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Video Transcript
Rebecca Powers 00:23
Welcome to on the money with secure money. I’m Rebecca Power. So happy to be with you again this week. Of course, the show is brought to you by secure money advisors and the founder of secure money advisors, Brian Quaranta. And, Brian, you started this because you used to work for a big box retailer. Yep. You watch people losing their money you watched feeling like you were in a box and you only sell certain products. Yeah, right. Right. When we talk about the stock market now, I think people need to understand they don’t need to be all in stocks and bonds, right? Because it is risky. Yeah. What’s the history? Yeah, of kind of the stock market? It’s been up lately, but now it’s all going Yeah, yeah.
Brian Quaranta 01:01
Well, it’s been good for a long time. And it got easy. I mean, look, when you when you start reading about young kids, you know, starting to trade their college tuition money. And they’re making money. Usually, it’s a good sign that there’s probably a correction coming. These markets don’t last forever, they eventually correct themselves. And-
Rebecca Powers 01:24
That’s what we’re seeing, right now.
Brian Quaranta 01:24
That’s what we’re seeing right now. Big, big correction. Yeah. And, you know, unfortunately, you know, if you’ve got time, you know, if you got, you know, 15-20 years in front of, you’re probably not as worried. Sure. But for those that are five years out from retirement, or retired, you know, it’s scary, especially if they kept a large portion of their money at risk, which is never a good idea to do. I mean, risk is really for those that are trying to get to where the retiree is, once you’ve accumulated the money that you have, you’re probably better off taking more of a sure thing than a maybe. Right, exactly. And so what a lot of people have to understand is, if they move into retirement, it really becomes about protecting and securing that money, so that it can do its primary function, which is most likely going to be for most people, provide them with additional monthly income, where they need to replace the paycheck because they’re no longer going to work and or have to trade their time for money, but their money needs to be working for them. And that’s the most important thing is that how are you going to get it to start working for you, paying you on a monthly basis? But more importantly, not run out of money?
Rebecca Powers 02:34
Yes. So, 1978, I think a lot of would agree it’s kind of the biggest trick ever played on the American working force. They got rid of pensions. So, companies didn’t have to give you pensions anymore, right. So, unless I know some of your clients or maybe teachers or the railroad, they may have pensions, but it’s very rare scenario. The onus is on us the regular not knowing person. Yeah, to do our own pension. And they call that the 401k. How’s that been working?
Brian Quaranta 03:01
Yeah, I call that the yo-yo, retirement plan. That’s called You’re On Your Own. I’m gonna write that down and figure out how you’re going to make it happen. It’s ridiculous. Good luck. Yeah. And unfortunately, my industry has done a terrible job educating people on actually how to do this, because my industry still thinks it’s a good idea to risk 100% of your money, do they do it? Now? A lot? A lot. A lot of them? Don’t, you know, I always say, you know, if you go to both these individuals, and you say, how much of this do you owe? And that you’re recommending? Yeah, a lot of them don’t, right, it’s a lot easier to risk somebody else’s money, especially if you get paid a commission to do it exactly. Right. It’s a lot easier to say to somebody, don’t worry about it, hang in there. You’re in it for the long haul, especially when it’s not your money, right. But you ask most of these people, how much of this do you own, you know, like, you know, I walked the talk, right? Because there are basic fundamentals. If you do your reading, and you do your research, as I have, and I’ve read book after book after book on proper retirement planning, so many great authors, so many talented economists that I’ve read over the years, and a lot of them will always come back to one fundamental, and that is as you approach retirement, you better be protecting a portion of your money, because a portion of your money is going to need to provide you with some type of income.
Rebecca Powers 04:18
So, when you wrote your book, I think was that your common goal? That was your 100% goal. Make it simple, easy to understand, you read all these economist books this thick, and you kind of crunched it down into easy to understand.
Brian Quaranta 04:31
Yeah, and a lot of it came from practice to write like so. So, you know, I’ve always been one to question things. Yeah. And so, when I was at the big box retailers, and I was being given, you know, mentorship on what to do and how to do it. And I saw that stuff not working out. You know, and I write about this in my book, but I’ll tell this story. I was, I can remember my first firm that I was with. It was probably my first couple of weeks on the job. And they had me answering the phones now at the time. And you know, the tech bubble had just burst it, right. So, people were losing money. And I sit down and I’m taking these phone calls coming in. And I think a call from a guy that’s pretty upset he wants to get out of the market. He’s just lost a lot of money. And I don’t know what to tell him. Right. So
Rebecca Powers 05:14
I said, know what to do to answer you could hear that you’re saying they didn’t have to? Yeah, well, most of the
Brian Quaranta 05:19
advisors are hiding under their desk, right? So, I take the call, I don’t know what to say. So, I go find the advisor. And I said, Listen, you got a client on the line, he wants to sell he wants to get out. He doesn’t want in the market anymore. So, the advisor looks at me and says, Brian, you’re gonna have to learn that we don’t sell. Right, we hang in there. So, you need to get back on the phone and let them know not to worry about anything to just hang in there that he’s in it for the long haul. So being a young guy, right, not knowing a lot right, being mentored. I don’t know what’s right or wrong at this point, guess what I do? I go back to the phone. And I tell this guy, listen, don’t worry about it. Hang in there. You’re in it for the long haul. And what he said to me next truly changed my life. Really? He said, Brian, I’m 75 years old. How much damn long haul Do you think I’ve got left? And you know what he was? 100%. Right? He was 100%. Right? Because at the end of the day, he is more concerned at 75 years old, about not losing money than making money. But yet the adviser continued to keep it in a position to where he could lose money. Right. And that’s not the way you that you want to approach it. Now. Everybody has a different tolerance for risk, right? I meet people all the time, that are in their 70s, but they’re more do it yourselfers there that you know, they like this to invest in the market, they understand the volatility of the market, they’re okay with taking the risk. But even those guys don’t have 100% of their money at risk. Exactly. They always keep what we call dry powder on the sideline. Now that’s an industry term right. Especially for the do it yourselfer. Community dry powder is what we keep on the outside, which is just cash so that when the market goes down, guess what we have money to buy in. The person doesn’t have that, because they’ve got everything invested. So, when the market goes down, there is no dry powder or extra money to put in. Right. This is why when you’re working, it’s kind of okay for you to take risk, you know, during your working years as you’re building up to retirement, because every time you get paid, you have money going in. So, the market might be up here, it might be down here, but you’re always buying it’s called dollar cost averaging, right. So even the professionals don’t keep 100% of their money in the market. They keep money on the sidelines, so that when there’s stuff on sale, they have money to buy the average person, when they’re down there down. They’ve got no way of offsetting that loss because they have no money to put in. Especially retiree.
Rebecca Powers 07:35
Exactly. And so back to that story. You were telling your young man, you have to go back and tell this poor guy that like it literally feels bad, I’m sure yeah. But it really reinforces the fact that with a big box retailer, you’re just an ABC or D did that guy even say, Oh, which one of my clients is upset? How old is Yeah? Did he even bother to ask that? Because we’re just an ABC or D a cookie cutter? Yeah, it’s
Brian Quaranta 07:59
I mean, it’s a blanket approach, right? It’s not really customized to the individual. Everybody’s pretty much got the same investments. I mean, there are box stores here locally, that if somebody comes in, I can pretty much tell you without looking at their statement, what they’re going to own. Yeah. I mean it’s-
Rebecca Powers 08:15
Your like: I’m psychic, let’s see what it’s gonna be!
Brian Quaranta 08:19
I mean, it’s you just, you just know it’s gonna be this, right. Yeah. And so, it’s just everything today needs to be a little bit more customized. You need to have more of a hands on approach. You have to have an approach that’s going to be specific to your situation, because everybody’s situation is different. When the click collect social security, right, How’s your health? You know, are you getting a pension? Are you not getting a pension? Do you want to leave money to kids? Do you not want to leave money to the kids, right? There’s all kinds of things are you charitable, are you not charitable? Do you give to your church, all these different things come into play, when you start to put together a strategy where you’re going to try to maximize every area of your financial plan, including the tax strategies, and that comes in different shapes and sizes for each individual investor?
Rebecca Powers 09:06
All right, well, let’s give that number take a very short break. If you want to get that holistic approach, look at every single thing going on in your financial life, Brian is the man to trust, let’s give that number.
Brian Quaranta 09:15
Yeah, our right track retirement review folks, take advantage of it. We worked really hard to put together a very thorough, complimentary, no obligation review for you to where we’re going to dive in and help you understand the five key areas of planning. Number one, what’s your income strategy to your tax strategy, three, your investment strategy, your health strategy and your estate strategy. When you come in, we’ll sit down for about 45 minutes to an hour we’ll start to understand your situation and we’ll start to help you identify any potential red flags. The reason I put together the right track retirement review was because most people don’t know if they’re doing the right things. If you weren’t doing the right things. If you were not on the right track, when would be a good time to know. Call 188838212 298 and schedule your right track retirement review today.
Rebecca Powers 10:03
Absolutely, there’s literally no cost, no obligation at all. There’s the number again, 888-382-1298. And there’s the QR code to get you easily to our landing page, get your calendar ready, we’re gonna get you an appointment to come and meet Brian and his amazing team at secure money advisors. We’ll be right back with more.
Brian Quaranta 10:19
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 10:34
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 the late 70s.
Brian Quaranta 10:43
The average person might say, well, a good portfolio would be a good mix of stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, kind of a good portfolio is all designed around the five key areas, income, taxes, investments, health care and legacy planning.
Neil Major 10:57
Because we’re not just product pickers here, what we do best here as we build retirement plans,
Brian Quaranta 11:02
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 11:12
People, you know, can actually see a vision once we start to really build out their plan.
Brian Quaranta 11:19
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.
Rebecca Powers 11:48
Alright, welcome back, we were talking about not having to take that risk. You go to a casino with your money, great. But when you’re 70 years old, and you don’t even hear from your financial planner, of where your money is, this is a terrible place to be. Yeah, this is what your kind of mission in life is to get the word out. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Brian Quaranta 12:06
No, it doesn’t. I mean, and really, I would say that, you know, there’s the planning part. But there’s the servicing part, too. Yes. And a lot of people, they sit down with somebody, and they put together a plan, what they think is a plan. Yeah. And then they never see these people. Again, there’s no reviews, you know, one of the questions I always ask is, during your annual reviews with your advisors, tell me what strategies you guys are putting into place as you are reaching the age of 72. Now, or what strategies are you putting in place now that you’re reaching age 65, and you’re coming up on Medicare? Which strategies are you putting in place now that you’re going to be taking Social Security and you’re gonna have to be pulling money out of your accounts? And let’s say we just don’t talk about those things, or we don’t get together on an annual basis.
Rebecca Powers 12:52
Or I don’t even hear from them. That was my experience for 20 years, I forgot who even had it.
Brian Quaranta 12:56
Correct. And a lot of people are in that situation. And terrible. You know, the good news is this. I mean, as bad as my industry has been, there’s a lot of good in it, too. And there’s more and more advisors today, men and women that are taking the approach that we’re taking with trying to educate people on the right ways to do it becoming independent, becoming independent. It’s a big thing. I mean, you know, when I was out in the public educating, I’ve been educating people for the last 20 plus years. And when I was out there doing educational events, there was nobody out there doing them. I mean, now you could probably go out to dinner on a financial advisor every week, five to six nights a week. And yeah, you know, so. And it’s great to see because at least people now are having information, right and information that can help them but the other problem with that is now there’s too much noise, right now they go, Well, what’s the right way? What’s not the right way? Should I buy an annuity? Should I be in the market? are annuities Good? Are they bad? Should I have a life insurance policy? And the reality is there is no bad investment? The question is, what is it that you need your money to do for you? So for example, let’s suppose somebody said, I have X amount of dollars, and I need to make sure that I get guaranteed income for the rest of my life. And if I die, I need to make sure that my wife is going to continue to get guaranteed income for the rest of her life. Well, if you just go through the process of elimination, you say, Okay, well, where could I get a, a, an investment product that would give me a guaranteed stream of income. So, you look around you go, Okay, well, is there anything at the bank? Well, a checking savings or money market that’s going to keep my money safe, but that’s not going to guarantee me any type of income because if I start pulling money out of those and they go to zero, I’m out. Yeah. Well, what about a stock account? Could I buy a stock account? Well, if you buy growth stocks, meaning there’s no dividend being paid, right, meaning a growth stock, I buy the stock for $50 and it grows to $60 Right? As well, if it’s going up and I take money out, maybe you’re going to be okay. But if I’m taking money out in the markets not cooperating, I could run out of money, and I’m not going to get a guaranteed lifetime income. So, when you go, Okay, well, if that’s not going to solve the problem, well, what about annuities? Well, there’s a lot of different types of annuities, there’s fixed, there’s index, there’s variable, there’s immediate, well, you could do it with two of them, you could do it with a fixed and you could do it within an index to where you could get guaranteed income for the rest of your life. And if you die, your spouse can get guaranteed income. Oh, and by the way, when your spouse dies, any balance in the account is paid to your beneficiary. So, you never lose control your money. But the annuity is the only product in the marketplace, right? Because the insurance companies do something better than no other companies. And that is they mitigate risks better than anybody. Right now. If you think about this, Rebecca, we insure our home, we insure our cars, we insure our health, but nobody ensures their number one most important money and that’s their income. Now, how could you not insure some of your income?
Rebecca Powers 16:05
How can the American public school system not even teach us any of this? And I know I say this every week, but it drives me crazy. A fifth grader could understand this!
Brian Quaranta 16:13
A fifth grader can understand it. Now. Here’s what drives me crazy. The big box retailers have scared people away from things like annuities. Right, right. Because they don’t want you to get that they don’t want you to get them. They don’t want you to don’t get you want to know why. Because fixed indexed annuities that guarantee income, they can’t charge a fee on it. Gotcha. can’t charge a fee on it. So, I literally went to my old firm, and I said, Why are we not doing this? Yeah, you know, the answer was, will cannibalize the revenue of the practice. Holy smokes. Are we more worried about our clients? And we were more worried about the revenue the practice? I think we know the answer. Yes. And that’s very frustrating. Because what they’ve done it’s misinformation. Right? We see it everywhere now. Right? trickery. It’s trickery. So, people go, Oh, no, you’ll lose control your money. There’s high fees, there’s all this kind of stuff. There’s not in these very specific types, right. And this is why I’m so passionate about educating people about them, because they need to understand these tools exists for a reason. They’re designed to provide you with peace of mind and security. Are they right for everybody? No. But if you’re in a situation where you are going to need guaranteed income from you or your spouse, it might be a tool that you want to look at. Absolutely. Right. And I’ve had multiple people over the years go, Oh, my God, you just said the word annuity. I’ve heartburn. Yeah. And I said, Fine. Fair enough. But let me educate you first. Yeah, really? That’s the way it works. Really? That’s the way it works. Yeah. How am I going to tell my friends, I bought an annuity.
Rebecca Powers 17:37
Don’t tell them their business. I tell my friends. You
Brian Quaranta 17:41
know what the biggest skeptics have become the biggest fans. That’s right. I like a skeptics biggest fan. Take advantage of our right trek retirement review, we can show you how to do so many things. With your current investment strategy, we can show you how to maximize your income, we could show you how to reduce your taxes, we could show you how to properly put together the proper mix of investments showed you how to protect your money from a health event. And more importantly, keep Uncle Sam from taking the money that you wound up working your entire life for when you the good Lord decides to take you home, and you wind up giving it to your kids or whatever whoever you’re going to be given it to take advantage of our right track retirement review. It’s very thorough, it’s complimentary. There’s no obligation, but you’ve got to do your part. Please do not procrastinate on this, you cannot get a second opinion from the person that gave you the first opinion. So, call us today and schedule that complimentary right track retirement review, call 1-888-382-1298. Again, it’s 1-888-382-1298.
Rebecca Powers 18:41
And now it’s technology, you see that QR code, you could just aim your phone camera at it, it’ll bring you right to the landing page. Again, we save about 10 slots each week for each show, we want to make sure you get an appointment with Brian and his amazing team. So have your calendar ready. And give us a call more with secure money, how to keep your money secure right after this.
Brian Quaranta 19:01
If I could help you increase your income, if I could help you pay less taxes, if I could help you potentially maximize the returns of your investments while reducing risk reducing fees if I could help you prepare for a health event or more importantly, when the good Lord decides to take you home to make sure that the money you’ve accumulated over your lifetime goes to your family and to your charities rather than the IRS. Would that be worth the time to come in and get a second opinion.
Rebecca Powers 19:31
All right, welcome back to on the money with secure money. I’m Rebecca Powers. And I’m so happy to be part of the team with secure money advisors. And Brian Quaranta you started this years ago more than 20 years ago and you work for the big box. You knew what you didn’t want. Yeah. And then you created this wonderful independent team. Yeah. Let’s talk about the philosophy the holistic approach. Yeah, every person is different. And you sleep well at night knowing you’re not giving people products that they don’t need.
Brian Quaranta 19:57
Yeah, well, I think that was the most important thing is How do you get the client to sleep well at night? Yeah, right? And then how do you sleep well at night is that advisor? Right? So, at the end of the day, you’re number one, you got to choose strategies and products that solve the problem of the client, right? So, at the big box firms, you can’t do that, because there’s usually just a menu of products and services that you can use. And sometimes those really don’t solve the problem. But if that’s all you have, you’re going to try to fit a square peg into a round hole. And we just don’t want that in financial planning. Right. So, one of the things that I’m really proud about that we’ve done it secure money advisors, is create a culture there that is truly there to help and service each and every individual that comes in to contact with us. And there’s so many people, I can’t tell you how many people over the years that I’ve sat down with, that we went through their stuff. And I gave him a lot of clarity about it. But I was very honest with them and told them that they were doing the right things. And there was nothing I could do at this point. And I said, you know if anything ever changes, come on back. But I think you’re in a good place right now. And I think your position the best that you can be. So, they said I wasn’t expecting that. You didn’t try to sell me anything? No, I’m here to help you solve a problem. There’s no problem to solve. Thank you for coming in. Yeah, do you know that year after year after year, those people when they’re talking to a friend or a family member that needs help, you want to know who they’re referring to? Not their advisor may say, so it has to be good. So, at the, at the end of the day, the culture that we’ve created secure money advisors is one of number one and most importantly, listening and understanding. Number two is helping educate people on Okay, here’s where you’re at, let’s talk about where you’re at, and why it’s built this way. Let’s talk about the pros. Let’s talk about the cons, right? And then let’s talk about where we could go, right. So, here’s where you could go. Here’s the pros and cons, right? Do you like a B? Like big, right? I like big, okay, well, here are the turn by turn directions to actually make B happen. Yeah. And when people decide that they want to onboard with us, and they want to hire with us, we have an entire team that onboard them get moving their money from their firm, where they’re at, is so easy, because we do it for them. But you know, a lot of people are scared, they’re like, Well, do I need to talk to the advisor? Half of these advisors don’t even know when the money leaves.
Rebecca Powers 22:22
They don’t even know your name. I’m sorry, that was rude.
Brian Quaranta 22:26
And they don’t even know the money’s left, right, yeah. So, you know, at the end of the day, you know, one of the things that we really, really work hard with is to make sure that people are crystal clear about what it means to have a secure and safe retirement. Because the most important thing you can give to yourself, and your family is a secure and safe retirement.
Rebecca Powers
22:45
I’ll tell you what’s not crystal clear for before I switched was the fees, you know, I thought oh, maybe I’m paying one and a half. But when y’all called and really looked into it, it’s more like 3% I can really take a toll on your savings. It
Brian Quaranta 22:57
can Yeah, the question is, what are you paying for? Right? I mean, if you’re paying 3%, why are you paying 3%? Are you getting something for the service? Yeah, what’s the service? What are you getting in return for that? Right? So, if you’re going to pay a fee, the question is, what are you going to get in return? You know, one of the things that that we have is a 411 Client Servicing process. And what we try to do each and every year, is we try to do for individual client events. And those each of those events, some of our fun, like we’ve got we’ve had this year so far, we’ve had our shredding event, don’t ask me why this is a big one, but we went into shredded truck, okay, trucking, everybody comes in, and they shred all their paperwork, their tax documents, their you know, all that all the Sunday stuff they don’t need. But our 411-servicing model is so that we are in touch with our clients, often, every week, I send a weekly email explaining different strategies that they can use different tax strategies, different investment strategies, because all of our clients are at different ages. So, people like to know, hey, if you’re coming up on RMDs, here’s some things you need to think about. You know, you can do QCD, which are called qualified charitable distributions to where, you know, if you’re already given money to charity, rather than taking money out of your bank account and giving it to charity, you can take it from your IRA, as long as you tell the IRS that you’ve done it to give it to charity, you don’t have to pay any taxes on it. So that’s a great strategy. That’s awesome. Every week I do a video where we update them. We do Medicare at our office. So, we’ve really tried to we do estate planning. So we’ve tried to create a one stop shop that makes it easy so that all of your financial professionals, your Medicare adviser, your estate planning advisor, your tax advisor, your financial advisor, everybody’s on the same page, because I can’t tell you how many times especially in the estate planning world, where you have the financial advisor and you have the estate planning attorney, they’re on opposite pages. I’ve seen people disinherited because the financial advisor had the, you know, let’s say you know, there was a recent situation Ex Wife Is that why If ex-wife as a beneficiary, but the estate planning documents had the new wife right as the beneficiary well guess what the courts don’t care what the will says. The courts care what the beneficiary document says, and that was overlooked, your beneficiary document overrides all of your legal documents. It trumps everything
Rebecca Powers 25:21
Wow. I mean, you have to go to probate court, which can be a whole nother nightmare.
Brian Quaranta 25:25
It’s mess. The courts are gonna say whatever the beneficiary document says that’s where the money needs to go catch up, people have literally shared with me educational events that they’ve been disinherited by their own father because their father got remarried. Left the new spouse, as the beneficiary, when the spouse received that money, the spouse legally owns that money now. And now in this case, she changed the beneficiaries to her kids. Right, folks, don’t let this kind of stuff happen to you. Because these are the things that a lot of advisors, advisors and advising firms don’t dig in with, right? These are the things that we want to make sure that we check. And each year, we’ve got a checklist that we go through with our clients to make sure that every i is dotted and every T is crossed. When I created the right track retirement review, that system that I’ve created, it was out of the fact that every time I would meet people, they would say to me, am I on the right track? Am I making the right moves? Am I doing the right things? So, I got very clear about what it meant to be making the right moves. What is the retirement strategy really need to look like? What components is it made up of? Well, it’s made up of five key areas. It’s your income strategy. It’s your tax strategy, your investment strategy, your healthcare strategy or estate planning strategy. If you have those five areas handled, now you’re getting closer to having a well thought out retirement plan. So, I want you to take advantage of this complimentary review. Okay, it is complimentary, you’re not going to be sold anything, you’re not gonna be pressured to do anything. You’re going to come in, you’re going to sit down with myself and my team and we’re going to go over your current situation, we’re going to look at what’s working, what’s not working, what can be improved, and what might not be improved. We’re going to take a deep dive with you. And we’re going to build a few reports out we’re going to give you a Social Security and income maximization report, we’re going to give you a risk report. And these reports are going to give you the information you need the mathematical black and white data that you need to make a good, informed decision. So, call us today. Don’t procrastinate pick up the phone for your right track retirement review. It’s 1-888-382-1298. Again, 1-888-382-1298.
Rebecca Powers 27:32
And there’s always the QR code that you can use easily with the camera on your phone. And no matter what you will get a complimentary copy of Brian’s book actually, before you even come to meet us right when you call you. We’ll get that book sent. We’ll even pay for your shipping and handling is no pressure at all. Thanks again so much for joining us and we hope to see you again next week.