3.10.23: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

3.10.23: 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 Mejan.

Dwight Mejan:
Well, good afternoon. Welcome, everybody. My name is Dwight Mejan. I am your host. I want to welcome everybody to today's show, especially all of our long time listeners here. And we've got, I know some first time listeners tuning in, so we're glad to have you with us. Part of the Retirement.Radio Network series. And we are broadcasting here out of Southern Pines, North Carolina. So want to welcome everybody to today's show. We've got a great show planned. The most important decision you will make for your retirement today, how to navigate the Future of Social Security. But alongside of me is Mitchell Keiser, my son in law, and our executive producer, Sam Davis. Mitchell, how are you doing today?

Producer:
Hey, I'm doing pretty good. Excited to be here. We've got some important topics coming up here with inflation. I've read some things this week and I think that's kind of the hot topic everybody's been faced with. So looking forward to it. Yeah.

Dwight Mejan:
Sam, how about you? How are you doing?

Producer:
Doing fantastic. It's springtime here in the South and I think everybody's enjoying the nice change of pace with regards to the weather. And they're starting to think about springtime and starting to think about summer.

Dwight Mejan:
Absolutely. And we were just talking about golf courses and all the fun stuff we like to get out and do, but that feel is definitely in the air. Good to have you guys alongside. And again, great to be with our listeners. And again, welcome to our first time listeners. But I'm Dwight, Meghan and Mitchell and I and Sam here in the background. Our goal is to help people protect their money, to win with their money and to grow their money responsibly. In addition to that, this show is all about, you know, we talk about it a lot. It's not just about saving a large lump sum of money that helps, but in retirement, the name of the game becomes building a tax efficient portfolio, develop developing an income plan that's going to be solid to last the duration of your lifetime, which we always plan here to be 100. We like to think optimistically, but we need to do that. We don't know how long anybody's going to live, but it's about income planning. It's about that tax plan. It's about health care planning and long term care. And it's also about estate and legacy planning. So that's what we're here to do. And we're going to jump in today. But if you are new to the show and you want to check us out, you can go to Retire360Show.com you can download and listen to some previous episodes. Wherever you download podcasts, you can also go to our YouTube channel and you just go and type in retire 360 and you can find us there.

Dwight Mejan:
Just want to give a special invitation here to all of our listeners to get in touch with us for a free copy of 23 retirement cost Cutters for 2023. This little packet that we can email to you or mail to you is packed with ideas to help you hang on to more of your hard earned money. And that's what this show is all about. We want to help you win with your money. So we're going to get into the topic today of the quote of the week. Mitchell's going to kick us off with that. We also have a inflation demonstration and interest rate update for you. We want to help you understand what to do with your old and unused 529 funds. There's new options for college savers. We mentioned that closing last week's show. So we're going to talk with you about that. There's some cost cutters tips of the week. And we want to talk a little bit about the fees that you might be paying in your portfolio and help you better understand those, because, again, it's not just about making a lot. We all want to make a decent rate of return on our money, but we also don't want to make sure we're not paying too much out on the backside. So we're going to talk about that as well. And then we're going to talk about the most important decision you'll make in retirement, which is navigating Social Security. So, Mitchell, why don't you take us right into the financial wisdom quote of the week?

Producer:
All right. So this week, we've got first Lady Eleanor Roosevelt from 1933 to 1945. It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan. I'll tell you, it seems like I always take things to psychology, but I listened to a couple psychologists in their podcast and I follow them on social media. And, you know, they'll talk about how if you worry about a situation or if you're fearing a situation or you're angry about a situation that's in the future or in the past, what you're doing is you're living that situation more than once. So, I mean, if I'm worried about, oh, like I have. This big this big appointment this upcoming week or this big report that's coming. Do you know what I'm doing is I'm worrying about it now and I'm worrying about it in the future. So I'm really living that stress. Multiple times. I think that ties in with this quote because it takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan. So you're already wishing so the amount of time that you're sitting there wishing, dreaming, strategizing in your mind at that point, you might as well just do it.

Dwight Mejan:
We talk a lot about obviously you got to develop a plan, which is what what we're here to help people do is be thinking about these things. But also in our day to day practice, it's developing a plan with our clients so that they don't have to have those fears that you were just talking about that they can enter retirement confidently and not wonder or worry about the future.

Producer:
Want to know where your hard earned money is going. It's time for an inflation demonstration.

Dwight Mejan:
We're going to dive into the inflation demonstration here. Want to give you some updates on prices and interest rates. I'll take you through prices. And Mitchell's going to talk a little bit about interest rates. But latest figures are in from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and they show that the 12 month, year over year inflation rate was 6.4% in January, and that's down from the high, which was last June 2022 of 9.1%. So while there's still inflationary pressure that's helped consumers with gas prices and lowered prices for used cars and trucks, they're still feeling the sting of inflation on certain essentials with year over year prices higher by double digits. And that's as an example here, food still up 11.3%. Electricity is 11.9%. Natural gas is 26.7. And transportation services, which is airline prices, mass transit, etcetera, is 14.6. And, you know, when I see that, I still see the food at 11.3. It's still hard to believe it's still only 11.3%. I say only, but most of us go to the grocery store and we can feel the definite pinch because you just don't come out with much in the bags. So it seems like it's higher than 11.3. I would have thought that the food was closer to the 26.7% that they're saying natural gas is. I don't have natural gas where I live.

Dwight Mejan:
It certainly seems like food is up closer to 30%. But in any case, that's what the Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us. But inflation is one of those areas we just we can't get away from not talking about it because especially those many of our listeners who are listening, listening to this show right now, we're affected by inflation, especially if you're in the land of fixed income where you're not working anymore. It's not a matter of just having a wage that could increase most of our listeners. The only increase they get is Social Security and that 8.7% they got earlier this year. That's just meant to keep up with where inflation is. That's not getting you ahead of the game. So definitely inflation is a topic we need to continue to watch out for. And it's certainly something that when we meet with clients or we meet with people who listen to this show, we're going to talk about inflation and we're going to look at how inflation will impact your portfolio, you know, over a 10 or 15, 20, 30 year retirement and see, you know, what that's going to look like for your portfolio. So, Mitchell, why don't you tell us a little bit about the interest rate updates, What's going on there?

Producer:
Yeah, absolutely. So the central bank raised their rates. They've been raising their rates rates at the fastest pace since the 1980s. Most economists think that to bring inflation back to their 2% target, the Fed's policymakers will need to raise the rates further and keep them at that peak just a little longer. So that's different than what they originally projected in December, which, again, you know, you hear all these things once they're going to be a recession ones, they're going to be, you know, a dip in this market just goes to show nobody really knows. There's no there's no crystal ball that, you know, somebody has the right answer or, oh, well, I listened to this person or this person says that interest rates are going to do this. At the end of the day, I don't think anybody really knows. There's a lead. Us economist at Oxford Economics, his name is Michael Pierce. He wrote in a research note that he expects the feds to raise its key rate by a quarter point at each of its next three meetings, and he foresees the possibility of additional hikes beyond those.

Producer:
So the Fed's hikes typically make mortgages, auto loans, credit card rates and business lending more expensive. It's a trend that can slow spending and inflation, but it also threatens to send us into a recession. So guess it's you know, that's the federal government's way of fighting inflation, but it also risks us, you know, tanking the economy. I know just yesterday I read an article from Fox Business and they said that home mortgage, this is the worst time to buy a home in over a decade. So and that goes to interest rates and the price of homes. Both are extremely inflated. I know, because we're looking to move within the next couple of years. So I kind of keep my eye on interest rates. And I know the average interest rate right now is in the 7% mid sevens, which mean if you were buying a home two and a half, three years ago, they were about two and a half. So they've, you know, they've doubled twice. Three times. Yeah. And the the past couple years, it's just pretty huge.

Dwight Mejan:
Well you hit the nail on the head. I mean, the 30 year mortgage right now is 7.3, 8%. And we look that up a 15 year is 6.37 and a ten year with a with an arm is just still over 7%. So it's yeah, rates don't show any signs of letting up and. I had a listener of our show call this morning who had a question about interest rates, and her thought was, anyway, there's a point where we have to stop or we're going to stop. And that's true. They don't want to keep going up. But she thought we couldn't go up any more. And this past week, you've already been listening to this, Jerome Powell, the head of the chair of the Federal Reserve. He already mentioned that the Fed is going to pick up pace with rising raising the interest rates and markets don't respond very well to that because obviously the fear is and we talk about it a lot on our show is that it could throw us into a recession. Very important, especially if you are retired and you're heavy in the stock market and you may not have enough of your funds in principal protected monies. Many people today are looking at, hey, should I have more money in fixed rate? Yields are going up and they could probably continue to go up, particularly since the feds are showing signs that they're going to raise the interest rate. So we're certainly going to start to see that we're seeing more volatility already. And Mitchell, do you have anything you want to add to what we're talking about here?

Producer:
No. If you are somebody that has been impacted by inflation or if you're worried about how inflation could affect your retirement or if it could, we do stress tests, people's portfolios. So what that means is we have the software where we could input how you're invested and how would that stand if we had a recession or, you know, if what happened back in zero eight happened again, you know, how would that look like in your portfolio? Give us a call or reach out. Our office number is (910) 235-0812. Our radio website is retire 360. Show.com and don't forget this is all brought to you by 360 capital Management. That's the name of our company. But we'd be happy to help you guys if you have any further questions. Obviously we just like to graze over things on the show, but if you wanted to go into more depth, be happy to set up a call and volunteer some time to help you out.

Dwight Mejan:
Absolutely. That's a great invite. And I know a lot of people will take us up on that offer. And, you know, that is one of the things Mitchell, we've been seeing more interest in is people having their portfolio stress tested and seeing what would happen under certain constraints like inflation. And we can set that inflation rate against your portfolio. And one of the things we would look at is what's the ten year, three year, five year, one year average history of growth in that current portfolio. And then we can run it under different inflation scenarios. So instead of maybe just taking a standard 3 to 3.5% inflation, we can run that portfolio against a 7% inflation. And I know that may not seem realistic, but you know what? A lot of the stuff that I'm starting to read is saying inflation could be here to stay for an indefinite period of time. And, you know, the whole goal of the Fed's raising interest rates is to get things under control and then slowly bring it back down and hopefully bring inflation down with it. And that's not what we're seeing and that's not what we're starting to hear more about. We're starting to hear that inflation could be around for years and that could have a real impact on portfolios, especially if you're living off that portfolio and taking income. So we want to move and shift gears here to something we talked about last week. Show is what to do with unused funds inside of a 529 plan. Well, a lot of this was impacted by the new secure 2.0 act that was signed into law starting this year. But 529 plans, they carry tax advantages for college savers, investment earnings on account contributions. They grow tax free and they're not taxable if they're used for qualifying education expenses like tuition fees, books, room and board.

Dwight Mejan:
Over the 1.7 trillion federal omnibus spending package included a provision that allows tax free rollovers of money in 529 plans to Roth IRAs beginning in 2024. So I'm going to say that again. The omnibus budget spending package included a provision in it that allows if you have money that's left in a 529 plan, it can be rolled over to a Roth IRA beginning in 2024. Folks, that's absolutely huge in terms of an opportunity. And I think what this is pointing to more than anything is the fact that our government recognizes the critical situation that we're in because a huge amount of people head into retirement with only Social Security, and they're making it very clear by these opportunities that they want people to start owning their own retirement instead of just depending on Social Security. And most of our listeners know you can't make it just on Social Security alone. You've got to have some other form of income in retirement to enjoy the lifestyle. If not, it just means longer working years for many people. So this new provision provides a good opportunity. If you have 529 college savings accounts and the money hasn't been used or it's not going to be fully used now, the funds could be put to use. So the rollover measure, which is again going to take effect in 2024, has some limitations. Among the largest, there's a $35,000 lifetime cap on transfers. So they're not making it an unlimited transfer. It is capped for a lifetime of up to 35,000. But nonetheless, it's a huge opportunity. So there are some other restrictions. I'm going to let Mitchell talk about some of those.

Producer:
Yeah, So like you said, the big one is that there's a $35,000 lifetime cap. That's that's kind of the biggie. You know, you can't just sock away. You can't just sock away your millions into that and expect it all to transfer. They're also subject to the annual Roth IRA contribution limits that just got bumped up $500 this year. So the limit on that is $6,500. The another limitation that you're going to have is that the rollover can only be made from the beneficiary's Roth IRA, none of that of the owner. So an example, if I opened a 529 plan for my child and that child never used the proceeds from the 529 plan, I can't roll that into my Roth. I can only roll that into the Roth of my child. So I can't use that as a fallback, you know, retirement plan for me. Ultimately, the 529 plan, you got to just think about it. The 529 plan is for somebody else, whether they use it for college tuition or if you're going to let it sit there for the retirement. I would never plan on that to be something that's going to come back to you no matter what. It's going to be your legacy, how you've helped your kids become who they are and how you've helped them save for their future. Both are huge accomplishments. The last restriction that I'm going to touch on is the 529 plan has to have been opened for at least 15 years before you can do that conversion. So you can't just open an account and not use it and then just roll it over. So that account has to be open for a minimum of 15 years. You guys have any other questions on that? What to do with unused 529 plans or anything that we have touched on with inflation? Give us a call. Our office number is (910) 235-0812. You can reach out to us at Retire360Show.com. And we will be right back after this break.

Producer:
Helping bring you one step closer to financial freedom. You're listening. To retire 360.

Producer:
With age comes wisdom and senior discounts. I'm Matt McClure with the Retirement.Radio Network. Powered by Amara Life. 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.

Speaker5:
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 to get.

Producer:
Your free copy of 23 cost cutters for 2023 call Dwight today at (910) 235-0812 or visit retired 360.

Dwight Mejan:
Show.com we are back. I am your host Dwight Mejan and alongside me, Mitchell Keiser and sam davis, our executive producer. You know, guys, we talk a lot about fees in our program. We spend time talking about it off the show and it really is a key area. And I want to just set this segment up with a true story of a client who has been just recently joined us. And this particular person came in to do a second opinion review, had an advisor, had somebody they were working with, but we ran an analysis for them and we ended up finding out that their expense ratio, which we're going to talk about, they were paying about 0.85% on a portfolio that had $1 million in it. And what the expense ratio is by by definition, it's the management fee divided by the total investment that you have in the fund. Okay? And that equals the expense ratio. So 0.85, we call that 85 basis points. It's just under 1%. So at 85 basis points for every $100,000 that's invested in the account, $850 is the cost for the assets that they owned in that investment. A lot of mutual funds, all mutual funds have some type of expense ratio. And this particular individual had a portfolio of slightly under $1 million. So their expense ratio alone per year was $8,500. On top of it, they had a 1% advisor fee and then they had the registered firm had their own fee of 1%.

Dwight Mejan:
So this person's total cost between advisor fee and expense ratio was 2.85%. Now if you can imagine that the cost of that whole portfolio with expense ratio and management fee was right around $28,500. Okay. And that expense ratio is what we're going to focus on. The advisor fee was a whole different thing. But if you take that your own expense ratio and I ask people when they come into the office, do you know what your expense ratio is? Because we know we're going to run that and cover it with a client. They have no idea. Most people don't know what that is. Okay. And those are internal costs for the specific investments that you own, particularly mutual funds, which most people we find have in their portfolio. We're not opposed to mutual funds, but we use alternative investments that don't have those same we'll still use things that have a basket of securities like exchange traded funds, but they don't have typically the cost that a mutual fund does, and they just don't understand those fees inside the portfolio. And a lot of people are paying excess fees for assets that are underperforming. But this particular client was going to cut their total cost by over half of that just through what we were showing them.

Dwight Mejan:
And that alone made it an attractive discussion to go deeper with us, which is what we ended up doing. So if you don't know what you're paying for that, it's your money. Don't you want to get the most out of it? Okay. It's not just people focus a lot of times on what they earn, but they're not looking at what it might be costing them. So fees affect everybody who is saving for retirement regardless of. Of how much money they have in their nest egg. So remember retirement incomes. Retirement is about income, not about building up a big nest egg and reaching that elusive magic number. There's no such thing as that, okay? We help our clients take advantage of fee efficient strategies while generating safe and predictable income streams that they can never outlive. And that's really what you want to focus on, on retirement because you're in, you know, the accumulation years have passed you by. If you're nearing retirement or in retirement at that point, it's about preserving that capital and getting a lifetime stream of income that you can't outlive. So did you know that you can establish your own personal pension by replacing the bonds that you hold in your portfolio with a product known as a fixed indexed annuity, while also deleting the fees on that bond portion of your portfolio? So here's what I mean by that.

Dwight Mejan:
Let's say that you have a half $1 million in your retirement plan or in your current portfolio, and let's just say for simple purposes that the cost of that is 1.5% between the expense ratio and the fee that you pay for an advisor if you have one. Well, if that if half of that money, 250,000 was sitting currently in bonds and you move that money into a fixed indexed annuity, you remove the 1.5% fee that's on that portion of your portfolio. So you can reduce that. And ultimately what you do is you reduce the fee then, you know, 1.5% or another way to say it, the whole portfolio might drop then to 0.75% if you move it into a fixed indexed annuity. And that which might have been the bond portion of your portfolio. And remember last year, the worst year on record for bonds as interest rates and they might continue to spike. That has a negative impact on the bond portfolio because as interest rates go up, the value of that bond portfolio is going to decrease. So just something for you to give thought to in that area and we'd love to help you with that if that's something that you want to understand deeper, we encourage you to reach out to us. Call us at our office here.

Dwight Mejan:
(910) 235-0812. Or you can go to Retire360Show.com and that's sponsored by our company, 360 Capital Management. So my question here is do you know what your expense ratio is? If you don't, we'll help you understand what it is and what you're paying in fees based on that expense ratio. So if you're with just a kind of a listener call out here, if you're with one of the big name drive up financial institutions or if you've ever been told by your advisor to just hang in there with your money, you need to give us a call today and visit that website I just gave you at Retire 360. Show.com, no matter how much money you have, the money you have is important to you and it's important to us. So we want to help you grow your assets and protect them and we want to help you grow those assets responsibly. So give us a call. (910) 235-0812. We'd love to answer our listeners questions and we get calls here during the week and we'd be more than happy to cover that with you on a Zoom call or in person whatsoever. Good for you. But Mitchell's going to talk to us a little bit about Social Security, aren't you, Mitchell What are you going to share with the listeners on Social Security here in this segment?

Producer:
Oh, yeah. We get a lot of questions on Social Security. We actually teach some classes on Social Security. So stay tuned. We can let you know about the ones that are going to be coming near you. But here's just some questions that we get a lot. Just kind of keep track of these so we know how to, you know, reach the touch points of what people might be looking for. Here's the four most common questions we get asked. Can I count on Social Security to be there for me in my 30 plus year retirement? When should I take Social Security? Why would I wait to take Social Security? And what happens to our benefits when my husband slash wife slash spouse passes away? So if you have any questions about any of those four things, you're not alone. We get asked them all the time. Here's the facts. In 1950, there were 16 workers per Social Security recipient. So 16 people per retired person drawing Social Security. Today, there's about 2.8 workers per person on social or on taking Social Security. So that's that's a pretty big jump. So from 16 to now under three. That means that there's a lot more there's a lot less money getting dumped into Social Security and there's a lot more people drawing from it. Um, also take into consideration the national debt is sitting at 3 or $31.6 trillion while the nation's unfunded liabilities are $182 trillion. Bottom line, you can't count on Social Security alone in your retirement. And we're not here to try to tell you guys, hey, we know what's going to happen.

Producer:
Social Security is going away, so just be prepared. We don't hold the crystal ball either. And we're not trying to act like we know what's going to happen. What we're trying to do is make people prepared, make people aware of what some of the facts are, what some of the realities are of Social Security, and help you to set yourself up for a better future, not just for you. But most people have a family or, you know, children. They're trying to leave them a legacy. And it's important to make sure that you're in a protected place and that your goals have been checked on and have been reallocated within the past couple of years. Because if you had a plan, you know, even five years ago, man, that plan has changed. It needed to be changed from then to what it is now because we just don't live in the same world that we did five years ago from inflation to, you know, politics to anything. Nothing's the same as it was. So it's important that you do get that second look, that second opinion. I know you've heard us say it a few times, but we'd be happy to help. If anybody has any questions for us. We don't charge people to help them. Just look at their portfolio and analyze situations. Give us a call. (910) 235-0812 or check us out at retire 360. Show.com, we'll be right back after this break.

Producer:
You're listening to retire 360. To schedule your free no obligation consultation with dwight visit retire 360. Show.com.

Producer:
You may already know what you want your retirement to look like, but do you know how to start planning to get there? I'm Matt McClure with the Retirement.Radio Network. Powered by AmeriLife.

Speaker7:
Where am I? I don't know.

Producer:
That's a question you must ask yourself before you start plotting out your retirement planning journey. After all, if you don't know where you are, it's pretty much impossible to get to your destination. Step one is keeping track of money that's coming in and what's going out. Otherwise known as a personal budget, it's an important thing to have. But a Gallup poll from 2016 found only 32% of couples keep a written budget of any kind.

PBS:
A lot of people tend to think of budgeting as prediction, estimating what you'll make in future months and how you'll want to spend it. But the most effective budgets work exclusively with present dollars. After all, you can't give orders to soldiers that don't exist, so the size of your army is only how much money you currently have in your bank accounts. And as general, your role is to give every last one of those soldiers a job.

Producer:
To do that from PBS's $0.02. Now, once you have a basic idea of what you're dealing with, reach out to a financial advisor or a professional who can go more in depth.

Ford Stokes:
We want you to do a financial checkup. Checkup? It's just like getting a checkup at the at the doctor's office.

Producer:
Ford Stokes is founder and president of Active Wealth Management. He says getting a smart inspection of your finances is essential.

Ford Stokes:
You want to review your accounts. You want to look at your IRAs, your 401. K's anywhere you hold assets, including cash. You want to check your balances, you want to review rates of return over the last 12 months, three years and five years. You want to answer this question, Do you have an income gap or do you have an income surplus?

Producer:
Understanding where you are now will help you plan for the retirement you want, leaving your future in your hands instead of the hands of the market or the IRS. So are you ready to reach out to a financial advisor for a smart inspection of your current situation? That's a key question to consider before you start your retirement journey with the Retirement.Radio Network Powered by a Life, I'm Matt McClure.

Dwight Mejan:
Well, hey, we're back. I'm Dwight, and I'm your host alongside me, Mitchell Keiser. You know, we were talking at the break, Mitchell, a little bit about your last segment on Social Security. And, you know, we do a lot of in-person events. That's where we love to meet many of our listeners who tune in for this show every week. And, you know, I was saying at the break that, you know, it's not a one size fits all any area of planning, but particularly the one in the area of Social Security. There's a lot of confusion around, isn't there? Mitchell You know, we have people coming into our office and say, well, I have a friend and they're going to they're waiting until they're 70. And I don't know if I could do that. I don't know if I should do that. And it brings up a point I think worth noting for our listeners is it really is a unique situation, isn't it, for everybody? Because everybody's got different sized portfolio, everybody's got a different budget. Some people have different nest eggs in their pre-tax bucket and then their taxable bucket. And a lot of that's just going to depend on the building that tax efficient portfolio so that when you retire, the money that you are pulling out, you're doing it with a strategy in mind. You're not just randomly pulling money out. I don't I don't know, Mitchell, that a lot of our listeners sometimes even know which bucket is the best bucket to pull from, you know, and that's why it's we have to tailor that. But go ahead.

Producer:
Mitchell Well, I was just going to give you an example. So at one of our last events that we did at a local community college, I had somebody come up to me after the event and she was talking to me about that exact thing, the timing of Social Security. But she actually didn't consult anybody. She just called and triggered her income because she thought she wasn't 100% sure, but she thought that she wanted to retire. So she called. She had her Social Security sent to her and they got that all set up and she started drawing Social Security. Well, a couple months went by and she decided that she didn't want to be at home anymore. So she drew early. She drew I think she was 62 or 63 years old. And she decided that she was too young. She wanted to go back to work. It wasn't for her. So she called the Social Security office and said, Hey, I changed my mind. I know I only got a couple of payments, but I want you to stop sending me Social Security. Just delay it a couple more years. Well, they told her no. They said you can't delay. We can't reverse your decision. You're stuck receiving Social Security now for the rest of your life. And she's like, Well, now I'm working. So I have like double income now. And truthfully, it didn't matter. Know, once you start Social Security, you're taking it.

Producer:
And now she called us again and she's been calling us all week because we're trying to help her in this situation. But the last I heard, she was telling me she's in a very complex tax situation where she actually owes money back in taxes now because it threw her into a different threshold that she wasn't prepared to take. I mean, it sounds it sounds good when you think, oh, you know, I'm eligible for Social Security. Just, you know, send me the money. You know, I'll deal with that tomorrow when it comes. But you need to have a plan in place or you can really get yourself in a bind. I know for this individual, it was just a good example of how you need to develop that plan and you need to make sure that you had thought of everything. And if you're making the decision on your own, unless you're an expert in the area of financial planning and Social Security, you really should consult at least at least one other person that is an expert in that field and get their opinion. Hear from a couple of different people. Talk to people about Medicare. What's your health care going to look like once you go on Social Security? Because they're all factors and they all change different situations. And if it's confusing, if you guys have questions, give us a call. We help people with that literally every day.

Dwight Mejan:
Yeah, you know, it's what you were saying, Mitchell It's, you know, it's not people think they got to have all the answers and they don't. We have the questions. And that's what we've been trained in, is the art of asking the right questions to help guide you down the right path, because the path is different for everybody. You know, I think of that old saying that the secret in life isn't knowing all the answers to life's questions. It's knowing what questions to ask. You know, you go in, you go into a doctor's office and you have a problem. Who's asking all those questions? Okay. The doctor, they're going down. They've been trained in the art medically of asking questions to try to run and get the diagnosis that that needs to be received so that treatment can begin. Right. It's no different when you're planning for retirement. You have to get with a trusted fiduciary who knows the right questions to ask. And like we've been talking about, Social Security is just one of those topics that could it be right for you to take it even early? We're not opposed to certain people taking Social Security security early. There is a reduction. Most of our listeners know about that.

Dwight Mejan:
But it may be the best situation for you to take it early. But what if it's the wrong decision and you end up creating a tax bomb later because of some other accounts that you have that are going to be taxed higher during the required minimum distribution phase of your retirement. That's one of the things that we look at with different tools that we use to analyze the portfolio. And I think it's maybe a good time just to tell our listeners, what is it like if you take Dwight Mitchell up on the offer to come in and get that second opinion? Or perhaps maybe you're thinking, Hey, I'd like to work with a professional, but I don't know that I could afford it. What does that involve? So maybe we can just take our listeners for just a brief moment. Mitchell Through that process, you know, we provide these consultations. They're comprehensive at no cost to our listeners, and there's no obligation. You know, you only work with us if it's if it's best for you. And we've told people who've come in to our office, we look at their portfolio, we ask them the questions that we ask on an initial consultation. And after we do the analysis, we tell people that, hey, we're not a fit only because you're doing a great job or the person that's working with you is meeting your objectives.

Dwight Mejan:
We have told people that before. We have told other people for different reasons that we don't think there's a fit. I talk about the three C's. I haven't talked about them lately, I don't think on this show. But there has to be character. You have to gauge that character, chemistry and competency. You know, we look at two of those three, three C's, we look at character. We need to make sure we're getting good information and that we'd work well with someone. And then we've got to see that there's chemistry as well. Do we see ourselves working well with a person? And that's okay If there's not chemistry, neither party should, you know, persist and even looking at engaging in any type of relationship. But that first meeting that we do, it's all discovery, it's all exploratory. It's just simply us asking you some questions and you asking us questions. From there, we determine if another meeting is in order. And what happens. Mitchell On that second meeting, maybe you can share with the listeners what's a second meeting look like for us.

Producer:
Yeah. So if if there is something that we feel that we could help somebody out with, that is where we'd go over a potential recommendation. So what that would look like is we go to our we have a couple different investment committees and they help illustrate. They help us illustrate some strategies that we could help place people in. We kind of work as like a matchmaker from a person to a plan. So we help kind of coordinate that all together, see if that is something that is a fit for somebody. You know, we've had instances that that is the case and it works. There's been instances where they there's little parts of it that they said are, no, I didn't I didn't explain that clearly. This is actually what I want. I actually wanted a guaranteed source of income. I didn't want to take risk to my principle or, you know, I didn't want to. Or maybe people said, I want more risk than that. I want to be in this stock or in this mutual fund or I'm passionate about, you know, we've had people that have said, hey, I want earth friendly stocks or I want Timothy Funds or, you know, we've had all different types of requests that we can go back to the drawing board and help somebody, you know, meet their objective. So if that second meeting isn't a fit, hey, there's no harm, no foul on us. We'll just we'll tweak the plan, go back to the drawing board, and then we'll have part two again. And then we'll kind of just go over that and hey, there could be a situation where we're not a fit.

Producer:
Maybe it's usually not the case that we don't have the plan, but sometimes, like you said, there is not a fit for, you know, with chemistry. Maybe it's just it's just not meant to be. And that's okay too. We've sent people on their way with a plan. And, you know, they, you know, we left as friends. We don't ever leave people as a you do business with us or, you know, you take us or screw you. I mean, that's totally not our MO, right? If you ever if you ever looked us up or went on to any of our websites, you'd know that we fear the Lord more than we fear losing somebody's business. So we definitely hold that higher than any of our values. I can even also just speak to just a small detail. We had a financial client come in at the end of enrollment season and she said, I want you to take her mother was in a nursing home. She said, I want you to take all my mother's insurance needs. And she goes, I just want you to handle it. Mitchell She said, Just take it and put her into what you helped us with. And obviously, by the sounds of that, anybody listening would say, She just threw you her business, which she did. She threw it at me and said, Do it. And I looked at it and it wasn't a good fit for her mom. I mean, it was like I said, I can't like, I'm not going to do that to you. You're in a better fit where you are now.

Dwight Mejan:
Well, and I think the bottom line with what you're saying there, Mitchell, is after that recommendation meeting, if we get that far after the second meeting, we don't expect people to give us their answer at that meeting. In fact, we send them home and send them a recap of that meeting, knowing that if it is, you know, two people who come in here living under the same roof, they need time to process that information. They need time to think about it. They need time perhaps to pray about it. Whatever the situation is, we get that and we send people home. So it's it's at their timetable from there. And if it's right, they're going to see it because we're going to make sure that we point out opportunities that they're missing or areas that might put them in better alignment with their goals and objectives. And yeah, for sure, our role is twofold. I don't mean to oversimplify the role of wealth management and what we do, but Mitchell, you've heard me say this for as long as you've been working here is our goal is to set expectations and then to help them manage their risk tolerance. It's setting expectations and manage risk That oversimplifying, of course, is our duty, and communication is obviously a big component of that, but that is something that's a given. So if you are looking for maybe perhaps better service, maybe with this volatile market right now that we're experiencing, you're not hearing perhaps from an advisor or your advisor like you'd expect. Maybe this is a good time to say, Hey, I want to get another opinion and see what's going on here. So go to that website, Retire360Show.com that's put on by our company 360 Capital Management. We're downtown Southern Pines and our phone number is (910) 235-0812. And with that, we're going to take a break. And when we come back, we will finish up.

Producer:
You're listening to Retire 360o.

Producer:
Are you interested in protecting your assets from market volatility, rising taxes and economic uncertainty? Then tune in to retire 360 with Dwight Midgen to learn how you can protect and grow your hard earned money. Retire 360 Sundays at £0.03 pm right here on Talk 97.3 FM 104.1 FM and 990 a m. WEEB. Protect your hard earned money today at Retire360Show.com.

Dwight Mejan:
All right. Well, we are back. Mitchell Keiser and myself. My name is Dwight Megia and I am your host of the retired 360 show. And this is brought to you by our company, 360 Capital Management. Mitchell we want to talk a little bit here about just ways that people can maximize their Social Security benefits. I know you led the segment there on Social Security and seems to be the hot topic, at least for this show anyway. And for a lot of listeners that do call in for us. So let's take our listeners through seven tips of ways that they can maximize that Social Security. And I'll just kick us off here with the first one. Social Security work 35 years or longer. Social Security is going to look at your top earning 35 years to determine your benefit and you get a zero for any years you didn't work and you may permanently lower your payout. So 35 years is just a good target range. If you can work 15 and you win the lottery, then you really don't have to worry about that. You can just hang it up. So but that's your first tip. So what about the next one, Mitchell? Yeah.

Producer:
So you guys also, if possible and if your situation allows try to stretch out your top earning years. Most people reach their peak earning levels later in their career, so working an extra year or two at that level would increase your lifetime benefit a pretty decent amount. So if you if you can hang in there just a little bit longer and just keep working away at that job, keep socking away some dough, that's also going to help your Social Security benefit.

Dwight Mejan:
Well, and it's true. If people work in that corporate side, the pay raises tend to go up in percentages if you're not self employed. So like Mitchell just said, if you get up there in your late 50s, you know, your mid mid 60s don't have the stat in front of me. Mitchell You might know it, but the, you know, from your mid to late 50s all the way to to 65, the amount of money that people can save in those years, it's significant. I've read some statistics where I thought it was, you know, half can be added to the nest egg. Some of it's through the growth that's in the current portfolio as long as there's a good run in the market. But the the other amount is people are really able to accelerate the savings that they have because typically they're getting closer to the mortgage, getting paid off, The kids are off the payroll. Mitchell, help me out with that one since he married my daughter. But any anything you can do in that regard is great. But, you know, wait until full retirement age to claim benefits. We talk about that sometimes here on the show. We talked about it today, claiming as soon as you can, which is age 62, may permanently reduce your monthly benefit by 25%. So wait till full retirement age when and where that's possible and get that full benefit. So at least get the full benefit. Most people today that are retiring right now are getting ready to or somewhere in the 66 and late, you know, ten months. But it's going to be pretty much for a lot of listeners if you haven't taken it's going to be age 67. So the longer you can wait, there's an 8% raise after that full retirement age.

Producer:
Yep. So if you wait. So tip number four to delay your benefits until age 70. So if you hold off to maximize your retirement age at age 70, you could increase your Social Security benefit by up to 132% plus cost of living adjustments that could be altered in there as well. So that's 8% a year for that many years, 132%. I mean, most companies are not going to offer you that that high of a guarantee for that long of a amount of time. I will say recently we've had some products come across our desk that can kind of keep up with that. If you need guaranteed income, you can let us know. But there's a lot of companies that are not going to offer you that high of a guarantee for that long.

Dwight Mejan:
So yeah, another, another tip is exercise your right to change your mind. Mitchell talked about this earlier as well, but you can withdraw your initial Social Security claim within the first 12 months of receiving benefits. And I would emphasize you only have that first 12 months. So it's very important that you get that date right. We talk about this a lot. Everybody's retirement plan is a little bit different. And your Social Security strategy is going to depend on when you need the money, your overall health, longevity expectations, tax implications are huge in that regard because Social Security can be taxed up to 85% of your benefit. And that's dependent on a formula called provisional income. So they're going to look at other sources of income like Social Security I'm sorry, like pension income factors into that, withdrawals from IRAs. Even if you have municipal bonds, that money is going to be used from interest, even though it's not taxable at the federal level. It can. And it is used to determine how much Social Security you would pay taxes on. So all of that factors into that decision. But just know that you do have 12 months from when you first put claim in to change your mind on that.

Producer:
Yep. Also, don't overlook spousal Social Security benefits. So a non-working spouse or a spouse with limited work experience can potentially receive 50% of the primary worker's benefit. A lot of people that we work with didn't know that. So basically, if your Social Security is $2,000, your spouse and your spouse was to stay at home, wife or husband, they could receive 50% of what that is so they could receive $1,000. In addition to that, now we get asked this a lot, so I'll just address it on top of that. If you have a household with two Social Security checks getting paid when one of the spouses pass away, even if it's the one with the higher Social Security, you keep the higher of the two. So if you're a woman and you're married to a man that's has a higher Social Security than you and he passes away, you will take his Social Security and yours will go away.

Dwight Mejan:
Well, number seven, the seventh tip here is if you're working in a couple, you have additional options. If both you and your spouse are eligible for benefits, you may be able to time your claims to get smaller benefits at full retirement age and higher payouts at age 70 and beyond. So there are some strategies involved with that, and that's where we encourage you to seek some counsel there and seek some advice, which is what we do here at our company at 360 Capital Management. And I just want to encourage our listeners to take advantage of that opportunity that you have. Reach out to us. You can come to Retire360Show.com and you can click a little button there for a complimentary consultation. We walked you through what that looks like here at our company. We would love to hear from you. You can call us directly at (910) 235-0812 Next week we are going to be talking about your retirement nest egg and how it could actually be 15 to 37% smaller than you think it is. We're going to tell you why that is and what you can do to keep more of your hard earned money and hard saved money. So we'll take a look at that next week. But just want to thank everybody for tuning in to this week's show. And we're going to be back next week and we've got some great topics to go over with you then. But in the meantime, if you have topics you would love to hear us talk about, call in the show. You can just tell us what that is and we'll do our best to bring that topic to you. Our goal here is to help you win with your money. And as you hear me say each week, this is your show and we want to make it valuable for you. But thanks for tuning in this week and we look forward to having you back next week with some more great information that we'll share with you. Have a great 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. 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:
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 interests of our clients and to make full disclosures of any conflicts of interest. If any exist. Refer to our firm brochure the ADV to a page four for additional information and comments regarding safe and secure products and guaranteed income streams refer only to fixed insurance products. They do not refer in any way to securities or investment advisory products. Fixed insurance and annuity product guarantees are subject to the claims paying ability of the issuing company and are not offered by BWR. Fixed annuities, including year 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. So you know where you are now and where you want to be in retirement. So how do you plan to get there? I'm Matt McClure with the Retirement.Radio Network Powered by AmeriLife.

Jack:
Do you have any other questions for me, Counselor?

Producer:
There are a lot of questions to ask yourself when you start your retirement plan. Questions like When should I retire? How much money will I need? When should I claim Social Security? What about health care costs and taxes? In retirement, this complicated puzzle means you're probably going to need some help. Coming up with a smart retirement plan.

Ford Stokes:
If you want to retire successfully, you really need to plan early. You know, Inspector, you expect and get prepared. Putting a plan in place now while you're still working is a great idea.

Producer:
Ford Stokes is founder and president of Active Wealth Management. Once you find a financial professional you want to work with, they can help you answer all the questions you may have.

Ford Stokes:
Back to what Warren Buffett said. If you don't find a way to make money while you sleep, you're going to work until you die. So we need to do everything we can to figure out a way to make money while we're sleeping. We talk about this human capital versus actual capital. When you're young, you have a lot of human capital. You've got a lot of left, a lot of room left, a lot of capital left in your career. Right. But at the same time, a lot of people that are older let's say you're 65, 70 years old, you don't have a lot of human capital left, but you should have a lot of capital that is making money while you sleep. And if you don't, then you didn't make the right decisions.

Producer:
There are also some retirement costs you may not have considered yet. Long term care, for example. Did you know it's not covered by Medicare? What about home renovations? If you decide to stay in your home instead of moving into a facility? Your home might need some updates to ensure you're safe and comfortable. And those are just the tip of the iceberg. So do you have a fiduciary financial advisor or professional to help you wade through the complicated retirement planning process? That is a key question to consider. If you want to make the most of your hard earned money with a Retirement.Radio Network powered by a MetLife. I'm Matt McClure. Could a recent IRS change actually save you money on next year's taxes? I'm Matt McClure with the Retirement.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 $1,000 per 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 bucks for married couples filing jointly.

Andrew Pelosi:
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. Keep in mind.

Producer:
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.Radio Network Powered by AmeriLife. I'm Matt McClure.

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