12.16.22: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

12.16.22: 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 Mejan.

Dwight Mejan:
Good afternoon. Welcome back to Retire 360. Thanks for tuning back in and sharing part of your day with us. And for all of you, first-time listeners, just a big shout out and thank you for being a part of the hour that we have with you. We want to empower you with your finances, with your retirement funds. Retire 360. I want to just special welcome here also to our executive producer, Sam Davis, and my business partner here, Mitchell Keiser. You guys doing all right this afternoon?

Producer:
Doing great, Dwight. Thanks.

Mitchell Keiser:
Yeah, happy to be here.

Dwight Mejan:
Well, good to have you and great to have our listeners here. But what we do every week is we want to bring you important, relevant updates for your money, and we want to also direct you to our website. Retire360Show.com. Check us out there. If you haven't, you can book a complimentary consultation with us online. And of course, you can always reach out to us by phone. 910 235 0812. That phone number also does subscribe to texting service, so you could text us there as well. But we do a show here every week and we're glad to have you here with us. We love hearing from our listeners, so we hope you take some time and reach out to us during the week. We're glad to put some value to you and that's what we're all about here at the Retire360Show.com Here. So just some updates we're going to talk about this week. We got a quote of the week. Mitchell is going to get to that here in a minute, but just some important updates. We're going to share with you on today's show as we're coming to the end of 2022. Can you guys believe we're already at the end of the year? It's just it has flown by, but we're going to talk about RMDs. It's an important topic, very important that you get those taken care of, especially if you're over 72 and especially those of you that are listening where you're 72 this past year. So happy belated birthday if that's happened to you this year and if that's coming up here, we've got some important updates for you on that. We've got a financial checklist to jumpstart the new year. We're going to go over that and we're going to talk a little bit about inflation. Some fun stuff there today and how much Americans are spending this year on Christmas trees. That was a fact that was brought to our attention. That was just astounding. We'll talk some interesting facts around that. But Mitchell, you want to. How's your week been, by the way, bud?

Mitchell Keiser:
It's been pretty good. We're just slowly coming up from air after Medicare season.

Dwight Mejan:
But you're coming up for air after.

Mitchell Keiser:
Yeah, I'm coming up from air. I do all of our companies Medicare planning. So I'm sure people have been getting peppered with calls and wondering what's what's right, what's not right. So I've been dealing with all that for our firm.

Dwight Mejan:
But it's good to be back operating on full power this week. It was quite a test here for many people in Moore County, so a lot of businesses were affected. So we're thinking about them this time of year as well. But yeah, just put hot water and power back as a luxury item on the list this year. So good to good to be back up and running here again and hope some of the businesses that were affected by that can make it up. So let's get out there and support our local businesses, all the listeners.

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

Mitchell Keiser:
We got a Will Rogers. If you guys don't know Will Rogers. He was an American performer, actor and social commentator. He passed away in 1935. But he says the difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets Will Rogers.

Dwight Mejan:
He's got some funny quotes. Another one that just came to mind as you were reading this is Will Rogers said At my age and he was getting up there at age. He says, I'm not so concerned about the rate of return on my money as I am the return of my money. And a lot of people can relate to that quote. This year, as we see a market that's down year to date, of course, on the S&P and most of the major indices are down, of course. But Will Rogers was a was a funny guy. He had some great quotes.

Mitchell Keiser:
Yeah, that's good.

Dwight Mejan:
So some important reminders. We want to just jump right in here and talk about as we hit the end of 2020 to Social Security. Most of you that are listening to this, that are on social. You're already aware by now that there's a cost of living adjustment for 2023, and that increase this year is 8.7%. So nice. Nice jump there. Although we'd love to say it's going to buy you more stuff, but that's what COLA is basically for us to keep up with the cost of things, but still a much needed raise that many people will be looking forward to for that first check start in January. So this is actually up last year from last year's 5.9% cola cost of living, which brings the two year increase total to 14.6%. And this is basically, again, the government recognizing that there's been serious inflation over the past couple of years and really doesn't show any signs of of stopping into next year as well. So be aware of that increase. I know that's welcomed by a lot of folks here that are listening. And we also have got some new tax brackets for 2023. Just to give you some updates. Basically, the seven brackets are staying the same. We've got 10% bracket starts there, a 12%, 22% bracket, 24%, 32, 35 and 37. But most of the the high end of those brackets is increasing for basically everybody. So if you were in the 12% tax bracket this year, it was 85,550 on the top end of that 12%.

Dwight Mejan:
And in 2023 that 85 550 is going to $89,450. And if that's for married filing joint, if you're a single filer and in that 12% bracket, it's going up to 44,007 25. So all those top end brackets are being shifted upward, which helps a little bit if you're near that top end of that bracket. So but we just want to encourage our listeners, you know, one of the things we do with taxes and this I think makes us unique to a lot of planning firms out there here at Capital 360 Capital Management, as we begin a lot of our portfolio management around the tax planning and doing what's called a tax map for all the people that come into our office, and that's complimentary to our listeners. So if you're listening to this show and you're kind of wondering how all those buckets of money some of you have 401K accounts, IRAs, maybe have a Roth account, you're wondering when you start pulling that money out of that account, how is that going to be affected by taxes and which bucket should I draw from first? That's where we begin is building a tax map and then building that portfolio strategy around that tax map. So just reach out to us again. You can call us at 910 235 0812 or text us at that number or of course you can go to Retire360Show.com And get a hold of us there so. What's next here? Mitchell What are we going to talk about here?

Mitchell Keiser:
So let's hop into RMDs. We get asked all the time, people that are just retiring, what are RMDs, what does RMD stand for? So those would be for people that either had an employer sponsored 401 K four or three B money that had been matched by an employer, or if somebody contributed to an individual retirement account, an IRA with pretax money, money that has never been taxed. So once people turn 72, it's now 72. You're required to start to pay taxes on some of that money. I think it starts at 72 around. Is it 3.9 something, correct?

Dwight Mejan:
Yep.

Mitchell Keiser:
So yeah, it starts around 3.9%, but that gradually increases per year. So if you want to dive a little deeper on that.

Dwight Mejan:
Yeah. You know, if you're turning 72, let's say this past year here in 2022, there's a little exception for that first withdrawal is you can take it as late as April tax filing time in next year. But if you wait that long, you'll be required to take another one by the end of next year. So you'll be taking two distributions, not really a suggestion that we put out there to people to to wait. It's always best to do it in the year that you turn 72. So if you haven't done that yet, the clock is ticking. You've got about two weeks left. You've got to take that first distribution before December 31st, which for this year's belief falls on a Saturday. So you want to make sure you're working on that. A lot of companies are backlogged with that, and I know a lot of the custodians who handle IRA funds for our clients. Those deadlines already passed late last week for us to guarantee that our clients will have those processed by year end. So definitely, if you're listening to this and that has not been done yet, you definitely want to get in contact with your advisor or the firm that manages that IRA and make sure you get that taken care of.

Mitchell Keiser:
I've just got a quick question for you because I get asked this a lot. What is the difference between an employer-sponsored IRA and an individual IRA that somebody might have contributed to? And how can they take how are they required to take RMDs from that? And what does that look like?

Dwight Mejan:
That's a great distinction. Mitchell We just did a class this past week, which we do quite regularly on what's called taxes in retirement. It's one of our most attended classes that we do one of the seminars and we cover a slide on this because it's it's just not known to a lot of people that if you have an IRA, an individual retirement account, let's say you have two or three of those spread out in different places, you can satisfy your required minimum distribution from just one of those IRAs and not touch the other two. So if your cumulative they base the RMD on the year end total from the previous year. And so you would add up all three of those accounts and you'd use a formula that will address here in a minute with life expectancy tables, but you can satisfy that R&D out of one of those IRA accounts and not take anything from the other two. However, the rules are a little bit different for if retirement plans through employer sponsored plans like a 401 K or a 457 or a403b, So if you own one of those accounts and it's still in that retirement account, let's say you have two of those sitting somewhere, a 403 B and A 457, for example. If that's the case, you must meet that rmd those RMD separately within each account. You can't co-mingle and take it out of just one of them and satisfy the total for both of those 401 K plans or you'll face a penalty.

Dwight Mejan:
So you have to take them proportionate for each account. The IRA is a totally different ballgame and that's why we advise all of our clients. If you have old 401 KS old retirement plans, by all means, you need to look at shifting those out and rolling them to an individual retirement account. It's not just to avoid the possible penalty for not doing that correctly. It opens up more doors of opportunity because you have more investment selection and choices outside the employer-sponsored plan. We say this a lot to people. If you have an employer-sponsored plan, you definitely want to match what the employer is contributing. If they're matching 6%, you want to contribute 6% to get that match, but don't contribute higher than that. Contribute to an IRA or better yet, a Roth IRA outside of that plan. And you can fund outside of that plan as well to to get your to to maximize your opportunity there and you'll have more investment selection. Let's talk just a minute about the life expectancy. See tables. So if you are 72, the IRS says that your life expectancy is 27.4 years. I'm not real sure how they ever get to that 27.4. I don't think they consulted the medical community about that because you've got almost a life expectancy there of 100. But that's the basically the divisor. You divide your year end balanced by 27.4, and that's the amount that you're required to take out.

Dwight Mejan:
So if you don't take any distributions or if the distributions are not large enough, you might have to pay an additional 50% excise tax on the amount that's not distributed as required. So this is the largest penalty in the IRS tax code. It's one of the stiffest penalties. So you definitely want to make sure you don't miss doing that. But if you want to help on managing that distribution in an efficient way, definitely reach out to us at Retire360Show.com or contact us at 910 235 0812. And we'll be glad to make sure that you know what you need to take and better yet we'll give you some strategies around how you want to do that. Other thing we want to do is we want to help you kind of say goodbye to RMDs permanently and kick the IRS, or, as we like to say, disinherit the IRS out of your retirement plan. So we ask this question quite a bit. In fact, we asked it this past week. We did two seminars, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and I asked everybody in the room, I said, how many people think taxes are going up in the future? However, when I asked the next question, I asked how many people in light of that have a tax strategy built into their retirement plan to make sure that they're minimizing the taxes that they pay? And I give an example of saying how many people have a Roth conversion plan already underway in their retirement plan.

Dwight Mejan:
Shockingly, I'll only get about two hands in the room of about 40 people that raise their hands. So it's relatively small group of people that actually are implementing a tax saving strategy or a plan to disinherit the IRS or not become a partner, as we say, with the IRS and their retirement. So very important that you look at that. And, you know, there's three basic buckets, as we say in retirement that you that we all have money in. There's your taxable bucket of money, which is obviously subject to taxation every year. Those would be accounts that you have, for example, in CD's that you invested with your bank checking savings accounts. We're starting to see a little bit of yield jumping up and those types of accounts slightly. We've got tax deferred bucket, that's the second one. Those are investments where you don't owe the tax until you withdraw the gains that come out of that account. So that's your tax deferred bucket. It would also be your retirement accounts, your 401. Ks, and then that third bucket would be your tax free bucket. That's your Roth money. And that's ultimately the goal of where you want to get to as you age in retirement, you want to get more and more money moved over to the tax free bucket. And we see most people who come into our office their heaviest bucket, and rightfully so, if they're still working, is their tax deferred money.

Dwight Mejan:
And there's a there's a gap or a window in between there where you have a little bit of time between when you retire. A lot of people are pushing off Social Security. I met with a client yesterday. Just a true story here. This client is living on a very small Social Security check that he's taking. And he was a high income earner. He was a lawyer for many, many years. And he has an account that he's going to convert this year because he's going to pay taxes on it at the lowest bracket at 10%. So it's just a great strategy for him. And we ran a tax map and just told them, you can do this much. And before you jump into that 12% bracket and that's the thing, there's not a huge jump from 10% to 12%. Where it gets a little bit more is when you jump from 12 up to 22. There's a lot of planning strategies to stay under that 22%. So if you're in that bracket, definitely be aware of that. And our executive producer, we were talking before the show, Sam, I'm going to ask Sam to come on here a second. He's got a real example here of a situation. Sam, are you there? You want to tune in and tell our listeners what happened to you?

Producer:
Yeah. So this is a real situation that in my family, we deal with every single year. So my wife, her father, unexpectedly passed away when she was in high school and she inherited his IRA, which was a tax-deferred retirement savings vehicle. He had been he was close to retirement, but not quite there when he passed away. So when she inherited his IRA, that means that now she. And now that we're married. We have to take required minimum distributions from that account every year. Had it been a Roth IRA that was inherited, that would have passed tax-free and there would be no RMDs. So an added benefit, it's kind of like life insurance. You don't really see the death benefit yourself, but that will pass tax free to your beneficiaries. So just another thing to consider and what I like to say, Dwight, there's not many opportunities out there in America to take advantage of something that's tax free. Really. You just got Roth IRAs and life insurance, so why not take advantage of that Roth IRA if it makes sense for you?

Dwight Mejan:
Absolutely. Well, thanks for sharing that with us, Sam. And you're right, we see so many people and I've seen this having done this now for almost 30 years, so many people pass away and they still have the largest bucket of money in a tax deferred account. And that just fits right into what Sam's situation was talking about. A little different, though, for Sam. He could spread that over his grandfather's life expectancy. But for people today who pass away and leave that money, for example, to a grandchild, like in Sam's case, they have ten years now to pay the tax on that. And that could be a very difficult situation, particularly if they're in their earning years. They're just paying more taxes on that money. So great idea to just we encourage all of our listeners, if you still have and you're up there in age and you have a lot of your money still in tax deferred buckets for your benefit because taxes are going up, most people believe that. And also for the benefit of your errors, look at a strategy that could start covering some of the tax liability on that while you're living and you'll pass a legacy that's going to be much, much larger in most cases to those heirs. And you won't leave them with that tax burden. So that's one of the other unique things that that we do with our tax mapping program here at retirement. 360 is we look on the tax return and we forecast the implications of what certain things if you harvest money out of certain accounts, we can tell you what that's going to look like on the tax return. So really important that you look forward or have somebody who's looking forward on that tax return. Well, we'll be right back after a brief break from our sponsors here.

Producer:
Could a recent IRS change actually save you money on next year's taxes? I'm Matt McClure with the Retirement dot Radio Network. Powered by AmeriLife. When you think of the Internal Revenue Service, your mind may very well recall the sting of forking over your money to Uncle Sam or the hassle of preparing your taxes. A recent study by the American Action Forum estimated Americans spent more than $190 billion. That's billion with a B on tax preparation in 2021. Plus, many economists predict the federal government will have to raise taxes in the future to pay off the national debt. But there's one change the tax man is making for 2023 that could actually mean you'll owe less in taxes next year.

Andrew Pelosi:
How much you save will be relative to your personal situation. So it's not going to be the same for every household, but certainly it could have a nice little savings come tax time.

Producer:
Andrew Pelosi, with Pelosi Accounting and Consulting, recently told Atlanta News. First, the IRS typically makes annual adjustments to income tax brackets, but this year they're bigger than usual due to, you guessed it, inflation.

Andrew Pelosi:
Some people will see a savings of perhaps 1000 for during tax time on their tax return. Others might see a little bit more. Certainly the brackets have changed, so the those who are in higher brackets will probably see more savings than those who are in lower brackets. But across the board, everyone's going to see some kind of savings.

Producer:
In short, all tax brackets are going up by about 7% for 2023. That means you can make more money and be in a lower tax bracket than you would be this year. The standard deduction is also going up to the tune of a $900 increase for single filers and 1800 dollars for married couples filing jointly.

Andrew Pelosi:
I mean, look, it's beneficial for everyone, right? At the end of the day, we're all looking to save money and keep more money in our pockets. In a time like this where groceries are more expensive, fuel prices are at record prices, every little bit helps.

Producer:
Keep in mind, though, that these adjustments are for money you earn next year in 2023, so you won't actually see the results until you file your taxes in early 2024. So could you benefit from the IRS's new tax brackets? That's a key question to consider as you plan your financial future With the Retirement dot Radio Network powered by Amerilife. I'm Matt McClure.

Mitchell Keiser:
Hi, guys. Welcome back. My name is Mitchell Keiser. I'm here with Dwight Mejan and we are the Retire 360 show. We're going to hop back in here to do a financial checklist jumping into the new year. Our first tip would be paying off your credit card balance. Dwight, you want to talk about that for a little bit?

Dwight Mejan:
Yeah. You know, it's interesting you bring that one up first. Mitchell I just read an article this past week that said credit card balances are back as high as they've been in the last decade since the last market crash. So definitely we're seeing people more and more that are relying on credit cards just to pay basic necessities. I think you were talking about this I think the other day as well, Mitchell, at lunch, that more and more people that are six figure salary households are shopping now at places like Wal Mart. Not that there's anything wrong with Walmart, but typically that's not the consumer that would frequent Wal Mart. It's just stats are showing that more and more people in those categories are shopping there. But with that, credit card balances are definitely climbing. Most credit cards currently have annual percentage rates of 20% or higher. And you talk about a drain on just getting that bill every month. We we certainly that's one of the first places if we have somebody come into our office that's carrying debt, that's the first place to attack is to just get those credit cards paid off because it gets real difficult to stand and plan and save for your future and your retirement. So definitely got to watch the credit card balances and have a plan going into 2023 to get those balances paid off. And just, you know, if you've got to go to cash on a cash system, do that. But this is an easy time of year from the holidays, during the holidays to feel like we've got to spend to match last year's giving. And let's face it, we just talked about inflation earlier on the show. Inflation is eaten up a lot of the budgets, so people feel like they've got to buy the same amount of gifts. Those gifts cost more money, There's less discretionary income. So work on getting those credit card balances paid off for sure.

Mitchell Keiser:
So I think some of those interest rates, too, are up to like 20% on a credit card for credit card debt.

Dwight Mejan:
It's huge and it makes a big, big difference. Obviously, the higher the balances you're carrying. But definitely something to to address. Next thing we want to look at here is maximize your tax bracket with a Roth conversion. So there's talking about this earlier on the show. There's no required minimum distributions with that Roth IRA, which is fantastic. I mean, you don't have to pull money out. And when tax brackets go up, it's just a way that you can maintain control more of the taxes that you do pay. We have a slide that we show in our taxes and retirement seminar that we do. The Congressional Budget Office, if you go to CBO dot gov. I like to go on there periodically and look around. There's a proposal for three tax brackets with the middle one being 56%. Now, this isn't passed yet. This is just something that they're talking about. But think about that, where if you're currently in the 24% bracket, if that were to pass at some point and go to the 56% bracket, that's more than two times what you're currently in. If you're paying 20 in that 24% bracket right now. So when you pull that, let's say $10,000 out of that IRA, instead of 2500 bucks going to Uncle Sam, you've got $5,600 going to pay the taxes on that. So if that money were put over into a Roth account, there would be no taxes coming out of that account. And furthermore, your children or the next generation that inherits that. Roth They're not subject to mandatory withdrawals and they inherit that money on a tax free basis. So, Uncle Sam, we want to keep him arm's distance as best we can here. So but also, you want to complete that Roth conversion before age 72 when those RMDs kick in. It's not going to help you a whole lot. It could still help you, but definitely want to work on doing that before you hit 72 because that's when you're forced into certain dollar amounts.

Mitchell Keiser:
I would say another important topic is setting a monthly budget for your retirement. So how much income do you need to hit all of your needs and your ones? Because we all obviously we spend more than we really need just doing our activities, our memberships. How much do you go out to eat, spend on food, and then how much money do you have? Realistically, is it going to stretch out your whole retirement? We've had people come in here that are spending 20% of their portfolio a year, which obviously is not sustainable to last you an entire retirement if you live 27 years. I mean, you're. To be, you know, 20 plus years without income. So it's important to have like an income plan. Beyond turning 65, because most people, you know, coming off of 65, you just probably hit like your peak income and you probably have the largest you've ever had in your savings account, checking account, all that. So having that income plan and working with somebody that can help you do that is key.

Dwight Mejan:
Absolutely. And just think of Mitchell when you were talking about that, you know, that monthly budget, one of the first things people need to do and you're doing that already with if you're contributing to your retirement plan at your employer, but pay yourself first. If you've been in a habit of contributing money, you're not going to miss that money when it's out of your paycheck and it's getting set aside. The hardest part is just getting started. So if you're a younger listener to our show and you're not doing that, make sure you get in and pay yourself first. You'll be glad you did so right. Yeah. The next point to jumpstart the New Year here with our checklist is just develop a plan to pay off your house. We were talking about this Mitchell before the show and we were playing around. I was playing around with a mortgage calculator because Mitchell's, you know, pretty young into a mortgage and there's some great, great mortgage calculator tools out there. I went to one that's at Compass one dot org. There's tons of them out there, but I'm just playing around with one right here that just says if you've got a 30 year mortgage and you have let's just say you've got 15 years remaining on that mortgage and you pay an additional $250 a month on that mortgage.

Dwight Mejan:
And let's say your your principal payoff is 200,000. You you trim that by three years and nine months, almost four years, if you had 15 years remaining. So you could play around with those calculators, I encourage you to do that. But it's exciting, really, when you start playing around with it, just to start thinking, you know, you could start chopping off huge chunks of time by paying just a little bit extra every month or there's different ways you can do it. You could pay an extra payment every year. But what it's going to do is it's just going to help you accelerate your savings and putting that money that you were putting towards a mortgage, you can put it towards your retirement or put it towards giving. Maybe you have a heart for giving. It just frees up that money and you don't become a slave to the debtor, as we like to say. So very important that you work on a plan if you don't have that in place to do that. And it's really the quickest way to increase your net worth is to just eliminate your debts.

Mitchell Keiser:
I'm going to hop in here to how do you maximize your Social Security income benefit. So if you didn't know, we'll talk about this just for a little bit. So every year that you defer your Social Security income, you get an 8% increase. So if you can bump that out to age 70, I mean, you're going to you're going to continue that interest is going to compound on what you're going to get per year. And that's fixed. That's going to be for your whole life. There's not a whole lot of products out there that do that.

Dwight Mejan:
I think what's important, too, about being able to get that 8% raise, like Mitchell just said, you can't get 8% guaranteed anywhere. Right now we are seeing fixed yields increase. But yeah, being able to have that bucket of money in retirement, the closer you get toward Social Security, it's going to present you with more strategies for your retirement to be able to say, Hey, if I want to wait to 70 to take Social Security, you're going to have that raise. But the only way you're going to be able to do that in most cases is you're going to either have to keep working to to draw an income or there's a strategy. And we can help you put that strategy together and look at how do I harvest and take money out of the savings that I do have. And if I do that, will it affect the amount of money I want to live on in my retirement? And assuming you're going to live to be age 95 or 100, which is an assumption we always make, we have to do that with the type of planning that we do, but you've got to have something to live off of. So it's just you've got to have that bucket of money to be able to have an option to defer your Social Security.

Dwight Mejan:
And we like that idea. We love the strategy of taking people to age 70 and showing them how much more not only Social Security they could have, but there's other strategies inside of there like Roth conversions that we've talked about already that can be done so. And the other thing, jumping to the next thing, you can start with your financial checklist for the new year, which is implement a bond replacement to delete fees and stop the bleeding in your safe money. You know, we've talked about this on the show before, that bonds are having the worst year they've had ever in 2022. There's been no other year that have been. Worst performing in the bond market than the one we're in right now. So one of the things that we show people is there's bond alternative investments out there. There's fixed income options that we can provide people with. They provide guaranteed income for life that have zero fees on them, and that is an option. So we encourage you if if your bonds have taken a beating, definitely one of those areas that we can help you with. And we talk about tax loss harvesting.

Dwight Mejan:
This is another area we won't go too deep on tax loss harvesting. But what that is, is basically you sell an investment that's underperforming and losing money and you do that because you use that loss to reduce your taxable capital gains and potentially offset up to 3000 of your ordinary income. So it's a strategy that you can do if you're in the market. And most people, if you have brokerage accounts there, beat down this year by the negative performance in the market, this might be a great strategy for you to look at. And then after you do that, you invest, you reinvest the money from that sale into a different security that meets your investment needs and your asset allocation strategy. So tax loss, harvesting, this might be a new concept for some of our listeners. So if you're if the market's down and you want to get a little help on the tax return, contact us. We'll be happy to go over that with you. You can go to our website. And you can book a complimentary consultation with us or a strategy session, or you can call us and text the same number at 910 235 0812. So Retire360Show.com as our website.

Mitchell Keiser:
I just wanted to also highlight something. If somebody is contemplating their retirement or I know like my parents, they have different IRAs with past employers or different financial advisors. Most people do like to consolidate. And if somebody does take us up on a consultation, we do not charge any cost to people that are hearing our show. But we do just so they know, just so everybody knows, we do income planning, we do tax planning, and I will do some Medicare and insurance planning too. So we don't just you know, we don't just have one little hole that we kind of help you fill. I mean, we help people try to just identify the whole picture. And sometimes that looks like us helping somebody with the whole picture. But sometimes it's a little piece. If nothing else, we can tell you that we'll be honest and we'll set you in the right direction. So again, that's that's Retire360Show.com Or you can call us at 910 235 0812.

Dwight Mejan:
Yeah, well, thanks for that. And before we take our break, I just want to shout out to Mitchell here for year end savings. One of the biggest areas that we see is insurance cost. And it's not just your home and auto, although I'd recommend you shop that out every two years. I do that with my own having kids in college and still owning several vehicles. That's one way to do that. Make sure you talk to an independent agent who can shop that market for you, but also look at if you're listening to this and you're on Medicare. I saw some couples leave our office yesterday that Mitchell was helping here. And we're in Southern Pines on Broad Street, Northwest, Broad Street. But Mitchell was helping some people who came in that were a little concerned look on their face just with the cost of everything. And they left smiling and laughing because they were paying about $500 a month for some secondary Medicare insurance. And Mitchell helped save a significant amount of money for them. So insurance cost cutting is definitely a way to cut some of the impact of inflation this past year. So definitely take us up on that and we're going to come back shortly after we take a break. We'll be right back.

Producer:
As the song says.It's the most wonderful time.But don't let holiday spending wrack your retirement plan. I'm Mat McClure with the Retirement dot Radio Network. Powered by AmeriLife. Just over $832. That's how much the National Retail Federation says the average American plans to spend on holiday gifts, food and decorations this year. Many of us will spend much more than that. So how do you keep from overdoing it? Financial website Investopedia has some tips on keeping holiday spending under control. Number one is perhaps the most important set spending limits for yourself. Tyler Ferguson with Jax Federal Credit Union agrees.

Tyler Ferguson:
Some can even go old school like myself and use a cash spending plan to ensure that you're staying inside of your budget. You're actually using cash to mitigate those swiping of the cards. It's also an effective plan if you have kids wanting to shop as well.

Producer:
That from news for Jack's. The number two tip from Investopedia is to make your own naughty or nice list. In other words, if you're shopping list includes more than five people outside your immediate family, start cutting it, then bake cookies or other treats to give to those who didn't make the cut. That way you spread holiday cheer without breaking the budget and you don't seem like Scrooge Humbug. Other bits of advice from Investopedia include being realistic about your budget, collecting coupons or discount codes and organizing group volunteering instead of holiday parties. Ferguson says. One thing you should not overlook is getting the kids involved.

Tyler Ferguson:
For the younger kids, you want to give them a smaller dollar amount, maybe a $10 cash transaction to kind of help provide them visual observation of what they're using the funds for. And then for your older kids who have either been saving themselves already or they have a lump sum to kind of go shopping with, can open up an account for them, go over how to budget and how to spend.

Producer:
So how can you give this holiday season without busting your budget? That's a key question to consider. As Santa starts warming up the sleigh with a Retirement dot Radio Network powered by AmeriLife, I'm Matt McClure.

Dwight Mejan:
All right. Well, we're back at Retire360Show and glad to have you back, everybody. We thought we'd take a fun segment here. And we're going to talk about something that P and C has been doing for 39 years. We direct you to the website. This is just something fun that we were talking about. Want to bring to our listeners PNC Christmas price index dot com. Mitchell tell the listeners what this is here for those that are not familiar with this.

Mitchell Keiser:
Yeah. So basically just a fun little blurb of inflation and how inflation has raised the price of common household gifts items, random things that you will never buy. But we're going to go over it anyhow.

Dwight Mejan:
I thought you were saving for this, Mitchell. I thought this was something you were working to take care of my daughter with here for her Christmas this year. Tell the listeners what it all costs right here.

Mitchell Keiser:
Yeah, right. So the total price index is up ten and one half percent this year. So what that basically looks like. So we'll start with a partridge in a pear tree. So while the price of a partridge is unchanged, it continues to grow, The cost continues to grow because of its tree, the price of fertilizer and the overall price increase of the first gift in the 2022 index. So that's 25.8% on a partridge in a pear tree.

Dwight Mejan:
Interesting how the P and C calculates that. But Mitchell, he mentioned the price increase of ten and one half percent. But all of the items in that song today, if you bought them, were $45,523.27. So pretty interesting. Two turtle doves, 600 bucks, up 33.3%. And this is thanks in part to the rising cost of feed, you'll be paying more for two turtle doves in 2022.

Mitchell Keiser:
And three French hens are up 25% this year. That is $318.75.

Dwight Mejan:
For calling birds $599.96. No inflation on that. It's the same as same as last year.

Mitchell Keiser:
I guess nobody wants those.

Dwight Mejan:
Well, if it's consistency you're after, it's the fall for calling birds. They've delivered once again. They're they're still expensive, just no more than they were in 2021.

Mitchell Keiser:
Right. Well, here we got five gold rings. So we got basically the price of gold is up 39.1%. So buying five gold rings, about $1,245.

Dwight Mejan:
Wow. $6,000,720, up 9.1%. They're laying down another large tab in 2022, demanding nearly 10% more than 2021. So if you'd like to gift them to your true love, you're just going to be out 720 bucks.

Mitchell Keiser:
Seven swans are swimming. They actually are steady since last year. Never would I ever have thought somebody would pay this much for a bird. Maybe that's my ignorance. But seven swans are swimming would cost you about $13,124.93.

Dwight Mejan:
Yeah, but you're getting seven. Mitchell, It's not one. You got seven birds for 13 grand. You don't think that's a good deal?

Mitchell Keiser:
Yeah, I do. I think you should get them for me.

Dwight Mejan:
Well, here's the eight maids of milking at $58 bucks, so. Yeah. Where were you on July 24 of 2009? The eight maids of milking were fresh off their last pay raise the last time they got a pay raise. So not being too kind to the eight maids of milking their for 0% inflation, it's been a while for them. I think they deserve a pay raise. What about you?

Mitchell Keiser:
Yeah, well, I mean, it's been that long since they increased minimum wage, so.

Mitchell Keiser:
Crazy all the all this stuff going up and some people still just at that flat, flat minimum. Nine ladies dancing. So this would represent like the performance industry that's up about 10%. So if you wanted to hire that out, $8,308.12.

Dwight Mejan:
Well if if fancy giving is your thing, nothing tops the lords of the dance. The Ten Lords are leaping top this year's index with $13,980 price tag, the most expensive gift in this year's index. And that's up 24.2%. Not quite sure how they arrive at the value of ten lords. A leaping but pretty expensive gift right there.

Mitchell Keiser:
So 11 pipers piping that is up 2.6%. So that is going to reflect the live music industry. So if you wanted to hire 11 pipers, you could expect to pay about $3,021.40.

Dwight Mejan:
Wow. Well rounded it off. We got the 12 drummers drumming at $3,266, up 2.6%. So that's the 12 drummers marching to a very similar beat in 2021. A tight labor.

Mitchell Keiser:
Market. They're not they're not putting up the music industry as high as ours.

Dwight Mejan:
No, they're not.

Mitchell Keiser:
So if you bought everything in the cost or the true cost of the Christmas, everything, we just went over there. If you bought everything, which I think Dwight said he was going to get for me this year, it'd be about 197,070. $197,071.09. So that's up about just under 10% since last year.

Dwight Mejan:
Well, if I got that free or raise this year, I'd be in big trouble for my wife. So hopefully she's not listening to this because she'd expect she'd expect that first there, but maybe next year.

Mitchell Keiser:
So. Well, the wise man once said it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Producer:
Where did you hear that from?

Dwight Mejan:
Well, in other statistics, it is Christmas time. We just got our tree. We've actually had it up. Probably the earliest we had it up before the month of December. We got it up around Thanksgiving before then, but we didn't realize the cost of Christmas trees this year. It's astounding. But 33.6% of American households are going to buy either a real or a fake Christmas tree collectively. And that market. Anybody want to take a guess how big that market is? $4.2 billion is the Christmas tree market. So we may need to start a side business there. Mitchell, what do you think?

Mitchell Keiser:
How about it? Well, I would imagine so. Of that 4.2 billion, I'd imagine that industry has a lot of expenses. Yeah, I know. Yeah. When we went to pick out our tree this year, I remember just going there. You know, you have the cost of the land, the cost of the trees, the cost of the trucks, the cost of the employees. That was actually thinking I was like, How do these people even make a profit? I mean, you buy like a $100 tree and you've got all those people to pay. I mean, they have cookies, they're hot chocolate. I'd imagine that industry probably has a lot of expenses, too. But no, those are big numbers.

Dwight Mejan:
There's no doubt. Average price of the tree is $85.59, and artificial trees $122.60. So if you keep that artificial tree for what I think you can get ten years out of it.

Mitchell Keiser:
worth a shot?

Dwight Mejan:
Yeah. You lower the cost of that tree down to $12.26.

Producer:
So there you go.

Dwight Mejan:
But you don't get that fresh smell. So we're going to break and we'll be back to finish it up by.

Producer:
Are you interested in protecting your assets from market volatility, rising taxes and economic uncertainty? Then tune in to Retire 360 with Dwight Mejan. To learn how you can protect and grow your hard-earned money. Retire 360 Sundays at 3:00 pm right here on Talk 97.3 FM 104.1 FM and 990AM WEEB Protect your hard earned money today at Retire360Show.com.

Dwight Mejan:
We want to talk in our time. We have remaining here just a little bit more about bonds. I mentioned earlier it's been a difficult year in the bond market and bond portfolios have suffered tremendously. And we pretty much found that too many people that we talked to just don't know the real percentage of their portfolio that's allocated to bonds and they don't know what bonds they currently hold. You know, the thing about bonds, when we do this, when we run the analysis that we run and that analysis is complimentary, we'll run some reports and we won't only tell you what the percentage of your bond portfolio is, we'll tell you what the quality of that bond portfolio is. And quality is very, very important because bonds have grades and you've got the highest grade, which is triple-A, and you've got Double-A and single-A. And where you get down into triple B, that is the last stop on the way down where you have what's called investment grade bonds. So a lot of portfolios today, a lot of fund managers are using, for example, double B bonds or right at the investment grade line at triple B, because they need they're getting more yield from those bonds that have a little bit higher risk. And that's how they're trying to get yields for the investors. And that's great until we see the economy suffering because some of those bonds may not be as stable as they could be if you were holding different instruments.

Dwight Mejan:
So one of the things that we always want to show our clients is what is in the category of bonds that could kick out more of a yield. And just one example of that we've talked about these before on the show is structured notes might be a possible asset class for some of you listening. We just got offerings on our notes for this month in December. They are a security just like a bond is. They have different types of risks. We won't talk deeply about that, but lots of different issuers, large investment banks are basically coming directly to us as investors and putting those rates out there, like any investment is important to understand the risks. But there's a lot of people listening to this right now that once you understand those risks, I think many of our listeners would find that there's a certain allocation that would make sense for their particular situation. And everyone listening has different situation, but we'll allocate as much as 20 up to 25% of an individual's portfolio into structured notes. And when you think about getting a consistent income every single month, that could be a great place to look at replacing some of those bonds and getting a better yield on some of that portfolio. The other area that we'd look at is there some other fixed income accounts like fixed indexed annuities.

Dwight Mejan:
You know, those products have income riders attached to them, some of them. And those income riders basically can provide income for life. And many of them right now, or as long as you defer taking income from a fixed indexed annuity, your account value or that what we call the income account value will step up. Many of them we see up to 8% per year. So that's another great strategy where you can get equity exposure to the market and still have complete principal protection. So those are just some areas we'd love to talk with you about. And if you get a hold of us, you can call us at our office or text us at the same number. We're at 910 235 0812. We are downtown in Southern Pines, or you can connect with us on our website at Retire360Show.com that's Retire360Show.com. You can book a complimentary strategy session with us it costs you nothing. I always say we get second opinions sometimes for health situations but not a lot of people have thought about getting second opinions on their portfolio or the strategy that they're implementing. And we will put all of that together for you free of charge to our listeners. So I would encourage you to call us and just let us know. We'd love to help you.

Producer:
It's this week in history.

Dwight Mejan:
And we're going to look at just a couple of things as we finish up here this week in history. We've got a birthday on this date. 1962 was actually on December 16. American football defensive tackle William Perry was born. I know Sam and Mitchell probably don't remember William Perry. Do you remember William Perry Mitchell?

Mitchell Keiser:
No clue.

Dwight Mejan:
The refrigerator. So being from Chicago, we call them the fridge. He stood at six feet, two inches tall. He was £335. I'll never forget the time that the refrigerator threw a touchdown pass to then quarterback Jim McMahon. Controversial figure at that time back in the mid eighties. But what a great team they did the Super Bowl shuffle. They went on to record the Super Bowl shuffle. You guys need to go look at that. I know these young guys haven't even seen the Super Bowl shuffle. I think that was the first football NFL team that went to a recording studio to actually do a song that was put out around the country about the Super Bowl shuffle. So pretty good entertainment for you there. So check that out, young guys. Who else do we got this week in History on the 17th?

Mitchell Keiser:
Yeah. So December 17th, that was actually a historical moment. On that day in 1903, the first ever airplane took flight. And that was by Orville and Wilbur Wright. Good old. I do remember that one.

Dwight Mejan:
North Carolina boys. We've still got first in flight on that license tag, don't we?

Mitchell Keiser:
Yep, Absolutely. Got it.

Dwight Mejan:
Orville piloted the gas powered, propeller driven biplane state of Aloft for 12 seconds and covered over a little over 120 feet on its first foray into the sky. So go to the Outer Banks. You can go relive that.

Mitchell Keiser:
Yeah, that's awesome. On that day, we also got pop culture. In 1989, the television and pop culture hit The Simpsons made its television debut. So that's crazy. And it knows that old.

Dwight Mejan:
Were you a Simpsons guy?

Mitchell Keiser:
No, but I've seen little blurbs about The Simpsons, so. But I kind of realize it was back in 1989.

Dwight Mejan:
It's crazy. I saw that they aired 738 new episodes.

Mitchell Keiser:
Hmm. Gotcha. I always I always see little blurbs on this from like, on like Instagram, tick tock, stuff like.

Producer:
That. Yeah.

Mitchell Keiser:
Well, different times.

Dwight Mejan:
There you go. In December 18th on in the area of film and TV, on this date, 1966, Dr. Seuss How the Grinch Stole Christmas made it into animated television show and show on CBS for the first time. The book was later made into a movie in 2000 starring Jim Carrey as The Grinch. That was a classic funny one there.

Mitchell Keiser:
Hmm. 2000. That makes me feel old.

Dwight Mejan:
That's pretty bad. Mitchell, if you're telling yourself old, try 1969. I will start talking about old.

Mitchell Keiser:
It is funny. I was talking to your sons the other day, and they told me because they were born in 2004 and they were like, Yeah. I was like, Do you guys think that I'm old? And they're like, Well, they're like anybody in the. The below the 2000s.

Dwight Mejan:
Yeah. Leave it to my boys. Right. It's good having them back from college, though. They. They both got home this past weekend and just a great time. And just want to wish that to all our listeners as we wrap up. This week's show is just enjoy that time with family. It's a special time of year. And, you know, we talk a lot on this show, obviously about money and ways to save it and reduce expenses. But, you know, it's just a big reminder this time of year, what matters most is those families and friendships that we have. So just enjoy these weeks as we wind down the year and look forward to celebrating that time with our loved ones. But with that, we're going to wrap up this week's show. Thanks for listening. Thanks for tuning in. I just want to remind everybody, if you want to reach us, contact us at Retire360Show.com. Book that complimentary consultation with us we're at 910 235 0812. We'd love to have you visit our office if you're ever in the area. Come on in and stop by. We're at 400 Northwest Broad Street in downtown Southern Pines. And with that, thank you for tuning in this week and get that shopping done. And don't wait till the last minute like Mitchell is going to do. Actually, actually like I'm going to do.

Mitchell Keiser:
That's more like it. That's more like y'all have a blessed week.

Producer:
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

Producer:
Investment Advisory Services offer 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:
Structured notes involve risks not associated with an investment in ordinary debt securities. The securities are not bank deposits and are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other governmental agency. Nor are the obligations of or guaranteed by a bank. The securities will not be listed on any securities exchange, and the secondary trading may be limited. Therefore, there may be little or no secondary market for the securities. Accordingly, you should be willing to hold your securities to maturity. The securities are subject to the credit risk of the issuing bank, and any actual or anticipated changes to its credit rating or credit spreads may adversely affect the market value of the securities. Information provided is not intended as tax or legal advice and should not be relied on As such. You were encouraged to seek tax or legal advice from an independent professional.

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