To see a full schedule of our TV airtimes, please click here.
Video Transcript
Rebecca Powers 00:24
Welcome to this week’s edition of on the money with secure money with Brian Quaranta of secure money advisors. I’m Rebecca Power. So happy to be with you all again this week. Great to see you. Great to see you as always. And your book, I give it away all the time. Yes, I’d really love it. For all of you who are watching, if you’d like a copy of Brian’s book, it’s the kind of easy do’s and don’ts of retirement. Very short, easy to read, I don’t really like to read. So, it was smart of you to make it very comprehensive.
Brian Quaranta 00:53
I call it the airplane read, because you’re gonna read it on one flight.
Rebecca Powers 00:58
And it’s great how you break it down. Yeah, we can all agree that none of us were really educated about finances growing up, especially in public schools. So, this right track your retirement. Can we start with chapter one?
Brian Quaranta 01:08
Yeah, go for it.
Rebecca Powers 01:09
I like how you keep it. So simple. It says investment plan versus retirement plan. What’s the difference?
Brian Quaranta 01:16
Yes. What do you think of when I say investment plan versus retirement plan? Does anything come to mind at all?
Rebecca Powers 01:22
I mean, I’ve done this show with you for so long, I kind of know, but before, I would think it’d be the same, what’s the difference between money you do in investing to save for retirement or retirement itself?
Brian Quaranta 01:33
Yeah, well, you know, investing is pretty simple, because you go to work. And you know, nowadays, your employer is gonna give you some type of retirement plan, like a 401K, maybe a 403. B, depending on, you know, what line of work you do. And those plans, you’re going to make contributions to your employer is going to make contributions on your behalf. And you don’t think about it a whole lot. Yeah. Because you have a lot of time in front of you, before you even need to think about using that money. But if you ask most people, what’s the purpose of the money that they’re saving? They’ll say, Well, it’s money that we’re going to use when we retire, right? Well, retirement is much different than investing because there’s so much more to take into consideration. So, when you’re investing, all you have to do is pick a reasonably diversified portfolio within your 401 K or four, three, be consistently make your contributions, your employer makes the contributions. And the goal is to grow this money into a bigger and bigger and bigger pile every single year. So that the day that you retire, you have this big pile of money to be able to use now to replace the paycheck. Gotcha. But investing is just that it’s diversifying and making contributions, it’s that simple. Retirement Planning has five areas that you have to focus on. There’s income, there’s taxes, there’s the investment strategy, because the investments that you typically use during your years where you’re growing your money, are not typically the best investments to use, when you’re getting ready to use your money as probably a stream of income, like most people, because most people are not retirement pensions.
Rebecca Powers 03:15
Right, investing is risky, it’s got inherent risks, because you want to accumulate and take those risks to get the most gains.
Brian Quaranta 03:22
That’s right. And that’s why you’ll see a lot of people that retirement fails, I mean, they retire, and they have to go back to work because they kept doing the same thing that they were doing to grow their money as now they’re doing in retirement. And if that market loses, and it goes in your account values go down like last year, you don’t have the time to recover. And most people are probably going to be using that to replace some type of paycheck, right? Because Social Security is not going to be enough for people, right? It’s just not enough, Social Security was only designed to replace about 40% of your income. So, and then on top of it, you have to worry about, you know, Medicare, when to collect your Social Security, at what age to collect your Social Security. And then the good Lord is going to take us home, all of us. And we’ve got to decide how those assets are going to pass along to our beneficiaries. And by the way, especially with retirement accounts, those accounts have never been taxed. So, if you don’t manage those correctly, and structure those to do something called an inherited IRA or pass it through a trust, you can be looking at a big tax bill from the IRS on that amount of money when it passes to your children or to whatever family member you leave it.
Rebecca Powers 04:29
That’s why tax planning is one of the five keys that you say you have to cover.
Brian Quaranta 04:33
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And those five key areas are important because once you understand those five areas, you understand what type of questions or things you should be looking for from your advisors because typically when somebody sits down with an advisor, the conversation probably is going to be something like this. Well, you know, last year we did X amount this year we did this, the portfolio’s grown a little bit. And that’s all they’re talking about warrants, but Here’s the strategy for income, here’s the strategy for tax planning. And tax planning is important because the biggest thing that will erode our wealth over time, Rebecca, are going to be taxes and inflation. And people will take into account that when you start to take money out of your retirement accounts, you have to pay taxes on that money, right. And so that reduces the amount that you actually get no different than, well, my paycheck, I had a gross amount, and it has a net amount, that same thing at retirement. So, the book was written to give people an understanding of what those five fundamentals were. And once people have a good grasp on that, they start to get more clarity around what they should be doing. And when you have more clarity, you have more confidence, and usually have more peace of mind.
Rebecca Powers 05:44
Absolutely. And understanding that difference between investment plan and retirement plan is so important. So, I like that you have it as chapter one. Because sometimes, and I know you’ve said this, people come to your office with their statement and say, Here’s my retirement plan. Right. And that’s not that is one little piece. That whole puzzle you’re looking at.
Brian Quaranta 06:04
Yeah, one little piece, I call it people come to the office with their POS, that stands for their pile of stuff. Yes. And we help them sort through it. And you know, I think, you know, it’s, it can be typical, it’s typical. It’s very, yeah, it’s very common, because people, you know, our clients that we help, they’re very smart, intelligent people. I mean, you know, they’re their union workers, their electricians, their doctors, their attorneys, they’re nurses, they’re homemakers, I mean, a broad spectrum. But everybody’s really good at what they do for a living Exactly. They’re not paying attention to what I pay attention, and our whole team pays attention to on a day-to-day basis. They’re focused on their work, if their job is to build a bridge, they’re focused on building a bridge, if their job is to make sure that they can replace someone’s heart so that person can live a longer life, they know how to do that, I would not know how to do that. Right? You don’t have a lot of clients. Yeah, well, this is what I always say, you know, you wouldn’t be your own heart surgeon. So why you’re trying to be your own retirement planner, I like that. So good. But this is why I really like to; I really like to make sure that people get this book in their hands. And I want you to know, this book truly will give you a roadmap on how to approach retirement planning, it’ll give you the clarity that you need to start to understand all the steps that you need to take. So, I want you to go to onthemoneyoffer.com onthemoneyoffer.com, where you can get a copy of my book, it’s absolutely free, I pay for the shipping and handling, it’ll go out the next day after you order it. Or you can call 1-888-382-1298. Now, when you go to onthemoneyoffer.com To get your book, you’re also going to be given the opportunity to schedule an appointment with our team. Now take advantage of that, because that appointment is absolutely complimentary. There’s no cost to do it. As a fiduciary firm. Our job is to help you identify any concerns that you might have and show you a better way to maybe approach things I can’t promise you anything, not everybody is a good fit for us. But my promise is if you take the time to come in, we’ll walk you through the right track retirement system that we’ve built. Because one thing I can promise you that you’re going to need when you retire is a system is a process. If you think you’re just going to show up to retirement and start taking money out when you feel like you want to take money out, or you’re going to continue to take large amounts of risk in the stock market. I’d hate to tell you, but not everything is going to go right when you approach things that way. So, you have to have a well thought out system a well thought out process. And that’s exactly what the right track retirement system does. So come on into our office again, called 1-888-382-1298. My team is standing by to get you scheduled today.
Rebecca Powers 08:56
All right, and stay with us more to how to get you on the right track to retirement, we’ll be right back.
Brian Quaranta 09:00
So, everybody can tell you how to invest your money. There’s not a lot of people out there and a lot of firms that can teach you how to use your money. Most people also tell you that they’re scared. And the reason they’re scared is because they’re afraid of running out of money.
Neil Major 09:15
The last thing you want to do is have a really good job and you’re in your 60s retire and be looking for work again in your late 70s.
Brian Quaranta 09:23
The average person might say, well, a good portfolio would be a good mix of stocks, bonds and mutual funds. A good portfolio is all designed around the five key areas income, taxes, investments, health care and legacy planning.
Neil Major 09:38
Because we’re not just product pickers here, what we do best here as we build retirement plans.
Brian Quaranta 09:42
9 out of 10 people when they walk through the door would ask us, we just want to know if we’re on the right track. And I always say if you’re not on the right track, when would be a good time to know it? Probably now.
Neil Major 09:53
People, you know, can actually see a vision once we start to really build out their plan.
Brian Quaranta 09:59
This is about you, if you’re not getting what you need, and you feel that when you walk out of the advisor’s office, it’s time to get a second opinion. And you can’t get a second opinion from the person that gave you the first. The difference at secure money advisors, as a fiduciary firm, we help you manage the risk, build the income, and give you the retirement you dream of.
Rebecca Powers 10:29
Welcome back, we’re talking about getting you on the right track for your retirement. And Brian Quaranta has book and of course, he’s the founder of secure money advisors on page 71. Yeah, five functions to have a retirement plan. So, we all agree if you go to a vacation or go off to college, whatever it may be, we all have this tremendous plan. But you’ve spotted and realize it so many people don’t have a retirement plan. Yeah. So, the five things and I really love this page 71, income written proof tax plan, organized all in one place. Instructions for your heirs. Yeah, yeah. Like to do it that way is backwards. No, no, it’s really good. It’s like where you’re gonna get your income from, let’s write it down. Here’s your tax plan to save money, organize, walking out with everything in one binder with your name on it feels pretty amazing. It does, but instructing your heirs, my 15-year-old daughter knows that she can go on our shelf and take that binder. That’s right, there it is.
Brian Quaranta 11:28
You think about the simplicity in the technology of a binder, right? We live in a world where everything is paperless these days, I’m not a big fan of that. Yeah, I’ve lost very close people in my life, you have also, if you’ve ever dealt with someone that’s lost someone very close, they don’t know where passwords are. They don’t know where documents are. And so as great as this paperless society is it causes very big challenges, again, so this is why I believe in the old technology when it comes to organization, because there needs to be a physical, tangible plan that can be touched, right and brought out and reviewed. And that plan also been right there in black and white writing that the kids have the instructions of what to do. If something were to happen if anybody’s ever had to go through the process of administering an estate. And you’ve had to dig through files and find documents or find passwords or maybe not even be able to find passwords, administer an estate can be very, very difficult. So, one of the things that we like to do at secure money advisors is get people organized with the financial inventory binder. And in that binder. In that binder. I always tell my team, the binder is the secret weapon, and is absolutely the secret weapon. Because in that webinar, the first thing you’re going to see is instructions on how to avoid taxation at death, right. So, there’s a big stop sign when you open it up, because we’re assuming that maybe an error might be opening out up. So, we want them to see a big stop sign that says, hey, timeout. You know, don’t start doing anything yet because you could cause a big tax problems like that. Number two is we’ve taken the time for our clients to put together a survivorship checklist. Do you know how many things there are to do when somebody dies? Everything from writing the obituary to paying the funeral home to, you know, divvying monies up between beneficiaries, transferring monies into your name or other people’s names. Finally, in the last tax return, we’ve taken the time for our clients to write out every step that needs to be taken during that process. And I will tell you that a lot of people will tell me when I asked them. What’s one of the reasons you chose to work with secure money advisors. And I’ll hear things like, Well, you guys made it really easy for us to understand the planning process. Yeah, but boy, we really liked the fact that we got a binder.
Rebecca Powers 14:21
And it had our name on it.
Brian Quaranta 14:23
Whoever would have ever thought.
Rebecca Powers 14:25
It’s funny. I’m one of those. It really does feel good. Sometimes I’ll even look at it. Yeah. Okay, right. Yeah, that’s me.
Brian Quaranta 14:32
Well, let me tell you, it’s something that happened to me where I actually got to experience it for myself. So, I belong to a concierge medical service in Pittsburgh. And when I went in for my initial, initial physical, the doctor spent two hours with me, I haven’t had a doctor spend two hours with me ever, and the amount of attention that they paid to my health was Yeah, it gave me a lot of peace of mind. But you want to know what they gave me when I left by, with all my medical records and all my blood work and having loved it, and I loved it and you want to know where it’s at, it’s on my shelf. So, when I get my bloodwork done every year, I can actually look back and they can see how it is. I don’t have to go through emails and find the PDF that was sent to me.
Rebecca Powers 15:20
And like in school, you can open it up and add your new sheets like, oh, we bought an annuity, yes, print it out and go put it in the binder well, and like I said, our teenage daughter, God forbid, if something ever happened to us, she could call my sister or they can go straight in and grab that binder. And it really is an incredible feeling to know that every base is covered.
Brian Quaranta 15:39
Yeah, all your bank statements are there all your investment statements, your life insurance policies, long term care policies, your investment accounts, your estate, planning documents, all of it in one place, not digging through a filing cabinet, all right there. And that’s exactly what we do at secure money advisors. Not only are we giving them a roadmap to follow, but we’re giving them a tangible physical plan written out. So, if anytime they want to review it, they can pull it out and review it. And I will tell you that that is one thing that I changed at our office because, you know, you could put everything on a portal these days, right, but out of sight, out of mind, exactly out of sight out of mind. So, I know this sounds simple. But you know, It’s the simple things make a big difference. It’s kind of like little mistakes or big headaches, simple things make a big difference in people’s lives. And this is one of them.
Rebecca Powers 16:33
Absolutely. All right. So, income we all agree. And if you’ve ever watched the show, that is number one, if you want to retire, you have to have an income. How do you go in depth? I know there’s income, mining and harvesting and all these different? How do you kind of when that first meeting happens? What is the first step you do to look at what type of income you can get for them through retirement?
Brian Quaranta 16:56
Yeah, it’s a great question. So first off, we have to find out what the shortfall is. Now that’s just a fancy way of saying how much you’re going to get in Social Security. How much are you going to get a pension? And how much do you need? So, what you’re estimating what you might need? Well, we want to try to get it pretty exact once we actually build the final plan. So, one of the ways that we help our clients do that is most people when you say well, what’s it cost you to live there like well, my gas bills, this Mike the garbage is water and sewage, my I got a car payment, that’s not the approach you want to take, okay? If you use a credit card, okay, which credit cards can be used responsibly, I put all of my family expenses on a credit card, and it gets paid off every month. But the reason I do that is because it picks up every little expense, you can imagine, if I walk into the dollar store with my two little boys, and all of a sudden, they’ve got something in their hands, and I tell them no 10 times, and they still want it. And I don’t feel like going through the argument and I spend that dollar, I’m gonna get it. Right. So, but guess what, I capture that expense. But that’s, that’s daily living, I mean, you could all of a sudden get a call from a friend that says, Hey, let’s go over and have, you know, a cup of coffee today. And if so, you’re or you gotta go to a birthday party and get a present. If you’re putting that all on one credit card or your debit card. Now what you can do is you can take; you could look at a 90-day trend. And you can add up all of those transactions, right from each monthly statement over that 90-day period, and divide by three, you could do it over a 12-month period divided by 12. Now you’re getting a real, real good shot snapshot of what it’s really costing you to live because you’re picking up all the other stuff. Once you understand what that number is. Now you’re going to figure out, okay, if Social Security is x, my expenses are x, and then I’ve got to pay X amount of taxes on Social Security. How much more do I need to maintain my lifestyle? If that’s going to be 40 $50,000? Now that is the starting point in which you start to figure out, okay, if we need $50,000 A year in income, where are we going to get it from? Are we going to take it from our 401 K’s? Or we’re gonna take it from our IRAs or Roth IRAs? Are we going to take it from our non-retirement accounts? Are we gonna take it from our bank account? What’s the order in which you’re going to withdraw money? These are all the things that I write about in here, because these are the things that you have to know when it comes to building your retirement plan. Now, here’s what I’ll tell you. You don’t need to become an expert in this stuff. But if people are helping you manage your money, you want to be somewhat educated on what should be taking place because you don’t know what you don’t know. And the things that you don’t know that you don’t know are the dangerous things because you’re relying on somebody else to tell you. This gives you all the answers. This gives you the roadmap. So again, go to onthemoneyoffer.com Get a copy of my book, I’ve laid it out in a very simple format for you to be able to read and get through very quickly onthemoneyoffer.com will send the book to you it’s absolutely free but you will also be given an opportunity to schedule a complimentary appointment with my team. That appointment is free. I hate saying free because you It undervalues the meeting because the meeting itself will be so valuable in what you’ll learn and what my team will go through with you that you’ll be very informed. You can also call 1-888-382-1298. And my team is standing by to take your call to not only send you the book, but also to get you scheduled to come into the office. Folks don’t procrastinate on this. This stuff is important. I know that the markets are down the markets are volatile, you probably don’t even want to look at your statements right now. But if there is any time to review your plan it is right now. So, take the time, scan the QR code, call the 800 number again 888-382-1298. And schedule that appointment today.
Rebecca Powers 20:42
And stay with us more from Brian Quaranta how you can secure your money and get on the right track for retirement stay with us.
Announcer 20:56
The work never seems to end until the day it finally does. After nearly a lifetime on the job, you should be rewarded for all the time you spent working. Whether that’s crossing off items on your bucket list, learning a new passion or rekindling the love of an old one. After all, life isn’t over when you stop working. It’s the start of an all-new chapter, the one where you’re the writer and you get to choose how your story will go. A way to achieve that is by having a clear financial plan to sustain your golden years, the biggest fear most retirees have is if they’ll have enough money to maintain the lifestyle they always enjoy. Having a plan to help protect you against the curveballs life often throws will help to maintain your lifestyle. Call today to get your free written financial plan. See me live everyday to the fullest and enjoy the retirement of your dreams.
Rebecca Powers 21:47
Welcome back, of course we’ve established that to retire you need to have income that is number one, the foundation of your house. So, let’s break down the different ways. So, once I let’s say I need 5000 a month to live, or I need 50,000 more a year you do it by the year. Yep. What are the ways? Where are some ways I can get income?
Brian Quaranta 22:05
Yeah. Well, I’ll tell you what, let’s take a simple case. Right? So, let’s say that, and we’ll make it a husband and wife. Right. So, and we’ll make it easy. Let’s say they’re the same age. All right. And let’s say they’re both age 62. And we look at their social security, and they’re both gonna get $25,000 a year in Social Security. Okay, so now we know between social security between both of them, they’re gonna get $50,000. All right. Now, what do we need? They say out, we need $100,000. Okay, well, we know our starting point is at least we need to generate $50,000 from someplace. Okay. Now, the other thing that we have to focus on is, that’s okay, while they’re living, right. But if one of them dies, we’ve got a problem because one of those social security checks is going to go away. Now in this case, since they’re the same amount, one of them would just go away. But the way social security would work, is it would just take away the lowest check, right? So now think about this. You’ve got a husband and wife $25,000 apiece and Social Security, right? So, $50,000 in Social Security, but they need $100,000 A year to live off of. So, let’s say the husband dies next year. Well, now we’ve got a 25,020 $5,000 less now we potentially could have a $75,000 income gap. Now people might say, Well, there’s only going to be one of us now. So, we’re not going to be doing as much we’re not going to have, I’m not going to need as much money. Let me tell you folks, I have been doing this for 25 years. And for you men out there that think your wives are just gonna stop moving. I’ve got news for you. Your wives are some of the strongest people you could possibly imagine. And when they tell you that they’re gonna get rid of all your stuff when you die, they mean it. And it ain’t gonna take them long. I see it over and over, all your stuff is gonna be out within a week. Okay? So, but they also start living and they start doing things, they start spending more time with the kids and they travel with their friends or their girlfriends or whatever, they become very active. Men are a little different manner a little different. They have a hard time moving on when their spouses die, hard time.
Rebecca Powers 24:16
Women they’re loving you right now, by the way, everyone across Pennsylvania, all of Pittsburgh going: I like this guy, he’s pretty smart.
Brian Quaranta 24:22
Well, listen, I’m just telling you about 25 years, being in the in the financial planning laboratory, right. I’ve seen it firsthand in the labs. So, but we’ve got to address what happens at death because death does cause a decrease in income. Now, what other people what people also don’t take into account when it comes to losing your spouse is that you go from a joint tax filer, married filing jointly to single filer now, so guess what happens another way. I mean, your tax rate goes up, your tax rate goes up. So, we don’t we know that maybe a spouse could live off for less money. But we do not want to build a plan to where all of a sudden, the spouse has a 40% loss of income, right?
Rebecca Powers 25:07
You still spend about the same at the grocery store, you still might have a mortgage, you still have the car note, I mean, losing? That’s a very good point.
Brian Quaranta 25:13
Yeah, yeah. And now look, if you want to maybe decrease it over time, but you don’t want that money to drop the first two years out of the gates, right. So, we want to plan appropriately. Nobody wants to be grieving, and at the same time, know that I’m barely getting by now. Right? That’s not the way we want to build a plan. And in the book, right track your retirement, I talk about these things of how to approach you know, what would happen if your spouse were to die? And how to go about replacing that loss of income? But more importantly, you know, we’ve got to figure out at least while they’re married, how are we going to get the additional income they need? And there are tools and clerical tools are one, there’s wonderful tools that you can use. I mean, obviously, if you have a pension, that would help right, but most people don’t, right? You could have real estate income, but in order to have real estate income that cash flows, you got to have it rented, right okay. And you got to also reserve money for maintenance and then you also have to ask yourself well, if your spouse dies is the spouse is going to be okay managing those properties. You could use dividend paying stocks where you get a dividend every quarter from a company, but you still have stock market risk with your account balance because a stock dividend stock still can go up and down in value even though it’s gonna pay you the dividend directly. See, one thing I want to talk about dividends I don’t think a whole lot of people know this is that let’s say that you and by the way, I’m making these numbers up because I don’t know the exact numbers, but I’ll be close on it. But let’s say you had $100,000 and you wanted to buy Verizon Okay, and let’s say Verizon paid a six or 7% dividend. Well, Verizon is going to pay that six or seven their rise is going to pay us $6,000 A year on $100,000. Every single year right even if the stock price goes down, so if your 100,000 goes to 50,000 They’re still going to pay a 6000 a year because your dividend is based on the number of shares, not the stock price itself.
Rebecca Powers 27:09
Gotcha, like you own shares, we are already out of time, it’s fascinating, but-
Brian Quaranta 27:13
Take advantage of getting this book right track your retirement I wrote it exactly for you, so it gives you the clarity and peace of mind you need go to onthemoneyoffer.com Get a copy of the book schedule the appointment, the appointment is absolutely free. My promise to you is anybody at my office that you meet with is never going to tell you anything. They’re never going to pressure you to do anything. You can also call 1-888-382-1298 My team is standing by to take your call and get you scheduled.
Rebecca Powers 27:37
And this book by the way really is free go to onthemoneyoffer.com He’ll even pay for the shipping and handling. We want to make sure that every single one of you gets this important piece of information into your hands and schedule that appointment to come in to meet the amazing all-star team at secure money advisors. Thanks for joining us. We’ll see you next time.