Hosts: Aaron Bert, CFP®, AIF® and Joe Bert, CFP®, AIF®
Ask the Expert Saturday mornings here on News 96.5, WDBO, and this is On the Money, brought to you by Orlando’s oldest and largest independent firm of certified financial planning professionals, that being the Certified Financial Group in Altamonte Springs. And with us this morning live in the studio, the Oracle of Orlando. Good morning, Joe Bert.
Good morning, Joe Bert.
How are you, sir?
Good. Good to be here, especially after the last couple days.
Yeah, we’ll talk about that. And also with us today, Aaron Bert, also a certified planning professional. And good to see you as well, my friend.
Good to be seen.
Yeah. Tell you what we’re going to do. First off, Joe, let’s tell everybody what do you take calls about.
We’re here to answer any questions that might be on your mind regarding your personal finances. I know folks are out there kind of picking up the debris this morning and assessing the damage. And hopefully, all of our listeners came through this storm without any injuries or severe property damage. We really dodged a bullet. But Aaron and I are here to take your calls about your personal finances. As we say in our ads here on WDBO, our educational system, unfortunately, has failed us when it comes to teaching us how to save and invest for our financial future because, at some point in time, those paychecks will stop. You’ll have Social Security. And your lifestyle will be a function of what you get in Social Security plus whatever you’ve been able to save an invest over your working lifetime. So we’re here to answer those questions that you might have as they revolve around decisions that you have to make about your 401(k), about an IRA, about mutual funds, what the stock, bonds, real estate, long-term healthcare, IRAs, annuities, 401(k)s, reverse mortgages, life insurance, all that and more. Aaron and I are here to take your calls. And the good news for you is, if you have any questions — in fact, you can call us, don’t even have to use your real name.
Really?
That happens. You can pick up the phone and dial —
Oh, that’s my part. 844-220-0965. 844-220-0965. You know, you can also send us a short text from your mobile device. That texting number is 21232. And if you want your voice on the program, well, you can do that, as well. Just go to the News 96.5 app and find that open mic and use it. But Joe and Aaron, as you say, it’s been a worrisome past couple of days. And I know there are some people who came away with some damage. And I’ve got a question from my neighbor, who lost some shingles. He was just kind of curious whether or not he should dip into 401(k) money, his retirement fund, to pay for some of the damage that he has in his backyard and on his roof.
Well, this is why, as a financial planner, one of the first things we always stress is having an emergency fund, for situations exactly like this because this is what an emergency fund is for, when you have some sort of disaster, whether it’s a natural disaster or it’s as simple as your air conditioner blowing up in your home. You need to have money set aside to be able to handle these types of things so you don’t have to put your retirement in jeopardy when — just to be able to meet your needs and make those types of repairs. So, hopefully, he has an emergency fund. If he doesn’t have an emergency fund, then the next you’ve got to look to is, well, where can you get your money on some cash in order to make these types of repairs. And, you know, dipping into your 401(k) is not necessarily a bad thing because if they have a loan provision, and this is taking a loan out of your 401(k), then you can borrow that money from your plan and then pay yourself back plus interest.
You’d probably make more on the interest that you pay yourself back than you would otherwise, wouldn’t you?
No, no.
No.
Not entirely, no.
But that’s not a bad thing to do. But if there’s — if you’re considering taking money out of your IRA, now that’s a-whole-nother story because then whatever you take out is going to be taxable as income to you. So you have to see whether that makes more sense or if it makes sense, possibly, putting it on a credit card. Depending on what your interest rate is, maybe not the best idea. Maybe you have home equity line of credit you can dip into. There’s lots of different places that you can go to, but —
If you have a Roth, you can take out of that.
Yeah, Roth is an option, too. You can always take out the Roth tax-free. So you have options, but that’s why we always stress the emergency fund.
But you say as a last resort for that, right?
Well, yeah. I mean, you’ve got to see what your options are and then make the best choice.
You don’t want to hurt yourself down the road. Joe, I hear — we’ve got a caller that wants to talk about this, but I hear you talk about this all the time when I bring up those commercials for gold. And whenever a disaster, the guy comes on the television, and he’s saying you need precious metals in your hand because the economy and all this nice stuff. So this is Shepard. Shepard’s on the road. Good morning, Shepard.
Yes, good morning. Just want to let you know I’m 55, semi-retired. I didn’t want to retire, but I’m a retired auto mechanic, but I’m just to busted up to do it for a living anymore. So now, I do transportation, and I work part-time at an auto parts store, selling auto parts and handing out advice. However, while I was working, I was pretty frugal and fortunate. House is paid off. Cars are paid off. We have a few annuities. My wife has a retirement plan. All in all, when we retire, we’ll have about 0.25M, and if Social Security holds up, we ought to be fine. I keep hearing, as you were saying, about all these precious metals that we ought to invest in. My question is, okay, fine, so I have all this precious metal. I have gold coins, silver coins. And let’s say there is an economic disaster. How do I exchange those gold and silver coins for goods and services? And I’ll just listen to your answer, please, because I’m not sure how this works. In order for you to make money on gold, you have to have a buyer, correct?
Exactly. Exactly.
All right, well, first of all, Shepard, I think you said that you hear us espousing the fact that you ought to be doing this, and perhaps you have us confused with some of the commercials that you hear on the radio and television. We don’t espouse the fact that people ought to be socking their money away in gold and silver, perhaps maybe 3% to 5% of your portfolio at the max. But you’re 100% right. You’ve got to find somebody, and then there, you run the risk of being in a position where you can’t find a buyer at the value that it’s at. We’re talking about economic disaster where perhaps the dollar isn’t worth anything. And if we get to that point, frankly, the world has come to an end. So I — you know, people that run around trying to sell gold and silver, they’re in it obviously to make money. They’re going to sell it to you for a commission, for a profit. They don’t do it on a purely charitable basis. So I’m not a big fan of doing that. I don’t believe in dry food. I don’t believe in bomb shelters. I don’t believe in gold and silver buried in your backyard. I know there’s people that do, and God bless them, if they’re right, then I’m 100% wrong, and I’m going to be banging on your bomb shelter door, trying to get in. But that’s not the way that I run my life. I’m a cautious optimist. I think the world will be here, and that doesn’t mean we’re not going to have challenges and difficulties as we go through it. The key is to understand what the rules are and work your way through it. But you’re 100% right. You’ve got to find somebody that’s willing to exchange for something for you. And, you know, with your gold or silver or your automobile or a gun collection or a stamp collection or whatever it is, it’s whatever a willing seller and a willing buyer to exchange it for. So I would not — you know, let’s get back to your retirement situation. And I’m glad that you’ve been able to sock away some money. You’re 55 years old. You’ll have Social Security coming in and $0.25M. I think you said your house is paid for, which is great. You know, a rule of thumb that we use in the investment world is that a safe withdrawal rate on your assets to not deplete them is about 4%, assuming, of course, that your investments are earning 4%. And so, if you’ve got $0.25M, that’ll give you an extra $10,000 over and above what Social Security will give you to. Hopefully, you’ve done some calculations to see if that will get your through. The good news for you is you’re young. The bad news for you is you’re still young, and at age 55, statistically, I’ve got at least 30-35 years I have to worry about your income. So you want to get that money working for you. Hopefully, you’ve got it positioned so you’ve got some growth because you do have some time before you’re drawing it. Aaron, anything you want to add to that?
No, Nick. You got it.
Hey, what do you think?
Pretty good.
After all these years, I got it.
You got it!
Thanks for your call, Shepard. We appreciate it very much.
And you can join us, as well. The number is 844-220-0965. 844-220-0965. You can also text us at 21232 and use the open mic on your News 96.5 app. Did you guys have any damage around your house, by the way?
No. Fortunately, we lost power on — actually, what was that, Friday morning about 7:00? I was able to wake up early, make some breakfast, get some coffee, and then we lost power. And we were out all the way until, I think, yesterday evening. And so I didn’t go back home, actually. I went over to my parents’ house. Fortunately, they did not lose power, so we had a hot meal and a place to sleep with some air conditioning, so we were good. So yeah, fortunately. But there were some trees down in our neighborhood, but I haven’t heard of any major damage. Nothing fell on any homes or anything like that.
Yeah. It’s 9:16 right now. Dave Wall’s in the news center, keeping an eye on things. I know we’ve got a boil water alert for a couple of communities around central Florida. I know Melbourne and Cocoa are in that. There’s another little city or two in Brevard County where you’ve got to boil your water, and there’s one here near Orlando, too. So Dave will have that coming up, I’m sure, and the very latest on what’s happening with Mathew. You — I think you just summed it right up when you said we dodged a bullet, Joe.
We did. I mean, fortunately, the storm shifted eastward, as everybody knows at this point. And yeah, it could have been a real disaster. Those folks up in St. Augustine and Jacksonville really got a hammering. And that could’ve been even a lot worse still. Let’s hope this is it for a long time to come.
Yeah. Hey, listen, I was on your website today, looking at what we were going to talk about in this week’s must read. And it was all about that IRA e-mail scam that we brought up.
Yeah, and it’s — you know, and actually, it’s not just the e-mail. Today, the IRS — or not the IRS, but these scammers are sending you letters. As we’ve said in the past, the IRS will never call you. They will never e-mail you. They will never leave a phone message for you. And, you know, I’ve got these at home, and in fact, we played one last week where it’s a false deal. But now they’re sending letters that look like they’re from the IRS because it’s easy today, with today’s copy machines, to duplicate virtually anything. And it tells you it has to do with the Affordable Care Act. It says <Inaudible> violation. You have a small penalty to pay to avoid a tax audit. Send your check to the IRS.
Made payable to the IRS.
Made payable to the IRS. And once again, the IRS, where they request money, it’s never payable to the IRS. It’s to the U.S. Treasury. And one of the reasons — you’ve got to be careful, those folks filing their taxes. You don’t want to make a check payable to the IRS because what the scammers do is they turn that I into an M, okay? Think of a capital I. You can make it into an M and make it Mrs. whatever. And you’ve got an account to deposit it in, and that check is gone. So if you’ve going to make a check payable to the government, it should be the Treasury Department, U.S. Treasury.
Hey, you want to hear that IRS scam? Somebody recorded it.
Yeah, go ahead.
All right. So anybody who may be new to the program, we played this last week. We’ll do it again. Here is the IRS telephone scam as recorded on somebody’s home recorder.
You have one old message: Tuesday, 11:49am.
I’ll leave out the number.
Hello. This call is officially a final notice from IRS, Internal Revenue Service.
Service.
The reason of this call is to inform you that IRS is filing lawsuit against you. To get more information about this case file, please call —
Yada, yada, yada, yada, call this number.
In fact, I saw — was it yesterday’s Wall Street Journal? Just recently that they’ve broken up a ring in India.
Really?
Yeah, of these scammers that are using the telephone.
Yeah.
Oh, my. All right. So, when in doubt, do what your grandmother told you. When in doubt, don’t. All right, we’ll take some of your calls coming up here shortly. Stick around for that. Joe and Aaron are in the studio. Both of these gentlemen are certified financial planning professionals and are here just for you. Call 844-220-0965 or text us at 21232 because we’re planning tomorrow.
Today.
9:26 on WDBO. We’ll get back to Dave in the news center here coming up in four minutes with a more in-depth update on the aftermath of our good pal Mathew, who, like Joe Birch says, we dodged a bullet. That’s for sure. Let’s talk to Tina here. Tina, you’re on with Joe Bert, Aaron Bert, from the Certified Financial Group.
Hello, good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning, Tina. Thank you for calling. How can we help you?
Yes, my question is this. I’m 60 years old, and my darling and I have been together for about 15 <?> years. And <Inaudible> in order. We’re getting older. We’re planning on getting married, and I need to know do we have to be married a certain amount of years for him to be able to collect my Social Security if my time comes up?
Yes. The answer is yes. You have to be married 10 years, unless you’re widowed, then it’s you have to be married two years. Yeah.
Well, no. That’s only if you get divorced.
Let’s talk about the two things. If you’re divorced, then you’ve got to be married 10 years. To get a survivor benefit, then it’s two years.
But if you’re actually married —
Yeah, after you’re married.
Right, but they’re not married yet.
We’re getting married.
They’re getting married.
We’re getting married.
You have to be married two years in order for the survivor to get a benefit. If you get divorced —
Oh, okay.
You have to be married 10 years for the other party to perhaps claim a benefit that may be larger than yours.
Now, you’re 60. How old is your soon-to-be husband?
He’s 57.
57, okay. So you have — so he can’t even claim on your benefit —
And I’ve made considerably —
Okay. Go ahead.
I’ve made considerably more over my lifetime than he’ll probably make in his.
Okay.
So we’re trying to just do some planning. And I thought, well, if something happened to me, he’d be able to apply for my Social Security instead of using his own.
If something happened to you? So, if you were to predecease him —
If I passed away.
Right, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, that would be true. He would get the survivor widow’s benefit. And like Joe said, I think it’s two years you have to be married in order for him to qualify for that. But you can’t even start Social Security for two years, so you have a little bit of time.
Good.
That would work for you.
So we’re planning.
Sure.
We’re trying to put things in order for the future.
Yeah.
Do you know the pros and cons of claiming Social Security early?
I checked on it one time, and I thought it might be good because I thought I’d be collecting, say, from the time I’m 63 until — I think my normal retirement age is approximately 67.
That’s probably right.
So I thought I’d be collecting all these years. And I did try one time where I put down, okay, if you collect at 63 and if you wait until 67, and I added it all up, and it looks like I would even out around about the time I’m 75 years old.
Right.
When I’d begin moving.
When we come back from the news, Joe, could you explain that to everybody about why you should consider waiting to take Social Security?
There are pros and cons, all right?
And help understand what they are before you make the decision.
We’ll be here.
We’ll get those pros and cons coming up. Also, we’re going to tell you about this upcoming Social Security workshop. If you’re nearing that stage and maybe your mom and dad are, this is a way to get them involved. Sign up for this workshop. We’ll tell you about it. It’s free, no obligation. Nobody’s trying to sell you anything or anything like that. But stick around. We’ll have that right after we talk to Dave Wall.
All right, back to the Ask the Experts Saturday morning on WDBO, and this is On the Money, brought to you by the Certified Financial Group in Altemont Springs. With us this morning, the oracle of Orlando is live in the studio for you, Joe Bert is here, along with Aaron Bert. Both are certified financial planning professionals with the Certified Financial Group. Let me give you the number after Aaron tells you what he’s taking calls about.
We are here to answer any question having to do with pocketbook issues, most importantly revolving around your retirement. So we can talk about stocks, bonds, mutual funds, long-term care, Social Security, annuities, IRAs, 401(k)s, life insurance, estate planning, all that and more. And we are here to take your calls. And I don’t think we have anybody in line. So, if you’d like to get in the line, you can call —
844 — There’s no line, yeah. 844-220-0965. People are emerging and wiping their eyes. 844-220-0965, or text us at 21232. Joe, we had Tina on a little while ago, talking about Social Security. She was thinking about collecting it early. What are the pros and cons of waiting to take Social Security or take it early?
Well, Tina did the math, like most people do. If I get my check at her age, it was 63 with early <Inaudible> and then age 67 as full retirement. She did the math as to how much she would get over that timeframe, and she figured out her break-even point. And, generally — not generally, but what happens, if you claim Social Security early, you’re going to take about a 25% reduction in that benefit , and that’s going to remain reduced throughout your lifetime. If you wait until full retirement age, obviously, you get your full retirement amount. If you wait until age 70, you will get a guaranteed increase of 8% per year for your lifetime. And in Tina’s situation, where her new husband is going to be collecting, he will inherit what she claims. So, if she wants to maximize his benefit, she may want to wait to claim that benefit until at least full retirement age. And the other downside is, if she’s working between now and her full retirement age, she will have to give back $1 for every two that she earns over almost $16,000. So, if you’re any more than — it’s $15,800 and change, but if you’re earning over that, you give up or sacrifice $1 for every two that Social Security would pay you. Now, you get it on the back end, but you’re not going to get it today, so why even do it? And those are the pros and cons.
Her full retirement age, if she’s 60, isn’t 67 because you <Inaudible> six years later, so it’s 66 and some months for her full retirement age. And Joe’s absolutely right. The thing you have to consider now is that if you’re marrying a younger man, and you are trying to provide some sort of longevity insurance for him, that delaying your Social Security might be one of the best moves you can make because it will not only protect you on the back end, but will also protect him if you predecease him. So we also do an analysis with our clients to try and see it makes sense to wait and if they can afford to wait. And if they can afford to wait, then that’s something that we always recommend that they can do.
And if you have more information about Social Security and those strategies, good new is is that we have a workshop coming up. Nancy Heck and Denise Kovach will be doing a workshop on Thursday, October 20, from 6:00 to 7:30 at our offices in Altamonte Springs. We do it in our classroom. Got room for about 25 folks and I think they only have a few seats left, but they’ll go through those Social Security planning strategies and differences <Inaudible> several tens of thousands of dollars to you if you claim the wrong way. So may behoove you to come on by. You can go to our website: that’s financialgroup.com. Click on workshops. You can make a reservation right there and they’re going to serve some light refreshments. Once again that’s from 6:00 to 7:30 on Thursday, October the 20th.
844-220-0965 is the number. Let’s talk to John in Seminole County. Good morning, John.
Hello, John. Good morning everyone.
Thank you for calling.
Thank you for taking my call.
Well thanks for calling
Sure.
How can we help you?
<Inaudible> I’m 62. Got about 400,000 in savings as investments I should say. And I don’t have long-term care insurance or any type of program like that. I do take care of myself. I’m in great health. I work out five days a week but you just never know, obviously. So I’m just wondering what your thoughts are at this age in one’s life and getting that long-term care insurance.
The issue with — you said you’re still working or are you not working, I’m sorry.
Yes, yes I am.
Are you married?
I am not.
Okay, you’re not. Okay. So the challenge with long-term care insurance is the expense of long-term care insurance. There’s basically three groups of people that we run into when it comes to long-term care. It’s the people who don’t have the assets accumulated or can’t afford the premiums, and those people will most likely end up in the Medicaid program when it comes to long-term care. Now Medicaid isn’t a bad deal. The problem is to get into the Medicaid program you have to not have any assets, which means that you’ve spent all your assets, and you can no longer afford long-term care. So people who don’t generally have a lot of assets or can’t afford long-term care insurance end up going the Medicaid route if they need long-term care. The second group is the people who buy insurance and the people who buy insurance normally have relatively decent amount of assets accumulated if they have a good income where they can afford to pay the premiums for a certain number of years and afford the insurance. And then the last group are the people who are going to self-insure, and those people have accumulated significant assets and want to — don’t need to buy the insurance because they can afford to pay for themselves if they need to go into a facility. In your particular situation, I think you would be better off if you’re sticking to $100,000 accumulated for retirement, you’d be better off taking your extra funds and saving it for retirement because there’s a much greater chance that you’re going to retire than there is that you’re going to go into a long-term care facility.
At least in the near term.
Yes, at least in the near term. And then if for some reason you do go into a long-term care facility, then you can spend down your assets and end up qualifying for Medicaid.
That makes sense. I appreciate your time.
Yeah what you want to do is build up those assets to allow you to enjoy the best retirement that you can and then as Aaron said, when the time comes, heaven forbid, that you do need a long-term care, you’ll spend down your assets and then go in as a Medicaid patient. What you want to be careful of and we want to be sure that our listeners understand this, you don’t want to go into a facility as a Medicaid patient, because if you’ve ever been to those facilities, you wouldn’t want to be there. You want to go in as a paying customer, and then once you’re in, Medicaid will come along and then continue to pay for you. But to go in broke as a Medicaid patient to try to find a decent place, you don’t want to go through that experience. But I think Aaron’s advice is well spoken, get that money working — that’s alright — get that money working for you. Good news you’re in good health, 62 years old, if we were doing planning for you, we’d plan on at least 25 years of life expectancy in front of you. So it’s a long time to live on the assets that you built up, so you’ve got to get them growing and hopefully you’re going in the right direction.
Appreciate your call.
Absolutely. Thank you for your call. You can call as well. The number is 844-220-0965. Let’s talk to Lee in Winter Park. Good morning, Lee.
Hello, Lee. Good morning, Lee.
Three, two —
Good morning, Lee?
One.
Thank you for calling <Inaudible>
I’m going to put you on hold and then we’re going to move on and talk to Bud. I love this name. Bud.
Hello, Bud. Bud.
Go ahead, sir.
Like Budweiser, you know.
Hey, yeah. King of beers.
Hey look, my gal friend, she’s from New York. Her husband died, was over 10 years ago, and we’ve been together ever since. She’s a wonderful person. <Inaudible> but they’re <?> telling me — one of the attorneys down there said that she cannot be — it was a POA or whatever — because she’s from out of state. Isn’t there a way around that. I mean there’s a lot of kids up home that their kids are down here. And I don’t — if we get married right now, if something happens to me, and they take everything I got, then they’re going to come after her home and that’s hers and her kids’, you know.
Let me be sure I understand. You’re down here, she’s up there?
Uh huh.
Okay, you’re down here. She’s up there. And what you want to do is give her POA on your assets.
Yeah.
So she can come in and make financial decisions for you if she has to?
Yeah.
And remain in your name. That’s the idea?
Yeah.
Okay and the attorney down here is telling you that she can’t be POA because she lives in New York.
That’s right. And the attorney wants to go on as POA.
The attorney wants to be POA?
Huh.
Yeah.
Well, listen I’m not an attorney. I don’t have — I can’t really guide you in this regard. I think what you need to do is call Tom Olsen back sometime —
Yeah, hey, Bud. It’s 11:00 this morning. Call this same number back, because attorney Tom Olsen will be in <Inaudible>. That’s his specialty.
Yeah <Inaudible>
Doesn’t sound right to me either.
Yeah perhaps seek another attorney and perhaps that’s what Tom will tell you.
Call back at 11:00 and I’ll put you to the front of the line, Bud.
She’s in New York. He’s down here. I don’t know. Sorry, I don’t know.
Quick question on the text here. If my IRS October payment is due on a Saturday, will the IRS wait until Monday.
No.
No?
It’s <Inaudible> on Sunday.
Oh.
Yeah I’m pretty sure. Yeah the form has to be filed on October 15th, which is a Saturday. Sunday you get a slop-over, but I don’t think the Saturday works. I think Saturday —
<Inaudible> what that means over there <?>. Alright let’s talk to Vera in Claremont. Good morning, Vera.
Good morning.
Good morning, Vera. Thanks for the call. How can we help you?
Okay I am 65 and still working and one of the companies that I work for has <Inaudible>. They’re saying that I need to take my retirement which is around 60-something and do something with it. I can either take a stipend of about $400 or I can roll it over. I’m thinking it would take me 14 years to collect on the stipend to make even what they’ve got me.
Okay.
So rolling it over would be better, but I don’t know what to roll it over into.
Okay let’s summarize this. The company you work for had a pension. They’re terminating the pension they want to either give you a lump sum of — how much money?
Around 60,000, 65,000.
65,000, or if you don’t take that, they will give you a check a month for your lifetime of $400 approximately.
Right.
Okay. Your question is what to do.
Right.
Alright. Well here’s the pros and cons. Obviously if you take the pension, you have an income guaranteed as best as it can be guaranteed by a pension. Now depending on who the employer was, pensions are not guaranteed. All you have to do is look around the country and see companies that are having difficulty meeting their pension obligations, so if the pension plan runs into trouble in future years, that $400 that you thought was guaranteed maybe not be there. That’s the downside. Some people say, I trust my company, it’s going to be there no matter what, and I’ll take that $400 and I don’t have to worry about it. And it’s like a supplement to my Social Security. So that’s the other side of the coin. If you take the $65,000 lump sum, what are the options, Aaron?
Well if you take the 65,000 lump sum, there are a couple of options actually. You can cash it out, you can take all of the money, pay the taxes, and put it into your savings or bank account, which we don’t suggest that you do. Alternatively you can roll it over into a retirement plan, which I think is what you were considering doing, and then so then that would go into an IRA. You wouldn’t pay taxes on it and that would continue to grow for you. And whatever you choose to invest it in until you hit 70 and a half where you have to start taking withdrawals from that account.
Are you working now? Hello?
Yeah I’m here.
Are you working now?
Yes I am. I plan on working until I can’t work any more.
Okay does your current employer have a 401(k)?
They do and I’m investing in that. I’m investing 25%.
Okay you could probably roll over that pension into that 401(k).
Okay.
Yeah I would go to HR and ask them how to do that. Now let’s talk about what your 401(k) is invested in because that’s going to determine how well you’re going to do in the future. So where is your money invested right now, in the 401(k), could you tell us?
That’s a good question, because I don’t really know. <Background Noise> that but it is not really. I had adoptions <?> so I put 10% in — I divided it into 10 different things. I put 10% into stocks, 10% into bonds, 10% into mutual funds, 10% — it’s divided up.
Okay, what I’m —
My husband has a pretty good return.
Alright, well I’m glad you’re diversified. That’s good news. The bad news is, you’re probably diversified and going in 12 different directions and really don’t have any kind of plan. Let me make it simple for you, okay. Your plan probably offers what’s called a target date fund. Is that correct? You know where it’s got some date attached to it, like 2020, 2030.
No.
Is that correct?
No.
Your plan doesn’t have that?
Not that I know of.
Well I would double check, as most plans — do you work for a large employer?
I work for a travel company.
A travel company. A national travel company?
No.
No.
A local travel company.
Alright well you’re on the right track. I would want to use the target date funds as geared towards your — close to your retirement date and put your money in there as opposed to what you’re doing. What you’re doing is better than what most people do and that’s just dump it into one fund or let it sit in a money market fund or a stable value fund. Or use one of the — what we call the risk base models. But you need to use the tools that are available in your plan. Unfortunately most people don’t do that. Go online on your plan and look at some of the tools that are available for you for guidance, and that’s where you need to go. Take that pension money and roll it into your 401(k) and then when it comes time to retire, then you can roll it all into an IRA, and find a certified financial planner that will help you to <Inaudible> that.
So, Vera. Aaron <Inaudible> are certified financial planning professionals. How do they reach you during the week by the way?
Actually, the easiest way to reach us is to go to our website, financialgroup.com. Our phone numbers, e-mail addresses, all the information you need to make contact with us is on the website.
We need to get to Dave Wall with the news header. We’ll talk to Pauline. We’ll talk to Max. We’ll talk to Diane and Lynn. And if we don’t get to your call, you get a private consultation off the air with these gentleman, so stick around. But first, Dave Wall in the news center.
On the Money, brought to you by the Certified Financial Group. You don’t have a whole lot of time left in the program, but we have some callers standing by for some financial questions. Again, if we don’t get to your call in time before the end of the program, you stick around. You’ll get a private consultation off the air with Aaron Berg here. Let’s talk to Pauline.
Good morning, Pauline.
Good morning, Pauline.
Hello thank you.
Sure how can we help you?
My question is, I have several in this, and I have the trust, but these investments were not put in the trust. They were put POD and when I suggested changing it, they say, oh it won’t go through probate. It comes directly to the beneficiaries or whatever.
Right, yup. Correct.
That’s right.
Is that correct?
It is correct, but chances are your trust may have provisions in it other than just pay out the money. Your trust will give — you can control the payout of those funds from the grave, unless your intention is just to have the beneficiaries get it in a lump sum, then POD or TOD works just as well.
Okay. So I could even split it up and do partial control and let the other go straight <?>. Alright that was my concern.
Alright, thanks for the question.
Thanks for the call.
Okay, Max, Diane, and Lynne. You hang on. You’ll get a private consultation off the air with Joe or Aaron, but I just wanted to get out here the idea of going to the website here and checking out some of these workshops, Joe. You’ve got some great workshops here.
Especially the one coming up in October, not that they’re all good, but one of the most recent recurring ones, or coming one, or future — closest to right now — is October the 20th, Thursday, at the Social Security Boot Camp. Denise Kovach, Nancy Heck, 6:00 in our office. Answered all the questions that you might have about claiming <?> strategies. Absolutely free. Go to our website. That’s financialgroup.com. Financialgroup.com. Click on our workshops. You can make a reservation right there.
Aaron, what’s the best way to reach one of these certified financial planning professionals for one of those complementary consultations.
The website has all the information that you need. Financialgroup.com, phone numbers, e-mail addresses. Make an appointment. All sorts of information. So check us out.
Stay turned. Dave Wall is in the news center. He’s coming up next.
Information presented on this program is believed to be factual and up to date, but we do not guarantee its accuracy and it should not be regarded as a complete analysis of the subjects discussed. Discussion and answers to questions do not involve the rendering of personalized investment advice, but is limited to the dissemination of general information. A professional advisor should be consulted before implementing any of the options presented. Certified Advisory Corp is registered