Chris:
That’s right. Line are open and you can call us right now at 844-580-WDBO, 844-580-9326. Welcome on in to another edition of, On the Money right here on WDBO 1073 FM and AM 580 brought to you by the Certified Financial Group. We are here today with Joe Bert of the Certified Financial Group. And I believe we have Denise with us as well this morning.
Joe Bert:
No.
Chris:
It’s Nancy Hecht. I’m sorry.
Joe Bert:
Close but no cigar.
Chris:
Close but no cigar. All right. We got Nancy Hecht with us this week, Nancy.
Nancy Hecht:
Had the cigar last night.
Chris:
Oh, okay. There we go. So I’m just close. You had the cigar. That sounds fair. I think that’s a fair trade-off right there. If you want to get in touch with Nancy and Joe, those phone lines to get in touch with them right now at 844-580-WDBO, 844-580-9326. Financial Times calls them one of the top 300 firms in the country and you can call and get in touch with them right now. They’re answering your questions live on the air for free at 844-580-WDBO, 844-580-9326. Good morning, Joe. Good morning, Nancy. What kind of calls will we take on the show today?
Joe Bert:
Well, as we have been doing for more than 30 years, Nancy and I are here to take the questions that might be on your mind and provide you with another scintillating hour of financial broadcast journalism. We’re here to answer questions that might be on your mind regarding the decisions that you have to make regarding your IRA, about a 401k, about a mutual fund, about long-term health care, reverse mortgages, life insurance, all those things and more. These are the things that we have to consider when we do financial planning for our clients as we do Monday through Friday, providing financial planning and investment advice for a fee.
Joe Bert:
But on a Saturday morning, we’re here to take your questions for free because they don’t teach you this stuff in school. We go through life trying some of this, trying some of that, wake up at 55 years old and find out we may be staring at a collection of financial accidents. So we are here your financial body shop. We’ll get out the Bondo this morning and patch you up and get you on your way. And I guarantee if you have that question, there’s probably a dozen other listeners out there in the WDBO listing area that have the same question. So pick up the phone and dial these numbers because we are available and the lines are absolutely wide open
Chris:
844-580-WDBO. 844-580-9326. I imagined that more than a dozen people probably have that same question out there as well. I think it goes even further than that and as the most recent school graduate here on the show, I can definitely attest to the fact that they don’t teach you this stuff here in school. So go ahead and give us a call right now. 844-580-WDBO. In the meantime, let’s go ahead and kick things off with our topic of the day. And boy, this has really been something we’ve been seeing talked about in the news over the past week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks.
Chris:
Inflation going up and up. And if this isn’t a sign of it, I don’t know what is. Whenever I leave for work, I have a 7-Eleven gas station right there on the corner that I can see every time I pull out of my neighborhood. And every single week, it continues to go up along with just things at the grocery store and a bunch of other things. The inflation right now is just out of control is it not?
Nancy Hecht:
It is quite crazy. So I try not to let my gas tank go under half because I drive an older foreign car and it takes premium. And it’s always been a little bit expensive. So, plus you never know what could happen. So don’t let your gas tank go below half a tank. Every Sunday I go to the same gas station and get gas so I can track the prices. And I was shocked that last week on Sunday, it was almost 5% more than the week before, which was a huge increase.
Joe Bert:
And it’s going to only get worse unfortunately.
Nancy Hecht:
It is. It is. And then I saw an interview with a restaurateur in the Northeast who was talking about the price of bacon was $2.40 a pound; he’s now paying $6 a pound for bacon, which is crazy. And oh, by the way, Thanksgiving is coming and turkeys are right now hard to find. So if you have a place to go that you can reserve your turkey, you might just want to think about that.
Nancy Hecht:
So I saw an interview last week that was quite interesting. It was the director of transportation and logistics from MIT. So he was talking about everything that we have been talking about this morning and it’s just been on the news ad nauseum how expensive everything is and all the tankers off shores and it’s hard to find truckers. Trucking is down 50% over last year, which is crazy.
Joe Bert:
They want to pay these guys 100,000 a year and they still can’t get them. Can’t find them. You know what the other problem is, Nancy, with the truckers is right now you have to be 21 years old to drive a semi. So the kids are coming out of high school that may want to do this can’t get the jobs.
Nancy Hecht:
They’re not old enough. Yeah. So his opinion is, and the interesting part was at the beginning, without government intervention, which is a big if, by the second quarter of next year everything should be back to normal as far as shipping and offloading and stores being stocked and all that other stuff. But the without government intervention was a big thing. We’re all having to deal with this. Prices on everything are going up. Stuff is getting scarce. People are starting to horde.
Joe Bert:
How about toilet paper? We okay on toilet paper?
Nancy Hecht:
Well, I’ve seen it plenty of places and there’s always Kleenex, which can be used as a substitute, which people don’t think about. So here’s, I have a few tips to help people just deal with this a little bit. First of all, get out from behind the screen and actually do something in your community. It’s nice to be on whatever social media you are and complain and put your two cents out there. But if you get out in your community and actually do and try and help, it makes a bigger difference for the community and for your own mental health.
Joe Bert:
I agree. 100%.
Nancy Hecht:
Something that I have talked about forever is manage your purchasing. What’s the outgo? How are you spending? And be judicious with your spending. You don’t need to be hoarding paper products right now. It’s a little bit ridiculous as far as I’m concerned. Staples and things that you’re using week after week after week, instead of buying a package of hamburger, you might want to buy two packages of hamburger. Just have a little bit extra stored, but don’t go crazy and put yourself in a position where now you have to start using credit cards for your purchases because you’ve gone through the cash flow that you would have-
Joe Bert:
Absolute worst idea.
Nancy Hecht:
Right. Because then you start that whole, you can’t afford to pay off your bill and interest rates and all that other stuff. So, hopefully the government will not intervene and by the second quarter of this year, we will be saying, thank goodness it’s over.
Joe Bert:
I think some of this transitory inflation is the fed has called it, I think is baked in now. The people that are getting the higher wages simply because there’s a shortage of labor, I don’t think they’re going to get any pay cuts.
Nancy Hecht:
No. Well, and let’s look at Social Security for all of those people that are getting social security. So the initial increase for next year was supposed to be 5.3%, which is 4% higher than average. When I first saw that I choked and now it’s going to be 5.9%, which is huge, huge. And then the proposal for 2023 is 6.1%.
Joe Bert:
That’s the good news but the bad news is, is that inflation is running at that pace. So although you may have more dollars, you’re really just treading water. And then they haven’t factored in what the increase is going to be a Medicare Part B. So, it feels good for a minute. It’s like kind of when you’re a little baby peeing in your diaper it felt good for about 10 seconds.
Nancy Hecht:
I have no recollection.
Joe Bert:
I do very much. Very clear in my mind.
Nancy Hecht:
From like last week.
Joe Bert:
Week before. Anyway, as a baby that’s what they say. It feels good for a while, but then you really have-
Nancy Hecht:
We’ve been together a long time.
Joe Bert:
… consequences at the end of the day. So it’s a feel good feeling that doesn’t last very long and that’s, what’s going on I think with the… we’re going to get the increase come January in those in this paychecks. But as you said, everything is going up. And some of that, unfortunately, that is baked in. And the other thing too, and I’m really concerned about if we can digress or somewhat attach to this, is the lack of computer chips.
Nancy Hecht:
Well, that, yeah. Well, and getting back to all of this inflation and paying for it, my concern, and I’ve been watching all the proposals since the second week of January is what’s going to happen with taxes? I’m looking at, we’re doing our quarterly rebalancing right now and having to scrape some gains off the table. And one point that I’m making to my clients is that we know what capital gains tax is right now.
Joe Bert:
Exactly.
Nancy Hecht:
And it’s being proposed that across the board, no matter what your income level is, capital gains tax will go to 28%, which is a huge increase for a lot of taxpayers.
Joe Bert:
It’s a big, big increase. Some people say, well 20 to 28%, that’s only an 8% increase. Folks that’s 40%. It’s 40%.
Nancy Hecht:
You’re going from zero to 15% capital gains tax, and now you’re going to be paying 28, that’s a huge increase.
Joe Bert:
That’s almost 100% increase. 15 to 28 is not 13%. It’s 13 percentage points, but it’s nearly 100% increase and that’s what the government doesn’t want you to focus on. So let’s hope, let’s keep our fingers crossed that Joe Manchin and Sinema hold the ground and keep this thing under control. Because if we get this three and a half trillion dollar boondoggle past, who knows where that’s going to go.
Joe Bert:
So anyway, inflation is here with us. The good news is, is that it can be managed. You can work your way through it. We’ve been through it before. But heaven’s folks, if you’ve got your money locked up, tied down in a low interest bearing something where the government or not the gov… well, the government if you’re owning treasury bills. Or your bank is paying you virtually nothing. Although you may have the same amount of dollars, you really have less spending power and the name of the game at the end of the day is what will those dollars buy for you in terms of gasoline, groceries, electricity? You’ve got to get your dollars working for you. And it’s simple as that. That’s what we do.
Joe Bert:
So anyway, we are here this morning, live for you to answer any questions that you might have regarding your personal finances. As I said, inflation is one of those things that we deal with as financial planners. We factor it into the planning we do right Nancy?
Nancy Hecht:
Yes, we do. And most of us, if not all of us, use a higher inflation factor for the healthcare component than we do for regular everyday spending.
Joe Bert:
Yeah because that’s going to be, that goes up at a far greater rate. But when you do financial planning, it’s important that you factor that in because you may… and the toughest, as I said this before, the toughest cases that Nancy and I work on and the 12 other certified financial planners here at CFG work, are clients that haven’t done any financial planning and then they retire. And then they come in to see us three or four years into retirement, and the wheels are coming off. And we’re going to see more of those people here I think in the coming year as they’re wondering why they can’t do the things that they wanted to do or why their dollar isn’t going as far. And they don’t feel as comfortable as they did maybe a year or two years after they retired. It’s critical that you do this planning before you start on that long journey called retirement.
Joe Bert:
So you know what you need to do so you don’t look back five years from now and say, “Gee, I wish I’d have known that.” Or, “Gee, I’m sorry I did that.” We do financial planning and investment advice for a fee. We don’t give away our financial plans because we believe they have value. But we believe that you will find the value there. And if you don’t believe that you got value when it’s done, we’ll be more than happy to refund your money.
Joe Bert:
But what we find is that what people get out of doing, going through the financial planning process, they have peace of mind. And then when it comes time to invest their money, they know exactly what they need to do and how they do it. So if you want more information about what we do and how we do it, you can go to our website, that’s financialgroup.com, financialgroup.com. You can click on our biographies there and learn all about Nancy and me and the 12 other certified financial planners here. And I know we’re up against the clock, so I’ll let you take it away, Chris.
Chris:
That’s right. Phone lines are still open here at 844-580-WDBO. You can go ahead and give us a call right now. Get your question answered live on the air. 844-580-9326. We’re planning tomorrow today with the Certified Financial Group on WDBO.
Chris:
Hey, welcome back to On the Money Presented by the Certified Financial Group on WDBO 1073 FM and AM 580 Orlando’s news and talk. You can go ahead and give us a call. Phone lines are open at 844-580-WDBO. 844-580-9326. Let’s head to those phone lines. We’ve got James calling in.
Nancy Hecht:
Hi, James.
Joe Bert:
Good morning.
James:
Good morning. I’m retired and I have a question regarding the fact that I have five different brokerage accounts SEP IRAs and mutual funds. And I want to consolidate them down into one account. How can I do that this year and will I incur any penalties?
Joe Bert:
Well we do that all the time. How do we do it Nancy?
Nancy Hecht:
Well, actually, James, I met with a couple yesterday that’s in a similar situation as yours. If you have a SEP IRA and you are no longer contributing to that and you have another IRA out there and maybe a 401k or something like that, those can all be consolidated into one rollover IRA account. If you have non-retirement accounts, two or of those that are out there, those can be combined into again, one account that’s in your name alone or joint with somebody and then has a transfer on death designation. It’s really not from your standpoint very hard thing to do for us. It’s a matter of getting all the paperwork together and gathering everything and putting it in one place.
Nancy Hecht:
One benefit you will have aside from having the consolidation is with our regular review of clients’ assets, first of all, we’ll look at the quality which you have and look at what kind of repetition you have. You may have a similar fund or an extremely similar fund in all of your accounts, which may not be helping you as far as diversification goes. And then when it comes time for your required minimum distributions, if you just have one place to draw from, it’ll make things a lot easier. So, James, this is something that we do regularly for our clients.
Joe Bert:
It’s a very straightforward process. In fact, we can do it sometimes right from our office here. We can contact the custodian directly. If it’s NetBenefits, if it’s Fidelity, if it’s Schwab or whomever it might be and we put it all in one account. And then what we provide is professional management to have you a well-diversified portfolio to reduce your costs and to get you the highest after-tax return net of our fees, and to actively manage your portfolio for you.
Joe Bert:
So if you want more information about that and how we do it, simply go to our website. That’s financialgroup.com, financialgroup.com. We offer you a no-obligation visit where you can come by and we’ll show you exactly what we’ve been doing for clients for more than 40 years and how we handle it. But as Nancy said, the big benefits are that you’ve got it in one place. You eliminate a lot of the paperwork. And when it comes time for those required minimum distributions, it’s a heck of a lot easier. So we encourage you to give us a call. James, greatly appreciate your call.
Nancy Hecht:
And if you go through our website, James, please mention that you did contact us through the radio show today. Have a great weekend.
Chris:
Appreciate that call, James. If you want to take his line, you can call in right now at 844-580-WDBO. 844-580-9326. We’ve got Doug in Daytona we still got to get to. Plenty of more calls that we can open up with as well at 844-580-WDBO. 844-580-9326. We’re planning tomorrow today with the Certified Financial Group On WDBO.
Chris:
Hey, welcome back to On the Money presented by the Certified Financial Group on WDBO 1073 FM and AM 580 Orlando’s news and talk. You want to get in touch with us here on the show you can at 844-580-9326. 844-580-WDBO. Also check us out on Facebook right now facebook.com/onthemoneyfl and go ahead and check out the live stream of the show and leave a comment there. And Joe, we have anyone at the office taking calls today?
Joe Bert:
Actually, the guys in the office took the day off. They’ve got stuff to do with their families.
Chris:
Much deserved.
Joe Bert:
It’s Nancy and me and you still have by the clock here, 23 minutes to pick up the phone and dial those numbers once again and put in your question.
Chris:
That’s right. 844-580-WDBO. 844-580-9326. Let’s go out to Daytona and talk with Doug in the meantime as you fill up those lines. Doug, good morning.
Joe Bert:
Morning, Doug. Thanks for calling. What’s up?
Doug:
Good morning. Well, first off I love the show and I have a general and then a specific question. The general question is about cryptocurrency. And the more specific one is there’s something happening with trading Bitcoin futures. Next week supposedly they’re going to allow that. What does all that mean? And is crypto a good investment?
Joe Bert:
First of all, it’s not… well it’s an investment, but it’s a highly speculative investment in my estimation. It’s a means to frankly to gamble because it has really no intrinsic value. The only value it has is what somebody is willing to pay for it. It’s like, you may remember Beanie Babies from years ago?
Doug:
Sure.
Joe Bert:
That was what everybody was willing to pay for that Beanie Baby. And it went way up and it came way down. It’s the same thing with baseball cards or art or anything like that. Art may be a different thing because you can hang it on your wall and enjoy it. I don’t know what you do with a Bitcoin. I certainly don’t know what you do with a baseball card except look at it and put it away.
Joe Bert:
But it’s really what anybody is willing to pay for it. It has no intrinsic value. If you own a stock, you own an asset, which is a part of… you own a piece of a company that has assets. If you own a bond, you have an obligation from somebody to pay you back not only your principal, but interest.
Joe Bert:
With a Bitcoin, all you have is hoping that somebody will pay you more than what you bought it for. Now, the only thing there is if it turns into some form of legitimate currency and that’s what they’re fighting for. They want to turn it into legitimate currency, but do you really think that the central banks around the world are going to have some off the chart, off the record kind of transaction where they can’t control? So I think it’s very speculative. That doesn’t mean you can’t make money at it. Anything that’s speculative, whether it’s gold, silver oil futures, whatever it might be, you can make money on it. You can also lose money in it. Nancy, go ahead.
Nancy Hecht:
Well, and my attitude, Doug, towards Bitcoin is that it’s not an investment. It is a gamble. And for any of the people that I’ve spoken to that want to stick their toe in that water, I advise them that whatever dollars you’re going to allocate, whether it’s buying an exchange traded fund or something in that arena, it has to be dollars that you can afford to lose.
Nancy Hecht:
And if you lose them, then you know, that’s the gamble that you took and you happen to lose. So it’s something you have to watch. It doesn’t fit within the purview of what our parameters are. We certainly have paid attention to it. Initially, I was thinking that this is like when credit cards first came out and, “What do you mean using this piece of plastic to pay for stuff?” And it was such a radical idea. But I think Bitcoin has a long way to go before it gets the acceptance of a credit card, Doug.
Joe Bert:
Doug, we have a white paper on it. If you want more information about it, please feel free to get in touch with us. You can reach me at joe@financialgroup.com or just call in the office and I’d be glad to email that to you. You asked about futures. Futures is another way to take this to another level. And all you’re doing is you’re betting on the direction of the value, whether it’s going to go up or it’s going to go down and you can even leverage that and get even more bang for the buck, if you will. But it’s…
Nancy Hecht:
The operative word is betting.
Joe Bert:
Right. Exactly. So a futures is a way to you don’t actually own the individual whatever it is, cattle futures or pork bellies or in this case, Bitcoin. But what you’re doing is you’re betting on the movement of it and you’re betting on what’s going to happen in the future whether it’s going to go up or it’s going to go down. And you buy it for one price and you just hopefully sell it for another price in the future.
Joe Bert:
So, I have a question for you, Doug, and we really appreciate the compliment. Nancy and I, we work very hard in trying to make this the very best program for our listeners on a regular basis. And you said you’re a regular listener and you listen to the show and you enjoy it. Would you be kind enough to tell us what you like about the show? I’m looking for some compliments.
Doug:
Okay. Well, I’ll be very complimentary. First off, you guys as far as your actual business is concerned, the consulting business, the advising service. You’re upfront that you do it for a fee. That’s something that a lot of people, or a lot of these kinds of shows don’t really sort of lay out there. The other thing is you open up your phone lines. There’s a large variety of calls that you get about a lot of different subjects or topics, a number of which I’d never considered or thought about. And it sort of makes me think a little bit more.
Doug:
And it’s just enjoyable to hear professionals talk about something, as opposed to what you hear at the American Legion or something like that. And I’m not knocking them, don’t misunderstand. But, open and honest opinions are something that are valuable. I think that what you’ve been talking about over the time I’ve been listening is good, obviously general advice. You can’t, you don’t know my particular circumstance or someone else’s, unless they come in and actually engage you on a client basis. But it’s opening the ideas to people like me who are not professionals at this as to other ways to even consider what I’ve been doing. Expand the opportunities and hopefully make better ideas.
Joe Bert:
Well, thank you for the kind words. The number one mission that we’re on is create awareness. And as you said to make you think about things, because we say this time and time again. We don’t learn this stuff in school. We learn it at the school of hard knocks. And unfortunately, some of the decisions that we make, we make because we simply don’t have good information. And it’s what Nancy and I and the 12 of the certified financial planners do for our clients. But we try to answer your question. Go ahead.
Doug:
Let me just say that in financial stuff, the school of hard knocks is an expensive school to go to.
Nancy Hecht:
Yes it is. And Doug, you brought up a point that Joe had mentioned in the intro is that, somebody will ask a question and you were thinking about the same thing. So there’s a lot of other people out there that have the same concerns or questions and you were brave enough to call and ask the question. So we appreciate that. And the feedback.
Doug:
And I appreciate listening to the show.
Joe Bert:
Well, thank you so much and have a great weekend, Doug.
Doug:
You do the same. Thank you.
Joe Bert:
You’re welcome. Bye. So now we know Chris-
Chris:
Yeah, there we go.
Joe Bert:
Well, it’s interesting to talk to our listeners and Nancy and I see them regularly coming through our office that never… met us for the first time. Met us through the radio and they say, “Oh, this is what you look like. And this is where you work. And this is how you do it.” So, we encourage our listeners to come by. We offer a no-obligation visit. We can help you look at what your situation is and get you on the road. And as Doug said, we are honest and proud about the fact that we do charge a fee. Everybody’s offering something out there for free. Folks, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. If you’ve been around the block a couple of times you know there’s a hook somewhere. We’ll tell you exactly up front what our fee is and you can make your decision whether or not you want to do business with us. It’s like… Go ahead.
Chris:
You do have the fee there, but at the same time though, I want to point out the fact that you take time each and every Saturday, Joe, you are almost here every single Saturday. An hour out of each Saturday to take time to answer people’s questions live on the air here. And then also, you and everyone else there at the Certified Financial Group also put together your learning center in these now classes that you’re offering for free for people to sign up for. So while yes, there is a fee what you guys do for the community and bring to the table each and every week is something that sets you apart from a lot of the other competition. And I don’t think that the fee would be anything that should scare anyone away. Because if you look at everything else that you guys have to offer and bring to the table for everybody else, it just proves what you guys are able to do and why it’s worth it for that fee.
Joe Bert:
Well, our job is to get you a large multiple of what our fee is in return.
Chris:
Exactly.
Joe Bert:
So Nancy’s got an update here.
Nancy Hecht:
You just mentioned the workshop so let me talk about the two that we have coming up. On October 23 Countdown To Retirement hosted by Gary Abely. It’s a checklist review for those who are within three years of retirement. And then on November 6, Healthcare Options In Retirement, also hosted by Gary. And it’s appropriate for seniors who are confused about what their Medicare options are. And I think we’re in a time now where people have to start making their choices all over again. So if you go to our website, financialgroup.com, there is a workshop tab, and you have to make a reservation. They fill up relatively fast. So October 23 from 10 until noon, Countdown To Retirement. And November 6 also from 10 until noon, Healthcare Options In Retirement.
Joe Bert:
As Nancy said, it’s totally free. Leave your checkbook at home. We’re not trying to sell you anything other than to tell you who we are, what we do and how we do it. This way whether you need financial planning now, or sometime in the future, you’ll give us an opportunity to earn your business. So if you want more information about that, you need to make a reservation online. We have a brand new learning center we call it to accommodate 30 people comfortably. Gary’s going to provide some refreshments. And if you get here a little bit before 10, you can stop in and look in the studio and see us doing the show live. So we encourage you to come by. That’s next Saturday is the first one. Countdown To Retirement. Gary is in addition to being a certified financial planner, he’s also a CPA and we’re honored to have him with our firm as well. So, that’s financialgroup.com.
Chris:
Financialgroup.com. Go check those out. And yeah, they timed them out perfectly so that way, get there a little early. You can check out some of the radio show happening from nine to 10, and then the workshops themselves start and the classes start at 10:00 AM. And that learning center is really cool. I saw it myself when it had just finished up there and you got to check it out for yourself. So go check that out. Financialgroup.com. Sign up for those for free.
Chris:
And when we come back, we’ll tell you a little about scoremyfunds.com as well, another free service that they offer this Certified Financial Group here. So, you can give us a call as well, though. We can close out with one more question at 844-580-WDBO. 844-580-9326. We’re planning tomorrow today. The Certified Financial Group on WDBO.
Chris:
Welcome back to On the Money presented by the Certified Financial Group on WDBO 1073 FM and AM 580 Orlando’s news and talk. Let’s go ahead and go back to the phone lines here to close out the show. We’ve got Frank calling in from Oviedo.
Joe Bert:
Hello, Frank. What’s up?
Frank:
Good morning. Love your show been listening for a long, long time.
Nancy Hecht:
Thank you very much.
Frank:
I’m thinking about entering into a continuing care retirement community. Big dollars involved upfront. And I’m wondering if you do consulting work for that kind of thing.
Joe Bert:
Actually we have a lot of experience in that regard, Frank. And you’re right when you make that decision, you’re going to sell your house and then you’ve got to put up some money up front. And then you’ve got the ongoing costs and so on and so forth. But Nancy and I were actually just discussing this on the break because we saw your call. We do this for clients and lay it out for you exactly the pros and the cons and what the cash flow looks like and what you may have left to leave your children and so on and so forth. So we’d be glad to sit down with you and any of our other listeners, right? Nancy?
Nancy Hecht:
Yes. Yes. And Frank, we were just discussing this. I have a sister that just left that industry after years and years of being in it. So I have a little bit of inside insight as well as looking at it from the standpoint that you have questions on. So yeah.
Joe Bert:
It’s a life-changing decision and you want to be sure, not only from the emotional side, but certainly from the financial side, that it’s something that you can handle and something that you definitely want to do.
Nancy Hecht:
And Frank, we know people that are in various different communities around town, so we can give you a little bit of insight that we’ve learned from our friends and clients in the various different places, depending on where you’re looking at.
Frank:
Okay, well, I’ve talked to Gary in the past just as a quick review of my IRA and so I’m familiar with the company. One of key things is that there’s half of the buy-in fee becomes a tax deduction the year you go in and that is… most people can’t use it because they don’t have enough income.
Joe Bert:
Right. So yeah, if you got some money in your IRA, you can suck out some money out of that and get it tax-free.
Frank:
Yeah. What I’m going to do is take the money out of there and just move it to a Roth and create taxable income for myself.
Joe Bert:
There you go. That’s what planning is all about, Frank, and you’re smart to consider that. And for our listeners that might be considering the same option, this is why it’s critical. You bring up some very important points. People go off and launch into these decisions and don’t really realize the ramifications, both good and bad from a financial standpoint. But as our previous caller Doug said, we’re upfront about the fee that we charge. We think it’s reasonable, but it keeps you from making some big mistakes. And next time you’re in the office, Frank, be sure to stop by and say hello to Nancy and me.
Nancy Hecht:
Yeah. And give Gary a call and ask him the questions that you have in reference to the potential move you’ll be making.
Frank:
Okay.
Nancy Hecht:
All right?
Joe Bert:
Thanks for the call, Frank.
Nancy Hecht:
Have a nice weekend.
Chris:
Thanks for that call there, Frank. And let’s go ahead before we close up the show here, tell everyone about scoremyfunds.com.
Nancy Hecht:
Okay. So ScoreMyFunds, people can just no obligation send us up to 10 ticker symbols for either open and closed in exchange traded funds, and we will hold these up to the…
Joe Bert:
Screening.
Nancy Hecht:
… our screening, funnel, sieve, whatever term you want to use. All the criteria that we use to determine whether something is of quality or not. And we will send you that report. And it’s no obligation. This is actually a no cost type of thing. You just want to go to ScoreMyFunds and put your information in.
Joe Bert:
It’s scoremyfunds.com. Scoremyfunds.com. As Nancy said, it’s absolutely free. Within 48 hours, we’ll get you the report and we’ll show you the quality of exactly what you own and it’s very eye opening, but it’s what we use from The Center for Fiduciary Studies to grade all the investments that we offer to our clients and that our clients have in their portfolios. And I see we have one last call there. Chris, you want to pull it up there? Taking money something. Max from Barbourville.
Chris:
Go ahead, Max. You’re on the air.
Nancy Hecht:
Hi Max.
Max:
Oh, okay, great. I don’t have much money in a IRA. It’s just… But I heard that I’ve got to take some out.
Joe Bert:
Max. Max, did anybody ever tell you someone like Warren Buffet?
Max:
Yeah. Well, I’m imitating him. I wish I-
Joe Bert:
Doing a good job.
Max:
… could say more.
Joe Bert:
Go ahead.
Max:
When do I… do I really have to take it out and spend it so they can… the government can tax me? Is that the plan?
Nancy Hecht:
So Max, I’m going to assume that you’re 72 years of age or older.
Max:
No, 70. I just turned 70.
Nancy Hecht:
Oh. You do not have to take a required minimum distribution, that’s what you’re talking about now until age 72. It used to be age 70 and then it was pushed up. So for those who have to take the required minimum distributions and the blog that I’m going to post next week is exactly about this. They were suspended last year. Guess what? They’re back. So there’s a formula based on your age of the percentage of money you have to take out based on your 12/31/2020 balance on your retirement accounts. And it has to be withdrawn by December 31st of this year. So, Max, you get two years before you have to worry about it.
Joe Bert:
And the [inaudible 00:36:20] amount is about three point-
Max:
Thank you for that help there. That’s very encouraging and I’ll talk to y’all later.
Joe Bert:
Okay, Max. Thanks for the call. Thanks for the call.
Nancy Hecht:
That was 3.65 if you were 70. I don’t know what-
Joe Bert:
70 and a half that’s about 3.96.
Chris:
I appreciate that call there, Max. Another good show in the books there. Appreciate everything. Joe and Nancy, good stuff as always. We’ll be back same time, same place next week because we’re planning tomorrow today with the Certified Financial Group on WDBO.
