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Stay tuned for 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 844-580-WDBO, that’s 844-580-WDBO, and enjoy the show.
Hello and welcome to On The Money right here on WDBO 107.3 FM, AM 580. Always streaming live in your very own WDBO app. My name is Josh McCarthy, joined in-studio with a couple of certified financial planners with the Certified Financial Group office right here in Central Florida. For over 30 years now, this show has been on the air answering questions for you, the listener of Central Florida.
Anything you got going on with your Roth IRA, your 401(K), you heard a new something in the news that sounds too good to be true, this is your chance to hop on the air, because the Certified Financial Group has over 400 years of combined experience right there in that very office. We got Joe Bert and Wynn Smith today. You guys just sit around in a circle and talk about what life was like 400 years ago?
Not quite that long ago.
Maybe 350. Now, we’ve got a lot of experience here as you said, Josh, and we’re glad to bring it to our listeners every Saturday as we have been now for over 30 years. Wynn and I are here to take your calls this morning, questions that might be on your mind regarding your personal finances. As you said in the intro, things that you may have heard, rumors you may have had, fears that you have, what your neighbors are telling you, what your coworkers are telling you, what you’re reading, what you’re hearing.
We are here as Wynn and I and the 14 other certified financial planners do. Monday through Friday, we provide financial planning and investment management for a fee working as fiduciaries with our clients. But on Saturday morning, we are here for you absolutely free. So if you have any questions regarding your personal finances, the good news for you is the lines are absolutely wide open and you can make that line by getting right in front of the line by creating the line, by picking up the phone and dialing these magic numbers.
844-580-9326. The numbers are 844-580-WDBO, or you can send in your question utilizing that WDBO app, the open mic feature inside that app. Excuse me, open up the app, push the open mic button, send in your best 10 to 15 seconds, and we’ll have Joe and Wynn answer it as only the Certified Financial Group can. Today’s topic is questions to ask your parents about their finances.
Yeah. As we’re aging and we’re seeing our clients coming in and they’re dealing with issues with their parents, you want to open up the discussion because one of these days as a survivor, you’re going to have to deal with it, and you need to have at least get an idea of what’s going on. It’s one of those situations that in some families is very touchy.
The parents don’t want to talk to their children or anybody about their personal finances for various reasons, either for fear or maybe being embarrassed that they don’t have enough, or whatever the situation might be. So you’ve had some firsthand experience with this, right, Wynn?
Yeah, Joe. It was a little over a year ago where the topic was… I got into a situation where I had to do what’s called crisis planning. So I had a situation with my parents where the crisis, the house was on fire. And it’s like that’s hard to do planning when you’re… It’s hard to thinking about you got to have homeowner’s insurance when your house is burning, or you think you need medical insurance when you’re sitting in the emergency room of the hospital.
So the topic today, and I got a lot of response from that as I shared that experience because it is very difficult, one of the most difficult things I’ve had to go through personally and professionally and I brought a lot of knowledge to the table, so I can only imagine what it would be like for some of our listeners who don’t have any type of direction. But there are some things that we really need to know about our aging parents or even our parents in general, not necessarily aging, if the responsibility is going to fall on you to help them out either because you have to or you want to.
So there is some information that you should have. You can ask them a question, but you may not necessarily have to ask them a question. You may have to snoop a little bit like our parents did to us when we were teenagers. But the first thing that you want to do is you want to see if your parents have some type of estate planning done and that’s just those basic estate planning documents. So do they have a will? Do they have a living will? Do they have a power of attorney? Do they have a healthcare surrogate?
Do they have their HIPAA release form? Have they done that planning? Most people have not done that planning. And in hindsight, I think most people would agree that it’s even worthwhile to offer to pay for that for your parents if they have not done that just because of the time and the effort that you’re going to expend if that has not been done. So that would be the first place I would start. And I will tell you, I’ll share with our listeners, my situation was my parents told me that they had done that planning.
And when I actually saw what the documents were, I realized, no, they had not done that planning. So if possible, get a copy of those documents. And another way to approach this maybe with your parents would be do it for yourself and talk about your experiences or share your documents with your parents and saying, “Hey, we’ve done our wills, our living wills. We’ve got durable power of attorneys. Hey mom and dad, here’s what mine looked like. What do yours look like?” Or find some way to broach the topic so that you can be assured that at least that minimum amount of stuff is in place.
The ideal situation would be that your parents have a financial plan or they’re working with a certified financial planner, because a good financial plan is going to incorporate the estate planning and those documents and those things will be in place. That’s the ideal situation. But again, that may not be reality. The minimum I would want from my parents would be at least a list of all their accounts.
And another thing would be, depending on how technologically savvy your parents are, would be their logins and their passwords or some way to access their information or just even know where the information is. My dad was technologically literate and he kept a book of all of his accounts and passwords and logons. But I had noticed as he started declining, he had forgotten his passwords or had problems logging on, and he had marked them out and changed them and his handwriting started deteriorating.
So there were a few accounts, a few things that we couldn’t get access to. And now with electronic statements and things, you don’t necessarily get a paper statement anymore. So just knowing where everything is. And then the other part of that would be having beneficiaries set up for everything, so all the accounts, knowing where all the accounts are, checking to make sure that they are beneficiaries tied to those accounts, make sure that they’re contingent beneficiaries. Make sure that your banking accounts have payable on death even if they’re joint accounts with your mom and dad.
I mean, your mom and dad may perish in a common accident. And without that payable on death designation, then you’re getting into the time and effort involved to straighten things out. The third thing would be insurance policies, life insurance, long-term care. Know where those policies are. It may be a situation where there’s older policies that maybe people have forgotten about and make sure those have been updated with beneficiaries and contingent beneficiaries, but knowing where those are is very helpful and knowing what funds are available when one of your parents deceases.
While you’re on the beneficiary side, I think a lot of people don’t really understand or appreciate that the beneficiary designation will override anything that you may say in your will or in a trust. Many people say, “Well, I did my planning. I got my will all organized. We’re going to leave everything the kids. I’ve got these IRAs and these insurance policies, but in my will it says they get it all.”
Whatever it says on those beneficiary designations, regardless of when they were filed, some from many, many years ago, maybe when you were still married or whatever your situation was, that’s what’s going to rule. So you want to be sure that those beneficiary designations are current.
Excellent point. You’re absolutely right that yes, yes. The planning process is to review this stuff on somewhat of a regular basis just to make sure things are up-to-date, because our lives do change, our situations do change, and it does flow through into our finances. One of the things I would start looking for, and this is something that I had started with my own parents, were just signs of memory loss or just changes in personality. About five years ago, my dad was using QuickBooks to manage their personal finances, which I thought was great.
I mean, he organized everything, and he was doing a good job, but I noticed that… I was his technical support for QuickBooks, and I started getting more and more calls from him about just more just silly type of errors. And that was a sign I should have been a little bit more aware of that maybe something was going, on and it maybe started some of this process with my parents a little sooner or been a little bit more aggressive and just getting a handle on things and making sure things were as they appeared to be.
To your earlier point, Joe, a lot of times our parents don’t want to be forthcoming because maybe they are embarrassed or maybe transitioning from that parent-child relationship to…
It flips, doesn’t it?
Yeah, yeah, and that’s a hard thing for a lot of people. It was hard for me as a child, so I can only imagine what it would be like for my parents. But it is something that the responsibility is going to fall on. Someone is going to have to figure things out and make things work. The planning that you do beforehand just in general just makes things so much easier on the backend. You just don’t want to get in those crisis situations. Because not only do you have the emotions involved in the situation, you have time constraints.
I mean, you can be in life or death situations where you’re trying to figure things out and get things in place. And so the time to plan is beforehand. So any type of planning, any type of conversation you can have with your parents, just asking them about any special bequest they have, do your parents have any special items that they want to go to you or your siblings or their grandchildren or their siblings or just having those type of discussions. And I know a lot of people don’t want to think about their demise, but it’s going to happen to us all one day.
Well, we’ve been in this business long enough that we’re seeing it more and more. And the thing is, as you say, Wynn, you’ve got to be prepared for these things before it reaches a crisis situation, because then you’re scrambling around, you’re trying to figure it out, and oftentimes you’re making emotional decisions, which sometimes and oftentimes are not the most appropriate financial decisions. So having your ducks lined up, if you will, is really critical. And I see we’re up against the break here. Josh, you want to take it away?
That’s right. If you want to drop on the conversation and ask your questions about this time of life, whether you’re on the parent or the child end of this conversation, it’s important to try and get out ahead of it that make the whole transition easier. This, of course, is On The Money. We’re sitting here with Joe Bert and Wynn Smith. If you want to call, the number is 844-580-9326, 844-580-WDBO, or send in your open mics. I’ll play them back for Joe and Wynn to answer live on the air. You’re listening to On The Money where we’re planning tomorrow today with the Certified Financial Group.
Welcome back to On the Money right here on WDBO 107.3 FM, AM 580. Always streaming live in that WDBO app. If you’ve got a question, go ahead and open up that WDBO app, push the open mic button, and send it in. We got a couple of certified financial planners, Joe Bert and Wynn Smith with the Certified Financial Group here to answer your financial questions. Or you can call in. Got open lines right now, 844-580-9326, 844-580-WDBO. Joe? Wynn?
Wynn was discussing the things that we want to talk about to our parents about those end of life issues to be sure that everything’s lined up, that the wills and perhaps a trust in the healthcare surrogate and durable power of attorney and all those forms. One of the initiatives that we have here at our firm is having what’s called a trusted contact in our client’s files. And what this is is the client gives us authorization to talk to a trusted contact, it could be a child, a friend, a neighbor, it could be anybody, but somebody that they trust.
That if we sense that perhaps the client is maybe not their old self, they call and say, “I’d like to withdraw $50,000,” and our client service administrators are very skilled in probing a little bit to be sure that the client isn’t being taken advantage of. It happens, not frequently, fortunately, but it does happen where a client will call and they want to buy something or do something that is totally out of the ordinary.
And before we send $100,000 off to some address that we don’t know or give the client the immediate access to these funds, if we have this trusted contact form on file, what we will do is we send something, and we’re very cautious about this. We will call that trusted contact and just confirm that mom and dad is okay. And if the child or the friend says, “You know what? They’ve been acting a little strange lately,” or something is going on, then we will probe a little bit deeper.
Now, once again, the money is always our clients and we will do whatever we want, but the purpose behind this is to protect you. Because we see a time and time again where people are buying gift cards and being scammed and who knows what? Sending money off to who knows where because they believe their granddaughter has been captured and is kidnapped now and those kinds of things. So we have this initiative in our firm to protect our clients. So once again, the money is always our clients.
We will do whatever you want, but our job is to get you to and through your retirement years. And if we send something, we want to help you and protect you when we can. And our clients don’t have to sign this, but we give them the opportunity to once again have this in the file that somewhere down the road if your situation should change, 5, 10, 15 years down the road, we’ve had clients now for 30, 40 years that aren’t as sharp as they were 30, 40 years ago, present company included. So anyway, I see we have a call there. You want to work that in before the break here, Josh?
Yeah, let’s go ahead. Gary’s calling from Tavares. We may have to get his question now and answer after the break, but go ahead, Gary, you’re on the air.
Gary, what’s up?
How you doing? Quick question is my mom is getting much older. She wants to leave the house in me and my sister’s name when she passes, but I don’t think she has five years until she would have to probably be in a nursing home. Her health is having a tough time in walking. How can we help her to protect the house without the state taking it if she has to go into a nursing home before five years?
Yeah, there’s going to be a challenge. We’re going to have to have you hold on until coming back from the break, Gary, and we’ll talk about that.
Thank you so much, Gary. If you want to hop in line, 844-580-9326 is the number to call. Joe Bert, Wynn Smith, a couple of certified financial planners with the Certified Financial Group, here to answer your questions, you personally. And if you want to get a little more personal, keep your question off the air, we do have Rodney Ownby standing by. And that number is 407-869-9800. 407-869-9800. If you want to hop on the air, 844-580-WDBO. You’re listening to On The Money with the Certified Financial Group.
Welcome back to On The Money, Central Florida’s most listened to financial call and 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 844-580-WDBO, that’s 844-580-WDBO, and enjoy the rest of the show.
Welcome back to On The Money right here on WDBO 107.3 FM, AM 580. Certified Financial Group here today as they are every weekend answering your questions live on the air. If you want to hop on the phones, the phones are pretty open right now, 844-580-9326, 844-580-WDBO. Send in your open mic using that free WDBO app. Joe Bert and Wynn Smith are on the clock today answering a question. We got Gary in before the break, and Gary, how you doing?
Good.
Alrighty. Joe, Wynn, the topic today is the parents getting old.
Yeah, the issue is is mom is failing, right, Gary?
Yeah. She lives by herself in the house now and I don’t know how many more years she has until she’d probably be in nursing home because she has a falling issue lately.
Oh, okay. Well, that’ll accelerate things.
Well, Gary, obviously you’ve done some research because you brought up the fact that you’re thinking it’s probably going to be within a five-year timeframe. So you’re obviously aware of the lookback period that’s involved with gifting.
Yeah, I’ve heard about that.
Does mom have any other assets?
Yes, she does. From my dad, his 401 still sitting around that he has. And when her mother passed away a couple years ago, she got a little bit of money. She has the money.
How much are we talking about?
I think she has about 250,000.
Oh, okay. What you’re talking about, what you’re trying to do is trying to protect these assets from when mom goes into a nursing home and then you run through that money and then she’s going to lose her house. This is a very difficult thing to do because you’ve got this five-year lookback period. Not only do you have the Medicaid issues, but you also have tax issues. What’s the value of the house?
Right now I would have to say it’s probably around 300 to 350.
Is there a mortgage on it?
No.
Okay, and I presume you and your sister want to do what’s best for mom.
Well, yeah.
Okay. What you need to do is you need to find a suitable place for mom to live the rest of her years, and I’ve been through this with my mom, Gary. Wynn’s doing it with his mom and dad. You want to find a place where mom will be comfortable, and that’s the first step. And then the next thing you do is you get her in that place and she starts using her money, and that’s going to be the reality of what goes on. What you don’t want to do is go in as what’s called a Medicaid patient.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a Medicaid facility, but you and I would not want to be there. This is where you go if you’ve got nothing else, because you’ve become a ward of the state. I presume you want to do what’s best for mom and your sister wants to do what’s best for mom. So mom has got assets, which is the good news. The worst situation is when mom has no assets and you have to go in begging and try to find a place that will take her, and you don’t want to go visit her because the place smells so bad.
That’s the reality of what goes on out there. I’m telling you. This is the real world. And unfortunately, Wynn and I have dealt with it. We’ve seen it with our clients. You want to find a place right now. You and your sister ought to spend the weekends going around and find a place that mom will be comfortable in. Now, the challenge you’re going to have is for mom to recognize that she needs to do this. So the next time that mom falls, breaks her hip and she needs to go into rehab, that’s where you send her.
And you’ve got it all lined up and chances are she’s not going to come out of it. And then she can start drawing down her assets and the point comes she has to sell the home, then she’ll do that, but she’s got enough money there to take care of her for a long time. And what you want to do is get those assets, particularly if her major asset is the house, transferred to you at her death, so you and your sister could then sell it and pay no taxes.
She has a, what is it called, a lady bird deed or whatever.
Okay. Well, that’s good. That’s great.
When she passes, it goes down [inaudible 00:23:17]
Super. Super. That’s what I was going to recommend. Yeah, that’s what happens. Let’s draw the scenario here. Your mom’s got some assets. You’re going to find a place that’s comfortable for her. She’s got the assets to pay for it. And based on what you said, she’s going to probably not outlive those assets. But if she does, the time’s going to come, then you’ll have the house. You can sell the house and continue her care.
If she passes away before she uses the assets and the 401(K)s and savings and so forth, then you and your sister will inherit the house. You’ll be able to sell it the next day at no gain, no taxes, and you can use those monies to carry on her later months or years, whatever it might be. At the end of the day, Gary, you and your sister feel good about this and it’s the right thing to do for mom.
And Joe, I would add. Gary, based on what I went through with my parents, my mother had been complaining about my dad not letting her go in with him to see his doctor. I found out that she was providing a lot more care for him than he let on, and then his doctor wasn’t really aware of his situation because one thing you can do for your mom is you can have an assessment done. And so she has a primary care physician. You could actually reach out and just mention… Kind of what you’re talking to us about.
And if you’re not satisfied with what the primary care physician says or having a hard time, you can actually hire consultants who will come in and do an assessment of a family member, a loved one, and they’ll talk about what levels of care they recommend, where your mother is now, what they anticipate the increased level of care would be, what community resources are available, so they really can give you a very detailed report on the condition of your mother and what they think that level of care is needed.
And then you can take that level of care, you can go out and Joe mentioned start shopping for… It may be home healthcare is the next step. It may be assisted living. And going out now when you have the time to go in these places unannounced or go and have lunch as opposed to like you’ve got to find a place for your mom because she’s being discharged from the hospital Monday and here it is Saturday and you’ve got to find a place to take her this weekend.
Get ahead of the step and get out there and just see what’s out there, see what facilities are out there, see what resources are out there available to your mom so you can make an educated decision
Wynn is 100% right. You don’t want to make these kinds of decisions on a short notice, and you want to take care and do what’s right for mom, so you’re going to have to give up some weekends or something to get this done. It sounds like mom has done some estate planning with the lady bird deed. Does she have a healthcare surrogate and a durable power of attorney for you and your sister? Do you know?
Put me down as a power of attorney.
Okay, good, good, good, good. The only other thing that you want to check, you said she has some retirement accounts, that the beneficiaries are up-to-date. They could have been carried over from when your dad had them. It was your dad’s 401(K). Your mother was a beneficiary. There may not have been another beneficiary designation.
There may be a contingent beneficiary that you don’t know about, so you want to double check the beneficiaries on that. And on her bank accounts, have the accounts that has POD, as pay on death. So when she passes on, you don’t have any hassle with the banks.
Yep. No, we’ve already kind of done those two things.
Oh, good, good, good, good.
And did that with her. I’m on all her records and everything, savings account and all that.
Terrific. Terrific. Well, this would be my recommendation for you, Gary. You sound like you want to do what’s right for mom. And fortunately for you and your sister, she has the assets, that you don’t have to provide the care, because we see that an awful lot too where mom and dad didn’t have anything and then now the kids have to step in and cover those costs.
So you’re fortunate in that regard. Well, I hope mom lives a long time, Gary, and I understand how it is, but the clock keeps ticking and I see it every day with my clients. We’ve got to prepare for it, and that’s the whole purpose behind today’s discussion.
You’re correct. Thank you.
You’re welcome, Gary. God bless you. Have a great weekend.
Have a great day.
Okay, bye.
Bye.
All right, that wraps it up there on that topic. We’ve got some workshops coming up, right, Wynn?
Yes, we do, Joe. We’ve got one coming up on November the 4th, and it’s going to be hosted by Matt Murphy. It’s going to be how tax planning changes through four stages of retirement. I believe that is going to be on a Saturday because it’s going to be from 10:30 AM to 12:00.
That’s a week from today. A week from today at 10:30, how taxes change for the four stages of retirement, and people aren’t aware of when you start taking money from your social security and your IRAs, your 401(K)s, the impact that it has on your social security and your Medicare and what the tax brackets and start making those Roth conversions and all those kinds of things. So once again, that is a week from today at 10:30 right here in our office in Altamonte Springs. And what else you got there?
Then on November the 15th, Charles Curry is going to be hosting social security planning basic rules and claiming strategies.
That’s a Wednesday evening.
From 6:30 until 8:00 PM.
6:30 until 8:00. Once again right here office in Altamonte Springs. You can go to our website, that’s financialgroup.com, financial group.com. You can make your reservation right there online, or you can hit #250 keyword retirement and you can leave a message on the recorder and we will get back to you and make a reservation for you. So once again, go to our website, financialgroup.com.
If you want to learn all about what Wynn and I and the 14 other certified financials do for our clients, providing financial planning and investment advice for a fee working with our clients as fiduciaries as we have now for over 40 years. We’d be glad to work with you as well. We offer a no obligation visit to be sure that there is a fit, that what you need to have done, we can help you. And when we’re done with that session, we can tell you what our fee is and you can decide what you want to do and you can shop around.
So once again, our website is financialgroup.com, financial group.com. And in the office today we have Rodney Ownby, who’s taking calls off the air. So if you want some more information or have any more questions that you want to discuss in detail, you can reach him right now at 407-869-9800, 407-869-9800, or 1-800-EXECUTE, as if you’re executing a legal document. I also want to mention that many of our listeners have been taking advantage of our Score My Funds opportunity. How’s that work, Wynn?
With Score My Funds, you can give us a list of the funds that you are currently invested in and we will do an analysis of those. We will look at the expense. We look at the management of those funds. We look at if those funds are appropriate for your level of risk capacity or risk tolerance, and we can see how those funds are ranked based with their peers. And we’re more than happy to do that analysis for you just to let you know where you are.
Just go to scoremyfunds.com. That’s scoremyfunds.com. It’s absolutely free. We’ll send you a detailed report within 24 to 48 hours and show you how we rank mutual funds and ETFs. And if you don’t know the fund ticker, you need a ticker, there’s a pull down menu. You type in the fund’s name and we’ll get that information for you. Once again, it’s just for mutual funds and ETFs. No individual stocks or bonds. I hear the bumper music, Josh, so take it away.
You got it. If you want to hop on the phone right now and get your questions answered about your financial future with Joe Bert and Wynn Smith of the Certified Financial Group, the number to call is 844-580-9326, 844-580-WDBO. Rodney Ownby, one of these certified financial planners, is standing by in the office to take any off-air questions. Maybe you want to get a little personal or maybe you don’t have time in the next 10 minutes to call in. Write down this number now so you can still get your question to answer, 407-869-9800, 407-869-9800.
You’re listening to On The Money where we’re planning tomorrow today with the Certified Financial Group. Welcome back to On The Money right here on WDBO 107.3 FM, AM 580. Certified Financial Group answering your questions on a weekend. Wynn Smith and Joe Bert standing by to answer your calls. Just a couple seconds left, so we’ll give out the off-air number in case Rodney Ownby has an answer to your question. If you’re listening now and you’re, “Oh, I missed my chance,” no you didn’t miss your chance to call in.
Rodney is here standing by, 407.869-9800. That’s 407.869-9800. And of course, we got Joe Bert and Wynn Smith in the studio today. And Joe, there’s something that you said that you wanted to update the listeners about.
Yeah. The new, or I shouldn’t say it’s the new, the increase for next year’s social security was just announced. It’s going to be a whopping 3.2% for next year. That’s the increase. It’s down from the 8.75% that we had last year. So you will see a 3.2 increase in your social security. There are 66 million people on social security. I didn’t realize the number was that large, 66 million people.
A lot of folks.
20% of our population is on social security, so that’s going up by 3.2% next year, and Medicare is going up as well. I don’t have that number, but you can look for that to go up.
Probably more.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So that’s the latest on social security. And I see we have a text question floated in there, Josh, so take it away.
You got it. This one comes to us from Jenny, but I think there’s millions of people around the country that want to know the answer to this question, should I buy a house now?
Wow. Well, that depends. I mean, there’s two components to that. I guess if you’re asking it from a purely financial engineering type of answer, I mean, there’s the emotional, do you want to buy a house? But you look at it in terms of how’s this going to affect your wealth creation, really the question to ask is, is my net cost of owning a home, how does that compare with renting? Renting is real easy to determine what your cost is. You pay your rent every month. You’ve got your utilities.
You’ve got your renter’s insurance. I mean, those numbers are pretty easy to gather together. The cost of owning a home is a little bit more complicated. I mean, one of the things that most people miss is just that maintenance, that annual maintenance, because people either they buy a new house and previously people were moving every seven years, so they really didn’t have to get into a lot of those big maintenance items, so they never really saw some of those costs, but you need to account for those costs because those costs are real.
And when working with clients and doing financial planning, if they don’t have history of those types of expenses, a lot of times we’ll use a rule of thumb of a $1.50 to $3.50 a square foot based upon the age of their house. Has it been updated? So that’s the first thing to determine is, what are the different costs? And then Jenny, I hope you’re listening and you can approach this from, okay, based on my rental budget, what kind of house could I afford, and is that a kind of a house that I’d want to live in?
And then that’s just purely from just the numbers. That’s not included the time with upkeep of the house and just all the additional things that go along with that. Right now we’re going through a homeowner’s insurance crisis situation. There’s a lot involved with trying to get your home insured and keeping it insured. There’s just a lot going on. It’s not like the old days, Joe, where it used to be, yes, buy a house as quick as you can, buy as much as you can afford, and that was just a good way to create wealth.
And then the plan was to stay in there for many years. Today, you find the people are… They’re very transit. So you may buy a house today and need to sell it in a year or two. And depending on what the housing market does, you may find you’re underwater.
Exactly right. I mean, that’s one of the biggest things is, how long are you going to stay there? Because if you’re not going to stay there long, just the cost involved of buying and then turn around and selling is pretty substantial.
A lot of variables once you’re into it. There’s not one cut and dried answer, and you have to look at your own personal financial situation. And that’s it. Once again, go to our website, financialgroup.com. That’s financialgroup.com. You can learn all about Wynn and me and the 14 other certified financial planners here at Certified Financial Group, and you’ll also sign up for the upcoming workshops.
Next one is a week from today at 10:30, tax planning through the four stages of retirement. It’s a very popular one. It’s going to fill up fast, but you need to make a reservation. We hold this in our state-of-the-art learning center here in Altamonte Springs. We can accommodate 35 people easily. Once again, that’s financialgroup.com, and you can take it away, Josh.
Thank you so much for another great hour of On The Money. This is, of course, is On The Money where we’re planning tomorrow today with the Certified Financial Group.