Okay, let’s uh let’s share.
I hope everybody is doing well. Let me uh it’s one of those days. So, it is a first day uh back to school here. So, in in Houston, so a lot of our school districts. So, I guess this is part for the course that uh that things weren’t exactly working. Hopefully, you can see the screen. Let’s open up that chat. So, if there’s any questions as well as that. All right,
perfect. Thank you so much. Screen’s good. Sounds good. All right.
Okay. All right. So, that was a fun start. So, uh we welcome everyone and I appreciate your patience. Uh we will still have plenty of time. We’re going to start a few minutes right here and it usually gives us time for people to uh to join and people are still joining as always. It is great to see uh some familiar names in [snorts] attendance and a lot of new ones. So, thank you so much for joining me. It is my pleasure to share some of the insights with you and information about retirement planning. Uh if you’re joining us for the first time, an extra special welcome. I’m Michael Mark, certified financial planner and a financial consultant with Alliant Retirement and Investment Services or AIS for short. I live right here in Houston, Texas. Uh, and most my family has worked for United Intercontinental since the early 60s. So, you know, my family has been tied to Alliant longer than I have been alive, actually. And again, I’ve say this before. Uh, so for those of you who may not know, Alliant is the, uh, original credit union for United Airlines. And, you know, last year we celebrated our 90th anniversary. So whether you’ve come to us through United or Continental or Google or Tesla or CVS or Susie Orman, welcome.
So there we go. So before we dive in, just a quick housekeeping item. So today’s session is for educational purposes and it includes proprietary material. So protect to protect the content and everyone’s privacy, we ask that attendees please do not record or capture the presentation uh whether that’s by video, audio, screen sharing or AI tools without prior consent. Thank you so much for your understanding on that and your cooperation. [snorts] Uh I’m not sure if you join this webinar via an email that you receive directly from us or signed up on the credit union’s website. Uh you may be familiar with the line credit union but not so much about ARIS. So I’d just like to take a couple of minutes and talk to about talk to you about ARIS. Uh in addition to the weekly seminars that we host, we are the fullervice wealth management and investment planning division of uh of the credit union. So we have a broad base of planning structure strategies, full plans, the full range of choices there. Regarding our webinars, you can find a list of our weekly webinar topics right on our website at aeris aris.allcreditun.com.
[snorts] Um, you can also access our podcast which is investsavvy, our blog, and some other financial resources. You can also find us just right on the credit union website. We’re up in the upper right hand corner under the retire and invest tab. So each of us tries to do a couple of webinars a month. So I usually host one in the evening um and one in the afternoon like today. So my next webinar will be August 25th. That’s a Tuesday back in the evening. So it’s 6 o’clock central, 7 Eastern. Um and we’re going to be talking about creating a good life in retirement. Right? So, we’ll be talking about monthly income and how you structure that, some taxation penalties, things that you might want to know, some of the strategies on that. Uh, and then after that, social security, right? Uh, a fair share of our income in retirement. So, more of a practical session on security and its role in your retirement plan. We’ll look at spousal, survivor benefits, etc., and claiming strategies and some of the impacts on that. So quick disclosure uh these are this is for educational only uh it is not a recommendation. So today’s storyboard right what is the fragile decade why it matters and how to make it work. So what’s the fragile decade? So, and we’re going to take a step back on the fragile decade concept and how this came together. So, the company that worked on this, they worked on this for a year and they sifted through every retirement article, survey, research document, etc. Literally thousands of pages of research on retirement planning. And they basically laid this out in front of us so you can see it from the titles, right? The 10 things you need to retire, the 10 biggest mistakes people make in retirement. um happy retirees do this etc. So there’s a commonality and and actually this is a person who put this together. This is one of the doctors. Uh but so the commonality is there are huge disconnects too and that we needed to find it to synthesize and make it productive. Right? So whether the major life transitions or retirement, divorce, widowhood, inheritance, so business etc. The foundation is still the four phases of transitions and those transitions are It’s anticipation, ending, passage, and your new normal. Right? So, this is a very very normal cycle in every major life change. So, and and the timelines will be different depending on on what that that transition is. So, anticipation in this case, it’s really the moment you become aware of the possibility of the event. Your personal narrative, right, begins to shift. That’s where you’ve entered the man I’m getting close to retirement. And this is usually in your 50s is when this when this starts happening. The ending is is is obviously when you’re there, right? When you’ve really turned that page and the passage is there’s usually a bit of a transition. It might be a shock, right? Trying to adjust to your new normal or maybe not accepting the fact that you sleep in. you might have lost your purpose. Uh I’m used to getting up at, you know, 5:30 every morning to go to work and now I don’t have to. I don’t have to set my alarm clock. Um but once you go through that and you settle through that, and again, the time is different for everyone. You’ll adjust to your new normal. So these phases are really important to understand and know that they’re part of the normal cycle. So don’t fret too much. But part of this is prepping before that in the upcoming years. And what that does is that helps your transition to be much smoother.
So the transition we’re going to talk about today is one of the biggest transitions people experience and that’s retirement, right? Um and it’s really not just a destination, it’s a journey. So when you look at it this way, this is what it looks like when you align the four phases of that transition. So welcome to the fragile decade, right? It’s the 5 years before and the five years after retirement. So the reason why we titled it the fragile decade is because all the research and studies and investor interviews that we’ve discovered that this time period is where people feel the most financially and emotionally fragile. Right? As we enter that anticipation patient age or phase there’s a commonality, right? And it’s the cause of anxiety. So that’s the fragile mindset. So this decade program will kind of help you prepare for that transition.
Why this matters? Uh I would say understanding this from perspective matters. Make sure there’s no questions. Okay. Um so this is a fragile transition for all involved, right? Not just the person who’s retiring. It’s your family. uh spouse, children, grandchildren, friends, some of your co-workers. You know what caught our attention about this is depression, the depression stat, so clinical depression goes up 40% after retiring. And yes, we’re going to talk about strategies, but really just the mental health aspect of it, right? the years before getting all of your ducks in a row so you can feel more comfortable with being prepared as well as how you transition into that retirement. So these years are very precious, right? So from a mortality table, you’re entering into retirement today, you could expect to live 20, 25, 30 years in retirement. You think about it that way, you know, that’s a third of your lifetime. So that also means that twothirds of your lifetime has passed. So to put that in perspective, if you were 65 years old and retiring in the 60s, uh do you know on a how how many years on average you would have lived in retirement? The answer to that question is four and a half years. I wish this were in person because I’d love to see to get the feedback on what those numbers were. Right. So now our life expans expectancy is much longer 20 30 years. And the funny thing about that is now that we’re living longer, right, our pensions have really gone by the wayside for most of us. So helping you plan your lives for retirement is really beyond just the money aspect of it. And it’s just as critical.
[snorts]
So what we try to do is we talk a little bit about well it’s really purpose right but it’s adopting an experience ccentric approach with our clients. So you go from being in or I go from being the investment consultant to more of a life coach right because I can draw on the experience of the many other the thousands of clients that we’ve had and that we’ve been able to talk to. So if you don’t know we can say hey look I understand your situation this is what others have done maybe that interests you and then we can kind of work on a path so we’re not in the business of just a product right it’s a business of people right we want those 20 or 30 years to be quality years so obviously we want to make sure you’re financially ready but we want to make sure you’re emotionally and mentally ready for this transition as well. So for example, [snorts] one of the things that we do and that we recommend for clients who are a few years out, you know, 5 years out to say, “Hey, you know, have you maybe come up with a bucket list or what you want to do?” And frankly, your bucket list might be to do nothing. I’ve had clients who, well, they were oil and gas cuz I’m here in Houston and they were like, “Look, I traveled my whole life. If I never see a plane again, that’ll be the best retirement ever. So, there isn’t a right or a wrong to what’s important, right? So, maybe you want to go see the Northern Lights or visit the Hoover Dab or just go trace your ancestors, right? Whatever is important to you. You want to make sure that we’re on the same page or your advisor is on the same page as you are. So when you stop working, you’ll already know what your next step is. Right? It’s like when you uh when you left a job and started your new job, you already knew when you were going to start and what your plan was.
So, one of the things that you can talk about is is maybe doing something if it’s not going places, right? Blogs, writing a novel, designing furniture, whatever, whatever that is. Um, discussing things like this, they kind of help make your dreams into reality. And the importance of that once you start doing this and you want to do this a few years out is that it’ll help you silo a goal, right? If it’s I want to travel the world. I’ve always wanted to live on a cruise ship for a year. Well, that would be a separate financial goal where it’s, you know, I’ve just wanted to write a novel. You know, outside of research, depending on what type of novel, that might be a relatively low cost. And especially as far as publishing those things, everything’s online now. was much much much less expensive to do this or you know your top priorities might be something like helping others right you want to start a new charity or you know I didn’t want to actually start one maybe I just want to do more volunteering than I already do or I’ve never been able to do because work and family have always gotten in the way right they’ve taken all of my time or just mentoring someone [snorts] in a certain place again there is no right or wrong, but I will say these they always tie. When you look at your goal, there’s still something that we call pillars of happiness. And I would say I don’t know if one is more important than the other, but I would say they’re all very important and vital. So, we’re going to talk a little bit about money, specifically income, right? Health, staying connected, and purpose. So people in retirement who have protected income are happier, right? Because they have to worry less. So whether that’s social security for sure, um if you’re fortunate enough to have a pension or some type of annuity, and I understand pensions have really gone by the wayside for most, but if you are fortunate enough to have one, that is a fantastic thing to have. You’re already ahead of many people there. Um the Wall Street Journal did had an article they they talked about the secret to to retirement to happy retirement is that being surrounded by friends and family and having protected income for life, right? And the reason why that’s significant is that we kind of view it as hey this is our nest egg on what we’ve been saving. This is our 401k, our IRA, our Roth IRA, our brokerage account, our cash, and then at some point we transition some of that into income. Well, studies show this. So, people with assets, they gain, they lose, they gain, they lose, right? They might lose money in oil or gas, um Tesla, Bitcoin, AI. Those people I’m going to jokingly say are miserable. That was that’s what the article said. But because of the stress, right? And the reason is that they focus on the loss or what they don’t have. So assets can cause stress. And don’t get me wrong, not having assets cause you a lot more stress, but really the focus should be more on the income, not the asset. Because when you retire, your regular paycheck stops and you’ll want a source of income that you can’t outlive, right? And it doesn’t mean that you turn everything into a source of income, right? You’ll still have growth and there’s still some bucket strategies. Um, but that’s kind of the general the general idea on this. So, the second pillar is health. So the better a person’s health, and I know this seems obvious, um it’s more likely to have a happy retirement, right? So 80% of people who rated their health as excellent said they were very satisfied with their retirement compared to 26 who said their health was poor. And and frankly, [snorts] the poor health could prevent you from doing those things that you’ve worked your entire life to be able to do. Um, now here’s the good news for a lot of people. Retirement offers an opportunity to refocus on health and wellness. And yes, I understand that some of those things are irreversible, but maybe starting before retirement where we work a little bit on nutrition and exercise or some kind of activity, maybe living a little healthier lifestyle. Um, or not if that’s your idea of retirement. Uh, the other thing is staying connected. And you know, the reality of of this is that humans, we are social creatures for the most part, right? At least it’s on our terms. Um, I don’t know if you ever watch a show alone, but they put these people out in the nothing. It’s like not a fake one, it’s a real one. And whoever can last the longest, they pick so much equipment, food, hunting, fishing, etc., etc., some kind of shelter they have to build. Whoever can last the longest wins the prize. It’s like I think it’s like 500,000 or something like that. But when you talk to the people who these interviews, they say, you know, the biggest challenge wasn’t, you know, the the danger of the animals or or the weather. It was being alone. It was being alone out there by myself that it was just overwhelming. So staying connected is important. I would argue just as important if not more because it’s part of your mental health and it really isn’t just social media, right? It’s getting out there and doing things. That’s one of the things about volunteering, right? You have people who you have something in common with just from the jump, right? Um health-wise, right? If you have low social interaction, right, you have greater risk of heart disease, um increased risk of cognitive decline and dementia. So staying happy and healthy in retirement, you want to focus on developing new relationships, nurture existing ones, especially as you revolve around work. I know there is a huge misconception for a lot of people that we talk to is that hey, you know, I I have a lot of friends from work and when they retired, those friends that are still working, they just kind of lose touch with them, right? So they were really your work friends. They weren’t real friend friends. So and it doesn’t mean they can’t be, but it does mean you want to make an effort to try to convert them from your work friends to your friend friends. So purpose. So retirement frees your schedule and for some unstructured time can be a little overwhelming, right? If not careful. That sense of purpose can lead to or the lack of purpose can lead to boredom, depression, maybe relationship stress. I know that was the case for my in-laws that he traveled a lot and then suddenly he was home all the time. So that was an adjustment in themselves. Um, so and this can be really true for those people who really identify closely to their careers.
Purpose is really the reason that we get out of bed. So you want to find a new purpose. So let’s talk a little bit about something for the stages here. So let’s start this five-year countdown, right? This is your conversation blueprint, right? And it’s designed as a year-by-year countdown in in a checklist form. So since people live their lives by checklist, it makes a little bit easier, but these checklists aren’t set in stone, right? It just gives you kind of an idea of of what. So it’ll help you feel organized and and it’ll give you allow it allow you a sense of completion, right? When you create it, an accomplishment, and then you’re done. So once you enter the anticipation stage, which is about 5 years to go, right? And as you can see, that ranges from age 50 to 65 depending on when you are looking to retire. So you’ll start your income plan conversation. And this is really, really important as far as where your income is going to come from, how that’s going to be structured, maybe starting that conversation sooner than later because there might be tax benefits to setting these things up earlier than waiting until near retirement or after retirement. So, um, you’ll you’ll need to start planning the sequence of your income and what type of accounts you would use, right? So, whether this would be a Roth versus a non-retirement account versus your traditional IRA or your 401k, there are traditional orders in which you take that money, but I would tell you that is probably not the best. oftent times it’s a combination of those things depending and that way you can make the adjustment for current taxes current tax laws um as far as your plan you know whether that’s the traditional 4% of your assets the bucket which is you know my immediate money my 3 to five longer than five interest only a hybrid which is a combination protecting profits as well as hedging against loss So protecting your downside is extremely important because nobody wants to go back to work at 70 because they had to. Working because you want to is actually a fantastic idea. It gives you purpose. It keeps you mentally sharp. So you start your annual spending audit and your spring cleaning checklist, right? So what that does is that just says you you you look at how you’re actually spending money. What we find is that people think they spend a certain way and then [snorts] when they track it, they usually end up spending a lot more than they thought they did. So, and that can really upend a plan, right? If you’re thinking about how much income I need. So, a few years out, you want to start assessing your long-term care needs, right? Whether it’s traditional long-term care insurance, whether it’s a hybrid plan, whether you self-insure, there’s a lot of things to discuss on that. um at least to begin that conversation. Now, frankly, hopefully you already have that in place, but if not, that’s one of those things we can another one of the things that we can help. You start looking at your life and disability insurance needs, right? Obviously, you’re not working anymore. Disability maybe not so much. Um life maybe, depending on what you’re trying to do here, this is where you’re going to start thinking about your health care options, right? And not just the options, your location. Are you going to move out to the country where like in the country country where you know the nearest hospital is an hour an hour and a half away? Um are you just going to live in a big city where health care is readily available? So all of these things need to be discussed. And if you’re married, you really want to make sure you and your spouse are on the same page. So, [snorts] you’ll also start your pre-made planning at this point, right? What are we going to need? Do we travel? What are our goals look like? What are those goals expected to cost? We can do a little research now in today’s dollars and see what those costs. Um, your estate plan checklist. So, you know, do you have your power of attorney? Do you have your will? Do you have your trust? Do you have your medical directive? And I hope you already have that in place. Um but if not again and then you keep doing that spring cleaning. [snorts] So
you’ll also look at new ideas, right? What you want to do. So this is where you design your next phase, discuss where you want to live, maybe do a little bit of recon and visit those places if it’s out of state um or out of the country. Hopefully that cuz that can certainly take a little bit longer. Consider your home upkeep. And you know, is it is it um maybe we need a new roof? Do we want to do that before we retire? New AC units. Maybe you need to take care of that foundation. Um cuz I live here in Texas and foundations cracking is a very common thing because we have clay uh in the ground here. So, and those can be big expenses, right? So, what I would say is even three years out, it’s a good idea. Do you need a new vehicle? Are we going to go down to one vehicle? Um, the home upkeep, your mortgage, what that looks like, and you just keep doing your spring cleaning. And then you’ll run and review your retirement income plan to make sure you are still on track. So, we’re getting closer, right? You start looking at your tax strategies, right? And I would tell you your tax strategies probably should have started in in in year one, right? Not two years ago and 5 years ago because some of those things you want to have as much time whether you’re going to do conversions, whether you’re going to set up for an income stream or something like that. They are advantageous to start earlier. Practice your retirement. And this is really important, right? What does it look like? What do we do on the weekend? What would that be doing every day? You might even look at a phase retirement if you don’t think you’re ready because not everybody’s ready for retirement. People love working. It gives them a reason to get out of bed every morning, right? So maybe where you’re at, they allow you to consult or they allow you to to reduce your hours. Talk to your employer about that. Or if that’s something you want to do and your employer doesn’t allow that, maybe that’s something that you start looking for. What kind of part-time work would I do? And what do I need to be able to do that? [snorts] Again, keep doing that spring cleaning.
Now, we’re getting closer the final year. I love this. Get ready for seven days of Saturdays, right? So, this is where you start finance finalizing your health insurance needs, right? So, if you’re 65 or older, you would have already set up for Medicare. Um, you’ve already signed up for that. Uh, you will have looked into your um your supplement, your Medicare supplement.
So, this is where you start enhancing your emergency fund, right, for basic needs for that given time because that transition can be a little weird, right? You don’t really know what to expect. you have an idea that since it’s such a major transition, I would say it usually takes a year or so for people to really settle in what they want to do and you just keep doing your spring cleaning. Look at your budget, see if your budget is in line with what you thought, and then rerun and review that retirement income plan. [snorts]
So,
over the next five years, right? You throw yourself a retirement party because you’re there. And I would say the finish line, but I don’t know if that would be the case. This is the ending phase, right? But it’s really more the ending of one chapter and the beginning of another. So now it’s about the next 5 years and it’s about the touch points and navigating that passage phase and continuing to look forward and getting ready and adjusting to your new normal. Now this one is important, right? Track your spending.
How was your estimate? Talk about spending changes in retirement right [snorts] with your spouse. Are we on track? And I can tell you this. So, generally spending kind of looks like an S-curve, right? It doesn’t it doesn’t just go like this. So, you normally spend more in the very beginning because you have this time and you have your health hopefully and you have your goals that you want to check off. I want to travel, etc. I want to whatever you might want to do. So, you’ll see your spending increase and then once you start checking those off, it’ll usually come back down and then it’ll fall and then it’ll usually go up. And that’s usually because of health reasons and things like that. Um or or maintenance on the house, right? Just like just like us, houses and cars need more maintenance as they get older as well. So, start your idea jar. So, this is one of those things that you know, hey, what are these things I want to do or what could I do? So start that retirement happy journal. Um and I would say this is a good idea. Now whether people journal or not normally I understand that. But that journal is your thoughts and you’re talking to your people, your family, your [snorts] friends about how you feel about retirement. If there’s any struggles, what are those struggles? What it allows you to focus on the good and the happiness? Because I know as people, as a species, we tend to focus on the negative. We affect, we are, we feel the loss more than we feel the gains. Um, volunteer, right? Find something that you’re passionate about. It gets you out of the house. It keeps you engaged in society.
So at this point we’ve entered this ending phase, right? So every relationship requires, right? Transitions take time. So start talking to your advisor, your accountant, your friends, your family, what your plans are, right? It might be, hey, we’re going to go spend time more a lot more time with the grandkids. Well, do your kids know that? Are they okay with that? Right? You want to make sure I would say don’t leave those types of the things. If it involves other people, don’t make the assumption. Talk to somebody about that. [snorts] So,
we are happy to help with those things. Every relationship requires a little TLC. Uh we can start working with you early to ask to help you ask questions. We can also help answer questions that you did not know that needed to be asked. Um, how we can help. So, if you need a little help with budgeting, we can we can help you put pencil to paper, right? Remember, you’re trying to plan for the next 30 years, but it’s certainly not set in stone. Uh, consider this like sailing, right? where you’re you’re in a rough direction, a general direction, but you might need to make some adjustments along the way. Uh, and and as life changes, you’ll be prepared for that. We can help you maybe manage some of those accounts, determining your budgets. I would say probably the biggest thing for us are the the income strategies as well as Roth conversions, when you draw social security, right? when when you would try and maximize that income based on your longevity, bases on your spouse longevity, your family history. Uh trying to look at the gap, assessing your income needs. [snorts] Um
these are some of the things that we can do, but I will tell you the tax implications before and during retirement, income structure, protecting that downside, right? The worst thing to do would be for those of who remember the 2000s. You’re everything’s good going into 1999 and you’re going to retire in 1999 and then 2000 happens, right? The Y2K, the dot crash, 911, then we go through the financial crisis. Are you prepared for that? Um we’ve a we’ve been asked about this before. So one of the things that we can do now is we are able to uh is your legacy position correctly right your basic trust wills etc. We offer some of those basic services to our clients uh a lot of which are free if it’s uh if your client’s of Aerys or discounted if it’s not. So, with that said, we’ve come to the Q&A part. So, if you have any questions, please type those in that Q&A box or in the chat. I’ll give you a couple of minutes. And while you’re doing that, I will put up um so this is my contact information also. So, that QR code will take you to my calendar if you want to schedule time specifically for your situation. Um, and there’s my contact information directly. If you haven’t looked at your time frame out on there, I suggest you do. We can definitely be really helpful on that. Uh, let’s see when we’ll go for questions while we’re doing that. Um, do we provide worksheets? Yes, we do. Um, so do we provide worksheets for the initial uh for the initial planning? we do in the sense that it’s usually a budget and then we kind of will talk about it. So the initial call is is just kind of talking about the general high level understanding your situation and then we go um then we go from there basically um as far as the fee for our services. So the planning part it’s something that we do at the end of the day we are a fullervice uh wealth planning division of the credit union. Uh the question is do you get a type of discount for your service if you are an allian customer? We do. Um but we are alliance. So [laughter] I’m actually an employee. If you go on the website you’ll see me. Um but yes what other questions do we have? Hopefully I answered that question. There are discounts. Oh, and as far as pricing goes, so there’s a lot we are cognizant of costs. So if I find I’ve always made the assumption that people really familiar with credit unions, but credit unions are a nonprofit or a not for-profit um financial institution. Doesn’t mean we don’t generate revenue, but we use that revenue in turn for higher interest rates on CDs, higher interest rates on savings accounts, lower interest rates on loans, etc. some of the discount discounted services through through the investment side. Um there are many things that we do that are uh no fee. Uh there are no commissions. You know, we we do everything from the traditional managed money. We can help you structure some of your tax structures on that. We are a frankly we are an underutilized resource that we don’t get marketed much. for very niche um and very boutiquey division. Um so what else? When should we start looking? So so obviously when you should start planning this obviously says 5 years but I would say prior to that the question so someone said am I fiduciary? Yes I am a fiduciary. I’m a certified financial planner CFP. you been doing this 30 years. Um, and I am used to working with people who are brand new to investing, who are just very unfamiliar about it. Um, to people who are much more comfortable with more complex trades and structures, things like that, and everywhere in between. Uh, I consider one of my strengths as far as making the complicated less complicated. Um, but planning as soon as you can and obviously you won’t take care of everything in the beginning, but I can kind of help you as far as your timeline goes that hey, you know, these things should probably be in place. These should probably be in place and we can kind of help you as far as resource uh
what allocation should we look at? So, oh that’s an interesting question. Okay, so we had a question on what your retirement portfolio should look like. Um, there isn’t a an exact right answer on this because every person’s risk model is different. So, I’m just going to give you this general general general. Um, a lot of people have talked about that 60/40 portfolio. I don’t know if you’ve heard about that, but basically it’s a 60% stock 40% bond portfolio. um the world’s kind of changed on how you can manage risk. So you don’t necessarily need to do that and also the bond side really hasn’t been paying. So we look at a lot of those portfolios and they’ve really kind of underperformed [clears throat] over the last decade or so. Um so it really depends on the person. If if that’s if you haven’t um change that to just just change that to one of the yeses and we’d be happy to help you kind of look at where your structure would be because your structure does change from working into transition into retirement and how you look at assets. Um what else do we got that
[snorts] question about Roth conversion? Should you convert? Um, should you do a Roth conversion? Should you consider a Roth conversion? So, the short answer is you should always consider it. Now, whether it would be appropriate or not, um, it matters, right? And and what it’ll matter it depended upon your particular situation your particular tax bracket your income now your income needs in retirement your expenses through your life cycle like um I’m going to travel for the first 10 or 15 years but after that I’m not but I have children and grandchildren and legacy is very important to me um or you want to look at it because you might be a medium high income earnner and even in retirement retirement, you might be impacted by Irma, right, which is how much you pay for social security, I’m sorry, not social security, for Medicare. So, all of those things matter. So, that’s why doing this a few years out, putting yourself in a different position, how you handle your RMDs, which are your required minimum distributions. So, all of those all of those matter. Hang on, we have a long question here. uh age 72. I’ve been retired for six years. The traditional required minimum distribution. I have x amount of dollars. I’ll turn with a little impact as possible. My spouse will retire. We are reasonably aware of the income streams we anticipate. Um,
I’m not sure that was a question or maybe that was a statement, but if you’re asking how you would structure that, I would say in a particular one, just go ahead and schedule some time and we can look at that and we can look at those streams and how you would structure. Maybe that might be something on a conversion. Is life insurance considered an asset? It depends on what kind of life insurance. if it is a um if it’s a permanent policy versus a term, it’s certainly considered an asset in when considering your uh your estate calculation. Um I have a caution on using that as part of my retirement income. It depends on the other things that you have. Uh you have two rental homes with no mortgage. Awesome. You live in Florida. How do I calculate how much I can withdraw from my living expenses in retirement? So,
if if you could schedule a time or actually just have me call you on that and we’ll discuss that. So, rentals, that’s a big question. So, there’s a couple things, right? So rentals are good for income as long as you have a great renter in there who pays their rent. So things can change, things can change over time. There might be a point even if you have rental companies where you’re like, “Hey, you know what? Now it needs roof and and it’s going to cost me 30,000 or I have to put AC units or I got a bad tenant in there and they did $10,000 of damage, which happened to my sister-in-law.” um you know and now not only they have the expense of of actually having to do the repair, they’re out for a couple of months because you can’t have a renter in there. So that there’s a bit of an asterric on how you calculate rental income. Uh and that situation is probably individual for each one. So I would say that’s good to have them. It’s great to have them, but it is a little bit different than some kind of structured uh next question. If I have the flexibility to choose when during the year I retire, is there a best time to optimize taxes and social security? Yes, there is. Um, we have a calculator on that. So, whether you’re single or married and how much income you have um versus your goals, uh there there’s a way to maximize how much total dollars you would take. I would tell you one of the discussions that we have with the members is is saying look you know more money later is a great idea except we’ve had you know you have to look at your health right would I rather have even though it’s less monthly income I rather have it earlier so I could still do those things I want to do while my health allows that I wanted to hike Machu Picchu or I wanted to go see the Grand Canyon and I didn’t want ride the mules down there. I actually wanted to walk down there. Um, that might be better served in your 60s versus 80. Not that it’s impossible, but you know, it might be a little bit easier. So, there’s a little bit of a moving scale on that. Uh, give me a call on that and I can kind of help talk you through that because that’s a very individual thing. And I will tell you what it does look at is it looks at your expenditures, right? how much you are going to be spending monthly for how long of a period of time as well as how much income you have. Uh what else? Next question.
All right, it looks like we got them all. Thank you so much for the questions. They were great questions. I hope other people got some insight from those questions. Hopefully I answered them. If not, forgive me. Give me a call and I could uh maybe maybe I might have misunderstood the question. But with that said, thank you everyone for attending. I hope to see you on future webinars. Please give me a call if you have any questions on the planning aspect. Until then, take care, be safe, enjoy the rest of the day. Take care. Bye now.