Hosts: Gary Abely, CPA, CFP®, AIF® and Joe Bert, CFP®, AIF®
Good Saturday morning to you. Central Florida’s oldest and largest — Independent firm of certified financial planning professionals is the Certified Financial Group, and you’ll find them in Altamonte Springs. You’ll also find them right here, right now, on this Ask the Experts Saturday morning on News 96.5, WDBO. And with us two of the twelve certified financial planning professionals, say good morning to Gary Abely —
Good morning.
Good morning, Gary Abely.
And also the oracle of Orlando is back in his regular seat, Joe Bert.
Good morning.
Good morning, Joe Bert.
Taking your calls and answering your questions. Joe, Gary, what do people call and ask you about.
Well, we’re here to answer questions that might be on your mind regarding your personal finances. As we see day in and day out with the clients that come to see us for the first time, most of them are hard working folks, are looking — staring retirement right in the eye and find that maybe they haven’t done any planning, and they’re trying to figure out when the paycheck stops, how do we continue to maintain the lifestyle that we have today and maybe have a little bit more fun. And that oftentimes revolves around decisions that you have to make regarding your personal finances. Decisions about stocks and bonds, and mutual funds, and real estate, and IRAs, and long-term healthcare, annuities, and life insurance, and reverse mortgages. All those kinds of questions, we are here to give you advice from our collective, what is it, 300 years of experience. Not you and me, but —
I hope not.
— that we have garnered over the nearly 40 years that we’ve been doing this, and we’re here to share that information with you this morning. You can call, and you don’t even have to use your real name. Just call, toll-free number is:
844-220-0965. Again, 844-220-0965. You could also from your mobile device send us a short text. That text number is 21232, 21232. And you could also have your voice become part of the program by using the open mic, and the open mic is found on the News 96.5 app. So Gary, listen, Joe and Gary, it’s cold, so why did Gary come. Well, I guess it’s relative, because Gary comes in here without a jacket, no jacket, <Inaudible> and he waits <?> to the last bit of the coffee.
He is a little wacky.
I am a little wacky. We all know that.
Boy, it’s great to have him on the staff, isn’t it.
Sure.
He sounds like our Dave Wall.
There’s got to be somebody to get rid of the old coffee in the office.
And you’ve got some great things to share with us today. Like I was reading some of the things we’re going to talk about, like if the average stock is already in a bear market, isn’t the US market in a bear market. And I was going wait a minute, refresh my memory, what is a bear market again. What’s the difference between a bear and a bull.
Well Kirk, a bear market is when we see a drop from the high of 20% or more. We actually see right now that the Russell 2000 is in a bear market.
And what is the Russell 2000, young man.
Those are your small stocks.
There you go. Small stocks like — it’s hard to name them, they’re so small.
They are small.
But, the thing to remember is that every big company today at one time was a small company, including Apple, and Microsoft, and Intel. All those companies, these are companies that are listed, traded actively, but generally they’re not household names because they’re not household names.
Exactly.
But your smaller companies are right now in bear market territory.
Right.
<Inaudible> busy.
Right, the mid caps and the large caps are close. But we had a nice little bounce towards the end of last week, so we don’t know yet whether that’s the end of the ugliness or just a false positive.
There we go.
Have to wait and see.
I’ve been taking Joe’s advice now for over 20 years, right Joe.
Yep.
And I know the answer to this, but I know it’s hard not to go look at your 401k right now and see where it is. But Joe, what could you say to people who are just scratching their heads going man, I’m losing, I’m losing, I’m losing.
I tell them don’t look, because we periodically go through these corrections, and if you’re adding to your account on a regular paycheck basis, the good news for you is that every paycheck you’re buying more shares, and the name of the game over your working lifetime is to get shares when things are on sale. And you’ll look back, and we go through this periodically. I mean, this is part of the investing cycle. It’s never a smooth line straight up, if it was everybody would be rich because they wouldn’t let their emotions get involved, and they wouldn’t do what most people do, and that’s to sell low and buy high. That’s the recipe for disaster. So continue, if you’re well diversified with quality, in the long run you will be successful. Investing is long-term, it’s not speculation, it’s not gee, how much money did I make today, this week, this month, even this year, because you have down years, and that’s the way you have to look at investing. Otherwise put your money in a bank and earn 1% and be happy with it.
Or 1/10 of 1%.
Or 1/10 of 1%, right.
Alright, here’s the number again: 844-220-0965. 844-220-0965. Can you explain basically — give us the thumbnail sketch, why are the markets going through this upheaval.
Well, that’s a loaded question, but there’s probably three main reasons. We have not seen corporate profit growth. Last time we saw that was in ’14. So ’15, the corporations that comprised the major indexes actually had less profit than in ’14. The markets don’t like less profit. We like to see increased profits. Another item that’s kind of a headwind is a strong US dollar, which makes our exports that much more expensive. So think about selling our iPhones to the Chinese and the Indians, with their currencies weakening against the dollar, it makes it much more expensive. And then of course the third big headwind right now that we’re seeing is oil. Oil right now is correlating incredibly high with stock prices, and that normally does not happen. That’s really an anomaly right now. But I think for the first three weeks the correlation was 0.92, so it’s —
I think that’ll shake out over time.
I do too, and hopefully it just did last Thursday, Friday.
What we mean by that, by correlation, which means when the stock — when oil prices go down, stock prices go down. I mean, it’s 100% or nearly 100% close —
Very correlated.
So what we’re looking at when you create a portfolio is what we call negative correlation, which means if you have something going down, you have conversely something going up. That’s how you try to build portfolios. We have a call here, Gary.
Here is Bill. Hi Bill, how are you.
Hello Bill, thanks for the call. How can we help you.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I’m 65 and my wife’s 61. We’ll both be — our birthdays are in October, so I’ll be 66, she’ll be 62 in October. My question is <Inaudible> they changed something about Social Security. What’s the best way to file now to get the most for your money. Is there a scheme.
Well Bill, I wish you had been born about six months earlier. So one of the things that might be helpful to our listeners is that the strategy of filing and suspending only applies now for folks who are 66 years as of, what is it, May 1st or May 2nd, I always <Inaudible>
1st.
The 1st, okay. So unfortunately where you’re going to be 66 in October of 2016, is that correct, Bill.
Yes.
Okay, so you would not have that as a strategy. One of the things that I would mention to you and to actually all of our listeners is we have a great software package that I’m happy that Joe purchased for our office that helps us input your information and your wife’s information, and it spits out about 20 pages of different filing strategies. Because what we would want to know, Bill, is — and I don’t want you to know this on air, but we’d want to know if there are any health issues that either yourself or your wife have currently that might impact your life expectancy. We’d also want to know your need for current income. And if you don’t need the current income, what would you do with that money. Would you be investing it, would it be in a bank account earning the 0.1% we referred to, or would you be putting it in a diversified portfolio, maybe earning 5%, 6%. So there are a lot of questions. There’s no real magic bullet. Obviously for each year, Bill, that you defer taking Social Security, your benefits will rise about 8% per year. So were you the primary earner in your family, Bill. Are your benefits going to be higher than your wife’s.
Yes. My wife is retired due to health issues.
Okay. So one thing to think about as well is a spousal benefit. By you deferring until age 70 and maximizing the total amount, your spouse would qualify for that higher amount should you predecease her. But I would encourage you to holler at us at the office, we’ll be happy to plug in your info and talk to you about your specifics and see if we can help you out.
Just go to our website Bill, that’s financialgroup.com, financialgroup.com, and you can get the information right there.
Here’s the telephone number if you’d like to join us right now. It’s 844-220-0965, 844-220-0965. Or you can text us at 21232, 21232. If you wanted to call the Certified Financial Group during the week, that number is 407-869-9800, 407-869-9800. But Joe mentioned the website, and that’s probably the best way is www.financialgroup.com. I still don’t know how you scored that, it’s a cool address.
You know, when the Internet was invented, Al Gore gave me a tip and he said —
Gore was invented there —
That’s right. He said young man, I see something on on the horizon that you ought to latch on to, and that’s what we did.
Www.financialgroup.com. You beat everybody in the world with that one. Speaking of the website, I’m on the website and I’m looking at the workshops. Gary, didn’t you just have a countdown to retirement workshop.
We did.
How did that come out.
It was very well attended and I think everybody enjoyed it.
When’s your next one.
The next countdown to retirement workshop is on March 8th, a Tuesday evening from 6:00 to 8:00. We also have a few other workshops I’ll mention. Denise and Nancy in our office will be hosting Thursday, January 28th, so just <Inaudible> this week, that’s right, a Social Security bootcamp. So Bill, if you happen to still be listening, that would be an excellent workshop. For those of you who are confused about the new Social Security changes, we would encourage you to come. That’s around 6:00 to 7:30 this Thursday coming.
Once again, these are always free. We hold them in our classroom there in Altamonte Springs just off of 434 on Douglas Avenue. We can accommodate about 30 folks with state of the art audio/visual equipment. We’ll give you some light refreshments. Leave your checkbook at home, we’re not going to be trying to sell you something. We do it frankly for two reasons: one, to give you information to hopefully teach you things that you need to know so you don’t make those mistakes as we see oftentimes folks make. And secondly, to introduce you to our firm, as what we do as fee based planners, and this way whether you need financial planning now or sometime in the future, perhaps you’d give us an opportunity to earn your business.
What is a fee based planner.
That means that we’re not compensated. When we do planning, we charge a fee for our services. When we do investment management, we charge a fee for our services. We’re not brokers, which means we’re not compensated by buying and selling <Inaudible>
You mean you don’t have a salesman of the month behind you <Inaudible> wall —
No, we don’t have any plaques or anything.
Okay, so you’re not trying to twist anybody’s arm.
No, I mean we learned a long time ago that in this industry, you can only serve one master, and that has to be your client.
Well and Kirk, I think the reason why Joe likes to emphasize the word independent when we first start out is we do not have to sell a certain family of funds. I was on a 401k meeting yesterday and they had an account with Voya. Of course I noticed most of the mutual funds, if not all, were Voya funds, of course. I was saying maybe there might be some better target-dates over here at T. Rowe Price, there might be some better international funds over here. So not putting Voya down at all, a good company, but we are free to pick the best funds from all the families. So I think we have about 15,000 different funds we could choose from.
Alright, here’s the telephone number if you’d like to join us: 844-220-0965. We’re going to go to Dave Wall in the News Center. When we come back, Felicita wants to talk about Social Security. You can join us and talk about any pocketbook issue you have.
Good morning, Felicita.
We’ve got to go to Dave Wall first.
Oh, okay.
844-220-0965. But I’m impressed, you picked her name up quickly.
In a recent survey, 40% of Americans said they’re unsure if they’ll have enough money to last them through retirement. For nearly 40 years, certified financial planner professionals at Certified Financial Group have been providing retirement planning and investment advice for a fee. And because they’re working on your behalf for a fee, they won’t try and tell you something. Get a complimentary consultation by calling 407-869-9800 or 1-800-EXECUTE. Certified Financial Group, where they’re planning tomorrow today. Online at financialgroup.com. Fee based planning and investment management from certified financial planning —
Get in the car and listen in your car everywhere you go. This is where Orlando turns first for breaking news, weather and traffic, News 96.5, WDBO.
Thank you for starting your Saturday off with On the Money with the Certified Financial Group. My name is Kirk and with us in the studio, certified financial planning professional Gary Abley and the Oracle of Orlando, CFP, Joe Bert.
Here we are.
Stop disco dancing.
Here we go.
Felicita is on the phone. Let me give you that telephone number, folks: 844-220-0965. Give us a ring if you’d like to talk about any pocketbook issue you may have. Felicita, go ahead.
Good morning, thank you for taking my call.
Good morning.
I <Inaudible> applied for Social Security <Inaudible> in September.
Felicita, you’re breaking up. Could you go a little bit slower here. Are you on a cell phone.
Yes, I’m on a cell phone.
Okay. Go a little slower here, start at the beginning.
I applied for Social Security at 62.
Okay.
That was three months ago. Then what I needed to know was if I make more money — I didn’t know if there was a cap of how much money I could make, 15,000 something.
Yes.
And I’m in real estate, so I don’t know how much I’m going to make.
Yes.
Is this something I can suspend.
Yes, yes. You can stop your Social Security payments.
And am I affected by these new change in the rules.
No, you’re not affected there, right.
Well, <Inaudible> you are eligible to do what’s called a restricted application if you are married, but you would not be eligible for the file and suspend, because that again is by age 66. But one thing I would mention to you is yes, your Social Security will be reduced for income above that amount, but it’s not —
<Inaudible>
It’s suspended, meaning you will get that money back that was reduced later on when you’re not working. So it’s not such a bad deal, I think it gets a bad wrap from a lot of planners. So my advice is if you need the money keep taking it, and yes it’ll be reduced, but it’s not a permanent reduction. You’ll get that money back that’s being reduced at a later point.
Okay, because they said — I took a look at it and since it’s real estate that I do, you have to — it’s what you earn after deduction. So it’s really something that I won’t know until later in the year.
That’s right. And as Joe mentioned, you can always stop taking Social Security benefits, delay those.
Alright, let’s take another call here before we have to go to Dave Wall in the News Center here. This is Jen in Lake Helen. Good morning, Jen.
Hello, Jen.
Hi, good morning.
Thanks for your call. How can we help you.
I have a question for my father. He’s retired from working for the city for many years, and now as he retired <Inaudible> the State of Massachusetts, they took 60% of his Social Security, and he needs to know how can he get that back now that he’s living here in Florida.
You mean Taxachusetts.
Oh my.
So the good news is when he files his tax return, it will be very, very important for his preparer to know exactly when he became a Florida resident. Because Massachusetts wants to get their hands on those and all taxable income that he had earned while a resident of Massachusetts. So if he were say a resident part of the year, maybe 1/5 of the year, then Massachusetts is going to want a pro-rated amount of the taxes on his taxable income. Now the 60% sounded like an odd number to me for withholding, so I think there might be a misunderstanding there. But feel free to call our office and I’d be happy to help you out and look at that situation.
Telephone number for Gary Abley at the Certified Financial Group is 407-869-9800. Jen, give him a call on Monday, he’ll be happy to help you out with that. That’s the kind of guys you have and gals I should say, if that doesn’t sound too sexist, Joe. But you have such a nice team over there.
We do have a nice team.
I’m really impressed.
I am, too.
We <Inaudible> too. We’re all friendly to one another.
I know you guys and there’s not a bad bone over there, you know what I mean.
Well, the interesting thing, and in fact I was reflecting on this the other day with a client, that we’ve had people with us now for 25, 30 years. We have tremendous longevity in our company, and that says an awful lot about all the people that — it’s a group that works together cohesively to help our clients, and that’s a nice thing to do.
Let’s get to Dave Wall in the News Center. When we come back, we’re going to tell you a little about the shredding event that’s coming up.
Yes, it’s an Ask the Expert weekend on News 96.5 WDBO <sp?>. My name is Kirk and I am proud to be sitting across from long-time friend and confidant, man about town, bon vivant, Joe Burt, the oracle of Orlando. I just made all that up, by the way.
It sounded good.
It did sound good.
And also <Inaudible>.
Gary <Inaudible>, CPA, CAB <sp?>, AIF <sp?>.
Yeah, CPA is <Inaudible> makes you guys <Inaudible>. The Certified Financial Group in Altamont Springs, and it’s Gary Abley, and both of these gentlemen are certified financial planning professionals, as are all of the members at Certified Financial Group, central Florida’s oldest and largest independent firm of certified financial planners, and you can join us right now. Here’s the telephone number: 844-220-0965. Or text us from your mobile device: 21232. I just had that text; what did I do with it?
It’s here.
Okay, wait a minute. Hold on.
Are donations to presidential candidates deductible?
No, because — yeah, donations are only for 501(c)(3) charitable organizations, and they are not deductible for political candidates. Then the next part of that question, is there a maximum amount an individual can donate. And the answer is yes, to an individual candidate, it is $2,700 per election. And to a pack <?> you can make it 5,000. To a state, district, or local party <Inaudible> it’s 10,000 per year.
So that’s the answer.
Here’s another one. I’m always confused as to how you guys assess your compensation from clients. Can you expound?
How we assess it?
Yes.
Well, one of two ways. It depends on what we’re doing. If we’re doing a financial plan for a client, the process is we will meet with you and then we will determine how complex or straightforward your situation is. At the end of that meeting we will tell you exactly what our fee is to do the planning for you, and the planning is a detailed analysis of where you are today with your assets, your income, and what your future income will be from Social Security, any pensions that you might have, and what is it going to take to fill that gap, and what do you need to do now to be prepared to fill that gap. And once again, we will tell you what that fee is to do that detailed analysis for you. The second thing that we do for our clients is what we call investment management or wealth management, where we will develop an investment portfolio for you using mutual funds, no load, no commission, no transaction fee mutual funds, and the mutual funds are not <Inaudible> with our firm. By that, I mean if our firm disappears tomorrow in a sinkhole or we blow away, we’re not here, your money is never with our firm. Your money will be with either one of two major custodians, either Fidelity or TD Ameritrade. You will get a confirmation every month directly from them so you know your money is there. You can see your money online 24/7 on the Internet, and the most important thing that you receive from us every 90 days is a detailed analysis as to how your portfolio is doing and we grade every investment that you have, we score it, and determine whether or not we want to keep it. If there’s a reason to make a change, we’ll tell you why we’re going to make that change. When we make that change, once again there’s never any cost or transaction fee associated with it. So our way of keeping your portfolio in balance, in line, and in tune with what’s going on in today’s world. So that’s how we get paid. And our clients will have their accounts debited. Depending on the size of the account, we will debit your account on a quarterly basis, and that’s how we do it.
Just one thing to add to that, Joe. There are transaction fees charged by Fidelity or TD Ameritrade. So, for example Fidelity would charge you a transaction fee <Inaudible> right, there are some funds <Inaudible> but they’re all low cost, like $7.95.
But none of that comes through us. So we’re not motivated, incentivised to have transaction fees, and we don’t get paid for that.
Guys, I had a call from a nice lady while you were on and she asked about keeping things, retaining things that — let’s say the Certified Financial Group sends out statements, what, on a quarterly basis. How long should your clients retain those quarterly statements?
They don’t need to retain them at all, because we have records of them, and they don’t need to keep them at all. So we send them a copy.
So they don’t have to hang onto that paper?
No. The only reason people would hang onto stuff is for tax purposes.
That’s right. And now that is a good question. Now, for tax purposes, the statute of limitations generally — with taxes, you have to say generally — is three years, but if somebody omitted more than 25% of income on their tax return, then the statute of limitations is much longer. And if certain forms are not filed, there is no statute of limitations. So it really depends on the compliance of the particular tax payer, how long they have to worry about it. We recommend keeping tax records permanently, tax returns permanently.
So are you telling me I should hang onto everything that you send me, for tax reasons?
No, no, no, no, no. We’re talking about W-2s, 1099, that kind of stuff.
And Gary says your tax returns three years —
No, indefinitely.
I think it’s important, because if you had a divorce or something like that and you’re looking for history, it’s good to keep your tax returns permanently, but you don’t need all of the back-up for the tax returns, simply because if you ever request a copy you will have to pay for that copy from the Internal Revenue Service.
Okay, now there’s your answer. Throw it away.
You know what? I can be a pack rat. I save all of this stuff, all of the invitations to credit cards and everything that’s sent to me and I’m so afraid of throwing away, that they’re going to get into the hands of all these —
Shred it! Shred it!
Where can I go? How much does it cost to take it to these places to shred?
You know, I don’t know the answer to that, but I imagine it’s quite costly. But we have an upcoming shredding event, and it’s going to be April 16. Joe, what time is it? Do you know?
It’s going to start at I believe 10:00, 10:00 to noon. It’s on a Saturday morning in our office in Altamont Springs. You can bring — what do we —
I think we do two boxes.
Two banker’s boxes.
Of stuff. There’s absolutely no cost, no charge, no admittance. Please get rid of the paperclips and the binders —
You actually —
And the other <Inaudible>.
We have a commercial shredding company. You’ll see it shredded right before your eyes, chopped up in little bits and pieces. To get more information, go to our website, that’s financialgroup.com, and click on the shredding <Inaudible>.
You know the only bad part about that is that I’ve — I think the last, what, 10 years that you’ve been doing this — is I’ve been stuck here in the studio and I can’t get over there with my stuff. So all my stuff is still in my closet.
I’ll tell you what. Bring your stuff the preceding week and I’ll shred it for you.
All right, it’s 9:45 and Dave Wall is in the News 96.5 News Center and he’s coming up with the top stories shortly. I imagine one of them being that crippling blizzard up north. And if you are thinking about heading up there — better you than us, right guys? You might want to check on our website to see if your flight is on time or if it’s canceled. Just go to the website, news965.com, and hit the traffic tab, and you can check on your flight, or all flights as a matter of fact, to see if anything is late or canceled or whatever. Let’s go to GI Joe in Lake Mary. Good morning. Thanks for the call.
Hey, good morning guys, how are you?
Great, how can we help you?
First of all, let me tell you, there is a shred-a-thon that is free January 30 from 9:00am to 1:00pm in Lake Mary at 400 Rhinehardt Road. They do this about every year. I just thought I’d pass it on, because I heard that from the previous caller.
Thank you. Once again, where is that?
It’s 400 Rhinehardt Road, January 30, 9:00am to 1:00pm, and it’s free.
Who hosts that?
I’m not sure, my wife found out about it. So every year we find out about it, we take all of our stuff in there and —
What day is that on, do you know?
January 30 would be a —
Maybe I can make that one.
It’s a week from today.
How can we help you?
Go ahead, sir.
Okay, first of all, I enjoy your show and I appreciate your taking my call.
Thank you.
My wife and I are both 69, we’re both retired. We’re living off of pensions that each of us have accumulated during our career. We’re also living off of savings we have saved over the years, and so what we need that is not provided in pensions we withdraw from savings so much a month. A year ago my wife had a stroke. She’s in need of home health care aids. I’m a veteran and I understand the VA has got a program called aid and attendance. I’ve talked to the VA rep, well actually a guy that manages this program. He’s a private contractor, he’s not a VA employee. He’s looked at my financial situation and says that I have too much in savings to qualify, and he suggested taking most of the savings that I have and putting it in an irrevocable trust. Not quite sure what an irrevocable trust is, but I’m wondering if there’s a way to put most of my savings into an irrevocable trust and still be able to withdraw the money that I need to withdraw from it to — as retirement income.
Well an irrevocable trust by definition means that you give up control. Once it’s put in there, you can’t have access to it. It means you’re giving up the assets. So that’s what — now, your ability to withdraw from that is going to be a function of the trust document itself, and I am not sure that an irrevocable trust can be set up to allow you to withdraw income. Now it might be — you can — I can tell you this. Let me back up. You can — here’s what you do. Here’s how you do it. You can use what’s called a charitable trust.
What sort of trust again?
A charitable trust.
Charitable?
Charitable.
Charitable.
Charitable.
As in charity, okay?
Uh-huh.
With a charitable trust, what you do is you designate some charity that you want to leave your money to upon your demise. In exchange, when you do that, the charity will then pay you an income for your lifetime and/or your lifetime and your spouse’s.
Okay.
And depending on your own personal financial situation, that may be an attractive option for you. Now you don’t get 100% tax deduction for what you put in the irrevocable trust, because you’re getting something in exchange. It’s not like writing a check for $10,000 to your church and you get a $10,000 tax deduction. If you put $10,000 in a charitable trust, the amount of the deduction is going to be a function of your age and the amount of income that you draw from it. There’s calculations we can help you with that, tell you how much you’d be able to get, but that would be an answer, that may be an answer. Your going to have ask your friend here if income enters into this equation. Now if you say it’s just assets, that one thing, but income could be something else that you may want to —
He said that there’s certain things that did not have to go into the trust, like my house, my cars, the assets in my house. He’s mostly talking about the money <Inaudible>.
Liquid assets, sure. <Inaudible> if you’ve got $1M sitting in the bank, the VA’s going to step up and pay your bills. I understand that. But then the other side of the coin is if you’ve got $1M in a charitable trust throwing off, say, $70,000 a year, you might be over a threshold amount that might <Inaudible> so that might be an option for you.
Joe? Joe? Joe and Joe, I’ve got to interrupt you two, and Gary. Stand by. I’ve got to get to Dave Wall in the news center. Let me give out the number if you’d like to join us in our last segment here this morning. It’s 844-220-0965. Your last chance this morning to talk with Joe Burt and Gary Abley from the Certified Financial Group. 844-220-0965. We have a couple of texts as well to get to.
WDBO FM, Orlando’s 24-hour news, weather, and traffic, is News 96.5, powered by <Inaudible> Window Solutions.
Hey, we want to circle back to GI Joe. Totally slipped my mind. Got a text from Aaron. We have an attorney that works through our office, Joni Murphy, who’s very conversant in VA benefits. So, GI Joe, if you’re still out there, give me a call on Monday and I’ll put you in touch with her. Just call our office or go to our website, financialgroup.com. Our office number: 407-869-9800.
Okay, about legal documents, David called. Said he scans them and saves them to his computer and puts them in a flash drive <Inaudible>. Let’s talk to Renee in Orlando.
Good morning, Renee.
Good morning. I’m just trying to get a little bit of direction here. I’m just now starting to get serious about things in retirement. I’ll be turning 50 this year and I have about $3,500 per month that I can put towards <Inaudible> vehicles.
Good for you.
I wanted to know what are the best options, what should I do that’s going to have the best return for me.
Are you employed?
I’m self-employed.
You’re self-employed. The good news for you is you can set up your SIMPLE 401(k) plan.
A SEP.
A SEP is a simplified employee pension, or a solo 401(k), with a profit-sharing match to it, you could put about $52,000 a year in that. You’ve got 3,500. That’s $42,000 a year. You’re right there, you can get a <Inaudible> tax deduction right from <Inaudible>.
Where does Renee go to get more information?
Call Gary Monday morning. Is this something you fellows <?> do?
We do it all the time.
Renee, did you hear that?
Call Gary.
Okay. I think that’s all you need to do. You can get started on this Monday.
Okay. Alrighty.
But to answer your question, too, Renee, where should you put it to get the best rate of return. I think Joe and I, we both have crystal balls in our office, but I don’t know that they work, especially —
My batteries just died.
His battery died, and mine, every time I rub it — so there really isn’t — we have this chart I call the quilt that we like to show folks in our first appointment with them that shows how each major asset category performed over the last 20 years, and it’s color coded so that you can see how large cap stocks have done over the last 20 years and whether they’re the top asset class or whether they’re the bottom asset class in a particular year. And so the key to success in a portfolio in terms of maximizing a return and reducing volatility is what we had mentioned earlier, which is getting assets that don’t correlate quite a while, and covering all the asset categories. In other words a diversified portfolio is what we would suggest for you. <Inaudible> mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.
But you want to save that money into a retirement plan because you get a tax deduction <Inaudible>.
For Renee and anybody else’s edification, how do they reach you?
Go on the website, financialgroup.com.
And there’s phone numbers there and everything. You can even see pictures of how Joe has not aged in 20 years <?>.
<Inaudible> because he doesn’t change his picture.
Stay tuned for Dave Wall in the news center with the top stories, a look at traffic and the weather forecast. And then it’s Florida homes and gardens. It’s all part of your ask the expert weekend, here on News 96.5 WDBO.