Retire Smarter, Not Harder

10.10.25: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

10.10.25: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Speaker1:
Any examples used are for illustrative purposes only, and do not take into account your particular investment objectives, financial situation or needs and may not be suitable for all investors. It is not intended to predict the performance of any specific investment, and is not a solicitation or recommendation of any investment strategy.

Speaker2:
Welcome to Retirement Results, the national radio show and podcast for listeners like you who want to protect and grow their hard earned money in a world filled with so much uncertainty and financial risk. We seek to cut through the noise and build successful plans for hard working Americans on their road to financial freedom. Retirement results is powered by Active Wealth Management, a team of fiduciary advisors who always place your needs first and now your host. He's a registered social security analyst, member of the Forbes Finance Council, and author of multiple books on retirement planning. Here's your chief financial adviser, Ford Stokes.

Speaker3:
And welcome to retirement. Results. Result drivers. My name is Ford Stokes, your chief financial advisor. I've got Sam Davis here with us, our senior financial advisor and co-host of the show. And welcome to all our listeners. We really appreciate you making us the number one or number two radio show on Am 920. The answer on the weekends, we are in the process of going off the air on by. Our last show will be November 2nd. We're going to focus on our podcast, and our podcast has really grown. We've got over 200,000 views on our YouTube channel over the last several months. We've we've got basically about 20,000 listens a month on our podcast, and we're just going to focus in on that, and we really appreciate our family here at Am. 920 answering. If you've been listening to our show for a long time, you always want to keep getting our show. You can listen to us anytime at retirement results. Results.com. Also, anywhere you get podcasts. Just type in retirement results in the search bar and we'll come up. Uh, but also, if you've been a long time listener and you've never called us and you've never really taken advantage of the free portfolio analysis and financial plan that you can get to your 95th birthday, absolutely no cost to you, I'd encourage you to go ahead and reach out to us at (770) 685-1777. You can also visit retirement Results.com click that schedule a consultation button in the upper right corner.

Speaker3:
That's retirement Results.com and you click that consultation button in the upper right corner. And also that phone number one more time is (770) 685-1777. And let me quickly tell you, uh, before I introduce, let Sam get in here. Here's what you're going to get when you meet with us. You're going to get a portfolio analysis that's regarding your entire existing portfolio. So you're going to understand what the risk you're taking, the fees you're paying and the correlation of your assets, you're going to understand what your expense ratio was within your portfolio. And a lot of four one K's we see are in that 0.7 to over 1% range, because they've got a lot of mutual funds, a lot of 12 B1 fees in it. We see standard deviations that are much higher than the average rate of return. And that's a concern as well. We like to see a better exchange between risk and return in your portfolio. So we look to kind of reduce the measurement of risk, which is standard deviation and hopefully increase the average annual rate of return if we can. And then also we're going to give you the number two thing we're going to give you after the portfolio analysis. We're going to give you a retirement income gap analysis. That also includes an RSA roadmap that helps you maximize your Social Security income as well.

Speaker3:
So you're going to get that Social Security maximization report that comes in the form of an RSA roadmap. I'm a registered social security analyst. I'm one of 24 in the state of Georgia. Matt McClure, who's also an advisor with us, is a registered security analyst for almost 10% of the Rsas in the state of Georgia. So we're happy to help you with your Social Security income needs and just your overall retirement income needs. Number three is we're going to give you a financial plan to your 95th birthday with your current plan, your current portfolio. That has nothing to do with us. Absolutely at no cost to you so you can understand where you stand. Then the next thing we're going to do, number four, is we're going to give you a financial plan to your 95th birthday with our recommended portfolios. And then number five is we're going to give you a financial plan, your 95th birthday with our recommended portfolios. That also includes a strategic Roth ladder conversion plan that can help you delete the IRS once and for all for your retirement accounts. Is that any good? Yeah, we'd love to do all that for you. It's about $2,800 in planning value. We're going to do it. Absolutely no cost to you. All you got to do is reach out to us, give us a call at (770) 685-1777. Again, that number is (770) 685-1777. Sam. Say hello to the folks.

Speaker4:
Welcome to the weekend, everybody. Just want to let you know that we are absolutely here to help with your retirement planning needs. Your investment needs. We have helped so many of you over the years, and even though we'll be going off the air in about a month now, we want you to go over and subscribe to our podcast. So wherever you listen to your podcast, whether that be on your smartphone, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your shows, you can even just go to Google and search retirement results. We have five plus years of episodes on there. Just scroll through, take a look at some of the titles. You know, maybe there's 1 or 2 areas in particular that you want to learn more about when it comes to retirement managing your investments and retiring smarter, not harder, which is the subject of today's show, Ford. And we really want to help people just make some simple, smart changes to some of the things they're probably already doing to give them that ultimate goal and achievement of having that successful retirement with income that they can count on every single month.

Speaker3:
Yeah. So here are the things we're going to talk about today. On today's show. We're going to talk about how to maximize income and minimize taxes, why withdrawal strategies matter in reaching your retirement goal. Also, we're going to talk about the right way to do Roth conversions. Knowing how and when makes all the difference in the world. Also, we're going to have more tax considerations for retirement, Social Security taxes, Medicare, Irma surcharges and RMDs and a whole lot more. We're also going to share, um, three products today that I think are really important in the smart, safe side of your portfolio. Sam's going to share one. I'm going to share one in a problem solver. And then we're going to kind of share one together. That can give you a really great way to replace bank CDs out there in our beating the Bank CD segment as well later in the show. So go ahead and reach out to us at (770) 685-1777 to get your free complimentary $2,800 value, no cost to you portfolio analysis and financial plans. Your 95th birthday for you and your spouse. We're working recently with a whole lot of investors who've been kind of have done it themselves or have just recently retired, didn't have an advisor that reached out to us because they wanted to make sure that when the male passed away, that the female had somebody that could take care of her and take care of her finances, make sure she was in good standing.

Speaker3:
And we'd like to do the same for any of you. So go ahead and reach out to us at (770) 685-1777. And Sam, one thing that also people really appreciate just knowing, like where they stand when they when they come in and meet with us. And getting that portfolio analysis of their current portfolio is a big deal. And also they're really surprised how much more cost effective our portfolios are and also how much lower our financial advisory and portfolio fees are compared to other financial advisors, especially those big wirehouses out there. So, I mean, those are really big deal for for folks. And we're so happy to be able to help people build that more tax efficient, more efficient, and more market efficient portfolio.

Speaker4:
And I just love how so many people we meet have been working so hard at their careers and building their families over the years and saving money, and they're starting to think more seriously about retirement. And if you're starting to think more seriously about retirement and feeling like, oh, maybe, you know, next month or next year or two years from now, I'd really like to step away from the office and start enjoying my life. We encourage you to reach out and really find out what it looks like. If you did retire today. You know, for some of the best meetings we have are when someone is just ready to retire. They've been working hard. You know, maybe they're in their early 60s and we're able to show them that, hey, if we can maximize your Social Security, we've got an RSA roadmap prepared by a registered Social Security analyst that helps you maximize your income benefit. We're able to help you implement a personal pension. If that's not something you get from your work and your career and you want that paycheck. I mean, who doesn't want guaranteed income in retirement? If you asked every pre-retirees and retiree out there, do you want guaranteed income for your retirement? Do you want a personal pension? I think most of you out there would say yes. And so we're able to put together that income plan that really puts people in a position where they feel empowered to make that step into retirement, knowing that they're going to get that paycheck every single month, and they're going to be able to enjoy the life they've worked so hard for. And that's really for me for the most satisfying part is when we're able to help people solve some of their financial problems, answer some of their questions, and get them across that finish line to retirement with the confidence that they're going to be able to live 20, 30 years, maybe even longer, in retirement, and really enjoy it.

Speaker3:
What's interesting about that is the personal pension that you can generate now is far superior to a pension you would get from, you know, a company or a government, because when you do a pension, pension from a company or a government, you're going to end up getting just the income. You're not going to have a nest egg to leave to your heirs as well. We like to invest our clients money and share opportunities for them to invest into fixed indexed annuities as bond replacements. But what's great about it is hopefully the growth of the money and the index illustrated rates and the actual growth rates on the index linking within those products actually outpaces the withdrawal rate. So therefore your money's still growing. While you're getting withdrawals. So I would encourage you to go and reach out to us at (770) 685-1777. The best time to get on the right road for retirement is right now. And let's go ahead and pick up the phone. Give us a call at (770) 685-1777. Diane and her team are standing by to take your calls. You can also call us on Monday. No problem. Uh, but we get a lot of calls on Monday. We. We'd love to hear from you over the weekend, but go ahead and reach out to us at (770) 685-1777 or visit retirement comm. Sam, you've got a problem solver for us when we come back talking about our brand, a really great product for retirement and also for retirement income to generate that income you can never outlive and also really grow your money. I've got one starting in segment three and we've also got one. We're going to talk in segment four.

Speaker2:
We'll be back in just a moment to continue helping you navigate your financial journey. Stay tuned for more retirement results.

Speaker5:
There is freedom within. There is freedom without trying to catch the deluge in a paper cup. There's a battle ahead.

Speaker1:
Information provided is not intended as tax or legal advice and should not be relied on as such. You are encouraged to seek tax or legal advice from an independent professional.

Speaker2:
Schedule your free, no obligation consultation today by visiting retirement results. Com. Now back to the show.

Speaker3:
And welcome back result drivers I'm Ford Stokes your chief financial advisor. We've got Sam Davis here with us on the mic. He's our senior financial advisor and co-host of the show. By the way. Reminder, the advisors with Active Wealth Management were the ones that drive and provide all the information for retirement results. We're happy to do it. And we are licensed fiduciaries, licensed advisors and um, and also life and health agents as well, licensed in the state of Georgia in multiple states. We're serious 65 licensed advisors within several states as well. Sam, let's go ahead and share this financial wisdom. Quote of the week. It's from one of my economic heroes. I love Milton Friedman.

Speaker6:
And now Folsom Financial Wisdom. It's time for the quote of the week.

Speaker4:
Yeah, this is a good one. And I thought it was appropriate for this week and these times amid, uh, government shutdown and some instability there. This one's from Milton Friedman, and he was often critical of the government. And this is a great quote. He said, one of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results. And, of course, Milton Friedman was very critical of taxes and what the government spends its money on. So I'm not surprised to see that this quote is from Milton Friedman, but I think it's a great one for right now. And I think it's something that retirees should be thinking about when it comes to taxes, when it comes to Social Security, the government, love it or hate it, they're going to play a role in your financial success and retirement. And that's why Ford, you know, you're a registered Social Security analysts. So is Matt. And we do all we can on this show to educate people on what's going on in the world around them so that they can make the right moves for their financial plan and their future.

Speaker3:
Yeah, we're happy to do it. We'll help you maximize your Social Security income. But also here's here's a newsflash, folks. You're going to have legislative risk, social program risk within your portfolio and also within your retirement. That's going to be up against your retirement. So be careful there. And I would encourage you to reach out to us at (770) 685-1777. And let's get started right away on the right path. Sam. We're going to have two problem solvers during this show. Let's go ahead and share the first one. You've got a great problem solver for everybody to listen to. It's kind of solving a lot of people's problems out there.

Speaker2:
It's time for this week's Problem Solver.

Speaker4:
Yeah. For this week's problem solver that I'm bringing to the show is for everyone out there who's taking a look at this recent market performance, specifically looking at the stock market. You know, we've been looking at a market that's pretty much at all time highs, other than a little blip that we had at the end of Q1, that tariff tantrum earlier in the year. And you know, if you look day to day, we're very close or even right at those all time market highs. And a lot of people that we work with, they understand that it's not going to be like that forever. They remember 2022. They remember what happened with all the volatility in the markets in 2020. I mean, during that early part of Covid and the lockdowns, we had multiple days where the market was actually triggered to a stop because of how much volatility there was. You know, that's just in the back of our mind, recent memory. And, you know, if you're preparing for retirement, you no doubt remember the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 when the market lost 50% of its value? So for all of those out there who have done a good job saving, they've been in that growth mindset during their careers. Having that money come right out of their paycheck every couple of weeks, and you've likely seen a lot of growth if you've been invested in the stock market. But as you approach retirement, your risk tolerance begins to change because your priority shifts from a growth mindset to, okay, how do I make sure that this is going to be enough money to last the rest of my life, to last the rest of my spouse's life, and that we're going to be okay? And one of the solutions that we have for those that still want to enjoy that market like performance but reduce their market risk, is that instead of shifting into bonds like so many people do and so many portfolios do, if you're in a target date fund, it'll shift heavier into bonds as you approach that target date.

Speaker4:
So rather than shift into bonds, we suggest you implement some other strategies. We have a fixed indexed annuity from Aspida. They have an excellent credit rating. They're an A-minus rated carrier and they have the Invesco Q-q-q as an indexing option. This may be an ETF that you have in your portfolio already. This may be you know, a lot of the stocks that are within this index are likely in your portfolio already. You know, those big companies like Nvidia, Microsoft, those heavy tech stocks and even some consumer and communication technology companies there. If you are investing in something like that now entirely exposed to risk in the stock market. Why wouldn't you consider a company like Aspida that can provide you a 115% participation rate? So you're getting more than 100% of the growth in the Invesco Q-q-q with two year protection periods. So every two years, you get to enjoy 115% of how that index does without any of the downside risk. Why is it that something that you'd be considering for your portfolio as you approach that retirement, or as you get older in your retirement?

Speaker3:
Let me just tell you how they can do this. So the annuities are regulated by the states. They're not regulated by the federal government. The states have to balance their budgets. Let's say you're going to invest $100,000 in the Aspida synergy choice max fixed indexed annuity. With the allocation of the two year with the Invesco Q-q-q, they're going to give you 115% of how the Q-q-q Performs between the beginning of year one and the end of year two. But the reason they're able to do that is because they they take 100% of the money. You give them that 100,000 and they invest it into ten year US treasuries. Then they take it take the interest that's generated from those ten year US treasuries, which is right now yielding at 4.16% as of the day we're recording this, this show, they're able to take the 4.16% of 40, $160 in that first year. They'll invest it into options, the Invesco Q-q-q they're able to get. That's almost triple of what it normally would be. The the yield on the ten year US Treasury throughout most of my career has been 1.4 to 1.8%. Now it's getting 4.16%. So that's how they're able to pay you more than what the Invesco Q-q-q does because the options are better leverage.

Speaker3:
But but also, let's say the market goes down and the Q-q-q doesn't perform over two years. Your principal is protected and you can't lose it. They also allow you to take between one or between 0 and 10% out in actual withdrawals. Any year you want to do it. So let's say you put just $400,000 in and you want to take 10% out. You can take out 40 grand. That's a pretty good situation if you need just hey, I just need 10,000 for a trip or to help pay a little bit towards kids or grandkids college tuition. You can take out $10,000 and you're good to go. That is no problem. And there's also no penalty with it. The q-q-q to me is a great index. One of the best indexes out there. But also that is giving you 115% of how it does. Come on. I mean, that is a fantastic situation and a great result. And I think this is a great solution to the problems out there where people are really worried about what's going to happen with the markets.

Speaker4:
Yeah, it's great if you're 18 or older, you can invest in this and you don't need to have, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars sitting in your bank account to make this work for you. You can do this with your IRA money. You can do this with a 401 K rollover. If you have a bank CD maturing soon, you can do it with that. You can even do it with money in your brokerage accounts or cash sitting in the bank. So this can come from a variety of sources. You can implement something like this in your portfolio. This is what we would call smart safe. Anybody who has been listening to retirement results for years knows we talk about smart safe and smart risk. This is money that is protected. It's linked to the performance of an index. But you don't have to worry when the index goes down. You only get to enjoy the participation in the index when things go up. So great solution for people looking to reduce their risk. And for when we come back from the break, you are going to have a problem solver of your own. What are the people going to learn about when we come back?

Speaker3:
Yeah, we're going to talk a little bit about how somebody took 40% of their portfolio to generate a lot more income than they thought they could generate, and they were super excited about that last thing on the Aspida, um, synergy choice Max. Any chance you get a chance to protect your principal 100% and get higher than what the index is performing? That is a great solution. I would encourage you to reach out to us, give us a call at (770) 685-1777 to get access to the Aspida Synergy choice Max. We look forward to helping you.

Speaker2:
Don't go away. Retirement results will be right back. To schedule your free, no obligation consultation, visit retirement Results.com.

Speaker7:
And it is what I need. Shake it up.

Speaker1:
Do you want a steady stream of income for retirement? Then it's time to consider annuities. I'm Matt McClure with the Retirement Radio Network, powered by Merrill Life. Gone are the days when most employers offered pensions with guaranteed lifetime payouts to their workers. But what if I told you that you can build your own personal pension? It's possible with an annuity. An annuity is a financial product that provides a series of regular payments to an individual over a specified period of time, often for the rest of their life.

Speaker8:
There are several options for you to consider when choosing an annuity. Be confident in knowing that there is an annuity out there that can meet all of your needs.

Speaker1:
Ford Stokes is founder and president of Active Wealth Management and author of the book annuity 360. There are several different types of annuities, including fixed, variable, and fixed indexed.

Speaker8:
A fixed annuity offers a specific guaranteed interest rate on their contributions to the account. A fixed indexed annuity is an accumulation based product offered by an insurance company. The growth of fixed indexed annuity is dependent on the performance of a chosen stock market index, but your money is not actually invested in this index. This offers you great growth potential and An exceptional protection for your investment.

Speaker1:
While each can provide tax deferred growth and a lifetime income stream, variable annuities put your principle at risk in the market.

Speaker8:
If you are currently investing in a variable annuity, your funds could be in serious trouble if the market experienced any downturns.

Speaker1:
With so many possible choices to consider, it's essential you speak to a financial advisor or professional to help you make the best decision for your future. So are you ready to consider an annuity as part of your retirement plan? It's a key question to consider as you approach what should be your golden years with the Retirement Radio Network, powered by Amera life. I'm Matt McClure.

Speaker2:
Visit retirement results. Com to schedule your free no obligation consultation today. Now back to the show.

Speaker3:
And welcome back to retirement results. I'm Ford Stokes chief financial advisor at Sam Davis here with us, our senior financial advisor and cohost. So what we're talking about today is really how to retire the right way and to really be smart about retirement. And specifically, we've got a couple of smart, safe solutions for you. Sam just shared his one about the synergy choice, Max, where they're giving you 115% of how the Invesco Q performs without any downside financial market risk. They're making money off holding on to your money. And we explained why in the last segment how they can do it. Because the ten year US Treasury yield is about triple what it normally is. So that's great news. The next thing we want to talk about this is another problem solver. We had a couple that came in. He's 59. He's almost 60 years old. His wife who used to work, no longer works. Uh, she had $300,000 in her 403 b she moved it over to an IRA with us. Um, he had $900,000 in his his 41K. He changed jobs recently, and so he moved that $900,000 to an IRA with us. But us, but he also wanted to get income to protect he and his wife. So he's 59. He's going to plan on retiring. He went over to a competitor and he decided, hey, I'm going to work till I'm 67. I just want to I like working and I've got to build.

Speaker3:
He's building an entire department. He's in sales and he's leading the sales team, and he's really excited about it. And he's going to stay there for eight years and he's going to he's planning on retiring at 67. Well, he's chosen to invest just literally it the policy issued last week. So a $400,000 nationwide peak ten fixed indexed annuity nationwide is an A+ rated carrier. There a mutual insurance company. So they're not trying to make, you know, make sure the stock ticker goes up because their policyholders are their shareholders. So you can get a really great result from them. And it's a lot less going out. You know, a lot more money gets put into the policy. So we really like this product. This nationwide pick ten. Only 1% of advisors have access to it, and we have access to it because I've been an advisor, mentor, and Sam's worked in my life as well. And MetLife helped develop this product with alongside nationwide, this gentleman and his wife, they made a decision to invest $400,000 from his IRA that was invested with us into the nationwide peek ten. He got a 25% immediate bonus, so his income benefits account value is now up to $500,000. Day one he gets 8% guaranteed interest growth in the income, benefits and bonus account every single year that he defers withdrawals. He's going to defer withdrawals for eight years because he's 59, almost 60.

Speaker3:
But he's going to he's going to get all the way to 67 in like nine months. And he's going to retire now. When he turns on income, he's going to get $60,047 a year is what it's looking like $60,047 a year in income when he turns it on at age 67. That's a remarkable result, considering that's over 15%, barely over 15% of his original premium. We like to see people that are investing, okay, we're going to take 4% withdrawal rate from your IRA money. 15% of your original premium is crazy great. Well, by the time he turned 67, that $400,000 in account value is worth 813,000. That's a remarkable result. The illustrated rate is very high at 4.27%. On an average annual growth. There's a 1% fee and a 1% spread rate. But they're also giving you a 25% income account value bonus, and they're giving you 8% guaranteed deferred growth each and every year that you defer withdrawals. And they're giving you 310% in account value growth. And how the BNP Paribas Global Age Factor Index performs. And that index performs between 4 and 5% just about each and every year. Sometimes it'll creep up there to six and seven. That's remarkable. But for them, they only needed $80,000 to retire on because they've paid their house off and they're getting right at $60,000 in Social Security income. Because we just ran as RSA roadmap. They're getting about $5,000 a month, less their Medicare surcharges and all.

Speaker3:
Less they're charged for Medicare Part B and all that stuff. But that's still a remarkable result. And they're going to be able to really enjoy retirement. And they're going to let the rest of that money, that 800,000 they've got in IRA money, grow unencumbered without withdrawals. And she's no longer working. And he's going to continue to work as he likes to do it. So that's a great problem solver because they were like, you know what our problem is? We are looking for retirement income and we just don't know if it's enough for us to take out 4% from all of our IRA stuff. And then what they did is they they carved out 440 to $400,000, which is 33.3% of their overall assets. So about a third of their assets, and they've got their income taken care of because also they're maximizing their Social Security income, because he's not going to turn on income until 68. 48. And she's a she's the same age. She's going to try to wait as well. So that's a really good situation. And I just think, Sam, it's it's just a no brainer to do the nationwide pick ten when people are really looking for that income. They want to maximize the income they're getting, but also hopefully have that average rate of return outpace the withdrawal rate and really just do wonders for their retirement.

Speaker4:
Yeah, well, I've seen it firsthand. Give people peace of mind. You know, working with an A+ rated carrier like nationwide, you know, when we're going through plans for people, really the cornerstone of anyone's income plan is that Social Security maximization and that income projection in in almost every case, Social Security is not going to be enough for you to live on in retirement. Something like the nationwide Peak ten really helps fill that income gap, especially for those folks who are able to wait a little bit. Defer. Take advantage of that 25% bonus. Take advantage of that 8% guaranteed simple interest roll up every year you defer. We had a client last year invest in this at age 45, which is the youngest age to take advantage of that bonus and that income rider. And she plans on deferring because she's going to work longer than ten years and take advantage of all of this guaranteed protected growth for her portfolio. She already knows that when she gets into her early mid 50s, she's going to be in a position where if she wants and this is something we talked about, take a step back to a job where she's still working, but it doesn't cause her as much stress.

Speaker4:
Maybe she doesn't have to interact with the public in as many people, but she's able to still work as as a professional and licensed pharmacist. So, you know, this is just a great thing for anybody. You know, over the age of 45, you can actually take advantage of that bonus income rider even if you're under the age of 45. For, um, my wife Bailey has a has a peak ten inside of her portfolio. But that's really, uh, focused on the large participation rate in that underlying index. So a lot of great features on this one. I think people would love to see what it would look like in their portfolio. And if you want to take a look at an illustration and help us start to put together that income plan for your retirement, you know, even if you don't have a pension. Uh, well, if you don't have a pension from your career, then this is a great thing for you. Even if you do have a pension, you feel like you'd like it to be a bit more. This is a great supplement to your income plan in retirement.

Speaker3:
Yeah, we love the nationwide pick ten. We're happy to be able to offer it to people. And if you want to maximize your income in retirement and also let the rest of your portfolio grow, and you want to protect the income portion of your portfolio folio from any financial market risk. I'd encourage you to go ahead and reach out to us at retirement. Com we've even set up a page retirement results plan. That's retirement results plan. Or you can just visit retirement results. Com and click that schedule a consultation button in the upper right corner.

Speaker2:
Call (770) 685-1777 to schedule your free, no obligation meeting with us today. You're listening to retirement results.

Speaker9:
For all the fellas. Try to do what those ladies tell us. Get shot down cause you're overzealous. Play hard to get females. Get jealous. Okay, smarty.

Speaker10:
Any comments regarding safe and secure products and guaranteed income streams refer only to fixed insurance products that do not refer in any way to securities or investment advisory products. Fixed insurance and annuity product guarantees are subject to the claims paying ability of the issuing company and are not offered by Brookstone. His Is retirement just around the corner. It might be time to start imagining the foundation of your retirement budget. I'm Jim Tabaka here for the Retirement Radio network powered by Amara Life. Most people spend decades saving for retirement, but far fewer spend time planning how they'll spend in retirement. According to a recent study by CNBC, 64% of Americans are more worried about running out of money in retirement than they are of actually dying. Andrew Biggs, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, tells CNBC that growing fears about retirement finances are pushing more Americans to keep working later in life.

Speaker11:
We have more options for extended work lives today than we've ever had before, and Americans are taking advantage of them.

Speaker10:
Without a clear retirement budget, it's easy to go off track either by spending too much too soon, or holding back out of fear and missing out on the freedom you've earned. At a recent Ted talk, award winning financial planner Amir Rocha-lima revealed how true freedom and retirement budgeting go hand in hand.

Speaker12:
Yes, you need to know your numbers, but knowing how much you need to ensure your dream retirement becomes a reality is completely intertwined with knowing what your dream retirement looks like in the first place.

Speaker10:
To help keep your retirement years both secure and fulfilling. Here are four tips for navigating your budget. First, get clear on your monthly must haves. We're talking about essentials. Housing. Healthcare. Groceries. Transportation. Next, think about what makes retirement meaningful for you. Travel. Picking up a new hobby. Helping the grandkids with college. This is your time. But even purpose has a price tag. Then take a close look at your income sources. Social security. Pensions. Investment. Withdrawals. Each comes with its own set of rules and tax impacts. And finally, check in with your budget every year. Life changes. The markets they shift, your priorities might too. A little regular review can go a long way in keeping you confident and in control. Retirement budgeting isn't a set it and forget it moment. No, it's a new chapter, and like any good story, it needs a solid outline for the Retirement Radio network powered by a mirror life. I'm Jim Tabaka.

Speaker2:
Miss part of today's show. Retirement results is available wherever you listen to podcasts and online at retirement Results.com.

Speaker3:
And welcome back to segment four of Retirement Results, your financial radio show. Thanks so much for making us the number one listen to radio show on Am 920. Answer. And we've been here almost six years. We're super excited to still be with you. We are going to transition, however, over to just our podcast. We're going to stop being on this air as of November 2nd. Appreciate our week family. And so, you know, we wish all the folks over at Wjcc all the best. All right. So we're talking about how to maximize retirement income and minimize taxes. And if you really want to minimize your taxes, you want to get a strategic Roth conversion plan going and you've never done that. I would encourage you to reach out to us at retirement. Com and click that schedule a consultation button in the upper right corner. But as you approach or have just entered retirement, you're likely thinking about how to make your savings last. A well crafted withdrawal strategy is crucial for maintaining your lifestyle, while ensuring that you don't outlive those retirement savings for you. And then retirement withdrawal strategies are techniques for efficiently and strategically withdrawing money from retirement accounts, such as for IRAs and other investment vehicles. A sustainable withdrawal strategy can help you maximize your retirement income, minimize tax impact, and help ensure that retirement savings last throughout your entire lifetime. On top of that, your withdrawal rate the amount you withdraw annually, we recommend a 4% withdrawal rate can dramatically affect how long your savings last. If you are going to take out 10% a year, you're going to literally run out of money in 12 years. So be careful about what you're doing on the withdrawal stuff.

Speaker3:
Also, if you replace the bonds within your portfolio with fixed indexed annuities, you can get higher withdrawal rates and have that money last for you. Um, we also want to create a structured income stream. A well-planned withdrawal strategy helps ensure steady income throughout your retirement. And that's not just hey, let's go get dividend funds and dividend stocks. It's better than that. Let's allow you to maintain your desired lifestyle here. And you know, wouldn't it be great if you got a check in the mail every single month from a portion of your assets? That's a really good idea. Also, you want to have increasing financial flexibility. I would also say you want to have the flexibility. You want to have some liquidity. But you and so you can take out money when you need to. But I would also tell you that, hey, you need to get fully diversified between, you know, assets under management with ETFs and equities. You also need to consider investing in insurance products like annuities and life insurance. Um, that's a really good idea to get more tax efficient and also still grow with tax deferred growth. And then also make sure you're maximizing your Social Security income, as well as part of your portfolio and your overall retirement plan. And then also we want to help you reduce that tax liability by implementing a strategic Roth ladder conversion plan. It's usually over 5 to 10 year period. We'd like to kind of be 5 to 7 years, but if you've got over $400,000 in your IRA, you're going to save over six figures in retirement just by deleting the IRS from your retirement accounts.

Speaker4:
Yeah. Some other factors to consider specifically when it comes to your withdrawal plan, actually pulling those assets out of your accounts and using that for income. You want to consider your withdrawal order. You know, different accounts are taxed differently. So that just makes the importance of having a tax plan much more critical. Your Social Security timing. We were talking about that in the last segment during our second problem solver. Are you trying to maximize your benefits? Uh, we don't want you to take those as soon as possible because you're really missing out. You know, we think you deserve more than $0.70 on the dollar for all that you've put into social Social Security. We want to help you maximize that. Uh, also, Roth conversions. If you're looking to reduce your tax liability in retirement, that might be something that's right for you. This can reduce your future tax liability and provide tax free income in retirement. It is also a tax free benefit to any beneficiaries after you pass away. So that's important to a lot of people out there. Uh required minimum distributions. Once you get to age 73, you know, even if you don't want to pull things off of your accounts, the IRS, they want their taxes on all of those tax deferred accounts. They're going to require that you start taking money out at age 73 and also healthcare costs. Understand that as you get older in retirement. We were talking last week how you're going to be spending a lot more time week to week, going to doctor's appointments. Healthcare costs can add up. And so when you're older, you want to make sure that your income is still going to be there, and you're not going to have that fear of running out of money. Even if you experience a medical challenge or whenever you inevitably experience a medical challenge in retirement, that's just a fact of life.

Speaker3:
So let's talk about the right and wrong way to do Roth ladder conversions here to, you know, right now we try to stay at 24% and lower in the tax brackets after the conversion, because the conversion is counted as ordinary income in the year that you do it, and you owe it within the quarter that you do the conversion. Um, and it's also a five year waiting period after each conversion that you do and, and or a five year waiting period after you open up a Roth IRA accounts and just do regular contributions to it. So to stay below the 32% bracket, stay within the 24% bracket we want to be make sure our modified adjusted gross income for married couples filing jointly is below $394,600. So let's say a couple makes $200,000 a year. You could take $194,600 and go ahead and convert that and stay within. You know, you'll pay between, you know, between 22 and 24% in taxes on those conversions. Also, one really great hint is to take an investment account, money or money in your checking account. Money from bonuses, money from rental income, just money from anywhere else that is taxable income or taxable money in in your accounts. And use that to pay the taxes and let the money move from your IRA to your Roth IRA. Dollar for dollar. So as your IRA depletes when you do the conversion, let's say you're going to move 100 grand.

Speaker3:
You want to see the IRA go down 100,000 and your Roth IRA go up 100,000. Another really great hint here is you may want to wait till a little bit of a market dip, move those assets over in kind and let. And so you pay the taxes on the money that moved or the assets that moved. And then when the market rebounds, you can see that those assets will actually go higher. And you won't have to pay as much in taxes is another way to kind of really minimize the taxes you're paying when you're doing Roth conversions. The best people, the happiest people are they'll try to convert most or all of their Roths before age 73, because when you're taking RMDs, that also factors in because your Roth conversions don't count as your required minimum distributions. You have to take that in addition. So that could bump you up into the next higher tax bracket. So we want to avoid doing that as well. And the last, last point I want to say on the Roth conversions, let's make sure we don't ignore the the five year rule. Let's make sure we do a great job at adhering to the five year waiting rule on conversions and or opening up the account.

Speaker13:
It's the final countdown.

Speaker2:
So let's recap what you may have missed. It's the final countdown.

Speaker13:
The final countdown.

Speaker3:
We had two big problem solvers that kind of dominated the show this week. We wanted to make sure that we kind of went through it. Sam talked about, you know, hey, we're trying to solve a lot of people's problems with the markets being at all time highs. It's a pretty good idea to go ahead and take some of your assets off the table. We've had several folks that have gotten, let's say, $500,000 in growth off of their couple million dollar, um, IRA portfolios with us over these ten months or nine plus months this year, and they have moved like 300,000 of it into the Aspida synergy choice Maxwell. The synergy choice bonus. Um, and so that's been really a great thing that people really enjoyed. And they got there whether they got a 15% bonus, but they also got high participation rates. And how the Invesco Q-q-q does we recommend now the max or the bonus? Your choice. But we like getting 115% of how the Invesco Q-q-q performs next. We also went through, um, a couple who is 59 and about to turn 60, each one of them, and, uh, they took 400,000 of their 1.2 million total and put that into the nationwide peak ten as a bond replacement strategy. They wanted to make sure their retirement income was set.

Speaker3:
They're going to turn on income when he turns 68. Um, and or a little bit like 68 and nine months. He's going to wait like a full eight years and he's looking at $47 in actual income generated from that fixed indexed annuity that nationwide peak ten starting at age 68. And that's a really great thing, considering he's only investing $400,000 into the annuity, which is over 15%, just over 15% of his original premium. So that's a great way to kind of maximize that withdrawals, those withdrawals as well. Listen, we want you to retire the right way. We want to help you better plan for it. If you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly. Be as aggressive as you can when you're seeking information about retirement. Also, don't forget to always check us out wherever you get podcasts at retirement results and also go to retirement results. Com you can listen to any of our episodes and see some of our videos on there too. We want to make sure you're retiring with smart, safe and smart risk and really a smart retirement plan. Come right back next week you'll listen to us talking about more how to build a smart financial plan for your successful retirement. Have a great week, everybody.

Speaker2:
Thanks for listening to retirement results. You deserve to work with an independent team of fiduciary advisors that will strategically work to protect and grow your hard earned assets. To schedule your complimentary financial consultation, call us now at (770) 685-1777. That's (770) 685-1777 to connect with a qualified advisor. To learn more about our mission and our team, visit retirement Results.com. Investment advisory services offered through Brookstone Capital Management, LLC, a registered investment advisor and Active wealth Management are independent of each other. Insurance products and services are not offered through BCM, but are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed agents. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Past performance cannot be used as an indicator to determine future results.

Speaker1:
Registered investment advisors and investment advisor representatives act as fiduciaries for all of our investment management clients, we have an obligation to act in the best interest of our clients and to make full disclosures of any conflicts of interest. Please refer to our firm brochure. The ADV two. Item four. For additional information. Fixed annuities, including multi year guaranteed rate annuities, are not designed for short term investments and may be subject to restrictions, fees and surrender charges as described in the annuity contract. Guarantees are backed by the financial strength and claims paying ability of the issuer. Any bonuses mentioned may be subject to additional restrictions and regulations based on the offering annuity company. You may not receive bonuses if the contract is fully surrendered, or if traditional annuitization payments are taken, and if the policy is partially surrendered, it could result in a partial loss of bonuses. Because these are bonus annuities, they may include higher surrender charges, longer surrender charge periods, lower caps, higher spreads, or other restrictions that are not included in similar annuities that don't offer a bonus feature.

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