Far too many people are just putting away money for retirement – which is a great start – but you aren’t going to likely thrive in retirement if you don’t have the tools and strategies in place to make the most of it. There are so many reasons to get a realistic plan in place – not the least of which is peace of mind. Financial professionals, Joe Anderson, and Alan Clopine will take a look at the reasons you want – need to plan for retirement.
In this episode, we cover ways to Thrive In Retirement!
• What’s Your Number
• Make a Budget
• Written Plan Benefits
• Build Your Portfolio
• Wall-In Financial Well-Being
• Tax Strategies
Important Points:
(0:00) – Intro
(1:55) – Thrive Overview
(3:47) – What’s Your Number
(6:33) – Set a Budget
(10:24) – Written Plan
(13:42) – Portfolio: Risk & Return
(18:59) – Financial Well-Being
(21:29) – Ask the experts
(23:27) – Pure Takeaway
Transcript:
Announcer: What does your retirement look like? Are you confident you’re on the right track? Navigating fluctuating markets alone can be confusing. Stocks, bonds, annuities, 401(k)s, and IRAs. Get ready to be informed and empowered by financial experts Joe Anderson and Alan Clopine. Put their decades of experience to work for you. From Social Security to tax planning, they’ll take the stress out of investing in your future and give you the tools and strategies you need to map out the retirement you’re dreaming of on Your Money, Your Wealth®.
Joe: A lot of people save money with no clear direction. They’re putting money away, but they don’t necessarily have a plan to thrive in retirement. Are you thriving in your retirement? Stick around. If you’re not, we will help you out. Welcome to the show, everyone. The show is called Your Money, Your Wealth®. Joe Anderson here. Certified financial planner. President of Pure Financial advisors. And, of course, I’m with the big man. Big Al Clopine. He’s sitting right over there. Hello, Alan.
Al: How you doing, brother?
Joe: Doing all right. I’m ready to thrive.
Al: Yeah. Let’s do it.
Joe: Let’s thrive our way through retirement. There’s a lot of different goals that we have in regards to saving money, right? If I take a look, it could be just maintaining a standard of living. It could be preparing for unforeseen medical expenses. The list goes on and on and on. But a lot of you don’t necessarily have a written strategy, a written plan in place to help you accomplish these goals that much quicker so you can thrive into your retirement. That’s today’s financial focus. If this doesn’t tell you everything, I don’t know what does. 75% of Americans are just winging it. They’re winging their financial strategy, right? These are your financial goals, folks. You don’t necessarily want to wing it. You could probably wing a vacation, right? You could wing it on the weekend. But this is the next 20 or 30 years of your life. Stop winging it and start planning. Let’s bring in the big man to help us out.
Al: So, we’re gonna talk about thriving in retirement. Lot to cover today. So, we’re gonna start with what is your number? And everyone wants to know how much they need to save to retire. You know, now I just saw a recent study where the average person thinks they need more than a million dollars. Is that the right number for you or not? It depends. We’re gonna go over how to figure that out. The second thing we’re gonna cover is making a budget. Everyone hates that but it’s something that you need to do. We’re gonna give you some tips there. Third thing is written plan. You need a written plan. So, you got a roadmap to follow to try to get to retirement and thrive. We’re gonna talk about building your portfolio. And finally, wall-in financial being. What the heck is that? Sometimes, that brick wall has a hole in it. We’re gonna tell you how to plug that hole so you’ve got a stress-free retirement. And, Joe, this is kind of a show where we’re talking about a little of everything. Kind of the overview of what you need to think about for retirement.
Joe: Yeah. People are like, they have a hodgepodge retirement plan. You know, they think of something, then they start saving here. Or something–like, life throws them a curveball and they do this. What we want to help you with today is get you a solid strategy so that when life throws the curveballs, you can still thrive through it, right? We’re seeing volatility in the overall markets. Tax law changes. There’s, you know, something that happens in the overall household or family. You know, good or bad, you still want to make sure that you’re staying with the target, staying with the overall financial plan. Let’s talk about your number, Al, because this is what everyone wants to know. Am I on track, not on track? What’s my number?
Al: Yeah. So, this is an important one. Everyone should be doing this math. So, think about how much you want to spend in retirement. So, we have an example. So, let’s say you want to spend $75,000. You might want to spend 50,000, you might want to spend 300,000, or whatever. It doesn’t matter. This is just the exercise. 75,000 is what you want to spend. Your fixed income is 50,000. So, what is that? That’s Social Security. That’s pension. There could be some other passive income. It could be rental income if that’s relatively steady. That’s your fixed income, and then you have a shortfall, generally. Ok, I want to spend 75,000 and I got 50,000 coming in. So, I need 25,000, right? And so, then you look at your portfolio. And this is particularly effective if you’re about to retire, but we’ll get into if you’re, like, in your forties and fifties in just a second. 25,000 is what I need. That’s the shortfall. I divide it into my liquid assets, my investments. What is it? In this particular case, it’s 3.6%. If you are in your sixties or seventies, you probably want to be somewhere around 4% or lower. So, in this particular example, it works pretty good. Joe, sometimes, though, when you retire in your forties and fifties, you might want to have it be 3%, below 3%, so, this is a gauge to figure out.
Joe: Or even less. You know, what we’re experiencing today is fairly high inflation. Just to repeat what Alan said is that, all right, well, if I have this, living, need of 75,000, figure out your Social Security and pension, subtract it, and find the shortfall. That’s the biggest number that you gotta figure out. What is the demand for the portfolio? Right? ‘Cause then that’s how you invest the portfolio. That’s gonna tell you your distribution rate. So, in this case, they had $700,000. 25 into 700 is 3.6. That’s the math. 3.6. If you’re 50 years old, way too high. If you’re 70, probably in the game, right? But then you have to also look at taxes. Where’s the money held and inflation and so on and so forth. This is very high-level, this is a gauge, but if you’re not at 700 and this is what you want to spend, you’re nowhere near ready for retirement, or you’re going to have to adjust some things. You’re going to have to spend less. You’re gonna have to try to increase your fixed income. That might be part-time work in retirement. That might be delaying Social Security. That could be, you know, begging money from, you know, your kids. Whatever the case may be. You want to make sure that the math works first before you start making those decisions, because I think people dive into retirement, Al, and then they do this calculation, or they hire someone to do the calculation and they’re like, “oops.”
Al: But if you’re younger, be careful, because you’ve got inflation. You’ve got rates of return. You’ve got all kinds of things to consider. It’s not just a static calculation. It works a lot better, Joe, if you’re about to retire.
Joe: Yeah, without question. All right, if I know where I want to head or what my goal is, then I can start budgeting things out, right? We all have needs. We all have wants. And we all potentially have debts, or maybe you don’t. So, it’s just kind of splitting this thing out. And this was by NerdWallet, Alan. Again, some different rules of thumb to start helping you out. But they have this 50/30/20 rule of your net paycheck. So, this is after your 401(k) contributions. So, maybe from your net paycheck, 50% of that net goes to needs. So, that’s housing, that’s things that absolutely are essential. And then you got 30%. You know, dining, eating out, and entertainment. Vacations. And then you got 20%. Maybe it’s debt repayment. Maybe it’s even more savings, here, too, Al, because you probably want to be saving 20% of your net pay anyway, right? Sometimes we’ve seen a lot higher. You know, for people to really be aggressive in their overall savings. If you need help with this, we have our retirement readiness guide. Go to yourmoneyyourwealth.com. Click on our special offer. This week, it’s our retirement readiness guide. Yourmoneyyourwealth.com. Click on it. It’s yours for free. Gotta take a break. We’ll be back in just a second.
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Joe: Hey, welcome back to the show. The show is called Your Money, Your Wealth®. Go to yourmoneyyourwealth.com. Click on our special offer this week. It’s our retirement readiness guide. You want to get ready for retirement? If you want to thrive in retirement, go to yourmoneyyourwealth.com. Click on that special offer. You can download it right there at your computer in your pajamas. I don’t care. Yourmoneyyourwealth.com. Let’s see, folks, how you did on that true/false question.
Al: “Social Security is only designed to replace about 40% of the average worker’s salary after they retire.” that’s probably a true statement for many. You know what, though? If you’re a high wage earner, it’s not gonna replace 40%. It might replace 10%. But at least it gives you a rule of thumb. I guess the point here is it’s not gonna replace all of your income. That’s why you need to plan for retirement, Joe.
Joe: Yeah. I think that’s really well said, is, you know, if you’re planning on Social Security is gonna be your sole source of income, I would start practicing right now on spending that level. And if you don’t know what you’re going to receive from Social Security, go to ssa.gov and find that out. Because maybe you’re going to be surprised if you haven’t saved much, and let’s say your Social Security benefit is $25,000 a year and you’re making $100,000 a year. Well, you’re going to have to make some significant changes in your overall lifestyle if that’s what your sole income source is going to be. So, and again, people don’t really understand, like, from a portfolio perspective of how much income that could produce.
Al: Well, yeah. That’s absolutely right. Is it interest? Is it dividends? Is it total return, where you’re taking some gains off the table? So, it’s kind of all of the above. But let’s talk about financial planning. So, sometimes people have a thought in their head–“i can retire at age 65 ’cause maybe I’ll have a few dollars saved.” and the truth is 7 out of 10 people do not have a written plan, and we know if you don’t have a written plan, you’re much more likely to fail with that plan. And, Joe, we hear lots of times people just–they don’t want to do it. They can think of 100 other things to do, or 1,000 other things to do, but there’s other reasons, too.
Joe: Right. I mean, procrastination is probably the biggest, right? And I think that’s true with a lot of things. It’s like, “man, I don’t really like to go to the doctor, you know?” you don’t like to go to the dentist. There are certain things that you don’t want to do. But putting together a financial plan, even though it’s painful for a lot of people, because it’s like, “oh, it’s the numbers and taxes and investments and it gives me anxiety because maybe I feel like I’m not on track or I don’t want to under–i don’t want to know what the outcome’s going to be.” but you’re not alone, right? 42% say, “i don’t have enough money for a plan.” that is ridiculous thinking. If you don’t think you have enough money, that’s even more reason to plan. 19%–“i don’t have enough time.” what do you mean you don’t have enough time? This is the rest of your life. Make the time to make a plan. And then lookie here–22. “it seems all too complicated.” I get it. Some of this stuff can be complex. But just take a couple of minutes. It doesn’t have to be this big, robust, you know, document. It could be just on a napkin for all I care.
Al: Yeah, right. Yeah, the one-page financial plan. We’ve heard about that. And, basically, it’s when am I gonna retire? How much money do I need to spend? What are my investments gonna be? What’s my fixed income? What am I gonna do in retirement? You can probably stuff that all onto one page. You’re gonna have a much better outcome in retirement if you have a written plan.
Joe: Right. I mean, 71% understand the fees and costs. 87% know how to rebalance when things get a little bit volatile. You want to control your risk. Versus 63. This is huge. You know, looking at all of this, non-planners, right, what do you think the likelihood of these people being able to thrive to retirement versus not? I’m not saying—you don’t necessarily need a financial planner. You need a financial plan, written down. Put your goals on there. Because as Al said earlier, you’re more apt to accomplish your goals if you write them down. Right? If I go to the gym and I start just playing around with the equipment with no real strategy, I’m probably not gonna lose weight and I’m probably not going to get any type of strength. You’ve seen the people. That’s you, big Al, right? Just go in there and then you just-
Al: Yeah, there’s a bunch of old guys in there.
Joe: Just–all right, I’m gonna do one bicep curl, all right, then I’m gonna walk to this machine and do this and that or whatever. Right? Time frame’s another big thing, right? So, now hopefully we’re getting you motivated to start thinking, but what is your time frame? Some of you want it now.
Al: Yeah, exactly. And depending upon your time frame, you know, you have more time to put things into play. Like, let’s say 20 years is your time frame. Ok. You got more time to make this happen. But if it’s now or two years from now or 5 years from now, it’s like, “wow, ok, I really need to get serious about this.” and some of you, I get it. You’re in your fifties. You don’t like your job. You want to retire. You don’t want to work anymore. I understand it. But if you do your numbers and they don’t work out, it’s–all is not lost. Either you reduce your spending, you downsize your home, or you work part-time in something that you want to do. There’s lots of ways to do this earlier. You just have to sit down and do a little planning.
Joe: It’s just a little bit of math, a little bit of thought, and that’s well said. It’s like, “man, I hate the 9-to-5 grind.” all right, well, you could maybe work part-time. That will, you know, bridge the gap, if you will, until you reach a certain age where more fixed income comes in, such as a pension and Social Security. Another thing that you want to look at is risk and expected return are related, ok? So, right? If you don’t take a lot of risk in your portfolio, you can’t anticipate a high expected rate of return. You’re compensated for the risk that you’re taking. So, “a,” two things that you have to figure out in your overall strategy and plan is “a,” time frame, right? So, the longer that you have, probably the more risk that you can take, ’cause you can kind of weather the storm, if you will, through good and bad times, because you don’t need that capital for a while. But the second thing is, like, well, what expected rate of return do you need to generate? Some of you might need a 4% or 5% or 6% rate of return but your portfolio might only be producing something a lot less. Or the opposite is that you’re taking on way too much risk, that you’re trying to shoot for the moon and get these super-high returns. And then all of a sudden, when that market pulls back, you see your portfolio drop significantly, and then what do you do? You abandon your strategy, most likely, and that’s not good, either. So, understanding “a,” your risk tolerance, but also “b,” I think, what expected rate of return that you need to generate so you have a real strong strategy there.
Al: Well, I think that’s right. It’s really goals-based. In other words, what is your goal? So, as a rule of thumb, if you’re younger, take more risk, because you can handle the ups and downs. The market is going to reward you over the long term. But I get it. Some of you that are younger can’t handle the risk. If that’s you, then invest in as much risk as you can stomach, and as you learn how the market works a little bit better, get a little bit more aggressive. But you could be in your eighties and still be 80%, 90% in the market. Why? Because it’s for your kids or it’s your grandkids. It’s a different time frame. So, whatever your goals are is gonna dictate how the portfolio should be invested.
Joe: If you want to be serious, if you want to thrive in retirement, if you want to get ready, go to yourmoneyyourwealth.com. Click on that special offer. It’s our retirement readiness guide. It’s gonna walk you through all the steps needed to make sure that you can thrive. We talked about your number. How much money that you need. Tax strategies. To the overall portfolio. Social Security. You name it, it’s in there. Go to yourmoneyyourwealth.com. It’s free of charge. You can click, download it, right there. We gotta take a break. We’ll be back in just a second.
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Joe: Hey, welcome back to the show. The show is called Your Money, Your Wealth®. Joe Anderson here. I’m a certified financial planner with Big Al Clopine. He’s the CPA. Talking about thriving in retirement. And a lot of you probably need a little bit of help or a little bit of a boost. Go to yourmoneyyourwealth.com. You can click on our retirement readiness guide. It’s free of charge. You can download it right there. It’s gonna help you thrive. It’s gonna–take a look at, step by step, of the things that you should be looking at in regards to a successful retirement. It’s our retirement readiness guide. Click on that special offer. Let’s see how y’all did on the true/false question.
Al: “Almost 50% of American savers have either stopped or lowered their retirement savings contributions.” that’s actually a true statement. Yeah, during covid, it’s almost 50%, and I get it, right? You’re thinking you might lose your job. Your business, your business is down. You want to save money and maybe that makes sense, but a lot of times when you do that, you look back and you go, “boy, that wasn’t such a good idea,” right?
Joe: That’s the worst thing that you can do, right? When markets are down, just think about it, right? That means it’s on sale. And that means it’s a really good opportunity for you to buy. So–but we do the opposite a lot of times, because you see your account balance go down and you’re like, “oh, man, now is not a good time to invest because I’m going to lose money.” but what you’re actually doing is buying more shares. You’re buying the same really good companies that you would’ve bought if the market was up. You’re just buying them at a cheaper price. So, if you can just start thinking of it that way–i know it’s painful and it’s really hard to do because our emotions kind of run wild there when markets do get volatile, but the last thing you want to do is stop your contributions to your 401(k) plans or to your IRAs or Roths or your systematic savings, because you’re buying those same really good companies at a cheaper price.
Al: Right, and if you’ve done some planning in advance of that, Joe, then it’s like, “ok, we’ve hit a rough spot in the economy,” or whatever, and it’s like, “ok, I got a plan for that. I don’t necessarily need to reduce my retirement savings.” so, when you think about retiring, you know, maybe it’s like this brick wall, that your successful retirement stays on this side. Well, sometimes, there’s holes in the wall, and you want to plug those holes, or you want to wall it in, right? So, let’s talk about some things that you need to make sure are ok so that you don’t have problems with your retirement plan. I think the first one is your emergency savings. A lot of people don’t have any emergency savings. What we recommend is at least 3 months of expenses, maybe 6 months. In some cases, if your income isn’t very steady, maybe even a year. But, Joe, that is what helps people get through covid-19, recessions, things like that.
Joe: Right. I mean, the emergency fund is the building block, right? ‘Cause that’s what your, you know, safety net is, for lack of a better word. You lose your job. Ok, right? But I still have some cash that I can pay the mortgage, pay the car payments, put food on the table. All right? This is key, building that cash reserves. And it’s funny–doesn’t matter what people’s net worths have. It seems like no one—they bypass this. They’re like, “no, let me get my cash to work,” or they put it in the market or they do–start here. Start simple. The other thing is don’t stop your retirement contributions. Increase them.
Al: Yeah, increase them, and I think what we’d like to see is that most of you get up to 20% of your income, saving that, right? It could be in your 401(k), it could be outside your 401(k). Maybe do your 401(k) and you still save 20% of your net. Then you’ll be in great shape. Most people save 3%, 4%, if that, right? 20% actually is what’s gonna allow you to have the retirement that you’ve been dreaming about. I think that’s why we’re all working, right? We’re working to live life, to have a family, but also to retire, have our free time, our golden years, to do the things that we want to.
Joe: Without question, Al. Couple of other quick notes here is that, rebalance. You want to manage that risk. So, rebalancing the portfolio is critical. So, right? If things are down, you want to buy a little bit more. When things are up, shave a little bit and buy the things that are down. It’s called keeping your portfolio in check. And then finally, if you do have some debt, just want to have a plan in place here to start tackling that high-interest debt. How are you taking–but don’t stop saving, right? You gotta be in balance here. It’s like, “I’m gonna stop this and then focus everything on this, and then when this is done, then I’ll start here. Oh, and then I don’t have an emergency fund.” all of this needs to be in sync to make sure that you have a successful retirement. Again, if you need help with any of this, we have a guide for you. Go to yourmoneyyourwealth.com. Click on that special offer. It’s our retirement readiness guide. Yourmoneyyourwealth.com. The retirement readiness guide. Let’s switch gears a little bit. Let’s go to ask the experts.
Al: This is from Calvin. “If I cash in some stocks now, do I have to pay the capital gains on the earnings if I reinvest the money in other stocks during the same year?” Calvin, great question. Yes, you do have to pay the capital gains on the stocks. It could be short-term, meaning, like, ordinary income if you’ve owned it for less than a year. Long-term capital gain, which is a better tax rate if you’ve owned it more than a year. But you have to pay the tax on that stock. I think you’re thinking about real estate, right? Real estate, you can sell a property, you can do a 1031 exchange, buy another property. There are certain time frames to be able to do that. And then you can defer that gain. But when it comes to stocks, you gotta pay the tax.
Joe: Yeah, the only way, I think, to eliminate or reduce some of that tax burden is that if you had other losses in another capital asset. Let’s say if the market’s down and you sold some stocks and you did some tax loss harvesting. So, those losses will offset any gains dollar for dollar. So, being efficient in your overall investment strategy is key to reduce or eliminate a lot of the taxes long term, but you have to constantly look at this, because you don’t necessarily know when you’re gonna sell a security to purchase something, right, and we never really know when the markets are gonna be volatile or down to take advantage of the losses. So, it’s an ongoing management of the overall portfolio that’s really gonna help you long-term. Let’s go to the next question.
Al: From Aidan. “Can I transfer one of my retirement accounts to my son while I am living?” Aidan, no. It’s your retirement account. They could be a beneficiary, but you can’t transfer it while you’re living.
Joe: Yeah, I wonder why you would want to do that.
Al: ’cause you don’t need it and your son needs it, I guess. You can always pull money out and give it to your son.
Joe: Yeah, but then you’re gonna pay the tax on it, so, IRA. Individual retirement account. IRA, right? So, you can’t necessarily gift a retirement account. There’s no joint retirement accounts. So, what’s the pure takeaway? What have we learned? “a,” make a budget. No one likes to make a budget but it is critical. Then create a written plan, ok? Figure out exactly what you want to do, when you want to accomplish it, and just write it down. And then from there, then you can start constructing the overall portfolio to get you to your goals. And then the wall-in of financial being. Right? You gotta make sure that everything is in line. That it’s balance. Paying off your debt, building that nest egg, and then contributing to the overall accounts. And just making sure that you have a solid plan. Go to our website. Yourmoneyyourwealth.com. Click on that special offer. It’s our retirement readiness guide. Retirement readiness guide. If you have questions on IRAs, 401(k), Roth IRAs, Roth conversions, how to create income, Social Security, investments, it’s all in there. For Big Al Clopine, I’m Joe Anderson. You just watched another amazing episode of Your Money, Your Wealth®. we will catch you next time, folks.
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