Hosts: Aaron Bert, CFP®, AIF® and Joe Bert, CFP®, AIF®
It’s an Ask the Expert Saturday morning on WDBO and it’s good to have you with us. This is On the Money brought to you by Orlando’s oldest and largest —
Independent.
Independent.
— firm.
A little slower.
Sorry.
Of certified financial planning professionals. That being the Certified Financial Group in Altamonte Springs. And with us this morning we have two of the twelve certified financial planning pros. With us, the Oracle of Orlando is back, Joe Bert. And also Aaron Bert is in the studio with us today. How are you gentlemen doing?
Doing great.
Good.
Good morning.
Thanks.
Nice to see you both in here.
Nice to be seen.
Hey, Joe, in case anybody’s new to the program, tell everybody what do you all take calls about?
Aaron and I are here this morning to clear up the mind fog that you might have regarding your personal finances. As we say in our commercials that we run here on DBO, unfortunately our school system has failed us when it comes to teaching us how to save and invest for our financial future because the reality is at some point in time the paychecks will stop and what you will have to live on is your Social Security plus whatever you’ve been able to save over your working lifetime. And so we’re here to answer those questions as to what you do now so you don’t look back five or ten years from now and say gee, I wish I’d have known or gee I’m sorry I did. And just call us with any questions that you might have regarding your personal finances as they revolve around stocks, and bonds, and decisions that you might make on mutual funds and IRAs, 401(k)s, annuities, reverse mortgages, life insurance, all that and more. Aaron and I are here to take your call and we’re trying something different this morning. We’re broadcasting live on Facebook. So, if — how do they see that, Aaron? How do they find us?
Go to our Facebook page.
Which is?
Which is to Facebook. Certified Financial Group will come up, and then you’ll see our live Facebook stream.
There you go. So, if anybody is watching other than the wonderful colleagues from our office give us a call in and let us know what you think because we’re experimenting here in the age of technology. We have a state of the art system.
And if you’d like to join the program —
Yes.
And call and ask a question of the Bert brothers, here’s the telephone number to call. It’s 844-220-0965. 844-220-0965. And you can also text us from your mobile device as long as it’s not real long. We have a limited number of characters we can use, so make it a quick question. At the number 21232. 21232. And if you’re so inclined to make your voice heard and you want to ask a question via the open mic, you can do that. You’ll find the open mic on the News 96.5 app. The Oracle of Orlando is back in the studio with us this week. We’re going to talk about some retirement myths and how apropos this is, Aaron. Some affordable Olympic sports for kids. No such thing.
Well, it sounds like it’s a timely topic, so I think we’ll get to that here as the morning goes on.
Can I ask you a personal question, gentlemen?
Sure.
What has been your favorite part of the Olympics so far?
I haven’t watched them.
Really?
I’m not an Olympics fan.
No kidding.
No. Yeah, even as a kid. I mean, I watch a little bit, but I’m not — I’m not an Olympics fan. I’m more into football and baseball and American —
I watch the track and field. The races are always fun.
Are your kids watching them, Aaron.
My kids go to bed kind of early, so — a lot of the races have been on later. The prime time coverage has been on late, starting 8:00. The real good races are at 9:30. My children are in bed by then. Some of them like the 100 meter final. I recorded it and I showed it to them. I think stuff like that is exciting, seeing people run that fast.
Hey.
We watched some of the diving and swimming too. That was always a good part.
My favorite part was Lorenzo the dancing horse.
There you go.
He danced to Santana’s Smooth. Alright, the number again is 844-220-0965. Do you gentlemen have anything going on this weekend? Any workshops or anything like that?
No, we don’t. We have some coming up.
We have got a — I know a — Nancy’s doing one and Gary’s got one scheduled. And Aaron’s going to pull up the —
<Inaudible> real quick.
Pull up the schedule for us. And once again, folks, we do these workshops at our office in Altamonte Springs. There’s absolutely no charge for them. As we say, leave your checkbook at home. We’ll be glad to answer questions that you might have regarding our topics or anything else that’s on your mind regarding your personal finances. We hold them in our classroom at CFG so we don’t cramp you in some little tiny conference room.
So, we basically run four different workshops. Financial Basics for Life is run by Gary Abley, but the next one for that is September 27th in our office and Gary talks about financial basics geared towards a younger crowd. So, that’s more of your late teens, early 20s types of crowd.
The ones that really need it.
Well, actually everybody needs it.
Everybody needs it, but that was originally who it was geared towards. But actually, we’ve been seeing older and older people come into those types of workshops because they want the education. The next Social Security workshop scheduled by Nancy and Denise is October 20th. Again, that’s in our office. And then we have a couple of Countdown to Retirement and When Can you Retire? So, Gary hosts on October 25th When Can I Retire? and then Countdown to Retirement is — the next one is November 8th.
So, they’re on our website.
Yeah.
Financialgroup.com.
Financialgroup.com. And we’ll tell you more about it, and who’s more inclined, and who’s best for these workshops as the show goes on. But, let’s get to the phones and talk to Norma first. Here’s Norma. Good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning, Norma, thank you for calling. How can we help you?
I have a question. My husband has bought Chico stock. Are you familiar with Chico stock?
Yes I am.
Alright, Chico sold out to a Canadian company.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, they said that I had no options, I could not re-buy the stock and that they paid it off. Now, do I have to — I reinvested it. Do I have to pay capital gains on it since I — there was money made?
Yes you do.
I do have to?
You had a profit in the stock. Even though you were forced to sell it?
Yes.
Yes, you had a gain in it. It wasn’t in a retirement account, I presume?
No, it was just separate stock.
Yes, you’ll have to pay taxes on that gain. The good news is —
Well, I have a —
Yes, go ahead.
I have a question then too. If it was in joint, do I have to pay — my husband passed away — do I have to pay on the full amount or what?
Ah, good question. What you get is what’s called a step-up in basis. So, if it was in joint — so you get a — so, when he passed away, whatever the value was, half of the value is now stepped up, so you would only pay taxes on the difference between the step-up and your portion on the original cost basis. So, you’ll need to do some calculations, but you may get to catch a little bit of break there depending on what the value was and when he passed away.
So, you need to know exactly the value was at the time he passed away?
Exactly.
Okay. And how do you find that because I don’t remember.
You can oftentimes find it online or contact the brokerage firm. They should be able to help you there. Do you own the stock certificates? Or actually, you were paid off, that’s right.
I did own them and then I put them into my — I put them in with Edward Jones and I had them so that my kids would be beneficiaries. And then Edward Jones contacted me and said that they had sold — that Chico had recalled the stock and sold it to a Canadian company.
So, what you want to do — Edward Jones should be able to help you with that information. What you want to find out is the value at your husband’s death and then you’ll get a step-up on half the share value so your taxes may be minimized. Or contact Edward Jones, they should be able to get you the price. And if you have a decent relationship there they may be even able to help you with the calculation.
It’s 9:15, quarter past 9:00, on WDBO. Dave Wall is in the News Center keeping an eye on things. He’s coming up in about five minutes with the top three stories we’re keeping an eye on. There’s a new Zika hot zone down in Miami Beach and tourists are smack dab in the middle of it. And he’ll tell you if this weekend’s weather forecast is going to rain on your picnic. Joe Burt is in the studio, the Oracle of Orlando, along with Aaron Burt. Both of these gentleman are certified financial planning professionals with Certified Financial Group in Altamonte Springs. Your phone call is welcome right now at 844-220-0965. If you want to talk about your 401k, what do you do with it when you change jobs, IRAs, mutual funds, long-term health care, real estate, annuities, reverse mortgages. 844-220-0965. You can also text us at 21232. Aaron, we were talking before the program. You’ve got some really wild retirement myths.
Well yeah. So, we — the myths that we ended up coming up with because what we see a lot of times is when they come to do financial planning with us they have preconceptions about what that’s going to look like for them in retirement. So, I found an article recently — because we scour the Internet constantly for articles — and really this captured some of the common myths that we hear people talk about and so I thought I would bring some of these to the show. And the first myth that really came up is that people assume in retirement or as they get older that they can always keep working, that there will be employment for them. Unfortunately what ends up happening is as people get older either their skills diminish or they can’t always find work. So, people use the excuse that I can always keep working as an excuse to not save for retirement. So that’s a myth that we always seem to run into.
Another one is that people assume that they’re not going to live very long, but what we’re seeing is that with modern technology — modern medicine — we’re able to keep people alive a lot longer. I think the statistics are showing that if you’re going to — if a couple — two people live to be in their 60s, that at least one of them is going to live to be in their 90s. So, people need to be planning for that increased longevity in their —
So, like if your mom or dad lived into their 90s, chances are pretty good you will as well.
Assuming that you didn’t go off the tracks in your early years and pay the price health-wise.
Oh, you mean the LSD crap back in the 60s.
Catch up with you <Inaudible>.
Another myth is that people assume that during retirement they can sit back, relax, and enjoy life. But like we just mentioned is that health care, yes, is able to keep people alive longer, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re going to have a high quality of life and that they’re not going to have medical issues. So, you need to plan accordingly for those medical issues because that’s going to be some of the biggest expenses that people have in retirement. That’s why long-term care has been getting more and more — is getting more and more attractive to people, people are becoming more and more interested in it, but people are using it more which is why the premiums on some of those policies have been increasing. So, that’s something that people need to look at if they can afford it and long-term care because you are going to have medical issues as you get older, you need to find ways to fund those.
A lot of people think that Medicare is going to cover your long-term health care costs.
Doesn’t it?
It does not.
It covers like 90 days of it.
However, however.
Right.
It will only cover you if you’re coming out of a hospital and you were admitted to the hospital. And today many hospitals even though you’re in the hospital, you’re under what’s called observation. Which means that you may be there, you’re just — like the patience right next to you has been admitted and you’re in the bed, been there for two or three days. You’re not admitted. You’re under observation and in that case you can’t qualify for the 90 days in assisted <Inaudible>
And that is kind of like rehab after the hospital.
That’s correct.
But if you’re not admitted, this is <Inaudible> skating by.
You’ve got it. You’ve got it.
It’s been out there for awhile, but it’s getting more and more attention because the Baby Boomers are using the hospitals and they’re being pushed out to the curb and now where do we go? Well, you have to go home because if you can’t afford the nursing home, that’s where you’re going. You’re going home.
The answer is long-term health care, isn’t it?
If you have it, that’s correct.
The other myths are that you will move in retirement. A lot of people assume that when they retire they’re going to move either to Florida or Arizona. This one’s probably not as applicable here because we live in Florida, but what they’ve been finding is 83% of people who actually retire don’t want to move. So, when the time actually comes to — because when you retire you want to be with your friends, you want to be with your community. You don’t want to uproot yourself and start all over. They also found that most people don’t want to rent either. A lot of people think ah, I’ll just rent in retirement, I don’t need a home. Well, people don’t want to rent. They still want to own even though they’re in that fixed income stage of their life. Other myths are that your pension will provide a comfortable retirement. What we see with pensions is that most of them now don’t have cost of living adjustments. So, you need to be able to account for that in inflation so that pension is not going to be able to cover —
We’ve got some more of these myths coming up.
We’ve got a couple more.
Assuming you don’t abuse your body, huh Joe?
That’s it?
You mean like David Crosby, and Ozzy Osborne, and Jerry Lee Lewis, and that crowd?
Jerry Lee is still around.
He is.
Yeah.
Boy, if anybody.
Yeah.
Hey, you’re going to need some bumper music. Pull up old Jerry.
Dave Wall is in the News Center. We’re going to go to him right now. When we come back, should you tap your 401k to buy your first home? We’ll ask that question and we’ll take your call at 844-220-0965. It’s an Ask the Expert Saturday morning on WDBO and this is On the Money brought to you by the Certified Financial Group. In the studio, Aaron Burt along with Joe Burt. Both of these gentlemen are taking your phone calls. Aaron, what are you taking calls about here?
We are here to talk about anything having to do with your personal finances generally revolving around your investments; mutual funds, stocks, annuities, bonds, real estate, long-term health care, Social Security, mortgages, home purchases, all that and more. So, fortunately for you our lines are —
<Background Noise> wide open, so if you ever wanted to talk to the show, this is your opportunity. Just pick up the phone and dial.
844-220-0965. Come on now, 844-220-0965. Or text us at 21232. 21232. You don’t want to wait until the very end of the program like a lot of people do.
And you don’t even need to use your real name. Just call and say hello and let us know what’s on your mind, what’s been bugging you, what you heard, rumors, all this kind of stuff. We are here to clear up the mind fog about the personal finances.
I like how you say no question is off limits.
No.
You’ve heard them all.
I’ll tell you.
That and then some.
Nothing is embarrassing or anything like that?
No, not at all.
Okay, again 844-220-0965. Oh, I was on your website this morning and this week’s must read is quite interesting. Should you tap your 401k to buy your first home?
I suggest you go to our website and get the answer. It all depends.
It’s something that I did and it worked out pretty well.
Well, in some cases it does. Certainly, what you don’t want to do is cash it out because you have to pay taxes and then times the penalty on top of that and you’re going to take a haircut maybe on up to 50%. That’s very, very expensive money. What you may want to consider is borrowing form your 401k. You can borrow the lesser of 50% of your vested interest or $50,000, and then you pay yourself back. You’re acting as your own bank. So, that might be a consideration for you. So, that’s — in some cases it makes sense, but remember if you leave the job — if you leave the job before the loan is paid back, you’re going to have to pay taxes and in some cases a penalty. So, you have to recognize that that money is yours. It’s there available for emergencies and also things like a house purchase. But, if you leave the job before the loan is paid back, you’re going to be stuck with some extra taxes that you didn’t plan on. So, that money becomes very, very expensive.
We’ve got about a minute and a half before we get to Dave Wall, but let’s see if we can squeeze in a quick call from Joe in Cocoa about his employee stock ownership plan here.
Hello Joe.
Good morning, Joe.
Good morning.
Good morning, guys. Yeah, I’m no longer employed with an employee owned home-builder company and I — they contributed to stock, the employee stock, the ESOP program.
Right.
And actually I was laid off in 2010 when things really hit the bottom and I was told that I had to wait six years before I could access that stock.
Okay.
And so I’m coming up on six years in December. I’m over 59 and a half, and we get a statement over year and the stock’s been doing pretty decent, like 11% growth a year, but in December I don’t have to take it out. I can take some, or part, and I think I can only take it out a year. If maybe you could educate — but once a year if you could educate me on that. I’m trying to get an idea of what my options would be.
I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to come back after Dave Wall in the News Center and we’re going to answer that question, okay Joe?
It’s going to feel like Balls of Fire today.
I remember the day.
<Inaudible> oh she was good.
You’re dating yourself.
Well, that’s alright. That’s rock and roll, man.
It’s going to feel like Great Balls of Fire today. Our meteorologist says it’s going to get up above 100 — feels like 102 or 105. Something like that. But, it’s going to be more of a humid type heat, do you know what I mean?
I understand.
Wet heat.
I’ve been there.
Wet heat. This is great for the old back, you know?
Anyway, we’ve got to get back to Joe. Joe, you there, Joe?
I still am.
Okay. Would you please be kind enough to re-state your question?
Now, Joe’s got this ESOP and he’s got his options here.
Yeah, so back in 2010, I was finally laid off the company got so small, but at least they didn’t go bankrupt and so the ESOP is still in play and coming up on six years in December when — that’s when I’ll be allowed to take some or all of it.
Right.
And I’ve been getting statements every year from the company and I think the last two years the stock has gone up around 10%, which is a pretty decent return. But But there was always a chance where something can tank or something can go wrong in the company, and I’d be out all of it.
Exactly. Well, what’s your question?
I’m over 59 and a half. If I decided — with the information I gave you guys — if I decided to take some of it, would a traditional IRA or a Roth IRA be the right route?
Okay, first of all for our listeners who might not be familiar with what an ESOP is, it’s an employee stock ownership plan. So, many small to mid size companies allow their — in fact, Publix is nice. I shouldn’t say small. Publix is an employee stock ownership plan company, employee owned company. So, you have as an employee — you are an owner in a company and over time you acquired instead of a 401k or a pension plan, your company had an ESOP plan and gave you ownership in the company. And you had to wait six years to get your funds out, and now we are coming up on the six years, and you want to know should you take it all out? Should you roll it to an IRA? what should you do? Here’s the risk that you run. Any time you own an individual stock, particularly in a small go, it’s a high risk, high reward proposition. So, you mentioned that the last couple years it’s done well and certainly the construction business has done well in the last couple years, but just roll it back to 2008, 2009, and 2010 when you got laid off, you can have a lot of your net worth in that stock disappear. So, my recommendation would be for safety purposes is to cash it out, roll it to an IRA, and then take it out as you need it.
Mm-hmm. Would that be a traditional IRA?
Well, depending on your tax bracket, I would recommend that you roll it to a traditional IRA because you’ll take a haircut right off the top of anywhere from 10% to 40%. How much money are we talked about, Joe?
Okay, well we’re talking about probably 45,000. My total family income is around 50,000, but only about 22 is earned income.
Okay, the rest of it is, what? Social Security?
Is retirement and Social Security.
Well, retirement is taxable to you, and so is Social Security taxable to you.
Well, I mean it’s — yeah, my Air Force retirement is taxable, yeah.
Are you married?
But, it’s not earned income.
I understand, but it’s still taxable so it can affect your tax bracket. Are you married?
Yes. It’s just me and my wife in the total household and, like I said — so, the taxable — well, it’s all taxable because my wife gets Social Security. So, that’s taxable as well. So, total income is about 50.
Then you’ve got your deductions after that. Do you file a standard deduction or do you itemize?
Standard.
Okay, you’re going to be probably in about a 15% tax bracket if you add the $45,000 to it, so you’re going to take a 15% haircut right off the top.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, it might be better just the traditional —
If you don’t need the money, I would continue the deferral on the taxes, get it diversified for yourself, and draw it out as you need it from your IRA account. But, my concern is having your money in stock. I don’t care what the stock is, anytime you do that it’s a high risk, high reward proposition.
Sure. Alright.
Alright, Joe.
Thanks for your help.
You’re welcome. Good luck to you. Thank you.
And if you’re just joining us, you’re listening to On the Money brought to you by the Certified Financial Group and they are Orlando’s oldest and largest —
Independent.
Firm of certified financial planning professionals. And you can join Joe and Aaron Burt right now. Here’s the number. 844-220-0965. Let’s talk to Anne —
I’m sorry, Anne, but before we get to that if you’re so inclined as we said at the top of the show, if you want a peek inside the studio, we’re offering you the opportunity to look behind the scenes. Go to our Facebook page, Certified Financial Group, and we’re broadcasting live here and you can see what we’re doing. We don’t as yet have the audio figured out, so you’ll hear us, but we have to figure out how we can hear the callers. Anyway, and we’d like any comments that you might have, like shut it down.
People see you all the time. You’re on television on channel 35 all the time.
Sunday and Monday, tomorrow morning. Be on —
Wait a minute, what time?
8:45 tomorrow morning and 7:20 on Monday morning.
What do you talk about on channel 35?
We talk about things we talk about here on the air. We’re going to talk about that Medicare situation, about people not being eligible for going into — I shouldn’t say Medicare. What Medicare is doing — long-term care where they’re not admitting you in the hospital, but they’re putting you under observation because they’re being forced by Medicare to cut expenses.
Wow, that’s good.
Yup.
And you’ll be able to see what I’ve been saying for all these years, that this is one good looking guy.
Yeah, right. Make up. Make up, my friend. Make up.
Ha, you’re not wearing any now.
I don’t need to.
Alright, go to Facebook —
Now that we’re live —
Go to Facebook and you’ll see — and it’s in HD. Alright, let’s talk to Thomas. Good morning, Thomas.
Good morning, sir.
Good morning, Thomas. Thanks for calling. How can we help you?
Well, I have a question — a financial type question — and you guys appear to be the gurus.
Okay.
Okay, I retired a couple years back and I’m making a pretty good pension because I doubled down — while I was working I doubled down on how much I put into my pension programs.
Okay.
So, I’m making well over six figures.
Oh, that’s great.
And yeah, now what I’m finding though is that I’m being drastically penalized everywhere I turn because of my success.
Penalized by taxes you’re talking about.
Yeah.
Okay, okay. Alright.
By taxes and I’m turning 65 in September and now I find out that because of that new 2011 law, the ACA, —
Yeah.
Right.
You’re going to pay a little extra.
My — yeah. My Medicare Part B premium —
Oh, yeah. Gotcha.
It’s almost $300. And so what I’m trying to find out is there any way I can reduce my tax burden?
Well, you’re not working anymore, right? You’re fully retired?
Yes.
And all of your income is coming from pension or have you claimed Social Security yet?
Yes.
Oh, you did. Okay. Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do. You’re going to have to recognize that as income. Do you — are you getting interest or dividends outside of your pension and do you have any other outside investments.
No, before I retired I cashed in on all of my investments.
Okay.
Unfortunately, I cashed in too early on my Apple stock.
Okay.
And I sold it at $30 and then it went up to $600.
Yeah.
That was terrible.
Unfortunately, like Joe said you’re kind of stuck in the tax code. I mean, there’s really not a lot of opportunities — I mean, you could take less income. Give it away. That’s one way to start to defer taxes to get more deductions, but you’re really limited in the deductions that you can get because you don’t have an opportunity for a retirement plan, which is some of the largest deductions that you can get. Yeah, you’re — I mean, it’s a good problem to have, but you’re limited into what you can do to reduce your tax bill.
Nothing, there’s nothing I can do, just paying like they said <Inaudible>
Yeah, that’s about it. Congratulations, you’re one of the few that has prepared for their retirement because unfortunately most Americans haven’t prepared for their retirement. You did a good job and be thankful you got the income. It’s better than not having the income and not paying taxes. So, enjoy your retirement years.
Well, okay. Thank you, sir. I appreciate being able to talk to you guys.
Alright, well thanks for calling. Good luck to you.
Alright. Thank you.
Good day to you now. The number to call is 844-220-0965, 844-220-0965. I don’t know if we’ll be able to help her, but we can try. Sally in Orange City has a question about a mortgage. Go ahead, Sally.
Good morning, Sally.
Good morning. Thank you so much for your time.
How can we help you?
Well, I keep hearing about how low the interest rates are.
Yes ma’am.
I have a mortgage that we got in the year 2002 at 122, okay, and now I’m down to 64.7 and 6.875%.
Wow.
I’ve been making 13 payments a year since day one. Is it worth even thinking of refinancing?
Yes ma’am.
Okay.
Yes ma’am, you will find that you’re going to have that mortgage paid off — if you continue the level of mortgage payments that you’re making with a lower interest rate, you’ll have the mortgage paid off in three or four years, five years tops. Wow.
Yeah, so get with it.
Okay, thank you for your time.
Good luck, good luck. Yeah. 6.875 and — wow.
Yeah.
Don’t you think?
Yeah, how many years was she into the mortgage?
I don’t know, but she had like half of it paid down already <Background Noise> and she’s thinking if she continues that level of payments on a lower interest rate she’ll have it paid off in another <Inaudible>
Just make an extra payment a year. That helps a whole bunch. Harry in Longwood has two questions; one about negative interest rates and the first question, I believe, is about Medicare. Right, Harry?
Right, right. I just wanted to find out about when do you have to apply for Medicare? I heard you had to do it early.
Well, you have to apply for Medicare when you turn 65. You have to get Medicare Part A and then if you’re not covered by coverage through your employer, then you also have to apply for Medicare Part B or you will pay a penalty when you eventually do apply.
And Part D if you’re taking meds.
If you’re taking meds?
Well, Part D isn’t mandatory, but it’s the drug plan that is available through Medicare currently. It’s Medicare Part D.
Don’t you have to sign up before you’re 65 though if you’re going to get it at 65?
Yeah, a couple most before is usually when you go and sign up. You can do it online through the ssa.gov website.
Okay.
It’s relatively easy to do.
So, the key is if you’re not employed and covered by health care coverage, then you need to at least apply for A and B at the same time.
Oh, okay. So, my second question. I was talking with a banker yesterday about CD rates, which are obviously ridiculously low. And she was telling me about Europe and negative interest rates. And I said negative interest rates, you mean you have to pay to leave your money there? And she said yes.
Yep.
So, this is like — this is crazy.
It’s like the Twilight Zone, isn’t it?
She said that is absolutely crazy, let them use our money and you get nothing.
Yeah, when you go in the bank over there, you have to give them back the toaster.
Yeah, well, I mean buy a gun and put it under my mattress, but still what do you do? What’s a good alternative to a stinking bank that wants to take your money with not the fees, but negative interest rates.
Well, first of all, we don’t have that in this country. But, we have near negative interest rates near 0% or 1%. The key is —
Or 0.025 or 0.5 or something.
Right, right, right, right, right. You’ve got to remember, even the Fed — if you lend your money to the Federal government today for 10 years — okay, buy a 10 year treasury bond, 10 years guaranteed they’re going to give you 1.5% per year.
10 years.
10 years, great deal, huh?
This is a great economy, everything’s been great for eight years <Inaudible> it’s wonderful.
It’s good if you’re borrowing money, though, which is why they’ve been doing it. But, if you’re lending money or you’re trying to earn interest, it’s not such a great deal. You should only have money sitting in the bank for emergency purposes. It’s certainly no way to accumulate wealth and it’s certainly not a way to plan for retirement. You’ve got to get your money to grow so you’ve got to look at alternatives and this is what we do for our clients day in and day out, figuring out what you need for emergency and how to diversify. Yes, Kurt.
How does someone get a hold of the Certified Financial Group?
That’s easy. You can go to our website, financialgroup.com. Financialgroup.com. We have a quick — you can go on and schedule an appointment, or request an appointment. Our phone numbers are there, our e-mail addresses are there. We try to make ourselves readily available to the public so if you have any questions or need help, we are there to help you out.
Okay, we’ve got to get to Dave in the news center, but when we come back from our break here, Tom in Deland has a 401k — or a 401. I don’t know. He works for City State and I think that they’re restricting when he can cash it in and wants to know if that’s like everybody else’s 401. And Rich in Flagler Beach has a stock and wants to know what to do with it. Should he sell it? Should he hang on to it? And here’s a question. I don’t know if this is ethical for a certified financial planning professional or not, but what’s the best way to hide income?
Well, I think what you’re trying to do is reduce your taxes.
Okay, well we’ll answer that as well. 844-220-0965.
If I could shake the piano like that, maybe I wouldn’t be here.
My uncle Jerry played just like that.
You know, one of the best plays I’ve ever seen in my life is Million Dollar Quartet. If you get a chance to see that, it’s the story of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis, and Ray Perkin. And phenomenal show. And the kid that played the piano played Jerry Lee’s role in New York was incredible.
I saw Carl Perkin’s Blue Suede Shoes at the National Hall of fame.
His one and only hit. And Elvis made it his big hit.
Carl Perkins was the one that recorded it first and Elvis was the one that made it a hit. Anyway, let’s take some calls.
This is Rich in Flagler.
Rich.
Hi, good morning, Rich.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I have a question about a stock I had inherited. I inherited a stock, Verizon, a few years ago.
Okay.
And I’m getting close to retirement. I’m wondering if I should be showing that — it’s had a loss — and taking the loss, and then taking the proceeds, and re-buying the Verizon stock, and putting it in my Roth.
Ah, well you’re going to have some wash sale rules there. You can’t re-buy it within — you have to wait 30 days to re-buy the stock. Are you familiar with that term? Wash Sale? You can take —
Right, that wouldn’t be a problem.
Okay, so what you want to do is you want to sell the stock, get the cash, and then what are you going to do with the cash? You’re going to re-buy the stock and put it in your — you can’t do that.
I’m going to take the cash, put it in a Roth.
How are you going to put it in a — are you going to make a Roth contribution? You can’t.
Yes.
Okay, okay. You’re limited, as you can put $6,500 into your Roth.
Right, I understand that.
Okay. And then you buy the stock in the — yeah, you can do that.
But —
You can do that.
The <Inaudible> right now to take the tax loss on the Verizon stock even with the basis and I wouldn’t be paying taxes on the dividends, but then when I put it in the Roth and buy that there the dividends would be tax free.
That’s correct.
Right, you just can’t buy it within 60 days.
30 days.
30 days, sorry. So, you can’t buy it back within 30 days.
Alright, Rich, if you want to continue this conversation I’ll put you on hold here and we have to do it after the program. Right now I’m up against the clock and Dave Wall is in the News Center. But before we go to Dave, Aaron, if somebody wanted to get a hold of you and talk about — well, get that personal one-on-one, how would they get a hold of you?
The easiest way to do it is to go to our website, financialgroup.com. Financialgroup.com. Or you can call us, 407-869-9800.