Loading...

Style Switcher

Predefined Colors

How Does A Precious Metal IRA Work?

how does a precious metal IRA work a gold Ira or precious metals Ira is an individual retirement account in which physical gold or other approved precious metals are held in custody for the benefit of the IRA account owner it functions the same as a regular Ira only instead of holding paper assets it holds physical bullion coins or bars how do gold and silver IRAs work a gold Ira works exactly like any retirement account with the added benefit that it provides you more control over your investment to include physical gold coins and bars and other IRS approved Silver Platinum and Palladium metals what will happen to Silver if the dollar collapses that is because the U.S dollar would essentially be worthless if it were to collapse in value in a sense the price of silver would be infinite if measured in terms of the US dollar is it better to own gold or silver is more volatile cheaper and more tightly linked with the industrial economy gold is more expensive and better for diversifying your portfolio overall either or both may have a place in your portfolio arguably the best use for gold as an investment is to mitigate portfolio risk what is the best way to invest in Precious Metals the best way to invest in Precious Metals is either to buy the metal outright and hold the physical form or to purchase ETFs that have significant exposure to precious metals or companies involved in the precious metals business is a gold Ira any good a gold Ira often comes with higher fees than a traditional or Roth IRA that invests solely in stocks bonds and mutual funds a gold Ira can serve as a good hedge against inflation but is also concentrated in a single asset class why should I invest in a gold IRA a gold Ira offers diversification from other assets that may be volatile during economic downturns or periods of high inflation such as stocks and bonds one of the safest Investments is gold because its price remains stable over long periods with little volatility should you invest in a gold IRA still a gold Ira can be a good option for investors who want to diversify their retirement accounts and also take advantage of the hedging benefits that the yellow metal offers against other Financial assets like paper currency and stocks many Financial experts recommend keeping 5 to 10 of a portfolio in gold for a comparison of the best gold Ira company's visit https colon slash slash www.goldira401convesting.com gold Ira company slash click Link in the description below

As found on YouTube

Top gold ira companies

Read More

Steps to Retirement

Hi, I’m Adam Fambrough. Are you an active member thinking about retirement? If so, this video is for you. We are here to provide a general timeline of the retirement process and share the steps you need to take to ensure the process is as easy as possible. Remember, the countdown to retirement can start as much as a year prior to your actual planned retirement date so you will first need to choose your retirement date. This video breaks down planning for retirement into three major steps. Let’s get started. Step One – ten to twelve months prior to
retirement. If you are truly considering retirement, log in to your MyTRS account to explore options with the retirement calculator.

After using the MyTRS retirement calculator, if you’re confident that retirement is in sight, feel free to request a formal estimate. To get an estimate, complete and submit Form TRS 18 ¬– Request for Estimate of Retirement Benefits up to 12 months before your retirement date. This form can be found on the Forms page of the TRS website at www.trs.texas.gov. We will mail a retirement packet to your address of record within 60 days of receiving your Form TRS 18. During this time frame, you may also want to: Watch our Member Education and Financial Awareness videos, Review your retirement options, Attend a benefits presentation, Purchase service credit or transfer credit,
and Schedule an appointment with a Benefits Counselor. Step Two – six months prior to retirement
date. Once you receive your retirement packet, carefully review its contents. The packet contains your retirement estimate, and information on a number of forms and documents that need to be submitted to TRS.

There will be important deadlines listed in the packet. The first, and most important, form in your packet is Form TRS 30 – Application for Service Retirement. You will use this form to: Indicate your preferred retirement date, Select your choice of retirement payment plan,
and Designate your beneficiary or beneficiaries. TRS must verify your age at retirement. In your packet you will have a TRS 13 – Acceptable Proof of Age Documents, which contains a list of documents that are accepted for proof of age. It is very important that you write your participant ID or social security number on all proof of age documents that you submit. Your retirement benefit is subject to federal income tax.

If you would like to specify income tax withholding for your annuity payment, please submit Form TRS 228A ¬– Federal Income Tax Withholding Certificate. Direct Deposit is the fastest way to receive your annuity payment every month. We highly recommend that you consider this as an option for receiving your payment. To do this, complete and submit Form TRS 278 – Direct Deposit Request. Step three – thirty to sixty days prior
to retirement. Don’t forget to let your employer know that you are planning to retire and formally resign your position by your retirement date with TRS. The Notice of Final Deposit before Retirement and School Official Certification of Salaries contains important information your employer must complete and submit to TRS once they have paid you your final check.

This certification is used to report your final salary payment, your exact salary for the current school year, and the date your employment terminates. If you are eligible for TRS-Care, be sure to review and consider any available health benefit options. Remember, planning ahead is the first step to a smooth transition to retirement. Visit the TRS website at www.trs.texas.gov to check out our Retirement Planning Guide and Benefits Handbook.

These are both important resources to help you with the retirement process. If you have questions about your specific timeline, you may also call us at 800-223-8778 to speak with a Benefits Counselor. Remember, a smooth transition into retirement requires you to plan ahead and we are here to help every step of the way. Thanks for watching..

As found on YouTube

Hilltop Community

Read More

Life 2.0 Retirement Strategies Part 1 – The Six P’s

(upbeat music) – Hello and welcome to "Life
2.0 Retirement Strategies." I'm Sara Peterson here
with Richard Pelletier of Help To Retire, so
good to see you today. – Sara, great to be here. – I'm thrilled, it's a good day to be talking about retirement and I know we have a lot
of topics to cover today, so we're gonna try
to get it all in. – [Richard] Let's get to it. – I love your story. I think it's really unique
because a lot of advisors or people in the financial
industry got into it for a very different
reason than you did. So I'd love for you
to share your story. – Well, Sara, I started
as the administrator of a 200-bed nursing home,
fresh out of college. And let me tell you what I
saw was pretty depressing.

Enormous expenses. When I got out of law school, I spent eight years in
and out of probate court at the other end of
the cycle and said, that was a terribly inefficient
way to transfer assets, very public, I said, I can do
a whole lot better than this in the financial
service industry. So basically, our focus
is many advisors are there to help you grow your assets. Our primary focus is to make
sure that you keep them. So there are a lot of
things working against that. And I gotta tell you, I had a client in the
office just last week. They had about half a million
dollars of their life savings and retirement accounts. Their home had
appreciated dramatically because of the
real estate market. That was about
$500,000 in equity. So technically, they
were millionaires, but they would acknowledge
the first thing out of their pocket, they
are too poor to be rich and they were too
rich to be poor. So when I start taking a
look at their legal documents and they were concerned
about saving their assets from a nursing home, as an
example, I said to myself, my God, your legal documents
are transmitting here.

And your financial
assets are transmitting on this station here, there's just no
coordination whatsoever. It was a disaster
waiting to happen. – Well, and that's something
unique about you as well, because you do have
a law background. – But I don't practice law. They're never gonna get a
legal bill from me, believe me. No, we want an open and honest
dialogue with clients' CPA, their lawyers. So we coordinate for
pay for the first time. What I find is
almost overwhelming
majority of the cases is that their lawyer
does not coordinate with the financial advisor. The financial advisor
never talks to the CPA. And what you have
is a hodgepodge and there are great
opportunities being missed and/or a lot of excess
taxation is occurring when it doesn't have to be. – I think what we're seeing
a lot is people who have, you know, a stack of statements and maybe they don't make
sense with one another. All they know is here
are my statements, but there's no cohesive
plan put together. And not one, you know, group of people that are
dealing with all those finances, everything is part and parcel.

– That's very true,
and when I sit down with a client quite often
what I'll do, is I'll say, you know, "Bob, give me your
statement from your IRA." And I take that statement
I look at that title page. It's Bob's IRA, let's say
it's with a major firm. I turn it around and I turn
it to the wife and say, "Can I ask you a question? If he had a stroke
tomorrow and you need to go into this account,
he's not dead, but you need to take
money out of that account to get him out of the
hospital, get him home, get him some great
care, hire some people, remodel the house, how
do you, as the wife, while your spouse is alive,
get money out of his IRA?" You can't without a court
order that really strikes home to most spouse say, my God, most of our assets are
in my IRA or my spouses. We mean we don't have access? Not while they're alive.

– So, how can we avoid
getting into that situation? – Well, that's
what I talk about. Let's take a look at
those legal documents. And I take a look at the
durable power of attorney, which allows your spouse
to step in and help you when you're incapacitated. And what I find many times
they're taken off the internet, engineers are known for
that, let me tell you, then you have a lawyer,
who's not in elder law and specializes in Medicare,
Medicaid, et cetera.

It's a guy that you'd
go to church with who offloads this thing
form puts it together. And it prohibits what
amaze things I can do. I've testified as an expert
witness of these hearings and we can transfer
assets from a sick spouse right over to the healthy one if the documents will permit it. Many times, they
don't permit it. So we're catch 22,
now you're in court. – So, when is a good
time to start preparing for these types of situations
and planning for that? – We have a mantra in our firm. We operate on what
we call the six Ps, prior planning prevents pretty
poor performance, right? – Say that six times fast. – That's six Ps. If anyone's as a Marine
out there, you'll know, I'm kind of plagiarizing
that slightly. Prior planning does prevent
pretty poor performance. So I would say at least five
years before you retired, you start taking a look
and get your attorney, your CPA working together
and saying, listen, can these documents
be slightly amended? So where are opportunities to
say this money is expanded, not contracted.

– So tell me the people who
are out there listening, thinking, okay, no one's
ever discussed this with me. Perhaps they have a broker
that they've been working with. And that broker is, you know, focused on accumulation
and growth. And now they're
looking to retirement, which is more
preservation, correct? So tell me what
this process is like when they come to see you. – Normally it's a two
interview process.

The initial interview
is complimentary. It's just a sit down when
I have a cup of coffee and I wanna ask them
to fill out, you know, when you got a new doctor, you
fill out all those forms out. What medication taken, we
haven't filled this out. And it basically,
what are the concerns that they are
personally involved in they may be concerned
about the taxes they're gonna be paying on their
IRAs, their large accounts. They may be concerned about
how do I preserve these assets from the nursing home? How do I get this
into a legacy format? I have a special needs child.

We're getting a little
older and we're very nervous about that process. So they set the agenda for
the first consult, no charge. I find out I can or
cannot help them. Sometimes I'll say, "Listen,
we're not a good match." And I'll tell them
very quickly to that, you need a trust attorney. You need a special
needs attorney, we'll refer you to somebody. Other times we say, listen, we can help you coordinate this. Let's set up a second thing,
do a little bit of research, put you back into the second
consult, again, no charge. I still don't know
until I do my research. Can I help this couple? If we can, then we proceed. – And a good time, you know,
you were talking before about maybe within five
years of retirement is really the sweet spot
kind of to get on board.

– Well, the reality is that
would be my sweet spot. Usually what happens, they'll
call me up and say, "Listen, I'm retiring next week." I love that one. I said, this is not
a magic wand, okay? So it's like an
aircraft carrier. You know, you're
pulling into the dock and you need to make a
dramatic course change. You're gonna lose a couple
of planes in the back. It's much, much better
to do when you're out approaching the harbor, so
time is not your friend. You're a lot of
things that you can do even at the last minute, but I much prefer
to have more time. – And we were talking
earlier before the show about many, many more
people are retiring earlier. I think, you know, 2020
was a real pivotal moment for a lot of people, sort of
reevaluating their priorities and maybe deciding they
wanna retire earlier. – Decades and decades, I've been practicing
in the financial field. I no longer practice law. I have never seen with COVID
so many of my existing clients coming in and say, "Richard, I know I'm supposed to
schedule to retire two years from now, I have had
it, get me outta here." So you start
sharpening your pencil, accelerating the plans and
work a distribution plan so you can make it happen.

Nothing gives me more joy. I had a nurse come the other
day and she was a hospice nurse and they were stressing her out because they were short-staffed. And she sat down on
my second interview. I said, you know, you've
guys got done a good job, give me those tools,
I can tell right now, you can go back to your boss
and tell them to take this job. – And- – [Richard] That's
exactly what she did. – And on that note, we're gonna take a
quick commercial break. That number to call
is 833-579-5500. We are gonna come
back after break and talk a little bit
more about the six Ps in planning for retirement. – [Narrator] As a good saver,
you've been putting away money during your working years. Studies find that the
biggest fear of retirees is running out of money. Market volatility isn't
just the downward movement of stock prices, it's the
size and frequency of change. The more dramatic
the ups and downs, the higher the volatility. This can put savers
who are newly retired or a few years away from
being retired at greater risk.

Today's generation of
retirees is not receiving traditional pensions as our
parents or grandparents did. Instead, we have retirement
accounts such as 401ks or 403(b)s. These accounts typically expose
your money to market risk. The last thing you want
right before retirement is to lose a portion of the
money you need for income. But how do you turn
these accounts into
a retirement income? Is it safe to keep all
your retirement money sitting in the stock market? The last thing you want is to
lose a portion of the money you need for income
due to market loss. By working with a
financial professional, you can learn how to turn
a portion of your savings into an income stream for life and income for the life of
your spouse, if you're married. We all have moments in our lives when we wish we had
taken action sooner. Don't let procrastination rain
on your retirement parade. Act now, before it's too late. Please call our office
to set up your no cost, no obligation retirement
income review today. – Welcome back to "Life 2.0," I'm Sara Peterson here
with Richard Pelletier of Help to Retire.

And we're talking
about proper planning, which is so important in
getting ready for retirement. I'm sure there's a lot
of mistakes that we make that we could avoid when we
get closer to retirement. So let's talk about that. – I think the biggest
mistake I see, and I would hate to
say 100% of the time, but it's way up there, is a
total lack of coordination between the existing
team of advisors.

They seem to not coordinate
their activities at all. Let me give an example. You've got a stock broker. The stock broker never
talks to the attorney. The attorney never
talks to the CPA. Who do I build my time out and the CPA, he prepares taxes. That's all he or she
does is prepare taxes. Now that thing can
get way out of hand. Let me give you an example. I had a client the other day. It happened an awful lot
last year with COVID. He'd lost his job, early,
I think it was March or April of that year,
highly compensated executive. So what happens to the
income when the major person who has income, let's say
it was like $150,000 a year. Bingo, it drops dramatically. The tax bracket
dropped dramatically. Did the CPA say, "Hey, you know, we have an opportunity here. You've got a much lower
tax bracket this year. Maybe we could take a chunk
of dough out of your IRA, move it over into a Roth,
he was relatively young.

I think he was only
about 62 or 63, his required distribution
wouldn't have it start for another 10 years. We had 10 years to take
the Roth conversion money. Let's say it was 50 grand. His taxes still would have
been lower for that year. Move the money out for
a very low tax payment. And it would grow for the
rest of his life tax-free. CPA never got involved,
never suggested it until it crossed my desk
and said, wait a minute, we gotta move this pretty fast,
we got till December 31st. Let's get with this. – Yeah, well I think doesn't
this happen frequently though, that people work with
a CPA and it's sort of, you're dealing with what
happened in the past and you're not really preparing
necessarily for the future.

– I find CPAs fall
into two categories. You have what I call
basically the historian. And that's the person that
you go into his office or hers in January, February, you
throw down a bunch of paper and tell them this is
what happened last year, that person computes all
the tax and say, okay, you owe another $2,000
historically that's
what's happened. We much prefer to work with
that CPA and convert them to what I call weathermen. A weatherman goes like
this in October and say, "Boy, the wind's
blowing in our favor. We've got a couple more months. We can do a whole lot of
things to save a lot of money in tax in the future,
let's do this and this." So by having an open, honest
dialogue with the CPA, with the lawyer,
working with our office, we are focused like a laser
beam on preserving those assets and not missing great
tax opportunities.

– Well, I mean the taxes
are kind of the elephant in the room, right? But I mean, a lot of people
don't understand the difference between tax preparation
and tax planning. And there's a big difference. – I don't speak ill of CPAs in
the role of preparing taxes, but most people can
do that online today, you get all these different
programs and you know, when you're retired, the
tax are relatively simple. However, planning in advance
to preserve taxes, the six Ps, prior planning prevents
pretty poor performance, that's done in October, not when it's too late
and the dice is cast. So again, working together
collectively with the advisors, coordinate them for
the first time, say, let's stop talking on these
different frequencies. Let's bring them
into sequence and see if we can do something
before we cause a problem. – You know, this past year we
we've talked before has been, you know, a real game
changer for a lot of people. Aside from the
health perspective, people are really
reevaluating their priorities.

And you know, a lot of
people lost their jobs or changing jobs and careers deciding to retire
or maybe just moving, but they're stuck with,
you know, these 401ks they're not really
sure what to do with, and I'm sure this is
creating challenges for a lot of people. – Well, 401ks have an awful
lot of conditions terms, which you never know until
you 'cause no one ever reads the terms and condition. – And no one reads the fine print,
– Are you kidding me? I have a rough time going
through some of them. You have to be a Philadelphia
lawyer with good eyesight on fine print, all right? What you have in a 401k is
an employer sponsor plan for the benefit of the
employer, all right? Now, granted, there are
a lot of companies now, no longer making matches.

So usually after 59 and a half, most large employers will
allow a current employee to take money out
of that, transfer it
into an IRA tax-free, there is no tax
moving it out of 401k under what they call
an in-service rollover, directly to an IRA. What's the advantage of that? While the 401k, your investment
opportunities are like this, whatever the employer
wants to let you see, the more aggressive forms in
a marketplace you never see, the more conservative
things you never see. Once you're into an IRA,
you hold a spectrum. If it's on the market,
you have access to it. – Ah, okay, so this
is, is that appropriate for certain people and not
others, there's limitations. – The magic word was
if the plan allows it. And that's number one, plan
specifications have to allow people who are 59 and a half, because if you take
money out of a 401k before you're 59 and half, you're gonna pay a 10% tax on
top of your normal bracket.

Now under the COVID relief, there are certain
exceptions for people because of the COVID situation. But generally speaking, I'm
talking about a rollover at 59 and a half
you're in service. Next paycheck, you're gonna
put money still in your 401k. It's gonna be matched
by the employer, that's gonna continue, but
you're taking a portion of your 401k, move it
into an IRA in our office where we can do a lot of
asset preservation work, coordination with the
lawyer and the CPA. Believe me, the custodian
for the employer is not gonna help
you save taxes. – And when you say IRA,
are you talking traditional or are you talking Roth? – Well, if you listen to
me, it's initially an IRA, but my focus like laser beam
is how much money can we take out of the IRA and shrink
that over a number of years while raising at the
same time, the Roth. The Roth, the tax to you
during your lifetime is zero. The life tax to your
surviving spouse is zero. And most importantly, when that
money goes to your children and grandchildren
on a Roth, no tax.

The IRA, whoever gets that
money is gonna pay the tax at their highest tax bracket. – And if we're looking at a Roth and we're dealing with
today's tax dollars, which we assume are going up, then that might be a good
thing to take advantage of. – I always ask my client,
I said, "You watch the TV like I do, you're seeing
what's going on in Washington. Do you believe really
that only rich people are gonna have higher
taxes in five years?" And everybody laughs when
I ask them that question, 'cause I wanna know, if you
think taxes are gonna be higher five years from now,
10 years from now, why won't you pay a tax now,
which you know is a lower rate than what it's gonna
be in the future. Taxes can be used as a tool if
they gonna be used properly. Let me tell you what use, when
you use a tool improperly, you lose fingers, okay? I know all about that. I didn't grow up and
always wear a suit. So I grew up on a
construction job.

Tools are tools, used
effectively, they
work in your favor. Use them improperly- – So for the viewers out
there who are listening, give them an idea
of what happens when
they give you a call. What does this
process look like? – What happens is we get
them into the office. We're gonna sit down and
we're gonna talk about what's on their mind. I have no agenda for that first
consult, it's complimentary.

I wanna find out number
one, where are they? What concerns do they have? And I wanna know real fast, is there something I
can do to help them? Sometimes I can't and I will
tell them right up front. On the other hand, I
say, listen, you know, if I can tell we're not a
match, I'm gonna tell you. You can tell me I'm
not a good match. And we're all adults here, but that complimentary
consultation, nine times out of 10 is
gonna work to their benefit.

They're gonna learn something. I've been on the faculty of
universities and colleges for years. My focus is they walk out
of that and they've learned something that will help
them preserve their assets, pay lower taxes and plan
better for the retirement. – I know you talked
earlier about, you know, seeing different doctors
for different things. And this is so important
because we get a second opinion when it comes to doctors.

So why not get a second opinion when it comes to your finances? Because health and wealth
are the two biggest things in our lives, right? – The evolution that people
make in the medical field. You're a mother, 20 years ago, you had a pediatrician on the
Rolodex on a regular basis. Well, now your kids are
teenagers or adults. You don't disrespect
that pediatrician, it's just, you evolved,
you don't need them. You may need another
type of doctor. They don't have the
same thing when it comes to their advisor
or their lawyer. The lawyer who prepared
the real estate closing when you bought your
home 20 years ago, may be a great
real estate lawyer, but totally incapable of
drafting the right documents, preserve your assets under
Medicare, Medicaid regulations.

So true for the
financial advisor. May be a terrific guy's a
stock broker to help you grow your money, but
what's the strategy to make sure you keep it
or worse distribute it so it doesn't run out of money. – So important to have
somebody who's looking out for your best interest and
really creating something customized and personalized. On that note, we're
gonna take a quick break so we have so much
more to talk about. The number to call
is 833-579-5500. It's a complimentary offer that
he's, I can't stress enough. Other advisors charge a
thousand dollars or more for this process and Richard's
gonna sit down with you and go over your finances
and really give you that six Ps in proper planning that you can't really
get anywhere else. Give us a call and we'll be
back after commercial and talk more about the pitfalls
of retirement planning. – [Announcer] How
confident are you in your current financial plan? Do you know with certainty how
the recent market volatility will affect your future
hopes and dreams? How much are you paying in taxes and how much are you losing
to unnecessary high fees? You didn't work to save this
money so that you could spend your time worried in retirement.

Now is the time to take
charge of your finances so you can feel confident
about your future. Call in during the next 30
minutes of today's show only to set up an absolutely
complimentary, no obligation, full-blown financial
review that will result in your own customized
written plan. This is a $999 value that
we're giving away complimentary to the first 10
people who respond. We'll start with a
full-blown analysis of what you already have by running a report to untangle
how much you're currently paying in fees, how
you're allocated for risk and what it's costing to work
with your current advisor. Next, we'll identify your goals? Where do you see yourself
in the next five years? Where do you wanna go? And who do you hope
to go there with? Is your current
financial plan set up to get you there without mishap? Let's design a roadmap to
create a financial plan you can follow with confidence.

Get the piece that so
many people are missing from their retirement. Find out how having a written
plan can make a difference to your retirement dreams. Call now to schedule your
complimentary, no obligation, full-blown financial
review today. – Welcome back to "Life
2.0 Retirement Strategies." I'm Sara Peterson here
with Richard Pelletier. And we're talking about, I can't even say the
six piece like you can, I can, the six Ps. – Prior planning prevents
pretty poor performance. – Okay, good, I'm gonna
throw that to you every time, 'cause I don't think
I could get it out. Talking about poor performance, we have all these baby
boomers who are now retiring and you're probably seeing
multitude of mistakes they're making in the process 'cause it can get
rather overwhelming
for a lot of people.

What are some of the big baby
boomer mistakes we're seeing? – Well, think about the
boomer generation in reality. Their parents had an entirely
different retirement. They had a pension,
they had social security and they lived modestly,
baby boomers, not so much. Their advisor is an 800 number. Whoever answers that number
is the advisor for the minute. Their tax payment is
really a tax preparer, does no tax planning and the
legal stuff is something else. And then you get down to
the risk level because now our generation are no longer
savers, we're investors. Some of them are day traders. The risk level really can
be way disproportionate at a horrible time in your life when you can't afford
to make any losses.

You know, I've had situations
where I had a client in the other day, and
we were going through their different assets, and
I discovered one of them was a very large variable
annuity sold to them by a stock broker. Well, you ever called an 800
number and they tell you, you know, we're gonna
record this telephone call for your protection? I get to say,
"Look, that's funny, we're recording this
conversation for
your protection." We call them up on a recorded
line and I start asking them three pages worth of questions on how this variable
annuity really worked. The stockbroker forgot
to tell them the expenses on this were 4.2% per year. This was a six year
old variable annuity. – Forgot to tell them? – Didn't disclose it. Not a fiduciary, okay? He's a salesman, basically,
with a securities license, no obligation disclosed the
line-by-line item and expenses. It worked out that they
paid $63,000 in expenses that was not in their pocket,
was in somebody else's pocket. The risk level was a
little inappropriate because in that six years, they'd gone from
highly compensated to now they were
just about retired.

Ouch, we need to crank
that back a little bit. And that expense level was and
I pinned in I said, listen, if I told you I would, I
make my living managing money at the stock market. If I ever told you I was gonna
charge you only 4% per year, I'd be looking at the
back of your head, out the door you go.

– Absolutely. – Fiduciaries, again, cannot earn a fee until they
have a written agreement, full disclosure of what the
compensation is gonna be and full disclosure of any
conflict of interest they have. So fiduciary has a very,
very different platform they have to operate under. – Well and you really
are looking out for people's best interests. And as we talked
before about, I mean, my needs are gonna be
different than yours.

And we all have different needs
in different phases of life and finding somebody
who is gonna give you something customized
to you and your needs is just so, so important. So let's let those
viewers out there know what exactly is this process
like when they come to see you, why is it different than
maybe the stockbroker that they've seen in the past? – Let me tell you that one
of the biggest difference in our firm is we
have multiple offices throughout New England.

We have a large group of
basically fiduciaries, who all have a sub-specialty. Jeff Harder, for example,
heads up our Medicare division. You're gonna retire, every year, you need to take a look
at your Medicare coverage. We have Matt Dunn,
who's specialty, subspecialty besides
being a fiduciary 25 years of experience
in the security industry is a certified financial
educator is up and down the East coast lecturing
on social security. So I go through the
entire firms and say, listen, it's not just Richard. You are gonna need
different professionals. It's a one stop, all services
facility that we're able to offer these clients as they
evolve through retirement. My specialty is you don't
have long-term care insurance. No one has it. What happens if the
unthinkable happens? Can we preserve the assets for
the healthy spouse at home? The law, the statutes
will allow me to do it if things are set up
in advance, the six Ps, prior planning prevents a
pretty poor performance. – Why do you think
you're not seeing people buying into long-term
healthcare insurance? – Too expensive. Dad can pass it,
but mum has a malady and I don't wanna
charge her 20% extra, and let's face it,
that ship has sailed when people are
coming into my office and they're gonna retire next
week and they're 66 years old.

You buy that stuff
in your 40s and 50s. You do not buy it when
you're 60 or 70 years old because you can't
pass a physical. You take a look at
the premium, woof, now you're gonna have a
stroke, so what's plan B? Plan B is you say a rosary
bead and you hope for the best. And the vast majority
time that's gonna work. Not everybody lands up
in the nursing home, but if you live long enough,
my mother is 95 years old. At some point, we realized
the mattress weighed twice what she did, she
can't change the sheets. So we got a housekeeper
in, change the sheets. As we get older,
we become frail. So home health care, we do community mass health
applications to help people get assistance at their home.

So we're a full
service organization. You're not gonna find that
at a stockbroker's office. – And proper planning on these
things takes the stress away so that we can enjoy
those golden years of our life too, right? – Retirement is about playing
golf, getting that hobby, taking the course
you've always wanted to, or maybe donating your
time for the church. It's not about worrying
about different things that may never happen. – So there's no
risk in this call. There's no risk in
this conversation really that's happening. All people need to do
is call that number, 833-579-5500, they're
gonna call your office and someone's gonna set
them up with an appointment to talk to you. All they need to do
is fill this form out and bring their statements? – That's all they have to do. – It sounds pretty easy to me. – Well, we'd like
to make it easy because we also have an
awful lot of procrastinators out there. – I think that if 2020
has done anything for us, maybe it has helped
us not procrastinate because we're realizing we
don't know what tomorrow may bring and so better to plan.

– It's been quite
the educational year,
that's for sure. – Maybe not the education
we knew we needed, but we actually really did. So again, that number
is 833-579-5500. Again, this is complimentary. This is a service
that other advisors charge $1,000 or more for it. And Richard's gonna
sit down with you and give you this
service complimentary. So there's no risk in that call, even if you've seen
another stockbroker.

If somebody hasn't discussed
these things with you, now is the time, just like
you'd get a second opinion from your doctor, you're
gonna get one from Richard. And we always run out of time before we get to
discuss everything. So we'll have to do
it on the next show. – [Richard] Not a problem. – It's been wonderful
being here with you today. And until the next time,
we'll talk about those six Ps, which I can never ever repeat. – Prior planning prevents
pretty poor performance. – I love it, it's great being
here with you here today – All right. (upbeat music).

As found on YouTube

Hilltop Community

Read More

Be Prepared! What to Expect in Retirement: The Four Retirement Phases

so some people have a good experience sliding into retirement and they kind of have a plan so if you're if you're during your honeymoon phase you struggled and then you were in the disenchanted phase now it's time to regroup and plan you just have to do it no matter where you are in your retirement Journey it's helpful to break it down into stages it's not just a straight line once you leave your career you know retirement can last for decades and Things Can Happen along the way you know you could lose your spouse or partner you could have a financial setback or there could be illness or something like that to disrupt your retirement you know it's really critical to make sure that you know where you are in your journey and you're always planning for the next phase So today we're going to share with you the four phases about of retirement and then at the end we're going to give you our top ways to keep yourself happy healthy and engaged along these four phases so hang on to the end for that it's really good so let's get started phase one let's call it pre-retirement you know maybe the last five to ten years of your career you know it's a great time for you to start doing some planning we did a series on this and I think it was three videos that we took you 10 years out all the way up to the last year right before you retired but this this phase also can be a little disruptive there can be a little bit of some some anxiety thinking ahead you're 60 years old you want to retire at 65.

There's a lot of good anticipation but you might get a little anxious and start to wonder you know am I ready for this because this is a huge transition well sure I mean one of the most critical and glaring transition is no more paycheck potentially right you know so many people put off retirement but sooner or later if you're lucky you leave your job and you start setting some real goals for yourself that's the pre-retirement right and there's actually I know you mentioned the three videos before but you'll put the link but there's another video that we did recently about retiring early that was really really popular so so we're gonna put that I might mention that at the end to remind you but that's a really good video to look at as you start thinking about your own retirement but the second phase we we call it or it's been called the honeymoon phase and this can have all sorts of mixed emotions so you've left your career your Venue retirement and you're given it a test drive kind of like you do when you get married right we gave it a test drive we're still driving though is it a money back guarantee it is not how many years later 14 years later we're still driving but this honeymoon phase you know there can be different emotions in there certainly there's happiness right there's no more schedule no one to report to and you'll have lots of freedom but this phase also can be wrought with some anxiety right you know what will I do now how will I fill my day and start to really look at am I okay financially we see a lot of pressure in this phase for sure yeah and you know maybe you start to dream about your future so you're a year into retirement six months into retirement and you're doing okay but you know you're a little bored let's say and you really want something more now is time to start to dream a little bit this is a critical time and you really want to make sure you have a plan you know a lot of what we talk about is around planning and a lot of people don't want to plan particularly in the beginning and one of the choices you have and we've had clients do this they take a gap year they've left their career and say we're not going to do anything for a year not that we're not going to mentioned when we were test driving the marriage to take a gap year maybe I'll submit for again here oh you can submit for a gap year that's fine no in all seriousness but but you need some planning when the Gap year is over right or the six months so it's okay to step away from everything to relax and chill and travel whatever you want right but it's also time to do some planning absolutely because what you want to make sure you're paying attention to is obviously your health your relationships your mental well-being and these all become important things to work on even when you're in a gap year if you choose a gap year right so let's let's talk about phase three which is disenchantment and this is where a lot of clients come to us when they hit this phase right it doesn't happen to everybody and it certainly doesn't happen if you've started or you're engaged in a solid plan for your retirement those that plan tend to thrive and don't stay in disenchantment Long right so this disenchantment phase and it's kind of a bad word I don't know where we got that from we probably Googled it and found it but it's it's a phase that can last a long time it can be where you've retired you're through the honeymoon you've kind of been retired for two or three years but things aren't going so well and you don't know really what to do what happens is you start to get a little bit lonely you start to wonder you know what am I going to do all day long I don't really have a vision for what I what I want to do maybe your friends are doing better maybe your your spouse or partner is doing really well but you can't let this disenchantment phase last long and I think what's important is that this is a phase where you really have to be honest with yourself if you're not happy with where you are in your retirement or if you're disenchanted as work as we're calling it Now's the Time for you to make a course correction right so we have something for you that will stick in the link below to try our free seven-day retirement Kickstart program you know it helps people entering retirement to get their head on straight it also helps in this disenchantment phase so we'll stick that link below right the other thing that happens in this phase is you depending upon how long it lasts there's confusion as I said earlier you feel lost and what you don't want to do is feel lonely because loneliness really is a very bad situation for yourself chronic loneliness is being lonely for two weeks or more right and it's it's compared to the same uh feeling you get if you smoke a 15 cigarettes a day or if you're walking around and you're obese that's how bad it is for your health so you really want to be careful and the other thing that can happen is and it didn't happen to us is you can lose touch with your marriage you know while marriage um divorce rates are down in the U.S in the U.S I believe I don't believe but great divorce is on the inclined and that's where two folks were let's say working their whole career and they didn't really spend a lot of time together and boom now they're spending all day long together and they they kind of lose touch with their marriage and what they you know I just read an article yesterday that um the opening line of it was divorce after retirement is not uncommon that was the title of the article that no that was like the first sentence and I was like oh geez you know now's not the time to be you know splitting assets and you know getting you know alone and doing more things unless you know unless it is the time for you but you know so that's a good time for us is it I don't think so Tick Tock now so that disenchantment phase you know we just went through a lot of emotions that are in it and again that's when a lot of people show up and come to us and that's where we can really help with a plan so let's talk about phase four phase four is when you really regroup and develop a plan it's so important to let's kick yourself in the ass face it is it's to have the courage to say I need help what can I do how can someone help me and make a change in your life so some people have a good experience sliding into retirement and they kind of have a plan but if there's a couple and they're going along fine that's great but if all sudden they're divorced and now they're in Solo retirement everything changes so if you're if you're during your honeymoon phase you struggled and then you were in the disenchanted phase now it's time to regroup and plan you just have to do it and really it's time for you to sit back and identify what your five or six or whatever your number is ours was five key areas of focus will be in retirement you know key areas that you want to plan around and you want to build habits and routines things that you want to start putting in place today so the vision of your ideal vision of where you want to be in the future comes to fruition and again that seven day Kickstart would be great for you guys if you're feeling anything that we're talking about right now like you're just not clear it's free it's great you'll enjoy it but the Five Pillars that we talk talk about and you'll hear more about it in that Kickstart is physical wellness and that's really your exercise your nutrition personal health care whatever it is so that you have good solid physical wellness the next one we work on and that we've chosen as our pillar is mental wellness and and by that I mean you know thinking about mindfulness you know I was in yoga this week and the yoga teacher actually said you know mindfulness and being present you know actually telling yourself not I'm gonna move my arm but my hand is now in front of me provides safety to both your mental well-being and your physical well-being you know it lowers your Stress and Anxiety just being present in the moment and we're working really hard on that and I know we use tools like headspace and calm and meditation and journaling and you know there's a lot to be said for your mental Wellness during this phase of life um the third area is relationships you know human beings need and they thrive on deep meaningful relationships so who are your relationships right now who are the people the small circle of friends that you have that you could talk to that you trust that you hang out with it's start with them build it deeper and then make it wider get some more friends to to come into the loop with you and really dovetailing with that is your spouse or partner relationship and you know after years of working maybe dual career working parents and now no children at home and retired and both at home this relationship may need attention and work and you may find yourself spending 24 7 together which could be great and it also could be taxing and the fifth area the fifth pillar that we focus on is repurposing all of your wisdom to serve others just like we're doing here with this business you know we have a lot of experience we're using it we're researching we're sharing with you some of the things that we're implementing and finding out so there's a lot of different ways in which you can do that and all of these five pillars are right out of our online course and our annual Mastermind that starts every January we'll put links below for that as well but some of the other things you can do for wisdom sharing you can write a book you could volunteer you could Mentor or coach other people there's a lot of different ways to build a plan around those five pillars so now that we've gone through the phases let's do let's do a retirement filled with happiness joy and fulfillment you know just a couple of quick things so planning we just talked about that so you want to plan financially and the Five Pillars you know you want to execute on one step for each pillar in other words don't take on too much so if you pick physical wellness you know walk 20 minutes a day walk 30 minutes the next week you know I did this program years ago called add one and every week you just added one more positive Habit to Your Arsenal you know if you if your nutrition is what you're going to focus on go online get some healthy recipes cook three or four days a week stretch your meals out from dinner to lunch eliminate some unhealthy foods but do it one at a time the other thing to do is create a community of others that want to have a better retirement talk to your friends who's looking to spend a little time planning who's looking to spend a little more time feeling healthier exercising start a coffee group and talk about these things so that's something that you could do for sure and the other thing is watch all rest of our videos we have so many videos on so many topics if you search very specifically what you're looking for and the big thing here in retirement for us is having a growth mindset you really need to be able to think about learning more and changing yeah that's a real Catalyst to a fulfilling retirement is continuing that growth mindset our goal with this business is to help people just like you to find the path that best suits their retirement so that they can be happy and fulfilled these phases are real and you have to find ways to move through them we hope you enjoyed this and if you did please share it with your friends and also please hit the Subscribe button and also the notification button so you know when our videos come out and finally join our free Facebook Community the link is in the notes below thanks for listening and we look forward to being with you again soon

As found on YouTube

Hilltop Community

Read More

Retirement Advice from someone who has done it.

What's your best retirement advice Retire Early!! Chuckles, it's been a good life.

As found on YouTube

Hilltop Community

Read More

Planning Retirement the RIGHT Way (with Veronica McCain)

so you'll pick me up tonight 
at 7 45. yo well no I got a   few things to take care of first but 
why don't we make a quarter to eight I'm 45. live from Joe's mom's basement it's 
the stacking Benjamin show [Music]   I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug and good news 
today is all about getting your way which is   my favorite here to help us work out our goals 
and find happiness we welcome retirement coach   Veronica McCain for our Tick Tock minute we'll 
discuss tips on getting your vocab right to   succeed in the corporate world in our headlines 
why is it that instead of money at the end of the   month the month seems to go too many days for 
our wallet we'll share an explanation from one   popular publication plus we'll throw out the Haven 
Lifeline to Lucky stacking Benjamin's listener Jim   who wants to know what percentage to put into his 
Roth IRA and then I'll share some heartbreaking   trivia and now two guys who like to color way 
Outside the Lines the Philistines it's Joe and oh [Music] and a happy Monday to you stackers nice open 
duck you know given your history I think that   was fantastic we got a great show today fantastic 
show Veronica McCain is here I can't let that go   what do you mean given my history I am Flawless 
day after day show after show let what go I don't   know what we're talking about Veronica giving 
my history great open given my history Veronica   McCain is here today she is a retirement coach 
and uh oh gee we don't get enough time to talk   about just retirement so I'm I'm super happy we 
get to do that sweet I'm gonna retire after this   Marathon recording episodes podcast for the 
last freaking week and a half so you can go   on vacation so like yeah by the time people hear 
this I've had a wonderful vacation in Spain which   meant that uh that yeah we've been talking to 
each other a fair amount lately however we got   a fantastic show today not only Veronica became 
we got a fantastic Tick Tock minute super happy   headline today comes to us from the Wall Street 
Journal the oh gee sorry the Wall Street Journal   The Wall Street Journal are they like the Ohio 
state of newspapers forgot to put the emphasis in   the right place and they get angry those Buckeyes 
no it's the Ohio State I thought it was just oh no   no it's the this is from the personal finance 
section it's written by our friend Veronica   dagger a Veronica writes why it's now easier to 
underestimate your expenses and overspend let's   dive in Veronica writes many people have a gap 
between what they think they spend and what they   actually spend this gaps wide recently is the 
financial and psychological effects of higher   prices further strain people's budgets Elevate 
inflation is rippled through Americans wallets   for more than a year now some have cut back While 
others have increased their spending to keep up   credit card balances were staying relatively flat 
for a while but have jumped higher recently oh   gee you and I let's take it from here I think 
that this is a year where it's crucial to have   your finger on the pulse of what your expenses are 
you know you hear people joke about eggs you hear   people joke about the grocery store of course for 
a while there you saw the gas pump that seems to   have leveled off at least where you and I live but 
I think if you don't have your finger on the pulse   you're just gonna have less money at the end of 
every month well the availability of credit cards   and accumulating that Consumer Debt really makes 
it easy to continue to live the life that you want   to live even if the cost of living has increased 
a little bit because you don't feel the pain of   that right away you know it's like that kind of 
slow death by a thousand paper cuts type of thing   it's like you have a little bit of a balance that 
carries over then you have a little bit more of a   balance that carries over and a little bit more of 
a balance that carries over and so that's a really   good really good signal I think is if you if you 
go month to month and you're not paying off your   Visa bill every single month or if you had been 
and now you're not yeah that's a good trigger to   go like whoa what changed here that'll snowball 
pretty quickly listen to this statistic just to   tell you how many people are not paying off their 
credit cards Veronica writes in the fourth quarter   of 2022 the average household's credit card 
balance was nine thousand nine hundred ninety   dollars up nine percent from a year earlier nine 
percent higher it's a huge big number according   to wallet Hub customer Finance website meanwhile 
the average credit card interest rate of course   rose with spread right yeah uh to record high of 
about 20 percent last week according to bank rate   those are some there's some big downsides for 
not tracking your expenses yeah thinking about   the math on that real quick it's like okay ten 
thousand dollars at twenty percent you're spending   150 100 you know 200 a month of Interest that's 
not going to pay that off if you think okay well   I make 80 grand after taxes bringing home you 
know 60 after taxes and health insurance and   401ks and all that sort of stuff that's a solid 
chunk of your annual budget that's just going to   interest payments that doesn't really accomplish 
anything for you so if you're one of those people   that that balance is increased on I think it's 
really important to figure out how to tighten   I think one way if you have an accountability 
partner a spouse a friend that you're working with   I really think this can be way easier than people 
think that it is Cheryl and I just have a weekly   meeting we meet for 20 minutes it's over wine or 
over pancakes depending on what time of day it is   it's not complicated we just look through it OG 
and I think it can be that simple it doesn't have   to be you know you're using what you know I love 
the tiller money app I think it's fantastic how it   takes a spreadsheet and downloads everything every 
day and you've got whatever numbers you want you   can plug those into your spreadsheet and get it so 
you can slice and dice however you want I like the   cube app as well we of course have lots of fans 
who use YNAB as a great budgeting tool but it's   not really it doesn't even have to be that hard 
it just has to be having just a finger on on the   pulse like where where's our money actually going 
you know it might have been you who mentioned it   years ago oh gee it could have been Paula pant but 
but a lot of people feel handcuffed when they feel   like the advice is look at your budget every 
month and decide all the details that you're   spending on and I think that's one of the things 
that intimidates people or just is a huge Downer   against budgets I don't think you have to do it 
forever and ever I honestly think you set up a   budget we use whatever template you want to use 
make your own or use some of the ones that Joe   mentioned and then you check in on it for let's 
say the first six months or eight months however   long it takes you to establish habits for just the 
way you live just the normal everyday stuff and   then once you've sort of curtailed yourself from 
essentially taking out a loan to buy that pair of   pants or that whatever that thing is you think you 
need uh I don't think you need to check in on that   budget that often I think it's I mean honestly 
I'm checking in on mine every maybe six months   to a year I think that I think the big Point here 
Doug with inflation having gone up as quick as it   did the point is to have these early warning trip 
wires that if you're not going to check it that's   fine but you got to have a tripwire that alerts 
you then that stuff is real and it's different   than it was three months ago because to OG's point 
if you don't catch it early this gets Beyond you   I mean but Wells Fargo's PR team finally getting 
getting ahead of the story here and got themselves   in this piece listen to this I like this money 
grows much faster than most people expect because   interest is not interest says Michael learsh head 
of Wells Fargo and companies advice and planning   center it's a great quote a similar concept 
though applies to inflation prices rise and if   inflation remains high prices continue to grow on 
top of already inflated prices leaving people off   guard quote people get constantly surprised that 
their money isn't going as far as they thought it   would and in fact the cost of eating out and going 
for drinks continues to take Dina lion aback even   though the 36 year old married mother of one's 
dining out and ordering in far less than she did   a year ago some prices still give her sticker 
shot she says the difference between cooking at   home about ten dollars for nice pasta and quick 
sauce from canned tomatoes versus Italian takeout   for now 50 bucks is astronomical said Miss line 
who lives in Brooklyn I think those trip wires   are are what you if you're not going to set it up 
Doug well let me ask you this I mean given your   history with money how exactly do you set up your 
own tripwires so we focused all of our spending   on One credit card I have a rough idea every 
month of what that that number should look like   at the end of the month and if it's significantly 
higher I kind of raise an eyebrow and then I start   scrolling through transactions and realize okay 
those are all legit time to cut it back that's my   trip but you know then where to cut well then 
I start to it's usually uh the same thing for   probably 90 percent of Americans Amazon but uh 
Amazon could be anything though I know that's such   a brilliant way for them to disguise what you're 
buying that it just says Amazon yeah because   you're like there's no way I spent forty one 
thousand dollars on Amazon last year yeah you did   like well what did I buy wouldn't you like to know 
right I bought Fruit Loops and a backhoe exactly but yeah then I just dig in a little bit if if 
the number is significantly higher usually when   that has happened it's because of a couple of 
big purchases and I know right where it was and   um I know that that big purchase isn't going 
to happen again the next month it's you that   for me that's usually what it is it's not the 
trickle effect of Amazon it's usually some big   some big Bill I had but uh yeah that's that's my 
tripwire yeah I just know that given your history   that we really need to make sure that um people 
hear the story you are harshing on me today what   is happening what am I doing I don't give up 
your history and what then you you yeah yeah   harsh on my open what is going on I don't I'm just 
saying that given your history there we go again I   think we need we need to make sure that people 
hear the story like it's a it's a great tale   hey uh speaking of great Tales time for a tick 
tock minute this is the part of the show where   we either have some Brilliance from the people at 
Tick Tock or we have hashtag brilliance from those   very same people uh Doug which one do you think 
we got today this one's legit it's solid yeah well   more solid than my backdrop which is just about 
fell over I love it how people are about to see   they're about to see all the canned goods here 
in the basement when your professional backdrop   goes bye-bye I think you're correct doug because 
oh gee today what we're going to talk about is   how to succeed in corporate life how to how to 
figure out the right things to say let's listen   one of the most important skills you'll need 
to learn if you want to be successful in the   corporate world is how to speak like an absolute 
[ __ ] week and a great way to do this is just   to totally ignore the basic principles of 
English grammar so first take a random noun   and then change it into a verb so a word like 
idea becomes ideate then take that new verb and   turn it back into a noun so id8 becomes ideation 
then take that now and change it back into a verb   so ideation becomes ideation Inc finally take the 
new verb and change it into a meaningless seven   word cluster an all hands Blue Sky ideationing 
session then sit back and wait to be promoted right that immediately it's pretty 
funny after your blue sky ideation   session you're you're good that's pretty 
funny brilliant Joe tell them some of   the we've got some of that same kind of 
corporate phraseology here that that just   develops organically just happens we have 
we've come up with our own lexicon here uh   OG we need to talk to you over by the can 
peaches we say that you're getting canned   first time Doug got canned he thought it was a big 
deal oh God I was remember that yeah I was I I had   Joy I mean uh tears in my eyes and when it's nice 
outside so you know we want to leave the basement   we meet up by the clothesline which we call Doug 
getting hung out to dry there it is we didn't need   the bump this is serious work OG we're all trying 
to get promoted here hey coming up is a woman that   I don't think we need to promote a lot because 
when it comes to retirement planning people   take it way too cavalierly oh gee you know this 
better than most people spend more time planning   their family vacations than they do planning their 
retirement which shows why so many people are not   successful at retirement planning well Veronica 
McCain worked a full career and then realized that   as a second career which we may talk about as well 
she was going to become a certified professional   retirement coach and a charter retirement 
planning counselor after 31 years of Public   Service work decided you know what time to do that 
other thing that I've really really wanted to do   so she founded Savvy retirement coach with the 
mission to provide holistic retirement planning   Concepts focused on self health and wealth we're 
going to talk to Veronica here in a second about   doing a better job planning retirement but Doug to 
get there I think you've got some history well I   think of it as trivia you call it history 
tomato well given your history of doing the   trivia I think we should just have the trivia now 
there's some massive punchline coming I can tell   I don't know what it is but okay fine here's 
the trivia Joe hey there's stackers on Joe's   mom's neighbor Duggan did you know that on this 
day in 1956 Heartbreak Hotel by Elvis Presley   became a number one hit the Smash Hit was written 
by the Queen Mother of Nashville Mae Boren Axton   and Tommy Durden Axton played a recording of 
Heartbreak Hotel for Elvis at a disc jockey   convention in Nashville and the rest is history 
so since we're on the topic of hotels I got some   hopefully not heartbreaking Hotel trivia for 
you my question is if you're evaluating hotels   as an investor what is the difference between 
these statistics average daily rate ADR versus   average published rate or APR I'll be back right 
after I asked Joe's mom to celebrate Elvis by   making me a peanut butter and banana sandwich 
while I tee up Heartbreak Hotel on my Walkman Burning Love Joe's mom's neighbor Doug and we are 
commemorating the anniversary of Elvis Presley's   Heartbreak Hotel becoming a number one hit on 
this day in 1956 with some Hotel related trivia   so my question was if you're evaluating hotels as 
an investor what is the difference between these   statistics average daily rate versus average 
published rate in maybe our most thrilling   trivia question yet try to stay awake non-hotel 
investors the average published rate is believe   it or not this is going to be amazing are you 
ready I'm just settle down because I know the   excitement is building it's the amount a hotel 
asks for rooms well the average daily rate are   you ready for this I know you've been waiting 
by your device all day just trying to figure   out what this definition is that is the amount 
they're actually getting paid for the rooms   if you're a hotel investor this is the opposite 
of boring because if those numbers are close   together it means the hotel is in demand and 
if they're far apart you know maybe not so much   maybe I should suggest our writing team retires 
So speaking of retirement Let's help you get there   permanently it's time to learn how to create 
your retirement your way with Veronica McCain and I'm super happy she's here at the card table 
with us Veronica McCain joins us how are you that you're here because we're about to talk if 
this goes according to plan we're about to talk   about all the things that you and I think people 
should talk about during retirement but often kind   of gloss over because they're you know just don't 
get me wrong we're gonna talk about the money too   but it's about more than money but as a way to 
get there Veronica I've always believed that   if you want advice it's helpful to get it from 
somebody who's kind of walked that path right   when I was a financial planner I had been one 
in a long time but when I was the fact that I   worked with 200 families and I'd seen retirement 
over and over and over again should give people a   little bit of comfort that yes you want to do this 
once I've done it a bajillion times but but I had   not at that point ever retired you have actually 
retired tell me about that do you remember the   countdown to your retirement oh yeah definitely 
I mean I remember when I was working you did you   know you do the usual countdown on your calendar 
kind of exiting out the days until it actually   hits and then that when that day comes I think 
you get a overwhelming emotions because then I   realized you know I'm leaving my work and my work 
was not just work for me I actually had you know   work family what did you do by the way I worked 
for the federal government so I was a associate   director over several various departments within 
an agency a very small agency about 300 people but   um because you're a small agency you kind of 
have to sometimes do a lot so oversaw a lot of   different departments yeah so so you have this 
flood of emotions where the emotions about loss   were they about excitement I don't know is it now 
all the above is it purpose yeah I kind of had an   idea sort of what I wanted to do so I kind of knew 
what path I was going to take once every time I   know it's going to go into some type of coaching 
field didn't know exactly what way I was going to   go with it at first I thought maybe more in the 
Executive coaching area but then as I thought   about that more it kind of gave me flashbacks for 
work so then I decided to get into more of the   the retirement because people were asking me so 
many questions about you know what do you do and   what you retire how do you feel your days and that 
kind of thing so um you know as I was approaching   looking into the coaching area I did look at 
retirement coaching and I said oh this will be   an interesting field to pursue because I like to 
motivate people to have people get excited about   their goals and what they want to do in life and 
I like the kind of the financial side as well so   um you know that's why I decided to kind of lean 
more toward the retirement coaching but getting   back to when that final day came yeah I think 
it was when I had the actual retirement you know   sometimes that work to give you a retirement uh 
party and you see everybody and they're like uh   say something say something and then when I got up 
to say something all of a sudden I started feeling   like I was gonna cry yeah I was looking out at 
everybody and I was like wow I'm you know this   is this is really the end um even though I had 
something you know like I said to look forward   to going through I didn't expect that emotion to 
come over me like that but it did and I think a   lot of people experienced that when the final 
day comes of their retirement there is like a   I don't know I mean it's just morbid but there is 
like a death I mean you're it is it is your last   cake right right you've been to see other people's 
cake but all of a sudden you realize this is your   last slice yeah it is that that's exactly what 
it is it's kind of you know that you're gonna   try to keep in contact with the people that 
you work with and try to have some kind of   relationship but it does change it really does 
because you just you know everything usually that   you talk about with people at work is work related 
stuff and over time when you retire that kind of   goes by the wayside with you so do you feel like 
we're too Cavalier about that about that process   about the uh you know the fact that we're going 
to have these emotions we just think oh I'll deal   with it when I get there yeah I think a lot of 
people are just so caught up and I'm going to be   retired I'm going to be tired I can do whatever I 
want it's so exciting or whatever so yeah I think   you don't really feel like that you're going to 
have those type of emotions I think you just feel   like you're going to go to this next chapter 
in your life and it's going to be oh this this   burst of excitement and it is I'm not saying that 
you're not going to have it but I do think there's   also a period of of where you kind of adjust uh 
to you know what you've left behind in your job   and your identity and all that with that and 
then going forward pursuing what what you had   to look forward to in retirement so it's kind 
of a mixed bag those first couple of years you   tell your own story but you also tell stories 
of a few other people in the workbook one is   a woman named Susan Susan seems a little lost 
can you tell our stackers about Susan Susan is   the one who the days and the walls were kind of 
closing in yes yeah yeah she was the one person   in the book that I talk about and the people 
that I talk about the book are actual people   that I coach I just use different names and 
scenarios names change to protect the guilty yeah she was kind of diverse and this is a this 
is a lot like when you're working you're kind of   looking forward to those days that you have off 
where you can kind of do some things that you   want to do but then when you retire and it's every 
day it gets a little daunting if you really don't   have an idea of what you're going to be doing to 
for your days your day-to-day life I think is the   hardest thing that most people struggle with when 
they retire they have some huge aspirations maybe   of traveling or doing that but once they're 
sitting in their house house on a day-to-day   basis and in the you know the walls of you know 
has kind of quiet and not a lot going on you   don't have that routine of going to work anymore 
it's kind of like what do I do on a day-to-day   kind of thing and that's kind of challenging but 
what Veronica separates your workbook from a lot   of the retirement discussions I've seen is that 
you take this day to day and challenge all of us   to think really bigger about our life like I got 
this feeling even in the beginning Pages as you're   telling the story that well let me just quote 
you you wrote a big void needs to be filled in   retirement but it should not be filled just with 
things to keep you busy like this is not just a   March to the Grave this is a whole different 
piece of your life and it shouldn't just be   about rearranging the salt and pepper shaker every 
day or you know figuring out that the dog needs   to go for a walk like you challenge us to think 
a lot bigger about this period exactly it is an   exciting time for you to think bigger about your 
life because it's probably the first time in your   life that you're actually able to do what you want 
to do on your own schedule and hopefully have the   finances to do that so I think it's more than just 
trying to fill your days with just the stuff to do   and I think a lot of times when you first retire 
if you don't really have an idea of what path   you're going to go down once you retire that's 
what you start doing you start trying to just   okay let me do this do this and do that and you're 
not feeling you're still not feeling fulfilled so   I'm hoping in the workbook I give you exercises 
to help you because people struggle with like   what does this mean purpose meaning fulfillment 
or whatever yeah those are I think sometimes big   words that we use but I hopefully going through 
some of the exercises in the book you will be able   to figure that out by going through the exercises 
and then trying to say okay well what do I really   want to look for as far as my next chapter in my 
life of what I want to pursue and what I want to   do more than just these little small things that 
are keeping you busy I get uh coaching from a   group called strategic coach long time stackers 
have heard me talk about them before but we have   we have a workbook similar to yours with these big 
questions about leadership and about coaching but   you do the same thing here with retirement and 
this is not guys this is not a long workbook but   if you're doing this right it may take you months 
to fill this stuff out because I could see myself   Veronica peeling off maybe two pages and really 
because the thought that goes into each page of   this is really the important part well let me give 
everybody some of the tips from the book that you   have early on because you have workbook pieces 
and then you have some tips here's some tips   early on for when you first get to retirement to 
kind of send you on this path while you're filling   out the workbook schedule activities you enjoyed 
during when you took time off from work journal   and reflect on your expectations of yourself as 
a retired person I love that word Expectations by   the way read books and articles listen to podcasts 
and a variety of topics to discover what most   interests you now and volunteer for different 
organizations to discover how you most enjoy   helping people and helping help being out it feels 
to me Veronica like you're challenging people   also to don't be afraid to explore like go go try 
stuff expecting that it might not be a fit exactly   that's exactly right Joe I want people to not be 
kind of Trapped into thinking they have to have   everything planned out to just go out and just do 
things that they find intriguing or they interest   them and then from there they can determine what 
they want to continue to pursue what they don't   want to continue to pursue but don't don't limit 
yourself on what you what you think you should be   doing or how you should be doing it this is a time 
for you to be adventurous and explore at different   Avenues and things that interest you and a lot of 
times that's kind of a hard thing to do for people   because they've lived this kind of structured life 
up to this point with work and all that and to try   to say oh just go out here and do whatever and try 
to figure it out it can be a little intimidating   like whatever what yeah yeah so I'm hoping that 
the exercise in the book gives you clue you know   kind of cute used to okay these are some things 
volunteering doing some other things that you   know she thought about what maybe when you were 
younger and didn't pursue kind of go back to those   times of those thoughts and and try to figure out 
if there's um things that you want to pursue now   so yeah it's it it's funny because I I really 
went through this crisis where I felt like not   just there's a lot of stuff not interest me but 
but I'm like okay I want to get involved in my   community I want to get involved in organization 
but but which ones I don't this could sound very   horrible Veronica but I just didn't I just didn't 
care about any of them and then I realized that it   wasn't about that I need to just go get involved 
and when I found out and ultimately at first it   was the Arthritis Foundation I got involved 
with I found out about juvenile arthritis I   found out about all of these things happening in 
the arthritis Community I got involved in walking   trails around town and I realized how walking 
trails uh not only your Healthy Living but   beautify a city but they're also very inexpensive 
ways for cities to raise property values like I   learned it by exploring exactly what you're saying 
to do in the book exactly that sounds so great Joe   because that's exactly what I'm hoping people 
would do once they start retiring just like you   said you did you just started going out and doing 
things and as you started doing those things you   learned so much and it got your interest even more 
into whatever activities you were pursuing the one   thing that people have to realize when they retire 
you have to be just to be intentional you have to   go out and do it it's not going to come to you and 
a lot of times I think you know when I'm working   uh coaching with clients they're like well I don't 
know I don't know I'm like well you got to go out   and try you can't it's not going to come to you 
you've got to go out there and pursue it and once   you do and when you know you will see oh okay this 
doesn't just me or this doesn't interest me but   you've got to go out there and do it can we talk 
about that what you just said about you kind of   kicking people in the butt and and kicking them 
out the door to go you know like my mom used to   say don't come back inside until that light turns 
on you know we we back when kids went outside   side maybe I'm dating myself there but you end 
almost every chapter of this workbook with who   are going to be your accountability Partners it 
seems to me like accountability partners are a   big piece of this tell me about how you how do you 
find these people Veronica maybe just before you   retire yeah and sometimes say you know who they 
can be they can be trusted friends and and people   that you know I think sometimes there are people 
that are asking you questions about yourself and   are intrigued about you as an individual but you 
do have to find sometimes an accountability person   because in retirement there's nothing pushing 
you to do anything and if you don't sometimes   have somebody that you can hold accountable and 
if you can't find someone within your your network   I would advise you to look for a coach because 
that's because what they can be as well pursue   look um for a retirement coach or a life coach 
or or someone in that field because they can be   your accountability partner but if you're finding 
that you're struggling trying to get stuff done   and you're not really getting out there or you're 
bored and you're restless and you want to not get   some pickup and you're like you definitely need 
to look into getting somebody to be accountable   and help you because I even have coaches that I 
work with and I'm a coach yeah yeah me so it's   just something that just like I said it helps 
you keep you accountable to someone to keep   you motivated to do things I think that kind of 
like you Veronica I just get this feeling that uh   with my coach if I say it out loud to Mary Lou 
it means I gotta go do it like that if somebody   tells you or if you tell your coach then you 
then you have to go do it I want to stick with   this theme of uh friends and family a little bit 
because those might be some of the people you're   bouncing stuff off of but you also say if you're 
having trouble finding your sense of purpose that   friends and family might be a good Outlet yeah 
and that's what I found for me that's why I said I   want you know I knew I wanted to go into coaching 
I wasn't really sure which way I wanted to go and   the reason why I decided to be a retirement coach 
is because friends and stuff are saying you're   good at coaching and talking about this retirement 
stuff or whatever and I'm not like you should   do something with that and that's why I pursue 
becoming a retirement coach but I think oftentimes   friends and family see things within you that you 
don't even see yourself they recognize talents and   things that you have that you're like oh okay 
you're right I do enjoy that you kind of brush   it off and maybe not pay attention to where they 
might be and I think when you're listening to your   friends and family you have a tendency because you 
trust them to listen to their guidance a little   bit maybe more than somebody else that doesn't 
really know you so I say I always lean into   your friends and families to help you if you're 
trying to figure out maybe you know some things   you might want to do they might say well you're 
good at organizing or you're good at accounting   or you're good at this or whatever and they might 
give you some cues to help you figure out where   that next chapter is going to be in your life in 
retirement so definitely look for them for that   I like the fact that you go through a lot of 
this first about about purpose and value and   meaning before you get to the money in chapter 
two because your chapter two then really is   structured around okay now that you know that we 
can focus on spending money where it's important   and saving money where it's not and hopefully I 
have an idea there you start off with some good   tips you talk about traveling a lot of people 
in retirement want to travel uh you say to be   a conscientious traveler what is what does that 
mean yeah everybody always says when they retire   they want to travel and then all of a sudden 
they just start going places and not really   thinking of where they really want to go and why 
they want to go there I kind of had to regroup   because when I first retired I kind of I think 
everybody does that you go through that I just   want to get out and go go go go go go and you're 
just going everywhere but you're spending money   going everywhere and so you want to kind of 
maybe reel that back in it's okay to have that   little brief period of doing that but you want to 
reel that back in and really think about you know   where is it where do I really want to go why do 
I want to go there what do I want to experience   once I get there make sure you're spending your 
travel dollars on things that are value to you   and make yourself more conscious of the type 
of traveling you're doing I know I did a lot   of girlfriend getaway travels you know spy and 
all that and that's great but I really want it   I want to explore the world that's what I really 
want I want bigger trips and so you know you need   to just be conscious of what your goal is as far 
as you're traveling and where you what you want to   see and make sure you're you know you're putting 
your money into that type of travel versus just   doing things yeah yeah what I really like that 
you shine a light on is now that you're retired   you can really lean into off season and one thing 
that's not in your workbook that I love about off   season that Cheryl and I have found because she 
is a somewhat flexible job and I could travel   whenever man off season you get more of the local 
experience because the places aren't full of a   bunch of tourists people are more likely to be 
able to linger and talk to you like off season   is great but to your point you save you save a 
bunch of money there too exactly and I travel   now that's all I do is try to travel off season 
because just like you say as far as you want to   make sure with your dollars that you're spending 
them in a conscientious way as far as when you're   traveling too going off season I feel like those 
retirees the best time for you to travel because   you really get a feel for everything without 
the crowds and like you said the pricing is   better you're able to enjoy it in a different 
way what are some other ways that new retirees   and people that are stackers that maybe are are 
getting close to retirement can think about areas   where they might be able to save money besides 
on discount or off season travel at first I would   just look in your budget overall of what you you 
know you have developed as far as your I think   everybody should be tracking their costs before 
they retire and coming up with a overall budget   um what they think their retirement is going 
to be but some of the things you can look at is   cars you know the insurance and things of that 
nature look at that to see if there's ways you   you can save on that once you retire there's 
also lots of discounts and stuff like we were   talking about off Seasons but also if you kind of 
pursue looking you know if you want to go to Parks   or whatever whatever your um interest might be 
looking for ways you can get discounts on things   of that nature and just be aware of any ways you 
can save money with traveling it's just a lot of   different ways out there too for other things as 
well two big ones I really like that you had uh   if you've got two vehicles you might be able to go 
to one you know think about what you think about   Transportation evaluate your life insurance do 
you need it anymore are you financially solvent   enough where maybe you could get rid of that and 
then a medical one which I really liked was hey   this medical thing is going to get expensive 
stay healthy which also gets you out of the   house I feel like Veronica again you're kicking 
people's butt out of the house I definitely with   the medical and the exercising and now that you've 
got all this time you've done definitely can get   a nice physical routine into your everyday life 
just simple walking I know I take morning walks   every morning and not just for exercise but for 
meditation purposes for me as well but yeah we   all know the medical cost is a big expense when 
you retire and we also know that you get more you   know seditary in your way you're not as active as 
you were where you were working so I do recommend   that you do have a physical fitness routine for 
yourself when you retire to keep yourself healthy   so you can reduce those medical costs because 
a lot of the Medical classes stuff you can   prevent yeah and things that you could be doing to 
prevent you get but you got to start early on your   retirement and start doing things to keep yourself 
healthy when we go to the doctors at a certain   age you're all getting those oh you're close you 
know borderline there's water flush that and stuff   it's time for you to really you know we're at that 
point you can do things within your health to keep   yourself more healthy so yeah yeah definitely I 
look at a hamburger now and my cholesterol goes up   I just look at it I don't know how that medically 
happens but it's crazy that is we all we all know   that feeling with people that own their house 
you have a section of your workbook to go through   Renovations on your house and thinking about 
your housing situation this is the number one   area in our budget our house what are some of 
those key considerations about our housing we   should be thinking about yeah a lot of people 
like especially if they want to stay in their   houses should look in as far as their as I call 
Aging in place in the houses and look how well   their house is going to be able to support them 
once they start aging and look at you know I have   a checklist in there of things that you should 
look at as far as your stairs and your appliances   and just repairs and stuff that you might need 
to do to your house as you start getting older   those kind of costs if you're not prepared for 
them can wreak Haven on your retirement budget   so if your house is where you want to stay then 
you definitely need to look at it like even the   showers grab bars and um stuff yeah steps if 
that's going to work as you get older I know   with my husband he had had accident he couldn't 
go up the steps but it made me start thinking   you know as we age you know we're not able to go 
up the steps how are we going to do it because   we don't have bedroom on our main level so those 
are the things that you need to really think about   if you're going to decide to stay in your house 
so what you need to do and kind of come up with   a plan so it doesn't all hit you at once because 
sometimes it does you know unfortunately it'll be   unexpected like your husband's too I mean there's 
no you know Tuesday everything's fine Wednesday   the game's changed exactly and you need to kind of 
be thinking about that especially like I said if   you plan on stay in your house what your game plan 
is and start trying to figure out how you can get   your house accessible so that as you age it'll 
it'll still suit you yes you talk about moving   and about a lot of people of course think about 
moving when they retire and you also talk about   friendships and I'm glad that you coupled the two 
of those together because one thing I've always   thought and now I know we're here to interview you 
Veronica but I'm going to pontificate for just a   second no problem because I feel like people think 
of moving wait we talked about being too Cavalier   with this whole thing this especially to me is 
an area where people are too Cavalier I'm just   going to move closer to to my kids and what you 
find is that your kids are really busy they got   a bunch of stuff going on you become a full-time 
babysitter but you don't end up interacting with   them in the way that they want and all of 
these close friendships that you developed   over the last 30 40 years I'm a guy who lived for 
a decade in Texarkana I moved away to Detroit for   two years and Veronica we came back and not 
because I have family here in quotes because   all my friends are here I see some of my friends 
as my friends are getting older you know I find   them getting vacation houses that are far away 
and we're we never get to see them anymore and   I feel like this loneliness this isolation that 
we put ourselves into because we think it's great   like we're I feel like we're way too Cavalier 
about that but anyway I will shut up I'm gonna   get off my steps duel what do you think do you do 
you're sad at all Joe that is exactly what people   do they're very Cavalier they have this idea of 
oh I'm gonna live here and it's going to be this   great but they have no special connections there 
yes or I'm gonna go near the grandkids and the   grandkids are getting older the grandkids are 
going to grow up they're not going to be here   forever be little kids they're gonna grow up and 
have their own things or even if they're already   older they you know have their own activities and 
stuff to do so that's why in the in the workbook   I give a checklist you know it just even asked 
them oh yeah we want you close by and I say also   don't let your only connections be your kids your 
grandkids or your kids you know you need to have   other social connections outside of them because 
a lot of people say I'm a little bit closer for   the children and that might not work out so yeah 
it's one of those things that I think everybody   has this idea of how it's going to be yeah this 
grandiose kind of idea so not true so not true   and that's why hopefully when you go through 
the workbook and you look through the checklist   and if you do the exercises that are focused on 
that you'll have a clear perspective of whether   that's a great move for you or not whether it's 
going to work for you and as you retire because   I think it's hard harder once you get there to try 
to move back so oh agree yeah yeah uh you talked   about how I was a retiree now you know you're not 
forced to get up and go to work you don't have to   now lead the charge like you did in your career 
Veronica with your department with your agency   time management then becomes really important 
then for retirees if you're going to get what   value you want out of life so you talk about 
morning routine daytime routine idea week   again accountability Partners but but I 
wanted to end by talking about this time   management system for retirees you call it uh 
postek p-o-s-e-c can you walk us through that   one of the things that people struggle with 
the most and I kind of alluded to that before   is you had a routine when you were going to 
work once you retire that routine is no more   and I find a lot of times with new retirees 
especially that's where they feel the most lost   is there's no structure to the day anymore they're 
kind of and all you know all over the place and   don't know how they can spend time sometimes just 
Milling around not doing anything or whatever so   I want you to I you know sometimes when I tell 
people you know structure they kind of you know   like that's why I'm not working anymore I 
don't know why not I don't like yeah well   easy easy there all right if you want to try to 
put me back at work with destruction my name is this is the whole purpose of retirement I thought 
for me to just kind of Mill around and not do   anything but I thought we find that when people 
do that they get very bored so I just ask that   you just think of your days and more how am I 
going to start my mornings how am I going to   get up in the morning get started and get going 
through the day I think once you get that start   up in the morning of what you're gonna do it kind 
of guides you through the rest of the day but you   do need to think about how am I gonna just get 
my day started you know when you don't have an   alarm clock to get you going every morning so yes 
the workbook is is my retirement my way it's a   workbook for the newly retired it's funny the way 
that you go through goal setting like a 30 year   old would just reminds me the purpose is important 
no matter no matter where you're at in life and uh   the book's available everywhere correct yes it 
is yes well thanks so much Veronica for helping   our stackers get successful with their retirement 
it's funny we talked to a guy Wes moss in Atlanta   about his book what the happiest retirees know 
and it's so funny how it lines up so well like   if you read that and do your workbook you're 
gonna implement this and you're more likely to   be one of those happy retirees so thanks for 
this work no thank you thanks for having me   this is Daryl from Pennsylvania when I'm not busy 
arguing with a four-year-old um stacking Benjamins oh gee I love that we can talk to Veronica 
for over 25 minutes and uh the concept of   asset allocation doesn't even come didn't make it 
doesn't make the cut we're so busy talking about   what about my efficient Frontier it's all going to 
change I mean not the efficient Frontier but just   your emotional landscape I totally agree with her 
you see it all the time you go through this this   metamorphosis when you hit retirement and even get 
close to it that I think most people are way too   wait I guess they're not expecting it's a whole 
different world I mean if you've been successful   in your entire life this is the transition I 
mean just inside the money concept not not all   the other stuff that she was talking about right 
like time and energy and all that sort of stuff   but just the money piece of it transitioning from 
being a good saver your entire life to being a   good spender for the rest of your life in and of 
itself is a difficult change so hard to make that   switch and it's even harder when you don't really 
know what you want yeah you're much more likely to   just hold on to the money and the thing that you 
underestimate is time you don't have forever to   decide what you want to do would you rather have 
Charlie munger's money at uh 90 or his wisdom at   uh or you know what is he a hundred or something 
like that is his you want to trade places with   him basically no nobody would trade places with 
Charlie hunger right now for all the money in the   world well what if Charlie Munger likes what 
he's doing I understand that I'm just saying   like nobody would trade places with him because 
of the time you know because he's 90 something   oh like he's got billions of dollars so it's not 
it's not necessarily always about the money I see   what you mean but so you so to Joe's Point you'd 
end up with a really really happy last two years   of your life yeah that's right well it's our 
it's our friend uh doc G's book about hospice   you know about these people who spent their 
whole life chasing dollar bills or people   that spent zero time chasing dollar bills they 
spend all their time going no I don't need any   money and then they realize if I would have 
had some I could have had better family time   that's a good book hey let's throw out David 
lifeline and tackle some of life's most important   questions our friends at Haven life insurance 
agency Doug they put what you value first I   tell you what uh white breasted nut hatches white 
breasted nut hatches yeah what is that that's a   bird and it's also a realization that you've 
become old because one day you're joy riding   your frat brothers brand new car to Florida when 
all he thought was you were like driving around   the block and you're like we're going to Florida 
and the next day you're getting out your bird   ID app because some Bird shows up outside your 
window what is that at least it's an app and not   a book yeah true but uh and then I also spotted a 
fairly rare for my area a brown merger [Laughter]   both of those are fantastic names for birds and 
I saw them both this morning but you know you   know number one thing OG is it's an app on his 
phone but the thing that makes him proudest is   that it's his most used app on his phone like he 
gets that report from Apple and they're like you   open that Bird app a lot well thank you next 
to his uh walking step counter app and the one   that monitors his blood pressure he's he's also 
the continuous glucose monitor blood pressure   number of steps in the New Balance app 
I don't see a problem with any of this   to order new shoes every six months given his 
history Anything Could Happen hey uh speaking   of anything happening we should uh go ahead and 
throw a Paving Lifeline because the answer that   question Doug was your loved ones in your time 
with a bird app it's why they've made buying   quality term life insurance actually simple more 
time to catch the brown and merger beeping out of   the hole hey stackabenjamins.com havenlife now 
please go there and then fast forward this 15   seconds to get us out of this bird discussion 
their application's simple getting us to cover   his decision their parent company Mass Mutual is 
more than 160 years old so you know that they've   done this before hey uh today we we I I love 
Karen repine our show Runners notes for us this   is uh Jim from Wisconsin calling in and Karen 
says Jim from Wisconsin a real person not Doug thanks we actually have a real Wisconsin 
idea is that was is it wisconsinite or   is it just cheese head do you just 
say cheesehead yeah I think that's   the preferred term it's in their 
state either Constitution hey Jim hey guys Jim here and I actually am from 
Wisconsin I have a question about what   percentage to contribute to my traditional 401K 
versus my Roth 401k I'm five to seven years away   from retirement maxing out my 401k contributions 
I read somewhere that when you have saved six   times your annual income you should move all 
your future contributions to the Roth option   what's the thought process in deciding how much 
to put where I'll be looking for that shirt thanks   Jim thanks for the call thanks by the 
way for proving that you're really from   Wisconsin uh Burton from Minnesota needs to 
learn from Jim he's got to put some Midwest   on that uh yeah if you're listening 
from last week take a note from Jim   it's a good effort Jim I'll give you that 
I mean you made a You made an attempt but [Music] it didn't you don't 
think Jim really talks like that   but that is not a Wisconsin accent oh not 
as good as yours was is that what you're   saying I don't know what you're talking 
about not as good as the interloper yeah   Jim thanks for the call oh gee have you heard 
this uh rule of thumb that he's using six times   nope six times what six times something I've 
never heard that gym next time something I've   never heard it yeah the answer to when should I 
put money in a Roth 401k versus a regular 401K   is largely determined by your ability to pay the 
taxes today you know you think about it if you're   making a hundred grand and you're contributing 
the maximum to your 401k you're putting 22   000 in your 401k this year which if it's pre-tax 
is going to lower your taxable income to 78 000   before your deductions and all that other sort of 
stuff that roughly is going to save you maybe four   or five thousand dollars in federal taxes because 
of that contribution not including any state taxes   if you switch to the Roth side then that deduction 
doesn't appear in your W-2 so you effectively are   going to have a four or five thousand dollar 
additional tax withholding throughout the year   so it's you know back to our discussion at the 
beginning of today your budget is going to be   affected by call it 400 bucks a month if you can 
afford that if you can fold that into your budget   and not go into credit card debt or not have to 
borrow more money for cars or student you know   like if you can deal with it then obviously it's 
better to pay your taxes today well not obviously   but it makes most sense I think to pay your taxes 
today because it's a known thing you know in the   future all of that money becomes tax-free forever 
and there's no there's no government requirements   of withdrawals there's no government requirements 
of those distributions that you have to take once   you are retired it's all in all the roths side 
is way way better but it comes at a cost which   is that 500 bucks a month well and I think I would 
think OG you know he talked about doing the Roth   later in the pretext earlier I would think that 
to pay that cost and to make it even more worth it   because of the fact that you are prepaying the tax 
you need those assets to grow much much much more   so I would think that at the very least flipping 
that around and doing the Roth first makes more   sense like the further you are away do the Roth 
don't don't do pre-tax first and then switch to   Roth I would do Roth as early as I can and switch 
to I mean if I'm choosing one or the other which   you and I know this most people that listen to 
this don't we haven't had this discussion a long   time we don't think either one of these is right 
we think you should be doing some of each because   you don't know what the future is going to hold 
but certainly or Roth first approach versus the   other way around it doesn't make more sense 
if you're thinking about it from the kind of   historical context of your earnings you're going 
to make the least amount of money early in your   career and the most amount of money on the back 
end right like usually that's how it works you   your income continues to increase throughout 
your career so if you have to pay your taxes I   would rather pay them at a lower rate if possible 
versus when I'm 50 and I'm making 200 000 a year   maybe that's the time to use the pre-tax bucket 
because of the fact that most 401ks come with   company matches and those matches are also pre-tax 
I think that if you can start out doing a Roth   early in your career and continue to do it your 
entire career you'll end up with a good enough   balance of Roth 401k and pre-tax because of the 
company matching contributions being pre-tax but   if you're really trying to optimize tax brackets 
and that sort of thing you can kind of manipulate   it as you get toward those higher tax brackets 
the problem with all of this of course is that   we're taking a very big guess at what tax rates 
are the day you withdraw the money how do we   know whether or not this worked pre-tax versus 
Roth well if you put the money in a Roth 401k   and you take it out in the future you're betting 
that today's tax rates are better than tomorrow's   tax rates you're saying I'd rather pay taxes today 
than in the future because the future I think are   going to be higher that's what you're saying and 
the vice versa is also true if you put the money   in pre-tax today you're saying I think I can take 
this money out at a better tax rate in the future   then I can pay it today so I'm you know I'm at 
a high tax bracket today I think I'll be in a   lower tax bracket in the future the only way that 
you know whether or not you're right is after you   know that you're right because we don't have 
the chart that says what are tax rates in 2037   because if we did then we would be able to 
calculate it and say with certainty this is   a better choice based on the circumstances 
all we're saying is I think I might have a   lower tax rate in the future or I think 
tax rates might be higher in the future   the one thing that I can say is that if Congress 
doesn't change any of the rules Roth contributions   Roth growth and earnings are 100 tax-free forever 
so I don't care what the tax rates are in 20 years   from now when I take the money out because it's 
tax-free yeah if I'm gonna lean I'm leaning toward   pay the taxes today be done with it that said 
slots approach too by the way which is to say   you got the cash today pay it today so that you 
don't look at your IRA and go I've got a million   bucks in my IRA it's like no you don't you have 
500 000 in your IRA because half of it is for the   government Doug I think this is really important 
uh stuff for you I mean given your history with   taxes and I have no history with taxes so I'm 
good well maybe that's the point you gotta earn   something to pay taxes maybe that's the point big 
thanks to you Jim for the call if you would like   to call and ask a question you know what we will 
send you a Haven life stacking Benjamin's greatest   money show on earth circus t-shirt and Jim from 
Wisconsin really from Wisconsin is getting one   cent his way slash voicemail gets you the shirt 
and we're happy very happy to send it to Jim as   I stare ready Doug as I say that I don't know why 
I'm staring at Doug as I said Jim well he sounds   hideous what are you talking about well it's 
just I mean it's like a fiction just thing right   this gym it's like the the State Farm guy that's 
who you're talking to I know I think it's Jim I   think somebody's having a tough day there OG well 
before we say goodbye today time for our community   calendar man we've got a great week over on the 
stacking deed show where Crystal Hammond and Alan   Corey dive into real estate Alex e Edwards is 
a guy who helps uh has helped a lot of people   in the southeast part of the United States 
get out of intergenerational poverty through   real estate teaching some real estate helps them 
learn how to buy houses how to learn to do it in   a responsible way he's going to be their guest on 
tomorrow's show over on stacking Deeds of course   our other sisters show the earninginvest podcast 
doc G always has guests who dive deep into Allah   into some some topic that is uh always exciting 
and a fantastic and a fantastic discussion he   has a friend of ours Fritz from the retirement 
Manifesto coming up on Thursday Fritz is a guy   who retired young documented his retirement an OG 
to Veronica's Point earlier in today's show Fritz   has really done it right this guy is so busy but 
now doing that second career I think he serves on   a couple of boards he Volunteers in the city of 
Asheville in a couple different capacities one   is working with animals he's always out in his 
wood shop this guy has so much going on he's not   sitting there wondering what he's going to do 
so if you're interested more in in retirement   Fritz will be over on earn invest of course here 
on Wednesday the draft the NFL draft is Thursday   so we've got Rob Welch he and a former NFL player 
wrote a book together about going pro with your   money we're going to talk Wednesday about no 
matter what you're trying to go pro in how do the   pros treat their money A lot of pro players about 
to get a big payday on Thursday and as we already   know a lot of them don't do the right thing with 
that sudden money OG it goes in the wrong place   that's what's coming up this week thanks so much 
for hanging out with us today if you're somebody   that's my kind of person and will leave a 
review for people that they only know via   podcast or maybe you've hung out with this 
on one of our social media channels please   leave a review of the show that helps us so 
much helps new stackers realize what they're   getting into a little different take on money 
than maybe some of the other shows out there   thanks to everybody who's done that Mom puts those 
on her refrigerator if you're not here though to   hang out with us on social media you're not here 
just for Doug's trivia you're here because of the   fact that you're worried about the economy you're 
worried about your money and and how it works   together and as a lot of those fears begin to ramp 
up for people you might be feeling anxious to make   some moves in your finances what I'd like you 
to do instead is check out this free guide that   OG and his team have put together that'll help you 
plan more and panic less no matter what the market   does it has some great insights on what you should 
be doing and smart questions to ask yourself so   that you make financial decisions your future self 
will thank you for head to stackybenjamins.com   guide that's stackybenjamins.com guide to get that 
free guide from OG all right that is what's going   on in the community man a lot of takeaways today 
but Doug what are the top three man well Joe first   take some advice from our guest Veronica McCain 
and create your own unique roadmap to retirement   second take a memo from our Tick Tock minute 
to up your vocab game and Excel above the   competition I'm sure you'll get promoted in no 
time but the big lesson turns out five times in   a row is the limit to singing Heartbreak Hotel 
at the top of your lungs after that Joe's mom   starts to get irritable and make threats now that 
I think about it probably was the hip thrusting thanks to Veronica McCain for joining us 
today you can find her book my retirement   my way a workbook for the newly retired to 
create meaning set goals and find happiness   wherever finer books are sold we'll also include 
links in our show notes at stackingbenjamins.com this show is the property of SB podcasts LLC 
copyright 2023 and is created by Joe salsi   High our producer is Karen rebein this show was 
written by Lacey Langford who's also the host of   the military money show with help from me Joe and 
Doc G from the earn an invest podcast Kevin Bailey   helps us take a deeper dive into all the topics 
covered on each episode in our newsletter called   the 201 you'll find the 4-1-1 on all things money 
at the 201 just visit stackingbenjamins.com 201   Tina eichenberg makes the video version of this 
show Once We bottle up all this goodness we ship   it to our engineer the amazing Steve Stewart Steve 
helps the rest of our team sound nearly as good as   I do right now want to chat with friends about the 
show later mom's friend Gertrude and Kate Younkin   are our social media coordinators and Gertrude is 
the room mother in our Facebook group called the   basement so say hello when you see us posting 
online to join all the basement fun with other   stackers type stackingbenjamins.com basement 
not only should you not take advice from these   nerds don't take advice from people you don't 
know this show is for entertainment purposes   only before making any financial decisions 
speak with a real financial advisor I'm Joe's   mom's neighbor Doug and we'll see you next time 
back here at the stacking Benjamin show foreign [Music] the after show this is uh the part of 
the show that doesn't exist if you're   new here what happens in the after show stays 
in the after show getting back to your clothes   I think that singing Heartbreak Hotel at the 
top of your lungs just you know given your   history might not be might not be great well 
since my baby left I find a new place to dwell   they're down at the end the lonely streets 
called speaking of speaking of Doug's history   um there's unfortunately OG a doctor 
out there who has violated HIPAA rules   and um got us audio from Doug's latest therapy 
session and uh well I thought that as long as   they broke the rule we didn't we should probably 
play it look at the look OG can't wait for this   he is so excited about that well I think 
this is bad I think doctor shouldn't be   doing this but as long as they have let's no 
this is this is Doug's latest therapy session you what well you had waffles for dinner and you had   waffles for breakfast so we're 
gonna eat something else oh I oh I don't know sounds like you're obsessed now 
you're really crying pretty good there now   everybody is thinking about waffles like that 
brain worm is in there and you're going to   be thinking about it now for the rest of the 
day well I I think I I mean I I really think   that uh you shouldn't be thinking about waffles 
given your history you're begging for me to ask   I've resisted this whole time I'm not gonna 
ask I'm not gonna ask why you keep harping   on my history so OG and I saw this uh this video 
that these guys said that that if you really just   want to mess with somebody just end as many 
sentences as possible when you talk to them   with given your history just say it over and over 
and see what happens and watch them watch Doug   unravel the entire show they melt it is surgically 
effective like it has just been driving me crazy   I said it's Alyssa I don't even 
remember what it was about but I just   you know she was like brushing her 
teeth or something and said well you   know given your history and she's 
like what is that supposed to mean you know just totally like around everything 
to a halt just like you said yeah I think that   is a bad marital move I said this will work 
well with Doug I would not yeah I would not   do that right before bed because you are not 
sleeping that night stackers you may or may   not want to try that your results May Vary but 
ours ours I thought today were pretty good Doug   didn't know what the hell was going on 
actually now that I know it's actually   more impressive that you found a way to 
dodge my question the whole the whole   episode you know given your history of course 
yeah I'm not not enjoying your company anymore

As found on YouTube

Hilltop Community

Read More

Boss retirement

WITHIN THE STATISTICS REALLY ARE BLACK AND WHITE, WOMEN LIVE LONGER THRAN MEN. IN FACT 85% OF THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE CELEBRATED THRAIR 100th BIRTHDAYS ARE WOMEN, BUT THIS COULD COME WITH SIGNIFICANT FINANCIAL CONSEQUENCES WHEN IT COMES TO RETIREMENT. HERE TO TALK ABOUT IT, RYAN AND TIE SORCH, BOTH FROM BOSS RETIREMENT SOLUTIONS RIGHT HERE IN SALT LAKE. RYAN AND TYSON WHAT ARE THESE FINANCIAL CONSEQUENCES? WELL, IT'S GOOD, EVERYONE WANTS TO LIVE A LONG, PROSPEROUS LIFE, RIGHT? BUT THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES. TODAY, ARE YOU ABOUTING TO SPEND APPROXIMATELY 235,000 DOLLARS OUT OF POCKET IN ADDITION TO ALL YOUR. WE DON'T THINK ABOUT T UNTIL WE GET TO THAT AGE AND SAY WAIT A SECOND. WHAT DO YOU SAY. FIRST OFF A LOT NEED LONG-TERM CARE. WITH LONG-TERM CARE, SEVEN OUT OF TEN WOMEN ARE GOING TO NEED SOME TYPE OF LONG-TERM CARE, IF YOU WANT TO HAVE A PRIVATE ROOM IN A NURSING HOME, FOR INSTANCE, WILL YOU SPEND ABOUT $92,000 A WAY THAT YOU ARE, THEY'RE AT MUCH HIGHER RISK OF RUNNING OUT OF RESOURCES, SO WHEN YOU LOOK WE HAVE SIX OFFICES RIT HERE ON THE WASATCH FRONT.

WE HAVE THOUSANDS OF FAMILIES THAT COME IN EVERY SINGLE YEAR. AND I THINK EVERYONE HIS ABOUT IT IT IS GOING TO BE TOMORROW, WE'LL WORK ON THIS PLAN. I WILL START TOMORROW, WORK ON IT, AND YOU WAKE UP ONE DAY AND TOMORROW IS TODAY. THE BOTTOMLINE IS YOU NEED THE FINANCIAL GAME PLAN. SO FINANCIAL GAME PLAN, AT WHAT AGE, WHEN DO YOU NEED TO START THINK BEING THIS? WE REALLY TELL PEOPLE THAT WE OUGHT TO START THINKING ABOUT IT BY AT LEAST THE AGE OF 556789 AND THE REASON FOR THAT IS OR IS THERE A BLUE PRINT THAT FITS BOTH? WE UNDERSTAND THERE ARE UNIQUE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN AND OFTENTIMES YOU WANT TO BRING THEM TOGETHER BUT EVERY SITUATION SAY BIT DIFFERENT. THINK ABOUT YOUR MOM, THINK ABOUT YOUR SISTER, THINK ABOUT A FAMILY MEMBER, AND ALL OF US ARE DIFFERENT AND UNIQUE, THERE IS NOT ONE SIZE FITS ALL SOLUTION. HOW CAN WOMEN PROTECT THEMSELVES.

WHAT SHOULD THEY DO. GIVE US A CALL, FOR THE FIRST 20 CALLERS ON TODAY'S SHOW WE'RE GOING TO ABSOLUTELY HELP YOU TO UNDERSTAND HOW THIS WORKS FOR YOU. THAT REALLY IS THE KEY. START THE PROCESS. RIGHT, START TALKING ABOUT THIS, START THINK BEING IT. THAT'S RIGHT. ALL RIGHT, EVERYBODY, THAT NUMBER ON YOUR SCREEN, FIRST 0.

As found on YouTube

Hilltop Community

Read More

401k To Gold IRA Rollover Guide 2024

imagine a world where your lifetime of work every Triumph every challenge isn't just a fleeting memory but a treasure chest waiting to be unlocked this is the essence of your 401k but what if I told you there's a key that could turn it into something more something Timeless this is no ordinary coin it's a vessel carrying centuries of Legacy a beacon of stability that has outshone Empires and economies your 401K transformed into a gleaming gold Ira isn't just a number it's your future cast in Gold a golden Legacy crafted by you for you as the year 2024 Dawns upon us the time has come to redefine the very fabric of retirement we're here to script a new narrative to guide you across the Gilded bridge that spans from the Solid Ground of your 401k to the bright Uncharted shores of a gold Ira together we'll navigate through the currents of change and anchor your aspirations in the harbor of prosperity looking for more information with a team dedicated to finding the latest news and information for gold and precious metals IRAs the retired veteran is your twine C W One Source to help you with your investment Journey Don't forget to check them out you can find the link below stepbystep guide for transferring your IRA to a gold IRA without penalty as you gaze into the Horizon of 2024 let's navigate together through the sparkling Avenues of transferring your IRA to Gold without incurring a penalty educate yourself why gold well it's about hedging against inflation diversifying your portfolio and understanding the irs's golden rules select a gold Ira custodian a custodian with a glint of experience and the shine of IRS approval customer testimonials they're your compass to credibility open a new gold IRA account prepare your personal information because in just 24 to 48 hours your financial Voyage could set sail arrange the transfer direct transfers are the golden route silent and smooth smooth with no tax Sirens along the way purchase gold isn't just a transaction it's a milestone here Market rates meet your strategic choices Guided by the seasoned hands of professionals regularly monitor your Investments aren't just numbers they're the fuel for your future keep your eyes on them and they'll do more than just Sparkle they'll grow choosing a gold IRA company in a realm where the future is forged by the decisions of today one choice stands Paramount where to entrust your golden years the journey to select the right gold Ira company is one paved with vigilance and foresight years of expertise a company not merely counting years but crafting Decades of expertise in the Alchemy of precious metal Investments transparency isn't just a word it's it's the Cornerstone of trust every fee every process laid bare under the light of honesty ensuring your journey is free of surprises dedicated customer service where dedicated experts become the mentors guiding you through the nuances of the market with personalized sessions webinars and invaluable educational resources diverse precious metal offerings diversify your legacy with a symphony of metal Metals Gold Silver Platinum and Palladium each element a note in your financial Harmony each bar a reflection of your tailored portfolio secure storage options with each asset secured in the world's most formidable vaults your Investments are not just stored they are shielded allowing you to rest with Tranquility knowing your wealth is in safe hands positive reviews and accolades Revel in the choir of commendation a symphony composed of countless satisfied patrons accolades and testimonials that resonate with the company's dedication to integrity and client empowerment ease of process from the maiden voyage of account setup to the pivotal moment of your Metals purchase every step is a guided Ascent towards your summit of fiscal aspirations competitive pricing striking the perfect balance between Premier Service and judicious investment types of gold Ira from the traditional to the Innovative gold IRAs come in varied forms each path is etched with its distinctive advantages traditional gold Ira tax deductible contributions May reduce your taxable income tax deferred growth taxes on earnings are delayed until withdrawal withdrawal rules rmds begin at age 7 two early withdrawals May incur a 10% penalty Roth gold Ira post tax contributions no immediate tax benefit for contributions tax-free withdrawal no taxes on withdrawals after age 5912 provided the account has been open for 5 years no rmds more flexibility when you take out your money sep gold I for self-employed small business owners higher contribution limits tax breaks contributions lower taxable income with taxed withdrawals simple gold Ira for small businesses encourages employee contributions through employer matching tax treatment contributions are pre-tax with deferred taxes on growth but before we wrap up today's discussion we have a special gift for you to help you make informed decisions and navigate the world of precious metals investing we put together a comprehensive gold Ira guide and the best part it's absolutely free so make sure to pick up your free gold Ira guide in the link below this valuable resource will be a great addition to your investment Journey Choose Wisely choose with vision choose the gold Ira company that will transform your golden years into an era of prosperity begin your journey today and step into a future where your retirement is not just golden but brilliantly secure

As found on YouTube

Top gold ira companies

Read More

What are the benefits of FERS Disability Retirement?

Federal Disability Retirement can be extremely 
beneficial to federal employees that are   struggling to perform at least one essential 
duty of their position due to a diagnosed   medical condition. There are four main benefits 
that it offers which include a monthly annuity,   the ability to continue to earn credible years 
of service towards your regular retirement,   the option to maintain your health and 
life insurance and the ability to go work   in the private sector and earn additional 
income. While most federal employees never   anticipate needing to utilize this benefit, 
when needed it can provide a significant   amount of Financial Security and help 
them get to regular retirement at 62..

As found on YouTube

Hilltop Community

Read More

The 4 phases of retirement | Dr. Riley Moynes | TEDxSurrey

Transcriber: Zsófia Herczeg
Reviewer: Peter Van de Ven Everyone says you have to get ready
to retire financially. And of course you do. But what they don’t tell you
is that you also have to get ready psychologically. Who knew? But it’s important
for a couple of reasons. First, 10,000 North Americans
will retire today and every day for the next 10 to 15 years. This is a retirement tsunami. And when these folks come
crashing onto the beach, a lot of them are going to feel
like fish out of water without a clue as to what to expect. Secondly, it’s important
because there is a very good chance that you will live one third
of your life in retirement. So it’s important that you have
a heads up to the fact that there will be significant
psychological changes and challenges that come with it.

I belong to a walking group
that meets early three mornings a week. Our primary goal is to put
10,000 steps on our Fitbits, and then we go for coffee
and cinnamon buns – (Laughter) more important. (Laughter) (Applause) So as we walk, we’ve gotten into the habit
of choosing a topic for discussion. And one day, the topic was, “How do you squeeze
all that juice out of retirement?” How's that for 7:00 in the morning? So we walk and we talk, and the next day,
we go on to the next topic. But the question stayed with me because I was really having
some challenges with retirement. I was busy enough,
but I really didn’t feel that I was doing very much
that was significant or important. I was really struggling. I thought I had a pretty good idea of what success looked like
in a working career, but when it came to retirement,
it was fuzzier for me.

So I decided to dig deeper. And what I discovered was
that much of the material on retirement focuses on the financial
and/or the estate side of things. And of course, they’re both important
but just not what I was looking for. So I interviewed dozens
and dozens of retirees, and I asked them the question, “How do you squeeze
all the juice out of retirement?” What I discovered
was that there is a framework that can help make sense of it all. And that’s what I want
to share with you today. You see, there are four distinct phases that most of us move through
in retirement. And as you’ll see,
it’s not always a smooth ride.

In the next few minutes, you’ll recognize
which phase you’re in if you’re retired, and if you’re not, you’ll have a better idea
of what to expect when that time comes. And best of all, you’ll know
that there is a phase four – the most gratifying,
satisfying of the four phases – and that’s where you can squeeze
all the juice out of retirement. Phase one is the vacation phase,
and that’s just what it’s like. You wake up when you want,
you do what you want all day. And the best part
is that there is no set routine.

For most people, phase one represents
their view of an ideal retirement. Relaxing, fun in the sun – freedom, baby. (Laughter) And for most folks, phase one
lasts for about a year or so, and then, strangely,
it begins to lose its luster. We begin to feel a bit bored. We actually miss our routine. Something in us seems to need one. And we ask ourselves, “Is that all there is to retirement?” Now when these thoughts and feelings
start to bubble up, you have already moved into phase two.

Phase two is when we feel loss, and we feel lost. Phase two is when we lose the big five – significant losses
all associated with retirement. We lose that routine. We lose a sense of identity. We lose many of the relationships
that we had established at work. We lose a sense of purpose. And for some people,
there is a loss of power. Now, we don’t see these things coming. We didn't see these losses coming in
because they happened all at once. It’s like, poof, gone. It’s traumatic. Phase two is also when we come
face to face with the three Ds: divorce, depression and decline – both physical and mental. The result of all of this is that we can feel
like we’ve been hit by a bus. You see, before we can
appreciate and enjoy some of the positive aspects
associated with phase three and four, you are going to, in phase two, feel fear, anxiety
and quite even depression.

That’s just the way it is. So buckle up and get ready. Fortunately, at some point,
most of us say to ourselves, “Hey, I can’t go on like this. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life, perhaps 30 years, feeling like this.” And when we do, we’ve turned the corner to phase three. Phase three is a time of trial and error. In phase three, we ask ourselves, “How can I make my life meaningful again? How can I contribute?” The answer often is to do things
that you love to do and do really well.

But phase three can also deliver
some disappointment and failure. For example, I spent a couple of years
serving on a condo board until I finally got tired
of being yelled at. (Laughter) You see, one year the board decided
that we were going to plant daffodils rather than the traditional daisies. (Laughter) And we got yelled at. Go figure. I thought about law school,
thinking perhaps of becoming a paralegal. And then I completed a program
on dispute resolution.

It all went nowhere. I love to write. So I created a program
called “Getting started on your memoirs.” That program has met
with “limited success.” (Laughter) It’s been a rocky road for me too,
and I told you to buckle up. Now, I know all this can sound bad. But it’s really important to keep trying and experimenting
with different activities that’ll make you want
to get up in the morning again because if you don’t, there’s a real good chance
of slipping back into phase two, feeling like you’ve been hit by a bus. And that is not a happy prospect. Not everyone breaks through to phase four, but those who do
are some of the happiest people I have ever met. Phase four is a time
to reinvent and rewire. But phase four involves
answering some tough questions too, like, “What’s the purpose here?
What’s my mission? How can I squeeze
all the juice out of retirement?” You see, it’s important that we find
activities that are meaningful to us and that give us a sense
of accomplishment.

And my experience is that it almost always
involves service to others. Maybe it’s helping a charity
that you care about. Maybe you’ll be like the old coots. (Laughter) (Applause) Yeah. These folks took a booth
in the local farmers market and were prepared to give their advice
based on their vast years of experience to anyone who came by. So one of their first visitors was a kid
who wanted help with his math homework (Laughter) on his tablet. (Laughter) They did the best they could. Or maybe you’ll be like my friend Bill. I met Bill a few years ago
in a 55 plus activity group. In the summer, we golf together
and walk together and bicycle together. And in the winter, we curl. But Bill had this idea that we should exercise
our brains as well.

He believed that there was
a tremendous pool of expertise and experience in our group, and so he approached a number of folks and asked if they would volunteer to teach some of the things
that they love to do to others. And almost invariably, they agreed. Bill himself taught two sessions, one on iPads and one on iPhones, because we were smart enough to know
that a number of our members had been given these things
as gifts at Christmas (Laughter) by their children, and that they barely knew
how to turn them on. The first year, we offered nine programs,
and there were 200 folks signed up. The next year, that number
expanded to 45 programs with over 700 folks participating. And the following year,
we offered over 90 programs and had 2100 registrations. Amazing. (Applause) That was Bill. Our members taught us
to play bridge and mahjong.

They taught us to paint. They taught us to repair our bicycles. We tutored and mentored local school kids. We set up English-as-a-second-language
programs for newcomers. We had book clubs. We had film clubs. We even had a few golf clubs. Exhausting but exhilarating. That’s what’s possible in phase four. And do you remember the five losses
that we talked about in phase two? The loss of our routine and identity and relationships and purpose and power? In phase four, these are all recovered. It is magic to see, magic. So, I urge you to enjoy
your vacation in phase one. (Laughter) Be prepared for the losses in phase two. Experiment and try as many different
things as you can in phase three, and squeeze all the juice
out of retirement in phase four. (Applause).

As found on YouTube

Hilltop Community

Read More