2.3.23: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

2.3.23: 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.

Dwight Mejan:
Well, good afternoon. My name is Dwight Mejan, I just want to welcome you to the Retire 360 show. We are glad you are taking time out of your day to join us. I am also here with Mitchell Keiser and our executive producer, Sam Davis. How you guys doing? How's your week

Mitchell Keiser:
Doing great Over here. Happy to be.

Producer:
On the air yet again.

Producer:
In North.Carolina. Thanks for all of the listeners who have reached out to us so far. And as always, you can get in touch with us at 910 235 0812 or online at Retire360show.com. There's a few people out there that are.Getting started on their New Year's Resolutions and it's not too late so get in.

Dwight Mejan:
Touch. Yeah well I always appreciate having these guys next to me as we do this show. It's been great hearing from our listeners. We had some calls this past week and we love hearing from you. So as Sam just gave you that number, please give us a call if you've got personal matters that you want to discuss. Maybe you just want to get that second opinion. We offer that at a complimentary consultation for our listeners. We can do that on a Zoom call, or we could have you come into our office. We're located downtown here in Southern Pines, but you can go to our website at Retire360show.com. There's a little link down there that you can click and sign up for that complimentary meeting or obviously call us up at 910 235 0812. Hey if you're a first time listener and just tuning in, maybe you're driving down the road today or you just got your radio on. We just are happy that you're joining us for the first time and we hope you'll come back. But today we're going to be talking about the Secure Act. There's a 2.0. Many of you know, Secure Act came out in 2020, but there's some updates. We're going to cover some of those not in their entirety. We're also going to continue the series that we're in on the Smart Retirement Plan series. We're going to talk about health and care. So we're going to just dive in here today. We've got our quote of the week. I was thinking about this actually before the show. Many people, we had somebody come in and talk to us this past week and she reminded me of a saying that I used to have about a job.

Dwight Mejan:
And she stood there saying, I always remember, I don't even know who said it, but a job is anything you're doing when you'd rather be doing something else. And the reason she had come into our office is she wasn't sure that she was in a position to retire. And due to some situations that were changing with her company and just things that were changing with her job description, she was at a point where mid sixties and she said, You know what? I'm just not having the joy anymore that I have had in the past coming to work. She liked the people she was with, but she just was starting to feel like the position she had was that definition I just gave of a job. And that's when she came in and we looked at her situation and we said, Hey, congratulations. Based on your goals, based on your objectives and the target income that you need, you can give your resignation at any point in time. And that's exactly what she's planning to do. So, again, if that's your situation, you might be in that same boat where you're wondering, hey, do I have enough here saved to enjoy the retirement of my dreams, the retirement I've been thinking about? That's why we want you to not only tune in to this show and listen to some things, the topics that we talk about, but more importantly, to have that consultation and let us help you determine if that is a reality for you. So, Mitchell, why don't you take the listeners into our quote of the week? We always like to start there and we'll get kicked off here and get going.

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

Mitchell Keiser:
All right. So this week we got Warren Buffett, who I didn't know. He's actually 92 years old, someone sitting in shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

Dwight Mejan:
Absolutely. Warren Buffett, 92, looks pretty good for 92, doesn't he?

Mitchell Keiser:
Yeah, for sure.

Dwight Mejan:
I did a little research this week on that as well. And then 2022. Mitch, you want to take a guess? I'll even throw Sam Salmon on this. He might know as he helps us with some of the notes, but any you guys want to take a shot at how many billionaires there were in 2022 across the globe?

Mitchell Keiser:
200. I'm going to say it's around 900.

Dwight Mejan:
900. You'll be surprised to know then 2268 billionaires worldwide.

Mitchell Keiser:
So, geez.

Dwight Mejan:
If you're one that subscribes to the rich, get richer, well, that might fit your definition. If you guessed higher than that, then maybe the rich are getting poorer. But anyway, number one, Bernard Arnault, of course, in Paris, he's the founder of the not are the durable non durables consumer non durables Louis Vuitton Hennessy he's into I guess the liquor business he's into the clothing line. Kind of interesting that non durable owner and founder is the richest person in the world $190 billion number two on that list. You know number two was you guys Bill Gates. Bill Gates. How about you, Sam?

Mitchell Keiser:
I know, Steve. I know Jeff Bezos is up there.

Dwight Mejan:
He's up there. Elon Musk, he actually dropped a little bit. He's he's hurting at $160 Billion, but he still owns 13.

Mitchell Keiser:
Poor guy.

Dwight Mejan:
14% of Tesla. But I understand he had to unload some of the shares in Tesla to purchase his new company there. So but yeah, Jeff Bezos rounded out at number three at $124 Billion and then we just said Warren Buffett was number four and Bill Gates and him are pretty close 110 billion was Warren Buffett and $111 Billion or so was Bill Gates. They were pretty close to each other. So but hey, that's our goal. If you're listening to this show, we'd like to get you on that top ten list, and we're going to make that our goal on this show. And if you keep tuning in, maybe we'll we'll get your name up there and then maybe we can help you get to that level. But as they say, new level, new devil, right?

Mitchell Keiser:
Absolutely. Hey, Dwight, I got some information for you on inflation, specifically with the Super Bowl.

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

Mitchell Keiser:
A couple of articles this week that I thought were pretty interesting. So inflation this past year for Food at Home is up about 11.8% over the past year. I think that's probably a more accurate statistic across the board. I've seen some that were under 10%, and I don't think that that would be I don't think that's true. So 11 11.8 sounds a little bit more accurate. And I got a couple of things related to the Super Bowl that were pretty relevant. So, Dwight, do you could you take a guess? What do you think costs less this year than years prior?

Dwight Mejan:
I would like I'd say beer or soda, but I'm not. You tell me. I'm just guessing because that's probably a big consumption beverage during the Super Bowl. So maybe they wanted to get make sure that was affordable.

Mitchell Keiser:
That's funny. So I'll actually get to that in a second. But those two things that you just said are actually things that cost more this year. So things that cost less would be avocados. They're down about 20% this year.

Dwight Mejan:
Right. Bring bring out the guacamole. I love it.

Mitchell Keiser:
Yeah. The MVP of guacamole, chicken wings with its highest levels since the beginning of 2019. The price of chicken dropped from 338 to about 265. So I read this article about why? Because I see that all over the place that chicken is a little bit more scarce. But for some reason, eggs, you know, we've seen a big price in eggs increase this past year. So I found this article from USA Today and it was so last year at this time it was about a dollar 79 for a dozen eggs. For this year, it's about $4.25. So that's at least three times the price. So, you know, you see that you see that all across the board. Well, why why are the eggs so expensive? And it got into this a little bit, which I didn't know this. So there's multiple reasons for the drastic increase in the price of eggs. So the first one is the production costs have gone up, which we kind of knew that with inflation. But the other one is a bird flu caused deaths of a bunch of egg laying poultry. So that led in a sharp decline of the supply. So I don't know if you knew that, but did not know that was that was news to me. So. Yep. So then another thing that costs less this year is actually hamburgers. Hamburgers are just slightly elevated since last year. But and then last on the list and this one probably surprised me the most was sirloin steak. They're down about $1 per pound since last year. Now, what costs more? You kind of already said it. So beer. Beer is up about 1% or I'm sorry, 11% where wine is at 4% higher than last year. And spirits and cocktails are up about 2%. We have soda. Soda is about 25% higher this year than it was last year with a two liter bottle costing about $2.13. And then last on this list is chips. Chips are up about 22%. Last year, it's about $6.28 for a 16 ounce bag. And that's according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Dwight Mejan:
That is very interesting. Mitchell You know, I guess you're you're hosting the Super Bowl party, right? I heard you're going to invite all the listeners here on the air to your address. You want to give them that now?

Mitchell Keiser:
I am. I'm actually we're hosting at Grace Chapel Church in.

Dwight Mejan:
Sanford, but it's for.

Mitchell Keiser:
Young adults. So if anybody's listening, that's between 20 and 30 and catch us there.

Dwight Mejan:
There you go. I guess I know the menu. Guacamole, chicken wings, hamburgers and sirloin steak, right?

Mitchell Keiser:
Absolutely.

Dwight Mejan:
You're grilling. We just came out of a grocery store, so this is fresh on my mind. And some of the listeners that have been listening for a while hear me say this about groceries. I find it hard to believe that inflation is on these items. About 11.8 for some of the items that we're talking about, because my wife does most of the grocery shopping for us. But we went in the store together, came out with about four bags. You know, the plastic ones. We're not talking about the big paper ones. And we don't really have I don't think, any meat in there that I can think of might have had a pound of bacon in there and it was over 200 bucks, you know, So it's just not you're not coming out much with you don't need the cart to wheel it out, let's put it that way. And if you are wheeling a cart out with your groceries, you got a pretty high bill.

Mitchell Keiser:
Yeah. You know, this weekend I went to just pick up two, two dozen eggs and two bags of bacon. Now, granted, we got the organic line. We just think they taste a little better, believe in trying to get more along the lines of the organic stuff. Have any idea how much that costs?

Dwight Mejan:
I'm going to guess. It depends what kind of bacon you got, but I'm going to say it was close to 40 bucks.

Mitchell Keiser:
It was between 40 and $50 for two for two dozen eggs and two bags of bacon. So I thought that was pretty crazy.

Dwight Mejan:
Well, if you don't, you're not the one that gets in the grocery store. You need to go in there with you If you're married and have a spouse and they're the ones shopping because it has gone up. So. But hey. Right. It was.

Mitchell Keiser:
Good. It was good. Birth control. Yeah.

Dwight Mejan:
That's right. There you go. There you have it. On that note, we're going to move to the next topic. But no, seriously, on that inflation demonstration, we try to bring some items in there. And we do that, folks, because inflation, as many of you know, in retirement, it's it's one of the top two things that impact your ability to maintain your lifestyle and in retirement. And it's very important that your portfolio you know equities and stocks are the proven way to in retirement to get ahead. However, we recognize, as most people do, that you can't put all your eggs in the equity basket when you're in retirement. So it's important to have equity linked exposure. And I just want to encourage you, if you're concerned about inflation or maybe you're a listener that is already knee deep in retirement and you've been there and you're starting to wonder, Hey, can my portfolio sustain, you know, if inflation doesn't retract some, am I going to have enough money in retirement and we can do some forecasting and more importantly, we can show you some design portfolio that could reduce your risk, de-risk your portfolio, and possibly show you historical rates of return that are better than what you currently hold. You know, we we always you've all heard the disclosure. Past performance is not an indicator of future success. And we have to say that on this show, of course, because no one can predict the securities market.

Dwight Mejan:
However, there are a lot of instruments that have come out of the financial markets, particularly in some of the the crises periods like in 2008 and even some of the more recent volatility we've seen in 2022. I'm just going to tell the listeners there's some great financial products out there that have built in buffers which are basically defenses in the downward market where you can be in the equity markets, where you can be in the S&P 500, their buffered ETFs, and you could buy some of these holdings and diversify your portfolio into these. We're using them quite a bit right now in our client portfolios, and you can buy a buffer product where you're protected on the first 9% or 15% down. So for example, let's say in January 1st this year you purchased a buffer ETF and you bought $1,000 into this S&P 500 buffer ETF and you had a 15% protection. That means if the market went down this year, at the end of the year, it was down 13%. You had you had full exposure to the S&P 500 point to point, meaning if the S&P grew one month, 1%, you captured all of that 1%. But if that market went down 13%, you wouldn't have lost any of your money because that buffer would have secured you.

Dwight Mejan:
Now, there are caps on the upside, but some of those caps right now are ranging, you know, above 17 to 18%. So if the market was to grow, let's say 20% this year and you had a cap, for example, of 18%, you would receive 18% of that gain and you'd only miss out on 2%, but you had the protection of 15% in there. So, you know, again, many people who are do it yourselfers, maybe you manage your own portfolio, maybe you haven't looked at that, that type of investment. But some of those are newer products that have come out and a lot of portfolios today. I know a lot of our clients, we use them because we're not 100% sure. Nobody knows where that market is going over the next year or the next two years. So give us a call if you want to talk about that or something else. You can go to our website, the Retire Retire 360, show dotcom or contact our office. 910 235 0812. I'd be happy to consult with you on any question you have for 1520 minute on a Zoom call or you can come into the office and we'll take a look at what you got and we'll run a an analysis of those holdings and see if there's an opportunity for you to derisk that position that you have the portfolio and possibly have a historical rate of return that's outperformed your current holdings.

Dwight Mejan:
We'll be happy to look at that for you. But, hey, we're going to jump in here. The Secure Act Secure Act was passed, as I said, in 2020, but the Secure Act 2.0 was new legislation that passed at the end of 2022 in a congressional session. And it's now the new law of the land. So question is for you as the listeners, what does this mean for you and your retirement? So we want to just give you, Mitchell and I, an overview of some of the changes that have that are affecting retirees and pre retirees. The first area. So we're talking about the required minimum distribution here. And the reason it's important that you look at RMDs. And not just wait until we're telling you when you have to start taking it. And just to give you a rough estimate that that percentage roughly falls at 4% of your all your IRAs. So if you add up all of your retirement accounts that are pretax, you add that number together, let's say it was $1,000,000. I'm just using a round number roughly. You would need to take out $40,000 at age 73. Pretty close to that. But not everybody listening to this should wait until age 73 to do that. It's it's a total game changer, what they're doing, because in 2033, that age is going to start at 75.

Dwight Mejan:
So the longer we keep deferring this, what's going to happen is many people and we talk about taxes a lot on this show, many people are going to be at the mercy of the tax code and what tax rates are set in place by the federal government. And the goal our goal for all of you is listeners. That's certainly the goal for our clients is to show them strategies from a tax strategy standpoint of how they can pay lower lifetime taxes over their retirement years. And what has to happen there is strategically is you have to move money from pretax accounts into tax free accounts, which is the Roth account. There's only two ways you've heard me say this on the show before, that you can leave money and grow money tax free. One is through life insurance. The cash value and the death benefit is tax free. And then through Roth accounts, it's the only the only ways you can do it. We don't want you to necessarily to wait until you're 73. We're just here telling you 73 is the new change. But don't necessarily take that and just assume that's what you're going to do is wait to that. Because what happens if, let's say you're in that 12% tax bracket right now and you get pushed up into that 22% bracket and you could have avoided that with some strategic planning, especially if you're five or ten years away from that mid 70 age or early seventies, 73.

Dwight Mejan:
Now when you have to start taking that money. And that's one of the things that we'll do for you at 360 Capital Management, our company, we will run all of that as part of that complimentary analysis. We do a tax map for you, which gives you some tax strategies that you can begin to implement. We'll make sure that you have the right holdings, that you have the positions in your portfolio. You might own some great investments, but maybe they're not in the right bucket. You know, we talk about that a lot, the tax free bucket, the taxable bucket and the tax deferred bucket. We have to make sure that the positions that you have that you that you hold are in those right buckets. We'll take a look at that as well as part of your investment plan. So we do that income plan, we do the investment plan, we do the tax plan for you. We will also do a legacy and estate plan. And then finally, we look at the health care plan, where we talk about Medicare and long term care. That's actually coming up here on the show today. We're going to talk a little bit about long term care when we talk about the health segment portion of our show.

Dwight Mejan:
With RMDs increasing, we suggest letting your money grow. If you can afford to postpone withdrawing from these accounts for income needs. But we don't know that exactly. Every listener listening here has a little different situation. But this also means you have an extended window or some extra runway to complete a Roth conversion and divest the IRS from your retirement plan. Wouldn't it be great if you could face retirement, let's say, in your mid seventies and the income that you're taking out of your portfolio never touches the tax return. There's no taxable income on it. And wouldn't it be even better if you have a legacy mindset that you want to help out your kids or your grandkids and you want to make sure that they're taken care of, wouldn't it be great to pass those investments just like a life insurance policy would be and pass it to them on a tax free basis? Well, we can help you do that. And that's one of the things that this show is is designed to help you do, not just with information. We want it to lead to some transformation in your retirement plan. And that comes with the complimentary advice that we'll give you when you contact us. Starting in 2024, RMDs will no longer be required from employer based Roth retirement plans.

Dwight Mejan:
So currently if you have a Roth retirement plan and it's through your employer and you still have that there, you have to currently take required minimum distribution from that. But starting next year, 2024, that's no longer going to be the case. So employers can now contribute matching dollars with after tax dollars. So that's a that's a big change as well. The penalty for failing to take an RMD currently is one of the stiffest penalties in the tax code. It's 50% of what you should have taken. You'll be penalized on that When they compute taxes and interest and penalties on that, it's higher than 50%. But starting in 2025, that penalty is going to go down. That's actually right now. So I apologize about that. The RMD is decreasing to 25% of the amount it was 50 and decreases to 10% if it's corrected. So if you file an amended tax return, they'll reduce it down to 10%. So I think they really needed to do something on that. That was pretty stiff. It was a pretty severe penalty. So there is some relief in that regard. So I'm going to let Mitchell tell you a couple other things here. Mitchell, why don't you catch the listeners up on a couple other items here coming out of the secure 2.0?

Mitchell Keiser:
Sure. So another change is on catch up contributions. So that will also take place in 2025. This is going to be applicable for people in 401 KS for three B's government plans and IRA account holders. This gives pre-retirees more time to catch up and save just in summary. So that qualifies the most people that have retirement savings. Now for employer sponsored plans, the current catch up limit is $7,500 per year for those over 50, and that's going to be again in the Roth. And then as of January 1st of 20, 25, 10,000 a year for those 6263. So that's that's a pretty big change. Now, this amount will be indexed to inflation, so it will automatically adjust yearly based on CPI. Now, regular IRAs, the current limit for those for people that are 50 and older, that is $1,000 a year in addition to what you can put under 50. So next year that was so if you just have a regular IRA, you opened up your own IRA instead of 6000 contributing to a Roth, it's 6500. And then if you're over 50, you can tack another 1000 onto that. So starting in 2024, the $1,000 limit will be indexed to inflation. So that could also be increased off of CPI as well. Now switching gears here a little bit, 529 college savings plans there. Those of you that don't know, that's a program where you can put after tax dollars into a 529 savings account and then that will grow tax free with the growth of that account that you can use towards your child's college education. So the changes here are after 15 years, the assets within that 529 plan can be rolled into a Roth IRA for the beneficiary. So it's not for you, it's for the beneficiary. So more than likely that would be the child that you created the account for. So that subject to annual Roth IRA contribution limits. So again, that's the 6065 or which will be $6,500. And then there's a lifetime limit on that conversion at $35,000. So pretty cool change. I hadn't heard of something like that.

Dwight Mejan:
All good stuff. That's some good stuff for folks that want to set up that 529. And it doesn't have to be apparent. Many people know that a grandparent could set that up for grandchild, but great opportunities there for 529 planning. And I want to kind of round out here the last item we want to touch on that we think was significant for the secure 2.0 act was cue cards, which stand for qualified charitable distributions beginning in 2023. People who are age 70 and one half and older can elect as part of their QCD limit a one time gift up to $50,000 adjusted annually for inflation to a charitable remainder unit trust, a charitable remainder annuity trust or a charitable gift annuity. Either one of those. And this is really an expansion of the types of charities that can receive a QCD. So if you have a passion for a charity, a special cause, a church, we can help you make a strategic donation in an effective way that's going to help you leave that lasting legacy that you want to leave. And I just want to tell some of our other listeners besides this one time gift, if you're giving regularly to your church and you have pretax money, one of the ways that you can give through and not all custodians, the people who where you park your money, have the opportunity to do this. They have to allow it as far as their paperwork, but you can actually request a QCD from them.

Dwight Mejan:
So let's just say you give 5000 a year to your church. You can request that that pretax account, that custodian, instead of it coming in your name, where you have to then declare it as income. You can have that 5000 sent directly from your IRA account, your pretax account. If they allow that with one of their documents or forms, and they'll send it directly to the name of your church or other charity that you want to send it to. And the benefit of that is that income doesn't hit your tax return. So you're not having to then declare that as income, but you get the full exemption and deduction for that charitable donation for that contribution. So just another benefit there. If you have questions on what I just said or what we just covered there or what Mitchell talked about, please, by all means, reach out to us. You can go to our website at Retire360show.com and there's a little tab down there. You can just click your complimentary consultation. We'll schedule that with you via Zoom call or you can come here to our office in Southern Pines and we'll be glad to go over some of these strategies in more detail with you and discuss any questions that you have. I want to just give you a cost cutter tip of the week.

Producer:
Here's the cost cutter of the week.

Dwight Mejan:
Try to complete your Roth conversion. Some of you are in the process of doing Roth conversions. Now. There's a key age if you're not there yet, as at age 63, you want to have those conversions completed if possible because of what happens. Medicare has a two year lookback and Medicare premiums are based upon your modified adjusted gross income on that tax return. So if you're doing heavy conversions and someone's not looking out for this for you at 63, your Medicare premium is going to be determined at age 65 by what you did at age 63 on your tax return. There's always a lag behind there. So if you can get that done by 63, you're going to save yourself some money for sure. So, hey, one other thing. We're going to take a break on that note, but I want to just mention this. I don't think I did it at the beginning of the show. We are going live, which is something Mitchell and I love to do. We love to meet our listeners. We love to get out into the community and teach some of the things that we discuss here on the radio. But our most popular program is coming next Tuesday actually here February 7th. So just in a couple of days when you're listening to this show and it's going to be at the Cannon Park Community Center in Pinehurst, and our topic is taxes and retirement. We're going to talk a little bit more about security. No, but we're going to talk about one of my passionate areas is talking about taxes and how to reduce taxes in retirement.

Dwight Mejan:
So we're going to talk about some of the tax laws that are currently in place, some of the tax laws that are changing. If you would like to come out to that event, it is going to be at 6:00 PM at the Cannon Park Community Center. Senator, February 7th. We have limited space available for that. I know seats are filling up. If you do happen to contact us and we're full, we will make sure you are a priority to the next event that we do. And depending how many people sign up, we may do another. And right behind it and get a hold of folks because it is popular. But it's February 7th, 6:00 PM, Cannon Park Community Center. You can go to our website at Retire 360 show and you can sign up there. There's a there's a link for that for that live seminar event. Or you can call our office. We'll be happy to take your information and sign. Sign you up and get you confirmed for that. But please call us. 910 235 0812. Just know that seats are limited, but we do want to get some great information to you. I love teaching the class and I look forward most of all to meeting our listeners. So with that, we're going to take a break and we'll be right back. We're going to talk about Smart Health coming up next.

Producer:
You're listening to Retire 360 to schedule your free no obligation consultation with Dwight visit Retire360show.com. Are you interested in protecting your assets from market volatility, rising taxes and economic uncertainty? Then tune in to Retire 360 with Dwight. To learn how you can protect and grow your hard earned money. Retire 360 Sundays at 3 p.m. right here on Talk 97.3 FM 104.1 FM WEEB Protect your hard earned money today at Retire360show.com.

Dwight Mejan:
Well hey my name is Dwight Mejan I want to welcome you back to our radio program. It's really your radio program We're here given the information I'm back here with Mitchell and we want to launch into the segment here about smart health. You know, Mitchell, we're health conscious guys. You mentioned earlier in the show about organic. We're big believers in the organic side of things. I know you've got to be careful today with those labels, but certainly, as we like to say, you can you can pay for it on the front end or you can sometimes pay for it on the back end. The doctor's office, right?

Mitchell Keiser:
Yep. Pay now or pay later. Right?

Dwight Mejan:
Right. So we do our best to stay healthy. But hey, the obvious reason we want to keep our health right is we we spend 35, 40 years sometimes working to to assemble those assets for retirement. And if we don't do a good job managing things that we're going to talk about with our health, what good is all the money in the world if you can't enjoy it? Right? I know myself, my dad, who really became a great friend, you know, later in life. I lost my dad about ten years ago, but my dad worked at very difficult job for his whole career for 36 years and decided to retire at 62. And him and I had this discussion quite a bit. And the job, as I talked about earlier in the show, the job became a job. And again, like I said, a job. I didn't make this saying up, but a job is anything you're doing when you'd rather be doing something else. And he was at that point with where he was, so he retired. And I'm grateful that he did because he lost his life in a battle with cancer at age 69.

Dwight Mejan:
But I got to watch my dad for six and a half years, thoroughly enjoy his retirement. He had worked very, very hard. He had a pension. He had other income that came through the portfolio. But I think about what would have happened if my dad would have extended working to 67, 68. He just wouldn't have enjoyed that retirement. And none of us are guaranteed at the end of the day or another minute. But we do want to do the things we can to remain healthy. So we just have some things that we're going to talk about here and we want to help you protect your health throughout you. And if you have a spouse, your spouse's retirement, so contact us. Mitchell is going to launch here into some Medicare guidance here. But if you got Medicare questions, contact us. 910235081 to get in touch with us at our website at Retire360show.com. And we'll take a deeper dive on any of these topics that we talk about or anything for that matter that you want to talk about. So. Mitchell Absolutely.

Mitchell Keiser:
But just to hop into Medicare here, we got I know everybody kind of got blasted probably with calls and saw all these millions of ads during annual enrollment season with having to switch your Medicare or your drug plan or things like that if you're in more county. Well, actually, most counties in North Carolina, there are some special elections that you could qualify for to still get into some of those plans, which we do have access to, if that's something that maybe you waited too long and December 7th came and you just thought, oh, well, I'll take care of it next year, you do still have time. And sometimes, depending on what your situation is, the savings could be pretty significant. I know there's one person I helped this year. He got like $100 a month added back to his Social Security check. He doesn't have to pay hardly anything to go to the doctor. And he got another I think it's $50 a month like a spending card. So, I mean, there are options out there. So if you even just want more information, give us a call. 910 235 0812. And just some fun facts about Medicare. So more than 61 million Americans are covered by Medicare health plans right now. That's according to the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. And that was taken in 2020. So 61 million Americans and of the US population, 18 and one half percent are on Medicare. And 65. Here's another stat 65% of survey respondents said that they do not know what part or parts of Medicare they should enroll. And that was a 2022 Medicare survey by single care. And the last thing I'll leave you just to chew on is almost four out of ten Medicare consumers are enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans, and that was by the Keiser Family Foundation.

Mitchell Keiser:
Unfortunately, that was not my family, not those Keisers, but the Keiser Family Foundation in 2021. The Medicare Advantage plans, they are newer plans to Medicare. Way back when they just had supplements, the advantage plans have become more popular. And what I've been kind of seeing is yours progressed is that it does tend to be a better fit for, I would say. They say four out of ten people on here are enrolled. I would say probably more than half of people that come into our office are probably more applicable to be on the advantage plan than a supplement. So if that's not something that you're familiar with or if you're one of those 65% of people that don't know anything about Medicare or they don't know what Medicare plans they should have, or, you know, I have this drug plan, is that good enough? Just give us a call. I'd be happy just to talk you through some things, see if there's something cheaper, something maybe that's in a better network. Or maybe you just need to shift things just a little bit. Be happy to look at that overall plan with you. I know we talk a lot about financial planning and we talk a lot about how to be preventative into retirement. But your health care is a huge part of as a huge part of that, how much you're going to be spending on your health care. Into retirement. So you want to make sure that you have that you have yourself protected in that way. Absolutely.

Dwight Mejan:
I think that's great advice. Mitchell And in keeping with our core values here at 360 Capital Management, you know, we are independent, holistic fiduciaries. I haven't said that lately on the show, but it's very important for our listeners to know that we're independent. What that basically means is we're not restricted to a platform, whether it be the insurance side of what Mitchell just mentioned. With insurance products, we shop that, we shop it across all carriers. We can license with all the main competitive carriers that there are. Mitchell certainly has them on the insurance side. I have it on the investment platform. Side is we're not restricted. Sometimes you work with through a bank channel or you work with a big wirehouse. I'm kind of dating myself. They're the older term or the big broker dealers. Some of those have conflicts of interest because they're selling their own proprietary funds and they're not going to other fund managers that have better performance, better track records, just maybe an overall better rated fund. So we don't get into that. We are truly independent and we are holistic. You hear me talk about that sometimes is we don't just invest money or help people with insurance. We build an income plan. We build that tax map with a tax plan, and we build out the health care strategy as well.

Dwight Mejan:
We're going to talk about long term care, as we mentioned, but very important that we make our listeners understand that, that we are independent, we are holistic, and we are fiduciaries. Mitchell When you were talking about that Medicare information, I'll tell you the thing that really just kind of was jumping up inside of me was just the importance of people looking at a Roth conversion strategy. We see it all the time that people come into retirement and 80% of their investable assets, the money that doesn't include their homes or physical property, investable money, 80% for most retirees today or more is in those pretax buckets. And what's going to happen is likely going to happen because of the strain on Medicare. Right now, with baby boomers aging into retirement is taxes are going to have to go up. I think everybody agrees with that. They see that coming. But the other thing that could come is means testing for things like Medicare premiums, where they look at the tax return and the IRS is linked in with all of that, obviously with Medicare to see how much we're going to pay for our Medicare premiums. So we potentially see we don't know this for certain, but that's one of the ways that the government can start to manage more of the strain that's coming on these social programs.

Dwight Mejan:
So if we can help you develop a Roth conversion strategy and by all means, if you have that kind of money 80% and you work with an advisor and they're not talking with you about a tax strategy and they're not talking about you to Roth conversions, we can show you the benefits of doing that and the importance of doing that, and more importantly, get the IRS out of your future when it comes to determining if your means tested for how much Medicare you're going to be paying and some of the likes of other programs that are going to end up getting means tested, for example, Social Security. We talk about that on this show if you go to your Social Security. Statement you will see on that statement when you go to print it. There's a spot on there. I just did it with mine a couple of weeks ago that says in 2034, we're going to be able to make commitments on $780 of every $1,000 in benefit that you have available to you that you've qualified for. They're essentially preparing people for possible cuts to their Social Security. Who do you think they're going to cut? Are they going to cut the the lady or man or somebody listing that's just on Social Security and doesn't have much in assets? No, they're not going to cut that person.

Dwight Mejan:
They're going to cut the people who have means who have retirement funds. But that's not going to affect people who are heavy in Roth accounts because that money's not taxable. It's not going to show up on that tax return. So, again, we just encourage you to do that. We're going to talk here just about how to lengthen your life and live a healthier retirement so the healthier you are, the less reliant you'll be on your health insurance. And keep in mind and your body is going to be sharp and you'll also be able to help. It's going to help with other issues that arise later in life. So the first one here is obvious. I know Mitchell, you and I are gym guys. We go early in the morning, but exercise regularly Physical activity is important for maintaining physical and mental health. Aim for at least 30 minutes of exercise a day. You know, a brisk walk getting on the cycle, swimming, dancing, whatever it is you do to look at something that can get that heart rate up for 30 minutes.

Mitchell Keiser:
Yeah, another one is eating a healthy diet. I used to work throughout high school at a gym and everybody would always say they're in there trying to lose weight or trying to look this way or trying to look that way. I mean, size is all about your eating healthy. If you're trying to maintain that, if that's a goal of yours, sometimes it's not eating less. It's just eating different. Eating a well-balanced diet is essential for maintaining good health. Overall health focus on fruits, vegetables, lean proteins and healthy fats. Avoid processed foods, sugary drinks and alcohol. All those are led to a less healthy diet.

Dwight Mejan:
Well, I'm envious of the younger listeners listening, and I was reminded of it this past week and got to spend a little time with my boys who are away at college, but maintaining that healthy weight, you know, they can just gorge on most foods doesn't matter. They can have everything you just mentioned their Mitchell Hopefully not the alcohol. They're not that age yet but all the other fatty foods stuff they can they could put that stuff down and they got that metabolism that just just absorbs it all but maintain a healthy weight, avoid obesity. This involves a combination of regular exercise, ensuring you're eating a well balanced diet. Obesity can lead to many other serious health issues, as we know.

Mitchell Keiser:
Yep. And staying socially active. Also very important. I know COVID put a damper on that for most people as far as making. Making us all just a little bit more reclusive. Socialising with friends and family can help keep you mentally sharp and emotionally fulfilled. Join a club, volunteer or community to participate in these activities that you enjoy. And just along those lines, whether you're a science person, you like to relate things to science or psychology, their studies on that. They'll tell you that community is important if you're a Christian. I think the Bible's pretty clear that God calls us to community. Anywhere, really. You look. I think surrounding yourself by a good core group of people is pretty important. If you're an introvert, you still need you still need a little bit of time.

Dwight Mejan:
So right on. Well, stimulate your brain. Keeping your mind active and engaged can help prevent cognitive decline. I know many of our listeners love to do you know, crossword and various activities to keep their mind sharp. You know, reading books, solving puzzles, pick up a new skill or hobby. I know. I see it. Mitchell a lot in our older clientele, people we've worked with for myself here for over 25 years, the ones that are up there in age, they are not just active physically, but they are active on a on a mental basis as well. Doing many of those things I just mentioned. So very important to stimulate the brain.

Mitchell Keiser:
Yep. And getting enough sleep. I know this is probably controversial. Sleep is essential for your overall health and well being. They say to aim for 7 to 8 hours per night. If you're like me or Dwight or most people, sometimes that is a struggle.

Dwight Mejan:
That's correct. Yeah. The older you get, you can definitely feel that when you're too young. Mitchell To have those sleep problems though, at 26, I don't know about that, but I love it. If I can get that 7 hours, I take it as a as a total blessing and a gift. That's for sure. But hey, we all know this one really well, but a very important one is managing stress. You know, stress is just it's known, takes a physical toll, takes a mental toll. Practice stress, management techniques, deep breathing or meditation. It's funny, when I look at the deep breathing one, I'm the first one in the office in the morning. You should get your 730. I sit down. I'm not a coffee drinker, I'm a tea drinker. So I have a cup of tea and I sit at my desk and I do seven huge breath in and push breath out. And it's just amazing how you can feel. Just try to clear my mind. I've been doing that here for almost a year and it's it's been huge. And for the listeners just to relate it to the area of what we do on this show with finances, you know, stress is huge as you get older, especially if you're doing things like self directing your account, you know, to take that stress off of you and to put that on in the hands of a trusted financial professional. I've seen stress and gotten emails back from people who say they've just relaxed so much more having to get out of making all those decisions. So we want to make sure if that is you and you're trying to make it all work and you've got other things you'd rather be doing, find that trusted fiduciary. We'd love to be that person. You know, get a hold of us. We'll give you those contact information here before the break.

Mitchell Keiser:
Yep. Also, make sure you're staying up to date with medical checkups. Now, that's your and your screenings. Regular checkups and screenings can help detect and prevent health problems before they arise at your primary care doctor, if you see any specialists, any type of regular testing blood work. I was talking to my Mimi this past week and she told me that she doesn't like going to the doctor because if they should always tells them if they look hard enough, they'll find something. So she doesn't even like for them to look. And I told her and I'd tell anybody else listening. I do not agree with that logic. It is not good logic. You still need to get checkups.

Dwight Mejan:
There you go. There you have it from the young doctor.

Mitchell Keiser:
That's right. You can tell my wife that.

Dwight Mejan:
There you go. I'll let you tell her. Mental health retirement, as we know, can be a big transition. It's very important to take care of your mental health, seek help if you feel overwhelmed or experiencing any depression or anxiety. Speaking of doctors, I had a great physician here locally and more county. He doesn't practice anymore. But he said something to me years ago. I'll never forget it. He had a way of just simplifying things, and medicine is very complicated. I don't understand most of it. But he said to me, he said, Dwight, the three most important things to regulate in your body is your mental health, your brain, your thyroid and your gut. He said, They're all interrelated, and I think he's the older I get, I just keep coming back to that and he's just smart on there with that. But hey, we're going to take a break and we'll come back and we're going to finish up today's show. But hey, if anything that we've talked about to this point, you'd like to get up with us, go to our website, Retire 360 show com, click on the link there for that complimentary consultation. We'll be happy to discuss anything we've discussed on today's show or give you that complimentary analysis and recommendations. We could do that through a Zoom call. We can do it in person. We'd love to connect with you. You can call us as well at 910 235 0812. Stay with us and we'll be right back to finish up.

Producer:
Helping bring you one step closer to financial freedom. You're listening to Retire 360. Are you interested in protecting your assets from market volatility, rising taxes and economic uncertainty? Then tune in to Retire 360 with Dwight Meacham to learn how you can protect and grow your hard earned money. Retire 360 Sundays at 3 p.m. right here on Talk 97.3 FM 104.1 FM and 990 AM WEEB Protect your hard earned money today at Retire360show.com.

Mitchell Keiser:
Hey guys welcome back this is Mitchell Kiser and he got Dwight Mejan and Sam Davis we are with the Retire 360 show. We're going to finish up here on the topic of long term care. So it is estimated that 13 million Americans rely on long term care services, including 7 million retirees, as well as individuals with disability or other chronic conditions. So that's not just people with dementia or people that are over 80. There's other chronic conditions involved in that that can occur post retirement years. So this statistic I thought was interesting. So in college I studied long term care administration and I know the stat used to be between one half and two thirds of people would need long term care over the course of their lifetime. Well, the statistic now is 69% of all Americans will require some sort of long term care or assisted living during the retirement years. I always just say if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. And if you don't have a plan in place, that burden is going to fall into the lap of your family members or your friends. What would what basically happens is you force other people to be your unofficial caregiver, those unofficial caregivers. There are people that are not paid for the care.

Mitchell Keiser:
They are people basically just kind of pitching in to help out because because of a lack of plan that was in place. So I just want to touch on this really quick. 69% of people, that's almost 70%. That's meaning most people. So if you're listening and you don't have any form of long term care in place, it's just something you probably want to just take a minute and think about. So according to the National Alliance for Caregiving, this was back in 2015. There was an estimated 34.2 million unpaid caregivers provided care to an adult or child with a disability or chronic illness. So that was back in 2015. That state is probably well over 40 million at this point. So these unpaid caregivers, such as family members or friends, they provide the care for somebody that is unable to care for themselves or they can't afford to get it for themselves by an outsider. So what's the problem with that? You don't have to pay for it. Your family and friends will take care of you. Well, here's the problem. Here's what we're seeing or what statistics have shown For those on unofficial caregivers. There is a physical strain that most of these people tend to incur.

Mitchell Keiser:
Now, if that person is not young, typically if you are 65 and older, your friends and close relatives are also probably older. So there's going to be a big physical strain on that. There's an emotional strain, financial strain, because somebody is going to have to take their time to also care for you. There's social isolation. So that's going to be not only for the person that needs the care, but also the people that are taking time out of their lives to come and help you as well. And the biggest one is burnout. Caregiving is overwhelming and it leads to unpaid givers experiencing a burnout. And obviously none of us want that. Again, just want to touch on. 70% of Americans are requiring some form of long term care. I do expect that statistic to rise. Why? Because people are living longer, much longer than they were in decades prior. And I just really foresee that continuing to increase as time goes on and other trends like as we had touched on earlier, RMDs are pushing later, everything's kind of pushing later in life, pointing that Americans are going to live longer. So assuming that we live longer, that statistic is going to be higher.

Dwight Mejan:
So real quick, Mitchell, thanks for that. Statistics that you gave in the information question is how do we pay for this with that type of chance? Almost 70%. It's not a question of if it's going to happen statistically, if it's me and a spouse, which it is for me, one of us is going to need it. How are we going to pay for that? Here's your options, folks, that we pay for that. We got long term care insurance, number one. Second option, you can save and hope you have enough money to do that and you won't run out of money. Third option is you can use retirement savings. Fourth way is Medicaid, which would kick in after you divest of your assets, after you run out of money. Medicaid will kick in. And then finally, if you're a veteran, you might qualify for veteran benefits. Not a great option there. Most of them, with the exception of using private long term care insurance. There's two types of plans. I bought a policy at 28. I realized that when I started selling long term care insurance that because I believed in it, I better own it myself. Not too many people in their twenties have the insight to purchase long term care insurance.

Dwight Mejan:
I did, but the type of policy I have has had rate increases. There is a product called asset based long term care. We do not have time in today's show to get involved in that. However, many people have assets that they do not require to live on income producing assets and retirement. It's just assets they've got set aside. So if you have pretax money that you are not likely to use or depend on in your retirement, here's the benefit it satisfies your RMD distribution. To use that asset as a lump sum to finance long term care. So we're out of time for today's show. But if you'd like to learn a little bit more about that, I'm going to encourage you to contact us. We'll be happy to address the long term care options with you. It's a very important topic to address. You can contact us by phone. 9102350812 or go to our website, Retire 360 show dot com, click on the link there for the appointment. We'll be happy to have that consultation meeting with you as we sign off today. I just want to encourage our listeners, if you are interested in meeting us live and more importantly than meeting us getting some valuable information from us, we are going to be hosting a topic on taxes in retirement.

Dwight Mejan:
It's going to be coming up February 7th here in a couple of days at 6:00 pm at the Cannon Park Community Center in Pinehurst. Space is limited for that. Highly Encourage you to pick up the phone and call us to reserve your space or go to Retire360show.com and you can click on the link there. It'll take you to a landing page where you can sign up for that and you will get a confirmation email. Just check your spam folder. Sometimes it does go in there and you'll be getting reminders leading into that to come to that event. But we would love to see you there. But that is it for today's show. We appreciate you so much, Mitchell, Sam and myself, I appreciate these guys week in, week out being with me. And definitely we appreciate you, the listener, taking time out of your afternoon to listen. And we look forward to hearing more from you. And we look forward to seeing many of you here in a couple of days. So with that, have a great week and thanks for listening to today's show.

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

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

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

Lee Baker:
That's when you want to say, Hey, listen, I want to start thinking about all of this accumulation that I've done through these decades of working. How do I begin to.Think about. Turning what I've saved and what I've accumulated into paychecks after I retire?

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

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