TRANSCRIPT FOR THE AUGUST 8, 2015 “ON THE MONEY” SHOW Hosts: Nancy Hecht, CFP®, AIF® and Aaron Bert, CFP®, AIF®

Hello everybody, and welcome to On the Money with the Certified Financial Group here on news 965, WDBO.  <Inaudible> the experts we give <?>, they were off last Saturday for the two hour Florida Homes and Gardens because they had a two hour shred event a moment ago.  So if you didn’t get a question answered last week or you’re looking to tune in, now is the excellent time to call in at 844-220-0965.  Aaron Burt is here for Joe today, along with Nancy Hick.  Guys, how are we doing today?

 

We are hanging in there.

 

Hanging in there?

 

Doing well.

 

We’re here.

 

Come one, where is the energy?  There you go, there you go, there’s a smile, alright.  Guys, what can the audience call you about today?

 

Well we’re here to answer your questions having anything to do with your personal finances, usually revolving around financial planning.  And from there, conversations usually go to talking about stocks and bonds and mutual funds and long-term healthcare and Social Security and annuities, life insurance, all of that and more as Joe likes to say: Monday through Friday at our office at the Certified Financial Group, we charge a fee.  But on Saturday morning, Nancy and I are here to do this for free.  So if you have any questions at all, please pick up the phone and dial.

 

You’ve been doing that well, by the way.  844-220-0965.  844-220-0965.  We also have the text machine up and running as well, 21232.  I know there was some turmoil on the markets earlier today, but probably nothing to worry about.

 

Well not today, but during the week.  <Inaudible>.  Yeah.  It was a rollercoaster kind of week.  But you know people will look at the numbers going up big and going down big.  But what they’re looking at is the Dow, and the Dow is 30 companies.  And most people are benchmarked or their investments are held up against the S&P, which is a much broader 500 companies.  And so the swings for the S&P are not as drastic.  And not generally as news worthy as the Dow.  So it’s sort of fun to watch, and I had heard somebody saying — I think the second day that we were down this week on the Dow.  I <Inaudible> look at your 401k, but a lot of people’s 401k deposits hit on those downs.  Which I don’t have <Inaudible> is a bad thing, because you’re buying on sale.

 

Why is that?

 

Any time that you can have your money invested at a lower price per share, you’re buying more shares.  When it comes to retirement, the idea is to accumulate shares.  Shares equals income in retirement.  So the ability to buy things on sale is a great thing.

 

<Inaudible> I’m sorry Nancy, but it was going to say we do a lot of 401k enrollments.  I personally go out and meet with a lot of participants, and one of the things that we often tell people is just to get the right mindset, is the stock market is the only market when things go on sale, people run out of the store.

 

Well that’s a <Inaudible> we love buying stuff on sale.  Car, clothing, whatever.

 

Except for stock for some reason.

 

Whatever investments, we hate to see them on sale.  Like — I mean true retirement is the markets are dipping down as your money is hitting, then that’s a gift.

 

That’s a definite gift.  So one other thing to point out regarding the Dow going down is the Dow right now is over 20,000 still.  In a couple of — 200, 300, 400 point move on the Dow is not like a 400 move on the Dow <Inaudible>.

 

No, it’s tenths of a percent, tenths of a percent.  I think <Inaudible> it was down 300-some-odd points the other day.  It was 0.15%.

 

Yeah.

 

So it’s nothing.

 

Nancy has got some great information from <Inaudible> that you will want to avoid this summer.  But we want to open the phone lines here.  It’s 844-220-0965.  844-220-0965.  We have the text machine up and running as well, 21232.  That’s 21232.  I already see some texts coming in, so we’ll get to those in just a moment.  But first, we’ll start with Rich in Flagler.  Rich, go ahead with the Certified Financial Group on WDBO.

 

Hi Rich.

 

Good morning.  A quick question: Can you contribute to both a 457 plan and an IRA in the same year?

 

The answer to that is it depends.

 

Well, I would have said perhaps, but.  It depends on how much is being contributed.

 

Depends on what your income is.  It depends on a lot of different things.  Why would you want to do one versus the other though, I’m just curious.

 

Or both.

 

I have some stock I’m going to be selling and I want to put it in my Roth IRA.

 

Okay.

 

Okay, so you want to contribute to your 457 at work and you want to contribute to a Roth IRA as well?

 

Right.

 

Okay, so that’s going to depend on how much income you have.  Because there are income limitations to whether or not you can contribute to a Roth, and that also is going to depend on whether or not your wife — are you married?

 

Yes.

 

Okay, so then it’s going to be combined family income, it’s going to determine what you can do in the <Inaudible>.

 

Right.

 

Let me look at a chart <Inaudible>.

 

Look on the — I think the green one has the income limitation there.  So yeah.  The Roth is a little bit more liberally as far as what the income limitations are for contributions.

 

Yep.

 

And may I ask how old you are, Rich?

 

Over 65, but still working.

 

Okay, alright, so fine.  So you could do the whole 6,500 assuming that you’re within the income limits for the Roth contributions.

 

Yeah, and the income limitations for joint is 186,000.  So if you earn under 186,000, you can do the Roth in addition to your 457.

 

Well okay, that’s good information.  Thank you.

 

Sure.

 

Yep, you’re very welcome.  Thank you.

 

Alright Rich, thanks so much for the phone call.  If you want Rich’s line, it’s 844-220-0965.  844-220-0965.  What was the program he was asking for? 450?

 

 

And what’s the 457?  I’ve not heard you guys talk about the 457 yet.

 

It’s a deferred compensation plan.  There’s different flavors of 457s.  Where we normally see them is in the city where they have a pension plan and then on top of the pension plan, they’re able to defer compensation.  It’s kind of like a 401k plan but the rules are a little more liberal.  But basically, you’re just putting money into it on a tax-deferred basis and then it’s just like a 401k.  When you pull it out, <Inaudible> income taxes.

 

But as Aaron said, generally we see 457s for state of federal employees.

 

Gosh, that was it.  <Inaudible> 457, that’s a new number I’ve heard here on On the Money since I’ve been doing this show at the start of this year.  844-220-0965 is the number.  Let’s talk about the summer scam we want to avoid.

 

Okay, alright.

 

<Inaudible> and this one hits home because I have a personal example of this that happened in our family.

 

Okay.  So I got a call from one of my clients asking me to put an alert on his account.  And he had received a call from somebody with a foreign accent telling him that his grandson was out of the country, on vacation, and had gotten into a severe accident and was in the hospital.  And my client of course was a little bit concerned, he wasn’t quite sure if his grandson had gone on vacation and was out of the country or not.  So he did ask which grandson, and all he got back was your oldest grandson.  So my client did start asking a few probing questions, and then eventually hung up the phone.  But he was concerned that what little bit of conversation he had with this person, the fact that he did answer the phone so there was a valid number.  And as inter-connected as things are today, this gentleman didn’t know if potentially they could access through the phone records and through voice maybe some of his investment accounts or his bank accounts or something like that.

 

Yeah.

 

So first of all, just because somebody calls doesn’t mean you have to answer the phone.  Caller ID is on everything.  And if it’s a number that you don’t recognize —

 

Don’t answer it.

 

And if it’s somebody who really wants to reach you, they will leave a message.  You know <Inaudible>

 

And if you really know me, they’ll just text me after <Inaudible> call.

 

Right, right.  I mean, if it really is a family member, they are going to try non-stop to contact you.  And you’re under no obligation to give any information out to anybody without feeling that you know unequivocally who you’re speaking to.  So you really have to be selfish with your privacy and really have to protect yourself.  I mean the scammers are getting smarter and smarter all of the time.  We have heard of many grandparents that have been taken for tens of thousands of dollars by exactly this type of scam.

 

And we’re putting more and more information about ourselves online everyday.

 

Right, right.

 

That’s the other part <Inaudible>.

 

And it makes it easier for people to have the names of your children and your grandchildren, so they can <Inaudible> these scams, essentially.

 

Yeah, very sad, actually.

 

Yeah, it’s happened to my grandmother.  Called up and said your oldest grandson is here in Puerto Rico and needs help.  And she gave him my name and then started using my name throughout the phone call, and they’re really good, they’re really good.  You got to be careful.

 

And the sad thing is that the — really from what I hear, the police can’t really chase these things down.  If you were to <Inaudible> money <Inaudible> I mean it’s done.  You can’t get it back.

 

And it’s an attitude that you are voluntarily hitting it up.

 

So anyways, <Inaudible> yeah, sorry.

 

And as more robo calls come more and more to my cell phone every single day from unknown numbers that I don’t know.  And now they’ve got a trick to make it look like it’s a family member’s name based on area codes and public information about what you can find about family member’s phone numbers.  They’ll Google everybody in your last name and go oh, this is one digit off, a family member.  And then that’s the number they will use to call.

 

But again, if it’s somebody in your phone book, a name is going to come up with that phone number.  And if you don’t recognize it, let it go to voice mail or they’re just going to hang up.  And then there’s a little thing that says block this caller.

 

Yep, <Inaudible> thing.

 

And then of course if you’re ever sure <?>, you can just Google the phone number.  And if you Google the <Inaudible> block.

 

I’ve done that a number of times.

 

That’s what I do — because there’s going to be one day where a legit phone number I don’t have is — they’re going to look for me and then sure enough they don’t leave a message or what-have-you and it was something.  It was a delivery I was waiting for or something like that.  So you don’t want to blankingly unblock callers, but Google the phone number.  You’d be surprised how many things come up on that.  844-220-0965.  844-220-0965 is the number to call up Aaron Burt and Nancy Hick with the Certified Financial Group.  Let’s talk about some of the upcoming workshop, and we’ve got a couple of text questions in here coming in the text machine.  21232 is the number to text us your 160 character question.  Right now, we pause to get the three big things you need to know.

 

Welcome back, this is On the Money with the Certified Financial Group here on news 965, WDBO.  Our ask the experts weekend continues here.  We are six minutes away from the latest news, weather, and traffic.  But for right now, we’re going to talk, Aaron Burt and Nancy Hick and you.  844-220-0965 is the number if you want to dial us up and ask your question.  844-220-0965.  Let’s get back to the conversation and talk to Sherry in Vero Beach.  Sherry, you’re up first in the segment with the Certified Financial Group here on WDBO.

 

Hi Sherry.

 

Hi, thank you for taking my call.

 

Sure, what’s your question?

 

I’m <Inaudible> about — I’m 63 and my husband is 73, and we have some pretty good combined income, <Inaudible>.  Right around 9,000 a month, but we have two houses, both of which have about 100,000 in equity.  And we literally have nothing in savings, <Inaudible> 401k.  So when we sell this house which will go on the market in probably this coming week, we’ll have that equity of course to repurchase another house, to pay off the <Inaudible>.

 

Okay.

 

You know, <Inaudible> money to put away.  What do we do with it, or do we just put it into that house <Inaudible> we sell that would have something to retire on.

 

Okay, so Sherry, the house that you’re selling, is that your primary residence or side that rental property?

 

Primary.

 

Okay, primary, okay.

 

And what are you doing with your other house, Sherry?

 

It’s rented.

 

Okay.  So what do you plan on spending on the new primary residence?  How much of the equity that you will reap from the sale of your current home is going to go into the new primary residence?

 

Well we can do — we want to do a <Inaudible> because the house was build in 1875 <?>.  <Inaudible> the one that we put the contract in on yesterday, and it’s 350,000.  So I think we would have to spend 3.5% of 350,000 to do that rehab one <?> I believe.

 

Okay.

 

So that’s kind of where — so 300 and — 2.5% of equities, say 400,000.  So we’ll have to have 50 to do the <Inaudible>.

 

Okay, alright so — and do you feel that you have an adequate emergency fund?

 

No, and that’s what I wanted to do, is put something away for an emergency fund.

 

Okay.

 

<Inaudible> 70,000, should I put away and where should I put it?

 

Well, I mean how much cash to have on-hand I think is a personal opinion.  Everybody differs.  Some people feel comfortable having $4,000 or $5,000 in cash for the <Inaudible> stock emergency money.  Some people feel comfortable having $50,000 or more.  So that’s a discussion that you and your husband are going to have to have, is what do you feel is comfortable to always have liquid in cash an emergency fund.  And that’s money that’s in a checking, a savings, or a money market.  That’s what emergency fund money is.  So it’s not going to be invested, it’s just going to be tucked aside for whatever that emergency may be.  And then the difference, whatever is left.  If you have 70,000 and you feel that 20,000 is good to have in an emergency fund, then the remainder you can invest in — I would look for a good quality balanced mutual fund.

 

Are you still working, Sherry?

 

Yes I am.

 

So you’re still employed, you still have a 401k.  You know the other thing you can — and your husband you said is in his 70s.  I’m assuming he’s on full Social Security, right?

 

Right.

 

So the income that you’re getting every month is including rental income, Social Security, and your employment income, correct?

 

Correct.

 

Okay, so where Nancy was going is that — now you can invest that money and put it into a mutual fund.  Or alternatively what you can be doing do is be putting that money into your 401k plan.

 

Yeah, increases — you had mentioned your generous monthly income and it’s more than enough for you.  You might want to as Aaron just said, increase what you’re contributing to your 401k.  Because you’re saving pre-tax dollars, if you bump up what you’re contributing to your 401k $100 a month, it’s not going to reduce your spendable by $100 a month.  It’s money that you’re now sending for taxes that you can be putting into your retirement savings.  So that would be a good suggestion also.

 

But I think your situation is the perfect example of someone who needs to do some detailed financial planning so that you can figure out how long you need to be working for, how much money you need to be saving, where that income that you have coming in is sufficient you over your life expectancy and your husband’s life expectancy.  Whether you’re properly taking on the right amount of debt, I mean there’s a lot of questions that you’re asking, it’s hard to talk about over a four-minute phone call.  So I would suggest that you do some financial planning, whether it’s with us at our office or whether you do someone at — it looks like you’re in Vero.  So whether you can meet with someone over in Vero or whether you want to drive over to Altemont Springs, we’ll be more than happy to talk to you.  If you’re interested in calling our office, our phone number is 407-869-9800.  Call and ask for Nancy, she’d be happy to run up a financial plan for you and do a detailed analysis on your situation and get you going in the right direction so that you have a safe and secure retirement.

 

Well Sherry, thanks so much for the phone call.  If Sherry were to come visit at the office, how would they get there?

 

If they go to our website, which is financialgroup.com, there’s directions to our office.  You can also get all kinds of information on upcoming workshops, you can look at all of our bios, and you can click to take advantage of a complimentary consultation.  There’s a lot of information at financialgroup.com.

 

Alright, thank you so much, Nancy.  Sharon and Jim, hang on the line.  If you want to be behind Sharon and Jim, it’s 844-220-0965.  844-220-0965.  We are planning tomorrow today with the Certified Financial Group on WDBO.

 

And welcome back to the second half hour of On the Money with the Certified Financial Group here on news 965 WDBO.  We are taking your phone calls at 844-220-0965 with Aaron Burt and Nancy Hick from the Certified Financial Group.  Guys, has anybody joined us during the latest news, weather, and traffic <Inaudible>.

 

You know I had a little vertigo when I woke up this morning and I came back just then.  Anybody joined who joined us during the latest news, weather, and traffic, what can they call you about today?

 

They can call us about any of their pocketbook questions.  Whether it’s retirement planning, estate tax questions, long-term care, life insurance, 401ks, TSAs, 457s as we talked about.

 

457s was a new one.

 

<Inaudible> planning.  And if somebody wants to call because they whipped out their calculator when we were talking about the Dow and said she said 0.3 and it’s really 1.3, duly noted that the decimal point was a little off in the brain, so.

 

That was a <Inaudible>.

 

It still is a very miniscule — but any financial questions and concerns that you have facing your retirement.

 

Alright, just like that.  844-220-0965.  We do have a line here, so let’s get right back to our busy phone lines.  Sharon in Davenport.  Sharon, you’re on with the Certified Financial Group on WDBO.

 

Good morning, Sharon.

 

Good morning.

 

Hey.

 

Hey, I was wondering: I have some savings bonds that are maturing and not getting any more interest every month from now on.

 

Okay.

 

And I’m going to have to pay a lot of tax — well not, you know, tax on it.  It’s about $100 a week <?> is what it is.  It’s $75 will be taxable a week.  Should I be paying down debt with them, is there something that I can put them back into to get a decent return on <Inaudible>.

 

So you have savings bonds and they have — they’re 30 years past their maturity date, they’re no longer earning interest, correct?

 

Correct, every month.  I already cashed like $300 in last month and it’ll be basically like $400 a month.

 

Okay so you — we were a little puzzled by what you were saying by the per month thing.  So you have bonds coming due every single month, where you Probably bought them payroll deducted years and years ago. <Inaudible>

 

Alright, that makes sense.

 

Alright.  So you know how much you’re going to have to pay in taxes on these and then you have your net income.

 

Mhm.

 

Okay.  Alright, and you said should you pay down that debt or invest it, is there an opportunity for you potentially to do both at the same time?

 

Well, I have some credit card debt but a lot of it is zero interest.

 

Okay.

 

<Inaudible>.  I’ve been kind of finagling it.  It’s for — I <Inaudible> a credit card for a rental property.

 

Okay.

 

Just because I didn’t feel like <Inaudible> roll the mortgage stuff out.

 

Right.

 

So I then — gone back and forth and I pay about 3,000 on my debt a month.  And I’ve always been under the — always thought well if use your savings, you’ll never put it back.

 

Right, right.  I mean we had the discussion a caller ago about the <Inaudible> stock emergency money.  So if that’s a little bit low in your coffers, you might want to beef that up a little bit and then move onto retiring some of the debt.

 

Yeah, because the 0% interest deals are great, but you know — those eventually catch up to you.  If you run into an instance where you can’t roll that debt, then you are going to have a big bill that’s going to be coming due and you’re going to have to have the cash available to pay that 0% interest.  But you also want to make sure that when you’re rolling those kind of deals, that you are building up some sort of savings account so that you can pay that off in a swoop versus running into the instance where you can no longer roll that debt.  Because that can turn into a big mess for you.

 

Okay.  And I could always borrow on one of the — we have like five rental places and we could always borrow on one of them.  <Inaudible>

 

It sounds Sharon like you need to beef up the cash coffers a little bit and try and retire some of the debt at the same time.  So that would be from this limited conversation, the best advice we can give you right.

 

Alright.

 

But thank you so much for calling.

 

Sharon, thank you so much for the phone call.  If you want Sharon’s line, it’s 844-220-0965.  844-220-0965.  Go ahead Jim in Lake Mary.  Jim, you’re on with the Certified Financial Group on WDBO.

 

Good morning everyone, thanks for taking my call.

 

Of course.

 

What can we do for you?

 

I have a question on required minimum distributions after 70 and a half.

 

Okay.

 

I have fairly substantial IRAs and my question is to maybe make an assumption that I can pull out 3%.  And assuming my earnings are greater than that 3%, can the IRA continue to grow even with these required minimum distributions.  Or do you have to take earnings and principal as well?

 

No, it can continue to grow.  I mean everything grows on a tax-deferred basis.  So — because it’s in the IRA, in the qualified arena, the principal versus earnings really is not an issue like it would be for a taxable.  But I have year after year clients that’s are dealing with it, are having to take larger required minimum distributions because even though they took a withdrawal in 2016, the account has grown so much above what they’re having to withdraw that yes, they still have to.  To regardless of your required minimum distribution, if you have a well diversified portfolio and it’s lined up with your risk and your income needs, yes, there is a potential.  And it should — we would hope, be growing above what you have to withdraw every single year.

 

Now Jim, are you over 70 and a half currently.

 

No, I’m not.  I just turned 66.  So when you hit 70 and a half, you actually have to take 3.65% of your account value on December 31st of the year before you reach 70 and a half.  So you said 3%, just so you know the first RMD is actually 3.65% and then it goes up every year.  So you have to take that money out, you have to pay taxes on your withdrawal.  But if you don’t need all of the money, what we have a lot of our clients do actually is roll some of that money over into a brokerage account.  So that they are then able to keep now an outside of an IRA brokerage account growing for them so they have an additional pot of money to be able to draw from.

 

Right, understand.  Ok, yeah obviously it’s more concerning about tax planning as I do have to start making those large withdrawals.

 

Exactly.  Are you still working?  Do you have income now?

 

That was my question.

 

Yes, yes I am.

 

Have you had anybody do a financial plan for you, Jim.

 

Yes, I have.

 

Okay, great.  Alright.

 

<Inaudible>

 

I’m sorry, I felt very comfortable about where I am right now and it’s been concerning about the RMDs.  That was a concern.

 

Yeah, if you take a conservative rate of return and compound it between now and 70 and a half, you can get an estimate as to what your account may grow to and then apply the 3.65% in the first year.  You’ll know approximately what your first required minimum distribution is going to be.

 

And one thing to think about too, we’ve done a lot of plans for clients lately who are sitting on large IRAs, but then they also have large cash savings.  And then as they go into retirement, what they plan to do is live off of their cash savings before 70 and a half.  Let’s say you retire next year at 67 and then you’re going to live on your cash for three years and then start taking required minimum distributions.  If you are in a low income bracket, you may want to start taking money out of your IRA before you hit 70 and a half and get tax-free withdrawals from that because you’re in a low tax bracket or zero tax bracket and maybe do some Roth conversions.  Start moving some of that money over <Inaudible> into a Roth account.

 

Yeah, that’s a good point.  My wife has retired and to supplement what her income was, we are taking some withdrawals out of it right now to your point <?>.

 

Okay, good.  And we have no idea what’s going to happen with tax reform.  So you can level out the taxes throughout the rest of your life by taking withdrawals prior to 70 and a half.

 

Gotcha.

 

Right.  I wouldn’t take big withdrawals, I’d only take enough to keep you in the lower tax brackets if you’re just taking it in order to lower your IRA account balance.

 

Right, understand.  Well thanks very much.  I appreciate the information.

 

Yeah, you’re very welcome.  Thank you for the call.

 

Alright Jim, thanks so much for the phone call.  If you want Jim’s line, it’s 844-220-0965. 844-220-0965.  Or you could text us your questions, you can do about 160 characters, 21232.  Alright, we have some text questions here, guys.  Let’s start off with this one: Fiduciary says they would charge me a service fee of 1.25% a month and that they would take out of my account yearly.  Is that common?

 

It sounds like it’s 50% <?> a year.

 

I think the wow says no, it’s not common.

 

I think that’s a misprint. <Inaudible> 1.2 <Inaudible>.  And then <Inaudible> got to say 1.25% annually that they — I don’t know.  That doesn’t <Inaudible>.

 

I think the average annual management fees range between 1% and 1.5%.  We’ve seen some people that have charged 2% to 2.5% on assets under management over the course of the year.  But we do not charge 2% to 2.5%, but if it as that person typed, wow.

 

Yeah, <Inaudible>.  Wow.

 

We’ve got another text question here, 21232.  I am 67 at $150,000 in TSP.  I would like to move it to a Roth, but what is the easiest way to convert that tax-free to Roth tax-free, or any other BE and that’s why we ask you to keep it to 160 characters <Inaudible> because this text got cut off.

 

So the TSP is a thrift savings plan, so this person works for a non-for-profit.

 

That’s the government-run thrift savings plan.  Well usually the TSP, I guess they’re different types.  The TSP I’m familiar with is the one that’s offered to government employees.  I was in the military, I had the TSP.

 

Gotcha.

 

It’s tax-deferred savings.  So what they’re asking is can they — what’s the easiest way to convert it to a Roth or roll it to a Roth.  So what they have to do is go from the qualified retirement account to a rollover IRA and then go from rollover IRA to Roth.  What they want to look at is what is the potential tax ramifications of doing that.  If they’re going to roll the whole 150 or convert the whole $150,000 to Roth, they’re adding $150,000 onto their taxable income for the year.

 

Yeah, that’s a lot of money.

 

Yeah, and if they want to stage it and do a chunk every year from the Roth IRA into a Roth conversion, that may make more sense from a tax standpoint.  Especially again if we do have tax reform and brackets go down.  I’m not a fan of paying taxes unnecessarily, so this is not something I would want to do.

 

And that 150,000, that’s at least in the 25% tax bracket, so that’s about $38,000 in taxes.

 

On top of whatever they potential taxable income is.

 

Yeah, exactly.  So that’s a big chunk to take out of your account just so you can move it to the Roth.

 

I’m not a fan of being philanthropic, too.

 

<Inaudible> either.

 

Alright, got another tax question here, 21232.  Current cape <?> is 29.9 equaling 19.9’s <?> Black Tuesday, how overvalued is it, and don’t buy it at the top.

 

So the cape is a type of PE ratio developed and basically <Inaudible>.

 

That’s price to earnings ratio <Inaudible>.

 

<Inaudible> earnings ratio based on the average inflation adjusted earns from the previous 10 years.  As known as a cyclically adjusted PE ratio.  And he is correct — or she is correct, that the PE ratio, currently the cape, is matching the Black Tuesday amount which was back in 1929.  However, it is still within the average — it’s a little bit higher than it normally is median-wise.  But the cape ratio, the all-time high cape ratio was a 45, which is still another 10 points higher than what we’re currently at right now.  So I don’t know.  I mean you can –.

 

Okay, lost me, it’s boring.  I’m sorry.

 

Yeah, <Inaudible>.

 

I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be offending the texter or anything, but you know.

 

It’s looking back into the past to try and dictate what the future is going to do.

 

The world is different, the rules of investing are different, the curves on the markets going down that much are completely different.

 

We’re in a completely different world than we were in 1929 <Inaudible>.

 

You can’t apply what happened — or even what happened in ’87, you can’t apply.

 

Or what happened in the 2000, or I mean — yeah.

 

<Inaudible> a long time ago.

 

History is always interesting and fascinating.

 

And really what’s driving — and if you think about what’s driving the market right now is the hope for some deregulation and for a reduction in litigation possibly and —

 

Taxes.

 

Yeah, taxes.  And so there’s a lot of hope here that the agenda that’s being proposed is going through.  And that’s why last week we had some turmoil because when the White House had a little bit of pressure on it, the markets kind of got the fear that they’re going to be bogged down in that versus doing tax reform and healthcare reform, and all of those other things that are on the agenda.  So that’s why we had some turmoil.  But the market have been growing since November based off of the fact that they think that the government is going to get out of businesses’ way and let this economy start growing again.

 

And if you’ve been an investor for the last 10 or 15 years, 2015 was a negative year, 2011 was a negative year, 2008 was a negative year.  But doing a regular review and analysis with our clients, if you’ve had quality, it’s prevailed.  And people have not for the most part have gotten hurt by these dips over the those three years.

 

Alright, well if you have a question for us, 844-220-0965 is the number to dial us up.  844-220-0965.  If you want to text your question, you can keep it to about 160 characters.  21232.  That’s 21232.  We are planning tomorrow today.  With the Certified Financial Group, Aaron Burt, Nancy Hick in studio.  Now it’s time to get the three big things you need to know.

 

Welcome back to the final segment of On the Money with the Certified Financial Group here on news 965, WDBO.  We are here with Aaron Burt and Nancy Hick from the Certified Financial Group taking your phone calls at 844-220-0965.  Well, it is the last segment, and we haven’t gotten to one of our questions that were e-mailed into us here, Nancy.  This one is I’d like to move a portion of my RMD this month directly to my church.  It is my understanding that the direct move to a qualified charity can reduce the modified income used by the Social Security Administration in determining Medicare taxes.  Is this correct?  It’s an interesting one.

 

Yes, and the simple answer is yes.  That it has to be done properly.  For most of the required minimum distribution forms that we have, if you want to direct it to a charity, you can name who the check is payable but you have to have the tax ID number for the charity for this to all go through properly.  And this is as <Inaudible>

 

So who would do that?  Would that be your financial planner, or — okay.

 

Yes, I have done this for my clients and other people should be able to do it for their clients.  As opposed to taking the required minimum distribution and then you writing a check for it, so it’s going directly from your retirement account to the charity which is all kosher.  And you get the tax deduction, you’re satisfying your required minimum distributions so there’s no penalties there.  And as the question asks, no negative impact on the Medicare.

 

There’s a limit to that, there’s a dollar limit.  And it’s about 100,000 <Inaudible>.

 

$100,000 <Inaudible>.

 

So they can take $100,000 out of your IRA every year and it’ll could towards your RMD and then that can go direct to the charity of your choosing?  So a lot of people are doing that rather than writing checks.  They’re charitably inclined anyway, they just want to use the RMD, and it lowers the overall income and has other positive impacts as well.

 

Well I learned a lot of new stuff today.  <Inaudible> this was one that was really — that’s really interesting, I didn’t realize that.  Got about a minute and a half left to go.  We haven’t talked about the upcoming workshop with the Certified Financial Group.

 

Speaking about learning things, so the next workshop we have is on Tuesday, June 6th from 6:00pm to 8:00pm hosted by Gary Abelly.  When Can You Retire, and Know Your Number.  And then Gary is hosting <Inaudible> Healthcare Options in Retirement, this is Tuesday, July 11th from 6:00pm to 8:00pm.  And then Social Security Bootcamp hosted by myself and Denise Cobach is on July 20th from 6:00 to 7:30.  And the last one that we have on the books is Financial Basics Strategies for Success, Saturday, September 16th from 11:00am to 1:00pm hosted by Gary Abelly.  These are all informational to gather some good data to learn a little bit about us and the services that we provide.  There’s always a light meal supplied.

 

Sure.

 

So go to our website, financialgroup.com.  Click on the workshop tab and make your reservation.

 

Alright Nancy Hick and Aaron Burt in the studio today, thank you so much for joining us.  We’ll be back next week where we plan tomorrow today on news 965, WDBO.

 

Dictation made on 5/25/2017 3:33 PM EDT.

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