes to retirement, which I'll spend years and maybe decades in. It's been little or no time planning for retirement. And so I think it's time we change our way of thinking and need to plan each spend time. To your point, Eric, you know the way you take control of your finances as you educate yourself, you learn you sit down with professionals that will take the time to teach you and take the time to educate you. So even though you're working with somebody, you'll be a part of the process and this will be your decision that you're going to help help. We're all going to make together, but ultimately be your decision. And here again, you're taking control of your finances.

Erick Arnett:
Yeah, well, we're in a Zoom meeting or you actually come in the office and say, Well, I'm going to sit there right in front of you. I'm on a run and illustration, but these different companies and these different products, and I'm going to show you exactly how it works and how it looks. No one's going to try to sell you anything. You just relax. Great atmosphere. Learn, educate. I mean, that's what we love to do. That's why we do the webinars. That's why we do the seminars. That's why we do this radio show. I feel like if people can truly be educated and truly understand really what it is that's going on out there to empower these folks to to understand and make their own decisions. That's the beauty of it, you know, because guess what? The banks don't want you to know. Wall Street doesn't want you to be educated. They want you to continue to fall into that conventional wisdom trap so they can utilize your money to make money for themselves. Guess what? The banks are getting richer. Wall Street's getting richer. Ask yourself, Are you getting richer?

Randy Woodruff:
Is mainstream getting richer? Absolutely.

Erick Arnett:
Come on. Good question. So anyways, yeah, I mean, we're just passionate about it. And for years, I mean, I've written articles, I've written books about it. Just call me and I'll help you guys out or do your own research just like anything. Don't believe what you're told. Don't believe what someone has pumped into you.

Randy Woodruff:
Check it out for yourself.

Erick Arnett:
Check it out for yourself. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm going to talk about the rule one hundred, the four percent rule. These are things that folks always kind of bring up to us and kind of understand a little bit better. So, OK,

Producer:
Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back with your friends and mine. Take joint wealth management. Eric Arnett, Randy Woodruff. Stay with us. We'll be right back after this. Take your free financial analysis, investment tax trust, estate planning, insurance services, business advice from someone with your best interest at heart. Truly. Contact Eric Barnett. Take Point Wealth Management three five two six one six zero five one one. Take point. Well, take it from me. Big Point Wealth Management is an Investment Advisor, Representative of Retirement and Wealth Advisors Inc., an SEC registered advisor. There you go. Take it from me. You heard it from me. Derek Arnett, Randy Woodruff and the entire team do the same by giving them a call at three five two six one six zero five one one is, Eric says. No one's going to force you into anything. They just want to educate you. And that's what they've done well and we do appreciate all the information they bring to the table. I've heard words this morning already like tactical, active, safe, secure, smart, perfect guarantee, even an anchor and that was thrown out there as well. So anchor yourself to your future to make sure that it's safe, secure and once again, we're going to turn it over to Eric Arnett, Lead Advisor, Retirement Planner, along with Randy Woodruff, to finish this show.

Randy Woodruff:
J.w. Thank you. At the end of the last segment, Eric brought up two great topics we're going to talk about here. The first one is rule of one hundred. So, Eric, walk us through that, please.

Erick Arnett:
Yeah. So we often hear this and folks come in, and it's sometimes what's the proper mix of investments for me at the point that I'm in and I've heard this Rule 100. So quite simply, Rule 100, it's a term and a strategy that's been put together by financial experts over the years, but simply states that individuals should hold a percentage of stocks that is equal to one hundred minus their age, right? For example, if you're 60 years old and you subtract 60 from one hundred and a half forty, so we're kind of recommending you stay around that 40 percent in stocks and then 60 percent in fixed income assets like index annuities or bonds. Because quite frankly, if you're 60 and we have a significant correction in the markets or even some short term volatility, it's going to impact you a lot more than it is, let's say a 40 year old. So, for instance, a 40 year old, you subtract from 100, you have 60. So they're saying, hey, 60, 60 percent in stocks. Well, if a 40 year old experiences a two thousand eight like we did, he's got plenty of time to make up, right? But I saw in 2008 when I was managing money in 2009, people right around that age of 60 had so much risk. They that way too much risk in their portfolio caused them a lot of stress, sleepless nights. And in fact, they're so fearful that eventually would just capitulate, sell everything and go hide in the woods somewhere and put the money in a mattress. And guess what? That means that you've permanently lost that investment.

Erick Arnett:
You've dramatically affected your retirement because I'll show you when you come in or we do a Zoom meeting, I'll show, I'll show you some charts and some calculations, like if you lose that kind of money, plus you're taking money out as maybe a withdrawal to live on in the first five years of your retirement. If you experience any negative downturn like that, it has a dramatic effect on the back end of your retirement. You could potentially see yourself running out of money. It's so important to get it right in the first five years and to have a good, solid plan that can weather all storms. And so that's just kind of a basic example, and it doesn't necessarily apply to everybody. It's kind of like we were talking about this one individual that's just kind of applies blanket terminology that every person out there when he's giving investment advice. True, we don't feel that that's the way you treat people. We customize everything. So it may be where we have an 80 year old man come in and says, Listen, I've got plenty of money, I've got plenty of pensions. This money set aside for my firm, for my grandkids put me in 100 percent stock here. Ok, that's different. We're talking about most retirees, where they have the majority of their nest egg is something that they're going to rely on to get them to and through retirement and even potentially have to live on or draw on at some point. So pretty good rule of thumb. I love to balance the money between good, strong indexed annuities and good strong tactical asset management, where you kind of have the best of both worlds.

Erick Arnett:
And then on the tactical side, very well diversified and even on the on the index annuity side, diversify with different strategies and companies because every index annuity out there has a different crediting strategy or a different index in them. So we're really creative with it. I love creating it when someone comes to me, and it has like a hodgepodge of accounts and mutual funds, and they don't really know what's going on and what and taking that and kind of creating a nice sound plan that they can understand and and you getting them on track. And now they're like, OK, I get it. I see it. Ok, this is going to work and predictability. We need more predictability, right? So we take the plan and then we stress test it. We throw a thousand scenarios and it throws out predictability, predictability, percentage so we can tell you like look, based on a thousand different scenarios that we throw at this, you have a 95 percent chance of that. We're going to reach the goal that and have success or people come in, they might only be 50 percent chance of success so we can tweak things and change a few things and drastically improve that because number one, volatility risk, which is the measure of risk, taxes and fees, those three things are going to slowly eat away at your retirement. They're the silent killers. They don't just jump up and say, Here I am. Look, I'm doing this to your portfolio. It's a slow kind of death. And so you've got to be really careful that

Randy Woodruff:
Taxes eat to just really benefits. You don't even realize it, but over time, more and more eating into your retirement.

Erick Arnett:
I fall back on personal experience, one of my wives, and the reason that I'm in this business and love what I do is it hits right home. My grandmother, when she retired, my grandfather passed away. And this is like back in the 70s, folks bought these bonds called Tennessee Valley Authority bonds, right? And probably somebody out there has heard of them, and they were paying high interest rates six, seven, eight percent. So my grandfather had all his money in those bonds because he wanted safety and a good yield. Well, my grandmother was like 70 years old, and she never made a change in her portfolio, ever and was drawing money out of it. And by the time she was 82 83, she was out of money and had to come home and live with my parents and my parents had to support her, and she was devastated by that because she lost her autonomy and her freedom and independence. And my mom and dad were like, They don't want my grandmother living with them. Even though they loved her so much, it was difficult. They had to take care of her so she wasn't able to take care of herself anymore because of improper planning and just holding one investment for the long haul. And those bonds all of a sudden weren't the best bonds in the world, and they lost value and they just paid out and she ran out of money. So she was too conservative, didn't have other things in working in her portfolio, didn't have equities, didn't have indexed annuities like just that kind of hit home with me and kind of reason why I thought to myself to be a great business for me to get in so I can help folks alleviate that.

Randy Woodruff:
I have a similar situation, not come to any member, but with a client gets back. Over 20 years ago, new client comes in and older gentleman and he had almost his entire wealth, well over a million dollars tied up in GE stock.

Erick Arnett:
Wow.

Randy Woodruff:
Yeah, yeah, almost the entire end GE back in the 90s and for the better part of the first, say, first decade of 2000 was a great stock performing very well, most of the time paying out dividends, stock values going up. And I was encouraging him that you need to begin to rebalance your portfolio, take some profits off, pay some taxes. Don't like paying taxes, of course, but you need to get some balance here because everything is concentrated in one position and over time. There are some management changes or decisions that GE and the stock price began to spring, dividend payout got cut and 911 hit. Basically, they quit paying dividends for the longest time. I haven't really stopped off the stock price specifically, but I know for several years there there had a major impact on his financial freedom because he was so concentrated in that one position. So, yeah, we talked earlier in the show about buying and holding Eric. You just brought up a personal experience. I've got a situation with a client that happened 20 plus years ago. These strategies that may have been discussing decades ago with mom and dad and grandpa and whoever else don't always apply to today.

Erick Arnett:
So it's a different world or

Randy Woodruff:
Those new rules they were talking about should definitely be at least. I won't say it here too, but they should be given some, some thought.

Erick Arnett:
Well, and that's what we were talking about earlier in the show, right? Think about it. This is innovation like the the marketplace of investment companies and annuity companies. They're they're constantly, you know, innovating new tools every day. I mean, those guys are constantly thinking of ways that we can get better in constant ways, that we can track folks dollars to give them a better return to beat the other company because it's very competitive. All right. There's one hundreds and hundreds of companies out there trying to get your money, so they've got to be competitive, right? So they're always innovating, they're always changing. New tools will come to the table, and that's why you and I are like real students of the game and we're constantly educating ourselves, going to events where we're learning more about products and we have a constant every week. We have an educational meeting where we're getting pumped with new products and ideas. And so you've got to stay in the game, you have to be innovative and that's what Americans do. Getting back to our time, we're innovative people. We can find ways to reach your goals in retirement, no matter what the environment is.

Randy Woodruff:
Very true. Let's touch briefly on this four percent rule that I see you have sitting here next to you as well

Erick Arnett:
Or run out of time. So only whip through this one the four percent rule. You've probably heard about it, but it's kind of a rule that economists and financial planners have come up with. It's what what amount should I withdraw off my retirement so I can safely maintain that principle and be able to never run out of money? And so it's kind of a good rule of thumb, you know, I like the four percent rule. In other words, if you're the value of your portfolio is a million dollars, you know, taken four percent or 40 grand a year, you should be fine because even if we are invested to earn around six to eight percent, you got to remember, folks, there's inflation out there, right? And inflation is two three percent a year. So we have to have a little buffer in there to grow with inflation because you're going to need more money 10 years from. Out from your portfolio than you do now because of the rising costs and inflation, so I love the four percent rule. Sometimes maybe we'll stretch it out to five percent if we have to, but that's really a good, safe number to withdraw off your portfolio to where it'll last throughout your retirement years and be able to live comfortably and also to fight inflation as well. So yeah, I think that's not a bad rule to follow. I see some folks they may need eight, 10 percent, and that's just what it is. It is what it is. And but and we show them, OK, that's what you need to live on. But here's how it's going to look 10 years from now, potentially, and we'll do our best or try to keep up with that. But maybe we find other ways to reduce expenses, reduce fees, OK? If we can reduce fees, expenses and taxes, maybe we can get you closer to that goal or what you need is so in general, that four percent rule is a pretty good one to live by, I believe.

Randy Woodruff:
You mentioned reducing fees and taxes and other expenses when the folks we have on our team that take point, not just you and I, but other folks can also help you reduce your expenses and somebody to come and talk about reverse mortgages. And that was a great, a great product. We've had somebody coming in talking about Medicare. We had a couple of Medicare experts talking about, you know, potential ways to save Medicare premiums in retirement so that people talk about estate planning. You know, there's people think that unless you've got a huge estate 10, 15, 20 million dollar estate, there's no need to do estate planning, but they're actually still is. Absolutely. There's a lot of money you can save. Your heirs can save. You can make your estate very easy to transition to your heirs. The proper estate planning and proper trust planning. Yeah.

Erick Arnett:
Boom. Think about being able to transfer some of that wealth in a tax advantageous way.

Randy Woodruff:
Exactly. Had folks talking about real estate and real estate market right now. Mortgages. So please come see us here. Take point wealth management. We have a well-rounded team of people, not just Eric and I, but other professionals across multiple disciplines that can really help you structure your financial legal portfolio, your assets to help you achieve that stress free retirement.

Erick Arnett:
Yeah, it's kind of a one stop shop. It is. There we

Producer:
Go. Yeah, it's like the big box store all under one roof. You can get it right there with take in wealth management. So once again, we appreciate the guests in our studio or is. Eric Arnett, Lead Advisor, Retirement Planner, and Randy Woodruff, CPA, part of that team that's there to help you and take point on your retirement, folks. Once again give them a call now. Three five two six one six zero five one one If you have a question, email it in Info Info at Take Point on retirement and of course, Google take point. Get in touch with the folks. Take joint wealth management. They're here for you and we'll be here next Saturday for you as well with take point on retirement. Thank you all.