2.24.23: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

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

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

Producer:
Welcome to Retire 360 with your host, Dwight Mejan. Dwight is a licensed fiduciary and financial advisor who always places your needs first. Dwight works hard each day to educate Americans like you on how to reach the financial freedom they've worked so hard for. And he can help you, too. So now let's start the show. Here's Dwight.

Producer:
Well, hey, good afternoon. My name is Dwight Mejan.

Dwight Mejan:
I want to welcome you to Retire 360. Show.com taking part of your afternoon to listen. What our goal is, is to help you win with your money. My name is Dwight, of course. And alongside me are my two friends here. Mitchell Keiser, actually son in law there, and Sam Davis, my executive producer. I just want to welcome you to the show if you're a long time listener here. Welcome back. And if you're a first time visitor, visitor, just checking in. We are glad that you're with us and hopefully stay tuned and we'll pass along some helpful information to you. But I just want to acknowledge our audience, just want to encourage all of you just to schedule a complimentary no obligation consultation with us. You can do that by going to our website, Retire360Show.com or come to our office. You can stop in here. We're in downtown Southern Pines, 400 Northwest Broad Street, and you can call us here at (910) 235-0812. If you want to catch up on some more of our shows, you can catch us on anywhere. You download and listen to podcasts. You can find us under Retire 360. It's just simple. Retire 360 and reach out to us. We love reading and hearing from our listeners. We'd be happy to answer any of your questions on the show or during a complimentary consultation with you. We'd love to meet with you and or your significant other, But Mitchell, how are you doing today?

Mitchell Keiser:
I'm doing well. Glad that it's getting a little warmer out down here. This past week it was up in the 70 seconds and being from Pennsylvania, I know this time of year I'm used to it being like ten, 15 degrees. So this is a nice change.

Dwight Mejan:
Absolutely. Yeah. That's great. Well, we you know, we just want to encourage our our listeners here to get in touch with us. We got a free copy of something we want to put out there to everybody. It's called 23 retirement cost cutters for 2023, and it's packed with ideas for hanging on to more of your hard earned money, which is what we want to be all about here. So we got a great show planned today. That's the top concerns of American retirees and how we help people navigate obstacles during their retirement. So a little overview of the show this week. We're going to start out like we normally do with the quote of the week, and then we're going to talk a little bit of Q&A here with you. Just right and wrong is what we call it's a little pop quiz for our listeners. So we haven't given you a quiz recently. So stay tuned for that. We're going to talk about habits. We talk a lot about habits on this show, but there's five habits of healthy retirees. So we're going to talk about some tips for living the good life. And then we're going to get into some top concerns of today's retirees. What worries people in retirement? And then we're going to end up on some fun here, talking about packing bags of where people are traveling, both domestic as well as international. But with that, Mitchell, why don't you kick us off here.

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

Mitchell Keiser:
Yeah. So I'm going to start us off with the quote of the week that is brought to you by Jim Rohn. He was an American entrepreneur, if anybody's heard of him. And that is a formal education will make you a living. Self-education will make you a fortune. Now a little backstory on Jim Rohn. So he was, like I said, an entrepreneur. I thought this was interesting. He left college one year after after going to university and he became a millionaire at the age of 30, went broke at 33 and later became a millionaire again. So that quote there, formal education doesn't make you a living. Self-education makes you a fortune. It reminds me of that, saying a students work for a students, train B, students that work for C students. And it sounds like he fit that mold pretty well.

Dwight Mejan:
Hey, not bad. 30 years old becoming a millionaire and went broke and did it again. So Jim Rohn, quite an entrepreneur in a leader.

Mitchell Keiser:
So yeah, not afraid to take a little risk.

Dwight Mejan:
Now, we talk about risk a lot on this show, but hey, before we jump in to give our listeners here a little quiz was doing some reading, just relaxing a little bit this past week and came across an interesting article. Just want to update our listeners here. You know, there's a lot of uncertainty right now still in this market. You know, we're seeing a positive market year to date, which is giving people a little bit of a kind of a sigh of relief a little bit. But there's still some angst out there. There's a little anxiety and came across an article this week from Bank of America. And one of their chief economists name is Michael Harnett. He talked about and warned really of in this article of a no landing scenario and how it could clobber stocks, as he was saying later this year and won't go through the whole article. But I thought he had some good points. You know, we're still continuing to see a very hot labor market right now, but that might not be good news for the stock market, according to Michael Harnett. And he's calling for a possibility of what's called a no landing scenario. And, you know, there's kind of a new phrase that's taken on using aviation here. There's there's no landing. There's a soft landing and there's a hard landing. So what does this landing stuff all about that we sometimes are starting to see a little bit more? I just want to bring our listeners attention to that.

Dwight Mejan:
So when you hear it, you know what they're talking about. So in a no landing scenario, what that's really saying is that there's no immediate slowdown right now in growth, but inflation remains above trend, and that would likely force the feds to raise interest rates much higher than they previously forecasted and keep them elevated a lot longer. So no landing really means the Fed doesn't do any pausing. And that was kind of where the feds were thinking at the end of the year. They were hoping anyway that they wouldn't need to continue to raise rates. And we don't know exactly what's coming with that, but it doesn't appear with a hot labor market right now and inflation showing no signs of slowing down, that the feds are going to pause any longer, They may have to start elevating interest rates. And this chief economist Michael Hartnett said basically warning that when the central bank starts to tighten money and by raising rates, that always breaks something. That was his quote. And he projected the possibility of the S&P 500 tumbling nearly 7% in early March. And that would pretty much wipe out if that were to happen, that would wipe out the gains that we've pretty much seen this year. So just something to be aware of. Nobody knows exactly where this market's going, But, you know, today is we're recording this show.

Dwight Mejan:
You know, the market's down on the Dow almost 700 points. So we're starting to see some of those concerns and we're starting to see retail sales reports coming in that were disappointing to a lot of people, a lot of investors. So just something to be aware of. But that continuation of the Fed's aggressive campaign to raise interest rates, what that likely means is that a hard landing outcome is in order. So the hard landing is basically what we don't want to see, which is the economy tumbling into a recession. And that's going to possibly, according to this chief economist at Bank of America, that could happen towards the latter part of 2023. So here, again, not not great news. And I don't say that to start the show off on a on a sour note, but it does lead us into some of the things that we're going to discuss on today's show. And that is just some of the concerns that are out there amongst retirees. One other thing I did want to point out from the article, the article, Harnett said he's not alone in his pessimistic outlook. And I'm going to read this A Bank of America Global Fund manager survey published earlier in the week shows that most investors are skeptical that the current stock rally will last. About 66% of respondents said stocks are seeing a bear market rally, signaling they expect them to return to new lows.

Dwight Mejan:
So all that to say is, you know, if you were not comfortable with last year's returns and you haven't looked at your portfolio lately to say, hey, am I in the right tolerance, you know, for my risk or my positions, the holdings that I have in my portfolio are they where where they need to be or do I need to get more defensive or what changes should I be considering? What should I be looking at? Definitely reach out to us. We would love to have that complimentary consult and look at that for you. And particularly, I think we've got some listeners I feel like today that are listening to this who have 401. K accounts and then they have separate possibly brokerage accounts. And one of the things that we always look at closely today when we run these analysis complimentary for people, we want to look at the correlation of your assets because you may have this high correlation between your portfolio at work, your retirement plan and then some of your separate assets if you have investments outside of there. And we just want to make sure that you're correlated properly in preparation for what could be a bumpy road ahead for the year ahead. So with that, I just encourage you to reach out to us at Retire360Show.com. There's a little tab down there where you can click on that and book a complimentary consultation with us.

Dwight Mejan:
You can also call us today at (910) 235-0812. I just want to nudge you a little bit if you've been listening for a little while now and you say, hey, I've been meaning to to get with these guys and just see what they have to say. Today's the day. Pick up the phone, give us a call. We would love to meet you. There is no pressure from us whatsoever. We're going to lay it out for you and simple to understand terms. And what we find is people tend to have some relief when they make that call and they begin to have a little bit better understanding. It might be you're heading right down the right course and we'll tell you that if that's the case. But if there are some potential pitfalls in the road ahead or some big potholes, we're going to make you aware of those and give you some ideas and solutions of what you could do to mitigate some of those risks that we make you aware of. With that, we're going to jump into a right and wrong time here. I'm going to throw some stuff out here. Mitchell and I are going to kind of come back and forth here and but I'm going to ask you some questions. Mitchell Ask some questions, and we're going to see how well you know the answers to these and give you some updates in these areas. So.

Producer:
Come on down as we test your financial knowledge in right or wrong.

Dwight Mejan:
Uh, the first one here. I'll start us off. The age at which you must start taking required minimum distributions is 72. So if you think that's right, tell yourself you think that's right. If it's wrong, why is it wrong? So if you said that the answer was right, well, you're wrong. Since the Secure Act 2.0 was signed into law last December, the age of RMDs was now changed to age 73. So the types of accounts that are subject to RMDs can now continue to grow tax deferred until the year the owner turns 73. So if you want to learn a little bit more about planning for RMDs, you know, we talk about this Mitchell quite a bit on this. You know, let us know. I mean, that may be a good thing for you, but it may not be a good thing for you. There's no one size fits all in retirement planning. A lot of that's going to depend on other the size of your IRAs. It's going to depend on that. It's going to depend on when you're claiming Social Security, perhaps you're already taking Social Security. You know, there's this complication on the tax return when you have Social Security that could wind up getting taxed. For some of our listeners, that's the case. Up to 85% of their Social Security is taxed and other people maybe not as much. So there's a whole strategy involved in that and everybody has their own puzzle, okay? And that's why we encourage people, if you're wondering, hey, should I be taking money out of my IRA account before I'm 73, that might be the case for you. It may not be the case for somebody else. So let us know. Get a hold of us and we'll be happy to go over that schedule an appointment with you. So. All right.

Mitchell Keiser:
So the rule of 100, right or wrong, the rule of 100 is a simple calculation to help determine how much risk they should be taking inside of their portfolio of assets. If you said that that was right, you are correct. So the rule of 100 is you take 100, you subtract your age and the remaining number is the amount of money that you should have invested in the market, your age, whatever that number is, is the money that you should have in that principal protected product. So, for example, if you're 70 years old, you should have about 70% of your assets in principal protected products, making sure that that's smartly invested, not subject to a whole lot of risk. And then 30% of that would be invested into things more like the stock market. Typically, our clients, we don't usually go much more than moderate if you're of that age. Reason being for that is that once you approach those retirement years, you don't have as long to recover if you do experience a loss. Now, on the flip side of that rule of 100, I'm going to take somebody like myself that's in about like the first quarter of their life. So I have about 75% of my assets that I could be investing into the stock market. Why is that? Why is it so much different? Well, if I experience a huge loss, I still have, you know, 75 years for that to come back up where somebody that's on their ladder, years in life, they don't have as much time to watch that growth come back up again.

Mitchell Keiser:
We talk on this a little bit that that rule of 100 and we talked a little bit about legacy planning last week and how your legacy plan is constantly changing. This rule of 100 is constantly changing as well. So if you you know, you were 50 years old when you started investing heavily into retirement and now you're 60, 65, 70 years old, your plans probably changed a little bit if you were moderately aggressive or perhaps you're aggressive, you probably want to scale it back just a little bit so that way you're not subjecting yourself to the market risk that you had when you were a little younger. There was an unfortunate story. We had come into our office a couple years ago or a couple weeks ago. Somebody came in and they were in communication with us for a while, but they just hadn't pulled the trigger. They just hadn't come around to doing it. Well, with all the volatility in the market, they decided that they could no longer afford to retire because of losses that they had accrued in their portfolio. So now they have to work a couple more years because they failed to reallocate their portfolio as they age. So it is important the rule of 100 is important and it's important that you are continuously looking at that. So you're allocated appropriately to your age. If any other questions on that, we'd be happy to help. You can call us at (910) 235-0812 or check us out at 360 or Retire360Show.com yeah, great.

Dwight Mejan:
Great information. Mitchell. You know, we see something too that has been helpful. We've had this feedback. From people when they come in is we talk about risk and we have some very simple visuals that many people say, I've never looked at my assets through that lens before, where we show them some buckets and in those buckets they kind of choose when we describe the characteristics of each of those buckets, there's three of them. A couple of them have principal protection qualities on them and the other one doesn't. That's typically those stock market funds. And when we ask people some questions about their risk tolerance, we can come up with a with a number and a score. And then what we do is we take that portfolio of their assets and then we see how closely that portfolio aligns with that risk tolerance that they've just described to us. And for many people think you would agree with this. Mitchell It's eye opening for them to see either a disconnect or they're right on track with that. And one way to know for sure is if you know, if you look at what happened last year, nobody's comfortable, of course, losing money. But some people look at it relative, which you have to measure it against something. But when you measure that, for example, against the S&P 500, the broadest benchmark that most portfolios people would would measure their performance by, You know, were you comfortable with the fact that the S&P went down almost 20%, How much you went down? Do you know how much your assets went down? And were you comfortable with that? And if you weren't, that's a pretty good sign that possibly you're out of alignment with your risk. So that age 100 rule just kind of fits right into that.

Mitchell Keiser:
Yeah. And you know, I just add to that too, when we work with people as far as helping them identify what they have and what their risk is currently and where they want to be and how to get there. It's interesting just learning human behavior. You see how much as creatures of habit, we don't like change. And I think sometimes that's the biggest hiccup for somebody as they age and as they, you know, were progressing on the retirement spectrum that they what was working for them at one time. It worked well. They had their problems. But, you know, they just they don't want the change. They don't want the fear of change, the all the what ifs that could happen. And I think sometimes that's what hinders somebody from taking the next step to more often than not, it's probably something that would help them. But guess just in the mind, sometimes people are just afraid of what the what if is on the other side of something different. Do you agree?

Dwight Mejan:
Yeah, yeah, totally agree. Mitchell It's a great, great point. So next question is it it's too expensive to work with a financial advisor professional and most people are better off managing their own financial and retirement. Well, if you said wrong to that, that is correct. Financial advisors like myself, professionals actually help you save and keep more of your hard earned money. Talk to us to find out what you could be missing compared to your employer. Employers Cookie cutter Investment Plan. We talk about this a lot, particularly if you're listening and you have old workplace retirement plans and you left those 401 seconds, 403 B's. 457 We had somebody come in here last week with four different accounts, 403 B, a 457, a 401. K, and they had two different employers. And they said, you know, we were listening and we just realized, yeah, these plans have been sitting here and we probably don't have the best investment selection. We don't know how to build or construct a portfolio. We don't even know if we're in the right funds. And interestingly, when we did the analysis for them of those holdings, these had been there, one of them longer than 12 years. The other shortest one had been there maybe 4 to 5 years since they had left. But that that portfolio over that ten year track record had only performed a little under 4%. And this particular individual, we were just talking about risk with Mitchell's last segment there, and he was talking about this person's risk could be twice of what they were taking and they were just missing opportunities to potentially make more money with the market.

Dwight Mejan:
So the other thing I want to mention about working with a financial advisor, you know, I think, Mitchell, you touched on it here just a little bit ago talking about change. And, you know, everybody thinks, well, you know, I don't maybe understand what I have right now, but I don't know that I can trust, you know, either who's going to make a recommendation to me, someone like us, Or it comes down to sometimes, can I trust myself to even make a different decision with this portfolio? Because there's a lot of fear out there right now and we get it. We get that. You know, you don't know us. Some of you are just listening to us for the first time today. Some of you have been listening to us, you know, for several weeks or several months. There is absolutely zero pressure when you come in here. In fact, when you come in for that first meeting, we don't ask for your business. We come in, we have a discussion from there. We decide if there's another meeting that we should have. And we agree that that's in order. And you agree that that's in order. And even in that meeting, we always lay out the next steps of what would be involved if there's a future meeting that would happen. And here's the other thing. We also lay out the cost. One of the reasons I don't put fees out there, just as a blanket statement here on the radio is it's a little different depending on the portfolio, how we design it. We use offensive products and we use defensive products.

Dwight Mejan:
Some the companies pay us directly, a comMeMejan and some there's a fee attached to it. But when someone comes in for a recommendation meeting, if we get that far, the very first moment we sit down, one of the first things we talk about in full disclosure and transparency is we tell you if you were to hire us to implement what we're going to go over with you today, here's the cost of what that would be. So we get that all up front on the table right away. There's no hidden agendas. There's none of that. So we had a another story here I just want to share with you. We had somebody who came in that was talking to us for the last couple of months, and this gentleman had come in and we had looked at his portfolio and run an analysis on it. One of the things that we found was that he had an expense ratio, which is the cost that he was paying for the assets that he was in. A lot of mutual funds, you know, have higher costs, for example, than exchange traded funds. But he had primarily a mutual fund portfolio. It had done decent relative to the market relative to his tolerance for risk. But what he found out through our analysis is that the cost of hiring us was more than covered by the savings of the expenses in the portfolio that we were recommending. So his expense ratio, which was the cost of all the fund management that was going on, not an advisor fee, these were just funds that he had the cost of what those funds were more than compensated our fee to put the plan in place and he was still putting money in his pocket from a savings and he was getting it professionally managed and he had a lot of other benefits that we won't go into here on this segment.

Dwight Mejan:
But you don't know. You don't know what you don't know. Right. And what we want to do is for those who want to know a little bit more and understand, listen, our goal as a fiduciary, which we are, we're independent, holistic fiduciaries, our goal and this is at the heart of any fiduciary in our industry, is there a teacher at heart? And that's what we want to do. We want to teach you about your portfolio. You probably know a lot, some of you listening, but you might not know everything. This is what we do day in and day out, and we want to walk you through an educational analysis of that portfolio and let you make up your mind. That's that's an area where we don't cross the line with anybody because we don't make decisions for people. That's one of our core values. We let people make decisions and we believe when they're presented with good factual information, they will be empowered to make the decision that's in their best interest. And that's, frankly, what we want to help you do is lay out your choices. And we may tell you, hey, you're on the right track. There's nothing that we need to do different, and you'll just have a free second opinion. And that wouldn't be a bad thing either, would it?

Mitchell Keiser:
Mitchell Right. You know, Dwight, you hit the nail on the head there a little bit, and I was just kind of reflecting on it, just hearing you talk. I think sometimes, you know, as much as people fear change and people fear the world, taxes, you know, the economy, the market, what it's going to be, what's it going to be tomorrow? I think most often what we really fear in most of those changes is our self and our ability to make a good decision, to pick a good advisor, to come up with a good plan. And I think that's something that's pretty important that I don't know just for people to identify. So that way, because I think sometimes you can, you know, inadvertently take that out. Like I don't trust, you know, this advisor. I don't trust a second opinion or I don't trust, you know, this, that or the other thing. So I think sometimes our fear in our self and in what our knowledge. Capacity is. I think sometimes that that alone can prevent us from essentially being better.

Dwight Mejan:
Mitchell You know, we're going into the psychology realm here on the show, off of our off of our notes. But I'm going I'm going right there with you. And I want to be fully disclosure and transparent with our audience. You know, speaking to Dwight personally here, I had a situation I'm not going to go into the details of it growing up where grief undealt with grief carries tons of consequences into our future. And I want to be as sensitive as I can on this because, you know, we all have stories. We all have a story. We all have faced some level of grief. If we've been around on planet Earth for a little while, we face some grief. And how we deal with grieving ultimately will depend on our ability to make good choices or make choices in the future. Okay. The key to making good decisions is we're going to make some bad decisions. Okay? That's that's how we learn. But if we don't grieve properly and that's what I had to do, I had actually an executive coach take me through something that I didn't even know was tucked inside of me. And I had to go through a process myself of grief from a past experience in my life. It had nothing to do with money. But I'm convinced to this day, if I didn't take that journey, it would have crippled me in some of the big decisions in life that I've needed to make, you know, to be who I am today and to get where I've had to go in business. And I just encourage that to our listeners. If this is striking a chord with you, you know, hey, we're sensitive to that here. We're not psychologists. We don't claim to be we're not therapists, but we just we want to help people with that. We just want to let them know, hey, this is a place, there's no pressure, but we want to help lay out some some good information and educate you there. So are we done? Mitchell on the psychology part.

Mitchell Keiser:
We're done with psychology class for now. I might have something later. Okay. So I'll bring us actually to our our last right or wrong here, and that is on the topic of fixed indexed annuities. We get a lot of questions on those Right or wrong. A fixed indexed annuity offers investors protection from market volatility, but still allows them to participate in the gains of underlying stock market. Right or wrong, if you said right, you are correct. Again, a fixed indexed annuities do offer principal protection and they do offer your gains to be linked to an index. Now, I've heard we've heard people that call in and say, Oh, I've heard of so-and-so, that, you know, they lost half their portfolio in annuities. Well, there's multiple types of annuities and that would not have been a fixed indexed annuity. That probably would have been a variable annuity. If you guys know us or if you've heard us talk about annuities, we're not really fans of variable annuities. They do. They are subject to market risk and they tend to carry a lot of fees. A lot of times they're over 3% in fees. So that's not something that we recommend. I also just want to touch on annuities real quick about, you know, our all annuities. Good. And the answer to that is no, they're not all good or all stocks good.

Mitchell Keiser:
I mean, there are some stocks that are really good. There's some stocks that are really bad. Getting into a fixed indexed annuity requires research. It requires a credible firm, a credible product and somebody that's, you know, not just trying to, you know, fling into something or somebody that you kind of just met on the corner ran into. You know, you have to trust whoever it is that's going to help you into something like that. Definitely not something we just recommend you jump into. We get a lot of people coming in here that got put into some pretty bad products. But yeah, just to touch on the annuity market like gains, no subject to your or you're not subject to risk of your principal. And if any of you guys work for the government and you receive a pension annuities. So a pension is a type of an annuity in the sense if you own an annuity or if you invest in an annuity, you can turn on what's called your lifetime income. And that lifetime income will guarantee you a payment every month that you cannot outlive. So that's what's called annuity rising your annuity. So if you have a pension, you at one point in time annuitized a lump sum of money for a systematic stream of payments.

Mitchell Keiser:
So if that's something that's of interest to somebody, we could definitely give you more information on that. Just this past week, we had two clients come in. They were approaching their latter years of retirement, but they wanted to guarantee that after one spouse passed away that they weren't going to run out of income and that they had a steady, steady source. Granted, in their situation, the death of one spouse would significantly fluctuate their monthly income. So it was pretty crucial to them to maintain their lifestyle that they had something to supplement that monthly revenue coming into their checking account. So they triggered a lifetime income. So once one of them passes away, they turn this thing on. Then it guarantees them the income that they would have lost. So annuities do work that way as well. That was a lot of material and that was a lot of information. If you have any questions on any of that, please give us a call. (910) 235-0812 or check us out at Retire 360. Show.com, we're going to be right back and we're going to dive into a couple more things for the rest of today. We're going to talk about the habits of happy retirees right after this break..

Producer:
With age comes wisdom and senior discounts. I'm Matt McClure with the Retirement.Radio Network. Powered by AmeriLife. As the old saying goes, everything gets better with age. It's true of a fine wine, a happy marriage and opportunities to save money. People of a certain age can get discounts ranging from 5 or 10% to 25% or more at restaurants, shops and other businesses. Many times they'll promote those extra savings. But Jim Miller, senior editor of Savvy, told Oklahoma's News four. Sometimes you have to be proactive. So the first thing.

Jim Miller:
Is, is you always need to ask, because a lot of businesses and organizations offer senior discounts, but they don't advertise them. So don't be shy about asking to save time.

Producer:
You can search online for lists of up to date senior deals at large retailers like Amazon, Kohl's and more. If you're willing to dive a little deeper, you can find more discounts in a variety of other places. And if you're looking to stay healthy, Silver Sneakers is a program that provides fitness classes for those on Medicare at no cost. That's right. You don't get a bigger discount than free. So are you taking advantage of the big senior discounts you're eligible for? That's a key question to consider. And it's one of the 23 retirement cost cutters for 2023 with the Retirement.Radio Network powered by AmeriLife. I'm Matt McClure.

Producer:
You're listening to Retire 360 with Dwight Mejan. Now back to the show.

Dwight Mejan:
Well welcome back to Retire 360 show I'm your host Dwight Mejan alongside of me Mitchell Keiser my son in law, and Sam Davis, our executive producer. So we want to thank you again for taking time out to listen to our program today. We're going to jump into the Five Habits of Happy Retirees. Guys, I don't know about you, but you know, I love it when I can learn some wisdom from somebody who's been ahead of me in that because, you know, I hate it when I'm learning through bad experiences, especially experiences that cost me money or cost me time. I'd much rather learn through the wisdom of others or listening when the mistakes are being told. And you know, this this is a good segment here. We're going to just talk about tips for living the good life. So many retirees who have successfully made the transition to their post working world. They share certain habits and strategies that help them live the good life today and plan for an equally great one tomorrow. So the first thing here we want to look at is planning the work and then work the plan. Mitchell, you and I kind of in the morning, get out in or get here in the office. And we basically lay out the day's agenda, don't we? We sit down and we map out, you know, what are you doing? What am I doing? Who we got coming in today, What clients, what people are coming in.

Dwight Mejan:
But we love that. I love putting a plan together and then just executing it. But what's kind of refreshing to me is that happy retirees, they do the same thing. They often spend much of their careers, you know, laying the financial groundwork for their retirements. And most of our listeners, a lot of them have done a fabulous job doing that by establishing and sticking to the right plan early, you increase the likelihood of success. So that's what this show is all about, is we want to help you be successful. We want to help you win with your money. And all we want to do is come in alongside you there and, you know, be that that professional that's looking out over the plan that you've designed. And we want to help come alongside you and do that. So, you know, schedule that complimentary consultation with us with a financial professional, we consider it an honor. If you call us to do that, we provide consultations at no cost to our listeners.

Mitchell Keiser:
I always I always say failing to plan is planning to fail, and that's true in almost every area.

Dwight Mejan:
Absolutely. You know, checking in on your money, that's that's another one. Whether you're ten years from retirement or right on the doorstep of it. You know, we talk about that that financial red zone quite a bit. You know, if you're getting ready to retire or maybe you've just been retired for a few years, you know, you might be tempted to put your assets out on cruise control. But regardless of your age or portfolio size, it's still prudent to keep a sharp eye on your investments and your income flow and stay on top any any government rule changes. We just saw a lot of that with Secure 2.0. We're still sifting through that and we'll continue to bring you our listeners up to date on some of those changes and what that would look like for you and your retirement plan and any other situations that could impact your retirement and your income sources. So retirement is about income. It's not necessarily just about the size of your nest egg or your IRA or 401. K, You know, income is your lifestyle, so you need to have the lump sum of money.

Dwight Mejan:
But you got to understand how is that income going to flow to you in retirement? We make sure. I just had a meeting this morning with a client over Zoom and they are now for the first time in their late 60s, starting to take income out. And they were concerned, you know, am I going to have enough money and, you know, will this last? And I just showed them how we were going to make a few little tweaks in the portfolio to bring that income that they need every quarter. It's just going to go straight from the portfolio into that. And I told them, I said, Hey, if this isn't enough and you need to double it, we can do that. And they said, Man, we so appreciate you telling us that we're able to do that. We don't think we're going to do that much. But it was just good for them to know that. And a lot of people just they have no clue how much they should take or how much they could take before they enter that danger zone themselves of possibly running out of money.

Mitchell Keiser:
All right. So next, we got staying healthy and active. You know, they say everything matters until you're sick and then you realize nothing really mattered except your health. So staying healthy and active and I say that to people to encourage you just to get ahead and stay ahead of your health. And, you know, not not be in a mode of playing catch up. So paying attention to your health now can pay off in retirement quite literally. Now, there are a lot of senior citizens that are on Medicare supplements or Medicare Advantage plans. Most of those plans offer some kind of silver sneakers program. If you guys don't know what silver sneakers is. Silver Sneakers is a program within those plans that they let you go to. They let you access gym memberships for free. I know any gym that I've ever been a member of. They accept silver sneakers. So just to translate that to what that could look like, you could potentially go to a gym that cost 50, $60 a month for free, all included in your Medicare plan. Now, those gyms, they could have obviously fitness areas, but they could have pools, hot tubs, all sorts of stuff. So it's something definitely worth checking out if you don't know if you have that or if you don't have it and you know you don't have it, you could ask us that as well. I handle that stuff every day. Our office (910) 235-0812. But that is an important topic for people just staying active. Older Americans can expect to spend an estimated $315,000 on medical expenses during retirement, and you can help cut down those costs, obviously, by eating healthy foods, drinking plenty of water and participating in daily exercise like walking, hiking, swimming, tennis, golf, anything like that. Most of those activities are all free. So encourage everybody to think about how you can incorporate that into your day. And before somebody tries to use the excuse of you don't have time, you can make the time. We can all make the time for stuff that really matters.

Dwight Mejan:
Yeah, right on. Yeah. Got me drinking some kombucha. Is that how you say it? The comeback in the morning here. Now the probiotic. That. That probiotic is good stuff, though. It fills you up. No, it's taken my my sweet tooth and kind of put it to the side here so that's been good.

Mitchell Keiser:
Yep. Gut health.

Dwight Mejan:
Yep. Good gut health. So learn new tricks, picking up a hobby or learning a new skill. It's not only fun, but it does keep the mind sharp and and keeps you actively engaged. The mental exercise and and problem solving that's required to learn a guitar or take a painting. It's it's rewarding. And it can also prevent cognitive decline. We've got clients that, you know, they're doing, you know, crossword puzzles. I was with a client in her mid 90 seconds last week and sharp as a tack, so I think her mind is better than mine sometimes.

Mitchell Keiser:
Lastly, we've got keeping up on your social network. Research shows retirees support higher levels of happiness when they're socially engaged. That decreases links to heart disease, stroke and dementia even before you retire. Think about the ways you'll find stimulation, purpose and community in your later years of life. Maintain your connections with your family, friends and the research shows. This will keep you happy, healthy, and will reduce stress. I just want to throw a plug out there that social media. I might just make a personal personal opinion that doesn't count. Sitting there on Facebook, maintaining a social network on your phone, that's not the same as getting out and meeting with people face to face and seeing spending time with people in person. Nothing really can replace that. But if you guys have any questions on anything that we've gone over or if you'd like to schedule a consultation with us, just to ask us a couple of questions, see if we could point you in the right direction or give you any advice. You guys can contact us at (910) 235-0812 or check us out at Retire 360. Show.com and we will be right back after this break.

Producer:
At 360 Capital Management. We know you've worked hard to earn your money and you've worked even harder to save it. When it comes to wealth management and planning for retirement, Dwight Mason is passionate about helping people protect and grow their wealth. Visit Retire360Show.com to schedule your free consultation today. It's a 1000 hundred dollars value provided at no cost to you. Book yours now at Retire360Show.com. Helping bring you one step closer to financial freedom. You're listening. To Retire 360, here's Dwight. Me.

Dwight Mejan:
All right. Well, we're back and we're going to talk about the top concerns of today's retirees. My name is Dwight. I'm here with Mitchell Keiser. This is how we help clients build retirement plans that don't just last for a period of time, but last for their lifetime. So retirees is Most of us know they face a lot of different factors that can affect their ability to generate income and live the lifestyle that they want to live. And, you know, we have said this before on this show, you know, to enjoy that quality of lifestyle, you need to try to get your income in retirement to about two thirds of what the average person listening needs to get to about two thirds of what their income was, you know, prior to retirement, 50% probably going to get you. Okay. But if you can get it to two thirds, that's going to help you enjoy, you know, the lifestyle that's going to give you, you know, the pre retirement lifestyle that you had in retirement. So a 2022 study had some interesting data about what American retirees were thinking when they were asked what they were concerned about. 71% take a guess what the top concern was. And keep in mind, this was 2022. The top concern of American retirees. Number one was inflation. 71% said they were concerned about inflation. And, you know, it started out the show with that with that article that I read this past week.

Dwight Mejan:
You know, inflation is not showing any signs of slowing down. In fact, I read another different article I've been reading a lot lately that inflation could be around for years before it levels off. So I hope that's not the case. But if it is, we're starting to see it right now with, you know, consumer spending. It is starting to slow down. So there's there's people that are really concerned about inflation. The second thing mentioned was 51% of retirees said they were concerned about the future health care needs and expenses. Mitchell You just read this in the last segment. You know, $315,000 is what someone could expect to spend on health care in their retirement when they're 65 and older. So health care is going up four times the rate of inflation. That's pretty high when you consider what inflation is right now. And, you know, health care, we can tell you this, it's the single largest thing we see that causes most retirement plans to fail is if someone hasn't addressed proper health care planning. And Mitchell, you said that you deal with that day in and day out here with our clients. You run a lot of the analysis of their health care and opportunities to safeguard more of that retirement, those retirement funds. So it's a big area. The third area that was pulled here was 46% of retirees said they were concerned about potential reductions in Social Security.

Dwight Mejan:
You know, we've talked about this before. We don't know where this is going, but there could be a possibility for means testing for Social Security, where they look at your income, perhaps your adjusted gross income, maybe they look at the gross income. That's all the more reason why we tell people. Roth conversions very, very critical. I think everybody, if you have an IRA, should be doing some amount of Roth conversion, even if it's only a couple thousand dollars a year. What we do here at our office with clients is we will look at their tax return. We have copies of most of them and we look at it year to year to make sure that clients know what they could convert without jumping to a higher tax bracket. So we've got all that here in house to help people determine, Hey, does this make sense to do it? We believe it does. We believe it makes sense for people who have IRAs and are paying taxes. If you're not paying taxes, then it's a matter of taking out what you can. You should be taking money out of your IRA up to the level of where your tax bracket is. Right. So you can at least move more of that money into a tax free account or a tax deferred account. So.

Mitchell Keiser:
Right. You know, Dwight, when I was reading that Goldman Sachs article, just on the topic of Social Security, I think it's interesting they put on there Millennials and Gen Z's expect to retire between 60 and 64, where Gen X expects to retire between 65 and 69, which I just think that's kind of funny because Gen X, they're going to be a little older, so they're expecting to retire at at least 65, 69, probably later. But millennials and Gen Z expects to retire between 60 and 64. But I hate to be the bearer of bad news to my own generation, but I don't think. Social Security is still around by then. Don't think most people should be counting on it.

Dwight Mejan:
It's absolutely you got to almost plan a retirement without it. And you know, we've said this before. If you haven't logged into your Social Security account on tsa.gov. Go there and run an estimate somewhere on the pages that towards the end of your report that comes out, it says on there now that Social Security in 2034 will be able to fund $780 per 1000 of your benefit. It's almost like they're prepping people for cuts that are coming, isn't it?

Mitchell Keiser:
Yeah. Well, and you know, I think I don't know exactly what the statistic is, but I know that the amount of people that rely on Social Security alone, I want to say it's over 60%. So, I mean, it's not we're not talking about, you know, 5% of the population. We're talking about more than half.

Dwight Mejan:
Absolutely. Yeah. Well, interesting retirement facts here. 75 million baby boomers are expected to retire by 2030, which is paving the way for what some are calling the great retirement. And there's 10,000 people every day who are turning 65. So just interesting, Mitchell, we're going to take maybe a little bit of time we have left. We promised some top destinations. Hey, it's you know, we're starting to see some warmer weather. I think, you know, with COVID kind of simmering down a lot right now. People are traveling, aren't they? And they're heading to some both destinations. We'll give the top, top ones and then some international destinations as well. So why don't you take our listeners through where people are traveling?

Mitchell Keiser:
Mitchell Yeah, so the US destinations staying close to home, top four. I'm just going to go over those. So number one is Florida. What attracts people to Florida? The beaches, warm weather, fishing, golfing. That's probably not a shock to most people. One of my grandparents actually moved to Florida. And for that reason, number two, California, we got some national parks out there. There's wine tours, coastal resorts. There's some really nice beaches out there as well. They said national parks. There's a lot of national parks I'd like to go to out there. Um, number three, Las Vegas. So Las Vegas, you've got the casinos, the pools, the live events, the adult entertainment. What happens there stays there. Then number four, we have Texas. So what attracts people to Texas? That's going to be the warm weather. Barbecue tours, historical sites such as the Alamo. So we were actually just at the Alamo.

Dwight Mejan:
First time I'd been to the Alamo when we were there. But that was that was some interesting history there for sure.

Mitchell Keiser:
International destinations. Those would include Mexico, Mexico, beaches, resorts. Whole bunch of food. If you guys like Mexican food, as I know we do. Then you have France, who of course, has Paris, the Eiffel Tower, some museums and the French countryside. You've got Italy, which has ancient Rome, Tuscany, Italian coastline and beaches. And then lastly, there's Ireland, which has Dublin castles, cliffs and picturesque villages and world class golf. I have not been to most of those. I've actually of that list. I've only been to Mexico. So have you been you've been to Italy, right, Dwight?

Dwight Mejan:
I have been to Italy. And I think we got Sam going to Italy here this year.

Producer:
Yeah, that's right. And I have not been to any of those international destinations, but I have been to all of those domestic locations and I hope to return again because, you know, we've got we've got a whole big country here that has a lot of things worth seeing.

Dwight Mejan:
Absolutely. 100%. Way. And wrapping up for this week's show, we do want to make our listeners aware of an opportunity to to meet with us in person. We love that. We love doing the show, but we really love meeting people face to face. Kind of the next step for some of our listeners is going to be, Hey, I want to meet these guys in person. We'll get a little bit more meaty in that where we're going to cover some topics. One of our favorite topics to cover, it's one of the favorite listener topics to come and hear about, which is taxes and retirement. Not because people love taxes, but because they love their retirement and they don't want to pay that much in taxes. And we're going to talk about that. And we got a live event coming up. It's going to be in Ashboro. It's going to be at the Randolph Community College. It's Tuesday, the 28th. So you still got a couple of days here left to register for that. So I want to encourage our listeners, if you want to come out to that. I think we got a few spots left if you would like to attend that, we'll get you a specific directions to where that is. But two ways to reach out to to us. You can go to the website, shoot us a message there you can go to Retire 360. Show.com just go on that link there for the consultation and you can just send us a message through that and say, hey, I'd like to find out about your upcoming taxes and retirement class. It's going to be at 11:00 in the morning just to give you the time there, 11 a.m.

Dwight Mejan:
at Randolph Community College. We'll get you specific directions and guide you in there and get you the specific address. Or you can call us here at (910) 235-0812. And just mention that you would like to come to that and we'll get you the information for that as well. But with that, we we do look forward to seeing many of you there. And we also look forward to hearing from many of you on any topic that you want to discuss from today's show or anything for that matter that you want to talk about. This is your show. It'll be your agenda if you choose to take us up on that complimentary consultation offer that we're putting out there to you. Coming up next week, we're going to talk about how to defuse your retirement tax bomb. So taxes are kind of the theme next week. So if you want to get a little precursor to the radio show for next week, see if you can come to the live event. We'd love to have you there. We're going to talk about some more tax tips as well as we all prepare to file our taxes this coming spring. So I'm your host, Dwight began. I just want to say a special thanks for taking time out of your day to listen to us. And our goal is always to add value to you with the information. Let us know what other topics you'd like to hear about, and we look forward to covering those topics and more. And we look forward to having you at our live event. If you're coming to that and talking with you next week.

Producer:
Take care. Thanks for listening. To Retire 360. You deserve to work with an experienced and licensed expert who will strategically work to protect and grow your hard earned assets. To schedule your free no obligation consultation with Dwight, visit Retire360Show.com or pick up the phone and call (910) 235-0812. That's (910) 235-0812. Investment Advisory Services offered through Brookstone Capital Management, LLC, BCM A Registered investment Advisor. Bcm and 360 Capital Management are independent of each other. Insurance products and services are not offered through BCM, but are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed agents. Investments involve risk and unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Past performance cannot be used as an indicator to determine future results.

Producer:
To get your free copy of 23 cost cutters for 2023, call Dwight today at (910) 235-0812 or visit retire 360 show.com fixed.

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

Producer:
Have you experienced age discrimination in the workplace? I'm Matt McClure with the Retirement.Radio Network Powered by Ameri Life. If you're 50 or older, chances are you've either seen or personally suffered from age discrimination at work. That's true for nearly two thirds of workers in that age group, according to research from AARP.

Bill Rivera:
And the pandemic certainly contributes to that persistence, with 1 in 4 people who have been let go or otherwise left the workplace during the pandemic having trouble finding a job if they're 50 or older.

Producer:
Bill Rivera is senior vice president for litigation at the AARP Foundation. He says spotting age discrimination is not always easy, but there are signs to watch out for.

Bill Rivera:
For example, our promotions or training opportunities or key assignments given to younger workers routinely over older. Workers do you hear around the office? And does the company tolerate jokes about age and ageism, like referring to the idea that you can't teach old dogs new tricks?

Producer:
Rivera says If you see possible age discrimination, it's important to document it, and you want.

Bill Rivera:
To do that as close in time to when it happens. So note the date, what you saw, what you heard, who else was there? Talk to your supervisor. A lot of times you can resolve these things informally, but if you can't, you may need to go up the chain.

Producer:
And he says the AARP Foundation has several resources available to help older workers.

Bill Rivera:
For example, back to Work 50 Plus, which has free workshops, tools and career coaches to help you, as well as AARP's resume advisor. Where we will for free review your resume and provide advice and tips to make your resume stand out, as well as AARP's job board to connect you with employers who've indicated they are interested in an age diverse workforce.

Producer:
So what would you do if you see or experience age discrimination at work? That's a key question to consider as Americans are living and working longer with the Retirement.Radio Network Powered by AmeriLife, I'm Matt McClure.

Producer:
Do you have a vision for what you want your retirement to look like? I'm Matt McClure with the Retirement.Radio Network. Powered by a mirror life. Planning for retirement can be overwhelming. A survey from Gobankingrates shows that one third of Americans don't think they know enough about retirement. And they're probably right. So if you fall into that category, how do you know where to begin? Well, you've got to know where you want to go before you start planning how to get there. That's where having a smart vision for your retirement comes in. Whether you want to be a jet setter during your retirement years, want to take it easy in a quiet cabin in the woods, or start a new adventure by opening your own business. You should set that goal and keep it in mind throughout your working years, retirement expert Dean Waguespack said during a recent TED Talk. I want to.

Dean Waggenspack:
Challenge all of us to redefine retirement away from depart, remove withdrawal to a new definition, a blending of pay, passion and purpose until.

Producer:
Retirement looks different for everyone. Sit down with your spouse and talk about your retirement goals That will make it easier to determine how fiscally responsible you need to be now and how much income you'll need to make it happen after you retire. That's right, I said income. More and more retirees are finding that cash flow is more important than one big nest egg number. That's when you.

Lee Baker:
Want to say, hey, listen, I want to start thinking about all of this accumulation that I've done through these decades of working. How do I begin to think about turning what I've saved and what I've accumulated into paychecks after I retire?

Producer:
That's Lee Baker, president of Apex Financial Services, speaking to CNBC. He says annuities are a great option for most retirees to generate an income you can never outlive. That's especially important since life expectancy has grown over the years. So you'll need to plan for a longer period of time than you may think. So do you have a smart vision for your retirement years? That's a key question to consider as you start planning how to get there with the Retirement.Radio Network Powered By AmeriLife, I'm Matt McClure.

Producer:
Registered Investment Advisors and Investment Advisor Representatives act as fiduciaries for all of our investment management clients. We have an obligation to act in the best interest of our clients and to make full disclosure of any conflicts of interest, if any exist.

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