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How To Save For Retirement: Suze Orman Shares Her Best Money Advice | TODAY

>>> AND WE’RE BACK WITH OUR >>> AND WE’RE BACK WITH OUR SPECIAL SERIES LIVING LONGER SPECIAL SERIES LIVING LONGER TODAY, EXPLORING WAYS TO LIVER TODAY, EXPLORING WAYS TO LIVER NOT ONLY LONGER BUT BETTER. NOT ONLY LONGER BUT BETTER. >> THIS MORNING WE’RE FOCUSING >> THIS MORNING WE’RE FOCUSING ON YOUR FINANCES AND THE NEW ON YOUR FINANCES AND THE NEW ADVICE EXPERTS ARE GIVING TO ADVICE EXPERTS ARE GIVING TO MAKE YOUR MONEY REALLY LAST.

MAKE YOUR MONEY REALLY LAST. >> THE GOOD NEWS AMERICANS ARE >> THE GOOD NEWS AMERICANS ARE LIVING LONGER, WHAT THAT MEANS, LIVING LONGER, WHAT THAT MEANS, A NEW FOCUS ON MAKING YOUR MONEY A NEW FOCUS ON MAKING YOUR MONEY LAST. LAST. >> AS YOU’RE PLANNING FOR YOUR >> AS YOU’RE PLANNING FOR YOUR FUTURE, DON’T UNDERESTIMATE HOW FUTURE, DON’T UNDERESTIMATE HOW LONG YOU’RE GOING TO LIVE. LONG YOU’RE GOING TO LIVE. >> IN FACT, ABOUT ONE OUT OF >> IN FACT, ABOUT ONE OUT OF EVERY FOUR 65-YEAR-OLDS TODAY EVERY FOUR 65-YEAR-OLDS TODAY WILL LIVE PAST 90. WILL LIVE PAST 90. >> THE OLD ADVICE USED TO BE >> THE OLD ADVICE USED TO BE THAT AS YOU’RE PLANNING FOR THAT AS YOU’RE PLANNING FOR RETIREMENT EXPECT TO LIVE INTO RETIREMENT EXPECT TO LIVE INTO YOUR 80s.

YOUR 80s. NOW THE EXPECTATION IS THAT NOW THE EXPECTATION IS THAT YOU’LL HAVE A GOOD CHANCE OF YOU’LL HAVE A GOOD CHANCE OF LIVING INTO YOUR 90s, MAYBE EVEN LIVING INTO YOUR 90s, MAYBE EVEN CELEBRATING YOUR 100th BIRTHDAY. CELEBRATING YOUR 100th BIRTHDAY. >> WITH LONGEVITY CAN COME THE >> WITH LONGEVITY CAN COME THE ADDED STRESS TO SAVE MORE. ADDED STRESS TO SAVE MORE. >> PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE HAS >> PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE HAS BECOME A LOT MORE CHALLENGING BECOME A LOT MORE CHALLENGING AND REALLY THE ONUS IS NOW ON AND REALLY THE ONUS IS NOW ON THE INDIVIDUAL MORE THAN EVER.

THE INDIVIDUAL MORE THAN EVER. >> SO HOW DO WE MAKE SURE WE’RE >> SO HOW DO WE MAKE SURE WE’RE FINANCIALLY PREPARED FOR ALL FINANCIALLY PREPARED FOR ALL THOSE EXTRA YEARS? THOSE EXTRA YEARS? IT’S EASY. IT’S EASY. JUST CALL SUZE ORMAN, A PERSONAL JUST CALL SUZE ORMAN, A PERSONAL FINANCE EXPERT. FINANCE EXPERT. SHE HOSTS SUZE ORMAN’S WOMEN AND SHE HOSTS SUZE ORMAN’S WOMEN AND MANY PODCASTS. MANY PODCASTS. >> WE’RE LIVING LONGER. >> WE’RE LIVING LONGER. THAT’S GREAT, BUT THE BAD NEWS THAT’S GREAT, BUT THE BAD NEWS IS, WE SURVEYED OUR TODAY.COM IS, WE SURVEYED OUR TODAY.COM AUDIENCE. AUDIENCE. THEY SAID 60% OF THEM FELT LIKE THEY SAID 60% OF THEM FELT LIKE THEY DON’T HAVE THE AMOUNT OF THEY DON’T HAVE THE AMOUNT OF MONEY THAT THEY’RE SAVING RIGHT MONEY THAT THEY’RE SAVING RIGHT NOW THAT, THAT IT WON’T LAST NOW THAT, THAT IT WON’T LAST THEM THROUGH THEIR RETIREMENT.

THEM THROUGH THEIR RETIREMENT. >> IF YOU REALLY THINK ABOUT IT, >> IF YOU REALLY THINK ABOUT IT, YOU GUYS, MOST PEOPLE BARELY YOU GUYS, MOST PEOPLE BARELY HAVE THE MONEY TO PAY THEIR HAVE THE MONEY TO PAY THEIR BILLS TODAY LET ALONE SAVE IN BILLS TODAY LET ALONE SAVE IN THEIR MINDS FOR THE FUTURE. THEIR MINDS FOR THE FUTURE. >> PEOPLE FEEL LIKE THEY CAN’T >> PEOPLE FEEL LIKE THEY CAN’T SAVE. SAVE. >> THEY JUST FEEL THAT WAY, AND >> THEY JUST FEEL THAT WAY, AND THEY HAVE TO CHANGE THAT BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO CHANGE THAT BECAUSE THEY ARE GOING TO SPEND MORE THEY ARE GOING TO SPEND MORE YEARS IN RETIREMENT THAN THEY YEARS IN RETIREMENT THAN THEY EVER DID WORKING IF YOU THINK EVER DID WORKING IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT BECAUSE MOST PEOPLE ABOUT IT BECAUSE MOST PEOPLE THINK THEY’RE GOING TO RETIRE AT THINK THEY’RE GOING TO RETIRE AT 65, MAYBE THEY WORK 30 YEARS, 65, MAYBE THEY WORK 30 YEARS, THEY’RE GOING TO LIVE TO 100 THEY’RE GOING TO LIVE TO 100 POSSIBLY.

POSSIBLY. >> OENGWNING A HOUSE WAS ALWAYS >> OENGWNING A HOUSE WAS ALWAYS THE PLAN, BUT FOR THESE THE PLAN, BUT FOR THESE MILLENNIALS, THEY’RE OPEN ABOUT MILLENNIALS, THEY’RE OPEN ABOUT THE FACT THEY THINK THEY’LL THE FACT THEY THINK THEY’LL NEVER BE ABLE TO AFFORD A HOUSE, NEVER BE ABLE TO AFFORD A HOUSE, NEVER MIND SOME LONGEVITY OR NEVER MIND SOME LONGEVITY OR 401(k). 401(k). >> THAT’S NOT SUCH A HORRIBLE >> THAT’S NOT SUCH A HORRIBLE THING. THING. I DON’T THINK THAT THE KEY TO I DON’T THINK THAT THE KEY TO YOUR RETIREMENT IS OWNING A YOUR RETIREMENT IS OWNING A HOME.

HOME. I THINK THE KEY TO YOUR I THINK THE KEY TO YOUR RETIREMENT IS HAVING ENOUGH RETIREMENT IS HAVING ENOUGH MONEY TO PAY WHATEVER YOUR MONEY TO PAY WHATEVER YOUR EXPENSES HAPPEN TO BE SO THE KEY EXPENSES HAPPEN TO BE SO THE KEY IS TO GET RID OF AS MUCH IS TO GET RID OF AS MUCH EXPENSES AS YOU CAN, DON’T HAVE EXPENSES AS YOU CAN, DON’T HAVE DEBT. DEBT. IF YOU DO HAVE A HOME, MAKE SURE IF YOU DO HAVE A HOME, MAKE SURE YOUR MORTGAGE IS PAID OFF BY THE YOUR MORTGAGE IS PAID OFF BY THE TIME YOU RETIRE. TIME YOU RETIRE.

THAT WOULD BE MY NUMBER ONE TIP THAT WOULD BE MY NUMBER ONE TIP TO TELL EVERYBODY THEY HAVE GOT TO TELL EVERYBODY THEY HAVE GOT TO DO IF THEY DO OWN A HOME. TO DO IF THEY DO OWN A HOME. >> WE’RE GOING TO GET INTO THAT. >> WE’RE GOING TO GET INTO THAT. WE HAVE THE THREE W’S. WE HAVE THE THREE W’S. THE FIRST IS WHERE. THE FIRST IS WHERE. WHERE IS THE BEST PLACE TO WHERE IS THE BEST PLACE TO INVEST YOUR MONEY SO IF YOU DO INVEST YOUR MONEY SO IF YOU DO HAVE 30ISH YEARS OF RETIREMENT HAVE 30ISH YEARS OF RETIREMENT YOU’RE SET? YOU’RE SET? >> I’VE SAID FOR A LONG TIME, >> I’VE SAID FOR A LONG TIME, JUST FORGET THE TAX WRITE OFFS JUST FORGET THE TAX WRITE OFFS OF YOUR PRETAX 401(k) OR IRA. OF YOUR PRETAX 401(k) OR IRA. FORGET THOSE NOW, AND IF YOUR FORGET THOSE NOW, AND IF YOUR CORPORATION OFFERS IT, CAN YOU CORPORATION OFFERS IT, CAN YOU CO CO DO A ROTH 401(k) OR A ROTH IRA DO A ROTH 401(k) OR A ROTH IRA WHICH ARE AFTER TAX WHICH ARE AFTER TAX CONTRIBUTIONS.

CONTRIBUTIONS. WHY? WHY? YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORRY WHAT THE YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORRY WHAT THE TAX BRACKETS ARE GOING TO BE 20, TAX BRACKETS ARE GOING TO BE 20, 30, AND 40 YEARS FROM NOW. 30, AND 40 YEARS FROM NOW. I PERSONALLY THINK THEY’RE GOING I PERSONALLY THINK THEY’RE GOING TO SKYROCKET OVER THE YEARS, SO TO SKYROCKET OVER THE YEARS, SO THEREFORE WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT THEREFORE WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET IN A ROTH IRA OR A ROTH YOU GET IN A ROTH IRA OR A ROTH 401(k). 401(k). AGAIN, IT’S PRETAX VERSUS AFTER AGAIN, IT’S PRETAX VERSUS AFTER TAX, BUT AFTER THAT IT’S TAX TAX, BUT AFTER THAT IT’S TAX DEFERRED VERSUS TAX FREE.

DEFERRED VERSUS TAX FREE. IT’S FOR YOUR BENEFICIARIES IN A IT’S FOR YOUR BENEFICIARIES IN A PRETAX ACCOUNT THEY’RE GOING TO PRETAX ACCOUNT THEY’RE GOING TO PAY TOTAL TAXES ON IT. PAY TOTAL TAXES ON IT. >> LET’S GO BACK TO DEBT FOR A >> LET’S GO BACK TO DEBT FOR A SECOND. SECOND. FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE STUDENT FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE STUDENT LOANS, THEY’VE GOT CREDIT CARDS, LOANS, THEY’VE GOT CREDIT CARDS, THEY’VE GOT THAT MORTGAGE.

THEY’VE GOT THAT MORTGAGE. HOW DO YOU PRIORITIZE THE DEBT? HOW DO YOU PRIORITIZE THE DEBT? WHAT DO YOU PAY AND WHEN? WHAT DO YOU PAY AND WHEN? >> STUDENT LOAN DEBT IS THE MOST >> STUDENT LOAN DEBT IS THE MOST DANGEROUS DEBT YOU CAN HAVE BAR DANGEROUS DEBT YOU CAN HAVE BAR NONE BECAUSE IN 90% OF THE NONE BECAUSE IN 90% OF THE CASES, 99%, IT IS NOT CASES, 99%, IT IS NOT DISCHARGEABLE IN BANKRUPTCY. DISCHARGEABLE IN BANKRUPTCY. SO THEY HAVE THE LEGAL AUTHORITY SO THEY HAVE THE LEGAL AUTHORITY TO GARNISH YOUR WAGES AND TO TO GARNISH YOUR WAGES AND TO REALLY THEN DECREASE YOUR INCOME REALLY THEN DECREASE YOUR INCOME SO STUDENT LOAN — SO STUDENT LOAN — >> TAKE CARE OF THAT FIRST. >> TAKE CARE OF THAT FIRST.

>> FIRST THAT. >> FIRST THAT. THEN IF YOU HAVE CREDIT CARD THEN IF YOU HAVE CREDIT CARD DEBT THAT NEEDS TO GO BECAUSE DEBT THAT NEEDS TO GO BECAUSE DEBT IS BONDAGE. DEBT IS BONDAGE. YOU GOT TO GET OUT OF THAT. YOU GOT TO GET OUT OF THAT. AND THEN YOU START WORKING, IF AND THEN YOU START WORKING, IF YOU’RE GOING TO STAY IN YOUR YOU’RE GOING TO STAY IN YOUR HOME FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, HOME FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, GET RID OF YOUR MORTGAGE GET RID OF YOUR MORTGAGE PAYMENT. PAYMENT. >> I WANT TO FOLLOW UP ON THAT. >> I WANT TO FOLLOW UP ON THAT. YOU DON’T WANT TO HAVE A YOU DON’T WANT TO HAVE A MORTGAGE, A LIVE MORTGAGE STILL MORTGAGE, A LIVE MORTGAGE STILL GOING BY THE TIME YOU RETIRE. GOING BY THE TIME YOU RETIRE. WHY? WHY? >> BECAUSE YOUR MORTGAGE PAYMENT >> BECAUSE YOUR MORTGAGE PAYMENT IS YOUR HIGHEST MONTHLY EXPENSE IS YOUR HIGHEST MONTHLY EXPENSE THAT YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE BAR THAT YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE BAR NONE.

NONE. >> WHEN YOU RETIRE. >> WHEN YOU RETIRE. >> IT’S FAR EASIER TO PAY OFF >> IT’S FAR EASIER TO PAY OFF YOUR MORTGAGE THAN TO SAVER THE YOUR MORTGAGE THAN TO SAVER THE MONEY TO GENERATE THE INCOME TO MONEY TO GENERATE THE INCOME TO PAY OFF YOUR MORTGAGE. PAY OFF YOUR MORTGAGE. YOUR GOAL IN RETIREMENT IS TO BE YOUR GOAL IN RETIREMENT IS TO BE TOTALLY DEBT FREE 100% IN TOTALLY DEBT FREE 100% IN RETIREMENT. RETIREMENT. IF YOU DON’T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY, IF YOU DON’T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY, DECREASE YOUR EXPENSES, AND THEN DECREASE YOUR EXPENSES, AND THEN YOUR MONEY WILL GO FURTHER.

YOUR MONEY WILL GO FURTHER. >> GOT YOU. >> GOT YOU. >> WHAT ABOUT WHEN, WHEN DO YOU >> WHAT ABOUT WHEN, WHEN DO YOU START? START? I KNOW, WHEN WE’RE BORN WE I KNOW, WHEN WE’RE BORN WE SHOULD START SAVING. SHOULD START SAVING. >> YOU HAVE THE 200 BUCKS WHEN >> YOU HAVE THE 200 BUCKS WHEN YOU’RE 30. YOU’RE 30. >> PEOPLE ALWAYS THINK THEY HAVE >> PEOPLE ALWAYS THINK THEY HAVE TIME, TIME IS THE MOST IMPORTANT TIME, TIME IS THE MOST IMPORTANT INGREDIENT IN YOUR RETIREMENT INGREDIENT IN YOUR RETIREMENT RECIPE.

RECIPE. LET’S JUST SAY YOU HAVE 40 LET’S JUST SAY YOU HAVE 40 YEARS. YEARS. YOU’RE YOUNG. YOU’RE YOUNG. YOU HAVE 40 YEARS UNTIL YOU’RE YOU HAVE 40 YEARS UNTIL YOU’RE GOING TO BE 70. GOING TO BE 70. YOU PUT $200 A MONTH AWAY INTO A YOU PUT $200 A MONTH AWAY INTO A ROTH IRA OR ROTH 401(k). ROTH IRA OR ROTH 401(k). AVERAGE MARKET RETURNS, DO YOU AVERAGE MARKET RETURNS, DO YOU KNOW THAT YOU WOULD HAVE KNOW THAT YOU WOULD HAVE $1.1 MILLION AT 70, WHICH I $1.1 MILLION AT 70, WHICH I THINK SHOULD BE THE NEW THINK SHOULD BE THE NEW RETIREMENT AGE, BUT YOU WAIT TEN RETIREMENT AGE, BUT YOU WAIT TEN YEARS. YEARS. >> YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT HAVING A >> YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT HAVING A SURPLUS OF 200 BUCK WHEN IS SURPLUS OF 200 BUCK WHEN IS YOU’RE 30. YOU’RE 30. SHOULD YOU TAKE THAT 200 AND SHOULD YOU TAKE THAT 200 AND APPLY IT TO ONE OF THESE OTHER APPLY IT TO ONE OF THESE OTHER THINGS.

THINGS. >> YOU NEED TO BE SAVING >> YOU NEED TO BE SAVING ESPECIALLY IN A 401(k), ESPECIALLY IN A 401(k), ESPECIALLY IF THEY MATCH YOUR ESPECIALLY IF THEY MATCH YOUR CONTRIBUTION. CONTRIBUTION. YOU PUT IN A DOLLAR, THEY GIVE YOU PUT IN A DOLLAR, THEY GIVE YOU $0.50. YOU $0.50. I DON’T CARE IF YOU HAVE ANY I DON’T CARE IF YOU HAVE ANY MONEY. MONEY. YOU CAN’T PASS UP FREE MONEY. YOU CAN’T PASS UP FREE MONEY.

IF YOU STARTED PUTTING, JUST IF YOU STARTED PUTTING, JUST LET’S SAY $200 A MONTH AWAY, AND LET’S SAY $200 A MONTH AWAY, AND YOU NOW ONLY HAVE 30 YEARS LEFT YOU NOW ONLY HAVE 30 YEARS LEFT VERSUS 40, YOU’D ONLY HAVE LIKE VERSUS 40, YOU’D ONLY HAVE LIKE $400,000. $400,000. YOU JUST BLEW $700,000 BECAUSE YOU JUST BLEW $700,000 BECAUSE YOU WAITED TEN YEARS. YOU WAITED TEN YEARS. IT WAS ONLY A $24,000 DIFFERENCE IT WAS ONLY A $24,000 DIFFERENCE IN THOSE TEN YEARS. IN THOSE TEN YEARS. BUT THE TEN YEARS, THE SOONER BUT THE TEN YEARS, THE SOONER YOU BEGIN, THE BETTER YOU’LL BE. YOU BEGIN, THE BETTER YOU’LL BE. >> JUST TO CARSON’S POINT. >> JUST TO CARSON’S POINT. IF I HAVE 200 BUCKS TO SPARE,KY IF I HAVE 200 BUCKS TO SPARE,KY CAN EITHER PAY OFF MY CREDIT CAN EITHER PAY OFF MY CREDIT CARD DEBT AND START SAVING IN A CARD DEBT AND START SAVING IN A ROTH IRA, WHAT WOULD MY CHOICE ROTH IRA, WHAT WOULD MY CHOICE BE? BE? >> YOUR CHOICE THERE IS TO PAY >> YOUR CHOICE THERE IS TO PAY OFF YOUR CREDIT CARD DEBT.

OFF YOUR CREDIT CARD DEBT. >> IF YOU DON’T HAVE MUCH MONEY >> IF YOU DON’T HAVE MUCH MONEY YOU MAY BE BEHIND ON YOUR CREDIT YOU MAY BE BEHIND ON YOUR CREDIT CARD PAYMENTS, AND YOUR INTEREST CARD PAYMENTS, AND YOUR INTEREST RATES ARE 15, 18%. RATES ARE 15, 18%. THAT’S A GUARANTEED RETURN. THAT’S A GUARANTEED RETURN. WHEN YOU PAY OFF YOUR CREDIT WHEN YOU PAY OFF YOUR CREDIT CARD DEBT, YOU’RE GUARANTEEING A CARD DEBT, YOU’RE GUARANTEEING A FANTASTIC RETURN. FANTASTIC RETURN. >> WHAT IS THE ONE SMALL THING >> WHAT IS THE ONE SMALL THING YOU WOULD TELL OUR VIEWERS YOU WOULD TELL OUR VIEWERS BEFORE WE GO? BEFORE WE GO? >> HERE’S WHAT’S REALLY >> HERE’S WHAT’S REALLY IMPORTANT. IMPORTANT. MANY PEOPLE HAVE ADVICE FOR ALL MANY PEOPLE HAVE ADVICE FOR ALL OF YOU. OF YOU. SOMETIMES THAT ADVICE IS GOOD SOMETIMES THAT ADVICE IS GOOD FOR THE PERSON GIVING THE FOR THE PERSON GIVING THE ADVICE, AND SOMETIMES IT’S GOOD ADVICE, AND SOMETIMES IT’S GOOD FOR THE PERSON RECEIVING IT.

FOR THE PERSON RECEIVING IT. MY ADVICE IS THIS, PLEASE DON’T MY ADVICE IS THIS, PLEASE DON’T DO ANYTHING THAT YOU DON’T DO ANYTHING THAT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND. UNDERSTAND. IT IS BETTER TO DO NOTHING THAN IT IS BETTER TO DO NOTHING THAN TO DO SOMETHING YOU DO NOT TO DO SOMETHING YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND BECAUSE SOMETIMES YOU UNDERSTAND BECAUSE SOMETIMES YOU CAN DO SOMETHING AND IT BLOWS CAN DO SOMETHING AND IT BLOWS ALL YOUR MONEY, AND SO IF IT ALL YOUR MONEY, AND SO IF IT DOESN’T FEEL RIGHT TO YOU, YOU DOESN’T FEEL RIGHT TO YOU, YOU HAVE TO TRUST YOURSELF MORE THAN HAVE TO TRUST YOURSELF MORE THAN YOU TRUST OTHERS. YOU TRUST OTHERS. IT’S YOUR MONEY, AND WHAT IT’S YOUR MONEY, AND WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR MONEY IS GOING HAPPENS TO YOUR MONEY IS GOING TO DIRECTLY AFFECT THE QUALITY TO DIRECTLY AFFECT THE QUALITY OF YOUR LIFE, NOT MY LIFE.

OF YOUR LIFE, NOT MY LIFE. NOT ANYBODY ELSE’S LIFE, SO IF NOT ANYBODY ELSE’S LIFE, SO IF YOU REALLY WANT TO BE POWERFUL YOU REALLY WANT TO BE POWERFUL IN LIFE, YOU HAVE TO BE POWERFUL IN LIFE, YOU HAVE TO BE POWERFUL OVER YOUR OWN MONEY. OVER YOUR OWN MONEY. >> THAT’S GOOD ADVICE. >> THAT’S GOOD ADVICE. IN SOME CASES FINANCIALLY DOING IN SOME CASES FINANCIALLY DOING NOTHING IS BETTER THAN MAKING A NOTHING IS BETTER THAN MAKING A CHOICE TO YOUR DETRIMENT. CHOICE TO YOUR DETRIMENT. >> NEVER TALK YOURSELF INTO >> NEVER TALK YOURSELF INTO TRUSTING ANYONE. TRUSTING ANYONE. YOU WALK INTO A FINANCIAL YOU WALK INTO A FINANCIAL ADVISER’S OFFICE AND THEY FEEL ADVISER’S OFFICE AND THEY FEEL LIKE THEY KNOW WHAT YOU’RE LIKE THEY KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING. DOING. THEY MUST KNOW, YOU DON’T KNOW THEY MUST KNOW, YOU DON’T KNOW AND YOU BELIEVE THEM. AND YOU BELIEVE THEM. SOMETIMES THEY GIVE GREAT AED SOMETIMES THEY GIVE GREAT AED VICE AND SOMETIMES THEY GIVE VICE AND SOMETIMES THEY GIVE ADVICE THAT’S NOT SO MUCH.

ADVICE THAT’S NOT SO MUCH. >> THAT STUFF’S TRUE IN >> THAT STUFF’S TRUE IN ANYTHING, RIGHT? ANYTHING, RIGHT? >> WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT, >> WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT, SAVANNAH, YOUR MONEY AND YOUR SAVANNAH, YOUR MONEY AND YOUR LIFE ARE ONE. LIFE ARE ONE. WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU HAVE IS WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU HAVE IS ONE. ONE. IT’S YOU’RE THE ONE WHO EARNS IT’S YOU’RE THE ONE WHO EARNS IT.

IT. YOU’RE THE ONE WHO INVESTS IT. YOU’RE THE ONE WHO INVESTS IT. YOU’RE THE ONE WHO SAVES IT, AND YOU’RE THE ONE WHO SAVES IT, AND YOU’RE THE ONE WHO’S GOING TO YOU’RE THE ONE WHO’S GOING TO LIVE. LIVE. >> WE’LL JUST GO TO YOU. >> WE’LL JUST GO TO YOU. YOU’RE OUR TRUSTED SOURCE. YOU’RE OUR TRUSTED SOURCE. >> COME ON, EVERYBODY, COME JOIN.

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How 2024’s Record Retirement Numbers Could Spark a Recession | WSJ

– [Narrator] You're looking at
a chart of the US population, and these are the baby boomers. This year, a record number of them will reach
traditional retirement age. By 2030, they'll all be 65 or older. This is creating a fiscal problem because fewer taxable
workers means less money for social security. – If Congress does nothing,
we're gonna hit a major crisis.

– [Narrator] Here's how
this demographic shift threatens the future of one of the country's most
important government programs and what can be done to fix it. Baby boomers or those born between 1946 and 1964 have been propping
up the US economy for decades. – Their mere numbers
contributed for a long time to rapid economic growth and because every worker
contributed social security that made social security
look very healthy. – [Narrator] But as boomers
started exiting the workforce in 2008, the number of
retirees grew rapidly. – Not only do you have more
retirees collecting benefits for more years, you
have fewer young people entering the workforce
because birth rates were lower for their parents' generation, and that creates a squeeze
on both directions.

Higher expenses from all
those retirees living longer, lower payroll tax revenue from fewer people entering the labor force because of those declining birth rates. – [Narrator] This puts a lot
of pressure on social security and without policy change, projections show the trust
funds will be depleted in 2034. – There's a misconception out there that when the social security
trust fund is exhausted, the system is somehow
bankrupt and there's no money. Social security is an integral part of the federal government, and as long as the federal
government is not bankrupt, social security is not bankrupt. – What's really happening is
the program is running out of treasury bonds, which are basically IOUs
from the government. For many years, social security
was taking in more money than it needed to pay out in
benefits, so it lent money to the government to
use for other programs, and it got IOUs in return. – Around 10 years ago though,
that situation flipped around.

For the last decade, we've been
paying out more in benefits than we've been collecting
in social security revenue. – [Narrator] But because the program had so many IOUs stashed
away from previous years, it's been able to keep
paying benefits in full by cashing in on those IOUs. – Right now, there's
roughly $3 trillion in IOUs, but each year that $3 trillion stash gets a little bit smaller. By the year 2034, all of the
IOUs will have been cashed in. – That means retirees would see overnight about a 25% benefit cut. – [Narrator] This number will
likely increase as the number of workers per retiree continues to fall. – Simply because we're not about to go bankrupt doesn't
mean there's no problem.

There very much is a problem. – [Narrator] Studies
show that the majority of Americans rely on these
monthly benefits checks for retirement income. According to census bureau
data, about 50% of people between 55 and 66 years old
have no retirement savings. – Can you imagine right now if you had to take a 25% reduction
in your take home pay, you still have to pay rent. You gotta buy groceries,
you gotta pay utilities. – It's especially important for those who don't have college degrees, people on the lower end
of the income spectrum. – [Narrator] Fichtner says, when retirees have less retirement income, they also generally spend less money. – That means less economic activity. That means less employment because employers have to lay off people 'cause no longer is that money coming in. It's a ripple effect that could be basically a
senior induced recession. – But social security is only
meant to replace a percentage of a worker's pre-retirement income based on lifetime earnings. So as much as 78% for very
low earners to about 42% for medium earners and
28% for maximum earners. – This is three legged stool
we talk about all the time.

It's supposed to be social
security is one leg, your employer provided pension is a second leg and your
personal savings a third. Well, social security
is financial challenges. We don't have pensions really anymore. About 10% of the population has pensions and then it's hard to save on your own when you've gotta pay off student loans and housing costs are so high. – [Narrator] About half of Americans do have retirement accounts
like 401Ks and IRAs, but those are all subject to market risk. – I hear a lot, well,
those are 65 year olds.

Why do I have to worry
about the boomers today? Well, this impacts every
generation that's coming up behind. – They might not be asked to pay a slightly higher payroll tax. More important, they might be asked to work a little bit longer. – [Narrator] And like most
things in the economy, social security's funding
shortfall isn't an isolated issue. – It's one of the reasons
the federal budget deficits is as large as it is. It means that we have to borrow money, which means issuing bonds. That tends to put up
pressure on interest rates, which means it's harder to afford a house. It means that Congress might have to cut spending on other
programs like the military or the environment in order to make sure that there's enough money
for social security. – [Narrator] So what needs to
happen to put social security on more sound footing? Congress needs to pass a law. – Congress has stood still and not enhanced social
security since Richard Nixon.

– [Narrator] When and what kind of law, that we still don't know. There's been a number of proposed
solutions over the years. – This legislation demands that the wealthiest people in this country start paying their fair share of taxes, – But policymakers generally
disagree on whether to raise taxes or cut benefits. – You'll have two approaches
to how to solve this problem, and you're not gonna do it. – There's probably no single magic bullet, which will put social security
on a long-term footing. Instead, Congress is
probably going to have to look at a variety of steps which will collectively fix the problem.

– [Narrator] But economists
don't expect action to be taken anytime soon. – Everybody, including on Capitol Hill, knows that social security has a problem. Nobody, especially those in Capitol Hill, are prepared to do anything about it. – As we all apparently
agree, social security and Medicare is off the books now, right? They're not to be smart.
(clapping and cheering) – We all would wish that
politicians would show the political courage
necessary to tackle this now and not wait until the 11th hour. Benefits and changes to retirement programs
take a while to phase in. One of the last major reforms we had for social security were the 1983 reforms. – [Narrator] Those amendments
raised the retirement age to 67, but it took nearly
40 years to phase them in.

– There is a 10 year window, but we don't have 10 years to act. – There has to be some kind
of a legislative solution that comes along between now and then. By law, the program can't
borrow anywhere else. The program's too important,
too popular for it to basically be allowed
to run out of money..

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2 Retirement Tax Planning Strategies To Save THOUSANDS In Your Retirement Portfolio!

how would you like to save hundreds of thousands of dollars potentially in taxes in retirement well these two strategies I'm going to go through today when combined together have the potential to do just that now if you don't qualify for net unrealized appreciation because you don't have company stock inside your 401k you can still qualify for zero percent taxes on your long-term capital gains and dividends so when we combine these strategies together it creates a very powerful tax and income planning tool that you can use for your retirement [Music] foreign as you can tell I'm pretty excited about this video because we're going to discuss two tax planning strategies the net unrealized appreciation which I've not yet done a video on the YouTube channel about and also the zero percent taxation for long-term capital gains and dividends and you're going to want to stick around until the end of the video where I incorporate these two strategies into a real life financial planning case now unless you've searched net unrealized appreciation to find this video there's a pretty good chance you've never heard of net unrealized appreciation so in its most basic form it's when you have company stock that's been issued inside your 401k you have the option of rolling that money outside of your 401k not into an IRA but rolling it out only paying income tax on the basis that's been distributed and potentially pay long-term capital gains tax on the appreciation so that appreciation from where it was issued to where it is whenever you roll it out and retire or sever from service or become 59 and a half that's what's called your net unrealized appreciation we're here in Houston Texas where we have a lot of client clients that worked at Exxon Mobil or Chevron or some of the other big oil and gas companies we also have clients from all over the country that work for other companies that can take advantage of this net unrealized depreciation strategy so I'm going to use Exxon because we come across this plan a lot we're very familiar with the Exxon retirement plan and I want to illustrate how this concept works and there's some nuances here and there's also some financial planning considerations and of course tax ramifications that we're going to go through but if I worked at Exxon let's say from 1995 to 2020 and as part of my compensation I receive shares of stock each year over the course of my employment so these numbers are not historically accurate but I want to convey the the principle here so in the beginning years if Exxon was trading at twenty dollars and I received a hundred shares and then next year maybe I received them at 22 dollars per share and twenty five dollars per share and over time as I've received more shares as part of my compensation package the value has typically increases the price at which you were issued those shares in the year you received them is what's called your cost basis so if we do this Nua rollout that's the amount that you'll have to pay income taxes on but it's a really cool opportunity here because over time most stocks appreciate in value Exxon today is at a hundred and sixteen dollars per share so the concept of Nua is if I was issued stock at twenty dollars a share and I keep it in the IRA and now it's at 116 dollars a share that's a massive amount of capital appreciation and if I roll it to an IRA and distribute it at that point or at some point in the future I'm going to income taxes and that can can lead to a pretty big tax liability now we're down the road when I need income but if stocks appreciate it over time we typically have a mixed cost basis when it comes to the amount of shares that we've received from the company so first thing to know here and first thing to ask your company is do you guys provide a breakdown of the cost basis on an annual reporting period or do you take the average cost basis so we come across some companies here that they will provide you the information of the exact cost basis and the amount of shares that you've received in each year in that case we can really cherry pick which shares we want to roll out and really take advantage of this strategy because typically we're going to take the lower cost basis ones some companies don't allow you to cherry pick based on the lower basis shares that were issued they calculate an average cost basis for all the shares issued so this is not nearly as advantageous as being able to cherry pick sometimes it can still make sense especially if it's an older 401k or if it's a stock that has really really appreciated since those shares were issued in the average cost basis is down so this video my primary purpose is to help educate you around the financial planning considerations of the Nua rollout so I'm not going to cover all the rules and reg surrounding it I'll do that in a later video though but a couple things you should know this becomes an opportunity whenever you sever from service or typically when you're entering retirement there are some other qualifications but we'll cover those later now if you sever from service prior to age 55 you will be subject to a 10 penalty on the amount you distribute so just be aware that if you're under the age of 55 you've severed from service you have company stock inside your 401k that that 10 penalty for early distribution still applies we have Exxon this 401K here so the total value is about 1.5 million in this hypothetical example the shares the tote in totality the shares have been issued over the course of the working career equals about a six hundred thousand dollar cost basis so I'm going to use the example here where we can cherry pick the individual shares so the next question becomes which shares should I consider doing the Nua rollout because I don't have to roll all six hundred thousand basis out in the real world typically this 1.5 million of fair market value may also be comprised of mutual funds such as growth funds income Etc within the 401K for the purpose of this example Exxon stock is valued at 1.5 million dollars the cost basis of those Exxon shares within the 401K is 600 000.

Just want to point out in the real world typically everyone does not have all their money invested in their company stock but I've I've absolutely seen that over the years so the question becomes which shares do we want to take advantage of the annual rollout with the general rule of thumb is the lower cost basis Shares are more attractive and that's determined by the the value of the stock today anything above 50 percent cost basis to fair market value typically we don't want to consider for Nua now there are some extenuating circumstances sometimes with financial planning considerations that it may make sense but when we do the math and we extrapolate out looking at the value that you would have in the ira versus paying taxes on the basis now annual taxation for growth dividends Etc the Breakeven point isn't that attractive when we look at these shares that are above 50 percent cost basis to fair market value I personally like to see them around 20 or 30 percent really tops so whenever you have shares that are 10 15 20 25 cost basis to fair market value those are typically very attractive opportunities and in some situations Thirty thirty five forty percent could possibly make sense it just depends on the overall financial plan that you're putting together in other circumstances so this is a tax analysis so you may want to reach out to your CPA for help or assistance in doing this or your financial advisor if they're qualified and skilled enough to help you make these determinations I want to run through some numbers now so let's assume for whatever reason this person decides to do the whole Nua rollout so just so we understand the how this functionally works the 600 000 rolls out of the 401K into a non-ira account income tax is due on that six hundred thousand dollars you're probably looking at about a 27 28 maybe 30 percent effective tax rate we'll go with 30.

So 100 eighty thousand dollars of income taxes would be due on the basis being rolled out but in this scenario you're not just rolling out 600 000 That's the basis you're actually rolling 1.5 million dollars out of the 401K and only paying income tax on the basis now if you sell it immediately the net unrealized appreciation is the difference between the basis and the fair market value so you have nine hundred thousand dollars of gain there so if you sell that nine hundred thousand you're looking at the more preferential long-term capital gains tax that would be a pretty big tax still so the question becomes the are what planning considerations should we hold on to this stock do we feel comfortable having this much in one company what is our other wealth what if we break it out over a few years so this is what we're really going to dive into now I just want you to understand how this actually works in regards to the functionality okay let's cover how this actually works so we take the Exxon stock the basis is 600 000 but the full value is 1.5 million so if in this example we decide we want to do it all we would roll the full 1.5 million out of the 401K it will go into a non-ira account but you only owe income taxes on the basis the 600 000.

If you sell the stock immediately you will owe long-term capital gains tax which is a more preferential rate than income taxes at this level of income on the difference between the basis and the fair market value or nine hundred thousand there but you don't have to sell it right away if you don't sell it right away and then you sell it six months later you'll be subject to short-term capital gains tax because you're holding period rules take take into a place or taken to effect if you don't sell it immediately but if you wait 12 months after the distribution date 12 months in one day then you qualify for long-term capital gains tax treatment so some of the financial planning considerations are now what are the income taxes due what is my income and tax plan year one year two year three of retirement how does this fit into that overall tax and income plan and how do we optimize how do we reduce the total taxes we pay while maximizing the value that we retain if we have to pay income taxes on six hundred thousand dollars you're looking at an effective tax rate there of about 27 28 maybe 30 percent so 30 on 600 is a hundred and eighty Grand so you'd write that check to Uncle Sam and you would have 1.5 million outside of the 401K in the more preferential tax environment of long-term capital gains and dividends now you would have annual taxation on these dividends so that's something else we need to consider and we also need to consider future tax rates and make assumptions with what do we think income tax rates are going to be in the future long-term capital gains and dividend rates all of these things go into the analysis but for now this is the logistics of how it works we roll it all out pay income taxes on the basis we can either sell it immediately and pay long-term capital gains on the differential or we can hold it and if we hold it past the distribution date sell it within 12 months short-term capital gains sell it post 12 months long-term capital gains okay so I want to dive deeper into the two options we have just high level so option A is We Roll everything to the IRA we do not take advantage of the Nua rollout eligibility things that we have to consider here is future tax rates rmds other income sources and the secure act now this is not an exhaustive list this is just some of the big ones we have to take and consider future tax rates because when everything is inside that tax infested Ira when you distribute it in the future you have to pay income taxes you've given up the ability to take advantage of long-term capital gains and dividend taxes which are typically a preferential rate rmds Force distributions from your retirement account and when added with other income we oftentimes see people who did not plan for this have 150 200 250 even more of income because of required minimum distributions and their other income so when doing this analysis we have to extrapolate out and look at these factors to help make the decision today secure act I threw this in here because it forces distribution of your retirement accounts if they go to a non-spouse beneficiary that's more than 10 years younger than you full distribution of the retirement account within 10 years so if you have kids and it's important to leave this money to your children if they have income and they're working and now your retirement account has to be fully distributed within 10 years that could be a massive amount of income going on top of their income which now 30 40 50 60 potentially of your retirement account has gone to Uncle Sam if you live in a state with income taxes that could be an issue as well inheritance taxes so a lot of issues here rolling everything into the IRA you can be hit with um pretty big income taxes down the road option b is we do take advantage of the Nua rollout either wholly or in a partial Nua rollout how that works is we would take the shares that we do decide to take advantage of this strategy and we roll them into the non-ira account some things to consider there is that what are long-term capital gain rates now what are they possibly going to be in the future but also we have annual taxation of the dividends and if we're buying and selling inside that account whatever we do not roll into the non-ira account with the strategy the rest of the funds from your 401k go into the IRA and then of course whatever's left here we have the same considerations that I went through over here so now there are financial planning considerations here let's say I was at 35 cost basis to fair market value so I'm kind of right there where mathematically it may not make sense but how much non-qualified money do I have how much essentially I'm saying how much do you have outside of your retirement accounts because if you're entering retirement and all that money is inside that tax infested 401K then you don't have any ability to manipulate what goes on your 1040 your tax return by manipulate I mean we determine which accounts were withdrawing income from to manage our taxable income that we report to the IRS if we pull from our non-qualified accounts think your bank account well you don't have to report that so if you need a hundred thousand a year we pull 50 from your bank and 50 from your IRA you get your 100 000 but only fifty thousand goes on the tax return that's how we can manipulate that so how much non-qualified money do you have if you don't have much we may want to consider doing a little bit higher Nua rollout because even mathematically it may not make sense when we just compare that decision in isolation to do or not to do the Nua rollout but when we now look at the other benefits that we're receiving such as the ability to do Roth conversions the ability to manipulate what goes on our 1040 the ability to possibly qualify for a health care subsidy if you retire before the age of 65 by managing the reportable or taxable income that's reportable we can qualify for a subsidy so this is why we're so big on financial planning because as you can see it's not just about Investment Management in retirement that's important absolutely but when we tie in financial planning with Investment Management we can create some really optimal scenarios where we're creating a ton of value and helping you have more income pay less tax and ultimately have more value throughout the course of your retirement okay this is the part that I mentioned in the beginning of the video where we're going to tie into kind of a real world plan planning case so we laid the groundwork for what Nua is and some of the considerations that you have to make in order to determine if it makes sense for you to do the Nua rollout so what I want to point out here is the tax and income plan for retirement years one two and three for someone who takes advantage of the Nua rollout because the question becomes when do we sell that stock if we have 30 40 50 percent of our entire net worth in our company stock it's pretty risky to hold on to that position just so we don't pay more in taxes so here's where we're going to tie the financial planning considerations of the real world application and decisions we have to make on the Nua rollout with years one two and three of someone just entering retirement one of the big risks is if we roll it out the company's stock and we decide not to sell it because we don't want to pay the long-term capital gains immediately if we hold on to that that concentrated Equity position we have increased our risk now there are investment strategies that can be used such as buying a put option or what we call an Equity caller but I want to just talk about the tax and income plan here so in this scenario client rolls out the annual way so they have a large concentrated Equity position and they've paid income tax on the basis but do not want to sell the company stock yet so as part of the tax and income plan what I want to show you is we could break this up so year two year three and even year four possibly depending on the size of the concentrated Equity position Company stock where zero percent taxes essentially so we have total income here of a hundred and twenty thousand so what this is the tax and income strategy where we're generating income year two of retirement not year one because in year one you've done the the Nua rollout you have a big tax liability from paying income taxes on the cost basis of that company stock so here's your two so year two the the tax and income strategy is don't take anything out of the 401K no Roth conversions we're going to sell the company stock that we previously rolled out take advantage of Nua and we can have a hundred and twenty thousand dollars of income here as long as it's all capital gains and dividends your total tax liability 458 dollars now what I've done here is assumed twenty thousand dollars of dividends because if you have company stock and you roll it out it probably paid some dividends so 20K there and a hundred thousand of long-term capital gains we're realizing we're recognizing so this is darn near zero percent on a hundred and twenty thousand dollars of retirement income and we're divesting from that company stock now again some risk management strategies we could have an equity caller or put option helping to support downside volatility of that concentrated position but just taxing in complaining wise I want to show you how how this can work out so here now I've added 125 000 of long-term capital gains with twenty thousand dollars of dividends total AGI 145 000 the total tax 4208 on 145k of income 2.9 percent so again we've divested so maybe this is year two of retirement or year three we've divested from the company stock we've reduced our risk we've provided the income that we needed for retirement and we've done so in a way that's tax advantaged same thing goes on now I wanted to point this one out because I've here I've thrown in the same 20 000 of dividends 125 000 of long-term capital gains so we're selling the stock again but now we also take advantage of a twenty thousand dollar Ira distribution so this is which accounts do we pull income from in retirement how do we generate income what's the tax plan total AGI comes up to 165 the total tax is 7208 but here's the cool part the IRS ordering rules for how you pay tax on income based on where that income is generated the distribution from the IRA is actually tax-free but what happens is when you take money out of the IRA it brings some of those long-term capital gains into taxation so I did a video not too long ago where we talked about adjustments and Social Security and IRA distributions and wealth conversion taxes the tax code is filled with these where if we we take one more dollar of income it brings one other item into now a taxable State such as Social Security or long-term capital gains or dividends so just just be aware of that I guess 165 000 of income seven thousand two hundred and eight dollars in income taxes representing a four point four percent tax rate so now one two three four years into retirement we've divested the uh concentrated stock risk we provided income and a very tax advantaged manner we still have that Ira with a lot of money in it to deal with but once this is done we would probably at that point start down the Roth conversion path now every situation is different but hopefully these topics and ideas and and considerations when it comes to risk management income planning tax planning and retirement will help you have a better retirement if you want to learn in more detail how to potentially pay zero percent in long-term capital gains and on your dividends click this video right here I did a couple years ago where we do a deeper dive into the special tax advantage [Music] thank you

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Retirement Planning for Singles

Retirement is a big deal for anybody, and that's especially true for single people who may be retiring with just one income and who may have built up a nest egg solely off their own savings. So, we know that single people can and do retire comfortably. In fact, one quarter of people over age 60 are living alone in their household, and that number is slightly higher for women, and that's, of course, due to women's longevity. So what we're going to talk about here is retirement for single people. First, we'll go over some averages to give you a rough idea of what the landscape looks like for single people, then we'll get into how much money you might need as you go into retirement, then we'll talk about some tips that can help improve the chances of retiring comfortably. Let's start with the average retirement income for single people. So it's $42,000 on average for an individual in retirement, and that comes from the US Census Bureau. The median is a little bit lower at $27,000.

So a friendly reminder of how this works: The median is the middle, so if you line up all of the survey results, people telling you what their income is, for example, that arrow points at the middle observation, which would give us the median down at the bottom. But if we go to the average, that is going to get skewed by, in this case, wealthy people, for example, they have a very high income. When it comes to Social Security, the average is about $1,500 a month or $18,000 per year.Your level depends, of course on your earnings, if you had higher earnings during your working years, then you tend to potentially have a bigger benefit than that, and it could be lower, and then of course, your claiming age is also an important thing. If you claim early at age 62, you get a reduced benefit. That's likely to bring down the amount you get.

Next, we have pensions, some people get an income from a job they worked at. That might be in the public sector as a teacher, a firefighter, that sort of thing, or even in the private sector, you could have a pension from your job, and those incomes just are all over the board, it could be high, it could be low, but these are different sources of income that people might have in retirement. This is just a friendly reminder that this is just one video and it may cover some interesting information, but it's not specific to you so I hope you'll do a lot more research, hopefully check with some professionals and get some individualized advice, and that way you can improve the chances of things going well for you.

So now let's talk about how much you might need as you go into retirement. Unfortunately, there's no single answer on what you need because it depends. So the first step is to figure out what sort of income you're going to need, and I've got other videos on that, I'll put links in the description to get you some more information, but you can look at replacing a portion of your income, or you can just say, I want X amount of dollars per year, or you can go with other approaches, but first we need to know how much income you are hoping for. Next, we tally up your income sources, so that might be some guaranteed income that comes in from Social Security, for example, or from your pension at your workplace, but that forms a base of income and that might or might not cover what you need. But it gives us a base and then if we need to fill that in, we can supplement withdrawals from your retirement savings, so that might be out of your IRA, your 401, 403, these accounts that you have built up over time can provide supplemental income to help fill the gap between that guaranteed income you get and the amount you actually want to spend.

There are a number of ways to figure out how much to withdraw and to set up different strategies, there might be bucking strategies, there might be withdrawal strategies like the 4% rule. Or if you don't like that, make it the 3% rule to be safer, or take out more if you think that's not enough and you're selling yourself short. Ultimately, there are a number of ways to approach this, so you just pick one that works well for you, and again, I can point you to some resources on figuring that out. And finally, you will want to look at taxes and inflation, so during your retirement years, it's reasonable to assume that prices may increase on many of the things you buy, so we want your income to be able to increase as well, Social Security typically does rise, but maybe not at the same rate as the things you're buying, so your withdrawals may need to account for that.

Plus we've got taxes. You typically will owe taxes if you're taking distributions or you're taking withdrawals from pre tax retirement accounts. If you have a pension that might be taxable as well. We just want to look at all of these things and figure out what your ultimate money left over to spend each month is going to be. For an over simplified example, let's just look at Jane Doe.

She's 60 years old, she's single, she wants to retire in about five years, she makes about 80,000 a year and has 700,000. A lot of people retire with less than that, a lot of people retire with more. I'm going to bring up my financial planning software that I use with clients, and we'll just go over kind of why there's no single answer on how much you need. Now, if you can tell me exactly how long you'll live and what the markets will do and what inflation will look like, we can tell you exactly what you'll need. But there are a lot of unknowns, so a lot of times we start with a probability of success and I'll go over what that means, and then we look at little tweaks and how different changes might affect that probability of success, so working an extra year might bring her from…

Let's say 75% to 84% likely to succeed. Now, success and failure are pretty complicated. They don't necessarily mean that you go completely broke, but you may need to make some adjustments, so let's talk about what does the success mean? We, again, cannot predict the future, so we say, Let's look back and say, You get dealt 1,000 hands. You're playing a game of cards and you get 1,000 hands. Some of those are good and some of those are bad, so the very good ones tend to be up here, near the top. And you actually end up with a lot of money left over. Some of them are not as good and you end up running out of money early. The median is, again, that one that's right in the middle when we line them up in order for best to worst.

And so you might say, you're probably not going to get the best, you're probably not going to get the worst, although anything is possible. So that's how we go with this likelihood of success. Now, maybe she doesn't want to work an extra year, so we can look at different ways of accomplishing things here. By the way, we've built in some long term care in case she does get sick and needs that at the end of life. She's looking to spend about 4,000 a month, that's after some health care costs that are going to inflate each year, and she's saving a decent amount in some 401K and taxable accounts. Let's say she goes ahead and maxes out that Roth, is it going to make a big difference? Not really, 'cause she only has five years left. So what we do here is we start looking at all of these different variables and playing with the pieces and figuring out what does it take to make her successful at her retirement, or at least successful enough that she's comfortable making that transition.

So here are some tips to improve your chances. The first is to plan for long term care. If you're living on your own, you don't have somebody in the house who can help you do things, and it's arguable if even a couple is capable of managing this on their own… I mean, if you think about a couple, is one of the people physically able to move the other person around and do they have the skills to provide health care, and the time and the energy, frankly, to provide all that type of care? So it's important for everybody, but it's especially important for single people to plan for this care. So you can look at getting insurance, you can look at budgeting for some costs, like we showed you in the software, you might want to budget for a much bigger number if you go into memory care or something like that with 24 hour supervision, it can get really expensive quickly.

And you can explore different living arrangements, maybe doing things with friends or certain communities that might be a good fit for you. Next is to avoid leaving money on the table so if you were previously married and your spouse passed away or you've been divorced, you may be eligible for benefits. That's maybe from Social Security, you can potentially get a survivor's benefit, or if you were married for at least 10 years and you've been divorced, you can potentially get spousal benefits on your ex spouse's work record. It's just important to explore all of these to see if there are any resources available for you.

Next is to make a plan, and I am of course biased as a financial planner, but I think it is really helpful to go through the process, and the main goal isn't to get a big document that tells you what your financial plan is. Instead, really, the benefit is going through that process and learning a lot about your finances as you do it, and in that process, you get an idea of what the risks are, how you're doing, you might get confidence and clarity on whether or not you can go ahead and retire, if you should do certain things or not. It's just a very valuable process for a lot of people, but I'll leave that for you to decide. If you found this video helpful, please leave a quick thumbs up. That gives me feedback that this is something you might enjoy more of, so thanks for watching and take care..

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Why This Investment System Can Help Retirees Worry Less About Their Retirement Plan

I want to share an investment system for retirees to hopefully assist you as you're thinking about and planning for your retirement we're also going to look at how to prepare your retirement for the multiple potential potential economic Seasons that we may be headed into so we want to look at the multiple seasons and then the Easy System that's going to help lower taxes and then lower risk as well now if I haven't met you yet I'm Dave zoller and we help people plan for and Implement these retirement strategies really for a select number of people at streamline Financial that's our retirement planning firm but because we can't help everyone we want to share this with you as well so if you like retirement specific videos about one per week be sure to subscribe so in order to create a proper investment plan in system we want to make sure that we build out the retirement income plan first because without the income plan it's much harder to design the right investment strategy it's kind of like without the income plan it's like you're guessing at well 60 40 portfolio sounds good or you know May maybe this amount in the conservative bucket sounds reasonable you already know and and you feel that as you get close to retirement that goal of just more money isn't the the end-all goal that we should really be aiming for for retirement it's more about sustainability and certainty and then really the certainty of income and possibly less risk than before the last 30 years uh the things that you did to be successful with the financial side are going to look different than the next 20 or 30 years now if you need help defining the the income plan a little bit then look at the DIY retirement course below this video now once you do Define your goals for retirement and then the income needed to achieve those goals then creating the investment system becomes a lot easier and within the investment plan we really know that we can only control three things in all three things we actually want to minimize through this investment system the first thing we can minimize or reduce is how much tax you pay when investing we had a a client who was not a client of streamline Financial but of a tax firm coming to the the CPA firm in March to pick up his tax return and he was completely surprised that he had sixty thousand dollars of extra income on his tax return that he had to pay tax on right away before April 15th and it was due to the capital gains being recognized and other distributions within his investment account and he said but I didn't sell anything and the account didn't even go up that much last year and I got to pay tax on it but he was already in the highest tax bracket paying about close to 37 percent on short-term capital gains and dividends and interest so that was an unpleasant surprise and we see it happen more often than it should but this can really be avoided and here's two ways we can control tax so that we don't have to have that happen and really just control tax and pay less of it is the goal and I'll keep this at a high level but it'll get the the point across number one is the kinds of Investments that you own some are maybe funds or ETFs or individual uh equities or things like that the funds and ETFs they could pass on capital gains and and distributions to you each year without you even doing anything without you selling or or buying but it happens within the fund a lot of times now we would use funds and ETFs that are considered tax efficient so that our clients they can decide when to recognize gains rather than letting the fund company decide now the second way is by using a strategy that's called tlh each year there's many many fluctuations or big fluctuations that happen in an investment account and the strategy that we call tlh that allows our clients that's tax loss harvesting it allows them to sell an investment that may be down for part of the year and then move it into a very similar investment right away so that the investment strategy stays the same and they can actually take a write-off on that loss on their taxes that year now there's some rules around this again we're going high level but it offsets uh you know for that one client who are not a client but who had the big sixty thousand dollars of income he could have been offsetting those capital gains by doing tlh or tax loss harvesting that strategy has really saved hundreds and thousands of of dollars for clients over a period of years so on to the next thing that we can control in our investment plan and that's cost this one's easier but many advisors they don't do it because it ends up paying them less now since we're certified financial planner professionals we do follow the fiduciary standard and we're obligated to do what's best for our clients so tell me this if you had two Investments and they had the exact same strategy the same Returns the same risk and the same tax efficiency would you rather want the one that costs 0.05 percent per year or the one that costs 12 times more at point six percent well I know that answer is obvious and we'd go with a lower cost funds if it was all the same low-cost funds and ETFs that's how we can really help reduce the cost or that's how you can help reduce the cost in your investment plan because every basis point or part of a percentage that's saved in cost it's added to your return each year and this adds up to a lot over time now the last thing that we want to minimize and control is risk and we already talked about the flaws of investing solely based on on risk tolerance and when it comes to risk a lot of people think that term risk tolerance you know how much risk can we on a scale of one to ten where are we on the the risk factor but there's another way to look at risk in your investment strategy and like King Solomon we believe that there's a season for everything or like the if it was the bird song There's a season for everything and we also believe that there's four different seasons in investing and depending on what season we're in some Investments perform better than others and the Four Seasons are pull it up right now it's higher than expected inflation which we might be feeling but there's also a season that can be lower than expected or deflation and then there's higher than expected economic growth or lower than expected economic growth and the goal is reduce the risk in investing by making sure that we're prepared for each and every one of those potential Seasons because there are individual asset classes that tend to do well during each one of those seasons and we don't know nobody knows what's really going to happen you know people would would speculate and say oh it's going to be this or this or whatever might happen but we don't know for sure that's why we want to make sure we just have the asset classes in the right spots so that the income plan doesn't get impacted so the investment system combined with the income system clients don't have to worry about the movements in the market because they know they've got enough to weather any potential season I hope this has been helpful for you so far as you're thinking about your retirement if it was please subscribe or like this video so that hopefully other people can be helped as well and then I'll see you in the next one take care thank you

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The Ultimate Retirement Plan | Wade Pfau | Ep 63

[Music] welcome to the market call show where we discuss what's happening in the markets and the impact on your Investments tune in every Thursday on Apple podcast Google play Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts hi Wade how are you doing I'm doing great thanks for having me on the show you know I'm so happy to have you here if you're in the retirement income planning business or if you're a financial advisor or a money manager somehow managing money in the space for retirement income planning everybody has heard your name you've been around in this field for a long time and as I was looking through your uh resume from various sources it's like okay well what are we going to exclude you know there's because there's so many things that you have done but I thought I would just kind of just fill in for viewers that don't know you a little bit about you um you know you're an active researcher and educator about retirement income strategies you know you do a lot of speaking I know you're going to be speaking here in Denver uh pretty soon uh you are a professor are you still a professor of retirement income at the American College of financial services I am currently yes and the director of Retirement Research for McLean asset management and in-stream uh you did your PhD in economics from Princeton and you did interestingly you did a dissertation on Social Security reform which we hopefully we'll talk a little bit about later uh you're also a fellow CFA Charter holder like myself um and you've got lots of AD you know accolades and some great books in particular one that I really like that you've done is a retirement planning guidebook uh 2021 uh and then you have that safety first retirement planning how much can I spend in retirement etc etc you've done some stuff on reverse mortgages The Unwanted stepchild that actually is a useful tool for many people yet not quite known by many so uh with that said I I was just curious tell me a little bit about your background where did you grow up so uh well I was born outside of Detroit I lived there until I was 15 moved to Iowa after that my my mother is originally from Southwest Iowa so I graduated high school in Des Moines Iowa and then went to the University of Iowa after that so pretty much midwesterner lived a number of different places afterwards including New Jersey Pennsylvania Tokyo Japan for 10 years and then now I live in Texas you live in Texas now yeah actually these pictures behind me and all are all the places I've lived over the years so it's so so you so you grew up in Detroit mostly it sounds like but moved all traveled a lot um how did you go from you know studying what did you study Finance initially when you were in college in undergrad economics and finance economics okay so how did you go from economics and finance to just being so focused it seems like you're focused on retirement income planning well yeah I mean uh financial planning as an academic field is still pretty new and even I entered the PHD program uh in 1999 and actually Texas Tech University started the First Financial Planning PhD program in the year 2000 so it wasn't even an option at that time but academic economics is very mathematical and theoretical and I was always looking for ways to apply to more real world type activities and that's ultimately how I made my way into financial planning indirectly you mentioned the my dissertation on Social Security reform that was testing how in the early 2000s there was a proposal to create personal retirement accounts to carve out part of the Social Security tax and put that into like a 401k style account and I was simulating how that might perform and ultimately that's the same sort of thing I've made my career on at this point which is just writing computer programs to test how different retirement strategies perform in looking for ways to get more efficiency out of one's asset base for retirement now that was during the bush 2 Administration if I remember correctly wasn't it and so and uh what were your findings in that what was your general thesis or not thesis but your general conclusion well at the time what I determined was that it could be made to work but it wasn't obviously a better approach and now in hindsight I realize more and more that there's so little in the way of protected lifetime income that carving out more of Social Security which is that inflation-adjusted protected lifetime income and exposing that to the market as well uh probably would lead to worse outcomes for many people than we do need some risk-fooled income and so now that traditional pensions are going away Social Security is one of the last holdouts and so it probably wouldn't be the best idea to private or not privatize but uh create personal the defined contribution 401K style accounts out of those Social Security contributions very interesting and we'll we'll touch a little bit more I have a lot a few questions on Social Security uh in general um you know from a macro perspective and also a micro perspective personally for uh people so um one of the things that I really like about what you've done is that you kind of take more of a approach that I'm kind of used to like more of an asset liability management approach when you think about funding ratios rather than the traditional way that you hear financial planners talk about it I really like your overall framework and one of the things that I I think is very helpful is your retirement income style protocol your resubm Matrix can you explain a little bit uh to the viewers about your ideas there and and what how that helps an individual determine their overall approach to how they should tackle their retirement income plan yeah absolutely and that's really one of the the confusing aspects of retirement income is there are different strategies that people can use and unfortunately just there's a lot of disagreement and arguments about one strategy is better than all the others and and by what I mean by that is you have What I Call Total return which is just a you build an Investment Portfolio and you take distributions from it throughout retirement you have different bucketing or time segmentation strategies and then you also have strategies that will focus more on having protected lifetime income through annuities or other tools to cover your Basics before you start investing on top of that and they're all viable strategies at the end of the day and that's an important point that Advocates of Investments only don't appreciate how powerful the risk pooling that annuities can do to offer more income how that is competitive with anything that the stock market might do and so people really have options about what they're most comfortable with and that's what the retirement income style awareness is about developing a questionnaire to help guide people in the direction as a starting point which of these different retirement strategies resonates best with your personal Outlook and preferences you may not ultimately choose the the strategy coming out of that but at least it gives you a starting point to say okay it seems like I might look here first as a way to build my retirement strategy and ultimately if that helps me connect to a strategy that resonates and that I can stick with through thick and thin in retirement that can help give a better outcome because they're all viable strategies but where a strategy doesn't work is if you're not comfortable with it and you don't stick with it and you you bail on it during a market downturn or something like that that that's what the retirement income style awareness is really designed to do is just provide that initial talking point on which kind of approach might work best for me to to think about as a starting point yeah I like that because what it's doing is it's basically more holistically looking at how you would can solve the problem and typically you'll find advisory firms that will will overweight if you will one over the other they're like I'm a Time segment guy or I I hate annuities it's all Total return annuities are a scam or uh you know I will never buy an annuity or uh you know Etc et cetera and risk pooling is is something that's really important but it's also very complicated and I think that's why a lot of people have shunned annuities and annuities have changed a lot over the years um and you know coming from my background you know which is more of a total return approach that's great if you have a lot of money but in in other cases you know I think that you can you can you can look at the problem from a optimal way of doing it or you can look at the problem from a way that's actually going to get implemented and work and what I like about Risa is it's practical pretty much all the stuff that you're doing is practical it's not completely theoretical one problem though with that is that you can have somebody who has a safety first for example mindset but their situation is such that if they have a Safety First with 100 of their Capital that they're very unlikely to be successful can you can you expound a little bit upon how you would think about that in terms of giving advice to people in that scenario yeah so that scenario is probably more they do have a safety first mindset but they've been pigeonholed into a total return strategy but they're ultimately not comfortable with the stock market and therefore maybe most of their Holdings are in cash or in bonds which doesn't support a whole lot of spending power and that's you kind of there's three basic ways you could fund a retirement spending goal the first is just with bonds or with cash not really offering much yield on top of that and then to try to spend more than that the um the probability base perspective is invest in the stock market and the stock should outperform bonds and that should allow you to spend more throughout retirement the safety first approach is more now let's build a floor of protected lifetime income that then brings in with an annuity the the risk pooling the the support to the long-lived helps provide more spending power than bonds alone as well and people have that option and it's when the safety first person gets pushed into a total returns probability based strategy and just doesn't invest in the stock market they're ultimately left with bonds which which is the least efficient way to fund a retirement spending goal over an unknown lifetime very true and you know I guess a lot of people did take that approach probably when I first got in this business 20 over 20 years ago there was a lot of people that were doing that who were retired back where the municipal bonds were paying it was it was conducive the market was conducive for that we had high interest rates that were in the long-term secular decline so you had capital appreciation from those bonds he also had reasonably good uh tax-free interest yields that were working for people and inflation was falling um and so now we potentially could be in the opposite inflation Rising who knows how yields are going to work themselves out but um it when you're looking at this um you you bring up this concept of some of the retirement risks and and you have like these uh longevity sequence of returns spending shocks Etc of of the risks that you're seeing out there which one would you say has had the largest impact negative impact on people that they really need to solve for you know longevity sequence of returns spending shocks and surprises well longevity in a way it's the overarching risk of retirement and it's misnamed because it's a good thing it's if you live a long time it's just as an economist will point out that the longer you live the more expensive your retirement becomes just because every year you live you have to fund your expenses for that year so the cost of retirement grows with the length of retirement and then it's when you live a long time not only is there that issue that you're having to fund your budget but then there's just more time for all those other types of risks to become a problem as well with the macroeconomic environment with changing public policy with inflation even a lower inflation rate still is slowly eating away at the purchasing power of assets and then the spending shocks are things like big Health Care bills helping adult family members having to support a long-term care need to to pay for care due to declining cognitive or physical abilities and so forth and so so it's really that longevity is if you don't have longevity there's not really time for the other risk to disrupt your retirement too much and that's why longevity usually gets listed as the primary risk of retirement interesting I hadn't thought about that so a lot of the other risks are kind of correlated to the longevity element um so so really tackling that that that could be one of the biggest parts of all the surrounding risks around that you you talk a little bit in your book a retirement planning guidebook you talk about quantifying goals and assessing preparedness and I I had mentioned before that I like that you're taking your approach more like a Alm or asset liability management type of of an approach which basically that's what it is um and uh and I don't think the average person thinks about it that way they tend to think about it as like I have so much money and I'll be able to with draw so much from it sometimes there's unrealistic expectations about it but one of the common things that I've seen is that most people are not spending the time they need to do on budgeting really to actually even come up with a number or help come up with a number of what your present value of assets need to be to be prepared do you have any kind of practical tips for people and their advisors on how they can actually think about and execute a good budget not only just you know come up with one but actually implement it well now that technology can really help with that and so if people are comfortable with some of the the different websites or software that Aggregates all of your different expenses different credit cards and so forth into one Excel spreadsheet that's a very easy way to to start budgeting now for people who mostly pay in cash that can be a lot more complicated these days I don't use a lot of cash so I just simply when in the rare case that I have an ATM withdrawal I'll just kind of call that a household expense for that time period and not worry about breaking that down much more but uh when you start having those credit cards or debit card type expenses now the the software may not categorize them in the way you desire and so I usually try to not more frequently than once a month but maybe once a month once a quarter download the expenses while I can still remember well enough if I have to change some of these categories and so forth to then be able to keep track of all my expenses and know exactly then pretty much to the scent almost what I spent that year and then to start thinking about well were there any anomalies of course there's always going to be anomalies and to make sure you budget in that sort of thing but that really once you have a few years of expenses down and once you think about bigger Big Ticket items like car purchases and things that can really give you a foundation to start projecting ahead at what your expenses may be in the future as well and then then you have a way to start thinking about well how much do I need to fund those expenses and that's the whole idea of that asset liability matching do I have the resources necessary to fund your expenses are just your liabilities and do you have the resources to be able to fund that with a level of confidence that you feel comfortable with hmm interesting so I I had a meeting with a client actually who was forced into early retirement and a former engineer and keeps meticulous records has for years and uh he gave us the actual numbers for the last three years and I I figured out what the compounded rate was and it was a lot higher than the inflation rate reported by the bl by the government so um I I think there's some disconnect there between you know how we model and reality um you know uh when you look at financial planning software and you look at the assumptions that are the number of assumptions that are involved in the financial software and you know even if you're not taking Point estimates if you're doing Monte Carlo or whatever stochastic process it's very difficult to come up with a robust plan so I'd like I'd like for you to give me some and I know this is kind of a big general question do you have any general tips to people who are doing this modeling on how and for and for clients actually for for individuals and how they can make their retirement more robust to be able to deal with all the changes that can happen in the world like you said public policy changes Market changes Etc yeah you will have to revisit things over time and and as you get new information about your spending make revisions to the budgeting but uh it's still just a matter of when you're like round up your expenses or be conservative with some of your projections there's some categories that are challenging as well like healthcare and when someone switches to MediCare at age 65 that could lead to an entirely different set of health care expenses and with all your expenses on Health Care in the past you might have to completely upend that and and and do a reset there so it is challenging but if you're trying to build in conservative projections the default is usually whatever you believe your expenses will be you just adjust that for inflation every year and most people don't really do that they tend their expenses don't tend to necessarily keep up with inflation over time now that can get complicated but the way I describe it in the retirement planning guidebook is you'll have one particular budget through ajd and then you'll have another lower expense budget after ajd but also building in what if there's a long-term care event and so forth how much additional Reserve assets would I like to have set aside for out-of-pocket expenses that sort of thing and then it's not going to be perfect and it's going to need revised over time but I think you can start to get fairly confident like I've sort of done these exercises I'm still far away from the retirement date and of course I may be wrong but I I think at this point I have a sense of what my expenditures will be or what they can be at least uh over the longer term Horizon of course subject to new technologies new inventions everything else that can happen uh that would change your expenses but at least roughly speaking I think you can start to figure these things out yeah um I guess I'm coming from a practitioner who's been doing it for you know 25 years and seeing the the the conventional wisdom by the best experts at each point in time and looking at how people have actually fared without advice and what I've found consistently is that changes in in particular with government policy has led to uh sub-optimal choices for people who are trying to optimize to the typical cfp advice so and let me let me uh back that up a little bit with with uh some some examples um education planning what was optimal has changed in my career probably four or five times um let me just put it this way I I have put more emphasis in tax diversification and diversification and stuff in how you do things now because what if you if you over optimize in these scenarios it's sub-optimal does that make sense right if like if you designed everything to handle one particular public policy and then it changes on you like right now Roth IRAs or Roth accounts are incredibly attractive to have Assets in but something could change it could just be not that they might necessarily ever tax a Roth distribution but they could add a required minimum distributions or they could count it in the modified adjusted gross income measures used to calculate taxes on Social Security benefits or to calculate higher medicare premiums and so forth and so if something like that happened and you'd been doing all these Roth conversions to get everything into the Roth account yeah that would be overdoing it and subjecting you to that particular risk so I do think tax diversification is is quite important so that you still have flexibility and options because the the uncertainty is the rules will change and we see that every couple of years we just in late December 2022 secure act 2.2.0 came out and that has changed a number of different public policy matters related to retirement income it's gonna and that will continue to happen over time so so be flexible and part of that is just not overdoing things making sure you stay Diversified with with how you're approaching planning yeah in today's environment what we see a lot is is people that have taken the advice of Max 401K uh you'll get a lot of tax deferred and and what's happening is is they're coming to retirement with a large very large 401K plans and things like that and then they just get nailed in taxes and in fact I'm finding a lot of people pay more taxes when they're retired than they did in some cases than when they were not retired um and uh and and it becomes an issue it becomes a real issue then they have estate planning issues and things like that so um uh I just I'm glad that you said that about the the tax diversification I think more than ever especially given our our current you know country's economic condition there's a lot there's we're going to have lots of changes and they could be very large changes uh in particular if you considered quote unquote rich um so I'm sorry I put my little uh two cents in there but getting back to your book uh you have this concept of the retirement income optimization map um again going back to the assets and liabilities and all of that and when you're you when you're you talk about optimizing that's that's why I brought up the the concept of optimizing I I think there's optimizing within ranges one of the concepts that I've kind of looked at and you talked about you talk about different people's retirement styles um one of the issues that you can look at is like matching the duration of your expected liabilities up for a certain period of time so let's say you have a certain percentage of your portfolios in a total return portfolio and then and then another percent that you're you're cash matching or your duration matching matching for one to five years or whatever uh I think some people call that time segmentation you can call it many different things if forget about psychology and how somebody feels if you are just a rational investor a rational person what would you say the optimal length of time is on average for somebody retiring 65 say to cash match or to duration match uh you know their near-term expenses at one year is it five years is it 10 years I know that's a a loaded question but if you forget about forget about psychology and just go pure rational mm-hmm well pure rational the the total return investing approach which has less emphasis on trying to duration match uh can work and also if you then use a an income protection or wrist wrap type strategy you you have that income floor in place that is lifetime so it's already kind of duration matched to your liability so time segmentation is certainly a viable strategy in terms of my personal preferences it's my least favorite strategy so the whole behavioral point about time segmentation is if I have five years of expenses in in cash or other fixed income assets I don't have to worry about a market downturn because I feel confident that the market will recover within five years and I'll be fine and that that story that's a behavioral story and it just doesn't resonate with me personally I I can understand it resonates with others but it doesn't resonate with me personally and therefore I don't necessarily think about what sort of like front end buffer you need in place too to somehow be rational or optimal also that's where something like a reverse mortgage can fit in in a really interesting manner because if you set up the growing line of credit on a reverse mortgage that can be the the type of contingency fund that you can draw from so that you don't necessarily need to have as much cash or other assets sitting on the sidelines to fulfill that role so I would look more at some other of course you need some some cash but I tend to say less rather than more and maybe look at some other options as well about how to have that liquid contingency fund that's great so so basically the in in the guaranteed income sources plus plus reverse mortgage could uh provide a buffer provide a floor so that you could have uh less cash and and you're generally getting a higher expected rate of return on the annuity than fixed income securities and your at at least at the present time a reverse mortgage line of credit grows at a faster rate than the cash which can be used tax-free when you need the money uh so you can see that Evolution that Carol davinsky is one of the famous planners and researchers in this area and in the 1980s he talked about the five-year Mantra which was have five years of expenses in cash now cash you create drag on you're not able to get as high of potential returns with the money you have in cash so he gradually lowered that down to two years in cash and then when he came across reverse mortgages and in subsequent research and and descriptions he talked about having six months of cash alongside a reverse mortgage growing line of credit so I think that's an example of I I think something like that sounds pretty reasonable that's that's that's that's really helpful so and I want to Circle back to reverse mortgages here but before we do if you don't mind I'd like to talk a little bit more about social security uh so we're kind of getting into the realm of the the guaranteed side of things not the total return side of things um or or I more more knowable income sources um I was just looking at the kind of the statistics right now total debt in the United States is really huge um we're running very large deficits project to be like 2 trillion we have a Pago system right now in Social Security and even if we taxed it's been argued by many people even if we taxed every billionaire 100 that would barely make a dent in our current situation so we have huge unfunded liabilities off balance sheet uh type unfunded liabilities how can we really expect Social Security to keep up with inflation and will it be there for quote unquote you know what I'm saying well it will need reforms it's very unlikely to Simply disappear for my own personal planning I I assume I'll get 75 percent of my presently legislated benefits but for people who are younger as well further away from their their 60s uh the social security statement they receive assumes the zero percent average wage growth as well as zero percent inflation and the reality is there's probably going to be a positive real wage growth over time so you're presently legislative benefit could be a lot higher than what your social security statement is implying and therefore when you offset a benefit cut with the uh the wage growth that can be expected over time you may not have that much less in terms of what you're going to plug into your financial plan but yeah I certainly we don't know how the reforms will shake out but if nothing is done sometime in the 2030s Congress would have to legislate a benefit cut and to keep the system so that enough payroll contributions are coming in to cover exist current benefits that cut would have to be somewhere in the ballpark of 20 to 25 percent so I just simply assume I'll get 75 percent of my presently legislated benefit as part of my financial plan is is it fee Is it feasible feasible to actually get Social Security in a funded situation or is it gonna is it most likely going to stay Pago in your if you had a crystal ball oh it yeah it's always been pay-as-you-go and right so the buildup of the trust fund was an effort to just build up some reserves in anticipation of the changing demographics where there's more and more retirees relative to the workers paying contributions uh they try to keep Social Security funded over the 75-year time Horizon and so it's never permanently funded but yeah with a 25 20 to 25 percent benefit cut that would be sufficient to get the system to be expected funding funded fully over the subsequent 75-year time Horizon that's that's really helpful um thinking about it that way in terms of just potentially a 25 less is a reasonable way to look at it I think um the that part of it's not so hard what's harder to understand or to get a grasp on is whether or not that's going to be what that means in real terms for for a retiree um if we continue on a certain path and inflation is is in a different scenario in the future how how do you think about scenario when or inflation when you're when you would set up a plan or a retirement plan what how would you what kind of what kind of uh of Monte Carlos if you will would you put on on your inflation expectation so I do well I tend to just try to think of everything in today's dollars so that the inflation's factored out of it but I the way I think about long-term inflation is the markets tell us what they expect inflation to be if you just look at the difference between a treasury bond and then a tips treasury inflation protected security with the same maturity uh the difference between those two is what the markets expect inflation to be in if they thought it would be different they would invest in one or the other to get that aligned inflation is coming down now and even over the next five years at this point markets are only factoring in an average inflation rate of about 2.1 to 2.3 percent so it seems like markets really expect inflation to come over to come under control even over 30 years right now the markets are building in about a 2.3 percent average inflation rate which is below historical numbers and in terms of if I'm building a Monte Carlo simulation right now I'd to be a little more conservative there I'd base it around a two and a half percent inflation rate with historical volatility and inflation is around four percent so so you're basically an average of 2.4 or 2.5 and then uh standard deviation is like four basically okay so uh that that sounds reasonable um I I guess what is interesting about that is I guess if you assume that we have typical real rates of return for different asset classes that that all works itself out if you put it in present value terms um but if that's not the case and and it should stay that way ultimately it should stay that way but you could have major moves in markets in people's uh time Horizon when they retire which leads us to sequence of returns conversation uh when people retire you can have these you can have these big shifts in markets things things are rough right when somebody retires uh we uh remember I told you about that engineer we had a conversation with forced into early retirement right when the market topped uh the good news is is he had two types of annuities that worked out perfectly for him in the sequence return can you explain sequence return risk for listeners and and what it means and how to you know strategies to mitigate that a little bit more and just one quick last comment on the inflation too like if you thought when I said these low inflation numbers that that's ridiculous inflation would be much higher well then you'd benefit from investing in tips because they'll provide you a real yield plus whatever inflation ends up being and so they'll perform better if inflation is higher and they've already discounted that that was one of the best performing uh fixed income markets uh in the last couple years so but anyhow but but yeah a sequence of returns risks so that's it whenever you have cash flows going in or out of a portfolio the order of returns matters and it's when you start spending in retirement that it matters a lot more so it's like the market could do fine on average over the next 30 Years but if the market goes down at the start of my retirement I'm not having to sell more and more shares to meet my spending needs and sell a bigger percentage of what's left to meet my spending needs such that when the market subsequently recovers my portfolio doesn't get to enjoy that recovery and so it can dig a hole for the portfolio and the the average return could be pretty high but if you get a bad sequence of market returns right at the start of retirement it can really disrupt that retirement and lead to an implied much lower average rate of return than what the overall markets were doing over your retirement Horizon yeah so and in terms of actually uh let's say you're coming up on retirement so this is a common scenario you're retiring in 10 years or five years what should an investor be thinking about doing to transition from that accumulation to distribution phase to kind of mitigate that sequence of return risk so when people start thinking about retirement I think that's where the first step take that retirement income style awareness to get a sense of what sort of retirement strategy might work for you because that's where you then have um different options if you're more of a total return investor that's the whole logic of the target date fund and so forth is just start lowering your stock allocation but still investing in a diversified portfolio as part of that transition into retirement if your time segmentation the easiest way to think about the transition is instead of holding those Bond mutual funds you start exchanging those in for holding individual bonds to maturity like if I'm 10 years before retirement every year for the next 10 years I could start buying a 10-year bond and then when I get to my retirement date I have the next 10 years of expenses covered through these maturing bonds if you have more of an income protection or risk draft strategy the the options would then to be thinking about well if I have an income gap I'm trying to fill where after I account for Social Security or any pensions I'd really like to have more reliable income to meet some basic expenses well you could start looking at purchasing annuities that would turn on income around your projected retirement date as a way to have that transition into retirement and so they're all viable options and it's just a matter of taking the the route that you feel most comfortable with very good that's really really helpful um now I I guess at least is a little bit into the what I would call the traditionally unloved unwanted stepchildren annuities and reverse mortgages uh you know they've gotten a bad a bad rap for so long but they're so useful in in as tools I would say probably the reverse mortgage is the least understood and uh and and one very helpful um tool I think maybe because of just the history of them and how they used to be structured versus how they're structured now um can you give me a sense about how to think about reverse mortgages for people is it only for people who are you know can barely get their their plan together with their assets or or does this also work for people who have a cushion but they should still do a reverse mortgage more yeah I mean the conventional wisdom a lot of times is that the reverse mortgage is a last resort consideration after everything else has failed and maybe then just a way to Kick the Can down the road a little bit but ultimately that retirement wasn't necessarily sustainable since about 2012 that really the focus of the kind of research retirement planning financial planning type research was looking at how reverse mortgages can be used as part of a responsible retirement plan and so it's not that a lot of advisors may just think the reverse mortgage is only for someone who's run out of options but but that's really not the idea it's we have different assets and it's back to that real map the retirement income optimization how do we position those assets to fund our goals and the reverse mortgage provides a lot of flexibility about how to incorporate our home equity asset to help fund our retirement plan and it can lead to a lot more efficient outcomes than just simply say leaving the home sitting on the sidelines and saying well I've got the home if I have long-term care needs I'll sell my home to fund the long-term care something like that otherwise I'll just leave the home as a legacy asset for my beneficiaries there's much more efficient ways to incorporate home equity into a retirement plan and that's what the whole discussion around reverse mortgages is how can I I use a reverse mortgage to help build a more efficient retirement plan and not as a last resort but as part of a responsible well-funded retirement plan it's just another Diversified tool to a source of source of of assets that you can use that's not just sitting there I just had a conversation with a client yesterday that is about to retire in a few years and uh that is exactly what he said that other property that I have in that other State uh I'm just gonna keep that as a that'll be my I'll sell it if I need to you know there was a conversation about health care contingency and um uh long-term care and things like that and that was his rationale um and and in discussions with clients there has been a a ton of resistance you've been really good at putting out information that shows why it makes sense to have it as a potential use so can you explain a little bit about the the line of credit portion of it and how that how use how that could be advantageous yeah and it really it goes back to this idea of sequence of returns risk and if you look at a reverse mortgage in isolation it may look expensive or whatever else but it's how does it fit into the plan and by reducing pressure on the Investments it can help lay the foundation for a better outcome and the the growing line of credit is one of the most misunderstood aspects of the reverse mortgage and I think it was partly unintentional and it may sound too good to be true in a way it probably is and we saw in in October 2017 the government put some limitations on the growing line of credits so it was incredibly powerful before then it still quite powerful not as powerful as before for new uh anyone who opened a reverse mortgage before October 2017 was protected to have those Provisions in place for the entire life alone but if you wait and then after October 2017 you still have the growing line of credit it's not as powerful but but the idea is I believe the government assumed people would open reverse mortgages because they want to tap into the funds but financial planners realized with the variable rate not with a fixed rate but with a variable rate home equity conversion mortgage you do have to keep a minimal loan balance of say 50 to 100 dollars but otherwise the rest can be left as a line of credit and that line of credit grows at the same way the loan balance would grow and so you can understand why if you borrow money the what the loan balance will grow over time well it just happens to be the case that the kind of neat planning trick is if you open the reverse mortgage and 99 of it is in the line of credit the line of credit is growing over time at the same rate that the loan balance would have been growing and ultimately this improves the odds dramatically of having a lot more access to funds over time if you open it sooner and let the line of credit grow versus just waiting to open it at the time you might actually want to start spending from it yeah how has it been limited uh limited versus the way it used to be what what are the limitations well they increased the initial mortgage insurance premium which is not directly to the line of credit but then every every so often used to be more frequently we're now getting overdue at this point with it's been over five years but they revised the tables that determine the principal limit factors of what percentage of the home value can you borrow and so as part of that 2017 change they uh lowered the the borrowing percentages and also they lowered I mean this this part's a good thing but they lowered the ongoing mortgage insurance premium that would cause the loan balance to grow at a slower rate but it also in turn caused the line of credit to grow at a slower rate so it before that change I was running simulations where if you opened a reverse mortgage at age 62 there was like a 50 chance that within 20 years the line of credit could be worth more than the home and that's no longer the case it's still there's still a probability that the line of credit could grow to be worth more than the home but it's not nearly as dramatic as what I was Finding before the rule change that's very interesting because the line of credit growth rate is tied to interest rates and home prices have somewhat of an inverse relationship to interest rates to some degree but it's basically positively skewed so it's not it's hard to know but uh uh but yeah that's that is a great planning tip and it's interesting because we have had a lot of friction with this discussion with uh clients uh mentioning to them because they just have it in their head that I'm going to lose my home and I'm going to there's all these things that can go wrong and then you have to explain it's a big education process and of course they are required to do education as well no we don't sell reverse mortgages but we always you know if we if we you know we mention it to people as a source and you know having it there makes a lot of sense uh and and the same thing with the annuities um you know I have a love hate relationship with annuities but I'm becoming to love them more and let me tell you why before it was all commission driven you know and we're fiduciaries we don't do commission stuff now with the Advent of finally the insurance companies have really gotten to the point where there's at least enough of them now doing products that make sense with the guarantees I mean there was always companies out for a long time there's companies out there like Americas Etc that had just pure plain vanilla uh va's variable annuities that had just lowered your expenses and maybe eliminated a surrender or something but the guarantees is where the real there were folks too much on tax deferral and not enough on guarantees what were the guarantees is really really what we're really looking for here uh and the only way you could even get them you guarantees would be if you did a commissionable product so we'd be handing you know we would be referring people to Insurance guys who were selling commissionable products and then sometimes you don't know what's going to happen after that happens uh with that client so now thank God we have uh we're in a scenario now where the where the financial industry has finally caught up to what needed to happen with annuities yeah the only annuities yeah yeah the only annuities and there's it still has a lot more to be done it's it's you shouldn't be overlooked and I think what happens one of the reasons that I think they're so helpful uh for people is that risk tolerance is time variant people say their risk tolerance is X and then as soon as you have a market decline then their risk tolerance is all all of a sudden why which is more conservative and and uh these annuities can help people psychologically overcome that right you can always look to something that is either staying equal or growing and you can also have growing income streams during the Gap we see that a lot there's a gap between uh when they get Social Security and when they retire and it kind of fills that Gap and it's funny when I was when I was I actually had my assistant who's also a CPA excuse about my financial planning system I had to read this book first and she uh she said it sounded like like you uh were like in the room with him uh because there's so much stuff in here that you and I agree with it's amazing uh before not even knowing you so and I think it might have to do more with the approach of taking things more from uh your academic background and your CFA background it gives you a different perspective than what kind of the traditional financial planners had who had come more from a sales background and now what's happening is is we have uh the whole industry is now moving in the I think moving in the right direction and I think you've been a big uh reason why that's happening so I I really want to thank you for that all your work is really making a difference I want to talk a little bit about Medicare if we can and health insurance this is probably one of the most the hardest part is the medical the medical discussions in some ways um people don't want to think about long-term care people don't want to think about health costs I was looking at some of the statistics you know long-term care statistics is how much it costs it's a big number how would you how would you model the contingency planning you know for let's just start with long-term care how would you model that would you model it as a present value number or would you try to put it as a as something that's over time how how would you how do you approach that yeah actually so I did try to make the retirement planning guidebook as comprehensive as possible and and so I as part of that developed a long-term care calculator and the the basic logic of it is develop a scenario that you would feel comfortable that if you could fund that scenario uh you'll feel like okay things things will work out whether that's three years in a nursing home whatever the case may be but develop that scenario where you're saying okay at age 90 I will spend the next three years in a nursing home right now in the United States the average cost for a semi-private room in a nursing home is a little bit under a hundred thousand dollars I'll say in today's dollars a hundred thousand dollars a year but then I'm gonna plug in the the math gets complicated but you've got what's the inflation rate in long-term care what's the overall inflation rate and then back to this whole idea of the asset liability matching like what's the investment return discount rate you're comfortable assuming as well and also recognizing that if I do go into a nursing home I don't have to also fund my entire budget of a like if I thought I was going to spend 80 000 a year well I'm not going to be going on any sort of trips I don't have to go to restaurants or anything uh a lot of my other expenses would reduce not not 100 but they would reduce so plug it in what I think is a reasonable reduction to the rest of my budget and then you get calculated a present value of here's how much money I'd have to have set aside as a reserve asset to feel comfortable that I would be able to fund this long-term care need and and be able to have a successful retirement and for people who are worried about and who may be paying out of pocket for long-term care that could be several hundred thousand dollars to be blunted on average that's what it comes out to I actually had a coffee with a gentleman and he said uh what is it just tell me what the number is I said well it depends on your age he says no just tell me what the number I said it's roughly about 300 000 roughly on average it could be more it could be less uh you know uh okay and and there's there's there's different ways you can fund it right you can do long-term care insurance uh traditional Standalone you could do um you know life insurance policies that have embedded features you could do if you can't like qualify for um you know you know get a policy you can maybe get it embedded in an annuity of some sort you can sell fund um so it's not an easy thing that you can uh solve it with a quick answer um but but it's important to have in a plan and I and I like the fact that that uh you've emphasized that a lot in your work um it's just it's just great that that people are thinking about it from that perspective I want to switch gears a little bit um and talk a little bit about tax efficiency uh you know taxes are such a huge part of the impact of a plan and there's so many different angles to it and and the tax rules change so much um I'll tell you one of the challenges that I have asset location the concept of balancing you know where you put a certain asset according to us is tax efficiency versus keeping an asset allocation in line right up you know operationally keeping it in line with the objectives and then as money is being spent taking it from the right place it's a challenge even with excellent software and then sometimes I'm finding that it doesn't actually work out as planned so can you can you give me some practical tips on how to deal with asset location well the the basic logic of asset location but yeah I mean in practice it gets incredibly complicated as you're spending from these accounts to think about also rebalancing and making sure you're keeping the right asset allocation between stocks and bonds and the NASA location is where do you keep these things but generally just is a basic guideline your taxable brokerage accounts of course you want some cash there for your liquidity but otherwise that's your most tax efficient stock Investments so if you own stock index funds and so forth the on a relative basis they're most likely to be best off in your taxable account because a lot more of their returns will be those long-term capital gains that get the preferential tax treatment then with like your tax deferred IRAs and 401ks that's more of a place where less tax efficiency so bonds and so forth maybe lower returning type asset classes and then for your Roth accounts the Roth IRA and so forth that's where less tax efficient but higher expected return type asset classes could go the Emerging Market funds and small cap value and that sort of thing and that does also work with distribution ordering as well because the Roth will be what you tend to spend last and so also having these uh riskier asset classes that may have more growth prospects over the long term that can be a good place to set them aside since you're not likely to be spending from those accounts until later in retirement okay yeah it I think for a lot of people it's a little bit of a daunting thing and in practice it can be with contingencies and things like that can be hard to to do correctly and keep managed and I know there's good news is there's good software now that that helps with that um as far as tax efficiency the other you mentioned the order of withdrawals I mean traditionally you know you have the you know your traditional order of withdrawal that you would you would uh do in in the past a lot a lot of recommendations has been you know you want to take from your taxable accounts first right let those tax-free tax deferred accounts grow and then and then you start taking from those other sources but you make a really good point that that's not always the best thing to draw that taxable account down too fast can you expand upon that a little bit well the yeah the the basic tax efficient distribution is spent down taxable assets than tax deferred like IRAs and then tax exempt like Roth against last but you you can do better and so the the better approach is to have a blend of taxable and tax deferred until the taxable account depletes and then a blend of tax deferred and tax exempt after that and as part of that blend you can do rock conversions to in the short term pay higher taxes if that can better position you to pay less taxes over the long term and to have a higher Legacy value from assets over the long term yeah and then getting more specific than that it's there's no you really got to run the the individual numbers on a case-by-case basis but generally there's the opportunities to sustain your assets for much longer by having a more tax efficient distribution strategy that digs into that taxable plus tax deferred and then later tax deferred plus tax exempt exactly and and that's why it's important while you when you're an accumulation phase make sure you have some tax diversification if you can yeah have Assets in all those different types of accounts yeah so that you're not nailed so bad uh later on uh and then there's a lot of complexities that can happen with happen that we see quite a bit with concentrated stock positions and things like that which is probably outside the scope what we're talking about today so um and lastly here last last topic here non-financial aspects of retirement this is a huge huge huge thing uh it's funny it was the last towards the end of your book and I'm glad that you talked about it uh because uh there's I can't tell you how many times um you know you see people think that they're going to be happy sitting on the beach and then they they do that and they're miserable uh or or spouses that wind up hating each other for some reason can you tell can you give us some ideas about um like what should people be doing like say they're five years into retiring or ten years into retirement retirement What should people be thinking about doing to kind of get their their overall lifestyle satisfactory when they actually do retire yeah and and that's this is in some ways more important than any other Financial stuff because with the finances it's easier to adapt but work does so many things in a person's life it's not just that it provides a salary and you need a way to replace all the other aspects of work such as structure to the day camaraderie feeling part of a team feeling like you're creating value for a society all these different aspects that you need to be able to replace with something that gives you motivation to wake up in the morning in retirement and so to say simply it's not the best starting scenario if you retire because you hate your job you want to be able not to retire away from something but to be able to retire to something you want to have and it gives you purpose and passion and meaning to give you the motivation to wake up and and have something be active each day because in all too many cases people just they start doing passive things like watching too much television or surfing the internet too much and that can lead to a really miserable and unsatisfactory retirement wow that's huge that's interesting have something to retire to so uh and and start figuring that out sooner rather than later right not don't wait till the very end and go yeah what am I doing uh and sitting there staring at your wife or your husband yeah that's the idea that there's all these things you you want to get done but you just think well when I retire then I'll have more time to do it well if it's something you've been holding off on doing for the past 40 years it's not likely that just having more time in retirement is what you need you may just simply either not be interested if it's a hobby like oh I want to go back to playing the guitar or something if you're waiting for retirement to do that sort of thing there you go that retiring may not be enough and then people might start feeling bad that you no longer have the excuse and that's where if that sort of bad feeling compounds it can create a spiral like a downward spiral where people just become less engaged and less positive and it can even impact Health which then in turn makes it harder to be engaged and involved and and can lead to downward spirals it's really important to try to avoid that and as part of that not waiting for retirement to to consider all these other aspects of your life outside of work but making sure you're nurturing relationships and having hobbies and having things outside of work so that it will then be easier to transition into the retirement yeah that's great so is there anything as we close here is there anything that you're really excited about that you're working on right now that you want to share or is there at all right now I am just trying to get the updates done for the retirement planning guidebook and where we're doing the best we can to build out that retirement income Styles ideas uh something that people can benefit from and uh the other main research area is with the tax planning as well that I think this will be a Hot Topic and I've already done a lot of work in that area but it is such a complicated area that just trying to push forward as well about like Roth conversion strategies and and how to best Implement those in a most of the work in that area just assumes a fixed rate of return and with the reality of not fixed rates of Returns on your Investment Portfolio that also dramatically complicates some of those tax planning decisions so I'm continuing to push ahead in those areas interesting so more stochastic modeling in your future yes stochastic modeling and now you're probably going to be uh that Technology's got to be in there somewhere too any plans uh that you want to announce or share with new technology that you're going to be coming out with or software programs or anything like that or I mean I just have this Vision in my head if I were you I'd be doing something like that but I mean I'm just saying yeah don't Envision creating tax planning software but uh the retirement income style awareness that's where I'm putting on my efforts in terms of having software and that's an easier problem than the tax planning problem definitely yeah there's a lot of changes always yeah you'll be coding to your uh blue in the face all your staff would be so uh the uh it's interesting I I I'm actually going to be diving into that that profiling software that you have um I had a conversation yesterday about that so that's very good so where would people uh would you like people to send you see learn more about you um anything that you're up to oh yeah uh so my website retirementresearcher.com all one word retirement researcher and if you go there you can sign up every Saturday morning we send out an email with different articles and things and then my retirement planning guidebook is on Amazon or any other major book retailer and also I do have a podcast as well they're retire with style podcast with Alex mergia who's my a co-co-researcher and and co-founder of the retirement income style awareness excellent all right Wade thank you so much appreciate you coming on it's been a pleasure thank you the information in this podcast is informational and General in nature and does not take into consideration the listeners personal circumstances therefore it is not intended to be a substitute for specific individualized Financial legal or tax advice to determine which strategies or Investments may be suitable for you consult the appropriate qualified professional prior to making a final decision wealthnet Investments is a registered investment advisor advisory services are only offered to clients or prospective clients where wealthnet Investments and as representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure [Music] foreign

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2 Ways to Estimate Retirement Spending

When you're planning for retirement, your spending level is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle, so how much should you plan to spend each year? That's going to dictate what we are withdrawing from your investments and how that needs to supplement your Social Security, pensions, and that sort of thing. So we're going to go over two methods that you can use to fairly easily figure out what your spending might look like in retirement.

As you go through this exercise, it's important to remember that no method is perfect and it's impossible to predict the future, so we don't know what your grocery bill is going to be in 14 years, or how much you'll spend on electricity in 12 years, but what we can do is make some reasonable guesses and estimates and take action based on that, take a step forward and then learn a few things and then adjust if adjustments need to be made. So the two ways of figuring out your budget I want to talk about today are the top down and the bottom up approach, and there are a couple of other ways to estimate your retirement spending need as well.

So the replacement ratio is a pretty popular one, and that's where you say, I might need, let's say, 80% or some other percentage of my current income to spend in retirement, hopefully it's a relatively high number, but there… You're just basically saying, Well, I'm not going to save for retirement anymore, I'm not going to be paying payroll taxes, so maybe 80 90 or some other percentage is an appropriate amount, but we're going to go over again, top down and Bottom up, so starting with top down, the top down strategy focuses on the amount you spend and is not as concerned with the destination of those dollars or the specific costs that you pay, all that that information is important, and we're probably going to want it, but when we look at a top down approach, we say, What is all of the income minus the savings you do? And the answer is your costs or your total spending, so we don't know necessarily exactly where that money went, but it went somewhere… Okay, so you had income, you save some money in some different places, the rest of it went away and it's not your money anymore, so that's the top down approach, so how do we figure out the income? The best place or the very top is to start with your pay stubs or your income tax returns, so those are going to capture even dollars that never hit your bank account, so for example, you can say, my total income is X, but I put money into my workplace plan, my 401k, that money is never going to show up in your bank account, you're not going to see it as a line item in your transactions where you saved money, but you did indeed save that money, you didn't spend it on something else, you can spend it later, so if we start with the income sources from a very high level, we're talking about your pay stubs and your tax returns, then we look at the savings, so this is going to be all of the additions you make to various accounts, so that's going to be your 401K, 403B, any bank savings accounts, HSAs, IRAS, any place that you're saving money for the future, this is going to get subtracted from that income number we came up with, so we have our income at a high level, we have the savings that we did, we subtract that, then the result is the total spending, and again, we're not totally concerned with exactly where the money went.

Although if there is a problem, a spending issue or something like that, then we definitely want to look closer. Naturally, there are pros and cons of any approach, so the advantages of this top down strategy are going to be that it's really easy and it gives you a big picture view, and it captures really pretty much everything, it might capture too much, so we'll talk about that in a second, but if you are not sure exactly where your money goes, but you're doing okay budget wise, and you want to keep the same lifestyle basically that you currently have, then this can be a decent way to estimate how much you might spend later in life, so we don't know how much of it went on vacation versus dining versus whatever, but you did spend the money somewhere, and that's really what we need to know is how much do you spend…

But this could capture some costs that you aren't going to have in retirement, so for example, your payroll taxes are going to be something that we want to think about if we're using this top down approach, because when you stop working, you'll no longer have those payroll taxes. Likewise, if you have a mortgage and you're doing monthly mortgage payments at some point that loan might go away and that won't be an expense for you in retirement, you would generally still have taxes and insurance, but you wouldn't have the principal and interest portion of your mortgage payment at some point down the road, hopefully.

So again, with top down, we start with this big picture view, income minus savings equals expenses, and then maybe we want to make some adjustments for certain things that are going to change over time, so here's a little example of how it looks visually, you've got your income of 100,000 you're over age 50, you're doing 27,000 into your 401K, you've got an IRA as well, there's another 7,000 that you're saving. And so your actual spending is no more than 66,000, and it's probably even less than that when we think about payroll taxes and maybe a couple of other things, so think about this as you evaluate what your costs might be, sometimes people think I make 100,000 right now, so I'm going to need a 100000 of income every year in retirement, and that's often not the case, and this is another way to illustrate that point, in fact, those are the types of exercises I often go through with clients, by the way, I'm Justin. Pritchard, and I help people plan for retirement and invest for the future, so in the description below, there's going to be more on this topic, on your spending and just some other general retirement planning type resources that I think will be really helpful for you.

So please check those out, and it's also a good time for a friendly reminder that this is just general information, it's a short video that can't possibly cover everything, so please check with some experts before you make some important decisions. Next, we have the bottom up approach, and so this is going to be what you might be more familiar with as just budgeting, so that's looking at every single expense and transaction and categorizing those costs and figuring out where exactly your money goes. So you're really looking closely at the destination of each dollar that leaves your household, so you have a detailed view of what's happening, you can get this information from places like your credit card statement, so every time you spend money, there's an electronic record of it.

You can categorize that and track it, your bank account is also probably a good place to look, so if you have those electronic automatic payments that go out of your bank account, maybe your mortgage or your insurance payments, that kind of thing… Those are going to be important to know about and include in your budget. Even a check register. So you might only write one or two checks a year these days, but they're probably big ones and they're probably important to know about, so make sure you're tracking that if it's a charitable contributions, or maybe you pay your property taxes once a year by check, that sort of thing, we need to know about those so that you can continue that type of spending. This technique really relies on you being able to track and find and categorize that information, so it's probably a decent idea to just cross check this with a top down approach, so say, Well, here's what I think I spend based on my budget, based on all the things I tracked and looked at, but let's just see if that more or less adds up based on my income versus how much I put into different accounts, and are we in the ballpark? Just like with the top down approach, it's important to pay attention to any costs that might change over time.

So if you are making mortgage payments again and you're going to have that loan paid off at some point, want to look at what's the principal and interest portion of that payment, and what's the taxes and insurance portion, and keep those separated, you know that you'll continue to pay taxes and insurance, but not the principal and interest at some point down the road. Again, there are pros and cons to this, just like everything else, it's probably a decent way to go if you are very close to retirement because you're going to be spending in a similar way next year or two years from now, as you are today, so your current budget might be a nice reflection of what the next couple of years budget could look like, one of the drawbacks though, is that this can give you a false sense of precision, so you've got your list and your spreadsheet and you've got you exactly how much you paid for a bagel eight months ago, and you know exactly where your money is going, but you might be missing something, that's really the main risk is that you could be missing some important expenses, so that if you base your spending off of your spreadsheet or your list, it might not be nearly as accurate as you think it is.

So I hope you found that helpful. If you did, please leave a quick thumbs up. Thank you and take care..

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3 MASSIVE Ways To Help Your Money Last Longer In Retirement

Retirement is supposed to be stress-free! 
you're enjoying life you step away from all   of the nonsense of the workplace and all of the 
frustration and you're enjoying your life you're   sitting on the beach just chilling having a good 
time it's all good but there's one stressor that   I see with so many people that are retired 
and that's making your money last the markets   aren't easy to watch you're going to open up 
your accounts and one day you're up you know   $100,000 if you've got a million dollar you know 
10% gain is $100,000 but then if you have a 10%   loss that year you're down $100,000 that's hard 
to stomach when you've built you worked so hard   for all of this money for so long well we've got 
to figure out how to make your money last even   in a bad market so let's take a look here let's 
look at retired Roger I built this out with Nest   eg a software we use for clients here at Jazz 
Wealth and if we're looking Roger looks great   right this second he's got a 92% probability of 
success of having about $11 million at the end   of his life he's 61 years old he plans to live on 
5,100 a year he's got $800,000 little bits 25% of   that is in WTH the rest of it's in pre-tax just 
to give you a breakdown of where he's at so if   we're looking here he's planning to take Social 
Security at 70 he's actually not and I'll show   you a minute Ro Roger's one of those he's like 
ah my dad died early I I think I'm healthier but   I'm not giving that money to the government that 
that was my Roger voice if you didn't catch that   so if we're looking here and we say Okay Roger's 
going to take Social Security early all right well   perfect well let's go ahead and do that so we're 
going to make this adjustment here and we're going   to say he's going to take it early it gives him 
about a you know 5% probability less here though   you're not talking them big difference in money I 
mean $32,000 roughly $33,000 is the difference so   it's not a significant ific difference but what 
happens if the market has a massive pullback if   we see a massive pullback that's what we've got 
to look at here with Roger and figure out what is   best for his scenario now if we go right here 
and we say the markets the equity markets Dro   30% he's going to go down to 64% well personally 
as a planner I'm looking at 64% of probability   of success you know when you're in your 70s 70% 
80% you know it's not too bad because we're also   looking at this number we're also looking 
at something else called the cash flow the   cash flow is going to show us a whole different 
scenario when it comes to this where it's really   looking at things and it's saying okay we've got 
this as far as go it goes in a linear fashion so   he's going to get you know let's say a 7% return 
on his money every single year the money's coming   in the money's going out that's what we're 
looking at there but in this the Monte Carlo   looks at a thousand scenarios and it gives us 
this probability of success it's a little more   conservative but 64% I'm not Ultra comfortable 
telling Roger hey you know take Social Security   at 62 years old the markets just fell 30% now 
you would think that that's actually backwards   because a lot of times advisers will tell you 
hey take Social Security early if the market   Falls that's the option this is where planning 
comes into play because that's not always the   best scenario and in Rogers if we look here and we 
say well you know what Roger going to take Social   Security at 70 instead there's a 30% pullback 
he's now pushing 70% again we still have about   a 5% spread on the probability of success in his 
retirement but when you're in the 60s wouldn't you   rather have a 69% than a 64% I'd much rather give 
him that information and make him do that instead   so now let's go back because there's other stuff 
that Roger wants to do Roger wants to talk about   hey you know what I want to be really aggressive 
with my money and rightfully so if I'm looking   at this plan here and I look here at Roger let's 
get this back going he's sitting here and he says   I want want this to be 100% in equities and here 
is why I'm going to potentially have $2 million   at the end of my life that I can leave my kids 
versus 1.1 million and look here it's only a 1%   probability difference now you're probably saying 
well why is there a 1% Less in having $2 million   the reason for that is if you're investing in 
the stocks this probability of success and the   way this looks at it the Monte Carlo is saying 
there's 29 years of Rogers life still to cover   that's you know until age 90 looking at that 
specific scenario in his life there's 29 years   of Market return projections this gets a little 
bit risky if everything's 100% in the stock market   versus if you have a little bit of bonds or maybe 
some currently money market fund sitting in there   you're not just overly saturated just in the most 
aggressive portfolio that you can be and so in his   scenario though he wants to leave this money 
and he's looking at that well let's go ahead   and take a look now and let's see what this could 
look like now remember if he were to take Social   Security at 70 and the current allocation which 
is about a 6040 mix for his scenario here he would   have a 69.6 probability of success well remember 
he's got you know a lot of opportunity here he's   wanting to leave his kids $900,000 more if he gets 
aggressive but what happens if he gets aggressive   and then the market pulls back you're talking 
60% probability 9% difference 60% probability   of success I'm not comfortable again telling Roger 
hey man this is where you need to be so you've got   to think through not just what today is coming 
up with when it comes to your financial plan and   your retirement you've got to really think through 
the stress factors the stress test of what happens   when the market Falls because ultimately the 
markets will go down that's just an unfortunate   scenario that's going to happen if you look dayto 
day the markets go up the markets go down and   historically they've always appreciated or went 
up but in the short term there will be downfalls   there and so one other thing we got to look look 
at though is if you were wanting to make a big   purchase because remember we're wanting to make 
your retirement dollars last so what happens if   you're wanting to make a large purchase in a down 
Market well remember Roger had $800,000 well let's   just say that you know a 30% pullback would give 
him a lot a lot less money let's just say that   we have a little bit of a pullback and Rogers 
money is now $750,000 and he makes a purchase   he had $800,000 he made a $50,000 purchase well 
the next year when the market recovers Roger's   going to have 82,500 on a 7% return so you know 
eventually the markets fall they will start to   recover it's all about delaying the purchase and 
let me show you exactly why if you were to wait   for the recovery to happen and Roger says I've 
got $800,000 once the market recovers I'm back   to my break even here I get a 7% return I make a 
$5,000 purchase well he had $856,000 he's almost   got enough money to cover the taxes potentially 
depending on what tax bracket he's in and the   actual purchase that $50,000 purchase so it's 
really thinking through and trying to time when   you're in a down Market trying to time when the 
right time is to make this large purchase some   people just get antsy and they say you know what 
the Market's falling I want to get out of it I'm   going to go ahead and buy the car now or buy 
the the house or the RV in retirement because   I don't even know if my money's going to be there 
well that's not the best decision because you're   making an emotional decision so instead you want 
to make sure that you're removing the motion out   you're looking look at a financial plan you're 
not just looking at one scenario but you're really   starting to think through this to determine what 
is going to be best for you thanks for watching   if you want to learn more about jazzwealth 
and how we can help as fiduciary advisers go   to Jazzwealth.com if you want more educational 
content be sure to check out our videos here

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Is 1 Crore Enough To Retire? How to plan your retirement?

Hi friends, welcome to Yadnya investment academy. We are going to talk about a topic of financial planning on Friday. And today's topic is very interesting. Because this question is asked regularly on many social media channels and workshops. That people have an amount in their mind that is 1 crore rupees. We think that if we have 1 crore rupees, our life will be good. So this question remains in the mind that if I have 1 crore rupees, can I retire now? Am I financially free? I don't have any tension of retirement now. Now whatever work I am doing is extra. So that 1 crore rupees is enough. And if you have retired now and got EPF money and total is 1 crore is it enough for you? And if it is enough or not, how much can you spend in both questions, when is enough and when is not.

We will touch on all those things in this video. I will explain everything through a calculator. You can check that calculator on our website investyadnya.in as well. We cover many topics of financial planning in this session. If you want to make your own financial plan, then go to investyadnya.in website There are many products related to financial planning. There are 1 to 1 sessions as well. You can check that out. Now I am going to my website and I am sure you can see my screen. If you go to the tool and calculator, here you can see the retirement calculator.

I don't think you will get this anywhere else. Now the question is, suppose I have 1 crore rupees, is it enough for me to retire? First of all, I will be asked what is my age? I am just giving an example, 50. Suppose I am 50 years old, what is my life expectancy? It is important to know when you will be retiring. I think we should keep it around 90. I am keeping it at 90. How much is the expense now? If you are retiring and you have 1 crore rupees, how much do you want to spend? What is your monthly or annual expense? Suppose I am thinking that I have 6 lakh rupees. I have put 6 lakh rupees here. How much inflation are you assuming? How much will my expenses increase every year? If India's inflation is around 6-7%, then you can assume that. Suppose 7% inflation till the end of life. Current asset, how much money do I have? I will put 1 crore rupees here. I have 1 crore rupees here. I will put that here. How do you invest this 1 crore rupees? How much return will you be able to earn? This is a very important question.

What type of investment do you want to put? Do you want to put it in PPF? Do you want to put it in Senior Citizen Savings Scheme? Or do you want to put it in FDs? Or do you want to create a portfolio of Mutual Funds like Hybrid Equity Funds? This is very important. Let's take all the scenarios. Suppose I want to put it in FDs. I don't want to do anything special. I will get 7% return in FDs. Whatever is the post tax. Or whatever you think.

You get 7.5% but let's keep 7% for calculation. Let's keep 7.5%. Let's keep 8%. We have put it in bonds, Senior Citizen Savings Scheme. And there is some money in EPF. So, we have kept some money in equity. So, my 8% will earn 1 crore rupees corpus. Which is 1% over inflation. I have taken 7% inflation and 8% returns. I have to put these 6 fields first. If I submit this, My retirement corpus is in deficit of 1 crore. This means that I need 1 crore more to develop this scenario. If I am 50 years old and I have 6 lakhs per month. And 7% inflation. And 8% growth. I need 2 crores. 1 crore is not enough. Now, let's change the scenario. What should I do if I am not able to do it.

I can either reduce it. I don't spend Rs 50,000 per month. I can do 30,000. Then we can change the amount. We have done 36,000. And then we have put this change. So, 21 lakhs is still less. So, basically it will come to 3 lakhs. So, now our retirement corpus is only 67,000 less. So, I can spend 3 lakhs per year. If I can spend Rs 25,000 per month. And if I take 7% inflation. And 8% growth. Then 1 crore is enough in 50. If I spend 25,000. If I spend 50,000 with same scenario. Then I will need 1 crore. Now, you will say that I invest in mutual funds. I know investing well. And I think that my corpus can earn 10%. If 7% is inflation. Then I think that my corpus can earn 10% per annum. Like our approach. You must have seen many videos on retirement. If you want to understand anything. Then put it in the comment section.

If I think that I can do 10%. So, let's try it on 6% after spending 3 lakhs. So, now our corpus will be 47 lakhs. So, it means that I can spend 4 lakhs or 4.5 lakhs. So, 4.2 or 4.3. Means I can spend around Rs 35,000 per month. If I can earn 10% return. Now, you will say that I have already retired. I am 60 years old. And now tell me what is this scenario. So, in that I can spend 50,000 per month. So, in 60 years also if you are earning 10% return. Then there is a deficit of 24 lakhs. If this scenario plays. You say that I have inflation. I don't spend much. 50,000 per month. Next year, I will grow according to 5%. Then it is good. 5% inflation, 10% rate of return, 1 crore rupees. You have enough. You have just enough. So, you can spend 50,000 per month. If you are 60 years old, you will get that money for 90 years. Now, there is one more thing. Many people think that I have a pension. I have a house. He is giving rental.

Or I am getting pension. Suppose you are getting pension of Rs 10,000 per month. Means it comes more than that. But I think 10,000 per month. So, I am getting a pension of 1,20,000. And we will make it 7 again. Is there any growth of pension? It seems that 2-3% growth is there. So, let's grow it by 3%. Till when will the pension come? Will it come till 90? Will it come till life expectancy or will it come soon? Many times, for limited time, money is going to come. So, we sell those things. Rental is going to come. I have to sell that house after 10 years. So, you can put that also. So, I have to get pension till last. Till 90. So, then in 6 lakhs, 7% inflation, 1 crore, 10% and all. So, then almost I am there. Means 3 lakhs is the only deficit left. So, in this way, you can find out that the money you have, is it enough for your retirement? So, now you can change the amount.

If you have 2 crore, 3 crore or 50 lakhs, then you can change the amount. Accordingly, you can find out how much expense I will have after retirement, my work will go smoothly till life expectancy which I have planned. So, this will be very very helpful for you. So, if you like Calculator, then do share this video with everyone. I think this will be very helpful to many people in retirement planning. And from the perspective of financial freedom also. And if you want our financial plans and personalized approach, if you want to understand how to get 10% rate of return, or what all I can do after retirement, then you can go to our website and call our customer service, sales team or relationship team. You can WhatsApp or call or email. And then we will reach out to you and we will surely try to help you on those things. That is all I have. I hope, do subscribe more. Because the topics of financial planning are not going on much. So, do subscribe and like the video if you like it. Have a great time, friends.

Jai Hind..

As found on YouTube

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Spokane Fire Chief talks with KREM 2 after announcing retirement

For the first time since learning that Spokane fire chief, Brian Schafer will no longer lead the department. The chief is now speaking out. I sat down with him earlier today to ask him about the decision to step away and about the timing of it all, he told me the timing all came down to his pension. And when he was able to retire, Schaer said he wanted to be a firefighter from day one after a fire destroyed his family's home back in 1971 when he was just an infant.

This is actually the article that was written about that fire. But a lot of you are wondering about the timing and if it has anything to do with the new mayor, here's what Schafer told me, why make the announcement to retire. I was going to actually I made the announcement last year to retire this year. So, um so it shouldn't really be a big surprise that the people in the organization and uh the community have been aware.

My leadership has been aware and really it uh it's been a goal of mine to retire at the, the age for our pension system. Was your decision to retire? Did that have anything to do with the new mayor in town? No, no, but the keyboard warriors out there sure seem to have a number of different stories. And, um, you know, it is, it is always, uh, probably the most important time in an organization's, uh, life. When we have these transitions, it's really important to me to make sure that this period of transition is, is done pragmatically and that we don't drop anything. Is there anything that you hope to do that you weren't able to do now? Because of the requirements of your job? You know, I, I really uh I love fly fishing and um I don't take vacations because of the job. You know, it, when you're in this public servant, um position like a fire chief, you're expected to be 24 7. And I, I took that seriously. So now I have time to do, even if it's a little bit of time, a little bit of break to spend some time fishing and spend some time uh outdoors and not have to be connected to a car, a pager, a radio, telephone, you guys, all my friends and partners in the media, but I'm, I'm looking forward not to have that uh that uh Leash Schafer's last day will be on March 31st.

And until then he says he will help with the transition process of bringing in a new chief. I did ask him if that will be an internal or external hire. He told me he just doesn't know right now..

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