Speaker 1:
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. Discussions and answers to questions do not involve the rendering of personalized investment advice, but it’s limited to the dissemination of general information. A professional advisor should be consulted before implementing any of the options presented.
Speaker 1:
Certified Advisory Corp is registered as an investment advisor with the SEC, and only transacts business in states where it is properly registered, or is excluded, or exempted from registration requirements. Stay tuned for ‘On the Money’, central Florida’s most listened to financial call-in show. Brought to you buy Certified Financial Group in Altamonte Springs. It’s the only show hosted exclusively by certified financial planner professionals. Monday through Friday, their CFPs provide financial planning and investment advice for a fee, but on Saturdays, the advice is absolutely free, and has been for more than 30 years for their WDBO listeners. If you have a financial question you want answered by real fiduciaries, the lines are wide open call 407-869-9800, that’s 407-869-9800, and enjoy the rest of the show.
Chris:
Welcome in to another edition of ‘On the Money’ presented by the Certified Financial Group right here on WDBO 107.3FM and AM 580, Orlando’s news and talk. You want to get in touch with us? You can at 844-580-WDBO. That is 844-580-9326, 844-580-WDBO. Financial Times calls them one of the Top 300 firms in the country. And we’ve got open lines right to their office right now at 844-580-WDBO. That is 844-580-9326. Don’t forget, you can also hit us up on the open mic feature in the WDBO app. Just go ahead and open up the WDBO app, click the open mic feature, and leave us essentially what is a brief message on air, and we will play that live on air. Coming up in just a little bit, but in the meantime, you can give us the call. Those phone lines are wide open at 844-580-WDBO. That is 844-580-9326. With me now is the Oracle of Orlando, Joe Bert and Nancy Hecht. Good morning, and what topics will, or what actually calls we’ll be fielding today on the show.
Joe Bert:
Good morning, Chris. Well, Nancy and I are here as we have been for more than 30 years to take questions from our clients. Things that might be on your mind. This is one of the few, if not the only financial shows that is a call-in show. Most everybody else on Saturday and Sunday, it’s a one hour infomercial or more, but we’re here to help you.
Joe Bert:
Nancy and I, and 10 other certified financial planners, Monday through Friday, do financial planning and investment advice for our clients for a fee, on Saturday morning we are here absolutely free. So if you have any questions regarding your personal finances, decisions that you’re trying to make regarding an IRA, regarding your 401k, we’ve got a mutual fund regarding some real estate, long-term health care, annuities, life insurance, reverse mortgages, all that and more. These are the things that we deal with day in and day out for our clients. And we’ll be glad to provide you with a question, or an answer, that might be questioning, or a question that you might have on your mind. So the good news for you, as Chris said, the lines are absolutely wide open. You can jump right to the front of the line by picking up the phone and dialing these magic numbers.
Chris:
844-580-9326, 844-580-WDBO. And Joe, I’m actually curious here, because this is actually the first show that we’ve had. How did the shredded event go?
Joe Bert:
Nancy?
Nancy Hecht:
Well, I think it was well attended, and the weather, thank goodness, was nice. It wasn’t overly hot. [crosstalk 00:03:57].
Joe Bert:
Yeah, yeah. That’s true, that’s true. Saw a lot of new faces, which was really nice. We had our clients there in the first hour, and then a bunch of other people afterwards. I thought it was a well attended event, and we had the machine working nicely. Getting the flow around, giving away all the goodies that we had for people, and people shredding all of their garbage.
Joe Bert:
We had the largest shredder truck, we shredded people’s stuff right before their eyes. It’ll hold 25,000 pounds of shredding. And at 12 o’clock, that truck was about to burst. In fact, if you went to the side, you could feel it bulging. The guy that was running it says, “Listen, we need to shut this thing off because we can’t take much more.” And cars just kept coming. We had over 300 folks come through, we think, 300 cars come through, and it was a great event. We’re glad to do it. We’ll do it again next year. We’ve been doing it now, I guess, for over 10 years for our listers and for those folks that want the help. Stay tuned, we’ll be doing that. But thanks for asking, it was a great event. It was a great event. We had a good time doing it.
Chris:
That’s good to hear, we had a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun hosting it while you guys were out there. It was very cool. I was watching everything unfold. So, glad to hear that it continued to be a success on through the 11:00 AM to the 12 o’clock hour. If you want to join us here today on the show, we’re ready to go, 844-580-WDBO, 844-580-9326. What do you say we kick things off with George here, he’s calling in from Orlando.
Joe Bert:
Morning, George.
Nancy Hecht:
Hi, George.
George:
Hi, good morning. So, I’m kind of like a babe in the woods when it comes to this computer age, I keep hearing about this Bitcoins, what in the world is that?
Joe Bert:
I call it beanie babies with a cell phone. It’s a very speculative, I won’t even call it an investment. It’s a very speculative play as to how you believe a Bitcoin, or dogecoin, or Ethereum, or all those things that are out there, are going to move. And it’s a function of supply and demand. If more people want it, the price goes up. If fewer people on it, the price goes down. It has no, or very, very little value. It’s really whatever the public was willing to pay for it. And in my mind, somewhere down the road, it’s going to blow up. Nancy, you have any comments?
Nancy Hecht:
Well, it’s supposed to be a currency. And I sort of acquainted it when trying to explain to somebody when you went from only using cash to using checks, and then only from using checks to maybe like using a debit card or credit card, it was just like a huge mind shift in how to use currency, to get it from point A to point B. But in those examples, there were actual dollars behind the check and the credit card, and something like. With the Bitcoin, it’s this phantom value. So it’s gambling,
Joe Bert:
[crosstalk 00:06:55] it’s pure speculation.
Nancy Hecht:
If you’re going to put money into it, I don’t really call it investing, and try and ride it up. There’s two things you have to keep in mind. You don’t put any actual, real dollars into Bitcoin that you can afford to lose. And if you happen to get on a wave, you have to know what your level of greed is, and when to sell.
Joe Bert:
It’s very speculative. You got to accept the fact that you may lose all your money, and you can make a lot of money. Depending on what side of the trade you’re on, it’s reached as high as almost $60,000, and has been down about $30,000 recently. And depending on what any particular government, any particular point in time says, “We’re going to start to regulate this, or we’re going to look into it, or we want to tax the transactions.” It’s a great way for, let’s say the scoundrels in the world to move money around. They’re using it now for ransomware. We saw that in the Colonial Pipeline, they had to pay four and a half million dollars in Bitcoin to free up their computers, to allow them to open up the pipelines. And it’s a way for criminals to extract money from folks that want to free up their computers.
Joe Bert:
And I think for that reason, it’s going to be somewhere along the line, I don’t want to say outlawed, but it’s going to come under a lot of pressure. That’s not to say you can’t make money with it. Certain people have made a lot of money with it. You know, if you bought it when it was a dollar, or $2, or $3, and up to $30,000, there’s no question you made money. But if you bought it at $45,000 and today it’s worth $30,000, if you bought it at $50,000, and today it’s worth $30,000, it wasn’t a good investment. If you sell today, who knows where it’ll be tomorrow. And frankly, we don’t care. It’s not what Nancy and I do for our clients. Right, Nancy?
Nancy Hecht:
No, no. We manage money long-term for specific goals, particular to our clients. And if it comes to trading and speculating no [crosstalk 00:08:57]
Joe Bert:
That’s not what we do, our job is to keep…
Nancy Hecht:
If you want to do it, go ahead, and have fun. Just keep my two things in mind.
George:
Can you use it for shopping? [crosstalk 00:09:06] Like if you want to buy something with it?
Joe Bert:
Good luck. You can’t go to Publix and buy your groceries with it. And until that day comes, it’s frankly, in my mind, it’s just pure speculation. Although, if you listen to the people online, and they’re trying to get it in the mainstream. I don’t think it’s going to happen because the government can’t control it. You know, whether it’s China, whether it’s United States, if the government loses control of their currency, game over. Now, that doesn’t mean that the governments won’t come out with some kind of a currency, an electronic currency.
Joe Bert:
But certainly this Wild Wild West where you can mine this stuff. In fact, there was an article that was in this morning’s Wall Street Journal, that in England, they had a search warrant. They [crosstalk 00:09:48] a marijuana farm. And you know they scoped it out because of the heat that was coming from it. And they did drone things and what it turned out to be, it was a Bitcoin mine, and they had all these computers lined up, mining Bitcoin, stealing electricity to mine the Bitcoin. And in fact, I don’t know how much of the article you read, but they said Bitcoin mining today is using as much energy as the whole country of Finland does. Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s not ecologically sound.
Nancy Hecht:
It’s not green, in any sense of the word. [crosstalk 00:10:26] find something else to bet on.
Joe Bert:
But thanks for the call, George, as always good to hear from you. Appreciate the call.
George:
Thank you very much, have a nice weekend.
Joe Bert:
All right. You too.
Chris:
I appreciate that call there, George. You want to get in touch with us today? You can 844-580-WDBO, 844-580-9326. It’s it’s the tangibility with me that I just can’t get over. Right. You know, it doesn’t, there’s nothing tangible about Bitcoin. It doesn’t seem that way, at least.
Joe Bert:
Well, I can get away with the not being, being on your phone and being able to do electronic transactions. I mean, we do it all the time.
Chris:
Yeah. And it just feels different than those even, like I understand. And maybe it’s just because I can understand those. That might be what my hangup is, but it just, I don’t know. It just seems, it doesn’t like, it doesn’t seem real. And you know, like you said, like the beanie baby, they just feels like it’s going to pop away any minute now.
Joe Bert:
Well, that’s the risk that you run. You know, and that’s not, once again, it’s not to say you can’t make money with it. You can make money betting on football games. It’s all pure speculation. It’s pure…you know, and I think the real thing in people’s minds or why they feel differently about this, not betting, is because it has something to do with the capital markets. You know, you turn on CNBC in the morning and they’ll tell you what Bitcoin’s selling for.
Nancy Hecht:
And it’s the FOMO thing.
Joe Bert:
Yes, yes, yes. The fear of missing out. Yeah. So it’s a whole psychological thing that’s going out there, and it’s for folks that want to speculate, and it’s not for us.
Nancy Hecht:
Money that you can afford to lose. [crosstalk 00:11:54]
Joe Bert:
It’s not what we do. Our job is to get our clients to, and through a retirement years, if you’re familiar with baseball, we’d like to be singles and doubles players. We’re not trying to hit home runs, and we certainly don’t want to strike out. And that’s what we do. And that’s how we do it. So Bitcoin is not a part of our portfolios.
Chris:
I don’t think it should be either. Appreciate, appreciate that call George. That’s a good one. I know that there are probably George, you’re not the only person out there who had that question. I had that question.
Nancy Hecht:
There’s some exchange traded funds that are all cryptocurrency. And if somebody wants to dabble in it, I think that that’s a safer way to do it. But again, it’s an equity, if I can use that term that you’re gambling with, and you have to know when to get out.
Joe Bert:
It’s like anything, you got to know when to buy, know when to sell. Know when to hold them, know when to fold them.
Chris:
[crosstalk 00:12:53] if you want to call in our phone lines are open 844-580-WDBO, that is 844-580-9326. We’re planning tomorrow, today with a certified financial group on WDBO.
Chris:
Welcome back to ‘On the Money’ presented by the Certified Financial Group right here on WDBO 107.3FM, and AM 580, Orlando’s news and talk. If you want to get in touch, you can 844-580-WDBO, that number right now, 844-580-9326. You can go ahead and fill those phone lines up cause they’re empty. Who’s going to be our next caller. 844-580-WDBO. Should we go ahead and dive into our topic of the day today? [crosstalk 00:13:45] It’s very big for the holiday weekend. I liked this. I saw this and I thought that this was a perfect talk conversation to have today. Let’s talk about the benefits available to surviving family members of Vietnam Veterans.
Nancy Hecht:
Okay. The reason that I picked this is, first of all, I think that the Vietnam Vets are sort of overlooked. But second of all, I have personal experience with this. We have family friends that the husband served in Vietnam, and passed on cancer, due to being exposed to Agent Orange, to his daughter who sadly passed away as a teenager. And I have a few clients that similar things happened, that the husband passed on through his genes being exposed to Agent Orange, to his children who, sadly those two kids also passed away. So there’s a lot of things that have happened to Vietnam Vets and their family members, and people don’t realize there’re tens of thousands of survivors of Agent Orange, from their parents, who had served that don’t realize that the benefits are available. And I have this extremely long web address that if anybody wants, they can email me, nancy@financialgroup, and it’s healthcare needs and conditions specifically for Vietnam War Veterans.
Nancy Hecht:
And there’s a number of ailments that Vietnam Veterans have passed from, that people didn’t realize were due to Agent Orange, and their survivors have been able to go back and retroactively get benefits, or increased survivor monthly benefits. There’s a woman in Alabama whose husband had passed away from cardiac ischemia that originally was not on the Agent Orange list, and then got added to it. And she was able to get over $200,000 in back benefits from the VA, because of his service. There’s a lot of ailments associated with what the Vietnam Vets have suffered from and are suffering with. Now we know a couple of people that are survivors, and have passed on through their bloodstream, and their genes, to their family that people just don’t realize are available to them.
Nancy Hecht:
So, if you want some information, shoot me an email, nancy@finacialgroup, and I will give you all of the contact information. And then also for veterans of wars and their survivors, there’s a lot of paperwork that’s required through the VA for people to get benefits that they maybe don’t realize that they’re entitled to through the Aid and Attendance Program. And one of my clients kindly sent me all of that paperwork that I could share with my clients. So any survivors of veterans from any war, or surviving veterans that maybe need a little bit of help with their medical care, I have information that I’m happy to pass on.
Joe Bert:
These are one of the questions that we ask our clients when they come in for a financial planning is, are your spouse, and oftentimes the widow that comes in, was just, “was your spouse a veteran?” And they don’t realize that there are benefits that are available to them, even for long-term health care that it’s available. So when you’re dealing with your financial planner, you want to be sure that he or she is asking you those kinds of questions, because there are benefits that are available. They earn that through their service. And we all have a responsibility to pay that to our veterans and their families. Of course, if they’re entitled. So once again, your financial planners should be asking those kinds of questions. And it’s a part of the routine that we do, at Certified Financial Group. We do financial planning for our clients. It’s a good conversation. It’s amazing, some of the benefits that are available, particularly in the area of long-term health care.
Nancy Hecht:
And that’s what that Aid and Attendance, a lot of people don’t realize that. And it’s not just the veteran, but it’s the survivors of the veterans. So for Memorial Day I thought that this was an appropriate thing to share.
Joe Bert:
And while we’re talking about Memorial Day, Nancy and I, and the entire crew at Certified Financial Group want to extend our appreciation to all the veterans and the veterans families who’ve lost loved ones in the past wars. We would not have the freedom had those people not paid the ultimate price for what we have today. So our hats off to you, and our salute to you here on this Memorial Day.
Nancy Hecht:
“Proud To be an American” has been stuck in my head all day.
Joe Bert:
Maybe we can a ring that up [crosstalk 00:18:29].
Chris:
Well, if you want to get in touch, you got a question for us, you can, those phone lines are open, 844-580-WDBO. That is 844-580-9326, 844-580-WDBO, we’re planning tomorrow, today with a Certified Financial Group right here on WDBO 107.3FM, and AM 580.
Speaker 1:
Welcome back to on the money. Central Florida’s most listened to financial call-in show, brought to you by Certified Financial Group in Altamonte Springs. It’s the only show hosted exclusively by certified financial planner professionals. Monday through Friday, their CFPs provide financial planning and investment advice for a fee. But on Saturdays, the advice is absolutely free, and has been for more than 30 years for their WDBO listeners. If you have a financial question you want answered by real fiduciaries, the lines are wide open, call 407-869-9800, that’s 407-869-9800, and enjoy the rest of the show.
Nancy Hecht:
If you see me crying, I’m sorry.
Chris:
Welcome back to ‘On the Money’ presented by the Certified Financial Group right here on WDBO 107.3FM, and AM 580, Orlando’s news and talk. We’ve got open phone lines, express lines if you will, at 844-580-WDBO, 844-580-9326. You go ahead and join us right now, 844-580-WDBO. Joe, I meant to ask, is there anyone at the office taking calls right now?
Joe Bert:
There is not, it’s Memorial Day weekend, and everybody’s at the beach or taking time off. I appreciate that though.
Chris:
Good. [crosstalk 00:20:27] I just wanted to make sure. Well, I wanted to be sure that everyone is getting their time off. I didn’t want anyone to be there. I wanted to be sure [crosstalk 00:20:32] that everyone was enjoying their time off. We’re the only ones allowed to be working. I hope everyone is [crosstalk 00:20:37].
Joe Bert:
We’re working, as we always are, every Saturday morning, just for you.
Chris:
And you guys have some shops coming up here?
Joe Bert:
We do, Nancy what’s up?
Nancy Hecht:
Some workshops? Those types of shops? [crosstalk 00:20:48] The next one is Saturday, June 26. This is our first actual back to in-person workshops. So please, please go to financialgroup.com and the workshop tab, and make a reservation for ‘Countdown to Retirement’, Saturday, June 26, from nine to 11, hosted by Gary Abely. And then the next one is Saturday, July 24th, also from nine to 11, ‘Everything You Want to Know About Mutual Funds’, and this one is hosted by Rodney Ownby. Again, go to financialgroup.com, the workshop tab, make a reservation.
Joe Bert:
Both Ronnie and Gary, in addition to being certified financial planners, are also certified public accountants. So you’re getting double-barreled information there. Both of them are great guys, great presenters. And as Nancy said, it’s going to be live in our new learning center and our new remodel offices. So come on by and get some good information is absolutely free. And people say, “Well, why do you do this stuff, Joe?” We do it for basically two reasons. Number one, we want to help you avoid many, many of the pitfalls that we have seen people make as they’re getting to and through their retirement years. This is stuff that we’ve learned over the years. If we can educate you and keep you from making those mistakes, we feel good about that. And secondly, frankly, to introduce you to us, and to our firm, this way, whether you need financial planning now, or sometime in the future, you give us an opportunity to earn your business.
Joe Bert:
But leave your checkbook at home. This is not a product presentation. We’re not going to sell you anything. We’re not going to tell you about this new annuity or life insurance product that’s going to cure all your ills. We’re going to show you what you need to do to be ready for those retirement years. And we encourage you to sign up for that. So go to our website, as Nancy said, financialgroup.com, financialgroup.com, click on events, and you can make a reservation. And because it is live, seating is limited. So you want to sign up and be sure that you get on the list. So we hope to see you there on June 26, and July 24th at our offices.
Nancy Hecht:
If you are fully vaccinated and you’re two weeks past it. We are a mask free in our office.
Joe Bert:
Yes, we are mask free because we’re all vaxxed up.
Chris:
Oh, very good. And I actually was up at the offices a week ago, I think at this point. And I got to see those, the learning center and that is awesome. It is very cool. And the workshops from there are going to be very, very well done. And it’s exciting that you’re going to get to do them live and in person because that room and that area in space that you guys have carved out for it is beautiful.
Joe Bert:
And we hope to, and when you come by, we’ll be glad to show you the centerpiece of that learning center. Right Nancy? It’s the flag.
Nancy Hecht:
Yes, yes.
Joe Bert:
Tell our listeners about that.
Nancy Hecht:
It’s the coolest thing, it’s made out of fire hoses.
Joe Bert:
Actual fire hoses. With the brass fittings, still in a couple places, made my firemen. It’s five feet by eight feet. Picture that, it’s eight feet wide, five feet high, thing must weigh, I don’t know how many hundreds of pounds, but we’ve got it mounted as a centerpiece in our learning center, and hope to have you come by and see. It a beautiful piece of artwork that these guys put together for us. And we’re proud of it. So, and it’s dedicated to first responders, our first responders, and the military. So it’s very apropos for this weekend as well.
Chris:
Perfect, love that. And we did have a caller call in, John, was calling in during the break, and he had a question. He was curious as to what your thoughts were, or opinion was, on AMC right now? He’s been seeing a lot of stuff on TV [crosstalk 00:24:15] about it. Is this GameStop 2.0?
Nancy Hecht:
Yes, I’m happy that the movie theaters have opened up again, and you can actually go to a theater if you wish. But I think that, first of all, this is an established company, as opposed to something like the Bitcoin. I mean, AMC is an actual functioning business, but I think because of the products that are being put out, and the speed at which the products are being putting out, and the various different methods in which you can see movies today, people are using companies like AMC to gamble with.
Joe Bert:
It’s what they call a meme stock.
Nancy Hecht:
Yeah. I mean, it has gone from a regular, ordinary boring kind of stock that you could buy. And depending on what’s happening with the entertainment industry, it would ebb and flow to something that has become a Wild West shootout.
Joe Bert:
Once Reddit picks it up and it gets on these boards and people start speculating, then it’s the Wild West because people are shorting it. And some people are going the other direction, and some people are making a lot of money, and some people are losing a lot of money. And once again, I think it’s a very speculative play. You can make money with it as it would all speculation though, you could lose money with it.
Nancy Hecht:
And again, that’s not the thrust of our practice. We’re into long-term planning. I mean, anybody who listens to our show knows that there’s a lot of financial shows on all the different radio stations. And I try to listen to what everybody else is saying out there from the various different stations that are around town. One day I was driving in my car and I heard something. It was, it’s not a WDBO show. It’s from another station, that they’re financial people. I think it’s supposed to be a call-in show, but I never heard callers. Regardless, the host said that they had gotten a call at their office from somebody that was two to three months away from retirement. And they wanted help getting their ducks in a row and making sure that they had somebody to help them manage their assets and get income through retirement.
Nancy Hecht:
And the host actually said, I’m not interested in people like that. I want people that are like two, three years away from retirement. You know what, if you’re two, three months away from retirement, and you’ve just been socking money away into your corporate plans, and now you need to know how to pay yourself in a tax friendly manner, and in something that’s a little bit more fluid, and will ebb and flow with your needs. And you’re two to three months away from retirement, I’m happy to talk to you. I was shocked at what that person had said.
Joe Bert:
It’s what we do. And even, we’ve see clients that are already retired and the toughest cases that Nancy and I work on and the 10 other certified financial planners at CFG deal with, are clients that have never done any financial planning. And then they come in to see us for the first time after they’ve retired four or five years. And they did what I call back the envelope financial planning.
Joe Bert:
So you know, where you look at, “Okay, we’re spending this much every month on groceries and gasoline and dining out. And we’ve got this much coming in from social security and we can take this much from our vestments, are we going to be okay?” In four to five years in retirement, the wheels are coming off, and they don’t realize why. And it’s because they either went online, and did one of these do it yourself deals, or they got one of these free financial plans that people are touting out there to get your business. And we’ll talk, we can talk about that sometime. And the wheels are coming off, and they want us to fix it. And those are tough conversations to have. Sometimes it can be repaired. Sometimes you have to make some major lifestyle changes because you’re running out of money and you don’t realize why. So financial planning is what we do. We believe that good investing requires good planning upfront. And most people don’t want to spend the time doing the planning because investing is easy. Today, you go on your cell phone and do your investing, right?
Nancy Hecht:
If you want to buy Bitcoin or AMC…
Joe Bert:
[crosstalk 00:28:17] there’s all kinds of opportunity out there.
Nancy Hecht:
People are shocked to find out how much actual work we do when it comes to reviewing and reporting. It’s not just helping them move their money out of their corporate plan, into a rollover IRA or something that gives them a lot more flexibility and choice and choice on taxes, which I think is the biggest deal. But when I explained to my clients what we do every single quarter, and looking at the balance between equity and income, and looking at the quality of the investments, and has there been style drift, and has there been a big management change, or anything along those lines? They’re shocked at how much actual analytical work is done every single quarter, and looking at the mix between equity and income, I heard somebody talking this morning again on another station about the 60/40 mix, which we call a moderate risk tolerance.
Nancy Hecht:
And they were talking about that like, “Everybody, if you go to a certified financial planner, or you go to a money manager, everybody’s getting a 60/40 mix.” That’s not the case with us. We have this really, really fun risk tolerance questionnaire. I’m being facetious. If you can’t tell, but it helps us narrow down how people feel about risk and how soon they need to start paying their self from their investments. And we have six different classifications of mixes between equity and income. so we don’t go with the one size fits all kind of investment mix.
Joe Bert:
But oddly enough, many people fall in that moderate portfolio. If you could have a moderate portfolio where you don’t have to be trying to hit home, runs to get to where you want to go, then that’ll work for you. And by the same token, you can’t, many people can’t afford to be ultra conservative. And many people say, “I don’t want to lose any money”, but if you don’t get that money growing for you, you’re going to be losing money because you could be eating your principal because it’s not growing fast enough.
Joe Bert:
And you’d have to look at 5, 10, 15 years down the road, what that costs you. And that’s what financial planning is all about. And then I think that’s what distinguishes a certified financial group from many people that are on the radio today. All of our planners are certified financial planners, which means we do planning for our clients. We look at where you are, what you need to do, so you don’t look back five or 10 years from now say, “Gee, I wish I would have known, or gee I’m sorry we did”. We are not the most expensive out there by any stretch of the imagination, but you certainly don’t want to do work with somebody that does it for free. That’s all I have to say.
Nancy Hecht:
Well, and in reference to planning two things that people don’t often think about is inflation, which hasn’t really been a factor in people’s lives in a while, but it’s going to come roaring back really fast. I mean, last month it was stated to be a little bit more than 4%, but supposedly it’s gone back down again, miraculously, but social security recipients are getting a greater than 4% increase starting next year. [crosstalk 00:31:19] Where is that coming from?
Nancy Hecht:
And anybody who’s doing home improvement, or building a house, is realizing how hard it is to get lumber and appliances and stuff like that because of scarcity and pricing. So inflation, and then also looking at, okay, great, we’re happy that you are able to retire, but I want to look at the next 25 to 30 years and how these things are potentially going to have to work for you in the long run.
Joe Bert:
Right. You know, you’re talking about the 4% projected increase for social security. And we were with clients this week and we reviewed their plan, and their plan says, don’t take your social security until 70. They can afford not to do it. And their health is in good shape. And we got to talking about this potential increase. So not only do you get the 8% annual guaranteed increase, but now a 4% increase on a larger base for the rest of your life. That’s huge money. That’s guaranteed, which we can provide for you and in the investment world. That’s why we take a strong look at what your social security options are to give you the guidance when we do financial planning.
Nancy Hecht:
I contend, because nobody guarantees 8%, that if that guarantee was knocked down to five versus eight [crosstalk 00:32:32] which is still an awful nice guarantee, but it would go a long way to making sure that the social security trust fund stays intact longer than the projected 2033, which is right around the corner.
Joe Bert:
Right here presume. So that’s, that’s our story this morning. [crosstalk 00:32:50] We have time to talk about square my funds?
Chris:
Why don’t we take a quick break for the three [crosstalk 00:32:56] big things and we’ll talk a little about square my funds when we get back, you can give [crosstalk 00:32:57] If you can give us a call here, phone lines are open 844-580-WDBO, 844-580-9326. We’re planning tomorrow, today, the Certified Financial Group on WDBO.
Chris:
Hey, final segment of ‘On the Money’ right here on WDBO 107.3FM, and AM 580. Real quick let’s go to Les calling in from Lake Mary. You’re going to be the final call of show, Les welcome on.
Les:
How’s everybody today? [crosstalk 00:33:25]
Nancy Hecht:
What can we do for you?
Les:
One quick question: you say you don’t sell products and things like that, but do you do the actual investing, or do you send people to Schwab or Fidelity or something like that?
Nancy Hecht:
Well we use TD Ameritrade and Fidelity to custody the funds for our clients. They are the vehicle that we use to hold the various different exchange, traded funds and open-end mutual funds. The advantage of using Fidelity Institutional and TD Ameritrade on the institutional side is that we are investing at a wholesale versus retail platform for our clients. So we do pick and present the various different funds to our clients based on what their risk tolerance is and use those companies to custody the funds for our clients. But, the recommendations, the management, the face-to-face review and update meetings, are all done by us, with our clients in our offices in Altamonte Springs.
Joe Bert:
We take full responsibility to build a portfolio and monitor the portfolio. And as Nancy said, we use those two custodians. And that’s your assurance that we’re not a Bernie Madoff kind of operation that we disappear tomorrow and so with your money. So you’d get 24/7 access on the internet. You know, the money is there, but what we do and our responsibility is to build a portfolio, to meet your short-term and long-term goals, finding the very best money managers in the world, being mutual funds or exchange traded funds, and pick them and monitor them and be sure that they’re always at the top of their game. And we’re strong believers that if you’re well-diversified with quality in the long run, you’ll be a successful investor.
Joe Bert:
I appreciate the call, there’s firms out there that what they’ll do is they will build a portfolio for you and you talk to them on an 800 number and they will build a portfolio for you. What it is a bunch of individual stocks, some are great, some are not so good as with any portfolio, but when you look at it at the end of the day, what you have is a mini mutual fund. And what Nancy and I do is we pick mutual funds and ETFs that are across all the major sectors or large cap, small cap, mid cap, international bonds, REITs, and so forth. So you have a well-diversified portfolio to get you through the bad times, and make money in the good times.
Nancy Hecht:
So Les, if you call our office and you wanted somebody to give a reviewer update, maybe on your current portfolio, or you were ready to start working with a certified financial planner, the CFP that you meet with is the person that will be doing everything for you. Doing the analytical work, the retirement cash flow planning, putting together the investment recommendations, the reviewing, the monitoring and the regular meetings with you throughout the year.
Joe Bert:
And the important thing is there’s continuity in our firm. We’re not a one man band, and it’s designed like that. If something happens to any one of the planners, we have 12 planners soon to have 13 planners in our firm, that can carry on for you, and your meeting directly with us. You know when you go in to see the doctor, that’s going to do the heart surgery on you, you want to be sure that the chemistry is right and that, first of all, that they’re competent, but secondly, you’ve got a lifetime relationship. You want to be sure it’s the right relationship.
Nancy Hecht:
Yes. So Les feel free to give us a call.
Joe Bert:
And all of our listeners, you can go to our website, that’s financialgroup.com, financialgroup.com. You can learn all about Nancy and me, and the 10 other certified financial planners that makeup Certified Financial Group. We have an office in Altamonte Springs, and we also have an outpost in the Windermere area for our listeners down in South Orlando, South Lake County. And we have clients all over the country, frankly, some of whom we never met face-to-face and that’s simply the way we have the ability to do business today.
Joe Bert:
So if you want more information about us, learn more information about the workshop coming up on June 26 at our office, go to our website, click on events, and you can make a reservation right there. And once again, Nancy and I, and the entire gang of Certified Financial Group want to thank you for listening, and a tip of the hat and a salute to all of our veterans and their families for…
Nancy Hecht:
Yes, have a solemn Memorial Day.
Joe Bert:
Yes, yes. And God bless.
Chris:
Appreciate everyone tuning in to another edition of ‘On the Money’. Be back same time, same place next week on WDBO.