Speaker 1 0:03
While we all understand the importance of saving for retirement, the multitude of choices and financial advice can often leave us feeling overwhelmed. To simplify the process, we’ll explore some crucial retirement guidelines that can help you navigate your retirement strategy. All that and more today on Retire Smart Maryland Radio.
Speaker 2 0:25
Welcome
Announcer 0:26
in to Retire Smart Maryland Radio with Prashant Sabapathi.
Speaker 2 0:32
Welcome into Retire Smart Maryland Radio, your host Prashant Sabapathi. You can find him at Elite Income Advisors, the power behind this program, he’s an independent fiduciary, published author, couple of books already to his credit, physical health, retirement, wealth, and retire abundantly. They’re headquartered in Ellicott City. They have a satellite office in Annapolis for your convenience. I’m Morgan Patrick, and each and every week, it’s always about retirement, the importance of having a plan, being proactive as opposed to reactive. We get into all of it, and we give you an opportunity to take action on your own behalf. We have appointments exclusive for our radio listeners, and they are at no cost, no obligation, no pressure. We’ll tell you about those as we move through the program. So, before we kind of dive in, Prashant, how was your week?
Speaker 1 1:18
Week has been great. It’s nice to be back on the radio, I’ll tell you what. Sometimes I forget to just pause and say thank you to the radio audience. You know, we get so wrapped up in everything that we’re doing on a weekly basis, but I was reminded of how grateful I am to the radio audience, and not just radio, but of course, we have retired Smart Maryland Television, which has just totally blossomed into something that has been absolutely fantastic. I was on the golf course the other day, just booked a random tee time up at Rocky Point in Essex, and had the good fortune of playing with two gentlemen, just totally randomly, who are already retired, and we got to talking about just where they worked and what retirement has looked like, and one of the guys said to me after about the seventh hole, he said, “Hey, you’re that guy that does financials, that guy, right? And I’ll tell you what, when we started doing TV and radio, I never ever thought that it would turn into what it has, and it’s only done that because of the awesome audience that tunes in each and every week, both to television and radio. So, from the bottom of my heart, and from my team at Elite Income Advisors, just want to say, thank you so much. Without the engagement that we’ve gotten from our community, it would have never grown to what it’s become, and it’s, it’s, you know, just become far more successful than I ever dreamed that it would. So, thank you to our audience. Yeah,
Speaker 2 2:52
we, I think we’re really tapping into the fact that so many people, they want education, they want information, they want to know more about retirement planning, and certainly we talk about the importance of retirement planning and
Speaker 1 3:07
good information. Yeah, right. Good. I think part of the issue is that there’s so much information out there, which is a good thing, but it can also be a really challenging thing to try to wade through what is actually good information, and the feedback that I’ve gotten is the show that we do here and on TV takes these really complicated, complex topics, Morgan, and tries to make them as simple as easy to understand as possible, and I know you’ve been in the radio broadcasting world for a while, and so you know you’re a big part of it too, so thanks to everyone, and thanks to you for streamlining this thing, and I’m excited, we’ve done how many episodes, 145 I think, podcasts, yeah, we are looking forward to the next 150
Speaker 2 3:54
I was gonna say we’re approaching 150 which is, I mean, that’s got legs, we’ve been doing it a while, and I tell you, it’s a lot of fun to kind of stop in, you know, that Baltimore, Washington, DC area every single week, and, and you really feel like you’re giving an assist to a lot of people, because there are a lot of people that have a lot of questions, because it can be, as you kind of alluded to, overwhelming, there’s so much out there when it comes to retirement planning, so we’re going to bring it to you. There’s going to be an opportunity to get on the calendar with Prashant and his team at Elite Income Advisors, and these appointments again are at no cost. There’s no obligation, there’s no pressure, but it’s a great way to kind of kick the tires. The number to call is 800-653-8404 that’s 800-653-8404 They’ll put together that retire smart roadmap for you. We’ll tell you more about it as we move through the program, but you can call right now and get to the front of the line, 800-653-8404 So simple but not easy is one way to describe planning for retirement. We talk about it each and every week, so we’ve kind of outlined some big important steps that you really don’t. Want to miss, so here’s the first one, and it might surprise you, Sean. I know it doesn’t surprise you. Be kind to yourself.
Speaker 1 5:08
I think we don’t know what we don’t know, and a lot of people that come in to visit with me, I find that they beat themselves up over feeling like they’re uneducated or that they’re behind the eight ball, look, I think what you have to do is, you have to acknowledge that financial planning can be complicated, it can be complex, it can be overwhelming. It’s definitely okay to make mistakes, so long as you’re learning from those mistakes along the way. So, be kind to yourself, don’t beat yourself up if you haven’t started saving, or if you haven’t saved quite as much as you would have liked, if you don’t have a real retirement plan in place, that’s okay. We can’t go back and redo the past, but what we certainly can do is we can be proactive about how we move forward. If you need help with that, if you’re not sure which direction to go or which step to take first, this is what my team helps folks with every single day, so that’s very important. Be kind to yourself. Number two, Morgan, is you got to pay future you first, right? And so prioritize saving for retirement. Make it a habit to set aside a portion of your income for retirement before you pay for other expenses, and in my experience the best way to do this is through automation. Okay, when we automate processes, we don’t leave it to chance, right? We make sure that it gets done, and so automating the process is a great idea that could be just automatic contributions to the 401 k, automatic increases to the contributions to the 401 k, great place to start.
Speaker 2 6:42
I’ll tell you, and it also kind of ties into our next one, and that’s just being consistent on how you save. If you automate, I mean, you’re going to be very consistent. It’s going to come out each and every month, or each and every two weeks out of that paycheck, and it’s going to your accounts.
Speaker 1 6:56
That’s exactly right. And, as we know, the earlier we start, the more time the money has to actually grow through compounded interest, even small consistent contributions can add up to a really large number if we do it for a long enough period of time. So it’s not just about being consistent. I totally agree with you that that is important, but being consistent paired with starting as early as possible is really what can help drive investment and saving success over the long term,
Speaker 2 7:28
and you brought up the investment part of that, and that leads to this. I mean, yes, savings on its own is important, but you really need to be smart with the investing part of this.
Speaker 1 7:38
Well, let’s think about the last, say, 10 or 15 years, when interest rates were low, if you put money into a bank account, you were lucky, absolutely lucky, to earn 1% on that money, if it was just in a savings account, right? Most of the time, we were getting half a percent or less on our savings. Now, when we invested money, what we’ve seen is oftentimes we’ve seen double digit percentage investment returns just by utilizing the stock market. Now, there is risk involved with that. However, double digit return sounds a heck of a lot better to me than half a percent, right? And so there’s a huge difference between saving and investing. You got to be investing if you’re trying to plan properly for retirement folks. If you’re not sure where to start, if you don’t have a true retirement plan in place, if you don’t have an income for life plan that helps you map out your income or talk about how to reduce your tax liability or where to get started when it comes to investing your money for retirement, I’m going to invite you to pick up the phone and give us a call. That phone number is 800-653-8404 Again, that’s 800-653-8404 You dial that number, you’ll be able to schedule a complimentary visit with my team of professionals and specialists at Elite Income Advisors. When you come in to visit with us, it’s a conversation about your plan, you’re not agreeing to do anything, you’re not committing to do anything other than have that conversation. Come visit us at our headquarters in Ellicott City or auxiliary office in Annapolis. Again, 800-653-8404 When we return on Retire Smart Maryland Radio, we’ll continue with the important steps you don’t want to miss, like are you trying to time the market? Are you turning down free money when it comes to your 401 k, and understanding your spending? It’s all coming up next.
Speaker 2 9:39
We are back on Retire Smart Maryland radio hosted by Prashant Sabapathi. You can find him at Elite Income Advisors. Check them out online’s great resource website, Elite Income advisors.com Prashant is an independent fiduciary, he’s a published author, couple of books, physical health, retirement, wealth, and Retire Abundantly. They’re headquartered in Ellicott City. They have. Satellite office in Annapolis, and we mentioned the big website, right, Elite Income advisors.com but Prashant, you really took it upon yourself, your team at Elite Income Advisors to provide a service for your listeners, the people in your area. When it comes to taxes, it’s testmytaxbill.com
Speaker 1 10:21
Yeah, taxes are an increasing concern for pre-retirees and retirees with the state of the national debt. I was looking at it earlier this month, 35 plus trillion, that’s trillion with a T dollars of national debt. I think retirees and pre retirees are right to be concerned about the state of the national debt, because it likely could mean higher income taxes in retirement. So, if you’ve done a good job saving money, you’ve probably saved it into things like your 401 k, your IRA, your thrift savings plan, if you’re with the federal government. And one thing we know about that subset of money is that when you go to withdraw it, every single last penny of that money is taxable, it counts as income, and so what you’re in is you’re in a partnership with the IRS, and the issue with that partnership is that they’re the managing partner and you’re the minority partner, which means they set all the rules and you just have to abide by them, so if you visit testmytaxbill.com one of the things you’re going to be able to do is enter some info about your 401 k, your IRA. You can put in an average tax rate, and you can see what kind of potential tax liability you face in retirement. By the way, it’s a totally free tool that we make available to every single person that wants to visit the website again, testmytaxbill.com and then you’ll get a report that shows you what that estimated tax bill could end up looking like. If you want to visit or talk with one of our specialists after seeing that report, you’ll have the opportunity to set up a free appointment. You’re not obligated to do that. It’s a really cool tool. I’d recommend that everyone just go to the website, play around with the calculator, and see what comes back, and see if it’s in line with your expectations. testmytaxbill.com
Speaker 2 12:14
All right, here to help. It’s always about just getting ready for retirement, planning for retirement, and getting ahead of it, and being proactive. So, we’ve been going over just important steps you really don’t want to miss on your way to retirement. Be kind to yourself, pay your future self first, start saving early, be consistent with that saving, and then the smart investing on top of saving well is a great step. Now we’re going to move to these timing the market. I hinted at this as we closed out our first segment. Prashant, there are a lot of people out there that feel like, hey, I’m gonna, I’m gonna hit it right, I’m gonna time it,
Speaker 1 12:50
you know. And I think people get more sensitive to this type of ideology, especially around times of uncertainty. Right, it’s easy to stay in the market. When the market keeps going up, it’s when things get crazy in the market that we start to think that we’re smarter than everybody else, and try to time the market, predicting market ups and downs. It’s nearly impossible. Instead of trying to time the market based on who’s going to win the election, or what’s going on with trade policy, or what’s going on in the Middle East with geopolitical issues? You don’t want to do that. You want to focus on a long-term investment strategy. I’m reminded of the old saying, it’s not about trying, it’s not about timing the market, it’s about time in the market, which really just reinforces the fact that investing is a long-term endeavor, and it should be treated as such. If you want to day trade, if you want to try to time the market, be sure that you have the risk tolerance and capacity to be able to do that. But if you’re in it to invest, it’s a long-term thing, and it needs to be treated as such. In my opinion,
Speaker 2 14:01
we are hitting again important steps that you don’t want to miss when it comes to your retirement planning, and it can be complex, it can be overwhelming. Working with a professional, working with a fiduciary, fiduciary team gives you someone to kind of lean into and walk with you down this path, hold your hand as you move towards your retirement date, and all the way through your retirement date, so again, steps you really want to be aware of, you don’t want to miss, don’t turn down free money, everybody in there, you know what is probably in some form of saving vehicle, a lot of us at companies per shot that have 401 ks really know what your 401 k is about, there may be a match,
Speaker 1 14:41
and if there is a match, you should be taking advantage of it. It is free money, even for our employees. Here, we offer a company match, and when we onboard that employee, we let them know, and we encourage them to take advantage of the company’s match. It’s free money that we’ll add to their four. K, the issue is I feel like a lot of companies don’t inform their employees on the ins and outs of their 401 k, and so if there’s free money, you want to find out if you have access to it. If you do, you want to take advantage of it. It is free money that can boost your retirement savings significantly.
Speaker 2 15:19
All right, this next one, a lot of people refer to it by the B word. Here we say spending, so understanding what your spending is is another big step as you move towards retirement.
Speaker 1 15:31
You want to analyze the spending habits while you’re working, but you also want to be able to project those into retirement. One of the things that we talk about is your most fulfilling version of retirement, so I’d encourage everybody, whether you’re close to retirement or not, to think about what you want your life to look like in the future and translate that into some type of monthly expense number. I call it the MIT, it’s the monthly income target. When designing a retirement plan, you have to design that plan with the end in mind, meaning how much income is going to be required to make your lifestyle go the way that you want to, to make it as fulfilling as possible. When you get to retirement, you want to analyze your current spending habits and project your retirement expenses, but then the second piece of this, Morgan, I think, is understanding where your income is going to come from in retirement, because they go hand in hand, right? Expenses and income go hand in hand, as you know, while you’re working, your financial life really just is a function of what we call money in and money out, your paychecks come in, your expenses go out and you try your best to save as much money as you can, and when you get to retirement, that doesn’t change. It’s still very much so about the money that comes in and the money that goes out, but what changes is where the money in comes from. If it’s not coming from your paycheck in retirement, it’s got to come from somewhere else, and that is the trick to retirement planning, understanding money in and money out. You do your part in figuring out money out. Our team will do our part in helping you understand where your money in is going to come from.
Speaker 2 17:13
Hitting these important steps you don’t want to miss on your road to retirement and through retirement. I want to jump to this next one, because we just finished up with just understanding your spending, the tax part of this, just factoring in your taxes, but understanding it very early on that the tax man’s going to be coming, and you got to plan for
Speaker 1 17:33
it. Yeah, that’s exactly right, because we talk about that money in, money out concept. Part of the money in concept is how much net income are you actually going to have? We say it all the time, you can’t spend gross, you can only spend net. So, what we do when we create an income plan, and I talk about the importance of having an income plan all the time, but you’re probably sitting out there. If your advisors never talk to you about this, you’re probably sitting out there saying, what in the world is an income plan, an income plan is one sheet of paper, or it’s one screen where you can take a look at your income and understand where every source of income is coming from, what that’s going to look like each and every year for the rest of your life, but then you have to be able to take those incomes and factor in taxes, whether it’s taxes on social security. Yes, you will pay tax on social security, for a lot of you, taxes on your IRA, your 401 k, taxes on your brokerage account. You want to understand the tax implications of your investments and your retirement savings. That’s going to help you avoid tax surprises, and when you avoid those tax surprises, it helps to maximize your retirement income. Proactive tax planning is so very important, and people always ask me, what is the difference between tax preparation and tax planning, and my answer to that is, Morgan, when you drive your car down the road. Do you only look outside the rear view mirror, or do you like to look forward as well?
Speaker 2 19:06
I’m a forward guy, I don’t want to hit anything
Speaker 1 19:11
exactly. So, tax preparation is looking at the previous year, it’s looking at the through the rear view mirror to see what happened last year to file our taxes. Tax planning is looking 510 15 years into the future to take proactive steps to reduce our future tax liability, and by the way, reducing your future tax liability means more net income in your pocket, more net income in your pocket means a more fulfilling retirement lifestyle.
Speaker 2 19:39
Retire Smart Maryland Radio, Prashant Sabapathi, your hosts. We’re going over important steps you don’t want to miss when it comes to planning as you move towards your retirement date, and through that date all the way through your retirement, there’s going to be an opportunity to get on the calendar with Prashant and his team at Elite Income Advisors. So, stay tuned for that, and our radio listeners, these are complimentary appointments, so. Back to the important steps we talked about, timing the market earlier. Don’t try to do it right. Make sure you have a plan. Now, preparing for market volatility, we’ve kind of been lulled to sleep, Prashant. I mean, the market has been up and down a little bit, but for the most part it’s been up.
Speaker 1 20:17
Look, markets are going to fluctuate. You’re exactly right. Markets, for the better part of 14 years have been up, with the exception of 2022 and as stressful as 2022 was, I’m really glad that we went through it. Okay, and the reason that I’m glad about that is because it forced people to re kind of evaluate their feelings as it comes to taking risk. We saw people lose money temporarily in 2022 but it forced them to reconcile their feelings about taking risks. The market’s going to fluctuate. You got to be prepared for both the ups and the downs of the market. You want to avoid making rash decisions based on short-term market movements, what it comes back to for me is our ideology that you should have multiple buckets of money when you get to retirement. Think about this: let’s say you had all your money, you worked your entire life, you saved a million and a half dollars, and now you’re ready to draw on that million and a half to get to retirement for income, but then the market crashes and your million and a half becomes 800,000 How comfortable are you going to feel withdrawing income that you need to live on from 800,000 as opposed to million and a half? You’re probably not going to feel as confident. So, what we talk about is bucketing your money have a safe bucket of money that’s designed to give you income, and then put most of your money in a risk bucket, so that you can go through the ups and downs. I’d love to expand a little bit on this concept, but we do have to get to a break here. Let’s open up the phone lines again. It’s 800-653-8404 It’s 800-653-8404 If your advisor has not talked to you about the concept of bucketing your money, about how protecting some of your retirement assets, how that could unlock a lifetime of income for you, income that is dependable, that you never have to worry about, it’s a great opportunity to pick up the phone and schedule that complimentary, no cost, no obligation. Visit with our team at Elite Income Advisors. You come into the office, we’ll have a conversation about your plan. Our team will prepare for you an income plan that we talked about. We’ll take into account taxes, inflation. We’ll talk about market volatility. That is the start of a real retirement plan. It’s going to help you retire smart, but it starts with that phone call, 800-653-8404
Speaker 2 22:46
When we return on Retire Smart Maryland Radio, we’re going to get into the kitchen, the financial kitchen, and cook it up for you. Stay
Speaker 2 22:56
tuned, you A
Speaker 2 23:06
retire Smart Maryland Radio, hosted by Prashant Sabapathi, Elite Income Advisors. Where you can find them, check them out online, Elite Income advisors.com It’s a wonderful resource website, links to the TV show, our radio show, and podcast form, there for you, Prashot is an independent fiduciary. He’s a published author, a couple of books already to his credit: Physical Health, Retirement, Wealth, and Retire Abundantly. They’re headquartered in Ellicott City. They have a satellite office for you, for your convenience, in Annapolis. I’m Morgan Patrick. Always retirement discussion on the program, and away we go. So you already know the right kind of financial advice that’s going to be out there. You really want to follow that and certainly get that information, but you know what you want. You want the good stuff, you want it to really cook for you. So we were thinking about, you know, putting the recipes together, making sure you got the prep work, and make it exactly how you like it. So it’s a lot like getting in the kitchen, and really making it happen for you, so the tastiest financial foods kind of ran across the desk this week, and we thought we would take a look at some of the things that are out there. So, forget Gordon Ramsay, forget the British Bake Off, it’s time for Financial Foods now. Each dish is going to represent something that you got to do during retirement planning to make sure everything cooks up perfectly, and plus we’ve got our own personal takes on some of these, because the first one out of Italy is lasagna, and I absolutely am a huge lasagna fan. But how, what are the parallels of lasagna and retirement planning?
Speaker 1 24:38
Yeah, so of course we’re doing this segment the week that I started a new diet. Hey, I’m with you. In my earlier days, I used to live in Little Italy, in Baltimore, and so we oftentimes used to go out to La Scala, out there, Mee Cheese, and lasagna is definitely one of my favorite things, and what. Reminds me of is kind of the layered approach to retirement planning, right. We know lasagna is made up of layers of pasta and sauce and meat, and certainly my favorite, a bunch of cheese, but each one of those layers builds on the last and it enhances what came before it, and so you have to have a layered approach when you’re looking at financial planning, especially when you combine things like your old 401 ks, your IRAs, your annuities, your social security, your Medicare, your tax. There’s so many different layers to the retirement plan, and in this day and age, you cannot look at these things as independent issues. Every part of your retirement plan has some sort of cause and effect on some other part of your retirement plan. Your income impacts your tax bracket. Your tax bracket could have an impact on your Medicare premium. All of it could determine how much tax you pay on your Social Security, investments, income. It’s all coordinated, it’s all layered. The lasagna definitely reminds me of taking a layered approach.
Speaker 2 26:08
Now, I’ve played golf with you, Prashant. Why are you on a diet, dude? You look like you look like you could play football. I mean, I mean, you’re in good shape.
Speaker 1 26:16
Yeah, well, you know, talk to my wife, I don’t know that she agrees with you on that one,
Speaker 2 26:20
well, she just wants you to be healthy, you know, live that long life, but reward yourself a little bit. I mean, a little lasagna,
Speaker 1 26:28
yeah. Hey, you know, if you can, if you can convince her that I’m all on board.
Speaker 2 26:35
Oh, all right. So we’re just having some fun doing some parallels with, you know, cooking in the kitchen when it comes to your finances, your retirement planning, so we talked about lasagna, that layered approach, where you know, again, each layer enhances the next. Now, this next one, I think, is it’s interesting, because this is the craze. I mean, there are taco trucks, there are taco-specific restaurants. Now, I mean, look, I love tacos, but the cool thing about a taco, the cool thing about, you know, this kind of dining is, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to put it in your taco. You can be customized with your taco. Same thing goes for retirement planning. You can really dial it in here.
Speaker 1 27:14
Yeah, exactly. You can customize your retirement plan. Not only can you, but you should customize your retirement plan. What’s best for your best friend, or your golf buddy, or your brother-in-law, or your co-worker, may not actually be the right thing for you. I don’t know if you remember that, that place out in Howard, I grew up in Howard County, but out in Jessup, there used to be that taco place that was in a gas station, it’s called R&R Taqueria, you remember that place has grown to this great brick and mortar location, but I remember going there way back when, when they were just a small little shop, and what always blew my mind is how many different options they actually had, whether you liked fish or beef or chicken or steak or whatever it is for you, so many different options out there. Financial planning is the exact same. There’s so many different combinations of investments, of annuities, of insurance, long-term care, so many different things out there for you to take advantage of. I think the struggle that people have is they just don’t know which combination of things is the right combination of things for them, so you can customize your retirement plan just as you can customize the tacos that you’re ordering. That’s what we do. We try to take a customizable approach with each person, because no two situations are identical.
Speaker 2 28:39
Well, Prashant, if you and your wife are dialing in on the quote unquote diet, you’ve probably done some research on fermentation, you know, having some things that are a little bit aged to help your diet, help your gut health. Now we’re going to talk about kimchi and how is that related. I mean, obviously it’s more about long term because you are fermentating, you know what you’re going to consume, but when it comes to retirement, I mean the long-term investing.
Speaker 1 29:06
Hey, look, I’m a big kimchi fan, seriously, love that stuff. And as we know, kimchi is fermented, like you said, over a long period of time, and in retirement planning, this is kind of what we talked about in that first segment, starting early and letting your investments grow over a long period of time. You have to let compound interest do its thing. I always say 10% of $10,000 is just $1,000 10% on 100,000 is 10,000 but 10% of a million bucks is $100,000 I always say going from zero to $250,000 took me forever. Going from 250,000 to 500,000 didn’t take all that long, and then going from 500,000 to a million dollars, you could do that in a year or two, and that has everything to do with com. Pound interest is not as much to do with how much you’re saving, it’s really about how much your money is actually passively working.
Speaker 2 30:08
We are having some fun talking some foods, we’re probably gonna have to run out and grab a bite to eat after this segment, after this portion of the show, but we’ve talked about lasagna being the layered approach, tacos more customization, kimchi long term, because of the fermentation. This next one, it is a home run in this area, and we’re going to talk oysters, because what’s significant about the oysters in your market, literally. And then what that, what that parallels what that means for retirement planning. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1 30:42
there’s four key kind of talking points that I would relate to here. Okay, but bear with me. Okay, this isn’t a stretch from where I, when we did the planning for this show, it was kind of fun coming up with these different things. But oysters produce pearls, right?
Speaker 2 30:57
Yes, they do, but
Speaker 1 30:58
they don’t instantly produce pearls. It takes time, and it takes actually, it takes the right conditions, right. And so, when we think about financial planning, it’s about time, like we talked about, it’s about patience, and then it’s about nurturing, it’s about making sure that you’ve created the right environment for your plan to work. So, the four different things that I go to are number one, long-term growth, which I equate to the pearl creation process. Number two is handling irritation, right, which to me is like market fluctuations. We know oysters create pearls as a response to irritation. In financial planning, market volatility might seem like irritation, however, with the right approach, you can actually take advantage of that irritation to buy low and let your investments perform for you. Number three, patience is key. Okay, just like pearls take a lot of time to develop, patience is key with your financial plan. And then, lastly, the most important, I think, protection. Okay, oysters protect the pearl by layering it with that, you know, whatever they, whatever the thing is. I don’t know what the science is, Morgan, but we know how that is, especially when you are the guy that’s shucking the oysters, right
Speaker 2 32:13
now. So, yeah, before you, before we open up the phone lines, I got to ask you, I mean, you’re an oysters guy, how do you like them? Do you, do you like them raw? Do you like them, Rockefeller? How do you like them steamed? How do you like them
Speaker 1 32:24
raw? Raw, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? You got to put the Tabasco on there. I’m a big horseradish guy. You got to put the horseradish on there, especially the blue points. I’ve been, I’ve been going up to, going up to Baltimore for oysters. I was down in Annapolis the other day, Severn, Annapolis, right on the water. We actually did a client event for the Blue Angels earlier this year. We did a Blue Angels watch party for some of our clients down at Carroll’s Creek in Severn and Annapolis area. Really fun, enjoyed the oysters there, Tabasco horseradish, absolutely the way to go, folks. Pick up the phone, give us a call if you can relate to anything that we talked about in this segment. This was a fun one. You’re going to want to give us a call: 800-653-8404 Schedule that free appointment with us. Let’s get on track to putting together your Retire Smart roadmap. Let’s evaluate your income, talk about your monthly income target, identify whether or not you have a gap in your income. Make sure that you’re taking an appropriate amount of risk for your income goals. Let’s talk about taxes and legacy as well. It all starts with that phone call. It’s totally free. Just make sure that when you call that you have your calendar in front of you to book that complimentary appointment, 800-653-8404 When we get back on Retire Smart Maryland Radio, we strive to keep the current lifestyle in retirement. We’re going to give you some steps to make sure it happens for you,
Speaker 2 34:01
Retire Smart Maryland Radio, hosted by Prashant Sabapathi, Elite Income Advisors, where you can find him. They’re headquartered in Ellicott City. They’ve got a satellite office for your convenience in Annapolis. Prashant is an independent fiduciary, he’s a published author, couple of books already: Physical Health, Retirement, Wealth, and Retire Abundantly. I’m Morgan Patrick, and each and every week it is retirement, and it’s that we talk about the importance of having the plan, the importance of having your money protected as you move to and through retirement. And again, it starts with a conversation, and what we do here on the radio program is we provide that meeting complimentary, and you can come in to Elite Income Advisors, meet with Prashant and the team and talk about your individual situation. Remember, you’re different from anybody else’s. It’s not cookie cutter, it’s customized. So, stay tuned. We’ll open up those appointments here in just a little bit, so you can retire successfully, right? But you’ll need some careful planning. We talk about it each and every week. Now, a qualified advisor. Or a fiduciary can make all the difference in the world. Now, these are some steps that’ll help you get started. All right, so the first one, Prashant, you know where we’re taking the training wheels off. Just determine when you actually want to retire, pick a finish line.
Speaker 1 35:17
That’s exactly right. You have to plan with the end in mind. I say that all the time. So, you want to set a retirement year if you can, and that’s difficult for a lot of people to do, but setting a retirement timeline actually is a great first step in the planning process. Now, whether or not you adhere to that timeline is an entirely different conversation, but I think you have to have a starting point for how to plan, if you’re on a shorter time horizon, you may look at investments that carry less risk, and as a result of having less risk, you might also garner lower returns on that portfolio, but if you have a longer time horizon, five, 710, years or more, you might have the ability to use more aggressive investments, higher risk, higher potential for reward, but I think the biggest thing when it comes to risk is avoiding risks that are associated with improper investment strategies. I had a really good client, he’s 79 years old. We were doing a review of his financial plan earlier this week, and he came in, he’s still working, by the way, at 79 years old, and he saved this guy, saved so much money. Okay, and so he came in, and he said, Prashant, I got an extra $100,000 I want to do something with it. One of my friends was telling me about this thing called the Bitcoin ETF. What is your thought on it? And so I took him through the risks and the rewards, and by the end of the conversation, he said, yeah, I’m not willing to take that kind of risk, and so we settled on something for him that was totally safe, that he could grow his money if the market went up, but had no risk if the market went down, had no fees associated with it. He likes that option a lot better.
Speaker 2 37:00
I love, I love the fact that he picked up the phone, he called you. I mean, this is a review, and he had a question about, you know, potentially doing something with his money, but he felt comfortable enough to say, you know, what I need to talk to Prashant, I need to talk to Elite Income Advisors about it before I make any kind of decision.
Speaker 1 37:18
What I’ve always said for years is in working with our clients. I love getting the phone call that’s like, hey, what do you think I should do? I’m not as big of a fan as the phone call that I get saying, hey, guess what I just did, right? And it reminds me, I had a client come in one time, she came into the office, and we’re just a normally scheduled review, and she, she comes in and says, I need to get $300,000 I said, Okay, you’re planning a purchase of something, and she goes, No, I actually just bought a house. I said, You, you already bought the house, you already committed to buying it. And she said, Yeah, and so that was definitely a guess what I just did type of conversation. Now we were able to handle that for her, but if you’re working with an advisor, that advisor should be a partner to you. Okay, it’s not just your advisor, it’s your partner in your retirement planning. We love the idea of you picking up the phone or scheduling an appointment to come in to review your retirement plan when it becomes necessary, in addition to the regular reviews that we do with you on an annual basis.
Speaker 2 38:27
Yeah, and again, we have those appointments. They’re exclusive for our radio listeners. They are complimentary. All you’ve got to do is call the number 800-653-8404 schedule an appointment. Again, have that calendar out, and they will book that appointment for you, 800-653-8404 800-653-8404 Again, steps to kind of help you get started. You want to be careful with your planning, so determine when you actually want to retire. Pick that date, or kind of around it, as Prashant alluded to. We can’t sometimes, it takes a little while to get that date in stone, but then assess your income sources in retirement. Where is the money coming from?
Speaker 1 39:07
Yeah, and this one is really important, because I think one of the biggest challenges that our radio audience faces, or even our television audience, and I know this because I have the power of perspective, right? I’ve met with 1000s of people who have articulated these concerns to me. I think one of the biggest challenges that people face is you grow this big pot of money, and then when you retire and your paycheck goes away, you have to convert that big pot of money into recreating that paycheck, and then you got to make sure that that pot of money never runs out through the ups and the downs of the markets, by far one of the most challenging things for someone to do. So, let me share something with our audience. I had someone come in recently, he had about a million dollars saved, just over a million dollars, about 1.1 saved for retired. Government, but the challenge he had was that he was always going to follow that old 4% rule, right, and so the 4% rule said that on his $1.1 million he could withdraw about $44,000 per year and have a good probability that he would not run out of money within 25 or 30 years, but that still made him uncomfortable, because there was still a chance that he might run out of money. Now he’s going to work for another five years, and so he articulated this concern to me, and this is what we helped him do. We actually, instead of having all his money in the market, we bucketed his money, we kept most of his money in the market, about $600,000 of his money stayed in the stock market, where it’s going to go through the ups and the downs, but with $500,000 we actually protected that money, and when we protected that money, we put it into something called an income annuity. Okay, now you probably hear annuity, and probably a lot of stuff goes through your mind, but let me share the power of this by using half a million dollars, putting that into his annuity today, and waiting five full years until he retires. That will provide him $51,059 per year of income, not just for the rest of his life, but for the rest of his life and his spouse’s life as well, so think about what we just did. We used roughly half of his portfolio to create 100% of the income that he actually needed when he retired. That 51,000 will then supplement his social security and his pension to give him the most fulfilling lifestyle that he said that he needed from an income standpoint, such a powerful tool, really. What it did is it allows the other 600,000 that he kept in the market to grow without the worry of having to ever sell it at a low point for income when it inevitably at some point goes through a downturn, so really powerful stuff, bucketing your money,
Speaker 2 42:03
confidence gives you confidence as you move to and through your retirement date, knowing that you have the money you need just for your expenses, and you let the rest of it keep working for you. So, again, you know, taking some of these steps, if not all of these steps, as you move to and through retirement, determine when you want to retire. Assess your income sources in retirement. Have a plan for that. And what are your expenses? What are you going to be spending in retirement? You really need to kind of take a look at that before you get to your retirement date.
Speaker 1 42:32
Yeah, absolutely. You have to project out potential expenses. Just consider the things that you’re probably used to: mortgage, car loans, health care expense, travel, food, leisure. You want to start to map this stuff out, start to write it down, so that you have a good understanding of it. The healthcare piece of this, though, I think, is one piece that people severely underestimate. If you’re not sure how to project out Medicare Part B costs, because there is a cost associated with Medicare. If you’re not sure how to project those costs out, if you’re not sure what kind of leisure costs you need to build in. Like I said, we have the power of perspective. We have 1000 people, 1000 clients that we’ve helped plan for retirement successfully. We can help you with those types of things. If you’re just not sure where to start, pick up the phone, give us a call, 800-653-8404 Do we have time for one more? Here
Speaker 2 43:27
we do, and I think it’s one that’s near and dear to our discussions over the past two, three years. It just seems like we’re always talking about the money, the numbers, inflation.
Speaker 1 43:39
We have to consider inflation, Morgan, and just look at what’s happened here in this country the last three or four years. Inflation peaked at 9.1% and now they’re telling us that we’re in the low 3% range. But I’ll tell you what, every time I go to the store, it doesn’t feel like prices only went up by 3% It feels like it went up a heck of a lot more than that. I’m sure you feel the same way, right?
Speaker 2 44:01
No, I mean, it’s ridiculous. I mean, yeah, they’re showing us the number of inflation has dropped, but the prices haven’t come down on food, energy. I mean, it is still costing us so much. I mean, it’s 3% above what it was. So, I mean, folks, the money that it is costing right now, it’s going to continue as you move into
Speaker 1 44:21
that’s exactly right. I’m so glad that you said that, because inflation is a measurement of how much prices go up, and so lower inflation doesn’t mean that prices go down, it just means that they go up less quickly, right? But they still go up nonetheless, and so knowing that inflation should always be present in our world. You have to account for the rising cost of goods and services, and look, the answer to higher prices is more income. Sometimes it’s literally that simple. The answer to higher costs is having more income to deal with those costs, it. Your retirement plan does not build in a rising income. You need to pick up the phone and give us a call. It’s 800-653-8404 Reevaluate your retirement plan if your advisor has not talked to you about rising income in retirement, or the cost of Medicare and healthcare in retirement, or understanding whether or not you have an income gap for which you need to fill in in retirement, and safe ways to go about doing that. Pick a phone, give us a call: 800-653-8404 We call it the Retire Smart Roadmapping Process. When you dial that phone number, have your calendar in front of you, you’ll be able to schedule an appointment with my team of specialists. You’ll meet with Connor, you’ll meet with Ozzy, you’ll meet with Nick, you’ll meet with myself. We’ll help design a retirement plan that is customizable for you. It’ll include an income plan, tax projections for the future, it’ll include an investment analysis, a risk reward analysis, and we’ll talk about legacy as well. 800-653-8404
Speaker 2 46:00
another edition of Retire Smart Maryland Radio in the books for Prashant Sabapathi. I’m Morgan Patrick. We’ll see you on the radio next week.
Announcer 46:19
Annuity guarantees are subject to the claims paying ability of the issuing insurance company, if you withdraw money from or surrender your contract within a certain period of time after investing, the insurance company may assess the surrender charge. Withdrawals may be subject to tax penalties and income taxes. Persons selling annuities and other insurance products receive compensation for these transactions. Products are subject to fees and additional expenses. Any comments regarding safe and secure investments and guaranteed income streams referral into fixed insurance products, they do not refer in any way to securities or investment advisory products. Information presented on this program is believed to be factual and up to date, but we do not guarantee its accuracy, and it should not be regarded as complete analysis of the subjects discussed. Discussion should not be construed as an offer to buy or sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy or sell the investments mentioned. A professional advisor should be consulted before implementing any of the strategies discussed, investments involve varying degrees of risk, and there can be no assurance that any specific investment or strategy will be suitable or profitable for a client’s portfolio. Elite Income Advisors Incorporated is registered as an investment advisor with the state of Maryland, and only transacts business in states where the firm is properly registered or is excluded or exempted from registration requirements. Registration as an investment advisor is not endorsement of the firm by security regulators, and does not mean that the advisor has attained a particular level of skill or ability. You should always consult an attorney or tax professional regarding your specific legal or tax situation,
Unknown Speaker 47:29
you.
